phoenix_light

Ok, that 2 Kings passage from the last post was just read in the chapel service...coincidence? I think not!

I think we, as a culture, have lost something very significant as we have left behind the old idea of apprentices, journeymen, and masters. So often we encounter this imagery or relationship in literature, scripture, or history and find it strange (or even homosexual to some readers), but I believe that in forsaking this, we have left ourselves and our children to figure out how to live on their own...which is resulting in high teen pregnancy rates, binge drinking, drug abuse, and sexual perversion, confusion, and obsession.

Back when the apprentice-journeyman-master system was still in full use (it hasn't completely disappeared), men and women would taught not only a trade by their master, but how to live. They lived, ate, worked, and played with the master and the others who were being instructed. It was far more like a family (or what a family should be) than merely teaching a profession. Masters would often reject apprentices if they showed undesirable traits or habits that would be detrimental the craft. This was especially true in Asian martial arts circles where a master would often watch a candidate for months or years before accepting him as an apprentice. Why do we then let just about anyone join our professions? Is it odd that after we abandon the idea of teaching life with the art that its practitioners are now showing corruption, laziness, and lack of quality?

Imagine if a few people took up the old tradition again. Sure it would look weird for a while, and many people would probably mistake it for homosexuality or pedophilia (a pathetic assumption that is made far too often). But the student would learn how to live the art. They would develop a level a pride in their work that is becoming more and more uncommon in today's professionals. Say an engineer in some company, instead of hiring an intern and letting that intern just work, would take the new guy and his family into the older engineer's home. Their familys live together, eat together, work and play together. Wouldn't the younger learn faster and better than he would have otherwise? Say a professor would have rooms for some of his students to stay at his house. Wouldn't the students learn what it is like to live the profession/art and not just do it? What is a older man would take a younger man under his wing and teach him how to live, to treat women, to fight the good fight, and to stand for Truth? Wouldn't we have fewer broken homes, fewer cases of sexual abuse and assault, fewer men who don't have a purpose in life beyond earning the next dollar?

There are times I feel depressed for just having realized the signifiance of this realtionship. My father tried to take it up with me, but I resisted. I had great men of faith and wisdom in my life for so many years, yet I never 'apprenticed' myself to them. I always tried to stand on my own and never realized just how ridiculous that whole idea is. We cannot train ourselves in an art we do not know intimately. I pray and hope that I can learn enough so that when I am a father that I can show my sons how to live and my daughters how to learn from their mother.

For a good read on this try 2 Kings 2:1-18 to see what it means to follow a master and to have the art passed on from master to apprentice.

Ever hit those periods in life where you seem to be standing still or moving forward so slowly that you can hardly tell you're moving? It's annoying. But I think I've found a solution for said problem...a beautiful woman who is pure and wise. Seriously it is a wonderful thing to hear (or read) the words of someone you love tell you things that make you realize you are getting somewhere in life, you are making progress in mind, body, spirit, and you have something much more substantial to live for other than yourself. To the Abyss with hedonism! I'm gonna live for other people and for God first.

Mark 14:36 - "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

Revelation 5:1-5 - Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" But no on in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."

A cup, near brimming with the wrath of God against a fallen world. A scroll, covered front and back with the judgement upon the earth for the rebellion against the Almighty. And one person, able to take both upon Himself and restore the world to the plan of God.

Gethsemene is the most intimate picture of Christ as the God-man. Here in Mark we Christ cry out to God to take the cup of wrath from His hands, but He cannot push it away. The cup was full to the brim at the moment of the Fall, and had to be drained. God's nature would not allow for anything less, but it was Christ who, instead of pouring the cup out on the earth as the law demanded, took that cup and drained it to the dregs so mankind could be brought to a right relationship with its Creator. In Mark we see Christ as the cup is in His hands and He hesitates as if those hands are shaking as He stares into that cup. Then in one swift act of infinite love, drinks that cup, and dies. The cup lies empty at the foot of the cross. The wrath of God was satisfied by the free choice of the Son of God.

Now jump to Revelation. Judgement is coming on the world that has fallen, and there is only one person who can open the scroll that contains the sentence. In a divinly furious act of both justice and mercy, Christ enacts the final chapter of the cross and pours out the refining fire on the earth, not to consume it, but to remove the slag that has corrupted the treasure of heaven. Instead of mere wrath, it is the ultimate act of mercy that is enacted in what we call the last days, yet are really the beginning of all things.

This is salvation. We are no longer under the wrath of God, but are one with Christ is His suffering so that we may be made into the pure and spotless bride for Christ. Instead of the fires of wrath, we walk through the refining fire. Instead of drinking the cup of wrath, we drink the cup given to us by nail pierced hands. What are our trials in this light? How can we say to ourselves, "Why must I face this?" We should be singing like martyrs for the the glory being poured into our lives. At our most pained, the depths of our suffering, our cry should be a cry of praise. We are not under wrath, but under the blood of Christ, who was and is and will ever be our Redeemer...

You cannot know what it is to enter the presence of the Almighty God until you come to use one or more of the talents He has given you. Our minds simply cannot hold the concept of His glory in its raw form, so He has given us talents through which we see and experience His infinite nature. Take Bach for instance. He is counted among history's greatest composers. While writing the Messiah he broke down in tears and kept repeating that he could hear the music of Heaven and it was singing "Hallelujah". He was caught up in the infinite for a brief moment and his talent transformed the glory into music, and so we now have the Hallelujah Chorus, which is the piece which many people feel resonating in their hearts at the thought of Heaven.

The world is full of beauty. Every stone sings, every breath of wind murmurs, the flame of every candle dances, and the tides of the sea speak of the glory of God. All things in Heaven and Earth echo His nature. God, the ultimate craftsman, has placed us in charge of this masterpiece. Can you hear the music, the poetry, all around you? We hear His voice clearly in the Word Made Flesh and hear it echo endlessly from the world beneither our feet. The music surrounds us and calls us upward, teaches us justice and mercy, unveils His glory, and leaves us without excuse. For those who have been gifted with talent with which that music can resonate into their craft, such as musicians, artisans, and poets, their joy and ecstacy is the agonizing pain of standing forever in the presence of the Almighty and hearing continuously the music, seeing prepetually the tapestry, and listening forever to the words that speak of all that is YAHWEH. This world is nothing more than and echo of all He was, is, and ever will be. Can you hear the music that echos between Heaven and Earth? Can you feel the motion of all things in the Great Dance? Can you smell the morning and the evening stars as they turn in their courses? Can you see the tapestry that is every changing from season to season as it reveals He that does not change? Can you taste the bitterness of the cross and the sweetness of the ressurrection? Now look toward Heaven and see the day that is coming when there will be no veil between us and that music! It is the agony and ecstacy of LIFE! Real life; life ever lasting! You want to scream, sing, dance, and fall to your knees all at once. THAT is what is means to experience God. There is nothing small about it...

How to make a John

Ingredients: 5 parts success 3 parts humour 5 parts ego

Method: Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Top it off with a sprinkle of fitness and enjoy!

Ephesians 1 talks a lot about the inheritance that we have in Christ, but, in the context of an earthly inheritance, what is inherited is poor compensation for the loss of the one who left you that inheritance. But with God, the inheritance is the presence of the Father for all eternity. Think about it! Rather than our inheritance being the compensation for the loss of a father it IS the Father! It is a twice glorious blessing, to be both with the Father eternally and to recieve that inheritance we have in Christ. There is no sorrow in the inheritance because the sorrow was what brought us into the the inheritance and the inheritance is the restoration of that which brought the sorrow. In heaven, the inheritance is the complete opposite of what it is on earth. Here we inherit as a result of loss that cannot be undone, but in heaven, the loss was restored that we may THEN enter into the inheritance. What an amazing picture God has painted, to inherit and be forever present with the Father!

What Role do Your LJ Friends Play in Your Heroic Quest? by RoyBizoy
Username
Your weapon of choice?	SwordMaceDaggerSpearBow and arrowGunMagicOther
The final monster you face?	DragonOgreMachineDemonUber magical wizardSupremely evil villianOther
The way you get home?	By seaBy airBy land
Loveable but goofy tag-along	darkprincessjae
Two-faced friend	orcinus_orca
Cunning thief	nickshadows
Villian turned good	pheex
Annoying whimp	lordmookie
Idiotic and rebellious kid	rurounifalcon
Person you fall in mutual love with	cerowland
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Dang, why do I keep changing and so little else does? I come home to relax and my family has changed and adapted as much as I have, but beyond that, nothing around here is different. Some people would call this a good thing, but from where I stand, the stubborn refusal of people to grow up and mature and reach for their place in the pattern of history is infuriating. Dang it! My friends still act like fantasy is life and life is merely a painful necessity to continue on. Why?! I have stepped beyond mere fantasy and strive to find reality in both her glory and horror. Why can they not see that this is what humanity was meant for. To give up our pathetic attempts at controling eachother or the world around us and simply become the agents of God in the world. The only choice given to us is to obey or resist, nothing else is ours to decide. Each time we choose one or the other everything plays out according to that choice. To resist is to deny everything God is and has for us. To obey is to leave ourselves behind and become truely human, to be continually shaped through both joy and pain into the masterpiece of God's creation. Heck, maybe not even the masterpiece, we are merely a part of the masterpiece. Everything plays a part and we a nothing more than the image of the creator painted into the vast landscape of creation. Dang it, people! Why can't you just give up your pathetic attempts at control!!!! The more you try to control the world, the more it will control you! STOP IT!

But I'm ranting about something so few could understand. Why can I see what only a few can? Maybe I'm right to think that my place it to declare and not lead. To reveal and lay a path toward understanding and wonder. Heck, nothing I put my hands to lasts. My friends reject my efforts to help them. They say I'm too far removed. BAH! I'm not the one working second hand jobs and wasting my life and talent on games. Heck, those games they play could be used to reach the lost, but do they even try to use them for that? NO! Blast it all! When are people going to grow enough spine to actually reach for eternity and everything God has for us?

I change, and no one else does. No wonder I am constantly having to leave circles of friends for new ones, I grow to fast. Blast it all...blast it...blast it...blast it...