Lone Ranger

"It is not good for the man to be alone." Genesis 2:18

God knows our hearts better than we know ourselves. He created us to be in companionship. And after this verse in Genesis, God continues to create animals to find a suitable companion, but as they are presented before Adam to be named; none of them are like Adam. Adam is roaming around on two legs with all these animals on four. It is quite understandable when you think about it.

Therefore, God created another human, not in the same fashion as he made every other living creature, but directly from the rib of man and formed with dust and breathed into just. Like. Adam. Was.

When God presented the newest creation before Adam, it is recorded: "At Last!" Someone who is exactly like me! Adam was ecstatic! We can't even begin to imagine the feelings that Adam felt right at that moment. Because none of us have ever been the only man on earth stuck with all the animals.

After this, the author makes reference to marriage and how the man will leave his father's household to be united with his wife. This is very clear throughout scripture and is practiced by the Jewish community and has been until a man named Paul comes on stage as the lone ranger.

Paul writes, "...I wish everyone were single, just as I am. But God gives to some the gift of marriage, and to others the gift of singleness." I Corinthians 7:7

What does Paul mean here? We can see very clearly in Genesis that man is meant to be united with woman and yet Paul is telling those in Corinth that it is better to be single. This is one of the great paradoxes of the Bible. Should we be married or should we not be married?

Yes.

God knows that we were created for companionship with one another.

Paul is writing to the sexual immorality issues happening in Corinth.

Context is key. Later on, Paul says that it is better for man to unite a woman in marriage than to burn with lust.

There was no sin in the time of Genesis.

There was much sin in the time of Paul's letter to the Corinthians.

To wrap it all up, Paul was the greatest lone ranger in all of history and we can all live by his example in terms of Christianity and being a witness to the ends of the world.

Presence

In this day and age ministry is fluctuating a ton. There are things that often times keep us so busy in the world that we forget that we are not of the world. It is really hard to work in youth ministry now-a-days because youth are kept so busy with sports and other extra curricular activities that they can't even have dinner with their families.

Maybe there is a way to combine ministry with athletic training or drama practice? I'm not sure. I think it may be time for the Church to rethink programming and emphasize relationship building through presence. I'm starting to look at going to athletic events and drama performances and having open lunch with the high school students to build relationships and show them that there really is interest in what they are doing.

We don't need to take the high school students away from their activities, we need to take the presence of Christ to their activities.

I get depressed whenever there are two or three or four kids at events that I take time to plan. But maybe I'm expecting too much in just having the event available and rather I should go where they are.

Fish Galore!

So it was time that I got something to keep me company over the next year as I live in a three bedroom house all alone. So I decided to purchase an aquarium and several fish to go with it. I have 9 danios of differing varieties and each one has its own personality (chase the other fish!)

Here is a video that I took of them.

God as a Child

So in memory of Rooted, which is a college Bible study group that meets weekly, I am going to tell you the oh so obviously fictitious story of God as a child.

One day as the sun rose on God's creation called earth, God decided to play a little game. God would take one thing and place it in two places at once and show His creation: "Look what I can do!" and He spun the electrons of a quark in San Fransisco and while the other quark in New York spun its electrons the same way at the same time. This had God's creation whirling with excitement and awe!
Then God got bored and as He heard His mother calling Him for dinner, He left earth spinning awaiting the next big happening.
After God finished dinner (and yes, God eats His vegetables!), He came back to earth and began playing with His creation again. This time He created an exotic meson that appeared in New York for a trillionth of a trillionth of a second and then disappeared. God made sure that only the highest authority of His creation knew of the appearance, however, everyone heard about the mysterious appearance and grew very wary.
God's mother came up to Him after He released the meson and put Him into a time-out for teasing His creation.

The End.


This story is not meant to offend anybody and is merely a fictitious story. I believe in an all-powerful God of grace and mercy who would never be portrayed like this in reality.

Here's to you Amy! (if you in fact are reading this post)

Dear John...

So we had our very first Redeemer Campus Ministry Movie Night and guess who all came? Women... And guess what movie they all wanted to watch? Dear John. A movie based on the book by Nicholas Sparks. We got to talking after the movie and wondered what kind of guy Nicholas must be in real life... And we unanimously said "a jerk" It was pretty classic.

But anyway, this movie wasn't half bad. It really hit home for me because I am away from my loved one for two years, granted, she's not in the army, but still. I get to write her letters every day telling her everything.

I hope that someday I don't come back and find that Kristi has gotten engaged with another man. That is the only thing that I took away from that movie. The funny thing is, the man couldn't do anything about it! That's just like a woman I tell ya! (Just kidding, I am in love with a woman who could never leave me).

That's the end!

Geo-Caching FTW!

Last week, I started the wonderful art of Geo-Caching. Geo-Caching is a worldwide community of hide and seekers. People hide caches all around the world and tag them with GPS coordinates. Then anyone can use a GPS to try and find the caches and log that they found it.

There are hundreds in Marquette alone and my goal is to find them all before I leave in a year. I know that it is crazy, but I figure, if I find at least 5 a week; I will have found them all.

During one of the cache hunts, Samantha and I came across a buck. We were within 30 yards of it. I tried to take a picture of it, but my phone was not that good of quality... Here is the picture:



Here are some more pictures from some of the caches we found:





Goin' out to find some more caches!

Waves Are Rollin' In!

On Friday, there was a storm brewing over the town of Marquette, MI. And with this storm there came very strong winds and very little rains. Being on the shoreline of Lake Superior, the largest fresh water lake in the nation, strong winds = high waves and choppy waters.

There are two harbors in Marquette, and both of them have their own break wall. A large cement and rock wall that goes out a quarter mile into the harbor in order to block the waves to prevent damage to boats and shoreline. And needless to say, it actually works!

Here is a video clip that I caught:



This video was in the early afternoon when the waves were just starting to pick up. I couldn't get a video of the maximum height of the waves at 18 feet! It was too dark. :(