Heavy and Weighty

Do not fret over your heavy troubles, for they are heralds of weighty mercies. Charles Spurgeon

Pillars for Flourishing Transboundary Coordination

James K. Gasana wrote about "Governing TCBAs"- Trans-boundary Conservation Areas. That's an area of land between two countries that is important for conservation. It is challenging for single entities to protect areas- and it becomes very layered and complic
ated between countries. His example centers on Cambodia, Laos and Thailand "The Emerald Triangle". He notes it is a process that must be built through partnerships. It can't flourish without these items. I just wanted to keep a record of these items because they seemed highly relevant in many other partnership contexts.

1) Political will- from national and sub-national governments

2) Political vision- to address trans-boundary issue of shared interest through coordination of policies, institutions and management

3) Joint structures and synergies- with clear mandates at national levels, inter-institutional coordination, and stakeholder participation mechanisms that include Indigenous Peoples, local communities and municipal authorities

4) A mixture of financing mechanisms - funding from national budgets, private, bilateral and multilateral donors, the private sector, whenever feasible 

Reflective Learning

As I progress in my career (it sounds very adult to say that!) I've now done one professional presentation and one guest lecture. Woohoo! I want to keep doing a better job, so I jotted some notes for future use. Asking students/participants to reflect will enrich their experience...so here goes:

Describe: describe what you experienced
Interpret: what you experienced, what does it mean?
Explain it to others: explain how it applies to you

What surprised you?
What scared you?
What made you feel good?
What inspired you?
What will you remember?

Now I can recycle this note to myself: do not forget these questions and strategies! I only have to remember I blogged it here ;)

your way is like water

your way is like water 

fresh to my mind 

it heals my heart again
-Aaron Strumpel

Rugby's song

I stood arm in arm with my brother.
My hand on his shoulder, his hand on my waist,
surrounded by a chorus of manly voices singing
this bar song, and soon my laughter gave way.
I could not contain the joy
of their exuberant frivolity
singing a bar song, "i went to the corner..."
so melodically.
I understood more about my brother then,
with the passion and the silliness,
how could you not want to belong to this?
Burly men, being men,
joined in brotherhood!

I will not forget how we did not simply disperse
after the Iphones were finished capturing the crowd
behind two men, beside, and before
we were surrounded by their sound,
that choir of strength,
bonded by bruises,
a taste of heaven, a holy infusion
of belonging in song,
of enjoying the moment
God gave to be.

May these voices
will be part of the throng
that's song goes on and on and on.

To be Revived

Yesterday I scavenged some plants from the garden club's plant exchange at my workplace. I brought home a wilted plant, with one main stem about two feet tall, with tiny yellow flowers that looked just right for humming bird beaks to drink from. It needed to get some water and room for roots to expand, immediately! I picked a spot in our front garden and happily dug a nice hole, excited to plant and let it be established.

It's morning now, I'll go see how it did over night. Did the soil and watering revive it? I hope so. But it may take time, it was without nourishment for a few days.

So I see my soul, shriveled and wilted, weak and wanting. Apart from the Word and time seeking in His Presence, I was weary and could not pray or sense His presence. I was on auto-pilot. I was on empty and surviving.

This morning I drank. I drank water about endurance, about One who did not come to continue the system of sacrifices to earn forgiveness, but the one who came to be THE sacrifice. The One who came to do the Father's will, who ate that as his bread and breathed it as his breath. Who was satisfied in giving over himself to the One who loved him and knew him and led him.

Make it so, plant me so I do not wither. Sustain me and drive me to the waters to drink. Let me not stray far from your shepherding hand! Prone to wander, oh I feel it, prone to leave the one I love. Take my heart, now, and seal it. Revive my heart in your love and goodness and I will praise your name! Beautiful One. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Rather than

“I conclude that repentance involves believing God,” proclaimed the preacher, “rather than Satan’s claim that more joy can be found in sin than in obedience.” Repentance, the preacher continued,

is a “being persuaded” about the danger of impenitence and the way of escape through repentance for the forgiveness of sins. It involves grief over past sins and present sinful tendencies. This is the significance of the sackcloth and ashes [inLuke 10:13 and Jonah 3:5]. And it involves turning from evil ways.

So faith and repentance are not properly two separate things. The turning of repentance is a turning from trusting in other things to a trusting in God. And with a new trust in God as counselor and protector and provider, there is also a turning to a new life of joyful obedience.

-John Piper, 1988.

See

See, I am God;
See, I am in all things:
See, I do all things:
See, I never lift my hands off my works,
      nor ever shall, without end:
See, I lead all things to the end that I ordain it to,
     from without beginning,
     by the same might, wisdom and love that I made it with.
How should anything be amiss?
-Julian of Norwich

Irresistible grace

Image from: www.hayinart.com 

He brings me songs on the ride. Sung to a bluesy tune with hand claps:

My daddy took his scythe
and cut off his right hand
ohh daddy took his scythe
cut off his right hand

My daddy took his scythe
and cut down his first born
ohh daddy took his scythe
done cut down his first born

My daddy  took his scythe
and tore down his home
ohh daddy took his scythe
done tore down off his home

Daddy, daddy,
how much harm
you done from your disease,
took that scythe and broke it all
ain't no one to grieve, no
ain't no one left to grieve

Poisoned by the liquor,
poisoned by the leaves,
Daddy, daddy,
how much harm
you done from your disease,
oh you done from your disease

Have nothing

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” William Morris

Homework can be fun

Here's my statement of faith from Theological Foundations Part 1. May this knowledge overflow in a deeper relationship with him. 

In the beginning of existence, God existed. He was in the beginning, completely satisfied in His own personhood expressed in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity. Delight was within and without, and nothing was lacking, so it was out of an overflow of love that God spoke everything into existence. Indeed, nothing exists apart from Him, visible or invisible.[i] That means every tree, mountain, drop of water, tare of wheat, robin’s song, and star- all came from God’s breath and power, as well as invisible things such as bacteria, DNA, gravity, and wind.[ii] We could endlessly praise Him for all that we see and do not see on earth and in space.

Invisible among God’s creation are beings called angels; created to serve God in heaven and earth.[iii]  In His generous nature, God gives beings the choice to worship Him. Some angels chose to disobey God and align against his purposes; these angels are demons. The leader of all Demons is Satan. The chief work of Satan is to deceive people about who God is; He lies, cheats, steals, and deceives to keep people sinning and keep them away from encountering Jesus Christ. It is by God’s authority that Satan has any power. Ultimately, there will be eternal punishment for God’s demonic enemies, but in this age, they rule as God allows.[iv]

Among all of God’s creation, He designed human beings to reflect unique aspects of His character. The first human beings, Adam and Eve, chose to disobey God’s command and sin. Sin is a deliberate action or inaction that separates us from God’s commands- it sets us against God, against His character, and it destroys our fellowship with Him. Since that day, all human beings inherit a sinful bent from their Father Adam. This is the outward disobedience, the internal attitudes, and the sinful nature. All of the dimensions of sin mean the wrath of God remains rightly on all human beings. ALL have sinned. All are separated from God and spiritually dead. Only by being born again through faith in Christ is that sinful nature broken. God chose some people to pardon through the work of Jesus Christ. God calls certain people to believe in the life and death of Jesus Christ.[v]  By faith they should be saved from wrath, and receive eternal life to be with God. Others remain under His wrath. He is the potter, destining vessels for honor and dishonor, salvation and wrath.

God created human beings to have a relationship with Him. God designed human relationships to reflect him, such as the relationship of marriage that unites one man and woman together for life. Marriage is a reflection of God’s Covenantal relationship to His collective people (the church).[vi] In fact, the creation of human beings as male and female reflects an equality of personhood in God’s image with unique roles, just as there are specific roles within the Trinity.[vii]

God chose a time in history to send the second person of the Trinity, His Son, to earth to inhabit a human body. Born as an ethnically Jewish baby, his birth and life and death fulfilled the Bible’s prophesies, his Mother being a virgin name Mary, and his father being God. Jesus lived for approximately 30 years in Nazareth, Israel, before beginning publically teaching, healing, and resurrecting the dead. He lived a perfect life, died through crucifixion, and rose from the dead.[viii]

The bad news that every human being needs to hear is that they are separated from God and under his wrath. The good news that every human being needs to hear is that Jesus Christ offers hope and life. Jesus’ death and life purchases forgiveness for the sins of the people called by God and offers His perfect, stainless life as righteousness to cover our sin, to justify us, and to remove condemnation. God cannot forgive sin apart from blood and sacrifice; even perfect obedience to the Law could not buy it. Only through repenting of sin and trusting in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  How do the “called” know they are called? They hear the good news that God sent His Son, and that whosoever believes in Him shall not die but have eternal life. At the end of time, God promises to gather people from every tribe, tongue, and nation as His own people to live with Him forever.[ix]

God the father sends the third person of the Trinity, His Holy Spirit, to those who believe. The Holy Spirit is a reality, not just a fact of doctrine. The Holy Spirit brings God’s presence in power, convicting of sin, giving peace in fear, performing miracles, bearing fruits, all of which are impossible in human strength alone. The Holy Spirit also empowers the Word of God, the Bible. The Bible illuminates God’s authoritative voice. The church recognized God’s voice in certain writings that were tested for consist and for not confirming anything contrary to fact. The church collected them in the Bible- sixty-six books, the Old and New Testament.  God inspired the many writers with His thoughts perfectly; the Bible is His infallible voice. The Bible is still “God breathed” today; His word never returns void, but accomplishes His purposes.[x] 

All glory to God Forever and Ever.

---

[i] Genesis 1:1, John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:16.

[ii] Psalm 24:1-2.

[iii] Hebrews 1:7.

[iv] 2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:1-3, Revelation 20:7-10.

[v] John 10:14-15.

[vi] Genesis 1:26-28, Matthew 10:28, Ephesians 5:22-33.

[vii] Joel 2:28.

[viii] Acts 2:22-32

[ix] REVELATION VERSE

[x] Luke 24:44; Hebrews 1:1-2; Isaiah SOMETHING 

2013: Numbering the days

I said
"I believe--
on a good day."

He said
"give me all your days."


Give me your weak and weary days.
Your Sunday night fearing Monday days.
Give me your weak and doubting days.
Give me your prophetic believing days.
Give me your jubilant hours.
Your grieving hours.
Give me your putzy, wasted moments.
Give me your driven, efficient moments.
Working or home, with friends or alone, give it all to me.

How does faith come?
        It comes by hearing.
Hearing what?
        The word.
What word?
        The word of Christ.