The Last Post

I can’t say I’ve even been thinking about a post for today. I’ve been really busy with the post-christmas, pre-semester preparations and shopping as well as simply spending time with my friends and family. However I have got something to write about.

This is my last post of 2013. I went through some of my activities in my journal and my Facebook timeline.

I went to national age-class championships in Long-track Speed Skating. And I did better than I ever expected.

I quit my paper route that I’ve had for years (not that I was particularly sad to leave).

I spent ten amazing weeks in Germany. I wouldn’t trade that for anything, I loved every moment of that.

I graduated from high school (yes, I did a foreign exchange in my grad year. I recommend it for everyone.).

I spent an awesome time serving at Echo Lake Bible Camp, those kids were amazing, even though they drove me up the wall sometimes…

And I started Bible College.

If you were keeping score, that’s three schools, three jobs, seven countries, plenty of plane rides, lots of experiences (good and bad), and innumerable friendships made.

All in 365 days.

Here’s to an amazing year, and plenty more to come!

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas!

I encourage you to spend this day with your family remembering the birth of Christ, or that failing, at least remember to spend it with your family. We don’t have forever, so enjoy this time with them.

I also want to thank all of you. I made 1000 pageviews on my blog this week!

Again, Merry Christmas!

Peace

Today is the fourth Sunday of advent. This Sunday is supposed to symbolise Peace. Now of course that depends on your tradition, I know that my church does it differently and that’s OK, but I’m just doing it this way.

I find it ironic in a sense that we’re celebrating peace today. We here in Canada have it pretty peaceful, but elsewhere around the world, countries, friendships, and families are being torn apart in brutal, bloody wars.

I think about the first Christmas day all those years ago, Israel was under the Roman “Peace”, as you can probably guess, it wasn’t very peaceful. The Jews expected that if the Messiah came then, he would rid them of the Romans and give them back their independence.

Jesus, the Messiah, was born. A little baby boy, born in a stable, a carpenter's son. He never brought them worldly peace. A few years after He left, Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple torn down, and most of the Jews scattered and killed. His followers didn’t fare any better either; most of them were killed in violent ways.

Why then do we celebrate peace? Jesus didn’t seem to bring peace!

That’s something I’m still trying to figure out. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I’ll do my best.

Really, the only thing that I can give is that this is a peace that is to come. We can look for the days that Revelations describes. We need to remember that just because the Bible was written thousands of years ago doesn’t mean that its narrative doesn’t continue today (That was a lot of negatives in one sentence and I got a bit lost in all of them. Basically I’m trying to say that the Bible narrative continues today.).

For those of you who were expecting some ground-breaking revelation about how Jesus has brought world peace today, I’m sorry. We can’t deny the fact that world-peace doesn’t exist, and I don’t have an answer as for why. I’m still just a human who is also still looking for answers.

The End of the Semester

Well, I’m done my classes or this semester. I’m on Christmas break… Let’s reflect on the semester that I have managed to somehow survive…

I look back to my first day at Prairie and I can see how much things have changed. These people here who have become so important to me, the laughs, the hard times… We’ve done life together (even if it’s only for a semester). I’m not talking about the stuff I learnt in class, I’m talking about the everyday stuff I’ve learnt. I’ve learnt that I can do things I didn’t know I could do. Like writing well written 1500 word papers. I also learnt there are some things I can’t do very well. Like gaming. I learnt the value of a good work ethic, I learnt that I actually enjoy cleaning toilets, and I learnt that sometimes it’s best to ignore work ethic and just have a good time with friends.

I’ve learnt that in the few hours leading up to a big exam, it’s best for me to get some alone time, I’ve learnt just how much I need regular alone time. I’m an introvert, so the fact that I need alone time is nothing new, but now that I really can’t get nearly as much as I would like, I’ve realised how much I need it.

I’ve made plenty of mistakes, and I’ve made plenty of accidental discoveries, I’ve learnt that there isn’t a whole lot I can do about my past mistakes other than learn from them, and I’ve learnt that some mistakes are actually worth doing more than once.

Here’s to a restful holiday, and I good new semester. (I get to start flying, yay!)

Joy

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, often called Gaudete Sunday. Many people will be lighting the third candle on their wreaths. For many this candle represents joy.

Where is the joy in this world?

A few of my friends have had to say goodbye to friends and family in the last few weeks, I can look at the news page and see pictures and headlines describing the terrible things happening around the world, and I can go to the city and visit the homeless, those who, sometimes through no fault of their own, cannot get a job or food. Almost all my friends (including myself) are very stressed about our exams.

Where is the joy in this world?

A dear friend of mine is getting married, as I write this, I can look out my window and watch the sunrise, I can go to the park and hear children laughing, playing. I can go to the websites of various organisations and see the work they’re doing to relieve the suffering in this world, I can pull out a CD and listen to absolutely beautiful music, I can talk to friends about their plans for when the go home next week and all the fun things they’re going to do.

Why should we be joyful?

2013 years ago (give or take), a child was born. 33 years later, He was crucified for crimes he did not commit while I murderer got out of prison scotch-free. Yet as a result, our relationship with the father is restored.

Wear a Helmet!

So I was reminded of the importance of wearing a helmet the other day…

I was biking to church sunday morning. Because of the state of the roads, I decided to ride on the sidewalk. The problem with the sidewalk though was that the plow had leveled the snow so that I couldn’t see the curb. As I was riding along, I accidently let my front tire drift over the curb. It instantly sunk into the snow, jammed up, and even though I was going slowly, I was thrown over my handlebars. Naturally, I put my hands out to catch myself, but I still ended up smashing my head into the sidewalk. Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet so I only suffered a bruised ego. I can’t imagine what the outcome would have been had I not been wearing my helmet though…

I often see people riding without a helmet, and every time it scares me. Particularly with all the snow and ice we have here. More than once, I’ve gotten my tires stuck in an ice rut and been thrown across the road (That’s why I stick to the sidewalk now. It’s safer).

However, biking isn’t the only place I see people who should be wearing a helmet, but aren’t. As I’ve said before, I’m an avid skater. I often go to the arena on free-skate nights to have a good time on the ice. Unfortunately, that good time is often ruined by children who are skating around, not looking where they’re going. Now I know, they’re kids, they do that kind of thing, and it’s not the fact that they aren’t looking, it’s the fact that their parents don’t think it’s necessary to put a helmet on their heads.

I find it silly that these parents think their kids are good enough skaters to not need a helmet: I’ve been a speed skater for almost my entire life, and I still try to wear my helmet whenever I’m on the ice.

If these kids were wearing helmets, I would still be looking out for them-even with a helmet they can still get badly hurt-but at least I wouldn’t be utterly terrified every time I saw a kid coming towards me without looking.

People, you need to remember that a helmet costs roughly 50$ and you may never need it, but if you need it and you don’t have it, it could cost you a lot more. And if you think that you’ll take the chance, you’re a fool.

Hope

We live in a world where everything seems hopeless. The economy isn’t near as strong as it used to be, debt, particularly for young adults, is rampant, teen suicide is on the rise, showing no signs of stopping. Nothing seems to help. Even religion.

Today is the second sunday of advent. Those who follow tradition will light the second candle on their advent wreaths: the candle of hope. It seems almost ironic. The words that stand-out to me when I look at the BBC’s news page are thing like rally, mourn, opposition, suffer, decry, and pollution. Where is hope?

2013 years ago (give or take), the world was waiting. Most people didn’t know it, but hope was coming. I’d imagine that their situation was similar to ours, the Roman empire was in control, they enforced this control in brutal ways, their front pages probably resembled ours. words like rally, mourn, opposition, suffer, and decry were probably plastered all over the news columns (probably not pollution, since that wasn’t really a social concern at the time…). Some people seem to think that in the days leading up to that first Christmas the world calmed down, that people walked around in a sedate manner, knowing that the Christ was coming. I sincerely doubt that image.

Rather I think that there life was similar to our everyday life. People would be running around, buying, selling, trying to scrape by with the little income that they had. Things would have been noisy, the market places would have had people trying to out-yell each other trying to get the customers. Things would be very similar to how they are now. They felt they had no hope, they saw the roman soldiers, they saw the filthy rich and their morally questionable ways of making money, and they probably asked “Where’s God?” those who knew the scriptures probably looked at Isaiah 53 and said “God, now is the time! Everything fits! Get rid of these Romans!”

I think it’s funny that two weeks later, God answered those prayers. Sorta. Jesus brings hope, but he didn’t oust the Romans, he brought a better hope than that. He brought the hope of forgiveness. He brought not the temporary hope, after all more dictators would come, he brought the hope of direct access to heaven. The dictators would continue in heaven. In the same way that the gargoyles at Notre-Dame highlight the beauty of the church, the dictators of this earth highlight the beauty of Christ Kingdom.

Today, with all the terrible things going on, let’s light the candle of hope, and remember 2 Corinthians 1:10: “On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us”. It may not be for some time, but like the Israelites two weeks before the birth of Christ, it will happen, so long as we pray.

Will You Go?

There’s a song out there by Starfield called “I Will Go”. It is an amazingly inspiring song, the chorus goes I will go, I will go, I will go Lord send me! and later on it says take everything I am, I’m clay within your hands. It brings back memories of Isaiah 6:8: “Here I am! Send me” and of Matthew 28:19 “Go...and make disciples”. I think that this idea of “I will go Lord, send me! I surrender everything I am, clay within your hands!” is a very good one, but we need to be careful when we shout it out: God may take us seriously.

Now you are probably thinking “of course I want God to take me seriously! I will go wherever He sends me!” and if you’re serious, good on you! But we need to remember what that entails.

When Jesus told His disciples “Go...and make disciples of all nations”, He knew full well what that meant. Jesus had 12 close friends; the apostles whom He loved greatly. Of the 11 remaining apostles (remember, Judas is now dead), only one dies of old age. The rest were killed, some in gruesome, excruciating (literally) ways. They were all beaten multiple times, most likely to within lashes of death. When Jesus told them to go, He knew what was coming for His closest friends.

Things are no different. All you have to do is look at organizations like Voice Of The Martyrs to see just how little things have changed. When you think about it, we’re still roughly at that death-by-execution to death-by-old-age ration of 10:1. Those deaths may mostly be in other countries, but if you’re truly willing to go wherever the Lord sends you, you have to be ready to go there. You may stay where you are, safe and sound, or you may end up running for your life from the authorities in North Korea. If you sing “I Will Go” from your heart, you have to be ready to go and do what He calls you to.

This rings especially true to me. God has called me into Mission Aviation. Although that kind of ministry usually does not operate in countries where Christianity is illegal, it is still a very dangerous form of ministry. Just a few days before I left home to come here to PBI, a student in the flight school at my home was flying a plane (that actually used to belong to the flight school I’m entering), when he crashed. He was killed in the crash, and the plane was destroyed. No one knows how it happened, the student already had his license and was an excellent pilot, but it still happened. I am often reminded of this incident as I am about to enter into aviation. I also will be flying small planes. Once I enter into ministry proper, I will still be flying small planes in very hostile environments. Mission pilots can and have died on the field. In fact an acquaintance of mine was recently flying in Angola when he suffered an engine failure. Fortunately he remembered his emergency procedures, was able to get the plane running again, and landed safely. But what If the procedures hadn’t worked? Well, I prefer not to think about the results.

I will go where God has sent me, but I do not take the decision lightly. Nor should you, no matter where God has called you.

'Tis The Season

On this day one year ago I posted something on Facebook. Big surprise there. I do it all the time. The difference with this post was that, unlike most other posts, I actually still remember it without having to go through my timeline.

I had posted “‘Tis the season for mindless consumerism falalalalalalalala!”

I don’t usually post social or political commentary, so I expected a bit of a reaction, but it really didn’t get much at all.

The reason I posted it was because with the beginning of December began the Christmas season for most people. I wanted to point out that most people seem to equate Christmas with consumerism (and eating).

One of my profs (not my philosophy prof this time) was explaining to us the Christian calendar as opposed to the calendar we’re all used to, Today is the first Sunday of Advent, in four weeks it will be Christmas day. We are supposed to be looking forwards to and preparing for the wonderful day that the Divine Christ Child is born. Of course, businesses saw an opportunity to make some capital off this celebration. It was not them who started the tradition of giving gifts, but they did move the whole of the Christmas celebration to the days leading up to the big day.

You see, the Christmas season only starts on Christmas day. After all, no one knew Jesus was coming before hand. (unless you believe that the wise men had been there the day of, which means that the star had appeared sometime before hand to give them the time to get from Persia to Bethlehem…) Christmas day celebrates the birth of the Lord and marks the beginning of the Christmas season that lasts twelve days until Epiphany.

Yet nowadays the Christmas season starts the day after Halloween (sometimes even earlier though I like to wait until December 1st) and goes until Christmas day. Boxing day means sales, and then the Christmas season is over. We buy our fireworks, celebrate New Years, then go back to work and wait until the next Christmas.

Now I want to make it clear that I’m not saying away with the capitalistic driven season of self-indulgence, but I do think that we should remember what this time is all about, let’s remember the birth of Jesus, and let’s remember each other as well.

The Here And Now

I had my mind blown the other day while reading for my Philosophy class. I was reading some of Hegel's work, and he basically asked what is now? What is here?

If I define those words according to dictionary.com, “here” is in this place, this spot, locally. That makes sense, except if you ask Hagel. Hagel argued that here is a tree. Therefore, the definition of here is the tree. This gets confusing when tomorrow, here is a house. Here is Three Hills Alberta (that is where I am, writing this post). Therefore, when someone in South Korea refers to “here”, he obviously means Three Hills. But he really means South Korea. Then someone in the UK refers to “here” and doesn’t mean Three Hills or South Korea, but the UK! We often use that word, “here” to make an objective truth. “Here is your keys that you lost they are here, you cannot argue that, it is an objective truth.” But I just proved that “here” can mean anywhere!

The same goes for “now”. dictionary.com defines “now” as at the present time or moment, but now is 7:05 on a tuesday night. No wait, now is 7:06. No wait, now is 7:07. Get my drift? Now is a constantly changing thing. It cannot be pinned down as one moment, because that moment instantly slips into the past. Now exists for sure, but it is a subjective being as its definition has now changed to 7:08.

For you, it might be 12 noon in the year 2035 and your domestic robot is reading this to you while you sunbathe on the planet mars,. It is still now and here. Both those words have changed, but they are still the same. Make sense?

Pastors Are Human Too

Last week my church had a meeting. It was your usual church AGM, they discussed a variety of things about the future of the church.

But the sermon that morning was anything but normal.

The pastor came up onto the stage and started off with “over the last year, I’ve taken the blame for a lot of things. It seems that anything that goes wrong is my fault. Even when it isn’t”.

Off the bat this made me tense. Being a pastor is not the easiest job in the world. They don’t just work on Sundays, they work everyday. During the week, they have to prepare their next sermon, usually they also counsel people, answer questions people have about their last sermon, and take care of the church. Most smaller churches like the one I attend don’t have many people working full time on site, so the pastor is also the janitor and maintenance guy. Often there are community organisations who will borrow the church gym or the church sanctuary; the pastor has to make sure that nothing goes wrong there. Churches are public buildings, which means they have to be inspected every now and then. Guess who has to arrange inspection, meet the inspector, and show the inspector around, then take the inspectors report and deal with it? The pastor. They have to do all this at the same time. Then when Saturday comes, they might not be in the office, but they’re still working. They have to preach tomorrow. You don’t really think that they’re not going to be going over their sermons to make sure that everything is A-OK? I don’t know about you, but I get cold sweats the day before I have to give an oral presentation in front of my class of thirty. How do you think the pastor feels about giving an hour or more long sermon in front of a congregation of over 100?

So don’t blame the pastor when something goes wrong, he has enough on his plate. Why don’t you fix it instead? I’m sure the pastor would appreciate it.

He went on to explain that a lot of the criticism has come to him from third or even fourth hand information. This means that people have been talking behind his back.

Again, this made me even more tense. I’ve had people talk behind my back before, it made me furious when I found out. If you have anything to say about me, say it to my face. I can handle it. The same goes for your pastor. If you have something against him, say it to his face. He can handle it. In fact, it might help him fix the problem or ensure it never happens again. And if your pastor thinks you’re misguided, he can explain it to you. The world advances only when dialogue and the sharing of ideas happens.

He then went on to list some of the things that people were saying against him; most of them were fairly run of the mill, too long, too short, boring, over-stimulating etc. There was one that stuck out to me: too much scripture. I know it’s not new, I’m sure many pastors have heard it before, but this was the first time I’ve heard it, and it made me mad…

“All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching” (2 Timothy 3:16). A sermon cannot be wishy washy jazz made up by the pastor using the facebook post of his 13 year old niece twice removed as an authoritative source. (Now I’m not saying that he can’t use the post to illustrate a point, but he can’t use her words to replace scripture.) Ultimately, he is preaching about God. He is trying to get the truth about God across to his audience. Who is the greatest authority on God? God. As I said above, scripture is God breathed, therefore it is the ultimate earthly authority on God. Pastors should use it as much as possible.

Ultimately, as my pastor said, God chooses weak vessels to give to the church. Your pastor is human. He is not God. Love him, care for him, and remember that he is doing his best.

Grow Up!

I’m in college now. Technically speaking, I’m an adult. Everyone says that because of that I should start acting like my age. But what does that mean?

Should I start reading complicated books that look extremely dry? I already do that in class…

Should I stop doing “childish things”? Define “childish things”. Does that mean not having a temper tantrum every time something doesn’t go my way? I don’t do that. Does that mean I’m a grown up?

In a way I think that does. But we need to be careful when we say that; being a grown up sometimes starts to mean you can’t act like a little kid every now and then.

If I were to stop acting like a little kid, I would probably go insane. Being silly, having fun, doing things that are kinda stupid is the best part of life.

I was crazy excited when when my roommate bought almost a kilo of raw cookie dough. I wasn’t going to cook any, I was just going to eat it as is. Just like when I was four.

When I make waffles at the continental breakfast, I still clean out the leftover batter from the little cup and eat that right away.

I went outside the other day to play in the snow with some friends. We made snow angels, then found a massive snow drift and started tunneling into it. Sure, one collapsed on me, but that made it even more fun.

I will willingly make an ice cream sundae with brownies and the whole nine yards. Even in winter.

Sledding with just a cardboard box and a garbage bag is also great childish fun that I will willingly do at the drop of a hat. Does all this mean I haven’t grown up? Or does it mean that I grew up well?

Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.

Snow Days

As I write this, there is a whole bunch of snow falling outside my window.

It’s windy, the snow drifts are building up, and some of the cars have snow built up all the way to their bumpers.

There were a few students trying to push a car out of the snow earlier, and there are some massive snowballs that a few students rolled outside the dorms.

I went out earlier just wearing a hoodie, and I was freezing! It’s extremely cold with this wind. A jacket is a must.

I’m listening to Walking in a Winter Wonderland, thinking bout papers that are coming up and wondering what I’ll do tonight.

I love this kind of day. Quiet with nothing to do but read and listen to music.

I have a tendency to try to work crazy hard, so I think God is trying to tell me to take it easy.

So I will. At least today.

Slow Down, You're Going Too Fast...

On Sunday we had an Australian (already awesome!) from MAF (that sweetens the deal even more!) come and visit to give a talk about MAF’s vision for the future with an emphasis on their modifications to the recruitment regime (you can probably guess why).

I’ve felt God calling me to fly for MAF for quite a few years now, so hearing that I might get to fly with them as soon as I graduate kinda got me excited.

I know, it’s good to be excited about your dreams, if you don’t have something to live for, you won’t live for anything, yada yada yada…

That sounds good in theory, but I haven’t even started ground school yet, let alone flying to the level that MAF would require! (Though I’ve gotten good on my flight simulator…) All this excitement makes it hard for me to focus on my classes, I just go off daydreaming (which isn’t hard for me to do at the best of times) and then miss the important parts of my lesson.

That’s not good for a student who has to have a certain minimum GPA to get to the airport in the first place…

SO, moral of the story, yes it’s good to pursue your calling, but for crying out loud, only do it when it won’t interfere with your calling.

What's the Catch?

Earlier this week, I went to Calgary with a bunch of people from the college to serve hot chocolate on the street. What happened has got me thinking.

Well, lots of things happened, but one thing happened constantly; this is the conversation that seemed to happen constantly as if on a broken record:

Hi there! Would you like a hot chocolate?

How much?

Free!

What’s the catch?

There isn’t a catch!

I’m not interested

That happened so often, it was ridiculous! And I started thinking how that seems to be the same thing people say about Christianity.

What’s the catch?

I don’t know if you would call it a catch, but I guess in a sense we do have to do something…

We have to be totally devoted. God doesn’t want half of you. He wants all of you. He doesn’t want lukewarm, He wants hot.

But here’s the thing, if you’ve accepted that Jesus died on the cross in your place, wouldn’t it follow logically that you would be willing to give everything?

If the God described in the Bible exists, and everything the Bible say about Him is true, how is it that we who believe this don’t live like it, giving everything?

You see, there is a catch: God doesn’t ask for anything, but if you truly understand and accept what He did, there is nothing that you should want to hold back.

You see, there is no catch: God doesn’t ask for anything, but if you truly understand and accept what He did, there is nothing that you should want to hold back.

Did I just contradict myself? I don’t think I did. Think about it.

Lot's Of Work To Do

I’m having difficulties keeping up with everything I’m doing right now.

I know, I’m only taking two and a quarter classes right now, but  have the two full classes four times a week. This means that I have to get the assigned work done immediately. I can’t really spread it out over two days. This creates the four hour reading sessions like the one I posted about in my last post, and also means assignments come in thick and fast.

I really don’t mind these intense workloads. I really don’t, but they do mean that I don’t have a whole lot of time to socialise with my friends, or to have time for adventures. Of course, all that means is that there isn’t a whole lot of things happening that I can post on this blog. I will continue posting, but there won’t always be ground-breaking things to say.

Though I still have entertaining things to talk about.

One of the things that we have to do for our aviation training is learning what to do when things don’t go as planned. On of these things that don’t go as planned is, of course, crashing in the middle of no where.

So we spend a week learning about wilderness survival.

We try to replicate the worst possible conditions, which means in the middle of no where, in winter, with minimal food for a few days.

From what I understand, we will go to a camp west of here where we will spend a day or two learning how to make shelters, fire, etc, then we go off to the middle of no where, and have to survive for five days with only one change of clothes, a sleeping bag, therma rest, and not much food. I’m not to worried, I just need to buy the necessary clothes to stay warm, but not everyone is in the same boat.

This is gonna be fun. I can’t wait.