to God be the glory

This post is dedicated to Zach Blickens, a friend of mine who is a youth pastor and worship pastor at River of Life in Cedar Rapids, IA. You can find more info about him and his wife's ministry here.

Last Thursday, I heard a message on Daniel 2. Daniel is a great example of a young leader. Many people of faith can benefit by taking his example of leadership. In this chapter, King Nebuchadnezzar can't sleep due to repeated dreams that keep him awake. He demanded his magicians, scorcerors, and "dream experts" to not only interpret the dream, but first tell him what the dream was. If they can't, they will be put to death. Well this was impossible and they said no man can do this. Daniel and his three close friends- Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah- got wrapped up in this, too. They came together and fervently prayed to God for wisdom. God granted them the mystery of the king's dream and Daniel ended up telling the king his dream in great detail.

I encourage you to read about the dream and the whole chapter. There are many points to be made, but the one I want to bring up is how Daniel gave the glory to God. First, when he received the mystery of the king's dream, he praised God. Then, standing before the king, he gave God full credit for being able to relay the king's dream and its interpretation. In addition to that, he gave credit to his friends twice in the chapter for their accountability to him. After all, they prayed fervently to God with Daniel and ate the vegetables and water diet with him in the previous chapter.

Now why do I dedicate this blog to Zach? Because he always praises God for gifts that he and others have, good things that happen in his life and those around him, and probably even the bad things sometimes too. He doesn't take credit at all when he receives compliments because he knows that everything good comes from God. So when I try to be more like that, I think of Daniel's character in these few chapters, and Zach too.

The Gods Aren't Angry Tour

Last night I saw Rob Bell on the opening night of his new tour, The Gods Aren't Angry. It was a sold-out crowd at the Vic. Lots of young adults, but others as well. I met my friend, Jill (who came into town), Kim, and her roommate (also named Kim) before the show. There were a few others who I knew were going that I didn't get to see there at all.

Those of you who have read Rob Bell's books and/or seen him speak know that he does both in a similar fashion. He has a way of putting things into context that you don't hear too often, which is why I've read his books and heard him speak. He mixes a good bunch of history from other religions, personal stories, and Christian faith into great messages.

This tour was like that, first introducing us to numerous gods from other cultures. Wherever you go, you end up sacrificing more for them. Here's why. You are dependent on these outside forces or gods to provide the right amount of sunlight and rain to grow crops that you eat. If conditions didn't provide enough crops, you felt that you had not pleased these gods enough, so you sacrifice more. If the conditions provided an abundance of crops, you gave more to show your appreciation to the gods. And there were plenty more gods you would depend on for other needs and wants. But they were up there doing their own thing.

Along comes Abraham. He is in this system of sacrificing gods and depends on them. He relied on his father to know this system in the region he lived in. Then all of a sudden, God speaks to him and tells him to leave his family. What? God is someone who is not only in touch with what is happening on the earth but actually speaks to a human? And leave the system of gods Abraham is familiar with to an unknown place? The idea seemed crazy.

Travel ahead several years when God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, up in the mountains. At first glance, this is a story of God testing Abraham's faith. Why was their no resentment or questioning on how to do it? Maybe because it was a common practice. But who in their right mind would sacrifice their firstborn? I've heard it said multiple times that this story is not necessarily about Abraham's faith. One pastor said it was about showing faith to his doubting family that thought he was crazy. Rob Bell suggested it was to show a glimpse of who this God is, since he stops Abraham from killing Isaac. Why is this significant? In a history of gods that demand (or atleast seem to demand) sacrifices, this God stops this sacrifice and provided a way out.

Bell went on to around the year 30 A.D. The main temple (in Jerusalem?) had a huge altar. During Passover, there would be thousands of animals slaughtered for sacrifice on this altar. In entered Jesus, and he claimed that if you tear "this temple" down, He would rebuild it in 3 days. Sure...it took us some 46 odd years to build this temple (and still not finished yet) but you will rebuild it in 3 days?

But the main idea here, just as with the story of Abraham and Isaac, is that we are following a God who provides. A God who has ideas of being close to His people that are way ahead of its time. A God who does not follow the ways of lower case gods.

In Hebrews, the writer calls every sacrifice before that of Christ was not desired by God, nor was He pleased with them. But it was required by the law. A few verses later, that Christ's sacrifice made us holy once and for all (Heb 10:5-10).

Are these gods gone today, or do we merely call them different things? As usual, Bell had plenty of personal stories to share about those with depression, attempted suicide, went through face surgery, faced burn out, felt shame, guilt, and so on. These gods aren't gone. They can control our lives, if we let them, or seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.


That's basically what I remember about what he said, with a couple of other thoughts in there. If he is coming to a town near you, go see him! If not, pick up one of his books, Velvet Elvis or Sex.God., or one of his Nooma DVDs.

faith like a child

At the church I work at, I sometimes sit in with the kindergardeners during their Chinese school time. Although I have only gone a few times, two different boys have done actions that remind me what faith in God should look like. The first boy just came up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek at various points during the class. The second boy (a different day) came up and gave me a hug. Then he came over to sit on my lap during various times of the class.

Keep in mind, these are boys that I just met on those mornings. Yet they showed love and trust to me. Sometimes I wish my love and trust in God was more simple and pure like that. No gimmicks or inner complexities. Just a child who feels comforted in the hands of the Father. Think about that. And listen to "Like a Child" off of Jars of Clay's first album.

in Normal

Visiting some friends in Bloomington/Normal now. Killing some time at Panera. Trying to update my blog and start another one for my youth group. Yesterday was a long day. Went to church where I sat in on Chinese class with the kindergarteners, then had bible study with the youth. Hung out a bit with Elisabeth and Stephanie. Then went home really quick to get my things together for coming here.

I met with Molly at Fazoli's where she was having a pretty deep conversation with her friend, Karen. After awhile, we parted ways so Molly and I could surprise Jill with a mini-birthday cake while she was at work. We decided to meet up after she was done closing. So Molly took me to the guys' house where I'd be staying to drop my stuff off. Then we picked up Jill and decided to drive out to the lake and look up at the stars. Molly has a convertible, too, so during the drive, Jill and I were able to gaze up at the stars. I'd never done that before and it was pretty awesome. So was hanging out at the lake because it had been awhile since I went to a more natural place and looked up at the beautiful night sky. I needed to be reminded more often how big God and His creation is and how small I am...

blessings

weekend in Iowa

So I finally got to visit some friends in Iowa again. It's been several months, especially if you don't include my "stopping by on the way home from the twin cities" back in December. I arrived early afternoon on Saturday and got to hang out with Lori, Amanda, and her son Jacob at Coldstone. I was hoping Ellen would be working at the time but she was out on a retreat this past weekend. Afterwards, I had a long, boring time to kill before going to the last night of the Glory Days conference the Midwest Prayer Center was holding but I just hung out and read some books. That night I went to the conference, which was held at River of Life church.

On Sunday morning, some of Amber's cats were playing around a little too hard and one of them broke the window screen and fell out the window!!! I tell ya, it was not a good day. By the time Amber realized what happened her cat, Justice, was already gone hiding somewhere. So we didn't quite make it to church that morning. If you know Amber at all, you know that her cats are very important to her, so it was a very emotional time for her. But I'm happy to say that Justice returned home late that night.

Angie and Robyn decided to come by later that morning, and he walked around the neighborhood a bit to look for Justice and talk to some neighbors. Then we ate at Cici's Pizza, a pizza buffet place and it was packed! Not too bad though for a pizza buffet. Afterwards, we went back to Amber's place and then finally got in touch with Sara. I stopped by to hang out with her and her brother, Patrick, before meeting up with Amanda and Jacob to visit Cornell again. They had a music/art benefit for Darfur refugees. It was pretty fun. And I got to meet up with Brandon and Catherine Quehl-Engel again.

I went to hang out with Sara and Patrick again that night and I got to have a long talk with Sara, which was great, because I don't get to see her or talk to her that much. I finally went back to Amber's at 1am, where her and Kara were patiently waiting to hang out! Then on Monday morning, it was back to Chicago. Pretty fun weekend.