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dac99a
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Name: Daniel
Location: Austin, Texas, United States
Gender: Male
Interests: Christianity, Psychology, Guitar, Mountain Biking, and other outdoor activities.
Expertise: Educational Psychology
Occupation: Graduate Student
Industry: Education
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  crazydc8
Member Since:
10/12/2005
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| For the past few months, my roommate has been training to run marathons. He ran the San Antonio half-marathon, now he is training to run the full Austin marathon in February. I started the training for a half about this time last year, but I sprained my ankle with not enough time to recover and prepare for the race.
It seems to me that training for a marathon brings with it a whole host of difficulty. It is not just the difficulty of completing the training (which can be complicated by weather, especially this time of year), it is also dealing with the pains and injuries that accompany such a task. Although he has not encountered a significant injury like a sprain, he has had sore feet, chins, back, and legs. We went to 3 stores before we could find a strap that is supposed to hold his knee in place during long runs.
Overall, it just seems like the body is not made for such abuse. Although it is made for a significant amount of physical exercise, it seems like marathon-type distances are in excess to it’s normal functions. I guess that is why comparatively few people run marathons. It takes a lot of determination. I still want to do it someday, may be next year.
In I Corinthians, Paul compares spiritual striving to physical training. He says that he runs in such a way to win the prize. He works his body into doing that which is not natural, ignoring it’s aches and pains. He has an all-encompassing purpose, to live as Christ lived.
I often wonder, what it would look like if Christian people started to treat our spirituality in such a way? What if we broke a sweat trying to force our weak flesh into better service to God? It seems that many of us are like me, once sidelined by a sprain and unwilling to return to action. What would it look like for you to beat your spiritually weak flesh into submission? How would life be different? | | |
| Many people have differing opinions on the meaning of justice. Some seem to think it is their right and responsibility to administer justice on others. Some may see the need, yet feel no obligation to act upon it. Still others may not at all see the need to seek justice at all.
Justice, in the broad sense means to me that a person gets what they deserve. That could mean getting punished for committing or crime, or getting rewarded for working hard. I think most people tend to think only of punishment for wrongdoing. A person can hold the office of “justice” in which that person decides upon the punishment of those who do wrong. Either way, justice is not always served in our broken world. Crimes go unpunished and hard work goes unrewarded. Despite this, most people seem to have some innate sense of justice that we believe should be served.
In Psalm 107, the Psalmist discusses how God seeks justice. The picture is painted of God making fruitful the land in which the inhabitants are good, as well as drying up the land of the wicked. He increased the size of the flocks and families of those in whom he found favor, yet he decreased the number of the flocks and families of those whom he wanted to humble. Either way, God is administering justice to humans based on their behavior.
So what should a Christian do with the idea of justice?
First of all, I think the love of Christ should prevail over any of our needs to seek justice in the world. We should focus more on fighting in injustice for those who are oppressed or unrewarded than on punishing those who do wrong. There is plenty of that form of injustice to keep one busy for an entire lifetime.
Second, we must learn the lesson from Psalm 107 that our God seeks justice himself, even without us. When we want so badly to repay that person who did us wrong, we must remember the words of the Father in Deuteronomy 32:35 in which he says “vengeance is mine, I will repay.”
Lastly, we should praise God for administering justice. We administer justice very poorly, leading to all sorts of oppression. Yet his perspective is much larger than ours. He sees the heart and knows all the circumstances of everyone involved. No attorneys or arguments needed. | | |
| This morning I have an amazing opportunity to experience nature. I am not on a mountainside or a beach, but I cannot help but recognize the beauty of what is around me. The temperature is not yet hot, yet the sun is peering through the trees. I smell a hint of sweet cedar in the air. The trees rustle in the breeze. There is a squirrel in the tree who seems to be expressing displeasure about something. The birds call out. In a little while I will drive and enjoy the rolling hills of the Texas hill country. What a privilege!
Aside from the beauty of this place, I can experience the glory of the natural world in myself. I was able to wake up this morning, I could move and think. I could see, hear, and touch. All of these things mean that my body has at some level achieved the fragile balance of being functional. These are miracles of nature many people experience, but most take for granted.
Verses 21 - 30 of Psalm 107 mentions seeing the works of God in his natural creation. We live every day in a wondrous world of simultaneous simplicity and complexity. What seems simple may be complex, and vice versa. Yet we seldom take time to thank God for his creation, or to recognize his power as the creator.
So I propose today that you take a minute and savor the glory of God in his creation. Look around you at his handiwork. Imagine him creating the smallest and largest of the physical world. Think about the amazing process that occurs every time you take a breath. After you savor, thank God for doing this work for you. | | |
| This morning I have an amazing opportunity to experience nature. I am not on a mountainside or a beach, but I cannot help but recognize the beauty of what is around me. The temperature is not yet hot, yet the sun is peering through the trees. I smell a hint of sweet cedar in the air. The trees rustle in the breeze. There is a squirrel in the tree who seems to be expressing displeasure about something. The birds call out. In a little while I will drive and enjoy the rolling hills of the Texas hill country. What a privilege!
Aside from the beauty of this place, I can experience the glory of the natural world in myself. I was able to wake up this morning, I could move and think. I could see, hear, and touch. All of these things mean that my body has at some level achieved the fragile balance of being functional. These are miracles of nature many people experience, but most take for granted.
Verses 21 - 30 of Psalm 107 mentions seeing the works of God in his natural creation. We live every day in a wondrous world of simultaneous simplicity and complexity. What seems simple may be complex, and vice versa. Yet we seldom take time to thank God for his creation, or to recognize his power as the creator.
So I propose today that you take a minute and savor the glory of God in his creation. Look around you at his handiwork. Imagine him creating the smallest and largest of the physical world. Think about the amazing process that occurs every time you take a breath. After you savor, thank God for doing this work for you. | | |
| Like everyone else (I think), I do not always make the best decisions. A friend and I on a ski trip once decided we were going to hike up to an area called the “Jaurez bowl.” A bowl is a generally peak that goes over the tree line. I am a pretty experienced skier, and it was an area I had actually skied before.
As we stammered up the bowl carrying our skis, we passed a peculiar sign that said “If you fall you must Self-arrest.” As long as I have been skiing, I have never heard such vocabulary. I have subsequently learned that to “Self-Arrest” is to be able stop yourself if you are cascading uncontrollably.
As we stared off the precipice of the “Juarez” bowl, we were not scared, just disappointed. We felt like this run was not long enough to be worth the effort, so we moved on. We thought “surely there is a better place further down.” As we kept going, the slopes (logically, since we were skiing downhill) kept getting shorter, not longer. Eventually we reached the end of the road, it was either go down or go down.
So we went down, even though we were not really able to see the entirety of the run we were embarking upon. After skiing down about 30 feet, I discovered there was a problem with this run. There was a line of boulders which were blocking the way. It was not a cliff, so we could not jump off of it. The run was too steep for us walk across and there was not enough snow to ski over it.
We both reached respective impasses on the rocks. I just did not know what to do, neither did he. We sat there for a minute waiting for some revelation that would point us to the correct path. When no revelation came, we prayed. We prayed that God would help us come out alive and we meant it. I cannot remember the last time I prayed such a prayer. All I knew was that there were no options that looked good. As we sat there, we lamented about our poor decision making skills. We could have gone down the steep fun bowl like everyone else, but we had to be rebellious and try for something different.
In verses 8 -14 of Psalm 107, the Psalmist thanks God that he saves us from our own bad decisions. That is pretty awesome because people (and ski mountains) are often less forgiving. When a person makes a bad decision, we often want them to “self-arrest” or suffer the full extent of consequences. If God did that, we would all be sunk. There have been numerous times in my life when God has not let me wallow in the consequences of my decisions. Instead, he has picked me up and brought me back.
With God’s help, we did make it down the hill that day without having to “self-arrest” from any uncontrollable falls. That is a really good thing because I am pretty sure I could not do it. So I can thank God that he has the power to “arrest” me from my uncontrollable falls. He knows that my decisions are not always perfect, but he keeps rescuing me. | | |
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