Category: Philosophy and Religion

joy and suffering


I spoke tonight about joy and suffering at the HS outreach. This is the passage (thanks to my mom) we focused on and I believe it is so powerful in our understanding of what joy is, how we can find it, and how much God desires we have it.

Nehemiah 8:1-15
1 all the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded for Israel.
2 So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. 3 He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.
4 Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion. Beside him on his right stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah and Maaseiah; and on his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam.
5 Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up. 6 Ezra praised the LORD, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.
7 The Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan and Pelaiah—instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there. 8 They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear [a] and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.
9 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is sacred to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.
10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
11 The Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve.”
12 Then all the people went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.

Read through this a couple times and see if your view of joy doesn’t change too. Happy weekend everyone!

Posted on by Caroline 1

Be Thou My Vision

Tonight’s post is not inspired of anything inside me. I just want to share a hymn that is increasingly powerful in my life. As I pray for my brother traveling home from Colorado and my long distance friend in Canada, for my family snowed inside in Iowa and my unpredictable students here, for mission trip details and planning the talk for tomorrow night… as I do and think about all this, these words bring me back to center:

BE THOU MY VISION

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

http://www.youtube.com/v/tid9zgcxCJg&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00

Posted on by Caroline 0

a few things I’ve failed at

1. angel food cake
2. deadlines
3. sewing projects
4. punctuality
5. temper
6. grudges
7. commitments
8. making correct change
9. understanding mumbling taxi drivers
10. being 100% honest with myself and others
11. thoughts free of judgment
12. using circumstances to get ahead
13. letting someone look bad so I look good
14. never procrastinating
15. talking about doing good less than actually doing good

this is simultaneously liberating and gross… my point is summed up in this quote from a John Piper sermon,

“…mercy comes from a heart that has first felt its spiritual bankruptcy, and has come to grief over its sin, and has learned to wait meekly for the timing of the Lord…”

Tonight I’m taking stock of my accounts – really looking things over and tallying and adding and crunching numbers like my college level statistics course taught me well. No matter how I crunch it, I come up with the same spiritual sum: bankrupt.

I am so thankful God can take an admission of spiritual bankruptcy and use it to show us how merciful He is… in turn allowing us to be truly merciful to others.

Tomorrow is a new day, folks.

Posted on by Caroline 3

what if God doesn’t like cookies?

I just finished making the above (ultimate chocolate chip cookie) for tomorrow’s Hands and Feet meeting. I am becoming a huge fan of allrecipes.com (and all the suggestions posted by users who have tried the recipes. For this recipe I added oatmeal and switched the baking soda for baking powder. They came out delicious – just ask my tummy!

Where does God fit in to this little weekly baking session? Well, it all goes back to last week at Bible study. Though the number of girls who attend varies, we are always sure about two things: we will eat something delicious and we will study/question/read/wonder about the book of Malachi. I picked up the study, called Blemished, in a Lifeway bookstore on my way out of Indianapolis (I can thank God for that ridiculously confusing 420 loop). It initially caught my eye because Malachi is the last words God spoke before going silent for 400 years. That’s a long time. As I leafed through the pages, I felt like it would be a good balance of studying Scripture (only 4 chapters in the whole book) and discussion. And what could be more relevant than prophecy about the failings of the church? So many students here are jaded toward the idea of church as an institution because it is either heaped in tradition or it is a parade of hypocrites.

So, fast forward to last week. It was only our third week meeting officially because of all the chaos down here, so we’re making slow progress. But last week, we talked about what it means to be rebuked (we have had some AMAZING discussion!). This is, of course, what God commanded Malachi to do to the Israelite people, specifically the priests. They had become quite cavalier with their sacrifices and God sent Malachi to let them know so.

So, our discussion moved into the idea of sacrifices… what is acceptable and pleasing to the Lord? Why wasn’t the Lord satisfied with what the priests were bringing? How could they even know what He wanted in the first place?

All of these questions led us around in circles. An analogy sprang to mind and it came in two parts – both about gifts… here it is:

1. You make a wonderful batch of cookies, using the best recipe. They are all coming out of the oven deliciously, except that your oven cooks unevenly… so there are a few “reject” cookies that you set aside. You don’t want your friends to have to eat those – they taste like char! But, being the good person you are (and having all the starving children of the world on your mind), you don’t want to waste them either. So, on your way to the party you spot a dreadfully hungry-looking homeless man. You deposit the charred chocolate chip cookies in his hand and kindly bless him in God’s name.

2. Your friend (best friend in the whole whole wide world) is about to have a birthday. You can’t even describe your love for this friend. This person has been a constant – through breakups and prom dates and divorces and graduations and first interviews. This person is pretty much the best thing you’ve got, so you want to make his/her birthday the MOST SPECIAL-EST ever (he/she is even great enough to warrant bad grammar!). So, you think and think and think about what would be the best gift .. and then you finally reason that he/she would probably want a dozen batches of your favorite homemade cookies, because that’s what you would want for your birthday. You go about and make the plans and you work day and night until his/her birthday finally arrives. The day comes and the birthday happens. Your friend is happy… but not really in the way you thought he/she would be.

In the course of our discussion (which for the purpose of the analogy was all about cookies), I felt a little light bulb illuminate my tiny brain, “WHAT IF GOD DOESN’T LIKE COOKIES?”

We had been talking about sacrifices and gifts and what is pleasing to the Lord. The priests earned a stern rebuke for bringing blemished, crippled lambs to the altar – their castoffs and charred chocolate chip cookies. God saw the hearts behind the sacrifice and was grieved. If the priests really, really, really loved God and wanted to please Him, then they would have to KNOW HIM. I don’t know how many times I passed by homeless people in Chicago and gave them leftovers before I finally realized that giving leftovers was no sacrifice at all. It’s giving my best – the real $15 meal of the homeless person’s choice – now that would be something.

And as in the second example of a best friend. Just because cookies please me, doesn’t mean they will please someone else. I have to KNOW someone to understand what pleases him/her. And the same is true with God. He has made us to have the capacity to know Him and to find what pleases Him. In Ephesians 5 we read,

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:
“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

Living as children of the light means we can and should find out what the Lord desires of us, not what we want to give to Him. Just because I want to give him an hour in the morning, does that mean it is best or pleases Him? Is it the best hour I have in the day? Or is it my charred cookie remains?

Sometimes I feel like I tell God, “Well, this is my best for the day.. kind of .. or at least it’s what is available… or it’s what I would want if I were God. Here, just take these cookies… they are really good, even if they do give you a tummy ache. It may not be my best but it’s pretty good. … I hope you like it, because that’s what I’m giving you today. You’re getting sleepy hours between 4:30-6am and you’re getting sentence prayers throughout the day. I hope that’s what you like, God. It’s pretty good, right?“

I know – I should be embarrassed to share that and I am a little bit. All week that question has been running through my head… what if God doesn’t like cookies?
What if all this time I thought he wanted what I wanted to give?

I am starting to think what He wants is splendidly different.

I’m scared to say I’m going to find out, because the rebuking road is not easy.

Posted on by Caroline 1

a night as ONE

After a solid day-long hibernation yesterday, today I was ready to re-enter the world of social outings and easy conversation. But, had you tried to rouse me or engage me in any sort of way yesterday, I couldn’t have made any promises of my attentiveness.

The weeks (and months in the idea-in-my-head kind of way) leading up to Friday, October 23rd were packed with questions, preparations, and lots of battles against worry. In the course of these weeks, I felt constantly compelled to apologize with the words, “I’m a visionary.”

Sometimes (okay, many times), I look ahead to the glorious, vague notion of “what could be” and then work haphazardly toward its realization. I used to think I was organized… you know, with color-coded plans B, C, and D in proper order. I used to think if I had enough discipline and spoke with enough authority, that inner, organized leader in me would prevail. Well, come to find out, the inner, organized leader I so hoped to uncover was quite hard to find.

Now, I don’t lie to myself. Instead, I say, “I am a visionary, like my dad.” I know it doesn’t get me off the hook, but I hope that it does bring in all those around me to keep me accountable and ask the right questions.

All of that to say, being a visionary turns out to be a lot about being humble. Holding your plans loosely, holding schedules that are slippery like jello, and trusting that however it turns out is the way it was supposed to go (even if it looks nothing like what was in my head). Friday night was just exactly that – not at all what I pictured and absolutely a work of God.

Micah Project and the Transition Home (ministry of Orphanage Emmanuel) joined us in the afternoon and we spent several sweaty hours playing soccer on the field. Then we moved into the gym to several stations – prayer room, letter-writing, and learning stations. The kids (in small groups) walked into the prayer room and prayed for the Micah boys and the girls from the Transition Home by name. They wrote letters to our Congress here, explaining the purpose of the event and asking that they might concern themselves too with the needs of those living on the street. Then, they had fun with the challenges at the learning stations: creating a sculpture out of bottles and cartons, creating an outfit out of scraps of fabric, creating a game out of found objects.

We took every opportunity to teach our theme verses, from Matthew 22:37-40

“Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as you love yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

We united together, as neighbors in Tegucigalpa and loved one another through playing games, making jokes, laughing, and sharing joy. Our dinner was simple: hot dog, chips, soda.

We listened to a band and then joined together in worship. The sound reverberating in the gym was pounding in my head with all my worries, but when I looked around, the unity I saw was beautiful. After the singing died down, with prayer we ushered in the presentations of the two organizations, who shared testimonies about their work with children who grew up on the streets or were saved from a childhood on the streets.

When Becca (from Micah Project) asked Wilmer and Marvincito what their dreams were for the future, their answers made a huge impact on all of us gathered. They said some version of this, “When I get older, I want to help the kids who were like me – poor and on the streets without hope.”

Wow.

We prayed for the organizations, laying hands on them and then they in turn prayed for us. This exchange remains imprinted on my heart – that we are called to both give AND take as part of the body of Christ. Just as we were ready to move out onto the soccer field for the campfire, the electricity died in the gym. At that moment, walking out onto the field illumined by the fire’s glow, we were one. We were really ONE: one family, one community, one love. We crowded around the warmth of the flames and we sang. We prayed. We gave thanks. We were one.

And then we dispersed to our flimsy little cardboard beds (which quickly became a community event as well – for warmth!) for the night.

Though not all the students that came were born-again believers, I think we all got to see a little glimpse of what God might have in store for the future – worshipping, playing, loving, and enjoying life… together.

The morning came early enough and I was glad (especially for reasons of liability) that everyone made it through the night. We packed up and cleaned up and with almost every step I wanted to find a corner to collapse into. But, God be praised, I made it, too!

I will be praying for many more nights like these (and God’s power to sustain us to do His work).

Posted on by Caroline 1

Call to Prayer



Dear Prayer Warriors,

Hello friends! This time more than ever, we are feeling the spiritual attack here in Tegucigalpa, in Honduras, and in our school on the mountain. Just as God promised His people, who are called by His name, to be humbled in prayer, seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways… He promised to hear and forgive and heal the land (2 Chronicles 7:14. We want to respond to God’s call to enter into communion with Him – to adore Him, to confess our failures, to pour our thanks out at the altar, and to petition with grateful hearts for God’s will to be done. But we don’t want to do this alone.

This next week, starting at 11:30 am on Monday, October 19, we will be having prayer in the 212 room in the high school (or in your home) 24 hours a day for 7 days. We want to form a seamless prayer chain, where we are coming before the Lord together, as a unified community.

To participate, sign up in the hallway by the 212 room (elementary staff are encouraged and welcomed!!) or send an email to Miss Nichols (caroline.m.nichols@gmail.com) or Mr. Cochran (cochran@hifo.net). Please pray especially during the night hours, as students are primarily signing up during the days. We are teaching students to use the “ACTS” acronym to pray.

A – adoration (giving God the praise He is worthy of)

C – confess (confessing our sins to Him)

T – thanksgiving (thanking God for His blessings)

S – supplication (asking for God’s will and our petitions)


We will be encouraging students to step away from the tendency to pray in general terms and instead praying deeply through Scripture. Each day will have a theme and we will pray through each letter of “ACTS” for each theme.

CREATION

FORGIVENESS
TRUTH VS. LIES

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
WORSHIP


Spiritual Emphasis week for the high school will follow the 24/7 prayer and follow the same themes as 24/7 prayer. This is a huge opportunity to lead students into an understanding of our intimate relationship with our Sovereign God through the repetition of Truth.

Posted on by Caroline 0

here is the joy

Okay, fine I’ll just tell you. Her name is Alejandra; I know I’ve mentioned her before. In my previous post, “wish words were better” she was the source of my joy. After a whole year of looking way too desperate to be her friend (some would say that my dedication to high school girls is because I’m desperate for friendship), Alejandra blessed me with one of the best conversations so far this year.

And, even better, I am beginning to see more beauty unfolding every day! Alejandra has this mysterious joy about her and she is always ready to bring out smiles and laughter in others. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I also know that there’s a lot brewing on a deeper level. She is a thinker and a questioner and now a pursuer of Christ. I am so proud of her bravery and every bit of her unique spirit. I can see that her pursuit will delight the Lord in so many ways.

She reminds me (in such a beautiful way) that I need to keep fighting… that I need to be sharpened… that I need to be humbled… that I need to be honest… that most of all, I need to be so knee-deep in God’s Word that I’m content not to get out. She reminds me of these things because I want to serve and lead as a sister in Christ in the best way. And I know I can only do that through the power of the Lord.

Posted on by Caroline 0

joy and hope

Today, as I sat in church, I started to smile.

We listened to passages from James, Ephesians, Romans, and Psalms interspersed with singing and preaching and this was the overwhelming message: the joy and hope of our salvation is not dependent on the circumstances of this world.

Though we are part of this world for a time, our true citizenship is in heaven. Our true and perfect leader is seated on a throne so far above the unruly rebellions of humanity. The pain and brokenness of the world (and things Satan intends for cursing) God intends for blessing… and for opportunity to reveal more of His glory.

We have hope and our hope does not disappoint (Romans 5).

Praise the Lord for this beautiful Truth!

this is the painting on glass I did (motivated by our neighbors coming over for dinner)
Posted on by Caroline 2