Kristen's back in class

After a very nice break, Kristen is back in classes as of a week ago Wednesday. She is enjoying it...but it does make our calendar more hectic. In fact, my Wednesday night class had to move to Thursdays (how nice are they for doing that?) so that I can be home with the boys on Wednesday night...and of course, since that moved to Thursdays, my men's group had to move to Mondays. I am pretty sure Jaden's baseball is going to be practicing Tuesday evenings...so, we will be pretty much booked all week, every week...at least for the next 8 week's of her class. Wish us luck.

Test Back from Bethel exam

Got my test back this evening. And, while I wish we had gotten a little more feedback on it based on the effort and time spent, I did have to share one comment...

As our teacher handed them back she made comments to each person about what she appreciated or liked about the way they laid out their topics, or how they wrote it up. When she got to me she said..."And Jason...I think that you should get some sort of seminary credit for what you wrote up."

I knew that I had written more and spent more time than others...but I still found it fairly amusing.

Happy Birthday to the love of my Life

Happy Birthday honey!

You are more beautiful today than you were when we met...and yes, I really mean that :)

I just thought I would jot down a few things to tell you I love you:

- I love what an incredible mother you are. Our children are so blessed to have you and if not for the way you worked your magic in this family...we would not be anything close to what we are today.

- I love what an incredible woman you are. The way you share your life, your feelings, your heart with others...the way that you have made a great life out of difficult circumstances and the way the you see the world is a blessing to me and to everyone that we come in contact with.

- I love what an incredible faith you have developed. I have seen you change over the last few years as you have grasped what God means to you...to have a relationship with Him and how you want to share that with those around you. That has been amazing for me to watch, is an amazing example that you set for our kids and I truly believe you have been an awesome influence on many around us.

So many more things to say...but some stuff has to be left for the letter...

I love you and wish you the happiest of birthdays!

Joined BookSneeze

As everyone knows, I love reading books and then I pretty much always blog about them :) Well, I found this site called BookSneeze and essentially, they will give me a book at a time to read and blog about. They just ask that I do a write up and post it on multiple sites...which is pretty easy to do...and then I can do what I want with the book.

The first book I requested just arrived in the mail. It is a John Maxwell book on communication. I know that his books take a little time to get through, but I am looking forward to it! Hopefully it will even help me with my communication skills :)

Long Test!

Took a very long essay test yesterday for Bethel. I was at the church from 7pm to about 9:30 writing 9 pages of content on the New Testament. I was struggling with the references that I wanted to use but thought that I did a good job with the overall content.

Essentially the question was...you are on a cross country trip, on a bus, and you strike up a conversation with someone who is interested in Christianity...especially Jesus, his life and the church. Go through those things with references to scriptures as you have this conversation.

Would you be able to write anything on this :) ?

Wrap up - Part 5

God kind of had all these things from the previous days posts lingering in my mind when I was went back to the passages on Joseph.
For whatever reason I was thinking to myself about how wrong it seemed that a man so obedient to God, whose role that God called him to play was to be Jesus’ father, didn’t get to see it to fruition. Shouldn’t his obedience, like that of Noah, have enabled him to see it through?
To see Jesus do the very things that were prophesied?
And it made me think of all the negative things that happen in this broken world…how hard things are and how they don’t really seem to work out…we say to ourselves and pray:

Romans 8:28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

And we feel better…right? It gives us comfort to know that God is looking after us. And he tells us that he will…right?

But another passage came to me…the one with Elijah and the widow in 1Kings Chapter 17...and thought,
"What happened to the widow once the rain came?"

You remember the passage right?

14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.' "

The widow was in dire straits…making a last meal. Along came Elijah asking something fairly ridiculous...but, she was obedient and saw a miracle.
However, once it rained, she and her son were possibly back to having that last meal again.
From my perspective, and possibly from hers it may have really seemed that God had showed her and her son a miracle…and for what? That they may have starved a week later?
Now I know that we don’t see that or know that…but would it change your perspective on God’s providence and provision if that was how the story ended?
My immediate response tends to be yes…what a waste that would have been…but God then brought to mind another passage:

Isaiah 55:9"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

But, we don’t have God’s perspective do we?

And for us to truly understand how He looks out for us, for our future we would have to have that same perspective…one that we will never have while we are here.
If that story was the main role that God had wanted that widow to play in this life…to give us this story that would be passed down in his divine word and then he called her home to an eternity with her…does that perspective change what those circumstances might be telling us?

And specifically to me…God was reminding me that regardless of how much I trust Him and how obedient to Him I may be…I will not necessarily understand what happens…

We are called to be obedient, and we are told that we CAN and SHOULD trust God….

BUT

Are you ok with being obedient to God only so long as you get to see things to the end like Noah did?

Are you ok with being obedient to God if you only get to see things part of the way there…a project is only half done like Joseph with Jesus?

Will you still be obedient to God if that provision of flour and oil runs dry because the rain has come and that was all that God promised?

Because for every Job where the obedience ultimately turns out as looking positive from a worldly perspective there are Stephen’s where obedience does not look so good from our perspective but was exactly what God intended that would work for the good of those who love him.

Part 4

About a week before I gave my talk...and as I was putting together my thoughts, I ended up watching Paycheck with Ben Affleck...you can see the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIoJHlIxmZM

Ultimately, the movie is about the main character figuring out why he gave away $90M for 20 worthless looking items in an envelope. He gave up 3 years of his life and he is angry and frustrated...until he has this "Aha!" moment. He realizes that he has seen his own future and that he needs to trust the plan that he has laid out for himself with these items in order to get where he is supposed to go. Does this sound familiar?

Jeremiah 29:11 (New International Version)
11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Those tough spots he was in...these decisions that needed to be made....are very similar to the decisions we have to make too.
When we acknowledge that God already knows our future…that He has plans for us, plans to give us hope and a future then obedience not only makes sense but in fact looks foolish if we do not.

Part 3

Towards the end of the last year, I came to read passages and heard in sermons in the book of Matthew about Joseph. I find it interesting that the earthly father of Jesus has very little written about him in the Bible. However, the little bit that is written I find very telling…

Prior to Jesus birth…
Mat 1:19-21,24
19Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[c] because he will save his people from their sins."
24“When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.”

Directly after Jesus’ birth…
Mat 2:13-14
“13When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him."

14So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt

After time in Egypt…
Mat 2:19-21
19After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead."
21So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.

In each case, Joseph had a lot to lose with each of these decisions. They were life altering decisions…marriage, job, where to call home...even life and death.
Some of the biggest decisions that a man can make all hinged based upon direction from God that Joseph immediately obeyed.

God knows our needs and we should trust Him and ultimately if we obey God, He will provide for us in our circumstances. As father's we are responsible for caring for our children...but God will provide the direction if we will listen.

Part 2

Continuing in that Genesis passage from yesterday....

12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress [c] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out….He went on to tell him how to build it….gave him instructions…and then…well,And in verse 22 it says… 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

Have you ever stopped to think about how long it might have taken Noah to build the ark? By one estimate on the Internet, it took him 98 years. It actually does not tell us in the Bible, so you have to make some deductions and inferences based on his children’s ages and such to get there…but 98 years!
And while that by itself is hard to fathom…what struck me beyond that was that the Bible is silent on whether or not God spoke to Noah over that time…
Can you imagine?
Noah hears from God about a mind-boggling, change-the-world kind of prophecy…and Noah’s role is huge. He is building a boat in the desert and it is the thing that will keep his family safe….PRESSURE…
Crazier still, for the next century he may not have heard from God at all…
You see, the next time Noah hears from God (that we know of), it was when he was done with the project.

GEN 7:1 The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.

98 years without another word from God and yet, he obeyed! To me, that is amazing. I know that I worry about where my career is going and what I spend my time on…and if I spend very much time on something…it is easy to wonder whether or not God is blessing it if I am not seeing the fruit right away…but Noah spent nearly a lifetime on this project but he stayed obedient and he was enabled to see God’s plan fulfilled.

Friday morning men's breakfast - part 1

I had the opportunity to talk again at the Friday morning men's breakfast at my church on the 29th of January. I thought I would both capture the points for myself here as well as share with you all what I spoke about.

Back in September, I was reading in Genesis and I stopped as I was reading about Noah. We have all read and heard the story many times before, but I got amazed at the passage in a way that I never had before…

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time… 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.

There were these people...people who were heroes, men of renown that did NOT find favor with God….
and here was Noah who was simply known as blameless…and that he walked with God.

Like everywhere else in the Bible, God does not necessarily use "heroes", he uses those that follow Him..they become the heroes.