Justice?

The First half of this I wrote last Friday.   I am just now finishing the second today as I post this.

 Happy Friday!  What a wonderful gift from God today is.  It is another beautiful sunny day here.  We had rain yesterday which brought cooler temperatures.  I was finally able to use the covers on my bed again last night.  Our rooms, including the classrooms, have been so warm because they were scared to shut off the heaters just in case we got one last cold spell.  However, I think winter is hopefully gone for good and they are slowing turning on the air conditioners instead of the heaters.  These old buildings are beautiful, but they do have their signs of age. 

This week has gone by so fast I cannot even remember everything that happened.  Classes are going well, but the papers and tests begin to slowly start next week.  I have a test next Monday, and need to get at least one of my papers started next week.  The biggest thing I am struggling with is my first sermon.  I have several “good-to-me” ideas, but just cannot officially decide which one to go with.  He intentionally gave us a hard text so we have to pick an idea and stick with it.  His quote in class yesterday was, “The more you preach, the more you know what is preach-able.”  He told us this first sermon is the hardest one we will have to write because the prep process we will be the hardest to go through.  He told us not to get discouraged.   That made me feel a little better about the future, but still struggling with this one for now.  I think I do have it narrowed down to two ideas, but each step of the process, Schmitt reveals some new profound idea to us and I have to start my elimination process all over again. 

I do not really have any official plans for this weekend yet, other than church Sunday morning.  A group of about ten of us sat outside last night after it quit raining, and smoked cigars and pipes.  It was fun and certainly smelled good. 

I just wanted to include a few more fun facts from my classes.  The two or three I want to include today come mostly from Confessions class.  The first one is a quote by Kolb.  “It is not very important to be Lutheran on sunny days, but on other days, especially funerals, it is more important that we find our Lutheran faith.”  Now before you make Kolb out to be against the Lutheran church, let me explain what he meant.  He meant that when life is going good and it’s all sunny days, we are happy jut being Christians knowing we are blessed from God.  However, it’s on cloudy and gloomy days, this is where funerals fit in, that we can be happy to be Lutheran.  By this he means Lutheran by the sense that we have our doctrine that points to the hope and promises of God’s Gospel being completely free.  Days when we feel like we are just dirty filthy sinners and nothing is going right, we can know that we are still forgiven, loved children of God because His mercy is completely free.  We do not worry about our merits, because we know they do not earn our salvation.  When we lose loved ones, we can rejoice in the hope of eternal life in heaven, and do not have to worry or stress about our loved ones being in purgatory, suffering until they get to heaven.  We know they are in paradise that day with our Lord.  These sad or dark days are when we can rejoice that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in our Christ and Savior.  So on sunny days just praise the Lord for the blessings He gives you and know you are His child.  Then when those dark days come, we can find His glory because we know He has done it all for us and we receive His grace and mercy freely. 

The next idea I want to look at is the term Redeem and how we normally define it.  We normally define redeem as “buy-back.”  This analogy does work nicely, but still is not a perfect fit.  Dr. Kolb pointed out the minor error with this analogy to us in class.  He asked us, “What is the biggest example of redemption in the Old Testament?”   Do you know what it is?  It is the Exodus, God bringing His people out of slavery of Egypt.  However, when you look at this buy back analogy, you have three parts: the person who is paying the price, the thing or people who are being ransomed, and the one who is receiving payment.  So the one paying the price or doing the buying back is God, the ones being ransomed were the Israelites, but who received the payment?  Well you could say Pharaoh and Egypt, but what did they receive?  One kid in class said Pharaoh got to see the bottom of the Red Sea which was a place he had never been before.  (Oh you have to love seminary humor).  This is where the analogy falls short, because you cannot really say someone received the payment.  It is the same with the biggest redemption of the New Testament.  You had better know what that one is!!!!! Jesus Christ on the cross!!!  So the Father paid the price of His Son, but technically it is Jesus who paid the price with His blood.  We were the ones who were ransomed.  And who got the payment?  Did all of Jesus’ blood run down to the Devil in Hell?  Even if you say the sin is what holds us captive, not the Devil, did sin receive the blood of Christ?  See this analogy works for the most part but is not perfect.  However, very rarely does an analogy fit perfectly.  They are just meant to help us better understand the concept, and Jesus buying us back from sin with the price of His life and His blood being spilt should help us understand the high cost it took to free us. 

This is where I started writing today.

The weekend went really well.  I did not do a whole lot, but it was still fun.  Friday night a group of four us just hung out and played some video games.  Then Saturday, we went to Play It Again, Sports, which is a used sporting goods store.  I found a softball bat that was in awesome condition for dirt cheap.  I also found a driver that looked like it would fit me better than the one I have and it was just as cheap as well.  Then we went to the softball field and did some batting practice with the new bat.  It has a sweet pop to it and will be a very good bat for many years to come.  Then Sunday after church, which was just the typical church, Sunday school, and lunch; Chris and I went to the driving range.  I think fifteen dollars may have put a driver that I can actually hit back into my arsenal.  I was hitting all my clubs very well.  Although I did not let myself get too excited because every spring when I first start golfing I always start off very well.  Over the winter my swing forgets all of its bad habits and I start the season off with my prime swing.  However, it is not very long before each little habit sneaks its way back into my swing.  However, it just felt good to be swinging again.  The store also has a 180 dollar putter that is in great shape for only forty dollars.  I am going to wait until my paycheck comes in before I go see if that is still there.  I normally would not be able to justify buying another club, but I am going to sell my current driver that I am replacing with the new one.  It is in really good shape and is a nice driver so I hope they will buy it for most of the price of the putter. 

Today I had my test.  I think it went pretty well but we will see after it is graded.  I studied quite a bit for it so I hope it went well.  Wednesday I have a funeral to go to.  My great-uncle Bill died.  The funeral is about an hour and a half south of St. Louis.  It will be good to see that side of the family again, even though it had to be a funeral to get us together.  However, that is just one of those gloomy days we can rejoice in the Savior we have and what He has done for us. 

The final thing I want to talk about is justice.  We were looking at the term “justified” in Confessions class the other day.  The definition Dr. Kolb gave for justification is being in the state of justice.  So the question was, “Are we in a state of justice for our sins?” If you say no, you are saying we are not justified and denying the saving power of Christ and His forgiveness.  If you say yes, have we really gotten what we deserved for our sins that we define as justice?  So what is your answer?  The truth is we did get what we deserved.  Now you may say we did not get what we deserve because we as sinners deserve God’s immediate and eternal wrath and punishment.  While this is true, even if God gave us His wrath and let us pay the price for our sins ourselves, what is the wage of sin?  Death is the wage of sin!  So we deserve death for our sins.  But each one of us has died already.  See in our baptism we died to sin and were made alive in Christ.  We died the same death Christ died on the cross when we died to sin in our baptism.  We were made alive to Christ in the same resurrection that Christ accomplished on Easter morning.  So we have gotten what we deserved for our sins through our baptism.  Now do not use this to say that we have been justified by our own means, because it is still only through the death and resurrection of Christ that we are able to die to sin and be made alive to Him.  However, my point is that this fully explains that Christ’s saving act was truly performed to us, and we were physically and entirely changed by the power of Christ in our baptism.  Through water and the Word, we truly did die!  That is not a metaphor or analogy.  It is what actually happened to us in our baptism that justified us and made us blameless before the eyes of God.  We so often see baptism just as a ceremony that we do for our children.  I want you to each know and realize it is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much more than that.  It is the present state of being in justice before your Lord.  It is a state of being, not an action.  You were not baptized.  You ARE baptized, and will be until the day you stand before your Lord for judgment, and He says, “You are my baptized, forgiven child.  Welcome to my house where I have prepared a room just for you.”  We are justified by the miracle of our birth to Him through our baptism.  All Praise Him who gives us the power to become His children through the miracle of our baptism, which made us dead to sin but alive to Christ. 

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you so much for redeeming us through our baptism.  Let us never forget that we truly were justified through Your Word together with the water.  You have made us Your children, now please let Your Spirit be with us that we may be Your faithful children.  We pray in the same name we were baptized, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Undeserved life.

Greetings to you in the name of our Redeemer and Lord Jesus Christ.  I have been super busy lately and time is flying by faster than is fair.  Minus a few rainy days, the beautiful weather has continued to excite me for spring and even summer.  Classes have been going well, but I feel like I am constantly behind even though all we really have right as of now is still just reading.  

This weekend I went to Decatur to babysit the nephews while Nate and Kari went to a high school fundraiser with the new high school he will be at next year.  I got there Saturday about noon, ate lunch with them, saw the house they have unofficially bought, saw the school, and went swimming with the boys and Nate at the hotel.  I had a pretty good time with the boys even though they were tired and cranky from swimming.  Then after I got them asleep and Nate and Kari came back, Nate and I went to a restaurant for a couple beers.  Then Sunday we went to church and ate lunch together.  Then I came back to the seminary, and they went back to Iowa.  It was good to see them again, and I always enjoy getting to spend time with those two little squirts.  Justin is getting quite the pop-belly on the front of him and had an eerie resemblance as he walked between Nate and me.  He is finally realizing he will most likely be a lineman in football, and it is funny to hear him talk about it with an ounce of disappointment in his voice.  Since he has always normally played quarterback or running back, he is not the most excited to see what I call the "Richter curse" settling in.  

Today was a pretty good day until I found out the recent change in student loans policy.  Right now I have all subsidized loans which means they do not start accruing interest until six months after I graduate.  However, the laws just changed so now there will be no subsidized loans.  This means all student loans starting next year will be unsubsidized, which means the loan will start accruing interest as soon as I borrow them.  So while I am still in school and not paying them back, they will still be accruing interest.  This ruined a small part of my day, until I reminded myself that the Lord always provides and I can just watch my spending a whole lot more strictly.  

My thought for the day comes from Confessions II class.  I have several things that I want to mention from my classes, and then will elaborate on one of them.  I feel like I am really letting you down with this blog especially looking at my original statement of intention.  I want to give fewer details about what I am up to in my daily life, and more details about what I am learning in classes.  If you have any objections to that, please let me know, but I assume most of you read it not to hear about my life, but for the tips of knowledge I am learning and can pass along to you.  

The first idea is a fun fact from Luther.  When reading Luther's explanation to the Ten Commandments in his Small Catechism, the explanation of the first commandment is short but very important.  The first commandment is: You shall have no other gods.  When answering "what does this mean", Luther states that we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.  One simple sentence, and yet it is the reason we are entirely sinful.  Luther made the claim that when we break any of the commandments, it is because we do not keep the first commandment.  If we could keep the first commandment, it would be easy to keep all nine of the rest.  See, if we truly feared the wrath of God, loved Him the same way He loves us, and trusted in Him above all other things in our life, we would not steal, lie, commit adultery, murder, etc.  If we feared the wrath of God, we would not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, and if we loved God as He loves us, we would help and support [our neighbor] in every physical need {explanation to the fifth commandment}.  If we were able to keep the first commandment, we could keep them all.  Now we know that because of our sinful nature due to original sin we can never keep the first commandment which causes us to break all the rest too.  Dr. Kolb's quote is that 100 percent of Americans (although I think you could just say humans) are polytheistic because we rely on and trust in other gods in our lives.  We put trust in our savings accounts in the bank, or in our cars that get us places, or in all the other things that we put before God and trust in rather than just knowing He is our God who we should fear, love, and trust in above all things.  I just thought that was pretty cool that this one little sentence, which we cannot not keep, is the reason we cannot keep any of God's laws as sinners.  

The second idea came from Dr. Schmitt's homiletics classes.  Now before I give you the tip, I just want to say I have not once walked out of a class with Dr. Schmitt without being scared out of my mind about preaching.  Not that preaching is an impossible thing, but it is not easy and is a major responsibility.  We define preaching as having four characteristics: 1. authoritative public proclamation of the faith, 2. based on a text of Scripture, 3. centered in the death and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and 4. for the benefit of the hearers in faith and life.  A sermon must have all four of these components or it is not actually a sermon.  Now there are several things we are looking at in each one of those four things, so do not automatically assume your local pastor is not including one of those and is not preaching.  My point of telling you this is not so you can critique your pastor's sermons, but rather just so you know the full responsibility of preaching the Word of God to His people each and every week.  So each class when we dive deeper into what makes a sermon a sermon, the actual purpose of a sermon, and how to write a "good" sermon, I get more scared each week.  Now I know the Spirit will be with me and help me write sermons, but it is still a responsibility I do not want to ever over look.  The tip he gave us comes from Melanchthon (who I hope you all know who he is).  Melanchthon said that the chief worship of God is the proclamation of the Gospel.  So while you may think the most important part of the Sunday morning service is your favorite hymn you get to sing that week, confession and absolution, or even the Lord's Supper (which is so valuable I almost did not even mention it but Melanchthon does too so I thought it was OK).  Now if you want to be a wise one you could say that absolution and the Words of Institution are both proclamation of the Gospel, which I would have to agree with you, but the major point of proclamation comes in the reading of the Scripture and the sermon which is based on the Scripture.  So if you truly think that you do not need to pay attention during the sermon and wish your pastor would keep his sermons shorter because you just cannot focus that long, just remember how important Melanchthon valued these parts of the service.  

I want to just very quickly include one more fun statement that came from homiletics. There are many, many, many amazing tips and guides he gives us to use during our sermon prep and preaching that I think are so amazing and had never thought of before, but I do not want to include these just in case you have a pastor who does one of them, I do not ever want to hinder the support a pastor has by his members.  This fact however comes from the pastor's prep work all week as he is trying to decide what to include in his sermon and what not to add.  "There are many very good Christian things you will NOT say every Sunday."  Every text can produce so many good sermon ideas as you are working through it.  However, wanting your sermon to be focused down to one theological point, there are many great ideas that you will come up with and will not be able to fit into your one point.  So while it is a great Christian idea or point, it just does not fit with your sermon and does not get added.  However, in the three-year lectern series, these great ideas can hopefully fit into your sermon the next time you preach on this same text.  

I will add a blog later about everything we are learning in Synoptic Gospels.  For now all I will tell you is that if you truly want to be able to understand the New Testament to the best of your ability (with respect to fully understanding culture and recent history of that time period) the book we are reading about inter-testament history, is Charles Puskas' book titled An Introduction to the New Testament.  Use the second edition, not the first if you are actually interested in checking it out.  It is actually not that long and a fairly quick easy read.  It is just so dense with useful material, it is almost more of a resource book than just a text book.  

The final point that I want to say and fully reflect and think about is a fun fact that Dr. Kolb said in Confessions II.  Again, that class could have an entire blog of its own, and we have only had two class sessions so far.  The statement he made the other day just really got me thinking though. Before I tell you what it is, let me tell you his joke and following quote just so you can get a feel for the guy.  He is an older guy and kind of soft spoken, but super nice and friendly and probably about as smart as they come.  His joke was he wrote the name Otto on the board because it was a guy we were talking about, and he stopped and said, "Oh man I spelled his name backwards."  Then when we all laughed, he said, "Oh don't laugh at that joke.  You really should not encourage me."  But his statement was that life from God is no more deserved than life from your parents.  Now when you just hear that on a level one surface it makes sense that we do not deserve life from God. However, when I stopped and thought about it, I had never thought about the fact that I did not deserve life from my parents either.  Did you deserve for your parents to create you and bring you into this world?  Life from your parents is a gift.  Even for couples who do not stay together after the child is born, it still took both of them to create you, and it was a gift that they brought you into the world.  This really struck me funny since most of the time we hear parents talking about their child being a gift to them, which is a good attitude to have, but they also could say they gave that child a gift by bringing them into this world. Although it might not work best to tell a dramatic teenager who "hates" their life, that they did not deserve to be brought into this world, because most likely they will agree with that statement.  However, when you think about life as a gift from your parents, it makes you appreciate your parents more and puts a whole new level of respect there for them.  They did not have to bring you into the world but chose to anyway.  This is true of God.  He did not have to give the gift of life in this world, and yet He gave it to you as sure as you sit there reading this.  Now our parents gave us life on this earth, but they also gave us original sin.  Do not hold that against them though because we are sinners on our own enough that we cannot blame them for the original sin we have, plus you will pass the same thing on to your kids.  However, the point is life from your parents was a gift, but life from God is a much greater gift.  God not only gave us life on this earth, but through the death and resurrection of His Son He has given us life eternally in heaven with Him as well.  This is truly a gift of life that we should always be thankful for and truly appreciate.  In my mind though this can also be used to show that life from God is a FREE gift, and is not based on our merits or anything we do.  If you spend your entire life being a great kid rather than being a terrible child to your parents, does it change the fact that they gave you the gift of life on this earth?  No!  So if you are a faithful child of God rather than a terrible sinner, does that change the fact that God gave you eternal life through your baptism?  NO!  It is one hundred percent undeserved, unmerited, and free from our gracious and loving Heavenly Father.  All Praise be to Him who freely gives us this most amazing and wonderful gift. 

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the gift of life both on this earth and the gift of life to come after this world that we have our secure hope in.  We certainly did not deserve either and yet out of Your grace and mercy, You chose to save us, claim us as Your children, and give us the gift of life.  Be with us as we use that life to serve You, knowing that our serving You is not necessary for salvation but is what You have called us to do as Your Redeemed children.  We pray in the same name that saved us and gave us our new life in our baptism, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Lies and excuses!

Hello everyone.  I hope you had a great weekend.  I certainly did.  Friday night Chris and I started a fire in the fire pit right outside of our dorm as we each enjoyed our pipes.  The next thing we know there are about ten to fifteen guys outside hanging out with us.  It was a blast and we spent most of the night just talking and sharing plenty of laughs.  Then Saturday we took full advantage of the spring weather.  Chris and I got up and played racquetball ball before brunch.  I worked brunch and then we were going to play basketball.  Instead we decided to play softball.  We mainly just took turns hitting and fielding, but it was fun.  I forgot to wear a hat and got my bald scalp just a little pink.  Then Saturday night I got everything ready for church and went to bed early to try to beat the time change.
Sunday morning I lead liturgy at church, and then watched a video on Noah's ark with the youth group.  It was a really cool video and made me do some extra thinking about exactly what Noah went through.  Then a couple from church took us three students and pastor out for lunch to this huge buffet.  They had every type of food you could ever imagine.  Needless to say I ate way too much. Then Sunday afternoon a few of us guys were going to hit the driving range, but the rain cancelled those plans.  So Chris and I played some video games instead before I spent the rest of the night catching up on my reading.  Chris, Stein, Brennan, and I are keeping each other accountable with a program that completes reading of the Bible in sixty days.  We read the assigned reading for each day and then three Psalms.  I am personally going to add reading one part of the Small Catechism to it each day.  This addition is two fold because I personally want to know the Catechisms better, but we are also required to have the Small Catechism memorized for one of my classes.  So I figure the more I read it the easier it will be to memorize it. I finished Leviticus last night and am kind of glad to be through it and Exodus.  
Today it literally is almost eighty degrees and sunny out.  It is a bit windy, but still a beautiful day.  Also, the food bank received a huge donation of food that they put out for all students to go through and pick out what they wanted.  It was mostly cereal bars and fruit snacks and Gatoraid, which is all good stuff and it was all free.  Now I am just typing this up quick before I start on my readings for classes and work ahead in my daily Bible readings.  I am not going to have much time this weekend as I head to Decatur to babysit the nephews while Nate and Kari have stuff to do.
My thought for the day comes from my readings in Exodus.  I want to look at the story of the golden calf.  Moses goes up to Mount Sinai to be with the Lord and receive His commandments.  While he is gone, the Israelites do not last very long before they are wondering where Moses is and start bugging Aaron.  They demand for him to make them gods for them to worship.  Now an important thing to remember is that Aaron has not only been Moses's aid through the entire Exodus starting in Egypt, but he is also the head priest.  Right before the story of the golden calf is the Lord telling Moses how to make the tabernacle and everything in it.  Part of that everything in it is the garments and vestments for Aaron and his sons to wear as the priests of the tabernacle.  Aaron has special garments to wear when he enters the Most Holy place that only he is allowed to go into once a year.  He is the most holy priest and in charge.  Then as soon as you get done reading about Aaron being the high priest for the Israelites, you read the story of the golden calf.  The people demanded from Aaron gods to worship.  Instead of directing their focus and faith to the Lord who he knows has brought them up out of Egypt and saved them from slavery, he tells them to bring him all their gold.  He makes for them the golden calf and tells them to worship the idol.  The best part is when Moses finds out.  Moses also plays an interesting part in this story.  He pleads with God not to let his anger burn against the people for walking against the Lord.  The Lord listens to Moses, but then as soon as Moses returns and finds the people worshiping the statue of the calf, his anger burns against them.  He just asked God to forgive them, but then personally gets mad at them.  However, you cannot really blame him.  He just stuck out his neck to save these people and now finds out they are not making him look very good.  He confronts Aaron about it all.  This is part of the story that makes it seem so real to me.  Moses asks Aaron how he could possibly let something like this happen and Aaron lies!  Instead of just confessing to being the one who let the people turn away from God, he says he threw the gold in the fire and the calf was what came out.  As soon as Moses is standing in font of Aaron, it finally hits Aaron and he realizes how big he has messed up.  He feels the guilt and shame for the wrong he has done.  Instead of just owning up to it and confessing, he makes up a lie, an excuse.  How many times have we done that in our life?!  We are confronted about something we know we messed up; we did something that we know we should not have done, but the guilt and shame scares us into lying instead of just confessing to the mistake, we make another mistake by lying about it.  I know I have personally done this time and time again.  I have found every time that lying only makes it worse, and those excuses we make up do not help anybody.  Even if Moses believed Aaron's excuse, the Lord still knew he was lying.  We may get out of trouble by lying or making excuses some times.  However, the Lord always knows the truth and on judgment day, we will all answer the truth for those lies and excuses. We should fear the Lord enough to be honest with Him and confess all our sins.  He knows them anyway, so why not just come clean and tell Him the truth.  Then do the same when we are confronted about our mistakes.  When some one is standing in front of you asking how you could possibly make such a mistake, do not make another mistake by lying.  Just tell the truth and confess that you have done wrong.  And you may have to pay the consequences of your actions.  However, when you confess your sins to the Lord, you know there are no eternal consequences.  Jesus Christ has died as the consequence for every sin you and I do.  He has paid the price so we do not have to.  His resurrection was the triumph that wiped away all our wrongs.  So when we find ourselves in Aaron's shoes, and we have lied about sinning, confess both sins to God knowing we are forgiven because of the gracious and loving Savior we have in Christ Jesus.  All Praise Him who forgives us, even when we lie about the wrong we have done.
This prayer was given to me and I want to use it for today:
Lord, You know what is best for me
Give me what You will and when You will and as much as You will.
Do with me as You know best and as it pleases You and brings You the most honor.
Place me where You will and guide me according to Your wisdom.
I am in Your hand as Your servant and ready to all that You command.
I want to live, not for myself, but for You alone. 
I want to live worthily and profitably and to Your honor. 
Amen.  

Hear that? Praise the Lord!

I greet you in the name of our Savior who continues to bless us all each and every day.  Well, I am officially bald!  I had my head shaved for the St. Baldrick's program.  They shave heads as a fundraiser to help pay for research trying to find new cures and medicines for kids with cancer.  I now have an account with their program for the next year, so if anyone would like to donate towards their cause you can let me know.  However, we had twenty guys including two admissions counselors, one cancer survivor, and even President Meyer.  The admissions counselor who set the whole thing not only shaved his head, but even did his eyebrows.  We have officially broken our goal of five thousand dollars and hope to keep raising it.  The cancer survivor is a dear friend to the counselor who set it all up, and is now twenty-seven.  He has only had his hair grown back for six months and still decided to give it up to help kids who are currently struggling with cancer.  He gave a really touching speech to all of us, and the whole event was a neat thing to be a part of.  I did leave the beard, but everything else is skin.  See....

The first few days of classes have been amazing so far.  The weather has been absolutely beautiful.  As much as I love winter and snow, I am ready for these sunny days to stay around.  I love getting up in the morning, opening the blinds, and seeing the sun shining, the grass turning green, the trees budding, and the birds flying.  General Lee said that there is no time in the whole day quite like dawn.  He was talking about just as the dark of night began to show the very beginning signs of the sun rising over the horizon.  Which I will admit, the times I have been up for sun rise and seen the whole process, I did thoroughly enjoy it.  It just seems like the whole world around you is waking up, as the light slowly gets brighter and brighter, the colors of everything around you become more and more lustrous, and everything that seemed so still begins to move around you.  However, I rarely get to see this as I am not much of a morning person.  But the past few mornings have gotten me very excited for spring and remind me each day is a new gift from our Lord.  

I hope the weather stays nice for this weekend.  I plan to play racquetball Saturday morning, tennis Saturday afternoon, and the driving range Sunday after church.  I need to get some serious tennis in, because I talked to the tennis coach and he told me I could hit with the team if I wanted to.  I think it would help me more than it would help the team, but I might be able to help them somehow too.  I just want to get the rust shaken off so I do not embarrass myself the first time I go hit with them.  

I am so far keeping up with the homework and reading.  I am even working ahead in some of my classes.  I am going to try to stay on top of the ball this quarter so I do not get way behind like last quarter.  My classes for the most part are so exciting and fun, the work has not been much of a chore yet.  Synoptic Gospels was so much fun in class, I was excited to do the readings and keep going from where we left off.  I have not had a Homiletics class yet, where the hour and twenty-five minutes seemed any longer than ten minutes.  Sitting there listening to Dr. Schmitt, I am in such awe the entire time; it’s over before I know it.  If that class continues to be as amazing as it has been so far, it may just be my favorite class here, but we will see.  My one history class I am only has two papers and they are both relatively short.  Our entire grade is based on two papers!  So while I am excited to have very little work for that class besides reading, I am also going to have to write two very good papers to make sure my grade is good in that class.  However, it will be a fun class, even though I am the only first year in it with a bunch of second and fourth year guys.  

I had my first sign language class tonight and loved it.  We will meet twice a week and I think that will help me learn it better.  We moved pretty quickly tonight but I felt like I was keeping up very well.  Normally I am so slow at language classes, so it felt good to know what I was doing for once.  The teacher was asking a question just as an example and I answered it signing just for practice.  However, she saw me do it, and made me stand up and do it in front of the whole class again.  Then she taught us how deaf people clap which I think is awesome.  They wave both hands with fingers spread above their head since they cannot hear clapping.  The actual teacher seems like a really awesome lady.  She was born deaf because her mother had the German measles when she was born.  She is third youngest of fourteen kids.  She puts so many facial and body expressions in her conversation she had us laughing several times tonight.  I did find out part of our requirement for the class is to attend the deaf church once.  I think this will be awesome to see and cannot wait for that.

My thought for the day comes from our teacher Ella.  Here is a lady who has been deaf her entire life, never once hearing a single sound, and yet is a happy lady with a great sense of humor.  She is happy to be teaching us her language and culture.  That is something I did not think of, but she is teaching us how to recognize if someone is deaf and how they have their own certain customs and traditions when speaking with each other.  Then I started thinking about the idea of deaf ministry.  The fact that these people who have never heard their own name being said or their children’s laughter, still come to hear the Gospel message. They gather on Sunday mornings to watch the entire service being signed to them, but are still able to hear the good news being preached to them.  They worship the Lord with their hands, and some still with their voices.  I think we take our senses that we have and use every day for granted.  We argue over what type of music will be played in church instead of just praising the Lord that we are even able to hear the beautiful sounds of instruments and voices praising Him.  We know the sounds of a child’s laughter, birds singing, beautiful orchestras, and the world around us.  And yet, how often do we just stop to listen to the sounds of nature, people talking, or even just the wind. Think of even the sounds of traffic or sirens that seem to be a nuisance, but we should be thankful that the Lord has blessed us with the ability to hear them.  We need to stop and count our blessings each and every day and realize that we cannot even possibly think of every little thing that we just consider normal but is truly a gift from our Lord.  Matthew 6:25-34 is a passage that I think cannot be read enough.  When we let all of the smallest things stress us out and worry us in life, we forget to stop and thank the Lord for the fact that we are alive, living in His created world, in His image.  We are healthy, have a home, food, family and friends.  We can hear and see.  We are blessed and when we stop to remember who is in control, life all of a sudden seems so peaceful and calm.  If God is for us, who can be against us?  And then you look at people like Ella, who even though she cannot hear, still knows she is blessed and is able to smile and laugh because she knows she still has so much to be thankful for.  All Praise Him who not only blesses us, takes care of us, and provides for us, but truly spoils us His beloved children.  He spoils us with daily blessings, and then on top of all of that still freely gives us the gift of eternal life made possible through the death and resurrection of His Son, our Savior, Christ Jesus.  That is A LOT to be thankful for.  

Dear Heavenly Father, 

Thank you so much for the overabundant and uncountable blessings You freely give us every day.  Help us to never forget to stop and praise You for all You have given us.  Let us be able to use what You have given us for Your glory and honor.  We especially thank you for the gift of Your Son's death and resurrection paying the price of our sins.  We praise Your name on high through the name of Your Son, our Savior, who lives and reigns with You and Your Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.  

I'm Back!

Greetings to you all in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ.  I know I did not write to you once over my two week break and for that I apologize.  However, after finals week of last quarter, I was burnt out on writing.  Also, the last two weeks have gone by so fast, it felt like two days.  I do have a lot to fill you in on though, so buckle up and get ready for the ride as I relive for you the past two weeks.  

The first night of break I spent in Kansas City with my old roommate Taylor.  It was really good to see him again and made me realize how much I appreciated our friendship the year we lived together.  I wish we could live closer so he and I could see each other more often.  I have really enjoyed getting to know his parents, who I never met while living with him.  They are such kind people and have treated me like family since the first time I met them.  Not only did they treat me to a super nice steak dinner, but they gave me a free driver's seat for my car.  Taylor's dad drove my car back from the restaurant so I could ride with Taylor in his new truck.  He decided that my driver's seat was not very comfortable.  Since he drives the same type of car I do, he had an extra clothe seat lying around that he had replaced with a leather one.  So they graciously gave me the new seat, and I do have to say it is much nicer.  His dad also cleaned my headlights that were all fogged over, and they now are much brighter.  I was there less than twenty-four hours and they did all of this for me and gave me a place to crash for the night.  They truly are wonderful people.  

Saturday I headed to Seward for the week.  Now as much fun as it was seeing all of my old college buddies, I realized I do not miss college life as much as I thought I did.  We had plenty of fun, with many, many a laughs.  I got to see several of the guys I had not gotten to see at Thanksgiving or Christmas too. That week in Seward definitely went the fastest as I spent every night playing cards or just hanging out with the guys, sleep in the next morning while they were at class and work, and then hang out with them again.  I did make it out to Worms to see Ben and Shalee in their new home.  They did an awesome job on the house and I think they will be able to call it home for hopefully many years.  I hope to spend some time out there with them this summer, if they do not get sick of me, cause I always have a good time with them.  

Then last weekend JoAnna and I went up to Cedar Falls to see Nate, Kari, and the boys.  They were at that time still getting their house ready to put on the market.  So while their kitchen was torn apart, we still had a nice visit.  The parents came up Saturday and spent the rest of the time with us.  I am realizing how important family time is anymore as I fear it will become less and less as the years continue.  The boys are growing up so fast.  Justin will be nine this month and Josiah turned five last month.  I cannot wait for them to be only a couple hours away so hopefully I can see them more.  

On our way to Nate and Kari's we were able to stop and see Grandpa Wayne in the Stuart nursing home.   We knew it was only a matter of days that he had left.  So while I was happy to see him one last time, it was not easy seeing him in that shape.  I was doing really good until I looked over and saw JoAnna tearing up.  We were also able to see our old neighbor Laura Garret who is in the same nursing home.  She is doing pretty well and turned ninety-nine this week.  She has lived a long hard life, but is still a wonderful lady.  It is never easy to be reminded that our bodies do fail us and will eventually die.  Grandpa Wayne did die on Monday the 27th.  This is the second break in a row I have had a Grandpa's funeral.  However, both Grandpa's had lived long happy lives and were failing health wise at the end, which makes it a little easier. Grandpa Wayne, as most of you know, is my step-grandpa.  He is my Grandma Richter's second husband after she lost her first, my Grandpa Claire, to cancer.  However, Grandpa Claire died before JoAnna and I were even born, so Wayne was the only Grandpa we ever knew on that side.  We have always simply called him grandpa, and that is who he was to us.  He was a good man who always treated Grandma well.  I will always remember him in his button up blue shirt, with check book and pens in the pocket, sitting in his chair at the table ready to crack a joke or scolding looking (which ever one was appropriate at the time).  Grandma Phyllis is the only grandparent I have left living, but she promised me she would live for a long time, and I pray she does.  

Tuesday I had to go to the dentist, get my license renewed, and run a few other errands in Atlantic.  I got to spend most of that time with my friend Brit which is always a pleasure.  Then Tuesday night was when the real fun happened.  For those of you who have ever heard me sleeping, I snore pretty badly.  I also never feel rested no matter how much sleep I get, so I went in Tuesday night for a sleep study.  I had to go to the hospital in Atlantic at ten that night, and there was a pretty good thunderstorm going on.  I met the lab technician and she walked me up to the sleep lab.  She explained how everything was going to work, and then proceeded to hook up a billion wires to me.  OK, maybe it was not a billion, but it was a lot.  I had two wires on each leg, a belt with wires attached around my stomach and another one around my chest.  A wire was attached to each of my pecks to monitor my heart rate.  Then she measured my skull with a tape measure and made a bunch of marks with some kind of fancy marker on my scalp.  She then would dip a wire in a glue-like substance, and stick that wire to one of the marks she had made.  There were probably ten or twelve wires glued to my head after she was all done with that part.  Then she glued and taped four more wires on my face, one on each cheek, one up higher above my eyes and one on my chin.  The final wire was attached to my neck for a snoring monitor.  Then she had me wear what I can only describe as an oxygen tube around my ears and inserted in my nose.  It looked exactly like an oxygen tube that people on oxygen wear, except this did not put out any air; it was simply used to measure my breathing.  After a few tests to make sure everything was working, she told me I was free to go to sleep.  You can probably imagine it was no small feat even falling asleep.  To make it worse I had one of my weird sleeping nights.  Every so often I will have nights where I lay there for a long time until I finally fall asleep.  However, as soon as I fall asleep for just a few minutes, I wake up for some odd reason.  Then I feel wide awake and rested since I was just technically asleep.  So I lay there waiting to fall asleep again, but as soon as I do I wake up again.  This cycle repeats itself a few times before I am finally so exhausted that I just fall asleep and stay asleep.  Well this is exactly what happened as I was all wired up and trying to sleep.  Eventually I did fall asleep for good.  The technician came in once to fix some of my wires I had adjusted or pulled off, but then let me go back to sleep.  The second time she came in to wake me up was when she gave me the C-Pack machine.  She had told me before we started that if I started showing signs of sleep apnia she would have me wear the machine for the remainder of the night.  So she woke me up and had me wear it for the rest of the night.  Only thing was now I had a whole new obstacle to get used to before falling back asleep.  The mask was the kind that only goes over my nose, not my whole mouth.  So it took me quite a while of concentrating on breathing with the machine, then slowing breathing with the machine without thinking about it.  I eventually fell asleep again.  However, I woke up and was only half awake and still half asleep and was in pure panic mood as I felt I could not breathe with the machine.  I kept trying to take it off, until finally she came in and told me I was supposed to leave it alone.  I told her I could not breathe and she made some adjustments.  Then I fell back asleep and the next time she woke me up was to tell me that we were done.  I had made it through the night, but it was rough and I was definitely tired.  I asked her if I had shown signs of sleep apnia since she had me wear the machine.  She unofficially told me yes.  I am suppose to hear my results from my doctor not her, but she did let me know that I had quit breathing a few times during the first half without the machine, and that she truly thinks the doctor will recommend I start using the machine every night.  It is definitely going to take some getting used to, but if it helps me feel rested during the day I will certainly get over wearing it.  Plus, sleep apnia is not really something to mess with.  I mean I am not a doctor but I hear breathing is kind of important at all times.  I have to wait another week or so until I talk to my doctor about what he officially wants to do with it all.  

Wednesday, despite my sleep conditions the night before, I ran a bunch of errands around Adair, and got some paper work filled out.  Then Wednesday night I went with mom to Ames to pick up the boys.  Nate and Kari had parent-teacher conferences, so we kept the boys the rest of the week.  It was a good trip and was a good chance to spend a few more days with the boys.  

Thursday, I had to finalize my paperwork from the day before since there was one little detail that seemed to go wrong with each thing I was trying to accomplish.  Most of it was financial aid for the seminary.  Another important one was my application so I can work at the State Dept. of Roads in Seward again this summer. So that felt nice to have some of those big things done.  Thursday night was the visitation for Grandpa Wayne.  They thought there were over three hundred people there and I would believe it because it was a non-stop line that filled the church the entire time.  It was definitely not hard to see he was a loved man who had helped many people in his life.  

Friday morning was the funeral.  It was a nice service, minus my disagreement with the very Catholic sermon, but that is beyond the point.  The lunch was nice and then we went to the cemetery.  It was super windy and chilly, but they had a tent set up for us.  This was a very touching service as he received full military honors for his naval career.  Then after the funeral, we spent some time with Uncle Larry and Aunt Phyllis who had come up for the service.   Uncle Larry, amazing man he is, brought me a four drawer filling cabinet for all of Grandpa's Bible studies.  I went through and organized all the folders, but have not gone through any of the individual folders.  I brought a box back with me to the seminary, so maybe I can find some time to start typing them up as I go through them.  Then after Larry and Phyllis left, we went up to Grandma's house where all the Richters who had been at the funeral were gathered.  It was a fun afternoon of talking and drinking.  Friday night I hung out with friends as we celebrated Brit's birthday and had a good time.  

Saturday I babysat the boys most of the day and that evening.  Of course by babysit, I mean I sat in the chair watching an awesome documentary on Vietnam, while they played and watched movies.  They really are pretty well behaved when they are not wrestling or intentionally bugging each other.  Then Saturday night I babysat them again as Mom and Dad had a class meeting of Dad's to go to.  

Sunday, I got up early and met pastor at church.  We rode together out to St. John's where I helped him with liturgy.  I only had one brain fart, but other than that got several compliments.  Then we went back to town where I helped with Immanuel’s service too.  That one went much better with zero brain farts.  Then after both services and a quick lunch at Grandma's, I packed up my clothes and headed back to St. Louis.  I drove for over an hour in a pretty intense snow storm, but was kind of fun to be reminded it is still winter.  I made it back safely Lord willingly.  Then I spent most of the evening with Chris and Stein.  We had to celebrate over a beer that Chris finally set his wedding date.  

Today I went to my three classes and very quickly realized exactly how busy I am going to be this quarter.  The biggest problem is most of it will be reading which takes me longer to do than most.  Of course, it does not help when I fell asleep for twenty minutes reading today.  Hopefully, I can survive this quarter. 

My thought for the day comes from a thought I had in one of my many car trips over break.  I often get bored while driving by myself, and while the music is always playing, I still find myself talking to myself.  You may call me crazy; I simply call it entertaining myself.  However, I was thinking about when you are discussing Bible stories with someone, how is the best way to help them remember how Jesus fits into the story?  I decided you should ask them to tell you the story how they remember it before you start discussing anything with them.  Each person is going to remember different details about different stories, and it’s important to use the details they already remember.  I thought of two different examples for this and will share the second one with you: the story of David and Goliath.  If I were to ask you to repeat everything you know about the story, what details would you include?  Hopefully you would include the obvious ones like the small boy who defeated the giant by throwing a rock out of his sling shot.  But would you start with how Saul tried to put armor on David, but it was too heavy for the little boy?  Would you include the fact that David was a shepherd boy?  Would you include the fact that David picked up five stones and put them in his pouch?  Determining which of these details you include, will help me to best discuss with you what underlying themes we can see.  For instance, look at the idea of Saul putting armor on David.  To me this shows how Saul relied on earthly things and never had his full trust in God.  We can see this later when he goes to the witch to see if he will win the battle.  He was never strong enough in his faith to just trust God, but relied on human things such as armor.  David, being the faithful boy he was, took the armor off and went against the giant with nothing more than his normal clothes.  He did trust in God which is why he was a better king than Saul.  However, he did not fully trust in God, because he picked up five stones rather than just one.  But would you not do the same thing?  We put our faith in God, but our sinful nature still cause us to take precautions, such as picking up five stones, when God only used one.  The fact that David was a shepherd boy points to the fact that he was a very unlikely candidate for this feat.  He was not a solider or trainer person, but rather was simply an agent God used to show His might.  However, being a shepherd had required him to be able to use a sling shot to protect his flock.  This was a simple trait he already knew from his life experiences.  God gives us each our own gifts and talents that He uses for His purposes.  This use of simple people with their own talents and gifts can be seen so many places in the Bible, including Moses, Matthew, and even Jesus Himself.  Jesus, born in a barn, eating with sinners, and serving His disciples did not seem like much of a king, let alone the Son of God.  However, God uses agents that do not fit our worldly understandings to show that it is truly His will these actions are done.  This also gives us hope that even we feeble sinners can still be used by God and His Spirit to do great things if we just put our trust in Him.  So if you are ever trying to help someone better understand, or just better remember a story from the Bible, ask them first to tell you what they remember and then use those details they give you to strengthen their faith in our wonderful and powerful God.  All Praise Him who uses the lowly sinful creatures such as us to do His wonders. 

Dear Heavenly Father,

We pray that you help us to make time for Your Word.  We ask You be with us as we study, learn, and grow in it.  Help us to remember the stories and Your true meaning behind them.  In the name of our Savior, Your Son Jesus.  Amen.