LostLifeFound

I've posted things like this before...but I think LostLifeFound might be done.  I have been thinking about this since around the New Year.  I would like an online presence that makes sense.  I would like to post things that are really helpful to others.  Or maybe entertaining or heart-warming.   More likely, I'd like to focus on being the person I want to be (you know, doing things in the real world!), and that may or may not include a blog.  But if I have a blog, it will probably not be this one.  I'd like to stamp my name on something - an online presence that I am completely proud of.   However, I love all of the history that is on here, and I am leaving it up for sure.

LostLifeFound - I was struck by this combination of words during college. I think I was trying to think of a band name, and I never started a band, but the name stuck with me.  This refers to Luke 15, the chapter with the lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son, and the rejoicing that occurs in heaven when a person "returns home".  However, after an adolescence of assuming that I was very much found, in college it slowly dawned that I had a lot of "finding" to do.  I had wandered off the path, kind of like a Pharisee, always doing the "right things" and well within the religious institution, but somehow missing the point of faith and love.  It has taken a while, but I feel like I'm on the path. And it's a lot scarier and murkier than "being religious", because it's new for me - it's relying on God's grace. So as I close the blog, it is fitting that I am living out LostLifeFound.

God's view of me

"Trusting God's view of me has been the most intense, most difficult, and most comprehensive maturing and releasing process I have ever experienced" -TrueFaced

Two Views of Hell

My acquaintance with a Jehovah's Witness has rekindled my interest in the two views of hell.  I found that my friend and I agree on one thing, that we don't believe in eternal torment.  Death is the punishment for sins  - not eternal torment. A second death in the "Lake of Fire", which is eternally final, will take place "at the end of the age".

My own debate on this subject began when I read the Intervarsity Press book Two Views of Hell, which I purchased at Urbana Missions Conference, which I think was in 2003.

But mostly, I haven't emotionally grasped why a loving God would torment his Creation in Hell.  Especially if you believe in predestination, which I tend to not believe in, then it is especially disturbing to think that God predestined people to be tortured.

My friend Jeremy wrote an article on the subject, which is very long, but I plan on reading sometime  http://www.jeremyandchristine.com/articles/eternal.php.

However, the Jehovah's Witness does not believe in eternal life either, and I have definitely disagreed with him strongly on that.  The Bible is clear that all who believe in the Son go to heaven, not just the 144,000 mentioned in the book of Revelation. But it has been busy lately at work, so I haven't had time to pursue these subjects with him.

Fat King Eglon

Subtitle: Defeating the thing in your life that seems powerful, but turns out to be stupid

Fat King Eglon and his incompetent companions kept Israel captive for 18 years.  They were incompetent because they fell for "the oldest trick in the book" and were really gullible and foolish.   And Ehud defeated his adversary with relative ease, but also with a lot of courage and creativity.

So it parallels the things that keep us captive. We assume that they are mighty things that cannot be overcome.  But then when we attack them it turns out they are just fat and stupid.  And it still takes a lot of courage for us to overcome them.

for me it's confidence...fear of rejection...Rejection that I am too quiet, too religious, or not religious enough, or too conservative, or not conservative enough, too boring. There is no way for me to be accepted by all extremes, but I have played that game pretty well.  It is perhaps fear of a rejection that does not even exist.

We are made to shine

God created us to shine. Sometimes I have, and sometimes I haven't. I believe we aren't supposed to shine on our own effort. But God has given us life, and we reflect him. Just be ourselves.


Daniel 12:3-4

Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens,
and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.
But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end.

Philippians 2:14-15

Do everything without complaining or arguing,
so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe

2 Corinthians 3:18

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory,
are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory,
which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Psalm 37:5-6

Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;

Trees

God says we are like trees...or in some cases, branches.

John 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches

Jer 17:7-8

But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.

Col 2:6-7 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him

Isaiah 61:3 They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.

I have noticed the following things about trees that relate to our lives, and hopefully I've been helped by the Spirit:

• They/we are dependent on outside resources for our growth.
  
• By claiming to be self-sufficient, they/we wither and become useless
• Need to be rooted in a good location (not in shallow soil) - the soil in our life represents a good view of God, or rather an accurate view of how God views us.
• Even after death, can leave a legacy. When strong trees are cut down they can be used to build strong structures. When we are gone, we can leave a strong legacy.
• Trees/we start out small and weak but can become strong. You don't see us growing, but as the years pass, you notice that we've grown quite a bit.
• We give back by blessing the world - providing a place for shade/grace environments.
  

Any other Scriptures or insights that you have?

And to put my own intentions in positive light..not trying to earn anyone's approval here or make some sort of impact. This comes out of my own yearning to know what God really thinks of me. I believe that God showed me that we are like trees. It makes sense. I just wanted to share my thoughts.

Movie Review: Saint of 9/11

I am interested in having documentaries around, in case I have no energy and want something to watch. So I picked up this randomly. I had heard about Mychal Judge, a Fransiscan priest who was the chaplain of the NY Fire Department on 9/11. He rushed to the World Trade Center, as it was his custom to join the men at large catastrophes. He was believed to have been killed by debris when the first tower fell. He was 68 when he died.


Judge had a real heart for the poor. A friend interviewed related that he gave Mychal a jacket, and gave him a call later and asked how he liked the jacket, and it turned out that Mychal saw a homeless man on his way home, and just had to put the coat over him. He was always there to minister to others in tragic times, and took seriously his position as the NYFD chaplain.

The documentary pointed out that he had formerly been an alcoholic and was a huge fan of AA. He also had a homosexual orientation. He was not completely open about it because he did not want to damage his relationship with the firefighters. The DVD implies that his homosexual orientation had him more able to minister to AIDS victims - in the 80s this was known as "gay-related immune deficiency" or something like that. There was a lot of paranoia about this at the time, and people with AIDS had no dignity in the hospitals. Mychal Judge went in and encountered resistance to a religious figure. He prayed to find a way to reach them. And from that point, first when he walked in, he rubbed their feet, and then they were open to talk to him.



I found out at the end via a rainbow-colored logo that this movie was produced by a homosexual awareness group. This I realized is why they spent so much time talking about his sexuality, and why over half the people interviewed were obviously gay men. I'm not sure this is a bad thing, but I have two complaints. One, the back cover said nothing about sexuality. I feel like there was a hidden agenda. (Now I know how people feel about materials with hidden Christian agenda! ) Second, I don't know if Mychal Judge wanted to be a hero of the gay community - and is it all taken out of context of his life?

This documentary raised obvious questions for me. My strong feeling and conclusion from studying Scripture is that homosexuality is contrary to God's will.

-A man obviously moved by Christ and listening to him - was his ability to minister to others hampered by his sexuality? Was his relationship with Christ hampered by his sexuality? Since priests are required to be celibate, his sexuality was a feeling and tendency, not an action.
-Are homosexuals saved? (My conclusion is yes.... Are racists saved? What about liars? At what point can we decide that God's grace is not strong enough? I conclude that having a relationship with Christ through his sacrifice is the only criterion, and I assume this man had it. )
-What should be the role of the church with homosexuals. The spirit of condemnation doesn't work, I don't think. It just pushes people away from Christ. On the other hand, I couldn't bring myself to ignore someone's homosexuality when teaching them to obey Christ. But overall, the church needs to minister to these people better. Mychal Judge opened up his church to them, so that they could have a gay worship service. Deep question, huh?

Funeral for a coworker's wife

The wife of the COO at my work passed away last weekend. She was only 36 when breast cancer took her life. I invite you to check out her blog http://loloplunkett.blogspot.com/, and the obituary here.

I attended the funeral on Friday. I held back tears at the very beginning during the picture slideshow, with the pictures of her family. But immediately afterwards, when the pastor read Scripture about Christ beating death and winning for us eternal life, I couldn't completely contain myself. Courtney says she never sees me cry, but she wasn't there to see. This brought back memories of when I was in college, and I attended the Overland Park Mayor's Breakfast. When a music professor with a rich baritone voice sang The Lord's Prayer, I just could not contain my tears for probably 10 minutes. That is the only time I really remember weeping. Sometimes in rare moments the Holy Spirit touches my heart, and this time it happened at the funeral of someone I had never met.

Prayer and Work

On Friday I was asked to do a large project, and to try to have it ready by Monday. It involves loading about 315 files. Previously, this would have taken days of personal attention to each file, but I've been reading, and due to some new technology, I felt that it might be possible to kick it off, and that the technology would just load every file in the folder. At the end of the day I saw that my idea had failed. The computer had run out of memory in the "buffer" whatever that meant.

I came home, and tried it again. At dinner we prayed that God would help it to work. We came back and it had failed - the exact same error. I was miffed, because I wanted to give attention to Courtney instead of to work, but she said I could go ahead and try to figure it out. I tried a few things, and researched some things, and I eventually stumbled across a setting for the "buffer", and I placed it on a bigger drive, and increased the "maximum rows". At the end, I'm not sure what exactly made it work. After 12 hours, it is still running. (That's a good thing. Even though it's slow, at least I didn't have to pay attention to it)

So I want to give glory to God for helping it to run successfully. It's more complicated than that, because I had to do all that reading, which helped me to know about the shortcut, but I don't really want to dissect the theology of it right now. And if I dissected it, I wouldn't know if I was right - it might be speculation. I mostly see Him in the area where I stumbled across various options, and I feel that somehow in His divine power, He led my eyes and hands to those options.