Philippians 4:11-12
American society discourages contentment. Instead ads tell you that you won't be happy without a certain hair product, and magazines tell you you'll be beautiful...once you buy a certain make up, and commercials say that your life could be so much better if you shopped at this-and-such a place.
Our society drives us to be "successful". We're told to climb the ladder of success, to make more money, to enjoy a higher and higher standard of living. We're expected to want more and want more and want more after that. The vicious cycle is meant to create an environment of discontent.
Admit it, you've thought that something, material or otherwise, will cause you to finally be happy, or that if some desire, if only fulfilled, would allow you to be content. "I'll be happy once I get that shirt" or "I'll be happy once I get those grades". "I'll be happy when my parents let me get texting" or "I'll be happy once I know where I'm accepted to college" I'm sure some of this sounds familiar.
Contentment isn't something I spend a lot of time thinking about or trying to achieve. A lot (And I mean a LOT) of my high school experience was about getting in and going off to college, not about enjoying the moment. It was always about getting the 'A', and adding to my resume, and improving my test scores.
During my senior year I finally slowed down enough to realize I mas missing the moments I ought to be savoring. I was always on to the next thing and accomplishing the next goal without taking time to be happy with where I was right then. I never said it out loud, but looking back I know I thought I'd be happy as a year older, happier as a senior, happier graduated, happier moved out, happier in college, happier...later.
Paul in Philippians 4 talks a little bit about being content in every situation. He says that he knows what it's like to want for things and he knows what it's like to have everything he wants, but no matter the situation he is content. He's saying that it doesn't matter where you are in your life there's things to be thankful for, reasons to be happy, moments in which to be content. It's not about being happy someday, it's about learning to be content in the right now.
Hebrews 13:5 says "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have." If Hebrews had been written today the author may have said "Live your life free from the desire for more and be happy with your life right now."
It's not soething to think twice about. Think once, agree, and enjoy. God's given you permission, practically commanded you to be happy, so... remind me why we shouldn't?
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
You're Using a Power Drill to Mix Red Velvet Cake Batter?
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
Paul talks about the importance of keeping your body pure. Not for the sake of smelling awesome of having a cavity-free smile, or having good hygiene. He says in verse 13, "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord." So sinning sexually means you're actually misusing your body, like you read the manual wrong and you look like an idiot when you use your power drill to mix cake batter. It means when you think lustfully or desire someone's body, you are misusing that power drill.
In fact, this power drill belongs to someone else and the red velvet cake you just mixed with it ruined the bit, the mechanishm, and it's splattered with cake batter. Okay, maybe I wore out this metaphor?
Look. The point is that if you're borrowing someone else's property, you better be sure you're using it properly, you'd better treat it with respect and handle it carefully. And you'd better return it in the same condition that you received it in.
In verse 15 Paul says, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?" Don't think of your body as your own, first of all. Second of all, don't give your borrowed body over to sin. Imagine you're borrowing a man's wife for the weekend. would you have her sleep with another man? No!
God is timeless, he is everywhere at once. That means he's outside of time and he sees us at children, as teens, and as adults at the same time. Instead of a timeline he sees one dot and inside that dot is the entire history of the universe. That means that to God, you're already married. When you kiss or give your body to another person who's not your spouse, you're doing that while married. That's how God sees it. You're married sometime down the road, so don't go giving your body to some other dude, or five other dudes for that matter.
I'm not saying that dating is necessarily bad, or that you're going to hell for kissing someone, or even for having a steamy makeout session. All I'm saying is that you might think twice about doing any of that with some who you don't think you'll be marrying any time soon. It's just something to keep in mind that your body is God's first, and that you might want to read the manual and take care of it with respect.
How you treat yourself sets the standard for others.
Paul talks about the importance of keeping your body pure. Not for the sake of smelling awesome of having a cavity-free smile, or having good hygiene. He says in verse 13, "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord." So sinning sexually means you're actually misusing your body, like you read the manual wrong and you look like an idiot when you use your power drill to mix cake batter. It means when you think lustfully or desire someone's body, you are misusing that power drill.
In fact, this power drill belongs to someone else and the red velvet cake you just mixed with it ruined the bit, the mechanishm, and it's splattered with cake batter. Okay, maybe I wore out this metaphor?
Look. The point is that if you're borrowing someone else's property, you better be sure you're using it properly, you'd better treat it with respect and handle it carefully. And you'd better return it in the same condition that you received it in.
In verse 15 Paul says, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?" Don't think of your body as your own, first of all. Second of all, don't give your borrowed body over to sin. Imagine you're borrowing a man's wife for the weekend. would you have her sleep with another man? No!
God is timeless, he is everywhere at once. That means he's outside of time and he sees us at children, as teens, and as adults at the same time. Instead of a timeline he sees one dot and inside that dot is the entire history of the universe. That means that to God, you're already married. When you kiss or give your body to another person who's not your spouse, you're doing that while married. That's how God sees it. You're married sometime down the road, so don't go giving your body to some other dude, or five other dudes for that matter.
I'm not saying that dating is necessarily bad, or that you're going to hell for kissing someone, or even for having a steamy makeout session. All I'm saying is that you might think twice about doing any of that with some who you don't think you'll be marrying any time soon. It's just something to keep in mind that your body is God's first, and that you might want to read the manual and take care of it with respect.
How you treat yourself sets the standard for others.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Take a Break!
It certainly would have been nice to take a break, but the counselors were busy. The kitchen staff kids on the other hand were not. I'm not sure I ever actually saw them doing dishes. Strange...anyway. The CITs who moved up this year gave the kitchen kids a hard time because they didn't work as hard this year.
At the end of the week the kitchen staff did their skit and it was a parody of Lonely Island's Like a Boss, with Seth Rogen and Andy Samburg. They replaced "like a boss" with "take a break" and performed it with much hilarity ensuing.
The song included lines like this: "chase some deer (take a break!) go canoeing (take a break!) take a nap (take a break!) hide from John (take a break) it's 3 o'clock (take a break) Dan wakes up (take a break!) eat some gushers (take a break!)
Very funny
At the end of the week the kitchen staff did their skit and it was a parody of Lonely Island's Like a Boss, with Seth Rogen and Andy Samburg. They replaced "like a boss" with "take a break" and performed it with much hilarity ensuing.
The song included lines like this: "chase some deer (take a break!) go canoeing (take a break!) take a nap (take a break!) hide from John (take a break) it's 3 o'clock (take a break) Dan wakes up (take a break!) eat some gushers (take a break!)
Very funny
Bee Attack at Camp
Unfortunately for us girls, the sand bees had moved into new holes. Right under the clothes line outside the girl's bathroom. It was hot that day, so naturally everyone had been swimming in the lake. After that, they laid out their towels on and beside the clothesline. Sooo...when they went to pick up their towels later in the evening, the girls discovered in a not so pleasant way that they'd placed their towels over the entrances to a giant bee hive underground. And all the bees inside the beehive were angry that they were trapped inside. Very angry.Talk about mass chaos.
Kids were running and screaming, bees were everywhere, campers were crying. Tikes. One of my campers was stung and bitten. (Notice the giant biting jaws on that bee above and think about those jaws ripping out chunks of skin. Ow? uh, yeah.) From then on my entire cabin was terrified of bees. I never told them we had a wasps nest directly above our door.
Well, some of the upper staff joined together to create a Bee Eradication Force, and sprayed the entire are for bees, and filled in all the holes, and ran in a panic from any buzzing noises they heard. After an entire day of the BEF eradicating all the bees, the problem was taken care of.
Or so we thought.
A couple days later the power went out. The camp is supplied electricity by an underground power cable. The rangers may not have believed us, but we know it was the bees. Those angry angry bees trapped underground got back at us for spraying them.
Notes from Sam's Messages
It's really easy to sit back and think you're a Christian, when you're not.
A lot of times, especially in America, kids are raised in the church, or raised to believe in God, and they think they're set. They call themselves born again Christians, and they've heard Bible stories, and they understand "Christian-ese", but that doesn't make you a Christian. You believe in God, that's great, but even the demons believe in God. There's more to it than that.
God doesn't want you to be a person that's just half-hearted. Don't walk the line. At all. Either pick the world or pick God, but pick a side.
Even worse than unbelief is lukewarm-ness, and people who pass themselves off as Christians, but don't truly want to change, or disturb their lifestyle. If your relationship with Christ hasn't changed you, then do you really have a relationship with Jesus Christ, or are you just lukewarm? Because it's one thing to conform to the ways of the world, but quite another to claim Christianity, but appear no different than everyone else. Christians are set apart by God, they're "new creations". So be hot or cold, not lukewarm.
Read in Ephesians 6 about the Armor of God. Now think about it: do we have any of these things ourselves? No, all of this armor, these weapons are from God! We can't save ourselves.
A lot of times it's easy to depend on ourselves, to trust our own judgment, to make our own plans, when really we should be seeking the will of God and asking for his armor, rather than attempting to defend ourselves without it.
A lot of times, especially in America, kids are raised in the church, or raised to believe in God, and they think they're set. They call themselves born again Christians, and they've heard Bible stories, and they understand "Christian-ese", but that doesn't make you a Christian. You believe in God, that's great, but even the demons believe in God. There's more to it than that.
God doesn't want you to be a person that's just half-hearted. Don't walk the line. At all. Either pick the world or pick God, but pick a side.
Even worse than unbelief is lukewarm-ness, and people who pass themselves off as Christians, but don't truly want to change, or disturb their lifestyle. If your relationship with Christ hasn't changed you, then do you really have a relationship with Jesus Christ, or are you just lukewarm? Because it's one thing to conform to the ways of the world, but quite another to claim Christianity, but appear no different than everyone else. Christians are set apart by God, they're "new creations". So be hot or cold, not lukewarm.
Read in Ephesians 6 about the Armor of God. Now think about it: do we have any of these things ourselves? No, all of this armor, these weapons are from God! We can't save ourselves.
A lot of times it's easy to depend on ourselves, to trust our own judgment, to make our own plans, when really we should be seeking the will of God and asking for his armor, rather than attempting to defend ourselves without it.
Being Salty
"If you just look like salt, but you're not affecting anyone, you're not salt, you just look like it."
Sam, our missionary at camp this year, talked a little bit about being salt and light on Monday and the part above really stood out to me. I'd never head it put that way before and that's really stuck in my mind.
A lot of the things Sam said made me re-evaluate my walk with God and made me realize that thinking I'm a Christian doesn't make me a Christian.
I was talking about this with Peter too, that you can't just believe parts of the Bible, like the peart where you go to heaven, and ignore the part where it tells you to love your neighbor.
It made me think that a lot of times I just look like salt. I go to church, I'm involved in ministry, I go to youth, but I'm not affecting anyone. I'm not changing lives, I'm not even planting seeds. Most of the time I blend right in with everyone else. And I don't think that's ok anymore.
Sam sort of opened my eyes and shot an arrow right through my heart saying "You just look like salt."
I don't want to settle for just looking like salt anymore.
Sam, our missionary at camp this year, talked a little bit about being salt and light on Monday and the part above really stood out to me. I'd never head it put that way before and that's really stuck in my mind.
A lot of the things Sam said made me re-evaluate my walk with God and made me realize that thinking I'm a Christian doesn't make me a Christian.
I was talking about this with Peter too, that you can't just believe parts of the Bible, like the peart where you go to heaven, and ignore the part where it tells you to love your neighbor.
It made me think that a lot of times I just look like salt. I go to church, I'm involved in ministry, I go to youth, but I'm not affecting anyone. I'm not changing lives, I'm not even planting seeds. Most of the time I blend right in with everyone else. And I don't think that's ok anymore.
Sam sort of opened my eyes and shot an arrow right through my heart saying "You just look like salt."
I don't want to settle for just looking like salt anymore.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
I'll Say I'll See You Soon
I think God must've sent you to me
To hold me close and to be what I need
'cause when you look into my eyes I know you understand
and when you put your arms around me it's to hold me up when I can't
When we sat around the fire on the very last night
I put my head against your shoulder and all I could do was to cry
Because you and this camp are my source of light
and I have to leave it all for a land of black night
I spend the rest of the year waiting to come back
and when I see what I'm missing I can't stand to leave all that
So all I can do is cry silently
against the shoulder of the friend who's holding me tightly
and the more you say it's okay the more I think it's not.
Because friends like you aren't the ones I've got
So then Madi comes over and wipes the tears from my face
she has a Bible in her hand and tells me not to be afrai
This girl is 12 years old and she prays over me
Speaking the Word of the Lord like an angel to me
She brushes the hair from my face and you wipe a tear from my nose
and my heart breaks it's so full of more love than you know
So when I say I think God must've sent you to me
I'm serious it's because my prayers have been answered for me
And I'm crying from happiness, I'm crying from love
I'm crying because you're angels sent to me from the God above.
I'm crying because it'll be a year before I see you smile again
and because I only have a few more hours to hug my friends
and I miss you so much, I miss you so much
and I love you so much, I love you so much
So I'll say I'll see you soon, I can't say goodbye
Make me laugh soon or I'll never stop crying.
To hold me close and to be what I need
'cause when you look into my eyes I know you understand
and when you put your arms around me it's to hold me up when I can't
When we sat around the fire on the very last night
I put my head against your shoulder and all I could do was to cry
Because you and this camp are my source of light
and I have to leave it all for a land of black night
I spend the rest of the year waiting to come back
and when I see what I'm missing I can't stand to leave all that
So all I can do is cry silently
against the shoulder of the friend who's holding me tightly
and the more you say it's okay the more I think it's not.
Because friends like you aren't the ones I've got
So then Madi comes over and wipes the tears from my face
she has a Bible in her hand and tells me not to be afrai
This girl is 12 years old and she prays over me
Speaking the Word of the Lord like an angel to me
She brushes the hair from my face and you wipe a tear from my nose
and my heart breaks it's so full of more love than you know
So when I say I think God must've sent you to me
I'm serious it's because my prayers have been answered for me
And I'm crying from happiness, I'm crying from love
I'm crying because you're angels sent to me from the God above.
I'm crying because it'll be a year before I see you smile again
and because I only have a few more hours to hug my friends
and I miss you so much, I miss you so much
and I love you so much, I love you so much
So I'll say I'll see you soon, I can't say goodbye
Make me laugh soon or I'll never stop crying.
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