God's little surprises

I was supposed to post this yesterday, but with the arrival of my new roommate, it kind of went out of my head :P.

Last night, after I got off work, I got myself ready and went to church. I went there on Sunday morning, and liked it well enough. It wasn't mind blowing, but it was comfortable, as it was a typical contemporary Southern Baptist service. I saw in the bulletin that they had a women's Bible study on Wednesdays at 6, so I decided to go. I almost didn't, because I was tired, and making myself go into new situations like that takes a fair amount of energy, not to mention guts :P. The study was on Nehemiah, with sort of a Beth Moore format (you know, watch a video, do the homework in the book that has been provided, discuss). I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about it, but then we broke up into small groups, and a girl (Mindy) I had been talking to before the study started offered for me to go into her group with her, so I did.

The discussion was good, but what really got to me was how friendly they were. They were amazed that I had moved all by myself from California to Texas. The thing that amazed me the most, however, was how quickly God allowed me to connect with Mindy. She's my age, likes to rock climb, and was a rappelling instructor for 5th graders in Colorado for a while. She also invited me to her movie night tonight.

I started out, terrified, and almost on the verge of an anxiety attack, and God turned it into a wonderful experience that allowed me to make a new friend, and even enabled me to be in a position to meet more potential friends tonight. He really is a good God. :)

On Dating and Courtship

I recently read an article (which you can find here addressing the issue of dating versus courtship. In brief, the article stated that the idea of courtship was a harmful one, especially in today's american culture, and that, furthermore, it would not prevent you from being divorced, or stuck in a lousy marriage.

While I agree that often times the idea of courtship is taken too far (i.e. girls not being allowed to talk to boys or God forbid be friends with them) I also think that there is a good solid base behind it. Having now been in two relationships, I can definitely say that the first one has changed the way I have acted in the second one, and most of the time, not in a good way. This is not necessarily because of any problems that occurred in the first one, but because I have been hurt (which is the natural result of a relationship ending. It's pretty much unavoidable 9 times out of 10). The result of this hurt is that I don't want to be hurt again, and therefore react in such a way so as to protect myself. I can only imagine how those who have been in multiple relationships react, especially given that no two guys are the same, and therefore the protective reaction will be added to a different part of you each time. This is not to say that people who date are making a mistake. It can be a very good learning experience, but For those who choose courtship, I don't think there will be any more damage done, quite possibly less.

The author's argument seems to be that people who follow the courtship model for relationships must shut down a natural part of themselves in order to achieve the goal of courtship. In doing so, they inhibit this part that develops a natural healthy relationship. Her argument is that courtship teaches people to fear love, for fear of being hurt, and in the process does more damage than a broken relationship does. I disagree, wholeheartedly. There are different extents to which the platform of courtship can be taken, and to say that all of it harms the people who participate, is wrong.

Before there was dating, there was courtship, and before courtship, there was arranged marriages. Each has it's pro's and con's, but to say that the scars caused by one relationship after another are better than learning how to wake up that part of you that has been put to sleep until now, doesn't make any sense to me. From personal experience, I think, the less you date, the better.
 

Memorable quotations from what I've read over Lent

All of the books I read over Lent pertained to spiritual growth of some kind. While it was difficult to get myself to read so many "informational" books all at once, I think I learned a lot. Here are some of my favorite quotes. (Sadly, I did not start recording them until I was a few books into the project, but the ones I do have I think are very helpful :) )

-From Dallas Willard's "The Spirit of the Disciplines"

"The secret to the easy yoke is immersing and persisting in the overall style of life that characterized Jesus"

"A close look at Jesus' great acts of humility, faith, and compassion recorded in the gospel narratives finds them to be moments in a life more pervasively and deeply characterized by solitude, fasting, prayer, and service. Surely, then, the lives of his followers must be just as deeply characterized by those same practices"

"We must to the root of the poisonous assumption that normal acts are excluded from our life in God"

"The human body was made to be the vehicle of human personality ruling the earth for God and through his power. Withdrawn from that function by loss of it's connection with God, the body is caught in the inevitable state of corruption in which we find it now. "

"In that desert solitude (Jesus 40 days of fasting), Jesus fasted for more than a month. Then, and not before was Satan allowed to approach Him with his glittering proposals of notoriety and power. Only then was Jesus at the height of His strength. The desert was his fortress, His place of power." (This particular quote presents the temptation of Jesus in a different way than I had thought of before, and will probably get it's own blog post)

"A discipline for the spiritual life cannot be identified merely by the externals of the associated action. It, like the circumcision of the Jews, is a matter of a meeting of external and internal conditions; that is, outward manifestation and inward motivation must both be right. Rejection of spiritual disciplines because of an identification of them wit the outward acts alone simply does not go the heart of the matter."

"The spiritual life is a life of interaction with a personal God"

"Christianity is not, at it's heart, a collection of dogmas or practices of ideas or confessions; it is a life, and more particularly, it is Christ's life into which the faithful are joined and have their share. Christians are those who live their lives "in Christ" as participants in his life of self-sacrificial glory."


-From a collection of essays on Baptism from different denominations:

(From the essay by an Epispocal priest)"Some signs, like $5 bills, actually are what they represent; but other signs, such as Mcdonald's stylized M, point beyond themselves to something else." (Maybe this is a little bit obvious, but given that the context was the discussion of baptism, he was arguing that while everyone agrees that baptism is a sign, some think it is more than that, and some think it is only that)

"(On the process that is followed after baptism) When [the child] comes to the years of discretion, which might be anywhere from 7-14 years of age, the child makes a personal commitment to Christ in the rite of confirmation and receives the laying on of hands from the Bishop with prayer for the strengthening gifts of the Holy Spirit."

From the essay on Baptism by a Baptist pastor:

"Baptists have tended to spiritualize becoming a Christian so that Spirit and Water Baptism have become separated in a way that is untrue to the new testament...Baptists would do better to avoid the danger of over-spiritualizing and internalizing conversion and Christian faith."

"Baptism is in the name of the Triune God, and Baptists often use this as a formula spoken at the moment of immersion. It means this, but it also means more than this. It is a semitic phrase that means that in baptism, a person is brought into an existence that is fundamentally determined and ruled by God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

"To separate baptism from conversion is to depart from New Testament baptism. If [the children] are old enough to believe in Christ, then they are old enough to be baptized."

(This is a summarization of what I read, not an exact quote. As such, I will probably expound on my thoughts in another post)The rejection of infant baptism is tied directly to the rejection of Original sin. Instead of believing that infants are born in sin and should therefore be baptized, infants are believed to be born in innocence and therefore lack the need to be baptized.

-From "Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom:

"Too often, the kind of thanksgiving we offer is too much a general thanksgiving and the kind of repentance we bring to God is too much a general repentance."

"We can't live a life of prayer, we can't go ahead Godwards, unless we are free from possession in order to have two hands to offer, and heart absolutely open...and an intelligence completely open to the unknown and the unexpected. This is the way in which we are rich, and yet totally free from richness."

"Unless the prayer we offer to God is important and meaningful to you first, you will not be able to present it to the Lord. If you are inattentive to the words you pronounce, if your heart does not respond to them, or if your life is not turned in the same direction as your prayer, it will not reach out Godwards."

"It is not enough to learn prayers by heart. Unless they are "lived" unless life and prayer become completely interwoven, prayers become a sort of polite madrigalwhich you offer to God at moments when you are giving time to Him."

"If, in your morning prayer, you have said a phrase, you must live up to this phrase in the course of a day...if you can keep to one sentence for one hour without breaking it, you will be lucky, but do it!...however, you may say 'I don't feel very strongly about these words.' If these words express a basic conviction, but you feel nothing at the moment, turn to God in repentance...you can express to God your misery, your sorrow, your disgust, with yourself, and come back with the determined will to tell God what is true and that your will is united with His."

"It is a curious fact that many today who that in the period of the judges, all did 'what was right in their own eyes' think that something terrible was covered by that phrase. Indeed, the people of this time went wrong in many ways. But to do as one pleases is the ideal condition of humanity, what is often called 'freedom' and does not imply wrongdoing at all. In the book of judges doing what was right in ones own eyes was not opposed to doing what was right in God's eyes, but opposed to doing what some government official saw as right. God has all along intended that we walk with him on a personal basis, be pleased by the right things, and then do what is right in our own eyes.This is why we were made, and what constitutes our individuality."

"The future, whatever you do about it, will become the present, and so there is no need to try to jump out of the present into the future."

"You may say 'shall I have time to do it at all?'...if you do not die first, you will have time to do it. If you die before it is done, you don't need to do it."

"What can prevent you from praying is that you allow yourself to be in the storm, or you allow the storm to come inside you instead of raging all around you."

"The feebleness of infant limbs is innocent, not the infants mind."

Lent

For the third year in a row now, I've decided to observe lent. I think I'm actually starting on time this year, and actually have something workable. I think I've mentioned in past posts on lent that I have a hard time with giving up a food type item because I don't see the spiritual benefit to it (not that it's not there for others, just not for me). The first year I tried to observe lent, I didn't actually wind up giving up what I had intended to give up (an extra hour of sleep) so I didn't really wind up observing it. Last year, I tried to give up watching t.v., thinking I would spend time more wisely, and hopefully more focused on God. That was short lived because all it did was separate me from the community in my apartment (which was rocky at the time anyway, so further separating myself just seemed to make things worse), so then I tried giving up "excess internet time" (things like facebook, and mindlessly clicking through websites. I did manage to give that up, but there were no real positive spiritual results. That brings us to this year. I actually got a head start on it, because I didn't want to wait, and as long as I was in the mood for it, it would be easier than otherwise. This year, I am giving up my novels.

I have a passion for reading, but novel reading in particular. If I could be doing anything I wanted to, I would choose to spend my time with my nose in a good novel. I don't actually do a lot of this, given my schedule, but you get the idea. I have for some time, however, thought of my aversion to reading factual or self-help kinds of books. I know they would be good for me to read. They would help me grow spiritually, and mentally. I know this because I spent the last 3 1/2 years of life reading mostly theological and philosophical books for school (although most of them had to be read too quickly for me to really digest what they said). I had a desire to spend time reading these books, but knew that I would not do it if I did not force myself to stop reading my novels. So here we are, year 3, and I think I might have actually made a commitment to something that will have the effects I am looking for.

So far, I'm really enjoying the books I'm reading, and I don't really miss my novels yet. Some of it I think is because when I get bored of what I am reading, I can put it down and do something else. It's okay to read these books slowly (reading a book quickly is something I sort of pride myself on) and doing so allows me to digest more of what is being said. We'll see how the actual time of lent turns out, but I'm looking forward to it. :)

Crazy Love

Just finished reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I had a little bit of a hard time understanding what the point was at first, because he talked a lot about what not to do...don't stress(instead, give it to God, much easier said than done), don't talk at God (talk to God), don't be lukewarm (and here's what a lukewarm person looks like!). It was kind of frustrating, but see, I have this thing about reading that when I start a book, I kind of bully myself if I don't finish it. I also thought I owed it to the book to see where it was going. So I kept reading. I am very glad I did. By the time I got to the end of the book, it was no longer telling us what not to do, but telling us what is meant by "crazy love" and even a little bit of what that looks like. It spoke about Christ's call to live an extraordinary life, rather than the privileged lives the majority of us lead. It was basically a call to action, without telling us specifically that we should go to the missions field, or sell our houses.

See, the reason it started with what not to do was in order to lay the groundwork of listening to what God has to say to us, personally. A lot of times, I feel that the church has missions conferences, and everyone gets fired up about going to the missions field. But what if that is not God's call for your life? I think that often times people who are not called to go over seas get guilt-ed into thinking they are bad Christians because they don't feel like overseas missions is what they are supposed to. But what if you are supposed to live for Him right here where you live? You obviously live where you live and work where you work for a reason, so why not do what God is asking you to do right where He has placed you right now?

I like the way the book ends, because it allows you that option. If you are called to sell your car and take public transportation, then do it! If you are called to work hard and be a light at your place of work, then do it! The only warning the book gives is to not wait to do what God calls you to do until you feel good about it. If He has told you to do it, then obey. I remember being told growing up that "delayed obedience is disobedience." It's true! If God tells you to do something RIGHT NOW, then you darn well better do it NOW. But don't do what He has not asked you to do. He will support you when you obey Him, but doing something because someone else tells you to, or makes you feel guilty for not doing is not an act of love.

We are called to love God with our whole hearts, and as a result, we need to be ready and willing to do His bidding, regardless of what it is. So get off your butt, give up your mediocre life, and live like God has called you to live.

Judgment

So something I realized the other day after a conversation I had with a friend was that those of us Christians of the "Evangelical" or more correctly protestant side of things tend to feel like they have the right to decide, among Christian denominations, which denominations are Christian, and which are not. Obviously the most common belief is that liturgical churches are wrong, and all of their members are just as lost as the people we witness to on missions trips. What gives us the right to decide that? It's true that the two types of churches have very different practices and beliefs, but the majority of them agree on the fundamentals of Christianity. The most common argument, of course is that liturgical churches are "dead" or "legalistic" and therefore practice works based salvation rather than faith based salvation. But just because you don't understand something doesn't make it legalistic "works based" salvation.

The other argument I have heard a lot is that of the people who go to liturgical churches, the majority of them are the kind that just go through motions without really believing. Ummm...judgment? Yea. I can't count the number of people I know or knew growing up at a protestant (Baptist) church who were there on sunday mornings and wednesday nights who no more acted like Christians than their athiest friends at school. For some reason though, protestants have decided it is their job to make everyone believe the same way they do. Yet for some reason, the people on the other end of the spectrum have no problem with believing that protestants are Christians.

It seems to me that the problem is the same, and the results are the same. Those who really live out their faith are the ones who are truly saved, regardless of what church they attend. Some of the people who are loved the most in the Christian community went to Liturgical churches. C.S. Lewis would be a great example. No one in their right mind would question his salvation, yet there seems to be an overall consensus that if you go to a liturgical church and are a Christian you are the distinct minority. Why don't we try backing off a little bit and instead of witnessing to them, treating them like the brothers and sisters in Christ that they are?

Perelandra and Preface to Paradise Lost

For the C.S. Lewis class i am (re)taking this semester, I had to write a paper critically comparing Perelandra and Preface to Paradise Lost. I found that towards the end, it sounded a bit like a book review, which was not my goal, but might make for interesting reading for you. Therefore, I give you a brief blurb of what I wrote.

Perelandra shows what might have happened if Eve had not given in to Satan, while Preface to Paradise Lost shows exactly what Satan was capable of. He is the bad guy in either situation. Perelandra is a good way to look at the situation because it shows what we are capable of, even today.

While it is nice to look at the story, and understand that it would have been possible for Eve to have chosen otherwise, it makes no sense for us to only look at it in such a way because then all we do is blame Eve more for the decision she made. Instead, it would be far more helpful for us to look at it as a means to say no today. We do have the ability to say no to the temptations Satan brings our way because we are Christians and are given the ability by God. As Christians, we have been made perfect, just like Adam and Eve were perfect when they were created. It is the state of perfection that allows us to say no. Preface to Paradise Lost also gives us this option. By focusing on Satan as the bad guy, instead of Eve as the one who made a bad decision, or even as the helpless victim, we are shown that we do have strength to say no whenever we are tempted by Satan.

Because of this knowledge, these two books are immensely helpful in our Christian walk. They work in Tandem with the Bible to give us practical advice and solid examples of how we can do what God asks of us. In so doing, they empower us to live as God wants us to live, and therefore allow us to defeat Satan on a daily basis. He may be the bad guy, but he is powerless, if we choose to make him powerless.