Life Candy

Throughout the past decade I've found that I my life has been molded and changed from something that was more about me and what I want, and into something that is more like what I used to view as boring, sheltered and bland. While I do not view myself as boring, sheltered, or bland (it's rather the opposite), I have been moving along a spectrum towards finding myself being attracted towards people that my earlier person would describe as such. Many of this type of person are this way not because they think they are 'righteous' or are 'doing everything right' but because they have found meaning in the simplicity. It's all about ridding life of the 'candy' that may taste and look good and add variety and color to life, but in the end actually also create cavities, causes lethargy, and a funny feeling in the pit of your stomach. I have found much peace along this path toward what I used to think was boring. I'm not advocating that anyone should get rid of all things that add spice to life, but rather for a realization of the things that add that spark while providing life and vitality at the same time.


I want to rid myself of the candy and instead replace it with the fruits of life. Both are sweet and satisfy that sweet tooth, but the later is actually food. So, this means, I don't want to clutter my mind with trendy music, novels, fashion statements, facebook profiles, blog entries, photographs, new ideas,  self affirmations, preoccupations or hobbies that while in a sense are not bad, but rather are keeping me from figuratively looking ever upward to my friend Jesus. 

I want to be a Christian to the deepest level. I don't want to cut things out of my life simply because they are 'taboo' to that deep Christian walk, but rather to cut them out because I no longer find the need for those things. I want there to be reasons and feelings behind these choices of what I include in my life not simply because it fits the stereotype of 'christian'. Last year for instance, I realized that I no longer really listened to 'my type of music' that I had in my computer. I liked it and it 'said something' about who I was of course, but I felt God pulling me away from it until I knew that I really needed to just delete it. I still like this type of music to a large degree, but I no longer get that joy from it that I had before, but instead it somehow leaves an empty feeling. So, I didn't delete it so show off and fit that idea of 'christian' but because Jesus took away my joy for it.

I don't want sugar, I want real food.

A little sugar now and then doesn't hurt, true. Some people balance it into their diets daily. But, really, is it necessary when there are things that are multitudes better? For some the taste for sugar is learned and isn't easy to cut out, but personally it is my desire to cut the life candy for good. It's a daily work, again and again. I want to rid my life of those candies that keep me from having deeper devotions and longer devotions and from praying for those that I care about, and for those that I don't know that well, and from digging deep into what God is trying to teach me.

I cannot judge others in their journey in cutting the life candy for each person takes a different pace. But personally my prayer is that God will take these cravings for the shallow and give me cravings for the deep real food of life.

God provides a solution

I wrote this back in March. I thought I should post it so here it is: :)


Oh, my soul!

I am dancing on air.

I cry out in thanks

for deliverance from this snare.

Jesus my dear

with your blood upon my head you cover.

in a spiritual sense

you are my lover.

To you I want to give

everything I am and have.

You give me reason to live

and full joy so I laugh.

Thank you Jesus for leading

my thoughts and actions

to that which will bring healing

I will never forget…

Some Thoughts on Creation

First of all I would like to talk a bit about what my Geography professor believes. He is eighty plus years old and went into his field with intentions of proving all the evolutionists and long age theorists wrong by proving that the earth is young from evidence that they were just not looking hard enough for. He did not find a plethora of young age evidence as he had anticipated. Rather he found piece after piece of information supporting the long age supposition. He was unable to do what he set out to do and so struggled a large portion of his life trying to force the two ideas that the earth was young and old into one view of reality. He finally was able to come to a conclusion that satisfied his understanding.

He will tell you of what he found by asking a question. “The Creation, how did it happen?” He will then answer his own question before you have a chance by saying, “It happened the way it happened.” And leave it like that plopped down in the lap of your mind with your jaw hanging open and a quizzical look on your face. Well… of course that’s how it happened, but really? Is that the conclusion eighty years of contemplation is able to produce? He then went on to say that, “ As a statement of faith, I can assert and believe that life is very young. This is not a scientific statement. This is completely defensible. Science works with integrated models that utilize all data.”

So, from what he was telling me, I have had a little bit of difficulty wrapping my mind in such a way to make sense of it. I thought I got it but I couldn’t quite fit it into my world view. He is able to say that he believes in a young earth and the biblical interpretation of creation literally but is also able to do science and such as if the earth was old. He can use the data and information in front of him that suggests an old earth yet continue his faith in a young earth without compromising what he observes with ideas such as, there must be something else we haven’t discovered yet, or that there are inconsistencies that must make it untrue. He has worked in the field and has seen how forests have grown on top of forest again and again in the layers of rock. Processes such as these would have taken eons for sure. How can he do it? “It happened the way it happened. Yes, the data points to one answer but it may be wrong. And in the end if God shows me that I’m wrong? Ok, then I was wrong. I’m not worried. My love for God is not different.”

What he was telling me was so alluring because I know that I cannot ignore the evidence that points to an old earth. It’s there. But at the same time it’s an agonizing realization because I cannot ignore the evidence I have experienced which exhibits that my God is love, and how could a loving God really create using evolution and death before anyone was even evolved enough with the capacity to choose and sin and change our world from that of perfection to what we have today? I can’t believe it, for it would alter everything I know about God. My best friend would be no longer be who He is. He would be merely a figment of my imagination even. I would crumple into despair upon realization of such a perception.

So, what to do? Well, just now I was reading a book and some very interesting thoughts were brought to my attention. The notion of the age of the earth and universe was evaluated in a way that is very appealing to me and seems to help me pull things together in my mind.

In a few short paragraphs that spanned just over a page I was launched into a pattern of thought that literally allowed things to click into place. The passage was a portion of an explanation by Dr. Jerry. R. Bergman, Biology Professor at Northwest State College, in Archbold, Ohio. In it he described the creation of Adam, the first man and that he would have been created fully functioning in the very instant that he was given life with blood already flowing in is veins before his heart even pumped the first time. Without this, his tissues would have begun to die or would have been damaged. In addition to this, Adam was created as an adult appearing perhaps 30 years old even though he was just a day old. If an examination were done on his body and tests were to be run, he would have been proclaimed a 30 year old man even thought he was really a mere one day old.

This thought can also be paralleled along the age of the universe. If the earth were to exist on it’s own with out the rest of the universe around it, there would be some problems from the start in how things were intended to work. Perhaps the universe and earth were in fact created old, when it was really only young? One thought I can think of to support this is soil. Soil is weathered rock. Weathering and erosion take time. But if plants were really created on the third day then there must have been soil. Soil is so called evidence for a long period of time because we have observed our own modern soil form from rock over long periods of time. But on the 3rd day it was already there fully formed and ready to grow things. God is truly in control of reality. It’s not deceptive this way but simply a requirement for the creation to look older in order to function. So perhaps the earth looks old but really is young and maybe it is appropriate to do science as if the earth were old just as it would be appropriate to treat day old Adam as if he were 30.

But then, what about the fossils in the earth? Is it possible perhaps that Satan attempted to do some creating during the flood? If the flood happened and if there is a Satan, then he would have wanted those eight people left on earth to question the creation as God had really made it. In the Bible we can find that Satan and his angels are capable of doing miracles to a degree. In the time of Moses he could somewhat replicate God’s miracles such as the stick turning into a snake. But his miracles are not quite the same because he does not have the creative power of God. Satan is the ultimate counterfeit and he is going to do everything in his power to be like God. His goal is to be God. So then, perhaps he manipulated the earth during the flood to try and make his own creation. Perhaps evolution is Satan’s version of creation It’s clear that only God can create from nothing, so what if Satan used all the animals and dead things to concoct what we see in the earth today?

I wonder if we are missing key links to many evolutionary boundaries because there simply are not links and since Satan could not create them he did the best he could. Perhaps God created so many different types of animals that Satan had quite a bit to work from to make it seem like things evolved. There are some gaps, especially when looking at homo sapiens. There is nothing to show the link between us and other monkeys or apes. The examples that they have found are only pieces of bone that could hardly be called a skeleton that have been built up with plaster according to an idea that the link may have looked like but really this is only art and not scientific data. Perhaps God limited his creativity when making animals similar to humans to set us apart. Perhaps this was to give us a reason to hold onto our faith in the biblical creation.

Of course I can never know now what really happened. I can only speculate.

….I’m content in trusting Gods’ word. My God knows what He is doing. I need not doubt Him.

Where is the revival?

Sabbath is very refreshing.

Today at church the sermon was basically talking about how before the return of Christ there will be a time of revival among the people of God through which the gospel will be preached to the entire world. I believe this will happen and the latter rain of the Holy Spirit will come to God’s people. But we’ve been waiting for this since it seems like forever. Why haven’t we received the later rain?

Well today’s sermon touched a bit on this. The message was calling us to get rid of our ‘high places’. ‘High places’ in the bible refers to heathen worship. The israelites were instructed to get rid of all the foreign relics and heathen gods that were in the promised land when they entered into it. They however, did not listen to the instruction of God. They did not take down these ‘high places’ but instead left them and they even became a part of the temple of God. There are many verses especially in Kings that talk of this:

¹¹ Asa did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did his father David. ¹² And he banished the perverted persons^[b] from the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. ¹³ Also he removed Maachah his grandmother from being queen mother, because she had made an obscene image of Asherah.^[c] And Asa cut down her obscene image and burned it by the Brook Kidron. ¹⁴ But the high places were not removed. Nevertheless Asa’s heart was loyal to the LORD all his days.

1 Kings 15:11-14

⁴¹ Jehoshaphat the son of Asa had become king over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel. ⁴² Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi. ⁴³ And he walked in all the ways of his father Asa. He did not turn aside from them, doing what was right in the eyes of the LORD. Nevertheless the high places were not taken away, for the people offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.

1 Kings 22:41-43

¹ In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash^[a] became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba. ² Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the LORD all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. ³ But the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

2 Kings 12:1-3

¹ In the second year of Joash the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, became king. ² He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. ³ And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, yet not like his father David; he did everything as his father Joash had done. ⁴ However the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

2 Kings 14:1-4

¹ In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, became king. ² He was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem. ³ And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done, ⁴ except that the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

2 Kings 15:1-4

³² In the second year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, Jotham the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, began to reign. ³³ He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerusha^[d] the daughter of Zadok. ³⁴ And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD; he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done. ³⁵ However the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

2 Kings 15:32-35

So, why all this talk of the ‘high places’ not being removed? Well, all of these kings that were just mentioned happened to also be the good kings during this time. Can this apply to our lives? Yes, for even if we are followers of God and are faithful to His leadership we very well may have things in our lives that are such as these ‘high places’. Even faithful people need to reform.

We as God’s people need to live according to what we know is the way of God. Now many people may think that by doing so we will become legalistic but I agree with how the speaker today put it when he said, ‘legalism is not about what you do, but about the spirit you do it in.’ Living the life that God asks us to live is not legalistic. No, but rather it is a lifestyle of love to our Creator God who loves us with all that He is and has reasons for asking us to live this way because if we follow God’s plan we will be so much better off. God’s plan leads to contentment and a life of fulfillment, health and joy! Furthermore, the speaker today also but it like this ,‘the most conscientious value their relationship with Christ the most.’

What are the ‘high places’ that exist today that are keeping God from sending the latter rain? God wants to send it more than a little kid wants to open presents early the day before Christmas! It is not that he is holding out because He wants to, but He is waiting for us to show Him that we are ready!!

What are our ‘high places’ today? The speaker listed a few that he could see but admonished with a strong humble spirit, admitting that he also needed to work on these things.

1. Institutionalism: We as Seventh Day Adventists take pride in our institutions such as our schools and hospitals even if they are not run right. We need our sense of mission back! In our schools many teachers do not know how to lead their students to Christ and when asked things about the bible they send the students to the pastor. How sad is this when we confess to be believers of Christ? If we are truly believers, then we are also disciples and missionaries wherever we are! We should have the ability to tell others especially our students how they can have a relationship with our Savior! The laymembers of the church have a work to do and it’s perhaps even a greater work that the pastor. We can be giving bible studies to the people we know and should not feel that it’s ‘the pastors job’. As followers of God, we are called to lead others to Jesus. In our hospitals this is also the case.

2. Dramatic productions and Media: These things pull us from God. Instead of coming home from a day of work to relax in delving into the word of God, many relax in front their tv screens and computers trying to find the best programs they can. But these programs are still infiltrated with crudity and ungodly notions. We should put away our interest in the things of this world as they will only lead us astray. Some movies and entertainment may have good messages in them but there is always some tainted ideas within those that have an effect on our minds. We are to be a people of purity. Instead of looking for the cleanest of the filthy in order to fit in with the world, we should be running from these things in order to contemplate the things of God that He has given to us so that we may be ready for His coming.

3. Health: We have a health message different than many denominations true, but it seems as though we are content to stick where we have been for fifty years! Why are we complacent not seeking for the better? It seems as though perhaps the scientific world might pass us up when we have had the health message right in front of us far before what science has found to be true. Most Adventists are vegetarian yes, but why are we continuing to eat canned meats which are in many ways worse for us than actual meats? We need to strive for a life of pureness even in the things that we put into our bodies, searching out truth about what is healthful and unhealthful.

⁸ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light ⁹ (for the fruit of the Spirit^[b]is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), ¹⁰ finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. ¹¹ And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

Ephesians 5:8-11

Now, these were a few things that the speaker today mentioned. There are many more still. Things such as music, dress, conversation, and even our thoughts. As followers of God it is also my desire that all of us would earnestly seek out the way in which God want’s us to live. He has a plan for us. If we tweak that plan even a little bit, it is no longer God’s plan, but our own. The way in which God wants us to live is not going to make us unhappy, but rather more happy and content in Him. He is our everything, our safeguard. I am not saying that I have all of these things under control. I have many ‘high places’ that I need to tear down as well. It is my prayer that I can see what these are and can be free of them with the help of Christ working in my life.

If we are able to take down our ‘high places’ such as the things mentioned here and those not mentioned that we also know are in our lives then God will finally be able to send the latter rain which He so much wants to send. Then there will finally be the revival that is to come and the gospel will be spread and we can all go home! Finally, to be with our Creator, our best friend, our Redeemer, our Confidant, our one and only God.

So, the sermon today was very thought-provoking for me. My wish it to dig deep in to the word and to forget about all the distractions in my life. Will you too strive for this?

Thursday: Takenobu

I really like this song. I also like Thursdays. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I can start to relax. I've been really busy lately. I've also been kind of inwardly negative. My goal this week is to think more positive thoughts. I think I might try memorizing some bible texts on my way to work.

I could listen to this kind of music all day...

Love, Kirsten book / one year ago...Yap

I just finished reading this book: (click picture for more info)

I wasn't really all that anxious to read it really. You know... i was there. I wasn't sure I wanted to relive it. I knew most of the story. But, there were some things that I did not know that were good to know.

The book brought back images so familiar yet so distant. I can see the places in my mind and can even smell the smells and I long to relive them. Even the hot sticky air has a place in my heart.

I look back on last year with memories that seem like a distant... fairytale. Did it all really happen? Was I actually living on a little island with wonderful people and students and wildlife and... everything there is to the island of Yap? Exactly one year ago I was teaching roughly 60 students. I miss them. I miss Yap. God is so good. I am so thankful for my experiences there. I'm so blessed that God chose to use me in such a place.

I look forward to meeting Kirsten again. Her life touched so many and yet her death is still touching people. I'm not really sure what else to say about this but I thought I should say something. After all it's been just about a year since she died. It's a lot to ponder.

I've learned a lot... this year has proven to be of much growth.

Letters

I wish everyone wrote letters to each other. As much as I wish we all did this I struggle to with following through with it. This past week I sent out about six letters which is pretty good. My list of newly acquired addresses is at about fifteen. I really should write to them all. I think once I do this I can sit back and wait for replies and just continue with this most predictably smaller number of people. Then perhaps I can send one out at random to those that do no reply in hopes of converting them to the letter writing kind.

Writing letters is somewhat romantic even if there is no love interest involved. By romantic I don't really mean passionate, tender, or affectionate but more particularly charming, picturesque, lovely, visionary, fabulous and idealistic.

Imagine what your friendships would be like if everyone wrote letters... like if every time you thought of a friend or family member, you wrote a quick note to them and dropped it in the mailbox? It doesn't have to be long and tedious, just a simple reminder of 'hey, I thought of you today when I saw a cardinal fly across my path on the way to astronomy class.' Why don't we send each other delicious recipes that we've found or magazine articles that peaked our interested and would also spark a smile into someone elses day?

Instead of doing this sort of thing I know in the recent past I would post something on facebook hoping that someone would read it and then exclaim how awesome they thought it was too. That's much less personal though, than sending it to someone in particular and better yet in a sealed envelope with your very own handwriting scrawled out between classes.

I wish we were all more sincere and interested in each other. Not in such a way that we stalk each other by anonymously clicking through profiles and pictures, but by showing an interest and then letting that person know we care, and are there.

So, I'm attempting this very thing that I wished we all did in hopes to start a new trend of sorts at least among those that I know. I don't feel like writing to anyone in particular at the moment. But I will not give up. It's been a week. It's too early to expect a letter in return. I don't' expect very many, but I know I'll get at least a few.

Letters are so charming.... They have the ability to melt away negative feelings and thoughts. Someone took the time and effort to make contact with you in a less convenient but oh so personal fashion. That's love...
I think I will write one or two right now after all.