Road Trip, Week Two

It has been a few days since my last update... I actually managed to spill water on my laptop last week, so that is good. My keyboard doesn't really work right now, but I'll manage. On with the summary!

After leaving Yosemite we had one of our longest driving days, and so we left early in the morning from our beautiful camp site. Our goal was to get to Las Vegas for the evening, so we planned to just miss Death Valley on our way down, since our car didn't have air conditioning. It is not generally a good idea to drive in Death Valley without air conditioning. That being said, however, we made a slight adjustment to our itinerary and drove through the North end of the valley after seeing Scotty's Castle, which was built in the 1920s as a vacation home for a wealthy stock broker. But now it is just a bit of a tourist trap for the National Park:

We got to Vegas in the evening and found our room in the Plaza, which is where Sinatra and the Rat Pack used to hang out. We were across the street from something called the Fremont Street Experience, which is just a big street with cool movie-type stuff on the ceilings. Then on the next day we walked the Strip for five or six hours after swimming and seeing the new Batman movie at the Palms. Vegas is pretty fake and lived up to its reputation as 'Sin City:' we all agreed that we probably don't need to ever go back. But it was cool to see some of the famous buildings and people... in fact, I met Jessica Simpson, but she was in a hurry so the photo turned out blurry.

After Vegas we drove up to a National Park called Zion (yup... lots of Mormon stuff) for a couple of nights. This was the first of many "Southern Utah" parks -- there are several really cool parks in Utah, most of which have truly amazing rock formations and natural scenery. Zion, for example, sports tons of unique and awe-inspiring views of things like the Checkerboard Mesa. There is also a huge arch in the park, which we were only able to see from a distance, but which I will say more about in my next post anyway.

Our only full day there was spent on a hike up the 'Narrows,' which is, oddly enough, a narrow canyon with a river running through it, and which you can generally hike if there are no flash flood warnings. We walked through a canyon with (sometimes) 1,000 foot vertical cliffs on either side, making sure to look for flash-flood hiding spots along the way.

Our next stop was to the south of Zion -- the Grand Canyon, which is in Northern Arizona. But we decided to take a quick detour to the North first, to see Bryce Canyon. Bryce is another amazing place, but we only had a couple of hours to kill there, so we just went out to some lookouts. Here is a picture of Kyle on the rim of Bryce Amphitheater, which is beautiful:

When we got to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, we set up camp and had dinner, but we also had our first big argument as a group of four men. Two weeks isn't bad when you think about it. :) We did go see the sun setting over the rim, however, which was a great experience and well worth a four mile hike in new flip-flops. Ouch. On the next day, then, we walked down the North Rim of the canyon along the North Kaibab Trail to Roaring Springs, which is a cool little spring where we were able to refresh and eat jerkey, carrots, and wheat thins. Quality meals always.

Again, we were on the edge of some hard-core cliffs, and were able to get some amazing views. And I probably shouldn't have put my legs over another ledge... oh well.

Road Trip, Week One

I just returned last week from a great three week road trip with some of my best friends. More than seven months in the planning, "The Greatest Adventure, Year 2008" was truly an epic adventure, though it probably has a slightly inappropriate name when placed in the form of an acronym. I'm gonna try to do a three-post installment highlighting the best bits! First: allow me to introduce the gentlemen...

Jeff Hodgson, one of my best friends, is on the far left -- he and I went to Lake Washington High School together many moons ago, but we really didn't know each other until UW. Next is KB Baby, Kyle Bjorback, who has been a good buddy since we met at a Phi Kappa Tau "BMC" Weekend our freshman year, and who is getting married in two weeks to the beautiful Lisa Dubbs!! Third from left is the one and the only Jason Boyett, an old friend from Crossroads Bible Church and the fraternity. We used to ride the buses to Bellevue together and talk about girls. We still do the latter. :)

We woke up early on day one and hit the road for Crater Lake, and stopped for lunch at Burgerville, which is Oregon's rip-off of In'n'Out or Dicks. We got camp set up in time to take a hike up to the top of nearby Mt. Scott to watch the scenery -- our first of many hikes to come, and a good warm-up. This is a pic of Kyle and Jason near the top.

We left in the morning for our next stop -- Redwoods National Park in Northern California! The drive was pretty sweet, and I was able to drive along the coast for at bit on Highway 101, then through ancient redwood trees on a scenic drive through the park. The trees in this part of Northern California are really ancient and humongous, in large part because it does not so much rain as constantly "mist" in the forest.

Our campsite was right on the ocean and only a mile or so South of Fern Canyon, which is an amazing gully where they filmed a famous scene from Jurassic Park II. Our campsite neighbors turned out to be an old Christian couple named Jon and Joan Archer - Jon is a pastor and was a High School teacher for many years, and knew the park inside and out. It was a joy to meet them, and a privilege to spend time with them touring the canyon and learning about the history of local indian tribes. Above is Jason, walking through Fern Canyon.

After another night in Redwoods we drove down to Chico State University, where we were grateful for the hospitality of our Phi Kappa Tau brothers there. It was cool to drive through some serious forest fires on the way down -- at times the sky was red and the sun was hidden behind billows of smoke.

Yosemite was the next stop -- we spent three nights on the river just outside of the park there, and on our first full day we hiked up to Glacier Point along the "Four Mile Trail," which is actually 4.8 miles, and which has a 3200 foot elevation change from bottom to top. There are some seriously beautiful outlooks on the way up, and the view from the top would be worth it by itself. Here is the view from Glacier Point, which you can just drive up to if you like, but which is far more satisfying when earned. Then a pic of Jason with the rest of the valley behind him.

Our next day was a hike of Half Dome (you can see the dome in the above picture on the right), which was about an 18 mile day. Doing a 10 mile hike the day before might not have been the brightest thing ever, but we at least learned that we would need to bring about three gallons of water! At the top of the hike you have to climb up a super steep granite face along some cables, which were really busy on the day we went up (a Saturday). Here is a view from the top: you can't tell here, but Kyle and I are sitting next to a 1,300 foot cliff. I probably shouldn't have dangled my feet from the edge, but you only live once, right?

Beautiful Poetry

Although the fig tree blossom not,
And all the vines of our small plot
Be barren, and the olive fail,
The sheep grow weak and heifers frail,
We will rejoice in God, my love,
And take our pleasures from above:
The Lord, our God, shall be our strength
And give us life, whatever length
On earth he please, and make our feet
Like mountain deer, to rise and cleat
The narrow path for man and wife
That rises steep and leads to life.

-- John Piper

I really like Piper's poetry, and I think it is one of the coolest parts of his ministry. Some days I find myself writing poems in my head, but I never really get around to writing them down for whatever reason. It wasn't until tonight that I realized that my "head" poetry is really similar to Piper's in terms of the meter. He fairly consistently rhymes in pairs of lines, or alternating lines, and will often carry a sentence past the break of the line, so as to match words from the middle of his sentences.

I should write some of my poetry down. But it probably won't ever find its way online... :)

Thomas Watson

"Christians, do you have a sad resentment of other things and not of sin?"

I just finished Watson's "Doctrine of Repentance," which I have started to read many different times in my life but never finished. It takes hard work to get through anything written by a puritan, and Watson is one of the easier ones. Every paragraph I read made me want to put the book down, journal, and work on something in my life for a month or two. It felt weird to plow through pages at a time.

One of his best thoughts -- and by best I think I mean most applicable to me -- was in a section in which he was discussing repentance among the church:

"Repent of your non-improvement of talents. Health is a talent; estate is a talent; wit and parts are talents; and these God has entrusted you with to improve for His glory. He has sent you into the world as a merchant sends his factor beyond the seas to trade for his master's advantage, but you have not done the good you might. Can you say, 'Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds' (Luke 19:18)? O mourn at the burial of your talents! Let it grieve you that so much of your age has not been time lived but time lost; that you have filled up your golden hours more with froth than with spirits."

This thought got me pretty good. A few months back I was able to have coffee with an old mentor and family friend, whose advice to me was to find my talents - to look at the things that I enjoy doing and that I am good at. Why? Because God has made me with a unique concoction of talents and passions, which are His gifts to me, and He expects me to use them! How am I improving on, and nurturing, the talents that God has given me?

About Time. Geez.

It's been a while. I am definitely a 'cyclic' blogger, and it just hasn't occurred to me to blog for the past month-and-a-half or so. My bad.

WELLLL... a lot has happened! I didn't get that job at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, even though the interview went GREAT, but that is ok. It just means that God wants me somewhere else. I'm patient and I'm working hard - holding up my end of the bargain, so to speak - and God has provided thus far. Tutoring has been good, and the agency that I work for has made it clear that if I want to work full time for them in the fall, they would be willing to have me. That wouldn't be too bad at all, but it is still not quite what I want to do. It isn't the 'career' move I am looking for, even if it pays very well.

What DO I want to do? In the long term it is still medicine. I merely don't know how to GET there, which is why I have been looking for a job in the medical sciences for the past 8 or 9 months. But this has been very difficult for me, because at the start I feel that I am at a disadvantage, in that my degree is in something totally unrelated. Every time I write a cover letter or apply anywhere I feel like I need to explain myself extensively: "Well, I got a degree in math, but what I really want to do is work towards medical school." Plus, I am already at a disadvantage because Seattle is outrageously overeducated. To live here and have a degree is like living here and eating bubble gum. It barely matters.

Things have happily been very rich apart from career frustration. I'm continuing to learn a lot about life and God and family and community and everything else. Last week I turned 23 years old, and I can hardly believe it -- that is OLD. (Alright, I know it is still pretty young, but it shows that time is flying.) I don't have much time left to be young, so I want to start making the most of it :) It is interesting that God's Word has a lot to say about being young... look at some of these bad boys:

For You are my hope; O Lord GOD, You are my confidence from my youth...O God, You have taught me from my youth, And I still declare Your wondrous deeds.
--Psalm 71:5,17

How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.
--Psalm 119:9

Let our sons in their youth be as grown-up plants...
--Psalm 144:12

The Proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel... to give prudence to the naive, to the youth knowledge and discretion...
--Proverbs 1:1,4

The glory of young men is their strength, and the honor of old men is their gray hair.
--Proverbs 20:29

Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So, remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.
--Ecclesiastes 11:9-10

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them"
--Ecclesiastes 12:1

It is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth.
--Lamentations 3:27

Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.
--1 Timothy 4:12

I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one... I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.
--1 John 2:13-14

BOOM. There it is. The prime of life is fleeting! NOW is the time to make God the source of all my confidence, to live according to His Word in knowledge and discretion, to remember Him, and to be pure and strong. And I want to learn to rejoice! In Christ we have an amazing source of joy every day and at every moment, because we have Him in the midst of any trial and in the face of any circumstance, whether it be fantastic or miserable at the surface level. He came that we may have life, and have it abundantly -- all in the midst of any heartache, difficulty, frustration, or trial. I have been thinking a lot lately about a verse in Habbakuk that I hope will encourage you, and I'll end with that, but there should be more updates to come.

Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines,
Though the yield of the olive should fail
And the fields produce no food,
Though the flock should be cut off from the fold
And there be no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I will exult in the LORD,
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
--Habakkuk 3:17-18

Butterflies

I have a job interview tomorrow.

Back in mid-February, you may remember (if anyone reads this, haha), I missed out on a job opportunity with the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute because I was in Ensenada. I was pretty bummed, but shortly afterward I was able to find work as a tutor, and have been doing that ever since.

Since that time I have applied for jobs with 5 or 6 more laboratories, and no one has so much as given me the time of day. It is really easy to get discouraged, that is for sure, and this season has caused me to think about where my future will be. Will I work in education? If so, why do I still have these strong (and growing?) desires to be a doctor, to administer medical care to the poor, to feed the hungry, and to comfort the frightened? I DO enjoy working with High Schoolers, teaching students about stuff that they struggle to understand through their normal coursework, but this time has taught me that I want more than that. I still want to be a doctor. This past week I read a book called "Mountains Beyond Mountains" that really challenged me, and made me yearn to be a doctor. I almost couldn't take it.

So, tomorrow I am interviewing with SBRI. A couple of weeks ago they called me and asked if I would still be interested in a job with the same laboratory as before, working on Malaria vaccines. It turns out they have one more position that they want to fill, slightly different than what I had initially applied for, but still right up my alley. I am trying not to be anxious about it, not to have "butterflies," but it is hard. This is not only the first (real) job interview of my life, but it is also with a couple of VERY important PhD-level, we-pull-in-millions-of-dollars-of-grants-and-employ-dozens-of-other-PhD-level-scientists type Malariologists. I will need to be on my game, I will need to know exactly what I am talking about, and I am not entirely sure what to expect.

If you read this blog between Sunday night and Monday afternoon, then, please remember to pray for me. God is GOOD and He has something for me, but I want to FIND it! If God calls me to work in medicine someday, then He will open the doors that I will need to get there. He has given me these desires for a reason, but I also need to subject my desires to Him. "He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time." (J.I.P.) For now, all I know is that my next step comes tomorrow: I have only to be faithful for my part, and He will certainly be faithful in His.

Letters to Children

"If you continue to love Jesus, nothing much can go wrong with you, and I hope you may always do so. I'm so thankful that you realized [the] 'hidden story' in the Narnian books. It is odd, children nearly always do, grown-ups hardly ever."

-- C.S. Lewis, written to "Ruth" on October 26, 1963, four weeks before he died.

Waiting

"'Wait on the Lord' is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come."

--J.I. Packer, "Knowing God"

Do I agree with the last thing he says here?

"Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD."

--Psalm 27:14

Languages

Languages are interesting. I am not smart enough to think about everything that is involved when we speak to one another, or read, or listen to the spoken word, or whatever. I simply don't have the energy or the capacity to develop a "philosophy of language," or whatever you want to call it, that some of my friends can -- a philosophy about how words transmit information, and about whether this is a learned or an inherent behavior in us, and so on. All I know is that, for whatever reason, I enjoy speaking Spanish and I really don't like French. Maybe that kind of thing is just a matter of taste, or maybe I simply associate my experiences learning and speaking Spanish with the language itself, and the same with French. Probably. All I know is that I am not totally alone in preferring certain languages:

"Even now I cannot fully understand why the Greek language, which I learned as a child, was so distasteful to me. I loved Latin, not the elementary lessons but those which I studied later under teachers of literature."
--Augustine's Confessions, I.13

So if Augustine can get away with it, so can I. :) I do think it is important, however, to understand both the limitations and the amazing potential of language when we read the Bible. I was thinking about it today when reading Ecclesiastes, because sometimes (especially in Biblical poetry) a verse in the NIV can be really different in the NASB. The verses I was thinking about today are Ecclesiastes 12:13-14:

"Now all has been heard: here is the conclusion of the matter: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." (NIV).

"The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgement, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil." (NASB).

I was reading this verse in the NIV today and something really jumped out at me. It was kind of cool actually -- it donned on me that the words "duty" and "this" are singular, while TWO things are listed as being the "conclusion of the matter." That is, THE duty is actually two things, namely to fear God and keep His commandments." There is one duty - one thing that you and I should strive for each and every day. But that singular thing is two things.

This same idea comes up in the introductory chapter of John Piper's book Desiring God, where JP talks about the opening line of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." He notes that there is a (singular) chief end of man, but that this end consists of two things - to glorify God AND to enjoy Him forever. Piper basically bases his entire book on the observation that glorifying God and enjoying Him are the same thing viewed from two different perspectives: thus, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

I think God plays with plurals like this in order to get us to look at ideas - and I think I might start looking for it more. One other example I can think of off the top of my head is in Galatians 5, where Paul is discussing the fruit (singular!) of the Spirit -- which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. One fruit, nine characteristics.

Anyways, that is just something to think about. God means to say that fearing Him and obeying His commandments are not two separate things, but one thing, expressed in two different ways with two different terms. It would be worth it to sit down and think long and hard about how that is true. At the very least, it got me thinking today about languages because this same observation is a lot harder to make - at least it is more subtle - when you read the text in the NASB. You would need to see the singular in the phrase "this applies to every person, " which could refer to the "conclusion" rather than the fearing of God and the following of His commandments. It is still there, but the idea that is (probably?) in the original languages comes across better in certain English renderings than in others. To know for sure, of course, you would need to look into the original language to see where all the pronouns point. Anyone else have any examples of this type of stuff?

Ensenada

Here it is, folks: the long-awaited Ensenada post!! I will try to put in lots of pictures for Daniel: I suppose it can't hurt to make my blog more "approachable". This post is kind of long, but I am really abbreviating things, so just take your time if you want to read through it.

So... as you may know, I was asked on late notice (four weeks or so ago) if I would be able to join the high school group at my church on a mission trip to Ensenada, Mexico, to build houses. After moving a couple of obstacles out of the way, I was free to commit to the trip, and we left town on Sunday the 17th of February.

The first thing that you should know is that the head coach of the UW Football team, Tyrone Willingham, was on our flight from Seattle to San José. Pretty awesome. We went on, of course, to San Diego, but I believe this was a crucial development for the success of our trip. Go Dawgs.

Once in San Diego, we got our vans and secured our luggage, and then made for In-n-Out Burger, a favorite California burger joint.



Being properly fueled, we then proceeded to drive across the border and into Tijuana. If you have ever made this trip you know what an amazing jump this is from wealth to poverty: there is an immediate dropoff. We experienced a moment of silent prayer as we drove through Tijuana, and then we made our way to Ensenada.

Our team worked with a ministry called Yugo. What is cool about Yugo is that they work through local ministries -- the families that we serve build relationship primarily with a local pastor and congregation, rather than with a parachurch organization or with a group of high schoolers who may never return.

We had approximately 38 students and 12 staff make the trip, and the group was divided into four teams. On our first full day there, two of the teams went to one build site, and the other two teams went to a second site. I was on Team 4 (Team BONESAW), so the first day we went with Team 3 and put in a long day of work on a house for a very needy family. Our family consisted of a mother and her four-year-old son, Angél: the dad had passed away very shortly after Angél's birth, and so they lived with the Angél's grandmother. Both of these dear women are believers, which is somewhat odd for the families typically served by Yugo, but it was a great gift to us. It is amazing to see what sweet fellowship can be shared by Christians even when there is a significant language barrier. Here is Angél:



On the second and third days there, we split up so that half of the teams went to churches and did Vacation Bible School with little kids, while half of the teams stayed on the sites to work on the houses. On day two, my team stayed and put up drywall and roofing, then on day three we played with kids all day. It was pretty cool to work as a team, and we were blown away by the generosity of our family, who provided a meal for our entire team each day. It was said that each of these meals was worth about a months' wages for the family, which I think is probably close to the truth. It is hard to understand the depth of this.



Above is Ricardo, our build leader. He was a stud, and by the fourth day we had completed the house, and we were able to present our family with a new place to live. We dedicated the home to the Lord and prayed for the family, and were able to hand the keys over. "A Father for the fatherless and a Judge for the widows is God in His holy habitation; God makes a home for the lonely..." (Psalm 68:5-6).

On our fifth day in Mexico we went to a migrant camp several miles south of Ensenada. Camps like this are for the poorest of the poor, most of whom are coming from South America looking for a better life in the North. They sign their lives away to work in the agricultural fields, trying merely to provide food for their families. They live in converted chicken coops. Still working with Yugo, we were there mainly to help local pastors try to build relationship with the locals. I snuck a couple of pictures of their homes:




I am realizing that earthly poverty is far more the norm than the exception in this life, but the down side of this realization is that stuff like this is hard to internalize. I am still not sure how I am affected by this kind of poverty, and there were several others on our trip who were struggling with the same thing. Why am I not moved to tears when I see this? It is hard, for whatever reason, to truly be affected: maybe because it is truly hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? I feel like my heart, while softening, is hardening at the same time. I am not sure if that makes any sense, but I need to think and pray about this. A lot. No man can serve both God and wealth. Maybe Christ actually means it when He says we should use our wealth to make friends, who will then recieve us into eternal dwellings (Luke 16)? And what does He mean when He says that "none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions" (Luke 14)?

After visiting the migrant camp we went to La Bufadora, where there is a pretty cool (natural) waterspout. Then we went back to Yugo for the last night, where we washed one another's feet. It was a neat experience. God is good.

"Come over here!"

"They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and after they came to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them; and passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, 'Come over to Macedonia and help us.' When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them." -- Acts 16:6-10.

My friend and pastor Matt Chapman shared this passage with me last week. It is interesting that the Holy Spirit specifically forbids Paul and his companions from doing things... we tend to think of Him only as empowering and urging us towards specific goals. I am not sure why we think that: God is not a machine - a set of cosmic rules. Rather, He is our Father, directing us where we ought to go and guiding us away from the things we ought to avoid.

I did not get an interview at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute. If you read my previous post you will see that God directed events to this effect, leading me away from what in MY wisdom would have seemed a fantastic opportunity. God wants me somewhere else, and the first step in getting me there might be through tutoring.

Read this.

A few days ago my close friend Jeff sent me the contact info for a tutoring position at Lakeside School in Northern Seattle. He had found the position, hoping to work as a part-time tutor while still in school, but he was unable to work the mid-day hours they were looking for, so he sent me the job. It turns out that:

(1) This job pays between $45 and $50 per hour
(2) They need tutoring help in General Chemistry and General Biology
(3) The job is at Lakeside School, where Bill Gates and Paul Allen went to High School, considered by many the best private school in the whole of the Northwestern United States.

I went in today and interviewed for the position; I have another meeting with more school staff on Friday morning. This will only be a part time position if I get it, and it will only last for two months, as I am essentially only filling in for a regular tutor. But it will certainly pay my bills for the time that I have it, and, as I understand it, this school has a fairly limited and exclusive tutor list... once you are on it, parents or students can contact you freely for help in your subjects of strength!

What this will force me to do, at the very least, is to learn introductory chemistry and biology inside and out. I already know them, but I will really need to know them. Whatever else my furure holds, that knowledge can't hurt. If the Spirit led me away from SBRI, is He leading me to Lakeside?

Providence

"I know, O LORD, that a man's life is not his own; it is not for a man to direct his steps." -- Jeremiah 10:23.

In the past year I have begun, more and more, to look for meaning in the events of my life. Not that I never looked for meaning before this year, but as I grow older I am seeing God mold and shape my future before my very eyes. By God's mercy, having been stripped of much of the control that I thought I had over my life, I am finding more and more that I am the man in Proverbs 19:21 --"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord, it will stand."

"But I tell you, in this you are not right, for God is greater than man. Why do you complain to him that he answers none of man's words? For God does speak - now one way, now another - though man may not percieve it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword. Or a man may be chastened on a bed of pain with constant distress in his bones, so that his very being finds food repulsive and his soul loathes the choicest meal. His flesh wastes away to nothing, and his bones, once hidden, now stick out. His sould draws near to the pit, and his life to the messengers of death." -- Job 33:14-22.

I want to perceive when God speaks to me! The easiest way to do this is to be absorbed in His word. "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know the one from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." -- 2 Timothy 3:14-17. But like Elihu says, God may speak to us in many other ways. I want to listen to Him in quiet moments of prayer, in the counsel of others, in fellowship, and in my circumstances.

Here is a quick story of how God has shaped my last few weeks: interspersed will be some pictures of my trip to Ensenada, so that I won't have to put them all in my next post. :)

A few weeks ago I applied for a post-bachelor fellowship at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle. This is a program that would have paid me money to get a Master's degree in Public Health. As I was waiting to hear back about my application status, however, I was given the opportunity to go to Ensenada, Mexico to build houses with my church High School group. The catch? I would potentially be in Mexico without communication, just when I would need to be checking my emails.

Fortunately I made a quick inquiry at the Institute, and found that I could (probably) arrange for my status email to be sent a bit early. It was. I was given the age-old polite let-down, "we still think you have great talent, etc." I was disappointed, but the Mexico trip was a go, my future once again uncertain.

So I went on the trip. It was great, but sobering. We built houses for widows and poor families, we were confronted with a poverty that is essentially alien to Seattle, and we got to experience a much less materialistic culture. I played with little kids a lot. I even turned off my phone for the whole week and didn't have internet access: not to have to worry about my application status at all was nice. When I got back to the States, however, I was overjoyed to see that I had received a voicemail message from the human resources guy at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute! He wanted to see if I would be available to interview for a postion as a Lab Technician in Patrick Duffy's Lab, doing research with Malaria. He had called me on Monday -- we had left on Sunday -- and I didn't get the message until Saturday.

So I called the hr guy back on Monday. He wasn't there. No biggie - I tried again on Tuesday... same thing. Then Wednesday, then Thursday. Finally, on Friday, I spoke with him, and he said that they were almost done with the hiring process for the position. If they had not filled the position by Friday afternoon or Monday, they would call me to schedule an interview.

Sooooooo...... I really don't know what God is doing with this. But I want to listen. I may get a call to interview when Monday rolls around, but I also may not. All I know is that if I had not been in Ensenada, I would have simply answered my phone and scheduled an interview. If God doesn't want me to work in a Malaria lab and doesn't want me to study International Health, what does He have in store for me?

Mysterious Ways...

The phrase "God works in mysterious ways" is never actually in the Bible. But I think it is absolutely true. Why God works things the way that He does is a mystery to me - indeed, His ways and His thoughts are far above yours or mine. Check out Isaiah 55!

So... I have a quick story. I think that God often does little things in our day that cause us (force us?), if nothing else, to be reminded of Him. My car, for instance, has a nasty habit of dying unexpectedly. Sometimes it dies at stoplights and sometimes on the freeway, but it always needs a few minutes to cool down and then it is good to go. Well, last night I was driving to the UW from Kirkland, and my car died on the 520 floating bridge. This is the second time this has happened in the past few months: first it happened going Eastbound, and last night Westbound.

What is amazing is that each time I have been able to coast to safety without hindering traffic at all! Here is a picture (courtesy of google maps) of where my car first died a couple of months ago, and where I was able to coast to safety at the service station:

Now here is a picture where my car died last night, and where I was able to pull to the side:

Weird, huh? Irritating as it was to have my car die again last night, it actually turned into an opportunity for me to stop and thank God for allowing me to be able to pull to the side of the road. I was then able to thank Him for the gift of even having a car at all, and for the many other blessings that I enjoy every day. God used this little detour in my day to remind me to be thankful. How easily we forget to give thanks in all things! (Ephesians 5:20)

In the next couple of days I hope to post about my trip to Ensenada, Mexico with the Crossroads High School group... Some pretty cool stuff happened that I want to write about. And God used the trip to really affect my circumstances back at home, too. More to come.

Friendship

More from Confessions.

"...friendship had other charms to captivate my heart. We could talk and laugh together and exchange small acts of kindness. We could join in the pleasure that books can give. We could be grave or gay together. If we sometimes disagreed, it was without spite, as a man might differ with himself, and the rare occasions of dispute were the very spice to season our usual accord. Each of us had something to learn from the others and something to teach in return. If any were away, we missed them with regret and gladly welcomed them when they came home. Such things as these are heartfelt tokens of affection between friends. They are signs to be read on the face and in the eyes, spoken by the tongue and displayed in countless acts of kindness. They can kindle a blaze to melt our hearts and weld them into one." (VI.8)

"Let all who are truly my brothers love in me what they know from your teaching to be worthy of their love, and let them sorrow to find in me what they know from your teaching to be occasion for remorse. This is what I wish my true brother to feel in their hearts... But my true brothers are those who rejoice for me in their hearts when they find good in me, and grieve for me when they find sin. They are my true brothers, because whether they see good in me or evil, they love me still." (X.4)

"If I wish, I can become the friend of God at this very moment." (VIII.6, quoting Ponticianus)

Amen, brother A!

Augustine of Hippo

I recently read Augustine's Confessions, and I can see why it is a classic. If his books are anything like him, he must have been an approachable, honest, and humble guy. Part of the reason classics have lasted for so long is that they speak to the human condition in some way, and a couple of passages in particular really struck me as "classic" when I read through this text. Augustine was a HUMAN, and he struggled with exactly the same things in the 400s that we struggle with today.


Does This Sound Like You? :

"I was astonished that although I now loved you and not some phantom in your place, I did not persist in enjoyment of my God. Your beauty drew me to you, but soon I was dragged away from you by my own weight and in dismay I plunged again into the things of this world. The weight I carried was the habit of the flesh. But your memory remained with me and I had no doubt at all that you were the one to whom I should cling, only I was not yet able to cling to you." (VII.17)

It strikes me that this is the condition of the entire American church today, and in this passage is the biggest reason that I enjoy the ministry of John Piper. Do I enjoy God? I mean really enjoy spending time in His presence, serving and worshiping Him, and obeying him? Here is where Augustine finds peace:

"I began to search for a means of gaining the strength I needed to enjoy you, but I could not find this means until I embraced the mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ, who is a man, like them, and also rules as God over all things, blessed for ever. He was calling to me and saying I am the way; I am truth and life. He it was who united with our flesh that food which I was too weak to take; for the word was made flesh so that your Wisdom, by which you created all things, might be milk to suckle us in infancy. For I was not humble enough to conceive of the humble Jesus Christ as my God, nor had I learnt what lesson his human weakness was meant to teach. The lesson is that your Word, the eternal Truth, which far surpasses even the higher parts of your creation, raises up to himself all who subject themselves to him. From the clay of which we are made he built for himself a lowly house in this world below, so that by this means he might cause those who were to be made subject to him to abandon themselves and come over to his side. He would cure them of the pride that swelled up in their hearts and would nurture love in its place, so that they should no longer stride ahead confident in themselves, but might realize their own weakness when at their feet they saw God himself, enfeebled by sharing this garment of our mortality. And at last, from weariness, they would cast themselves down upon his humanity, and when it rose they too would rise." (VII.18)

And again, "I was quite certain of these truths, but I was too weak to enjoy you. I used to talk glibly as though I know the meaning of it all, but unless I had looked for the way which leads to you in Christ our Saviour, instead of finding knowledge I should have found my end. For I had now begun to wish to be thought wise. I was full of self-esteem, which was a punishment of my own making. I ought to have deplored my state, but instead my knowledge only bred self-conceit. For was I not without charity, which builds its edifice on the firm foundation of humility, that is, on Jesus Christ?" (VII.20)

How often we lose track of Jesus! It was Jesus who saved Augustine from his pride and finally gave him lasting joy. If you are a sinner today, He is your only refuge. God is a consuming fire who burns up his adversaries: why not come to Him today? I think even Christians need to be constantly reminded that Christ is our only hope and joy - anything in His place brings only multiplied sorrows. His yoke is easy and his burden is light!

Been A While...

Wow. September 27th is the last time I posted anything here. Obviously that whole Romans thing didn't work out :) -- don't get me wrong, I still read through the book a couple of times, but I clearly don't have the endurance to do any kind of regular updates about stuff. In the future, if you read this blog (I know a couple poor souls out there do), don't expect too many updates!

I did feel like doing an update, though. Mostly for Daniel, but a little bit because I feel guilty about having people check this every once and again only to see the same-old same-old. Ergo my thoughts: it is late and this post will probably contain a great deal of rambling. I am not really looking to a lot of scripture here, I just want to spout off a little.

(1) For those of you who don't know, I worked for Costco from the beginning of November to the end of December. I pulled carts around in the parking lot and I put groceries in boxes. Sometimes I removed boxes from carts. It felt like four months instead of two, but I learned a TON. Literally a ton. I thought I would post what I learned, partly so I won't forget it. It has been amazing to see my own heart in the past couple of months, and I wouldn't trade this time for anything. God has used it to teach me a lot about myself and about Himself.

-- Pride. I am a very proud person, but I never really saw it in its ugliness until I worked at Costco. The STRANGEST thing happened, and it happened over and over again. It went like this: First, I would see someone that I know who would be shopping at Costco. This happened all the time, because everyone shops at Costco. Literally everyone. After seeing this person, assuming I saw them from a distance and they didn't see me, my immediate instinct was to AVOID them. I was ashamed to work at Costco, because I have a degree, and because people who have degrees don't work at Costco unless it is in the corporate offices. If I did not avoid the person (I didn't always try), I found that my inclination -- my overwhelming desire -- was to EXPLAIN myself. I wanted to tell the story of how I got to the Costco parking lot, wearing an orange vest and a nametag. Costco was my "post-college relax" job, I was looking for a "real" job, etc. I felt like I had to explain myself so I wouldn't be judged.

I realized really quickly that there are a couple of angles to this. The first is that I felt like Costco was a bad job. Don't get me wrong, I do think it is vastly under my potential (when I was interviewing for the seasonal job the interviewer lady asked me, "and you want to push carts?!?"), but it really isn't a bad job. In fact, it is a really great gig. One of the managers there (he has been there five years) double-majored at the UW. Another gal I worked with had just graduated. In short, there is no shame in working for Costco: a lot of their employees are continuing their educations while they work their way up internally, learning about retail and customer service. Most non-student-types are there because it is their career, and are looking for nothing more than to move up in the company. This has a great deal to do with the fact that the money is really good for what it is. I really can't imagine what upheaval my heart would have experienced had my job been at McDonald's or Safeway or something else.

The second angle here is that I subconsciously DEVALUE people based on where they work. It was weird to feel like people were looking down on me because my job was to push their carts around, but I realized that I do the same thing to others all the time. I see myself as intelligent, educated, and therefore important, so that when I go to the gas station or to the grocery store, I look down on the people who work in those places. I ask myself, though rarely in so many words, "what did this person do to end up here? Did they drop out of high school? Do they lack initiative? How can they do this every day of their lives?" I condescend to people who are not walking around in the halls of a university, or who do not like talking about metaphysics or cosmology, or who don't yearn to transform the world in their day-to-day lives. I think we all condescend to those around us because it makes us feel bigger. I find, however, that as a follower of Jesus I have no right to look down on anyone. Ever. With humility of mind I should consider others better than myself: I ought to look not only to my own interests, but also to the interests of others, and my attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. Being found in appearance as a man, He became obedient to death, even death on a cross! This is hard because we are so hard-wired for selfishness that we hardly even see it when we are proud and selfish. Oh, how we need to pray for God's grace!

I think it might be interesting to do a Bible study on pride. A cursory word search of "pride" in the Word of God turns in tons of results. God cares about this. He will not despise a broken and contrite spirit.

-- Wealth. I don't ever think I will own a luxury vehicle, ever. Cars are tools to be used, and they cost money. How can anyone justify buying a BMW or Lexus SUV? Praise God for the time I spent at the UW, time I spent realizing that Christ was not a Republican in an SUV. I think God cares way more about the way we use our money - our own, personal, where-it-hurts-money - to fix injustice and poverty in the world than he does about supply-side economics. I finally just read Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz, and he is right: "We don't need as much money as we have."

-- Health: At Costco I was essentially paid to work out. It was pretty nice, especially when I would walk the couple of miles to work instead of drive. On those days I probably walked 10 miles, most of the time carrying around massive loads of carts. One of the really interesting things I found while working there, however, was how many people smoked cigarettes. Lots of people still smoke. A surprising number, it seemed to me: even people that you wouldn't peg as smokers were smoking like chimneys at Costco. The more I think about it, the more I think that smoking is a spiritual issue. Sure, there are plenty of folks who smoke and are not controlled by the habit, much the same way folks drink (I think of Donald Miller, for example, or JRR Tolkien or CS Lewis or GK Chesterton or CH Spurgeon or many of my friends). But I felt like at Costco, smoking was a release for people. They get stressed out, so they smoke. They need somewhere to go, and cigarettes are always there to calm their nerves. I am sure this could unfold into a huge discourse about how the body and the soul are intertwined and about how modern medicine treats our base physiology but not our spirit, but I don't really want to talk about that. I just think it is interesting, is all, because cigarettes are so obviously detrimental to health, and because "the body is not made for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." (1 Cor. 6:13). Our bodies are meant, as John Piper says, to "make God look precious."

(2) It is 2008 now. That's crazy. I was talking to a friend recently, and for some reason felt compelled to mention how clearly I remember 1995. I was in 4th grade, the Mariners won the AL West (I went to a game where Tino Martinez hit a home run in the bottom of the 9th to beat the A's 9 to 8), there was a big earthquake in Japan, Bill Clinton was president and the Unibomber was doing a bunch of stuff. Crazy. That was 13 years ago. I have been a guitar player for 12 years now.

(3) With the new year I am always tempted to make resolutions, and then I always do, but then I always break them by the middle of January or so. Especially if the resolutions have to do with dealing with my sin in some sort of legalistic way: I almost always watch the show or waste the time or do the thing that I said I wouldn't watch or waste or do. It is exactly like wanting to do a blog about the book of Romans: my intentions are good, but I am relying on my own strength and my own willpower to do some enormous "deed" that, even if I could pull it off, would serve far more to puff me up than to humble me and make me more teachable. My heart is not changed.

I would LIKE to make resolutions, sure. I really want to read more (I think 52 books in a year would be a pretty neat goal- one per week), and specifically I would like to read through the Bible, which I have never done. I tried it my freshman year in college and got bogged down in Ezekiel or somewhere. I would like to start volunteering my time and energy with the poor and the destitute. I would like to reestablish a clarity of purpose in my life towards which I can move and plan, and I would like to improve on my friendships and build community where I already have it. But I don't think these things will ever really happen unless they are accompanied by a change in my passions. We all do what we love doing.

Therefore my resolution this year is to learn to pray. One of the lessons I learned this past year is that if you love someone, you will yearn to spend time with them, talk to them, and get to know them better and better, day by day, deeper and deeper. It will pain you to be unfaithful to them in thought, word, or deed. If I love Jesus I will therefore want to "pray without ceasing," 1 Thessalonians 5:17. I am going to pray that God would change my heart. I really struggle sometimes because I feel like I have to pick myself up by my own bootstraps, but I can't. Only God can raise the dead. Only He can melt my hardened heart and turn it into repentant clay. Augustine once prayed in his Confessions, "I have no hope at all but in thy great mercy. Grant what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt." I am learning what it means to "call upon the name of the Lord," Romans 10:13. God commands things from us that He must grant to us -- this is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. I think a good first step is a humble reliance on Him through prayer, so that is where I think I'll start.

God bless if you made it this far... ! I just realized it is 3:30 in the morning. I should probably go to sleep. Thanks for soaking up my incoherencies. Owen