The fall

I'm a really big fan of analogies. I'm a visual learner, and applying situations I do understand to something I don't works really well. Among the many things I don't understand about God, one of them is


why in the world he uses people to do his work. 



At church last Sunday, Jake shared an amazing comparison with us in an attempt to help us understand what it's like working alongside God.

We've all seen the child-sized rakes often sold at toy stores. Why in the world do those even exist? Why do parents purchase these tools for their children? In the picture above, you can see a boy helping his father rake leaves in the yard together. The boy is helping his dad around the house, enjoying a Saturday afternoon at home with family. The dad doesn't actually expect the child to rake the yard. He's not relying on the boy to get the work done, he doesn't need him.

He just wants his son to be beside him, to spend time with him and to work with him. The father fully anticipates on raking the yard himself. He doesn't send his son to the other side of the yard, tell him to meet him in the middle and then become suprised and disappointed when he doesn't finish the work.

Similarly, God doesn't need our help to do his work, but he invites us to be a part of it because he wants us to work alongside him, to get to know him better, to be with him. He fully anticipates on completing the work he's started and he's not disappointed when we fail him. We can't miss the point, because otherwise we're aimlessly working on a task we can't complete. One that wasn't intended for us to be able to finish without him in the first place.

Just a thought.

A new take on Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord..."

We've all heard this verse before. Most of us have probably written it in a card, texted it to someone or rattled it off when someone is doubting or nervous about an unexpected circumstance happening in their life. 

The first time I heard this verse was in the 8th grade. My mentor at the time, Julie Staley, would constantly recite it to her daughter and me in the backseat of her Volvo when we complained about normal junior high girl problems. It's a wonderful verse and a great reminder of God's hand guiding our way. In class on Monday, I was blown away by how huge this verse is when read in its context.

AJ gave us a bit of a history lesson that has my head still spinning, but here's a quick background:

Babylon came into Jerusalem and completely and utterly annihilated it. Not only that, but they took people, exiles, back to Babylon. So, Jeremiah chapter 29 is Jeremiah's letter to the exiles while they're in Babylon. I'd encourage you to read the whole chapter, but here's a bit of it:

vs.7 "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare..." 

In verse 1-6, Jeremiah is quoting instructions from the Lord to find houses, get married and build a garden in Babylon. So, they've just been totally attacked and had their entire lives destroyed, now they've pretty much been kidnapped and he basically tells them, get comfortable. It's going to be a while.


Seek the welfare of Babylon. The city that raped your children, murdered your family, burned your homes and defiled your temples. Then took you back to live with them.

This is an entirely new take on 'turning the other cheek'. AJ used this passage as a compass for our hearts. How do we feel about the city we're in? How do we feel about Portland?

I feel incredibly convicted when I recount situations God put me in that I Jonah-ed...

(Jonahed: verb. To run away or leave from a situation God puts you in because you're selfish/lazy/prideful. I made it up and would like it to be a real word, feel free to pass it along.)

Jobs that I thought were hard and not very rewarding, relationships with people who were annoying or hard to love, a city that I found disgraceful. We were reminded in class that ministry can't happen when we're pointing fingers, comparing wounds or keeping a record of wrongs.

If God can use Jerusalem in Babylon, he can use us wherever he has us. We just need to have willing hearts that trust him when he says he knows what he's doing. Nothing is out of his hands, even outrageously devastating things.

Knowing a bit of the context, doesn't verse 11 seem like a huge breath of fresh air?

Just a thought.

Grammar snob.

All growing up, I remember my mother cutting me off in the middle of sentences and asking me "Who? Who did that? You and WHO?" to point out that I was mistakenly saying "Me and Ash" as opposed to "Ashby and I" or whatever proper form the sentence called for. This led me to become more aware of other people's sentence structure, pronunciation and overall grammar.

People who misspell or misuse a word get very little grace in my book. I instantly notice typos, wrongly used forms of 'there' or any other common, elementary mistake. My sister and I have blacklisted people who use weather instead of whether. It's become our number one deal-breaker in relationships.

So, what does this have to do with the Bible?

Well. In class, we were going over a few of the basic basics. Who wrote what book, where it came from, etc etc. The Old Testament is written mostly in Hebrew, some Aramaic.

The New Testament, which holds the story of Jesus Christ life and death,
                                is written in common Greek.
The lowest form, the least impressive. The stuff fishermen and slaves could understand, IF they could read.

My teacher explained to us that the scribes were the highly educated people who knew how to read and write among a culture that didn't know how to. But God chose his living Word, the only book given to us, to be written in the 'dumbest', least eloquent form of the language. He wanted everyone to be able to read it, understand it and apply it across the social class spectrum. He didn't write a Shakespearean version of Scripture expecting us to catch up to it. 


God does not care about grammar, spelling, 
extensive vocabulary or the use of semi-colons.

We do, a lot. We hold spelling bees, we practice penmanship and give vocabulary tests. We judge the intelligence of a person based on whether or not they can move letters around well enough.

Shouldn't we be a people marked by love, grace, forgiveness and truth instead of linguistics?

Just a thought.

The first soap opera

Here are a few things I walked away with after my Old Testament Survey class. My wonderful teacher, AJ, challenged us to peer into the unique life of Noah.

The Old Testament has always piqued my interest, but it is definitely a hard book to study without knowing the context or history. My favorite book is probably Genesis.

Scandal after scandal, this book never disappoints. Whether it's recapping the story of two daughters getting their father inebriated enough to take turns sleeping with him or empowering women with the story of Hagar, it's a page turner (not to mention the foreshadowing of Jesus Christ woven through the chapters).

We only focused on the life of Noah. Actually, we only focused on one or two verses. For those of you who didn't grow up with flannelgraphs or missed the movie Evan Almighty, Noah was asked by God to build an ark to save his family during the flood. Noah and his family were the only ones saved during the flood due to his righteousness and because he walked with God. (Gen6:9)

So. Noah obediently built a huge ark and patiently waited on it during the flood. Once he was off the ark and starting his life over, he planted a vineyard and again patiently waited.

                In celebration, he drinks of the wine,
                                  gets drunk and falls asleep naked in his tent.

Any time "naked" is mentioned in the Bible, it has negative connotations and is usually equated with shame (except in Gen1, before Adam and Eve sinned). 

And you thought you couldn't relate to the Bible...the most righteous man on the earth acted like a frat brother during rush week. 

In the morning, Noah's son Ham saw his nakedness and ran out and told everyone. His two other sons, Shem and Japheth "took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders and walked in backwards and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness." (9:23)

There are two reactions we can have to people's sin. We can run out and tell everyone,

                                          or we can walk in backwards.

Shem and Japheth didn't exploit their father's shame and take advantage of his mistake, they honored him even in a moment of weakness.

How do we respond to situations like this? When highly respected, godly leaders make mistakes, do we gossip and judge? Or do we walk in backwards and cover them? I wonder what the church would be like, what our families, relationships and marriages would be like, if we all walked in backwards.

Just a thought.