What God Hasn’t Said
22 Aug 2011 10 Comments
in church Tags: charles spurgeon, devotional, morning & evening, prayer, prayer journal, seeking after God
I was getting into bed a few minutes ago, and picked up a favorite book to read a little bit before going to sleep. Have I mentioned before that I’m a fan of Charles Spurgeon? You might not know who that is; let me save you the Google search by giving you a few sentences about him.
Spurgeon was a preacher in England in the mid 1800′s. He was very popular because he spoke in the common language of the people. His writings were published in newspapers and later in books. One of those books is the one I had picked up to read tonight, called “Morning & Evening”. It’s a collection of his thoughts about different Bible verses, one for each day of the year. They’re short, a few paragraphs. Easy to read in about 5 minutes.
So the one for today’s date was based on a verse from the Old Testament of the Bible. The verse reads,
“I have not spoken in secret,
from somewhere in a land of darkness;
I have not said to Jacob’s descendants,
‘Seek me in vain.’ “
This verse is from Isaiah 45:19 , for anyone who wants to look it up. (If you don’t own a Bible, you can use biblegateway.com and type the verse into the search box.) If you don’t want to look it up, no biggie.
Spurgeon is talking about the last part of that quote, what God didn’t say. I’d love to quote for you everything Spurgeon wrote about this verse; he was a man who had a rich grasp of human language and could state things with such eloquence. But there’s a legal limit to what someone is allowed to quote from an author, so I’m going to only quote a small bit of it. Besides… I’m used to reading his writing, and so it’s easy for me to grasp what he’s saying. For you, it might be like reading Shakespeare for the first time – confusing, and with a lot of thees and thous in it. There is a modernized version of this book, though, if you are interested.
Alright, getting to the point:
What God didn’t say is just as comforting as what He did say. He gives assurance to believers that their prayers will be answered, because He promises that our searching for Him won’t be in vain. Spurgeon writes:
“You who write bitter things against yourselves should remember that, let your doubts and fears say what they will, if God has not cut you off from mercy, there is no room for despair: even the voice of conscience is of little weight if it be not seconded by the voice of God. What God has said, tremble at! But suffer not your vain imaginings to overwhelm you with despondency and sinful despair. Many timid persons have been vexed by the suspicion that there may be something in God’s decree which shuts them out from hope, but here is a complete refutation to that troublesome fear, for no true seeker can be decreed to wrath.”
Did you hear that part? No true seeker. That means me, and perhaps that means you too. I can confirm this from my own life’s story, the countless number of times I felt I’d messed up so badly that God would hide His mercy from me. How humbling it was, to see a generosity poured out on me, which both God and I knew I didn’t deserve. He did it because He loves me, in a pointed, passionate, and focused way. Nothing I could do or not do can change that, because He has committed Himself to loving me no matter what. He won’t change His mind on that.
Here’s the thing on the seeker part: He appreciates that I am determined to look for Him, for His activity in and around me, to find out what He thinks about things, and to try to live my life according to His principles. He wants me to do those things, because He wants the best for me. I also have a part to play, because He really desires to work together on things. So He invites seeking, asking questions, getting His opinion, waiting on His timing for things. He won’t let those questions fall on deaf ears, because He sees that I really, truly want to know what He thinks. That’s what it means to be a seeker.
I want to challenge you, to try and be a seeker after God this week. For me, it’s a fairly simple thing that doesn’t take up a whole lot of my time. I have a little notebook that I write prayers down in. Well, not whole prayers; more like shorthand notes. Like “taxes”. Or “votive candles”. Just something short and quick that will be a reminder. And I just pray about these things, really more of an inaudible talking at God about them, whatever comes to mind. I also read some short passages from the Bible, and just kindof watch for anything that jumps out at me, kinda like what jumped out at me tonight. When it happens, you know. If it ain’t jumping off the page at you, well chances are it’s not critical at the moment. I could go into that quite a bit but for now I’ll leave it there.
But just watch for anything related to the subjects you were praying about. Encouragement could come in the form of a phone call from a friend. Or a challenge from something you heard on TV. Or a song on the radio, echoing the words you had been reading (wow, that one happens to me a lot….). When you feel like you’ve got an answer to your prayer, jot it down in your little notebook, and just add a little thanks with it. See, in that moment, God is saying to you that He loves you. He is confirming to you that your seeking after him will never be in vain.
Re: God
08 Mar 2011 1 Comment
in church Tags: faith, God, religion, spirituality
We all have a form of faith when it comes to godhood and the afterlife. We may believe that there is a supreme being; but there is no way to prove that. We may also believe that there is no god, no afterlife, and that the only things that truly exist are those that can be proven through the Scientific Method. However, this is also a form of belief, because this same person cannot prove scientifically that a deity does not exist. Thirdly, we may believe that, if a deity exists, we don’t care because it doesn’t affect our lives personally. This decision to be undecided is still a decision in the negative toward the existence of deity.
So if everyone has a belief system, the question is begged: who is right? What is true?
I think that’s the whole point.
When you get down to it, down to the essence of allegiance to any collection of beliefs, you want to be convinced that what you believe is true. You don’t want to waste your life on a lie. Is everyone with me on that?
It has been said that inside all of us, there is a god-shaped hole; and every person throughout history tries to fill it. They may fill it with a system of beliefs in a being on a higher dimension than their own, or they may fill it with pursuits of ambition and temporal pleasure. But it is universally acknowledged that there is something inside us, urging us to become more than what we are, to aspire to be good; urging us to be truthful, reliable, generous, and loving. These qualities are held in high esteem globally, from century to century and culture to culture. That man as a species has a conscience, and has acknowledged the higher good throughout history, cannot be denied.
If man has tried to attribute the higher good to a greater being, era after era, culture after culture – could it be possible that there really is something to the whole concept of deity? If enlightened men, who hold goodness in high regard, do not consider this possibility, then they are fools, are they not?
If a god exists, then some form of respect is required, if nothing more than for the abilities and power that the deity holds. But what if the deity is possessive – that the deity claims to have created this world, and the universe in which it spins. And what if that deity is jealous about it’s right to ownership, expecting that the creation it made should acknowledge it as creator and give it their allegiance? What then? Do we rail against the deity’s claim and demand our freedom? That would be a silly notion; if we are mature, we don’t rail against our own mothers who gave us birth and then claim the right to call us their children. We agree that parenting is a good thing, and that giving birth gives us the right of guiding the immature toward maturity.
Okay, so if we can see that as a good thing from a temporal parent, why can we not see that as a good thing from a deific parent?
Ahhh, we put limits on it, don’t we. Both the parent and the deity must conform to a set of guidelines in order to deserve our respect. And what are those guidelines? To be truthful, reliable, generous, and loving. Wait, aren’t those the same qualities of that god-shaped hole discussed earlier? Ironic, isn’t it?
But can we really apply those same guidelines from human to god? If the deity exists on a higher plane, could the reasoning the deity uses also be on a higher plane, inaccessible to our temporal way of thinking? If the god does things, and says things, that are inscrutable – do we then dismiss the deity because we don’t quite understand it’s motives and behaviors or agree with them?
Don’t teenagers across the globe try to do this very thing with their own parents, thinking they are more mature and understand the world better than their sires? And didn’t older people counsel the teenagers to listen to their parents, because the parents were actually smarter than the teenager thought they were? And didn’t the teenager choose not to listen to this advice, instead choosing to rebel and petulantly demanding his own freedom at his own time and in his own way? And didn’t the teenager suffer the consequences of that decision? Yes, we all know teenagers like that, and we ourselves possibly were teenagers like that. It wasn’t until we were older that we understood our own folly.
It is common in this age of enlightenment to think that those who believe in a higher power only do so as a crutch for their own weaknesses. Perhaps it is those who are fearful of a higher power’s claim of authority that have the crutch, choosing disbelief as an excuse for their petulant insistence on freedom from authority.
Vans, Vistas, and Villages
09 Aug 2010 1 Comment
in church, classes / tutorials, Family, Fimo
It’s hard to summarize two weeks in a foreign country, distilling people and places down to a single post. I just finished editing pictures, trying to comb through them, and only upload (or borrow) the best ones. In the images, I keep seeing things which remind me of something that happened that we hadn’t gotten a picture of. Still other photos are of moments I didn’t realize we’d captured, and which are precious beyond words to me.
I’d thought about posting my trip as a travelogue, giving details of each day in a new post, for a total of a dozen posts on the subject. But there was so much, and I didn’t want to have people lose interest in my blog because it was all about Mexico. I’m home, life has to move along, and so does this blog.
With that in mind, I’m encapsulating everything into highlights — which will still be a lot to read and view, I know. If you’ve been reading this far, my guess is you’re interested in how my trip went. If you just want to skip the words and go to the pictures… scroll all the way to the end of this post. If you’re not here to read about my trip… don’t worry. The next post will be about the apocalyptic state of my clay studio. Oh, wait. Actually, I take that back; the next post will be about my son’s wedding, which was July 23rd! I haven’t edited those photos yet.
So, back to Mexico…
Certain things stand out about the beginning of the trip. Humorous things, for example, like being told that we were approaching the end of the town, and there are no bathrooms for the next twelve hours, so we might want to stop at this gas station. Say what??!! Twelve whole hours? Nobody said anything about no bathrooms. That part wasn’t in the trip description, as I recall…
In fact, to put it delicately, restroom facilities were nonexistent during our day trips to the villages on our list. We quickly learned to treat those outings much like primitive camping, bringing everything with us including food, water, and toiletries. Most of the time, if restrooms were available, there was no toilet paper, (though you could buy it by the roll inside the station). So we quickly learned to always have some of our own handy. Also, here’s a helpful hint if you travel to the region: the nature of their sewage system requires that nothing but bodily waste gets flushed, so toilet paper goes in the trash can, which was a hard thing to remember coming from an American perspective.
The geography of the area is very mountainous, and most of the roads are rutted dirt. They usually go one of two ways: up a mountain, or down a mountain. Well, there is also zigzagging along the cliffs. All of which are done on one-lane dirt roads. More than once did we find ourselves on a switchback, cliffs to our right and a sheer drop-off to our left, with a large truck heading toward us from the opposite direction.
Our host took it in stride, and so did the other driver –each of them with a smile, reaching out their driver-side windows to pull the rear view mirrors in close, so they wouldn’t hit one another and rip the mirror off. We estimated the passing distance to be approximately five inches between vehicles, after the mirror was pulled in. The people in the other vehicle would smile and wave as they passed us, surely enjoying our stunned expressions.
We were puzzled to find sets of speed bumps out in the middle of nowhere, seemingly placed at random along the few paved roads that headed toward the next mountain. After talking among ourselves to see if we could find out why they were there, we asked our host, who told us they were there because of the cows.
Wait, because of the cows?
Yes, that’s right. The area has many small cattle ranches, and the roads aren’t usually lined with fences like they are in the US. The speed bumps had to be put in because of accidents involving fast moving cars and slow moving cattle, especially at night where there are typically no street lights.
So while we were bumping along in our 14-passenger van, our host would frequently need to motivate a cow or two out of our way, by honking the horn and persistently moving forward. Most of the time, the cows got the idea and got off the road.
In once incident, though, a rather matronly Bessie decided she’d let us know how she felt about being forced to move out of our way. Her rump adjusted a mere six inches, and she refused to go any further. Fortunately there was enough room to pass by her, but we could have easily touched her back had the windows of the van been open.
Some of the villages have just recently been given electricity, especially up in the mountains. So you may find a home made of mud brick, roofed with corrugated aluminum that is held down with rocks, but having television antennae sticking out from the corner of the building. The visual juxtaposition was startling, especially when seeing their children had no shoes, their clothes were torn and dirty, and they desperately needed dental care.
Speaking of children… On any of the main busy street corners, you can find a variety of pan handlers and window washers. Young men and women clamber up onto the hot hood of your car, seemingly immune to the engine’s heat, squirt a window-washing solution onto your windshield with a pull-top bottle, and wipe it down with a squeegee — all in the time it takes for the light to turn from red to green.
Small children are usually the beggars, and one little boy impressed me very much. It was the last day of our trip, and we were on the way to the airport. At a street corner under an overpass, a boy of five or six was juggling three tennis balls. I was impressed with how well he did, how clever he was, and the hours he’d spent practicing to perfect his little routine. Compared to those who just stood on the corner with a plastic cup, he certainly earned the small coins he was given.
Our host told us that many of the city’s children spend their summers off from school panhandling on the street corners; once they realize they can make pretty good money doing it every day, they will often drop out of school to do that instead.
When talking about what we did while we were there, I’m once again filled with awe at the enormity of the need. In general, Mexico is a third-world country and we were well aware of this fact as we visited not only the remote mountain villages, but also the city of Fresnillo, which is the largest city in the state, and was our base of operations.
Our team’s contributions were a tiny drop in that huge bucket of financial need, and it made me feel very small. I wonder if they will remember the Gringos who came to make them animal balloons, give them a face painting, or sing songs to them from a puppet show.
On the one hand, we were all using the talents God gave us, even to the point of acting like monkeys to bring a smile to a child’s face. We participated in a half dozen Vacation Bible Schools, and tried to give the children something of their very own.. a little matchbox car, or a sucker, or a rubber bracelet. We also did some small things that were needful, like bringing bags of food, clothing, and school supplies. But our resources were limited, as was our time, and so I felt frustrated that I couldn’t do more, stay longer, and be of greater assistance.
The polymer clay classes were well-attended and people participated with enthusiasm. I have the overall desire to share with people the kinds of things that can be done with the clay, and how they can help with the family’s grocery budget by making clay things to sell at local markets, or just open a little stall outside their front door. But little did I know how important those classes were to be…
One of our hosts is a music minister at his church, and he is in the process of moving across the city next month, to start a new neighborhood church there. Once he makes that transition, he will no longer have an income, until his own congregation gets started. It’s a frightening prospect and he’s been spending a lot of time praying about how they were going to survive financially.
His wife is a talented young woman who makes jewelry, and she is wanting to open a bead shop. After she saw the potential that polymer clay would provide, and the interest people had in obtaining it, she has decided to start carrying clay supplies in her store when she opens it, and already has a list of customers who are wanting to purchase it. We’re hoping that between the help I can give her from the States and the potential customer base she has as a result of the classes, that she’ll be able to start supplementing their income right away.
There is so much more that could be said, but I think it’s time for pictures to do that. So I’m going to close this post with a slideshow from the trip.
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Fimo y Mexico
20 Jul 2010 6 Comments
in beads, church, classes / tutorials, Fimo
On Sunday we’ll be taking a dozen people from our church to help missionaries in the state of Zacatecas, which is in North-Central Mexico. It’s located on a high mountain plateau, about 8,000 feet above sea level. The state is known for it’s rich silver deposits and colonial architecture.
For the two weeks we’re there, we’ll be helping to build a room onto a church, create a portable puppet stage, help deliver a donation of food and small gifts, participate with their VBS, and teach beginner polymer clay classes.
I’m excited about it– it’s going to be the first time I’ll teach through an interpreter. I’m working on my notes for the class, and preparing about 30-45 minutes of actual instruction, for a class that will be approximately 90 minutes long.
The students will learn how to make round beads with cane slices, make barrel-shaped texture beads, and coin-shaped swirly beads. We’ll put them all together into a stretch bracelet for them to wear as a sample of the work they did.
We’re hoping to have as many as 60 people participate in the classes, with about 20 people per class. I’m working on the handouts for the instructions, and the interpreter will translate them for me. Is that cool, or what?
The goal for doing the class is to help people to discover the value of polymer clay as an artists’ and jewelry-maker’s medium, and to help supplement family budgets by making and selling their polymer clay artwork.
One of Zacatecas’ main economic supports is tourism. The capitol city of the state is also named Zacatecas (sort of like, New York, New York), which is a tourist destination and has many shops with local handicrafts. The organizer of the classes is planning to open a bead shop in the city, and we’re both hoping that she will find polymer clay to be a versatile and valuable addition to the handmade products she’ll be offering.
I’m looking forward to seeing polymer clay through their eyes. I imagine once the versatility of the medium catches their imaginations, they will begin exploring with it in ways I would never have thought of. And so we learn from each other. That’s my favorite part of teaching.
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