Devotioanl Blog:

“Looking for love in all the wrong places”, “You Can”, “There is a Plan”; 6/23/2012, 6/22/2012, 3/12/2012; 1 Peter 4:8, Luke 13:12, Jeremiah 29:11

You ever hear the joke that you should listen to country songs backwards? Why? Because then they become exceedingly happier…you get your house back, your dog back, your woman back, your tires un-slashed and your guitar un-smashed.

I’ve noticed a trend in many entries of this book. In many examples of people’s lives that she uses…when it rains it doesn’t just pour–it’s a fricken hurricane and it’s not ‘waves of life’ that hit people, it’s a damn tsunami!

Devotional Blog:

“Lights Flashing”, 6/21/2012, 1 Corinthians 4:5

Ok, back to the book after quite the hiatus.

When the Lord comes, he will bring our deepest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives… ~1 Corinthians 4:5

Well now isn’t that a scary thought? How many secrets does one carry throughout life? How many thoughts do we think would we be ashamed of if someone were to actually crawl into our head and listen to. Thankfully people can’t crawl into each others heads and truly hear the thoughts that roll through them.

Funny thing is, growing up this verse made us wary of the ‘big’ secrets…infidelity, sex before marriage, stealing, physically hurting someone etc. Our pastors would often times use the image of a huge projector screen showing all our sins and evil thoughts to the world for all our family and friends to see. Oh the embarrassment! Oh the judgement! Oh the pain we would cause ourselves and other people with our hidden sins that haven’t been brought to light and forgiven. I used to live in fear as a kid, paranoia even that when I died God would put me on a stage and broadcast my entire ‘evil’ life of every little thing I’d ever done that wasn’t 100% ‘saintly’, down to beating the crap out of a stuffed animal because I was angry. Yes, as a child I occasionally beat the crap out of dolls and stuffed animals out of frustration. I ripped pages out of my journals and threw tantrums in my room out of sight and earshot of anyone. Much of my anger and frustration growing up I kept inside, in fact all of it I kept inside. And while these ‘tantrums’ and stuffed animal beatings seem harmless enough at first sight, my thoughts got darker as I grew up.

What about the little ‘secrets’ the thoughts no one hears about, the thoughts that will never be voiced but are nonetheless there… the dark thoughts.

Devotional Blog: 6/14/2012: “When good isn’t good enough” Romans 8:28 This isn’t out of the book I am going through which coincidentally arrived in the mail from Thailand in our first round of boxes–this is one I am just going to write. If you’ve read my previous blogs in the devotion section or perhaps in my life section or such you’ll know how I was raised. In a faith that stresses undying, unwavering faith in God and that everything works toward his plan and purpose.

Devotional Blog:

Burdens, 03/02/2012, Galatians 6:1-5, Romans 15:1-7

Are you a worry wort? I can be. I can worry about the most inane irrelevant things sometimes. Things I cannot control I worry about…I’m absolutely ridiculous sometimes, keeping myself awake at night worrying about things that are utterly pointless to worry about. And I worry about them at the MOST inopportune times as well…such as when I am taking off in a plane and I’m like–huh what if we crash? It’s really dumb as the statistics support me getting  pwnd by so many other causes before dying in a plane crash (1 in 7,032-lifetime odds, Source).

I find it funny that in the same source I have a 1 in 120,864 chance of dying by being pwnd by someones dog. In their wording–“bitten or struck by dog”. Ya that’s right, don’t you just hate it when Mitzy comes up to you and ‘bitch slaps’ you, haha, really bad joke–but really one day, her strike could kill you!

I digress…I think I’ve made my point about pointless worrying.

Devotional Blog:

Christian ‘Culture’, Depravity and Salvation, 2/29/2012, Ephesians 2:8-9

I love meeting new people, hearing new points of view listening to life adventures, life realizations and commiserating on mutual experiences. So 2012 is a leap year and there was no entry in my devotional book for this day so this is my own devotional. Honestly I do have any number of pages in the book dog eared to write about as I am fantastically behind in my posting, but I find I enjoy writing more when I am writing about something that is currently bothering or inspiring me. Enter today’s topic.

I had the pleasure of meeting someone with a very similar upbringing to myself and we bantered back and forth about being children having grown up in the church. Children who grew up in the church, most likely said their ‘salvation’ prayer at a young age, went through the ‘Christian’ motions growing up, sunday school, youth camp, retreats, revivals, door to door evangelism, whatnot. We ‘shunned’ the people we were supposed to shun or hate, we accepted the people that fit into the Christian box and we were encouraged that the greatest calling in life is that of ministry. Christian culture surrounded us, we memorized verses, held our hands up in deference to God during worship, allowed people to pray for us, we prayed for people, we knew all the ins and outs of the culture and we really didn’t have an understanding of what true ‘salvation’ was…but of course we were saved…weren’t we?

Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Confused?…go Back”, 01/24/2012, Jeremiah 24: 6-7

How does one ‘hear’ from God? This is a loaded topic for me…

“I will give them hearts that will recognize me as the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly” -NIV, Jeremiah 24:7

 

“After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” -NIV, 1 Kings 19:12

 

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” -NIV, Rev 3:22

Confused? Always. I bumble my path routinely in an effort to ‘hear’ God and know what his plan and purpose for my life is. I say the prayers, I keep so still as to nearly faint from not breathing enough, I close my eyes and meditate during worship, think of things I’ve learned, listen to pastors and mentors more learned than me…

Majority of the time I think I must be on the wrong channel…cause all I ever get is static and I rarely know what exactly it is I am doing wrong.

Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Pretty Good Company”, 12/29/11, John 12: 20-28

Happy Birthday Edgar Allen Poe, Born January 19, 1809. Odd way to start a devotional post complete with topic title and Bible verse by saying happy birthday to a man whose poetry and stories are often of the macabre gothic nature and depressing, but now that I’ve piqued your curiosity, stick with me…

Today’s entry is about walking into the dreams that God has given us in our lives. The visions, the promises, the hopes…and perhaps not getting to see or experience the fruits of our labors, our suffering, our patience. The author (Pam) goes onto to say, ‘you are not alone’. You are not the only one to receive great promises only to never see them come to pass in your lifetime or as Moses did, stand at the border and watch your people walk into the promise led by another man. How heinously frustrating. You do everything you believe God is telling you to do, you walk through the doors, you invest time, faith, money, more time, more faith….you sit and watch as others experience the joy that comes from their dreams or promises coming to pass and you sit. You sit, telling yourself to be patient, telling yourself God has not forgotten you, telling yourself that you want things in God’s timing. Then you look up and you say God WHEN is your timing!!!???  And you cry out…you cry out.

Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Cultivating the quiet”, 01/08/12, Psalm 23: 1-6

Hey…I’m into January in this book…well actually I’m backlogged and still have some blogs from December’s month in the book to write but I kind of just dog-ear them and will get to them, eventually.

Interestingly this one came up. In a previous entry in the book the author had encouraged us to spend our time productively and not waste it and I wrote a blog about how taking moments to ‘space out’ and how valuable that can be for ones mental health. Now in this entry she encourages moments of quiet stating that a ‘quiet heart is a receptive heart’. 1 Peter 3:4 states, pulling from the previous verse–beauty…”should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” Pslam 23: 2 states: “He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams…”

Flipping through the book this morning to find an entry dog-earred to write about I came across this and it hit a nerve for me. In the past few weeks my life has taken a tremendous turn.

Devotional Blog: 12/21/11, Topic: “Workers at Home”, Titus 2: 3-5 I’ve heard this verse used to justify a woman’s calling to ‘stay at ‘ and raise a family as opposed to being independent and working. I’m not going to say much about this books devotional entry except that I like how the author deals with this and I agree with what she says…amazing given I rarely agree with what she has to say.

Unofficial Devotional Blog: (not in book, but I’m gonna write it anyway)

Topic: “love, judgement, right and wrong” (verses…many, see below)

Since I started this devotional ‘section’ to my blog I’ve talked about a lot of different topics introduced to me by this rather ‘fluffy’ devotional book that I’ve been making my way through. And I actually was going to write another entry based in that book but as I opened the link to start a new blog…all this came flowing out instead. For an introduction to how this all got started in all the ‘devotion’ stuff see the first blog about my attempt at keeping regular devotions and analyzing my faith. Topics ranged in this book from finding your ‘hidden sin (blog post)’, leadership and mentorship (blog 1, blog 2), family and finances (blog), wishing for a different life (blog), acceptance (blog), love and forgiveness (blog), relationships with non-believers (blog), trauma (blog), life purpose/being saved for something I wrote on the anniversary of ⁹⁄₁₁ (blog) and many of the things I’ve said, done or written have gotten me pegged throughout life as a ‘lukewarm Christian’.

I read a blog post entitled “I’m Christian unless you are Gay” written by a guy whose blog I follow because he has interesting things to say. Since it’s been written it’s gotten 74K plus facebook ‘likes’ and has been shared I’m sure countless times to ‘mixed’ reviews sometimes. I am one of those that shared this post on facebook and now I am sharing it here with my own take. I encourage you to read his post (linked above) in its entirety as well as some of the responses to the post both negative and positive. He’s caused quite the firestorm and some of the responses were very powerful.

After reading his post and all the responses…two quotes stuck with me.

Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Not a Hint”, 11/19/2001, Ephesians 5: 3-7

The author has the uncanny ability to piss me off in some of these entries. Perhaps one page or less isn’t enough space for her to fully explain what she means by what she says. Or perhaps she intends to bother her readers and sound a bit high and mighty.  I’m not saying her choice of verses and topics aren’t good ones…though not all of them I can relate with, hence do not write about. I suppose I wish she was a little more encompasing in her topics. No I don’t want her to sugar coat ‘sin’ as she defines it but I’d like it if she didn’t freak out ‘new’ Christians who might pick up her book and think–holy ‘$%!@’ and question Christianitys sincerity. I’ll explain further.

Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Mentor Me”, 11/16/2011, Proverbs 9:9-12

I don’t know how many times since starting my postdoc that I’ve desired minions. Cohorts in my pursuit of viral evolution and ecology. Kindred spirits clad in lab coats and laced with the smell of phenol chloroform. Ok…really I just need people to help me with lab work that I like doing but I have less and less time to do as analysis and writing alone consumes me sometimes. But in return I’d like to mentor.

I mentored a very motivated undergraduate student while in grad school and she turned out quite apt and successful so I figure I did something right…and I tried at all costs to minimize her interactions with my boss who also happened to be her academic mentor. He had the uncanny ability to make many women (including myself at times) who worked in his lab want to staple things to his head and leave in a hail of frustrated cuss words and gunfire.

I mentioned in my last post that many topics in this book seem to be on repeat and I realize I posted a blog earlier on ‘leadership’ but I think this is different…the idea of leadership and mentorship. Ideally they should go hand in hand and I aspire to that but many times they don’t. There are many leaders that are terrible mentors and mentors that if you put them in charge of something wouldn’t know left from right practically speaking–rather they are gurus of ‘sense’. They are often the ones that you want to quote a lot because they inspire you, even if practically speaking they may not get a whole lot done.

Leaders you follow, mentors you quote. And if you have someone that is both, then  you get the great leaders of our time. But they all had to start somewhere.

Devotional Blog: Topic: “Embarrassed”, 11/15/2011, Proverbs 22:4-16 So I haven’t blogged about the devotions I’ve been reading and yes, I have been reading them because so far they’ve been records on repeat, dealing with issues already discussed in the book…and I’ve only been reading since August. So I’m wondering at this point how many topics she’s going to deal with multiple times. I finally came across some more original ones, like yesterday’s.

Devotional Blog: “Family and Finance”, 11/4/2011; 1 Timothy 5:3-4, 8, 16

I took the title above from a quote by Author Unknown: “I am having an out of money experience”. It amused me.

So surprise, surprise this is yet another devotional entry in the book that I see differently than the author perhaps. Family, finances and lending money are huge topics. We all know that one of the biggest problems that can arise in a marriage can be over money or lack of it rather. I’ve seen money tear people and apart sometimes because of greed sometimes because of the emotions attached to the money that may have nothing to do with the money itself.

In the book, Pam talks about the duality of lending money to family that is discussed in the Bible. In 2 Corinthians 12:14 it states “…After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.” and then in 1 Timothy 5:8 it states: “But those who won’t care for their own relatives, especially those living in the same household have denied what we believe. Such people are worse than unbelievers.” She then goes on to ask what should our responsibility be in terms of using our money to care for relatives/family? Her answer: “When in doubt, do like God recommends: ‘speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice (Proverbs 31:9). He doesn’t allow people to continue in unhealthy patterns, but if they have tried their best and fall short, his long arm of love reaches out.”

I agree with her statements and the verses she used in some respects.

All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it’s like being ambushed by a grotesque.

~Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Devotional Blog: 10/22/2011, 10/26/2011, and 10/28/2011; “Being true to yourself” and “Fact and fiction”; Romans 12: 12-18, Acts 2: 32-39, and 2 Peter 1:15-21

I’m lumping these entries together because they speak of similar things regarding how we see ourselves compared to others, how others make us feel about ourselves and the alternate realities we concoct of a life ‘we want’ rather than the life we are supposed to be living.

This past weekend Tyghe and I went to the beach thankful for the ability to escape flooding Bangkok, play some frisbee and enjoy the beach. We went to Phuket, a highly built up island in southern Thailand that is run for the most part by the Thai mafia from what we’ve been told and perhaps has links with Russian mafia as well–given the influx of so many Russian tourists, and all three languages (Russian, English and Thai) present on the island, it wouldn’t surprise me. In essence many who travel to Phuket accept the fact they will be overcharged for everything…absolutely everything. But I am not going to talk about our holiday…Tyghe will do a great job of that on his blog so see that for the vacay story and I believe he mentions what I will talk about. His blog will be a great sum up with pictures–the happy stuff which was indeed happy and I had a great time in that respect. Instead I will highlight one not so awesome experience as it resulted in an interesting topic related to faith. This is not a ‘devotional blog entry’…it’s a life entry…life based on faith.

Devotional Blog:

So you’ve probably noticed by now that (1) I don’t always post every single devotional topic/entry from the book and (2) sometimes they are out of order. I am caught up to the current date in my reading but I choose only to post on those topics I come across that matter to me or that I actually have something to say about. Do you all really want to hear my thoughts on menopause??? Ya I didn’t think so…and it was two days of devotional time in the book. Aside from the fact I couldn’t relate remotely to what she was talking about, I didn’t really feel the need to expound on the subject. Nor do I feel the need to tell you all about when I got my first period. Fair enough? Plus some of her topics that she attributes to the various verses are just well meh or too gooey and I’ve quite frankly nothing to say about them. So with that…lets get on with the topic today.

Topic: “Pursing praise”, 10/8/2011; Proverbs 7:13-27

In this section the idea of ‘pursuing praise and accolades’ is discussed. How some of us are so hungry for recognition we strive for it, we live for the ‘kudos’ of other people and she talks about how spiritually unhealthy that is. Ultimately she states that the only kudos we should look for are from God by living our lives to please him and that what other people say to us shouldn’t matter. Easier said than done is what I was thinking. No one likes to ‘suck’.

Devotional Blog:

Topic: Slippery Slopes, 9/22/11, John 15:1-11

So I realize the author only has a page to get these topics aired out given this is an ‘on the go’ devotional, but this one…

Excerpt: “In my twenty-plus years of ministry, I have seen the slippery slope in many a woman’s life. She didn’t ‘mean’ to have an affair. She didn’t think a few glasses of wine would lead to alcoholism…”

And then she spends the rest of the section on women who ‘unequally yoke’ themselves to unbeliever men and how that leads to a slippery slope of marrying a non-believer and how that’s not right…I could tell she was trying to find a way into this topic specifically so she could spend the majority of her time there. Now I have grown up staunchily ingrained with this belief system. Don’t unequally yoke, don’t date a non-believer, don’t associate with non-believer men…And Christianity isn’t the only faith to somewhat ‘demonize’ (ok that’s a strong word) relationships with the non-believer. Infidels to islamic extremists, it doesn’t even have to be religion–mixing of cultures historically was taboo as well. An Indian buddy of mine during my internship at Yale said that his family specifically told him in college to ‘have as much fun as he wanted’ but marry an Indian girl. During the 1940’s in Russia it was unthinkable for a Jew to marry a Christian…and many of these values/divides between religions and cultures remain today.

This whole manner of thinking rather religious or cultural –I really hate it.

Devotional Blog:

Topic: Who is God to you?, ⁹⁄₁₈-¹⁹⁄₂₀₁₁, Ezekiel 34:25-31 and Psalm 34: 8-14

So I grew up your ‘typical’ Christian kid or perhaps ‘typical’ isn’t the right word since I was raised more on the pentecostal/evangelical side and many other Christian sects think we’re pretty nuts…fair enough. I grew up in with a Christian bent toward pentecostal/evangelical due to where my parents chose to go to church. We started out in Calvary Christian, fairly conservative along with Cornerstone Christian churches then moved into the Vineyard ‘movement’ which was akin to house churches (they were usually small) and they popped up in random places whereever there was space…a strip mall vacant store, a school gym, another churches rec room, someones . To me the Vineyard churches felt very odd…sort of like the ‘hippy movement’ for Christianity. But this was my perception as a young child…

On a side note: It was in a Vineyard Sunday school where I learned about communion and received a piece a bread which is supposed to symbolize the body of Christ/Jesus…at which point I turned to my friend and squeezed the bread to ‘make it talk’ telling my friend ‘jesus loves you’…my sunday school teacher was not amused…

We attended such churches til I was 11 and moved to Hawaii. In Hawaii we attended a First Assembly church which was really small and has since expanded enormously to have satellite chapels all over the Pacific Rim and a congregation that I’ve seen attend at most 1,500 people–yowza! When we first started going I think 50 people on average…maybe 75-80 would attend. The church went from being a First Assembly Church to breaking off into it’s own entity now called King’s Cathedral headed by Pastor James Marocco, a man with several degrees including a Ph.D. from reputable universities such as USC. The man knows his history and theology.

Why do I say all this? Because this is what I grew up in. I didn’t question my faith growing up, it just was what it was. People lifting their hands and dancing in church? Ok…sure. People getting prayed for and ‘falling out in the spirit’…ok no worries. People receiving prophecy from pastors or prophets…this was all on par with my upbringing and it wasn’t ‘alien’ to me, though I’m sure all of this in one place might freak out a non-Christian or Christian with more sedate upbring in the faith. Our church in Hawaii wasn’t like this to begin with, they went through a series of ‘revivals’ and before y’all have nightmares of some backwoods area of a southern state…it wasn’t like that–I think.

Devotional Blog:

Topic: Breaking patterns of trauma, 9/15/11, Isaiah 57: 12-14

This entry in the book was ‘interesting’ and amounted to saying ‘get over yourself’ at the end or you are going to seriously $#@! up your kids. The simplicity in which she treats this topic bothered me a little. Now, I agree I just ‘summed’ up the topic above in one sentence but her approach and link to the verse was unclear to me until the end and I still was like…does this make sense in light of her ‘verse of the day’….so I dissected it.

Devotional Blog:

Topic: Rights and Responsibility, 9/14/11, Colossians 4:2-6

So this was a discussion of role models and if by becoming  role model you give up your ‘rights’ to do certain things…ala movie or music stars having fits, getting into drugs or whatnot. Granted getting into drugs isn’t a ‘right’ for anyone let alone the famous but apparently it’s all the worse because those who are famous become role models whether they like it or not. It reminds me of the quote from Spiderman: “With great power comes great responsibility”; which surprisingly enough was not originally coined by Spiderman comics but rather Thomas Francis Gilroy in 1892, it has also been attributed to Voltaire (Voltaire. Jean, Adrien. Beuchot, Quentin and Miger, Pierre, Auguste. “Œuvres de Voltaire, Volume 48”. Lefèvre, 1832). Whether history or marvel comic the statement rings true.

Disclaimer: The devotion section of this blog is merely my attempt to seek out understanding of what I believe, why I believe and the practical application thereof. I am by no means a ‘perfect’ ‘holy’ ‘religious’ person as commonly evidenced by my previous blogs–but then again, no one–absolutely no one is. But I do have an unabashed faith in God and identify as a Christian. Everyone seeks ‘enlightenment’ their own way depending on their experiences in life and their faith or lack thereof. Agree, disagree–my views are just that…my views and contemplations. Sometimes it helps to write them down.

I’ve never been good at devotions. I grew up in a Christian , first church I went to was Calvary Christian in Costa Mesa, California…I want to say I also went to school there? It was a really long time ago…met my first best friend in school there in pre-school/kindergarten. I recently reconnected with her on facebook after 26 years of silence between us when my family moved.

My younger sister was always amazing at devotions, wrote in her journal diligently always talking to God (praying). That was never ‘me’. I loved books but devotional books were also SO dry, or way to ‘candy-coated’ religious fluff for me to stomach. In my pre-teens I attempted to read the entire Bible in a year–lasted 3 weeks-ish. I was a rather odd pre-teen…I had a rather morbid fascination and read about the Holocaust more than my devotions or the Bible.

So my mom bought me a book “Devotions for Women on The Go” by Stephen Arterburn and Pam Farrel and I’ve started going through it. Now granted I’ve only read like 8 of them and to be honest its a little ‘sunshine out the @$$’ for me, but I will persevere because despite that it is succeeding somewhat in making me think about my own life.

The book is dated, one page of ‘devotion’ per day and I started Sept. 3, 2011, my goal is to get through a year of this and see what happens…if anything, and to generally muse about my faith in comparison to ‘whats out there’ and how others of my belief system and other belief systems see the topics/values covered. This first entry will be long as I play catch up over the last several days. So this’ll end up a walk through my own faith as well I suppose…who knows, lets see shall we?