Some days Im afraid to identify myself as a Christian because of the stupid things people do.
Like this.
Or this.
Or this.
Or this.
To find your own stories . . . just go to news.google.com and search for pastor/christian/born again . . .
So I saw this plate on a car the other day . . . I was driving either to church or to work or to the store (I know I know I know . . . some life I have) but I thought it was clever . . . even if not accurate . . . but . . . yeah . . . see if you can figure this out . . .
“BS-IQ=ID”
Good Luck 
A friend of mine posted this . . . and I thought it was really well written and wanted to share it with you . . . this is not original with me . . . its a friend of a friend . . . but its still good . . . read it . . . think about it . . . enjoy it! - Amos
I can still remember the first and only time I felt ready to throw-up at the sight of blood. Not in Saving Private Ryan’s opening ten minutes, but on a cloudy afternoon outside of my piano shop in Jr. High. I was waiting to get picked up, clutching my smooth-laminated lesson books to my chest and watching with bemusement as the pedestrians bustled around the other shops in the sleepy strip-mall. A fluttering sound caught my attention, and looking down at the sand-colored cement a few feet away, I saw a tiny trail of ruby blood and at it’s end, a hopping pigeon with a severed foot, cooing softly. I know pigeons are generally seen as dirty creatures and a pest, but something in me broke. I don’t think it was life threatening - I’m sure it healed up and went about it’s one-legged life (or at least I have to believe that, because a bird bleeding to death is too horrible for me to contemplate) But there was just something truly awful about a being of flight grounded and in pain it had no way to communicate - just the standard unintelligent coo and the confused wobble of imbalance. Grounded flight seems some sort of incapsulation of the fall, doesn’t it? Torn wings, fallen innocents, hollow bones made for soaring turn unsuitable for the hard life on the ground. I couldn’t get away and I didn’t know how to help the poor thing. I think I saw a few adults trying to catch it and help it as I was driven away, feeling disturbed and sick to my stomach.
I’ve seen a lot of dead birds this summer. I’m sure it has something to do with an inordinate amount of cats in the house, but there’s something about a maimed sparrow (apart from natural distaste for death) that makes my stomach turn. Something about a being with wings lying in delicate disarray, like a crushed rose bud on cement, effects me like a real corpse, even if there’s not a speck of gut or blood. Maybe it’s because Atticus told Scout so long ago that it’s a sin to kill a mocking-bird - all they do is sing and don’t bother nobody. Birds to me are innocence and simplicity and beauty, flight and freedom. And i’ve been no better off these months for Emily Dickinson’s famous poem:
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune–without the words, And never stops at all,And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm.
“Well that’s wonderful, Emily, and surprising from a thoughtful recluse like yourself - I’m glad hope sings strongest in the gale and through the night and all that, but what happens when the cat gets it?” My inner cynic is more than just jealous of Donald Miller’s affection for the sensitive poetess. It wants to shove a tiny, fallen, feathered frame in the face of all that piece purports so poetically.
But lately I’ve been thinking, no offense to Dickinson, that hope is a lot sturdier than hollow bones and darting eyes and feathers. Birds are beautiful and innocent, but with short attention spans, and no brains and a delicacy that necessitates their existence above us mortals. And that just can’t be hope, can’t be the faith that I’ve read about.
Such a flighty creature seems to have no place in Hebrews 11, leading patriarchs through deserts and growing in the midst of potential filicide and germinating in the steadfast prayers of barren old women.Every Sunday since as far back as I can remember, a man named Joe has tithed flowers. I’m certain he writes his checks like everyone else, but this is the quiet offering that has always caught my attention. Every morning, usually in the near-empty sanctuary with only the practicing worship team for an audience, Joe slowly walks up with a loving smile directed at his blooms arranged in a crystal, and ever so gently, he slides his gift to the middle of the wooden altar, just before the cross, and walks away, still smiling, to go on to his next task. Joe is a strange, frail-looking, but enthusiastic old man - he is too eager to help, sometimes to all of our embarassment. He has sometimes given an impromptu worship song on his harmonica, when he is supposed to be simply reading the passage for offering, the kind of thing that makes your cheeks burn for his kindhearted, but inappropriate outburst. He plays the saw, a leftover from his days as a vaudeville performer, distorting hymns strangely and leaving us all unsure of whether to be amused by such an odd instrument, or sobered by the expression of genuine devotion etched on his features as he draws the violin bow across the bent metal. In my younger years, he was invariably the butt of some subtle joke, though it never sat well with me, even when I participated - it felt like picking on a crippled bird - a crippled bird that wears cowboy ties and sometimes entire suit coats of eye-burning red. One day when I was a little older, though not much, I happened to go to Joe’s house - I wish I could remember why. The first thing that I of course noticed was his abundant and varied garden - all kinds of roses and lilies, peonies and more threatened to overwhelm the simple chain link fence that tried to keep them contained in the modest front yard. This made sense. I remember little about the inside of his house, but I do remember being a little frightened by a full-grown man with a vacant look, drooling, in a wheel-chair. He was clearly mentally retarded, and he was introduced to me, as I felt shy and awkward, as Jim Siracusa, Joe’s son. This did not make sense. All I had ever seen from Joe was joy and flowers. I was too young to remember when Joe’s wife passed away, so it must have been well on 15 years ago now. To this day, Jim Siracusa is on my church list of people to pray for, for healing. It speaks volumes to me that Joe has never had him taken off the prayer list, never given up, and always hoped for his son to be healed - and wouldn’t consider it disappointment if that day existed only in eternity. But it speaks most loudly of all that week after week, he cuts the flowers he carefully nurses to health and beauty and lays them before the cross. After my visit to the house, I figured I owed him at least silence at the jokes directed at him when he can’t hear, or when I failed to do that simple thing, at least sincere and burning repentance at my shortcomings. I don’t think we can laugh at people’s eccentricities until we understand their heroics.
I think hope partners with sacrifice and it partners with expectation. The beauty and the faith is that Joe cut down his beautiful, beloved flowers every single Sunday, and put them in a jar to die on the altar. The hope is that he knew they would grow back, and that even if they didn’t, somehow, this was the fulfillment of its growth.
My friend James very wisely said:“You see, it doesn’t take much of a man to say “oh well, I will resign myself to whatever torments the world will throw at me.” I mean, that’s just a part of living in reality. Even to give up everything, to become the complete ascetic, although tremendously difficult, falls short of faith.
Faith continues to hope, even as it lets go of the world. For we must let go, as Abraham does, and as the Rich Young Ruler fails to do. But faith hopes in what is unseen. Love always hopes, always perseveres, and love never fails.”
And that struck a chord with me, because I can reconcile myself to pain and suffering, but he’s right. Faith and hope go beyond reconciling yourself to suffering. It means seeing joy in the midst of suffering, planting and harvesting roses in a home that would breed bitterness and questions with most. More than that, though, I think hope is a thing that’s alive in a very different way from our fragile feathered friends. Steadier, slower, stronger, more stubborn in hardship.
Hope is a thing with roots and leaves. Long in growing, alive in the truest sense of the word, yet still and fixed and unmoving, except by millimeters as it creeps towards the sky over months and years. It comes everywhere, in every shape, drawing from desert sand impossibly deep to find unattainable water. It sprouts in forgotten corners of dirty asphault courts and with time, proves stronger than even cement slabs, cracking through the worlds pathetic ideas of permanence. It tightens its skin in drought, makes its own food from simply sun and soil, it germinates in darkness, in decay, springs from death, keeps itself alive with a stubborn temerity we hardly expect from something that seems so simple. Hope breathes in all our sorrowful exhales and gives out the sweet breath of life, wafting fresh air into polluted streets and crowded minds. It bears fruit - petals or seeds or fragrance. It springs from doubt and blooms faith, and promise, if we can only plant the seeds in our darkened, damp souls and beg for growth. A Greener thumb than all our withered hands grows our deserts into gardens, grows our ashes into beauty, blooms salvation from a twisted crown of thorns.
And this is hope. It may not soar above the tree tops, but it grows healthily in our yards and gives us much needed shade. It is hard to remember that, in the summer, in this unbearable dry heat that seems to wither all the leaves I’ve grown - scorching the green with apathy and doubts and distance and judgement (and dead birds still nagging at the back of my mind).
But I am determined to sow these seeds -
He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize
Then we shall see face to face, and know fully as we are known
He will wipe every tear from their eyes, there will be no more deathAnd I will wait for them to grow. In Spanish, the verb for “hope” is the same as the verb for “to wait”. I think there’s nothing more fitting as its equal in meaning. I will wait, and plant these seeds in this shoddy soil, and cover it with the mulch of my decaying strength and water if with my utter dependence and see what springs from the ashes and when it is grown, I will cut the blossoms with thankfulness, and follow Joe to the altar, with joy, knowing that hope is not birdsong, but unstoppable, renewable GROWTH.
George Muller - A great man of faith tha in my experience has been overlooked by many in the Christian community. Here we have a man from Germany who was driven by the Spirit of God to serve the poor in Bristol, England. And by walking solely in faith established a ministry that I believe is still in operation. Intellectually gifted he was completely fluent in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, French, and English, in addition to knowing Dutch and a few Oriental languages as well.
What strikes me most about this man though is his life of faith. Asking only God for support he opened a string of orphanages serving all age groups, and started schools for the poor street kids who had to work to help their families. He also sharply contrasted with the whole of English clergy-dom by asking his congregation for a voluntary offering and basing his salary on that. And yes, he was a full time pastor before and during all the rest of his works.
Muller was the son of a tax-collector, and by his own admission was stealing from his father’s collections by the age of 10. Speaking of a later time in his life in a few entries from his autobiography, he refers to himself as being “guilty of gross immorality” while pursuing his education in seminary. But a little later “Despite my sinful lifestyle and cold heart, God had mercy on me.” Take heart my friends, I am sure that we all know comeone who seems to be way beyond the reach of the Gospel, but this life I have been reading about is one more example of the great and mighty things God can and does do once He takes control of someones life.
Muller’s autobiography has been soooooo very encouraging. I started this book last summer and managed to misplace it for a while and then to stay busy enough to not get through the rest of it. Now that I have a little more time I am taking it a chunk at a time and enjoying it immensely. Time and time again he proves God’s provision. An entry dated November 23 reads “The Lord, in answer to prayer, has given me about 50 pounds. I had asked only for 40.” It strongly brings to mind the Scripture where it says that “He is able to provide abundantly beyond all your needs.” So often it is extremely easy for my mind to ignore this fact and start running all these ‘what-if’ scenarios, all of them to no avail!
The ‘key’ to Muller’s success was hours and hours before the throne of God on his knees in prayer. Throughout the whole book he repeats over and over “I prayed” or “much prayer was given” or “I have been praying.” He explains his reason for this focus thus “Often the work of the Lord itself may tempt us away from communication with Him. A full schedule . . . can erode the strength of the mightiest servant of the Lord. Public prayer will never make up for closet communication.”
Over time Muller’s Scriptural Knowledge Institute moved from a few rented houses to a complex of custom built orphanages, from a few dozen initial students to housing over a thousand at a time. This whole enterprise supported by God through prayer! They never asked any person for support but waited for God to burden the heart of a giver. Even in the tightest of situations when they didnt have food for the next meal, they hit the floor and God always provided.
Throughout his whole career, George never stopped preaching the truth, never stopped pastoring his church. He lived each and every day dependent on the Savior to provide his needs. And not just their financial needs, but also spiritually. He would also spend hours a day searching Scripture for truth he could apply to the challenges facing him every day.
I consider him one of the great hero’s of our faith, and I would highly recommend finding your own copy of this collection of journal excerpts and reading it for yourself. One cannot help but to be encouraged by “The Autobiography of George Muller.”
So quite literally within the last 12 hours Ive seen two rollover accidents as Ive been out driving. Last night on my way home there was a wreck on the 14, looked the car had rolled over at least once and then burned . . . the fire dept was still hosing it down as we drove past. Then this morning on my way back to work (since I had worked one shift, slept one shift, and was back on for a shift) there was a bad rollover on a more residential street closer to school, with the SUV on its top smashed into a railway bank.
These two wrecks are really just a reminder to me of how short ones death notice can be. Im sure the drivers in these wrecks were just on their way home or in to the office for some weekend catching up, and as part of their normal routine traveled these routes on a daily basis. All of a sudden now, whether dead or injured they have had a massive wake-up call! From the everyday mundaness of life, to the ER or the ICU, a huge switch in their lives just got thrown.
One of my friends had his life thrown all over the place very recently too. His mother died. Her death wasnt unexpected, she had been fighting cancer for a while, but that doesnt make it any easier. Knowing she was dying, she had worked out many many of the details of her funeral, she had prepared as much as she could for what she knew was coming. I never got to meet her, but the testimony that she left was so very encouraging.
And I was listening to a new album I bought last week . . . and the following song was playing as I was thinking about this . . . and I think it sums up how my life should be lived, not that it is, but what I should be focusing on.
We are pilgrims on earth, and we long to be home.
We were exiled at birth, and wondered along,
Until Jesus, the Lamb who was slain in our place,
Redeemed us and claimed us His own.
We have hope in the place, where suffereing ends,
All our tears wiped away, and worship the seats,
Where our Savior now sits at the right hand of God.
Our Defender, Redeemer and Friend.
O for that day when our journey has ended,
All our hope’s found in heavens reward,
Where we will have the Messiah delivered,
And we will dwell in the house of the Lord.
Yes, we will dwell in the house of the Lord.
We have dreamed of the streets that are covered with gold.
Where we walk with the saints in the city foretold.
King Jesus recieves us as His perfect Bride,
His love we’ll forever behold.
O for that day when our journey has ended,
All our hope’s found in heavens reward,
Where we will have the Messiah delivered,
And we will dwell in the house of the Lord.
Yes, we will dwell in the house of the Lord.
We all know of the day, when He’ll come to reclaim,
The earth from the beast, cast to the flame.
King Jesus the Just, the Faithful and True,
Will gather His children to reign.
O for that day when our journey has ended,
All our hope’s found in heavens reward,
Where we will have the Messiah delivered,
And we will dwell in the house of the Lord.
Oh, for that day we will sing with the angels,
Hallelujah! the Ancient of Days,
When we will have the Messiah delivered,
Offering glory and honor and praise,
Offering glory and honor and praise.
Its the title track on the first release by the band Enfield . . . their on iTunes, or I believe Amazon.com . . . go check it out . . . listen to it . . . and be encourged to look past the moment that you find yourself in, and towards that day when we will meet our Savior face to face . . . what a day indeed that will be!!!
Do you ever have one of those nights where you get to talking and all of a sudden its like two hours later and nothing else has been accomplished?
Arent they great?!?!?!
anyway, we had one of these tonight, and man . . . I just have to say that I love the guys Im living with and the great stories of years past that we get to share. Makes me feel this special bond with them. We’ve all done a decent bit of crazy, stupid, embarassing, childish things over the past 20 years or so . . . and being able to share them just makes it feel so much more normal, more like what Im used to with the guys Ive lived with over the last few years while Ive been in school.
Secondly, on the whole adjusting to life in CA note, I got my car switched over to the CA system of registration and titleling, so it now sports CA plates! Im not too sure I am ready to turn in the old plates . . . I for sure am not a Californian in my heart . . . but Im not allowed to work here and drive an out of state car, so its over. Next up, we go for the drivers license tomorrow and see if I can get that without any major problems . . . Im not expecting any . . . but I did have to tear my room apart to find suitable identification.. They wouldnt take my Nebraska license as ID . . . which is kinda funny, cause its worked for anything and everything else I have ever needed ID for . . . so . . . yeah . . . however it goes. Passports are apparently foolproof?!?! so Im off to end my formal affiliation with my home state, sadly.