Food for thought…
November 20, 2009
One of the most dangerous things to any culture or society is a man with great revelation and very little love.
Many of us, in fact, all of us at one point or another, have faced hardships. It is a thread woven into the fabric of all human experience. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, struggle has embraced our race like a long lost acquaintance who, no matter what the circumstances or present prospects, is ready to invite himself over for dinner or for a couch to sleep on as he passes through to another destination. We will all have hardships, it is a fact of life.
Many will say that to be faithful and steady in the midst of this is what proves your strength and endurance. While this is true to some extent, my personal belief is that staying steady in hardships is only half the battle on the road of sanctification.
To me, it is more a matter of how you can handle favor and blessing that more accurately qualifies whether or not you indeed are patient in persevering. Why? I think it’s because the human heart is deceitfully wicked. We are far more prone to pride, disbelief, impatience, selfishness, etc., etc., when things are going good for us, simply because when things go good for us, they go our way and our focus easily becomes ourselves and what we want.
Though being patient and enduring hardship will mold in us one of the greatest gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to men, humility, the real arena of testing and refining comes when favor comes. Weakness is natural for all people and it comes as surely as the rising of the sun. Strength however, can only be restrained by a meek and lowly heart and when favor provokes our strength to operate, only the truly humble will choose not to display it for the sake and well being of others.
Last days
June 25, 2009
North Korean threats of nuclear missiles, unrest in the middle east, Iranian presidential outrage, America basically saying “enough” with Israel, Russian president calling for one-world currency, global economic collapse, possibility of Federally legalized abortion in the U.S, homosexual agenda being pushed harder and harder by media………sounds like the end of the age to me.
And the Lord would say, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
I wonder why?
Why am I blogging again??
June 8, 2009
What I’m about to say is going to seem odd. To answer the question posed in the title I have to connect what I’m doing on this site with my life mandate. It is odd that my life mandate from the Lord would involve updating a blog spot that few people read and if they do, it’s mostly by accident.
To answer the question simply, it’s Isaiah 11:9 that says “…and the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the seas.”
My goal and calling is to fill the earth, in whatever way I can, on this side of eternity into the next, with the knowledge of God. Enter blogging. This is a great means to develope and cultivate theological understanding and express it in the earth. This is great practice for preachers. I post stuff on this site that has to do with Jesus. I blog because He’s worthy of recieving praise, in every form and way, through worship, prayer, media, wordpress, etc etc.
I realize that some of you out there may be reading this with a doubtful smirk upon your face with a slight nod of the head. Well just let me explain.
I think most would agree that the light of righteousness is on the verge of getting brighter. It may not be as of yet but there is a tangible presence in the air around praying churches that God is moving, and about to move powerfully.
Think about this: the signs of the time are getting clearly discernable. It doesn’t take a whole lot to read the news and know that stuff is bad and getting worse. Jesus said that if you can discern the seasons, spring and summer, fall and winter, then you can discern when the end is near. Ah, you may say, the newspapers are always bad. Correct! But, never have we seen events so bad across the entire globe. Isolated and regional bad news is not the same as global transition to complete collapse. Think about this: the Russian president is calling for a globalized currency this month with many national leaders. If you’ve been reading world news you know the end is near.
I’m not a doomsday kind of guy but I am a realist. I really am just wanting to make one clear point here. As things get worse and worse and fear is at every corner there is one thing that will get better and better; the church. As the darkness get darker the brightness and the righteous acts of the saints are going to get bright and white hot. There is only one time in human history that the church world wide will be so extravagently beautiful as to be clearly discernable to the world, that time is almost upon us. Thanks be to God who will shine on us as we run the race set before us. The next time you are quickened to the sobriety of the present moment, rejoice! God is about to put His bride on display.
So I just got into the sport of mountain biking……and it’s awesome. So awesome in fact, that I have been riding everywhere……..mostly to work, which is like 2 miles from my house. But it feels a lot farther away than that, especially when it’s 25 degrees outside. Going up hill is fine, it’s when you start bookin it downhill that is almost unbearable. The could, brutal wind almost made me cry this morning. Ok ok, I did cry, but hey, it was an outlet for the pain my entire body was feeling, harsh needle like pain. But alas, I’m at work, safe and sound, can’t feel my feet (why did I wear sandals today??????!!!) but I’m here. Praise Jesus.
Christianity is in the not giving up…
April 1, 2009
Humans are quitters. Eventually we quit everything on this side (except sin). We get bored, we grow weary. We aren’t robots that move mechanically with little maintenance (though sometimes I feel that way, especially pre-coffee am). We are so incredibly responsive as beings that generally, our emotions take us to the end of the rope and we look for an out. Life is hard. But we are also incredibly resilient too. So we can press through and do, a lot of times, mostly when convictions press us to determined ends. The more I walk a life of faith the more I come to realize that this life is impossible on our own strength, obviously. Which leads to the simple yet profound truth that if we don’t quit, even unto death, then we win. We hold fast to the name of Jesus, day in and day out, up and down, this way and that way until eventually, we die or are martyred……and we win. Sound bleak?? Maybe it is but it is worth every moment if you believe the promises of the Bible, which of course you have to believe them if you’ve started on this journey in the first place. God motivates us to not quit by giving us precious promises. Think if we didn’t have Revelation 21 and 22 to fuel our going forward. Would we even be able to go forward. What promises fuel you? They have to be eternal promises if they are worth being fueled by, or else that fuel will run dry and your tank will be empty. We need living fuel to keep going. So don’t give up, find your fuel. A little hint; it’s Jesus.
“But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:14
I am not a basket ball fan, really, until March rolls around. There is something about tournaments that I can’t resist, and I have no idea why. I love playoffs. I always have and always will, to some degree or another.
Last night I watched the MU/Memphis game and it was a doozy. Like I said before, I don’t watch b-ball a lot and it had been a long time since I had but I sat down to watch this game and I was impressed. Not only was I impressed with how good and exciting this game was but also the talent that I saw. I was amazed how good these two teams were, how deep their benches were, and how good they worked together as teams. They definitely had their star players but I saw all contribute very strongly. Maybe it was just an unusually good game but it really stuck out to me how far this sport has evolved and grown into the entertainment powerhouse it is now. Watching these guys play was so visually stunning. I never realized how graceful the sport could be, when played well. As an artist I tend to go heavy on aesthetic beauty and some sports have it, while others just don’t, which is why I can’t stand watching bowling. Not much there to hold the attention.
The whole time I was watching this game I kept thinking about old black and white videos of basketball and how awkward, goofy, and ungraceful some of those guys were who started the sport. I kept getting images of dorky guys not knowing what they were doing with no technique and no formed skills, trying to take a huge leather ball and dump it into a basket. Well this was far from that. The point I am making is that basketball has come a long way through time, style, technique, and a few rare stars that have popped up along the way, making and re-creating the sport with their own personal flare and finesse.
Bottom line, this sport has evolved into what it is because man has formed it through time and taken every thing about it to the fullest expression of what basketball is and what it could ever be. Man takes things to the full, no matter what the subject matter may be because it’s in our nature to progress something and to move it forward till completion. And if ever something hinders the fullest expression that man wants, then man generally changes the rules to adapt to the expression desired. Which is maybe why I saw a lot of what looked like traveling to me.
This concept is not so much about basketball. It is an underlying theme with anything humans put their hands to, it just so happens that this concept really struck me while watching the game. Weird I know.
Man moves things to the fullest expression possible, with anything, but especially with sin. I’m not at all saying basketball is sinful, don’t read that. But it holds true that the longer someone does something, the better one gets at it. And it couldn’t be truer than with iniquity. That’s why it’s called a mystery; just when you would think someone can’t get any worse in sin, bam, you hear the most shocking, absurd, disgusting acts that so degrade the nobility intended for man. It’s even clearer when it comes to nations, in my opinion. The height of sin is most fully expressed in community when the expression of that sin is empowered by laws and ordinances. This is truly Psalm 2 stuff. Man casting off all restraint so as to express himself; it’s quite a terrifying reality.
As the extreme realities of sports grow even more extreme (I’m thinking the fairly recent development of motocross, bmx, stunt plane flying etc etc) so does the condition of the sin in man. Progress in the world around us is usually man just taking expression to the full. Not all expreesion is sinful, of course, but a majority of it is and when we continue to press the envelope in arenas dear to our hearts then I cannot help but see the underlying theme. There is a fullness of iniquity coming, when man’s deepest and clearest expression of sin is in practice, without restraint. Let’s face it, the longer we live in a sinful state, the more sinful that state becomes.
And so we watch and we pray. The church has been practicing for a few thousand years and I do believe her expression is going to be magnificent at the end. She will be burning and shining, full of grace and truth. As the sin of man progresses then so too must the light of the church.
Floating space debris….that travels at 20,000 mph!!
March 15, 2009
I was listening to National Public Radio this morning on my way to the prayer room when a spot about floating space debris started. I reached forward to turn the volume up figuring, hey this might be interesting.
NASA reports that there are thousands of pieces of space debris orbiting our earth, used rocket parts, old satellites, and random pieces of space craft. I realize that we put stuff in space a lot but c’mon, thousands of chunks of debris?? Seems like a lot to me. But as it turns out, the U.S. military tracks these pieces too, apparently they are really dangerous to space stations. Now this is really getting interesting and I am fully sucked into the story….I reach forward to turn the volume up again. Thousands of floating space chunks, space stations dodging them, and now they are gonna tell me how fast this junk moves, definately worth listening to. I feel like I’m hearing excerpts from Star Wars. I mean, I’m not really a sci-fi geek but this is cool.
Last month an old piece of an outdated Russian satellite collided with something else and ended up sending even more debris floating around the blackness of space. This is why the military tracks this stuff, to watch and to warn space stations of the trajectory and orbit of all this junk, of which there are thousands of pieces. But they only follow pieces that are the size of baseballs or larger because clearly the small stuff isn’t gonna do any serious damage to any craft floating around. Unless it’s traveling at 20,000 mph!!!!! What the?!? Most of this junk travels at least 10-15,000 mph. Some at the aforementioned speed which is entirely too fast to react to, even if you do see it. OK, that’s terrifying.
How would you feel about floating around a space craft with few windows to see what may be speeding toward you, knowing that if something does hit your vessel its going to rip a hole through both sides of your ship, possibly even disembowling you in the process, and that you are powerless to stop it. My hats off to you astronauts, whoever you are. Going up into space is scary enough but to know all that other stuff is enough for me to keep my feet on the ground.
So the story ends with some really smart guy saying, “We should probably be more intentional about cleaning up after ourselves and tracking what we do leave behind.” Or something really inciteful like that.
I’m not sure that I actually learned anything useful by listening to NPR this morning but I obviously did think it cool enough to inform y’all about. I don’t think I’ll ever go into space.
This is New…
May 25, 2007
So, what do you think? I decided to simplify my page. I have been trying to simplify a lot lately. It’s almost like I operate better when things are simpler. Seeing as how things are hardly ever simple though, I thought maybe a little change of pace was in order. I will end this little post with a quote from Von Bathasar; “It is easier for us to embrace what is complex, what is simple is too demanding.” Not that this has anything to do with my new page but what the hey, its a good quote. Let me know what you think about the new site. Feel free to make yourself at home. Go ahead, relax in the world of Nate.
