Dostoevsky Quote

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I came across this quote a long while ago and found it quite true of my own life. As Melissa and I were meeting with Rita yesterday, the Treasures weren't far from my mind. I miss them so much and look forward to returning home in a couple months with Melissa by my side. Spend time with kids... its good for you.


"The soul is healed by being with children."

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

Expectations

This last week has flown by and to be quite honest its been a tough week for us. A lot of things didn’t go according to plan. Certainly not the least of which was losing the ring, but the hits didn’t stop there. It was a painful week for Melissa recovering from her eye surgery, as well as some additional financial hits and frustrations with wedding plans not going to plan. I often say that things in Tanzania just don’t ever go according to plan, well, this week California’s proving to be the same way. I think part of being human is building up high expectations and then being taken aback when such things don’t go according to what we thought.


Quite fittingly this was holy week - the week that we celebrate the most important event in history and the crowning work of Jesus’ ministry on earth.  I sat in church last week on Palm Sunday and was reminded of all that the day meant. I had trouble following where the preacher was going and I couldn’t help but think about the people that greeted Jesus waving those palm branches. They had some lofty expectations of what Jesus was about to do.

I question the historical likelihood of Jesus riding side saddle sticking his right arm in front of Him as He rode. Image via Wikipedia

Do you ever wonder why the people were waving palm branches as Jesus entered Jerusalem? It was a symbol referring to Judas Maccabeus’ victory over the Syrian Seleucids that were occupying Jerusalem almost 200 years before Jesus took his donkey through the city that day. The palm branch was his sign of victory and was stamped on their coins. The revolt was, as all revolts are, a violent affair. The Maccabean Revolt is still revered in the Jewish religion and celebrated through the winter celebration of Hanukkah. It was even fresher in the Jews’ minds during the first century and they were looking forward to what they thought Jesus would do in overthrowing the oppressive Roman government. They basked in their heritage and waved a symbol of military victory as yelling to Jesus, “Hosanna!” “Save us!”


Funny how it was these same crowds that were riled up by the priesthood to have Jesus nailed to a cross only five days later. Fickle? Perhaps. But it goes deeper than that. These people were expecting him to do a mighty work. While He may have never exhibited violence towards people (let some tables have it in the temple though), the people recognized that He was indeed powerful - powerful enough to do a number to the Romans. Imagine their surprise and disgust when only five days later, this supposed prophet, was on trial for blasphemy. Safe to say that their previous expectations were unmet and the result was a historic upheaval.

Verse of the Week: Matthew 25:40

This week's verse is one that a lot of people, especially those younger social activist Christians, will memorize or at least be aware of. This is a verse that I've quoted plenty of times, but not in full and never with the Bible address. I think that its important to know where we can find the verse in the Bible. It adds credibility when one is witnessing and it helps us in our own devotion and study. This verse in particular, and the passage it comes from, ought to cause all Christians to be on their toes, because Jesus clearly cares about how we take care of the less fortunate neighbors around us.

"And the king will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to me." - Matthew 25:40

Music Spotlight: Sound Off

Today I was working on a welcome board that Melissa wants for the foyer at the wedding reception hall. After listening to the live album by Matisyahu, I threw on one of my favorite hip hop acts, Mars ILL. Hip hop has always been my favorite music genre and these guys keep it true to form. There's a lot of mainstream that is very self-glorifying and foul, but these guys are among an underground movement that is positive, conscious and just plain good. Manchild and DJ Dust for you and you and you and you too...

Money

Welcome to Brandon’s therapy session.


Over the last couple weeks, as Snoop Doggy Dog would put it “I’ve had my mind on my money and my money on my mind.” Not just my money though, but money in general would probably be more apt. Nonetheless, I felt it was blog worthy as it is so integral to our society to the point that we come up with trite sayings like “Money makes the world go round” and what not. Not to mention money and personal finances are topics readily found throughout the Bible. It must be important. The only thing that Jesus talks about more than money in the gospel accounts is the Kingdom of God. That’s right, he talks more about money than he does about love, salvation, repentance and so on. Yeah, I’d say its quite important.


I was hanging out with Shawn the other day and we had some really good conversation as we tend to do. One of the topics, as one might suspect, was popular Christianity. Specifically we spoke at length about two individuals, one of them being Joel Osteen. He is undoubtedly the most prominent figure of the “prosperity gospel.” His book titles include Become a Better You, Its Your Time and Your Best Life Now. I don’t intend to bash another brother, I want God’s will for his life. However, I have a few reservations with the message he portrays. Mr. Osteen read the Bible and gave his life to a homeless first-century rabbi who told people to die to themselves before He Himself was tortured and murdered. Somehow, after this, Mr. Osteen landed on believing that God’s will is for us to be rich and indulge in treasures on this earth, even though they’ll rust and destroy as Jesus said they would.

When I write a book, I'm doing the same pose for the cover. Cover via Amazon

I watched a Larry King interview with Joel Osteen a while back and they showed video from his house and his church. Very big, very fancy, very expensive. He definitely lives out the gospel that he preaches. By his own definition, he has become a better him. The problem that I see with this view of money that many Christians believe in is two-fold. One, I find it unbiblical (as you could tell from the previous paragraph). I think that Mark Driscoll puts it well that when the message is “get rich, get healthy, be happy, that’s the equation… what we are saying is that as Christians we have nothing to offer that is any different from non-Christians or other religions.” Our life in Christ has the same end as that of those in the world: our own prosperity, as opposed to God’s glory. The prosperity gospel is the Christian American dream. Those are American ideals on those book covers, not biblical ideals. “Your,” its about you, its about the individual, “Best Life,” be all that you can be, humanism, health, wealth, indulgence. “Now,” immediately, don’t wait, don’t be patient, why sit down in the booth when you can get it from the drive-thru?


 Secondly, and this is the one that I’ll hit on more from my experience, I find the prosperity gospel doesn’t work out pragmatically. Do you have the kind of cash that Mr. Osteen has? It is a scary proposition when your faith is measured in dollar signs. Fortunately for Joe Christian like me, its not. I believe that God is a God of enough. He is gracious, He gives abundantly. He knows that we require some material things to survive and He has blessed not only the global church, but really the entire world with more than enough. The problem is that people (Americans for certain) horde. They don’t heed Jesus parable about the man that built the bigger barn to hold all his stuff (Luke 12:13-21). Furthermore, peoples’ eyes are bigger than their stomachs and their security and comfort become dependent on the things they own as opposed to the Lord. When this happens, some people wind up with way too much money and others, who might have faith through the roof, end up on the short end of the stick.

Verse of the Week: Psalm 82:3-4

This week's memory verse is a very straightforward verse that shows God's heart for the oppressed. I say it everywhere I speak that you can't get through the Bible, either Testament, and not see God's evident heart for justice. Obviously, I have committed my life to the kids at TOA, but this is a biblical mandate to all believers for us to love our downtrodden neighbors. So here's the verse...

"Defend the poor and fatherless;
Do justice to the afflicted and needy.
Deliver the poor and needy;
Free them from the hand of the wicked."

-Psalm 82:3-4

Ministry

I feel a bit out of sorts. Ever since I graduated from Vanguard a few years ago, I’ve had a fairly well-defined area of expertise in regards to vocation and ministry. Over the last few months those lines have blurred to something that I can’t quite decipher. 


When I was previously in California, life was easier to understand. When I was in Costa Mesa, I was in charge of the after school program at Victoria and I served in the children’s ministries at a couple churches. When I was in Long Beach, I was the children’s pastor at a couple churches. I was single for all but a couple of months during that time and I had a pretty good handle on what life and ministry looked like. 


In step with the calling that the Lord had put on me, I moved into ultra full-time ministry when I moved to Tanzania (“full” takes on a whole new meaning when you move to the other side of the earth to “work”). Through the emotional ups and downs, I was able to get into a groove of what life in the ministry at TOA looked like; my work was blessed and my schedule became incredibly routine. My life was (and in most ways still is) devoted to the discipleship of the treasures. Again, I found my vocational ministry well-defined.


Now I’m here and I’m struggling to grasp what “ministry” looks like. Technically, I’m still on staff with Hidden With Christ, I’m still on payroll during my furlough and I’m itching to get back to the work (as we can best determine, the extended furlough is over half way over!) And while I may have responsibilities here in the states with office work and fund raising, those aren’t quite the same as being with the kids, teaching them and loving them. Office work is all well and good, but it hasn’t been the focus of my work. Fund raising can be fun and encouraging depending on who we’re speaking with, but in many instances I feel more like a salesman than I do someone that is called to the orphans of northern Tanzania. 

Verse of the Week: 1 Peter 2:23-24

So this is something that I've wanted to do for awhile and finally got around to actually organizing it. I've heard plenty of times how children in first century Judea would memorize the whole Old Testament and then how people today in third world countries where persecution is intense, will memorize entire chapters and books of the Bible. And then here's me. I have deep need for the Word of God to be active in my life and yet I don't put forth the effort to write it on my heart. Not too long ago I wanted to be like those guys that memorize entire sections of the Bible so I gave it a try. I memorized the majority of Amos 5, but apparently lacked the fortitude or discipline to follow it through to the end. 


So here's what I'm going to do now. I've begun selecting verses that I know of, but don't have memorized or forget the address of it. I'm going to memorize them along with where they're found in the Bible. I figured I might as well share them on the blog as well and if you don't currently have a system for memorizing scripture feel free to do the verse of the week with me on the blog. I'll post the new one every Monday. Here's this week's verse.


This verse gets quoted often when people talk about the Lord healing us because of the last clause in the verse. I love it for that and also because you see Jesus' nature as He went to the cross. We can get so up in arms when people hurt us, but Jesus didn't return the pain to others and that's a beautiful thing and the way that we ought to behave as well. And then this is a great verse because it features the centrality of our Christian faith which is that Christ died for us, that we might be freed from sin and live righteously grounded in our faith in Him. 


"When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness - by whose stripes you were healed." - 1 Peter 2:23-24

Tozer Quote

"If my fire is not large, it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle as its flame."

-A.W. Tozer

The Pursuit of God

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Music Spotlight: Running Around In My Dreams

So I love music. Because I love music and I have the opportunity to share good music on my blog I'm going to do just that. We'll go ahead and call it Music Spotlight (because that's what everyone else calls it).


Today, I'm sharing a song that is quite important to me. This is the song that my lovely fiancé Melissa and I will be dancing to at our wedding. Before Melissa and I met face to face, the Lord gave me many dreams with her in them. It was one of the things that He used to prepare me for our coming together. I found this song shortly thereafter and shared it with Melissa. We found it quite fitting. Beware this song is quite catchy and you'll joyfully get it stuck in your head. Without further ado, here's "Running Around In My Dreams" by Tyrone Wells.

Cool

We live in a very celebrity driven culture. Its certainly a form of idolatry and we have many idols in America. We sometimes look at ancient cultures with a sense of snobbery believing that their worship of carved images was incredibly primitive and odd. All the while we exalt plenty of images ourselves.


We figure it to be harmless and at the same time can’t explain to ourselves why we are so enthralled by these people with whom we don’t have a personal relationship. Their personal matters get exposed in every tabloid and then shared with millions upon millions of people who for whatever reason actually care. Its not that these famous people aren’t important; its that they are just as important as the person sitting next to you at the restaurant whom you know nothing about.


The problem with society is that the people start to internalize the structure of whose important and whose not. Or more importantly, whose “cool” and whose not. Next thing you know we have this stratosphere that categorizes every single person. Such a hierarchy produces two attitudes.


The first person realizes that they are not far enough up the ladder and thus doesn’t realize their inherent worth and beauty. This is often classified as a lack of self-esteem, and biblically you would say that this person doesn’t realize the value of being made in the very image of God. Melissa has shared with me that in her teenage years, she would read “People” and had a sort of obsession with it. She also perpetually felt poorly of herself during that time. This is the kind of thing the culture drives. However, this by no means is relegated merely to the “ordinary” person. Many people that have attained an impressive level of fame have had one failure and then perceive themselves as very unimportant subsequently treating themselves poorly, even to the point of suicide.


The second attitude that is created is arrogance. A person attains a certain level in the stratosphere and feels accomplished enough to put everyone else down. They embrace the thought that they are more important and let others know it. They’re self-absorbed jerks. They take upon themselves to be the enforcers of the entire system; not realizing that their own pursuits are only producing a counterfeit satisfaction predicated on the belittling of others.


This is something that I’ve been praying through and it came up again this weekend as I was praying at the Holy Spirit Conference put on by the Garden. I, like most people, have internalized this whole categorical system. I think for many Americans this happens in school. To varying degrees this enculturation was happening in elementary and junior high for me, but the crowning of my personal stratosphere came in high school. I went to a small K-8 school in junior high and when I got to high school, I was bussed into a two thousand student campus in Paso Robles. I was previously a small fish in a small pond and now I was a small fish in a big pond. I quickly realized who the cool kids were and that was anyone above me in the hierarchy. I would try to do well in sports or make friendship with popular kids in class to move up the stratosphere. If I didn’t make it to the top, that was manageable, so long as I wasn’t on the bottom rung. Those kids were put through hell.


I found Vanguard to be much more inclusive than other campuses and thus felt comfortable to not strive. However, when I moved to Tanzania, a whole new opportunity to engage in the game arrived. Its almost as if a person feels the need to have a resume that says why they are important; why they shouldn’t be kicked off the lifeboat as Donald Miller would say. And whatever impressive aspects of my personal resume would go, they seemed to be overlooked by the glaring reality of “out of sight, out of mind.” People could think the world of me and Treasures of Africa, we could have had a good friendship in the states and all, but with little contact as I was so far away, my success in the stratosphere took a serious hit. This says less about people back in California; I have been learning to accept that this is just the way it goes when one moves away. This is more of a critique on the system itself and the fact that my enculturation into it caused me a significant level of insecurity.


As I shared in previous blogs, towards the end of my first year as a missionary, I began to realize this insecurity of mine. I no longer thought of myself as loved or important to many people whom I previously did receive this affection from. I had even become somewhat envious of the work of some of my Vanguard peers in nearby Uganda, because their work in every right is “cool.” Whereas, the only four Americans involved at TOA are me and three middle-aged women. I felt as though my location and my work had lowered me to the bottom of the ladder.


And yet God works in a whole other framework. His ways are not ours as Isaiah says. Among many wise words that Lydia has shared with me came on Awadhi’s birthday last year. We were sitting at this restaurant where you can view many Tanzanian animals. She told me quite plainly that God isn’t into what’s cool. At the age of 24, such a thought had never dawned on me. I always thought that God was cool. Little did I realize just how deep this internalization of the hierarchy had on me. I took my unbiblical mindset and just added God to it. If the top of the system is cool and God is the greatest, than God must be cool. In reality, cool is merely a label that describes what is popular at the moment within the fallen system. You know what’s cool right now? Plaid. When I left for Tanzania at the start of 2010, no one was wearing plaid. I came back and it looked like Gap opened a Jeff Foxworthy line. A couple years from now, it’ll be something entirely different. God isn’t like that. He’s not into things that are cool. He’s not into our perceptions of whose “in” and whose not. We’re all valuable to Him and He loves all His creation.


Jesus had a very good opportunity to be cool in the midst of His peers. His talents ranged from his craftsmanship as a builder to gifted orator to supernatural healing power. People took notice and crowds would gather to Him. Yet throughout the gospel accounts you see Him evading such gatherings. He’d teach some, but then all of a sudden He’d take off to be by Himself. Better yet, with people all gathered around, He’d say something kooky like “most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 8:53-54). Can’t you just imagine a cocky disciple like Peter exclaiming to Him, “Hey! That’s not cool! That‘s messed up, dude.” And yet the truth that Jesus was sharing is an integral piece in following Him.


Bear with me, I was a fan of TGIF growing up. There is this exchange between Shawn and Corey in Boy Meets World that for whatever reason has stuck with me. Corey is having this identity crisis because he realizes how popular Shawn is and he wants to be worthy of their friendship. He’s failing in the hierarchy. Towards the end of the episode, Corey asks Shawn something to the effect of “do you think I’m lame?” and Shawn says “of course not.” Corey gets a confident little smirk and asks “so, you think I’m cool then?” “Of course not,” Shawn replies. “So what am I?” “You’re Corey, I’m Shawn.” Shawn affirmed Corey in something so much stronger than the social structures that we create; he affirmed him in love and friendship. That’s how we ought to be. That’s how God is.


So in the light of my failure within the system of what’s cool and whose important, I asked the Lord a very simple question at the conference yesterday: “who do You say I am?” His response touched me. It affirmed me. It had nothing to do with the people around me that I would perceive as cool. It had nothing to do with that system as a whole. It was a mark of acceptance and was brimming with love, purpose and calling. It took the things I twisted and misunderstood about my identity and unveiled who He’s actually called me to be. It isn’t something that could always be labeled as “cool” but it was certainly good.