"But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist,make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith... only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry."
~2 Timothy 4:5-7, 11~
"Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me. Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty."
~2 Peter 1:12-16~
I'm taking a New Testament class as a Mid-term (only we call them J-terms here. Other colleges call them "Intensives" which I think is the best description but no one asked me. Pity)
Speaking of NT2, I really should be studying for that test tomorrow... well, wanted to quick bang out some thoughts before I subjected myself to MORE studying.
I have a lot of friends overseas. This is a blessing and a curse, because for the most part they are all cool people with fun perspectives, wacky senses of humor, and bless my socks off, and are thousands of miles away so we can't keep in contact very often.
(this DOES have something to do with the above Bible verses, I promise you.)
I have one friend in particular who has repeatedly told, asked, commanded, exhorted, and requested that I keep in touch consistantly. However this friend is a person of few words so doesn't return the favor as much as I'd like. Which drives me nuts.
A lot of times I think of how unfair it is that God put all these neat people in my life only to assign us to different parts of the world shortly after.
I've met a lot of cool people here at college too, and the constant thought on my mind is that most of my best friends are called to be Missionaries also, but to completely different parts of the world. I'm going to one of the more 'civilized' and 'safe' cultures, to be honest.
One thing that is often on my mind is, how cool is it that there are so many young people excited about God gathered to this one place for training, encouragement, and new friendships. But it is going to be sad and hard when Graduation day comes and we all go our separate ways.
However, we have this wonderful thing called Email, and Facebook, international-phone cards, the loverly accomadation of Skype, etc.
Back in the 'olden days' of the early church, they didn't have any of that.
A lot of times it's easy for me to think of the 'founding fathers of the faith' to be Saintly men who were above normal emotion and who got it perfect (until they didn't, at which time they got a rebuke from Jesus or had a council about it, straightened everything out, and then went back to being perfect) BUT the passages that I put above show that they were men with deep feelings also. It struck me today as we went over these verses how peaceful they talked about their approaching death. A subject that comes up for us going into Missions a lot is persecution and martyrdom. The other Majors think we're a little wacky amd(whatever the name is for those who like to inflict pain upon themselves).
I personally don't like pain. I try to avoid it at all costs. There's more than one reason why I don't have any tatoos.
The writings of the New Testament, especially in Acts, gives a different paradigm on suffering and pain.
"And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." Acts 6:41
The picture shown us in Acts 2 is so awesome.
"And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daiily such as should be saved."
Acts 2:44-47
Now don't get the wrong idea, I don't believe in Communism. ;-)
But I love how they made sure they all had ENOUGH.
Our society is one of "more more, it's all about me, what MORE can I aim for?"
I have high ambitions but they aren't for MORE. It's for ENOUGH to do what I have been called, which is to go to the 'Least of these' and the 'forgotten' to show Christ's love to them in tangible ways.
So lessons I've been learning through the last week; honor in pain and shame, God's provision for ENOUGH, counting the blessings that He has given, and...
now I have to go study for the test tomorrow on all of this.
*sigh*
My apologies if this email embodies my random global nature. But as I said, this was a MUSING, not a sermon. ;-)Hope it made sense.
~Princess Ouch~
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