humility

When someone asked St. Francis of Assisi why and how he could accomplish so much, he replied: "This may be why. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the earth and said, 'Where could I find the weakest, the littlest, the poorest man on the face of the earth?' Then He saw me and said, 'Now I've found him, and I will work through him. He won't be proud of it. He'll see that I am only using him because of his littleness and insignificance.'"

I need to realize how insignificant I am without God.

Becoming the Answer To Our Prayers

Part of the EPILOGUE to this book I just finished

"This book has been about the marriage of prayer and action. We began by suggesting that we need to pray like everything depends on God and live like God has no other plan but the church.  We are the ones God is waiting on.  When we throw our hands up at God and inquire, "Why do you allow this injustice!?" we have to be ready for God to toss the same question back to us. 

Predictably, some will say it's absurd to assert that we are the answer to our prayers because God is the only answer to prayer.  That's the beautiful mystery: we have a God  who chooses to need us.  We have a God who doesn't want to change the world without us.  We have a God who longs to cooperate with us, to allow us to fail an flounder and who promises to make up for our shortcomings, but nonetheless wants us.  It's the story of our faith.  Certainly nothing hinges on our own ingenuity or strength; quite the opposite - God works through weakness."

These past few days, God has been teaching me a lot about the importance of discipline.

1 Timothy 4:7 - "train yourself to be godly."  

1 Timothy 4:16 - "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them..." 

2 Peter 1:5 - "make every effort to add to your faith..."

For me, reading the bible can be very difficult to do. It takes at least training, perseverance, and effort. But there is much at stake if I decide to quit. My faith does not only concern me, but those around me as well. I need to be more cautious.

1 Timothy 4:16 - "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers."

wow. gg God.

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control, and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins." - 2 Peter 1:5-9

"we don't think you're part of some cult, we just think that you're a little extreme"

This was a poster displayed in front of World Vision's booth at Urbana.

Would you like to fly tonight?

All your life you have been learning,

"Every plan a way to get ahead,"

"You've got to build yourself a future,"

Those are the words my Daddy said.

Now there is another calling 

Tellin' you to change your mind,

Tells you "finding leads to losing,"

Tells you "losing lets you find."

Turn it over, turn it around,

Down is up and up is down,

The world looks different to ya,

When you're flying upside down.

- Ken Medema, Music at Marketplace '86

"When there is a disagreement between my culture and God, let God be true and every man a liar."

Call me Martha

"Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She also had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me." But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her." - Luke 10: 38-42

This passage depicts a lot of what God has been teaching me about myself this past academic year. 

The way Martha "tattles" on Mary is the same way me and my siblings went through chores at home. We kept count how many chores each of us did and then tried hard to make it as fair as possible, which only ended up in silly, meaningless fights. I thought this was just a childhood phase... the whole thing was childish, but I still found myself thinking the same way. God has been stretching my patience a lot this academic year... it's been good.  

Jesus brings up another weakness I have at the end of this passage. It's so easy for me to want to "serve" God than to want to spend time with Him myself, especially when it comes to reading the Bible. oh, disciplines.

Dill Weed

MY FIRST PLANT!!!