Hey, lovER

Here's a thought or two that's been swimming around in my head...

First, try reading a translation of the Bible you've never read or know anything about--and DON'T have your NIV (or whatever standard translation you use) right next to you to compare it to. When you come across something that doesn't make sense to you because it isn't phrased the way you were expecting, think about it. Why doesn't it make sense? What truth is the translator reading and trying to convey?

This comes out of the fact that, for whatever reason, I decided to snag my little green Gideon bible and toss it into my backpack the other day (you know, those free little New Testaments+Psalms+Proverbs that religious people pass out?). I was at lunch on Grand River and I decided to read some of it. Turn to a random book, I didn't care. I wanted a story. So I opened to 1 Corinthians, and the first chapter had some awesome stuff in there! And I was done eating, and the staff were cleaning up after the lunch rush, so I didn't want to keep sitting there, but I also didn't want to leave and go back to the chem building to study. So I decided, Hey! I'll go dump my stuff in my office and take this little book with me, and nothing else (except my office key--and my cell phone...couldn't quite let that go...what if I had an awesome revelation and someone else needed in on it!...) and go read it somewhere on campus or just walk with it?

Secondly, I now have a hankerchief in my bag that I will probably be carrying around for a few more days. Remember how I said that I had a brick to carry around for a week? Well, I wrapped it in a handerchief so that it wouldn't scuff everything else up in my bag. We (meaning IV people) were supposed to carry around this brick all week to remind us of our burdens, to give us a physical something to attach to our burdens. On Thursday, we were to (when we were ready) lay those bricks down at the cross in the corner. So I had been carrying this brick around in my bag for a week in a hankerchief, and I left the apartment Friday morning, and I felt like I was missing something. Now, when I picked up the brick I was thinking, yea, and then once I don't have to carry it around anymore, my bag will be lighter and I'll notice this. I didn't notice this. What I noticed was the fact that I could fit my laptop in my bag again, so I wasn't carrying my laptop. I felt like I was forgetting something; oh yea, my burdens! So that was really cool. But then I hadn't taken the hankerchief out of my bag, so when I opened my bag at school, I saw the handerchief--but didn't have to mess with the brick wrapped in it in order to fit things in my bag or get something out of it. So I'm keeping the hankerchief in there for a few days to remind me of the absence of the burdens--and that the burden is at the cross and I am not to try to pick it up again.

Third, have you ever heard people refer to God as their lover? If so, how did that make you feel? Did it make you uncomfortable, make you squirm? It did me. Why? Is it the connotation of mistress, of a string of nothing but one-night stands? Or is it the level of intimacy? Then I suggest looking at the definition of 'lover' and figure out what a lover really is. And then go to God with this definition and see what he shows you.

reaching out to hold onto Him requires letting go of me

.Learning again that I am not my own
Crawling back to where I belong
Caught in between knowing You and trusting me
Come on take a ride out of the in-betweens
Now I know I need you

When I can`t see, I will trust You
And when I get weak, I trust You
And when I just can`t let it go
I trust that You are in control

Shelter me so I can find some peace
Grabbing hold of You is letting go of me
It`s easy when I remember I possess all that lays beyond my grasp
You power commands the weight off my back
Now I know I need you.
.skillet.


I said: Please don't ever leave me or reject me.
He said: I never will...and I have sworn by my own body.

Jello

I'd like this blog to be a place to share thoughts about God--who he is, revelations he's shown me, things like that. Nice solid paragraphs of awesomeness about God and my encounters with him.

And I'm entirely jello right now.

I am entirely jello right now. It is 1 oclock in the morning, and I am tired, and I have other, practical things I should be doing right now, like homework or packing. But I'm still up because I feel like if I don't process things, I will drown in myself.

I've been stirring this over in my soul for the past two days:
24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
28Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20)

There's a desperation in this text, an intensity that my soul is resonating with. And I can't put words to it. There's just something there.

I've got a brick to carry around for a week. More on this later.

I think that I need to stop trying to put these things into words and just go SIT with them, with God.

God will defend me in battle

Go now, write it on a tablet for them,
inscribe it on a scroll,
that for the days to come
it may be an everlasting witness.
These are rebellious people, deceitful children,
children unwilling to listen to the LORD's instruction.
They say to the seers,
"See no more visions!"
and to the prophets,
"Give us no more visions of what is right!
Tell us pleasant things,
prophesy illusions.
Leave this way,
get off this path,
and stop confronting us
with the Holy One of Israel!"

Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
"Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.It will break in pieces like pottery,
shattered so mercilessly
that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
for taking coals from a hearth
or scooping water out of a cistern."

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.'
Therefore you will flee!
You said, 'We will ride off on swift horses.'
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!A thousand will flee
at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
you will all flee away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill."

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!
O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!"

He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

(Isaiah 30:8-29)

The Prodigal Son

God's love is constant. Constant as in E=mc^2 constant. That's pretty constant.


During IVLI, I was reminded that no matter what I do, God still loves me--loves me with a deep, all-consuming love. No matter how broken I am, he still died to save me. Jeremy Camp put it this way:
Nothing I can do, nothing I can say
Can make you love me more, your love remains the same
You gave it all for me, you gladly took my place
To rid myself of all, all my guilt and shame

I've soaked that in.

Then, I heard someone talk on the story of the prodigal son yesterday. The son runs away and does all this hideously awful things, and the father welcomes him back still. And the details of this are amazing. But something that I'm left chewing on is the role of the older brother. The older brother is all pissed off that he's done everything right and he never got a celebration like the one his good-for-nothing brother is getting. He speaks to his father in rude, disrespectful tones. Yet his father still speaks to him gently, addresses him "My son". And he reiterates that everything he has is his. --The son is rude and DOESN'T GET IT but the father NEVER TAKES AN IOTA away from what he has given his son! It's not like the father's giving is conditional upon whether the son "gets it". Everything the father owns is the son's, period.
Additionally, the fact that the older brother did everything right, as far as he knew, is equally as key to this story as the younger brother's foolishness. NEITHER ONE OF THE SONS ACTIONS affected the love of the father. NEITHER. The father didn't care that his eldest hadn't done the stupid things his brother had. All that the father cared about was the fact that he was his son. So just because I don't do the "bad" things, the things "sinners" do, the "litmus tests of faith"(ie, getting drunk on a regular basis, sleeping around, etc) (because I screw up too. Just not necessarily in those ways.)doesn't make him love me any more than he loves the prostitutes and tax collectors. They are my brothers and sisters.