A Brother's Love

My feet still trod this darkened path

In vines and chords entangled

Through thickened air the demons laugh

My plight, my pain, my sadness

These are my friends tonight 

In gloomy night I stand alone

Surrounded by my family

With trembling heart I see the bones

Of those who found no pardon

How could the stories long ago

Say this was once a garden? 

I touch a tree with sides still wet

Look at my hand now dripping red

These drops of blood are not my own

Yet I can find no flesh or bones

A bloody trail leads down a path

My heart drops to my stomach

Though fear excels, yet I press on

The wind blows gently forward

Into a cave it leads me down

Shows me the nails and thorny crown

Shows me a man with man’s blood stained

The marks of one who just was slain

Through pain-struck tears and smiling gaze

He proudly calls me brother

I look at him, “Can this be true?

We do not share a mother”

He holds my hand to lead me out

“I’ll take you to our Father's house

I made this world; I hold it up

This place was once a garden

The son of man became corrupt

His sons have found no pardon

I came into the world I made

To finish what I started

Now I am making all things new

The demons laughed, but if they knew

My plight, my pain, my sadness

Now comfort you tonight

Through tear-filled eyes I ask him “Why?”

He says “Because I love you.”

Mercy at the Fall

The Lord warned Adam & Eve that the day in which they ate the forbidden fruit, they would surely die. Despite all of the goodness and favor God had given to them in the garden, Adam & Eve reached out and snatched the forbidden fruit. In a moment of sheer panic, shame and guilt surged through their bodies. It must have felt as if they were standing in a crowded place and all at once their clothes were stripped off. Blameless innocence was now a blissful memory. In this moment, there was no peace; there was no bliss.

The presence of God, which yesterday brought comfort and peace, now brought the impending judgment from which they hid. 

But see here the patience and mercy of God. He did not approach in a pillar of fire and thunder to smite them for their sin; rather he came walking in the cool of the day. He did not (justly) pronounce accusations and condemnation on them; rather he asked them questions and allowed them to respond. However, they did not choose their words very wisely, but acted in line with their recently acquired sin-nature. Even God's curses were better than the death they deserved. And even the pronouncment of painful childbirth anticipated the children they would later receive. 

Behold the mercy of God in that before he uttered a single curse to Adam or Eve, He promised to crush the seed of the serpent through the seed of the woman. God spoke this promise knowing that it would cost him the life of his Son, Jesus Christ, in order to keep it. Yet the Lord gave mercy. But he did not overlook their sin or sweep it under a rug. From the first few pages of Scripture, it is clear that God is willing to pay the full price for our sin in order to be both merciful and holy. 

Thanks be to God. 

What I Want To Do After Graduating

What do you want to do when you move back to IL this summer? 

Ah! The graduation question! I'm stunned by your novelty.... I think questions like this are usually fishing for "What job will you look for? Will you go to seminary? Or other schooling? etc." Usually I want to answer with big items like these. But if I start answering honestly, it may look more like this . . .

I want to spend time with my family. I want to "meet" some of my younger siblings (maybe even influence their lives, and/or be influenced by them). I want to spend time hanging out with my recently widowed grandma. I want to get involved in a disabilities ministry with Amy (maybe even start one). I want to get plugged in as a regular member of a small-town church. I want to serve homeless people in St. Louis, build relationships, share the gospel. I want to get to know my best friend Emily a little better. I want to get to know my family's friends better, and Emily's family/friends. I want to rekindle old friendships, start new ones, mend damaged ones. I want to see small churches in southern IL strengthened individually, holding hands corporately, and serving Christ globally. I want to spend time with my twin before he moves to Minot, North Dakota. I want to learn how to lead a family by watching my parents who have like 25 years of experience. I want to be a better son, better brother, better boyfriend, and a better grandson. I want to read, write, study, teach, and learn about God and his wonderful-yet-broken-world. I want to glorify God in the little things, serve his church, love my family, and bless the world. 

Oh . . . and of course in order to do these things I'll also need to find a sustainable job. But that's not the answer to your question. That not what I want to do when I move back to IL, it's what I have to do. 

"Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to." –Cicero (Gladiator)

Sometimes our questions ask for what is objectively important in someone's life, but good questions pry for what someone actually values. 

Chesterton: "Do it Again"

“Do it Again”

The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning, but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun, and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

~ G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2009), 91-92

10 Teaching Principles

1. Pray before the lesson. If God doesn't work, nothing good will come of it. 
2. Always have a story or a picture or a picture to talk about. Humans are visual learners. God made Isaiah walk around naked for three years just to add a picture to the point (Is 20). 
3. Teach close enough to the passage that when they read it for themselves, they'll remember your lesson. 
4. Never open your mouth just to make the lesson longer. People appreciate a teacher who acknowledges when they've said what they came to say. 
5. Driving home one point is better than making 10 points that will be quickly forgotten. 
6. Sometimes Bible lessons aren't as much about clarifying or explaining a truth as they are about allowing people the time to ponder, love, and apply the truth they already affirm.
7. Learn to live with silence. If God is working, your hearers will be thinking about the lesson during those awkward blank spots.
8. When you don't know what more to say, read the next verse. 
9. Focus less of your attention on "how well you are teaching" and place most of your focus on the glories of the message. 
10. Teach your passion. If you're not excited, they won't be.