Hearing or Following God?

Hi Y'all.  We have a post from our very own Jonathan Gross (the guy with the Jesus hair):

Last week at Charge Stephen Siebert challenged us with the question: is it more difficult to hear God or to follow God?

My answer to the question came quickly: I have more difficulty following God. I can think back to instances in my life where I understood (or strongly suspected) God wanted a certain action out of me. Times when I was to pray for someone, confess a sin, or give up material possessions. Too often I have convinced myself that my friend suffering from a headache didn't actually need my prayers, or that the lady on the other side of the counter would take offense at my offer. Too often I have decided to trust in my own resolve to overcome my weaknesses, instead of trusting the power of God in the presence of my fellow Christian. And too often I have concluded that loosening my grip on worldly goods is a slippery slope that will leave me destitute and unable to “really” help people.

By God's grace I have been able to break that pattern at times. It hasn't always been pretty. I have memories etched into my brain of people refusing my prayers and taking advantage of me financially. Sometimes it has been beautiful, though. Last semester I shared how God brought me healing from addiction through confession. Similar steps of faith in different relationships have brought the most profound senses of peace I have ever felt, and remain some of the treasures available to us on this earth that I most long for.

Those successes, even when outnumbered by the times I ignored God and the times when I didn't hear correctly or when the fruit of the obedience was hidden, give me a great desire to hear God again, because hearing is clearly a precondition for following. What I have been reminded of this week is that whether we choose to follow can also affect our ability to hear in the future. Every time we choose to ignore the voice of God in our lives, our actions reveal that we don't actually want to hear. I think the parable in Luke 19:11–27 offers a sobering perspective on the consequences of wasting graces God gives us. I pray that the Lord would have mercy on us and grace us with more words to follow in our individual and communal walks.

Testimony

Hi All!  How are you?  Last week we talked about the man born blind in John 9.  Jesus healed him by making clay from dirt and His spit.  Upon his healing, controversy arose over his testimony of being healed.  The man born blind (aka Steve) willingly shared his testimony with all who wanted to hear it (except for the Pharisees who wanted to hear it again but didn't want to believe in God).  He didn't have a fine tuned speech, he told what happened.

Talking about testimony, I would like to share a bit of my testimony.  For those who don't know who even writes these posts, this is Lisa - dark haired girl who usually sits in the back with tall husband named Nathan - currently serving as volunteer staff with IV.

When I was a kid, I went to a kids bible club called AWANA (Approved Workmen are not Ashamed).  We had games, memory scripture recitation, and lesson time.  When I was about 7 years old, during the lesson time, a lady got up to give the lesson.  She had a big red felt heart hanging around her neck.  She talked about sins she committed, and every time she sinned, she put a black dot on her big heart.  I felt convicted, and I remember bowing my head during the lesson and telling God I didn't want to sin anymore.  I knew He entered my heart then.

Since then many more things have happened which I would be glad to share with you, but would be too long for this blog post.  Remember that no matter what your testimony, it is valid proof of the living God, Jesus Christ inside of you.

The Woman at the Well

Hello Everyone!  I hope you all have had a great start to the semester.  At last weeks IV, we did an inductive bible study on John 4 with the story of the woman at the well.  She came in the heat of the day, an outcast of outcasts.  She meets Jesus not only in person, but spiritually.  He exposes her life of sin, and reveals His saving truth to her.  She is in awe, and she tells everyone in her town about her encounter with him - the very people that probably mocked her and put her off for her sin.

This semester as a group, we want to focus on being a witnessing community.  We want to reach out to our friends and neighbors and family with the good news of Jesus Christ.  For many of us, that's a really scary thought.  The woman at the well shows us a couple of things we can learn about witnessing.  1. She did not let her past get in the way of telling people about her encounter with Jesus.  Your past does not disqualify you from sharing the gospel.  2. Whatever the people thought of her, she did not let their thoughts about her get in the way.  Let the joy and freedom of your relationship with Jesus empower you to share despite what others may think of you.  3. She started by sharing her encounter with God.  Start with your testimony.  Tell people how the Lord saved you.

Reflection

Hello!  It's been a while since we chatted here.  The end of Fall 2013 came with the flurry of winter weather, finals, and the increased desire to get away from school.  I hope that you all have had a great break.  Before we head back to school and get caught up in the business of it, I wanted to encourage each one of you to take some time to reflect on where you have been the last couple months (or even years).  Here are some questions that I hope will help you as you take time to reflect.  I have been asking myself many of these same questions lately:

Where have you been the last few months (or years)?
What have you done to get to this point in life?
Where are you going?
What are your goals for school, life, and your walk of faith?
What would you like to do more?  What would you like to do less (besides studying :) )
What do you think you should be doing?
What things would be nice to do? (i.e. enjoyable, bring you joy, relaxation, necessary you-time)
How much time and commitment is it going to take to accomplish what you want to do?
Are all the things on your list of 'want to dos,' 'nice to dos,' and 'should dos' reasonable, helpful or even necessary?
Are there other things that should be on your list but aren't?
Are you praying for someone, and you want to see God work in their life in a new way this year? What can you pray specifically for that person?
What does God have in mind for you this year?

Take time to write out your thoughts...whatever will help you process, organize and remember your thoughts and goals.  In the Bible, Habakkuk 2:2 says "And the Lord answered me: 'Write the vision, make it plain upon tablets so he may run who reads it.' "  For more encouragement on the topic, I encourage you to read the whole chapter of Habakkuk 2.  So, my friends, reflect, seek God, set goals, walk in faith, and see God do great things in 2014.

Give Thanks

Hello.  Happy Thanksgiving to you! I hope you all are in the company of those who love you and care for you.  We obviously are not meeting tomorrow due to the holiday.  So, I wanted to write a hopefully quick blog post about giving thanks.  What is it?  As any mathematician would do (I majored in it in college), we start with a definition.  From the Websters 1828 online dictionary, thanksgiving means "Rendering thanks for goods received."  Thanks means an "expression of gratitude and acknowledgment made to express a sense of favor or kindness received. Gratitude is the feeling or sentiment excited by kindness; thanks are the expression of that sentiment. Luke 6."  This dictionary is cool because bible verses are given as the example sentences.

Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory. 1 Cor.15.

Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. 2 Cor.9.

He took bread and gave thanks to God. Acts.27.

Giving thanks is an emotional and logical recognition that one has received good things from God and willingly acknowledges that He gave them to us.  It can be likened to one moved to compassion to help some one in need.  We are that one in need whom God has reached out to and given the blessings of heaven - pouring them out upon our heads and into our lives...into our hearts.  Do we recognize it?  Or do we mentally assent - only acknowledging His favor with our minds and moving onto other thoughts within the next thought moment?  Whether we are thankful in our hearts or we need to be, let us walk and continue to walk in an attitude and posture of thanksgiving.  In a song my dad used to sing as a child the chorus went like this: "Count your blessings. Name them one by one. Count your many blessings see what God has done."  Whether you like to do it in your head, write it out or take pictures of it, count your blessings.  Name them one by one.  Acknowledge God who has given you all these things.  It will place your heart in the right place, undo habits of complaining, and give you a joyful and happy heart.

Inductive Bible Study & Lectio Devina

Hello! Over the course of the last two Charge meetings, we have been learn and practicing ways to read the bible and pray.  As the core disciplines of the Christian faith, it is essential that we focus on them.  Reading the bible is one way that God speaks to us, and prayer is one way we can talk to God.

Inductive Bible Study
We learned how to study the bible by practicing inductive bible study.  Inductive, for all of us who need a definition, means "characterized by the inference of general laws from particular instances."  We read the bible and marked up the passage on paper, asked questions, answered them from the passage we read, and then made applications to our lives.  We used a passage of scripture without verses.  But don't let that stop you, verses or no verses, print out scripture from such websites as biblegateway.com or blueletterbible.org.  Use whatever you have - colored pens, pencils, highlighters, etc.  And use whatever coloring scheme you like.  The steps are pretty simple, yet we got some fairly deep questions and answers out of our study.  Maybe you don't feel you have time or you feel you are not spiritual enough.  Any friendship begins by asking the person their name (hopefully).  And back in the day we asked each other what our favorite color was.  Get to know God.  Be honest with who you are and the questions you have.  There is no question too hard for God.  Take it at your pace.  You do not have to do a whole book at once!  However you go about it, you will do great.

Here are a few resources for questions and approaches to take when doing inductive bible study:
1. InterVarsity's Inductive Bible Study Hints: http://www.intervarsity.org/bible-studies/inductive-bible-study-hints
2. Basic Questions for Inductive Bible Study (great for different writing styles found in Scripture) http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~tim/study/inductive.pdf

Lectio Devina
Lectio Devina is a form of concentrated prayer.  Instead of being hands on with pencils and print outs of scripture, the bible is read audibly several times.  The first time is just to listen.  The second time is to listen for something that stands out, and the third step is to focus on that aspect.  Then we pray it back to God telling Him what we have focused on.  I don't know about you, but when I pray like this, it is almost magical the way God comes and speaks to me.  Somehow He tells me how to apply what I have focused on to my life.  Or He tells me something deeper.  Anything is possible with God.  I encourage you to try this in your quiet time (daily bible reading habit), or try it with some friends.  We only spent about 5-10 minutes doing it too.  God will lead you.

Why I'm Not Color-blind: A Testimony from Rachel

Hello Guys and Gals!  Two weeks ago we had Geoff from Northern Arizona University (NAU) come and speak to us about multiethnic relationships.  Rachel is is our guest blogger for the topic and has openly shared her testimony in this area.  I encourage you to reflect on your experiences as you read Rachel's story.

"It honored me to have Geoff Gentry from NAU speak at Charge two weeks ago.  He and I have shared many experiences over the years, so it was great to share UNM with him.  I especially appreciated that he told a lot of his story in growing to value God’s multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, Kingdom.  I am on a similar journey in coming to value multi-ethnicity, so I thought I’d share it with you.

"I spent my childhood in the mostly white context of Midwest small towns.  When I was 13, my family moved to Arizona and my experience became much more ethnically diverse.  This is the first time I remember encountering issues of race.  However, no one really helped me interpret these encounters, so I didn’t handle them very well and I was left mostly confused rather than transformed.

"In middle school, I was assigned a debate project where I had to be anti-affirmative action.  During my closing statement I used a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that one day people will 'be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,' as support for being completely color-blind. My classmates of color erupted in protest.  And for years I had no idea why they were upset. 

"In high school, my best friend was Mexican-American.  She prioritized spending time with her family and respecting her parents above anything else.  Many times she wouldn’t come over to my house, eat my mom’s food, or stay late because she needed to be at home for a meal or some other task.  My parents were offended by this, and though I was too shy to say so, I was sometimes offended too.  But it was just because I didn’t understand how her family was different from mine.

In college, I was a part of InterVarsity and at the time our chapter contained mostly white students.  I went back to not having to talk much about race or ethnicity.

"Thankfully, my sophomore year God gave me the opportunity to attend an InterVarsity Urban Project in St. Louis.  I attended an incredible multi-ethnic church.  For the first time, I worshiped in at least 5 different languages.  During the project, we received teaching on racial reconciliation and social justice issues in the US.  God began to reveal to me His desire to bring healing, justice, and reconciliation to the places of pain that many people of color have experienced in the US.  It broke my heart and I began to fall in love with what God loves.

"I started to love trying different types of food and getting to hear people pray in other languages.  I had further experiences at the Urbana conference, in China, in multi-ethnic literature classes, and at other urban projects that shaped me.  My senior year I had the gift of a non-Christian Navajo roommate who took me to visit her home and the Navajo Nation Fair. I learned SO MUCH from her.

"I had been raised to be “color-blind”: to only see people’s characters and not emphasize the differences in people’s appearances, especially in terms of the color of their skin.  It was an unwritten rule in my family that race was a negative topic to discuss.  While I’m grateful that my parents raised me to not be racist and to not treat anyone negatively because of the color of their skin, it wasn’t enough for me to stay there.     

"I had to continue on the journey.  I began to learn that ignoring people’s ethnic background devalues some of the most important parts of their stories and identities.  My aversion for talking about race or ethnicity had prevented me from understanding the experiences of people around me.  And my denial that I had an ethnicity or culture myself as a white American kept me from celebrating how God has made me and from being a part of racial reconciliation.

If you are white person who has come from a similar story to mine, I encourage you to engage rather than shy away from the topic of multi-ethnicity, even if it’s confusing and uncomfortable for you.  I’d love to talk about what would be good next steps for you to take in your journey.  I first recommend reading Being White by Doug Schaupp and Paula Harris.  You can borrow it from me.  It’s awesome.    

"If you are a person of color, thank you for extending grace to white brothers and sisters in Christ as they stumble along on this journey.  I would encourage you to continue to seek racial reconciliation and to let Jesus work through the gift of your ethnic background.  He wants to use you for something great.  How will you pursue that? I’d love to talk with you about next steps in your journey as well. 

"It has been a painful, awkward, frightening journey for me these past few years as I’ve sought to grow in my understanding of how God sees ethnicity and how He wants me to act in response to that.  And I still have a LONG way to go.  But the journey has already brought such richness to my life! And I’m committed to continuing by the grace of God."