Well Hello to all and to all a hello.

I’m now at Malibu doing an internship as a maintenance guy.  It has been so amazing so far.  A perfect transition from a brain packing full semester at school to a bunch of physical work for 8 – 10 hours a day.  It has given me great time to spend with God.  Being in a place to beautiful brings a great desire in my heart to go comtemplate things that are going on in my life.  God has been really gracious in bringing new life into my heart.  I can’t wait to serve more and I can’t wait to spend hours upon hours trying to make this camp function well and look nice.  Sure I have a big learning curve, but the people here are so amazing and are willing to teach me everything necessary to get me productive. 

I  can see how this time is a great time of reflection put in place by God.  After my semester in Jerusalem of studying Islam and Jewdaism and facts about the Bible, I find my faith trying to grasp onto something not so simple.  I caught myself in Jerusalem getting to more of a legalistic and life taking mindset.  Upon coming to Malibu God has irradicated that idea and set me straight.  My heart is in a place of simple desire to serve, and that is what I am doing. 

The community here is something I am most greatful for.  Out of all the place I have been now and all the things I have done, I can’t help but realize that a community living together with the mindset to serve is in fact that best place to be.  It is a community that has great joy and as well great struggle, but with a heart set on serving God’s people God takes care of those situations.  Struggles just become a greater means to show how much you love those around you.  When conflict arises between two it is simply another set in place event to prove to the other that you care more about them then about the conflict.  It is awesome.  We’ll see how things go as the summer progresses, it has only been 3 weeks…  So I’m sure harder times will come. But as is stands now the Lord is providing some amazing life memories for all the people here.

I havn’t taken any pictures yet so I don’t have any to put up… but I’m sure I’ll get on that soon enough.  I hope all is well for whoever is reading these.  And I thank-you to all who read these and are able to take part in what God is doing in my life.

Blessings

This is most likely my last entry from Jerusalem.  I have no more tests or homework.  I just finished editing my last final exam paper and I’m getting ready to head out to Jordan for 6 days then leave for Canada right after.  Having got my work done I have been able to spend some more time walking around the getting better aquainted with this funny historical city.  Funny because there is absolutly not city like it anywhere in the world.  With this much history, this much religious mixture, and this much old things I don’t think I’ll ever be in a place like it again.  Maybe I’ll never even come back to Israel…  I’m taking this into account and spending much time hanging out around the city taking pictures and the like.

Kitten at the Temple Mount

I went shopping to get some last minuet gift as well.  I have quite a few, but have no yet decided who I am going to give which to which person.  They are all pretty cool though…  I hope you enjoy them.  This entire experience has been an amazing experience of opening my mind to so much.  I can even begin yet to explain what it has meant to me…  maybe this next 4 months spent doing maintenance work at Camp Malibu will be a helpful time to unpack all that I really experienced.  The people are amazing, the learning was amazing, the challenges were hard.  My devotion seem to be taking the shift of God teaching me about perservierience to having a peaceful heart again.  Making the transition from spending all my time learning to spending all my time serving will be awesom, even the Lord is preparing my heart for it.  My lessons are consisting of how I really need people to hold me accountable.  I have had to repent in not having any people really here to do so, I started a group the last week here.  We had an awesome meeting and I was able to really speak my heart and concrete what God has exactly been doing in these crazy 4 months.  I guess I could now say that my lessons have been made into cement blocks now, but I still don’t know what they will build.  Perhaps it will help me teach, perhaps it will help me understand, perhaps it will make for more intimacy with God, or perhaps it will make me all the more loveable to God… (<– Interesting lesson I had yesterday and today while doing my devotions on that).

Nick looking intenty at the camera

I have been reading the book by CS Lewis “The problem of Pain”.  It has challenged my view of God on suffering in many good ways.  Amongst my reading the Bible, prayer, homework, reading CS Lewis, and playing music that Lord has conjured up some interesting themes that overlap in them all.  One big one on what exactly waisting time is and what waiting time isn’t in God’s eyes.  Wull see what the outcome is soon enough, but as of now I stand challenged.

I borrowed my roommates camera and began learning how to use things such as aperture and exposure…  He sent me on my way without explanation more than, “just stay off manual, it is too complicated”.  So the whole time I left it on Manual and learned from experience how not to take entirely white picture or entirely black pictures.  It was actually quite an awesome new experience and makes me want to get into picture taking more.  Perhaps gettin one of those cameras that make the real shutter noise… the ones that actually make your hand shift when you push the picture take button because the shutter moves to fast.  Oooo that would be fun.  I think I will go picture taking tomorrow as well.

Confused Cat with Baby...

I looke forward to being home after a long (very long) travel home.  I go directly from traveling all day in Jordan to traveling to the airport to Toronto, then stopping in Calgary, and then finally home at like 12:00 in the afternoon on May 15th.  Though I leave on the 15th and travel for a whole day, I still get back on the 15th…  I get to live the day twice!

Which one is the Temple Mount? Dome A? B? or C?

Well as everything that is bound by time comes to an end, my time here is coming to an end.  It seems ending are of the theme this week.  Doing all my ending papers; getting ready for the end trip; studying how Jews practice the end of life; I had to end the life of a monster spider…, this chapter of my life is now ending.  The people here I know so well, are going to be again but smells and pictures.  I had written before about this idea of the past being only, when it comes down to it, something we smell and then have a picture in our heads.  It will be like that, though wull see what differences the Lord will bring from what I had done here.  Perhaps this time I will miss people; perhaps not…  I come to the conclusion that I am not good as missing people.  I don’t fully know why yet, but when it comes to being somewhere else where people that I usually am with are not there, I don’t get that feeling that so many people describe as missing.  Sure it would be great to have people around, the more the marrier, but I really wonder about this.  Am I born with it?  Is it a gift?  Or a curse?  Maybe being somewhere in the middle is best…  Because when it comes down to it some of the people here will be like they are dying.  I will never see them again, never talk to them again, never experience things with them again…  They will be but a picture in my head and perhaps later on in life I will wonder what a smell reminds me of, and it will be them, then the pictures of what he experienced together will come back.  Then I will have the decision before me, to want those experiences so bad again that I act in a way that promotes them, or I will decide to accept them as they were and look forward to having new ones like it…

Jordan Entry

We had our last trip for learning the land of Israel.  It was a 4 day trip that I will never lose smell of!  The picture will play back in my head over and over because it was something that I will most likely never experience something similar to.  It was a rare thing, and rare things I remember well.  We went to tones of places that no one would know, because they are mentioned like once or twice in some place in the Old Testament.  Those names or places that you say, “I’ll never remember”… I’ve been there!  haha.  I remember them well because I have a test coming up on them and I need to know them for a different purpose.  I got pictures and 360 video shots of basically all of them.  See if you recognize the names: Dibon… Bozrah… Ammon… Rabbah…  They are place in the Bible, I promise…  But I’m sure all who read this will know of the place Petra.  Maybe not by the name Petra, but by the movie Indiana Jones.  Quite the experience of a movie to remember, even though I didn’t live it, I remember that one well.  I went to that place where the Holy Grail is kept!  That place where the Old guy says, “You have chosen… … … … Wisely”.  You know what I’m talking about.

I followed the Map that Indiana had, and this is what I found...

But as well as being an amazing trip, it was somewhat emotional at the end.  We finished out last stop at Mt. Nebo, the place where Moses was told by God that he was to die and not enter the promised land.  You could tell our teacher had planned all this talks out wisely in the way that his speeches were so polished and appropreate for what was happeneing in our lives.  It was quite the emotional ending.  It seems my missing has already been done.  I felt sad and realized that this section of experience will end.  I wont be able to see these people, do the same things, experience the same lifestyle…  This chapter is ending.  I miss it now so I don’t have to later I guess.  I get home then 5 days later have to move to another chapter.  Home it seems has been the preface for each new chapter of my life.  I go home for a month or two to add to the confusion of how I fit in there, then leave and restart the process of meeting new people, having the beginning times where people don’t like to have akward silences.  I get to have those talks where I give my life story in a nutshell.  I don’t mind…  I actually really love the new.  But I don’t know how I would experience the non-new anymore.  If I were to stay somewhere for more than a year, I wonder how I would cope.  I think Tsawwassen should be the next chapter of my life.  Experience the life of working for money sake, eating for my stomach sake, sleeping for my sleepiness sake, and hanging for desires sake.

"The edge of the World", as the sign said...

It seems the end of this part of the world is coming to an end for me.  Maybe it does not actually exist once I leave…  I’ll never know.  Do tree make a noise when they fall when no one is around?  hmmmm?  Anyways…  All that to say, I’ll be coming home in about 3 weeks.  But until then, I will continue to add to the amount of smells that remind me of things.  I love you all at home, and hope all is well.  God Bless

Look out to what Moses saw as he was told he wasn't to go to the promise land...

It has been an interesting week here in Jerusalem.  The whole city is in crazy people mode.  There is hundreds and hundreds of people walking around looking at stuff.  It is passover week, plus the week of Jesus death, plus the week of the Samaritan sacrifice.  Having Easter here has brought to life much of its importance.  It seems that the North American practice of hiding chocolates around the house for their kids to find, just doesn’t regester to people over here.  At times I can see why many consider the North American church as sleeping…  Just as we North Americans would look kinda funny upon those that walk around with insence and worship to pictures of marry, they look funny upon our Christmas trees and chocolate hunts.  They had a march of like 12,000 christians of all the world coming down the mount of olives.  Many carried palm branches, others came down with music, others came down with whole marching bands.  It is a skinny road so it takes hours for this march.  The whole eastern side of the city shuts down for it.  Hearing all the different languages singing as they came down made the idea of Jesus ruling the nations much more impactful in my mind.  I heard mandrin singing, arabic singing, english singing, hebrew singing, you name it ever nation under God was represented…  It was an awesome experience.

Mt of Olives decent

This week has been absolutly busy for not just the city but myself as well.  Not so much with school work, but just with event after event.  We went to the march, went of a 4 hour hike, then to a sheep sacrifice, set-up for a special old cultural dinner where we laid around a table and ate what people would have ate in the Bible times, and then it was today…  The sheep sacrifice was interesting, it is that samaritan group that I mentiond before that only believe in the first 5 books of the Old Testament.  It was a bit disturbing, but definetly and experience that I will never forget and will forever change my view of different ways of life…

Roasting Sheep Skin (It didn't smell good...)

Personally I have been doing really well.  Perhaps this trip is not at all like my Germany trip in the sense of how I am learning and able to help other, but God is working in his suddleties…  I am being challenged in whole new ways.  This week was a challenge of taking the cross and Jesus life more seriously.  It came to my mind that one of the greatest promises I continually remind myself is that I am eventually going to make it to heaven.  In light of looking to heaven I am able to be joyous, loving, and not so worried about how I am percieved or how I do.  I will eventually get old and live my life as an old person…  I will eventually be like this lady I saw in the back of a church.  It seemed as though she was an amazing artist because from a distance she was drawing to fast while looking at a garden sceen.  She had loads of makeup on and had not a care for this random 21 year old coming up behind her.  Little did I realize that her drawing was simply scribbles that had been drawn really fast.  It almost looked like a tree that a 3 year old could draw…  Eventually I will be there.  Eventually I will be able to see God in the peace that heaven is coming up soon…  This is how I look at my end, and still I am so disobedient to live how God wishes…  I looked to Jesus, and what did he see…  What has his promise?  He had the cross to look forward to.  In light of all those he was loving around him and all those that he helped, he knew he would have to eventually die in the most horrible way known to man.  He knew from the start that his life was a living sacrifice upon a cross.  He was to be like those sheep I saw get massacred and put onto stakes…  Now if that was my promise… would I even still be obedient at all?  I would run away…  Just as all his disciples did…  Yet this is was I deserve.  I deserve the worst thing that man has to offer, in fact I deserve the worst thing God has to offer…  I deserve to take up my cross and die…  Yet we are called to something greater… we get to now follow Jesus.  That comment in the Bible where Paul says, “take up your cross and follow Jesus” has a much deeper meaning to me now.  I have the promise of going to heaven and that is what keeps me going…  Jesus had a promise of the cross…  how did he keep going?  Going through those temptation of Satan, Jesus knew he would have to be on the cross;  Going through his childhood, Jesus knew he would have to be on the cross;  Going through the constant tiring 3 years of non-stop ministry, he knew he would have to be on the cross.  Yet he was always obedient.  Never once did he fade from the objective God had given him.  Man…  I am not worthy.  It is even too much of an honor to be able to carry my cross with Jesus.  My life is to be be in light of that as well.  It is to realize that in the end it is but a sacrifice.  It is God’s for the sake of his doing on earth.  I’ll get my time in eternity… but until then God should have the right to use my life in anyway he pleases.  I did in fact commit my life to him in baptism.  It’s not mine anymore.  Weird that that actually is a source of complete joy.  That takes every worry and leave it with God.  If my life truly is his, then what do I have to worry about besides trying to take it back?

I also went to Elot

I forgot to mention but I went for three days to a place with clearn blue water!  It was awesome…  We did snorkling and all sorts of things.  It was a trip not with the school, but about 12 of us went down for three days and had an awesome hot time.  It was really hot.  I saw some really colourful fish.

Holding up a tower in Elat

Beth Shean

This picture above was taken as Beth-Shean.  One of the major cities of the Old Testament where Saul went ant took over.  It was a really beautiful city full of many different layers of time.  You had the time of Israel ruling, Egypt ruling, Persia, and then the grand pillars of Rome as you can see in the back.

These past two weeks have been absolutely crazy.  Having had a 4 day trip to Galilee really made a mess of every other class.  Though of course I don’t mind, I mean, I got to go stay at a hotel and learn about the Galilee for 11 hours a day.  We basically wake up at 6 am, eat breakfast, then head out on the bus making stops wherever our teacher has planned.  This goes on until 6pm or 7pm. We write notes, we take pictures, we stand in the sun, we stand in the rain and learn!

B-e-a-utiful

Galilee was one of the most beautiful places we have been so far.  It actually reminded me much of Canada, minus the really huge mountains all over the place.  We hiked up Mt. Arad where there were cows all over the place and really amazing flowers.  It is prime season time for all the wild flowers to be out, so basically you are walking through a garden the whole time.  But as well as hiking I was able to find a nice rock and think about stuff as I like to do.  Thinking about how Jesus grew up in this area and seeing why God chose it.  I mean I’m sure there were greater eternal reasons, but just to think about the smaller things like perhaps he chose it for its beauty and abundance of agricultual possibilities.  Jesus was able to grow up in and area that has been one of the most beautiful I have ever seen…  The smells alone would make me want to live there.  People kept making fun of me because I would be sniffing the whole time.  I love smells.  Smell of open air, flowers, and sweat!  haha.

Me and Stephen Carr Eating at our Hostel / Hotel

It has been really encouraging and fun to be around a group of people my age.  Basically everyone here is either 21 or 20.  We have been able to really connect and do amazing things together.  Though we have been together for only two months now, it is amazing to see how close we can come having God as our basis for what we are doing.  Just the other day we had some visitors who were Christians but going to a secular school and living the non-Christians.  They said the thing they loved the most about coming to our school was the people that love God.  They were able to be encourage just by being around us.  It made me really see just how important it is to have those around you who love God and are seeking him.  Perhaps I have taken it for granted because I have been around them for basically the past 3 years.  Quest, Trek, School, Jerusalem, next…Camp Malibu.

Our Classroom...

Well, I’ve got about a month a half to go.  I will be praying and hoping for the best back home.  God Bless!

I just had one of the most amazing weekends of my life. We did our first three day trip. We went all over Judah: Beth-shemesh, Beer-sheva, Masada, the Dead Sea, and much more.  The only thing is I forgot my camera in my room…  But I’ll get pictures from my roommate soon enough so I can remeber and show the places.  I’ve never gone in water before where you actually don’t have to do anything to stay afloat.  It was one of the weirdest sensations I’ve ever experienced.  You stand in the water without moving, and you stay there…  One interesting fact is that if you try to cross it you would dehydrate before makeing it because the wating your own body will want to go into the Sea to make it less salty.  It’s 38% Salt…  But we did the mud bath and everything as well a group of us found a hole with gross smelling mud that apparently is really good for your skin and put it all over.  It stunk and crusted making my skin feel weird, but it didn’t seem to make my complexion any softer, if I may say so.

Jerusalem Walk

Things have been interesting as of late.  It seems the longer I am here the more I see the difference of what going in a culture to do ministry looks like and what going into a culture to study looks like.  I am constantly tied between wanting to serve, yet I struggle to even find time to leave the school.  I serve those around me… though it seems my passion just isn’t as fervent when I have the ever pressing assignments in the back of my mind.  I’m trying different things like waking up early to spend the first time of my day with the Lord… Yet without service on my mind it seems something is missing.  I do my homework with God in mind, yet I still feel that it is not enough…  I’m seeing patterns of what happens when I don’t serve.  I begin to forget what God has done for me and through me.  I forget those thing that I once would tell at every moments chance.  Maybe it’s because people here are all so biblically informed that I feel I don’t need to share…  Maybe it’s because I am not spending as much time focused one God as I should…  Or maybe the route of all these negative thoughts is because I am not serving and loving those around me.

I found great encourgement today in talking with an elderly man who teaches at the school.  He just has stories upon stories that I love to listen to.  Though it wasn’t just the stories that held my attention, but the lesson of simplicity and humility.  Here is a man who has been teaching 40 years before I was even thought of yet.  He is nearing the ending years of his life.  He made it… some might say…  I’ve been pondering what I am trying to get at here for the past 5 mins…  But an sense of peace came over me as I listened.  We were able to talk about meaningful things, not just funny stories from our pasts (as much talking has been with the youth around me).  His comfort of being able to still sit with me even though we would both not being saying anything…  His peace about telling stories that we both knew wern’t that funny, though we would laugh anyways for the sake of laughing.  It is this comfort that I was able to grasp for a while as I talked with him.  The rememberance that someday I will make it…  Someday I will be able to tell stories that were years past those that I am telling them to…  Someday I will be so close to death that worrying would be confined only to eternity and not to what I am going to do with my time here…  Worry will have gotten old…  I will have seen its face for so many years that eventually gotten used to it and no longer bothered to acknowledging it.  There is something very wise in one who is old…  Not just their words…  But because they see like very different then a young buck like myself.  They have gone through the trials that seemed like a lifetime at the time…  The ones I go through.  They have gone through the doubts…  I ones I am yet to face…  They have gone through life and found out how complex such a simple thing as life tries to get.  God told us to respect our elders… maybe there was more to it then just a rule, but a blessing in the waiting.  Maybe the intention of respecting our elders is not only because they require help to do the simple at times, but because they have made it.  They know they how precious time is, and how much of a waste it is when we give it to worry…

Me laughing in a tree

I can’t wait to be old…  Though maybe I can start being old now… hah!

Well!  Things are going superb as of today.  The weather is around the 20 and I’m finally getting long periods of time in the sun.  This upcoming weekend we are going on a three day feild study to the Negev, Dead Sea, and Southern Judah in general.  We get to go swimming, (or should I say floating) in the Dead Sea.  The salt content is so high that you can’t actually stay under very easily.  I wouldn’t mind getting a jar of Dead Sea water and bringing it home… It would make for some good drinking…

This past weekend, as the pictures posted, we went to Northern Israel all around Samaria.  It was a great trip of seeing old things and celebrating the new.  There were three birthdays within a one week period, so we celebrated them on the bus.  These past week we must have sung happy birthday 15 times.  Once for every meal for every person. Samaria was one of the most beautiful places in all of Israel.  Many places actually looked like BC with loads of greenery and trees.  Northern Israel is actually quite green…  It is crazy to see the contrast.  Literally it will be dessert on one side of a hill and totally green on the other.  All the hills and mountains make for some crazy humidity levels and crazy rain whether.  So much of the life depends on the rain here that if there is none then living here is almost impossible.

Bus Birthday

This past week has been a climax in a lesson God has been showing me.  Though it was a really hard one to go through… it was very necessary.  It was the lesson of experiential faith verses text faith.  That is, faith that is encouraged by experience something, and then finding the explanation of it in the Bible verses faith that is encouraged through trusting what the text says about it even without experiencing it.  This whole past few weeks it seems my view of Jesus has been trampled on.  Having teachers that are Jewish who can prove Jesus as false with really good reasoning…  Having teachers that used to be Muslim, that just the same can prove both Jews and Christians wrong with good reasoning…  Reading books about people that experience intimacy with God without believing that Jesus actually is God…  Writing papers about people who even claim Jesus as God, yet still live their lives totally different then I would even imagine.  There were these people called Stylists in the Eastern church who would stand on poles for reminder to pray.  One guy stood atop for 38 years…  38 Years!  I don’t know if I wrote about this in a previous blog… but it just seems to be way out of my league.  What am I to believe about Jesus?  What am I to believe about hearing his voice?  Am I sure that I am hearing it when all he calls me to do is read the Bible and pray…  Or is my imagination getting the best of me…  Am I just trying so hard to hear God, that I am making things up?  …Perhaps I am exaggerating a bit…  But these questions are thrown in your face simply by walking through the city.  You see three section of people just as passionate as the other as to their experiences and their written text.  It has ripped my idea of experiencail faith into peices.  Or should I say God has…  It has been a hard lesson because no longer can I simply rely on telling people that God is real because I have experienced this and that…  No longer will I put my trust in such experiences in order for my faith to grow.  Though I will never forget them for remeberance of God’s faithfulness sake…  but it will no longer define my faith.  My faith… as God reminded me so graciously… is in Jesus…  If I were to begin going on the trail of experience over text, then where would my faith go?  If I were to base my faith on experience, then would it even be faith?  Would it not then only be something that I have to see to believe?  It would be based off proof rather than faith.

Looking at Mt. Ebal (right), & Mt. Gerizin (left), Shechem in the middle.

One of the biggest questions that I am waiting for God to convince my heart of is: What makes a follower of Jesus different?  if Muslims are just as worried about the poor as Christians…  If Jews are just as worried about interpretation as our leading Jesus-professing interpreters…  If there are thousands of people that experience intimacy with God without the means of Jesus… Then what is Jesus?  Perhaps you can see why my idea of experiencial faith has been crushed…  For there are many things that simply cannot be answered by experience.  There are things that only trust in the text can explain.  For if my faith is only based on experience then I will forever be stuck on the path that God let me experience for a few days here.  A path with no direction.  A path with no real truth.  A path with no real hope…  A path that just goes in a great big circle.  And man, was even a few days on that path hard.  I felt so lost.  I tried simply letting go of the Bible to see what would happen.  Thankfully the Lord kept to his promise to bring my back.  It reminded me of what my life was like before God truely revealed himself to me throught the base of his word, and the confirmation of his experiencial gift.

The Bible is the foundation…  Without it, experience can never be classified.  Without it, experience can prove anything.  Without it, you will never know if it truly is Jesus you are experiencing, or simply a counterfit trying to steal you away from the true vine.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful… Remain in me, and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself…”   — Jesus

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patients, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”

Interesting that God proved it to me by showing me what happens when you take for granted being in the vine and then try living without it…  As soon as I let go I stopped desiring love.  Let me never take for granted being in the vine…  Let me never take for granted that I have access to the foundation of truth: the Bible.

Samaritans (They still exist) There of 800 of them left...

Place where Jesus was tempted...

This is too glorious, too wonderful to believe! I can never be lost to your Spirit! I can never get away from my God! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there; if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there.  If I ride the morning winds to the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, your strength will support me.  If I try to hide in the darkness, the night becomes light around me.  For even darkness cannot hide from God; to you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are both alike to you.” Ps. 139

Things are continuing on.  The days are going faster and faster.  Though it seems every week is better then the last.  This past two weeks has been an enormous amount of learning facts and truths.  I say the facts and truths becuase sometimes facts don’t prove anything, they just get in the way of it.  We have been going to all the places that are “Possibly” the places where Jesus did this, or where that city was located, or where this event happened.  It is interesting to see just how hazy things are for those that are supposed to be seen at the specialist.  The walls of Jericho first first proven to be found in 1950, but then due to bad excavation it was proven eitherwise later…  There is a church over where Jesus was born…  But apparently it is proven that it actually wasn’t there.  I get to hear not only the tour guides comments about what happened, but the scientists perspective of what the facts actually say.  It seem the facts just never line up perfectly…

Being among all these really smart people has been crazy.  There is just oodles and goodles of knowledge around me.  I have a question I just ask one of the guys who has his PHD, or the guy who recites who books from memory if you so ask him (It took him 45 mins to go through the whole book of Revelation…), or ask the guy who has written a book upon the whole subject.  It is crazy how brilliantly small I have become.  Theological discussions come up all the time, as you could imagin, and the facts just fly!  One can prove this, the other that, the other comes in saying, “well, we have different theologies”, another looking on in confusion as to the big theological words being spoken.  For some reason this is really unatractive to me…  Not so much the aspect of talking over beliefs and truths, but looking to the spirit it is said from.  One begins by being vulnerable and bringin up something they confess to with their heart, then the next person just comes along and says, “well… from this, this, and this, “we” know that is not true…”, the next person comes and sides with one of them… the next sides as well.  All the sudden you get to this place where there is somthing much deeper going on than just talking about what you believe.  There is this deep seeded desire for your side to be right…  Your every thought is consumed by the fact that this other person in front of you does not see how obvious the “real” truth is.  So much so, that the mind begins to say that this person in front of you is “lesser” or ever so slightly judges by you to be seen as someone in the wrong.  It always starts as such a small shift of judgement…  then that judgement festers, you begin to gosip, you begin to see that person and perhaps looks through them instead of at them.  You no longer can value that person…  You have just decided in your mind that because that person has not the decensy to see life your way that they somehow dont deserve your love of Jesus.  I have seen it very much here…  Not to judge… but this has been on my heart.  Seeking “truth” can consume someone so much that they forget the very simplicity that is right in front of their face.  The simplicity of having one who is made in the image of Jesus right in front of you.  He is there, in those people that you are arguing with; in those people that you give yourself reasoning for not loving; in those people that you think that just don’t quite get it.

We went to meet a Syrian Abbot (Fairly high level in the Syrian Church) his name was Simoun (arabic).  We had a very rare experience of his being open with a group of about 10 of us.  Normally (as our teacher describe) such vulnerable comments are never heard from such a man in that position.  He was describing the church, and it is in desparate need.  He meets with all the church leaders of Jerusalem and he complaint was that it was all talk.  So much talking and Jesus’ love not being shown…  He raise his hands in confusion saying, “Where is Jesus love?  Where is it…?”  From the tear in his eye I could tell this was no show for us outsiders, but his heart.  He couldn’t see Jesus love…  Going through the streets…  Where is it?  I thought to myself…  Can I see it?  Where is the last time I have seen Jesus love?  When was the last time I was Jesus love?  The love of putting others first; the love that sacrifices their own well being for the simple act of showing someone you care…  Is trying to prove someone wrong showing them that you care?  Is trying to make your point known going to lead to someone following Jesus?  Or would proving someone that you care by sacrificing your own means showing love?  Would anyone understand this love in all the earth?  Are you so obsessed with being right that you can’t love those around you?  Are you trying to hard to find the truth that you are walking right by it while it sits on the streets?

Wasn’t that one of Jesus temptations?  Satan told him… “jump and have the lord save you… everyone will believe that you are truely the Son of God then”.  Jesus temptation was to prove to everybody that he was the Son?  Why would Satan temp him in that?  Is that not counter to what he wants everyone to know?  Or is it that Jesus was not to prove to everyone…  Was it God will that he only show those that God has chosen for him?  Maybe there is a lesson here for me as well…  Maybe I am not to focus on proving to people that I am right… but love them…  Sure I know truth…  God has taught it to me…  But does that mean that everyone is ready for it (Mark 4:33…)?  Perhaps proving myself right is not my job, but God’s.  He is the only one who can choose to start a relationship with someone who is lost.  I am simply here to give them the introduction He deserves…

Blessings!

Jarrod Going into a hole from 8000 BC!

Things have continued to get much better.  This past week was absolutely amazing.  Though it seems I am getting enveloped into my homework, I kind of like it.  This is probably the first time in my life where I have actually sat and did upwards of 6 – 8 hours of homework a day.  The weird thing is, I’m actually not really ahead…

I am beginning to see a huge difference in my two most recent long-ish term trips.  Germany was an all out immersion in the culture.  I was continually being challenged to talk with locals, work alongside non-english speaking people, dive into scripture for what I was going to say at the next meeting…  Here is much different.  I am finding that I’m not forced anymore to do such things.  I have to continually choose to put myself in uncomfortable positions.  The Lord has been saying some interesting things to me lately.  He had some thing to say about my 6 – 8 hours of homework.  He especially didn’t want me to be doing it for someone either then him:

I had a bit of a crisis the other day…  I finished breakfast at 6:45am in preparation for our field study.  After I went innocently to go brush my teeth.  I thought it a great idea.  Little did I know that brushing my teeth would take such time.  I was walking down pondering the idea of the group leaving without me.  I laughed and shrugged off such a heretical thought.  Upon arrival to the gate at 7:08, I made the deduction that in fact there was no one there.  My false heresy had shifted to become the wretched truth.  My heart pounding, I ran to the gate forgetting the fact that I had forgotten my key, which is needed to get out.  I couldn’t see anyone out the gate but I rushed up to my room anyway to get the key in hopes of getting out and finding the obvious white tourist group.  I ran out, and realized within three steps that I had no idea which direction was right.  In fact I ran in all directions.  I ran a little ways down not seeing anyone.  I ran a little ways up not seeing anyone.  I ran a little ways backwards in hopes that I was actually early and everyone else late… It wasn’t true.  I felt so vulnerable and hopeless.  I haven’t had such an awakening in a long time.  It seemed as though my grade just made the leap from hopeful to an immanent failure.  As we humans tend to do, I took such an idea of failure much further then necessary.  If there is one feeling reserved for the feeling of your life ending, I think I used my reserve.  Funny though, that it didn’t end…  Funny that that was actually the exact lesson I needed to remember who is in control.  Just that easily all my worth in school can be set on a tipping point.  I can see not that that feeling is not something that one trusting in God is to feel.  One is not to feel as though ones life is ending when an earthly possession such as grades is gone.  One is to trust.

I have found so many things here that distract me from God.  That is the biggest difference from here to Germany.  In Germany I was kept totally uncomfortable, yet that is exactly where God needs his people so they don’t go trusting in themselves.  I have come to the realization that to be forced into a position of trusting in God is a blessing.  Just as Moses has to leave Egypt for a land where there was no big rivers, no great farming, no great land.  The promise wasn’t that they would have loads of materials for comfort, but that they would have to depend on the rains of the land which God himself provided.  The promise land was a place where they were forced to trust in God…away from the distraction of slavery and comfort.  Comfort is my enemy at this point.  I don’t need to be in the word, I have so much other reading to do; I don’t need to be praying for help in ministry, for I am doing so little.  Yet as soon as I got away from such practices and putting homework first, my heart began to feel it.  God reminded me that no matter how much homework I have, putting time with him first is a must.

Looking Out

Jerusalem 2009

Interestingly enough I look out my window and I find myself in looking out towards buildings and plants unlike any I’ve seen with these eyes before.  In fact if I am to look out my window and down I can see hell…  Well, maybe not your typical idea of hell.  But when Jesus talked of hell he refered to the valley of hennom, and it just so happens to be right below my view from the school.

But so far things have been really great.  Either then having a really bad fever for 3 days upon arrival, I have continually been able to take in and enjoy the place I am at.  Though enjoyment is of the greater category, it’s hasn’t been what my entire focus is captivated with.  Sure I can look around and see new things, but soon those will be old things.  What I have just been introduced to was a much larger view of my own life.  I went to some of the places of worship and places of just living here, and the more I saw the smaller I found myself.  There is just so much to learn, so much that I had not even the slightest incline of existence that I feel 10,002 times smaller.

Going to the Holy Sepulchre (place where Jesus was crucified and burried) and gazing upon these men following a path that they have followerd there whole lives, carried the same insence baskets there whole lives, sang the same songs their whole lives, all out of the sake of tradition.  Their lives are given to follow a tradition.  The weird thing to me was that they worship Jesus, just as I do.  Yet… look at how different we act.  They do things because thats what has been done and told them to do.  I do things because I want to know more about God.  They sing songs and walk in the same fasion everyday (every single day!) in complete belief that that is what worshipping God is…  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m looking up to these people.  Their detication to the things that seem extremely boring are amazing.  I have no idea how I could do such things over and over again without going crazy.  But, is one of us wrong?  Would God let one of his children be wrong?  Can there but such veriety in the worship of Jesus that you get people that can do it without even knowing that their hearts are supposed to be in it as well, and people that do it out of the overflow…  I don’t really get it…  I feel so small…yet so comforted…  I have not a shred of doubt in my mind that I love to worship God…  I don’t really know why I want this, but my goal in life is for eversingle thing that this body can muster up to be worship for God.  It is totally possible.

While I looked upon their form of worship, all I saw was bordom and what seemed a total ignorance as to what they were doing and who they were doing it for.  I mean I would do the exact same.  If I worshiped God with the same song, same walk, same choices, same thing everyday I would get bored and not want to do it anymore.  Maybe God even gets bored…  Maybe thats why he put in us the ability to get bored… for the sake of saving our passion, that we might be forced to use our imaginations to worship him, and not just a comfortable routene.

Walkin around campus

I guess my real thought is: if these these people have totally given there every day to the sake of Jesus, and it looks like hell…and I am attempting to give up every day…and it feels like heaven… Then how can we be seeking the same Jesus?  Everyday I give up more (which is not nearly as much as they have given up), yet the closer I come the greater joy I have; the greater passion I have; the greater desrire for more I have…  Are we after the same Jesus?  If so… what if the difference between them and me?

Again… I feel small, yet the God I’m intertwined with seems to be getting so much bigger.

My Room