What Would Life Have Looked Like?

I've taken up biking since I've been home. My aunt gave my mom her old road bike, so it seemed like a good excuse to work out and a helpful alternative to bashing up my weak knees running. There's a 10-12 mile ride that takes me from my house to a park I had never known about before called "Twin Rivers Park". It sits on two peninsula's that stick out in the middle of the Arkansas River. It's a gorgeous ride - taking me by farm land, river front homes, and then through this wonderful arboretum. The other day I counted 17 deer that I saw in one ride. Another day I saw 9 deer plus 2 armadillos. It's a blast to go riding - I never know what I'm going to see (I've even see a couple of snakes so far).

The day I saw the 17 deer, I had read Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 where he says:

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

What does that mean? How does it apply to our lives? Now, I don't think this is Christ saying, "Hey, lay off working, thinking ahead, and providing for your family." I just don't see that practical side of life being written off by God - plus, this section is focused on worry and anxiety - so the focus is more appropriately on those that stress about providing for their lives to the point where their lives are filled with anxiety, failing to trust God for His provision.

It did get me thinking though, is life as we know it really as it should be? As I watched the deer and geese that day, it seemed as though they truly had the better life. They spend the time they need eating and gathering what they need - but they don't spend all day doing it. Nor do they seem anxious, stressed, or constantly busy. I can't help but wonder if their life is what ours was meant to be.

What if the plan had been that we too would be able to spend small portions of our day working for our own provision, and spend a larger part of our day in the company of others or enjoying the creation of the Creator? What if before

cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you...
by the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return
(Gen 3:17-19, ESV)

our lives looked more like the other creatures created by the hand of God? In, a way, wouldn't it make sense? If we are the height of His creation - the one's of which He said it is "very good" - the very best of what He created - wouldn't it make sense that our lives would, like the deer and geese, be spent enjoying this world He created? Could it be that the Fall brought with it such a need to work that we are unable to have the time to truly enjoy the world around us? It would seem that ever since the Fall - whether in agrarian societies or our modern society - man spends 40-80 hours a week simply providing for his sustenance.

Perhaps heaven will restore that and we, like the rest of creation, will be able to truly enjoy walking along a river, going for a bike ride through a park, or spending time with friends - knowing that we don't have to spend every waking moment providing for our own needs.

(Image Courtesy of RiverTrail.org)

WikipediaWictionaryChambers (UK)Google imagesGoogle defineThe Free DictionaryJoin exampleWordNetGoogleUrban DictionaryAnswers.comrhymezone.comMerriam-Webster

I Love Sundays!!

Okay, so know that sounds really cliche and might annoy the sensitivities of some of you to such "triteness". However, I can't help it! :-)

It's been so great to be back at Fellowship these last few weeks. I leave church bummed that it's over and disappointed that I have to wait a whole other week before I get to come back. Last week I had the chance to stay for both services and LOVED IT!! There's something about having been involved so heavily with the church in high school, knowing so many of the people that work there now, and dynamic worship and engaging/challenging teaching that get's me all jazzed up. It's been fun these last two weeks to invite and introduce to of my friends who have moved to Little Rock to Fellowship. I know they may not stay there and for those that don't have the connections I do, it can come off as not being so friendly or engaging - but man, I sure love it and love introducing people to it!

On top of that, every Sunday a group of us get together and play Ultimate Frisbee for two-three hours. It's a blast! Sure, I'm not all that good - but it's a great work out, great friends, and just a fun time.

So anyways, I went to bed last night thinking about how wonderful the day had been...and bummed that it was another 7 days till I got to experience it again. :-)

Web Tip: Facebook & Multiple Blogs

(Pipes.Yahoo.com - combining multiple RSS feeds)

I ran into a problem. I'm now running two blogs - this one and then one about my year at Queen's. I did this because this blog you're reading tends to be fairly random about what's going on in my life - but I wanted a blog where friends and family could find out about my year at Queen's and really just stay up-to-date on things there - not all the randomness that goes through my head.

Facebook can import a blog into your Notes. However, it can only import ONE blog, so it mean that I would have to choose between the two which would be sticky, since I really wanted it to post both. Well, I found a work around:

Yahoo Pipes

It's really a kind of odd (yet, pretty nifty) program that Yahoo bought and is now administering. Basically it allows you to create a "pipe" of information and how it is processed. For my situation, I simply had the first part of the pipe look up to RSS Feeds (the two feeds for my blogs) and then had it output those two feeds. This output creates another page that has it's own RSS feed. That RSS feed takes into account BOTH blogs and will follow all updates. Bingo! So, I just took the RSS feed from my pipes setup and pasted that into Facebook's Note's importer and now Facebook is importing any new posts I make to either of my blogs. Success!

Web-Finds: To-Do List for Google & Traineo

I've come across two really handy online free programs this last week that I thought I would pass on.

To-do List for Google Calendar: Remember the Milk

If, like me, you've ever wished that Google, in it's incredible package of free offerings (email, calendar, docs, analytics, blogger, notepad, etc.) had an integrated To-Do list, then here's a solution.

While Google hasn't offered something like this yet, the website www.rememberthemilk.com is an online To-Do list that integrates with Google Calendar and will add to your calendar what you need to do that day.  Remember the Milk is easy to navigate and has shortcut keys to navigate and add new items to your list.  

Working Out with Long-Distance Accountability: Traineo

I came across this free-be as I was surfing the web for something to track my working out history as I try to add pushups, crunches, and something cardeo to my daily habits.  

Traineo offers a way to track your workouts (& calories burned), your calorie intake, plus other things you can add - such as sleep patterns.  However, while having a really easy to use interface, it also offers an accountability factor which is where it's strength is.  You can add as many "motivators" to your account as you want.  Weekly, these people will get an email updating them on your weight loss and activity patterns for that week.  Then, if they see that in a week you haven't done anything - or over several weeks you've been slacking - it's easy for them to come back to you and say, "Hey, what's going on?  Stress?  Busy? or just slacking?".  I started using it this week and have been really happy with it. 

The beautiful thing for me is that, while I'm moving, my old workout partner - even though we can't work out together - can hold me accountable to be working out. :-)

www.traineo.com

Trust & Reliance: Got It?

A lot in my life has changed this summer. For example, two months ago, I planned to remain at JBU for another year, serving as an admissions counselor. Since then, everything's changed. Instead of my previous plans, I'm now heading to Northern Ireland for a one-year Master's program. Not only an incredibly unlikely circumstance - or so I would have through two months ago - but also a significantly intimidating change. In this process of my life being picked up and turned on its head, I've learned something really humbling and sobering about myself. I neither trust nor rely on the Lord like I thought I did (something I think was likely a projection of desire, rather than an honest summation). 

What woke me up to it was when I heard back from Queen's University - the first to respond to my application. Surprised that anyone had accepted me so late in the game, I began stressing out about all the pieces that had to fall in to place. UK student visa. Loans. Tickets. Moving. Etc. The stress became so great that I wasn't eating healthy, I wasn't sleeping well, I couldn't concentrate at work, and the list goes on. 

What's ironic is that through this year, I had been memorizing and looking over a passage in Philippians 4:

In everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,

present your requests to God. And the peace of God,

which transcends all understanding, will gaurd your

heart and your mind in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Ironic and sobering. All year, I had been looking over this verse and then in the midst of the stress I failed to place these stresses before Him and trust Him to provide and take care.

My sister Jenny gave me a new Bible for my birthday (it's a small Bible and will be great for traveling). We talked about worry and how, in many ways, worry is either a sin, or at the very least, indicative of a sin - the sin of not trusting the Lord, his promises, and his character. After getting the Bible, I was flipping through it and was directed to Psalm 37:5, as a response to anxiety or worry:

Commit your way to the LORD;

trust in him, and he will act.

Here's the sobering thing. I failed to truly commit my plans for this year and what I was doing to the Lord. I failed to trust Him and his desire, ability, and promise to act. Rather than allowing God's peace to replace my anxiety, I let the anxiety impact so many aspects of my life.
The reality is that, in spite of me, the LORD/YHWH did act. In miraculous form he allowed my application to go through quickly at Queen's. He's provided my visa and the plane tickets for my trip. I have no doubt, at this point, that he'll provide the loans and money for this year as well.

I'm amazed by a God, so intimately involved in our world, that speaks/acts into our lives - at times, regardless of where we are or what choices we are making - to shape and direct where we go. 

What a joy this summer may have been, had I chosen to present my request to God, committed it to him, trusted him - laying down the pressure I placed on myself - and allowed the God of the universe to act...if I had only let YHWH be YHWH in my life.

Waking Up to Say Goodbye

I woke up this morning to say goodbye. (That's not entirely true - I woke up because I wanted to pack the car before the day's weather became entirely unbearable.)  In waking, I woke to my last day living in Siloam...thus, in a way, I woke up to say goodbye.

The last six years in Siloam have been an incredible way to start off this "life of independence" that we're called to as we leave our childhood home after high school - taking steps down the road of learning to live on our own.

Six years has brought a lot:

Friends - through JBU and Fellowship Bible Church my world exploded with an amazing diversity of beliefs, perspectives, upbringing, expectations, hopes, dreams, and hurts.  My world expanded with these friends now living as far away as China and as close as Little Rock, where my parents live.

Travel - opportunities ranging from an archaeological dig in Jordan to a conference in Dallas to a business trip in Boston and to an inner-city immersion trip in Chicago.  Beyond these incredible experiences, college brought with it road trips to Seattle and Alabama.

Challenges - as the assumptions of my childhood were challenged, my faith began to be strained, stretched, and remolded into something different, yet better, not worse.  More honest and yet more faithful to the core of what had always been there.

Celebrations - over these 6 years I've been able to celebrate with nearly a dozen weddings and shouted/screamed as friends graduated from High School/College. 

These last 6 years have been more wonderful then I can ever express and brought about a gratitude deeper then anything I can ever convey.  

Even this final week brought with it an incredible sense of gratefulness - from an office-wide lunch on Tuesday (it humbled me that everyone was invited, not just one area) to a night on the lake with some of my closest guy friends (thanks Jas!) to a final tournament of Settler's of Catan with about a dozen other staff and faculty at JBU (rescheduled so that I could be there) to a church family that spoke words of blessing and encouragement as things wrapped up Sunday morning in that white church on the corner of Twin Springs and Washington St.  

I want to say "What a week!", but truly it goes beyond that to "What an incredible 6 years!".  I couldn't have hoped for anything better in these first years of "stretching my wings" and figuring out this thing we call life.  

I woke up this morning to say goodbye: to a wonderful beginning, to a fantastic final week, and to a town, community, and organization that has, in many ways, become a family.