Israel or Unreal

Today was my first day in Jeruaslem.  Quite an experience.

First, my flight arrived from Amsterdam at 2:30 in the morning.  Thinking that is was not the best time to be hanging around Jerusalem, I waited at the airport til 5 and then took a taxi.

Taxi arrived at 6, but registration didn’t begin until 9. 

Those 3 hours of just waiting around and trying to figure out what to do where pretty brutal.  I tried to sleep on a park bench, but flies were swarming around me.  I tried to find a grassy spot and camp out, but I felt weird because it was right by a street with people.

Well, 9 finally came and I got registered.

Everythign was going cool until…The Supermarket

Not only do people who work in the supermarket not speak English, but the price of food is rediculous. Like 6 dollars for deoderant.  4 dollars for a can of jelly.  To make it all worse, I have no idea how to shop. I have never had to buy food for myself because I have lived in the dorms each year at school.

Needless to say, it is going to be an experience.

Hair Cut

I usually get a haircut about twice per year.  But this year things are shaping up to be a little different. I am slowly straying away from having long hair, which is just way too hot during the warm summer months, and turning toward a shorter more groomed look.  The problem with a shorter haircut is that is more expensive.  As soon as the sides start geting shaggy it is necessary to get a little trim and bring it back to the way it should be.

The day before I left for the Netherlands I asked my mom to cut my hair.  It was spur of the moment and I didn’t really give my mom a good idea of what I wanted to haircut to look like, so it didn’t really turn out that well.  So I went and grabbed my brothers beard trimmer and cut some more hair off.  It was a bad move.  My hair ended up looking like a grown out military cut.  Like some marine had been left on some desserted island and then came back to civilization. 

I kept my cubs hat on until this afternoon when I finally got a haircut.

I walked into the dutch barbershop “kapper” for my appointment and the girl cutting my hair asked me what I wanted.  Luckily it was in english so I could understand.  I told her that I tried to cut my own hair and that she needed to fix it.  She said, “You should never cut your own hair again.” The dutch really know how to put it straight and not beat around the bush.  The haircut is pretty standard.  I wouldn’t say it was like Marshall’s euro-mullet, but it is a pretty legit crew cut.

Socialism and Capitalism

Now that I am in the Netherlands I have found myself having intense conversations with almost every person that I come across.  The most memorable has been a conversation that I had with the dad of one of my friends.  I don’t want to go into the specific details that are associated with Socialism and Capitalism, because there is no way that I can summarize everything in a short blog entry.

What it comes down to is that there is a love-hate relationship that a person will have with socialism.  When first talking with them, they will defend socialism to the end and go on about how America needs to change and begin to embrace it.  They always bring up this specific point, “without socialism, how are the people who can’t work cared for?”

An American must not take this for face value because “cannot work” has a much different meaning in the Netherlands than it has in US.  In the Netherlands a person can use almost any excuse in the book to stop working and start receiving money from the government.  So, when a socialist brings up this problem they don’t understand that in America we do care for people who cannot work, but they must legitamitely not be able to work.

Another problem is that in socialism it is only good for the middle class and lower class.  Rich people hate socialism because it sucks them dry. Well, I have to get going, but there are pluses and minuses to socialism.  I am still not sold on one way, because they both work, just in different ways.

A shot, or 4

 

Why does a Starbucks double-shot come with 3 shots?

I asked for an extra shot to combat tiredness, and the final result was 4 shots. I thought double meant 2.

Let it End

With 2 days of finals and less than two weeks before I leave the country for the summer you think that it would be easy to focus on finishing things up.

Not so.  I am having loads of difficulty finishing up school for this year and gearing up to spend a summer in Israel.  Not only is it difficult to sit down and study, but I have been having distractions come at me from about every angle possible.

For some reason I have decided that I want a car.  One could say, or might have already said to me, “Dave, you’re leaving for the entire summer, why would you ever try to buy a car?  It is just going to sit and it will be a waste of money.”

Point taken.

In life I think that each person tries to do things that anchor them to the world.  By this I mean that we make decisions based upon current feelings and circumstances without taking into account the whole picture.  And by we I am mean me. 

Instead of seeing the big picture of life.  Like what does God want to do with the life of David Stoffer or Joe Blog reader and how is he preparing it.  Not, ‘I want to feel better about the current situation that I am in so I will find a way to make that happen.’

For me it has been a car.  My thought is that buying a sweet old car will help me to feel better about being in Columbus and enjoy it more.  That’s not true.  The truth would really be, A sweet old car would be a burden, it would be a waste of money because it is a gas guzzler and would need to be fixed up.  That is the truth.

What I really need to do is to realize that God has brought me to Columbus and he has a will for me that is different than the 50,000 people that surround me.  Maybe not fitting in here in Columbus is a message that I will not be living in the United States.  Maybe it means that I am not anchored down anywhere here, have not signed a lease, or don’t have any big time requirements because God has a plan that I am not sure of yet.

Trust is an uphill battle.  I have to consistently ask for more of it.  It also helps to have people around who don’t allow me to make dumb decisions.

So now it is time to get back to studying and to finish up strong without distractions.

The Social Gospel

I was talking with my buddy Glenn earlier today and we starting chatting about social justice and the gospel.  And my take was that a pretty big theme as of late is to perform acts of social justice for those who are in need.  The theme says that Christian should go and help out the homeless, feed the hungry and do anything that pertains to doing acts of service.  Most Christians will go on and on about this and bring up people like Mother Teresa, Ghandi or that book Irresistible Revolution. They also try to make other Christians who are not performing these social acts to feel like they are letting God down.

I want to address this situation once and for all.  This is going to sound ridiculous at first, but hopefully you will understand.  God does not need your works.

Jesus has already done everything for us when it comes to works.  He conquered death, rose again, and was glorified at the right hand of the Father to show that he had completed everything.  There are no more acts that need to be performed in order for man to be on better terms with God.  We have already been invited into eternal life and have everything taken care of because of Jesus.

As a result of the completion in Christ our works have been prepared for us beforehand.  That means that our works must be ordained by God and done through the Holy Spirit because there is no way for man to please God with his flesh.  So, I do not want to negate works as a whole because I know that works are what will come from a person who is following the Lord and has the Holy Spirit living inside of them.  But, the problem is that our focus is falling away from being like Jesus to doing Jesus things.  What I mean by this is that we try to think of things that Jesus would probably do if he lived wherever I live right now, instead of seeking after Jesus by developing the fruits of the spirit and allowing the spirit to change us from the inside out.

We are trying to go out and change the world before we are first changed.

I think that there is a way to go about giving glory to God that can result in works, but is more focused on who God is.  I believe that proper way to go about giving glory to God is…

1.  The holy spirit working in the lives of those who are saved and producing the fruit of the spirit.  This fruit is produced by the holy spirit. Therefore there is absolutely no glory of man that should be confused with it.  So, when someone says to you, “bro, you are so patient with that person who is an idiot”  Your response is, “Ya, God did it.  Not me.”  That is bringing glory to God.

2. The holy spirit working through the lives of those who are saved to love those who are both in the church and out of the church.  First those in the church. 

Kinda a repeat of what I was saying earlier, but our focus has shifted from personally being in love/fear/reverence with God to doing stuff that we think he would support.

Future Schooling?

Something I find myself thinking about is school beyond school.  There have been a few times here at Ohio State when I have thought about entering into Seminary after I finish with my undergrad.

Well, before I get to carried away I want to stop myself and confront how I truly feel about school.  The way I feel about school is this.  I don’t like it.  It is necessary, it is growing, it is challenging, it is annoying, it has moments of brilliance, it can be fun, but most of all, it is school.  The right thing to do is to finish, and that is what I am going to do, but there is no way that I could make myself continue on past undergrad.

What I have realized about myself in the last few years is that I have a natural aversion to sitting in a class, doing homework and studying.  Because of this natural aversion, college has been a place of personal growth the the extreme and for that I am thankful.  But, being honest with myself, I cannot subject myself to such pain for any longer.

In life there is a need for knowledge.  Reading through the biographies of men that God has used to impact this world with his love, they are men that loved to learn.  Men that were professors at Universities, Pastors, Teachers, Lawyers and Revivalists.  The one thing these men had in common was a strong desire to learn and to study the bible.  And don’t get me wrong, I want to study the bible as well, and I really enjoy it, but it is the atmosphere of school.  The atmosphere at Ohio State is hostile to a Christian and is incredibly testing.

It is interesting the places where God takes his children.

True Salvation

Right now I am about a quarter of the way through Pilgrim’s Progress and it has utterly blown me away.  It is clear the John Bunyan has an incredible grasp of the word, both in writing and understanding the bible.  Bunyan has chronicled the Christian walk down to the utmost detail.  Each and every chapter of Christian’s life can be understood by any Christian of today.

The book was written a little less than 400 years ago and it is totally relevant to today.  What other book besides the bible can have such a reputation?

Well, the part of the book that really got to me and cut me to the core was regarding a character named Talkative.  This character was a guy that Christian and Faithful ran into on their walk.  Talkative came off as knowing the bible, being a Christian himself and being smart and helpful.  Faithful enjoyed talking with the man and thought that he had great things to say.  But after they finished speaking, Christian told Faithful that this man Talkative was a fake, that everyone who had known him for a longer amount of time could tell that he did not live according to the way he spoke.  So Faithful went back to Talkative and spoke with him about the necessity of living out the Christian life and not merely just talking it. He said that a true Christian will totally hate sin, hate it so much that they cannot return to the same sin that they once lived in. Talkative responded by saying that Faithful was judging him and left. 

This is SO applicable to today.

Our society is plagued with men and women who talk the Christian talk, but do not live the Christian life.  We are men and women who believe that we can fall on the crutch of God’s grace and that we deserve it.  That we are a privileged group of people that do not have to turn away from sinful lifestyles in order to receive God’s grace.

I believe that we have lost any sense of “working out salvation with fear and trembling.”

We must begin to HATE sin, we must turn away from anything that is contrary to God.  We must embrace the exclusivity and jealousy of God when it comes to serving him.  We must love one master and hate the other.

I know that I do not want to be just a ‘talkative’ who knows how to say the right things, but I so desire to be one who has been changed from the inside out and cannot stand anything less than doing God’s will at all times.  We must cease the cheapening of God’s grace and allow it to change our hearts.

What Do Christians Do On the Weekend?

I think that I am slowly getting disconnected from the way that most people live life. Not in the way of knowing what goes on, but in the way of me participating.  As most of you know my time at Ohio State has been different from the 99% of students that are here.  For the typical Ohio State student the weekend is a time to find a place to drink and then get drunk.  The interesting thing is that the weekend is not just a Friday Saturday thing, but it always includes Thursday and during the spring quarter it contains Wednesday and sometimes Sunday and Tuesday.  That means that there is one night during the week to take a break from partying, and that is Monday.

But I am not into the party/bar/nightclub scene.  I remember the last time that I went to a nightclub was last summer and it was pretty disgusting.  The place was probably just like what my residents attend on the ‘weekends’ and the dress for the girls is the same.  The thing is though, where does all of this ‘weekend’ business leave Christians?

I really don’t know what I even enjoy anymore.  I don’t enjoy the things I used to enjoy when I was in high school, and I know I don’t enjoy what average college students enjoy.

All I can come up with is that I don’t belong in this world.  But, I still live in it and I will be living in it for the upcoming years, so it will work itself out.

Whats With Diversity?

Just recently I had to write a reflection on the diversity unit that we are covering in RA class and this is what I said.

Another thing that I have been thinking about is the word diversity and how people use it, compared to what it really means. Since high school I have felt like diversity is a word that is thrown around without much thought.  To me it seems like diversity has been made out to be people who are not in the majority, as in everyone except for white christian men and women.  This bothers me because I believe that each and every person is different from the other.  They make not look different on the outside, but on the inside each and every person is different.  Meaning the focus needs to be taken off of the physical diversity and include the entire person.  Also, there are many people who are looked down on for not coming from a diverse background.  For example.  I personally went to a high school just west of Chicago which is one of the most famous high schools for advocating ‘diversity’.  But there have been other people in classes of mine here at Ohio State that have come from towns where they have never met a Jewish person, don’t have any black friends and have never learned any language besides English.  The diversity mindset that we have at Ohio State makes these people look inferior and not possessing any knowledge of diversity.  That is so wrong.  The people from these small rural towns in Ohio have a unique diversity of their own that needs to be embraced and understood by the majority.  Overall, we need to review what diversity really means and stop trying to make our own definition.