God's greetings to you all. I am almost done and able to leave for break! I have written all my papers, and have all but one test done. The test is not due until Monday, and I think I am going to spend time on it Sunday rather than trying to rush through it today when I am tired and semi burnt out. I am really just mainly burnt out because of the twenty-five or thirty pages of theological papers I have accomplished in the past four or five days. I just have to sit through my two last classes, which seem pointless to sit through since my work for both of them is done and turned in, but oh well. Then I am headed to Kansas City to see my old college roommate Taylor.
I need some extra prayers for two reasons. One, I will be leaving St. Louis at four or four thirty which is the absolutely worst time to be on the freeway out of town. However, I think I am going to try a different route out of town and see if there is less traffic. I also need prayers because I am driving on an expired driver's license and I would prefer not to find out what kind of trouble that would be with a cop. So prayers for safe, traffic free, cop free travels please. I am staying the night in Kansas City tonight and then will head to Seward tomorrow. I am just so ready for a two week break, and plan on relaxing and enjoying my time off.
I am going to try to keep up with posting on this blog even over break, so keep watching for new stuff.
Since I am practically typed out, my thought for the day is going to be very short. I have one small confession to make first, and that is that I do not spend as much time in Scripture as I should. I try to do daily devotions and I always keep up pretty well on my prayer life, but just sitting down to read the Bible is not always my first choice. However, Chris and Stein are going to challenge each other to read the entire Bible next quarter. I do not think it is really possible but they say it only takes 72 hours to read the entire Bible. So we are going to try. However, I have been using Scripture for quite a few of my papers lately. The other day when I was working on my worship paper, I came up with three awesome Easter sermon ideas. I made sure to write them down so I do not forget them too. However, I was just blown away by some of the amazing new ways I was seeing well known passages just by taking some serious time to reflect on them. Then for my Hermeneutics paper, I made a huge exegetical discovery I had never seen before. It made me really excited to write a paper I had no interest in doing before. It also got me really excited to study and dive deep into Scripture and see all the awesome little theological things that pop out and hit me in the face when I actually take the time to reflect on the Word and what it is trying to say, rather than just reading it to read it. So I am going to start by reading it just to read it next quarter with the guys. However, then between classes, sermon prep work, and just personal devotional self study time I am hopefully going to start knowing not only Scripture better, but exactly what it is saying. All Praise be to Him who gave us His Word for us to have and cling to as the solid foundation of our faith in Jesus who is the Word.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you so much for Your Word. Help us to make time to read it, study it, learn it, and obey it. Let it strengthen our faith and guide our lives. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Gift of Prayer
Greetings from me to you. First, I had better say Happy Valentine's Day! I hope this day of "love" reminds us all of the One who first loved us and has shown us the greatest example of love of all.
It has been a very long day for me already, and it is not even close to being over. Last night I was in the Gator, plowing snow for about three hours. I got done about nine, which is not that late. However, I went to bed at ten knowing we had to be up and back out working again at three this morning. I fell asleep a little after eleven, and two thirty came very quickly. Then I spent this morning from three until five thirty plowing everything else that I did not get to last night. The funny part is, our boss still had the entire crew of about twenty to thirty guys come in to scoop by hand, but they were done easily by five since I had practically done everything for them last night. The rest of us who were in the equipment got done about five thirty. Four of us guys decided to go get breakfast and just stay up instead of going back to bed. I have gone to all my classes today, even though skipping them to sleep sounded much better.
Worship class was fun this morning. We are doing our group presentations of historical periods of worship. This morning the two groups that went were the Second to Third Century group and the Early Medieval group. They were both pretty interesting to see how each one of these time periods practiced worship. The coolest part was to see the dramatic changes from the first to the second group. Then our Confessions class was online. Dr. Arand is out of town, so we all signed on to his online classroom, the same method the SMP students use. For those of you who do not know, SMP students are the distant students who are taking classes while working at their churches all over the country. They come to campus every so often, but most of all their classes are done online. It was pretty cool to have an entire class on my laptop.
Then during lunch I finished one paper and started another one. I am down to two papers and two take home tests. I am also down to three days to finish it all.
Now that classes are finally done for the day, I have to go to work here very shortly. Then after work, I have four papers to proof read before I turn them in tomorrow, and plan on hopefully finishing one paper and one take home test. I also, really would like to go to bed early to make up for the lack of sleep last night. I am not worried about getting called in for any more snow removal because it is all melting already.
My thought for the day is from Confessions class. We were talking about the Catholics praying to saints. Now as a Lutheran, of course I do not believe in praying to saints. However, the way Dr. Arand explained it today actually made some sense why they think it is an acceptable practice. Now before I explain this, please do not misunderstand my intentions and think I am saying praying to the saints is a good thing. I still very firmly do not believe in praying to the saints. There are three reasons why I do not hold to the practice of praying to the saints. One, there is no command from God anywhere in His Word that even mentions toward praying to the dead. Two, there is no promise from God anywhere in His Word that the saints are even able to hear our prayers. And three, why would I pray to a human in Heaven when I can go directly to God and talk to Him. The example I like is this: You call a place of business because you need their services. Now you really would like their service and maybe your life even depends on it. The answer from the other side comes across as, "Press 1 to talk to the CEO and President of the business or press 2 to talk to the lobby secretary." I do not know anyone who would choose 2 over 1. If you desperately want their service, and you have the option to talk to the head boss, you would most likely choose to talk to the big man of the company who has the power and authority to help you and make special exceptions for you if needed. Why would you ever choose to talk to a secretary who has no power or pull in the company? So if you have the option to talk to the Almighty Ruler and Creator, the Big Guy in Heaven, who is in control of everything, visible and invisible, why not just talk to Him directly. Why would you choose to talk to a human who is in heaven? So hopefully you fully understand I do not believe praying to saints.
However, the explanation we talked about in class today works like this. The One Church consists of the Church Militant who are still on earth, and the Church Triumphant who are in the Kingdom already. We humans pray for each other and there is nothing wrong with that. We pray for each other all the time, and we are called to do so. As Christians we are called to bear the burden of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. So we ask the Church Militant to pray for us all the time, and never think twice about it. Then why can we not ask the Church Triumphant to pray for us too. They are still part of the One Church, and they are still our brothers and sisters in Christ. So what is wrong with asking them to pray for our needs too? To me, looking at it this way that makes some logical sense, it made it easier to see why the practice started. However, the first two reasons above, are the reasons Dr. Arand gave for us not believing in the practice. We have no command to do so, and we have no promise that they hear us. We do have the command to pray to God and we have the promise that He hears us. So we should just pray to our God, simple as that.
The point I am trying to make is that we should not be too quick to judge those who have different practices than us. We can respectfully disagree with them, but only after we have taken the time to fully understand their doctrine for why they do that certain practice. It just really made me stop and think about it, but in the end I still do not believe in praying to the saints, especially since we are given the pretty amazing gift to take our prayers directly to the Almighty Father, through Jesus, by the power of His Spirit. And all because He loves us more than we will ever be able to understand, even when our minds are full of love on this special day.
All Praise be to Him who gave us the gift of prayer through the Mediator of His Son, that now allows us to take our needs and requests directly to Him who promises to always hear us and always answer us according to our best interest.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you so much for the gift of prayer, and the power behind it. The mere fact that we humble sinful humans can talk to You at any time, knowing You will hear us and will answer us, is just one more amazing act of love and grace You give us. Let us never take the power of prayer for granted. Help us to always turn to You in times of trouble, but to also always come to You in times of thanksgiving too. We pray to You, our loving and gracious Father, through the name of You Son, our Savior, who lives and reigns with You and the Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
It has been a very long day for me already, and it is not even close to being over. Last night I was in the Gator, plowing snow for about three hours. I got done about nine, which is not that late. However, I went to bed at ten knowing we had to be up and back out working again at three this morning. I fell asleep a little after eleven, and two thirty came very quickly. Then I spent this morning from three until five thirty plowing everything else that I did not get to last night. The funny part is, our boss still had the entire crew of about twenty to thirty guys come in to scoop by hand, but they were done easily by five since I had practically done everything for them last night. The rest of us who were in the equipment got done about five thirty. Four of us guys decided to go get breakfast and just stay up instead of going back to bed. I have gone to all my classes today, even though skipping them to sleep sounded much better.
Worship class was fun this morning. We are doing our group presentations of historical periods of worship. This morning the two groups that went were the Second to Third Century group and the Early Medieval group. They were both pretty interesting to see how each one of these time periods practiced worship. The coolest part was to see the dramatic changes from the first to the second group. Then our Confessions class was online. Dr. Arand is out of town, so we all signed on to his online classroom, the same method the SMP students use. For those of you who do not know, SMP students are the distant students who are taking classes while working at their churches all over the country. They come to campus every so often, but most of all their classes are done online. It was pretty cool to have an entire class on my laptop.
Then during lunch I finished one paper and started another one. I am down to two papers and two take home tests. I am also down to three days to finish it all.
Now that classes are finally done for the day, I have to go to work here very shortly. Then after work, I have four papers to proof read before I turn them in tomorrow, and plan on hopefully finishing one paper and one take home test. I also, really would like to go to bed early to make up for the lack of sleep last night. I am not worried about getting called in for any more snow removal because it is all melting already.
My thought for the day is from Confessions class. We were talking about the Catholics praying to saints. Now as a Lutheran, of course I do not believe in praying to saints. However, the way Dr. Arand explained it today actually made some sense why they think it is an acceptable practice. Now before I explain this, please do not misunderstand my intentions and think I am saying praying to the saints is a good thing. I still very firmly do not believe in praying to the saints. There are three reasons why I do not hold to the practice of praying to the saints. One, there is no command from God anywhere in His Word that even mentions toward praying to the dead. Two, there is no promise from God anywhere in His Word that the saints are even able to hear our prayers. And three, why would I pray to a human in Heaven when I can go directly to God and talk to Him. The example I like is this: You call a place of business because you need their services. Now you really would like their service and maybe your life even depends on it. The answer from the other side comes across as, "Press 1 to talk to the CEO and President of the business or press 2 to talk to the lobby secretary." I do not know anyone who would choose 2 over 1. If you desperately want their service, and you have the option to talk to the head boss, you would most likely choose to talk to the big man of the company who has the power and authority to help you and make special exceptions for you if needed. Why would you ever choose to talk to a secretary who has no power or pull in the company? So if you have the option to talk to the Almighty Ruler and Creator, the Big Guy in Heaven, who is in control of everything, visible and invisible, why not just talk to Him directly. Why would you choose to talk to a human who is in heaven? So hopefully you fully understand I do not believe praying to saints.
However, the explanation we talked about in class today works like this. The One Church consists of the Church Militant who are still on earth, and the Church Triumphant who are in the Kingdom already. We humans pray for each other and there is nothing wrong with that. We pray for each other all the time, and we are called to do so. As Christians we are called to bear the burden of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. So we ask the Church Militant to pray for us all the time, and never think twice about it. Then why can we not ask the Church Triumphant to pray for us too. They are still part of the One Church, and they are still our brothers and sisters in Christ. So what is wrong with asking them to pray for our needs too? To me, looking at it this way that makes some logical sense, it made it easier to see why the practice started. However, the first two reasons above, are the reasons Dr. Arand gave for us not believing in the practice. We have no command to do so, and we have no promise that they hear us. We do have the command to pray to God and we have the promise that He hears us. So we should just pray to our God, simple as that.
The point I am trying to make is that we should not be too quick to judge those who have different practices than us. We can respectfully disagree with them, but only after we have taken the time to fully understand their doctrine for why they do that certain practice. It just really made me stop and think about it, but in the end I still do not believe in praying to the saints, especially since we are given the pretty amazing gift to take our prayers directly to the Almighty Father, through Jesus, by the power of His Spirit. And all because He loves us more than we will ever be able to understand, even when our minds are full of love on this special day.
All Praise be to Him who gave us the gift of prayer through the Mediator of His Son, that now allows us to take our needs and requests directly to Him who promises to always hear us and always answer us according to our best interest.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you so much for the gift of prayer, and the power behind it. The mere fact that we humble sinful humans can talk to You at any time, knowing You will hear us and will answer us, is just one more amazing act of love and grace You give us. Let us never take the power of prayer for granted. Help us to always turn to You in times of trouble, but to also always come to You in times of thanksgiving too. We pray to You, our loving and gracious Father, through the name of You Son, our Savior, who lives and reigns with You and the Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Going Bald!
God's greeting to you all on this day the Lord has made. I had a pretty good weekend. I got really stressed out because of all the homework I have due this upcoming finals week, but I survived. Friday I felt like I ran all day long. I had classes, work, and homework. Friday night I wrote one paper right after work. Then I ate supper with my friends and hung out with them in the new lounge playing a few games of pool. Then I decided to write one more paper, which I got done about two thirty. I went to bed, but the problem was I had been drinking coffee all day and even into late evening Friday. So I literally laid in bed from two thirty until six Saturday morning wide awake from all the caffeine. I finally fell asleep just after six, but at eight I got called into to salt sidewalks because of the snow dusting we had gotten.
Saturday, for only running on two hours of sleep, I still had an extremely busy day. I had to work brunch right after I got done salting sidewalks. Then I did get about an hour nap which helped a lot. I played a few games of pick up basketball with the guys, because they woke me up looking for a sixth guy. Then Saturday evening I got some of my reading journals caught up.
This morning, I went to church with Tim and James. I lead liturgy and did much better the second time. I was told I was loud, clear, and way more relaxed. I did feel a lot more comfortable this time, which was a good feeling. Then I sat in on the adult Bible study class, which was actually a really good one on Job. Then for lunch, the cafe we ate at had their Valentine's Day specials already. The Special I chose was a twelve ounce ribeye with shrimp and a baked potato. The ribeye was cooked to perfection with just the right amount of fat. I have not had a good steak in quite a while so it really hit the spot. Then we even got chocolate covered strawberries for dessert.
This afternoon I ushered for the Bach at the Seminary concert. It was cool because I got to hear the concert, but was being paid to be there. Then I had to help tear down the stage right after. Friday's work was to put up the stage. The reason I had to be at both set up and tear down is because the guy who is in charge of it right now is leaving in May and my boss informed me that he is passing down the responsibility to me when he leaves. So next year and fourth year any time the stage needs set up and taken down I will be in charge of the project. After work I grabbed dinner with the guys, I am now typing this up quick, and then hopefully writing another two papers. I am down to four papers, reading journals, and two tests this week. So if I can get the two shorter papers done tonight, I will be down to one seven page paper, one eight page paper, and the two tests. The reading journals will not take me long to finish. I am definitely going to be ready for a two week break after this week though.
If you are wondering about the title of this post, I will explain. The first Monday we are back for spring quarter classes, I am going bald. The seminary is holding a fundraiser for Children's Cancer Research. They are asking several of the guys, faculty, and staff to get their heads shaved in support for these kids. My understanding is there will be kids currently going through cancer treatment present. I really hope there are, because if there are I am going to let one of the kids shave my head. I will proudly be bald hoping it brings a smile to their face. My only rule is I am keeping the beard, which is getting rather long. I am actually really excited for this and hope we can raise a lot of money for them.
My thought for the day comes from Bible study this morning. It also ties in with the going bald part. God was not punishing Job for his sins. Just as God does not punish us for our sins. Bad things do still happen to us, and sin is to blame. However, it is not God to blame. God is not a big bully sitting on an ant hill with a magnifying glass waiting to burn us. He loves us and cares for us. How do we know this? God the Father is the one who sent Jesus commanding Him to die for our sake. Jesus willingly obeyed, but it was the Father's plan. We know He loves us because He Redeemed us at the price of His only Son's death. Jesus was the only needed propitiation that ended God's wrath once and for all. So bad things do still happen, but it is not because God is intentionally doing them to us to punish us. And since suffering is not a punishment, God wants us to turn to him in prayer when we are going through the bad things of life. Job was scared to pray to God because He knew before the Almighty, most powerful God he was nothing but a mere mortal lowly man. He knew he needed someone to be the mediator between himself and God. He knew he needed a Savior who could stand between him and God, and remember this was before Jesus walked the earth as a human. We already have that Savior who stands between us and God. But also remember is was our Father who sent that mediator for our behalf. So when bad things happen like kids getting cancer, it is sad and hard to understand. However, we know that we live in a sinful world where bad things do happen because of sin. But we also know that no matter what sufferings and pains we are going through, even those kids, we can turn to our Heavenly Triune God who wants us to turn to Him in prayer, and He does hear our prayer. So when bad things happen, pray first and often. Then once you know God knows what you are going through, you know He has heard your prayers, and you know He is with you because He loves you, you are hopefully ready to face those trials and tough times with your faith leading you the whole way. All Praise be to Him who does not leave us to fend for ourselves, but sustains us, sent His Son to be our Savior and Mediator, and sends His Spirit to strengthen our faith and guide us through life.
Dear Heavenly Father,
We know that tough times are a part of this sinful world. However, we also know that we do not blame You, but turn to You for help and strength. We ask that Your Word would teach us, Your Spirit preserve our faith, and Your promises remind us that You do indeed care about us and love us. We thank you for being such an amazing God who has the power to turn mountains upside down with out their knowing, and yet who has wisdom to know exactly what we need. In the name of Your Son, our Savior, who is our Mediator and the one who has taught us to pray through His words, who lives and reigns with You and the Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.
Saturday, for only running on two hours of sleep, I still had an extremely busy day. I had to work brunch right after I got done salting sidewalks. Then I did get about an hour nap which helped a lot. I played a few games of pick up basketball with the guys, because they woke me up looking for a sixth guy. Then Saturday evening I got some of my reading journals caught up.
This morning, I went to church with Tim and James. I lead liturgy and did much better the second time. I was told I was loud, clear, and way more relaxed. I did feel a lot more comfortable this time, which was a good feeling. Then I sat in on the adult Bible study class, which was actually a really good one on Job. Then for lunch, the cafe we ate at had their Valentine's Day specials already. The Special I chose was a twelve ounce ribeye with shrimp and a baked potato. The ribeye was cooked to perfection with just the right amount of fat. I have not had a good steak in quite a while so it really hit the spot. Then we even got chocolate covered strawberries for dessert.
This afternoon I ushered for the Bach at the Seminary concert. It was cool because I got to hear the concert, but was being paid to be there. Then I had to help tear down the stage right after. Friday's work was to put up the stage. The reason I had to be at both set up and tear down is because the guy who is in charge of it right now is leaving in May and my boss informed me that he is passing down the responsibility to me when he leaves. So next year and fourth year any time the stage needs set up and taken down I will be in charge of the project. After work I grabbed dinner with the guys, I am now typing this up quick, and then hopefully writing another two papers. I am down to four papers, reading journals, and two tests this week. So if I can get the two shorter papers done tonight, I will be down to one seven page paper, one eight page paper, and the two tests. The reading journals will not take me long to finish. I am definitely going to be ready for a two week break after this week though.
If you are wondering about the title of this post, I will explain. The first Monday we are back for spring quarter classes, I am going bald. The seminary is holding a fundraiser for Children's Cancer Research. They are asking several of the guys, faculty, and staff to get their heads shaved in support for these kids. My understanding is there will be kids currently going through cancer treatment present. I really hope there are, because if there are I am going to let one of the kids shave my head. I will proudly be bald hoping it brings a smile to their face. My only rule is I am keeping the beard, which is getting rather long. I am actually really excited for this and hope we can raise a lot of money for them.
My thought for the day comes from Bible study this morning. It also ties in with the going bald part. God was not punishing Job for his sins. Just as God does not punish us for our sins. Bad things do still happen to us, and sin is to blame. However, it is not God to blame. God is not a big bully sitting on an ant hill with a magnifying glass waiting to burn us. He loves us and cares for us. How do we know this? God the Father is the one who sent Jesus commanding Him to die for our sake. Jesus willingly obeyed, but it was the Father's plan. We know He loves us because He Redeemed us at the price of His only Son's death. Jesus was the only needed propitiation that ended God's wrath once and for all. So bad things do still happen, but it is not because God is intentionally doing them to us to punish us. And since suffering is not a punishment, God wants us to turn to him in prayer when we are going through the bad things of life. Job was scared to pray to God because He knew before the Almighty, most powerful God he was nothing but a mere mortal lowly man. He knew he needed someone to be the mediator between himself and God. He knew he needed a Savior who could stand between him and God, and remember this was before Jesus walked the earth as a human. We already have that Savior who stands between us and God. But also remember is was our Father who sent that mediator for our behalf. So when bad things happen like kids getting cancer, it is sad and hard to understand. However, we know that we live in a sinful world where bad things do happen because of sin. But we also know that no matter what sufferings and pains we are going through, even those kids, we can turn to our Heavenly Triune God who wants us to turn to Him in prayer, and He does hear our prayer. So when bad things happen, pray first and often. Then once you know God knows what you are going through, you know He has heard your prayers, and you know He is with you because He loves you, you are hopefully ready to face those trials and tough times with your faith leading you the whole way. All Praise be to Him who does not leave us to fend for ourselves, but sustains us, sent His Son to be our Savior and Mediator, and sends His Spirit to strengthen our faith and guide us through life.
Dear Heavenly Father,
We know that tough times are a part of this sinful world. However, we also know that we do not blame You, but turn to You for help and strength. We ask that Your Word would teach us, Your Spirit preserve our faith, and Your promises remind us that You do indeed care about us and love us. We thank you for being such an amazing God who has the power to turn mountains upside down with out their knowing, and yet who has wisdom to know exactly what we need. In the name of Your Son, our Savior, who is our Mediator and the one who has taught us to pray through His words, who lives and reigns with You and the Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.
Friday, February 10, 2012
1000 Views!
God's blessings to the readers of this blog who just made my day. I officially have 1,000 views of my blog. I truly appreciate everyone who takes time to read this. Thank you.
I am down to one week left of classes, and I have a lot to do in that week. I also have a lot of extra hours coming up at work, so I am going to be busy. Yesterday, I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off, and then at the end I felt like I had accomplished nothing. However, I got a paper done, several hours of work in, and realized that every book I need from the library is in German only which does me no good. This little set back is going to cause my Friday night and Saturday to be spent trying to find resources in English so I can get two more papers done. I am down to six papers and three tests though. The three tests will be fairly easy I believe because two of them are take home essays. I just pray the good Lord gives me the endurance and focus to make it through this week. I also ask kindly that you keep me in your prayers as well, and I truly appreciate it that you do.
Since I am so busy, I want to keep this kind of short. However, I had to celebrate the 1,000 views. I also had to give such loyal followers another thought for the day. This thought for the day comes from about a week ago when I was listening to music in my room. If I remember correctly I was cleaning my room, organizing my desk, and getting my homework piled up on my desk so I knew what I had to do. I was listening to Casting Crowns on my computer. They are a Christian band, and I really like their music. If you call me, my current ring-back tone is one of their songs. Anyways, in the one song, they are asking when are we going to start living like God's children. The name of the song is "What If His People Prayed", and I am actually listening to it as I type this post. The one lyric that jumped out at me for some reason is they say, "What if the family turned to Jesus, and stopped asking Oprah what to do." When I heard this, several crazy Oprah references crossed my mind, but then I remembered she is not even doing her show anymore. Then I started thinking, if I play this song for my kids someday, they may have no idea of who Oprah was. People are doing this to me all the time. They say somebody's name, who to them is famous and should be known by all, but to me being so much younger I have never even heard the name. The common phrase that normally follows is, "Well shows how old I am." So it is true that anyone in America (and probably other countries for that matter) in today's generation can say Oprah, and everyone knows exactly who you are talking about. However, it may still come to be in my own lifetime, that not everyone will know who Oprah is. Now, maybe she will be famous enough to make it into history books and students will learn about her in school. I would hope we have more important history than that, but who knows at this rate.
This was just a really weird thought to me. That our world changes so much, what is famous and popular of one generation can be very quickly forgotten in the next. Just stop and think about it, if you are a reader who is a little older than me, I bet you could name at least three names who were a major deal during your youth, and I would have no idea who they are. Then think about when you were a kid, did your parents, or older family members ever talk about people who you did not know. The point is people will come and go, and their fame will fade. Then it hit me. There is one man who has been famous throughout all generations. Now, he is not necessarily loved by all, but most everyone in America at the very least knows his name. It is Jesus! Jesus has been known for over two thousand years now, and His fame is still being spread. We try to live our entire lives based on knowing, believing, and practicing our faith in Him. Because we know, He is the real deal, He is the one who will still be around after Oprah is long forgotten.
This theme can be seen in the Old Testament. God sent judge after judge, and then king after king trying to free His people every time they fell to evil ways and begged for His mercy. Yet every judge failed, every king failed, and every time His people went right back to their sinful ways. A human could never be good enough to complete God's plan of salvation. That is why He sent His Son from Heaven, to take on flesh, and be the perfect sacrifice. Jesus was the only one who was ever good enough to be able to complete our Father's redeeming act. That is why we still cling to Jesus' name and hold Him high as our Savior. We may be followers of pop idols and stars and think they are pretty cool. You may even watch Dr. Phil and shows that give you advice how to live a better life. That is OK. Just remember that all of these are sinful people just like you and me. They are just another human who will never be good enough on their own. Then when you remember that, hopefully you remember that Jesus is the one who has already been our life role model. He lived a life without falling to sin. He felt pain and suffering, and yet remained completely faithful to the Father through it all. He also gave us the advice we need to live better lives. He gave us His Word, that we can hold, see, and read anytime we need a pick-me-up. We can memorize His Word, look at it daily and know that He is the one who will continue to last until He comes back to call us home. God will never let His church died, and His Word will remain true because He has already paid the price, and His promise of the second return will come true, no matter what generation it is. All Praise be to Him who is our Savior and remains true to His promises for all generations.
Dear Heavenly Father,
We thank you so much for the gift of the one true person who we can always follow and try to be like, Jesus. We thank you for You Son who took on flesh, came to earth, died, and rose again to be our Savior and Redeemer. We ask that You be with us as we live our daily lives, that we may strive to live by Your Word, share our faith with everyone we meet, and never lose focus on Your Holy name. In the same name we strive to focus on, Jesus Christ, we pray to You. Amen.
I am down to one week left of classes, and I have a lot to do in that week. I also have a lot of extra hours coming up at work, so I am going to be busy. Yesterday, I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off, and then at the end I felt like I had accomplished nothing. However, I got a paper done, several hours of work in, and realized that every book I need from the library is in German only which does me no good. This little set back is going to cause my Friday night and Saturday to be spent trying to find resources in English so I can get two more papers done. I am down to six papers and three tests though. The three tests will be fairly easy I believe because two of them are take home essays. I just pray the good Lord gives me the endurance and focus to make it through this week. I also ask kindly that you keep me in your prayers as well, and I truly appreciate it that you do.
Since I am so busy, I want to keep this kind of short. However, I had to celebrate the 1,000 views. I also had to give such loyal followers another thought for the day. This thought for the day comes from about a week ago when I was listening to music in my room. If I remember correctly I was cleaning my room, organizing my desk, and getting my homework piled up on my desk so I knew what I had to do. I was listening to Casting Crowns on my computer. They are a Christian band, and I really like their music. If you call me, my current ring-back tone is one of their songs. Anyways, in the one song, they are asking when are we going to start living like God's children. The name of the song is "What If His People Prayed", and I am actually listening to it as I type this post. The one lyric that jumped out at me for some reason is they say, "What if the family turned to Jesus, and stopped asking Oprah what to do." When I heard this, several crazy Oprah references crossed my mind, but then I remembered she is not even doing her show anymore. Then I started thinking, if I play this song for my kids someday, they may have no idea of who Oprah was. People are doing this to me all the time. They say somebody's name, who to them is famous and should be known by all, but to me being so much younger I have never even heard the name. The common phrase that normally follows is, "Well shows how old I am." So it is true that anyone in America (and probably other countries for that matter) in today's generation can say Oprah, and everyone knows exactly who you are talking about. However, it may still come to be in my own lifetime, that not everyone will know who Oprah is. Now, maybe she will be famous enough to make it into history books and students will learn about her in school. I would hope we have more important history than that, but who knows at this rate.
This was just a really weird thought to me. That our world changes so much, what is famous and popular of one generation can be very quickly forgotten in the next. Just stop and think about it, if you are a reader who is a little older than me, I bet you could name at least three names who were a major deal during your youth, and I would have no idea who they are. Then think about when you were a kid, did your parents, or older family members ever talk about people who you did not know. The point is people will come and go, and their fame will fade. Then it hit me. There is one man who has been famous throughout all generations. Now, he is not necessarily loved by all, but most everyone in America at the very least knows his name. It is Jesus! Jesus has been known for over two thousand years now, and His fame is still being spread. We try to live our entire lives based on knowing, believing, and practicing our faith in Him. Because we know, He is the real deal, He is the one who will still be around after Oprah is long forgotten.
This theme can be seen in the Old Testament. God sent judge after judge, and then king after king trying to free His people every time they fell to evil ways and begged for His mercy. Yet every judge failed, every king failed, and every time His people went right back to their sinful ways. A human could never be good enough to complete God's plan of salvation. That is why He sent His Son from Heaven, to take on flesh, and be the perfect sacrifice. Jesus was the only one who was ever good enough to be able to complete our Father's redeeming act. That is why we still cling to Jesus' name and hold Him high as our Savior. We may be followers of pop idols and stars and think they are pretty cool. You may even watch Dr. Phil and shows that give you advice how to live a better life. That is OK. Just remember that all of these are sinful people just like you and me. They are just another human who will never be good enough on their own. Then when you remember that, hopefully you remember that Jesus is the one who has already been our life role model. He lived a life without falling to sin. He felt pain and suffering, and yet remained completely faithful to the Father through it all. He also gave us the advice we need to live better lives. He gave us His Word, that we can hold, see, and read anytime we need a pick-me-up. We can memorize His Word, look at it daily and know that He is the one who will continue to last until He comes back to call us home. God will never let His church died, and His Word will remain true because He has already paid the price, and His promise of the second return will come true, no matter what generation it is. All Praise be to Him who is our Savior and remains true to His promises for all generations.
Dear Heavenly Father,
We thank you so much for the gift of the one true person who we can always follow and try to be like, Jesus. We thank you for You Son who took on flesh, came to earth, died, and rose again to be our Savior and Redeemer. We ask that You be with us as we live our daily lives, that we may strive to live by Your Word, share our faith with everyone we meet, and never lose focus on Your Holy name. In the same name we strive to focus on, Jesus Christ, we pray to You. Amen.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Roller Coaster Disaster
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know I said I would write more thoughts for the day yesterday, but I am just now getting to them. I have thought up several topics I want to tell you all about, but I am only going to include one that is a little longer in this post.
This one comes from an old memory of a personal experience. I was folding laundry the other night, and realized I am down to one nice John Deere t-shirt. All my others have been used for work, sports, or other activities where they have become stained, ratty, or just plain worn out. Now for those of you who know me, this is a serious problem because I love my John Deere t-shirts and need to get some more soon. However, I started thinking back to when I bought this particular JD t-shirt. It was my senior year of high school for physics class. Now I know that probably does not make a lot of sense, needing a JD t-shirt for physics class. However, it was a necessity. There are three things you need to know for this story. One, every year the physics teacher offered the class the chance to build a ball-bearing roller coaster and enter it in a competition. I will fully explain what a ball-bearing roller coaster is in a bit. Two, I had gone to the competition when my older sister was in the class and watched the competition between all the different ball-bearing roller coasters. Three, I was the only student in the physics class my senior year. So the teacher asked me if I wanted to build a ball-bearing roller coaster, and since I had seen the competition I definitely said yes. Also, if you knew me well when I was growing up, you would know I spent most of my day, every day, building all kinds of cool projects, inventions, buildings for my tractors, forts for my G.I. Joes, and anything I could think of with everyday simple objects. I know they probably never looked very cool, but to me they were priceless and my imagination made up for what my art skills lacked. So, being just a big kid at heart, which is still true to this day, I was very excited to build my own ball-bearing roller coaster. My teacher let me pick two friends who had study hall the same period I had the class to come in and help me. I picked my two friends Tank and Nolansky. Since I was the only one in the class, I got my choice of theme for the roller coaster, and so I picked John Deere. Now I will explain a ball-bearing roller coaster. It started with a four by six sheet of plywood as my base. I painted this base green with a huge John Deere logo in yellow on it. Then I used PVC pipe for the frame. Then on the inside of the PVC frame, the contest is to build a track for the ball-bearing to run on. A ball-bearing for those who might not know is a metal ball about the size of a marble. The challenge is that you do not just build a track, but you also include tricks, jumps, elevators, and other cool things for the ball-bearing to do as it runs its course from start to finish only using simply physics to make everything work. You cannot use anything battery operated or mechanical. So for example, the elevator was PVC pipe that had a smaller piece of PVC inside it, that when the ball-bearing would roll into the hole in the bottom of the elevator, it would hit a trip that let a stack of metal washers fall. The washers were tied to the small piece of PVC so as the washers fell, it would pull the small piece and ball-bearing to the top where the ball-bearing would be spit out onto a new piece of track at the top of the elevator. I had several tricks including two or three jumps, a double loop in the track, stairs that the ball would roll perfectly down without skipping any, a spiral tube that the ball-bearing would roll threw, a plink-o board, and a special trick. The special trick was that there were two balls used, which was allowed, the first ball landed on a mouse trap which tripped a spring loaded sling shot that shot the second ball to a funnel where it would go around and around before finally dropping on to the next section of track. The start was a bucket of corn that we picked the ball out of and put it in the first elevator and the finish was a feeding trough I built from scratch which was supposed to represent the movement of corn from the bucket to the trough through the whole track. Now the pieces of track and elevators and such were the same pieces used every year, because as soon as the competition was over, I had to tear apart my roller coaster and put all the pieces back into the huge box, so the class the next year could try to use the same pieces in their own creation of a roller coaster. So I had limited resources to work with, and they were all just common items such as corner trim, tubing, funnels, mouse traps, washers, clothes pins, Jenga blocks, cardboard, metal dryer venting, pop cans, fishing line etc. Hopefully, all of that explanation has made sense. I also had John Deere tractors set up in and on the roller coaster, and all three of us guys wore John Deere t-shirts when we went to the presentation. So that is how I came to own that certain JD t-shirt. Now all of that was simply the explanation and build up to the actual story I want to share with you.
My two friends and I spent several hours every day, before school, after school, during study halls, during lunch working on this roller coaster. We did this for weeks until we had it build, painted, and fine tuned so everything worked exactly how it was supposed to. The jumps all landed perfectly, the elevators tripped just right each time, the slant of the stairs made sure it landed on each one, the ball-bearing did not get stuck anywhere, and it did not jump off the track anywhere. We had it so it would work every time. That is one part of the competition, you are given three chances for the ball-bearing to make it from start to finish in a certain amount of time without you touching it or guiding it. We had run it many, many times since everyday a new couple of friends wanted to see how it would work. This was good because it worked out all the final kinks and places of troubles. The competition was held on a Saturday in Ames on Iowa State University campus. We all showed up, loaded the roller coaster into the trailer, being pulled by the school’s SUV, and the four of us, us three guys and the teacher, headed to Ames. We stopped for lunch and had a great morning riding up there laughing with the teacher. Then when we got to the competition, we were laughing because the teacher had one heck of a time backing the trailer up to the dock where we were to unload it. We were all laughing as he finally got out and let Nolansky, who is a farm kid, back the trailer up. In a matter of seconds we went from laughing and having a great day to the whole day being ruined as we opened the trailer door. We opened it expecting to unload our perfectly fine-tuned roller coaster and be ready for the competition, but we found such a mess it did not look anything like what we loaded. During the ride, the bouncing of the trailer, had caused one of our elevators to come unglued from the frame and collapse perfectly through the middle of the coaster tearing down tracks and tricks with it. I could have cried, and had my two friends not been standing there beside me, I think I might have. I had spent so much time on this, was truly proud of it, and it was ruined. I honestly asked my professor to just shut the trailer door; we would watch the competition and go home. He very patiently and calmly told me if I truly wanted to just leave it in the trailer I could, but he told me we also had forty-five minutes until the competition began, spare parts and extra glue if we wanted to try to fix it. In my mind I was thinking it would be impossible to fix in such a short time. I would not even know where to begin. I was just about to give up when my friends egged me on to at least try to fix it, and if we could not, then we could put it away and give up. So we found a hidden empty corner of the building and went to work. We had three guys going full speed ahead with hot glue guns, putting track back where it went, putting the elevator back up, and trying our best to get it back to our original creation. We did have to cut out one area of the track because it was too badly damaged, but we just redirected the track before it and made it work. In about forty-five minutes exactly we had a working track. We gave it a test run and it got stuck in one spot. We did our best to fine-tune that one spot and then carried it into the competition area. Now we had free time to walk around and check out everyone else’s roller coasters. There were some pretty fancy, sophisticated coasters. One was built entirely out of all matching wood square dowel. It looked so nice. There were several others that looked like they would simply smoke our rickety little track. However, we watched everyone else run their coasters in front of the panel of judges. Since we were the last ones to check ours in, we were the last one to run ours in front of the judges. As the judges walked up and started looking at the track, I welcomed them, introduced my team, and explained to them the catastrophe we had just been through. They were impressed we had been able to rebuild it in that short of time. Then I had to explain each trick, the physics behind it, and why I chose to include it as was a part of the competition since it was for physics classes. I said a silent prayer that it would work. Since we were the last group, every other group had left their already judged coasters and crowded around ours to watch. They had also heard my speech about the day we had already had. I pulled the ball out of the corn and put it on the track to begin the ride. It made it about a third of the way through the track before an elevator did not trip and it stopped right there. That was one strike. All three of us reset all the tricks that had been tripped correctly and got ready for run two. This time it made it about two-thirds of the way through to the spot where it had been getting stuck in our trial runs. We reset everything again, and had one final chance. Now everyone was as close as they could get watching and actually cheering us on even though we were their competition. We started the third run and it ran perfectly all the way through up until that same spot that it failed the second time. I tried to make that as dramatic as possible. So we were officially out of the competition now since we had struck out three times. However, the judges asked us to just push the ball by hand so they could see the rest of the track. With one simple tap it ran the rest of the way without any problems. The judges told me they wished it had ran all the way through and complimented me on building a fine roller coaster. They left to go make their final decisions on the winners. While they were doing that, many of the other students from the other teams talked to my two friends and me about our roller coaster. We got several compliments and everybody told us they thought our roller coaster was pretty cool and our tricks were very impressive. The one trick that everyone was most impressed with was a bridge I had built. I used the green plastic-coated-wire clothes-line. I used two pieces of it that were the same length and bent them to the same arch. Then I attached pieces of track to both sides of the bridge. So the ball would roll down the track, hit the two pieces of wire like train tracks and roll up over the arch and then back on to the next piece of track. I think everyone made mention to this bridge, and said they never even thought of doing something like that. So even though I did not win, I did impress the judges and other students and had entered a respected roller coaster. I also won the theme contest. I do not know if the judges felt sorry for me and just gave it to me, or if they actually liked the painted logo, tractors, and t-shirts. Either way it was a small victory but still felt pretty good. So the day turned out alright, and I was still pretty proud of our rickety roller coaster that tried its best.
My reason for telling you this long story, other than it’s just a fun story to tell is because I think this is a good example of the Christian life. We try so hard to live faithful lives, and go through times where we feel like we actually are being good Christians, living rightly, and doing what we are supposed to do. Then just when we are going through good times, bad things happen. Maybe a loved one dies, you get in a car wreck, or even just something stresses you out to the point you chew out an innocent bystander. It does not matter what it is, bad things do happen in this sinful world. You open that trailer door and find something you were not ready for, and your first thought is to just give up. It seems like your whole world is hopeless. You feel helpless and lost. You question God and start asking why. You ask how a loving God could let this happen and you just want to give up on this cruel God. Just like I wanted to shut those trailer doors and give up, you lose certainty in your faith.
However, hopefully you have friends like mine standing there beside you who encourage you to keep going. They push you to at least try and give it a little effort. Hopefully when disaster hits you, you have good Christian friends who are there to pray with you, read Scripture with you, and encourage your faith. This is part of being united by the body of Christ. Not only are we never alone because God is with us, but we are also never alone because we have Christian brothers and sisters walking beside us and with us through this sinful world. God has given us those relationships to strengthen each other, and encourage each other to always remain true to our faith. Then as you push forward, with the help of God, you begin to realize maybe it was not as bad as it seemed. Maybe it can still work out for a good day in the end. I believe there are times when we start focusing on ourselves so much, our own efforts, that we forget God is in control and He is the one we need to keep our focus on. I think it is OK to say God uses these bad things that happen to us to remind us we are humble creatures who are dependent on our Creator. We need Him, and if we forget that we are in trouble. We are dependent of His grace and mercy because we are sinful creatures who can do nothing on our own. We need Him to sustain us, we need His Son to save us, and we need His Spirit to refresh us. He wants to remind us that He is in control and while we should try to live a good faithful life, it is still our focus on Him that allows us to do so. However, just as I still found victory in that day, because of good friends who pushed me on, God will put faithful people in your life to encourage your faith and bring you back to keeping your focus on God which is our only victory. Now I am not saying if you keep your focus on Jesus, bad things will not happen to you. I am simply saying that when bad things do happen to you, which is a pretty sure bet in this sinful world, let it bring you back to Christ and strengthen your faith, rather than letting it bring you down. Then you will also win the best theme award, because Jesus is always the best theme, no matter how much I like John Deere. I know I went from folding laundry to making Christ the victorious theme of our salvation, but hey that is the crazy kind of trails my mind takes me on. All Praise Him who is our victorious theme of salvation, and loving God who is in control through all life’s experiences.
Dear Heavenly Father,
In this sinful life, we do have bad things that happen to us. We do not know why, but we do know our thoughts are not Your thoughts, and our ways are not Your ways. We also know You are always in control. You were in control when you sent You Son to be our Savior. You were in control as You gave us Your Spirit in our baptism, and You are still in control as You hear our prayers. Please keep us strong in our faith and let Jesus always be our focus, since He truly is our victorious Redeemer. In His most Holy name we pray. Amen.
Here is a picture of my John Deere Ball-Bearing Roller Coaster!
Here is a picture of my John Deere Ball-Bearing Roller Coaster!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Faithful Chocoholics?
Hello everyone. I have quite a bit I think I am going to try to write about in the next few days, including this post, so I hope you bear with me. School is still going well; however, there is only two weeks left of this quarter and I still have quite a few papers and projects to complete, so I will have to buckle down and bear through it. I believe Tuesday was the last time I wrote to you. Wednesday, I went to worship class only to find out my group was not suppose to be there until the next week. So I enjoyed another class free Wednesday. Both Wednesday and Thursday were pretty uneventful days, just trying to catch up on some reading and making the official list of everything I have to do in the next couple weeks.
Friday I spent the day going to all my classes as usual. Then Friday afternoon was Prof and Stein, where beer and fellowship was enjoyed by all. I got to sit and talk with a group of guys I normally do not see outside of class, so that was nice for a change. Then Friday night the Preachers had a home basketball game. We lost but it was a close one. After the game, we could not decide what to do. A group of guys were going to the bar, another group of guys were going to Applebee’s to hang out, but both of those cost money. The group I normally hang out decided we were just going to try to find something to do on campus. I think we found the best option. We christened in the brand new lounge that was just completely remodeled in the third floor of Wartburg. They have a brand new pool table and foosball table up there. So we played both of those and then broke out the cards and had some intense pinochle going on. The entire time we were hanging out we were sampling some home-brewed free wine. Our friend Aaron’s mom brews her own wine and beer. He brought six or seven different bottles of wine of hers and let us sample all of them. It was such a fun night of just relaxing and spending time together without spending any money.
Saturday, Chris and I worked out before brunch. Then after brunch the guys finally got me to give in. I have lived twenty-three years without seeing any of the Star Wars movies. Chris and Stein, who both love those movies, decided that was long enough and got me to watch Episode IV. Now that I have seen that one, I imagine I will also be watching V and VI in the near future too. I thought it was a good movie, but am not absolutely in love with it like most of the guys here. Sorry if I offend any serious Star Wars fans who might be reading this.
Saturday evening we enjoyed a few rounds of a board game we all enjoy. It is called Axis and Allies, and basically is our own rendition of World War II. I was Russia last time we played and the Allies won. I dominated with Russia and was able to push Germany into a corner he couldn’t get out of with the help with England on his other side, but then I also took over all of Asia and forced Japan back out to the sea too. Now this new game we just started, I am Russia again, but am getting pushed back on both sides. It is a very complex board game with sea, land, and air units that all have different movements, attacks, and defenses. The wars all are done with dice and when the rolls do not go your way, you can lose a lot of armies very quickly.
I have been fighting the start of a nasty throat/chest cold. I have been trying to get extra sleep, am taking Dayquil and Nightquil, and using lots of cough drops. Last night I went to bed at a decent time, but woke up several times coughing. I have also not had much of a voice yesterday or today. I was certainly glad I was not doing liturgy this week, or I would have had to shout just so they could hear my rasps. However, even with waking up during the night, I was able to get up this morning in time to shower, get dressed, and met the guys to head to field work church. I did not have to do anything for the service, and then sat in with Tim and his Sunday school class again. He has the most hyper class out of all the classes and it’s also the biggest every week. So a second adult is always a good thing in that classroom. We covered the manna, quail, and water during the Exodus of the Israelites. Then after church, Stein and I went to get stuff to change oil in our cars this week. It costs way too much to get it done at any of the mechanics around here, so we bought ramps and a drain pan and will just change it in the parking lot. Plus, all Walmart’s and Auto Zones now take used oil and oil filters for free. I think we plan to do that tomorrow if the weather is still nice.
I went over to a friend’s house to watch the Super Bowl this evening. He lives in the married housing with his wife, and she made a ton of food. They had wings, potato skins, bacon wrapped little smokies, cookies, chips and dip, and chili. Plus he bought several different types of beer. They have a 52 inch High Def. T.V. and surround sound set up around their brand new wrap around couch. It was pretty much the perfect set-up to watch the game. There were about ten to fifteen of us there all enjoying the game. Now I am just writing this quick before I head to bed and try to sleep all night without waking up.
I have several thoughts for the day that I have been thinking about lately. I think I will only include one in this post and then try to write the rest tomorrow in a new post. The first post I was thinking about came from Confessions class on Friday. We spent the entire time looking at baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These are articles eight and nine in the Augsburg Confession. I will include much more about both of these in tomorrow’s post, because I took several great notes that Dr. Arand used that I wanted to pass on to you. However, this short but very useful idea also came from Dr. Arand and I could not help but tell it to you. He was taking about faith and God’s grace, and the analogy he used was this: “Faith is like a chocoholic”. A chocoholic always wants more chocolate. He or she can never get enough chocolate. If you offer them a bag full of M&M’s they will want the whole bag. This is true of our faith and God’s grace. A faithful person can never get enough of God’s grace. When he says the confession in a Sunday morning service, and receives the absolution, that is receiving God’s grace. Then he hears a sermon about baptism (proclamation of the Word) and he is reminded of his baptism which is a state of being in God’s grace. Then he walks up to the communion rail and receives the Lord’s body and blood, which is receiving God’s grace and all are forgiving him of his sins. Now he could stop and say, “Have I really sinned enough to need that much forgiveness in one service?” However, a true faithful person can never get enough of God’s grace and will simply say, “I have been forgiven of my sins.” If there is a special service Monday for some reason, he will gladly go up and receive communion again if it is offered, because a faithful person does not see God’s grace as something only needed once in a while, but should always be accepted with praise and thanksgiving. I can remember from my own Sunday school classes as a kid, our teacher one time asked us how often we should take communion. Us kids guessed several numbers, but she corrected us with the right answer which is, "as often as it is offered". A little bit of God’s grace is sufficient enough to forgive us of our sins, however, we should live as faithful people who can never get enough of His grace and mercy He offers to us. We should delight in receiving the gifts He gives to us, His children, out of His steadfast love for us, as often as it is offered. All Praise be to Him who continuously offers us His unmerited grace and mercy through His Son, by the power of His spirit.
Dear Heavenly Father,
We thank you so much for the love, grace, and mercy You continue to show us day in and day out. We ask that You allow us to receive Your gifts with thankful and faithful hearts, always adoring Your name, clinging to Your faith, and trusting in You to provide for us all we need and so much more. We pray in the name of our Savior, Your Son, who You sent to be our Redeemer through the power of Your Holy Spirit. Amen.