Leaving today.....

Tim and I won't be at church tonight since we will be leaving this afternoon to go to a hotel near the airport. We would appreciate it if you all would pray for us tonight while you're gathered together. We begin our journey in the sky Thursday morning and expect the travel time to be anywhere from 13 to 15 hours.

Pray for our safety, our health and Zoe to bond with us the way God sees best. We will be getting her on December 17th (that will be Monday for us in China but it will be Sunday for all of you).

Make sure you follow along daily during the 2 weeks we're gone. There will be many pictures and tons of information (you know how wordy I can be). I do, however, understand that pictures are much more important to everyone following along than a bunch of words. I've been following other family websites for the past 3 years and I know what it's like.

Please leave your comments while we're there because this will be our only communication to home and family. I have learned from other families who have adopted from China before, that comments on your website are something you need in order to stay connected and it's very encouraging. I personally am someone who gets homesick very quickly. I know I'll be having the time of my life while I'm there, but I really just want to be home. Afterall, "there's no place like home for the holidays". (Ok. That was me being dorky)

Jennifer

lightning

Jesus said to his Apostles, "...you will receive power from on high and you will be my witnesses..." (Acts 1:8)

I have, for a good long time, struggled to satisfactorily understand why my Christian experience is so far different from what I read about in Acts. I will not go into long explanations. Suffice it to say, there are some questions deep in my heart, that have yet to be answered.

One such question has to do with power. Throughout my Christian life, I have never felt very powerful. Disclaimer here-> I am not concerned with charismatic gifts of the spirit at this point. Paul (in 1 Cor. 13) speaks of a time when such gifts would cease. The exact time frame Paul has in view is difficult to determine with certainty (the traditional "completion of the biblical canon" explanation for Paul's perfect not withstanding).

The point is that Paul's discussion definitely does NOT speak of a cessation of power. I want to serve God powerfully - the way that everything within me suggests that I should. Whether or not that involves charismatic gifts is ultimately immaterial. (And for the record - I have never thought, nor do I now think that it will involve charismatic gifts.) The goal of power is efficacy. I want to be effective. And, truly I could care less in what form or manner efficacy comes, so long as it comes.

I want God's power working effectively in my life. I've wanted it for a long time and for the most part I have found it lacking. I don't think I am alone in this spiritual self-consciousness.

Here's why I am writing this:

Over the past several months, God has blessed me with a handful of experiences, one this very night, that have begun to open my eyes to power at work in my life. It is thrilling! - God's power at work in me. I am not bragging, because it has nothing to do with me. I am excited because my greatest dreams are not so far away.

Tonight I saw "human change". I mean by that - I saw evidence of change in a person's life that I know can only come by God. God used me in a small way. The experience is like being out in a field and witnessing lighting dramatically strike very close by. I didn't make it happen - I can't make it happen again - but WOW! was it ever an experience to behold.

Tonight, I am a good bit more in touch with the ever-present grace of God and my heart is filled with gratitude.

this overlap period

A student went to his teacher and asked, "How can I experience MORE of God's presence?"

The teacher replied, "How do you make the sun rise?"

The student, understanding the teacher's point of these things being beyond his control, then asked the teacher, "Why do you instruct me in all these spiritual disciplines?"

The teacher replied, "So that you will be awake when the sun rises!"

[taken from an Advent devotional led by Clark Hess, Cornerstone UMC]


"...the biblical stories are not just interesting illustrations of moral and religious truths. They are the earlier parts of a long narrative that has now reached its climax in the Messiah and in the people who have come to belong to him through the gospel. They - we! - are the people 'upon whom the ends of the ages have come', the people who live in the strange period of time when God's long-awaited fulfillment has begun to appear, in Jesus and the spirit, even as the old age rumbles on to its close. "

[from N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone - 1 Corinthians]

Wright goes on to talk about "this overlap period" in which we now live. He states, "...the old age and the new grind against one another like two tectonic plates, ..."


So here we are, that is if you take Wright's reading of Paul seriously, in the greatest (strangest) age of human history.

The sun has risen, are we awake?