Trip to Wichita Thoughts

1) For kids a plane ride is like a forced time-out... For hours.

2) Rains and floods!

3) We're gonna do a wedding reception every other week. 

4) U2. The Joshua Tree. Vinyl. Awesome.

5) Flying busses in the sky.

6) eat. Eat. EAT!

7) Tiger the lion

8) Seeing friends and family!

9) Did I mention we ate a lot?

10) Bangs! For the wife, I didn't get bangs. Bangs would be weird on a guy. Real weird.

11) We sat down in row 16 on the plane, which would've been fine, but we were in row 19... So we changed to row 18, which also would've been fine, but we were in row 19. Yes, we've flown all over the world multiple times but can't get our row right.

12) "... When I look at that God, the God of Abraham, I feel I'm near a real god, not the sort of dignified, businesslike, Rotary Club God we chatter about here on Sunday mornings. Abraham's God could blow a man to bits, give and then take a child, ask for everything from a person, and then want more. I want to know that God." B. Manning.

13) The Ragamuffin Gospel. Read it.

Reacting To My Post

I wrote a post for Journey the Way yesterday about why singles should look forward to a listening through a marriage series. Here are the points:

1. Because we, most of us, hope to be married someday.
Whether the desire is in our hearts at this moment or not doesn’t really matter. Societal influence has told us since we were tiny that part of growing up is getting married. Sooner or later he/she will come over our horizon and we’ll get married. We need to be preparing for that eventuality. So it’s wise to sit in a marriage series.

2. Because we don’t know everything.
We’re young and dumb… at least that’s how I phrase it. We don’t know everything; we should not be arrogant enough to think a marriage series will not/cannot apply to us. Wrong. Learn to learn. Someday we’ll look back to this series and praise God for the grace it was to learn then as opposed to learn by failures. So it’s wise to sit in a marriage series.

3. Because we need to learn how to be biblical men and women.
Now is the time to become godly men. Now is the time to become godly women. Now is the time to learn our places and roles in marriage and aim at attaining the beauty of being men and women sold out for seeing God glorified in our marriages.

4. To grow up.
Rather than playing X-Box or gossiping over her makeup, we need to be mature. Grow up and believe the gospel. To have an aim, a mission, in life and be headed in that direction, to be able to look into our future spouse’s eyes and say, “I’m going there, after the glory of God, will you come with me?”

5. To see our future children love Jesus.
Oh, that our kids would love Jesus more than us their parents! Oh, that we would be singles praying earnestly for our unborn children to be fervently in love with the gospel! Oh, that our sons would aim at nothing less than God glorified! Oh that our daughters would be women who are lost in the beauty of Jesus their Lover!

It's true, I'm looking forward to learning about marriage even though there's still time before I get married. Every cynic I've spoken to who has a wife or husband is glad for the relationship, intimacy, and wholeness. So sure, there may be no need to be overly (sophmorically) excited about a sermon series, but there is a hope to care about what's said, and a wanting to learn.

"Learn to learn." (Probably one of the best lines I've written in a while and I'm sure someone else did it first.) If ever there comes a time in our lives when we aren't learning then we've missed something and are now the misguided and seemingly useless. Because one who isn't learning isn't helping.

Lastly, to my children - those little ones yet unborn - I've prayed for you since the day I believed the gospel. Those lines above - yea - those are for you. 

This should be a stretching couple of months. And it ought to be worth it.

Live & Die

This past weekend I was able to spend time with the leader and family of Love-N-Care Ministries.

Love-N-Care is reaching the people of India (as well as Germany and now stretching in South Africa) with the gospel of Jesus Christ while making disciples and calling others to make disciples. It was kind of intoxicating for me to be around them.

To dream.

About Wichita, about the world, about it all, about mission.

It’s a cliché word now-a-days, ‘mission.’ (I wrote a series of posts called ‘Rumored Thought’ about a pastor’s mission.) I hear it tossed around so carelessly, the meaning not really grasped.

Tombs.

He spoke of the tombs of missionaries in his country. Americans who had traveled to India to preach the gospel who never would return to America, they died there and were buried there. With tears in his eyes he said, “Thank you.”

My point is this: sooner or later we’re gonna die. Stop breathing and die. Get shot and die, car wreck, get old, bite the bullet, buy the farm, kick the can… Whatever, we’re going to die. And hopefully, by the sheer grace of God we’ll have lived for something worthwhile (the gospel).

Hopefully we haven’t spent our whole life on something pitiful. Even Aristotle got it, “The measure of good life is a life well lived.” Let’s just say this, a life well lived in the measure of eternity is the application and belief in the gospel.

Moms with their kids and dads with their wives and others whose call is to reach more than just a few folks: missionaries, pastors.

Some of us will be killed for the gospel. Others will die of old age having lived for the gospel. Both are the most admirable lives.