Hearts Prone to Negligence from Multiply on Vimeo.

Dusk in the Treestand

Accessorising

Holding the Mystery

As I've made my way through life and seen the spiritual journeys of various individuals, it seems to me that many people who have grown up in the church and been indoctrinated with a certain view of God may (and often do) have a difficult time when the inevitable hard questions about God arise. This has just been my own limited observation, but it has been repeated often enough that it causes me to ask, "why is this?" I wonder if it could be that after years of learning about the nature and character of God, we so self-identify with our views of Him or our interpretation of Scripture that if anything upsets that viewpoint, we tend to experience anything from a tremor to a full-blown seismic shift in the foundation of our faith. Is this the reason that most people either never leave the faith of their upbringing, or they fall away completely if their familiar paradigm of reality gets shaken? From my vantage point, both for good and for evil, this does seem to be a major aspect of human nature. 

The irony is that our views or beliefs about God do not diminish, change or affect who God is one tiny iota. God is who He is, and it is up to us as His creation to "seek His face", regardless of how entrenched or comfortable we are in our beliefs and pre-conceived notions. God never conforms Himself to what we want or need Him to be. Rather, it is incumbent upon us all to let God lead us through the same "letting go" of our previously held ideas of Him that many of our brothers and sisters in Scripture had to endure. Simply put, God gets to define Himself to us on His own terms. And by His ordained plan, this only truly happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to speak and impress on us who God is as He comes to us through the truth of His Word. The "putting off the old man and putting on the new man" spoken of in Ephesians does not mean only putting sin to death in our lives, but also allowing God to reveal Himself to us as He truly is.

My earnest desire is for my children to grow up in God's Church and know their Creator from a very early age. We pray with them every night that God would grant them hearts of repentance and give them a holy hunger to seek out what only He can satisfy. But I also pray that, by the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit, who alone reveals Christ to the sinner, that I will leave just enough 'breathing room' in how I herald the Gospel for them to allow for the mystery of salvation to weigh on them, so that they might seek to know God in Christ, not as I did, but as He wills that they do. 

This is a primary difference between our Abba Father, who desires an intimate, personal relationship with His children, and the other "gods" of the world, whose followers are so enslaved in their false beliefs and so threatened by anything that may upset those beliefs that they often feel the need to defend the name of their human-imagined deities with the sword. As a father, I desire that my children grow to know a God that does not need to be defended, who is not de-throned by the big, difficult questions, and whose sovereign eye looks at the nations of the world as merely "dust in the scales"; and yet who, by a mystery too wonderful to comprehend, knows their "rising up and their laying down".  This is the Almighty Abba-Jehovah of Scripture, who we cling to, because He is our Salvation and our treasure, and yet who we must simultaneously hold loosely, because He is the uncreated One, who will not be contained.   Eph. 1:16-18

God's Glory in Marriage

The Perfect Storm

"Our ideal, our picture, our model, is Jesus Christ. We want to become like him. We want to be shaped and molded like him. We want to be a servant like he is a servant. We want to consider others better than ourselves as he considered others better than himself, despite the fact he was God. We want to live sacrificially. We want to give joyfully. We want to lay down our lives for the good of the glory of God.

This is our self-ideal, and you will fall woefully short of it, and you will be aware that you fall woefully short of it, on repeat. Yet the grace of God and the delight of God and the justification of God in Jesus Christ anchor our hearts in this place where guilt and shame don't lead us to fear and anxiety, don't lead us to anger and abuse, don't lead us to lustful intent, but rather has an ever-increasing joy in our Father who delights in us despite us, so that when we fall short, it will actually serve to stoke the fire of delight in God.

Then we get in a perfect storm where grace feeds passion that feeds grace that feeds passion that feeds grace that feeds passion, and that's where we'll be stuck, and those are good waters to be stuck in."  -Matt Chandler

At the Madison Zoo

Act Like Men

Why the Act Like Men Conference Video from Harvest Bible Chapel 1 on Vimeo.

TREVIN WAX|6:36 PM CT

I Weep for Miley

Picking up a sub sandwich today, I saw a news report on CNN about Miley Cyrus’ performance at last night’s VMA’s. I was shocked, then sickened, then saddened.

For the rest of the day, I wondered:

What kind of people are we?

What kind of culture have we created?

What do we want our children to be?

No more wondering. Tonight, I weep.

I weep for the little girl who gave us Hannah Montana and became a role model to millions of little girls across America.

I weep for the lostness of a girl who doesn’t see herself stumbling around in the dark.

I weep for the news channels that profit from their all-day coverage of a young woman spiraling out of control.

I weep for the American Idol culture that promises glitter and gold to children, then chews them up and spits them out.

I weep for an entertainment culture that celebrates the breaking of every social taboo and the casting off of every restraint, only then to turn and mock the stars that follow suit.

I weep for a tabloid culture that finds celebrity gossip and embarrassing moments titillating.

I weep for women enslaved by a false view of sexual liberation.

I weep for men (myself included) who have failed to say, “Enough is enough.”

I weep for all the times I’ve looked at women as objects and failed to see them as someone’s sisters and daughters.

I weep for the fathers of Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Madonna, and all the family members of all the other women who feel they have to sexualize themselves to achieve success.

I weep for my five-year-old little girl, who twirls around like a princess and hugs me tight at night, when I think of the world she is growing up in, the world I will send her into.

I weep for the broken, messed-up world we live in.

But then I weep at the power of grace.

There’s Jesus, lifting the head of a woman of the night and sending her away into the light. There’s Jesus in a crowd, healing a woman desperately trying to cover the shame. There’s Jesus at the well, transforming a woman tossed aside by multiple men.

Weeping is no longer enough. Now, I pray.

Coffeetable Crossings

Birthday Fun

Yesterday, we celebrated our little boy's 3rd birthday. After a nice birthday breakfast, we headed out to the Illinois Railway Museum and enjoyed their annual "Day Out with Thomas" event. Both kids are big fans of the Thomas the Train, and among the many things to see and do at this event, we all got to ride a full scale, 10 car passenger train pulled by the REAL Thomas! We also toured old train cars, took a separate train into the country in a 101 year-old Chicago passenger car, got Thomas tattoos, viewed old train artifacts and enjoyed the enthusiasm of thousands of other young Thomas fans. Cake and presents came late at the end of a long day, but we enjoyed every minute and went to sleep with hearts filled with gratitude. The joy we've experienced by watching Izaiah grow and thrive these last 2 years has been a blessing beyond words. As he now begins to talk and express himself in new ways every day, we echo the words of the Apostle Paul, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth". Blessed be His Name. Happy birthday Izaiah Qing Eugene!! Being your mommy and daddy feels too good to be true. You are a gift straight from above.

At the Ballpark

Seeing Differently

Photographer Sees Beyond Disabilities and Redefines Beauty from anberlin_fan on GodTube.

Little Man Down

Blindsided by God …

An amazing testimony about coming to terms with our view of God in seasons of suffering.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/july-august/peter-chin-blindsided-by-god.html?paging=off#bmb=1


Sent from my iPhone

Bedazzled!!

Ice Cream!!!

An ice cream truck has been making it's way through our neighborhood lately. Lily knew exactly what it was the 2nd time it came by!!

Fun with Friends

Counting

Note that he's the one leading, we're only repeating. These sounds, although they may sound garbled to some, are a huge breakthrough and show us that Izaiah is finally learning to mimic what he hears and, in this case, what he learns and memorizes.

Motorboy

Family Update

It's been a while since we've posted here. We've just returned from our first official family vacation. We spent a full week in the beautiful Northwoods of Wisconsin and it was absolutely wonderful. We stayed in a lovely lakeside home in Lake Tomahawk, where we fished (Lily loved it; Izaiah was undecided), hiked, visited a zoo, went pony trail riding, ate too much, hung out with bald eagles and just generally relaxed and enjoyed tons of time together. On Friday, June 28th we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary, which made this trip extra special for us. July 4th was spent in the tourist town of Minocqua, where we enjoyed a great parade, went to a ski show and finished out the long day watching fireworks. It was a wonderful trip, but as always, it's good to be back home. Both kids continue to amaze us every day. Izaiah is starting to sound out words and his joyful personality is blooming before our eyes. Lily is the power plant at the center of our home. Her energy and vitality are what makes parenting that unique joy that keeps us both moving and active! She is a doting sister who shows incredible attention to detail and a love for books and learning. We'll try to update more often, but time flies and days roll by at breakneck speed. We're learning to live in the moment and enjoy these precious days that God gives, but which disappear woefully fast.

Love to all,

EnJ