God ... will ... mess you UP!

These past few weeks have been weeks of change.

Things in my life have been changing.

They are still changing.

I feel like I’m on a ride at the park.

Can I get off now?

Through all of this change, a concept has been thrown into my face time and time and time and time and time (can you get the picture?) and time again. Even when I tried to skirt around the issue, it still ended up smacking me in the face.

God is involved.

Yeah, yeah, everybody’s heard it since they were kids: God wants to have a part in your life.

Then when you get to the youth group: God doesn’t want a part of your week; He wants all of your life! He wants to be involved in every tiny detail of your life.

As an adult, we’re supposed to tell the kids at church the same blah blah thing.

But do you understand it?

Do you actually live it?

Because here is the rub. Nobody ever explained how God was to get involved in my life. Nobody ever took the time to explain what it might look like to have God involved in my life. So when it started happening—very apparently—a few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure what to make of it all.

It was slightly weird when I first noticed things going … differently. And I had no idea it was God at work. But as the days grew to weeks, God started opening my eyes to what all was happening.

With God at work, involved, in my life, I started to change. (There’s that word again.)

Not change as in morph into some weird creature—some people would say that has already happened. Shut up Terra and Mom!

I started seeing people with a new perspective.

There is always one student in every classroom that is hard to like. Although teachers don’t readily admit it, it is true. I have spent almost five years substitute teaching, four years before that training as a teacher, and a few years before that working with kids… It happens everywhere—church, camp, school, daycare, college, trouble-kids-outreach, etc…

All that kids wants is to be loved.

So when God showed me that, I started praying that God would give me strength and courage and love to love those people.

I started looking at the world with a different understanding.

I have a few friends that are currently annoying the snot out of me! They are either putting on this juvenile boy act, trying to take over my life, or just being stupid far past what is being funny. After “Sharron” and I discussed this, I realized that I was not made to fit in with the people on Earth. I am not supposed to fit in here. There are people on this Earth who God has called for a specific purpose in serving Him, and I am sure that we will build each other up stronger for God. But these other friends who are not living a life that reflects Christ? (They are not saved.) Why should I be bothered that I don’t fit in with them.

Please understand that these two things are two of about ten, and they didn't happen one-two-three. It took time for me to see what God was trying to show me. It took reading my Bible every day, spending time just talking with God, spending time praying for various things going on in the world and close to home. And how I spend time with God and read the Bible are changing because of what God has shown me. 

One quick example. Before God showed me both of the items above, I prayed for the children in my Sunday school group by name. I talked with God about the things I knew they were doing that pleased Him and the things these kids were doing that did not please God. 

But after God started changing me, I started praying differently when I came to Sunday school groups. I started focusing on the whole family in prayer, instead of the child. God told me that I should be praying Psalm 127 instead of "please change them God." God changed how I looked at the annoying things these kids do, and God turned some of it to pity that these kids know no other way to 'do life' than this. God changed me.

God is still changing me.

God can change you.

God can give you a new hope and a new future and a new life.

He can make you a new creation!

Don’t be fooled though: it takes hard work and dedication.

If you think you are a strong man or a tough woman, then I dare you to follow God.

He will change you.

He will make you into someone so much better than you are today.

God will get involved.

And 

it 

will 

mess 

you 

up.

Christmas .... before it was Christmas

Some guy just appears out of no where and tells your fiance that she is now pregnant with the coming savior?
...likely story, right? That's believable isn't it.
...and to top it off, she isn't just going to have a baby. She is going to have "the savior."

You must understand that this "savior" wasn't viewed in the same light we see Him today. Those around Joseph and Mary--namely Herod--didn't view Jesus' birth as the coming of salvation from sin. Those people saw Jesus' birth as the beginning of the end of a revolution against the Romans. The birth of the nation's savior over Rome.
Many, many years ago a family by the name of Maccabees started a revolt. They revolted against Rome because of religious differences, and many people sided with the Maccabees. As guerrilla warfare ensure for year after, the coming of "the savior" sparked fervor into the revolutionaries and fear into the kings and provincial leaders. The names that were prophesied for Jesus were not peaceful names: they were names to invoke fear into the enemy, names that overshadowed weakness, names identical to the names of the kings. Jesus' birth was meant to separate the entire Roman world: "choose you this day who you will serve" just became a whole new thing.
Not a great way to enter the world:
...1. being born to an unwed virgin
...2. taking the name of King Herod
...3. being born into the province with a power crazed king who kills anyone that might think about being powerful

And during the last few weeks of pregnancy, idiot king that he is orders a census to be taken. So Mary has to ride a donkey or walk from their town all the way to Bethlehem. They do say that exercise is good for the pregnant mother and soon to be born child, but come on! Riding a donkey?
When they finally brave the elements, other travelers, and bandits, Bethlehem has no room at the taverns, inns, or even family's houses for Joseph and Mary to rest. These two, surely exhausted, find themselves in a manger (most likely a small cave). Way to go God. Have your one and only Son born in one of the most un-sanitized locations of the farm.
...but why not? Why not have the one and only Savior of the world! be born in a messy place? Jesus came to a messy world, to get messy, to get into trouble for being with un-sanitized people, to rescue everyone and anyone from their mess. Why not start out on the same level as the people you are trying to help? Sounds like a brilliant plan to me.

Once Jesus is born, who are the first people to hear about it? Shepherds. Really? That's the best you could do, God?
God: Who should we tell about my Son being born? Well, who should we tell first?
Angel: Let's tell the towns' people! They will be really excited about it; they are staying in the same town as The Savior!
God: Eh. I was thinking more along the lines of
Angle: Well, how about the people who own the stable? They must be excited that Jesus the Messiah is now living in their stable! Oh how cool would that be!
God: No, I think you should tell the
Angle: Oh! The first person who said that Mary and Joseph can't stay with them. That'll show them that you should always be hospitable.
God: Oh be quiet. I have decided that you all should tell the shepherds first. Yes. Tell the shepherds.
So God sends the angles with all of His glory to freak these shepherds out during the middle of the night! Not just one angel goes to bring great news to these unsuspecting men on the hills outside of Bethlehem. This , this host? this huge group of angels -- I imagine them in white, with wings of gold, floating effortlessly in the midnight blue sky -- singing Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" while the shepherds are there with their eyes all bugged out and their mouths wide open, unsure of what to do or say, perhaps even forgetting to breathe.
As the giant choir vanished in the night sky, I laugh as I think that one of the angels might have had to run back to the shepherds and remind them that they really should go visit this little miracle who will one day save everyone from tyranny.

And that is the real story of Christmas. A new teenage girl, pregnant and unwed, traveling with her fiancee perhaps twice her age, to a town she has never visited while riding on a donkey. She was almost ready to give birth to the promised one who will save the world as she knew it, but did she really understand what that meant? She did understand the danger she and Joseph and her new child were in, being the same province as crazy King Herod and his minions. Mary did understand that naming her child Jesus meant that she was to call Him "savior," the same self-proclaimed name of Herod. Joseph and Mary did know that God was providing for them, but wow! What a whirlwind of God and miracles and craziness.

It was not a silent night in Bethlehem.

Merry Christmas.

5th Period

December 2012

I began a long-term substitute position with high expectations. The teacher was organized and the classes paid attention. Then she left for weeks on end, and I was in charge. It did not go as smoothly as I foresaw.

There were far too many students who stopped working diligently once I arrived in their classroom, however I was unable to see this until after their nine-weeks’ exam. I had a headache after I graded those tests because of all the poor grades.

You must understand that I have an incredible desire that every student learn. I honestly believe that every student is capable of learning. The problem lies in getting the students to believe they are intelligent enough to learn what is being taught and getting that knowledge onto paper. Of course, having the state “assess” teachers based on their students’ test scores added a little to my anxiety: almost 25% of these students failed. *Please do not think that the full-time teacher did not do her best to educate these students; this is just how these students feel and act towards education and school.*

God was with me through all of this, because after talking with another teacher about the test results I found out that the results this year were considered normal for this particular group of students. God knows how to calm someone down alright. But He also brought to mind that letting them fail was not an option, so I busted my butt to help them understand all the material we covered after that huge assessment.

God provided again and again throughout the weeks when the regular teacher was absent. Patience, calm, insights, understanding, humility, alertness, tolerance for idiotic words and actions, etc… God provided it all. 

The most amazing and easy to see God working was during the time of 5^th period.

God gave me such an attitude that even though almost all of these kids did not want to learn, their comprehension was easily equal to the classes of eager students! It was all God too. I am an effective teacher, I would like to think, but without God’s amazing spirit and attitude filling me during 5^th period those students would not have passed the second nine-weeks.

God is worthy of our praise even when we can’t see His works, but even more so when He lets us in on what He is doing.

--Me