End World Hunger while Improving your Vocabulary

http://www.freerice.com/

This clever new website helps users learn vocabulary while donating rice to the United Nations to help fight world hunger. The rice is paid for by companies who advertise on the website. Who would of thought of combining capitalism, education, and humanitarian aid?

Faith in Progress

This past weekend I help a couple good friends re-roof their house. I spent all day Friday and Saturday taking the old roof off and putting the new one on. Despite the blisters, sore muscles, and smashed thumbs, it was an enjoyable time. There’s a part of me that has always enjoyed hard work and manual labor. I think growing up raising livestock and having good parents instilled some of those values in me. However, I’ve found myself really enjoying manual labor more and more the past couple years.

I think I enjoy manual labor so much because it is concrete. You work hard, things get done, and progress is visible. You could see how much of the old roof was gone by the end of Friday. And as the hours ticked by on Saturday you could see the progress with each new shingle laid. I’ve been drawn to manual labor more the past couple years because of the subjectivity of dealing with the spiritual lives of other people. Spirituality is anything but concrete, and you can’t always see visible signs of progress. There are many times I wish I could track the progress in a student’s heart of removing their old self and putting down new shingles of Christ in their life. Often after teaching a lesson, preaching, or having one-on-one conversations I’m not sure what progress is being made.

There are visible markers of a student’s spiritual progress; lifestyle changes, servant hood, baptism, church attendance, and others. That’s why James says “I will show you my faith by what I do.” But assessing a person’s heart is a subjective and unclear thing. I wish I could watch each shingle of faith being nailed down in a student’s life. While I’m not sure why God set up things that way, I realize it boils down to faith: Faith that God is working through me to reach students. Faith that Christ is bringing other people into their lives. Faith in the Holy Spirit to tug on their hearts. Faith in progress that I can’t always visibly see.

Busy.

Our world is incredibly busy. I am incredibly busy. Its frustrating, stressful, harmful to relationships and ourselves, yet we persist to function as busy people in a busy world. Maybe we have to keep up with everything, or we’ll get left behind. I don’t know. But I have been thinking a lot about business. Here’s just a couple thoughts:

Busy is the new “good”
When an acquaintance passes you and asks “how are you doing?” the rote response has always been “good.” Whether you really were good or not doesn’t matter, it was just the socially expected response. In the last few years I’ve heard more and more people (myself included) respond by answering “busy” instead of “good.” Busy has become the new good! Instead of an expectation of being good, we now have an expectation to be busy. If we’re not busy, then something is wrong. We’re not functioning at the appropriate frenzy level. Our reply about being busy is then met with affirmation by saying something like, “I know what you mean” or “let me tell you…” or “no kidding.” I wonder if our business becomes a badge of honor. The busier you are the more important you are.

Busy is the ultimate excuse
Whether you’re late, forgot to call someone, missed an assignment, or haven’t talked to a friend or family member, being busy is the standard excuse. We all have used it. “I’m so sorry, I’ve just been so busy lately.” You can’t really argue with that because we’re all busy and have been guilty of playing the busy card.

Busy is the new drug
One of the most common reasons to use drugs is to escape. Life is hard and facing your problems is not enjoyable. I think busyness has become the drug of choice. By over occupying our time we never have to face life’s unpleasantries. What a great escape.

These are just a few thoughts. I’m sure the list is much longer. Some questions I struggle with: How to manage your life in such a busy world? Where does God fit into my busy schedule? What do I do with the verse, “Be still and know I am God?”

Lost and Found

I’ve been reading a book by Brian McLaren about evangelism called More Ready than you Realize. In one of the chapters he discusses the labels the Christian community places upon those who have yet to follow Christ. We label them with such terms as “lost,” “unsaved,” or even “non-Christian.”

The danger of labels is that it creates an “us versus them” mentality, or an in-group and out-group. While on the sociological side, labels are useful to help us refer to and think about large groups of people, we have to be very careful of the language we use. We never want to unintentionally elevate one group and degrade another. This language may push away the very ones we want to reach with God’s message of love and acceptance. McLaren goes one to explain that the term “lost” may not be accurately used in describing people not following Christ, but better used to describe Christians.

“Sometimes I wonder if we would be wiser to apply the term “lost” to ourselves. After all, if you send a letter to someone and it never arrives, you say the letter is lost. Similarly, God has sent us into the world as ambassadors and agents of God’s love, and yet many of us have never really arrived at our destination. So, in that light, who is lost – them or us?”

May we “find” our destinations as Christians who live their life on purpose with love enticing others into a relationship with our Savior.

Take two and call me in the morning

I have had some pain in a tooth for the last week, so I reluctantly yielded my fears and went to a dentist. Expecting a cavity, I was surprised when the dentist said he didn’t know exactly what was causing me pain. He suggested a couple options, and like any good health care professional who doesn’t know what the problem is, he prescribed some antibiotics. “Take this and call me if the pain continues or worsens.” I left the dentist office with a mix of hope and uneasiness. I wondered if this will really cure my pain, or if the doctor was just taking a shot in the dark.

I think a lot of times we see prayer as the magical pill to our problems. If you want God to do something, just throw up a prayer. God will fix the problem, won’t he? Now, I’m not saying prayer doesn’t work. In fact, I believe in a huge way that God moves through prayer and that if you spend time doing anything - you should pray. However, too often we see prayer as a “miracle cure” to our problems instead as a divine conversation with the God of the universe. We work under the assumption that if we say the right words we might convince God to give in to what we ask. How arrogant are we to think we have the ability to coerce almighty God? When we approach God with the magical pill mindset we miss out on the relationship God intended to have with us and we’re left feeling like I did as I left the dentist office.

Prayer is a way to interact with the God of creation who desires relationship with us. Prayer is more than just talking, its listening, its yearning for his presence and resting in it. Perhaps prayer works not because God does what we ask, but because through prayer, our hearts align with God and we begin to understand and pray for the work he is already doing. There may be a benefit to “take two and call me in the morning,” but we’re missing out on so much more of God when we only see prayer as a quick fix.

Impatiently waiting on Patience!

If patience is a virtue, then I’m not a very virtuous man. I like to think I’m patient, and compared to the idiot honking his horn the moment the light changes green I am. But I’m really not that patient. The other day I was trying to refurbish an old cabinet we picked up for free to place in our home office. I put wood filler in the nail holes and scratches so it will look good when we paint it. You’re supposed to let the wood filler dry “all the way” before you start sanding. Well, “all the way” is a relative term to an impatient man, so when the outer covering was hard I began sanding. It wasn’t long before I discovered I didn’t wait long enough and the wood filler really wasn’t dried “all the way.” So I get to do it again (doing something over is torture to an impatient man).

For a long time, God has been working with this issue in my life. He has a tendency to bring things up again and again until we get them right. Evidently, I’m not making a ton of progress on this issue because he brought it up again as I was reading my Bible the other night.

The Scenario:
Moses frees the Israelites from 400 some years of slavery in Egypt. After numerous plagues and signs to the Pharaoh to show God’s might, the Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go. Now, God had promised to give the Israelites their own land, a land flowing with milk and honey, but they weren’t going to get all of it right away. Listen to what God says to the Israelites in Exodus 23:29:
“But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.”

I see patience as waiting weeks and months. God sees it in years. First of all, the Israelites had already waited 400 years to be free from the Egyptians. Now they are free, but they have to wait even longer to receive all of what God promised them. But I love what God said – “until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.” God knew his people had to grow to be able to handle what he was going to give them.

I think he does the same with us. In our ministries, in our relationships, in our futures we wait on God to do something. Sometimes that wait isn’t about God - it’s about us. God is growing us to be able to handle what he wants to give us next. He wants to make sure we’re dried “all the way” before he uses us.

So, there’s another lesson from God to a man who’s impatiently waiting on patience.