Karisa's Life These Days - A Picture is Worth a 1000 Words

2 Month Old Watermelon

So, I cleaned today and discovered that we have had a watermelon sitting on our counter for almost two months. It didn't seem like it had gone bad/soft yet, but neither Karisa or I wanted to find out for sure. So, what to do with it?

It was quite hilarious to watch him try to get his mouth on it!

But he eventually did manage to grate away at it until he got to the good stuff:

He wasn't glad to have us take it away!

David Crowder!

We got to go see the David Crowder Band last night. It was totally awesome. They played a lot of their older stuff, which I was surprised by. It was really fun to be there. What I love about David Crowder is that his shows remind me of how heaven will be. No offense to my church or any other church I've been to, but I've never experienced worship that is quite as FUN as it is at a David Crowder concert.

The only down side was that Zeus was alone most of the day. So when we got back, even though we were totally exhausted, we tried our best to play with him a while. Karisa discovered a new and hilarious thing to do with him:

He was hanging on to his toy and off her back for almost a full minute. He just won't let go! ;)

Prayer: Getting into the Throne Room

I thought I'd share an image of my experience praying that I had tonight. One of the things I love about how Jesus taught is that He used imagery. He connected to images and experiences that people would be able to understand. Sometimes the images might seem opposite because they convey a different aspect of the truth.

One image that has meant a lot to me in the past is:

God the Father, running to His prodigal son who had wandered away from Him. This is indeed a powerful image for God's love for us. One that, to be honest, I still haven't fully appropriated in my own life. However, the image I had tonight was actually the "opposite" image.

My prayer life is kinda like this:

God the Father, the true Dad, is sitting in his majestic throne room. It's glorious and amazing. He's there and, astoundingly, has invited me to come and be with him. I, though, am not going into the throne room. Instead, I'm peering around the corner of the entrance. I want to meet with Him badly, but I can't believe that He hasn't come and met with me. In frustration I call out, "So, you gonna meet with me or not?!" The Father is in the room--the room that is so full of joy and life--waiting for me to come in and accept His invitation. Instead, though, I am getting angry at the entrance because we're not together.

This, to me, is the opposite of what God wants. He tells us to "approach the throne of grace with confidence." I'm not confident. Instead, I'm letting fear of not meeting with God prevent me from accepting the chance to spend time together. The image is corrected when the little child (because I'm always a child in my images interacting with God) finally stops throwing a hissy fit in the hallway and goes into the throne room. Once I step in, of course, joy is sweet and I realize how foolish I was for not stepping in before.

As I thought about this image, I wanted to find the way it connects with the image from the Father running to His son. I know God seeks me out and that I need to come to Him. I believe that the Holy Spirit is the one with me in the hallway whispering, "Go ahead! Go in!" I just need to calm down enough to hear His encouragement.

Sunday Night

It's a slow Sunday night in Wheaton. Karisa has been spending the night writing a paper and reading for class. I've been cleaning the apartment. Finally got the laundry room in a little bit better order. Did some laundry. It's been an exciting day. I've been staying awake, though, just to be able to hear the Phillies game which is on the radio right now. C'mon Phils!

Karisa told me she likes to read blogs with photos. Since she's always right, I thought I'd throw a few pics up. Here's Karisa and me from last week when we were hanging out together. We played Scrabble and I got demolished. I started off in the lead and then it was straight downhill after my second turn. It was fun to be together though.

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers

On Wednesday night I went with Cheryl, my mother-in-law, to see a screening of Lord, Save Us From Your Followers. A film in which Dan Merchant goes on a mic-and-camera journey to answer the question, "Why is the Gospel of Love dividing America?"

There are a number of things about the movie that are intriguing. I talked with Cheryl briefly after we finished the movie. Now that I have had a few days to ruminate on it, I feel better prepared to respond thoughtfully. Things that I appreciated about the film:

- Dan's journey seems to be an authentic one. This especially came through in the "talk back" with him following the film. he was very honest about his own struggles and doubts before, during and after the film. I, for one, didn't feel preached at but shared with.

- The film highlights the power of relationships that are truly based on love and not just a desire to "evangelize" people. Traditional track evangelism has always been something I've been wary of, especially after doing it with Campus Crusade. It's great to get someone to say a prayer, but, on the other hand, so what? They aren't growing in Christ, living in Him or His church, and aren't producing fruit. It seems like that method is based way too much on the view of salvation as an "intellectual assent to a propositional truth claim."

- The film points out how we are spending way too much time on the wrong things instead of the right things: namely loving people.

- The message of the film is hopeful. Dan points out that there are many Christians in America who are loving people well and sharing Christ effectively. It seems to be that the problem is the way Christians are represented and represent themselves through media. One of the most interesting questions in the talk back was about how Christians could use media and if media was inherently a problem (I don't remember the exact wording). I wish that had been explored more in the talk back. Dan's answer was very tangential. I don't think he understood the question.

- I was personally convicted to engage in more loving relationships with people who aren't like me. The segment about going to hang out at a gay festival was particularly challenging. One person in the audience asked afterwords, "But why would a Christian go to such an event?" I think that question really highlights how disconnected we are from Jesus' method of reaching out. He hung out with sinners and tax collectors. I don't imagine he met them just because they randomly walked into synagogue for prayer. He had to go to them. The people ARE the reason we would to go the gay festival. What other reason could be better?

Things I didn't appreciate about the film:

- In one segment, Dan is engaging in hyperbole about removing religion from the public arena. He points out that many towns, such as St. Paul, Minneapolis, are named after key religious figures. So he suggests renaming them. I think this was a brilliant point to make about some of the inherent ridiculousness of taking religion out of everything. What bothered me was that he proceeded to suggest the name "New Leningrad." He also proceeded to rename all the cities in America named after religious figures after other controversial political figures. The point her was, as I mentioned, hyperbole. Implicitly, though, he was engaging in ad hominem argument by implicitly comparing the other side to mass murders and dictators.

- The movie is not put together in such a way that it would convince people in the extreme fundamentalist/far right positions to change their mind. Maybe that's not his point. He did say he would rather have the audience that was drawn to the film title than the one that was put off by it. I would be really interested to see the response to the film from a non-Christian and, especially, from the people he interviewed.

Anyways, those are my initial thoughts. If you've seen the movie, tell me what you think. If you haven't, it's definitely worth checking out.

Fall Busyness

It's fall time! It's getting chilly, the leaves are turning colors, and we're going apple picking this Saturday with some good friends. This will be the second year in a row we've done it, so I'm thinking that it's the birth of a new tradition.

Karisa's mom, Cheryl, is coming in for a visit today. In fact, she's probably already flying here as I write this. It'll be fun to have her stay with us. We really enjoy having a guest room so we can host people easily. Last month we got to host a wonderful guy named Eliot who was in town for a conference. It was fun, though humbling. He went running every morning he was here!

Tonight we're gonna go watch the film, "Lord, Save Us From Your Followers." You can check it out here. It's gonna be pretty sweet. I was very excited when I looked at my course syllabus for the grad course I'm taking a realized I don't have a paper due on Thursday like I thought. So I'll be able to enjoy the film without stressing about the paper I'm not writing.

Zeus, our wonderful dog, is growing so big. We really love him, though he still hasn't learned his good manners around new people and dogs. I'm secretly a little worried because he goes SO crazy that it's impossible to teach him anything when he's around another dog. I'm hoping that he grows out of that. I also learned yesterday that we can get his nails trimmed for free at Petland! Yay! We don't have to be the bad guys anymore!

Karisa and I started the Redeemed Lives program through our church last week. I missed the first week because of a college fair. It's a year long discipleship program. I've wanted to do it for about 5 years now but it never has worked out. It will definitely be a growing experience for us both.