The Whirlwind

"Mandatory floor meeting tonight."
"Informational session tonight."
"Large group worship... tonight."

'Nuff said. And I thought high school was busy... phew.

One week ago... a week ago today I was moving into my dorm. Strange how it was only one week ago, yet a world ago. Moving in concluded a chapter of my life and opened a whole new one-- one that I'm so excited to see what God decides to write.

The first couple of days on campus were extremely overwhelming. We had sessions and meetings left and right... and when we weren't at those, there were social activities galore. The problem wasn't finding something to do, it was choosing WHAT to do. I did many of the activities with my roommates (Tyler and Chrissy, for future reference). It was a nice eye-opening to the campus and to college life, but quite frankly, I wasn't making friends... I was simply making acquaintances. Now, if you know me at all, you know that this aggravates me. I hate acquaintances. I can't wait to turn acquaintances into deep friendships. I love that.

Saturday night two girls wandered into our room. Their names? Allison and Sarah. They were so open and friendly. Wait, perhaps friendly isn't the right word... they were truly loving. It didn't take fifteen minutes of conversation for me to wonder if they were Christians. Sure enough, as they stood up to leave they invited us to a Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) house party. Since they had been such enjoyable company and we didn't have anything better to do, the three of us decided to go.

This house party was odd. The people were odd. Sarah and Allison didn't ditch us upon arrival. They made a conscious effort to make us feel comfortable. Everyone was eager to start conversations and build relationships. Joy and love were abundant. I loved it. Every second of it. Every once in a while

Anyway, during this party I got into a certain conversation with Sarah and a girl named Mary. It was phenomenal. I wanted to talk to them for hours. We discussed the importance of evangelism and allowing Christianity to become a driving force in our lives. It was so encouraging. I wasn't expecting to find Christians this passionate at U of I. Don't ask me why, but for some reason, this caught me off-guard. But I guess off-guard was a good place to start...
Sunday morning I went to church with Sarah and enjoyed it. It was a good day. I was so excited for classes to start. My nerd side was taking over as I found myself getting giddy thinking about classes starting. My roommates probably thought I was insane. That night the three of us really bonded and stayed up talking until 3:00 am. This conversation was hard for me to have... Thoughts raced through my head and I had a hard time thinking on my feet. Our bonding conversation was the typical guy conversation. As we talked I kept trying to figure out how to talk about the opposite sex with non-christians. This became difficult for me to process. I kept trying to think of ways to bring in my morals and my values, yet still seem human to them. It was a great conversation, though.

Monday. Ohhh, classes. It was so great. Though I only had two classes this day, I loved them. I'll take a break here and post my classes to avoid confusion...
-The City and Human Rights
- Arabic
- Introduction to international health policy
- Global studies seminar
- Language arts and sciences seminar

Simply put, I love my classes.
Arabic has been incredible. I am falling more and more in love with the language and seriously dream of a time when I'll be able to achieve fluency. Ahhhh :)

My international health policy has been the most... challenging? Not because of the work load, but because of the content. I've had two classes so far, and all she's done (clearly a secular humanist feminist) is throw out depressing statistics. I've acquired a significant amount of head knowledge regarding all the poverty I've seen first-hand. For example, more than 1.2 billion people globally live on less than $1/day. Shocking. $17 billion are spent annually on pet food in the USA and Europe alone. Disgusting. The Millennial Development Goals targeted for 2015 will not be accomplished. Depressing.

I'm not going to lie. It's been quite overwhelming to hear 2 hours of depressing facts. I get back after that class and just pray. Jesus, remind me that you're bigger than this brokenness. Your blood is enough for them too... Our professor is quite cynical about us being solutions. She doesn't believe much can be done about poverty and misery. Why, though? What is her reason? Because countries aren't willing to give the money required. Oh, if only she could see that Jesus is the only real solution to our depravity...

I mentioned earlier that I've gotten involved with Cru. It really has been an encouragement for me... I've met and discussed with passionate Christians, determined to leave the world different. They are on fire for God... willing to allow God to burn through them. Its so beautiful. I've loved their meetings. Today I went to a meeting for freshmen and sophomores. It was fantastic. I was 20 minutes late, like a true latin, and I really wish I had made it a priority to be there on time. Pat, the speaker, urged us to dream big dreams for this campus. He asked us to envision what it would look like for us to truly believe that "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Are our lives lived in such a way that we point others towards Jesus? Do we encourage others to love him? Are we passionately and intimately in love with Christ?

AHHHH. It was so great :) On the way home I talked with a girl named Jackie, a sophomore. We talked about theology. It was refreshing.

Oh, and tonight there was a giant capture the flag game going on... I began talking to an intern for Cru. She asked me one short question: "What do you love about Colombia?" Haha. The answer wasn't quite as short as the question. Wow. I believe that there is a strong movement in Colombia... the Holy Spirit is moving and lives are being transformed. Broken people experience the love of Christ in such a real, tangible way. I watched a video by Aaron Gillespie. He spoke of an encounter with God in Africa while experiencing an African church service. The people there worship God for one reason: they worship him because he IS. That's it. He exists and that's enough. I want to experience this kind of worship... this awe of who God is.

[[Its in the darkness where Christ's love shines brightest]]

Humbled by the Heart of a Child

They were on their knees, raising their hands to an all-powerful God-- knowing how much they needed him. They were beautiful.

Goosebumps covered my arms and I found myself shivering involuntarily. What was going on with me? It wasn't like I'd never seen worship before. I wasn't a stranger to chapel-- not chapel in my school. What was going on?

Let's back tack...
Wednesdays we have chapel at my school. High school has it first period and the junior high has it second and third periods. The seventh and eighth graders have it second and the fifth and sixth graders have chapel third. Allison was asked to give chapel to the middle schoolers(it was amazing, by the way) and I asked my chemistry teacher to get out of class so I could hear her speak. At the beginning of third period I sneaked into the fifth and sixth grade chapel and stood in the back while worship started. Lilia led worship and it was beautiful.

So why the goosebumps?
As I sang and worshipped God, I couldn't help but notice all the kids jumping up and down for joy in front of me. The fast-paced songs incited their joy, but as soon as the music shifted to a slower song, the kids adjusted accordingly. Before I knew it, I saw many of them falling to their knees, their hands raised, crying out to God. This wasn't just one or two students... the majority of them stood or knelt there with hands completely extended towards heaven.
I couldn't help thinking back to when I was in fifth grade. Yeah, I loved God... but I wasn't desperately passionate for him. I began wondering what would have been different if I had found that passion earlier on... I wondered if they realized how unique they were.
I soon found my eyes watering, and before long, I was dabbing at my eyes...
How many years had I wasted thinking that my Christian faith was simply an accessory for life? How many years had I wasted by trying to compartmentalize my faith?

It was a beautiful thing... watching the hearts of these children, desperate for God.

Blessed are those who thirst and hunger for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

I have no doubt in my mind that these students will be filled.
They will see God...

Sin? No sin? Or simply love...

Ahh... the gray issues.
We tend to get caught up thinking about whether things are permissible or simply beneficial. We try to avoid legalism, yet don't want to fall into libertarianism. We try to categorize things: white and black. However, some things just fall into "gray." There's no way around that, really.

Everywhere I turn lately, I get bombarded with the message concerning "gray issues." I figured God really wanted me to learn something. I've been processing, and frankly, I haven't reached a concise conclusion, so excuse me while I process things as I write...

Be careful, however, that the excercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak (1)

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody (2)

Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgement of disputable matters (3)

Therefore let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way (4)

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification (5)

Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall. (6)

If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. (7)

It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall. (8)

Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the
fulfillment of the law. (9)

These verses make me uncomfortable. Not just slightly uncomfortable, though. They make me want to leave the room they're mentioned in. They make me want to close my Bible when I'm reading.

Why?

Because there's a selfish beast inside of me that demands to have its desires met. It craves to be comfortable. It isn't satisfied with serving others. These verses attempt to put this beast to death. And while it begins to die, it squeals and screeches, wanting to stay alive inside of me.

It tells me...
Why should I have to limit my freedom just because someone else can't handle it?
Why would I have to be uncomfortable just because someone else is sensitive?
How am I responsible for someone else sinning?

These verses go against our human nature in every possible way. It makes no sense whatsoever, but then again... to the human mind, not much about Christianity makes sense.

Today I was talking to Allison, and as we talked we agreed that the verses that stuck out the most were the ones that spoke about love.
Paul urges the church to not do ANYTHING unless it is done out of love. The entire books of the law can be summarized in one word: love. Is it really that simple-- yet, so complex? Why do we prefer for someone to just tell us what to do, and we'll do it? We rather they ask for money and we'll write a check, than they ask us to love. WHY?
The fulfillment of the law is love. IS LOVE. All the laws were to teach the Israelites how to love-- what love looked like.
We're to do our best to work towards the mutual edification of Christ's community. Mutual edification. We must limit our freedom if it is hurting someone else. It no longer fits under the category of "freedom." It no longer is our freedom.

Perhaps we've been wrong all along. We've just always asked the wrong questions, expecting the right answers. Perhaps that's what happened and why we're where we're at right now...
When did we start asking, "Is this a sin?" and stop asking "Is this the best way I can show love?" When did we start asking, "Can I do this?" and stop asking "Is God glorified by my doing this?"
When did we start asking, "Is this alright for me to do?" and stop asking "Is this the wisest choice?"
We can't ever expect to get right answers when we haven't even figured out what questions to ask.

Our lives would be completely revolutionized and turned upside-down and inside-out if we only applied this to our own decisions half of the time.
If every decision we made was a concious choice to honor the people surrounding us, we wouldn't have to worry about sinning. If every decision made was in an effort to show love, how could we go wrong? And in the decisions not involving people, why do we stray towards the lines once more? We've been commanded to be holy, yet we try to get away with as much as we can. What if every time we made a decision we asked ourselves whether this would sanctify us more...
How would that change us?

Wouldn't "gray" issues be eliminated? How can it possibly be gray when God's glory is in question?

Love and holiness. Is that all this is about?

Is it simply a call to follow in the footsteps of a God who IS love, of a God who IS holy?

"Take up the cross and follow me."

(1) 1 Corinthians 8:9
(2) Romans 12:17
(3) Romans 14:1
(4) Romans 14:13
(5) Romans 14:19
(6) 1 Corinthians 8:13
(7) Romans 14:15
(8) Romans 14:21
(9) Romans 13:10