The Builder and The Architect

Is it ok to get excited about Lent? I mean, it’s supposed to be a season of reflection and preparation, prayer and fasting, deep examination and repentance. Am I even allowed to smile? So why am I excited? I’m not giddy, jumping up and down excited, but I can feel somewhere in my brain or heart an excitement for this season. Not excitement over sin or any feeling like I will magically be cured of all of my sinful habits. But perhaps excitement for this concentrated time of discipline, or the fact that it is something the church participates in as a family, or the fact that it has been part of my life for so long now that having the same thing reoccur in my life every year is comforting. Maybe it comes from all of those places, maybe none, but I am ok with it.

Things that happen on a yearly basis do given an interesting perspective on things. The yearly perspective. Last year I came to Atlanta for the Ash Wednesday service at Trinity as a visitor. I was very encouraged. Earlier that day I sat at the Starbucks on Howell Mill (when my Psalm reading for the day just happened to be Psalm 51), with no idea that the next year I would be sitting there again, but this time as a citizen of the city, not just a visitor. How things have changed in just a year! It is exciting not to know what things will occur between this year and  the next Ash Wednesday.

Observing Lent is not biblically obligatory, but I believe …Continue reading this entry »

God speaks to us in many different ways, like through his Word or his Spirit. Most of us probably can’t hear him or don’t recognize him when he is speaking to us. But how does God speak WITH us? LIke in a converstaion?

I ask this question because I I was reading a blog post about praying and it mentioned how one way we can pray is just to talk to him. Talk to him as if you were talking to a friend. The post contrasted this against how we typically hear people pray. That is, in “prayer talk.” A transformation in our speeh patterns and grammar and the amount of times we use some form of God’s name as we approach him in prayer. The post says this is not necessary. It says that we can talk to him as openly, as harshly vulnerable, and as simply as we want. As if we are chatting with a friend, or baring our soul.

I totally agree with that, especially when praying is an intensely vulnerable time. However, is this not even more difficult. Why don’t we do this in the first place?  Why do we default to prayer talk? I think it is becuase it is easier. I think it is because we don’t feel like we are actually conversing with God. I mean, when you stand and give a speech, you don’t talk in a conversational style. You don’t get any verbal input from the audience until later (and it is poor speech etiquette, but that is a different subject). But I think it is because we know we aren’t going to have this back-and-forth conversation with God, where we say something and he immediately responds and vice-versa, that we default to prayer talk, that we find it difficult to merely converse with him. At least, that is how I feel. Not that I am overly flowery when I pray. I really try to be “down to earth,” as it were, too. But isn’t there just something different when you are talking to someone you know isn’t actually conversing with you? (Not that God isn’t, in the big picture, conversing with us. But I am refering to the immediate conversation style one would have with another as if they were conversing on the phone or face to face.) Or am I just missing it?

So I agree that that is how we should talk to God, but I don’t see how it is easy or at all natural.

What do you think? How do you talk to God? With prayer talk or conversationally? Which do you find easier?

Imogen Heap. I just heard a couple of songs by her. She seems pretty pleasing. I also found out that Jason DeRulo sampled her song “Hide and Seek” for his song “Whatcha Say.” His song hits hard and his chorus, from Heap, is cute. I am not a fan of the lyrics. I won’t belabor you an explanation. But what’s worse is that the lyrics from the chorus just do not seem to fit into the rest of the verses. It just doens’t make sense.

That said it’s a such a catchy song! I really like listening to it, but am comically conflicted for singing a song that has lyrics I don’t like. Of course, I think the chorus is the best part and the biggest reason why I like it, and given it was sampled from a non-hip-hop song, that makes sense (for me). But until tonight I didn’t know it was sampled; so I was excited to hear the real version. I also noticed that DeRulo modulate Heap’s version to a higher key, which is why I origianlly though it wasn’t Heap singing. It is her, just modulated. Anyway… I was just writing to say that I noticed the modulation.

Rung in the new year with my Amanda and some friends. Very nice. A year ago New Year’s Eve night we watched GA Tech get slaughtered at the Chic-fil-a Bowl. The football game was not lovely. Amanda was. Three days later we decied to start dating. January 3, 2010 marked our first year of dating. Good stuff.  Since then I have moved to Atlanta and read a few more books. I took the GRE and applied to grad school. 2010 looks to be an even better year.

On the third of January we went to see the Avatar IMAX 3D experience. Visually, the movie was a very good experience. James Cameron is a great director. But he should stick to directing. The story, by Cameron, was too predictable. It was, however, classic. But it also seemed like I had heard that story a million times before. The plot was predictable as well as the characters. There were too many cliched plot devices. The characters sof the General and Jake were so predictable it was painful. There were lines by characters all throughout the movie that were either dumb, unnecessary, or expected. Nothing surprised me in this movie. Did I enjoy it? YES. I was especially impressed with how Camera got the main character’s legs to look extremely atrophied and useless without it looking fake, although the actor really can walk. But the only thing worse than knowing what is going to happen at the end of the movie is it actually happening the way you guessed. Well either that or seeing something happen at the end of the movie that you realize its existence was totally set up earlier in the moive and was set up only for that scene.

What I appreciate about it is …Continue reading this entry »

I had hoped that once I updated my blog with the final entry concerning my trip to Honduras that I would write more often. I was putting off writing Anythng until that post was done. But now that it is done all I can write about is not being able to write.

I have found that I am not a jounaler. I want to be, but I am not. I am not a blogger. I want to be, but I am not. Perhaps it is in me, but I lack whatever it takes to do it regularly and creatively.

Christmas party at our house tonight in Decatur. Now I am relaxing at a cafe typing this on my iPhone. I’m gonna do some reading and a little bit of a devotional then go back home after downing a cup or two of coffee. I don’t need it, but I like it while I am reading.

Trying to remind myself of the gospel. Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient and covers sin. I can’t seem to rmember that most of the time? Can you? If so, comment and let me know how you like to do it.

Here is the photo set from the Habitat for Humanity trip to Honduras.

I have not wanted to put this post off for so long. My biggest fear is that I will have forgotten the things I had intended to write about. Not just the activities in which we participated, but also the take-away lessons the Lord taught me. I hope that in writing this those things will come back to me. At the least, I will now have a place to put them easily when they do.

After our last day of work, the Habitat organization in Honduras invited the surrounding community to come and see what had been done so far. It wasn’t great in comparison to what still needed to be done to the house, but it was exciting none-the-less. …Continue reading this entry »

(I don´t have a lot of time on the computer today, so I will have to write something short and then complete it later when I get internet access again. Check again soon.)
Friday:
Today rivaled with Monday as being the hardest day of work. It was all concrete today. In these situations mixing concrete consists of moving about 170 shovels of sand to a pile and pouring on two bags on concrete (not quik-crete, mind you). Then we mix the concrete by shoveling from the base of the pile into a little “mountain” of concrete, then repeating that. Next, you pull all the mix out of the center and make one big ring with a basin into which you add a lot of water. After that, keeping the water in the center, you take mix from the outside base and build up the walls of the ring which allows the mix to naturally flow into the water without making the water over flow. Once that is completed, and all the water absorbed, you just then turn it up, A LOT. Needless to say this is done with all shovels, so there is a ton of shoveling. And it isn´t easy shoveling, either. But it was very satisfying. By the end of the day we had finished filling the perimeter trench and a little of the inside trenches up to the top of the rebar we laid. Very nice.

That´s all we did all day, except a little left over rebar work that only took thirty minutes as soon as we got there. A good day, bt a very tiring day.

The food we have had here all week has been awesome. Luiz´s mother and sister have been cooking for us and they are way more than we deserve. Tonight was no different!

In our devotional/sharing time tonight we talked about status-quo and what society expects from our lives. It made me remember that loving Jesus, following Him, being His disciple is counter-cultural. It is not status quo. And we have to make the choice: love Jesus or seek the status-quo. Following Jesus isn´t a part of your life. It has to BE your life. It has to be what you decide to do with you life, not something you decide to add to your life. We can be in this world, but the world we are from is not here. The kingdom of which we are citizens is not this on earth, and our king is Jesus. But we don’t pay Him tax just so we can be a part of his kingdom, citizenship there demands our lives.  Don’t seek the status-quo, it will disappoint you.

Thank you for your prayers during the trip. Please continue to pray for us. We are flying home Sunday. I´ll write more form this day soon.

Thursday:
We got to the site and had a lot of rebar work to do. Good stuff. We had to saw off each individual piece of rebar we were going to use.. Likewise, we had to cut off each individual piece of wire that we were going to use to tie the rebar together. We had to bend a ton of rebar, as well. It wasn´t real difficult work, but there was a lot of it and it was rather time consuming, thankfully, much easier than swinging pick-axes and shovels. We put together most of the frame work for the trenches so that we can start making and pouring the concrete, but we still have a a few more to go.

After dinner last night we went to a Soccer match, which was as cool cultural experience as it was a cool  non-American experience. Soccer is huge is most parts of the world, so it is the same here. There were tons of armed guards and police all around. They had seperate, rather divided sections for the fans of each team and only let one side go after the first side had emptied. Tempers flare at these games. It´s hilarious! We were not hurt, though the team we were cheering for lost.

The culture here has strangely more Western influences than I expected in certain places. There are many more wester restaurants than we experienced when we visited Queretaro last year. But the poverty and unclenliness and ruralness is exactly wht I expected. Once you get just a small way from the city center, you start seeing it more and more, save for the rampant amount of cell phone company ads. But even in the city, most houses are rather small. Further away, however, it gets worse. I wish I could adequately desrcibe. There is a group of 5 brothers and sisters raging from 10 years old to 2 years who have been visiting our site these last few days to play with us. Literally, they live in a wood shack on someone else´s land. I can´t imagine what that is like. I wish I had had these expereinces when I was younger. My heart breaks for places like these, and to know that it is similar to this is a huge portion of the world.

Tonight at the game was a great chance just to enter into the daily life of these people. It was an interesting feeling to feel and see what is going on while we are stuck in our little American bubble. So often we experience only our own life and forget that life is going on in many more places than where we place our feet. Everyone is doing something.

A conversation I had with a few guys on Wednesday night lead me to remember that it is paramount that we be obedient to God and his calling. If we are, he´ll continue to move us and push us. He will never leave us in our bubble. If we love Him and and trust that He is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do and Loves what He says he loves, then He will bring us to love those things, do those things and accomplish His purpose. It starts with Loving Him more than everything and in that love, being obedient to His call.

Please pray for our last day on the build, for continued productivity and efficiency. The more we can do, the less the small team of two that we will leave has to do. Pray that the Lord would continue to open our eyes to his hand, our hearts to His spirit, and our ears to His voice so that we may know His will and have the courage to be obedient to Him. PRay for safe travel back to the states (we fly back on Sunday).  Continue to pray for Josue and his Family, for Juan the mason, and for Luiz, the Habitat coordinator here. Pray for the lives of the Honduran people that they would see God and be reconciled to Him.

 ”He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you?
       To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James 1:27

In God´s Peace,
Dan

Wednesday:
Today we got up and tried to follow our normal schedule. Unfortunately for us, the materials we needed to continue working did not arrive until the afternoon. So as far as working goes it was a “zero” day, as hikers like to call it when no progress is made. This was not discouraging, but a bit disappointing. God still has a purpose for us. It was not at all our intention not to work today, we were all excited and ready to bust through another day of work. So it is just unfortunate that outside circumstances prevented this. Likewise, there wasn´t another site for us go help at.

But the day was not at all a loss. We certainly found productive things to do. We didn´t sit around all day, but since we couldn´t be useful at the job site, we made the most of our time.  We had the opportunity to see a little bit more of San Pedro, the city we are staying in. We also used the time to learn more about Honduras, it´s culture and history. But most importantly, Luiz took us to an orphanage.

Now this wasn´t just any orphanage, it was an orphange of children who were HIV positive. But I suppose that didn´t really make that big of a difference since I imagine it was just like any other orphange. The children all seemed normal. I think the biggest problem in these children´s lives is not that they are HIV+, but that they don´t have any parents. Regardless, this is an experience that I will never forget.

Luiz told us when we got there “Don’t be like one group I had that never once got off the bus.” We had no intention of doing that. …Continue reading this entry »