Some thoughts on this morning
I was thinking on my way to work this morning, and I don't know why I thought about the whole Plan A vs. Plan B question. When I say Plan A vs. Plan B, I'm talking about the question, "Do we really need evil to see that God is good." Or did God count on humans screwing up so he could send his Son to show his infinite love and mercy? I have to say, I've always been a firm believer that this is not how it's supposed to be. I just can't believe that God wanted sin to exist just so he could kick it's hindparts for us.
I like to think that in Heaven what we call history is nothing more than a false start, and what we call the "end times" are nothing more than the real beginning.
Do we really need child molesters to know that it's bad to molest children?
Do we really need murders to know that it's bad to kill?
Do I really need to stick myself in the stomach with needles everytime I eat to know that diabetes is wrong? What about the hospitals, and the pharmaceutical industry, and trillions of dollars around the globe, do we really need to see that to understand that disease, the idea of a person's body breaking down isn't good?
What about hate and racial intolerance, not to mention any other kind of intolerance?
What about sexual sin and empty lifestyles that lead to people only being happy when they can scratch that tiny bit of Heaven from the dirty air in this world?
What about war? I'm not a pacifist by any means, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that if we could get by without it, we'd be better off by miles and miles.
I just can't accept that we need any of that to realize what the power of God can accomplish. That's it.
So, work has been really good lately. I feel like I'm getting great experience, and I enjoy it at RPC. I really believe in the importance of the Visioning project we're doing for the county. The hours have been getting steadily longer as we start the process, but it's going to be so awesome seeing all these ideas come in and then saying, ok, so how do we do all of this. Really, we'll be asking how can we do as much as possible because Americans don't like to pay taxes, which means government can't do everything they want it to do (it's a vicious cycle). As if I haven't said it enough lately you should go to one of the community dialogue meetings because I said so. If you want to know when they are, look a few entries back in my journal.
All this time at work, however, is only a precursor to the rest of my life and lately God has me thinking about that. I've got this whole church planting vision that I want to develop, and I think I'm going to do that in a grad school of some kind. The Burtini's father made an off-hand comment to me the first time I met him that has stayed with me since then. It was related to the grad school question, and I think it's so weird/awesome that a person can make a chit-chat kind of comment to someone and have it carry the weight of their life in it. Tony did the samething to me just yesterday. You could make a living just working for the Vineyard. Well, if that's true then why wouldn't I? I really do believe in that place, and moreso the people.
It's quite odd, because I can see a perfectly logical way to do exactly what I want to do, and what I think God wants me to do. I don't completely trust that, though because so many people I know that are doing what God wants them to do don't really know what he's going to ask of them a month from now, let alone three years into the future. I don't know if I'm just different, or if my logical plan is so much vapor floating in my brain (I think that the most likely). God will no doubt continue to surprise me as I move into my future. More on that later.
I met with Tony yesterday and I was talking about how God seems to be reorganizing my life right now. It's nothing big really, I should call it 'taking stock' rather than reorganizing. Anyway, he said there several people who were also going through the samething right now, him included. It has occurred to me since then that the Vineyard in general is going through that as well. It's kind of impossible not to take stock when you've recently finished building an addition that dwarfs your original facility. Also, Champaign County is going through this right now, with the Visioning project that I mentioned earlier. The point of big.small.all (the project name) is to figure out where we are as a county and how we can improve as much as possible over the coming years. So, I guess I'm just curious if this is all a coincidence (unlikely, especially given God's involvement, that guy just can't quit) or if there's something building here. It's a cool possiblity.
Well, that's all the random posting I can do for now. I've actually just finished this post after taking a break to sort out the sheets of ideas from the first big.small.all meeting last night. If you come to a meeting I'll be sorting a sheet with your ideas on it someday. Off to deliver fliers to schools, huzzah!
I like to think that in Heaven what we call history is nothing more than a false start, and what we call the "end times" are nothing more than the real beginning.
Do we really need child molesters to know that it's bad to molest children?
Do we really need murders to know that it's bad to kill?
Do I really need to stick myself in the stomach with needles everytime I eat to know that diabetes is wrong? What about the hospitals, and the pharmaceutical industry, and trillions of dollars around the globe, do we really need to see that to understand that disease, the idea of a person's body breaking down isn't good?
What about hate and racial intolerance, not to mention any other kind of intolerance?
What about sexual sin and empty lifestyles that lead to people only being happy when they can scratch that tiny bit of Heaven from the dirty air in this world?
What about war? I'm not a pacifist by any means, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that if we could get by without it, we'd be better off by miles and miles.
I just can't accept that we need any of that to realize what the power of God can accomplish. That's it.
So, work has been really good lately. I feel like I'm getting great experience, and I enjoy it at RPC. I really believe in the importance of the Visioning project we're doing for the county. The hours have been getting steadily longer as we start the process, but it's going to be so awesome seeing all these ideas come in and then saying, ok, so how do we do all of this. Really, we'll be asking how can we do as much as possible because Americans don't like to pay taxes, which means government can't do everything they want it to do (it's a vicious cycle). As if I haven't said it enough lately you should go to one of the community dialogue meetings because I said so. If you want to know when they are, look a few entries back in my journal.
All this time at work, however, is only a precursor to the rest of my life and lately God has me thinking about that. I've got this whole church planting vision that I want to develop, and I think I'm going to do that in a grad school of some kind. The Burtini's father made an off-hand comment to me the first time I met him that has stayed with me since then. It was related to the grad school question, and I think it's so weird/awesome that a person can make a chit-chat kind of comment to someone and have it carry the weight of their life in it. Tony did the samething to me just yesterday. You could make a living just working for the Vineyard. Well, if that's true then why wouldn't I? I really do believe in that place, and moreso the people.
It's quite odd, because I can see a perfectly logical way to do exactly what I want to do, and what I think God wants me to do. I don't completely trust that, though because so many people I know that are doing what God wants them to do don't really know what he's going to ask of them a month from now, let alone three years into the future. I don't know if I'm just different, or if my logical plan is so much vapor floating in my brain (I think that the most likely). God will no doubt continue to surprise me as I move into my future. More on that later.
I met with Tony yesterday and I was talking about how God seems to be reorganizing my life right now. It's nothing big really, I should call it 'taking stock' rather than reorganizing. Anyway, he said there several people who were also going through the samething right now, him included. It has occurred to me since then that the Vineyard in general is going through that as well. It's kind of impossible not to take stock when you've recently finished building an addition that dwarfs your original facility. Also, Champaign County is going through this right now, with the Visioning project that I mentioned earlier. The point of big.small.all (the project name) is to figure out where we are as a county and how we can improve as much as possible over the coming years. So, I guess I'm just curious if this is all a coincidence (unlikely, especially given God's involvement, that guy just can't quit) or if there's something building here. It's a cool possiblity.
Well, that's all the random posting I can do for now. I've actually just finished this post after taking a break to sort out the sheets of ideas from the first big.small.all meeting last night. If you come to a meeting I'll be sorting a sheet with your ideas on it someday. Off to deliver fliers to schools, huzzah!