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godiznice
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Name: John
Birthday: 10/19/1979
Gender: Male
Interests: Sports (particularly track and field), reading, writing, missiology, pizza, coffee, laughing, listening to very loud music, the ghetto, jump-roping (kinda fairy I know), planning, pretending to figure stuff out, meeting new people, having deep discussions, and hearing people's stories.
Expertise: Legos
Occupation: Refugee ministries, blind guid
Message: message meEmail: email me
MSN: godiznice@hotmail.com
Yahoo:  jct4filipinos
Member Since:
9/13/2005
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| Hey everybody, I have moved my blog from xanga to wordpress. This will be my new permanent location. Thanks for following me for as long as you have on this blog. My new location is:
http://johntrotter.wordpress.com | | |
| Keri was a friend of mine jr in high and high school and I just found out she breathed her last the first week of December. When I was in 6th grade my family moved from Indiana to Kentucky and Keri's father, Louie, befriended us in a way that I'll never forget. Keri was a couple years older than me, puberty hit her far before I knew what deodorant even was, so in 6th grade she was a giant and I was a dwarf. I remember she used to call me "little guy" or "squirt". I secretly always thought she was pretty cute. It's so crazy how short life is.
Keri was a very good athlete - a good long jumper as I recall. I remember her running form. It was unforgettable, arms swaying like a helicopter. It was awful form. :) This year I have seen four classmates from my high school days die. Three of them were tremendous athletes. Wes Attebury, Keri, and Kirsten Mitchell. Chris Browder, whose sister was a very good runner also passed. He had a stint in cycling and he too could hold his own.
It's hard to grasp that we go through this journey of being so in control, so "alive", so fresh. . . . to being. . .gone. . . forever. I'm sure Louie is heart-broken and didn't really know what hit him. Four kids were left behind.
Life is so fragile. People are so fragile. We hear so much bad mouthing, so much attacking, so much negativity, so much guilt. Any street corner in the US is filled with such pain. It really reflects where we are as a culture. Keri, Wes, Chris, and Kirsten could have used a little more kindness, a little more patience, a little more God-given dignity. We are fragile people - here today and gone tomorrow.
What if we actually cherished each moment like it absolutely mattered, like it would never be forgotten? In a day where sarcasm and being judicious get the upper hand, I think we miss so many golden opportunities. I find myself in this rut of always looking ahead, always thinking about the future, always hoping. Is hoping and waiting the primary goal in this life? I sure "hope" not. God is now. He's right here among us. He is Immanuel, fully present, fully with us, fully there. I'm challenged to live in the moment, cherish friends, and honor those around me. Life is short.
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| This phrase "stepping out in faith" kind of rolls off the tongues of a lot of Christians, as if to say that we're all talking about the same thing. I'm not sure we are. To one person stepping out in faith means getting rid of a credit card. To alonger it might mean giving 70% of their income to the poor or spending every afternoon with a mentally handicapped person who will never be able to fully reciprocate the relationship. Some think it's just straight foolishness, while others push fora living stamdard close to poverty. Maybe it's something we say when we're not quite sure what to do with our future. Or maybe it is common-sense, genuine dependence on God.
I can think of so many things God has asked me to do. I have stepped out in faith and failed in the very task he asked me to do. Was that faith? Was it really failure? Did I move too soon? Was I not listening along the way? Did God ask me to do a certain thing only to have me fail and produce greater character in me? I think it might help if we ridded ourselves of a "Jesus fixes everything and makes all things work perfectly in my life" mentality. The New Testament is packed full of examples of people obeying God but not always seeing things work the way they'd envisioned.
I'm thinking of missionaries who were sent to foreign lands with a clear calling from God who die on the way there. That hardly seems like they heard God clearly. But maybe they did? Isn't it funny how everyone is on your side and thinks you're hearing God when things are going well? Nobody thought Jimmy Swaggart was living in disobedience. . . it looked like he had heard God and was obeying. Meanwhile, there were probably countless leaders trying to plant churches or raise support to be missionaries who never made it to their goal. They failed and moved on to a different stage of their lives. Were they called? Did they obey? When the project didn't come together was it because they lacked faith? Did they "step out in faith" too soon when they should have waited? Nobody wants to think of what happens when God tells you to do something, you do it, and it accomplishes next to nothing. At least that what rattles arounds in our heads or its what we feel in the heat of the moment.
I think this calls for an eternal perspective, a godly one in which I can't quite get my mind around. If we trust that God is sovereign and governing all things that we have to believe he is governing our lives. He isn't merely pulling strings ensuring that some people feel successful while others feel like utter failures. We serve a God who allows so many variables, so many influences, so many people in the community of faith to see obedience become a reality. Swaggart wasn't the only one responsible for his downfall. . . lots of people were involved in ihs life and oculd have been sending warnings (maybe they did). This whole thing of obedience is a community of faith thing where failure is bound to happen. Do we take the conclusion that God has let us down or that He is sovereign?
Satan loves for us to think that we make up stuff in our heads. God tells us to go share our faith with a guy on the corner. We do and the guy hops on a bus before we ever get to say hello. "Oh, I just didn't hear God". . . maybe. . . but I think you probably did. We're so black and white about these kinds of circumstances. Positive results seem to validate our obedience. It seems that God lives and dwells in a lot of the grey areas of our lives. We have to develop some sort of resolve for living in the grey. . . maybe I'll hit some more on all this later. :)
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| I was hanging out with some of my Bhutanese friends today and had a wonderful time. I got to spend time with a new family that I knew little about. What a joy to once again be present with Jesus and with new friends and hear their story. In the midst of it Dhuga and Nul Maya's kids were going nutty! They are 3 and 4 yrs old. The boy was dragging his sister on the floor and said, "I'm dragging you away to kill you and eat you for meat." I haven't laughted that hard in awhile. Too much tv or something.
It was cool to have my friend Samuel come along today. He speaks Nepali and was able to meet several Neapli speaking Bhutanese and provide some very practical needs. I'm dead tired but what an honor to be in the midst of God's heart. Too often I miss the point. Cool when I do actually make some sense of it.
I'm dragging you away to kill you and eat you as meat - crazy dude. | | |
| Charity and I have a good friend, Sara, who uses the phrase "God's Holy Word" pretty regularly when she talks about the Bible. I never really thought about it until this weekend. But for some reason I could almost hear the multitude of conversations we've had with her in which she used this phrase. For me, it really shifts my perspective when I start realizing that I hold in my hands the holy word of God. God has spoken.. . and I have that message right between my fingers. That's pretty miraculous when I stop to think about it.
I met with a group of friends on Saturday evening and we were talking a lot about spiritual disciplines and studying the Bible. I came to realize in our talk that I studied the Bible a whole lot more when I had to prepare a sermon or give a Bible lesson every week. I think my motivation may often have been that I wouldn't look like an idiot as I proclaimed God's truth rather than a pure heart desirous to consume God's holy word. Isn't that gross? My motivation often times was because it was my freaking job!! I have come to realize how true this is in me now that I'm not preaching every week. Ours hearts are decitful beyond all things. . . who can know it?
But I won't let this be the end of the story. I read through Lamentations late this evening and was humbled. The writer struggled with the same exact junk I try to sort through - knowing God's might and faithfulness but fixing our gaze too much on the current situation. After reading Lamentations I actually started to believe that "being so heavenly minded you're no earthly good" is probably a big lie. I think some of the people used most by God throughout history have been people who were very spiritually and heavenly minded. We're just naturally pretty earthly minded. The whole book of Lamentations seems to be a struggle between knowing God's reality vs. the reality that is right in front of our face. Dang, the story never changes eh? :)
So, I, like so many of you, want to step into the life where I treat and honor God's holy word as Sara talked about. Just for the sake of living in that arena, I think I'm gona start calling my Bible "God's holy word" for awhile. What an honor it is to read the Bible, God's holy word. Again, it comes back to motivation. Motives. Man, how many times have I said that word on this blog? Here I am again back at the same ending. I guess this is why Jesus talked so much about having a pure heart. Lord, help us all. | | |
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