Christmas Cheer

God bless us, every one!

Thank you, Lord!

Thank you for making a world that is beautiful and intricate. Thank you for every sunrise and sunset, for every rain that washes away the dirt and grime. Thank you for showing us Your power in the thunder and lightning of a storm, and Your gentles in the actions of dove. I love you, Lord, because you are so creative and beautiful.

Thank you for creating a world that reveals Your character. Thank you for being a relational God; for being so in love with-in Yourself that You felt the need to share that love with your creation. Thank you for showing us relationship in all the world. I am amazed at how all the elements of life are bound to each other, how no tree or animal, or even blade of grass exist outside of a continual relationship to everything that lives around it. Thank you, Lord, for creating this co-dependence. I love You because You made us so we need You.

Thank you for being my daddy. Help me at the times I don't look to you first. Forgive me for the times I am timid and afraid, and look to my own hand to save me. Thank you for bearing with my weakness and inability. Thank you for showing me a love that is beyond my actions and abilities, and flows only from who You are. I love You because You loved me first.

Thank you for all that you've given me. My family who love me even if I am silly and not always kind; a family that has lead me into knowing what it means to walk in Your paths and follow your commands. Thank you for wise parents who can help me negotiate all the twisted and tangled paths that I am trying to follow. They are so great; and I just thank you for them. I love you because You created us to live in relationship.

Thank you also for the many friends You've given me. Thank you for all the people who have been there for me along the way, and all the people who have shown me more of who You are.
I love You because You made sure we could not live on our own.

Thank you for providing for my physical needs, and even some wants. Thank you for food and clothes and a roof over my head. Thank you even for the extras, like a gym and cups of coffee on a cool fall night. Forgive me when I don't think of other peoples' needs and treat them as You have treated me. I love You because You are the great provider.

I thank You for all that You are. Lord, forgive me when I don't think You are enough. Forgive me for not being grateful for all you have given me, but always wanting more. Teach me contentment, that I may know to be grateful for all You have done for me.

We give thanks to the Lord,
We praise His name for He is the maker of all.
In the dawn of time He created us,
To reveal His power He made all that exist, and formed the very earth.

We give thanks to the Lord,
We praise His name for He created in His own image.
In the world we see the character of a triune God,
The universe declares God's love and mercy.

We give thanks to the Lord,
We praise His name for He is the Redeemer of all.
Though we had rebelled from His holy path,
And turned away from all His statutes.

We give thanks to the Lord,
We praise His name for He is revealed God.
He gave up His power and became a humble man,
That we might know the everlasting God.

We give thanks to the Lord,
We praise His name for He is the recreator of all.
He is making new men of all those who know Him,
He is building His bride of sinful man.

We give thanks to the Lord,
We praise His name for He restore His creation.
He will remake the earth in its former glory,
His world will once again shine as new.

Favorite words

Over the last few days I have come to realize that I have a favorite word. The word is integrity, and I love it because it can be used in so many ways, yet means the same thing.

If a building or a bridge has integrity it means that it is whole, complete, stable, and won't fall over in the storms that hit it. For a person the meaning is similar. A person of integrity is whole and stable; all the aspects of their lives fit together into one coherent whole, and they won't be blown down by the storms that rage around them.

If any of you have favorite words, let me know what they are.

Hope, Politics, and all that jazz

On a recent Tuesday people across the US gathered at polling places to elect a new president. I have been struck, in this election especially, by all the talk of hope. For, President-elect, Barack Obama, hope was a major and open campaign theme, but even McCain was really appealing to peoples hopes. He was telling people that he could solve their problems, that they should put their hope in him.

I suppose, really, that ever election, every choice is about hope. One hopes that pie will taste better than this one, or that that car will work better than this one; but in politics the hope is often a deeper hope: it is the hope that someone will solve our many problems, will protect us from harm, and give us a peace and security. It is a hope that no person, except Jesus Christ, can ever fill.

What bothers me the most, is that we, the Church that is called by Christ name, seem to have forgotten where our hope is. It is not just those who are trying to use politics to legislate heart issues who have lost their hope; but even those of us who have decryed politics as ineffective solution to the worlds problems, have sought hope in social organizations and public services. During this election season I have read numerous articles that outlined a Christian response to politics. Many of these authors felt that the proper response to a hurting world was to live the love of Christ toward the poor and needy. To this solution I say amen, and I would add another key step. WE MUST PRAY.

I have been saddened by the lack of prayer in Americas churches. Our brothers and sisters from around the world speak of prayer meetings that begin in the early hours of the morning (like, three or four) and last for hours. The speak of thousands of people gathering together to call on the name of the Lord, to beg mercy and grace for themselves and their nations. One of my Cuban friends was telling me of a fifty day prayer schedule they printed out for their people, and how they prayed night and day, for their country. In the U.S. we pray together two or three times a week, once before the sermon and once after. Occasionally we'll also pray to open Sunday school. In 2 Chronicles 7:14 the Lord tells Solomon, "IF my people, who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." Feeding the poor and hungry is as hopeless as pursuing a political solution to hear problems...if we are not praying. Our God's answer is not just loving those around us, it is prayerfully loving those around us.

What's so holy about marriage?

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” Psalm 19:1

Through out the ages God has been revealing Himself to a rebellious and corrupt human race. As the Psalm says, His very creation paints His glory across all the acres of the earth and the canvases of the heavens. We see His power in the raw terror of a volcano that is hurling stone and lava through the air. His grace is painted into the flying leaps of a deer or the smooth sprint of a cheetah. We look and see that God is creative and majestic, for He has uncovered the barest corner of His character in the works of His hands…Or is it just the barest corner? Could it be that God has painted intricate and detailed pictures of Himself into our world and the life we are called to live?

Over the past couple of months I have been wrestling with the concept of the trinity. What does it mean to worship a God who is three persons, but one God? How are we to understand how such a relationship looks? It is a glorious truth that God is three persons, and one God. It means that God is communal; God is love because God has always been in love with Himself and He has always been an entire community within Himself.

But the Trinity is more than a truth to be accepted. It is a reality to be lived. The Trinity recently burst across my brain in all the beautiful colors of marriage. I suppose there are stranger things for a twenty-one year old single man to think about than marriage (although I also know that it is probably still far in my future.) I was questioning the sacredness of marriage. Of course, it is enough that God says it is sacred, but why did He say that. What makes marriage sacred? I believe that the key is the Trinity.

Consider the words of Christ in John 17. Over and over again Christ speaks of the oneness He enjoys with the Father, the closeness of the Divine community. In John 17: 11 He prays that His followers may be one, “as We are one.” In John 17: 21 He asks that “they may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us.” The unity within the Divine community is such that the God head, though three is one united whole, all three the same in essence and character. What struck me most about this passage in John was its similarity to Christ teachings on marriage. In Matt 19: 4-6 Christ says, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh…” The clarity of the Divine perspective is stunning. It is not just that the two shall work together for the rest of their live, or that the two shall raise children together. It is that the two shall become one, just as God is three and yet He is one. God’s ordinance of marriage is a call to imitate the Trinity; and not only to imitate the Trinity, but to invite God Himself to be come the third partner of a three sided relationship. Notice Christ’s words in John 17:21 where He asks that we be one on Him. Or consider Christ’s words in John 15:4, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”

Marriage is more than an ordinance; it is a sacred community; a picture of a most holy and beautiful God, painted in the tint of broken and selfish human beings. The marriage vow is more than a promise of respect, it is a promise to seek unity with God and unity with ones spouse in order to give the world a taste of who God is. It is a scary and sacred calling.

Beginnings and endings

A number of my friends realize that I once had a blog before, and then canceled it because I felt I had nothing to say. I am still not sure I have a lot to say, but I felt the need to say it anyway. I suppose that is the beauty of the internet: anyone can say anything they like and there is no worrying about wether or not it is true or even worth the saying. Anyway.

I have started this blog as a sounding board for some ideas I have on life and on my faith.