I Can't Wait

"I know that Jesus Christ is preparing a home for me, and for some of you, for two thousand years. Now if this world took six days, and [heaven] has taken two thousand years...Man, we're living in a garbage can compared to what's going on up there!"

~Steve Green~

Rice Concert

My good friend/mentor Jana created this artwork for a benefit concert our church did to raise money and awareness for world hunger— specifically for kids at a deaf orphanage in Nigeria, who have nothing to eat everyday except for rice and water.

Cutting Off the Right Hand

"The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of principles to be obeyed apart from identification with Jesus Christ. The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting his way with us."

~Oswald Chambers~

The City

I spent yesterday in San Francisco with my aunt Karen. We walked from her apartment to the Museum of Modern Art (interesting, to say the least), went shopping at Neiman Marcus, got lunch at a French bistro, and just walked around the city.

There was a part of me that kept saying, I could do this. I could live in the city. But the rest of me protested. As much as I enjoyed the busyness and culture and shopping that is San Francisco, I like my small town. I like that you can't go to the gym without running into someone you know. I like that people honk at each other out of recognition, not out of anger. I like that half the baristas at the Starbucks on Tennant not only know my name, but are able to spell it correctly! I like that my friends text me to ask if they can hang out at my house and make s'mores literally less than an hour before they show up. I like that I can sit by the pond at Community Park and journal without worrying about getting jumped. I like that I've never been asked to leave during a 3-hour long conversations I've had over lunch at Panera.

I like the slower, friendlier culture of the South Valley. I like that people matter.

The Poor

• know they're in need of redemption
• know not only their dependence on God but also their interdependence on each other
• their security is found in people and not things
• they have no exaggerated sense of importance or exaggerated need of privacy
• expect little from competition and much from cooperation
• can distinguish between necessities and luxuries
• able to wait because they have acquired a kind of dogged patience
• fears are more realistic and less exaggerated because they know they can survive great suffering and want
• Gospel sounds like good news and not like a threat or scolding
• can respond to the Gospel with abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have little to lose and they are ready for anything

"God's Preferential Option for the Poor" from Monika Hellwig

"Blessed are you poor,

For yours is the kingdom of God."

~Luke 6:20

That's Also True

"the purpose of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to close it again on something solid" G.K. Chesterton

If everything is true, then nothing is true. If there is no truth, life is meaningless. We may as well go on acting on every animalistic impulse. Why bother following legal, social, or moral norms? For a nihilist, there are none. What is true? What is not subject to cultural or political change?

God's Eyes

"How we believe God sees others determines how we will treat them"

Think about it

for believers, earth is the closest thing to hell they will ever experience.

for non believers, earth is the closest thing to heaven they will ever experience.

Ask me

A lot of my friends have been creating formspring accounts. Formspring is an application that allows people to ask someone any question anonymously, and the user answers. The questions and answers can be seen by anyone.

I've been debating whether to consider creating one for myself. I like to think that people are interested in me and my opinions about things. But my idealism has precluded this. Do I, an 18-year old girl, have the authority to answer whatever question is posed to me? Why would people choose to listen to my opinion over those of say, a parent or teacher? Not to mention God.

It almost seems like a symbol for a culture that is hungry for truth but looks in all the wrong places.

Songs of Mercy

Away with the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

But let justice roll on like a river,

righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Amos 5:23-24

What an odd thought, that God abhors our musical praise! Isn't that what "worship" is all about? The music, the Chris Tomlin lyrics, the lifting of hands in a seeming effort to reach the Lord Himself?

In the Protestant Evangelical culture, I've found that the worship music is often exaggerated and emotionally charged. We declare that we will do whatever God calls us to; we'll follow Him wherever He goes; we'll give everything for Him. But at least in my life, those words are virtual lies. We don't give everything to Him: we'll give a small percentage, just enough to ameliorate the guilt but not enough to constitute a significant sacrifice on our part. We won't go anywhere He does: maybe to church on Sundays and perhaps even Wednesday nights, but to a foreign country? To my next-door neighbor's house to talk about my faith? No way.

I cannot speak to the culture that God was admonishing in this passage, but if it were ours, it would be no surprise that he desires acts of justice and righteousness over song. He desires that we cease the gossiping and fantasizing on Sunday mornings before we wail out "Let the Praises Ring." He desires that we seek justice— even if it simply means donating clothes to a needy local family— before we raise our hands to "How He Loves."

Friendship

In today's world of social networking, a time when Facebook recently reached its 500 millionth member, it's difficult to define a "friend". I have over 900 "friends" on Facebook, but how many do I have an actual relationship with? Maybe a few hundred. And how many would meet Jesus' definition of a real friend— "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13)? I could count them on one hand, if any. But more importantly, would I give my life for a friend? I really don't know.

Three things are integral to a friendship: time, trust, and talk. These are virtually nonexistent in the majority of my facebook "friends." So now we must specify using the "Top Friends" application because the term "friend" has become so trite.

There are three levels of intimacy in friendship, which Jesus modeled here on earth. Acquaintances are the people we know and converse with occasionally, but the connection lacks trust. These are analagous to Jesus' numerous disciples, the mob that followed him. Next come friends, who are closer. Jesus' 12 apostles represent this group. Finally are the closest group of friends— for Jesus: Peter, James, and John. They would— and did— give their lives and were his closest confidantes.