Jesus told stories about seeds growing and being sown, telling us that these pictures are what His Kingdom is like. Another picture shows a farmer scattering the seeds, then patiently waiting while the earth produces of itself, wholly without his aid. He simply stands by waiting for the moment when he sees the signs of ripening, when he can only run out and harvest as quickly as possible. This farmer’s job involves scattering, waiting and finally harvest, but he must have a lot of patience and faith or else he would go crazy.

I think ministering to youth is sowing. We might pretend we know what we are doing and are experts, but really, all we can do is sow. We sow foolishly, anywhere we can, whether the soil looks good or poor, and then we wait. We must wait patiently and faithfully in an increasingly impatient and incredulous world. As one of these sowers, I pray God would grant us patience, the ability to sow foolishly, and great faith – that He who created all things by speaking them into existence is also able to grow any seed, in any soil and that He will.

Enjoy

JD

PS. all those things, the sprints, guitar and Starbucks did help snag me. also you being a smokin hottie is good too

When Ellie dances, she works through a whole repertoire of moves from hip-shakes to little toddler jumps to endless spins.  She looks so happy and proud as she moves around but I notice she looks to us to make sure we notice that she is doing well.  Ellie is not perfect, she has a strong will and doesn’t mind rebelling, but she is definitely innocent.  She dances with all her heart and might because she loves to and because her mommy and daddy see it and encourage her and she is proud of that.  No one has ruined her innocence by telling her she’s bad or she’ll never be a dancer or whatever other ‘realities’ we tell kids, and so she dances with all of who she is.

We adults have a great responsibility to our children.  They are looking at us, watching to see if we notice they are doing something and are trying hard and are having fun.  They are waiting expectantly to hear that they dance or draw or sing beautifully, or that they run fast or build so well, or think so creatively.  Too often we fail them, we give them the truth, when they need encouragement; we give them realities when they need care; we knock them down when we have the greatest chance to build them up.  We have such an important role and we must work hard to build up children when they need it most, and trust that they will realize the realities later (or maybe we’ll realize that those realities really aren’t that important).  I dread the day when someone breaks my little daughter’s heart by telling her she can’t dance, but til then (and probably long after) I will keep watching her dance with a father’s pride, and I will keep telling her how beautifully she dances and I will keep playing the music for her.

God worked powerfully on the trip both in me and the team as well as in the girls there at the Nehemiah Houses.  I thought that I would throw out on quote from the trip that is really striking me even now.  In conversations with John Parsons, YWAM Philippines director, and fellow Oregon boy, we were discussing various things when somehow we got to the point where John recalled the words of Jesus warning his disciples to “Beware the yeast of Herod and of the Pharisees”

Mark 8:15 (Today’s New International Version)

¹⁵ “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”

While we talked, John illuminated the plain truth of this warning that I had missed through many readings of this.  Jesus is telling us to watch out for the two main places of power in our world, Politics and Religion.  Watch out for those things he tells us, because he rightly saw how the power in both of those spheres will corrupt us and draw us away from him.  So I remind us during this American election season and during a time when many throughout the world are also working through political changes to beware the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod, because Christ alone is where we find the answers and hope we so desperately seek.

I have heard many presentations of the Good News of Jesus Christ in my life and many of them explained the fall in terms that left me unsettled and wanting.  Donald’s explanation here is awesome so I thought I would highlight it (pay special attention to the italicized part, which I added):

We were designed so our identity would be affirmed in a relationship with God. In other words, my feelings of self worth do not come from within me, they come from an external source. That source was supposed to be God. But in the fall of man, that relationship was severed (it had to be as God could not mix or mingle with anything opposing him, not because He is a jerk, but because He actually defines what is good in the first place) and so after the fall, we continue to look for affirmation from an outside source, and that source is each other.

I love the way Miller describes the fall here.  Through my life I have been told that at the fall our sin caused God to punish us with separation from him, which is sort of hard to reconcile when elsewhere the same people say that God loves you and wants to have a relationship with you in Jesus  (why did God mess things up in the first place, I wondered).  When we look at the fall, however, not as our punishment from God, but as the consequence of our sin and our choice, things become clearer.  If God is perfect (and God is perfect), then everything about and around God is also perfect (heaven and such), then it reasons to say they any imperfection (our rebellion and sin) around would disturb God’s perfection.  God’s perfection can’t, in fact, be disturbed and so any imperfection (our rebellion and sin, and therefore us) could no longer be around.  I am reading this parenting book that shows and encourages the parents to show that disciplining a child is not because we are mean, nasty jerks and want to make them suffer with punishment, but because we are loving, responsible parents who are enforcing the boundaries and consequences of their own choices and are providing the clear boundaries and structure we so desperately need.  I think when we understand the fall this way, God is no longer the bad guy(a mean, nasty jerk), God is in fact so good that we can’t even compare, and when we understand that, The Good News is actually Good!  God could no longer bear this separation so God came to us, in the flesh and became like us so that we could be made right! Thanks for sharing this view, Don.

In other news and randomness, The Hawaiian Island Ministries Honolulu 2010 conference starts this evening and I am stoked to be going to it with some of our teens and Annie.  I am especially stoked because The David Crowder* Band is performing a worship concert on Friday night that is sure to be face-meltingly-rocktacular and worshipful.  I will try to post some conference updates as I can.

In further randomness, if any are following along with the shrinking JD, I weighed in today at 247lbs and am stoked to be down 20lbs from the original weight.   I wasn’t able to work out due to sickness, nor was I able to keep up with my lose it due to sickness and laziness and busy-ness due to Annie starting maternity leave.  Hopefully, I will able to get back into those next week.  I am posting this because the conference schedule on Friday runs from 8am to about midnight, not including drive time, so I may not be able to do my normal Friday weigh in and post.

aloha, (ps. we made it through the tsunami) (pps, i like to use the word stoke, I know, you couldn’t tell)

In other news, Annie and I really worked to organize our bedroom this weekend and it looks and feels awesome now; like a whole other place. We also had an interesting conversation with Patrick, my brother in law, and I think we are going to start a hydroponic garden next weekend with his help, and we’re pretty excited about it. aloha

I weighed in Friday at 254, which was a little disappointing, because the day before I weighed 252 (as I did today).  The workouts are still going well, and I am doing pretty well on my calories, though this weekend I didn’t keep track at all cause I had this nasty head cold.  I’m coming out of my head cold funk already, but I sure noticed some intense weakness when I worked out today, so I just took it easy on the weights and kicked my cardio up with 30 mins on the elliptical, and some quick light strength stuff (mostly body weight exercises).  I have been doing some football training with one of our FBC students for the last couple weeks and we had an AWESOME workout on Thursday, I only wish there were a way to get that workout more than once a week.  There it is for this week, Aloha

What are those words for you?