perfection

perfection ... is a word i wrestle with and come back to over and over again. God wants total obedience in every commandment with all my heart, soul, mind, actions, emotions, words, ... and yet romans 3 says we all fall short. so maybe the end goal is still total obedience ... but the means is different than trying harder ... maybe it's having our hearts be transformed and become the kind of person who actually obeys from the heart. (http://www.cdomaha.com/resources_list.php?catid=2)

or maybe it's that perfection isn't absolute http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2005/1307_Imperfect_Love_Fulfills_the_Law_and_Pleases_the_PerfectionDemanding_God/ AND http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/1995/4282_Doing_Well_and_Doing_Better/ )

i'm just not sure ... because i'm supposed to have grace and love and hope for change under the gospel (i mean Jesus didn't die for nothing) ... and i guess i have grace and love and hope for change when i fail at having grace for myself or when i respond poorly to my mistakes or when i beat myself up for what i've done wrong. sometimes i think it would just be better if i got it right the first time. but since i know it won't be that way i wish i could be okay with me making mistakes .... and i wish i could realize that that's just how life goes. it just always boggles my mind. i get so dissatisfied with certain things i do or how i respond in situations ... but at this rate will i ever be satisfied? is it good and right to be satisfied with where i'm at and who i am becoming? we are still supposed to kill sin and be distinct from the world. why have divorce rates be the same inside the church as outside? why are nonbelievers often more open and honest? oh the double edged sword of dissatisfaction!

any thoughts ...

i found this interesting ...

If it ain't broke, don't fix it... but if it is - FIX IT!

Albert Einstein once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

this is a blog about youth groups ... i thought it was interesting so i wanted to share it with you all ...

http://keithwatson.blogspot.com/2010/04/culture-of-youth-groups-and-church_20.html

are we really gospel centered?

just walked out of church ... feeling condemned and on the verge of tears once again. for the most part it was a good sermon. a sermon about how the discussion about homosexuality is essential, explosive, and complicated. most christians are labeled haters of homosexuals, judgement, or hypocritical ... not something that reflects Jesus' heart at all. we discussed that one purpose of sex is that it would point to God but because of sin everything is all messed up and often sex doesn't point to God in our culture. sooner or later the worst thing could happen ... He could let us have our way in our love for sin. so what does Jesus' church have to offer all who struggle with homosexuality or anything sexual really (which is probably all people on this planet)? one sexual sin isn't any worse than any other ... it just manifests itself in different ways.

what Jesus offers ....

1. love

2. grace

3. community

4. hope for healing and change

5. self denial (denying some of our urges and desires knowing that God always has the best in mind for us)

and the question that still puzzles me is why did i walk out feeling condemned when i don't struggle with homosexual attraction and why do i feel condemned when there is no condemnation in christ Jesus? why did i walk out swimming in romans 7 without reaching romans 8? if one sin isn't any worse than any other do we have grace and love and hope for healing and change for the critical, judgmental, hypocritical, homosexual hater? or should we condemn them instead of homosexuals? i feel like my heart is so evil ... black and wicked! i feel like i haven't really done the greatest job loving people who have sin that is different than mine (or really just loving people at all)... is there grace and love and hope for change for me? if Jesus offers grace and love and hope to the homosexual he will also offer it to:

the person i have a hard time loving

me when i have a hard time loving that person

the churches that aren't so gospel centered

me when i my heart is angry at those churches

there is love and grace and hope for change because by God's grace our black wicked ugly sinful hearts can be transformed and made new! i pray that the gospel would be on the tip of our tongues, the forefront of our minds, and the depths of our hearts. and i pray that the love and grace and hope for change would create worship. such a beautiful thing ... how do we think we can survive without it? make us gospel centered God!

my parents, a bar, and rugby

background ....

my brother is one of those people who likes to research new and different restaurants. if he picks the place to eat you never know what you are going to get ... if i pick ... welp it's one of three choices that we've all eaten at a million times. awhile ago he took my parents to a german restaurant in downtown des moines for lunch.

how i got to a bar ...

my parents gave me a call and wondered if i wanted to join them in des moines sat night. they were planning to go out to eat with two other couples who had been family friends for a long time ... one had moved away and the other was still in harlan. that sounded fun so i agreed. i was planning to go home friday and come back to ames sat night which would have me go straight though des moines anyway.

the reason we are all hoarse ...

we ended up going to the same german restaurant they had been to once before. it's called the hessen haus .... central iowa's only authentic german beer hall. we get there at 6:30 and find the only open table ... right under the loudest speaker in the place. it was pretty funny but we found ourselves yelling the whole night and cracking jokes about why the old people have to sit under the loudest speaker in the place.

conversations in the bathroom ...

they are famous for this huge boot shaped mug of beer. when my dad went to the bathroom he came back with a story of all the young guys in the bathroom were trying to get him to take the boot drinking challenge .... he simply said he was too old. i think one beer was enough for my dad since he probably drinks 2 a year (it is only feb).

well then i went to the bathroom (it's probably 8:30-9:00 by now)... and you have to walk the whole length of the restaurant to get there. when i came out of the stall i started washing my hands and this woman who was in her upper 20s kept staring at me and didn't go into the open stall i had just vacated. seemed a bit odd, but just keep washing your hands and then get out no prob. she looked at me and said "i actually came in here to talk to you." i'm in trouble now. what did i do? she pulls out a business card and said she was from the des moines women's rugby team and they saw me walk by and thought i would be good at running and hitting people. i asked a few questions and she took me out to meet the captain or something who when she saw me she said "that's our girl!" they asked me to hang out, but i said my party was probably about ready to leave (little did i know we were going to be there another hour).

so i made it back to the old people's table by the door and shared my story ... the guys decided i needed to bulk up (like 120 pounds which i thought would just be flabby not bulky) and the women thought it would have been super funny if i would have went to the bathroom with my mom or if the rugby girls would leave and see me sitting at a table with my parents and their friends and perhaps they would rethink their decision to invite me to play. it was interesting ... if it was in ames instead of des moines i think i would actually think about it.

all in all we had a blast. we all agreed 1. it was a bit quieter in that place when my bro took them there at noon 2. we should do this more often (and i reminded them not to forget the young one when they planned the next outing) 3. none of us had laughed that much in quite some time and we were due for a good laugh

another big decision

so it's official. i decided to switch churches. i can't decide if it was as hard of a decision as quitting my job in omaha and moving back to ames or not, but it sure makes it to the top of the list of hard decisions in my life. and perhaps making the decision won't be as hard as living with the decision that i made in the months to come... but i made it and that's that. i never wanted to be a statistic of those churches that gain new members simply by having people move back and forth between churches instead of having new people come to know and love Jesus, but i guess that statistic is deeper than i once thought. there's a why behind each of those people perhaps. the fear is still i don't really know if it will be better in this church than in the last. but i do know that something's gotta change. i just can't do it anymore. after being involved in this church for most of 5 years and wrestling with it for 2 perhaps enough is enough. God used it to teach me a lot over the years ... it gave me a solid foundation of the theology of the gospel and the biblical basis for mission it connected me with stellar people that i am so grateful for still am to this day!! it challenged me to be baptized sent me overseas gave me opportunities to lead bible studies of college gals there are many reasons to leave ... and perhaps many to stay. so i'm in need of prayer. more so now than perhaps ever before (or at least i am realizing my need now more than ever before). ask questions if you like... there's been lots of tears shed and wrestling with thoughts and emotions for what seems like a very long time.

true spirituality

good quotes from francis schaeffer's true spirituality ...

"the important thing about being born spiritually is to live"

"we do not come to true spirituality or the true christian life merely by keeping a list, but neither do we come to it merely by rejecting the list and then shrugging our shoulders and living a looser life"

"love is internal, not external. there can be external manifestations, but love itself will always be an internal factor"

"...desire becomes sin when it fails to include love of God or men. ... I am to love God enough to be contented; second i am to love men enough not to envy"

"contented and yet fighting evil" (wow challenging!)

"if the contentment goes and the giving of thanks goes, we are not loving God as we should, and proper desire has become coveting against God. This inward area is the first place of loss of true spirituality. the outward is always just a result of it"

"our death by choice in the present life ... is the saying no to self when our natural selves would desire acceptance by the alien world- a world in revolt against its creator and our lord"

" ... forgetting the fall is the fall" (yep ... i often forget that we live in a fallen world until Jesus returns... and that just complicates life)

"we wait for the resurrection of the body. we wait for the perfect application of the finished work of christ of the whole man. we wait for this, but on this side of the fall, and before christ comes, we must not insist on 'perfection or nothing' or we will end with nothing"

"prayer is always to be seen as a person-to-person communication, not merely a devotional exercise. indeed, when prayer becomes only a devotional exercise, it is no longer biblical prayer"

"the command is to love him, not just think about him, or do things for him. we are not to stop with a proper legal relationship-for example, to think of a man as legally lost, which he is, in the sight of a holy God-without thinking of him as a person. saying this, we can suddenly see that much evangelism is not only sub-christian, but subhuman-legalistic and impersonal."

"it is not wrong to be right, but it is wrong to have the wrong attitude in being right"

"my relationship with my fellowmen must always be personal. if i really love a man as i love myself, i will long to see him be what he could be on the basis of christ's work, for that is what i want or what i should want for myself on the basis of christ's work"

"christianity is not to love in abstraction, but to love the individual who stands before me in a person-to-person relationship. he must never be faceless to me or i am denying everything i say i believe. this concept will always involve some cost. it is not a cheap thing, because we live in a fallen world, and we ourselves are fallen"

"but for the christian, who does not need to have everything in human relationships, human relationships can be beautiful"

"the church is not a body that thinks up ideas; the church is a declarative statement of what God has revealed concerning himself in the scripture. ... the church should represent the supernaturally restored human race in reality"

"yes, faith can be taught, but only by exhibition"

"methods are as important as its message"

"there is no use talking of these things abstractly, without bringing them down to the real place where the battles are fought"

"we are commanded not only to meet together, but to help each other."

well perhaps i got carried away but there's so many more good quotes in this book. one that has really been hitting home for me is if i am insisting on perfection or nothing i will get nothing. wow. i recommend it whole heartedly. the moment i got done reading it i started it again ...

strengths finder

so awhile ago i took a test on line called Strengths Finders 2.0. it talks about how we have strengths and weakness and lots of times people focus on improving their weaknesses... but it also talks about how cool it is if we actually focus on sharpening our strengths instead of using all our time and energy on always fixing all our weaknesses. we have strengths for a reason ... let's find them and use them ... (kinda like spiritual gifts in the body of Christ).

it was interesting and today was a day i saw my strengths be used at work. it was one of those days were i was in the office trying to organize my brain and office, analyze and compile data for multiple experiments, schedule work for an undergrad, having the computer guy try to get my lost Quicken data from the last 4 months back, and run one last titanium dioxide assay in the lab ... with tasting 7 different cured ham samples from the meat lab in the middle ... what a day. but the thing that led me to think about my strengths is that i wasn't totally exhausted after working 8-5 and having lunch at my desk while continuing to stare at my computer. i was energized... enough to go run a couple miles at the fitness center as soon as i got off work... how can that be?? there are 5 strengths that the test gives but i'll just list the ones that were in full swing today. oh so fun.

RESTORATIVE

You like to solve problems. Whereas some are dismayed when they encounter yet another breakdown, you can be energized by it. You enjoy the challenge of analyzing the symptoms, identifying what is wrong, and finding the solution.

Driven by your talents, you automatically set out to do things right. As a result, you usually invent better ways to tackle assignments, studies, or chores. You are apt to make small yet necessary upgrades to enhance the efficiency and overall performance of various processes or individuals. Chances are good that you enjoy listening to public speakers. You are attracted to those who inspire you to think about what you can do better either personally or professionally. By nature, you typically are an eager and willing student. You genuinely derive satisfaction from examining new sources of information. You often arrive at conclusions about how to make certain things better. It’s very likely that you search for opportunities to improve yourself. You are determined to confront your weak points and correct them. Because of your strengths, you routinely set aside about five hours of quiet time each week to think. You make a point to pause and consider things you need to do better. You typically figure out how to update and streamline various processes, tasks, ideas, or activities.

ACHIEVER

Because of your strengths, you often spend considerable time examining the details underpinning an idea. Rather than rush through your research, you typically stick with it until you are convinced everything makes sense. It’s very likely that you expend much mental energy making sense of events, identifying problems, and/or creating solutions. You likely sort through a lot of information to pinpoint essential facts. You probably rely on reason to arrive at sound conclusions or to make correct decisions. Driven by your talents, you concentrate for extended periods of time. This is one reason why you ultimately master skills and grasp concepts.

It brings you the energy you need to work long hours without burning out. It is the jolt you can always count on to get you started on new tasks, new challenges.