prisoner

I then, as Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus— Philemon vs 9

we have been told many times that we are to be servants, to be humble. we have been told that we need to relinquish our rights and hand them over to Christ. i really have been thinking about this passage since i read it yesterday morning.

so many times as christians we have plans to have a certain job, go on a certain vacation and choose what we will do or will not do. we think we have the right for love, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. but i have been wondering what are my rights. God did say that if He provided food for the sparrows then of course he would supply our needs. but is that our right. are we deserving of anything that we have been blessed with.

i then think about being a prisoner. limited to a small confines and is only able to leave when he is told he is able. he is fed at a certain time, not when he is hungry or he is not given a choice of what he would like to eat. a prisoner doesnt have any rights of his own.

but what does that look like in the area of God's kingdom. does God care about our rights or would he rather see His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. paul i think can best say that he was a prisoner, since he was one literally, but figuratively as well. his body was worn and went without food many times, was shipwrecked and imprisoned. i do not think he chose these things, but when he chose to follow God he chose the possibility of being persecuted for his faith.

it is this choice that makes us prisoners. God wasnt the one who decided to imprison you. it is and will be our choice to be a prisoner of God.

just a though

i would drive 4000 miles...

and i would drive 4000 thousand more. it really was worth it all. to see everything that we did within a two week period. it was filled with some of the coolest sites (bear tooth pass, old faithful, the grand tetons and more). the time was filled by driving 4000 miles with stories of college as we went with two good friends justin and lindsay gentry as well as catching up, deep theological discussions as well as rants about life. it truely was an amazing experience.

our time in estes park was awesome. we tented in a valley and had the amazing rockies surrounding us 360 degrees. we were able to catch up with six others from iwu there and had a great time playing board games, hiking, checking out estes park, swimming, playing horshoes and we even rented jet skis for a while.

but now it is back to the real world where jenny and i have to find a place to live, work and worship in community. we went looking for apartments in indy today and found a couple possible places. tomorrow i will concentrate closer on looking for jobs. we have a couple churches we are looking at, we will let you know where we end up.

go west young man

10 days ago we packed up the van and headed for chicago. we spent the day at navy pier, had a tour down chicago river and celebrated our anniversary. on july 30th we met up with our good friends in naperville and headed west. the destinations would be plentiful and have actually grown since our trip began. for the first two days all we did was drive. we stopped somewhere in eastern south dakota and woke up morning to do it all over again.

we saw a sign for wall drug starting 400 miles away. despite jenny telling us it wasnt much we had to see the purpose of having about 100 signs advertise it. we thought we could stop for five minutes and be okay but we wer wrong. by stopping at this tourist trap justin and i missed out on deadwood, sd which has gunfights daily.

we drove on to billings, montana where jenny's aunt and uncle live. we stayed there a few days and took in little big horn. (custar's last stand) and then it was off to yellowstone.

we had alot of fun there. we saw elk, buffalo, and proghorn within 2o feet of us. the drive alone let us see mountains and other amazing scenery. old faithful was amazing spewing between 4-8000 gallons of water. we went on hikes, went swimming at a firehole and enjoyed low 40s at night while we shivered inside our tent.

we drove through the tetons which were definately grand and lake jenny was beautiful as well.
we are now in colorado springs and yesterday went to the garden of the gods. today we will be going to meet james dobson at focus on the family.