Waverunner Pneumonia

There is something exhilarating about nature, there is something even more exhilarating when you mix nature with a turbojet water engine. Mix that with a bout of walking pneumonia and you have a winning combo that makes up the first event I attended at my new job. It was a great weekend and the easy laid back feeling that all of the students had was wonderfully relaxing. I was nervous about spending three full days with them so early in the job, but it was great to see God at work in the relationship building that took place. It had been a long time since I was in a place where I was at a student event and not worried about what was going on in the church as a whole. Now reflecting back, I think God was trying to teach me that it is not my job to worry at all. It is my job to listen to Him and rest peacefully in His leading. I can't save anybody. Jesus saves. I find an immense amount of peace in that simple statement.

Red Light Green Light

"We would like you and your family to join us as our Pastor of Student Ministries."
With almost a tear in my eye I said we would love to. I had been jobless for exactly one day and it was one of the longest days of my life. I had been back from Israel for a few days and my last day at my previous position was July 31st. We received the call to Edmonds on August 2nd. God likes to watch me squirm. Not really. He likes to teach me to wait on Him. Waiting is such a gloriously cruel term. If we do not learn to wait we act without wisdom. Acting without wisdom forces us to start over and then we get another opportunity to learn to wait. When we finally learn to wait in a certain situation we move forward and grow. I always have to relearn to wait. I learn to wait on God through one season and as soon as the next one starts it is as if I never learned anything. My stubbornness and self-loving mindset kills me every time. I keep thinking of the words to the old DC Talk song, "some people gotta learn the hard way, I guess I'm the kind of guy who has to find out for myself."
I will continue to grow and serve and learn how to love my Father to the best of my ability. He has always taken care of me and He always will. Every day my faith grows with that knowledge and every day. It might help for God to just hit me with a 2x4, consciousness is key to impatience.

Hookah and Holy Land pt II

A sense of hospitality is a great thing. We walked into the tiny shop and were immediately asked to sit down. Eight large men squeezing into a very tiny place, but it would not have been right for us to stand. Shaaban is a man who you go see to get things. When we arrived in the country some of the college employees told us that the best way to get anything was to find what you wanted in the market and then ask Shaaban to go get it for you. The way that he spoke to people was magical, he has a very incomplete mastery of English but it serves him very well. It was amazing how the shop culture works in Jerusalem, if a shop owner did not have something then they would send a boy three shops down to get it for you. We sat at Shaaban's for an hour just talking and asking about different items. All the while he was sending boys to go and fetch the items being discussed. So the best way to shop in Israel is to sit in a shop and drink tea while the shop owner finds what you want. This technique works so well for Jerusalem residents because they are unable to just shop, there is a conversation that has to accompany every entrance to a shop. One of the first things our professor said to us was that we should take the time to talk to the shop owners and not shop like Americans. She was not kidding I had one shop owner take me into the back of his store and showed me his entire family tree. I received a wonderful experience when I was there called Hookah. This contraption breeds community, in case you are wondering think caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland, by having multiple people smoke off of the same pipe. One of these comes with about 45 minutes worth of tobacco, they smell wonderful and are very fun. When you walk down the street, we walked everywhere 5-10 miles a day, Hookah and Backgammon were the entertainment options of choice. It was not uncommon to see two men playing a game with 20 others standing around watching.
Have you ever gone into a store and not even made eye contact with an employee there? I think self-checkout is going to destroy something very special in our lives. What a great thing it would be to want to learn about people without expecting anything in return. I am bad at this. Simply taking the time to listen and be a part of the someone else's story is a great gift. I love how Jesus did this. With everyone that He encountered He met them where they were at and showed them where God wanted them to go. Israel is a great place to experience history but it is an even greater place to learn hospitality. Have a conversation with someone at the store today.

Hookah and Holy Land pt. I

Bet She'an was wonderful to see because it has wonderful views of the entire city and has largely been uncovered. It was a good idea not to have to go to the bathroom while away from home because it was coed and you can see in the picture not very private. One of the most amazing experiences of my life was to travel in Israel for 15 days from one end of the country to the other. Eight men went, all involved in ministry and all except one never having been there before. I have always been torn about how to feel when in the presence of great historical sites. For instance in Rome it made me a little nauseous to see people lining up to kiss the foot of Peter's statue at St. Peter's Cathedral. It was just a little to golden calfy for me. Yet there were many places that we went to in Israel that moved me to the point of tears and brought me to a deeper level of experience when I read the scriptures. I think we all had this struggle within us of not wanting to betray the unique fact that Jesus resides within us and not within the buildings and stones we were seeing. It made for some interesting conversation but also for some wonderful experiences.
One night we were sitting on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and Bob, the organizer of the group, led us in a time of prayer for one another. And as we sat there and prayed through the storms in our lives I could not help but think of the storm that took place 2,000 years earlier on the water I was looking at. Fear seemed to fall away as I thought of the disciples frantically trying to wake Jesus, and with a simple command the wind and the waves obeyed and fell away. God became bigger to me than He ever had been before. It was wonderful. Bob then gave us a lesson on a Jewish ceremonial cleansing ritual called a Mikvah. In order to be fully clean a Jew in the first century would wash himself in a basin of clean water, which was water that had never touched anything man made. We thought it would be a great close to our time to have a Mikvah together in the Sea of Galilee. I am sure the others on the beach had not seen many more humorous things than eight fairly pudgy white Americans walking out into the water with their arms way up in the air. Standing in a circle we all submerged ourselves. I am now a believer that there is something to be said for location. We do not need to pursue God through creation and idolatry for God is already in pursuit of us. I would encourage you to allow Jesus to pursue your heart through creation and all of its wonder. (click on Hookah and Holy Land pt. I to see all my Israel pics)