Baking Bread

Hello my friends, this past week has been super busy. Tomorrow I have two exams and I've been up late studying every night. Wednesday night I was particularly tired. I wasn't ready for bed but my mind needed a break. So I was looking through the blogs I follow and on this fantastic blog, http://atastefulendeavor.blogspot.com The author wrote about making bread. I thought great, "this is great, I can take a quick break from studying and make something edible." So I begin....

Phase I 

Phase II

Phase III

Phase IV

Phase Complete

 Now this was try number two, the first one I made was even more flat and less shiny.

This morning I woke up to a forest fire. 

Than I put glasses on and it looked like this.....

... and this. 

Happy Friday, have a great rest of your day. 

My First Time Public Speaking.

The following is a speech I had to write and deliver for a chapel service at my private school. I removed some things and put it into blog post format to make it easier to read but it still may sound better read aloud rather than in your head. 

.....I was having a hard time knowing what to speak about until on Tuesday a friend sent me some wisdom. She said, "Life is a journey that each of us most make on our own, because when all is said and done, I am responsible for me and you are responsible for you. There are many who have gone before, many who will come behind, and many who are on the same pilgrimage of life, butwe must all walk the journey with our own two feet."

This helped me realize something.  There is no message that can give the answer to all the problem in life. Why? because life is a journey that each of us must walk it for ourselves. Family and friends can support and strengthen us but ultimately I’m responsible for my life and you're responsible for yours.  The best thing I think we  can do is simply to share the wisdom of life. So as a friend, as a brother because of Christ and as another human being on the same journey of life  I offer you some wisdom...may it serve you well. It's wisdom that has never failed me and I'm certain it will never fail you if you apply it. The wisdom is this, God will be as involved in your life as you make room for Him to be. Notice I didn't say as much as you want Him to be invovled. We all want God to be involved in some sense. Or we want the power, or the peace, or the joy that always comes when God enters into a life but it's not something we will really put any work into. It's like good grades. Everyone here want’s good grades but the people who get them are the people who make room in their life for getting good grades. They disciples themselves and sacrifice things for their good grades. It works the same with God. Wanting Him around isn't enough, we need to clear space and make room for Him if we want Him to actually be involved.  

I was reading a book a few weeks ago and the author said something very profound. He’s a french monk and he wrote this  “how many people receive the grace of God but fail to benefit by it because they don't accept the truth that comes with grace.”  Seriously I think this describes most of us in the room. We accept God’s grace and He moves into our hearts. We let Him forgive our sins and we watch as He washes us clean through Christ's blood. Than we look forward to going to heaven when we die. But then we fail to accept the truth of Christianity. We don’t accept the truth that say’s God want’s to fix us and make us perfect not just forgive us and leave us as we are. We forget the truth that says, "God doesn't want us to be slaves to sin anymore, or slaves to our circumstances, our emotions or our pasts. We simply forget and because we don’t accept this truth we make God stay there, imprisoned in our hearts.  We don’t let him out so that he can do anything. We don’t experience any of the cool things of Christianity because we never actually give God a chance to change us. Our lives are so busy that God simply fades into the background and we forget about Him.  I remember reading Sherlock Holmes when I was first learning to enjoy reading and one quote I’ll always remember was  Holmes talking to Watson about why he was so good at solving mysteries and he said, “Watson, every human being is like an attic and most people's attics are full of clutter. My attic is perfectly organized” It seems this is the way life often is. Our lives are like old attics full of clutter. They are confusing and unorganized. It’s hard to find the things we need and it’s hard to add new things because there is no easy place to put stuff without it getting lost.

So I have two questions for us to think about. First, do we even want a life that God is involved in? most of us want Him but not enough to actually do anything about it. It’s hard work clearing out the clutter in our lives and  if we let God into our lives we won’t ever be the same. We'll have to stop being selfish depressed, hateful and proud people.We won’t get our way much of the time and we’ll have to submit to what God thinks is best.  After He’s changed us we’ll start being, pure, peaceful, joyful, wise, humble and full of love. Most of us wouldn't really be comfortable with a life like that. It’s strange abnormal and it would mean breaking habits some of which we’ve had all our lives. Habits like, I'm going to think about myself before I think about other people, or I'm going to worry about how I feel. So be honest with yourself and figure out, do I really want God involved in my life? If you don’t, don’t pretend your something your not. Self delusion is the first step on the road to insanity. Figure out who you are and if you don't like it than change yourself, but don't pretend your something you're not.

Second question, if you want Him in your life, what can you do to make room for Him? This is the application question, it’s the what do we do about it? part. The room we make for God in our lives He will always clean, and make perfect. Think about what you do everyday and ask how God can become a part of it.  This is important because if God can’t become apart of the things in your life than they are probably a waste. So things like arguing and gossip and foolish entertainment, things that God hates will go away.. Things like school, friendships, free time are all things God can and wants to become apart of and we must let God become apart of those things.

Some of you I know don’t believe in God. Either you're an actual Atheist and or your a Christian just because your parents were Christian or because all your friends are Christian but really you don’t believe in God you don’t care about chapel or this message. I would  challenge you to test God’s promises. In James 4:8 God promises that if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. If we extend a hand towards Him, He promises to extend a hand towards us. So draw near to him like He says to and see what happens. I’m pretty certain if you approach Him humbly you won’t have to prove or disprove anything, He will prove His own existence to you.

In closing I think all of us can agree that life is confusing and complicated. Often it doesn't make sense, when we think about some of the things that happen in the world, or happen to us, or happen inside of us we become frustrated and angry because the things that happen are hard to understand and we don’t know how to respond. God know’s, but He also created this whole thing. Because He created it He probably has some good ideas about why things are the way they are and how we should respond to them. God also created this journey of life that all of us are walking and I think the God who created life probably has some good ideas about how to actually live it. Let’s not waste the things God has given us by ignoring His wisdom. Let’s accept the grace He offers along with the truth about how to live life and in that way we will begin to experience life as it was created to be.

*Wrap up with a reminder of the two questions and close in prayer*

Restlessness

I was asked earlier this month to write  a post on restlessness and as is normally the case with things like that I say yes right away and than forget about it for a few weeks. Well it's been a few weeks and I spent sometime earlier today thinking about. So now is as good a time as any to write about it. 

There seems to be two types of restlessness. The first would be an absence of God and the second would be the struggle with the world. First though lets clarify some objective truths from which we can found our position. 

I. We are made in God's imagine and as a result were meant to function a certain way in our physical mental and spiritual lives. 

II. Each person as an individual whole is fallen from God's original perfection skewing and distorting the divine image we were created with. We retain in some imperfect form the memory of what we should be yet are utterly incapable of achieving it again or entirely knowing exactly what it was that we lost. 

III. The world has a whole has fallen from God's original perfection skewing and distorting it's coding. It retains something of it's original ability to reflect God's beauty to those who see it but it is now fundamentally flawed and will be replaced rather than restored. (II Peter 3:7-8)

These three facts can provide an explanation for two types of restlessness

           First there is a restlessness that is a result of being created in God's image and having fallen from that image. This is the conflict that exists in a non Christian because consciously or subconsciously they know that they were created for something better. The universal search for happiness, meaning, purpose, satisfaction and peace are all manifestations of this universal state in the human race, "The god shaped whole in all of us" is a sort of modern summarization of the idea. We were created to be image bearers of God and as an entire race we forgot how to do it. This forgetting creates all sorts of reactions which in turn explain many of the different personalities in people. Think of the reactions people have who have lost their wallet. Some will get angry, others will be logical and rational in trying to retrieve that which was lost, others will just give up and quite, ect. This first sort of restlessness is by far the largest and most problematic disease to sicken humanity. 

         The second type of restlessness is the restlessness of a Christian. It is the healing process required for the first restlessness. It involves allowing God entrance into our heart and the ensuing invasion, conquest, and renewal of the various parts of the human person. Many people are Christians in the sense that they have allowed Christ to enter their hearts. They remain worldly in their behavior, thoughts and emotions though because they have not allowed Christ into their, school, relationships, vocabulary, sleeping pattern, eating habits, career plans and all other areas of their life. Even in the rare saint who surrenders all these things to God there will remain a sort of restlessness so long as he or she lives in this world because the world as an entity remains anti God regardless of the individuals within it who have achieved perfection. So their is a continual friction between the world and the Christian, resulting in restless. 

       In summary restlessness is neither good nor bad it is an indicator of something that is wrong either in ourselves or the world around us. The feeling of restlessness doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong with you although generally we can do things to alleviate the restlessness or understand the restlessness making is easier to endure. Restlessness does not exclude joy or even peace. The Christian experience is often like an ocean. On the surface it can be wild, stormy and confusing but deep beneath the conflict filled surface is mile upon mile of deep quiet peaceful meditation on the everlasting eternal truths of God. The question for us is not are we restless? but what part of our lives has yet to experience the renewal of Christ and how can we surrender that part of us to him?      

       Hopefully that all made sense and perhaps somewhere in that mess of words is a bit of wisdom which will help you on your road to union with God and fullfillment of His will for your life.

This is a recycled Facebook note but I intend to write more in the near future stay tuned.