Rantings

Oh LORD, how excellent is Your Name!

2009-12-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

I think I'll preface this post with the fact that I am writing this partly as a means to procrastinate from reading Latin, which in turn will help another friend procrastinate from reading Latin. Everything on the school front has remained mostly the same since the last post. It's still a lot of work, and I'm still enjoying teaching, the days when I actually seem to teach halfway well. Things on the God front have been nothing short from amazing. A few weeks ago, when I was studying Ephesians with Ben N. (we're still meeting once a week to talk, pray, and read Scripture, we just finished Ephesians and are now looking for another book to read through), we read through this passage:

"For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." (Ephesians 3:14-21)

After first reading this, I desired deep within my soul for this prayer to be true for me, because I felt like I didn't understand the love of God, I only half heartedly felt like I was worshiping, loving, and serving Him. Ben and I prayed that night for this, that we would have strength to comprehend the love of God, that we could try to grasp and comprehend how vast His love is for us. I prayed a few other times whenever I thought of it, but slowly the Scripture fell out of mind.

Recently, however, God began working in my heart in mighty ways that I can't fully explain. Some things that I write may seem prideful or boastful, but I hope that they aren't perceived that way. I want this post to be an outward expression of my love and worship to God for what He has been doing in me. A few weeks back, I realized that one of the reasons I was living half heartedly for God was because I was believing and exposing myself to demonic lies. (I'd rather not get into specifics on such a broad forum as the internet, so if you want more details, ask me in person) When I finally had my eyes opened to see the lies for what they were, I experienced one of the most intense spiritual attacks in my life. I suddenly felt scared, terrified, as I sat alone in my apartment. I also felt cold, and was shivering even though I sat near a space heater that said the room was 70 degrees. I prayed, and sought prayer from others that night, and had a long talk with my brother Joe, sharing with him openly and honestly about my doubts and fears and reservations for following God. Light was sown on my sin, and I clung to truth, that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

After that night, I began to make it more of a point to pray every morning, listening to a pod cast my mother introduced me to a year or so ago, which to be honest isn't always helpful, but is better than nothing most of the time. With that I started each day, meditating on Scripture passages, and having brief conversations with God. As the days went on, I started journaling more, and writing out my prayers, requests, and fears to God.

Now, just in the past few days, I have noticed a love and desire to worship God welling up in my heart. I'll be walking home from school, and listening to music on my iPod, and I will simply start worshiping, singing praises out to God, even singing out loud which I generally try to avoid especially in public places. And I have been hearing from God more, through messages in church, or in songs, and the pod casts I've still been listening too.

In one instance, while praying in the morning, the podcast was guiding me to meditate on a passage in Luke where Jesus says, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it." (Luke 10:23-24) While thinking on this Scripture, God allowed me to realize the beauty that is His Church. Prophets like Moses longed for a time when God's Spirit would be poured out on His people, and a time when all nations and races will worship and rejoice in God. And now, being a part of the 21st century Church, I have opportunities to see people of every race, nation, tribe and tongue, become baptized and profess their faith in Christ, and receive His Holy Spirit to help guide them and grow them in spiritual maturity.

And even today, while walking home, the song Table for Two by Caedmon's Call came on my iPod, and during it, God spoke to me, showing me the beauty of the creation story. When God goes to make man, He fashions him out of the mud, dirt, and clay of the earth. Out of the very base things of this planet, then stuff we don't want to track into our homes, the things we wash off our hands, and try to avoid at all costs, God took that, and out of it formed his most cherished creation. As people, we come from dirty backgrounds, we come from lives of sin, and meet God, and He breathes the breath of life into us, and turns dirt to flesh, and loves us, as a husband loves his wife. I don't have anything to say after that other than, God, You are amazing! I love You, but I know I don't love You enough. Please, Holy Spirit, continue give me the strength to understand Your love, and give me the strength to love You as You ought to be loved.

I feel like God has been growing and maturing me a lot in the past few weeks, and I am excited to see what new stage of life He is preparing me for. I hope for those of you who made it all the way through this post found it encouraging at least, and please, feel free to contact me if you have any questions. But now, I suppose I should go read some Latin...

Busy

2009-10-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

The past two weeks have been busy, but good. Last weekend I was able to go to New Hampshire and went hiking with my friend Ben N., and his other science friends. School has been getting busy, hence the lower frequency of updating the blog. I've still been meeting with Ben N. and reading through Ephesians, which has been good. We finished chapter 2 this week, so next week we'll get started with and maybe finish chapter 3.

I've been going to the House Church group on Wednesday nights as well that's run through my church out here. We're spending the next thirty odd weeks in 1 Corinthians. More updates on that when I have time. Right now I have about thirty minutes before I have to go off and teach, but thankfully it's Friday.

My parents are in town for the weekend and beginning of next week. It will be good to see them, though I don't know what there is to do in Amherst that's very interesting or exciting. Tomorrow we're thinking of going to Boston which would be fun, though with all this time going places and doing things it will be hard to get homework done, but I'll manage somehow. There's always Monday afternoon.

I updated my other blog as well, adding two new chapters to make up for skipping last week.

Another Week

2009-10-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

Well, it's the weekend again, thankfully. I don't know why, but the past week seemed extra draining. There were some highlights, though. On Sunday, I got to watch a few people from my church get baptized in the pond by my house. It's always been encouraging to listen to people's testimonies, and hear about how God is working in the lives of those around me. Then, Tuesday, I met with Ben N. to read through some more of Ephesians again. I think we got a little more than half way though the first chapter. One of the questions we contemplated was, "What does it mean to praise the glory of God?" It's mentioned three times in the first chapter, so we knew it must be important.

Also, Tuesday in the day, I was able to go with four of the other first year students to observe some Middle and High school classes. I was impressed with how enthusiastic some of the Jr Highers were for learning Latin. Observing the teacher also helped me get some ideas for how to get my students engaged a little more.

Thursday was a day I thought would never end. Something about being in your office for four or five hours with nothing to do but translate Latin and read about the history of Latin Lit makes time sand still.

And then there was Friday. I cleaned my house a little, and then had a grading and Dollhouse watching party for most of the evening. Over all it's been a good week. Hopefully this coming week I won't feel like I'm constantly behind on homework. Oh, and I'm going to post another chapter of my story on the other blog at some point today, so be on the look out for that.

Story Time!

2009-09-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

I put the first chapter and the prologue for my story up, so go check it out!

http://chroniclesofthestones.blogspot.com/

Blog for my story

2009-09-26T16:16:00.001-07:00

I've started a new blog for my story! Go check it out, though I haven't put a chapter up yet, one will be coming shortly!

http://chroniclesofthestones.blogspot.com/

Joys of Grad School

2009-09-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

I have a new respect now for teachers when they get sick. For the last half of this week, I was fighting a cold, but still taught my class, and went to my classes. Between the cold and the drugs, I could hardly tell what was happening. It wasn't a fun experience, but I didn't want to have to deal with trying to get someone to cover my classes, or deal with makeup work in my classes, so i just went through it.

Also, I was supposed to be observed on Friday in my class, by a professor, but I come to school Friday morning, and he says he can't do it today, so we rescheduled for Monday. I guess it's just something about UMass professors, and canceling at the last minute. Monday class is going to be a lot of review and games, so hopefully it's a more interesting class to observe. I'm not too worried about being observed, but I just hope I don't have to reschedule again last minute.

Last night was the season premiere of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, which I watched with Caitlin, Paula, and Ben C. Neither of them had seen an episode before, but were interested in seeing what the show was about. So in ten minutes before it started, I did my best to recap everything that had happened in the first season that they might need to know for the first episode of season 2. Hopefully Friday night will become a regular Dollhouse party.

I hope to have another blog up by the end of this week to share my story with people who are interested. I'll post a link as soon as I make it. But for now, I need to go off and do some homework so I'm not horribly swamped when the week starts up. Oh the joys of Grad School...

Mornin'

2009-09-22T08:20:00.001-07:00

So what's better than going to school on your day off to observe a professor teach? Going to school early on your day off only to find out the professor isn't there and the class is cancelled. At least I was able to get breakfast with the other classics kids in my program. Enough for today, off to study...

First Rant

2009-09-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

So Tuesdays are supposed to be my day off, but lucky for me, I get to go in to school tomorrow at 9AM so I can observe one of the professors teach a Latin one class at 9:30AM. I bet everyone else in the program is just as excited as I am, though I haven't asked. I don't really know how I feel about blogs, but I figure I should try it out. This might be a good way to keep in touch with people back in California, but maybe not. I'll try to update it somewhat regularly.

I find it kind of funny how many other Bens there are in my life right now. I'm living with one, there's another in my program, and another that I met at Church out here. I imagine this will all get rather confusing especially if I ever make mention of one in the blog. Tomorrow I'm going to meet with Ben N. (the one from church) and read through Ephesians. We're going to try to meet once a week or once every two weeks and study the book for a bit. It should be good, I'm looking forward to it. But first I must needs get some education homework done. So for now, I will sign off.