chaotic week feeling pushed on a job painting the interior of a house that the people want to get into resulting in two 16+ hour days and many hours to 'stay ahead of the hounds'. nice couple, but intense like me! through this though God has brought the ytd weekly hour average above 14. if i have many more such weeks He will have caught me up.
on the church front it is a desert. i feel like a little orphan waif alone in the howling wilderness. this aloneness is exascerpated by following a path that not many seem to follow. they may be out there somewhere hidden in house churches somewhere...
this week have been corrected on the pronunciation of the leader of U2 (long vowel sounds capitalized). first sitting at a bar the other day with a friend from bonO to bOnO and today with some other friends from bOnO back to bonO. so from now on when i have occasion to talk about him i'll try to tread with appropriately tentative step.
got together with someone dear to me friday and, for old times sake had a race, of sorts, up the steep sides of the jersey side of the delaware water gap. by the time she had to stop for some water we had covered about 80% of the vertical distance and the elapsed time was at 21:22. my off the charts goal for reaching the appalachian trail at the top had been 20 minutes so i was pretty pleased. our total elapsed time was probably around 27. we had a great time arguing and doing some hard hiking. thank You Lord for a lazy day to just spend time with someone special.
have been drawn to 'make poverty personal' by ash barker this week. he talks about leviticus 25 and the concept of the jubilee year where all debts are forgiven and uses this as the basis for touting bono's call for debt forgiveness of the poor nations by the wealthy nations. but the passage speaks on an individual basis not a national one. for instance v25f 'if a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold. or in case a man has no kinsman, but so recovers his means as to find sufficient for its redemption, then he shall calculate the years since its sale and refund the balance to the man to whom he sold it and so return to his property. but if he has not found sufficient means to get it back for himself, then what he has sold shall remanin in the hands of its purchaser until the year of jubilee; but at the jubilee it shall revert, that he may return to his property...v35f..now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a soufourner, that he may live with you. do not take usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your countryman may live with you. you shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for gain. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of egypt to give you the land of canaan and to be your God and if a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave's service. he shall be with you as a hired man, as if he were a sojourner, he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee'. as i am actually looking at the chapter it kind of overwhelms me, kind of in the way that the plural pronouns in the Lord's prayer (ie. give us this day our daily bread) overwhelm me. i have so far to go to get to Your mindset. i have been raised to think that i am to be responsible for providing a living for myself and family. i live in a world of individuals that are increasingly moving toward the concept that others are ultimately responsible to care for them! yet i read of a world in the Bible where every person is to live in such a way that he sees himself as not only responsible to care for himself but to also be ready to care for others who come to a place where they do not have the wherewithal for food and clothing and covering from the weather. maybe i could help one person through a short time of difficulty but could i actually function according to God's heart in the world of leviticus 25? one more instance where God's law does not evoke a sure-i-can-do-this response but a the-only-way-i-could-do-this-is-with-Your-help response. i think i have heard that the nation of israel never actually practiced the jubilee and i can see why for what God says to us if taken on a i-must-live-this-out basis always seems to be well beyond what is possible apart from God (ie. i have never prayed without ceasing). this does spur me to try and see if it is accurate that this never happened. wow, what a high standard.
another thot-provoking quote 'we must be clear here about joining Jesus' community. Jesus preached, delivered, healed and gave the message of the kingdom. Jesus' central concern was not socializing people into his church but proclaiming the reign of God and seeing its authority heal and restore the most vulnerable . 'repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near' (matt. 4.17) there are 114 reference to 'God's reign' in matthew, mark and luke alone, but 'church' is only mentioned 4 times (all in matthew and 3 in chapter 18 relating to resolving conflict). if we are to join Jesus, we must be prepared 'to strive first for the kingdom of God and His righteousness' above all other agendas. proclaiming the reign of God was Jesus' purpose, a foundation for everything else and it must be ours too if we are to be faithful to Christ...'
hope you have a good week. love, dad
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