My spiritual year can be divided up like the life cycle of a tree.
Season - Tree - My Year
Spring - New Growth - Preparing for the summer's ministry
Summer - Full Bloom - Enjoying the summer's ministry and growth
Autumn - Changing Colors - Evidence of the summer's growth is pretty
Winter - Hibernation - Spiritual desolation and an emotional wasteland
It feels like for almost half of the year, I am starving for God. In the other half of the year, I am overwhelmed by God. I don't really know how to explain it better than that. But it is in that time, where I feel so far from God, that I find myself doing something that I would guess is actually pretty common. My job becomes an idol.
When a friend asks me what I have been up to lately, my answer isn't usually about something that is going on with me anymore. Most likely, it has to do with working on lesson plans or trying to figure out what I am going to do with a particular student. Once in a while, it has to do with something I'm involved with at church, like the handbell choir, children's ministry, or another event at church. Rarely, I'll actually open up and share what has been on my heart. A lot of the time lately, I have been more than a little bit likely to rant shortly after I tell you that I've been busy working on school things. I'll rant on and on about my niece and nephew. Unfortunately, a lot of things have become idols lately. Just listen to me talking and you'll figure that out pretty quickly.
I don't want them to stay as idols, but I struggle to release them.
A lot of my focus on preparing for school lately is necessary. I am teaching marine biology, Bible, and math levels spread from pre-algebra to pre-calculus. Take a guess... that is a lot of work, and I'm still waiting on some of my materials to come in. I still have movies that I need to watch, trips to the library that I need to make, and notes to type up.
Right now, a lot of my activities at church are on a summer hiatus, but will pick up again just after school starts. I'm excited for that, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up with all of them with the increased load at school.
I'm also taking several classes online at the moment. Because being busy is my normal, taking one class just isn't enough.
The kids. I love them dearly. But, to be brutally honest, I need a vacation from them. They have been here almost every other week all summer and their dad has been taking summer classes so that he can finish his degree faster. Unfortunately, my presence has made me the go-to babysitter. This leaves me feeling like I'm being taken advantage of and unable to get much else done.
I look at my desk, my closet, my dresser, my nightstand, the floor of my bedroom and I get overwhelmed. I know the steps to cleaning and organizing, but even making it come down into smaller steps is intimidating. I wish that I knew how to make it less so. I organized my desk recently, and with it came a small touch of satisfaction. Except that even in its most organized form, it still looks incredibly cluttered and it feels awkward to work with. I started trying to tackle all of the spaces in my bedroom yesterday, and by the end of the closet, everything else just looked more overwhelming. Today, I should be working on it more, but I don't even feel like I know where to start.
The concept of cleaning for a few minutes every day as a way to keep the messes to a minimum sounds like a crazy idea to me. It was never really modeled for me growing up, because binge cleaning was considered normal. I guess that is what happens when both parents work full time. It is how I learned to do it though. I will admit that I miss cranking up the stereo and singing along with the radio while I worked.
I miss fresh country air now. And sunlight. (Yes, I know that it is August and that there is plenty of sunlight outside even in the suburbs.) I miss opening up the house and airing it out. It always seemed cleaner that way. Plus, it was easier to clean when you weren't getting high on the chemical fumes.
So maybe I'm just overwhelmed and homesick and practicing a lot of procrastination lately. And somehow it is spilling over into my spiritual life.
I suppose that I should go and at least find the floor on my half of the bedroom. Because my husband's half is already clean. He's organized and neat like that.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Understanding John 3:1-21
John 3:1-21 Jesus teaches Nicodemus
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who as come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."
In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."
"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"
Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the spirit."
"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.
"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven - the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
One of the first scripture verses that I learned as a child (in the King James version, no less!) was John 3:16. I was much older before I learned that there was a context for this verse. But how many of us learned verses by rote, and can still rattle off that the shortest verse in the Bible is "Jesus wept." or that we know "For the wages of sin is death" and cannot finish the verse but remember well the poster we learned it from because of the designs on it.
I believe that this is one of the major pitfalls of children and youth ministries today. We hand out verses on stickers and buttons and pencils, but never take the time to really delve into why the verse is of value. So why would we remember a verse twenty years later and be able to use it correctly? We won't.
In checking out a book on our bookshelf here at home, along with reading nearby passages in the Bible, this is information that can be gleaned to help give us a broader picture of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. The book I'm using is the Holman Bible Handbook, copyright 1992.
So who wrote this book?
Traditionally, this is attributed to the apostle John, son of Zebedee and brother of James. (HBH, p. 606)
Why was the book of John written?
This is information that is actually written in the Gospel of John. "That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." John 20:31
Why is it specified that Nicodemus was a Pharisee?
The Pharisees legalized the purity laws of the Old Testament, focusing on ritual cleanliness. They also were demanding that people follow "the tradition of the elders" - Mark 7:3 (HBH, p. 608) As Jesus was one who broke Pharisaic law, he was not really someone that Nicodemus would want to be seen associating with. It would have threatened his high position to become a known associate of Jesus.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who as come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."
In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."
"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"
Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the spirit."
"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.
"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven - the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
One of the first scripture verses that I learned as a child (in the King James version, no less!) was John 3:16. I was much older before I learned that there was a context for this verse. But how many of us learned verses by rote, and can still rattle off that the shortest verse in the Bible is "Jesus wept." or that we know "For the wages of sin is death" and cannot finish the verse but remember well the poster we learned it from because of the designs on it.
I believe that this is one of the major pitfalls of children and youth ministries today. We hand out verses on stickers and buttons and pencils, but never take the time to really delve into why the verse is of value. So why would we remember a verse twenty years later and be able to use it correctly? We won't.
In checking out a book on our bookshelf here at home, along with reading nearby passages in the Bible, this is information that can be gleaned to help give us a broader picture of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. The book I'm using is the Holman Bible Handbook, copyright 1992.
So who wrote this book?
Traditionally, this is attributed to the apostle John, son of Zebedee and brother of James. (HBH, p. 606)
Why was the book of John written?
This is information that is actually written in the Gospel of John. "That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." John 20:31
Why is it specified that Nicodemus was a Pharisee?
The Pharisees legalized the purity laws of the Old Testament, focusing on ritual cleanliness. They also were demanding that people follow "the tradition of the elders" - Mark 7:3 (HBH, p. 608) As Jesus was one who broke Pharisaic law, he was not really someone that Nicodemus would want to be seen associating with. It would have threatened his high position to become a known associate of Jesus.
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