Samson the Religious Man

In the Bible, there are all different kinds of broken people that God uses to His glory.  David was an adulterer and secondhand murderer, Abraham told his wife to marry another man to save himself, and even the "good" king Hezekiah was satisfied to know that his descendants would bear the brunt of God's wrath on earth instead of him.  All of these are distinctly flawed people, who are also in the kingly line that lead up to Jesus.
So what of Samson?  Why did God choose to make a strong man one of Israel's saviors?  I think I've stumbled across one reason.
In Jesus' teachings, those who blindly follow religious commands are harshly rebuked, and he gives a basic command that sums up the Law and the Prophets:  Love God, and love other people as much as yourself.  Some of the pharisees and other teachers (surely not all, as is evidenced by men like Nicodemus) became so caught up in being certain of petty details that they forgot God's larger purpose and overarching command.
Back to Samson; perhaps God chose to make a strong man to show that the weak and humble are more endearing to him.  Samson was given very specific instructions:  don't drink wine, don't cut the hair, and don't eat anything unclean.  Samson followed the instructions; and yet, for all his strength, he remained prideful and only used his God-given strength for personal revenge.
God used Samson to destroy many of the Philistines, but the victory could have been more complete if Samson hadn't become trapped into thinking that he was doing fine with the commands given to him.  He could have done so much more if his pride hadn't led him to think he was good enough.  He knew God and His power, but pursued only personal revenge as opposed to God's justice, right up to the very end of his life.

Prophetic Words and Five Smooth Stones

"This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience."  (1 Timothy 1:18-19a)
"Then Saul clothed David with his armor. He put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail, and David strapped his sword over his armor. And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. Then David said to Saul, 'I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.' So David put them off. Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd's pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine."  (1 Samuel 17:38-40)


Despite the cold, I went out on a walk to pray tonight.  There were clouds slowly moving overhead, and I could see the stars through them.  Even so, it looked like the clouds would soon pass by entirely.  For some reason, I found myself looking for five smooth stones, which I couldn't find since I was so far from water that flowed.  I took the smoothest stones I found and threw them out to the lake.  For the first three, the only reason I knew they had hit the water was the sound.  The next two were just barely visible.  It caused me to wonder:  Is ministry like it?  We hear God's word that he will use His followers to minister, but can we see any sign of it at the beginning?  We must trust until He chooses to show us what has been done through our work.
I began to wonder, too, the power of a prophetic word.  Paul reminds Timothy of a prophecy that was spoken about him, and uses it as a special sort of exhortation.  I recently had a couple instances of what may have been prophetic words in my life.  On 2 separate occasions, near-complete strangers spoke of my future as if it was determined by God to be fruitful in ministry.  I'm wary of any encouragement not directly from Scripture due to my heritage in Evangelical church tradition, but perhaps God did mean to speak through some fellow believers.  It's been weighing on my heart to listen to that word and keep God at the forefront so that it may prove true.  While I believe that true prophecy will be resolved as it is spoken regardless of the actions of those it affects, I want to play an active part in extending God's grace to those who need it.
God's tools make no sense to us.  It's like watching the North Star on a cloudy night:  It seems to be flying past the clouds and hiding regularly, but it's the clouds that move and the trickery of our perception that makes such a constant to shift.  He may use rocks smoothed by living water, or a follower pushed forward by a word of encouragement; He can use whatever He needs to push on His purpose.

Walking on Eggshells

The dorm that I live in was just egged from all sides.  Only because it's a Christian campus am I truly concerned by this, because it shows a blatant lack of both respect and the capacity to contemplate the outcomes of their actions.  Don't get me wrong, they pulled it off "without a hitch"; I only saw one face as they were bombarding the dorm, more than anyone else appears to have seen.
Their little stunt serves as nothing more than an act of rebellion.  Who will notice?  Who will have to clean it up?  Many have gone home for Easter already, and very few will do little more than scoff.  The people who will notice are the janitorial staff, who already have their hands full cleaning up after people who have no concept of stewardship whatsoever.  Indeed, the only ones who will notice are those whose very job it is to make our lives simpler by cleaning up after us.  If their goal was to somehow harm the people who live in the dorm, then their purpose has failed.
Living on-campus demands its own sense of order and submission to the authority placed above us.  Paul tells believers in Romans 13 "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God."  Only in matters of justice is there even the question of whether the rules placed down by the authorities are right.  How much more should the rules apply to the very acts they were meant to prohibit!
Now, the matter is even greater than just the rulings of authorities.  All students at my school sign a covenant agreeing to certain behaviors, and the lack of certain other behaviors.  This covenant also encourages the stewardship of resources and the Earth (which just happens to include the dorm they eggged).  To put the covenant in context, the main examples of covenants that we have are marriage and God's promises.  Perhaps these men didn't understand what they signed?  Or perhaps they viewed this covenant the way America as a whole seems to view marriage?
I should hold my harsh words.  I don't mean to attack them for their sin being more public than my own, but it's what ended up happening.  Nothing is beyond forgiveness for Christ and those who belong to him.  And while this matter does prove to be less than trivial, no person was damaged except the doers.  Please think on what's happened, and repent of the lawless behavior we all drift to.

Journal from March 17

Here is the first of (hopefully) many journals/prayers that I'm going to continue to write.

Here I am again, too weak to confess what I must.  My hearts breaks and yearns and turns and falls all over again.  God, I’m stuck in this never-ending cycle of failure and forgiveness.  Why do you let it go on?  Why don’t you just cast me away and remove your grace from my life?  Surely it would be far less pain.

But that isn’t the plan.

Oh God, what do you have planned that I could possibly get through?  I’m so weak in my nature, and so corrupted in my desires.  Holy Spirit, why do you stay in my heart?  I know what it’s like to be ignored, to be utterly disregarded when your opinion would save trouble.  It’s hard to see people struggle. 

I’ve lived too long in your presence to deny that you exist, but some days I want to curl up and die outside of your reach.  But where would I go, Lord?  You reach from the highest of heavens to the depths of Sheol.  There is no Truth, no Beauty or Life without you.  And as such, this weary sinner crawls ever onward toward your presence, even when it burns like a fire in my bones.

I see you in my life every day, and can’t help but notice everything that you do for me.  Why?  Why bless me and leave me to sin without a single excuse?  Why do you make the pain in my life trace directly back to myself and my choices?  Why couldn’t there be an external battle?

But I know two things:  For now at least, blessing is in itself my temptation; I have become comfortable and complacent.  I also know that you are a God who hears prayers and answers them, so I dare not ask for what I don’t truly want yet.  I want to serve through learning for now, amassing knowledge to be a servant of the Light later on.



God, please help this weary sinner.

Born of Rebellion

I'm currently in a class wherein I'm reading many Christian authors' and theologians' works.  I was reading The Twelve Articles of the Swabian Peasants, and I began to wonder:  Is rebellion against an unjust system of government biblical?  Martin Luther would say no, for in Romans Paul commands "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.  Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."  If this is so, then what do we make of the revolutions that have happened already that are beyond our capacity to influence?
I speak mostly of America, a country born out of rebellion.  If it was a sinful revolt (a thing that I'm not entirely certain of, but will assume for the sake of the next argument), then can something good come out of it?  God is sovereign and able to use even evil for His purposes.  St. Matthew's genealogy of Jesus places the line of Jesus through Solomon, who was born of Bathseba after the first child of David's adultery had died.  Further back in the genealogy is Rahab the prostitute.  The line of Jesus is littered with sinful people, but God used even the imperfection of each of these to lead up to his perfect salvation.
God speaks through the prophet Isaiah to tell Israel that Babylon and Persia were chosen as his instruments to the eventual good of Israel, though they themselves were pagan nature.  Time and time again when Israel sinned against God, he used the destructive forces of evil things around it to draw them close to himself.  This refining love is spoken of by the prophet Malachi: "“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.  But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.  And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts." In Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, he states "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." God uses pain and destruction to carve away the parts of his people that have lost their way.  This is the purpose of evil and destruction, to separate true believers and to strengthen their faith and trust in God.
If this study did not go where expected, pray pardon me for that.  I spoke toward what my mind was brought to, and it is my hope that it might be of help to some.

Storms

I've always been particularly fond of summer rains.  The warm, cleansing aspect of them combined with the power of the thunder and lightning make them absolutely wonderful.  I once biked the 6 miles from church to my house in a thunderstorm, with no rain jacket or light on my bike.  It was beautiful.

Rain.

The deluge washes over us,

soaking us and

making us shiver.

Lightning.

Tendrils so bright and forceful

arc across a dark tapestry.

The air sizzles in anticipation of

Thunder.

Rumbles shake head and bones,

scaring the younger and exciting the ones who know

the thunder is only an indicator of the storm's power.

In the Darkness of the Morning

In the darkness of the morning

I contemplate my choices.

Surrounded by love and care,

Do I completely remove what was before?

In the darkness of the morning

When all clear light is hidden

I seek Truth.

What is Truth?

In the darkness of the morning

While songbirds lie sleeping

Sleep refuses to come to

Those who seek the Answer.

In the darkness of the night

I wait.

I wait for Him to speak.

Until I hear His Word

I cannot rest.

The Earth Below

Recently I took a trip to NYC to study the Performing Arts for a few weeks.  On the flight in, we had an early flight.  The one beautiful thing about the early flight is that the plane was flying east into the sunrise.  I decided it was a good time to write a short story, and here it is.

Darkness is broken by pink, orange, yellow light.  The explosion is so abrupt, but unnoticed by so many.

“Why do you think it does that?” asked Simon, after the sky had recovered from its morning thrills.

“I heard from grandpa that it’s the People Below who shoot the color into our skies every morning.” Peter said, peeking over the edge of their cloud.

“Don’t be ridiculous.  There are no People Below.  Nothing could live under us here; the pressure would squeeze them to death.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.  You know those lights we see sometimes?  They move around so fast, and stop so suddenly.  There almost has to be something living down there.”

“You remember as well as I do what we learned in Terra ecosystems.  There’s this stuff called magma that glows like the stars and bubbles up from the Earth Below.  They showed us those things called ‘cities’ that were full of the stuff.”

“I don’t know…  That just doesn’t seem right.” Peter pulled himself upright and glided over to a thicker patch of cloud.  “Maybe we have it all wrong.  Maybe there’s something living down there, but we just don’t know how to look for it.”

“We track every sign of sentient water formations that we can.  Every time we spot a mist formation, our scientists use all of their best tools to monitor it.  I’m telling you, if something was living down there, we would know.”

A small, dark cloud drifted in between the two.  They reached out and drank from the richness of it until it was gone.  As they looked on, the clouds thinned near them, revealing a wide expanse of mixed brown and green, capped in white.

“And what about that?”

“Hmm?” replied Simon, still in a stupor from the meal they had just shared.

“Why do we leave behind what we don’t need anymore?  Why can we just throw it down there?”

“Like I said, must be ‘cause there’s no life down there for it to hurt.”

“I still think there is.”

Simon looked over at Peter and smirked.  “If you want to believe that, then go for it.  I prefer to focus on things that have solid facts behind them.”

Peter mirrored the expression.  “Well, whatever you say.”