isaiah

some interesting thoughts on prophets from the message:

- they delivered God's commands and promises and living presence to communities and nations who had been living on god-fantasies and god-lies.

- the sixteen Hebrew prophets (isaiah - malachi) provide the help we so badly need if we are to stay alert and knowledgeable regarding the conditions in which we cultivate faithful and obedient lives before God.

- for the prophets, God is more real than the next-door neighbor.

Hebrews 11 (msg)

The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.
By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see...By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn't see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God's call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations--the City designed and built by God. By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That's how it happened that from one man's dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions. Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that--heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

that the world may hear

there is a ministry solely committed to bringing the gift of hearing to children who cannot afford hearing aids and have critically reduced hearing ability.

today i was watching a short video accounting one of their visits to ukraine and i was so touched by the images of little children's faces lighting up as they heard sounds clearly for the first time! one little boy just kept making an "ahhh" sound over and over completely enthralled by the sound of his own voice! the video crew followed one family home and documented their toddler's reaction to his new found sense of hearing. at one point the father left the room and went into the farthest corner of their apartment (although this was not amazingly far considering the family lived in a small one-bedroom apartment) he then called to his son. the little boy lifted his head to the sound of his father's voice, obviously confused that he could hear his father but could not see him anywhere nearby. his father continued calling and calling, but the boy stood frozen and confused. he then began to make his way toward his father's voice and his face lit up as he reached the door and saw his father in the corner of their living room.

for the first time this little boy heard something before he saw it...and it was the comforting voice of his own father!

what an incredible allegory for our own spiritual lives.

how often do i remain frozen? so handicapped by my sight-based faith and unable to recognize the voice of my heavenly Father? if only i could muster the strength to take those first few unsure and confusing steps to reach the threshold of His throneroom.

our God has so much waiting for us on the other side and we don't even realize it. like deaf little orphan children it seems so much safer...it makes so much more sense...to just run around in surroundings that we can "see" and "touch" and know to be "real."

if only i could close the spiritual eyes of my heart for one moment and simply soak up the sound of my Father's voice. to know it so fully that i would not even have a second thought in my mind when He calls...seen or unseen, i would know the precious call of my Father and i would come running. never doubting a step, never wondering if i had been mistaken.

Lord God, whisper my name. whisper our names, that we, your children, would know Your voice and chase after Your call. without a doubt in our minds that it is You calling us, calling us nowhere but closer to Yourself.

Oswald Chambers

"The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him. It is easier to serve than to be drunk to the dregs. The one aim of the call of God is the satisfaction of God, not a call to do something for Him."

to think our God's greatest desire is simply to be known.

John 20:28

"Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God."

cheers to m.j.?

a lot of random and crazy things happened in my day today and as i sort through them all, one of the oddest thoughts my mind settles on is in regards to an article i found while brousing through the scientific american website.

evidently marijuana continues to be a hot topic in the medical world.

i had a friend in college who i swear was a microbiologist just to figure out the mysteries of cannibas and i am amazed at the countless others intrigued by this distinctive little plant. to my humble credit i know hardly anything about marijuana or really any illicit (or licit) drugs, in fact it wasn't until my freshman year when i was taking a botany course with some crazy lab partners that i learned the significance of 420. what is it about this crazy drug that people love? ...driving people like good old ben harper to tell us "if you don't like my fire then don't come around...?"

in fact, just the other day i learned that one of my closest friends happened to be a closet pot-head not so long ago and continues to struggle with his decision to leave bud behind.

i hear justifications all the time about how smoking marijuana is no more dangerous for one's health than smoking cigarettes, and how it really doesn't affect them like other drugs would. (then why do you continue to return to that nasty stuff?!)

in all honesty, i cannot consider myself even remotely close to being an authority on the subject, but i struggle to see any redemptive qualities in a practice that involves exposing oneself to a state of mind-altered-ness. friends of mine who don't pass on grass laugh about moments when they've hallucinated or done completely out of character crap that truly concerns me.

i suppose its just the mother in me, but there is much to be said about the pitfalls of repeatedly indulging yourself in things that are directly undermining one's health and well-being; which is why the sciam article that i stumbled upon today made me think twice about some of my liberal tendencies when it comes to legalizing medicinal marijuana.

who would have thought that the latest medical craze and one of the biggest untapped pharmeceutical territories would have distinguished professors scouring the streets for the best marijuana providers...and even offering co-authorship on journal articles in exchange for top-notch bud?!

just like almost every other pharmeceutical breakthrough in our very western u.s. of a, i am concerned that the profit-driven force behind this research may lead us to legalizing and refining a market that needs no more followers and worshippers than it already has.

according to scientific american: "The human brain naturally produces and processes compounds closely related to those found in Cannabis sativa...These compounds are called endogenous cannabinoids or endocannabinoids. As the journal Nature Medicine put it in 2003, 'the endocannabinoid system has an important role in nearly every paradigm of pain, in memory, in neurodegeneration and in inflammation.'...Yet outdated regulations and attitudes thwart legitimate research with marijuana. Indeed, American biomedical researchers can more easily acquire and investigate cocaine. Marijuana is classified as a so-called Schedule 1 drug, alongside LSD and heroin. As such, it is defined as being potentially addictive and having no medical use, which under the circumstances becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy...Any researcher attempting to study marijuana must obtain it through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The U.S. research crop, grown at a single facility, is regarded as less potent--and therefore less medicinally interesting--than the marijuana often easily available on the street. Thus, the legal supply is a poor vehicle for studying the approximately 60 cannabinoids that might have medical applications...Some may argue that researchers do not need to study the drug--after all, there is Marinol, a synthetic version of marijuana's major active compound, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC; it relieves nausea and stimulates appetite. But patients are often disappointed with Marinol as compared with marijuana. A 1997 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine noted that 'it is difficult to titrate the therapeutic dose of this drug, and it is not widely prescribed. By contrast, smoking marijuana produces a rapid increase in the blood level of the active ingredients and is thus more likely to be therapeutic.'"

well, there's the "facts" if you want more info you can visit www.sciam.com.

their conclusion: "The reasonable course is to make it easier for American researchers to at least examine marijuana for possible medical benefits."

i would like to tell pfizer i think they've done enough.

II Samuel 22:26

"To the faithful You show Yourself faithful,
to the blameless You show Yourself blameless,
to the pure You show Yourself pure,
but to the crooked You show Yourself shrewd."

"girls in white dresses..."

i learned a valuable lesson today.

i have been sick for the last several days and in a leap of unprecidented tenaciousness i took the last two days of work off...no apologies! i essentially spent the entire day yesterday sleeping, other than a brief hour that demanded my awake-ness in order to drive to the doctor's office. but today i laid around my apartment and really did absolutley nothing for a whole eighteen hours! it was probably the most productively unproductive day of the year ( i guess that's not too hard to manage considering its only january 14th!) nonetheless, i think an important lesson awaited me in this day o' nothingness.

through this journey of "recovering-sinner trying to rediscover her innocence" i am deeply aware of the moments when my childhood sneaks up on me and overwhelms me to the point that i have to stand up, look around me, and remind myself i am 22 years old and that life isn't waiting for me to "jump-in" anymore. you know those moments when you just want to curl up into a little ball tucked under your grandma's amazingly ugly brown and orange afghan, close your eyes and pretend you havn't a care in the world? those are the moments i live for -- because i really think therein lies the secret. all the difficult things i have faced no longer haunt me, i still believe in true deep love, i believe in glory and heroes...just the way the world should be. all the hurt, the pain, the anger i can't seem to shake...for a moment it all melts away.

when did i become so calloused?

why is it that when a cheesey love song comes on the radio i roll my eyes and see it as just that? when was the moment that i stopped daydreaming of my prince charming and started cursing men in my head? when did love become a fantasy and anger my reality? and what would it take to reclaim my childish ways?

everyone talks about discovering your inner child...but what about our outer child? why is it that maturity requires cynicism and sarcastic apathy when it comes to interacting with one another? instead of a friendly hello, our youth expect nothing short of a questioning glance in their direction and some sort of undercutting comment on their appearance, their music or their choice in friends. it is ingrained in us from those impressionable teen years...play hardball or get yourself socially annihlated.

when it comes to sarcasm, i am the cheif of sinners. always leary of anything remotely "touching" i find it much safer to scoff and look the other direction than to dangerously embrace anyone's humble attempt to forego social expectations of hardness and cynicism.

i suppose today was a day of great discovery for me because as i sat and watched old westerns with my grandma...something i would never choose to normally spend an entire day doing...a sneaky, familiar feeling began to creep up on me. i didn't feel so alone and at the same time i didn't feel like a really needed anyone around to feel complete. the longer i just rested...watching petite blond little southern "fillies" protecting their innocence all the while never refusing the hand of a gallant young man as he helped her sweet frame into his wagon...i caught myself less inclined to roll my eyes and slowly enchanted by the simple romance (however grossly hyperbolic it may have been).

perhaps the world isn't watching me as closely as i once thought...or at least hoped...or dreaded. perhaps our roles in this world are much simpler than we allow them to be.

in a postmodern culture so caught up in its blurred lines, resigned gender roles and incessant promotion for tolerance...it is no wonder that the small but admirable lives of the few chivalrous and lovely people left in this world get passed of as cliched, old-fashioned, up-tight victorians who will never amount to much and who will never have a chance at making a true impact on their culture that speaks a very different language.

but perhaps we don't speak such a different language after all...perhaps we just don't take the time often enough to realize the whispers of our hearts long for the simplicity and the order of a life that comes so much more naturally than we even realize.

I'm the one that jaded you

so, what better place to begin a new blog than on the topic of relationships?

i have a good friend who tells me that i generally make decent decisions...except when it comes to "boys."

perhaps it is the whispers of glory hoped for that causes me to so readily stumble into silly relationships. or maybe its that nagging desire for things to get just a little better.

most likely it is a combination way too many unrealized dreams fueled by my insatiably romantic inclinations...someday my prince charming will come...are you him? oh wait...are you? well, how about you? i guess you must be?

it seems like in the blink of an eye my life of utter singleness was thrown into a torrent of seemingly hopeful opportunities that left me picking up the pieces from a whirlwind of broken emotions and i wonder how i got myself here.

its easy to just want to say "next time will be different" but that's not good enough for me. i feel so completely alone on the subject...one person told me i was taking it way too personally. but for some reason thats what i thought realtionships were all about.

Isaiah 48:17-18

"This is what the Lord says -- your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
'I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.
If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river.'"