Big City Living

It’s been a while. 

Through the times of business of the first semester of living in a new city with new faces I have been spending a lot of time learning many new things. I have learned that you need to not walk outside with a t-shirt and shorts in the middle of winter and expect to be warm. I have learned to walk and talk in a way that won’t get me mugged after the golden sun has set over the cityscape. In all of that time I have had thoughts that never made it here. I never was able to make the time to say something witty and interesting because I was so busy living. 

Fortunately I am now actually doing things at college that will be conducive to allowing me to spend time building my skills at communicating. I am hoping that it means that this blog that I started back at the end of my high school career will actually get some justice done to it. I love being able to delve deep into the things that I wonder and think about. I hope to be able to think in words on a page. I guess I still don’t know what this blog is exactly about. It is a collection of thoughts about where I am right now. And what that is can be uncertain at times, but I know that no matter where I am, I will always be within the plan of God. I wait, and I trust. And hopefully I will write a little bit more. 

Fishing

Tonight, tonight I want to go fishing. I have a longing in my heart for something more. Something more real than the reality that surrounds me and binds me to the mundane. I am restlessly searching for a home, a place to be settled, to be content. I am not. I am a wanderer, a stranger in a strange world. In this world in which I live I often make many mistakes and have many shortcomings. I long for my home in Heaven.

As I said before, I want to go fishing. I want to sit down in a boat and be calm and happy and content and I want to be with my Father.

I long for the moments in glory that I will share with my best Friend, my Master, my Maker, my Lord, my King, my Everything. I feel that as I am wondering around in this world. I am not a citizen of it, but rather I am between the state I was in, between the fallen brokenness that permeates and controls the world, and the future realization of the joys of living in perfect relationship with God.

God is very much a part of my life right now.

And yet…

I miss Him.

I miss God like I miss a lot of people right now. I am able to talk to God whenever I feel like, I am able to ask Him questions, and I am able to receive all kinds of things from Him, from advice, to gifts. I am able to see all of the things that He is doing, and I am able to feel the effects of His working in my life to move me towards my future. I still have a very close and meaningful relationship with Him, and I am still learning so much about Him. It is just like my friends whom I am able to connect with because of the amazing wonders of the internet. However, with those people, and with my Eternal Father, I long for the day when we are united together. I long for the beauty of the new earth spent with Jesus. I can’t wait to be held by the Father, and just be fully completed. I cant wait to sit in quite and just know that all is the way it should be. All is complete.

I sit and dwell on this and then I remember. I remember that my analogy is flawed. For even though people will be separated by oceans and mountains, nothing will separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. Nothing will ever be able to make God far away from us. The Holy Spirit dwells with us, in us, and shows us the love of the Father. In Him we have no want, we have no unmet need. I am able to go to the throne room of God and ask for what I desire. My relationship with God is such a blessing and such a joy. I am learning so much as I spend my summer in a land of music. Different than the island I came from, and different from the city I will go to. The blessings of God are matchless and amazing. And though times may make this time here droll, I know that there is meaning and purpose in it all. I know that the Father has great plans for my every move. I live with the assurance of future grace, of knowing that God will provide for my every need.

Still, there is a little part of me that looks forward to fishing with my Daddy. 

Long Time Coming

I am well aware that I have done a poor job of updating here, and the majority of it is due to the very reason that I chose to start this blog. My life is in motion, constantly changing, morphing, and moving forward. God promised that in the one that He started a good work in, it will be accomplished (Phil 1:6). I am currently in the state of God working in and on me. I realize that I will be growing for the rest of my life. Right now however is a sort of mile marker, a blip on the timeline of my life, and a meaningless flash in the grand scope of the story of God.

For anyone that was not already keyed into the happenings of my life, I am currently residing in Nashville TN. Certainly a difference from the island shores of the Philippines, or the windy streets of my destination of the year, Chicago. I am currently being taught many, many things from the Lord. I am realizing the meaning of what it says in Col 3:22-24. It is my goal to life according to what God would have for me, and a large part of my life right now is taken by the adult concept: Work.

Yes, I now have a job, and am a working man. By no means have I entered into full-fledged adulthood. I still have the benefit of living under the roof of family, and have a good deal of my needs provided for. However I am learning a lot about what it means to work hard, and do so with a spirit of service and joy. God is teaching me to be a harder worker and not a slacker. He is teaching me to look for ways to do my job better. I realize that in a lot of ways I come short on what must be done, I realize that I fail.

In a lot of ways that is what is so amazing an intriguing about God (well one of the ways that is currently bouncing around in this red head of mine). God does not work with imperfection. He cannot have any of it in His sight for He is the epitome of what is perfection, anything less then perfect must be cast away from His sight.

And yet…

And yet God works with imperfection. It is the material that He gets His beautiful nail torn hands dirty with. The Gospel explodes through the very marrow of the world. For He that knew no sin took it upon Himself in order that we, who are by very nature anti-righteous, might take upon the righteousness of God Himself! Through Jesus we BECOME the very righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21).

The Great Exchange. Jesus, the ever satisfied, perfect Son of the Father, Holy Spirit saturated, became sin. Took it all. Became isolated, broken, scorned. All in order for us to be able to be worked by the Potter’s hands. By all means we are still from a sinful nature, and we are a sinful race. However, in the eyes of God we are righteous. In he who God started a good work it will be accomplished. This means that we are not responsible for keeping our salvation. This means that no matter what we do, no matter how many times we give in to the old man, Jesus has taken care of everything, The Holy Spirit will help us to see our faults, we will repent and get back up, and the Father will always welcome us into His presence.

I take this fact for granted. Oh my how I don’t realize that the Good News about Jesus is seeping out through every single crack of my existence, of my continued living, of the trials I face far from home, in the victories God has in my life, in the blessings He gives me, in my failings, in my redemption.

Praise be to our God, who is so full of life, who is not old, but the fullness of youth. Who is not naïve, but rather the standard that all wisdom, He is wisdom.  We can call Him Daddy, Abba, Father, Poppa. He is our perfect Dad who takes care of us, blesses us, and disciplines us. Praise be to Jesus, who is the perfect man that all can model their lives after. Who is the perfect big brother who searched and searched for us, who laid down His life for us. Who is seated at the right hand of the Father, full of power and glory, no longer a marginalized Jewish carpenter, but the King of kings and Lord of lords. The train of His robe fills the temple, it overflows, it covers. It is glorious. Praise be to the Holy Sprit who leads us in the path of righteousness, who pleads with the Father with groaning on our behalf. Who teaches us the ways of living the Gospel. Who we are filled with. All praise and honor and glory and power be unto the triune God. Perfect and complete. Overflowing with perfection. The perfect ruler of the universe who is willing to get His hands dirty with the affairs of humanity, in order that we might be saved. Let all the people of God say it is so! For it is so!

Some thoughts

Generally it is wise for me not to worry so much about the things that are going on around me, especially when it starts getting later at night. The fact of the matter is, that I am starting to get more and more worried about leaving and being in the States. Last time that I was there I had a really hard time leaving, because of the amazing friendships that I had built up. And now, I find myself in a similar situation. Now this time, I may very well never see some of these other people ever again. Its an interesting thing, goodbyes... Im not trying to get all deep and meaningful, it's just that we tend to think of things as being really important and life altering, and really scary while they are happening, and in the end we discover that we got all worked up for nothing. In Matthew 6:25-34 God is pretty clear about what He wants us to do. He wants us to trust Him, and not worry about all the little things that we think that we do that will throw our whole lives into a state of doom and despair.

Honestly, the thing that gets me the most is, as my time is running out here in the Philippines, I am realizing that there are so many things that I want to do, and there is so little time to do it. I want to end well, and I think that I am going to do a pretty good job of it this time, and not leave wounds that will be as hard to heal. Don't get me wrong, it is certainly going to hurt when I go. I know that the people here mean the world to me, and it will be hard to see them go, as I too am sent off.

This has certainly gotten a certain emotional flare to it now, and that was not my intention. I'm simply needing to look to my Father in this time of change. Change. Aside from death and taxes the only thing you can be sure of is uncertainty. I need to remember. I need to remember that God is in control of everything. Even though I feel like things are falling apart, and even though I feel like I need to do something to fix it, I know that He is bigger then I. He is I AM. And I am not.