PASS

2nd pass :(

PASS

i pass. why do we have blogs during fire fall?

That little book towards the end of the old testament

I had read the book of Joel before but this was the first time that I dug deeper into this book of poetry. The second chapter of Joel was what really caught my attention. Joel calls the people to repent. Joel also tells us that although there will be chaos with earthquakes and darkness, God will make His spirit abundantly available in the last days. In verse 12 of the second chapter, we get an idea of Gods grace at hand…”Return to the Lord your God for He is gracious and compassionate and slow to anger, rich in faithful love.” This prophesy is meant to tell people how to live righteously in the midst of disaster. Now I know professor Corrigan did not want us to pay attention to the verses but it’s hard for me to take out sections without knowing what verse it is. In 2:28 it says that God will save all those who call upon Him. They will be saved from Gods wrath, if I should say. This book allowed the Lord to speak to me about His faithfulness and restoration. In 2:25 my translation (NLT) says “I will give you back what you lost.” The greatest tragedy of the locusts invasion was the loss of crops the loss of fellowship with God. But He is willing to take us back for a better future and give us back in full from what we have lost. I think that the book of Joel teaches that enough though we may not see it, God is still at work in the midst of the disaster. He is faithful to the faithless, and is full of love and compassion. Joel is one of those books that a lot of people skip over. Mainly because it is so short. But sometimes those small unnoticeable books can do a lot for you.

Painting!

When we painted in class today, I surprised that I actually knew what I was going for in my painting. As I talked about in the blog, I wanted to paint about what I read Joel chapter 2 about repentance and Gods restoration on Israel. I am definitely not an artist. At least not this kind of art, I’m more of a music person. It was kind of funny because as I was painting today, I thought to myself “I should start doing this more often and express myself with abstract art.” Then I got back to reality and realized that that would not be something I would be good at. I would go through the phase and get bored with it a few weeks later. Anyways.. In my painting I was going for the picture of darkness surrounded by Jesus. The black represents the darkness and the blue represents raging seas. I wanted to paint a facial figure in the middle but unfortunately I have no idea how to do that. So I just painted red in the center. I wanted to get the message across that God makes Himself accessible to us by the blood of Jesus. Even with all the disaster and destruction in the world, He has everything under control. Sometimes that is hard to see, but I don’t think we really realize how much He is saving us from. For my second painting, I wanted to draw a sunrise but I decided to just cover the paper with the colors of the sun instead. I haven’t really figured out what it means yet, I just like the colors :-). Doing this activity did not actually help me read better, but I enjoyed the challenge of putting on paper what we had in our minds. Definitely better than writing!

A House of Cards

I was immediately brought back to camp when we had t build the card house in class. I know it had some significant meaning. When we read what C.S. Lewis had to say about his faith, it made me think a lot about my own life. One of the things that C.S. Lewis said was that God already knew C.S. Lewis’ faith but God wanted him to discover that his faith was not as strong as he thought. I felt like that whole analogy of the cards house related to my own life. Before my dad passed away, everything was pretty much going well for me. I knew that my dad was sick but I was having faith in God that everything would work out. However, I failed to ask myself if I would still be able to praise God if the outcome of is illness didn’t turn out the way I wanted. I ended up losing my dad and for about the first month, my card house seemed pretty sturdy. Then eventually, I began questioning my faith and it seemed like everything fell apart. It’s interesting because when a person builds a card house, they do whatever they can to protect it because the slighted tap may bring everything down. After going through my questioning of the faith period, I not make sure to guard my heart in every circumstance. I do not know if this post made any sense at all. This was just kind of me babbling some of my thoughts. I’ve concluded that my faith is like a house of cards. I think it is a work in progress to have faith the size of a mustard seen as Jesus said. But if God has given us any reason to doubt Him but we choose to praise, it does not go unnoticed by the savior.

yay! Field trip to a cemetery!

This is my extra blog… I went to the Lakeview, Roselawn and Tiger Flowers cemetery complex for this fieldtrip, and I stayed there for at least 40 minutes.

We pass by cemeteries almost everyday when driving down road. But do we ever stop to think about the people who lost their lives and families who lost loved ones. I have to admit, after learning a little bit more C.S. Lewis’ wife; I didn’t actually want to read the book anymore. I would expect with someone like C.S. Lewis that he would be writing about the grief of his wife that was married to for 50 years. I don’t know why, but the whole three-year marriage and 17 year age difference just turned me off. Sorry, I just had to get that out there.

When I got to the cemetery I saw Zach and few minutes later we saw Matt, which made the experience a lot better. I can’t say that I felt any emotion while I was there. I have gone through enough grief that it has almost desensitized me in a way to death. As Matt and I walked around we talked about how a lot of the stones ere above ground. I had never seen a cement casket before. I was actually kind of strange that you could see the crease where it opened. Some of them were even cracked and dismantled. If you looked closely, might able to see a lovely corpse. I also noticed that even in this old graveyard, many of the tombstones had some religious symbol at the top of the stone. Most of them were crosses. But some were different. I didn’t know what they meant. A few days before I left to come back here I went to Arlington cemetery to see my dads plaque. As I was walking around look at all the other names and thinking how cool it was that every single person was in some military branch. Many fought and died for our country, and to me, that’s not a wasted life. I thought about people whose names I saw on the tombstones today. Did they really live a God-filled life? Who knows? I do know that tomorrow is not promised which gives me more reason to live for God before anyone else.

Luke 24

I am going to attempt to elaborate on what we read in Luke 24 today. It is true that certain things that Jesus does or says quite frequently in the Gospels. The fact that Jesus is reaching people with more conversation rather than miracles was something that first came to mind to me today in class. Another thing that was mentioned through out the New Testament is discipleship. The word “disciple” is used 233 times in the whole New Testament. It rarely talks about anything less than being disciples of Jesus. So this was something I thought of when Professor Corrigan talked about how Jesus was reaching people by simple conversation. I loved what the followers said in verse 32, “didn’t our hearts burn inside of us as He talked with us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?” Even when God kept them from recognizing Him, Gods glory was shining through Jesus and they felt that! Miracles are great, but sharing the Gospel starts with a simple conversation. It’s like giving them the simplicity of God. It doesn’t need to be complicated, but simply showing the passion and love for Christ. I think my favorite quote came from one of the professors here is “Christianity cannot always be defined by miracles, sometimes it has to be defined by the restraint of power instead of the use of power.” Think of this: when Jesus was hanging on the cross and Pharisees yelled for him to prove himself by coming down from the cross, He certainly could called the angels to rescue him but He didn’t. Instead Jesus proved Himself by enduring the cross. Of course when we make conversation with people about God, my prayer is that they would see God in us right away!

Field Trip!

I thoroughly enjoyed out "field trip” to Chartwells on Tuesday. A lot of the discussion was mostly about the different kinds of books we liked.  Most of our table liked fictional books. Sidenote… I award Zach Smith with quote of the day: “I’m a pillow fight kind of guy.” I am definitely picky when it comes to reading.  I can never get into fictional books.  Star Wars, Twilight, Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, and all the popular books that people would camp out at night to buy the first day… I never got into those books.  I may watch the movie but I was never the one to criticize about much better the book was than the movie.  I guess I could say I read more for information.  It depends on what kind of information.  I read a lot of Christian living books written by different pastors.  I like reading to gain a new perspective on something in my spiritual life.  Some of my favorite books are Crazy Love, Enjoying God, God Whispers, Unchristian, and Drawing Near. All those books helped me grow in some way.   The only fictional book that I have recently read all the way through is The Shack.  Some pastors may criticize the shack for not being theologically or biblically correct but I think it is definitely one of the few fiction books that can change your life.  Towards the end of lunch we got into talking a little bit about music.  I personally enjoy all kinds of music. I’m not a country music fan, and that seems to be most peoples’ tastes. Another side note: I felt a lot better knowing that music was a form of literature.  I found it more comfortable talking about that than talking about actually books.  I started reading grief observed the other day.  First chapter was pretty intense.  There were definitely some quotes in there that I could relate to.

He had it comin'

He had it comin’

That is probably one of the my favorite songs in the musical “Chicago.”  Six women singing a song about how she killed her husband for doing her wrong. Classic entertainment right there.  I thoroughly enjoyed listening to “Frankie and Johnny” yesterday.  I never take folk or country songs seriously, but I do like that they always tell a story.  Some of them are sad and some are quite humorous.  I am not sure if this song was meant to be taken seriously, but I think the whole class got a good laugh out it. It’s funny that a song that doesn’t sound threatening at all can be so brutal. I had never really dug deeper into a song like we did in class. I usually listen to the lyrics but I do not always break them down to each word or phrase. I liked that we could ask questions and discuss how we would interpret a certain line in the song. although it is pretty straight forward. i feel like that's how marriages worked back in the day. if the husband is unfaithful, the bullets will going flying. hence, he had it comin

            Reading “Sure Thing” was also enjoyable. I wish I could have a bell that rings anytime I say something wrong.  I would rather have a warning ring so I don’t actually make the mistake of saying something out loud that I shouldn’t have.  Overall I enjoyed the class more than I thought I would. the discussion, activities, and of course the singing made time go by pretty fast, which is a good thing.  It was definitely unconventional. I am looking forward to the rest of the semester and interesting in what we are going to read.