Swimming Upstream

Faithful readers,

Summer is upon us New Zealand habitants.

It's getting hot! I'm not happy about this. I'm ready for rain, 7-12 degrees, crisp, cool weather. Not gonna happen... I'm cotntinuing to wear my plaid shirts faithfully however. The upside to the good weather is that we've been able to have meals outside and there's been lots of volleyball, frisbee, soccer action going on in the yard which is fun.

Last week was rough, but this week has been better. Having the redemption project over and done with definitely helps! Last weekend was good. On Sunday I went to Peel Forest and had a great time with some Capers and the Shaws, a family from the church we also attend. The four kids in the family are all in the 2-8 age range and they were a joy to be around. I was told some interesting stories about polar bears turning brown and penguins trying to fly.

We also had a tidiest room competition last week, with the winner receiving a big dairy milk chocolate bar. Gosh, we really needed an incentive to clean our room because well... our room was fillllllllllllllthy. One of the guys rooms was already really tidy, and the other guys room was even messier than ours. The girls room was messy too ... so I heard. In our room there were shirts, papers, junk everywhere. The first three days of the week it was so messy we were assigned "extra-duties" for having an unclean room. I cleaned windows and loaded and unloaded firewood for my extra duties for the two days I was punished. My roommates also had to do some different extra-duties. We also got some clothes confiscated (the clothes which were on the ground) so it wasn't so fun. After the second day of doing extra-duties, Joel announced that our room was going to win the award, so that day we stuffed all of our belongings into various cupbards, and secret places Hanna, the inspector, would never look. By the end of Thursday we could see the entire floor and were eagerly waiting for Friday. After breakfast on Friday we cleaned our room before the final inspection. Before we left, we arranged our shoes in the shape of a heart in the middle of the floor. Couldn't hurt. After classes I ran up to our room and in the middle of our shoe-heart... a chocolate bar! And a heart-shaped note telling us how much of an improvement we made. Now, turns out this wasn't the grand-prize chocolate bar, but we were satisfied. The guys room which was clean all week won the award, makes sense. So far this week we've been able to keep the room at a respectable level of cleanliness.

I've kept my laughing under control a bit better lately I think. My roommate, Joel is keeping track of how many times I burst out laughing at lectures/meals. I'm over 25.

I really wish you could see the antics of these people I'm living with...
I've actually been working on character sketches and so that may be able to help you out a bit if you want to picture it.

A bit of insight into my other roommate, Michael: In the middle of the night a couple days ago, when Joel and I were still up (Michael goes to bed at 9:30-10:30 whereas Joel and I go to bed at 11ish or later) Michael breaks the silence and shouts "I've figured it out!"
Joel/Adam: "Figured out what?"
Michael: "I've figured out what you guys are! Joel, you're a forest gnome. Adam, you're a wood elf."
*Joel bursts out laughing*
It was so random!
Apparently Michael was thinking for a long time about what mythical creature we were.
Yesterday when playing volleyball I told Michael that he's a desert shepherd. I don't know why I thought of that, but now that's what I call him from time to time...

And now, as promised, here's some stuff I've learned...
Scattered notes!

Richard Neville
Excerpts:

"What do we mean when we say that our most significant struggle in life is with God? In fact we are saying that God is finally the one who determines the outcomes of our life, the outcomes of our struggles with other human beings, and the outcomes of all our best efforts, our successes, and our failures. God is imminent in our lives, he is present to help, to guide, to protect. To wrestle with God, (like Jacob did in Genesis) means to recognize this reality and therefore to look to him and depend on him. It means to shrug off any pretence to self-sufficiency and independence and recognise that we need God, and we need his blessing on our lives, as Jacob did.

Our failures to not surprise God. They should not cripple us.

"The end of ourselves is the beginning of God."

Russell Kelfer
Assimilation, not identification. That's what God wants.
Did you wake up and forget to eat physical food this morning? Not likely.
Did you wake up and have spiritual bread this morning?
Did you remember to assimilate your life with God's this morning?

Learning from Joseph
God uses every experience to change a person.
God-designed miraclesto transport us where He needs us to be.
1. The seeds of greatness come in unexpected pacakges.
2. There is a great future in past failures.
God never trades you, he only trains you.

Suffering (Like Joseph)
1. Through unjust suffering God changes our character.
2. Our testimony is magnified when other watch us endure
3. It is an honour to suffer for God's glory (!)

He blesses us through our circumstances instead of getting us out of them.
Christian must choose to surrender to God. Garments on glory are to be worn only by God. If we are dead, what right have we to glory?

Sometimes we can only change after pain.

God didn't ask you to live the Christian life. Relax. Let God use your mind and body.

Glory
He reveals His glory through us. We must return it to Him.
God reveals glory through:
Creation, His incarnation, Hid death, His return, saints:
When His character is revealed through us.
Through our afflictions.
Through our weakness.

God is strong when we are weak.
(Spiritually better when weak.)
God's power is made stronger when we are weak.
"My power is made strong in weakness. _2 Cor. 12:9

Strengths can be stumbling blocks in our faith.

Praise Him for unfulfilled dreams.
All areas of nothing provide a vessel for God.

To get to the top floor of God's tower you have to press down on the elevator.

When doing tasks, we don't need a lot of experience, we only need a lot of God
Give God the glory for victories, take the blame for mistakes.

Stares from squares? Who cares? God looks into the heart.

Lecturer: Chris Baines
Colossians//
Refrain from making the Bible academic, get the Bible into your heart.
Come to the Lord because you yearn for Him, get away from the tick boxes.
God qualifies the called, doesn't call the qualified.

God loves me not because I am loveable but because He is so loving.

If you look into the world: Distressed
If you look into the self: Depressed
If you look into God: You'll be BLESSED.

When you forgive, you set the prisoner free and you realize the prisoner was you.

Jonah//
God sends storms into our lives to get us where he wants us to be, not where we want to be.

"New believers get angry when they turn their lives over to Christ and they still have problems. I always tell a person if they want to surrender their life to Christ, they'll have more problems than before. The difference is now they'll be living it with God."

Make a choice to swim upstream.

A prayer:
"Dear God,
I am so weary of living life in my own energy. By your devine grace, may I die again that I might become a useable deadman, totally filled and flooded with Jesus Christ. ... Live your life through me today. It is not in me. Amen"

Here's a segment of the devotion I lead:

Failing:
A good starting point: "The way we understand human life depends on what conception we have of the human story. What is the real story of which my life is a part? That is the question which determines what we believe to be success and what failure." Richard talked a lot about living radically different lives than those who don't know Christ and this could be a defining feature in the difference between the lifestyles. Are we living for earthy things, or setting our sights on heaven? On one hand, the media tells us that money and fame among other materialistic things are the defining features of living a good life. It's hard for an easily influenced person like me to get sucked into this mindset because this is the message which bombards TVs, radios and billboards. On the other hand: doing the work of the Lord, to glorify His name, and placing the importance on the spirit rather than stockpiling earthly materials are some of the features of a folloewer of Christ. It's a challenge because we live in a sinners world. It's comforting to know, however, that God expects nothing but absolute failure from us.
In Revolution Within, Dwight Edwards states "The spectaculness of God, the striking grandeur of God, would be seen through the most unlikely material of all-frail, faltering humanity. This is the essential meaning of what it is to glorify God." Nothing we can do on earth will ever be able to come close to the standards of God: "Every one of them has turned aside; they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one." As bleak as this message seems, it gets the point across that we need to be desperate for God.
Through Russell Kelfer's analysis on the Joseph story, he talks about how God uses every situation (including unjust suffering) to change a person. He blesses us through our circumstances instead of getting us out of them. It's all part of his plan to get us to depend on him even more. Kris re-enforced this a couple days ago saying "God has a purpose in our suffering."

God Is Good All of the Time
The realization that God is good at all times, "even when the sky turns dark we must believe that behind the clouds God's face shines upon us" is an ongoing process for me. To believe God is good even when everything seems to be going wrong.
An amazing illustration of this trust in God at all times:
On May 17, 2007 Barabar's niece had her first daughter. Melody and Brian were overwhelmed with the joy of Eliana's safe arrival. That joy soon turned to fear and sorrow as they watched their 5lb 10oz baby girl slowly dying in her mother's arms. She had a rare metabolic disorder. She couldn't digest her mother's milk and instead converted it into toxins. No child in america had survived this disorder. It is rare that isgoes undiagnosed until it is too late. [Richard Neville] received an email from Brian on May 19, he wrote:

"Eliana is very ill. She has been diagnosed with... a genetic defect.
There is no cure for this disease. Pray that she will respond to treatments and truly be a miracle baby.
God is Good All of the Time.

The last affirmation of faith if the key.
The affirmation of God's goodness is seen in the very beginning... God created everything to be good and his first act after creation was to bless us, and even after we sinned, he was determined to bless us.

I'll end with a quote by Billy Strachan:
"He's so trustable yet I don't think I've ever gotten what I wanted."