God Almost Killed Moses

For some reason last night when I went to bed I didn't really feel like going to sleep right away. I only mention it because that almost never happens to me. Usually when I lay down its game over in minutes. I read a few pages from whatever book I'm reading, turn out the light, and when the alarm goes off in the morning I turn it back on. Last night though, I read a few chapters of City of God (they're only like 250 each), but it didn't really put me out like it normally does so I went for some OT story time. Do you ever have those times when you just want to read a story from the Old Testament? I decided to start at the beginning of Exodus. Now, I've read the calling of Moses section more than a few times. It's common to hear about how Moses was the adopted son of the Pharaoh's daughter, how he was raised by his real mom only because she was hired as the Pharaoh's daughters nursemaid, how he grew up and killed an Egyptian slave driver, how he left Egypt for Midian, how in Midian he met his wife and father-in-law, and how he was called to lead the Nation of Israel out of Egypt by the "Angel of the Lord" from a burning bush. In NLT they used to talk about looking for the burning bush, and how it's important to hear the call of God on your life before you start leading. I have heard more than a few sermons on a variety of big ideas contained in this small section of scripture because it truly is rich. For me it's one of those stories in the Bible that I can kind of read without actually reading. Like a kid that doesn't know how to really read yet can still read a book they've read a lot of times. So I'm cruising along last night and out of nowhere I read this verse I would swear I've never read it before. It happens so fast it's easy to miss I guess, but all day I have been thinking about it.

Exodus 4:24-26 ~ "Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. The Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and threw it at Moses' feet, and she said, "You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me." So He let him alone. At that time she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood"-because of the circumcision."

The NIV says it like this "the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him."

This occurs after the burning bush, after he performs the miracle of the staff into a snake and the leprous hand. It's on the way back to Egypt. After everything that has happened God suddenly decides to come and kill Moses? So I didn't get it...

Instead of just going to sleep I broke out the commentaries. I needed some help with the God killing Moses part of the "Let my people goooo" story. Basically the consensus is that God was upset with Moses because his wife had convinced him to not circumcise the kid. Apparently Moses was in violation of the covenant God had with Abraham blah blah blah...

My take is that God didn't care that he was the chosen guy to go liberate the people because he was disqualified by his sin. It doesn't matter what God calls us to if we take ourselves out. The more I think about it the more it fits. God calls us to do things he "has prepared in advance for us to do." I think God probably wants more for me than I could ever even think to want for myself. The thing I have to try to remember though, is that all around there are pitfalls that can take me out. Yes, it is important to remember that the grace of Christ can redeem us from any distance or depth. However, I am beginning to think that we are able to alter the trajectory of our life to something lower than what God had intended. I can live a redeemed life with Him, but the way I walk that out will determine how closely my life matches God's original intention. I think as long as we are alive we are still tied to sin and its brokenness. That's the grace of death that we can be completely restored instead of living forever in a state of brokenness.

I was thinking about this and there are some sure examples from scripture that illustrate this idea. The big one that came to mind was Moses telling God he wasn't capable of doing what God had asked him to do. He defies God and it says the "Lord's anger burned against him," but still in His grace he offered Moses the help of Arron. This, however, was not God's original hope. He never wanted arron to be Moses' orator. As a consequence Aaton leads the people into idollaty the moment Moses is away on the mountain. This is a consequence of Moses' failure to obey fully the call of God, and though in God's grace the trajectory of his life was altered. Remember that Moses never went into the promise land. Another example is the story of Abraham, Sara, Hagar, Ishmael, and Issac. God never intended for Ishmael to be born and as a consequence generations of people have been led away from the true God to something else as part of the Islam religion. It was never what God intended, but our actions have serious consequences. Maybe the most notable of all is when Adam and Eve chose their will over God's. The consequence not only altered their own lives (physical death, cast out from the garden, bad relationships, labor pains, ect...), but the trajectory of all human history. It is accurate to say that we have fallen.

The big question I am asking myself right now is what are the things I might need to circumcise in my own life before I start leading Young Life again? What sin am I carrying around that God might seek to put me to death for? What does God have for me to do?

Christmas Lights

I want to catch up a little bit on all things electrical. I didn't have much time this week to post on here, so I'll do a day by day special.

Monday: Light calls. On Friday morning every week I get to go through a building downtown and change bad light bulbs on all the floors a certain company rents out. It's about 8 floors and can take as little as 45 minutes, or up to 4 hours to go through and change all things bad. This week it got done on Monday because we didn't work last Friday due to the holiday. Changing lights this week was quick (possibly related to all the lights being off for most of the last week). After I went back to Dixie Terminal, that's the building our office is, to hang up some Christmas Wreaths. To do this I had to drive this big scissor lift from down on 3rd street around the block and up the hill to 4th street to the entrance . For those of you who have never moved a scissor lift before, it is a slow adventure to say the least, exceedingly slow when moving uphill. So I drove the lift a total distance of maybe 3 blocks between 8:00 and 9:00. As a side note to moving the lift I want to talk a little bit about the people in life who are afraid to walk on street vents or lids in the sidewalk. I had to drive something which I would say weighs at least 2000 pounds over those bad boys...They aren't going to cave in and kill you. After break I started hanging said wreaths. As I hung them I had to splice into the existing lighting, wire in an outlet, and plug in the wreaths so that the lights would work. There were 21 wreaths out of which only 16 were strung with functional lights. I say that because the other 5 were going to be a big part of my next day. I finished up at about 2 when I went up to the 7th floors to wire in an outlet for a new flat screen in the lobby of a recently remodeled floor. We installed an outlet on both sides of the wall with a data connection for the TV. Then we wired the outlets to a breaker panel and tied the data port to the data center. That was it for Monday, but little did I know that the Christmas light project was far from being finished.

Tuesday: When I got to work I was assigned the task of "fixing" the lights on the wreaths that weren't working. I took the lift around and methodically started to go through replacing burnt out bulbs and fuses on the strands that weren't working. One at a time I was making slow progress, but progress still. I was working on the last wreath around 11 when my boss came and found me. This was our conversation.

Chris: "Are you still working on these f***ing wreaths"

Me: "Yes" (with frustration)

Chris: "You can stop now, we just wanted to see how long you would do it before you gave up. We'll just call the company that brought them and have them come back and replace the ones that don't work...Good job on fixing those other ones though...apprentice"

When I came back from lunch we had a new wreath with new lights that worked, and my coworkers had a nice laugh at my expense. To be honest it was pretty funny.

Wednesday: This was the first day so far that I had to work outside. All day I got to change bulbs and ballasts in the garage lights of the Olympic Parking Garage. It wasn't a cold day so it was actually kind of nice to be outside. It was also nice because after the first few everyone kind of left me alone to sort it out. I don't know if it's normal or not, but it was kind of nice to be trusted as the new guy to just take care of a job.

Thursday: Thursday turned out to be a complete waste of time. Mostly because of "management". Anthony and I got assigned this data job entailing setting up a new security swipe pad in this remodel site. This would have taken 2 or 3 hours if we would have been allowed to just run new cable from the data center and hook it up. Unfortunately we had to find some unused cable already running through the building, fish it out of its current location and then re-run it to the new location. All because "management" didn't want to absorb the cost of running new cable. Keep in mind the cost of this kind of cable is int he neighborhood of 20 cents per foot. We need about 100' of cable or $20 worth to do our job. The day ended with us still trying to fish this wire out of the building. Silly, silly, silly...

Friday: Friday I helped finish up this job Torrey had been working on for 2 weeks. I went through all the 2'x4' lights he had put in changing all the bulbs and ballasts that weren't working. It took almost the whole day. The best part of the day was Anthony getting the ok to just give up and run new cable from for the job we started the previous day. The highlight had to be this new piece of gear we had to move over at the 5/3rd Tower. We were supposed to meet some guys at 9:30 to install this new switch gear in the basement. 7 people showed up and we had to flip this big metal box from its side to a standing position. It was maybe 7' tall and 4' wide and weighed 3500lbs. I thought we were going to die. At first I didn't think we were going to be able to move it, but then I realized we could only that if just one person bailed out while setting it up, everyone was going to be crushed. It was amazingly heavy, but it went by without incident.

Saturday: This week we had a special project on Saturday so I had to go to work. My job was to make sure everything went smoothly while we took down a bunch of old lights and put in some new fixtures over a bunch of cubicles. Mostly I just cleaned up and got materials for people, but I did get to wire in a few lights near the end of the day. I have a few thoughts on works weekends. First they pay me a lot of money to come in. And second, I don't actually miss anything because I don't normally do anything in the morning on the weekends anyways. I mean let's be honest the only thing I am missing out on by being at work until 12 or even 1 on Saturday is sleep. I'm not saying I am going to work every chance I get, but unless I have a legit reason for staying home, I probably should.

So that was my work week. 48 1/2 hours of my life gone forever. Yesterday afternoon I finished 2 of the 3 outstanding papers I have left this quarter. By outstanding I mean unfinished, not necessarily exceptional, although hopefully... I have to take an exam tomorrow night at 5:30 and turn all three remaining papers in by Friday this week to officially be done with the quarter. Hurray!

Other than all things obligated I had an interesting conversation last night with a 15 year old kid named Jake who was hanging out down at my house. The conversation revolved around the idea that Christianity seems narrow. That was his contention after I explained to him that Christians believe the only way to salvation is by confessing faith in Jesus and living life in relationship with Him. He asked what happens to people who don't do that, but live good lives anyways. I told him that everyone goes to Hell without Jesus. He said that was very naive and narrow minded.

The whole situation was difficult for me because on the one hand I love the kid and don't want to turn him off towards Christ, but on the other hand I feel like I need to tell him the truth. So as well as I could I explained that Christianity is narrow, in fact it couldn't be narrower. There is only ONE way, and that's with Him. On the one hand, how can a loving God condemn anyone to Hell, and on the other, how can a just God do anything else. He didn't like it, but I have to trust that God will sort it out in his life.

Wrap It Up

Today I did an outreach with some Vineyard folks called Wrap It Up. It's my second favorite outreach only to Turkeyfest, but this year it was different. Traditionally the church rents out a space in Tri-County Mall (a store space) and we set up stations to wrap gifts at. The store has hours during the holiday season and is staffed by a coach and team of volunteers who wrap presents. Basically as people buy presents in the mall they bring them in and we wrap up to 3 of their gifts. Mostly it's been a bunch of AARP women actually wrapping the presents combined with some kids making these little candy cane stocking stuffers. All of this just makes it more fun for me because I'm actually a capable present wrapper, and that surprises people. It's a good time...

This year the whole idea got blown up. This year we are not getting space in the mall, but we are still doing something like wrap it up. Today I went to the first of 4 "wrap it up" events that are happening this year. Some friends and I went to a home for special needs people and made crafts, iced cookies with designs, and generally hung out for 3 hours. Some of the crafts the residents made got wrapped for them to give to family members or friends for Christmas. While I was there I ended up getting to know a guy named Matt a little bit. He was at the Prom earlier this year, and remembered me from that. He works at Wendy's and likes his job pretty well. He is trying to save up some money so he can buy a Wii. He's kind of an awkward guy because he has Asperger's disease (I don't really know what that means, but that's what he told me), but once you get to know him a little bit he's pretty cool. We left the craft area because he wanted to show me his room. We went up there for a while then he wanted to introduce me to his girl friend who lives downstairs. So we went down to her apartment; her name is Sheri (sp). I hung out with them together for about an hour. I don't know exactly what Sheri's handicap is, something like muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy, but she was so smart. I found out she has a job as a greeter at the local Y and does free lance journalism. She has had some of her stuff published in some local newspapers, as well as an article in the Enquire last year. The amazing thing was that we were talking for a while then she said "I don't mean to be rude, but I've waited all week for this game to be on- I don't know if you know this, but UC is playing for a conference championship today and I really want to watch it." As you can all imagine I was all for it. So we put the game on and enjoyed the first half before I had to go. It was a lot of fun, and though totally not wrap it up, a great outreach just the same. Before I left both Matt and Sheri asked me if I could come back to hang out with them again sometime. I think there is really something to just being with people, present in their lives that makes a difference. I heard once that whereever we go as Christians we take Christ with us, I don't know how that works out theologically, but we are deffinately better able to be His instruments out in the world than at home on the couch.

So wrap it up is a craft outreach this year. I would never have gone on a craft outreach. I wouldn't have gone on this one except my friend asked me to go. That said, I will go again. Not because its wrap it up, but because it's not. Let me know if you are interested in going next weekend. We are going to a different home. I think I am going to take some sort of easy to play game for the people that come out. That will give us something more structured to do with people while we hang out after they are done making crafts.

"I am thankful for Brian Kelly"

So far this has been a great week for me. I started my new job, which I think is going really well. The work is fun, I'm learning a lot, and the people I work with are pretty cool. I have eaten 3 Thanksgiving dinner so far, and in about 2 hours I'll be rounding out the week with a 4th. I love this holiday! I like getting together with family and friends enjoying food anytime of the year, but especially now when the food is awesome. Also there is something about people around the holidays that makes them seem nicer, more amicable somehow. I don't know if it's people just being in a good mood because of the season, or my attitude is just better and puts a silver lining around everything, but I like it. I think the obvious bit hit is the Thanksgiving Holiday. This year, like the past few years, I went to the Klostermeier's for lunch, and then to my grandma's for dinner. I love the Klostermeier's. It's silly the way they have welcomed me into their home and their family. They do a family prayer thing before eating where everyone has to go around in a circle and say what they are thankful for. The kids are pretty adorable saying things like "I'm thankful for my big sister, or I'm thankful for my mommy and daddy." It was awesome when someone said "I'm thankful for Brian Kelly and my wife and kids." Maybe the best part of my week though is this 4 day weekend I'm in the middle of. It's been pretty rare for me to get a 2 day weekend, but a 4 day weekend...I haven't had one of these since July. So I'm feeling kind of out of place just sitting at home doing nothing all day. I mean I read a little bit this morning, and have done nothing but sit around and watch football all afternoon. I don't know what I am going to do with myself for the next 2 days. The part about this week I'll probably have the longest lasting memory of though will be UC winning their first Big East Conference Championship. They all but iced it last week by beating Pitt, could have made it official tomorrow when they pound Syracuse, but don't have to because of the loss by West Virginia today. It's over, we're going to the Orange Bowl! There is, I'm told, a far fetched scenario of collapse that could put UC in the national title game, but it won't happen. So it's been a great week.

I would like to throw a shout out to all those people who got up at 3:30 or whatever time this morning to go shopping. I don't understand it, I'll certainly never do it, but props to you just the same for having the stamina and conviction to carry that plan out. My sister is one of these people. She called me at 7AM today to tell me she found a great deal on some kitchen ware and was wondering if I needed anything. I told her to leave me alone...I think...When I talked to her a little bit ago she said it wasn't to good. If you went out, I hope you found everything you were looking for. I think maybe tomorrow I'll throw out some of the best gift ideas I've heard so far this year.

The Vault

Today was another day filled with new things and learning at work. For the sake of brevity I am only going to share 2 of them here though. When I went in today I was assigned the National City Tower as a project. It has 2o floors, 19 of which are currently occupied and needed to be prepared for the upcoming fire inspection. Basically I had to go through and check to make sure all the emergency egress lights were working and that the exit signs had working bulbs in them. It's pretty easy work, just tedious and time consuming. The first thing I had to do was go get my security pass so I could open the interior doors of the building. As it turns out one company runs security for most if not all of Cincinnati. You asking what does this mean for me...It means for me almost unlimited access to everything downtown. I can go to almost any floor of almost any building. So I took a break today on the 48 floor of the Carew Tower, not the top floor, but from the inside you don't know that, and its really high. I understand now why people would want that office because the view is amazing.

My second story is one of fear. I was going through the National City Tower, which has a lot of empty desks currently, checking the lights as I said. Well I started at floor 20 and started working my way down. By about 11:30 I was in the basement. Now all through the building I had been using this big line of 6 elevators as my frame of reference for what part of the floor I was in. I knew the elevators ran North South and that the freight elevator I was using was at the southern end. So I noticed when I got off on the bottom floor that none of the other elevators were there. I didn't think much of it, being in the basement I figured that not many people needed to go down there anyways. The only thing that didn't make sense was that this was the nicest floor I had walked on yet. The walls and floor were marble, there was nice artwork on the walls of marble, and there were different kinds of statues and sculptures scattered around. It was starting to dawn on me that something was amiss because there didn't seem to be any offices. When I walked out into the room the ceiling went up about 20 feet. I was just taking it all in sort of looking for the lights I was supposed to be working on when I turned around and saw it. A shinny obviously metal wall with a big door cut into it. The door was swung open and looked enormous on its solid piano hinge. The door I am referring to is of course the 14ish inch think vault door to the National City Main Branch vault. I mean granted the only thing in it at this point are some IOUs, but it was still pretty nuts. I was scared. I just short of ran back to the elevator and bolted. Thinking back on it I had nothing really to be scared of I think. I mean I have clearance right?

First Day

Today was the very first day of my new job as an electrician. All in all I have to say it went pretty well, so I guess if that's all your interested in you can bail on the rest of this post. For the rest of you I'm going to share the story of my first day.

It started early! James and I were talking last night and he told me that with jobs like this respect is something you earn by consistently meeting and exceeding expectations. He told me his dad has been going in to work a half hour early for his whole career. I think one thing I could do in this new job really well is showing up on time. Well maybe I can do it. I am going to make an honest effort at being at least 15 minutes early every day and see how it goes. So today I left the house at about 6:30, which is about 23 minutes before I needed too. On my way to work I stopped and got some coffee at Starbuck's. when I got to work of course I was the only one there, and being the new guy, had to sit in the car and wait for someone with keys to arrive. Once I got inside I had to again wait around for about 45 minutes for the boss to show up and tell me where to go for the day. Luckily for me one of the project managers drove me out to my new location and hooked me up with the guy who I guess I am going to be working with for the foreseeable future.

The job site I got sent too is really a satellite office. It's downtown on 4th street right next door to National City Bank. Its crazy though because you go into this building and take this service elevator down into the sub-basement of the building. You get off the elevator and walk out into a cramped narrow hallway with a stained concrete floor and dirty white walls yellowed with smoke. Overhead there are hundreds of different types of cables, hoses, and wires running up and down the hallways. Numbered doors are spread every 20 feet or so down the length of the hallway all with some variation of a padlock holding them closed. Our office is room 43. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was how hot and humid the hallway had been, and how nice and cool it was inside. The rooms on that floor are all climate controlled by unit air conditioners poking through the walls. In this tiny 20x12 office is where I met the people I will be working with. Today I met 4 people; Bill, the guy I worked with all day (more on this later), Anthony who is a youngish guy that likes to laugh, at least that's what I thought after lunch today, Chris who is the downtown manager (basically he supervises all the downtown jobs), and Stanley who is the project manager for the whole company. Of these guys I got to spend my day working with Bill.

Bill is in his mid to late 40's I would guess. During my conversation with him today I learned he has a quasi wife and 4 kids. I say quasi because they aren't actually legally married, but for all intensive purposes they are married. They've lived together for 25 years or something, and when I asked him about ever getting married he said "next year she retires, and it might be nice to get her on my benefits, but we'll see." Aside from his personal life he is the best electrician on the downtown crew. He's been working Bizcom's service contracts in the city for 10 years and knows everyone in every building. Walking around with him today was like escorting a celebrity. In addition to knowing all the people he knows how to get everywhere both inside and outside buildings, and today alone took me to closets on different floors of like 6 buildings (I think anyways, I got a little lost after a while). So he's showing me around all these passages and service elevators which was amazing really because we would go from some nasty hallway to a super nice hotel lobby every time we walked through another door. One of the many things I learned today is that its going to take me a little while to learn my way around well.

After a brief tour of the work area (Cincinnati) it was time for break aka 9:00 so we walked around a little more then actually went to work. Our job today was to prep this office for some cubicle restructuring that's going on tomorrow agenda. We had to rerun some voice and data wires and figure out how to power everything from the existing breakers. It was child's play for Bill, but I was learning a lot. At one point he had me hook up these Internet jacks to some Cat-5 cable. He tossed me this tool and said very matter of factly "hook those up." I told him I had never done it before to which he responded over the top of his glasses "you match up the colors..." I felt like a jackass, but I got it wired up. After everything was prepped we had to test everything with this volt meter which was pretty cool. At lunch I some of the other guys where asking how I was doing and I think he complimented me. He said "he's not bad, not like some of these dumb mother effers they send down here." Like I said I think it was a compliment... After lunch it was more walking around and cleaning up our mess. Bill had to leave early because he was picking his car up from the shop so for the last 20 minutes of the day I hung out in the office by myself.

All things considered I thought it was a good day, daring to be great even. Bill is a nice guy and a good teacher, and I think we will get along just fine. So far I like what I think I am going to be doing, and I think I will be very good at it someday. For now though, I am just going to keep trying to stay out of the way and not screw anything up. As a side note about Bill he is consumed by excellence; I was putting some socket covers on today and he told me the screw heads are supposed to be lined up vertically. I like having a job where excellence is valued again.

Thanksgiving

Today at church they talked about the idea of thanksgiving. At the start of the sermon every week the pastor does some announcements, and both announcements this week were sad. The first was that this woman who had been on the prayer list for months finally passed away. I don't really know much about it, but it felt like everyone was ready. The second announcement was truly awful though; this family in the church had a baby two weeks ago and there were some complications. The baby died on Friday at only 10 days old. I can't imagine that. If you read this and are the type to pray at all, pray with me for that family. Right after "announcing" this to the congregation the pastor had to give a sermon on thanksgiving. The gist of the sermon being that in life's many different circumstances, both good and bad, we are called, commanded even, to be thankful in everything. "in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:18 This idea ties in with my Kingdom post earlier this week. Our response to life is supposed to be thankfulness, even when our circumstances are impossible, even when we don't understand, even when no one would blame us for not; we are called to be thankful.

I am not saying here that all of the things in life we experience are good, or feel good, or that we should feel good about everything, because honestly, we shouldn't. There are things in life we should feel bad about. Sin should be offensive to us. We should not be thankful that someone gets raped or murdered, or when some one's house gets broken into, or when a baby dies. Sometimes we need to feel hurt and angry even, but even in those circumstances we somehow should remember to be thankful; not for the circumstances, but in spite of them. No matter what happens in the temporal life around us Christ still has grace enough to redeem us of our sin and restore us when we are victims. There is nothing in all creation that can separate us from Him. At the end of the day He is still the King, He is still on the throne. Christ is constantly working on His vine; He is pruning, and watering, and harvesting, and sometimes bandaging, but always He is working. For this we should always be thankful.

I want to cite two examples of what this looks like from scripture. The guy who writes most often about being thankful (at least in the New Testament) is Paul. He says over and over a host of things he is thankful for; from the grace of Christ, to people or churches, even his own life. He is the one who writes in Thessalonians "be thankful always". It's an obvious connection, but still worth mentioning, that he is also the guy who in Corinthians points out just how much ground he has to stand on when saying that.

"21To my shame I must say that we have been weak by comparison But in whatever respect anyone else is bold--I speak in foolishness--I am just as bold myself. 22Are they Hebrews? So am I Are they Israelites? So am I Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. 23Are they servants of Christ?--I speak as if insane--I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. 24Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. 26I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; 27I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure."~ 2 Corinthians 11:21-27

"Be thankful always" isn't coming from some everything in my life is great pastor in Texas named Joel, its coming from Paul the Apostle. This is the same guy who says later "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ."~ Philippians 3:8 He says that from jail at the end of his life when he knows he could be executed at any time. For some reason I have really been hit lately by the way I have responded to some things in my life, especially "adversity."

My first response when something happens to me is usually something selfish. I deflect with things like "it's not my fault" or "I'm justified" or "if so and so had just..." There's two problems with this sort of response. First I am focused on myself. Secondly I'm focused on the present situation. My first response is almost never God is good, this will work out. That's especially funny to me because that's almost always my go to response in some form or another when something difficult is happening to someone I care about. For me it's easy to say to others "Focus on Christ," but hard to do myself.

I look at the example of Stephen when he is brought up on trial in front of the Pharisees as an example of how I should respond when dealing with hardship. He is the guy who runs the early church soup kitchen. His job is to make sure all the people that need food are being fed. Some people start some rumors about him to get him in trouble, and when he's brought to some witch hunt kangaroo court he doesn't try to defend himself. He doesn't try to say that the charges are bogus. He doesn't try to justify his actions. His response is focused entirely on the person of God. He tells the story of God. His first response is to tell everyone who God is. He is focused on the great history of what God has done in the world and who He is, not himself and what he has done. The thing Stephen and Paul have in common is that they are both entirely convinced that everything rests in the hope Christ offers. it doesn't matter to either of them that they are experiencing something difficult.

My second example of being thankful is Christ himself. On the night of his false arrest, false accusation, false trial, and false execution he is still thankful. At the Last Supper when He prayed before breaking bread it says he "gave thanks" (Matt 26:11, Mark 14:23, Luke 22:17) He was not totally siked about the next 24 hours. He was stressed out to the point of sweating blood, and yet He was still thankful. He looked forward at taking on the sin of the world and carrying it to the cross with thanksgiving. I think He was only able to do that because His focus was on God achieving His will, not on the difficulty of the part He was required to play. His prayer should be mine; "not my will, but yours."

The example is clear of how I am supposed to position my attitude. I am supposed to be focused on God and what He is accomplishing. Someone recently shared a great analogy with me about following Christ. He said to me "Say you are swimming in a harbor towards the only point of land in sight, and the whole time you are swimming fog keeps rolling in and out of the harbor occasionally preventing you from seeing the lighthouse you are swimming towards. When you can see the light house you swim towards it, and when you can't see the lighthouse you swim in the direction of the lighthouse as well as you can remembering where it was. Every time the fog clears enough for you to see it again you correct your course as much as you need to and keep going." Staying focused on Christ sounds good, but let's be honest, it's not always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes you lose sight of what God is doing. The key to being faithful is to keep swimming even when the fog is to thick to know exactly the direction to go. The idea being that even when we can't see it the goal (Christ) is still in mind. When I can (see Him) I should be thankful for being able to, and when I can't I should be thankful that He is still there just on the other side of the mist.

Bearcats

Cincinnati is a football town. Anyone who is from here, or has lived here for any amount of time knows that it's just true. For some reason people just love it here. On Fridays tens of thousands of people flock to high school stadiums all over the city. It seems like lately we almost always have a local HS team in the national top 25 (although this year they both disappointed), and people are drawn to it. On Sundays people go down to the stadium to tailgate or have people over to their houses for paties to watch the Bengals. So naturally when UC positioned itself in a legitamte conference and actually tried to field a good team everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Now things are different. It is exciting on campus the week of a home game now, everyone wants to go or is having people over to watch it on TV. A Bearcat Nation is forming...

Tonight the Bearcats make a bid at a BSC Bowl Game! That's insane! When I started college we couldn't sell out our Homecoming game. I remember my Freshman year in the fall of 2004 we had the ESPN game of the week at home on a Wednesday night againt West Virginia who at the time were in 1st place in the conference. We lost the game 43-0 and I was one of about 8,000 UC fans who witnessed it. Can you imagine that now. Today's game against Pitt sold a few days ago, but the tickets cost more than Bengals tickets for the general public. I think a non student ticket for the game today was like $42. I am so glad that MY team is finally a legit college contender. Depending on whether Kellys stays or not UC should be a lock for the top 25 for the forseeable future.

There is, however, a lot of talk of our coach going to Tenn after this season. Honestly though, if I were Brian Kelly I'd go. I mean the SEC is the premiere conference in all of college football. The Big 12 has closed the gap, but it still the SEC, and with that kind of reputation you can afford to buy out coaches from the underling conferences. Coaching at Tenn you get more recruiting power, more money, better facilities, more fans, and you play against the best. What coach wouldn't want that job? So we'll see what happens, but I am looking for some conversation about who UC might replace Kelly with.

I posted the picture I did because I want to talk a little about what's happening in our city. People HATE Mike Brown for what he has doen to the Bengals. We are so desperate for a good team of any kind to cheer for, yet are in a hopeless situation with him in control of the Bengals. Some people blame Marvin, and as an NFL coach you need to win with the hand your dealt, but he has been so handcuffed by Mike Brown the ultimate blame has to be with the owner. This year the Bengals are going to win 3 games, maybe, at most. As of today the Bengals record with Mike Brown as the owner is 98-184-1, that's a 35% winning record. He might be the only leader in the free world with a lower approval rating than G.W. Bush. This year is over for the Bengals, time to play for the draft. As a result people are loving the only good team in the city this year, the Bearcats. I'm siked! hey, maybe if the Bengals are bad enough this year something might actually change. I mean the 90's would suggest that nothing will change, but I can always hope right?

Themes

Gmail introduced it new themed e-mail dashboard this week. I am currently experimenting with the planets theme. The interesting twist is that depending on the location you enter into the theme it gives you a different background. At first I was somewhat curious to see if the backgrounds would change on some yet unknown interval, like a calendar, or they would just set you up with the same planet forever. This was all made clear to me today when i awoke to a new planet. Other than the themed e-mail idea, Google is doing a lot of other things right now in the way of making some money. Apparently the company isn't doing so hot in spite of generating 16+ billion in revenue and 4+ billion in profits last year. Not bad at all for a company with just under 17,000 employees. I don't understand to a great degree a lot of what is happening in our economy at present, but I do know that when crazy solid companies like Google are struggling it's not good. Their stock is down in the neighborhood of $450 per share in the last year. That's insane! The practical implications of this for me (not a shareholder) are that I have to deal with their new advertising plan which included add banners over Youtube Videos. I guess whore it out if you can to make a buck, but the heart of google has always been to serve the customer. Even in their advertising they have tried to maintain a sense of matching people with what they want to find. I don't know if that's totally going down the tubes, but this is deffinately a step in the wrong direction. i hope is doesn't last...

For now I'm just going to enjoy my new planet background to my e-mail. Maybe next week I'll post something about how my college, which I pay tuition to, gives me a 20MB e-mail account while Gmail gives me 7265MB for free.

Kingdom Thought

As some of you know I am reading a book called City of God by Augustine. The book is actually a collection of books or chapters written to a friend of Augustine who lived in North Africa named Marcellinus. Marcellinus was friends with a man who was very anti-Christ(ian), and the book was an argument constructed to help Marcellinus "win" him over. Basically this guy was contending that the fall of the Roman Empire was due to the influences and eventually domination of Christianity over the former polytheistic spirituality of Rome. In a sense he was saying that Rome was successful at world domination for 700 years before fully accepting Christ, and when they finally did it quickly lead to their downfall. The context the book was written in is the decade following the invasion of Rome the capital (410-420), something which hadn't happened for nearly 800 years.

This book is loaded with good stuff. Augustine systematically pieces together a commentary on some of the hardest questions ever asked all while maintaining a concise and readable style. His incite into the nature of God and His present kingdom is a big part of the foundation upon which our faith is now based. All that said, I found this ex script particularly applicable to my life today.

Blessings and disasters often shared by good and bad

"No doubt this question will be asked, "why does the divine mercy extend even to the godless and ungrateful?" The only explanation is that it is the mercy of one "who makes his son rise on the good and on the bad, and sends rain alike on the righteous and the unrighteous". Some of the wicked are brought to penitence by considering these facts, and amend their impiety, while others, in the words of the Apostle, "despise the riches of God's goodness and forbearance, in the hardness and impenitence of their hearts, and lay up for themselves a store of wrath in the day of God's anger and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will repay every man according to his actions". Yet the patience of God still invites the wicked to penitence, just as God's chastisement trains the good in patient endurance. God's mercy embraces the good for their cherishing, just as his severity chastens the wicked for their punishment. God in His providence, decided to prepare future blessings for the righteous, which the unrighteous will not enjoy, and sorrows for the ungodly, with which the good will not be tormented. but he has willed that these temporal goods and temporal evils should befall good and bad alike, so that the good things should not be too eagerly coveted, when it is seen that the wicked also enjoy them, and that the evils should not be discreditably shunned, when it is apparent that the good are often afflicted with them.

The most important question is this: What use is made of the things thought to be blessings, and of the things reputed evil? The good man is not exalted by this world's good; nor is he overwhelmed by this world's ills. The bad man is punished by misfortune of this kind just because he is corrupted by good fortune.

However, it often happens that God shows more clearly his manner of working in the distribution of good and bad fortune. For if punishment were obviously inflicted on every wrongdoing in this life, it would be supposed that nothing was reserved for the last judgment; on the other hand, if God's power never openly punished any sin in this world, there would be an end to belief in providence. Similarly in respect of good fortune; if God did not grant it to some petitioners with manifest generosity, we should not suppose that these temporal blessings were his concern, while if he bestowed prosperity on all just for the asking we might think that God was to be served merely for the sake of those rewards, and any service of him would prove us not godly but rather greedy and covetous.

This being so, when the good and the wicked suffer alike, the identity of their sufferings does not mean that there is no difference between them. Though the sufferings are the same, the sufferers remain different. Virtue and vice are not the same, even if they undergo the same torment. The fire which makes gold shine makes chaff smoke; the same flail breaks up the straw, and clears the grain; and oil is not mistaken for lees because both are forced out by the same press. In the same way, the violence that assails good men to test them, to cleanse and purify them, effects in the wicked their condemnation, ruin, and annihilation. Thus the wicked, under pressure of affliction, offer up prayers and praises. This shows that what matters is the nature of the sufferer, not the nature of the the sufferings. Stir a cesspit, and a foul stench arrises; stir a perfume, and a delightful fragrance ascends. but the movement is identical."

It is a timeless question; why do bad things happen? In my own life his response adds perspective to many difficult situations. I especially like the lens of looking at the good and bad things happening around me as "temporal," and remembering that His blessings (or curses) are all designed to purify me of my sin, and to sanctify my life for Him. He is right when he points out that even as godly people we still covet the same things as the "wicked." It makes me ask myself where am I finding my true joy. If it isn't in Him then I am no different than the world. It is important to remember that even the good things in life are empty cisterns compared to His surpassing glory. Do I really long for the sin of the world, or more personally, the sin in my own life to be burnt away? Do I really desire for God to come and make me His at EVERY expense? Do I want His will to be my will, really? Ultimately I think this is a question of perspective; when I look at my day to day life, some days might be great, some terrible, and if I focus on that, I too will fluctuate with my interpretation my circumstances; but if I can focus on Christ, He is unchanging in His glory. It makes me think of Romans 8:28 "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

I want to see the world like Augustine must have for a little while. I would like to get to a place where I don't see the individual blessings or hardships in my life, but instead see everything that happens as the handiwork of God designed to help me better understand who He is by becoming more the man I was designed to be. I want to stop thinking about whether or not God is justified to act as He does, and start thinking about what God is saying about who I am and who I should be.

Going Green

Today I started on our house initiative to save some money on energy this year by putting plastic on the windows. We weren't able to carry the project to completion because we ran out of plastic and don't have a hair dryer, but I think we have a good start. Later Travis is getting Rachael's hair dryer and tomorrow we are getting the rest of the supplies we need. Additionally our property manager (she's like our landlord's point guard) is nice enough to GIVE us those energy efficient light bulbs to put in all our lights. The third measure we are considering is supplementing our natural gas central air with some electric ceramic heaters. James is going to do some research (something about price per BTU) to find out which is a more cost effective way to heat our house. Apparently its a pretty complicated problem involving efficiency and and numbers...calculus even; I'm out. I'm sure he can figure it out though, and then we'll be set.

Tonight I am back at midweek with my mom. Spending Wednesday night with my mom is once of my favorite things in life. We usually get dinner somewhere and then talk for a while about what's going on in life. Lately its been heavy on family stuff which, I won't lie, has been messy, but overall I think it's good. No matter what it is, I think it's better to process stuff than to leave it alone. It's been nice because for the last 5 weeks we have had homework to read roughly 10 chapters of Genesis a week, and there is a ton in there about dysfunctional families. It's given us a lot to talk about and been really good for me and my mom. The other really cool thing about this Midweek session has been sharing a table with the same group of people every week. The format of the class we are taking is half teaching from the front, half discussion time with our table. The discussion is guided by 8-12 questions starting with very textual questions about the section of Scripture we are talking about, and moves toward more personally applicable questions. It's been awesome for me because I have discovered that there really are some faithful people actually trying to follow God with their lives, decisions, families, ect. at the Vineyard. I mean I know it sounds silly and obvious, but I was starting to have my doubts. So I sit for 90 min on Wednesday nights with a bunch of faithful people trying to work out life with God together.

So that's what I'm doing. My mom just called to find out what we are going to eat tonight. Neither of us are very hungry so we are going to LuLu's to split some Chinese.

I Quit

Today I got told to record a 3 hour lunch on my time sheet for my "appreciation" lunch last week. I was gone for 2 hours, and stopped at Lowe's on the way back to pick up some things we needed at work. That's just silly. Maybe if my boss had gone to my 'appreciation" lunch it would have been more evident how long I was actually gone. There are many things in my life to be thankful for, this week I am most thankful for 10 PM Thursday.

Call It A Comeback

I am starting the blog back up. Well, to be fair, I am going to try to start the blog back up. I think the bulk of my new material is going to come from my new job. For anyone reading this who doesn't know already, I took a job as an electrician with a company called Bizcom Electric. I will be an apprentice for the next 4 years while I do my on the job training (8000 hours). In addition to the OJT hours I have to take a night class once a week during the school year for 4 years starting next September. As often as I can find the time and motivation to I will post updates about what I am learning. Along the way I'm sure there will be inumerable stories to share as well.

Until next Monday when I start I'm enjoying my last week on staff at VCC. I feel like there might still be some surprises in store for my last two days (Tues & Thurs)-call it a vibe. Maybe in a few weeks or months I'll have processed my time there enough to post somethings about it. For now suffice to say that I ceratinly have gone a long way towards growing up in the last 4 years; how much of that is because of the church vs. all the other things that have happened in that time is unknown. If I have learned anything, it's that no matter how far I've come, there is so much farther to go still.