Service...

Emblazoned on the sides of our fire truck is the motto, “We Volunteer Because Your Life Depends On It.”  Its a catchy motto, the idea it portrays is a nice one, for some it might even be correct.  

The question of why do you serve is about as personalized as the minds that pose it.  The altruistic answer is the motto.  I am here, I serve because you depend on me.  Its nothing that I get out of it, its of no benefit to me, it all because of you.  There are probably some that fit into this category, many, probably most, do not.  The other side of the coin is I serve because of what it I can get out of it, completely ME centered.  I can hypothesize or theorize why some serve, why some volunteer, but those are all they would be.  The answer I can give is why I serve.  

As a disclaimer to this thought, my parents modeled service to me my whole life, its probably why I see service the way I do right now.  

In the beginning I served because my parents required me to.  Whether it was ingathering, helping the poor, or some other activity I HATED, they MADE me do it.  They MADE me do it for many years, then they stopped making me.  I had grown into a person that could start to make decisions all on my own, not all ones that my parents approved of, but thats nothing new.  

The next phase of my life came along, I started serving because I was expected to or because thats what all my friends were doing and I didn’t want to be left out.  Building fences at the indian mission and doing community service days spring to mind, service didn’t impact me much further than spending time with my friends, taking weekend trips to fun locations.  

Through the end of high school and most of the way through college my focus on service shifted.  A choir trip to Grand Junction Colorado comes to mind, we were traveling west at sunset on Friday night, for church service’s the next morning.  Our very wise and amazing choir teacher led us in vespers and singing on the bus, the topic if memory serves was service.  Whether it was because of the setting or being around so many AMAZING friends on that trip, the idea of service started to sink in.  

Going to school at Union College in Lincoln Nebraska, I was given the opportunity to be involved in Project Impact.  The school thought service was so important, they canceled school one day a year to devote that day to service.  Forty to fifty sites around Lincoln were picked and students would go and volunteer for the day doing everything from cleaning, to painting, to fixing, to reading…the list goes on.  Again I did it because of friends, this time, it was my sister and her soon to be husband.  As the years went on, that act became second nature, I wanted to be involved with Project Impact.  

In steps Sandy Prindle (Nazario), she flat told me, “Stephen, you need to volunteer as a student missionary in the Marshall Islands.”  I thought it sounded like a pretty cool idea, started down that road…my girlfriend at the time told me that it wasn’t a good idea…what did Stephen do…he caved and decided it really wasn’t Gods will.  As time would have it, we broke up, and my mind drifted to Student Missions.   In 2008-2009 I decided to go to the Marshall Islands and serve God with my “talents.”  That “year for God” (Yes, this is where my blog got its name) was a pivotal year in my life.  It was one of the hardest years of my life.  I came back a changed person, it started being less about my friends doing it, and more about God calling me to do it.  

Coming back from the Marshall Islands, God led me into a career of service, not volunteer, but service.  God then led me to a volunteer career that is another facet of my life of service.  That brings me full circle.  Why am I here, why do I serve?  I serve because God called me here, God place me here, God brought me here.

So do I “Volunteer Because Your Life Depends On It?  You might say its a two way street, I volunteer because it could be your life, or it might be my life that depends on it.  

The ones that get away

Tonight I'm feeling a bit melodramatic.  As many of you know, I've chosen a line of work where I'm frequently in harms way, I deal with life and death every day, sometimes in its cruelest forms.  Working as a trauma nurse at a trauma 1 center, I see the worst that there is, working on a fire department as an EMT and recruit, I see even worse things sometimes.  Nothing prepares you for seeing and feeling what you're going to see and feel.

Many years ago a movie came out, it was about a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, a legend.  He had worked many years and had an impressive career.  Late into the movie a recruit asks him a pivotal question.

It gets you to thinking.  In this line of work, we so seldom remember the successes, but for certain we remember the failures.  Of course the character portrayed in this movie is fictional, but thats not the important part.  The important part is the idea.  

This idea is biblical, in 2 Peter 3:9 it says, 

"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." NIV

God doesn't want any man to perish, but some have and more will.  While God will remember EVERY one he has lost, He has it right, He also remembers EVERY one that he saves.

Lets take a cue from "the author and perfecter", lets remember the ones we loose, but also remember the ones we save.

Homesick for Heaven

As a child, my parents subjected me to cruel and unusual punishment.  On sabbath we HAD to listen to one of their favorite christian artists, Patricia White.  I don't know why at the time I thought it was cruel and unusual punishment, but I sure did.

As I've grown, and matured, those songs that she sang those many years ago mean more and more to me.  The album, White Robe, is nearly like a concert that ends perfectly.

The final song is one called "Homesick for Heaven."  This is a partial set of the lyrics:

My heart longs for Heaven

My heart longs for home

I'm sick and tired of this old world

I just want to go home

I hear my father calling

I know he feels it too

He's lonesome for his little girl

He wants her home real soon

I'm homesick for Heaven

When the family's all back home

I'm homesick for a lot of things, I'm a transplant into the land that I'm in right now, physically and metaphorically.  Physically I came to this land of my own free will, for an amazing reason, to marry the love of my life.  Metaphorically, I had no choice.  Both physically and metaphorically I long for a place other than where I am.  Physically, at least momentarily, I'm content where I'm at right now, metaphorically however I'll never be content where I'm at right now.  

I'm from the mountains, not the Appalachian mountains of the east...I haven't fully decided they constitute mountains, but from the Rocky Mountains.  I grew up in them and they grew up in me.  The same way that happened, God planed a little seed in me, it was called Eternity.  "He has also set eternity in the human heart" Ecclesiastes 3:11.

I dearly hope for someday sooner than later when one or both of those seeds germinate and come to fruition, but for today I will continue listen to the song that means so much to me now.  

Worn

What happens when you hit rock bottom?  What happens when you think you’ve hit rock bottom and you fall even further?  What happens when you just don’t think you can look up to Jesus?  If you’re human, you’ve probably been in one of these situations before, probably more times than you’d like to admit.  So have I, I think its part of being human, one of those unfortunate things that happened with the fall of man.  Before man fell, these issues never were a problem, with such a close communion with God, there was no place for these, but with the bite of that fruit, everything changed.  

Tenth Avenue North has written a song that should come as a relief to those of us who have struggled with these problems.  In three verses they hit the crux of the issue, how it feels, how I feel.  

I’m Tired I’m worn

My heart is heavy

From the work it takes

To keep on breathing

I’ve made mistakes

I’ve let my hope fail

My soul feels crushed

By the weight of this world

I know I need to lift my eyes up

But I'm too weak

Life just won’t let up

And I know that you can give me rest

So I cry out with all that I have left

My prayers are wearing thin

Yeah, I’m worn

Even before the day begins

Yeah, I’m worn

I’ve lost my will to fight

I’m worn

So, heaven come and flood my eyes

Right here we have it, between feeling down, heavy hearted, not being able to breathe, being weak, having a hard life, prayers not being answered, and most of all, just being worn.  That sums up humanity, that sums up me some days (more days than I’d like to admit).  What do we want?  What do we really want?  What do we need is a better question?  What will really fix this?  What will give us the relief that we really need?  They have a very good answer in the last few lines of the song.  The simple answer is we need God and that is the sentiment that the song gives.  

Let me see redemption win

Let me know the struggle ends

That you can mend a heart

That’s frail and torn

I wanna know a song can rise

From the ashes of a broken life

And all that’s dead inside can be reborn

Cause all that’s dead inside will be reborn

The real idea is that we want God to become real in our lives, its not saying that we want him to fix everything right now, its asking him to show us proof that in the end everything WILL work out to the way He says it will.  It comes in words like, let me see, let me know, I want to know, these are all future tense, not present.  This is a bold statement, its the crying of a heart that doesn’t see any other way than to challenge God.  Call me a heretic if you want to, but its my humble opinion that God is ok with challenges like this.  There have been others, primarily in the bible who have made bigger challenges than this.  So long as the challenge is honest, I don’t believe there are any issues with this.

I think Hebrews 4:16 says it best:

So let us keep on coming boldly to the throne of grace, so that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

God, thank you for giving us the reminders both in antiquity and in contemporary that show us how and when to seek you.

My prayer

As many of you know, I'm a musician.  Among many other things, I'm a musician.  Whatever else may be driving my inner being, music is one of them.  God knows this, so does satan unfortunately.  Thinking on the former, not the latter, there are a number of songs that just speak to me, kind of what I think the Psalms say.  So the following lyrics in my book are Psalms, they hold the same lyrical importance, they speak to me just like the Psalms.

I look beyond the empty cross
forgetting what my life has cost
and wipe away the crimson stains
and dull the nails that still remain
More and more I need you now,
I owe you more each passing hour
the battle between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago
So steal my heart and take the pain
and wash the feet and cleanse my pride
take the selfish, take the weak,
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
the sin-soaked heart and make it yours
take my world all apart
take it now, take it now
and serve the ones that I despise
speak the words I can't deny
watch the world I used to love
fall to dust and thrown away
I look beyond the empty cross
forgetting what my life has cost
so wipe away the crimson stains
and dull the nails that still remain
so steal my heart and take the pain
take the selfish, take the weak
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
take my world apart, take my world apart
I pray, I pray, I pray
take my world apart

For those of you who are astute christian music buffs, you'll know that this is from the Jars of Clay song Worlds Apart.  This song has spoken to me ever since I first heard it.  It sums up humanity in general, but my life more specifically.  It talks about being stuck between where satan would have you and where God wants you.  This last section though is where the "psalm" comes out, its the prayer, its pleading to God, its finally understanding the sacrifice, its a petition.  Really its what my heart is saying every time I break Gods heart by doing things that I know I shouldn't do.  This is the prayer I find myself praying, "Steal my heart and take my pain, take my selfish, take the weak, all the things I cannot hide, take the beauty and the tears, take my world apart."

This is not a prayer for the faint of heart, this is a prayer for those who have hit rock bottom, for those who just can't believe that they have fallen again, for those of us like Peter in Matthew 14, having the faith to get out of the boat, but letting pride get in the way.  Its a prayer that we have all prayed at one point or another.  Its my prayer tonight.

I look upon the empty cross, remembering what my life cost, and thank God that he hasn't given me what my sins say I should get.  Thank you God!!

Understanding Stephen

Contrary to what some might think I'm an introvert.  I fake being an extrovert very well, its what society expects of me, but down deep inside, I'm an introvert.  If you want to know how introverts interact with the rest of the world, refer to this graphic and then you might understand me much better.  

Thank you to Dr. Carmella for making this.

Angels and demons

Tonight is friday the 13th, well that and Sabbath the 14th.  I’m sitting at work, my preceptor pulls out her phone and proceeds to turn on her ghost tracker.  She tells me all the places in the hospital and various other places that are haunted and where you see ghosts.  I told her I don’t really believe in ghosts.  I don’t believe that places are haunted per se.  She rallied most of the people working tonight and most of them believe, to one extent or another, in ghosts and things being haunted.

Others came around and told stories about how things are haunted or the places they have seen ghosts.  I’m a bible believing christian, how can I respond to this?  I’ve been thinking about it a bit now.   I don’t believe in ghosts or things being haunted, however I do believe in powers of darkness, ones that aren’t of this world.  I believe that satan and his angels have a presence in our world and that if you open yourself up to that, they will show themselves.

I recall a time in Nicaragua where I could feel the most evil presence I’ve ever felt.  I don’t know if the man was demon possessed, but the feelings I got from him was purely evil.  After that experience, I spent quite a bit of time with God, I felt I had to, it was an innate feeling.

I get that feeling a lot.  The feeling that I have to run home to daddy.  Whether its because I feel that I’ve ventured out to far from him, that I’ve experienced evil, or that  I just don’t know what I’m doing, all of these reasons are good enough for me to run to daddy.  Running home to daddy isn’t only a religious experience.  My daddy on this earth is an amazing man.  One that I’ve followed in his footsteps from a young age.  Sometimes, some situations, I run home to both.  Sometimes I just need to hear and feel that everything is going to be alright.

Back to today.  Do I feel that the room right behind me is haunted or that there are ghosts in my presence?  No, I think not.  I hope that any evil presence that comes my way sees that I have such a connection with my “daddy”-in-heaven that they won’t come anywhere near me, but if they do, i know exactly where I can run to in my time of need.  To a man that will always welcome me in his arms and tell me everything is alright and that nothing can separate me from his love.

I think Romans 8 says things very well.  In verse 15 it says “The Spirit that we received is not a spirit that makes us slaves again and causes us to fear. The Spirit that we have makes us God’s chosen children. And with that Spirit we cry out, “ Abba,[b] Father.” Abba really means Daddy.  Then in verses 38 and 39 it says “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  
I’m not sure if God put this promise in the bible just for me tonight or if there are far bigger and better reasons for it to be in the bible, but one thing I know, it is a comfort that there is NOTHING that can come between God and I and that He likes being called Daddy :)

So what am I doing in the here and now?  I decided it was time to pull out the iPad and play some of my favorite Christian music, mostly hymns done by Fernando Ortega.  Its an album called Beginnings.  I highly recommend it to anyone, regardless of circumstances :)