I lost my cell phone last night. No, like, not "Which pile in my room did I bury it under?" But really, truly, I lost it. I figured it was gone forever. Here's what happened. I went hiking and campfiring with some friends and we went up to Little Falls. To start a fire, we had to gather wood (thank you, Captain Obvious) so I went off in one direction with my little Maglite and starting making piles to carry back. Later, we squatted around the fire and cooked hot dogs, mountain pies and marshmellows, along with some finger flesh, eyebrows, and knuckle hair. Lots of fun. But anyway, at some point, I realized that moving logs, sliding down treacherous slopes in 3 feet of wet leaves, and squatting were NOT conducive to having left my cell phone in my pocket. It definitely decided to abandon me at some point during those activities. But because I had no idea when or where, I decided not to say anything and make the others look for it, even though they all happened to have blazing halogen lamps strapped to their heads, for which they were only making use of to find spiders in the leaves and ooh and aah over how the spiders' eyes stick out. So with a heavy heart, I kept silent and trudged home, going to bed with the weary and martyrish thought that I would get up early the next morning and go back by myself to look for it, having very little hope. Well, I did just that this morning and as I was hiking back to the falls, i thought that maybe God was trying to teach me a lesson about how not to be dependent on my cell phone. I figured I probably wouldn't find it and I would have to live for awhile cut off from the world. :O ;) ;) I decided it was a just punishment; I would look for it but I would just have to not find it. (a continuation of the martyr theme, idiot that I am) Well, I brought a rake with me and retraced my steps to the place where I had been dragging logs around and falling over myself in the dark and started sifting through the leaves. It seemed an impossible task because the hillside where I had been was big and the leaves were thick and deep. Then a song popped into my head - that old hymn, "All things are possible; Only believe." Well, I certainly didn't deserve the impossible but wouldn't you know, about 10 minutes into my search, I sifted to the bottom of a pile of leaves, and there it was, face down in the dirt (oh by the way, i had brought my mom's cell phone along to call it but it just happened to be on silent, darn it). Still on, a little damp, but unscathed. Jeepers, I probably would have been better off without it and yet God allowed me to find it. Well, I think the lesson still soaked through for me and I will keep that in mind whenever I find myself depending on my cell phone too much.
The moral of the story? 1, Trust in the Lord, not in cell phones and 2, Don't leave your cell phone in a shallow jeans pocket when you're doing things like....squatting. :)
(oh yeah, and the addition of a new Murphy's Law: your phone will ALWAYS be on silent when you lose it!)
The End.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Glorious
What is this beauty and mystery that is taking shape before my eyes? What is this allure in my mind toward something I never understood before? How easy it was for me to miss truth and yet, how could I? I am so blind. God wants me! I never could see how God could be so desperately and incurably relational. Everything He has done proves His desire for me to know Him. And I’m not talking about just knowing who God is and raising my hands to Him way up there in shiny Heaven (thanks, Matt O). This is down and dirty, intimate, all-stops-out, LOVE.I’ve been learning a lot this weekend. Crossroads Winter Conference in Gatlinburg, TN – workshops, services, discipleship, community – in all, God worked to peel away layers of misguided assumptions about who He is and what this really is all about. Two things really stand out to me – two things my heart cannot keep silent about.
A lot was said this weekend about how our culture tells us to view ourselves. Even in the Christian circle, a lot goes around about self-image and esteem and how we should love ourselves because we are special in God’s eyes and a bunch of other crap. Then there’s more that says, “It’s not about me, it’s about Christ,” which is totally true but what does that mean? If you think about it, there is nothing good in our flesh, so why would we want to esteem it or “believe in it” anyway? But many times, in fact most of the time, even when I think I can claim that I’m doing it all for Christ, I am still thinking of myself. Obviously, I’m not perfect but my point is that the focus should be on who CHRIST IS, not who I am. A speaker from this weekend said something that sums this up: “HE is the Person, we are just the Environment.” (Scott Pitts) He pointed out that we often get that tragically mixed up. He is the life that came to take over mine, it is His righteousness. Since I have no claim to my life anymore, there is nothing I can do. What self of me is there to love or esteem anymore? Goodbye, self-help, -worth, -image, -esteem, etc., books, one and all, even “Christian” ones! I don’t want to know myself, find myself, or any other excuse; I want to know Christ and Him crucified.
The other thing that has just been incredible to learn about this weekend is “glory.” The glory of God. What is the glory of God? Matt Orth gave two messages on this topic, based on John 1:14, and this new perspective has me wheeling. I’m not even sure how to sum it up because there was so much depth to understanding. But I’ve never understood how to glorify God. I mean, REALLY glorify God. It’s something everyone says and everyone assumes to be the highest calling, “…to GLORIFY God…” We say that to live our lives the best that we can, and pray and read our Bibles, and try to love other people, that this is glorifying to God. And it is. But there’s so much more to glory! The Glory is in the grace and truth of Jesus Christ! Why did God reveal His glory in Jesus Christ? To make the Father KNOWN to us! He didn’t send “glory” down to earth so He could get MORE glory from His “subjects” seeing how big He is and worshipping Him and doing whatever He commanded. The point of “glory” is in John 17. There’s a bunch of glorifying going on there but the point is that we can be ONE and be ONE with the Father and be part of the Father’s LOVE. The most glorious act was Jesus’ death on the cross. Doesn’t sound very glorious? Well, it was, because that is what ripped the curtain and brought us into direct relationship with God. Christ was the exact representation of God (Heb. 1:3) so by bringing Him to earth and glorifying Him, we have the chance to truly know Him. We can know Him because He saved us, oh glorious thought! Back to John 1:14 – He was full of grace and truth, which was the exact representation of God and His glory. John is saying, “I saw the glory of GOD in His Son Jesus Christ and it was His covenant LOVE!” We’ve become His children and now we can know the Father and THIS is the greatest glory. Dang it, it’s going to get even better!! 2 Cor. 3:12ff: we can reflect this glory if we live IN CHRIST (Eph. 1) because He is the glory of God. The grace and truth and mercy, etc, that is in Jesus Christ should be reflected in our lives. We are in relationship with the most glorious God imaginable. And what does He want? What is the most glorious thing to Him? Revealing Himself to us so that we can know Him and love Him, because He already knows and loves us. Jeepers!!! This is way better than we thought! Come on! Whatcha gonna do about it?
A lot was said this weekend about how our culture tells us to view ourselves. Even in the Christian circle, a lot goes around about self-image and esteem and how we should love ourselves because we are special in God’s eyes and a bunch of other crap. Then there’s more that says, “It’s not about me, it’s about Christ,” which is totally true but what does that mean? If you think about it, there is nothing good in our flesh, so why would we want to esteem it or “believe in it” anyway? But many times, in fact most of the time, even when I think I can claim that I’m doing it all for Christ, I am still thinking of myself. Obviously, I’m not perfect but my point is that the focus should be on who CHRIST IS, not who I am. A speaker from this weekend said something that sums this up: “HE is the Person, we are just the Environment.” (Scott Pitts) He pointed out that we often get that tragically mixed up. He is the life that came to take over mine, it is His righteousness. Since I have no claim to my life anymore, there is nothing I can do. What self of me is there to love or esteem anymore? Goodbye, self-help, -worth, -image, -esteem, etc., books, one and all, even “Christian” ones! I don’t want to know myself, find myself, or any other excuse; I want to know Christ and Him crucified.
The other thing that has just been incredible to learn about this weekend is “glory.” The glory of God. What is the glory of God? Matt Orth gave two messages on this topic, based on John 1:14, and this new perspective has me wheeling. I’m not even sure how to sum it up because there was so much depth to understanding. But I’ve never understood how to glorify God. I mean, REALLY glorify God. It’s something everyone says and everyone assumes to be the highest calling, “…to GLORIFY God…” We say that to live our lives the best that we can, and pray and read our Bibles, and try to love other people, that this is glorifying to God. And it is. But there’s so much more to glory! The Glory is in the grace and truth of Jesus Christ! Why did God reveal His glory in Jesus Christ? To make the Father KNOWN to us! He didn’t send “glory” down to earth so He could get MORE glory from His “subjects” seeing how big He is and worshipping Him and doing whatever He commanded. The point of “glory” is in John 17. There’s a bunch of glorifying going on there but the point is that we can be ONE and be ONE with the Father and be part of the Father’s LOVE. The most glorious act was Jesus’ death on the cross. Doesn’t sound very glorious? Well, it was, because that is what ripped the curtain and brought us into direct relationship with God. Christ was the exact representation of God (Heb. 1:3) so by bringing Him to earth and glorifying Him, we have the chance to truly know Him. We can know Him because He saved us, oh glorious thought! Back to John 1:14 – He was full of grace and truth, which was the exact representation of God and His glory. John is saying, “I saw the glory of GOD in His Son Jesus Christ and it was His covenant LOVE!” We’ve become His children and now we can know the Father and THIS is the greatest glory. Dang it, it’s going to get even better!! 2 Cor. 3:12ff: we can reflect this glory if we live IN CHRIST (Eph. 1) because He is the glory of God. The grace and truth and mercy, etc, that is in Jesus Christ should be reflected in our lives. We are in relationship with the most glorious God imaginable. And what does He want? What is the most glorious thing to Him? Revealing Himself to us so that we can know Him and love Him, because He already knows and loves us. Jeepers!!! This is way better than we thought! Come on! Whatcha gonna do about it?
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