Car Trouble

Lately I've been having a bit of a problem with the cooling system in my car.

The first time, I noticed that the engine temperature was getting really hot, so I dove into a service station, which happened to be right there, I mean, like I was passing it when I was having the cooling problem. The service station had everything I needed for the sudden car trouble.

The second time, I pulled into my parking spot at work, shut down, and noticed steam emanating from my hood. I opened the hood and there was a geyser of coolant spraying from one of the hoses leading to the car's radiator. I thought, well, that could have happened anytime on the way to work - but it didn't; it happened as I parked.

Wow, that is amazing.

Immediately I attribute little blessings like this to God's watchful eye. He is taking care of me.

The only problem is, I don't know if He's taking care of me like James, or like Matthew.

James 1:2-4 says "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."

Matthew 6:25-27 says "“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? "

So is this a trial for me to develop character or is it just God taking care of me? Maybe both...

I know that in this fallen world, things are going to break. Stuff is going to get old. Cars are going to need to be fixed. It's nice to know that despite that, I can live out my life like the birds of the air and just embrace the lovingkindness of my Father watching over me. It's nice when a trial brings a gleam to my eye rather than the weight of the world on my mind.

Parent Prayers II

I have decided that I nearly completely missed the mark with my post parent prayers. In recent months I have determined that maybe I should be less concerned about what I will pray for my children than with what I will pray for myself. Matthew 7.

Not that I would cease praying for my children. Or less.

It's just that I've realized that my sense of responsibility to care for them by praying for them, by asking God to bless them and keep them safe, to hold them in His hands, to know and love Him, has blinded me to the work that God needs to continue to do in my own heart. I feel frustrated, impatient, irritable, and only God can fix those things.

So to my laundry list of prayers, I've added requests for me. To be:

Patient
Wise
Selfless
Committed
Imaginative

In Jesus' Name

I am torn about exercising the power of Jesus' name.

Matthew 17 says that if we have faith even as small as a mustard seed, that we can move mountains!

John 14 says that we will do even greater works than Jesus!

John 16 says that the Father will give us whatever we ask for in Jesus' name!

When I was a youngster, I stood in church and listening to the worship team, I believed that if I prayed for healing in Jesus' name that God would heal my eczema. God did not heal me.

Since He didn't heal me, I resolved that God was showing me how Jesus felt when He prayed in the garden. I started praying for healing if it was God's will. In fact, at 8 years old, I identified even more with Jesus, thinking I might have a mild case of stigmata as my eczema outbreaks seemed isolated to my wrists and ankles. The blood in my wrists surged more as I prayed for this little bit of healing. I was not healed.

If you read my post Good Thing God's in Control then you should know eczema was the medical issue that threw my future into doubt when I applied for the Academy.

Today I don't have any eczema. It occasionally flares up in specific circumstances.

I believe that while God hasn't completely heal me, this life isn't over yet and eczema served to reveal His power in my life, Praise God. Kind of reminds me of Paul.

Nonetheless, this issue established for me a status quo for the power of my faith in prayer. In short, I believe my prayer has no power, only that I might make requests that might already line up with God's plan.

Abraham's prayer actually changed God's mind in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He is not the only example of someone who changed God's mind.

"... in Jesus' name, Amen," is my family's most common conclusion to spoken prayer. More recently I reflected that I cannot simply say "God please... blah blah blah... in Jesus' name, Amen," that to ensure God hears and acquiesces to my prayer, that my heart's intent must be in Jesus' name. This would, as an example, prevent me from asking God for a Lamborghini in Jesus' name, or believing that He might actually arrange for me to own a Lamborghini.

I am concerned about the future. There are things I want for myself and my family. God tells me not to worry about tomorrow. I stop, I pray that I do not worry, I find peace, and I end up... concerned. I don't think I fret, I just think, and plan. As I do this I don't believe God always gives me clarity about the future. Often I think I shall just copy Gideon and bust out the fleece.

This is why I'm torn. I want to pray; God wants me to converse with Him. I want to pray for what I want, but I want to pray for it in Jesus' name. Sometimes I must make choices and I don't know the best one. I may know what I want but I don't know if it's what God wants. If I check my heart and believe that I am praying in Jesus' name, I find my heart reveals what I want, and I don't know if that's what God wants. Then I think He must be leaving it up to me. In the silence of His voice, He is telling me it doesn't matter what I choose: He will be glorified. So I decide to pray for what I want.

The best example I can think of is praying for someone who has cancer. How do you pray for someone who has cancer? That God will heal them if it is His will in Jesus' name?

Now, the rub. If I pray in Jesus' name, it shall be granted. But the eczema thing shows me God won't answer in the way or when I expect. Between now and then I call into question the power of my faith and even worse, the power of God to answer prayer. I suppose I will have to accept Hebrews 11:13.

No Laughing Matter

Have you ever thought about the role of humor while living out our faith?

Obviously God created us with a sense of humor, but sometimes I don't feel like humor and church or faith or Jesus mix. But they should!

Case in point #1: on Easter we took pictures of Pineapple and Mango with some nice stuffed animals.

The stuffed animals were a lamb and a bunny. I find this quite amusing, but at the same time bordering on sacrilege. It was actually a near accident; I was choosing the props for the photo and I picked the softest, most adorable stuffed creatures that I liked. I really hope God finds it amusing as well and not disrespectful.

Case in point #2: Easter really is quite a serious holiday for Christians. Jesus Christ conquering death is the foundation for our faith. But does that make it serious, as in humorless? Luke 24:5b. Does anyone besides me find it amusing that a pair of angels appear in a cemetery to ask the women, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" What if in a moment of wit and clarity and revelation of prophecy, Mary asked in response, "Why do you proclaim the living among the dead? You ask this question, but indeed, here you are, standing in a cemetery!" If nobody else gets it, at least I think that the Creator has a pretty satirical streak.

Free Will and a Chosen People

I've been reading the Old Testament. It suddently occurred to me; what role does a chosen people have within the context of free will?

Lately I've taken the concept of free will for granted because it was a theological issue that I contemplated and accepted early in my Christian life. When it comes to free will, I am certain that none of my ideas are my own, only fragments of what others have said and speculated about God's plan for humanity. While the Word doesn't specifically say we have "free will," we can generically say Love cannot exist without free will.

Anyway, a thought which I'm certain I haven't studied in a Bible Study or heard in church or read in a book is the recurring theme of God's chosen as it applies specifically to free will - or vice versa.

What I'm wondering is whether having a segment of society be God's "chosen people" is a critical or non-critical element of free will. If critical, then how is being chosen resolve against free will [ok, yes this touches on pre-destination, certainly not an original thought]. If non-critical, then why is it a continuous theme in God's framework for this world?

This is only one example, and certainly not the best example of God's wrath on His chosen should they sway from Him. Nonetheless it is recurring: God's people suffering, crying out, being saved, laws given, rebellion, God's wrath, God's people suffering... I guess I am trying to figure out how this loop fits into the concept of free will. Perhaps it is the very concept of free will that causes the loop to occur. The only way to exit the loop is to choose to accept being chosen and thus accept the plan of salvation, rather than God's wrath...

I wrote this in like, 9 minutes, but looking forward to much discussion and research. Your thoughts please...

Fight's On

I don't particularly like to argue.

I do, however, yearn to engage in meaningful, rational discussions that have opposing points of view. I don't think I am too proud to admit to myself when I need to change my point of view, so such discussions are rewarding to me because either (1) I'm right or (2) I will have the reasoning ammo to be right in the future.

So, while all who I know that follow this blog probably agree with me 99% of the time, I am exceedingly hopeful to engage a dissenter, that I might convince or become convinced of a necessary change in reason or paradigm.

Love of My Life

Genesis 29:20

I wish I had known this verse when my bride and I lived apart for 3 1/2 years. Now it really does seem like it was only days but how neat it would have been to reflect on this verse during that time.

Rebekah

I wonder if it would be too much to ask God to prompt Pineapple's and Mango's future fathers-in-law to make these kind of of arrangements for my girls' husbands. It is a beautiful story.

Kid Parallels

It never ceases to amaze me how God uses children as a metaphor for us growing as Christians.

John 3:3-8
Hebrews 5:11-14

Recently Pineapple has been running to find Mango's pacifier whenever she thinks she needs it. And by saying "whenever she thinks she needs it," I mean, "whenever she thinks of it." It doesn't matter if she is crying, cooing, or sleeping - Pineapple will run to retrieve the nearest pacifier and run back to Mango and attempt to shove the binky in her mouth. I am quite sure that this behavior has mutated from the original version of mom & dad using the binky to calm Mango down when she is crying despite being fed, dry, swaddled and warm.

Is not Pineapple's immature and uniformed behavior like that of many of us? We see a piece of how God works in other peoples' lives (or perhaps our own) and so we become convinced that is the end-all to God's hand in their lives? Let me share some of my convictions that cause me to stumble less in my walk with Jesus:

- No TV
- Church once a week
- Christian radio
- Daily devotions
- Tithing
- Verse memorization
- Playing the piano
- Musing on my blog

You might be thinking, "I don't think any of that has anything to do with my race." Perhaps.

But let me confess something to you. Whenever I hear of someone who has money problems, the first thing I think is, "I wonder if they have been tithing." I don't think I say this in judgement, because I don't conclude that they must not be tithing and that is why they are having financial trouble. The thought just crosses my mind. It crosses my mind because I think my financially-trouble-free existence is God's response to my commitment to tithe. Whenever I hear of parents having problems with their teenage kids, I think, "I wonder how much tv they watch?" I don't think I say this is judgement, because I don't conclude that they must watch a lot of TV and that is why the parents are having discipline problems. The thought just crosses my mind. It crosses my mind because I think my walk with Jesus, growing fruit of the spirit, and respect for my parents has improved since I stopped watching tv routinely.

So maybe I'm the only one with this problem. The problem of taking God's solution (the pacifier) for our lives (Mango) and applying it to a situation that has so many more variables involved than what I can possibly perceive. I don't expect that I am, or God would not have mentioned the speck.

The Day of Rest

Has anybody cracked the code on how to take God's given day of rest once a week when you have kids in diapers?