Security in the Midst of Change

Grace is Funny Like That

2008-07-05T15:26:01-06:00

A couple years ago I went to a conference where I heard a great pastor tell me that God doesn't give you all the answers in life and that no matter where you go, He'll use the gifts and talents that He's given you for the good of those called according to His purpose. (I wonder who that was.......maybe a certain Borghardt we have running around here.) Those words and that approach to life has often brought me great comfort despite everything.

God's Law is good. It shows us that we need a Savior. It is a gift of God. But the Law doesn't say "Anna, you will be a surgeon" or "John, you will be a supervisor." It isn't designed for that purpose. God leaves that up to us. And while that is incredibly freeing, it's also incredibly difficult to come to terms with. What if I choose the wrong profession? What if I choose something that will make me miserable? As long as I choose something that will not hurt or harm my neighbor or cause him to stumble, then I can work wherever I please. God's given me certain talents and abilities. For me that's the ability to look at a two dimensional surface and organize it to make it efficient and beautiful. I'm good at organizing and communicating. If I can utilize that, great!

But that doesn't necessarily mean that hard decisions won't come up. Like:

Do I stay in the US and pay off my student loans after college or go straight into aid work?
What happens if I decide to settle down?
Should I volunteer from home?
What organizations should I attempt to become involved in and where will that lead me?

The list could be 20 pages long.

And that's where I rely on God's grace. Not only does it save me from my sins, but it gives me the freedom to make tough decisions with the promise that He will always be there watching out for me.

Thoughts about College

2008-06-22T17:14:14-06:00

I recently read Does College = Losing Your Faith and being that I'm in college it really got me to thinking about college and life in general and how it has affected my faith life.

I attend Concordia University Nebraska. I'll be a junior in the fall. And after two full years of being there I honestly wonder what on earth I'm doing there and why I ever went there to begin with. Right now, it feels like I've wasted the last two years of my life away in the middle of a corn field not learning or absorbing anything from the classes that are supposed to teach me about "real world" events and how to deal with reality on a day-to-day basis.

Going to college is not easy. College is for those that have drive and have a goal, even if the only goal that they have is to just finish so they can get on with life. I'll admit that I'm one of those people. I don't know where I'll be when I'm done with school or what I'll be doing. I'll have a degree that won't guarantee me anything other than a miserable entry-level job if I choose to accept that.

I've learned a lot about art and the hands on processes behind design. I know how to use a woodshop. I know how to fix a lot of things. I've gotten a lot of pracitcal experience. But when it comes right down to it I've gotten to the point where I feel like I've been repeating the exact same thing over and over again for the last two years. I feel as though it's too late for a change, because if I changed now I would at the very least have another 3 years left to complete, if not longer, because I only have half of my gen eds completed.

The spiritual life on my campus is crap. I honestly have had a very difficult time surrounding myself with like-minded people in any sense of the word and in some ways I think that it has led me to become somewhat more accepting. In some ways it has made me very bitter.

And yet no matter how many times I go over it in my mind, it all comes down to this:

My vocation right now is to be a student in Nebraska for whatever reason God has put me there.

That's it.

It's hard sometimes to cling to the fact that God knows what He's doing. Hindsight is 20/20, but when you're walking through the forest and you don't know where you are, it's hard to put trust in something that you can't actually see. My faith isn't perfect and it's been challenged in ways I hadn't even imagined at Concordia. It's definitely shown me that simply saying the words over and over again don't make a difference and that actions really do speak louder than words, in both myself and others that I have seen.

But throughout all of college it's nice to know that when I stumble, I don't have to stagger to my feet by myself. God's there to pick me back up again, dust me off, and set me back down only to repeat the process every time I take a step. It also helps to know that because He has forgiven me, I can fully forgive others.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Mysterious Ways

2007-06-25T20:21:04-06:00

So it's week four... and so far things are going amazingly well. In fact, today was the best day of camp I've had so far. My kids were amazing today. Incredibly well behaved and just adorable. Although, I guess I can't claim them as totally mine. Penne and I are teaming up this week with the 7 and 8 year olds. Today we had 11. Out of those 11, 3 actually attend church. Three kids that are siblings (a set of twins and a younger bro) said that they attended church before Katrina but haven't been back since. Which, I must say, is pretty amazing in more ways than one.

Tonight we ate dinner at the Dellinger's house, and they had an amazing story to tell. They are a couple that has been married for 47 years, they're probably about 65 or 70ish, and they moved to Waveland, MS (which is where we are, btw) four years ago. I won't be able to tell their story as well as they did, but I'll give it my best shot.

Katrina was coming and they had decided that there was no way they would be able to make it out of Mississippi in time before the hurricane hit because the highway was clogged with cars and there was no other way to make it out. So, they closed up their hurricane shutters and waited for the storm to come. The storm came, and at first it wasn't a problem. The house seemed to be withstanding the winds just fine. But, all of a sudden, water from storm surge began to rise up around the foundation of their house. Pretty soon, the door had caved in from the pressure of the water built around it, and Pearl had gotten stuck outside. She grabbed the iron trellis on the front porch and held on for dear life. Dave was sitting in his chair, which had begun to float. By the end of the night, they had 6 feet of water in their house. Pearl was still clinging to the porch, where she stayed during the hurricane for 7 hours with 160 mph winds. They are both still alive and in pretty good shape.

They lived in their ruined house for 3 days because they couldn't get out of town. Their car's electrical system had shorted out during the storm. Their son drove from Mobile to come get them, then drove them back to Mobile and put them in a hotel for 4 days. They then lived with their son for 6 months while they waited to get a FEMA trailer. After that, they lived in a FEMA trailer for a year while repairs were made to their house.

And they have no complaints. All they said was "God wanted us alive for some reason."

Profound, no?

If only we could always say that when "bad things" happen to us. The 10,000 people that lost their homes in MS, not to mention the other homes that had to be stripped down and rebuilt.... God had good intentions in all of it.

"God just wanted me to experience this."

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

2007-05-09T21:13:19-06:00

Well, finals are over and I'm officially a sophomore. After putting in 80 hours a week on my projects for a straight four weeks, I handed in all of my projects. I'm as relieved as I am sad to see the first year go by. I love Concordia and have made amazing friends. I've also learned a ton...especially about art. After 20 hours of art with 61 to go, I can safely say that if you've ever got the time and are bored, look up some art. You'll probably learn a ton.

This summer, I'm working at a day camp in New Orleans from May 24th-July 27th. July 7th, Lynea's gettin' married (finally ), and I'm headed to Houston. After that, I'm headed to Minneapolis, then Asheville for For You!

In the meantime, my family's moving to Mankato, MN, where my dad will start his new position at Bethany Lutheran College. Big move. It's about a 26 hour drive from here to there, if not 28. Definitely a change of pace and scenery.

Because the college is ELS, my family's leaving the LCMS and becoming ELS. Dad's resigning his position and will no longer be an ordained pastor. Because of my "adult status" (whatever that means), I have a decision to make. I don't have to leave the LCMS. But I don't have to stay, either. At this point, I'm not sure that it makes sense for me to leave the LCMS since I'll still be going to CUNE.

On the one hand, I wouldn't mind leaving. On the other, I've always been LCMS and as of right now I've no good reason to leave. Does it really matter? Is it a matter of Gospel freedom? Is it a matter of Law? While trying to think through this, I can't come up with any definite idea of what I want to do. I can't be both; I have to choose between one or the other. To be ELS means no longer affiliating with the LCMS. To be LCMS, means not affiliating with my family's church.

While I consider this decision, please consider me in your prayers. And if you have any thoughts, feel free to post them. I'd appreciate anything you have to say.

Heaven on earth?

2007-03-20T22:21:51-06:00

I was reading The Screwtape Letters - one of my most favorite books - tonight and came upon something I hadn't realized before. Throughout C.S. Lewis book, Screwtape is writing his nephew who is going through "temptation bootcamp" and is giving him advice on how to further the Devil's kingdom.

While reading, I came across this passage:

So inveterate is their appetite for Heaven that our best method, at this stage, of attaching them to earth is to make them believe that earth can be turned into Heaven at some future date by politics or eugenics or 'science' or psychology, or what not.

How true is this? How often do we try to create a 'heaven on earth' by creating new political or social policies? How often do we try to extend the lives of patients through artificial means?* More often than what it should be, isn't it?

The truth is that the world is sinful, fallen, corrupt. We can't even begin to imagine what a perfect world would be like. Think about it. List all of the things that would be different if this world was "perfect" and then go back through your list. How many of those supposedly perfect things that you listed are tainted by your fallen nature? Probably quite a few.

This is why Communism, while it seems like the ideal society, will never work. We're sinful human beings. We're selfish. Living in a setting where we must share everything with everyone goes against our sinful nature. Socialist governments eventually fall into corruption. Medical treatments, while they may extend our lives, ultimately fail. Earth is not perfect. We are not perfect.

But in the midst of all of this, Christ came down from the real Heaven to earth to save us from our sin. He died so that we wouldn't spend eternity in Hell. And then, He rose again three days later. Why? Why die one of the most inhumane deaths imaginable? It's simple: God loves us and wants us to spend eternity with Him in Heaven.

So, while there may never be Heaven on earth, we are given glimpses of what Heaven will be like through God's Word and through the Lord's Supper.

Revelation 21:4 - He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

*not that I don't believe in medical breakthroughs or medical treatment. I'm thinking more along the lines of keeping braindead patients artificially "alive" via machine.

Now That It's Over...Is It Really Over?

2006-07-23T13:11:41-06:00

Wow. Talk about a packed week. If you were fortunate enough to be one of the 1200 that got into this year's Higher Things conference, you started your day every morning at 6 and ended it every night at 12. You ate with friends, worshipped with friends, learned with friends, Feasted with friends, and more. You were very busy, and now it's over. If you're like me, you've got mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it's nice for a break. It's nice to get back to the familiar. On the other hand, wouldn't it be nice to live like that all the time? To have Jesus like that all the time? To celebrate like that all the time?

Your organ music may not be as awesome. Your organist may not improvise A Mighty Fortress Is Our God during the service accompanied by trumpets, flutes, tubas, and trombones. You may not have four services a day. You may not start out with Matins every morning. You probably won't have Vespers during the day. You probably won't have sectionals to attend this week. If only we could take time from our vocations as parents and children, husbands and wives, students and teachers all year round to live like we did this week.

If you went to church this Sunday, you heard the Word being preached in the sermon. You heard the Word being read during the Liturgy. You sang God's Word back to Him during the Liturgy. If your church had Communion, then you received His Feast this morning.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

While it would be nice to have the never ending Higher Things conference (Pr. Keseman wouldn't appreciate it, I'm sure), what we celebrated this past week is what we do every week. Higher Things - The Feast might be over, but you will still receive The Feast on Sundays. You will still hear the Word being preached. You will still receive His gifts during the Divine Service.

So don't feel too sad. There's always next year! Next year's conferences promises to be just as awesome and Gospel-filled. But so does this coming Lord's Day, and the week after that, and the next week, and so on. Thank you, Jesus, for giving all of these things to us!

That Old Hymnal

2006-06-12T11:54:39-06:00

We live in an age where emotional highs trump all. Everything from who you pick as your mate, to which car you buy, which college you go to, which church you're going to attend, just about everything is determined by emotions. The "f" word creeps in a lot. How do you feel about this? Or how do you feel about that? Or, my personal favorite, "How does that make you feel?" Just about everything is determined by a person's emotions. So, why then, is it important that we use an old rag-tag hymanl? For most, it's pretty boring. It doesn't come with any fancy gizmos, and it doesn't say that it'll give you a mountain-top experience, and if you're using the TLH, odds are you're not going to be speaking in tongeus. So why are hymnals so important and why don't we just use praise songs backed up by a rock band? What's so cool about something so old-fashioned?

What hymnals contain is how we receive God's gifts on Sunday morning. Everything from the Liturgy, to the introit, the collect, and the hymns contain God's Word! But you probably already knew that. God promises us that He will come to us in His Word. Well if the hymnal is full of God's Word, doesn't that mean He comes to us through the Liturgy and the hymns we sing? Sure does.

But what about praise hymns and other hymns? Most of those hymns tell us about what we do for God, how much we love God, and how awesome God is. The thing praise hymns don't tell us is what God's done for us. Singing a praise hymn feels good, though. There's that "f" word again. It feels good to do it, so it must be right! But that kind of thinking is wrong. Christ never promised us that if we feel good, He'll come to us. No. He promised us He'd come to us through His Word.

That might not seem like it's a good thing. After all, we want to "feel" God's prescence. However, if you're human, your emotions ride up and down. If you always had to depend on your emotions in order to know that God was there for you, how do you think that would make you feel? Pretty cruddy, right?

That's the great the about the Liturgy and the hymns and psalms we have in the hymnal. It's not based on us, how we're feeling or how good we are. It's based on Jesus and Jesus pouring out His blessings on us as we worship. That's why we keep the hymnal around even though it's "old" and "out-dated". If God's Word ever gets outdated, we've got a big problem on our hands. Thank goodness Christ is the same forever and His Word stands true.

So, maybe instead of watching TV or playing video games for a couple of nights this week, pick up your hymnal and read through it. I'll betcha you never realized just how much Bible it contains.

Babysitting, Bibles and Baptism

2006-02-14T15:41:31-07:00

My sister Bekah and I babysit once a month for a group called the Christian Women's Club that my (non-Lutheran) grandmother is a member of, which has monthly luncheons. The group is open to any denomination, but the theology they usually espouse is typical American Protestantism. Bekah and I haven't had any "interesting" encounters with anyone from the group until this month's luncheon.

We were sitting in a back room of the building that hosts the luncheon, where we usually babysit the kids - this month we only had one, an adorable 20-month-old kid named Forrest. He hadn't shown up yet, so we were sitting alone chit-chatting when an older lady walked by and wanted to know where the restroom was. I gave her directions, and she left. A couple minutes later she comes back, and strikes up a conversation with us. It went something like this:

Lady: "I found the restroom, but I wanted to come back to ask you little girls [note: I'm 18 and my sister is 17, and she looks like she could be 20. I'm not quite sure why we were "little girls" ;-P] if you would like a New Testament. I'm a member of the Gideons as well as Christian Women's Club and I always carry one around with me just in case I find someone who would like one... I only have one in my purse, but if you're interested, I could go out and get another one."
Me: "My sister and I have about three Bibles of different translations each at home, but thank you for the offer!"
Lady: "Oh, but have you seen the back of these New Testaments? It shows you how to find out if you're really going to heaven or not!"
At this point I think our smiles probably faltered a little bit. The lady then proceeded to open the back of the Bible, almost literally shove it in my sister's face, and point out a verse reprinted in the back.
Lady: "It shows you how to accept Jesus into your heart - it gives you the exact verses and everything!"
Bekah managed to squeak out a rather freaked-out "Oh... really...?" before the lady turned around, still yakking about the "plan of salvation", and started walking away.

If she had given my sister and I a chance to get a word in edge-wise, I know our first response would have been "We're baptized - we know we'll be in heaven someday." All I could think about the rest of the morning was how very, very discouraging and depressing it must be to actually have that mindset - that you can't be sure if you're saved or not - and how very, very thankful I am for Baptism. I don't have to rely on my own prayer of acceptance, the greatness of my works or some kind of mountaintop conversion experience. Just the Lord's sure, clear Gospel promise.

He saved us - not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Titus 3:5 (NASB)

Bigger, but Not Always Better

2006-01-15T18:08:51-07:00

The church growth movement has been around for a while now. The movement's mission? To make churches bigger, better and overall more appealing in order to attract new members. It doesn't seem like a bad idea in a world where church membership is dwindling and fewer and fewer individuals can honestly say that they attend church every Sunday. Most people think that bigger is better. However, when you start to take a look at how churches are attempting to attract new members, you come up with some problems.

City Harvest Church in Singapore offers members to be a part of such "ministries" as "costume and makeup", "dance", or "drama". To quote from the website:

"As an extension to the Drama ministry, a new Costume & Make-up ministry was formed in late 2001. This ministry acts as a support and behind-the-scenes group, essential to the overall success of the many dance and drama productions that CHC is involved in. This may include Big Day events like Easter, Christmas, or regular community roadshows and productions."

Another, more close to home Mega-Church, Willow Creek of Chicago, offers such programs as Christian water aerobics, or "Dancing in the Arms of the Lord", a class on "speaking to God through the expression of movement."

Among other things that might be wrong with the above programs, one is the isolation from the world that the programs bring about. Just because you are in a secular setting does not mean that it is harmful. To take a water aerobics class with an instructor who may not be a Christian is not wrong. To take a dance class with people who may not be Christians is not wrong. To listen to secular music is not wrong. As Christians, we are to be in the world, but not of it. Being in the world does not mean holing up in Christian communities and never interacting with people outside of that group.

A second more important thing wrong with some of the programs offered at the above Mega-churches is that those programs are all about what you can do for God, not what God has done for you. In reality, God doesn't need us to do anything for Him. He can take care of this world Himself. That's not to say that when your neighbor needs help taking groceries in from her car, you shouldn't help her. Quite the contrary. You should help her. It means that we shouldn't focus on what we can do for Christ. We should focus on what Christ has already done for us.

So what has Christ done for us? He died on a cross for your sins so that you could live forever with Him in paradise. And that's what church is all about. It's not about the programs, the awesome dinners and get togethers you have eating brats and drinking beer (or rootbeer), or choir, or the youth group. It's not the friends you make or the people that are there. The only reason we go to church on Sundays is that Christ died and rose again and because of that you are saved. You go for forgiveness. Confession and Absolution and Communion are two of the ways we receive that forgiveness.

That's what's important about church: Jesus.

Loving Your Neighbor

2006-01-11T18:46:45-07:00

Sorry for neglecting the blog. I've not thought of anything to blog about lately but Pastor Borghardt gave me a random blog topic so...I'll do my best...

The other day I went to the bookstore. Now, in Alabama, a comparatively conservative state (next to New York, or California), the bookstore is the haven of all things politically liberal. And, there are two versions of this haven in Alabama. One is called "Books-A-Million" and one is called "Barnes & Noble". Books-A-Million has a more down-to-earth atmosphere than B&N does. In the long run, though, it's basically the same store. They both sell books.

In the bookstores, I've seen quite a few interesting people. One of them was a guy covered in rainbow pins (aka: gay pride) and another "interesting" person was a cross-dresser. Both of them were quite obviously homosexual.

As someone who's not homosexual, my first reaction when I saw those people was to run the opposite direction. My second reaction was thinking "Why do these people even exist? What made them like that? Why?" I have to stop and think after that point. They make me cringe. I'm not like them. They're different. Contaminated. Dirty. Sinful. Human.

There are all kinds of people that we as human beings have that reaction to. It's that person that makes you cringe every time you run into them. The person that whenever he opens his mouth makes you want to scream. The person that gets on your nerves when they aren't doing anything to you. The person on the street that looks like he hasn't had a bath in years. The person with blue hair. The obese person at the grocery store. The person that talks just a little bit louder than he ought to. Lots of people annoy us, make us cringe, make us take three steps back and think that there's no way possible that they are as good as I am. That God can't love them as much as He loves me.

I'm not Jesus. I'm not a perfect human being. I haven't ever been. No matter how nice and polite I try to be, I'll never live up to the Law. Neither will you. We're sinful. And we're just as sinful as the people that are homosexuals. I haven't ever committed the sin of homosexuality, but I have lusted, which is sin. I might not have ever murdered anyone, but I have fleetingly dreamed of stabbing that person that's getting on my nerves. I may not have robbed a bank, but I have taken candy without permission before. We're human beings. We're Adam's children. We've inherited his curse. We're sinful. There's no doubt about that. Just as sinful as everyone else is.

Thank God that we have a Savior! We'd sure be stuck without Him. Christ died for me. He died for you. He died for that person in the bookstore. He forgives me for my self-righteousness. He forgives me for my impatience. He forgives all of my sin just as He forgives yours. Pretty awesome, huh?