I shouldn't be posting this late, but. . .

This is important.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a "Love is patient, love is kind. it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

And a note from my study Bible-
Paul says that love "is patient." Sometimes we're irritated or angered by others, and we don't know why. Not all irritability stems from sinful or selfish motives, although the irritable treatment of others is surely wrong. Much irritability comes from a love of perfection, a deep desire that programs, meetings, and structures be run perfectly. A desire to run things perfectly can erupt into anger at events or people who get in the way or ruin that desire. Those who are easily irritated need to remember that perfection exists only in God. We need to love him and our fellow Christians, not the visions we have for perfection here on earth.


I think that, generally speaking, if what we are doing is out of our deep love for Christ, He will do great things through us and for us. However, once we lose sight of exalting Him and glorifying His name, we are done for. I need to keep Christ and the furthering of His Kingdom as my focus for the rest of the week.

You know what will help me focus? Sleep. I'm gonna go do that.

VBS!!

I think the best subtitle for this entry is "Just How Dorky Ben Beck Really Is." "Excited but Exhausted" is a close second (between getting back from MI, the 2 days of 6 hour long workshops, Homeland performances, the insomnia from the other night (see previous entry), Wizard of Oz rehearsals (and trying to find time to learn the book. . .) and VBS setup and planning, I have been going and going and going. So worth it, but still, my body is not exactly happy with me. . . at least I'll get a good 6 hours tonight! Right? . . . right?).

Anyway, I've been working with the worship/music crew headed up by the amazing Uppercue duo (trio if you include Hannah). My role is two-fold: I run the Powerpoint (Keynote for Mac) for the morning rally and then I am the rehearsal pianist for the 30-minute music class for the bigger kids rotation in the second half of the day. We spent last Saturday and Sunday decorating the foyer and sanctuary, making it into an Egyptian prison and palace (it's the story of Joseph) (he goes from the prison to the palace, fyi). It looks amazing- the people who came up with the columns and camels (pretty sure that was Gowen & Co.) did a wonderful job. We've been staying up late writing scripts (yeah OM and DI!) and making the A/V presentations, and I've been having a blast. I don't really think of myself as much of an actor, but I think I am a pretty decent writer (at least in the sense that what I write is written in an interesting style, even if sometimes it's verbose and/or of an uninteresting topic to the reader). And playing with colors, effects, transitions, hyperlinks, timings, adding audio, etc. in Keynote is a major tribute to my dorkiness (I made a Christmas list on Powerpoint when I was 10 years old; I think it even had hyperlinks. . . I also remember making a PP for Spanish in high school, and unbeknownst to my partners on the project, I added a slide at the end where an alien landed and then it blew up the screen (OK, OK, it was about Aztec or Mayan religion, and there was some connection to extraterrestrials; it wasn't THAT random) (c'mon, didn't you see the new Indiana Jones movie?) (on second thought, I hope that you haven't- it was pretty terrible)).

All that to say this: today went really well, and I anticipate the rest of the week to go just as well. I LOVE sharing God through sharing music. And to get to do it with children? Amazing. Truly amazing. Though I prefer older ones (like MS and HS) I like to work with younger ones too. Truthfully it doesn't matter the age as long as its music; I just think with my personality I connect better to students who are a little older.

Besides, there's not much that can beat watching your pastor full-body tackle the worship leader on stage (Craig was Joseph, and myself, Dan, and Hank were his brothers, and we were jealous so we beat him up and threw him into a well. Except that some of us did not anticipate such a. . . forceful portrayal of the story, so we ended up busting up laughing on stage) (and by we I mean me).

I have so many other things to update with: MI stories and pictures and job stuff are the first two that come to mind, but I'm sure there's more. There's so much more. There's always mooooooooooooore.

(reference to Falsettoland, if you didn't catch that)

Wow. Somebody's tired. I think this is my most spastic entry yet.

I'm 22!

insomnia

*This will probably be a garbled mess- however, since I can't think of anyone who would appreciate a call at 4 AM on a Saturday morning, this is where I'm going to sort through some things. Hopefully you as the reader hear some echoes of the voice of God through this.

4:39 AM. I've always said I'm more of a night-owl, but this isn't exactly what I mean. For me, a night of insomnia generally means that I am/have been seeking out something more to fulfill my current situation. What silliness; what more could I ever need than the developing relationship with my Lord and Savior? And yet somehow, that human nature gets in the way, and all of the sudden we find ourselves going down paths that are subtly (or obviously) off the path that He has set before us, and we end up emptier than we started. I say "we" because I assume I'm not the only one who experiences this. It doesn't matter what it is that we are seeking- money, power, acceptance, stability, higher position/roles, love- it is always with a selfish motive, no matter how much we might try to convince ourselves that it is not. And it's ugly. If you are a believer, then you probably understand the struggle of wanting to become more Christlike and yet somehow still having to fight with the inner sin nature. For me, it's like. . . I've made the choice, isn't that enough? Unfortunately, no. Sometimes I think that we begin to work out our salvation, and then God starts to work in us (see here), and as soon as that happens, we figure we have "fulfilled our obligation" and expect God to carry us the rest of the way. He didn't make it easy on any of the "Big Bible names" (Moses, Joseph, Abraham, David, nor His Son Jesus, just to name a few). In fact, now that I'm actually thinking, I know that this has been my approach, although maybe I haven't been conscious of it until now. The other part is that there are the forces of evil working against anything and everything that might lead others to Christ. This might be the 5 AM talking, and I don't know that I can explain this any better than to say that I felt earlier tonight that there was some kind of evil presence in my apartment. I can't claim that for a fact, but this wasn't something new, and I've noticed a similar feeling before (on nights that I've had sleep paralysis, for example, or other nights where I've fallen away as I have tonight). Awareness is key I think in spiritual warfare. My question (for myself mostly) is WHY IS MY FIRST RESPONSE SOMETHING OTHER THAN PRAYER AND SEEKING OUT HIS VOICE? Probably because it's easy to shrug off. We don't really live in a society that (for the most part) accepts the idea of actual spiritual presence in our everyday lives. In some ways, I think tribal peoples have a better situation because of that- I can remember hearing a story from a missionary about demon possession, and while it is easy to laugh that off or say, "No, that doesn't really happen anymore," the fact of the matter is that if we believe in divine presence of God, we are in the wrong to assume that fallen angels and Satan aren't just as real.

I've been reading John the past few days. What an interesting book- quite different from the rest of the Gospels. This passage is encouraging to me, and somewhat related: "If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."(here's the entire chapter).


This is somewhat stolen/modified, but I think it's a great way to wrap this all up: God may love us as we are, but He also loves us far too much to leave us where we are.

a quick post

I have much more to say about many a topic, but I have something that was encouraging to me that I read on the plane ride to Michigan and I wanted to share it before I forget to. So, go read 2 Peter.

Happy Father's Day!

still learning to listen

A lot of things struck me tonight, and (without meaning to sound blasphemous) I think that sometimes God gets tired of dropping subtle hints and instead goes for more of what I call "hitting you over the head with a hammer" type tactics, and that's how I kind of feel tonight (not pounded into a pulp, nor even overwhelmed by forcefulness, but impacted greatly enough that I can't just let this stuff go without giving it a second look).

So many distractions!! Sorry.

So, here, in no particular order (generally I'd do chronological but at this point I actually want to get away from the computer and my phone and just spend some alone time) are some of the things bouncing around in my head- there may or may not be connection between some or all of them. That's what I'm trying to figure out.
(PS a lot of this is stolen- I'm just putting down what is prompting the thinking of tonight)

- I was reading Ephesians earlier tonight and a few things stuck out: that God would make us alive in Christ even while we are still dead in transgression (we don't have to change and become "good" in order to become God's child, but becoming God's child certainly does change us), that each of us have pre-ordained positions, interests, abilities in life that will allow us to carry out His plan (provided of course that we get ourselves out of the way), that He can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine, but it's GOT to be His way and not ours, and that we need to live life carefully, as everything we do must point to Him (and when it doesn't, we aren't doing what we should be).
In other words, everything we do should exalt Jesus Christ (connection 1 made).

- We want God to bring us from Point A to Point B, but we expect for Him to make it easy for us (after all, it is definitely in His power to do so, and we as humans would probably use that power if it were ours to wield). However, it doesn't always (I would say usually) work that way- often the path God sets before us is narrow and at times quite difficult. We've got to realize that the difficulty of the path is not for us to choose; we do have to choose if we will follow His way or get off the course He has set before us (and when we do that, the going gets tougher rather than easier, in the long-term if not in the short-term). If we trust that God is taking us somewhere amazing, then how can we question the way in which He is going to make that happen? It's difficult to really take that step of faith, and it's so easy to fall back into the known, the comfortable, the places where we've already been, but don't we want more than that? Don't we want to become something better, to pursue a life that is blameless and holy and acceptable and honoring to God? It's not our way in to Heaven, but with everything that He has and continues to put up with, it is so selfish to take advantage of filling human desires that do not align with His will (whatever sin we struggle with personally: pride, lust, a critical spirit, whatever it is). The paths He brings us down are a tool for sanctification.

- Is our life an outward expression of everything we feel inside? Sometimes we don't realize how more real of a person we become when we allow our true reaction come out. That is not to say that we should just become emotion spurting machines, throwing out every great and awful attitude we feel in every situation. However, I think sometimes we throw up the shield before we even give people a chance to see what we are experiencing. Like everything else, there's a balance, and everyone's point of balance is relative, but I think it's worth it to take a look at where we each fall on the spectrum and see if we are being "over-reactive" or "under-reactive." I would hazard a guess that most of us are probably the latter.

- Finally (and for me I think this is a very important thing to consider): God doesn't make mistakes.

BatB

I'm too tired to post anything significant right now, but man. . . I am so glad I got involved with Beauty and the Beast. I don't think I've ever been a part of such an amazing performance that sold out EVERY NIGHT. And these were 3-5th graders. I think we all forgot that at some points (except maybe for the people working downstairs. . . haha).

I hope I can work with Craig and the crew next year (and for years to come; who knows?). So many awesome things went on.

Right now, I need to sleep though. I'm hoping to get back into the book review/discussion thing this summer.

2/4 DAYS!!!!!!