Dahhh…

This passage from James 4 has been on my mind since we studied James 4 in SSG a couple of weeks ago.

Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

I’ve been thinking about the future a lot lately. I guess the big three-oh approaching has made me more introspective, even more introspective than I already am (which is probably already too much). Some of my closest friends are turning 30 in the next few months. For me, fortunately, it’s later on in the year– I still have almost three fourths of a year before I turn 30. I had a bunch of goals set up which I wanted to complete before that fateful day comes, and although some of them are probably now out of reach, a lot of them are still doable in the 9 months I have left.

Now I’m realizing that a lot of those goals aren’t all that important, or even really worth achieving. While not ignoble per se, I could see how they could fall into the category of arrogant schemes, especially some of the financial goals I had. And they could easily lead to boasting– it’s really easy to start boasting about how much money you’ve saved up, or how much money you’ve made in stocks. So I guess I shouldn’t focus too much on these goals, and not worry too much if I don’t achieve them.

Missionary work is kind of along the lines of something I know I ought to do. I actually sort of planned out my life to be able to do it in the future. My basic plan was to try to retire at the ripe old age of 50 and spend the rest of my life overseas as a missionary. The passage made me realize that I should have a shorter term horizon on these sorts of things, because it’s true, we really don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

The last thing I came to realize from this passage is to be more mindful of praying. I tend to just plan out a basic framework for things and just go and do them. It’s like that when I travel, I have a make up a list of things that I want to do, then hit the ground and start doing them. My life is sort of like that too, I set up a list of things that I want to do and just start doing them, without much reflection beforehand. There’s no real thought of, “If it’s the Lord’s will…” So I guess that is where the prayer should come in for me.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to lead bible study for small group. I think it’s been like a year since I’ve led. It’s funny- although I’ve been told by many people that I would be a good leader, I tend to avoid leadership as much as possible. I actually don’t mind leading all thaaaat much, it’s really only the planning portion that I don’t like. I don’t really like meetings and I don’t really like having to schedule things in advance. I enjoy leading bible study though, I enjoy prepping for them and I enjoy hearing everyone’s thoughts on the passage.

Over the years I’ve come to realize that there are really two types of leaders. There are leaders that set the vision and overall goals of an organization. They are the face of the organization, the ones that most people would think of when asked, “Who is the leader?” I call them the ‘generals.’ In the church/fellowship world they are the pastors and the core leaders of a fellowship. Then there is the second type of leader, the type that I most identify with and admire. I call them the ‘sergeants.’ They don’t really have a high position, but they lead by example. They put themselves in harms way along with the soldiers under their command. I don’t know if they really have a parallel in the church/fellowship world. I guess they are the ones that you kind of gravitate towards and look to for advice, even though they are not really a leader per se.

Anyways, that was sort of a random spiel. I’m not sure why I started writing about leadership. I guess my thought is that in a world where everyone wants to be a general, there aren’t enough sergeants. And what we really need are sergeants.

This post was titled ‘two worlds’ because I’ve been thinking about this recently– that it’s almost like Christians live in two different worlds. We have the secular world– for most people this world revolves around work or school. And then there’s the so called Christian world– the church, the fellowship, the bible studies, etc.

I see that in my own life too. It’s even apparent in my blogs. I have two of them, DT and MT. They originally stood for something. I think DT stood for ‘devotional thoughts.’ I think I originally was going to try to read a bible passage every day and write a short devotional every day. That was obviously way too ambitious a goal for a lazy person like me. I think MT stood for ‘miscellaneous thoughts,’ sort of all the rest of the junk that flowed in my brain, my empty thoughts (get it? MT = empty? bwahahaha….) Although I try to incorporate my faith into my empty thoughts once in a while, it’s pretty obvious that these blogs are two different worlds.

There are those who are able to bring both worlds together every day. They are the ones that I truly admire, although there are very few of them in my life. I don’t think I’m at that level yet. And so I will continue with both of these worlds. What I will try to do is be more consistent in DT, at least as consistent as this empty MT world. And who knows, maybe these worlds will cross from time to time.

Two worlds
http://mt.dahhh.com
http://dt.dahhh.com

Wow it’s been a while since I’ve been on here. It’s not because there’s nothing going on in my brain…. (despite what it looks like from the outside..) There’s a lot going on up there, it’s just been that I’ve been too lazy to put those thoughts down.  This week I’m preparing for a bible study, so I thought this would be a good way to get those brain juices flowing again.

It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve led a bible study.  I actually kind of miss the days when Acacia was smaller, when the leaders could lead a study on whatever was on their heart.  That seems like a really long time ago.  But I guess that’s what our small groups are for.  Anyways, what’s been on my heart lately is the subject of joy, or lack of it. So I guess I will lead on that.

In truth, it seems a little bit weird to study joy. It seems like something we either have or we don’t. We can describe what it feels like to have it, but it’s kind of hard to qualify it in words. But I guess I will try. Usually the very first thing I do when I lead a study is to google the subject. That seems like a good start. Here’s what I learned today that’s applicable to the study…..

When I did a search on the NIV version of the bible on biblegateway.com, I came up with 242 different verses. There are 10 Hebrew words and 7 Greek words used in the bible to describe joy. There’s obviously a lot on the subject.

Here are the Hebrew words:

• giyl/giylah – rejoice, be glad
• duwts – to leap, dance, spring
• chedvah - gladness
• masows - exultation, rejoicing
• rinnah/ranan/rannen – ringing cry of entreaty, supplication, proclamation or praise
• suws - to exult, display joy
• samach - to cause to rejoice, gladden, make glad
• simchach - mirth, gladness, pleasure
• sasown - exultation, rejoicing
• teruwah - alarm, signal, shout

Here are the Greek words:

• agalliasis - exultation, extreme joy, gladness
• euphrosune - good cheer
• kauchaomai – to glory on account of a thing
• oninemi - to receive profit or advantage
• skirtao - to leap
• chairo - to rejoice exceedingly, also used as a salutation in beginning of letters
• chara - joy received from you, cause or occasion of joy

Anyways, that was probably a pointless word study, because I will probably not remember it.  But the thing I got out of it was that joy is a very important part of the bible, it shows up in many places, and there are many different words for it.  The importance of joy comes up in Galatians 5:22.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness….

Joy is a fruit of the spirit.  In fact it is the second fruit of the spirit, mentioned after love.  We talk about biblical love a lot, but it seems like seldom that we talk about joy, but it’s obvious that joy has a very important place in the life of a believer…….

A few weeks ago, I randomly had a conversation with a friend about what it means to be a manly man.  I liked her definition, “a manly man is someone who is not afraid to stand up for what he believes in.”  I am still trying to find my definition for what it means to be a man.  I think a lot of it has to do with service.

For the past few years it’s been Acacia’s tradition on Valentine’s day for the guys to cook for the sisters.  This year, to go with that, we had a short message.  The typical message in these situations seems to be from Ephesians 5, which has the command, “husbands love your wives…..”

Love is many things.  First Corinthians 13 makes that very clear.  Love is also about service, as I pointed out in the last post, Jesus showed the full extent of his love through the amazing service of washing his disciples feet.  So I guess if we take Jesus as the example for manliness, I guess that would mean my definition for manliness would be this.

“A manly man sets an example of love through serving.”

Of course this love is not just the love between husband and wife, and it manifests itself in different ways with different relationships.  The way you love/serve your wife would be different from your friends and from your coworkers for sure… but the basic concept is the same.

Last year in Acacia we had a set of core values that we chose to be our focus for the year. I still remember the acronym, CLOUDS, and each of the letters… Community, Lordship, Outreach, Unity, Discipleship, and Service. I still remember most of those studies pretty well too, but there is one study in particular I remember very well, not because it was a very good study… In fact I remember it because it was the worst study I had ever been to, sadly it was one that I was leading. The passage was John 13, Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. Sounds like it should be pretty straightforward, but for some reason it just didn’t work, and I still am haunted by memories of it….. Haha well I guess it’s not really that severe that I have nightmares, but from time to time I think about that study and how bad it was…

Anyways, recently I was reminded of that study again.  This month I started going to BSF (which stands for Bible Study Fellowship I’m guessing) and ironically the first week’s study is on that very same passage.   But strangely the study doesn’t focus too much on the obvious act of service shown by Jesus, instead it focuses on the love that Jesus showed in his last hour. The first few verses show of John 13 show that Jesus was fully aware that his time was coming soon.  He fully knew the hardship that he would soon face, but until the end, what shows is his love for his disciples.  The first verse sets the stage for Jesus’ famous act of service and why it really is an act of love.

It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having LOVED his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his LOVE.

The act of service shown by Jesus was an outpouring of His love, and it was a precursor to Jesus’ greatest act of service and also his greatest outpouring of love, his death on the cross.  In verse 14, Jesus tells his disciples that they should be washing each others’ feet.  He doesn’t explicitly say it in this passage, but he says it in so many other places, that we should love each other.  Jesus’ act of service is really an outpouring of that love.  Maybe that’s what I messed up in that study last year…. Service is not something that is forced, separately on its own, service really is the practical outpouring of love.  If we are to love one another, we are to serve one another.  If we serve one another, we are showing that we are loving one another.