Spots

I've been sitting here for a while debating in my own mind whether or not I want to write anything today. It's been somewhat of a long and exhausting week, and I'm pretty tired and want to get home in time to watch Baseball Tonight. But, luckily for you, the chipotle chicken sandwich I just ate has given me a fresh breath of vigor and energy. Now hopefully this Pepsi will spark a few interesting thoughts.

I went to high school camp this last week. It was my third and final week of camp for the summer, and now I just have two more weeks of my internship before I head to California for a bit and then live the thug life in Topeka before school starts. I've been fortunate in that the church I'm interning at goes to King Solomon Christian Camp, which is my home camp. I have an odd knack for retaining random insignificant memories, and I can still vaguely remember when I first arrived at King Solomon as a nine-year-old and my brother and I started the week by playing a game of horseshoes.

I have been to King Solomon as a camper seven or eight times as a camper, as well as five times as a sponsor. So it is the home of many memories for me. Writing direction to the Gnarly Waterfountain on the boys' dorm wall. Watching Jayne Long fall flat on her face because her legs fell asleep on the swings. Celebrating Area-Wide Friendship Day, followed immediately by Playday. Seeing Jr. High kids start bawling because we momentarily made them think the end of the world had come. Granted, none of this makes any sense to any but a few of you, but for me they're vivid memories planted in my mind. King Solomon is also the location for many spiritual milestones, especially in high school. In high school, the summer was always a period of growth for me thanks to the Bible Bowl tournaments and CIY and mission trips. Camp was always the first week of June, so it sort of got the ball rolling for me.

It was a little serene when I left camp yesterday. I'm not sure if I'll ever be there again because right now my future is somewhat up in the air. In my first couple years at Ozark, I had always wanted to do my internship at University, so I knew that there was a decent chance I would be back as a sponsor. But I don't know where I'll be or what I'll be doing next summer. Chances are it won't be in northeast Kansas. And after that I'll be graduated and it's even less uncertain where I'll be. So it's weird to think about how my feet may never again step in a place that has held such a significant place in my life so far.

Places are important in the Bible. This is easy to tell because they're mentioned so frequently, and handy maps are sometimes needed at the end of the Bible just so that we can make sense of what's what. God meets with and works for people at a number of specific places. He calls Abraham and promises to give him a certain land. He speaks to Moses on Mt. Sinai, first in the burning bush and later to give him the Law. Joshua commands that a pile of stones be set up at Gilgal so that people can see it and remember how God brought them across the Jordan. And God has a special dwelling at the temple in Jerusalem where all the Israelites come to worship him.

We too might have a set of places that we consider especially important. Places where we've encountered God and where he has spoken to us in special ways. King Solomon is such a place for me, and I have memories of other places. I remember the basement room in a dorm at Colorado State University where it dawned on me that being a good kid and knowing the answers doesn't substitute for a relationship with Christ. Or the hill near Chanute, Kansas where it seemed like I could see every blip of light God placed in the sky.

At a camp I worked at last year, the speaker once preached on the story of Zacchaeus. He focused on Luke 19:5, which says, "When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.'" The preacher had a bunch of "spots" cut out of paper, and he gave them to the students and asked them about their "spots." About places where they met God. Probably all of us have such places. I often hear them described as "sacred spaces." We can think of specific locales where God encountered us.

The sacred spaces are important, I think. It's good for us to have places that we can both visit and reflect on that help us to see God more clearly. But perhaps too often, we rely to heavily on such places. We think that only there are we able to meet God. It's like we have a spiritual battery, and we need these battery chargers in order to maintain a living faith. While these places are helpful in boosting us in our walks with Christ, we can be in danger of using them as a crutch to support a lazy Christianity.

Imagine that Moses never came down from Mt. Sinai. God speaks through the burning bush, and Moses is so awestruck by the event that he decides to pitch his tent there to live out the rest of his days. Israel never would have been liberated from Egypt, and the Old Testament would be mighty, mighty short. I don't think we're meant to stay in these sacred spaces forever. Rather, we go out from there to live out our faith. We can't stay at camp/CIY/Ozark indefinitely. These places refresh us and prepare us for the world.

The beautiful thing is that, in a sense, we all have a portable sacred space. Or rather we are a portable sacred space. 1 Corinthians 6:19 calls our bodies temples of the Holy Spirit. The God who meets us at these physical sacred spaces dwells within us. He goes everywhere with us. We don't have to be afraid to venture out of our places of spiritual comfort because the Comforter is with us each step of the way. It's good for us to take opportunities to visit our sacred spaces from time to time, but it's foolish for us to think that we can't find God elsewhere. A person can't sleep in a crib forever.

With all of that being said, one place that I hold very dearly is Ozark Christian College, and I'm growing increasingly anxious to return there for the fall semester. I miss all my fellow Ozarkans a great deal and I look forward to seeing you all again and hearing about your summers. I hope all is going great for all of you. Plus, there's no Chick-fil-A in Manhattan.

Know Why

One day last week, I was about to begin the unpleasant task of gassing and vacuuming the church vans following our youth group trip to Worlds of Fun. The vans and I have a pretty close relationship, because almost every week, they're taken to camp, and it's typically my duty to take care of them upon their return. Thanks to this practice, I have become more efficient in vacuuming them as I can now clean a 15-passenger vehicle using four dollars of quarters, whereas it used to take five (once I even did it in three). It's not really that bad of a job except for the miserable Kansas summer climate, which makes the vans like my own personal saunas.

Anyways, I was in the church getting some paper towels for the Hershey Kisses that had been smashed into the van floor and melted in the 100-degree heat when I bumped into one of the church elders whom I had not previously met. He is a very unique person, I soon realized. There is not an iota of shyness in his body, and right away he was talking to me about school and what I want to do in ministry and all sorts of things. At times it felt more like a military interrogation than anything. He wanted to be sure that I knew some Bible, so he made me quote a verse. After I did, he quoted 1 Tim. 4:12, which is about not letting people look down on you because of your youth but setting an example in life, love, faith, speech, and purity. He then expounded on each of these virtues, and when he got to purity, he asked me straightforwardly, "Do you look at pornography?" Not exactly a normal "small talk" question that you hear right after meeting someone. So he definitely got right down to the point of what he wanted to talk about.

He also asked me a lot about how I decided to go into ministry and what I wanted to do and all that. When he asked why I wanted to be a youth minister, I mumbled some flaky reason about how I felt God wanted me to be. Honestly, I just wanted to end the conversation, because I was already feeling pretty awkward and was in a hurry to get to the church vans. But what the elder said next made me step back and think a little. He said, "I don't care about what you feel. Feelings go up and down. Now do you know that God wants you to be a minister?"

If you know me, you know that statement resounds with how I work. I don't often make decisions based on how I feel. I think about things. And then I think some more. And then I overthink. And then I write about it on here. And I definitely didn't make a decision as significant as what I wanted to do with my life based only on feelings. But what what elder said forced me to reflect on my purpose in ministry. About why I decided to get into it.

I guess this post is more or less directed at those going into ministry. But the good thing is that, in a sense, all of us should be going into or already involved in some sort of ministry. When I got to Ozark, I had a sense of calling. I knew what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it. I had purpose. I'm afraid that what can happen as we progress through Bible college is that we eventually get so busy doing ministry stuff that we forget why we're doing it in the first place. We know all the methods and strategies and everything, but the perceived need that pushed us in the first place has become foggy. If you're at Bible college or in ministry, at some point you felt God push you there. But you probably also sensed a need in the world. When we forget that push and that need, our ministry becomes unguided.

I do feel like God wants me to be a youth minister. But it's not just an inner emotion or holy goosebumps. I'm sick of the statistics that say 60/70/80 percent of youth group kids leave the church in college. I've seen way too many students get all hyped up about Jesus at CIY and camp only to forget about it a month later. I think the American high school is one of the greatest misison fields on the planet. And that's why I want to be a youth minister. I didn't think fast enough to share any of that with the elder, but instead walked away feeling like an idiot and questioning whether or not I'm cut out for ministry. So take a little time to think about why you're doing whatever you do. God wants to use all of us. So it's probably not a bad idea to figure out how and why.

I don't pay much attention to the news, so maybe you don't either. But here's some news: There's some crazy political situations in Honduras right now. As I understand it, the president was doing some bad things, so the military kicked him out and a new president was installed, but the old one wants to come back. I was in Honduras this last spring break, and I love the country and it's people a great deal, so please be praying for the political situation in the nation, and especially be praying for Mision Caribe and my friends there.

One Year and Still Truckin'

It was a lazy Wednesday afternoon, and a young lad of twenty years was getting a bad case of cabin fever. He had spent the previous four weeks traipsing about the country in a giant white van, and he longed to once again experience the thrill of the road. Loafing on the couch in his basement was beginning to lose its novelty. However, having heard of this new-fangled invention called the Internet, he popped open his laptop. "Wow," he thought, "I can write whatever I want and put it up on a website. And I can even choose an attractive color scheme and font style, and if I want to get really fancy, I can make it play music whenever people get on and read what I wrote. This is the perfect thing to temporarily distract me for my boredom!" So he began to tap away at his keyboard, not realizing that moment on July 2 would forever change the face of the world. Or at least would change what a very small group of people do with two minutes of their week on a semi-regular basis.

We here at A Chicken in a Cage With a Ferret are celebrating the one-year anniversary of the creation of this blog. Since this time last year, tens, nay, dozens, of people across the globe (or at least across Missouri and Kansas) have found their way to this site, though some of them may have been by accident. Regardless, we spare no expense when it comes to celebrating such a momentous occasion as today. Just mention this post to me the next time you see me, and I’ll give you a high five for free, or maybe even a sidehug if you’re lucky. But if you want the full experience, you should probably take me out to Braum’s and buy me some ice cream.

When I started writing this blog a year ago, I really didn’t anticipate that I would be interested in it beyond October (which would have been two months after everyone else lost interest, I’m sure). I’m rather skillful in starting something, thinking it’s the best thing ever, and then abandoning it almost immediately. But I very much enjoy maintaining this blog. It’s therapeutic in a sense, and I probably do it more for myself than for anyone else. That’s why people have journals, but I’ve never really been able to get into the whole journaling thing. It’s hard for me to get motivated to write something when I know no one else will see it unless I decide to dust it off someday down the road. So this is the next best thing for me. Unlike in a journal, I don’t get on here and write about all my deepest, darkest secrets (and I have many dark secrets, believe me), but it does give me a means of sorting out some of my thoughts.

And the truth is that I have learned a lot by blogging over the past year. Or at least I have learned a lot from life in general this year, and blogging has allowed me to make sense of what I’ve learned. I’ve learned that life can be really unfortunate, but that it’s humorous because it’s unfortunate and that people would rather you make fun of your unfortunate life than read about any serious topic. I’ve learned that we’re not adequate to really do that many great things by ourselves, but that we weren’t made to be adequate because God loves filling in the gaps where we’re lacking. I’ve learned that there is much to be learned from our emotions, even the bad emotions that we would rather ignore. I’ve learned that probably the most important thing we can do is make sure we’re firmly connected to Jesus, but there’s so many distractions both in ourselves and in the world that keep us from that. And I’ve learned that I do a pretty lousy job applying all the things I’ve learned.

Blogging forces me to think. After all, I don’t want this to become one of those blogs that lies dormant on some other blog’s sidebar, saying something like “Updated 5 months ago” under my title. I’ve got to keep it fresh. But truth be told, it’s not easy to come up with something to write about all the time, especially since any original thought is so elusive. Maybe that’s why all I tend to do is recycle the same few ideas but with different words.

One of the biggest problems in the world is that people just don’t think enough. They simply act. Or worse yet, they merely allow themselves to be entertained. The result of this lack of thought is that no one has any purpose, direction, or destination associated with their actions. We’re not like disciplined athletes running a race with focus (1 Cor. 9:24-27). We’re more like hamsters aimlessly running around in those plastic balls, bumping into walls, people, and coffee tables. We need to make it habit to stop running every once in a while and ask, “Where am I going?” When we finally stop moving and start thinking, we create enough space in our lives to think things like, “What can I learn from this experience? How can I become a better friend/disciple/person? How can I get closer to God? How can I do something worthwhile with my life?”

Such thinking isn’t meant to be only individual, however. It’s collective. Life is a conversation. If you meet someone who always walks around talking to himself, you would think he was a lunatic, or at least a moron. But that’s often how we live our lives. We stroll through life alone, paying little attention to anything others are saying. After all, we’re the masters of our own destinies, right? We can figure life out. Who needs the aide of others’ experience and wisdom when we have personal ingenuity? But a trailblazer isn’t courageous when there’s already a trail blazed. He’s an idiot.

I’d like to repeat a quotation that I cited in my first blog post a year ago. In his book To Own a Dragon, Donald Miller writes, “The truth I've learned about life is you can't do it on your own. People don't do well independently. One generation passes wisdom on to the next, wisdom about girls and faith and punctuation. And we won't be as good a person if we don't receive it.” And it’s true; we do need one another, because we don’t do so great alone. We end up having ridiculous thoughts and making stupid decisions. I always think I’m right. If I thought I was wrong, then I wouldn’t think what I thought. But I’m at least open to the possibility that I’m wrong, and I try to be willing to listen to what others say.

This doesn’t mean that we fold to the flow of the crowd or to majority’s opinion. That’s laziness. Individualism and community balance one another out. Sometimes (actually a lot of the time), most people are wrong. So it’s foolhardy to blindly swallow whatever others feed you. But neither do we ignore it. We need to critically listen to one another, weighing what others say first against then Bible, and then against our own thoughts, experiences, and common sense. That’s what conversation is. We speak to and listen to each other. We challenge and debate with one another. We work life out together. It’s like in math class. Sometimes there would be a super-hard assignment, so the teacher would let you work in pairs or in groups. Life is an awfully difficult assignment! It’s dumb to try to figure it out alone. But it’s also dumb to just write down whatever answer some other kid gives you. We work both alone and with one another.

Thanks for reading, whether this is your first time on here or you’ve somehow been following along for the entire past year. It is a great encouragement when people let me know that they read a post and liked it. There have even been times when people I barely know tell me that they like what’s here, which is always quite the shock. And it’s also very humbling when people who are way smarter than me and who have their act together much better (which includes just about everyone) say nice things and say that something on here even helped them. No idea how that happens. But if you all keep reading, I’ll keep writing, and we can keep the conversation going for another year. Otherwise, I’ll just go buy a journal.

Don't Sweat the Big Stuff

Many of you who read this see me pretty regularly, especially during the school year. And many of you have at some point ridden in my blue Buick Century that used to belong to my grandparents. I know you all love that car, as if it were part of your own family. So I am sad to announce to you that there is sickness in that family. Or at least more serious sickness than the normal windows/radio/air conditioner not working. Yesterday I was running an errand to the City Park here in Manhattan when I noticed that my speedometer was having a little too much fun. Usually my speedometer is very self-controlled and honest. We have a good relationship. But apparently it had drunk a few too many Red Bulls yesterday morning, because it was jumping all over the place, one second telling me I was going 40 mph, and the next claiming that I had put the car in park. Then today, the rest of my car decided to follow suit by alternating between propelling me down the road and then slowing down while the engine whirs. Every time I've started it up today, I've wondered if I'm going to get where I want to go. So far so good, but the day isn't over yet.

All of that has nothing to do with anything. Here's something that does have something to do with something: Far too often, we don't appreciate the little things in life. Now that's not an original thought at all. We all hear it all the time. But normally when I hear someone say such a thing, I think of stopping to smell a flower, sitting in a chair listening to Mozart, and writing a poem about the sunshine. And it all sounds so pansy-ish to me. I mean, seriously, I have no desire to do any of those things. The small things are for dweebs. I'm a grown man, and I don't really care about roses or Mozart or the sunshine.

But what I've realized is that, no matter who a person might be, they have "small things" in their life that make existence more enjoyable. For you, maybe they are roses and Mozart and sunshine. Or maybe it's pumping The Classic Crime in the car on the way to IHOP at midnight. Maybe it's sitting in a dorm room tossing a ball back and forth with a couple guys just to pass the time. Maybe it's sitting in Panera and observing the couples who seem like they're on their first date while you listen in on their lame conversations and take relief in the fact that you're not the only socially awkward person in the world.

I spend so much time and energy wigging out about the big things, or at least what I think are the big things. It's like I always feel like some cosmic weight has been placed on me, and it's my obligation to the universe to stress out about it. And the only result is that I walk around freaking out about all kinds of things, many of which I can't even do anything about in the first place. That's all pretty unnecessary, I think. Yeah, we can't just run away from some of the heftier issues in life, but neither should we obsess over many of them. Going crazy about stuff usually isn't a fruitful endeavor. That's why the small things are important. Life should be enjoyed. Life is humorous, and stuff is worth laughing at. Even bad stuff. We've got to be able to step back from crappy experiences at times and laugh at ourselves and laugh at how unfortunate things are.

One "small thing" that many people have told me they really like is to buy dinner for their best friend with the initials DJH. You could try that too.

Just One Reason That Reality TV is Dumb

In no way am I someone who's "in" with pop culture or current events. I don't follow the latest styles (I even wear denim shorts sometimes). My phone still flips open. I only have an iPod Nano. And normally, when something happens in culture, I don't find out about if for several weeks, if at all. Even so, for a pretty long while I've been noticing all sorts of things about the status of the couple from "Jon & Kate Plus 8." This is the show on TLC where this couple has about a million babies and they go to Disneyland and throw birthday parties and all sorts of fun things for the amusement of the television audience. I've actually even seen a couple episodes. But evidently, all wasn't well in the household, and the magazine headlines at the grocery store register were sure to let me know how Jon was seen at a baseball game with another woman and how Kate is on a diet to impress some new guy or whatever. But of course, we all know such magazines aren't trustworthy, so I figured this was something that would blow over in a few days.

Yesterday as I was surfing through the channels in the afternoon, I noticed at the bottom of the screen on TLC that there was to be a special episode of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" in which the couple would make a big announcement. I didn't watch the episode, but the headlines on MSN today informed me that the big announcement is that the couple is getting a divorce but that they're still going to do the show.

That was the big event. That's the announcement. That's the episode that TLC worked so hard to promote and make sure everyone watched. That's what weeks of magazine headlines pointed to.

What a sad, disheartening commentary on our society. This is an actual family, an actual marriage. And its implosion is used to sell advertisements. I obviously know nothing about the details or what led to this, but it's just sad. Another marriage crumbles, and no one is really even bothered. Heck, we celebrate it. A marriage fails, and America watches with interest. And Satan probably watches us with a little bit of a smile.

Leave Room For Jesus

It's a tricksy thing for kids who want to date someone from their church youth group. If a teen is going to date anyone, though, someone from their youth group probably isn't a bad choice. You know that they're hopefully fond of Jesus, and you get to see them a lot and go on all the youth group trips and everything together. But it also makes your relationship like a reality TV show in that all the other kids in the youth group get to watch every step of the way. Everyone knows when things are bad and when things are good and everything in between, and they're also there to make keep things in check. Whenever a couple gets a little cozy in the church van on a trip, someone is bound to yell out, "Leave room for Jesus!" Some people find this exclamation annoying. I always thought it was fairly humorous. Probably because I've rarely been in a relationship.

I went to Jr. High church camp this last week. I'm going to be honest, it was a little rough for me. I love middle school kids and I think they're a lot of fun and can be really funny, and I think ministry to them is important, but I don't know if I'm wired for it quite as much as I am high school ministry. It's just much more difficult for me to feel like I'm relating to them. They don't carry on normal conversations, but run around in little packs yelling "Football....YEAH!" in people's faces. They would rather throw rocks at ants than participate in a discussion of that evening's sermon. And they interpret the statement "Alright guys, it's time to be quiet and go to sleep" as "Hey guys, you should all start yelling a bunch of silly voices for the next 20 minutes."

So it was somewhat of a rough week for me. I had a lot of fun, but I was definitely ready to go home come Friday. And at a number of times throughout the week, I thought, "This is pointless. They kids don't have any interest in anything related to Jesus, and nothing I say is getting through to them. All they're going to get from this week is the memory of sugar rushes and bug bites."

And, as usual when I have a bad attitude about things, God let me know that I'm really stupid. I was certain that the camp was going to prove fruitless. And then on Thursday night God did his thing. My family group was having our discussion time that evening, and we were asking kids what had impacted them from the week and what they were going to change when they get home and all that, and it was all pretty typical until one of the guys, obviously being very broken, said that he had found Jesus that night. Long story short, three of the kids in my group decided to be baptized. And it had absolutely nothing to do with me. I was a pretty crappy group leader. Luckily for those kids, the two other people that I led with did an awesome job pouring into them, and God was apparently working on their hearts during the week.

Every once in a while, I need a reminder that I'm not really in control. I think I am. Heck, I'm going to be a senior in Bible college. I know how to plan events and I know which discussion questions to ask and I know how to format devos and all of that. So I think that I can make life-change happen. But the truth of it is that all of my puny efforts are pathetic in themselves. It's not like a math formula, where worship song + funny story + Bible verse + object lesson = transformation. Actually, I guess if you were going to format how it really is, it would be much simpler looking: Jesus' work = transformation.

So I guess it's important for us to realize that we don't have to worry about everything when it comes to ministry. Our job is to bring what we have and let God take care of the rest. Not that we have a right to slack off and not do the best that we can. But even our best efforts are still insufficient. But thankfully, God fills in the gaps where we're lacking. He takes our meager offerings and does something incredible. And he took a week that I thought was a waste of time and changes lives. So as we minister, it's probably a good idea to leave a little room for Jesus.

Tomorrow would have been my grandmother's 80th birthday. She was one of the most genuine, kindest, most giving, and most humble people I have ever known. If you know someone like that, you should thank God and then thank them.

Happy summer.

We're All Sinking

It's my day off! And to celebrate, I decided to leave Manhattan behind for the day and make an exodus back to the promised land of Topeka. Upon my arrival, however, I was subjected to even crueler slavery as I helped with the deck my parents are building behind our house. (Actually, I didn't help very much. I'm not very skillful with a drill.) On my drive down I-70 today, I was thinking about what I wanted to write, and I thought a little about how my blog posts tend to fall into three categories. First, there are those posts that don't really have much to do with anything but are aimed at generating a slight chuckle, so that people will tell me, "Oh David, you're post on the Bystander Effect was so funny! You're definitely going to have a hot wife with a humor like that!" Second, there are those posts where I objectively think about whatever topic and write something in a more analytical way. Third, at times I type up emotionally-driven musings that sort of run in circles until I feel like I've gotten it off my chest. I'm somewhat of a closet emo, I think. How embarrassing.

I was at high school camp at King Solomon this week, and it went great. It's my home camp, so I always love to get to go back (and I'll be there for two more weeks this summer, so....hooray.) But yeah, it was a great week, my family group was awesome, and fun was had by all. Especially by the 300 mosquitoes that feasted on my flesh. One song that we sang a lot during the worship services this week was "How He Loves" (which should be playing right now if you have your sound on. Listen to it. It's good). The song is really simple but has some really cool metaphors in talking about just how much God loves us.

God's love doesn't make sense. Perfect, unconditional love exists in so few places, and cheap, flippant love takes it's place in so much of the world. We have a God who loves us fully. Whose love is beyond our mental grasp. Who loves us regardless of our pasts, our faults, and our obnoxious habits. Who, even as we backstab him and blaspheme him and ignore him, continues to love us. Who loves even those who want absolutely nothing to do with him. It's more fantastic than I can get my poor mind around. But even though I don't totally understand it, I can cognitively accept the fact of God's perfect love.

Often, the bigger problem is that it's so hard to feel God's love. One day of camp, we talked about truth, and we discussed how even when we know it a truth, it can be a greater obstacle to accept that true. God's love is true, but it's a pretty hard truth to swallow at times. When we feel heart-broken and hurt and lonely, it's hard to accept that God's love is near. When we feel sinful and dirty and unworthy, it's hard to accept that God's love is unconditional. When we feel proud and independent and self-sufficient, it's hard to accept that God's love is needed. Sure, in my head I can think, "God loves me," but what do I do when that love feels so distant? When I can't sense it working into my life? I think the psalmists felt similarly at times:

"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?" Psalm 13:1-2

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent." Psalm 22:1-2

"I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted." Psalm 77:1-2

You might notice that all of these examples come at the very beginning of the psalm. I think that's probably because by the end of each one, the writer is praising God for his love and mercy, recognizing that the truth of God's love doesn't depend on whether or not we feel it at the moment. I especially like Psalm 13:5-6, where even after complaining that God has forgotten him, David writes, "But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me."

I'm not totally sure how to do that. It's crazy how David is able to feel so dejected but still remain so faithful and confident in God's provision. I have a great deal to learn when it comes to that. I guess what needs to be accepted is that God's love is true. And it's also true that at times things suck and it's difficult to see that love or to feel like it's enough. But that doesn't make the truth of God's love any less true. The ability to be confident in that love in the midst of crappy circumstances is what carries us through. That's sort of what faith is. Holding onto what is unseen/unfelt.

It's probably good to ask how we can better emulate God's love in the here and now. My family group at camp talked about how, as Christians, we're to be like the moon. The moon doesn't generate it's own light, but only reflects the light of the sun. Similarly, we need to be reflections of the character of God to the world and to one another, and reflecting God's love is a huge piece of that. There's an interesting truth about love. Love is never about the lover, but only about the object of the love. Selflessness and love are joined together. When Christ came, he emptied himself, surrendered himself, and became nothing. Even as both his heart and body ached, he put others before himself. That's the kind of love we need to show. When I feel hurt and broken, I'm still need to consider myself healthily unimportant. I'm to love God and love others first. To love always and unconditionally. That's what God does for us.

Unrelated topic change: Maybe there's been a time in your life when you experienced something really crappy, but when you go to bed you have a dream about that same crappy experience happening. So when you wake up, you at first think, "Whew, it was only a dream." But then you realize that it's something that actually happened, and it's really, really unfortunate. It's quite the bummer when our problems follow us into the solace of sleep. Maybe I need to eat more pizza and pork rinds before I go to bed, so that I have crazy dreams about flying purple toaster ovens or something. That sounds way more fun.