Remembering 2008

2009 is on the horizon as 2008 comes to an end tomorrow night. Personally, I cannot wait for a new year. I am excited to think about what the new year could hold. But before jumping on into January 2009, I want to take a look back at the year that was... 2008.

January - Began with a New Year Party at the house in the midst of my long break from school. I was at home most of the month waiting for a new semester with new roommates.

February - A new semester began with new roommates and new friends. We played crazy games around campus enjoying our first weekend back at Union. But the fun came to a standstill on the 5th when the tornado destroyed part of campus. The rest of the month was mostly spent at home, waiting to go back to school. On the 19th, we returned, and I lived in a hotel for the next few months.

March - A cancelled GO Trip led to a spring break at home, which was a great rest from a stressful, hard, long semester that had only barely begun. But summer began looking brighter when I received a phone call to work at Christian Wee Learn for the summer. This was a welcomed phone call since I was no longer going to be able to work at Centrifuge at Union.

April - The semester continued, and this blog was born. It became a place for me to keep friends updated, talk about books that I had read, and vent about whatever popped into my head.

May - The semester finally ended, and campus was looking much better! Dorms were popping up everywhere, but it was time to go home and put an end to a hard semester. Then work began, and I began wondering if summer was going to be fun after all.

June - Work became much better as the kids began listening somewhat better. They were soaking in the material much faster than I ever expected, and I was growing attached to every single one of them. But even in the midst of fun, I was missing Union.

July - Kids Kamp kicked the month off, and it was a great time away from the daily activities at work. But it was also a time of work as I co-pastored for those 3 days. But summer was beginning to end, and the kids were about to head to school.

August - The summer program ended with a huge party day. I was so impressed with the kids and could not believe that they had accomplished so much in such little time. As they went back to school, I really longed to head back as well, but summer was not yet over. I continued to work with them in the afternoons.

September - A new semester finally began, at a "new" Union. Things looked completely different, and it was great to reconnect with friends. We were all excited to begin a new semester on a campus that was still in the process of rebuilding. But we could not walk on the sod.

October - The semester continued along as we saw more work being done all around us. The buildings were complete, all minor repairs were being wrapped up, and little things to help campus look better began popping up (such as lampposts).

November - Campus went through homecoming, and old alumni came to see what the new Union looked like with the new dorms. Another semester was ending, as the election came to an end as well.

December - The economic crisis seemed to grab everyone's attention as the semester ended. But the excitement of Christmas took place over all fears of the world around us. Then the semester ended and we all returned home for a great Christmas with friends and family.

Now here I sit wondering how 2009 will begin. Will there be another life altering event take place that will shake the very foundation of my world again? Or will 2009 begin like some of the more normal years of my life? I have plans for what I see in 2009, but will they be fulfilled or changed like last year? We never can know the future, but when it comes we have to work with what we get.

I hope that I am able to participate in my mission trip this year as well as setting up a summer job that will not be changed. I hope that I have a normal semester in the spring, unlike the previous 2. I hope that I can have a normal, peaceful year. But I realize that in an instance, that could all change. I cannot become comfortable with my life, because the unexpected could come.

Make your plans for the New Year. Set your goals. It is a good thing to set goals in life and work towards completing them. But while you are setting goals for the new era of your life, remember that your goals may not be God's plan. Be willing to change those goals if the need arises. Be willing to conform to God's will and not your own. You may have great plans (like I thought I did in 2008), but I can guarantee you that if God changes those plans, His plans are greater. I experienced that first hand in 2008, and it will be a year that I will not soon forget.

Matt

Field of Blood

You may remember the Aramis Black series that I spoke of many months ago. Well this book is the latest from the mind of Eric Wilson. He has now begun the Jerusalem Undead Trilogy, and Field of Blood is the first in this series. In this story, fiction collides with history and archaeology. Wilson visited Romania and Israel, did his research, and produced a very well written story.

Now if you do not like vampire books, then you may want to stray away from this one, but then again it might be a good experience for you. After all, it is only fiction.

But anyways, the story begins with Judas' suicide. And then in this fictional story, his blood seeps into the ground below him and the Undead are "born." A family of demons, known as the Collectors, are in a way awakened by his blood, and 2000 years later, they are released from their tombs. Now the Collectors roam the world tracking down the Nistarim, those who have been marked by Jesus' blood.

Now I am sure this talk of Judas' and Jesus' blood having some crazy impacts on people may sound crazy to you, but remember that this is fiction. However, it is a clever story. The Collectors are "doubly dead" and the Nistarim are "doubly alive" or immortal. And they are pitted against one another throughout this story. As always, I do not want to ruin the story for you. So I have provided you with the background of the two forces that battle in this story. But know that Gina (Regina) is what I would consider the main character of the story who finds herself in the midst of this spiritual battle. Follow Gina as she tries to protect the Nistarim and discover the secrets about her past with her as she is confronted with the truth.

Like I said, if you do not particularly care for the idea of vampires, you may not like this book. You could always give it a chance and see what you think. But there are some graphic vampire scenes in the book. I did enjoy this book and would recommend it as a good read.

Matt

Jesus Calling

This song is off of the same CD as One Life to Love by 33 Miles. I have recently been listening through the CD, and this song in particular caught my attention. There always seem to be those songs that just seem to jump out at random times, and this is one that has stuck out to me over the past few days.

Jesus Calling by 33 Miles

What do you see when you look at your world today
Is it so full of clutter that you feel like you’re going insane
And you can’t fight back cause you’re just too afraid
and it seems like the clouds in your sky don’t wanna change
You see there’s always another story, another side to every coin,
And how you see your circumstance is all about a choice

CHORUS
When you see the rushing wind , feel the pouring rain
hear the thunder now as the clouds roll in
and you’re blinded by the lightning
do you also hear that still, small voice saying
It’s okay, you’re not alone, you may be scared to death,
But I won’t let you go
You may think the sky above is falling
But can you hear Jesus calling

What do you see when you look at your world today
Do you see a glimmer of hope, or has it all turned to gray
Well start by counting your blessings one by one
Oh and I’m sure right there, you’ll start to see the sun
You see there’s always another story, another side to every coin
And how you see your circumstance is all about a choice

CHORUS

Because the darker the night, the brighter He can shine

CHORUS

This seems to apply to the world today. It seems to be gray skies of gloom and doom. Whenever you turn on the news, it seems like there is only bad news and not many "glimmers of hope." With all of this depressing news, it would be easy to get down every day never finding happiness in any aspect of life. But is that what you want your life to be, days, weeks, and years filled with depression? Because it does not have to be that way. True, life is hard, and times are tough right now. And just because you choose to have hoped does not necessarily mean that those hard times will suddenly disappear. But it will give you a new perspective on those hard times. Instead of looking at the hard times and dwelling so much on the negativity, which causes you to be depressed all day every day, you can try finding those "glimmers of hope."

As this song mentions, there is always another side to the coin, another story, and a choice to make when these hard times come. The chorus of this song is great! When we see and feel all these hard times in and around us, we must remember that we have something or someONE that can help. That is the message of this song, and it applies so well to the news of today.

I do not want you to think that I am saying that being a Christian is the cure to the problems in your life, because that is sadly not true. Hard times will continue to come. But the secret to your problems is the way that you choose to deal with them. So as we continue to go through these hard times in our country, be sure that you do not forget that Jesus is there with you through it all. It may be hard now, but you can look on to a brighter day, a day that is coming, even if it is not in this life.

Matt

Christmas 2008

I have enjoyed the Christmas Holiday these past few days. It has been a great time with family and friends as we attended the Vesper Service at church and then visited all the many different sides of the family.

Here are a few things that I received this year, which will give me lots of great things to do during the new year. I received about 8 books this year, giving me plenty of reading for the next few weeks. Also, some books are coming out that I will use some of my Christmas money on to buy. I am excited about this new batch of books. Also, I received some great new music including the new Rush of Fools CD and 33 Miles' music. So far, all 3 CDs sound great. Finally, the last big thing I received this year was the ESV Study Bible. I have patiently been waiting to get this for many months.

But on the giving side, I was able to give my dad some "retro" television antiques from a neat store at OpryLand. We gave him a yellow submarine mug and an Andy Griffith photo of Barney. As for my mom, we gave her a Union rug that LifeWay was selling during the fall.

The gifts were great, but as I have gotten older, they no longer have as much significance as they once did. It is now more fun to shop and try to find neat gifts for others. But more than that, it is just fun to hang out with some family members that we only see a few times a year. We had a great time Christmas Eve night at my uncle's house and stayed there late into the night. Then on Christmas, we spent all morning at my Grandparents' house. It truly was a great Christmas.

I hope you had a great time as well. I hope that the time spent with your family was wonderful and fun. Now, as we enter back into life and the daily routine, try not to feel so run down. Keep the joy that comes with Christmas with you into the New Year. I pray for a safe 2009.

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas stops. I will have to find the one from Christmas morning later:

Alabama Family (Mom's Uncles)

The 4 of us Christmas Eve Morning

Henry Christmas (Mom's Brothers)

Matt

Merry Christmas

Now that we are officially entering the 2 days of celebration for the Christmas holiday, I thought it would be appropriate to look at the Christmas story once again. But this time I want you to look at it in a different way.

The past 2 days at Christian Wee Learn, we looked at the story of 2 young cousins. John and Jesus were born just months apart from each other, and their parents did not know what would become of their lives years later. They knew that these 2 babies were special and were born with a purpose, but they did not know that it would one day lead to brutal deaths for each one. But prior to those tragic days, their lives were filled with many great moments of teaching, preaching, and miracles (for Jesus).

When looking at the story about their births in Matthew and Luke, it seems like so many things could have gone wrong at any given moment. For instance, the angels came to many different people delivering messages to set these plans into motion. Because of the faith of these people, these babies were born and brought up for a specific purpose. And yet problems still arose. Herod tried to kill young children, hoping that Jesus would meet His death as a young baby. But once again, Joseph's trust in God's direction led the family to Egypt, saving Jesus' life for the time being. The story about these 2 children ends with their early childhood and does not pick up again until we find John in the wilderness preparing the way for Jesus, his cousin. From there we get the Gospels, the story of Jesus' life and His sacrifice for us, the ultimate gift in life.

But what would have happened if things had fallen apart in this story? What if Jesus had never been born? Would Christmas be what we know it as today? Or would this Christmas season just be another part of the year for everyone? We can never know the answers to these questions. What could have happened is never known, only what happens. But knowing that the odds were stacked against Jesus and John as kids should add a little more emphasis on the Christmas story. We would not be opening gifts with families and eating nice Christmas dinners if this story had been drastically different.

So in the midst of the chaos of travel, gifts, and food, take a minute to reflect once more on the Christmas story. Read through the first few chapters of Matthew and Luke. Thank God for His gift of Jesus, in the form of a baby, and for the sacrifice He made for us. Do not let this Christmas season pass without focusing on the One who gave it to us in the first place, Jesus.

Matt

Enjoying a Break

The semester has come to an end, and that means that I now have 6 weeks of almost "study free" free time. I took my last final last Thursday, and on Friday I went back to work. I am back at Christian Wee Learn for the winter. I will be working there through much of the month of January. Then, it will be time to head back to school for another semester. But in the meantime, I am home, enjoying Christmas and a break.

I do have homework in Greek. That is the thing about a 2 semester course. If I do not study during this break, I will lose much of what I have learned during the semester. So I am going to have to read through the chapters and review vocab while I am at home, but that won't be too bad. Other than that I plan on kicking back and reading a lot. This is always a good time to catch up on reading.

I feel like the blog has been slow for the past few weeks. Most of that is due to the fact that I was finishing up the semester. I did not have as much time to sit and write these past few weeks as I normally do. But now that I have a lot of time on my hands again, I should be able to find plenty of things to write about. I am hoping to get a lot of books for Christmas. If that be the case, then I will have many new books to discuss on here. Also, I am wanting to begin a new series after Christmas, I just have not figured out what that is going to be yet. But look for something new either late this month or at the start of the new year.

I hope that there is a lot more to come on here. Stay tuned.

Matt

Is Your Faith Just Head Knowledge?

Hebrews - A Look at the Book

Tomorrow marks the end of the semester, and I will take my last final in my class on Hebrews. For part of our final, we were asked to write about a way that Hebrews has affected our lives. So I began thinking about the book as a whole. What is one of the general messages of this book? It took me a while to narrow it down to one lesson I have learned, because there really are so many throughout this book. But I decided to take the approach of looking at the book as a whole. And what I discovered is a common problem among most Christians, a problem that we probably all face at one point or another.

Is your faith just head knowledge? Or is there a much deeper relationship present?

Many times we learn so much about the Bible that we store the information in our head for future use but never apply it to our daily lives. We learn about who God is and what He has done for us, but then we go about our daily lives as if we had never been taught the first thing about God. This problem can arise when reading through the book of Hebrews. The first 10 chapters of the book is filled with knowledge about God. The author makes amazing connections back into the Old Testament, and he lays out what Jesus did on the cross for His readers. He compares Jesus to the angels, elevates Jesus as our High Priest, describes Jesus position at the right hand of the father, and explains the differences between the Old and New Covenants. With so much information, one could easily just learn about God without actually getting to know God.

But just as our lives should not end with knowledge, the book of Hebrews does not end with a discussion of Christ. Instead, the author continues in the last 3 chapters by providing his readers with many examples of those who have lived out the faith. He then connects in to Jesus, as our ultimate example (see my posts on "Running the Race"). This is where the application comes in. Through chapters 12 and 13, the author lays out practical applications for our lives. He gives us ways in which we can incorporate these teachings into our walk with Christ. The faith does not end with knowledge, it extends into action and application.

So listen to what the author of Hebrews says, and consider what your life is like right now. You may have already learned this lesson in your life. You may already understand the importance of applying Scripture to life and not only learning about it. But you may be in a tough spot right now. I hope this is an encouragement to you to think about how you can apply Scripture into your daily life. Just remember that the Bible should not only be head knowledge.

Matt