כל הדברים

כל הדברים
Means all, or all things.

"Even through our broken sobs and cries of pain we can sing alleluia because we know that He is coming. He is enduring our pains with us, he is coming.

כל הדברים will be redeemed. All things will be redeemed.

All things.

I learned something today, not from the teaching, not from anything anyone said or did, I just learned by experiencing it. This is what I learned: The past is done. The present is happening. The future WILL happen.

You might say to yourself... duh. But each phrase is packed with meaning.

The past is done:

You cannot do anything about the past, it is done, it is finished but most of all it has no power. The past CANNOT control the future, the past CANNOT control the present. The present is the present and the future is the future, the past has no place in this. History describes something but does not decide anything. Oh, and did I mention that everything in the past is forgiven if we just humble ourselves and ask?

The present is happening:

And there is nothing we can do about it. The present is happening no matter what way you look at it. We cannot decide where we are in the present, we cannot decide who is around us in the present it simply is, we have no say over what the present is. But we do have a say about what we do in the present. The present for me (for now) is sitting in this corner at this table listening to music typing on this computer. I cannot change that, the present is the present at the moment I had that thought I could not have been in Berlin or Haiti, but I could only have been where I was. The present is happening, all I can choose is what I do in the present that is happening.

The future WILL happen:

And it will happen as God has made it to happen. This is a hard one. This is painful. There is only one future, and it is known already by God. There are no alternatives, only one future. So in Matthew when Jesus says do not worry about tomorrow, what you will eat or wear... do not worry about it because it is going to happen exactly as it WILL happen. There is a lot of darkness in this idea. To people who are oppressed, they were once in a point where they were going to be oppressed and it was going to happen and did happen no matter what. But there is the ultimate light in the future, כל הדברים . All things will be redeemed.

So I had a recent example of which I will not elaborate where I could not give something up to God. I wanted to be in the past so I could have this, in my present I longed for this thing, and I would not let God be God and have his future (which of course he is going to have anyway). I longed for this thing, I told God that I want it and that he should give it to me. In the present that I was in I dwelt on the past which was pointless because the past is gone, and I longed for a future, which is stupid because the future WILL happen as it WILL happen.

So what do I do with this now?

I live in the present doing what I can in the present that IS happening, letting God have my past that DID happen, and embracing the idea of the future that WILL happen. Only then is there peace.

God tells me not to worry about my past because it is gone and he loves me the same. He tells me not to worry about the future because it will happen as it will happen. He tells me in my present to seek first the kingdom.

This is peace:

כל הדברים will be redeemed.

In Christ,

Ben

The Most Excellent Way.

1 Corinthians 13,

"If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record or wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
"and now these three remain; faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."


I thought about just putting just an excerpt of this chapter, then I read through the chapter to look for which excerpt to use. I could not find an excerpt... the whole chapter was necessary. Anyway, allow me to dive in.

The bottom line in this chapter, and as it suggests the bottom line in life, is love.

LOVE WINS.

You can do the most incredible things, but if they are done without love they are valueless. I think we all know this deep down, everyone thirsts for love. Everyone looks for it in different places, calls it by different names, but ultimately what we all want is love. But with so many people searching for it and so few finding it, how can we expect to be so special as to find it.

Well let me tell you, I found it (or it found me... we will not get into that). I found love. The bible says that God is love. There you go, God.

Perhaps in this passage every usage of love could be replaced with God, for you cannot have love without God and you certainly cannot have God without love.

But on a personal level, how can you know if you are loving or not? Now let us dive into the text.

Starting in verse four, love is described:

If you are not being patient, you are not loving; if you are not being kind, you are not loving; if you are envious, you are not loving; if you find yourself boasting, you are not loving; if you have PRIDE, you are not loving...

Who are you too proud to forgive? or to ask for forgiveness? What is God calling you to do that you are too proud to do? Where are you too proud to go? What are you too proud to ask for help with?

Love is not proud.

All the great things we do will fade away. Every last one of them... except love. When you love, you involve yourself with something that is eternal. Something that always has been and always will be.

God, help me to love.

In Christ,

Ben

Where is your Heart?

"If there is anyone in the world you have issues with, or anyone you know has issues with you, then you can count on there never being World Peace. If there are two people in your family that hold grudges against each other or they for some reason do not speak to each other, then count on there never being peace for all the world to enjoy. This may be what the Prophecies mean when they say heal yourself and you will heal the world. This is a fine example of the Oneness we as a Human Kind make up. You are One of a Kind."

Jason Mraz said this on his blog: www.freshnessfactorfivethousand.blogspot.com

In order to come up with this he has simply lived his life following his heart. He is not a Christian, I assume that he does not live in accordance to scriptures, but he seems to have it figured out better then half of us Christians. We have a God who tells us this stuff daily, we have friends and families to hold us accountable, but we still do not do it.

Why do we find it so impossible to forgive? Why do we find it so impossible to humble ourselves? Why do we find it so impossible to forget about who is right or wrong and simply love?

Where do you find your heart as you read this? Are you loving or are you showing contempt? Are you resolving quarrels or are you starting more?

Then ask yourself one more question: why do you suppose we are to love?

Is it just because God commanded it?

No!

You cannot truly love if you are just following a set of orders, that is impersonal and far from what love really is.

Observe God, observe love (I'm not sure how you could do one without the other) and reflect on your heart.

Grace and Peace,

Ben

The Resurrection

I wonder what hurt Jesus more? Our nails or our sins?

I have had intense physical pain, though nothing even close to death on a cross. But I can surely tell you that my emotional pains have been much more painful, though again not nearly the pain of Jesus taking all of our sins upon himself. So I conclude that our sins hurt Jesus more then our nails.

So rather then saying that our sins held Jesus to the cross, perhaps our sins bombarded Jesus on the cross. It is like adding hurt to injury every time we sin it is another sin that we put on Jesus. Incredible that he endured so much from just me, but imagine all of the sins of everybody everywhere for all time... wow.

But in the Bible there is this talk of his glorious comeback. So to fully understand this I analyze the comeback.

What make a great comeback is obvious: coming back from a long ways off. If MSU is down by 5 points and they "come back" and win the game by 10 points, it is not terribly exciting or impressive seeming. But if MSU is down by 75 points with 10 minutes to do go, and they win by 10 points... well there would be nothing to match the excitement of a MSU fan on that day.

Let us look specifically at Jesus comeback though. Jesus became the lowest of lows. He went from sitting on the throne to being born of a virgin in a dirty manger. And if that was not enough he got lower. He hangs out with the diseased, and the outcast. He goes and has dinner with the tax collectors. And finally he makes his exit from this physical world in an even lower place: as a convicted criminal being put to death on the cross (the crux).

Jesus intentionally put himself as the lowest imaginable human on the planet at the time, imagine the people who are on death row now and people's opinions of them.

But Jesus is totally making his comeback.

The first thing he did was coming back physically from the dead, are you impressed yet? Then he hung out for a bit and went back up into heaven, but he had just begun his come back. His next move is what we look forward to every month when we take communion. Jesus is going to come back, the same man who was the lowest of lows, is going to come back and he is going to rule over all of us.

Now we got this sweet invitation. Nobody wants to be cheering for or playing on the team that was up by 75 points against MSU only to lose by 10. Would it not be better to be down at first, to be lowly at the beginning of "the game" and be ahead later... at the end of "the game?"

We get to do that, we get to not only cheer for Jesus as he makes his comeback, but he invites us to join him in his comeback. How awesome is that? Jesus could do this without us, but he chooses to invite us onto his team. For the sake of the analogy, Jesus is incredible at basketball. Makes every shot he takes and blocks every shot he wants to, but we suck at basketball. We miss just about every shot we take, and we cannot block a shot worth spit, but he wants us on his team.

1 Peter 4:13 says: "But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed."

When we suffer to be on Jesus team, we get to be overjoyed when he wins.

And he will win, I promise ;)

In anticipation,

Ben

Waist Deep

Most people have attempted some sort of flip or dive or jump into a pool from a diving board. If you haven't, I would suggest giving it a try... it is quite a treat. Anyway, years ago I had done front flips into pools, but never back flips. I tried back flips: I got on the board, walked to the edge, turned around, got my heels off the edge just a bit, then walked back onto solid ground. I was afraid to do a back flip for whatever reason. And because of this fear I was content with flipping forwards only.

Then, one day my friend Wes did a back flip and told me to do one. I did my same hesitant approach and same cowardly walking away: fear got the best of me again. But Wes did not give up quite yet. He did another back flip then told me, "just do it dude."

I still remember the pool: the shape, where the grade was, what rafts were in that pool, who was there. I took my approach with a new found confidence, and I got my heels off the board and again Wes said, "Just do it." I took a deep breath, and jumped backwards and flipped and landed with a splash into that cool water on the hot summer day. I did it.

And once I did it, I was free to do it time and time again, no fear, no hold backs. I did at least five back flips that day, and more that summer then I care to count. Then the pools all closed, and winter froze the earth. Once spring had brought enough warmth to allow it, the pools opened up again. And once again, I went to a friends pool to have some fun in the sun. I decided to do one of those awesome back flips that I learned how to do the previous year. Confident approach, heels off... cowardly I walked away.

For whatever reason, that fear had come back. I told myself time and time again that I had nothing to worry about, I pulled from my own personal experienced, but I could not do it. Later that summer I reached deep into my past experience and remembered my friends advice to "just do it" and I just did it. Once again, I had broken that barrier of fear and I had freed myself for another summer.

I am sure by now you can imagine the pattern that happened every summer, it baffles me to this day, but it seems to happen every summer.

This is me.

I do this with everything.

Girls, friends, classes, songs, every aspect of my life. I have this fear that I break time and time again, but it somehow comes back.

I have a fear of being submerged in God too.

I have lived all the way submerged in the ocean that is God, searching for some sort of bottom, knowing that I will not find it. When I am submerged I understand that I do not need the air on the outside, I can breath under this water. I know from my past experiences that there is nothing to be afraid of.

I am afraid.

Matthew 6:25-34 is a passage entitled "Do Not Worry" in my Bible. It ends in saying, "seek first the kingdom" and everything else will come. It goes against the general logical thinking that is used in this world. We think in a way that says, "care for yourself" but God says, "care for my kingdom and I will care for you... I do a much better job at it anyway."

I want to jump backwards and flip.

I am sick of walking away cowardly.

Someday You Are Going to Die

Tyler Durden: "First you must know, not fear, but know that someday you are going to die."
(Fight Club)

We all know that, we all know that we all must someday die. I, writing this, might never finish it. You may never finish reading this blog entry. If I finish writing this blog, then this time that I could spend writing this blog was a blessing. If you finish reading this blog, then I certainly hope that you count it as a blessing. Many people die when they are nineteen...

Now, knowing that we are going to die, what are we going to do before we die? How many more hours will I spend staring blankly at the television set that is playing a show that I don't even like? How many more times will I sin before I die? How many more people will I hurt?

Someday you are going to die, your time is limited. In that limited time that you have left, how will you spend it?

When a Grown Man Shook

He must have been mid to late fifties, standing in front of forty people: some his peers, some younger even then he. There were only two things between him and his temporary audience - if one were to negate the distance as an object: a microphone and a piece of paper. This normal activity for someone such as myself was very foreign to this man, perhaps something that his fifty plus years had passed up altogether.

The piano began.

Trembling, he sang the words "Joyful Joyful, we adore thee..."

Why is it that a man with over double my life experience would fret so much over singing for such a limited audience? Why is it that this man dreaded so much to share this part of him with these people?

When a grown man shook, something occurred to me. This man dreaded this because it exposed something in him. There was no way this man could hide what was coming out of him. He could distort his sound a little from the microphone, perhaps he could even hide his face from the audience with that paper, but what the audience heard was the actual sound, the actual truth of what he was producing.

There was no way to beat around the bush, there was no way for him to tell the audience anything but the truth.

Me, I know how to lie. Even with my voice I can lie. I have worked for the greater portion of my life at figuring out how to mask the imperfections that lie in my voice. We are both afraid of the same thing, the difference is how we approach it: one shaking, the other faking.

How will you approach your fears this week? This month? Will you shake all the way through, telling the truth, or will you look confidently into the eyes of your present audience, the people you love, and lie?