Hosea

I haven’t been able to get enough of Hosea recently. God’s saying “I love you so much that you were a prostitute but I married you anyway. You kept sleeping with other people, but I’m going to take you back and heal you.” Could it be? Could God actually love us like that?

“God who doesn’t interact with you” vs “there is no God” – I can understand that debate and why there’s confusion between them. However, “God is chasing after you”? That’s either real or it’s not.

1 am

Well, after starting out strong with posting on this blog, I've really slacked off. That seems to be a consistent problem for me - I have this great idea or step out on something I hear from God, but I'm rather lacking when it comes to follow through. Like Peter. When Jesus walked on water toward the disciples, Peter was the only one to jump out of the boat and walk toward Jesus. It was a natural response for a disciple - disciples were supposed to do everything their masters were doing and they had often participated with Jesus in the supernatural before, but Peter was the only one to actually do it. This story is interesting to me because it challenges some key things I think about God.

Tales from Mozambique Part 1

Prologue - if you just want the story, skip this paragraph: For those of you who knew me in college, you must have thought I grew unusually silent over my time in Mozambique. It’s true – I just didn’t know how to process some of the things we were going through, and they are so far out of everyday life for most Americans that I didn’t know what I could/should say. I still don’t know on some things, but that’s not always the point. I hope you find these stories thought-provoking and learn from my mistakes! Everything I’m writing is as true as I can make it – cross-referenced with the other people there at the time, but my memory can be a bit hazy at times. I’ll specifically point out the details I don’t remember well.

Invictus

I just watched Invictus on the plane back to Africa. Good movie. Like so many people of my generation, God speaks to me in movies. Not every movie, but quite a few of them. Invictus is the story of Nelson Mandela and Rugby in South Africa, which was mostly a white sport. Anyway, what got me the most wasn’t the story, but it was Mandela himself. He was locked up in jail for 30 years, beaten many times, and forced to do hard labor, but he walked out of that prison ready to forgive every one of his captors. Woah. The injustices I’ve faced recently seem so petty in comparison. Jesus did so much for me, and I want to walk out on what He’s asked of me because of paperwork problems. Wow, that really put it in perspective for me.

Confidence

Many people think I’m a confident person who always know what to do. That’s unfortunate. Nothing could be further from the truth, actually. I’ve always been nervous and only confident in my ability to mess things up. I do have times where I think I can handle everything and that I’m awesome, but those are worse – that’s an equally great lie and pride is a huge sin. Actually, on closer examination, I think both attitudes are prideful.

Problems

Wow… We have had so many problems and difficulties. It’s been a hair-raising last couple months. Problem after problem after problem… We have had many people counsel us that God was closing doors on us. I’ve prayed and listened, and prayed and listened about this, and honestly feel like God is calling us back. And in that case, of course there’s going to be difficulties. The higher the calling, the more you’ll face problems. But God often does work through circumstances… I don’t know; I guess I’ll find out soon enough whether God was calling us back or not. That’s another one of those problems – you’ll never know if it was God or not unless you try. You’ll always be stuck wondering if it was God if you don’t step out on it. Anyway, here are some of the problems we’ve gone through in our attempts to get back to Africa:

Washington DC:

I had to fly to Washington to get our visas taken care of. I wasn’t really looking forward to going:it was expensive, should have been unnecessary (if we had received our letters of invitation in time), and a huge stressor because I didn’t know if we were going to be able to get our tickets in time. I was arrivingat 11:30 am in Baltimore, and the embassy closed at 1 pm – I had no idea how I was going to get there in time to do anything. I knew I had to take the train from Balitmore to Washington, and that the train would arrive at 12:40. I was thinking about either taking the bus, renting a bike, or running the 2-3 miles to the embassy. Anyway, I spent almost the entire morning praying about what I should do (bus, bike, run etc.), and God never gave me a clear answer. I was really confused about that, until I got to Baltimore and my friend said that he skipped work that day and could actually pick me up. Praise God… I was able to get all of our visa applications in and get a money order before the office closed down. The money order was actually another testimony. I walked over to a bank, and they told me that they don’t do money orders, but the convience store next to them did, and at a cheaper rate. So I went next door and stood in line for a while. Finally, it was my turn, and as I handed the cashier the credit card, he told me that they only took cash. I asked him who on Earth carried $200+ dollars in their pockets, then remembered that I had just preached at a church in Arkansas and they took up a cash offering for me. It ended up being just enough (and like $3 more) to get the money order. Praise God – He thinks of these things way before they become a problem.