God Called Me To...

Calling is a crazy thing.  The American Christian perspective, mixed with the perspective of this generation has been the birthing ground of a belief that I find intriguing, but which many people question.  Calling, God's plan for your life, your destiny, predestination, are all words that relate to the topic, and about which people have varying opinions on.  When people claim that God has a particular plan for your life there are two reactions people commonly have.  People are either excited about how God is going to use them to change the world, or people are scared that they will miss God's calling for their life.  This applies in all sorts of areas, but I will stick to how calling affects your career in this entry.

Many people in my generation have watched their parents work long hours for decades at jobs they don't like to make a little more money to make ends meet (sometimes for needs and sometimes for wants).  It doesn't really matter what the money was needed for, I think my generation is terrified of devoting so much time to something they do not love.  It's not worth it!  When you add in what we were taught growing up ("you can be anything you set your heart to be!"), we end up in a position where we want to love our jobs, and if we do not, we have failed.  That goes for the whole generation.  Christians take the same thing and spin it up a bit.  God is calling you to a job that you are passionate about, good at, and makes this world look more like he wanted it to be.

From there, some people decide to just pick their job based on those 3 criteria, assuming that if it meets those, that must be where God is calling them.  For these people, you learn to understand God and yourself, and then you figure out what to do based on that knowledge.  Of course you also pray that God guides you, and then whenever you find something fitting, you can claim that's where God wants you to be.  You've found your calling.  For this person, perhaps there are hundreds of different opportunities that are equally good from God's perspective.  Just take the one you like and it'll be fine.

Another perspective is that you ask God where to go, and he tells you rather bluntly and specifically, probably after weeks, months, or years of prayer and fasting.  Maybe it's something you like and excel at, and maybe it's not.  If you hear God and follow it, you are in his will, but if you miss it, you're in sin, devoting your life to things God never intended you to do.

By my word choice, you can probably guess that I think these views are extreme and over simplified, and that my perspective is somewhere in the middle.  I do believe God made us a certain way with certain gifts and abilities and we are to use them for him.  Think of the parable of the talents.  On the other hand, I do think God calls us sometimes to do things we do not want to do, and do not have the ability to do or do well.  Think of every martyr ever, and also king Saul.  I also think God speaks to us clearly today.  He did in the Bible, and I do not think that's changed.

Imagine you have the option of 10 career paths, I believe you have the potential to honor or dishonor God with every single one of them.  I also think though, that some of them have better opportunity for impacting the world for God's kingdom.  Impact is hard for us to measure, but I think God can measure it.  He probably has a metric like "number of people interacted with" times "number of people saved" times "percent personal spiritual growth" divided by "the ultimate good".  I believe he also somehow knows the future.  Not sure if he knows potential futures, or only the actual future, or how that works, but I am certain, he is better qualified to decide which of those 10 career paths is best for us to take than we are.  So what does that mean to me?

Ask him!

"God, what should I do?  I would like to do this or that, but I don't know the implications of making that choice."

From there, I think God responds in any number of ways, but most often his method of response is such that it is sufficient for us to make the choice with relative confidence that we are doing what God thinks is best.  If God wants me to be a coal miner, and that makes no sense to me, he's going to have to slam some other doors in my face.  I'd need rejection letters from every other job I applied to, and a friend to come up to me out of no where and suggest I apply at the coal mine his uncle owns.  On the other hand, if God is calling me to something I would like to do, and I'm already familiar with his voice, a gentle whisper may be all I need.

All this said, if I hear God wrong?  I do not believe that is a sin.  If he wants me to make shoes, but I make bikes instead, I might miss a great opportunity I would have had, but there will be other opportunities in bikes.  God is not spiteful to his children.  If we miss what he's saying, it will not be the end of the world.  We do not have to panic.  We just need to continue to seek God and take our next steps based on what he is saying at the time.

Oh and guess what?!  Sometimes, I believe there are multiple good options.  You ask God what to do and he doesn't get back to you on which one is better.  Sometimes God just says, "those are both terrific opportunities.  Pick whichever you prefer!"

Anyways, much of this has to do with how clearly you believe God speaks today.  If your God is relatively silent, you are forced towards the first picture I painted.  If you believe God does speak to you, it would seem strange to me, that he would ignore the topic of career as a rule.

I'm in the thick of all this right now.  I have experienced a lot in the last months.  I'll save the personal story for when the story has a conclusion (hopefully in the next few weeks!).  I'll just leave it for now and say, I'm fairly confident where God wants me to be, and I love that feeling.

Glory to God

     Over a year ago I was climbing and I damaged my rotator cuff (shoulder).  The pain wasn't too intense but it lingered and limited what I could do (climbing, swimming, volleyball, pulling shirts up over my head) for roughly 9 months before the problem slowly faded away.  Shortly before Christmas I started feeling it again mildly.  Over break, my brother convinced me to try bench pressing 200lb without a warmup, which is definitely above my max, and then we did these weird behind the head pull-ups   Shoulder starts hurting a bit more.  I still rock climb though the pain is mounting a little bit.  On Friday, about two weeks after the lift, my shoulder began to hurt more and more over the course of the day.  That afternoon I was struggling to pull my shoe laces tight.  By that evening, I could barely ride a bike. By that night, I stopped using the shoulder muscle altogether.  When I needed to use my right arm I had to reach across with my left hand, grab my right arm and move it manually.  Saturday it felt no different.
     Sunday was just as bad, I cringed when I put soap under my arm in the shower.  I then had to use my left arm to lift my right arm over my head to wash it off.  Even that passive movement made me wince. I struggled through eating my cereal left handed, then went out the door to church.  I shifted into drive with my left hand (mind you this is an American, not a British car).  I did manage to turn the key in the ignition right handed, but then I drove entirely left handed to church.  Thank goodness it wasn't a manual!  When I arrived I had to pull the key out of the ignition left handed.  
     I assumed at this point that I had a partial tear in my rotator cuff.  If it were torn through then I don't believe I'd be able to move my arm at all.  In my case I could move it, just under severe pain.  If I tore through I'd have to get surgery requiring 3 to 4 weeks of complete immobilization of the joint, followed by another 6 months before being back close to normal.  I did my best to keep my shoulder still so it could heal on its own, but even through 2 nights there seemed to be no progress.  Back to our story.
     I went and found a seat as the service began.  That day at church, there were 3 in depth testimonies being shared.  One gentleman shared a story of his life that I related to a lot.  Larry was a physicist and quite clever.  Belief was difficult for him because he was always trying to explain things away and came to doubt very often.  Well in college he became a Christian through praying with a televangelist of all things (he has since moved beyond them, and to clarify, I didn't relate to this part of the story particularly).   Now Larry had achilles tendonitis and it was slowly getting worse until he was at the point of hobbling around.  I actually struggled with the same thing in Germany.  It takes months to recover from.  He had heard God could heal, but was hesitant to ask for it because God had more important things to do.  Maybe after everyone had been healed of cancer he could ask.  As he was watching his televangelist friend again he felt God speak to him saying in three "puffs" very clearly, "Nothing is to small for me," "I can heal your tendonitis," "Just have faith."  Larry began to pray, and at that point the televangelist (as expected) called out that there was someone with a heel problem that needed to be healed (look, it's a pun). And God healed him right then and there.  He still didn't understand why God would heal him in particular in that instance and asked God for years.  7 years later, God answered.  God said that if he hadn't healed him then, then Larry would have never made it that far in his Christian walk.  In those times of doubts, that healing was always an anchor for him that he could turn back to and know that God was real and loved him and healed him.  As Larry shared, and I thought of myself, I thought, "God, how cool would it be if you did something similar in my life!"  I felt God say, though not particularly clearly, "Go get prayer from the prayer team after the service."
     Now atheists are quick to point out that anecdotal evidence for the existence of God (or anything else) is not valid as proof and they are correct.  Our senses deceive us all the time.  I'd heard lots of stories of healing, but they were all second hand accounts, and while I figured they were probably true, they left me wondering.  A first hand experience with healing means so much more to me (though of course you as the reader only have a second hand account, sorry).  I'd prayed for healings before with no success.  I don't understand why God heals sometimes, and not at others.  This is a particularly important time of my life though to have that anchor, so maybe that's reason for God to work this time.
     I got up after the service and went for prayer with my arm still aching.  Kim prayed for me for a few minutes, then stops and asks if it's better.  I moved my shoulder all around and it suddenly didn't hurt anymore.  I raised my arm over my head like I'd tried in the shower that morning and it didn't hurt at all.  Upon further investigation I found that there were still some directions that invoked mild pain.  It was like God rewound the shoulder back to it's status on Friday morning before it got serious.  I don't really get that, but I can't complain.  It was drastic enough and sudden enough of a change that I know it wasn't natural.  I expected it to slowly fade of the course of the next week or 2.  Maybe in some cases, pain goes away rather suddenly (and naturally), but that it would happen during the 3 minutes we prayed for it?  Very suspicious.
     I'm honestly not certain if this thought came from me or from God.  Perhaps the lingering pain is a reminder to tell other people about it so the word gets out and this impacts other people too.  Maybe after I've shared this where I needed to, the pain will leave entirely.  Who knows?  I don't claim to understand God entirely, nor healing.  I would love to, but I don't.
     I am so thankful to God this week.  Place your trust in him.  He is worth your everything.

Real

What is Real? I'm not talking about our sense of reality and what exists, but instead about this idea I see about me. People want to be real. Maybe it's a new phenomenon and maybe not. I know what it's not. It's not Fake. It's the rebellion against the fake that we're all sick of seeing, whether that be in the media, the generations before, or even the church. Real is not wearing a mask to cover up who you really are. Real is not forcing yourself to conform against your will to the norms. It's admitting what doesn't make sense to you and not walking along as if it did just because the people around you seem to get it.

What does that mean in practice though. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Should we strive to be real?

I think yes, but with a caution.

We're born evil. Sinful nature. To me that's pretty clear just looking around. The danger then is this. We place being real on a pedestal and say, I know this (whatever this may be for you) is wrong, but if I don't do it, I wouldn't be being true to myself. I wouldn't be the true me. I would be fake to not do it. Therefore I must do it.

No. The idea isn't "be true to yourself." Instead the idea is "be true to who you should be." Find out what you were created for and,

pursue it,

openly,

honestly,

fully.

When what you know is right and what you feel is right disagree, don't just blindly pick one, following what you know and being fake, or what you feel because you want to be real. Instead Question, Search, Think, Observe, until the two things become aligned. Some times that's a shift in what you know, or thought you knew, and other times it's a shift in how you feel.

Always admit to yourself what bothers you, what you don't understand, what you disagree with, but don't leave it there. Fix it. When you've fixed it, you've grown. The Real you has become closer to who it should be. That's the difference. There's the people who reject themselves to make it look like they are who they should be. They look like they've progressed while they leave their real selves far behind. That is fake. Real, is when what you really think, and how you really feel is how you act, and that real you grows each day to be closer to the you that should be. Those two different lives will look the same for a time, but in the end, one will be going through meaningless motions and the other will be living from the heart.

Real is not an excuse to give in to your nature. It is not an excuse to be lazy, not to struggle. Real is a challenge to do nothing thoughtlessly. Both being fake, and being "true to your nature" kill you, while being Real and true to who you should be, gives life.

Münster Trip 1

Yesterday we took a free train to Münster, 45 minutes away.Pictures here.

It was weird to see abstract stain glass windows in the cathedral. The organ was enormous. I would love to press the keys and feel that room fill up with sound. There was also a “castle” with a Botanical garden behind it. The Garden had an art gallery in it for a man whose name I don’t recall

Unfortunately it was rather Cold and Wet...

I spent the train ride talking to a friend from England about her view on Germany, and what things are the same across Europe and what is unique to Germany. The ridiculous amount of Alcohol in public is unique to Germany. Small cars are European. Working 35-40 hours a week is European (except France where they strike after 32 hours). All British folk learn French and then maybe german or spanish. Germans learn English, then often times french

Also, thinking about what it means to be “Real” or “Genuine” and if that is alway good, bad, or otherwise.

Classes start this week, except for language classes, which means I have Monday off...