Walking With the LORD

It has recently been brought to my attention through several different people, events, circumstances, etc. that, well, walking with God is the best thing ever.

Of course I already knew walking with God was basically the epitome of Christianity--if you are a child of God, you walk in His steps. But just recently the full magnitude of what it means to be in the LORD has hit me like never before. If you are truly in Christ, you are constantly checking with Him. Your decisions are all based off of what He wants. In fact, the only thing you want is to do what He wants! It is very liberating to just throw everything over to a God who loves you. I can't figure out why I continue to think things will be better if I worry over my little problems myself. When the little things are in God's hands, they don't seem like such a big deal after all.

And the best thing about being in the center of God's will? You can't mess up! Whoa! Obviously it's not a "Oh, I got in God's will and now I can do whatever and nothing go wrong" thing. It reminds me of the Ultimate Balance Test on Wii Fit. On said test, you must stand on the board and keep your center of balance at 50/50 for 3 seconds. HARD man! As soon as you're in, you're out! You have to chase it down, to keep figuring out how to get in there and keep it there. It's the same way with walking in God's will. You can't do any one thing and be "in the club". It's a constant process. Most of the time walking WITH God means quite a bit of time running BEHIND God, yelling, "Hey, wait up!" :P

But you know what's awesome about staying in God's will and walking with Him? It's fun most of the time, at least for me. The more I study and read and pray, the more I know about the characteristics of my Savior and all the different things He likes. And THAT is cool stuff.

The latest excellent verse

"It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him."

~ Deuteronomy 13:4

This about sums it up. This verse is our life--it covers everything. It sounds so easy doesn't it? This verse is what I want to do for the rest of my days on earth. Even if I never become a famous writer, or the best wife and mama in the world, or the smartest English teacher ever, I will die happy if I will have followed this verse. If I have done what God wants, then nothing else matters. At all.

Random ramblings to make me feel better that probably nobody will read and that's a good thing :)

The truck is here - we're really leaving. We've got awesome family here helping out with the crazy truck situation. I don't see why it has to be so complicated!

But on to the fact of the matter - today was the last time I'll have walked n and out of the doors of our church until the time in the future that God has designed. I've said goodbye to many these past few days - really good friends - not knowing when I'd see them again, but I couldn't cry. I felt deeply - my stomach would hurt and my mouth would get dry and I'd wish I could cry to maybe make me feel a little better, but I couldn't. But this morning all through service I cried off and on and the end was the worst: saying goodbye!

I bawled.

Hugs all around and goodbyes and everything I really don't enjoy. I still can't believe it's over - all these people that have been friends, mentors, people I can just ramble to, people that will pray for me, people to laugh with, cry with, be aggravated with, learn with, completely lose yourself praising God with, and have basically been a family to me...all this in a little over a year...and it's all over. I was a complete mess to say the least. When I got home I bawled like I hadn't in years - didn't know I could still do it like that.

I still don't know what God's up to, but I guess it makes sense to believe that he does not have plans to harm me - in fact, quite the opposite. Whyever he brought us this far only to take us back I don't know, but I'd be satisfied if it was only to let us be a part of AHBC for a short time.

Now my big question is, what's next? God, you've led us into and out of the best kind of family I can imagine. Now what could be better? I know there is something, cuz You are planning only the best specially for me.

Guess that's worth being excited about.

But right now it's rrrreeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaalllllllyyy hard.

I love you Alameda Hills!

A Very Nice Chap

I am reading Jesus Freaks by DC Talk, and I recommend it to every Christian in America! This story really stuck in my head. A pastor of an underground church in Russia in the 1940s writes this:

"When I was still living behind the Iron Curtain, I had met a Russian captain. He loved God, he longed after God, but he had never seen a Bible. He had never attended religious services. He had no religious education, but he loved God without the slightest knowledge of Him.

"I read to him the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of Jesus. After hearing them, he danced around the room in rapturous joy, proclaiming, 'What a wonderful beauty! How could I live without knowing this Christ?" It was the first time that I saw someone jubilating in Christ.

"Then I made a mistake. I read to him the passion of crucifixion of Christ, without having prepared him for this. He had not expected it. When he heard how Christ was beaten, how He was crucified, and that in the end He died, he fell in an armchair and began to weep bitterly. He had believed in a Savior and now his Savior was dead!

"I looked at him and was ashamed that I had called myself a Christian and a pastor, a teacher of others. I had never shared the sufferings of Christ as this Russian officer now shared them. Looking at him was, for me, like seeing Mary Magdalene weeping at the foot of the cross or at the empty tomb.

Then I read to him the story of the resurrection. When he heard this wonderful news, that the Savior arose from the tomb, he slapped his knees and shouted for joy: 'He is alive! He is alive!' Again he danced around the room, overwhelmed with happiness!

"I said to him, 'Let us pray!'

He fell on his knees together with me. He did not know our holy phrases. His words of prayer were, 'O God, what a fine chap you are! If I were You and You were me, I would never have forgiven You Your sins. But You are really a very nice chap! I love You with all my heart!'

"I think that all the angels in heaven stopped what they were doing to listen to this sublime prayer from this Russian officer. When this man received Christ, he knew he would immediately lose his position as an officer, that prison and perhaps death in jail would almost surely follow. He gladly paid the price. He was ready to lose everything."

"Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls." ~ 1 Peter 1:8-9

Don't ya just love those guys?

I just went to one of the many shows the Apostles of Comedy put on. They are a group of hilarious Christian guys that give people clean laughs as a ministry. They all gave neat testimonies and shared their faith - especially Brad Stine. When it got to his act, I realized that these men were just funny evangelists. His whole act was pretty preachy and great. He talked a lot about what America has become. He said America is better than all the other countries in the world - and better does not mean superior. He said that Christians started this country and made it great, and now we have degressed to where people are trying to make our faith illegal. He was bold about it. "I am NOT going to go quietly! I am NOT going to give this country up without a fight!"

They talked about the media - about how TV and Internet and all that basically raise our kids. So why does the church step out of it? "The secular media should be asking us how on earth we do it so well."

Don't you just love the guys who will stand up in front of 1600 people and scream about how America is falling even deeper into sin and point out how we are doing nothing about it? They used laughs (something everybody loves) to share their faith. I just love it when people share their faith like that and not worry about offending people, maybe because I don't do it enough myself. "Christianity is a religion of inconvenience." All this to say, it was a hilarious and most inspiring experience. God bless the Apostles of Comedy!!!

Oh, and another great quote from Brad Stine on the whole evolution story that dominates America today: "Once upon a time, there was nothing.

Then it blew up."

Like the Snake of Moses

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."

Jesus told Nicodemus this today. It made me think of this picture:

The Israelites sinned and grumbled against the LORD, so...

the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

This is an awesome parallel! When you are dying in sin, you can look up to Jesus and live!

Also remember, today is good Friday! Go here to read a great article on it!

Faith in the Inheritance Cycle

Christopher Paolini, the homeschooled author of the famed Inheritance Trilogy (ERAGON, ELDEST, and BRISINGR) would be a lame and cliche author if it weren't for his side plots. Um... wait, let me rephrase that - Christopher Paolini IS a lame and cliche author, but his descriptions are good and his side plots save him from the depths of horrendousness. Now that we all are understood on this fact, let us move along.

One of these excellent side plots is a common theme that has appeared in each of the books he has written so far, having to do with religion. If you'll remember in the first book, Eragon's uncle Garrow is killed by the bad guys that wanted Eragon. (CLICHE in all caps!!!! Just like every Luke Skywalker and Spiderman out there!!! Moving on...) Eragon is heartbroken and yeels, "What god would do this? Show yourself!" It made me raise a brow, hoping that Paolini would continue with this. But in the first book, nary. So I shrugged and washed my hands of stupid young fantasy writers until the second book, where it continued Eragon's questions about whose gods were real and what gods even were and what religion was truth. I again got excited, and the conversation between Eragon and his Elvish teacher ran thus:

Eragon - “Where do you think the world came from, then, if it wasn’t created by the gods?”
Oromis - “Which gods, Eragon?”
“Your gods, the dwarf gods, our gods… someone must have created it.”

Oromis raised an eyebrow. “I would not necessarily agree with you. But be as that may, I cannot prove that gods do not exist. Nor can I prove that the world and everything in it was not created by an entity or entities in the distant past. But I can tell you that in the millennia we elves have studied nature, we have never witnessed an instance where the rules that govern the world have been broken. That is, we have never seen a miracle. Many events have defied our ability to explain, but we are convinced that we failed because we are still woefully ignorant about the universe and not because a deity altered the workings of nature."

...

“We [the elves] give credence only to that which we can prove exists. Since we cannot find evidence that gods, miracles, and other supernatural things are real, we do not trouble ourselves about them. If that were to change, if Helzvog [the dwarf god] were to reveal himself to us, then we would accept the new information and revise our position.”

Eragon - “It seems a cold world without something… more.”

“On the contrary,” said Oromis, “it is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our own actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment…"

WHAT??? For the first time in my life, I threw a book to the corner of the couch, not caring or seeing how it landed. Much of the rest of the book followed along the same lines as this conversation. I named ELDEST a horrid book, and figured Paolini's hint at talent from the first book had now been utterly ruined by this next, finer-written book with an awful message.

So in ELDEST we see that Elves are atheist. But I got my hands on the newest book, BRISNGR, again thinking he was done with the religious subject (I mean give me a break, they only discuss it in a couple sentences per book!). But I'll give Paolini this - if he brings up a little side smidgen, he sticks it. Last night I read about a Dwarf woman who had just lost her son, Kvistor, when he was defending Eragon. She goes in and kneels before the statues of the Dwarf gods. Here is the excerpt:

For several minutes, Glumra sang, and then she fell silent and continued to gaze at the figurines, and as she gazed, the lines of her grief-ravaged face softened, and where before Eragon had perceived only anger, distress, and hopelessness, her countenance assumed an air of calm acceptance, of peacefulness, and of sublime transcendence. A soft glow seemed to emanate from her features. So complete was Glumra's transformation, Eragon almost did not recognize her.

She said, "Tonight Kvistor will dine in Morgothal's hall. That I know. I wish I might break bread with him, along with mine husband, Bauden, but it is not mine time to sleep in the catacombs of Tronjheim, and Morgothal refuses entry to his hall to those who quicken their arrival. But in time, our family shall be reunited, including all of our ancestors since Guntera created the world from darkness. That I know."

Eragon knelt next to her, and in a hoarse voice, he asked, "How do you know this?"

"I know because it is so. How could it be otherwise? Since the world could not have created itself any more than a sword or a helm might, and since the only beings with the wherewithal to forge the earth and the heavens into shape are those with divine power, it is to the gods we must look for our answers. Them I trust to ensure the rightness of the world, and by mine trust, I free myself of the burdens of mine flesh."

She spoke with such conviction, Eragon felt a sudden desire to share in her belief. He longed to toss aside his doubts and fears and to know that, however horrible the world might seem at times, life was not mere confusion. He wished to know for certain that who he was would not end if a sword should shear off his head and that one day he would meet again with Brom, Garrow, and everyone else he had cared for and lost. A desperate yearning for hope and comfort filled him, confused him, left him unsteady upon the face of the earth.

And yet.

Part of himself held back and would not allow him to commit to the dwarf gods and bind his identity and his sense of well-being to something he did not understand.

Besides the fact that the Dwarves have multiple gods and put a lot of stock in statues and the like, Glumra's statement of faith (especially the part in red) reminded me a lot of Christianity. I think it is a great quote that states what we Christians believe. We know because it is so!

I do wonder which way Eragon will go in the final book. I don't know about the state of Paolini's faith, but now I think I trust him to finish this thread off.

Why did I write all that? Mostly for you Christian Inheritance fans who needed to see this written down somewhere. And for the rest of you, if you take anything from this, take the quote in red.