traveling

This has been my second time traveling this year. I know many people have been to many places and there are some who have never flown to another country or let alone flown at all. But traveling to places where affection is built due to memories of friends, missions, and just a community of wonderful people like in Ghana I feel many pieces of me long for those places. (Visiting for merely sight-seeing is a little different.) The world seems smaller and at the same time bigger. Going to New York probably for the fourth time in my life, I feel NY less distant now that I have friends there. It is less foreign. Yet the world is bigger because I learn that there are so so many different kinds of people.
And what I hope it causes me to think is that whether I have control over my situation or not, God is bigger. He is sovereign over all.

Thankful for my time with three of my closest friends and my brother and his girlfriend. What a trip.

"Interestingly, the early church presented Noah's ark as a symbol of Christ. Some of the earliest drawings of Christ are representations of an ark affixed to a cross indicating that Christ is our ark. He is the vessel of mercy that we, once inside, can safely ride through the floods of God's judgment. God has always been merciful, and never more so than by giving himself in Christ. Our only hope is God's mercy. As Christians, we have no ground for pride. We have sinned against God and are morally bankrupt. We have completely spent our small resources and now cannot provide for our most basic spiritual needs. We are entirely dependent upon God's mercy and grace for salvation. This is why the cross of Christ must always be at the center of our worship, whether public or private."
The Message of the Old Testament by Mark Dever

A series on singleness and but also many insightful things for just life. Listen whether you are single or not.

http://new.livestream.com/redeemer-nyc/single

One quote almost verbatim by Kathy Keller:
Sometimes the most crushing things like singlness or illness is that it may be lifelong. We look down this bleak corridor of years and say we cannot do it, etc. But the good news is that we don’t have to. We only have to take a day size chunk at a time. God gives us His grace. He upholds His presence just for the day. Jesus says that the day has its troubles of its own(?)
What God won’t do is enter our the dark imagination of worse nightmare and give hypothetical grace for you to see how well God will be taking care of you ten twenty years. God doesn’t play that game. If you want to imagine your life what you think it might be, you’re imagining it without the presence of God that will be there if you get there. If you get there He is already there waiting. But while you’re doing the whole imagination He is not in that.

Betsy Childs – God doesn’t hand out grace in a life time supply but given it to each day. If you feel you do not have the grace for your whole life, is because you weren’t given it yet.
He won’t give what you want/need until you need it.



Some of my other notes probably from Tim Keller:If we beat ourselves with how we aren’t married we’re putting selves in idolatry of traditional culture. Then if we have sex or live selfishly, we are in the idolatry of western world.
Greatest lie serpent said was that if we obey God we are missing out.Resisting doesn’t mean repression and ignoring. But it takes understanding it to have that self-control.If your marriage is “Good” you may not be going to Christ as much. The goal is the wedding supper at the end.Then if we have sex or live selfishly, we are in the idolatry of western world.Sex can even ruin friendships because it builds a character of selfishness when it occurs outside of marriage or even as masturbation.We lie in thinking God doesn’t love us much and that we love God much.

kid talk

kids say the funniest things. here are some things i remember from church, work, and just in life -

me: here have some water
kid: i'm full (leans back in chair and holds stomach). do you have some cookies?

we sing nursery rhymes at work with the kids
me: what's your favorite song?
kid: hey hum ho
me: err... a hey a hum a ho??
we ask dad later what she meant. she liked the song by lumineers "ho hey"

kid coming in late marching: sorry i'm earllyy

adult: do you want to play the ipad while we wait for your parents?
kid: no, do you have bubbles?
(i love bubbles therefore i love this kid)

kid says to me: you look like you came from the zoo
(because i was wearing a button down olive green polo shirt)

that's it for now... i'll think of more