Those Iffy Things

Ever been in a situation in which your conscience was getting pricked, but it really couldn't be helped without being rude? Like maybe eating a ham dinner at someone's house when you don't eat pork, or getting invited to a party that may not be such a good idea. 1 Corinthians 10 addresses such matters.

"Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, 'The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it.'

If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if anyone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience' sake— the other man's conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved."

What do you get out of this? Is this iffy thing you're thinking about doing be glorifying to God? It's not an easy answer - if you DIDN'T eat the ham and hurt your hosts feelings, that would not be God-honoring or good for your reputation as a Christian. I found the part about "trying to please everybody for the sake of the gospel" very interesting. If I'm going about offending people in any way, what I believe in and what is important to me is probably not desirable for those around me. Just a little food for thought...

Doncha love when God works these things out?

This morning I read the part in Ezekiel where Ezekiel is getting a tour of the temple by the angel who is measuring everything. Twas quite long and I couldn't get a point out of it for the life of me. But before I could think/pray about it further, it was time for church.

Went to Eastside Baptist. Great worship! Then when it was sermon time, the main passages of what the message was on showed up on the screen. Whoa! Ezekial 47! Maybe somebody knows what this is all about!!! Before we go any further, here is the passage in question:

The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was flowing from the south side.
As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. He asked me, "Son of man, do you see this?"

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. He said to me, "This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Sea. When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Great Sea. But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing."

Now you all may be more spiritually minded than me, but I was saying, "Wha......???" The pastor gave us the example of his three-year-old in a kiddie pool. It's really fun and great while she's 3, but when she's 16 it won't be the same. He said that the water in the passage was the water of the Holy Spirit - the living water. First it was ankle deep, then knee deep, then waist deep, and soon Ezekiel was swimming in the water. I wondered how deep I was in my spiritual growth. Does living water flow through you onto a dead world, making all live?

So my questions of this morning were all cleared up today perfectly. God gave me the passage, I didn't understand it, so he set up an explanation to the parable in the same day. Oh so thoughtful...

God is Just

Look what I unexpectedly ran into in Ezekiel today! It was a bit surprising because it was in the middle of all the curses of the ungodly places, but I love how God puts in little (or big) blurbs of hope when all hope seems to be lost.

"Son of man, say to the house of Israel, 'This is what you are saying: "Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?" ' Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?'

"Therefore, son of man, say to your countrymen, 'The righteousness of the righteous man will not save him when he disobeys, and the wickedness of the wicked man will not cause him to fall when he turns from it. The righteous man, if he sins, will not be allowed to live because of his former righteousness.' If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but then he trusts in his righteousness and does evil, none of the righteous things he has done will be remembered; he will die for the evil he has done. And if I say to the wicked man, 'You will surely die,' but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right - if he gives back what he took in pledge for a loan, returns what he has stolen, follows the decrees that give life, and does no evil, he will surely live; he will not die."

~ Ezekiel 33:10-15

This passage, to me, seems to be the very epitome of justice. Sometimes God is only even brought into the picture of people's lives when something happens that strikes them as "unfair". When something good happens it's, "Wow I got a raise! I do deserve it, I've been working at this job forever, I'm awesome, I I I I." But when something bad happens, all of a sudden God is responsible for everything that's ever happened. "Why do I have to have cancer, I'm a good person, this is so unfair!" This passage alone proves that God's mind does not work unfairly.

It's not His nature.

I have accepted the challenge!!!

I was just on Biblegateway.com to look up a verse, when I saw a little blurb that said, "Read Through the Bible in 90 Days Challenge Starts TODAY!" or something to that extent. My eyebrows went up and I clicked the link - you know, just to see how it was done...

Turns out they give you your reading assignment on the site every day. I dove right in and just read Lamentations 1 - Ezekiel 12. Don't know what prompted this decision but I am excited about it! Check it out everyone! The way I figure it, it's ok if you don't get all the reading done in that day - reading through the Bible in 90 days is NOT the path to all spirituality folks, it is just an exciting challenge! Join me, anyone? It is Summer after all... click here for more info.

Focus...focus...focus...

Not having a permanent church with good worship and teaching, and a has jarred my focus a bit. Not much - but Satan likes the little footholds just as much as the big ones. I think I'm just spoiled. Hence, I'm being careful to stay consistent with my time in the Word and working on a better prayer life. Pray for me everyone! And pray for our future perfect church to show itself!

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!

God my hero

Two things we should establish right at the start: Number 1 - I am a big sucker for knights. The sense of "awwwww..." I have when I read all those stories about the damsels in distress and the knights ride in and kill the bad guys and save the girls is the one hopelessly romantic streak in my body. When you have a knight at your side nothing TOO terrible can happen, because he is just drooling for the opportunity to save you. Same with a Dad or anybody that cares about you that happens to be bigger and stronger than you. Nothing can be all THAT bad because there is a hero standing by!

Point two - moving is quite scary and uncomfortable and unpleasant and sad and all those horrid things. Especially when you've no place to go and don't really know why you are going. Yes, there are good parts about going, but we're not at those parts yet, so now is all the bad. For some reason my mindset was that God sitting back watching all this stuff happen and thinking that I shouldn't be feeling how I am about it. Sort of a, "Well fine if you feel that way, you're doing it anyway, so you'll get over it." Don't know why I thought this - God certainly didn't say it. But after I realized this was what I was assuming, God showed me that first of all, he had been the ultimate hero in coming to earth as a human and dying in my place so that I could be with him forever. And now he wants to be my hero in my everyday life! He is waiting for when he can rush in and save me and give me good things and make me feel better.

So now, I'm not so worried about what could or could not happen, because I have a hero waiting for me to be in trouble so he can rescue me!