Jeremiah 29 - pray for your city

The Israelites had been deported to Babylon. They thought God was going to restore them immediately. They were in denial. They were tempted to just wait. That might have seemed the faithful thing to do.

There have been times in the 2000 years of Christianity were a similar delusion has come to faithful Christians. They thought God was coming right back. It would show a lack of faith to get involved in the world.

Jeremiah, always the bearer of bad new, now is called upon to deliver another unpopular message. He had to tell them would be evicted. Now he has to tell them to "bloom where they are planted".

Jeremiah told them two things that certainly apply to us today. Verses 5 and 6: Build houses and settle in the land. Plant gardens and eat the fruit you grow. Get married and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons. Let your daughters be married so they may also have sons and daughters. Have many children and grow in number in Babylon. Don't become fewer in number.

In Revelation Babylon is used as an image of evil. The world in basically evil. Yet we are to live here and in righteousness enjoy the fruits of our land. Fruit is the sweetest thing we can eat. Getting married and having children can be fun. Sex is one of the most enjoyable things we can do. It is truly enjoyable when the children likely to be produced are wanted. Children also are a joy and a hope for the future. Children can also be a heartache and a disappointment. They represent the future and overall are a great joy. We do not look back on our family years with regret but with satisfaction.

This is part of being in the world.

Secondly verse 7: Also do good things for the city where I sent you as captives. Pray to the Lord for the city where you are living. If there is peace in that city you will have peace also.

This is where we show we are not of the world. We trust God before things and other people. We ask God for peace. We know this is where peace comes from. Also Jeremiah tells us to do good things for the city. Good works do not save. But they tell unbelievers of the loving God we serve. Let us serve the poor, those in any need. Let us speak out for justice for all. It shows that we are in the world and involved, but not like the world. We do not seek for ourselves exclusively.

Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:2 to pray for rulers too. That is a practical way to pray for peace. "you should pray for kings and for all who have authority. Pray for the leaders so that we can have quiet and peaceful lives - lives full of worship and respect for God."

I cannot find a place in the New Testament where Paul says to pray for the city's prosperity. But I think it is there. Certainly peace and prosperity go together. We cannot have one without the other. I have renewed my eagerness to pray for prosperity. Prosperity for my neighborhood and my neighbors specifically, prosperity for my city, prosperity for my state, prosperity for my country, prosperity for the whole world. I think it is important to start with the smaller and the more personal. That is where we are likely to see God's answer and be able to bless him for it.

Pray for you city. Pray for peace and prosperity. Do good also. God wants you to. It is your calling. If God wants you to do it then he will bless your efforts. Do it.

Random thoughts

After praying for rain I had a dream about getting rain. Not too heavy. Actually this morning it looks like there might be rain. But now the sky has cleared out.

After resolving to forward mail to some of my children I dreamt about my youngest receiving all this mail. There is a lot of mail for her, mostly junk. But in this dream she got a whole bunch from the same organization. She resolved to send them a change of address.

Doing a long walk Monday morning I had several impressions. First I picked up some smelly trash and put it in a trash can. Today is pick up day. I did not notice a women in front of the house and behind a fence. She was dressed to go to an office job. Her dog was barking loudly and I could not hear what she was saying. I picked up some plastic for recycling. As she was opening the door and I was beating a hasty retreat because of the dog I said "hi". She responded by saying she did not believe in recycling and I should stay out of her trash can. There was a misunderstanding here. But I simply said "sorry" and moved away. Maybe it would be worse if I explained that I put something in her receptacle. I did not take anything out.

Secondly I was struck by how many Democratic signs I see. Generally most of the signs are for the underdogs in this predominately Democratic area. Incumbents who normally do not feel threatened are taking no chances this year. Specifically I see a lot of Gene Green and Sylvia Garcia signs. So they do have some enthusiastic supporters. Good to know. I like that. I like to see people getting involved.

There is a long shot tea party candidate with a lot of grass roots support. He probably will not win but he does have quite a few signs around. His name is Roberto (?) Herrera. He was probably the only Republican sign I saw. His opponent has not ignored him. I saw few signs for her but I did walk by a piece of mail on the ground. It was a poster type of mail that detailed differences between her positions and that of Herrera. She wanted this voters to know why they should be scared of Republicans even if they are Hispanic and Tea Party.

The backlash year has normally safe incumbents taking their opponents seriously. Well a little.

Jonah

I use a read the Bible in three years plan. I think this is the third time we have covered Jonah. That means I have been using this a long time now. Wow, how time goes by!

Jonah is one of the funniest books in the Bible. Jonah is social commentary with a barb. Think of some plays, TV shows, movies that you know that are entertaining with a commentary aspect. Some of those are based on fact just like we believe Jonah was.

Jonah would make a great play. What would you think of musical based on Jonah. There have been musicals based on worse concepts. I have seen a play based on Jonah called Saving Nineveh. No it is not a musical but it is pretty funny.

I still remember fondly being able to attend a read through at the AD Players'. With minimum props it might have been even funnier this way. Knowing the basic plot beforehand I can supply my own mental images to go with the dialogue.

God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah says, "No way, Yahweh!" (To the tune of "No way, Jose!" if I have to explain it.)

Nineveh was about 500 miles east of Jerusalem. Instead Jonah heads to Tarshish, about 1,000 miles west.

I think that we all have our Nineveh's. There is a place or form of service where we have said "no" to God. That will stymie our advancement with God. We need to deal with it.

Comments on Gay bullying and DADT

A link to Christianity Today sharing short comments by Jim Wallis, Jim Daly, Chuck Colson, Tony Perkins, and Mike Adams on the discussion about what to do about gay bullying.

Then there is a second section discussion the recent debate at Don't Ask Don't Tell in the military.

Gays have the right to live without threats. But bullying happens to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. How can we stop all bullying? Surely there do not need to be more laws. The laws we have cover harassment now. Anyway I am concerned about new hate crime laws that could be abused.

Democratic attempts at intimidation

HOUSTON, Texas, October 25, 2010 - Catherine Engelbrecht and King Street Patriots, a group of citizen-volunteers, filed an answer in court today in a baseless defamation lawsuit brought by Texans Together Education Fund, parent company of Houston Votes, which has been accused of possible voter registration fraud by the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector.

King Street Patriots has also been attacked by a lawsuit from the Texas Democratic Party and an coordinated ethics complaint filed by Texans for Public Justice. Both Texans Together and Texans for Public Justice receive funding from Open Society Institute, of which liberal supporter George Soros is founder and chairman.

"As a matter of law, corporations cannot sue individuals for defamation; this attack is baseless," said Kelly Shackelford, president/CEO of Liberty Institute, which represents Catherine Engelbrecht and King Street Patriots. "All these attacks are clearly an attempt to bully and silence a group of volunteer citizens who are just trying to keep the election process honest. This is pure desperation by a Democratic Party everyone knows is not doing so well."

Only a week into early voting, volunteer poll-watchers also are being verbally and physically harassed by people loitering at the polls with no intention to vote at the time, including a man identified as a reverend and Houston Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee who was seen inside the polling location electioneering and threatening to turn a poll-watcher's name to the Department of Justice for voter intimidation. Additionally, poll watchers have filed written descriptions of election judges and clerks attempting to influence citizens' votes by asking them if they wanted to vote straight ticket, shadowing voters as they cast ballots, and by even voting for people who did not know for whom they wanted to vote.

"Although I'm disgusted by these attacks, I am not deterred. Our work in Houston and our vision for a fair and free election in every county of the nation continues," said Catherine Engelbrecht, volunteer leader of King Street Patriots. "These lawsuits are exactly the kind of abusive disrespect for citizens that got our political leaders into trouble. We will not be intimidated by partisan attacks, by the Democratic Party, or by anyone."

passion

I am very remiss in blogging. I am very sorry.

This is short.

I have been admiring people who have a passion for their issues. I have issues but not so much passion.

God is a passionate God. And he loves people with passion. Obviously it is best to be obedient to God's issues and be passionate about them.

But God admires passion in people, even those who are misguided. See Saul, who went from passionate persecutor to Paul, the passionate apostle for God.

God loved David, his passionate shepherd king. He is the example of the good shepherd, before Jesus, an archetype if you will. David was not always right but God loved his passion.

I think of the political season.

A very emotional issue right now is how to treat "alternative lifestyles".

I think God loves those practicing homosexuality but he hates what they do. I think God loves those who support gays because they love them. God loves them too. He shares there passion. I think God admires them and so do I. I may not agree with the conclusions they come to. I do not believe God does either. But God loves them and admires their passion. We should too.

You can expand this to other emotion charged issues such as abortion rights vs. pro-life, the war in Iran/Afghanistan, how we help poor people, how we help those who are repeat criminal offenders, and many more.

Reconciliation

The pastor talked about understanding and accepting differences in the church, specifially our church. He spoke of differences racially, age and gender. Maybe it wasn't age. No the quote from Paul speaks of Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. So the second one is more about financial status. How did he put it? I cannot remember.

He spent a lot of time on political differences specifically Democrat and Republican. Am I wrong to think he looked long at me? Weird. That is not my problem, at least I do not think, except in this blog sphere I really do not discuss my politics. I know the politics of few people in the church. If they know mine, well it is because of all the bumper stickers on my car. Yeah, that's it. But I do not speak of it.

I understand people believe differently than I. I figure that is sad for them. I also understand that backgrounds and attitudes are different from mine. I accept that it takes all kinds to make a world and that the world does need Democrats, Libertarians, independents. If you ask I could speak passionately on policy issues but the last thing I would do would be to try to convince you to be a Republican. Because Republicans are so far from having the answers it is silly. Not that I have them either but I know how off Republicans are.

I think yesterday at the restaurant I was listening to Joel Osteen. He was speaking on politics too and he emphasized that no political party is the savior. Only Jesus is the savior. He emphasized it. Being a part of it I know that perhaps more than most.

MP said that he thinks we should be involved but that we should keep political discussions out of the church as it is too divisive. I totally agree and already try to do that. If I do not do it all the time I am sorry.

I sat in on the Christian Worldview class at the four week Vineyard Seminars this summer. I did speak pretty vehemently there. The teacher put us in small groups and invited discussion. I do not think I said anything wrong, just different that what others believed. Actually parties were not mentioned but Worldview does involve politics, I think. Some may have left those meetings thinking I am a two headed monster. I tried to lay back the last few weeks. But the first two weeks I did feel free to disagree with some people and defend my positions.

So yeah. But they did make me do it. I could not help myself.

The Healing Ministry

HF spoke last Sunday about healing and especially what to do when we do not see results. At the Friday night leaders meeting we heard a man speak of persevering intercession. He said that in his studies the leaders who prayed for their life group over 6 times a week had a much higher experience of people coming to Christ than those who prayed once or less a week.

If we do not see results right away do we give up? Do we try to find someone or something to blame?

Healing prayer and intercession are important to the body of Christ. It helps bring unity.

Let me go back to healing prayer. That is what the Sunday sermon was about. Healing prayer is important. It brings us together. The one asking for prayer must humble himself. He must also know that their might not be results. So he is taking a big risk.

The one praying also has to be humble enough to know that there may not be obvious results. It take a certain bravery, which is born of faith, on both sides.

God sometimes brings immediate healing, this is cause for rejoicing. He has his reasons when he does not immediately heal. It is not that God cannot heal or that he does not want to. I think it is mystery why often we do not see immediate results. One thing though if we always did see results no one would ever die. It is God's plan that we eventually die and go back to him. That may seem obvious but somehow that seems important.

Still I think prayer works. We need to be persistent in prayer whether or not we see results we can measure or show off. I think God answers all prayer in his own way. I also think it brings the church together in very important ways. God is more interested in unity than he is in all our aches and pains. But he is interested in both.

1 Chronicles 15

In this chapter we read of David's relocating the ark into Jerusalem. He did not do it right the first time. This time he did the research. He also sought out God. But obviously he went and read the old scrolls (Deuteronomy, etc.).

David made it a celebration. It was a long national holiday. He called all Israel to be a part (unity). He gave gifts of raisin cakes and date cakes to all who came.

David got excited and danced in special dancing clothes. It was a special holiday for all Israel.

Psalm 77

I was sharing with my accountability partner and soon after it read Psalm 77. I felt it was a comical coincidence when I got to verse 4. My partner had spoken of needing an eye operation soon enough. He was being tested and after some uncomfortable shots he still found it hard to keep his eye propped open. Verse 4 speaks directly to that.

I also think the general sense of Psalm 77 spoke to his prayer request. He was feeling troubled, overwhelmed by life. The psalmist seems to be feeling that too. The psalms speak to common experience. The psalms are so real.

I wish more modern worship songs were this real. I think of our mortality which the psalms brings out. I find it helpful to realize I will be going back to God soon enough. It brings things into perspective. I will be going back to God soon enough. So it is helpful to look at things from a longer view. I can take my eyes off day to day worries. I can look up, so to speak, at the hills ahead of me.

When we are worried and overwhelmed we lose sight of God compassion and often think he is mad at us (vs. 7-9). Well I do. But God has the longer view. We do not know when our life will be over. He does.

It's time to stop, have a quiet time, remember God, meditate on him (vs. 11-12).

I got myself in a real funk on Tuesday. It helped a lot to finally stop what I was doing and have a quiet time. I had that luxury. Perhaps my friend does not. Sometimes a short "timeout" is necessary.

Hopeless Prayer

I am not going to quote the whole article from the Christianity Today about prayer and the Chilean Miners. It is not long, read it yourself if you have time.

Probably most of us have sent up a prayer for these folks. Most people in the situation these miners were in do not survive. This is miraculous. This is unique. I praise God.

I also feel a lot of gratefulness that the value of these 33 lives, probably not worth much monetarily, was considered so great that millions of dollars was spent to get them out and make sure they had as good a conditions as possible while they were getting them out. It is amazing that this situation was given so much press coverage. I give God a lot of credit for that too.

How many of us are like Mr. Galli, we pray without much faith. But we do pray. Hopefully we do. Perhaps the act of prayer itself shows a teeny bit of faith.

If one has to have Biblical examples one can look to the psalms. There were many times the psalmist has little faith.

Yet last night in Greek class we were translating the part in John about the fig tree that Jesus cursed because he was hungry and it did not have fruit. In response to the disciples comments he told them in no uncertain terms, that they themselves could do this very same thing, if they had faith. And even greater: If they spoke to the mountain and commanded, "Fall into the sea!" it would be done for them. Do we believe him?

He challenged them in the strongest of terms on other occasions about the results of faith, even the smallest amount of faith.

Do we believe Jesus? No I think we want to somehow say he didn't really mean it without calling him a liar.

I am challenged and I do try to have faith.

Sunday night at SJD

Sunday night we had a special speaker. He was a Maasai cattle herder from Kenya as a youth. When he grew he got the opportunity to be educated in America. He is now a professor in Washington state. He is also an ordained Methodist minister.

He has been eager to promote education for other like him in Kenya, especially people who get lost in the shuffle.

Right now he is helping young women to break out of the cycle of poverty and effectively slavery that comes from having no other options. He came to raise money for a new women's dormitory at a school in Kenya.

He is soon to join the staff of World Vision, heading up similar projects.

We heard a bit about his story.
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Also tonight (Wednesday October 13) they are having a special meeting of people trying to raise consciousness and help find solutions about the problem of child slavery that is on the increase and that uses Houston to a great extent.

Men's Retreat

What can I say about the men's retreat. For me is was relaxing and a change of pace. I was not the demographic I suppose. Most everyone out there was young. A lot of them shared a fantasy football league and playing soccer on Sunday nights. As usual I did not know a lot of name and came away knowing about the same.

I picked up Tom Holm at the church and learned Humberto's name. That's two.

There were a few people I knew. But now my mind won't come up with their names. Oh, David Gausepohl was there Friday night but he went home.

I enjoy walking and exploring and got enough of that. If you look at the pictures I got some pretty good shots. The sort of chronicle where I went. The raccoon was cool, too far for a great shot. He was old. He stopped when I stopped to look at me. Then he waddled down the road away from me a while before finally entering the woods. I walked up to see if I could see him in the woods but of course I couldn't. He had blended in by then. I saw some birds. It looked like a family of ducks that took off when they saw me.

The little subdivision of middle class, affordable homes was cool. There are some for sale and a few vacant lots if one wanted to build for oneself. There was a warning sign at the entrance saying, "All home construction must be approved by the homeowner's association before beginning". So no travel trailers anyway. A lot of the homes looked pretty modest. Quite a few people used a life preserver ring for a house number marker. Not everyone had boats and not everyone had easy access to the lake. Those who did tended to have fancier homes.

Late Saturday morning I went the other way. I ran into two guys who planned to jump in the lake. I did not see a marked off swimming area. There should be one. They had to pull themselves out on two foot high pilings. I would have had trouble doing that. Good for them though, they made their own adventure.

I walked down to the interpretive nature walk and got in on the last half of the ranger guided tour. He spoke of snakes. He showed us a banana spider and a special tree called a Hercules Club that he said the Indians used to get a pain killing medicine. I wondered if it was the substance that aspirin was derived from. He wasn't sure and neither am I. He said this was the last tree of that variety in the park. It has a unique bark.

We men ate "man food" and had a lot of circle time. We had two worship times and a couple of times to discuss issues of men helping men, support and so on. There were ideas thrown out. I did not think anything was decided though except that we should keep doing this.

I brought my family tent but did not want to put it up. People wondered how I was going to sleep. I proposed sleeping on the ground under the stars but when the time came I was mostly afraid of animals and perhaps being stepped on. So I slept in the car. The last two or three hours though I did pull out the old sleeping bag, which was inadequate and tried sleeping under the stars. I was under some trees so my star field was broken up. Still that was pretty cool. I slept at least as good under the stars as I did in the car.

Overwhelmed

I was feeling a strange way. It was what I can best describe as being overwhelmed one day last week. I thought of this when a man asked me to pray for him about what I thought of as overwhelmed. He never used that word, he spoke of all the work he had to do. It was backing up. He was not going to lose anything if he finished late but he felt bad about it. He was going to miss other obligations in order to try to get his work done. This is not a bad thing, this is how he earns his livelihood. But he was asking for prayer.

I thought this was Holy Spirit thing and we could pray for one another. I thought I had some insight as a result of my experience. I felt God gave me empathy for him.

So now I think that when I feel a bit overwhelmed I can remember to pray for this man too. And I can add in other loved ones who I know feel stressed at times. We exist to help one another, we are not alone.

It's a good thing to remember if one feels a strange feeling like I did, that may be a call to pray for others who could be feeling the same thing. I know God wants us to intercede for others. He loves it when we do and he will answer our prayers.

Restaurant mishap

Tell me if I am truly paranoid. But this time I think I am right.

Wednesday after Kegan's Alpha time I was really hungry. DW was going to be home late too I thought so I decided to treat myself to a restaurant meal. I know a Chinese place on the way home. I will not mention the name, you will see why later.

Their food is not spectacular, how many Chinese places are? But the prices are pretty reasonable.

Well I got there at 9:20. The door says they are closed at 9:30. I walked in to an empty restaurant. I balked and said I wanted to eat. I did sort of give them a chance to say no. But I think they knew what the sign said as well as I did. I was going to try to make it worth their while.

But in retrospect I think I got stung. I don't know what they put in my food but I do know that about 15 hours later I had a very bad case of the runs. The food did not taste different to me but my bad tooth started really killing me as I ate the egg foo young. I went to the dentist the next day and it is fixed. But I got some water and paid my bill quickly and took the rest of the food home.

I'm not sure the toothache had anything to do with it but the diarrhea did.

Plus after serving me these two ladies, who own the place I assume, pulled up chairs at the next table and proceeded to pepper me with questions. When they found out I had been at the jail the most senior one in terms of authority went off on a diatribe that I really struggled to understand because her English is so bad. I still really do not understand her beef with the penal system, something about it costs too much.

I think this was their other way of punishing me for coming in right at closing time and keeping them from leaving.

They seemed to think the solution to my toothache was whiskey. As I was leaving two large men who looked like bouncers or enforcers came in and ordered drinks. They seemed willing to stay and serve these men. The men looked to be in no hurry to leave. That I do not understand either. Draw your own conclusions if you want to.

In the future I hope I'll remember to not enter restaurants about to close, especially if the place is otherwise empty. I guess I may be stuck with late night drive throughs. I keep thinking Chinese is better for me, maybe not. hehe

Friends - Proverbs 18

I am so proud of my children. They have all learned well the adage if you want to have friends be a friend. They all have friends, good friends. I am reminded of this because of my reading Proverbs 18. This chapter begins and ends with proverbs involving friendship. My children had bumps along the road but as maturing adults they all have sets of friends that they love and hang out with. They know how to be friends. I am so delighted for them.

I have maybe one friend, aside from my wife. My wife and I have our good moments.

But underlying it all I do not really want to put out the effort to be a friend. So I do not have any friends, like I said the one. But he and I are about the same. I do work at being DW's friend some of the time. It does not come naturally. I have to work very consciously at it. Often I'd rather not put in the effort, preferring to be alone with all my media distractions. We are all made by God as social beings. I am no exception. But I find it hard, sort of like a moth being attracted to a light yet getting burned by the heat.

Yeah i suppose you can trace it back to childhood upbringing and experiences. I suppose we all had experiences of hazing, rejection, exclusion and the like. In my case it also has a lot to do with how I responded to it, my sin, if you will. I chose to withdraw and not trust people. I saw everyone as an obstacle and an enemy. To this day I am not comfortable trusting someone to be a friend. I think they must have an angle.

My staring at people must come from the same childish ways of dealing with social situations. Maybe it started as a sort of passive/agressive way to get back. I assume that no one will like me. My best friend shares this trait in common with me.

These days I am trying my best not to stare in crowd situations. I have to work hard at it and think I am mostly successful. But others around me seem to do it so effortlessly. I still have to work hard at it. Mostly likely I will be working hard at it until I get to go home to Jesus. This is one major reason why crowd situations are so stressful.

Speaking of crowd situations I got up at 6 AM Saturday and walked down to Tranquility Park to do a 5k run/walk. I did not know what I was getting myself into. I got there at 7 AM thinking the race would soon start, like most 5k's.

But this was "Race for the Cure". This race over the years has gotten weird. And politically correct. There must have been over 1,000 homemade t-shirts commemorating this race, specific breast cancer victims (or survivors), companies linking themselves to breast cancer research, or even "take care of my tatas" or "check my rack". A few people wore breast related costumes. I will not describe them here. This is an event, not a race.

There were over 35,000 people here on Allen Parkway and backed up to Tranquility Park. I must say they were very well behaved. Again, this was not a race, most of them planned to stroll in groups over the 5k course.

I got there at 7 PM thinking I was right on time. I found the race was not to officially start until 8:30 AM. Who does that in Houston? So I had to wait fairly impatiently. At 8:30 I was by the walkers and nothing moved. Finally about 15 minutes later I found my way through the crowds up to the front and found there was a little trickle of people getting on the course. After thinking for a spell I did get on the course and found lots of walkers like myself already going. I actually did run (jog slowly) about 1/4 of the race but finished fairly slow in 49 minutes. That can be ascribed to all the people I had to dodge. There were people with baby strollers, children running underfoot and lots of people walking in a row.

I had no idea really, when I turned back of the loop at Montrose and West Dallas back onto Allen Parkway to head back to Tranquility Park I found there were thousands, and I mean thousands of people still coming out walking slowly. There I few races where I finish in front of over half the participants but this is one.

But I have told people to remind me next year to skip the "Race for the Cure"!

Inpressions from communion

With little commentary, little I say. I was involved with providing communion at Brighton and at VCH today. There are all sorts of people, old and young from all types of cultures. Yes Jesus does bring together all peoples and all cultures. All peoples.

The one was strikes me most in retrospect was the older Asian gentleman who came up with a younger lady of indeterminate origin. I thought they were connected. But after we gave him communion he showed his appreciation by wanting to shake my hand. I had to switch the tray to my left hand to do so. Then he gave me a Japanese style bow and bowed to Barbara too. Wow.

The first two that came for communion were hispanic ladies who were standing in the back. They looked to not speak much English so I said "la sangre de Dios" just in case. After we prayed one of them said "thank you" fairly clearly. So maybe I was wrong about their speaking abilities.

We communed the residents who came to the service at Brighton Home. They are all above retirement ago. Some were very alert. Some were asleep and did not receive. Some refused, I know a few who come are Jewish, that might be the reason. I think some received who barely knew what they were doing. At the other extreme several young children came up with their parents at VCH. I always offer to give them communion, it is up to their parents. At least one took the bread. His consciousness of what he did might not be much better than some of the older folks. But God knows and loves.

So these are my impressions from giving out communion. It is a blessing to do and humbling too.