Six Months So Far

Last Wednesday marked six months on the field here in León. It is bizarre to think about. On the one hand, it seems like I just got here yesterday; on the other, it seems like this has been reality for all my life. Words fail. I am unable to describe it, really. Reflection is a scary thing. I want to just keep on going and look neither to the past or future. But I feel in order to make the present richer, for one to seize the day more freely, it is necessary to look where one has been, and where one is going.

Personally, I feel like I have grown so very much on the field. To think that only a year ago I was in Lubbock seems somehow inaccurate in my mind. Yet when I try and state these changes, these monumental character shifts, I am unable to put my finger on it. Instead, I can only point out the little things. I know how to ride public transportation. I can walk a lot further. I've found out air conditioning, or television, is not essential for daily life. I've learned most stereotypes about Mexico are very false or at least inaccurate. I feel like it is the little things, all piling on top of one another, that make those big differences, though. Tana says that the field shows you who you really are, and that sometimes you don't like that. I agree. There are many things that I need to change; to say that I feel like a three year old spiritually would be an insult to three year olds. God's working on me, though.

The team has been through much. I am learning more and more about how to just live with people through this experience in Mexico. I remember saying in Lubbock for the field presentation that we aren't where we want to be, but we are moving forward. I have realized that we will never be where we want to be, and that is okay. Some days I feel unworthy to be counted with these folks, and other days I want to just scream common sense at them. I'm sure they feel the same way about me, though (at least the last part, I don't know about the first). Dealing with people is hard, but I know that I am building relationships that I will never forget for the rest of my life. My team is my family.

The church here has grown very close to me over the past months. As my communication skills have increased, I have become more and more impacted by these individuals. Sure, they have a lot to work on, but they are a body of believers who are honest in their desire to serve God. I could not have asked for a better church home for my AIM time. It is challenging and growing and encouraging all rolled into one every Sunday for me. Take courage in knowing God is working through his people in Mexico. In that same vein, our ministry is about to significantly change very soon. Spanish class is coming to a close, and we are all going to be getting into personal ministries come January. This is exciting and scary at the same time. Sometimes it feels like nothing is being done here but Spanish class and church on Sunday, but it has also provided something in the day that has been a constant. Now that this is coming to an end, we must step out on our own and take the initiative. It is frightening, but it must be done. It is why I am here. Besides, God is with me, and who can stand against him?

Common Union

Bread.

"And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

His body, broken on our behalf. Blows me away. Think if you will of the Mona Lisa. Easily the most famous work of art in the world. Some would argue it is the most beautiful; most would agree that it is the most iconic. Worth hundreds of millions of dollars, it symbolizes the epitome of the spirit of creation and achievement. Now imagine the world's art experts and the French government getting together and deciding that it no longer is worthy of existence. Besides mere destruction, though, they wish to defile it first. Drawing glasses and a mustache, or demon horns. Piercing the eyes through. Smearing it with sewage and filth. Ripping it from its frame and hanging it from the fence outside the Louvre. Some mourn, but many are caught up in a frenzy of seeing what they have been told is a blot on the history of art destroyed.

A travesty, correct? And yet something more stunning and captivating and glorious has been brought to us, but how did we treat it? The Quintessential Man has been revealed to us, and we treated him with scorn. God in flesh came down among us and we spat on him. He willingly took on all of our baggage and filth. Our sins were heaped upon him as he hung by his pierced hands. The most beautiful thing God could give became the ugliest sight in the universe. We treated God's masterpiece like an old rag. He who had no sin became sin on the behalf of the fallen mankind. This is the small bit of cracker we take in remembrance of him.

Cup.

"And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood."

And so we have all been found out. We all crucified the darling of heaven. The only one that was worthy to be named king was labeled a fake. We through away the wisdom of the heavens as ideological garbage. And yet, despite all the horrible things we did to him, he still saved us. He still became the ransom for us. Satan had all of us. God wanted us back. No monetary or physical amount could do. God had to send a piece of himself. Blood was required. That blood set us free. And the amazing thing is that our savior was not bound by the grave.

All the filth and decay and death that we were caught up in has been washed away. We are clean and pure. Sin and death and the world and Satan himself cannot touch us. We are forevermore indebted to service to Christ. We are marked as his. Thank God we can now be a part of his overwhelming grace and mercy. I hate the fact that I forget this sometimes. That the very basic truths of Christian living get overshadowed by the supposed 'weightier' subjects. Remembering our salvation and where we have come from and that we are redeemed I believe is crucial. It was one of the last things he commanded before his death. Let us not forget this when we drink the little cup of grape juice next Sunday.

Power of Hope

I would like to apologize for two things before we get any further into this post. 1) Sorry about the title. It seems quite campy and I'm sure there is a much cleverer and more creative name out there, but it is all that I could think of and I feel like it is pretty appropriate for the subject matter of this post. 2) I would like to say here and now that this post will be discussing a recent film that I saw called Children of Men. What is important to know is that reading this will spoil the ending of the movie for you. So please, if you have not seen this masterpiece yet, go to Blockbuster and rent it (or buy it; it's that good) and watch the movie for yourself and then come back and read the rest of this.

So here we go. The basic premise of the film is that within the next twenty years or so, the world has become infertile. This in itself is an interesting concept. Set in Great Britain, the country is under strict military control, while the rest of the world has gone down the tubes. All foreigners are being rounded up and sent to camps, and the situation looks pretty bleak. Amidst all of this there is a man named Theo who, through a series of events, ends up escorting a young woman across the countryside to get to safety. Why is this woman so important? She is pregnant.

There is one scene in the movie that was particularly impacting to me. Theo (the man charged with protecting the girl) and Kee (the one who is pregnant) have been separated, and they meet up in a building that is in the middle of a gunfight between a terrorist organization and the British military. Kee has already given birth, and they are trying to get out to a safer location. As the baby cries, people stop what they are doing to behold what has not been beheld in years: a crying infant. How annoying we find it when we are in a theater or on a plane and this afflicts our ears. And yet how precious it is to these people deprived of hope for the human race. Soldiers and freedom fighters alike stop their fighting in awe and wonder of what has become a miracle: the continuation of life.

This nearly brought tears to my eyes. We go about our lives, doing our own thing, obeying orders, fighting our battles, and we slowly lose hope. We forget it's power. What it does for our lives. Paul said that hope is one of the three eternal absolutes, and yet how quickly we write it off as foolish ignorance or a sign of weakness. Hope is not only a happy virtue for the Christian. it is an integral part of the spiritual walk that has sadly been overlooked. I pray that we will open our eyes and be amazed at what we have in store for us, and that we can run the race more thoroughly because of it.

Love is...

I recently was looking through my iTunes library on the ‘songs’ mode, which simply lists every song in the library alphabetically. Scrolling through the ‘L’ section, I came across a series of songs that began with the words “love is”. There are hundreds of thousands of songs about love of course, but this particular arrangement struck me somehow. It seemed to follow a progression of outlooks on love in its various forms and modes. I’d like to share this with you now. So, according to John McCoy’s iTunes Library, Love Is...

DEAD by The Lovemakers

Ah yes the ballad of the bitter and broken-hearted. The disillusionments of star-crossed individuals who boldly and tragically proclaim that “we can’t be lovers and we can’t be friends”. I’ve been here. It’s tough. It is the sad reality of romance; the ultimate gamble of relations between men and women. Either it works out in the end and results in marriage, or it fails and there is separation and loss. The truth of this message, though, is quite changeable to situation. Love may be dead at one moment, but it suddenly is resurrected when a new face appears.

GONE by Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons

Similar to the first song, this is the sad realization of a failing relationship devoid of a once-happy and vibrant spark. What is left is two people who know each other very very well, but know that what once was there is no longer present. This is again is a conditional and non-permanent situation. Love can be found in others, or there is still the sliver of hope that it can come again in the current individuals.

HARD by James Morrison

How painfully true. I feel like this is one of the most universal truths of all the messages. In allowing love to come in, one essentially allows one to “give someone the power to hurt you again and again”. Love hurts and wounds. There is no clearer example of this than Christ on the cross. We see the Son of Man being beaten and mocked and tourtured and humiliated all for the sake of love. It is a shift in the pessimistic thought process of failed love, though. This is rather the acknowledgement of a painful fact. It does not reject love or count it as pointless, but simply states that love is a difficult substance to handle. The song ends beautifully with the truth about love. That “if it was easy, it wouldn’t mean nothing”.

ON THE MOVE by Leeland

Here is examples of stories of how love comes into lives of people who are hurting and lost and scared. There is the homeless man, passed and forgotten. The man of wealth, having everything and still empty. The hope of the world found in present-day Palestine who suffered at the hands of angry and scared men. It strongly and assuredly professes the resounding statement that “all the world cries for healing”. God’s answer to this pain and longing is love. As disciples of the carpenter, we have a hope that love did not die out at Calvary, but is rather living and acting in the lives of people every single day.

THE END by Keane

Though this is a secular song, the spiritual impact is astounding. I’ve written a post about this concept before, but I will try an re-emphasize it briefly. In our relationships, and life in general, we get so caught up in trivial things. Our lives are dominated by pursuits of the fickle and temporary. And yet, at the end of all things, when all has passed away, when earth and sea and sky exist no more, when the very fabric of time and space are rolled up and removed down to the very last quark, love shall remain. Love is the end. God is love. God is at the end of all things.

N’T MADE by Jon Foreman

What a way to conclude the progression. Just as love is at the end of all things, it it also cannot be made. Like the basic laws of matter and energy, love can neither be created nor destroyed, but only changed and transferred. We oftentimes forget this. We think that love is something to be bargained for or sold or bought. It is eternal and complete. This is the complete opposite of the first statement. Love is not dead, but it is living and breathing. In every mother’s kiss or lovers’ embrace or friend’s encouragement. It was made clear and real on a wooden Roman device of torture many years ago. Satan cannot stop it. Sin cannot defeat it. Death cannot hold it. Let us never ever forget this truth.

An Appreciation of the Finite

I had a friend recently tell me that they wanted for eternity to be here. Quite a statement. To a degree, I believe that all of humanity is longing for that very thing. Collectively and individually, we yearn to shuffle off this mortal coil and connect with the Infinite. I believe this is a trademark of the creator; we all have a desire to go home. The here and now is not permanent. Is this something to be scorned, though? Shall we dare to have a gratitude for the mortality of the moment? Have we lost an appreciation for the finite.

Another good friend of mine has made it clear often of his loathing of time. It is an understandable hate. Time seems to always pass too quickly in times of enjoyment and pleasure, while it drags itself during the times of boredom, monotony, or discomfort. And yet is time not a creation of Jehovah? Time has been established as the medium which all things must pass. Anything great, whether it be a mountain or a nation, must eventually succumb to time's grip. The phrase, "this too shall pass" is the source of joy to the poor man and the source of sorrow for the rich. Nothing on this earth, nothing governed by time, will last.

What are we to do, then? That is in effect the rub. I have such an easy tendency to let the days slip by, unaware of the precious moments that I shall never have again. I know that it may seem foolish for me to write these things. What do I know of time? Of decay? Of loss? To be honest, not much. I am, admittedly, very young and inexperienced. Will I be able to say things like this when I am aged? When life gets hard? This is my challenge. Each day has it's own beauty, even if it is painful. Even when sorrow seems too much to bear, it will not last forever. I don't know if any of this makes sense at all, but I want to encourage you, whoever you are reading this, to take what has been provided.

The here and now is not permanent.

Double Portion

II Kings 2. Elijah is taken up in a whirlwind. Before this occurs, Elisha asks for a 'double portion' from Elijah. This is referring to the tradition of the times of a father giving a double portion to his eldest son, signifying him as an heir. Elisha was asking Elijah to be his successor. What a request. Think about what Elijah went through. Yes, he did some amazing things, but he didn't have the most enjoyable life at times. Being public enemy no. 1, wouldn't be the greatest experience. Imagine being on the top of the nations most wanted list; a man being searched for all across the known world at the time. I wonder how he felt about the three-year famine. He could have stopped it at any time. I wonder if he thought about the women and children who were going hungry because of lack of food. How about three years of solitude with only ravens as company? Or being at a point of desperation so low that you are praying to God that you will stop living? Elisha was, in fact, asking a hard thing. To take up that responsibility would be a great burden, but it would be doing the will of God; man's allotment in life and Elisha's concern.

I find a similarity in the words of Christ, encouraging his disciples that they will go on to do greater things than even he. I want to have this concept at my core being. The idea of discipleship; not just taking a fancy to a particular worldview or belief system of someone, but becoming that person. I don't want to be John the Christian. I want to be Jesus to the world. This isn't about pride, though. I don't want people to see me. I want to be transparent. A window to the face of love. I want to be, as Paul calls it, Christ's ambassador to the world, representing him in everything I do. It is lofty, I know. But I know it is what I, and every other Christian on earth, is called to do. One day at a time, I suppose. One act of deliberate love at a time. Grace and peace, friends.

Questions God is Asking

I read the classic showdown in I Kings 18 recently. The odds were 450 to one. Most would say it was Elijah's finest hour. I love the prayer he prays in that chapter; asking God to turn back Israel's heart. Awesome stuff. One of my favorites of the Old Testament. One chapter I love more, though, would have to be the one right after 18. We see Elijah, not as the conquering hero of the Lord's cause, but as the fugitive running for his life. Sitting down under a broom tree and asking God for death. All hope was lost for Elijah. But he was not forgotten by God. He provided for him, and Elijah goes to Horeb, disputably the same as Sinai, where the Law was given in the first place. And here, God asks Elijah a question.

Isn't this a curious thing? God, the Creator of Matter, the Everlasting, the Infinite Father of the Cosmos, asks a man a question. But God is omniscient. He knows everything. Why would he need to ask Elijah anything? He knew the answer before Elijah's great-great grandfather was born. It seems that God sometimes ask questions, not for his benefit, but for ours.

He asks Elijah quite simply, "What are you doing here?" What an inquiry to make, though. So full of implication. He asked Adam where he was when he hid himself, clearly knowing exactly where his first creation was located. Jesus, the God-Incarnate, asks the seemingly obvious question of "Do you see this woman?" Oh how we must be asked questions like this at times.

I need them. Where am I? Not in location, but where am I emotionally, mentally, spiritually? What am I doing here? In Mexico. On Earth. In my Christian walk. Do I see the woman? Do I see the people I pass on the streets, riding on the bus, sitting by them in church? Think about questions like this God has asked in the Bible. It is my firm belief that we must reflect upon what we are doing and where we are at in life as Christians. Please do this now or soon, if you haven't recently. God bless, brothers and sisters.