The time has finally come for me to leave for Marion, IN for a two-week training. Once again, I will be an Advanced Summer Missionary (ASM) this year, which means I will be helping those with less experience in CEF learn their Bible club lessons and such. Honestly I'm looking forward to getting out of Evansville for a while. I didn't realize until today just how drained I was; it seems like life has been taken away from me in the past couple months.
But after all the anticipation and preparation, the time has finally come. And I am glad. I pray that God will use this training to draw me nearer to Him and that I will establish and build strong, lasting relationships with the believers there.
Let Christ be glorified.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
A Lie That is True
Money makes me happy.
Really. It does. This week I held $320 in $20-bills alone. (I graduated last weekend, and apparently people get a lot of money when they graduate). Throw in all the checks and other pieces of cash in there and it was easily the most money I had ever held before. It was right there in my hand, and it was all mine. My heart was happy.
But this year God has been teaching me a valuable lesson. Money doesn't make anyone happy. Sure, I'm excited about having a little extra cash on hand. Perhaps in the near future I'll buy that guitar I've been craving. But what is that going to do for me? Then will I be content? I'd be a fool to think that. Yet somehow I'm deceived by it constantly.
Money is a strange thing. It was made for man, but man has become its slave. And when it doesn't work out too well for man, he tries to exchange that money for some other form of "satisfaction." How easily we forget truth.
(So just as a clarification here, this is where we are so far: the statement that money makes people happy is both true and false. It is true because just about anyone who is given a chunk of cash is excited about it. But it is false because that happiness does not last. So we move on to other things, like guitars and cars and such. Make sense?)
Truth is something I want to buy. Last weekend my pastor gave the commencement message for my graduation. It was from Proverbs 23:23: "Buy truth, and do not sell it, Get wisdom and instruction and understanding." This is something that will take time. It will take money of a different kind. It will take energy. And I will face every temptation imaginable along the way, but when I come to a Vanity Fair - perhaps one like Christian and Faithful did in The Pilgrim's Progress - and the sellers ask me, "What will you buy," I will respond without delay, "I buy the truth."
Because after being given hundreds of dollars in cash and checks, after getting on the Dean's List at Ivy Tech, after becoming a published poet, after four summers of work as a missionary, after two hundred and ten songs and even more poems, after high school, after jobs, after clothes - I am still unsatisfied. (In fact, I am even more distressed now). All of those are rubbish. They are dung in comparison to knowing Christ, in comparison to being known by Christ.
All I have is Christ.
All I will buy is the truth.
Really. It does. This week I held $320 in $20-bills alone. (I graduated last weekend, and apparently people get a lot of money when they graduate). Throw in all the checks and other pieces of cash in there and it was easily the most money I had ever held before. It was right there in my hand, and it was all mine. My heart was happy.
But this year God has been teaching me a valuable lesson. Money doesn't make anyone happy. Sure, I'm excited about having a little extra cash on hand. Perhaps in the near future I'll buy that guitar I've been craving. But what is that going to do for me? Then will I be content? I'd be a fool to think that. Yet somehow I'm deceived by it constantly.
Money is a strange thing. It was made for man, but man has become its slave. And when it doesn't work out too well for man, he tries to exchange that money for some other form of "satisfaction." How easily we forget truth.
(So just as a clarification here, this is where we are so far: the statement that money makes people happy is both true and false. It is true because just about anyone who is given a chunk of cash is excited about it. But it is false because that happiness does not last. So we move on to other things, like guitars and cars and such. Make sense?)
Truth is something I want to buy. Last weekend my pastor gave the commencement message for my graduation. It was from Proverbs 23:23: "Buy truth, and do not sell it, Get wisdom and instruction and understanding." This is something that will take time. It will take money of a different kind. It will take energy. And I will face every temptation imaginable along the way, but when I come to a Vanity Fair - perhaps one like Christian and Faithful did in The Pilgrim's Progress - and the sellers ask me, "What will you buy," I will respond without delay, "I buy the truth."
Because after being given hundreds of dollars in cash and checks, after getting on the Dean's List at Ivy Tech, after becoming a published poet, after four summers of work as a missionary, after two hundred and ten songs and even more poems, after high school, after jobs, after clothes - I am still unsatisfied. (In fact, I am even more distressed now). All of those are rubbish. They are dung in comparison to knowing Christ, in comparison to being known by Christ.
All I have is Christ.
All I will buy is the truth.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Graduation
Today is a day I will remember for the rest of my life. It has been said to me, at some point in the day, that life now begins. Many times I have been asked what I will be doing next fall. People have asked me if I feel different. But I would contend that the premises behind many of these inquiries are based on a flawed focus.
"Life Begins Now."
Lie! Now I'm sure that whoever said that to me was kidding to some extent. However, take into careful consideration how we process graduations. We translate the transition into a new beginning to life. Well, the only beginnings to life there are, that I know of, are conception and spiritual birth. An assumption that some new kind of life begins now is an assumption that I need to change my way of living, that I need to change my habits. I am always in need of that change. Now that I have graduated, that does not mean that I will be a super-holy person. God is always sanctifying me.
"What Are You Doing Next Year?"
This is a great question. I just don't want people to prioritize what I will be doing educationally over what I will be doing for my soul. The emphasis in God's word is not what we do, it is how we do it. And how we do things is to be to the glory of God in the name of Jesus Christ.
"Do You Feel Different?"
Yes, I feel like I can get away from all of this preparation junk and just party! What do you mean do I feel different? I tend to take that as going along with the first statement: "Oh, well now that you've graduated, you can really start living for Jesus. Now you're important."
Closing Thoughts
Graduated people are no more important than children inside their mothers' wombs. Will I have more options? Yes. But never try to tell me that now I can become a true missionary, that I'm more important, that I can start real ministry now, or that life somehow begins now. A new phase of life may start now, but my prayer is that I have not wasted my life thus far and that I will not in the end.
"Life Begins Now."
Lie! Now I'm sure that whoever said that to me was kidding to some extent. However, take into careful consideration how we process graduations. We translate the transition into a new beginning to life. Well, the only beginnings to life there are, that I know of, are conception and spiritual birth. An assumption that some new kind of life begins now is an assumption that I need to change my way of living, that I need to change my habits. I am always in need of that change. Now that I have graduated, that does not mean that I will be a super-holy person. God is always sanctifying me.
"What Are You Doing Next Year?"
This is a great question. I just don't want people to prioritize what I will be doing educationally over what I will be doing for my soul. The emphasis in God's word is not what we do, it is how we do it. And how we do things is to be to the glory of God in the name of Jesus Christ.
"Do You Feel Different?"
Yes, I feel like I can get away from all of this preparation junk and just party! What do you mean do I feel different? I tend to take that as going along with the first statement: "Oh, well now that you've graduated, you can really start living for Jesus. Now you're important."
Closing Thoughts
Graduated people are no more important than children inside their mothers' wombs. Will I have more options? Yes. But never try to tell me that now I can become a true missionary, that I'm more important, that I can start real ministry now, or that life somehow begins now. A new phase of life may start now, but my prayer is that I have not wasted my life thus far and that I will not in the end.
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