So boot camp started about a week ago, and I hope to document the journey on this blog as regularly as possible, but limited internet access will hinder this greatly.

Here are some recent thoughts until I can provide more.

Suffering for Christ is something I have come to understand to some small extent in the past year. I understand it just enough to know I want it, but not enough to realize I wouldn't really if I knew it well enough! But the truth is, we should desire it because we know that our likeness to Christ is identifiable by our suffering for Him. But as of lately, God has been revealing the truth that submission is the key in partaking in Christ's suffering.

Eph 5:21 "submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ."

Any act of submission we come to should be seen in direct relation to Christ!It is revolutionary to realize that every action Christ took, from the decision to become human till resurrection was an act of direct submission. He submitted to a body. He submitted to knowing fully the glory of the Father and the greatness of what the earth could be and the salvation and restoration of the Father. At the same time, he knew the fullness of the falleness of humanity and the end results of the lives surrounding him. Yet he lived his life on constant submission to the will of the Father in His teaching, and in constant submission to others who always rejected or misunderstood Him. Jesus Christ was, and still is, the most misunderstood human being in the history of the planet! I cannot imagine having a perfect perspective on the world and every individual life and yet never being understood when I spoke.I say all of this to conclude with this. As I was realizing these things, I thought of my friend/roommate, Dave. He works with inner city kids in an after school program, where I used to volunteer daily. Those kids hate everything he says. They argue against him every time he tries to portray the Gospel to them. They will not accept his love, and mock and scoff at his perspectives on life. He gets pretty discouraged and loses focus sometimes, which makes total sense. But here's the point. Even if he never sees results, even if there never even are results (which I don't believe is true), he is living out a story that directly reflects Christ's ministry on earth.

His narrative in life right now perfectly reflects a small scale of what Christ's entire existence on earth consisted of!

What an intense mission, how much more purpose could we ask for!

Be encouraged in your hardships, whatever they may be, for the Father is reflecting Himself through you in such circumstances!

Truly, there is greater glory to Him in such a setting!

Boot Camp Update.

I'm pretty certain I have mentioned the boot camp of which myself and a few other members of my church body are about to become guinea pigs. Tonight we had a much needed pre-meeting.

This boot camp is about to effect a lot of things in my life. Sleep schedule. Financial outlook. Hospitality capabilities. Spiritual discipline. Selflessness in super close living. The end result should be an overall intentionality and control of my life. Its interesting to realize that all of these extensively practical changes are truly very much central to living in accord with Christ. I mean, I don't have a clue what the actual changes are going to look like in the end, I just know they are gonna be very large and very fruitful. Its really sad to me that more singles, especially guys, are no where near even knowing they need this or having people people who would impliment it for them. I am truly blessed.

This, just like the Story Formed Life, is something which I deperately need personally but am more eager to be leading, simply because I see the great need everywhere and the great potential within.

SWEET!

Over the last few weeks, our body has been under a lot of attack. Actually, because of an unrelated note, I really don't like calling our church a body, just because of the fact that "the body" should be our term for the entire catholic church. It expresses to a greater degree the intensity of universal unity we should be conscious of. But I digress.

Our body has seen various forms of attack. Relational disturbance, depression, spiritual cloudiness, emotional turmoil, spiritual confusion, and even physical sickness and negative daily routine changes. I truly see everyone of these as a way in which we are being bullied.

But Satan doesn't attack those standing still, usually not even those meandering about, his focus is on those driving a straight line. Satan hates purposeful pursuit of God's glory. We are seeking the Lord, and He is giving unified vision. This attack is ultimately an attempt to create varied vision. Faithfulness and unity are key to what the Lord is doing. So I seek Him...

God!

Take this!

Destroy confusion, destroy disunity!

We don't ask for easy-going, but for clarity in the vision You are casting!

Give us unity under Your callings, work in us together toward your common goals!

Soli Deo Gloria!

So some of our church body has decided that we will be planting a pretty monstrous garden. A few of us proceeded to till a plot and build a pretty sweet compost, and then we presented it with the intention of allowing others to participate. Already we have a number of others who are, and some already have window boxes started!

So I've been elected to kind of head up any publicity this thing may need, so you may begin to see the occasional note or pic on here.

Thinking about being a farmer, not just a gardener but a farmer, has really become very exciting to me. I think there must be something more to this mindset which almost helps me to align myself more biblically. I really think modernization has created a huge gap for the masses in general conceptions about life.

This is especially crazy to think about when understanding that in every culture in history, nature and much more specifically farming has been much more of a close and tangeable operation, so that even merchants, scholars, and aristocracy had a general knowledge of what it looks like and involves. I mean even the richest of nobility in cultures past had to live close enough to crops to have them transported easily, so most had some clue of what was takes place.

And now we have what some might sadly call the "luxury" of only seeing food in processed form, neatly packaged on store shelves. We live in fear of germs. My personal experience and what I can tell from others affirms that most of us are not usually very interested in non-processed food, but at the same time we fear contamination. For 99% of human history, we ate raw things right out of the ground, but now we mess with it and then fear what might be in it.

Sorry for the rabbit trail. The garden should be great.

So today was a nice dreary day, perfect for going out to try and better master the manual controls on my digital camera. I don't think I got much accomplished, but here are some of the cooler shots I grabbed.

We say "The Lord works in mysterious ways."

I think this is a foolish human perspective.

God is the creator. Everything He has ever touched has flourished with originality. He is unable to act in the same way twice, He has too many good ideas for how to do things in new ways. We act simplistically without much faith, and become frustrated at every turn because we don't understand how God is working. Duh. What makes us think we should be able to comprehend the creative expressions of this YHWH in any circumstance? We use the afore mentioned phrase as a way to settle our faithless confusion. The truth is that if our faith in the Leader was at all sufficient we would be able to enjoy the ride and seeing what He makes up along the way instead of becoming frustrated at every curve ball. We are so blessed to be given characteristics of Him in this vein, and to be commissioned to live fruitful lives. The command to be fruitful is always taken simply as a call to make more humans. But it entails much more. It is a call to have purpose, to creative and make new things. This is one of our highest and most intimate callings before God.

GO CREATE!!