Memorial Day

We had a Cook Out at the Cedars for Memorial Day! Everyone had a great time!

A Poor Widow Changes the World

The other day, I was reading Mark 12:41 and couldn't seem to move on in my readings. So, I kept reading and reading and reading Mark 12:41- 44, multiple times. I can't say I have any “special enlightenment”, but I really love the fact that "Jesus sat down opposite of the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd put their money into the temple treasury". He just sat there and watched them. That's one of my favorite things to do.... sit and watch people. Its kind of neat that Jesus sat and watched people. It shows his personhood. Sometimes, we make Jesus this miracle-man who floats about two-inches above the ground. The fact that he sat and watched makes me feel identified with and that is a miracle in itself.

The story goes on, rich people put large amounts of money into the temple treasury and the poor widow put in a fraction of a penny. A fraction of a penny! Sometimes I throw pennies away because they annoy me---I decided not to throw them away anymore since a fraction of a penny has contributed to history in many ways (I will explain). ;) Anyways, Jesus says, the rich "gave out of their wealth; but she [the widow], out of her poverty, put in everything--- all she had to live on." Her very livelihood she put into the temple treasury.

The thing that gets me is that she put the money into the temple treasury. If I recall, Jesus wasn’t exactly excited about the happenings in the temple, so giving to the temple treasury doesn't seem to be his focus, rather, the hearts of men (and women) as they gave. The widow's heart gave to the treasury, not out of obligation or "shoulds" or out of wealth, but rather with her heart. She gave to God with her whole heart while the rich gave of their excess and duties. I’d like to raise my hand and say, “I want to be like the widow”-- to offer my livelihood to Jesus. I don’t’ want to hold onto a piece of myself, but rather I want to throw my life and heart at his feet. This is another example of dependency. Who are we depending on to provide for our lives? Are we storing our treasures in barns out of fear or are we giving with our hearts in confidence that God is our sufficiency?

As I talked about this particular passage of scripture with Bart, he told me that he just had a conversation with Doug about this very passage. Perfect. I asked him what Doug said and he had the most interesting insight. In fact, I was a little perturbed that I didn’t have the same insight. I got over it though and marveled at Doug’s ability to look at scripture and come away with an incredible understanding. Doug said, the interesting thing about the poor widow who gave a fraction of a penny is that she has raised the most money in history. Think about it. How many times have you heard this passage in church, Bible Studies and other services? This story has touched hearts all over the world, throughout the centuries, all because Jesus mentions her heart in the Bible and her fraction of a penny. She has helped to raise billions of dollars.

This kind of stuff is super neat to think about. Its amazing to think the status of my heart could contribute to history in a very tangible, legitimate way and this is not because of me, rather because of Jesus who is watching. He takes my heart, my little livelihood and can make much!

The Rich Young Ruler

Thoughts on the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17-29

The young man asks Jesus what he should do to inherit the kingdom and Jesus lists a bunch of commandments. Then, the young man replies, "I have done all these things."
Then, Jesus looks at him with love and says, "One thing you lack, go and sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come follow me."

The young man walked away sad because he had great wealth. Jesus tells his disciples, "It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom than a camel to go through the eye of a needle."

I think about this parable a lot because I don't think its so much about money, rather its about self-sufficiency. We depend on ourselves to get through life, but Jesus is asking us to depend only upon him. When I think of the rich young man, I think he walked away not because he loved all his stuff, but because it become his security, his adequacy and a reminder that he was sufficient. These are the things we must shed in order to follow Jesus because HE alone desires to be our security, our adequacy and our sufficiency. Jesus says, "it is hard to enter the Kingdom"-- which means, it is hard! But, I think the reward is greater than we know if we shed all of our self-sufficiency's.

Can My Face Look Any Fatter?

All of these pics display fat on my face. That stinks!
Its funny though.
The pics with David and Nichole are obviously taken from a bad angle, plus, how can you look good next to two amazingly good looking people?
Last weekend, I met Nichole (David Lim's Girlfriend). She is awesome! Love her! She also cut my hair and it looks dang good!








This is a pic of Megan, Jon and me--- another example of my face fat, but our Harley shirts are awesome!




Other pics:

A Professor's Post and a Child's Eyes

My professor wrote the follwing story in one of his papers-- I love the thoughts and words of his little girl.

My eldest daughter Natalya, six years old, came to me recently and sat on my lap while I was typing at the computer.
"Can I write a story?" she said. "You type it in, Daddy".
"Sure", I said, and holding her I typed the words. This is what she said:
"And sparkles came out of her eyes. And then she looked out the window and darkness clouds came out of the sky and then the next morning the sun came out and she was surprised, and she glimmered in beauty and long hair, she became the beautifullest, prettiest girl in town".

I am reminded of Jesus words, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." We are to accept, hope and dream like children. Little children look past age, race, gender, and capabilities-- they see things pure and beautiful. Next time you see a child watch them-- their imaginations, their playfulness, their over-exaggerated emotions, their fear of discipline when they've been naughty, their eagerness to learn, observe and explore. Easily molded and impacted by the tiniest things. Its amazing! So care free, so focused on the moment, and engaged in the here & now.

I pray to become like a little child in my spirit and in the ways I see people.

Good Times with Meg and Jon!

Distance Magnifies Love

This past weekend, Two of my most favorite people in the world came to visit. The time we spent together will forever be treasured in my heart. At times, I despise the geographical distance between my family and me, but somehow the distance magnifies my love for them. Each moment I am with them, I realize the true gift of being together. This morning I woke up next to my sister and stared at her face; cherishing every line and every feature her face has imprinted upon it. It's a face I haven't seen nearly enough this past year. It's a face that I will hold dear to my heart for the rest of my life.
This past year, I have said goodbye to my sister many times and as we give each other our goodbye hugs, we cry, holding each other and wishing the moment of departure were not upon us. I watched as she and Jon faded into the chaos of the airport. Megan turned one last time to wave and my eyes took a snap shot of her to hold in my head for my car drive home. By the way, driving with tear filled eyes is not good-- I discovered this as I nearly merged into the car next to me. I came home to my empty room and cried some more. When your heart feels sad, you begin to wonder a lot of things. What am I doing here? Why am I living on the opposite side of the US? Has God really placed me here for a reason? I have to answer, yes. I sense with my spirit that I am supposed to be out here for now, but it doesn't relieve the void I feel right now. I am filled with hope to know that I will see clearly as time goes on as to why I am so far away from my family. In fact, there are glimpses here and there, but I am sure there is a larger view that I just don't see right now.
This is a sad post. I will share the fun stuff later-- after I am done being sad. ;)

I Wonder Why

This morning I continued to read Mark 8. In this passage, Jesus restores sight to a blind man.

22They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"
24He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around."

25Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26Jesus sent him home, saying, "Don't go into the village.[a]"

Today, I will walk around wondering about the following:

1) Why did Jesus spit, yes spit (ew) in the man's eyes? He could have touched him like the people asked, but he decided to spit! Why?
2) Why did Jesus gradually heal this man instead of healing him all at once? Moreover, why did the blind man see people that looked like trees walking around? Is there something significant to that?
3) When the, now, partially blind man was touched a second time, why didn't Jesus spit on his eyes again? He just touched him-- no spitting required. Interesting-- why? Also, why does Jesus ask if the man can see? Doesn't he know the man can't see yet?
4) Why did Jesus not want the man to go to the village? Was it because all the villagers would see that the blind man was healed and then chase Jesus down to either 1) kill Jesus or 2) ask him perform more healings? Did he not want to be known yet? Maybe he didn't want to be bugged?

Speaking of being bugged, the other night Doug Coe said, if we are the light of the world, then all the bugs of the world will be attracted to us. Which gave me understanding as to why I always have interesting encounters with rather odd people. ahahaha! I thought it was the greatest analogy. And I hope we are all being bugged!

Short Sighted

This morning I read Mark 8-- Jesus feeds four thousand people on seven loaves of bread. There are a few things about this story that strike me as particularly stunning about Jesus.

1) Jesus knows our needs and has compassion on his people-
After three days of teaching and sharing his life with people, he realizes the people must be hungry. He is filled with compassion and decides to feed them.

2) Jesus takes a little and makes a lot-
Jesus asks the disciples how many loaves of bread there are and they respond with, "seven". No doubt they are thinking, "lets get out of here with our seven loaves". But Jesus takes the seven loaves and begins to distribute. Oh wait! There's a few fish too! By the time all the food is distributed, there are left overs in the basket. Hello! Jesus takes a little and makes a lot!

3) Jesus knows his people are short-sighted, but he loves us anyway--
Further along in Mark 8, the disciples have a quivel over having only one loaf of bread. Jesus interrupts and says "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are you hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember? When I broke five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketful pieces did you pick up?"

Earlier, in Mark 6, Jesus had fed five thousand with five loaves. He did it again in Mark 8--- we are a short sighted people. When Jesus confronts the disciples about their trust and their short sightedness, he asks questions relating to understanding, condition of the heart, sight, hearing, and remembering His goodness. I want to seek those things and remember we serve an attentive, compassionate, faithful and trustworthy God. He knows and has the sight to see what we often fall short in seeing.

Desire

In light of my recent post about dreams, I have been thinking about desires. God gives us desires and dreams, however when those desires become the object of our motivation we begin to follow a false god. How do we live with our desires and dreams, yet submit to God? There seems to be a fine line in experiencing the freedom of our dreams and desires and submitting to the ways of a sovereign God.

Henri Nouwen offers some insights to the dynamics our desires, "Our desire for God is the desire that should guide all other desires. Otherwise our bodies, minds, hearts and souls become one another's enemies and our inner lives become chaotic, leading us to despair and self-destruction" (The Only Necessary Thing, p. 28). After reading a thought like this, we may decide to aim all our energies towards ridding ourselves of desires other than God, however Nouwen offers the thought of spiritual disciplines as a way to order our lives.

"Spiritual disciplines are not ways to eradicate all our desires but ways to order them so that they can serve one another and together serve God." Nouwen's thoughts on desire and spiritual discpline have challenged me to walk through my desires and ask the Lord for them to be aligned with his desires for my life. This is a discipline, not an eradication. Disciplines submits, while eradication controls. Submission softens us to the voice of God, while control hardens us to the leading of the Spirit of Jesus.

My Next Door Neighbors

The Wood's, my next door neighbors from Torrance, CA, came to visit me last week. We had a great time! I loved every moment we spent together. It's fun to think we've known each other since we were two-years old. Jonny and I reminisced about riding big wheels down steep hills, jumping fences to get candy from 7-11, and playing basketball-- shooting HORSE from the top of my roof.
Here we are all grown- up, but kids at heart!

Living the Dream

In the midst of work, friends, errands, bible studies and school it becomes easy to neglect the deepest longings of our heart and soul. They are longings that none of us can pinpoint or describe; they are pangs in our heart; senses of something more, something grand, something we need, but can’t grasp. These feelings arise at unexplainable and unexpected times. During certain seasons of our life we may feel detached from the deep longings, they become seemingly distant memories. But, sometimes the feelings are so real that we choose not to acknowledge them because... what do we do with these indescribable feelings anyway? Out of fear, we neglect our feelings because they can’t be put in a box. If the feelings were to unleash then we may not be able to control them. So, most people will simply greet the feelings for a moment; maybe get a warm fuzzy feeling of inspiration or possibly a deep saddening of reality......But, “Life goes on”. The years go by and there are moments in which we catch glimpses of these longings, but we usually just think of them as a “crazy thought” and continue “life”.

I have come to know these longings as the inner voice of love beckoning us to walk in the something more. The glimpses of something bigger are the dreams that God dreams for us. They are the dreams God has written on our heart. We yearn to walk in them, whether we acknowledge that or not. Are we too fearful to walk in them? What would happen if we were to become familiar with those feelings, the desires, the grand dreams?
What would happen if we did NOT let them pass us by?

Bachelorette Party

My friends, Angela Tricerri and Chris Bouma, are getting married in Santa Barbara next weekend. We celebrated this past weekend! It was SOOOOO fun and memorable. We wore old, tacky, embarassing dresses---

Tuesday Gathering at the Tarman's

On Tuesday nights we host a gathering for the younger people in our community. For six weeks we are discussing Jesus and community. So far, the first two weeks have been amazing!


This is my roommate, Belen, and her fiancee, Jared. They got engaged this last Friday! I love them-- they're awesome!