What about me?

I know that I was not supposed to talk about money, but in part I decided to. Money is such a large part of our everyday life, and we interact with it all the time. We buy things with it, pay bills, give it away, save it, and so on. We manage and value money so much, it is a large part of our identity.
Just because much of Canada is blessed with an abundance of money, I am not saying that they should be ashamed of it, but I'm not saying that they should covet it either. Overall, life is not about money, and everything we do should not always be centred around the stuff. Many times I find that when I want to help people, my automatic response is to give away money, which is great! But that is not the main point!
Paul has alot to say about generosity and giving generously. In 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 he talks about people and how they should give. First he stresses that giving is very important to life. For "he who sows sparingly reaps sparingly" (verse 6). He also states however that everyone must not give reluctantly or under pressure in the next verse. People must only give what they have decided to, not what they feel they should. The main thing to stress is that God is not poor, and he does not need money for Himself. He wants the hearts of His people to be generous and naturally inclined to give to others. Paul also states that God is able to bless those who are giving from their hearts, and there is no need to worry about running out. Naturally, people are inclined to hold onto what they have instead of giving it to help others. It is a very supernatural thing for people to desire to use their physical and non-physical resources to help others from the heart.
Money plays such a large role in this because we have so much of it! Our culture is so richly blessed with money that there seems to be almost no end to the good that can be done in Jesus name, and that is a truly glorious idea.
Later in verse 10 Paul says that the goodness that is manifested in the act of true generosity (that is, from the heart) will multiply how much that person really has to give to others. Therefore, because they will be blessed with so much more, they are able to give more, and more and more.
The trap that many may fall into may be that they plan to be generous so that they will be blessed and given more. The only problem with this is that God is able to both give to people as well as take away from them. He is the one that is really in control, and should not be "used", if that were really possible, for material or non-material gain. But in love, people should give and provide, because we are so blessed and loved by God Himself.

Steves thoughts for the group

Today in my group we talked about reading our bibles, when we should do it and how we should do it. I’m starting to find reading in the mornings is becoming harder. And the same for reading at nights. My new plan is working out well though. My plan is, just read a little bit whenever I can throughout the day. It’s good when you think about it like eating food, you need a few good portions throughout the day, and maybe a few snacks. So maybe a good time of prayer at a certain point throughout the day can be my snack. I took that thought a bit farther. Sometimes we treat ourselves to deserts. Well how about replacing deserts with another discipline like meditating every now and then, or even fasting.
We talked about the dangers of going through our days without prayer. We concluded it is a scary thing. Going through your day without prayer is a car that is driving without lubricant. That was our analogy. I don’t really know the whole science about a car driving without lubricant for a day, but I have gone days when I haven’t prayed. Who I am doesn’t change, I still like helping people, and I still love my neighbour as myself. So it is still manageable. It’s stupid to go without prayer, but it’s not like you’re going to turn into a sinner, or the antichrist or anything. I think prayer just helps you walk closer with God
I tried to write my own lament psalm for the first time a while ago, and it went pretty well because instead of my mind going everywhere in my thoughts, at had to put some focus on what I was writing. It turned out good because I have been doing it successfully for few weeks. It’s not always a lament psalm, sometimes it’s a thanksgiving psalm, or another one.
I wanted to address the comment we had in class about why we always do musical worship in church instead of other kinds of worship. My thoughts are, I think musical worship should definitely be part of our church service because that is the time we return our praises to God. I’m not saying that we don’t praise God when we are doing our homework, or eating lunch together. But we don’t verbally say how we love God when we do that stuff. Our bodies may say that, but our words don’t. I know that its extremely important to say that we love God with our actions, but I think neglecting saying that with our words is dangerous. Our words are important too. There is power in our words. When God created the world, he actually said “let there be light”. It’s obvious that there is some value in our words. I don’t know if that’s a good example but I still think the idea of using more than just our actions should be addressed.

How do I hear the Word?/ Class Discussion

This past class discussion was a great group discussion. The main thing that we focussed on was how we should be praying before the day starts, and at the end. The gift of waking up with God on your mind, is one that most Christians would wish to have. I personally find it extremely hard to do this, because there are so many things that you need to do in the morning, and they usually take over. Our prayer life is like a car's engine, in the way that the engine needs to be lubricated to start with, and with prayer we should start our day with it. Also we should really pray before bed, because this is a time to thank God for the day, and bring up prayer requests that came up that day. I personally find that praying before bed is much easier for me, because at night I am usually still in thinking mode.

In Nouwens book, there is a short story right at the beginning about wisdom. I think that it shows us that we do not always have to talk to people to try and get them saved, at least for the first stepping stone. The first thing that we should do is act like Jesus would, show them hospitality, and if you can go somewhere from there, that is great. It doesn't always work in our time, the way we want it too, it is all in God's time, and even though we may not like it, that is the way it is. There is a couple at my church, named John and Nancy, and the Nancy's mom, who was not a Christian for her whole life, was starting to go downhill. This became a great concern for them. The youth center that I was going to, decided that we should go there in the spring and clean the yard completely, plant new flowers, wash the house, and things like that. After we left, Nancy was talking to her mom, and her mom started crying asking, " Why would a bunch of Christians do something like that for a non-Christian?" I believe that this act that we did, really helped to plant the seed, because she became a Christian on her death bed, and I am so thankful that she did, and it was a great experience for me too.

It shows that another way to learn the word is to read the word. This sounds so easy, but it is so easy to forget to do, or stop doing it altogether. To start reading the bible, you need to know where to start. If you start in the wrong book, that could make you not want to read the bible anymore. My youth pastor once told me to start reading in Matthew. I started reading the beginning of Matthew, and lost interest in reading it right away. I also think that it is very important that you read the bible, because temptation will be there, and having the wisdom not to do it, is a great way to face it. My pastor once told me, the difference between wisdom, and intelligence, is "Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit, but wisdom is knowing not to put it into a fruit salad."

Celebration is like a chocolate ice cream cone on a hot summer day, if you must eat it, because if you don't it well melt.-Dan Dorcy.

Our last group meeting was a corporate celebration. We thought that the best way to learn about celebration was to experience it. Although at first we didn't what to celebrate. We were soon reminded, that our significance was nothing compared to God and that we can celebrate our lives because of this. We celebrated fellowship with each other. We celebrated the end of a long hard week. We decided to try to come up with as many parallels as we could about celebration. Some of them made no sense, others were supremely funny, and while some were an articulate description of celebration, that of which Dan Dorcy suggested. Although with the ones that made no sense we were able to not judge, but laugh at them, because we were celebrating the reuniting of our group. As things began to die down, somebody expressed there need for a spiritual guider. We all agreed with there statement. Those who had a spiritual guider, and those who didn't all concurred with the necessity. Then Dan Dorcy piped up and declared, "a spiritual guider is like a music directors, in a sense they add unity and order, to life." His tone and attitude to the phrase had a hint of a philosophical absolute truth to it, that we all broke out in laughter again.

I would like to say that I am not facing any spiritual struggles right now in my life. However, this phrase in itself, is a spiritual struggle. I believe God uses spiritual struggles to help us grow. I want to grow. So this is my struggle, because I don't feel like I'm wrestling with God about anything. However, I have notice in the past that this wrestle is a lack of prayer. A lack of asking God at night, lying on my bed, in reflection of our day, search me O, God and known my heart, test me and know me anxious thoughts see if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way of everlasting. We need to pray that God will convict us of our sins. We need to pray to receive wisdom from the all mighty sage. Wisdom and observation so that we can learn in life what God is trying to teach us. Another possibility of this "non-wrestling" time with God, could be a gift. Some may call it a feeling of peace with God. I'm not saying that I am in perfect harmony with God, I am saying that God is giving me a break. This sense of peace could be reaffirming my decision about coming to EBC, and studying what I am studying. Where as I wrestled with God about this issue of vocation throughout last semester and most of the year before.

Right now in my life, I feel like I'm not learning anything about God, I'm experiencing him. I feel like I'm just dwelling with him. Like when your dancing with a beautiful girl, sometimes you just don't want to learn about her, you just want to experience that moment with her. However this just dwelling with God creates an ultimate dilemma. It is hard to write a blog about this topic. It is hard to put such "living" into words, and honestly i would rather not. I just hope that next time, there is something to say.