In a world filled with tribulations, we serve a God of peace.

 To be frank, life has been a bit crazy lately. Everywhere I turn there seems to be some sort of new bump in the road of life, and none of them have felt small… in fact they all remind me of a pot hole my dad and I once hit on our way to dip net fishing one year where we hit our heads on the roof of the suburban… but I digress. 

In all of this it is amazing to me how the Bible, and what I have been reading and learning, continue to be relevant to every situation. The Bible truly is the living word of God, and sharper than any two edged sword. I couldn’t find more applicable sections to my life than what I have been reading lately if I tried. 

This last month I have been going through the book of John. So I was sitting down doing my reading the other day, if I am being honest that day I was just reading because I am supposed to to read the Bible. It’s expected of me as a Christian, and especially as someone who holds the title of “Pastor”. So there I found myself, in a depressive frustrated lump, reading my Bible when I came across John 16:33. Jesus has been speaking to the disciples and wraps up everything with 

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” 

Now to give this verse some context. Jesus has been sitting and talking to His disciples for quite a while. The things He has been talking about are… not great, and honestly pretty troubling. He talks about how He is going away, how the world will despise, reject, hate, and kill them. He has also given some comfort in the fact that the “Helper” is coming (Holy Spirit). But all in all everything before this was… well lets just say it was not a great pep-talk… no one was leaving that with warm fuzzies. But Jesus wraps up all of this in the end with three simple statements. 

The first statement Jesus made is this: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.” There is a lot to unpack in this statement. Jesus has been talking about Him going away, about how the world will reject them… but He has also given hope, saying that they will be able to communicate directly to The Father (God). We can try to find our peace in all sorts of places… and we do try to find our peace in all sorts of places! But the only true, continual source of peace is in Jesus. That is where we need to seek to find our peace. 

The second statement that Jesus made in John 16:33 is: “In the world you will have tribulation”. This is a simple statement of a fact. This world will be rough. There will be conflict. There will be strife. There will be pain. There will be sorrow. Life is going to suck. But…

The third statement that is made brings us back to peace and hope: “But take heart; I have overcome the world. ” Let me let you in on a well known secret… JESUS WINS!!! HE CONQUERED HELL DEATH AND THE GRAVE!!!! So take heart! Have courage. Yes we will experience tribulations because we live in the world. It’s a fact of life. But it is also a fact of life that JESUS HAS OVERCOME IT ALL! Ultimately we will have peace comfort and life in Him for all eternity!!! I dont know about you, but THAT fills me with the warm fuzzies. Through the struggles of like take heart, because Jesus has got you. HE has overcome the world. 

I wish I had some sort of profound quote to end this with to help it stick with you, but I dont. Whenever I write it is simply from where I am at at the time. It’s about what God is teaching me in the moment, because that is what is fresh and real and alive in my life at the time. Currently he is teaching me to find my peace in Him, to not focus on the tribulations of the world, but to focus on His peace, and to find my rest in Him.  

I dont know what to call this.

 This last month has been… a lot… and in that the vocal minority can be so very very loud (believe it or not I’m not actually talking about politics!). It’s easy to listen to them, it’s easy to be distracted and discouraged by them, because they are so very very loud. Both in and outside of the church. 

So what can we do about this? If you believe in the Bible, that it is the living word of God, then there is a very specific call in our lives about what we need to be doing. Sadly, as much as we want it to be, it’s not to engage in verbal altercations with these people, it’s not to slap them as much as we want to sometimes. The call is to love, and love loud. 

Psychologically on average it takes 10 compliments to undo the damage of 1 insult. That is a lot of love that needs to be dished out, and Jesus knew this! I’m currently reading through the book of John, and the word “love” is used 57 times throughout the book, while “hate” is only used 7. Now a lot of the use of the word “love” is about the love God has for us, but that is still only about half, so “love” far outweighs “hate”. In fact, there are multiple commandments specifically about love. 

In Matthew 22:37-39 Jesus lists the greatest commandments, to love God with everything you have got, and to love your neighbor as yourself. These seem easy when you just read them, but when you really start to get into the thick of it in life… that second one can get to be really really hard to follow. In this last month there have been many people I have wanted to get in their face and just let them have a piece of my mind. I have wanted to blast them on the internet saying “THIS PERSON RIGHT HERE IS A TOOL BAG AND A TERRIBLE PERSON AND I REALLY DONT LIKE THEM (its taken quite a bit of work to not have “hate” in that statement.)”… But there is that still small voice of the Holy Spirit in the back of my head that says “nope, don’t do that” 

This call to love is a tall order. It’s not attainable if we are being honest, at least not by human abilities. In John 15 Jesus talks about how He is the vine, and we are the branches. To be able to bear fruit WE MUST ABIDE IN THE VINE! We must abide in God, and we must abide in His love. These statements flow directly into the next section where Jesus dives into loving one another. Constant consistent love for others is impossible without abiding in Jesus. There is a reason the first fruit of the spirit that is mentioned is Love. We are called to bear the fruit of love, and it needs to be big and loud.

1 Corinthians 13 is generally called the “love chapter” diving into love and what it looks like, and why it is important. Many of us are familiar with it and what love should look like… but what about what it is not supposed to look like, what about what love is not? What happens when we asses our relationship by what love is not? According to 1 Corinthians 13 love is not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. It doesn’t insist on its own way, irritable or resentful. It doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing. When we look at these and realize that this is the relationship that we are called to have WITH EVERYONE it gets rough. 

It’s at this point that my brain starts saying “yeah… but did he really mean ‘everyone’? God could not possibly expect us to love everyone… does He really know what these people did to me?!?!?! What they did to my family?!?!?! What they did to my friends?!?!?!? Does God really know the hurt, pain, tears, and strife that these people have caused?!?!?! BECAUSE IF HE DID HE WOULD NOT EXPECT ME TO TRULY LOVE THESE PEOPLE WHO ARE *insert deep insult here*!!!” (… dang that got a little more heated than I intended it to…) 

And the simple response that God always gives is “Yes, you are called to love”.

Jesus loved… He loved the world to the point that He died for it. To give everyone a fair shot to abide in Him. Even those that rejected Him, insulted Him, spit on Him, and ultimately killed Him. He died for them. He died because of the love He had for ALL. 

I dont really know where to go with this… honestly as most of my blog posts are this is a lot of word vomit about what God has been teaching me, and this is where I am at. Struggling to love those that have wrong me and people I care about. And in that struggle realizing my continual need to abide in God and to let His love flow through me, because I can’t love on my own. God called us to be LOUD about love, to the point that He said that is how people will know us. That’s where I want to be, but I am a long way from that… 

In > fear/friendship

 I feel that, as American Christians, we have done a disservice to those we are trying to reach, and we are now seeing a continual exodus from the church because of that. That disservice is how we talk about a relationship with Jesus to others. 

There are two ways I continually see a relationship with Jesus being talked about. The first is Jesus is like fire insurance. Don’t want to go to hell? Just accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and you are good! Boom! No hell for you… oh yeah and follow all these rules about how you need to look and act to really make sure you don’t go to hell! In this relationship God is seen as a dictator. You MUST follow “His” rules (I say that tongue in cheek) or burn in hellfire for eternity. It makes it feel as though God is constantly watching, waiting for any little slip up so that he can punish us. All of this simply is not true.

The other way I constantly see a relationship with Jesus described as is as a friendship. Doesn’t that give you the warm fuzzies? Being a friend of God just sounds nice. It sounds easy. It’s someone I met on the street and text every so often. No real commitment needed on my part because I have a friend that will never leave me! It doesn’t matter what I do! It’s awesome! I dont need to change who I am or what I do! There is no real commitment! It is so easy! No rules, no consequences, just friendship! (dont get me started on how a vast majority of us have an abusive friendship with God… ill write about that another day) 

But neither of these things is what our relationship with God is called to look like. Worrying about slipping up and the ensuing hellfire is tiring. You are constantly on edge just trying as hard as you can not to mess up. Being a friend is just so casual, it is really easy to pick up and put down whenever it is convenient. There is no real commitment. Neither of these pictures is the relationship that we are called to in the Bible. 

In Matthew 16:24 Jesus paints a very simple picture of what it means to have a relationship with Him.

 

“Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me”

Jesus didn’t call people to a life of fearing Him. He didn’t call people to a life of warm fuzzies and constant hugs. We are called to take up our cross and follow in His footsteps. This requires work. This requires sacrifice. This requires life change. Jesus is there ahead of us, blazing a trail for us to follow. Picking us up and dusting us off when we fall, but continually pushing us to pursue something greater than ourselves. 

When we talk about a relationship with God only in terms of it saving us from hell, we do a disservice by selling fear. God didn’t call us to have a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 

When we talk about a relationship with God as just being friends, we fall so short of what it actually is. It makes it sound easy to pick up and put down whenever it’s convenient… and most of the time it’s not convenient to pick up that friendship!

A true relationship with God is a life long life changing experience. It’s a call to more. It’s a call to greater things. In some ways it is a call to an easier life, in others it’s a call to a harder life. It’s a call to wake up every morning and ask God to show us His way, and for Him to give us the strength to pursue it. It’s a call to more. 

Let me tell you my life would be SO MUCH EASIER if I decided to just have a friendship with God… But my life is so much more fulfilling because I chose daily (ok… lets be honest not every day… but I try) to pick up my cross and follow Him, striving be more like Him every day. To be His Disciple, to be His apprentice. 

Widen your hearts

 Have you ever been reading the Bible, and it just sorta knocks you over the head with something so simple, yet so profound? Well that’s what happened to me this morning. 

My students and I are currently reading through the New Testament, and this weeks reading is 2 Corinthians 4-8. 

I found myself in a coffee shop this morning, and now every Tuesday morning for the foreseeable future, but I digress. Anyways there was a large group of retired people meeting there, they had pulled multiple tables together to form one giant table, leaving not very many tables for the rest of the patrons of this establishment. They were also VERY LOUD!!! I have a really good pair of noise canceling headphones (Thanks Siah) that I wear when I am in public trying to work, and despite these headphones I COULD STILL HEAR ALL THEIR CONVERSATIONS even though they were all the way across the room. It. Was. Loud. And I was angry. I wanted to have a nice quiet morning of studying in a coffee shop but noooOOOOoooOOOoooo.

So there I sit, trying to focus, trying to study, trying to take notes, trying to “rise above the noise” when I came across 2 Corinthians 6:13 

“In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.”

Dang… I sat back and stared at that group of people for a while. Let me tell you, it was super convicting. In my head I had written these people off. They were loud, they were obnoxious and worst of all THEY HAD DISRUPTED MY PLANS FOR THE MORNING. But we have been called to have space in our heart for all people. Jesus still loves these people. These people are my “neighbors” and as a follower of God I am called to love these people, im called to “Widen my heart”. 

This made me sit there and reflect and think on my own life for a bit, specifically the regrets I have had from narrowing my heart in the past. Trust me, there are some big ones, maybe I will write about them some day. 

So here is my challenge to myself, and to you this morning. Who in your life do you need to “widen your heart” for? I can already think of a few people in my own life, and I know there are people in yours. What can you do to show those people love TODAY?

Sorting Candy

I don’t know if I have ever met anyone more content with their circumstances than Talia. For those of you who don’t know my 4 year old daughter, she has severe egg and dairy allergies, and since we don’t like going to the ER we try our best to avoid them. This becomes a real struggle around “candy” holidays, like halloween and Easter, where so much of the candy is MILK chocolate. 

So we were sitting at the table the other day, opening the eggs she had gathered at our church easter egg hunt. Egg after egg contained candy with ingredients that would send her to the ER in anaphylactic shock. She would simply take it and set it over in the “I can’t have this” pile. Time and time again she would ask “Dad, can I have this candy?”, and I would have to respond “Nope, that one has dairy.”. 

When all was said and done, we had a mountain of candy that she could not eat, and three pieces she could. Let me tell you though, you have never seen a kid so excited about three pieces of candy. She didn’t care about all the things she couldn’t have. She never got discouraged after opening so many eggs and not being able to eat them, she simply celebrated when she got a piece she could have. 

I was thinking about this today as I am feeling really discouraged because of some of the circumstances I find myself in (not by my fault, it’s just how life is sometimes). It is so easy to look around at everything I don’t have, and just can’t achieve right now, all the things the world says I need to be happy. However, I need to refocus what I am looking at. I need to not focus on the pile of candy I can’t have, instead I need to celebrate the three pieces I can have! Let me tell you those pieces are truly exciting! 

Anyways that’s just my thoughts vomited out onto a computer keyboard for today.

The Story of Me part 4... the final so far...

 October of 2022 we headed to Arizona! There were a few different reasons we chose to move to Arizona, with the foremost being that some of my siblings lived there. When we moved I didn't have a job lined up. I had had a few really good interviews before we moved where I got to the final interview which for both was just supposed to be a formality. One of them had transferred my application to another state on accident and the other wanted me to move to another location in the state, Both jobs would have been really good, with a lot of potential for promotions, but they just fell through from "random" things. I had another really good interview once we got to AZ, where at the end of the interview the fraise "when you get the job offer" was used by the manager... but then the corporate office decided not to hire me. All of these jobs would have left us very content and comfortable in AZ... but that's not what God had in mind. 

Finally after being in Arizona for 3 months and applying for anything and everything I finally got a part time job on the military base working at a middle school and teen center. Since it was just part time Bethany and ended up having to work as well at the Childhood Development Center (0-5 year olds) on base as well. Because of this both of our kids also were in childcare at the time, which neither of us were big fans of. 

On Monday, March 14th 2023, Bethany and I sat down to talk. Neither of us really liked our jobs, there were a lot of issues with Bethany's work, and I didn't realize just how much ministry was a part of who I was. I still loved working with the middle and high school kids, but talking with them and hearing about their struggles and only being able to say "it gets better" was incredibly disheartening to me. We talked about how Bethanys desire was to be able to be a stay at home mom and I really missed ministry. The conclusion of our talk was that in a few months I would start poking around looking for a youth pastor job somewhere and hopefully we would be able to move when our lease was up on the house, which would be in November. We prayed about it for a while that night, and then went to bed.

Two days later, March 16th, i'm sitting in the parking lot at work with the music cranked when I got a Facebook messenger notification. The message was from Brandon, someone I had been friends with since Alaska Bible College. To sum it up, Brandon was looking for a full time youth ministry director for the church he was lead pastor at, and God had brought my name to his mind. I sat there stunned for quite a while because, if this went through, it settled a lot of the apprehensions I had about going back into ministry which I might write about another time. 

Over the next couple months there were interviews and applications filled about and all that, and then over fathers day weekend I got to fly up and meet the rest of the staff as well as go to church. It was a great weekend, and it truly felt like coming home. I had diner with the Elders and the rest of the staff, I got to catch up with some old friends from the area (and one past summer staff member from the springs). On Sunday I got to go to church. No one announced I was there, or even knew who I was, I got to experience Change Point MatSu as a first time visitor, and it was easily the most welcome I had felt at a church in quite a while. That trip truly cemented that fact that this was the next step that God had for Bethany and I. 

Long story short, we made it! We have now been here for about three months and it has been amazing. As normal there have been hiccups and unplanned things along the way, but it is easy to tell that this is truly where God wants us right now. too many things have lined up for it to just be "coincidence". If I wrote out all the answered prayers and ways God has shown up in our move to Alaska it would take an entire book.

I am finishing writing this around thanksgiving, it's taken a while to write them all because life gets crazy sometimes and I don't have the time or energy to write. But honestly it's pretty cool to look back over these last few posts about my life, and seeing how God has been continually guiding me through the weird life I have lived. I know it sounds cheesy, but in this time I am thankful for God and His guidance. That he has placed me in an awesome ministry working with an amazing team of people that are FOR the community we are in. I am thankful for everyone who helped get us here. I am thankful that we were able to sell a majority of our stuff in Arizona because it would have been too much money to get it to Alaska. Im thankful for a very generous church family that donated SO MUCH STUFF to us when we did get here. I am thankful I get to work with youth AND TELL THEM ABOUT JESUS!!! 

This is then end of the story for now. I already know that there will be more to add in the future as God continues to work on me, in me, and graciously though me.

The Story of Me Part 3

 Ok so we left the last on a bit of a cliff hanger.... 

In the fall of 2016, Bethany and I got married and we decided that it would be best for me to go back to school. I still wanted to finish my degree and we wanted to be done with it before we started a family, and the best way to do that was to head back to Alaska Bible College. At that time we told the board at Good News Camp that we were planning on leaving at the end of the summer of 2017. They all agreed that that was a good plan, as it would help with the transition to new staff that hopefully would be coming in to replace Jeff and I (as Jeff was leaving as well). 

All was well and good until early 2017 when my paychecks just... stopped. Long story short camp had run out of money and so the financial support that I had raised for my own pay was going to keep heating buildings and electricity going. Camp had begun bringing in more money under Jeff and I, but it had been too little too late. 

Spring of 2017, not having the incoming money that we were expecting in order to move to Alaska in the fall and having decided that we could not run camp at Good News for the summer without being able to guarantee paychecks for summer staff, we found ourselves up a creek without a paddle. So that May I turned in my resignation letter to the camp and we ended up "walking down the road with our hobo packs asking for a job" (at least that is what Dan, the Director of The Springs liked to say). We ended up heading to The Springs, another camp that we had built a good relationship with over the past 3 years that was just 3.7 miles up the road. Our original plan was just going to be for the summer, then heading off to school, but God had better plans in mind. In our conversations with Dan and Martha, the director and his wife, we found out that they were re-doing the internship program at The Springs for the next year. They were working with different colleges to allow you to do practical learning courses at the camp for college credit. This sounded like a waaaaay better plan for my ADD brain than going back to a traditional college. They also had an office manager position that had been budgeted, but had yet to be filled. So lo and behold Bethany and I stayed at The Springs, I started as an intern and transitioned into the program director position after a year and Bethany as the office manager. I graduated through the internship after a few years with a bachelors in Bible and Theology.

Everything was going pretty good honestly until 2020 hit. On February 16th Talia Emery decided that she wanted to appear right in the middle of camp's Marriage Retreat. Everything went without a hitch and Bethany and I found ourselves the parents of an adorable little girl right before the covid shutdown started. However, something just didn't seem right, but our concerns were dismissed as us just being new parents and not important in the scheme of things...until they tracked her losing weight at around 4 months. The next 2 year was spent going to lots of specialists ranging from GIs to dietitians to allergists. After having to avoid a ton of food (Bethany then eventually Talia) we were finally able to pin down that she is severly  allergic to dairy and eggs (possible anaphylaxis). This whole process was (and continues to be) extremely stressful for both Bethany and I, but it truly helped us learn to rely on God with our kids. So much that they go through and experience is truly out of our control, but not out of God's control. It also helped me realize just how much God truly does love us. As soon as Talia was born the love both Bethany and I felt for her was immense. She hadn't done anything to earn or deserve that love, but it was there. Through all of her health struggles and injuries there have been countless times that I wish I could have taken the pain and struggle for her. It is incredible to think that our Heavenly Father loves us so much more than that... 

A couple years later Barrett was born! The ridiculous love for that new little infant was there, but there was also something else. Both Bethany and I didn't realize just how much our experiences with Talia had left us with some PTSD that led to a lot of stress and anxiety around Barrett's health as an infant. We would over analyze everything trying to make sure none of the things that happened with Talia happened to him.  

The Springs was an amazing place, we loved (and still love) the staff there, and they are like a second family to us. But after 6 summers it was time for us to leave. In 2022 we were still trying to figure out Talias diet as, on top of her allergies, she also has multiple food intolerances as well that were causing other health issues as well as her quirky personality that just requires a little extra. At the time I was also struggling with some extreme anxiety and depression. The last few years had really piled up on me and I had never really found a healthy outlet for it. Over the course of our vacation in the spring of 2022 Bethany and I both decided that, as hard as it would be, we needed to step away from The Springs for the sake of my mental health, and also to help us take the time we needed to figure out Talia's health. With everything that was going on we didn't feel like we could give ourselves and our kids what they needed while still living the crazy life that is camp. So in October of 2022 we packed all of our belongings into the back of a truck and a trailer and moved to Arizona!