Campus Crusade for Christ retreat Fall 2007

Dear blog,

I went on a retreat this weekend with Campus Crusade for Christ. We went to a Christian camp that was on the beach. The weather was great, and, as you can imagine so was our time spent there!

The teachings were basically on the Old Testament and how so much of it was about Jesus before He even came. Psalm 22, the prophet Isaiah, the Law revealed by God, etc etc. It was all really great because I had actually read Psalm 22 unrelatedly the night before I left to go on the retreat and it really hit me hard. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I kind of Got the feeling that God had somewhat prepared me to go on the retreat. Well, really prepared me.

Over the past week and a half or so I've just been doing some serious daydreaming. Generally about God and about the unending wonders that lie with Him, and how it would be so awesome to spend eternity with Him and just glorifying in Him and His creation (I generally don't think that creation is going to stop when we reach Heaven. God is infinite. I dream about soaring through landscapes He's newly created and praising Him). And just spending time with Him on a starlit beach. Just spending time with Him. Being with Him. Hanging out. Away from everyone else in Heaven, but not so far that it wouldn't be easy to return. There's been a lot of longing in those daydreams, too.

Well, the first night at the beach was a great experience. After all the fun and games were over and everyone was doing their own thing I went out walking (I spent a ton of time away from everyone else during my free time). I sat on the beach for a while and prayed and thought and got some stuff out of my system. It was night time and the moon was full and out in all its glory, and the beach was beautifully moonlit. I wondered down to the shore and remembered many of my daydreams and how where I was was just so neat in light of them. I talked with God some more, prayed, took my shoes and socks off and ran through the water laughing and having fun (Fully aware that if anyone had seen me I would have seemed bateye insane). In retrospect it was even more like my daydreams than I thought it was at the time (Which was quite a bit).

Well, afterwards I realized that my feet were ridiculously sandy and I did NOT want to put my shoes on but I did NOT want to walk through the gravel to get back to the retreat area. I put it out of my mind and just went walking along the beach. The beach is gorgeous on moon-filled nights. On a retreat, those are the nights and times where God walks right next to you as if He were beside you in person. Eventually I came across a little river of water that was cutting its way through the sand and out into the ocean, dividing the beach. I walked next to it for a while just enjoying it. After a little while I realized that the ledge was perfect to sit on and splash my feet in the water to clean them off. I cleaned them off and used a strip of clothe I had from earlier in the night to dry them and make sure there wasn't any sand in between my toes. I got my shoes back on and started walking back.

About 20 steps from the stream I suddenly remembered the Bible study we had Wednesday night. One of the verses we had read over was when Jesus washed His disciples' feet, specifically the line where Jesus says that they could have no part with Him unless He washed their feet.

I'm not saying that Jesus washed my feet or anything. I just get the feeling that it was one of those touches on an already awesome time that just makes you think and go, "What? Nah... no... really? Weird."

I went back and got some sleep.

When I woke up the next morning I think the last thought in my mind was about baptism. No, I'm pretty sure of it. That was probably the last thing on my mind at that time.

We had a teaching in the morning. This teaching covered Christ as revealed by Isaiah before He came. The speaker, Russ, got excited and went on a little bit of a tangent about God and started talking about Baptism and how he'd be happy to baptize if someone wanted it. He caught himself on his tangent and got back to what he was speaking about, but I wasn't drawn back.

I really, really wanted to be baptized. I'd yet to be baptized and I was always kind of waiting around for the right time to do it. So I told myself. So I chewed that over for the entire rest of the time he was talking and decided to ask him to baptize me. I did so after the session. He asked if I wanted to be baptized in the lake behind the place we were staying and I was like, "What? Heck no! There's an ocean right over that hill, man!" So we tromped down to the beach, all of the people on the retreat in tow.

Blog, ocean water this time of year is really, really cold. Startlingly cold. I'm pretty sure I knew this from the previous night when I walked into the ocean barefoot and was PHYSICALLY HURT by the coldness. Whatever.

Russ had me, the volunteer that runs Campus Crusade for Christ at WOU, and the guy who's pretty much the mentor for all the guys at CCC go out into the water. We were just beyond the mouth of the little river where I washed my feet the night before, we walked a little ways down the beach. And so I was baptized in the Pacific ocean into the ocean of God (Booya).

It was really really cold, but really really great.

My time at the retreat was a great time. I really got what I needed out of it. The week and a half or so leading up to the retreat built the framework for what I'd be getting out of it, and my decision to finally follow God for REAL this time (As in, just STOP the crap that was interrupting my relationship with Him once and for all) and the baptism and the everything else... It was awesome.

Minor awesomeness included a swing that I was swinging like crazy on the first night we got there and God protecting me from it. I was going pretty all out, putting my back into it and really flying on the swing. A thought occurred to me that the swing probably wasn't safe and I could easily wind up with a visit to an emergency room. I slowed down and got off the swing (I had a pretty strong feeling about it). The next day a friend of mine, Tyler (He's a pretty big guy) sat on that same swing and one of the chains holding it just snapped. He felt straight through to the ground. Granted, Tyler weighs a lot more than I do, probably, but the amount of force I was putting into that swing going as fast as I was was way more than he could put into it while being at rest. I think God didn't plan on me going to the emergency room that night, and He'd figure He'd let me know that.

I have pictures for you, of course. The pictures from the baptism do little to convey the cold.

Nothing really great or meaningful here. Just some old writing and practice for when I actually have something to say.

On the brilliance of God

God is absolutely, mind bendingly, computer explodingly brilliant. His capacity for multi tasking knows no bounds. Furthermore, we cannot even begin to comprehend His capacity for anything.
That said, I’d like to flesh out some of this brilliance.

Often times people say “Thank God,” or “The Lord provides.” People give thanks to God and attribute events in their lives without even considering what has happened in its entirety.

The world extends way, way past our perceptions. Even if we know absolutely nothing about them, there are still people all over the world living their lives and exploring their existence. Everything we do has an effect, as for the most part a cause, that ripples throughout the entirety of the world.

Now, God does not heap on more than we can bear. He is always there with us, keeping us going. Whether or not one is a believer, He still plays a very important role in our lives. He occasionally urges this course of action, or that response-- Without disturbing free will. All of which serve to contribute to the greater whole.

If there is an event that serves to save us in our time of need, such as a miraculous job offer, we really have to think of where it came from. There are millions of billions of interactions out there, all of which we have no knowledge of. People are living their lives and making their own decisions. For that job offer to open up there had to be a lot of shifting going on that we didn’t know about.

The job was, likely, occupied by someone else before it opened up. Whether or not this is because they were fired or otherwise, there was a massive balancing act going on. God will not give us more than we can bear, so He has to constantly balance every situation and every series of interactions for all involved. He does not take direct control, that violates free will, but He may plant an idea or open up a door, even if we do not recognize or refuse to recognize His presence.

All this serves to create a world that works miraculously well together. People are free to live their lives and go about their ways, completely oblivious to the immensely complicated systems working around them, though they are still effected and intricately linked by them.

When someone gives thanks to God for a happening, they are not merely lifting up a working of nature and probability. They’re giving thanks to the Lord of their lives, though they may not understand just how much work was done. God works with and through us, whether we are or are not aware of it. He brings balance to this world so as to provide for all his children-- He keeps track of every one of us, as well as other happenings in His creation, and possesses the knowledge to know each and every minute effect a person’s actions.

God is infinitely intelligent and has an absolutely unreal capacity for multi-tasking. He remains true to us and loving while still maintaining a world that is balanced and free of His direct control and support. The next time something amazing happens to you and you say “Thank God,” think about it for a moment and consider the full implications of what happened. Think on His workings. It’s hard not to find yourself standing in awe of Him.

Human Nature

All too often we find evangelical atheists denouncing the evils of religion. Attributing much oppression and hatred, wars and genocides, to the great lie of religion, many people, not just atheists, find more and more reasons to loathe belief. More likely than not bringing up the discussion of religion in any group setting will result in someone voicing there “well founded” belief that religion is evil and stupid.

All in all, this silliness amounts to saying guns are solely responsible for school shootings.

Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. People, using a tool, introduce bodily trauma that forces a human body to go into some kind of shock, forcing it to die. Shock kills people. People induce that shock in others. A gun is the least of the problems in this equation-- A container of an explosion that forces a small piece of metal to eject at high speeds. Who aims the gun, pulls the trigger, willingly chooses to push trauma onto another, other than man?

Religion is much the same. Some choose to go on thousand mile marches to crusade against those who disagree. Others spend all their lives humbling themselves before God and choosing to do His good work. Some become moral-crazed lawyers that attack an industry which it sees to be the source of pain and sin in the world while claiming to do it in the service of God. Others work in orphanages, bringing affection and care to the helpless.

All the pain that “religion causes” is entirely dependent on the humanity of the practitioner. An unfortunate byproduct, it’s true, but something inescapable in a world of sin. Religion knows the flaws of humanness-- much is founded on that very concept. Christ came to forgive us our sins, to die for them, to sacrifice His blood so that the sinners of the world may find redemption. He, above all, knew.

Those with a bone to pick will find one. They can throw whatever they want at religion, call it all sorts of names. No matter what blame they assign where, however, there is no escaping their own nature. The very nature that brings about the atrocities they fight against.