Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

Isaiah 12 - You will say in that day:
“I will give thanks to you, O Lord,
    for though you were angry with me,
your anger turned away,
    that you might comfort me.

² “Behold, God is my salvation;
    I will trust, and will not be afraid;
for the Lord God is my strength and my song,
    and he has become my salvation.”

³ With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. ⁴ And you will say in that day:

“Give thanks to the Lord,
    call upon his name,
make known his deeds among the peoples,
    proclaim that his name is exalted.

⁵ “Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;
    let this be made known in all the earth.
⁶ Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,
    for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”

Christmas is about purpose.  So often when it comes to the things that God does, understanding the purpose God has for what he does helps us understand what he is doing.  If knowing God's will is difficult, how much more understanding his purpose?  As so many have said there is no cross without a manger.  Correctly then, we celebrate this time of Christ's coming to us as the time when the redemptive act begins to gather our attention.  However, there is much more to be learned than just this amazing act of redemption.

In Acts 13, when Paul is speaking at the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, he quotes the prophet Habakkuk, and the quote intimates that God does things his own way.  Through his prophets he told everyone for hundreds of years what Messiah would be like, where he would be born, his purpose, how he would die, etc.  In spite of all that forewarning, no one understood what was happening until afterwards.  Why was this the case?  I would argue that it was because of expectations.

When you are a "religious" person there is a pitfall of the utmost danger.  You become familiar with human religious expression and thus you think that you are familiar with God.  Clearly, and thankfully, the two are not the same thing.  So many Christians read about the Pharisees in the Gospels, their failure to understand Jesus, and chide them for their foolishness; yet this is the very same trap we are in danger of falling into.

Consider the events of Jesus' birth from the perspective of Joseph.  Joseph is apparently a righteous man, and he is about to marry a young lady whom he had treated properly and respectfully.  Then he hears she is with child, and he knows it isn't his child.  Even then, he didn't want to humiliate her.  If the explanation he received came from anyone other than an angel, do you think he would have believed it?  "Oh sure, the Holy Spirit! Why didn't I think of that?"  Joseph had to have believed it, or else he would not have been there when the child was born.  As the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians, God's wisdom is foolishness to people.  "Congratulations Joseph!  You get to raise the Messiah as your own son.  And for your trouble, people will laugh behind your back and you'll be exposed to social shame." From the perspective of the world, Joseph was given a thankless task by God, and he did it anyway.  Apparently he also did it well.  Jesus was clearly raised in a devout household.

If Joseph had been convinced that he knew how God worked, he could never have accepted Jesus.  So then, let us not allow expectation to prevent acceptance.  Whether they be expectations about God, or other people.  Expectations have a way of leading to confusion, disappointment, anger and other negatives because we base our expectation on incomplete or bad information.  Our only expectation: Christ will come again.  This has been promised.  The manner has not been fully described to us.  So we say once again: "Come, thou long expected Jesus!"

Merry Christmas to all from Aparri!  The work here continues.  Choir tour has just ended, the choir performed 11 different shows in the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, and Ilocos Norte in northern Luzon.  Those of us attached to the tour in various roles are now resting comfortably after 8 straight days of travel and Filipino hospitality (read: lots of food) from the brothers and sisters who played host to us.  We continue to pray that people were encouraged and edified by the Christmas message that was presented.  I again played to role of assistant light director and stage manager.

Personally, I'm doing pretty well.  I always miss home during the holidays, but it is something that I'm used to now.  On the bright side, it is Christmas day already here, as well as being sunny and hot.  As always the blessings of the Lord sustain me.

Nick

Watching Him Work

So often, a person can take pleasure in watching a craftsmen or artist work.  Especially if that craftsmen is doing something that you know you couldn't do.  You are in awe of the experience and skill that is being expressed.

One of the interesting and most beneficial things about being in my present situation is being able to see how God works.  I've seen so many things, so many examples of how God works in my life but, this time I am just in awe of seeing him work at the Aparri Church of Christ.  In the month of August about 30 people (by my own recollection) were baptized.  So much of this growth has come from neighborhood Bible studies.  Sometimes we forget about the basics, we're concerned about the newest, most seeker sensitive stuff.  It really strikes me that the church is showing some initiative, but God's doing the work.

So many things have been happening here lately, probably the biggest change from previous years has been some additional teaching that I get to do at Philippine Bible Seminary in Vigan, Ilocos Sur.  PBS is a sister school of ABS, and they didn't have anyone to teach Greek, so I'm helping them out twice a month.  It's been going well and I'm excited about being able to help them.  If the school doesn't offer Greek, then they cannot offer the Bachelor of Theology degree that is the mainstay of seminary degrees here.

There is a lot to discuss, I'll have a longer post later.  Until then, God bless.

Nick

"Visiting" the U.S. and Other Observations

So here I am, I've been running around Kentucky and the United States again for the past 2 months or so and I feel obligated to share some thoughts about my "visit" here.  When you live in the Philippines for 9+ months a year and you're only home for 9 or 10 weeks it seems like you're visiting home, not vice-versa.  It is striking to be asked when I'm going home by people here.  It then begins to sink in that yes, I do make my home in the Philippines.  Of course we all remember the saying, 'home is where the heart is', that being the case I'm confident in saying I have two homes, or maybe even three.

For so long it seems like I was interested in how much things were changing in my life.  Moving to another hemisphere can produce a lot of changes.  Now, I'm kind of used to the idea of living in two places on opposite sides of the world, the changes are expected changes, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad.  Possibly it's neither, only a testament to what a person can become accustomed to.  However, part of me thinks that it is bad because that initial trust, the actions that required what, at the time, seemed like such large amounts of faith are now routine sorts of things.  Contrariwise, part of me says that it's good because I at least have a much better idea of what is worth worrying about now.  Life consistently teaches us that expectations have a way of leading to more bad things than good because we start taking things for granted, maybe getting a little prideful, less cognizant of significance and so forth.  The tragedy is that we let this very thing happen in our relationship with the Lord all the time, in both the everyday and not so everyday things. 

One of the more common Christian (and especially Evangelical) refrains of the past 300 or so years has been the idea that nowhere on this Earth is our home.  If the heart is with God in Christ and home is where the heart is, then we get things like "This World Is Not My Home."  That's fine, and it's a great hymn, but I would like to balance it by adding that God is the one who put us here.  Yes, we've done a fine job of messing things up, but it doesn't change the fact that God put us here and we were designed to be a part of what is here. 

So call it home or don't call it home, but I can tell you there will always be affection in my heart for the hills and "hollers" that are Bracken County, Kentucky.  That part of God's creation that we are most familiar with probably inspires some nostalgia for most of us because of all the memories.  There's no reason that this can't be true spiritually.  It is much more dangerous though.  If your most common spiritual place is one of anger, disappointment, apathy; you are going to feel most comfortable there with those spiritual surroundings.  And of course the opposite is true as well.  If you've been blessed enough to exercise a little faith to "test and see that the Lord is good" as Scripture puts it, then you will be as comfortable as you can be there; trusting God and waiting for him to work.

If I live and the Lord wills, I'm about to return to the Philippines for a fourth time.  The first time seemed like a momentous faith event, but in hindsight all three years have presented their own challenges and triumphs, their own spots where momentous faith events occurred.  I think I've said it before, but it's worth repeating.  When you're in the mission field you are constantly reminded how dependent you are on God for what you need.  What I have to keep reminding myself is that this is a fundamental truth wherever I live, in whatever situation.  In essence, nothing has changed in that regard except that I am more cognizant of it.  That, I dare say, is a good thing.  Becoming more aware of it isn't always pleasant; it can be quite challenging.  Just remember that a cliché became a cliché for a reason.  "Let go and let God" reminds us all of church camp, but at some point there is freedom in leaving the worrying behind and knowing God is taking care of you.  It's not easy, I'm not there yet, but I feel like I'm closer than I was before I went to Aparri.

As my comfort level in Aparri increases, I hope that this progress does not reverse itself.  Hopefully we can all develop that comfortable nostalgia with trusting God.

I want to say thank you to everyone for the continued support, both financially and in prayer.  We're all a part of this ministry, no role more important than another.  We're all just doing what God asks us.  Please continue to support this ministry, I'll keep doing my part.

Nick

Old and New

When New Year's comes rolling around, so often we get caught up in the idea of new.  A new year reminds us of some the good things about new things.  Even though most of us can remember a situation where something new turned out to be much less enjoyable, much less beneficial, or much less useful than the old, the month of January brims with optimism about nearly every subject. 

Because of the way that the school calendar is set up here in the Philippines, I get to participate in the odd (to me) combination of new year = mid term tests.  This provides some interesting contrast between something most people are excited about (a new year) and something that most of my students are tired of already (a half completed semester). 

Any close examination of advertising will result in the recognition of two of the most common tools of persuasion: our old friends old and new.  New is exciting, it's better, it's more efficient, it looks nicer.  Old (or classic) is tried, tested, proven, stable and reliable.  It's not often we can learn positive things from advertising but the lesson here is that both old and new have positive aspects to them.  Surprise! Surprise! The bible already tried to teach us this a long time ago.

Regarding old, see Numbers 23:19, Psalm 55:19, and Malachi 3:6.

Regarding new, see Psalm 96, Jeremiah 31:31-34, Lamentations 3:22-24, Ezekiel 18:31, Romans 6:4 and 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Regarding both together: Matthew 9:16-18 (and parallels), and Matthew 13:51-52. 

From that last passage we can see that the truly important thing is finding something of value, be it new or old.  The key to finding has always been recognition.  Recognizing treasure is only part of Jesus point, in his stories about the matter action followed the recognition.  As Jesus points out, you have to able to use something for it to be valuable.

So then, be it old or new, let us be able to discern value, and especially spiritual value in our lives.  Things that will help us be more like Christ in a new year.

As for updates, there is not much to report other than the usual sorts of things.  Teaching ministry involves teaching; a lot of it actually.  We have about 80 full time students for the second semester.  Like I said we just had mid terms.  Graduation is mid-March, and I'm planning on being home to visit shortly thereafter.

As of right now, I fully expect to be back in Aparri next school year.  I've adopted the "until the Lord tells me to do something different, I need to keep working with this ministry and mission" philosophy.  The Lord continues to bless me in countless ways including many I know nothing about.  If the Lord wills, I still want to get my PhD.  at some point, other than that I'm good.  Seeing how the Lord blesses this mission over and over again makes me think that it will be obvious when it is time to move on.  The Lord's will be done.

The school calendar is about to get jammed again, there are many events upcoming including our fellowship with the two other Restoration Movement seminaries in northern Luzon and recitals.  It should be fun. 

Please continue to pray for me and this ministry.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the mission team from Fairview that is headed to Haiti in just a few hours.  Praying for safe travel and that they accomplish their goals for the trip.

Nick