Thoughts of the week

1. Shell shock.

2. Seminary seems to be more about developing a good root than about fancy words & big books.

3. "To be a son or daughter of Abraham you have to have the faith of Abraham." -Greenham

4. In America we call it ministry; internationally we call it missions; in reality they're both apart of the Mission. We must not separate the idea mission from our culture.

5. Classes started, gonna be good stuff.

6. Sometimes it's better to be ignorant of a situation when the alternative of knowing means sinning.

7. It's regular for my wife & I to work our way through 3 mugs a day.

8. Ever had to do too many grown-up things in a week? #buildafort

9. The order of words in a sentence shows the order of loves in one's heart.

10. "Amidst all our pursuits & designs, let us stop & ask ourselves, For what end is all this? At what am I doing? Can the gross & muddy pleasures of sense, or a heap of white & yellow earth, or that esteem & affection of silly creatures, like myself, satisfy a rational & immortal soul? Have I not tried these things already? Will they have a higher relish, & yield me more contentment tomorrow than yesterday, or the next year than they did the last? There may be some little difference betwixt that which I enjoyed before; but sure, my former enjoyments did show as pleasant, & promised as fair, before I attained the,; like the rainbow they looked very glorious at a distance, but when I approached, I found nothing but emptiness & vapor. Oh! What a poor thing would the life of man be, if it were capable of no higher enjoyment." ~Scougal 

Another Land

This land where the words are different and the language unrecognizable. This land so far from home that east indeed has met west. This land of different customs and funny ideas. This land where we have gone and, though only for a little while, have become sojourners.

Rich Mullins sang about it, Abraham was one, Jesus became one, and so the theme runs with us - we are sojourners in a far off country. Where the customs are sin and the ideas are tied to our brokenness. Where to be a national is to be damnable. Not for sake of race or creed but because of sin. It is the plight of the world, the custom inherent in all everywhere.

For us here in India there is no where further away. To go any further east would mean to be closer to home and the same goes for west. But even that doesn't portray how far away from reality our sin has taken us from God. Our worlds of realities have been skewed and stretched and dismembered and disfigured so badly and completely that the only hope for any salvation or redemption had to be a Traveler from that perfect distant place. It had to be Jesus. Had to.

To leave the wonders of heaven to know the ways of men and to save them from those dastardly things they call "life." Those perishable hopes and dreams of fleeting nothing's and pithy longings of celebrity.

There is a place where none shall die and all will live; where tears are wiped away and sadness knows its end; where astounding is normal and unimaginable is seen; where the shadow of the real is touchable and the broken mirror in which we now see dimly is mended and we see our Savior face to face. There is a place and we call it "Home."