Skylar's Blog & Podcast

Exodus 3:19

I have to admit I am not a huge fan of marshmallows unless they have just been slightly roasted or completely engulfed in flames. And then they have to be sandwiched between two graham crackers and some Hershey's chocolate. Maybe you disagree, but that's ok, you're just wrong. I have to tell you though, even though marshmallows aren't the best tasting things in the world, they are quite fun to mush and mold into different shapes. Have you ever tried this? If you have what different "shapes" have you formed the cylindrical marshmallow into? I've tried making it into a star, a triangle, I've even tried shaping a marshmallow into the form of Abraham Lincoln...just kidding. Have you ever tried molding a rock into something? How about a piece of wood? Me neither. Why is it not a smart idea to try and mold these last two objects into something else?...Maybe because they're super hard and impossible to mold? For something to be molded it must be soft and pliable (means = easily bent; flexible). I began this blog with a verse out of the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Have you read this story before? If you have, who is the most intriguing character in it for you?...For me it is Pharaoh. Pharaoh is the hard nosed leader of Egypt (the greatest country at this time in history), and God makes a very sad comment on Pharaoh before he sends Moses in. Look at the verse above, He says it is going to take a mighty hand to compel Pharaoh to listen to God. In other words, Pharaoh is going to have to learn the hard way.

If you've ever read this story before, then you know how much Pharaoh had to endure because of how stubborn he was. He even had to lose his firstborn son. Finally, Pharaoh gives in and lets God do what He wants; however, Pharaoh then changes his mind again and chases after Moses to lose three quarters of his army. A preacher I listen to every week said something interesting last week that pertains to how we read stories like this: he said, in summary, it's our tendency to read the Bible for other people. What he meant is we read a story like this one and we think, "Gosh, Brad sure could use what is being said here." Or, "Angela needs this in her life." However, we less often we read the Bible or listen to a sermon with ourselves in mind. So, let's read this story with ourselves in mind. Pharaoh didn't want any of what God was trying to get through His thick skull. We can all agree on that. However, how would you feel if I said that you, sweet little angel you, have more in common with Pharaoh than you know. Let me ask you, how many times a year do you know deliberately go against what you know God wants you to do? How about a month? How about a week? We have a tendency to read about a character like Pharaoh and we feel our chests puff out a little because we're definitely not like that. We would listen if God told us to do something. First question, how often do we sit down and listen to God? I know I don't do this nearly enough. I'm too busy telling God what I need now to hear what He wants from me. Second, just as I asked before, how often do we, in our heads, know God wants us to do one thing, and instead we do what we want. This is the same sin Pharaoh committed. Now, you might be thinking, "Well, if God were to show me some of the ridiculous signs He showed Pharaoh I wouldn't ignore Him like that." Think back to John 3:16...it says that God loved us so much that He gave us His only Son so that we would trust Him (which means we live how He wants us to live). This is an incredible sign, and yet we dismiss it as a sign from God calling us to trust and listen to Him. How could we do this? We are in the same boat as Pharaoh, we need God to take our heart of stone and soften it with His mighty hand. So, today, praise God because He has seen the depths of our evil rebellious heart, and He loves us so much that He will patiently work on and refine our heart until it beats after His.

Philippians 1:21-23

I just watched the most interesting movie. Have you ever seen District 9? The gist behind District 9, for those of you who haven't seen it, is a spaceship full of aliens crash lands on earth and the aliens are stuck. For a while nothing happens: no aliens come out and no humans go in. Finally, a team of humans force their way into the ship and find hundreds of thousands of aliens starved and in need of help. So, they set up an area for the aliens to live, and they name this area District 9. It was fenced in, surrounded by military, and was pretty much a slum. As the movie comes to a close one of the renegade aliens is talking to his son, and his son says something that hit me between the eyes: he asks his dad, "Are we going home?" This kid had been separated from his home for a long time, and he missed it. He probably woke up nearly every day hoping soon he would get to go where he belongs.

I was talking with a close friend last week, and we were talking about different struggles we are having, and I began to talk about my upcoming wedding. Before we were talking about what we thought God was teaching us in the midst of these tense times of our lives and we had both agreed God was asking us to learn patience. However, something else hit me all of a sudden. I started talking about the upcoming wedding and I made this remark: "If Jesus were to come back before I married Kayla I wonder if the disappointment of not marrying her would really take away from the amazing excitement that our Savior had finally come back?" I thought about it for a moment and I realized it probably would...How depressing, how evil. I am not saying being disappointed in not being able to marry Kayla is a bad thing. God would expect that seeing He has put inside of me a crazy love for her. However, how sad that the earthly marriage I thought I was going to experience would outweigh the return of Jesus. Maybe you don't think this is sad. Look at it this way: this world, the home you have now and the family in it and all your friends at school is not really our home. Peter makes this clear in his letter: "Beloved, I urge as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul" (1 Peter 2:11). What two things did Peter call us?...Sojourners and exiles. The NIV translates this section as "aliens and strangers." C.S. Lewis helps explain this strange analogy, "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world." One of the greatest temptations of the enemy is to make this feel like home, our last chance for happiness. However, God knows this and He counteracts it with discontentment and emptiness when we make our life in this world into an idol, and a deep desire for something this world can't offer. Our time on earth has been compared to many things, but my favorite is to a shadow (C.S. Lewis strikes again). It is in the image of something great, but it isn't quite enough. We want the real thing, and one day we will have it. Let's take a few minutes today and everyday the rest of this week and think about how amazing the day will be when we will be reunited with God for forever. When there will be no more pain, sadness, loneliness, suicided, depression, anger, violence, abortion, etc. When we will live in perfect communion with God and with others. My wish is we will all dream about our real home, and in dreaming for it desire it above everything else. And because of that we will be like the child alien and ask our Dad, "Are we going home?"

James 1:2

Note: Harry Potter is a fiction book, and our church has no ties with any sort of witchcraft or black magic, nor do we support such things. However, there are principles in J.K. Rowling's writing that lends itself to Christian thinking. If you are upset by this blog please notify me.

Where my Harry Potter fans at?! Some of you might not have the maturity to enjoy the Harry Potter series, and because of this I am sad, but as for the rest of you well-mannered, grown up, goal oriented guys and girls you will be able to relate with what I'm about to talk about (by the way I was just kidding about the characteristics of Harry Potter fans, we're not all well-mannered). Harry Potter is a wizard born into very difficult circumstances. Even before he is able to put a word together the entire wizarding world knows his name and his story. Can you begin to imagine the pressure he had to experience after he found out who he was and what everyone was expecting of him? Then, as if the day to day pressures of being the child who saved the wizarding world wasn't enough, the dark wizard who had almost killed him comes back to life and makes it clear he wants his revenge. Harry Potter is a fiction book, it's a made up world, but within this world Rowling paints an interesting picture of a boy who seems to have the odds stacked against him. Have you ever felt like this? Do you have days when you get out bed and it feels like the world is out to get you? How about those days when it seems like everything is going wrong, do you have those?

James (the writer of the book of James ; ) starts out his letter with the statement I wrote above. I want you to notice one word, a word that has always stuck out to me, it's the word "when." Why is that word so important? Because of the phrase that comes after it: "you face trials of many kinds..." Notice he doesn't say, "if", "it's possible that", or "you may want to look out for." He says: "when". What do you think this means? Personally, I think it means we, like Harry Potter, are destined for some hard times. Now, my purpose in writing this isn't to paint this dramatic picture of being a Christian, in all honesty I'm just being realistic. Hopefully, you all acknowledge the existence of Satan, and his desire to pull you from God. On top of that, you hopefully know the culture we live in doesn't promote the same morals and values we do. Because of this, whether we want to admit it or not, we're living in a world where the odds are slightly stacked against us. Life is not always cheery and happy. We all have doubts, we have questions, we grieve, we feel alone, we don't always believe God is there with us, and we definitely don't always trust God. In my experience, it sometimes feels like this life's sole purpose is find some way of creating a wedge between God and me. I am not saying we should be hopeless, if anything Christians should be the most hopeful of any group of people. We have the sovereign God of the universe working for us and loving us. However, I am asking all of us to take a hard look at life and come to a point where we know bad things will happen, but after we understand this we look to God and put our hope in the day where bad things will never happen again. The point of being realistic isn't to find some way to cope within ourselves. The point of being realistic is understanding there is nothing in this world we can place our whole hope in, instead we must look outside this world to our God and Savior and put our whole hope in Him and in the day He comes back and rescues us for forever.