Saturday

In the words of country singer Trace Adkins: "I get high drivin down the freeway; just knowin that it's Saturday and I've got no place to be."

Well, it's Saturday and I've got no place I have to be.

ALL DAY.

Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaaw!

A Floating Ax Head

There's this obscure story in 2 Kings 6: 1-7 about an ax head. It's just sort of plopped down there between two other stories and seems to make no sense.

Well author Mark Batterson makes some great observations about this in his book In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day. Mark says it so well I'll just quote him:

"Second Kings 6 records what may be the most ridiculous prayer in scripture. A group of prophets are chopping trees near a river and one of their iron ax heads falls into the river. The prophet who lost the ax head said to Elisha: "Alas, master! For it was borrowed."

Notice the verb tense. This apprentice uses the past tense. As far as he's concerned, this ax head is gone. It reminds me of one of Jack Handey's deep thoughts: If you drop your keys in a river of molten lava, let 'em go man, 'cause they're gone! If you drop your iron ax head in the river, let it go man, 'cause it's gone!

This apprentice regarded his loss as final. He had no expectations whatsoever that the ax head would be retrieved. I think he wanted a little mercy or a little sympathy, but he wasn't expecting a miracle. He didn't even have a category for what was about to happen, and there is good reason. Any mineral with a density greater than one gram per cubic centimeter doesn't float. The density of cast iron is approximately 7.2 grams per cubic centimeter.

Translation: Iron ax heads don't float.

Or do they?

There is only one way to find out. Pray a ridiculous prayer! Now here is what I love about this story. If I'm Elisha, I feel bad for the guy who lost the borrowed ax head. Maybe I let him borrow mine. Maybe I drive him to the hardware store to get a new one. But it doesn't even cross my mind to pray that it would float. But can you tell the wheels are turning in Elisha's mind because he asks where the ax head fell in. If I'm the apprentice, I'm thinking, "What difference does it make?" But he shows Elisha where he lost it. Elisha cuts a stick and throws it into the water, and something happens that probably never happened before and has never happened since.

And the iron did swim.

This isn't a life-or-death situation. Yes, it's a borrowed ax head. Yes, he lost it. But if that is the worst thing that's ever happened to you, you've led a pretty sheltered life. You know what I'm saying? It's an AX HEAD. This may sound crazy, but doesn't it seem like you ought to save an amazing miracle like this for a little bigger tragedy? But I would put this miracle in the category of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding party. Why waste your first miracle on helping a bride and groom save face because they didn't stock enough wine for the reception? But I think this reveals something about God. He cares about the little things like wedding receptions and borrowed ax heads.

God is great not just because nothing is too big for him. God is great because nothing is too small for him either."

Humility Lesson

Last night I had the opportunity to serve with my July Ecuador team at Refuge of Hope. It's a homeless shelter and soup kitchen. Before we served the meal Pastor Ken took prayer requests. And I noticed that only one of these could be considered personal - one person asked for prayer that they would find employment. Everyone else asked for prayer for someone else. One person requested prayer for Jessica, the missing girl from North Canton.

It made me notice how often I pray for.............me.

A widow and some oil

Check this story out about the prophet Elisha and a widow in 2 Kings chapter 4. She apparently has just a little oil to her name. The problem being that she owes way more debt than she can pay and the creditors are coming to collect. They are apparently on her doorstep. And they are going to take her 2 sons as slaves since she can't pay up.

Or can she?

Elisha tells her to go get empty jars from her neighbors. He tells her "don't ask for just a few." Then he tells her to go into her house and pour oil into said jars until they are filled. I wonder what she thought about this. Did she expect the miracle of her little bit of oil filling these jars? Who knows? Apparently she just went out and asked her neighbors for jars. She obeyed.

And I notice the oil stopped flowing when she ran out of jars. It's almost as if the extent/scale of this thing was up to her: she could have filled 20 jars or hundreds.

This widows husband was "a man from the company of the prophets." He "revered the Lord." And so enter the miracle of the oil filled jars. She sold them to pay off her debts and lived off the rest. I guess God really can be trusted to provide, just like he says. Whether I live or whether I die, God can be trusted to take care of my family. I just don't care for his timing. He seems to come through at the last minute yet again.

"God is faiththful, but he is slow." - Devlin Donaldson

THE temple and each days need

In 1 Kings 6 Solomon begins building a temple for the name of the Lord 480 years after God brings the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. I wonder if God really wanted this temple. And I wonder what God thinks about some of the incredibly expensive and monster structures the church builds and finances today. It is really hard for me not to be critical of something like this.

I like how my church, RiverTree Chrisitan, is becoming a church of multi-sites instead of building a "Church-mahal".

Later in 1 Kings 8 Solomon is dedicating this temple and he prays for God to provide for Israel "according to each days need." Well that sounds very unlike me. I seem to always be planning and trying to figure out "tomorrow" instead of "living" today. This is a lesson my friends from Ecuador and Peru are teaching me. They do "today" really well.

A view of war......

Thursday, November 19, 1992

Dear Mimmy,

Nothing new on the political front. They are adopting some resolutions, the "kids" are negotiating, we are dying, freezing, starving, crying, parting with our friends, leaving our loved ones.

I keep wanting to explain these stupid politics to myself, because it seems to me that politics caused this war, making it our everyday reality. War has crossed out the day and replaced it with horror, and now horrors are unfolding instead of days. It looks to me as though these politics mean Serbs, Croats and Muslims. But they are all people, there's no difference. They all have arms, legs and heads, they walk and talk, but now there's "something" that wants to make them different.

Among my girlfriends, among our friends, in our family, there are Serbs and Croats and Muslims. It's a mixed group and I never knew who was a Serb, a Croat or a Muslim. Now politics has started meddling around. It has put an "S" on Serbs, an "M" on Muslims and a "C" on Croats, it wants to seperate them. And to do so it has chosen the worst, blackest pencil of all-the pencil of war which spells only misery and death.

Why is politics making us unhappy, seperating us, when we ourselves know who is good and who isin't? We mix with the good, not with the bad. And among the good there are Serbs and Croats and Muslims, just as there are among the bad. I simply don't understand it. Of course, I'm "young", and politics are conducted by "grown-ups". But I think we "young" would do it better. We certainly wouldn't have chosen war.

The "kids" really are playing, which is why us kids are not playing, we are living in fear, we are suffering, we are not enjoying the sun and flowers, we are not enjoying our childhood. WE ARE CRYING.

A bit of philosophizing on my part, but I was alone and felt I could write this to you, Mimmy. You understand me. Fortunately, I've got you to talk to.

And now,
Love,
Zlata

Pretty incredible wisdom for an 11 year old girl. This is from Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo". "Mimmy" is the name of her diary. Here is another entry.

Friday, September 17, 1993

Dear Mimmy,

The "kids" are negotiating something, signing something. Again giving us hope that this madness will end. There's supposed to be a cease-fire tomorrow and on September 21 at Sarajevo airport everybody is supposed to sign FOR PEACE. Will the war stop on the day that marks the change from one season to another???

With all the disappointments I've had with previous truces and signatures, I can't believe it.

I can't believe it because another horrible shell fell today, ending the life of a three-year-old little boy, wounding his sister and mother.

All I know is that the result of their little games is 15,000 dead in Sarajevo, 3,000 of them children, 50,000 permanent invalids, whom I already see in the streets on crutches, in wheelchairs, armless and legless. And I know that there's no room left in the cemeteries and parks to bury the latest victims.

Maybe that's why this should stop.
Your Zlata

Did you know: 2,000,000 children have died as a direct result of armed conflict during the last ten years.

........not a very nice view.

the cycle of hope

Just finished a book called "Freedom Writers Diary". It's about a group of high school students that overcame racial division and hatred through writing. Here is one of many journal entries that moved me. After all, aren't we all hungry for hope?

Dear Diary,
Ever since Ms. Gruwell announced that the Freedom Writers with the top thirty-five grade point averages would win computers when we graduated, I started getting As and Bs on my report card. I even raised my attendance from mediocre to perfect.

Our senior year finally came and Ms. Gruwell was announcing at the Freedom Writers' "Open-Mic Night" who the lucky recipients of the computers were. "Last but not least the thirty-fifth computer goes to..." and Ms. Gruwell turned to me and said my name. I got butterflies in my stomach; I could not believe that out of 150 Freedom Writers I was one of the ones chosen to get a computer. I had hoped to receive a computer, but truthfully, I didn't believe that I would raise my grade point average high enough to win.

In my neighborhood gang violence and drug trafficking play a big role and kids have no one to look up to as an example of hope. Like most kids in my neighborhood, I had no one to look up to or emulate until I meet John Tu. He has inspired me to become an entrepreneur and start my own computer company. I want to eradicate the violence that is going on in my neighborhood and give back to my community the way John Tu has given back to me. I want to become the role model that kids in my neighborhood lack and to someday have kids in my neighborhood look up to me the way that I look up to John Tu.

Besides donating computers, John Tu had given a couple of Freedom Writers jobs at his company with benefits and Christmas bonuses. Handouts are like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, but John Tu does not give people handouts, he gives people hope. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think that I would meet a millionaire, especially a millionaire that cared about my well-being. John Tu helps people through education, financial support, and high moral standards. I thank God for sending him into my life. He has given so much to me, and because of his actions I want to give to others, and hopefully someone will follow after me and the cycle of hope will continue.

Ecuador

Had a meeting today with the team I'm leading to Ecuador on a mission trip in July. They are going to meet the kids they sponsor through Compassion International. We will also have an opportunity to help in the construction of a christian school called "Nuevos Amigos", visit one of Compassion's child survival programs, spend some time at an orphanage, get a taste of South American culture and participate in a cross cultural worship service. It should be a great trip.

I love doing this stuff. It is incredible just to watch a Compassion sponsor and child connect for the first time. To see how shy some are to start with, watch them grow comfortable with each other as the day goes on and then watch them weep when they have to say good-bye at the end of the day.

But this good-bye is more properly a "see you later" (chow in spanish) because of the hope we have in Christ.

Kids..........

Don't they just say the darndest things? And almost always the first thing that pops into their head. Like this little snippet I overheard last night between a mother and her perhaps 6 year old daughter at Wal-Mart. They were brousing through some t-shirts:

Mother: "This would be a nice one for grandpa."

Daughter: "But grandpa's dead."

Mother: "The other grandpa!"

Today my church got together and prayed for an hour for children on the margins. For children who are in danger from abuse, slavery, war, neglect, starvation. For children around the globe and in my neighborhood. For the 30,000 under the age of 5 who will die today. For the 40 that died in the minutes it took me to write this blog. And I don't think I can ever get over that.

I don't want to get over that.

Cause it wrecks the heart of God, I think, when even one does not grow up to be who He created them to be.