Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A pretty powerful video

We've been pretty busy... too busy to stop and think most days... moving and all. But I saw this video today and thought I'd add it. I used to really like Russ Taff and think that his story here is so honest and such a testimony to the power of a real Jesus to change lives today.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Proximity

I've noticed my lazy parenting skills recently. Its so easy to get frustrated with boys who are not behaving or heading toward potential problems from across the room. Next thing I know I'm raising my voice or getting one of them in trouble when I know that I could have prevented things by being near. I know this because when I stand up or begin to move in their direction, suddenly misbehaviours cease! Does my moving toward them indicate vengeance or punishment, not necessarily. It should indicate a desire to direct, protect and guide.



So then I was thinking about God.



God reminds me in 2 Timothy 3:16 that scripture is useful for teaching, correcting, training, and rebuking.

God came near to me, not so that I would be afraid, not to impress me with how awesome and big He is, not to get me in trouble but to show me love.
Think of the curtain in the temple at Jesus' death. The Bible tells us that it was ripped in two from top to bottom. We now have access to God, to that holiest of all places. And yet, I was thinking in terms of God and His movement toward us. He stepped out. He drew near. He made Himself known to us. He got tired of yelling at us from across the room and came near to us.

Hebrews tells us, chapter 9 I believe, that Jesus entered that true holiest of all holy places by going directly to the throneroom of God. Not just the earthly, symbolic separation has been torn down, but the real separation has been removed also. We now have access by grace, to come boldly before our God and see Him for who He is. What a comfort that is.

Revelation 5 reminds us of that in visual form too. The Lamb, from the midst of the throne opens the book and reveals the book of life. God, Himself, opens the way for us, when we couldn't do it.

So, now that God has gotten up and made His way across the room to us, what are we going to do?

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Choose an Identity


Those words, “choose an identity”, appear as you sign in to add comments to these blog postings. (Of course, you can always sign in anonymously and you are strongly encouraged to comment, just so I know who is checking this out!) Anyway, it got me thinking, again, about the internet and its anonymity.

Choose. You decide, who do you want to be? Do you like the real you? If not, be someone else. Does the rest of the world not understand you, be someone else. Be ornery, or nice. Be kind or spiteful. Be true or false. Be old, or young. Be male, or female. Be who you want to be, no one else knows… no one’s looking but God.

Of course, the anonymity also gives us the opportunity to say things and be misrepresented that we never would were we communicating face to face. The lack of accountability and the fact that the people who read what we write likely don’t know us, makes it easy to adopt a hard stance on an issue or with an individual. It also gives free reign to “free speech” advocates to abuse the intention of whoever came up with that term in the first place. Rather than speech seasoned with salt, we dump on the whole box.

Kierkegaard said, “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” And the man has a point. If we’d utilize the latter, the first would be less needed. Editing is a great option for email and posting on the internet. Asking a second opinion about a choice of words is not only a good idea, it’s wise. It took me a couple of years to realize that I was both allowing myself to get caught up emotionally in other people’s poor use of the internet and was baiting, or flaming in net terms, at times. Hopefully once we understand these things we can learn to get positive results out of the exchange of thoughts, ideas and opinions rather than anger and further polarizing that occurs at times.