A Still Small Voice

When I’m not blogging, I miss it; this leads me to start a new blog, thinking I’ll be more committed.  Yet, when I am blogging it feels like a burden, which is why it’s always been a short lived discipline in my life.  I think I stumbled upon an answer as to why I operate this way.

¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’  “Cursed is the ground because of you;  through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

That’s from Genesis 3.  I heard it explained this week that my principle role in life, the trait I walk most easily in, as a man, is the role of Cultivator.  From these verses we find out that not only are ALL men cultivators, but everything they cultivate will rail against them.  This has begun to make so much sense to me.  At work I cultivate a half dozen things, I nurture and grow the several projects I work on, I cultivate relationships with my co-workers, I cultivate my own intellectual capital, etc.  At home I cultivate relationships with my roommates, neighbors, and community.  I cultivate my body, physically and mentally.  I cultivate my relationship with Madison.  I cultivate Madison.  The list continues, and not for a short while.

So what does this have to do with blogging?  Blogging helps me cultivate ideas, it helps me process what God is teaching me through the world, His creation.  But, blogging also rails against me, it seems silly, trite, and hardly worthwhile since it would be just as easy to write down these thoughts privately and not worry about diction and syntax.

But here I am.  Again.  Trying again, to cultivate a habit of forming ideas.  I don’t think it’ll stick this time.  I think like every other time, I’ll do it for a season, learn what God is teaching me in that season, and then I’ll fade away again.

Just because I’m a cultivator, doesn’t mean that, for me to be Godly, everything I cultivate must endure.  Even the fields rise up and die off, providing their food and leaving the farmer a richer man than before.

We The Overtaught

Last Saturday I had the distinct privilege of entertaining two friends from college.  Two friends who, being from Texas, know what it is to move to the Northeast without knowing anyone.  The plan for the day was to show them Norwalk, eat good food (Valencia’s Venezuelan Beach Food as featured on the Food Network), and lay in the sun, on the sand, by the water, for hours.  The CT, however, had other ideas.  A drizzly afternoon and a boring city (read Norwalk, CT) led us back to my house where we decided we’d try to grill, eat on the porch, and chat.  Something I’m generally not good at.

The conversation topics varied, Jesus was a big one, it was during our Jesus talk that I felt able, for the first time, to put words to a feeling I’ve had for a long time.  We Christians, American Christians in particular, are over taught.  I love and agree with pastoral care and I think that teaching on Sunday is critical, but between Sunday morning, community groups which emphasize knowledge over action, and the ever growing availability podcasts we have become a people who “listen but cannot hear”.

What I mean is this.  I feel that I’ve been taught how to react, understand, and discern truth from the lips of someone else, particularly a pastor but what I was not taught, is how to receive those things from the lips of God.  Much of my life, I’ve been inclined to react to a strong sermon, an eloquent argument, or wide diction, but while the living, breathing voice of God goes unnoticed.

I know that I am not the only one with this problem.  This discrepency is magnified in so many small groups which watch videos, listen to sermon audio, and discuss theology as opposed to waiting on the move of the Spirit.  We, as a people, need to change this.  I love pastors, I love teaching, I love the truth they speak.  Yet I know their words will not hold a candle to the flame that is discernment through Christ.

Until I learn to hear his voice more consistently, I will continue to miss opportunities to speak truth and change.  From now on I want to be taught the sound of his voice, through his Word.

Memorial Thoughts

Memorial day came — and went.  A couple thoughts from the weekend.

Saturday I was reading on our porch (we have a large deck in the backyard), enjoying one of the first truely warm and sunny days of the year when all of a sudden five neighborhood wander into our backyard, throw a palette up against our large tree and proceed to climb it.  I was surprised only until I remember John telling me that the’d climbed the tree with the same kids earlier in the week.  Now apparently, our tree was their tree.  They came and went all weekend, they brought an ice chest (filled with root beer), pillows (cause who doesn’t like to take a nap in the shade), and lots of explicatives (cause cussing is about the only thing every twelve and half year old is good at).  I like kids, I like laughing, they can climb the tree any time as far as I’m concerned.

I saw Terminator.  I wasn’t impressed.  I like the Terminator series very much and I don’t have a lot of negative things to say about this particular film, other than it just didn’t engage me, didn’t hold my attention.  On the filp side I also saw War Dance and it was superb.  It’s a documentary about a primary school in the northern war zone of Uganda which competes in a national music competition.  The people I was with fell asleep, but I loved it.  Go forth and watch.

In Austin Memorial Day means going to Lake Travis,  eating Bar-B-Que, and watching the fireworks.  In Connecicut it starts with parades, which every city has way to early in the morning.  Is followed by a trip to the beach, though the water still to cold to get in, and finishes with a cookout minus the fireworks.  A cookout is not the same as a bar-b-cue but I’m so thankful to have friends to spend the day with, and places to go.  Way to go Connecticut.

Thoughts of Inheritance

For Man the future is fleeting.  For God future IS.  This has never been as plain to me as it has these last few weeks.  One of my favorite scriptures is Matthew 6:27 “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” The idea here is pretty straightforward.  DO NOT waste your life with concerns of what might be.  I’ve found it to be foundational for creating trust between God and I, and yet with the same hand I often I use this passage to justify my ignorance of future things.  Telling God I shall neither worry about the future nor strive for your glory in it.  This is all changing.

Starting in April, though surely not ending, God urged me to think hard about my inheritance.  Initially I had more questions than answers.  I was stubborn in my weakness, instead of being strong in his strength.  Then he used that pride to get my attention.  The story goes like this.

One of my best friends in the world visited me in The CT a few weeks ago.  He is, in all seriousness, an “ambassador” to a place not named America.  We were talking about missions, dreams, strategies and support when I asked how the “fund raising” was going.  A conversation began about how some are called to support, while others are called to go, yet the supporters are not without inheritance.  It is through their diligence, work, and prayer that they are able to “take part” in the great commission.

Hear my heart please.  I believe that idea to be true.  I believe that I have an inheritance in places like Turkey, like China, like Australia.  But when it was said on that day, when my close friend said this.  My chest puffed up.  I wanted to scream “I will create my own inheritance, outside of my support for you.”  Now my motives and thoughts hear are a completely different issue between Jesus and I.  I do believe, however, that my feelings in the moment were, are, God given.

I was reading about Jacob, in Genesis, the other day.  Right before he dies Jacob blesses Joseph’s sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.  He talks of the future inheritance through their bloodline and he says that Ephraim, the younger, will be greater than Manasseh, the older.  What’s important to remember here, aside from the fact that this situation is backwards from what culture would dictate at the time, is that this picture of blessing is the same portrait that Jacob is from.  It was Jacob, the younger brother, who gained the blessing of Isaac out from under Esau.  The cycle had perpetuated itself again.  When I read this I realized I felt like Manasseh, I felt like Esau, second to receive.

Those thoughts of pride and arrogance are apart from God.  What is not apart from God is the love and encouragement that came afterwards.  We, I, as an American Christian, do not have to wait for or earn our inheritance through secondary means.  While I believe that it does happen.  I do not think that it is, or should be a replacement for living “as if you are” a missionary, for in fact there is no “as if” about it, you are.

So God has me thinking about the types of things I would do if I were to live in another country.  He has me speaking into relationships as if it were the case.  Everyday I grow stronger in my conviction that The CT has more need than the rest of world.  Whether that is the case or not, it’s something I need to believe some days.  My future, immediate at least, is here and I will do everything I can to build up this place, to gain an inheritance in this city.  The city of my youth.

Everyday Is A Decision

I live in a new place.  I work a new job.  I have new friends.  I have a new life.  I see a new Jesus.

It has always been important for me to discuss myself.  Not in an arrogant, prideful way; well at least not always in that.  Simply that I enjoy talking and going through the person I am helps me realize who I am becoming — who God wants me to become.  I had a conversation today about my biggest fear.  My tongue was quick to answer this question.  It’s been the same answer since the day I decided my major would be Computer Science.  I fear stagnation.  I fear idleness.  I fear the wrong kinds of contentment, I fear losing passion.  I fear  all versions of “The American Dream”.  I fear the thought that college was the most passionate I am and ever will be.

Now I’m in Connecticut.  Now I make the coin.  Now I have a routine.  Now I’m where I thought I’d never be.  I remember telling a girl friend once that I couldn’t live in suburbia.  I do.  I told her that I couldn’t work a job that just helped other people get rich.  I do.  I remember judging her when she told me she was okay with those things, to an extent.  Forgive me.

I’m not writing to say that I know I’m supposed to be exactly where I am.  To suggest that this is what God wants for me.  I don’t know that he cares where I live.  I will not rationlize where I’ve come to be by suggesting that my eight hours in front of a computer and three with my roommate each night, constitute a life of purpose.  I’m learning about purpose.

I’ve learned that purpose is a daily choice.  Purpose and Will are not things which should be viewed through a holistic life lens.  Everyday I make the decision to be alive in Christ and let him change me, thus giving way to the work of the Holy Spirit through my body, or I choose not to.  Every single hour almost, I decide to live the suburban life or run from it.  Down to the conversations I have each day, I choose whether or not I will live the American Dream, or my own dream.

If this is the case then, my life hasn’t really changed that much, it’s not that new.  I’m left making the same decisions I was making in Austin.  I pray I make the life giving ones.