First, I'm adding a photography section so if you haven't seen some of my photos I'll be adding my favorites there but if you have me added on Facebook you can check them out in my photo albums. I'll also be adding a section where I'll keep people updated on my goals, what I'm working towards and what I have planned for the future, that kind of stuff. Also feel free to leave me some comments with what you thought, I love hearing feedback, I love writing so this is my practice! A lot of these blog posts, until I finish up DTS, are going to be just sharing what God taught me during the DTS, so it might come off as preachy, but that's not my intent. If you feel like I'm preaching to you, then I guess you're aware of what conviction feels like, just kidding :) Near the end of DTS, during outreach and even after DTS and just being home and doing a lot of reading online and listening to podcast I've learned a lot. This wont necessarily be what I learned on THAT week and THAT week only, because God has continued to show me new things regarding the subject. And to be honest, I didn't learn much the first few weeks of DTS. It wasn't until later in the lecture phase when I really started devoting myself to God and caring about Him. That's when everything started to sink in. I was completely lazy and felt like DTS was just a way for me to kill some time so I didn't care that much at first, then at the end and during outreach God just hammered everything back into my mind and it all started to make sense. It was almost like DTS was a puzzle and God was showing me where all the pieces went, it was amazing.
The theme for our first week of lecture was The Father Heart of God being taught by Jack Kody. I can see why this would be the first theme during DTS, at least now I can. If I really would have understood what Jack was trying to teach us this week, my DTS experience would've started off on a much better path than it did. It didn't hit me how important it is for me, for all of us, to understand (or try to understand) the love that God has for each and every single one of us. Of course, with my background I always thought I loved God and God loved me, it was just something that was engraved in my brain growing up in a very Christian family. Sometimes I think that's why I walked away from church in my teens, I wanted to figure out what I believed, not what I was taught to believe, but that's a story for another time. I never truly tried to figure out what God's love meant, or accepted its meaning. During Jack's week he gave us an exercise to do that made me realize I had no idea who my God was.
I'd encourage you to do this exercise as well, it's a lot of fun. Jack told us to imagine we're just relaxing in our room, doing our usual thing. We go to our window and look out to see a man across the street looking at us and starts making his way for our door, and then we realize it's God. God is making his way to knock on the door of our house. How do you react? What goes through your mind? What really hit me about this exercise was how much it matters what your reaction is. Your perception of God greatly affects how you read His word. After all, we all know the Bible is the word of God, so when we read it, we're going to read it differently if we think a God who loves us wrote it for us than if we think a God who invokes fear wrote it for us. After the exercise a few people stood up and shared what they had put down on their paper. Some said they would be filled with excitement! They would invite Him in for coffee and share stories and ask questions. Others said they would panic and clean up their room so it looks nice for God. Some said they'd run out the door and not even wait for him to knock. I looked down on my paper, What would I do? Run, damn. I wrote down that I would be overwhelmed with fear and shame. This was big for me for two reasons, it revealed what I thought of God, and it revealed what I thought about myself and where my life was. I rarely thought twice about what I was doing, I wasn't hurting anybody so who cares? God does. And I realized that, finally. The only thing that kept me from feeling completely crappy is that another student stood up and read his, he also said he'd be filled with shame. Cool, I was normal, I wasn't this unholy kid at a Christian missionary school full of holy people.
I realized I don't need to feel shame when I come to God, I don't need to be afraid of God. God loves me, unconditionally. UNCONDITIONALLY. I really had to allow myself to believe that. One time during outreach there was a street dog, it was a really cute puppy, but it was freaking gross. It was dirty and had some wounds, I did not want to touch it. My friend Paul didn't care though, he picked that sucker up and pet him, and made that puppy feel loved, he didn't throw a rock at it or hit it like some of the neighborhood kids had done, he loved on it. And something that silly allowed me to get a better picture of my situation. I'm gross, we all are. Nobody is perfect, we all sin, we're all disgusting inside, just like that puppy. And when we're out in the world, the Devil takes advantage of that, he throws rocks at us, he kicks us, he fills us with lies. God is always there waiting though, He doesn't care how dirty you are, you are clean through Him. He's always there to pick you up, hold you in His arms and love on you, unconditionally. We're lucky to have a God that cares that much about us, a God that doesn't relent until he has us safely in his arms. How great is it to know that the same God that created everything around you, the trees, the earth, the planets, the universe, loves and cares about you so much that he came down to Earth to be one of us to show us just how much He loves us.
This reminds me of a story, I don't know how popular it is, but I heard a pastor telling it to somebody, the gist of the story is this. There was a man who worked at a turntable station for trains. His son LOVED trains, so he decided to bring him to work with him so he could watch the trains go by. Later in the day, all of the sudden he notices his son out on the tracks, his son is stuck, he can't get out. In the distance he hears a train coming towards his son, but remember he has control of the turntable! If he turns it so the tracks go off to the right, he will save his Son, but the train will go off a cliff and crash, killing everyone on board. He has another option, leave the turntable where it is and allow the train to continue through safely, killing his son but saving a train full of hundreds of people. It's a hard choice, that's his son out there, his flesh, his baby, his kid, his life. That train could be full of disgusting people, it could be full of thieves, rapist, pedophiles, adulterers, liars, murderers, anything. What would you do? Would you save your son? or Would you allow your son to die in order to save the lives of all these hundreds of people? "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16. Hearing this story rocked my world, of course you can kind of see where the story is going from the beginning, but crap man, God really loves us. This is when the cross finally started meaning something to me. How great is our God? We can mess up a million times and we can come to Him and ask for forgiveness without shame. God always forgives us and will never stop loving us, not even for one second.
Two different Greek words were translated as "love" in the New Testament, and they are more specific than our English word "love." One of them is agapao and agape. "Agape means affection, benevolence, good-will, high esteem and concern for the welfare of the one loved. It is deliberate, purposeful love rather than emotional or impulsive love." The part of that definition that I love is "welfare of the one loved" God wants to take care of us, protect us. That's who He is, He is our protector, our savior, our healer, our counselor, our guide. Paul tells us a little bit about love in 1 Corinthians 13 "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." God is love. Love never fails, God never fails. How great is our best friend, our pal, our father. How great is our God?
I'm in love with God and God's in love with me.
The theme for our first week of lecture was The Father Heart of God being taught by Jack Kody. I can see why this would be the first theme during DTS, at least now I can. If I really would have understood what Jack was trying to teach us this week, my DTS experience would've started off on a much better path than it did. It didn't hit me how important it is for me, for all of us, to understand (or try to understand) the love that God has for each and every single one of us. Of course, with my background I always thought I loved God and God loved me, it was just something that was engraved in my brain growing up in a very Christian family. Sometimes I think that's why I walked away from church in my teens, I wanted to figure out what I believed, not what I was taught to believe, but that's a story for another time. I never truly tried to figure out what God's love meant, or accepted its meaning. During Jack's week he gave us an exercise to do that made me realize I had no idea who my God was.
I'd encourage you to do this exercise as well, it's a lot of fun. Jack told us to imagine we're just relaxing in our room, doing our usual thing. We go to our window and look out to see a man across the street looking at us and starts making his way for our door, and then we realize it's God. God is making his way to knock on the door of our house. How do you react? What goes through your mind? What really hit me about this exercise was how much it matters what your reaction is. Your perception of God greatly affects how you read His word. After all, we all know the Bible is the word of God, so when we read it, we're going to read it differently if we think a God who loves us wrote it for us than if we think a God who invokes fear wrote it for us. After the exercise a few people stood up and shared what they had put down on their paper. Some said they would be filled with excitement! They would invite Him in for coffee and share stories and ask questions. Others said they would panic and clean up their room so it looks nice for God. Some said they'd run out the door and not even wait for him to knock. I looked down on my paper, What would I do? Run, damn. I wrote down that I would be overwhelmed with fear and shame. This was big for me for two reasons, it revealed what I thought of God, and it revealed what I thought about myself and where my life was. I rarely thought twice about what I was doing, I wasn't hurting anybody so who cares? God does. And I realized that, finally. The only thing that kept me from feeling completely crappy is that another student stood up and read his, he also said he'd be filled with shame. Cool, I was normal, I wasn't this unholy kid at a Christian missionary school full of holy people.
I realized I don't need to feel shame when I come to God, I don't need to be afraid of God. God loves me, unconditionally. UNCONDITIONALLY. I really had to allow myself to believe that. One time during outreach there was a street dog, it was a really cute puppy, but it was freaking gross. It was dirty and had some wounds, I did not want to touch it. My friend Paul didn't care though, he picked that sucker up and pet him, and made that puppy feel loved, he didn't throw a rock at it or hit it like some of the neighborhood kids had done, he loved on it. And something that silly allowed me to get a better picture of my situation. I'm gross, we all are. Nobody is perfect, we all sin, we're all disgusting inside, just like that puppy. And when we're out in the world, the Devil takes advantage of that, he throws rocks at us, he kicks us, he fills us with lies. God is always there waiting though, He doesn't care how dirty you are, you are clean through Him. He's always there to pick you up, hold you in His arms and love on you, unconditionally. We're lucky to have a God that cares that much about us, a God that doesn't relent until he has us safely in his arms. How great is it to know that the same God that created everything around you, the trees, the earth, the planets, the universe, loves and cares about you so much that he came down to Earth to be one of us to show us just how much He loves us.
This reminds me of a story, I don't know how popular it is, but I heard a pastor telling it to somebody, the gist of the story is this. There was a man who worked at a turntable station for trains. His son LOVED trains, so he decided to bring him to work with him so he could watch the trains go by. Later in the day, all of the sudden he notices his son out on the tracks, his son is stuck, he can't get out. In the distance he hears a train coming towards his son, but remember he has control of the turntable! If he turns it so the tracks go off to the right, he will save his Son, but the train will go off a cliff and crash, killing everyone on board. He has another option, leave the turntable where it is and allow the train to continue through safely, killing his son but saving a train full of hundreds of people. It's a hard choice, that's his son out there, his flesh, his baby, his kid, his life. That train could be full of disgusting people, it could be full of thieves, rapist, pedophiles, adulterers, liars, murderers, anything. What would you do? Would you save your son? or Would you allow your son to die in order to save the lives of all these hundreds of people? "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16. Hearing this story rocked my world, of course you can kind of see where the story is going from the beginning, but crap man, God really loves us. This is when the cross finally started meaning something to me. How great is our God? We can mess up a million times and we can come to Him and ask for forgiveness without shame. God always forgives us and will never stop loving us, not even for one second.
Two different Greek words were translated as "love" in the New Testament, and they are more specific than our English word "love." One of them is agapao and agape. "Agape means affection, benevolence, good-will, high esteem and concern for the welfare of the one loved. It is deliberate, purposeful love rather than emotional or impulsive love." The part of that definition that I love is "welfare of the one loved" God wants to take care of us, protect us. That's who He is, He is our protector, our savior, our healer, our counselor, our guide. Paul tells us a little bit about love in 1 Corinthians 13 "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." God is love. Love never fails, God never fails. How great is our best friend, our pal, our father. How great is our God?
I'm in love with God and God's in love with me.
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