A Few Brilliant Ideas...: impossiblesitutations

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Devotions

"At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you uturn and vbecome like children, you wwill never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 xWhoever humbles himself like this child is the wgreatest in the kingdom of heaven.

5 y“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, 6 butzwhoever causes one of these alittle ones who believe in me to sin,1 it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."

Today is Matthew 18. I fell asleep last night promising myself I would read my devotions when I awoke. Unfortunately I woke up at 4 PM, so here I am. This evening I was struck by the audacity of the disciples. They openly ask Jesus who is the greatest in God's kingdom for the obvious purpose, I first thought of becoming the greatest. I mean that's why I would ask. However, as I thought over the question again, it occurred to me that the disciples might be asking Jesus something much more serious. Was it possible the disciples were asking if God was the greatest in heaven? This claim was equally audacious, however, as I ponder it further, I realize this can't be the case. The context of Jesus's reply implies that the disciples question was indeed geared at the former. Besides, at this point in the scriptures the disciples would have had to be blind to realize that Jesus was not synonymous with God, what with the dove descending upon him, His commands for the winds and seas to stop, and most recently the transfiguration where he tabernacled with God, Elijah, and Moses. The disciples knew for certain that Jesus was God. Peter we know for sure as he confesses it back in Matthew 16:16 "Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”" It would be silly for the disciples to ask this question for any other reason than to find out how they could obtain greater position in God's kingdom. However, they also asserted Jesus as God, once again, for only God knows the nature of heaven.

I've often pondered what I'd ask Jesus if I ever got to meet Him on this earth. "Jesus, why did you make mosquitoes?" But honestly, this is one of the better of the disciples' questions. All over the Bible we see the questions regarding how to defeat our sin, and the answer is always to become like Christ. Since Christ, God, is the greatest in Heaven, by reason we must become more like Him. This makes Jesus's answer interesting, as it tells us a piece of the nature of God. Jesus says that only those who are like children will enter the kingdom of Heaven, however, the greatest is he who "humbles himself like this child." God is the greatest of all, because he is the one who has most greatly humbled himself. If you think the magnitude of God's glory, and how much greatly above us He is in his attributes: perfect, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. God is infinitely more glorious than we are, and yet he humbled Himself as a child, in the form of Jesus. Not only has He humbled himself into human form, but into the form of a babe in swaddling clothes, born in a stinking stable. The other day I was thinking about how different the Bible story would be if Jesus was a prince rather than a poor child. I came to the conclusion, He would no longer be God, at least not the God I know. God is the greatest because He has most greatly humbled himself. We should therefore make ourselves more like Christ, humbling ourselves to be like Him. At the Resolved retreat I just got back from, the preacher talked about Jesus washing the disciples' feet. We need to be willing to wash one another's feet, perhaps not literally, but doing equally undesirable tasks in order to humble ourselves.
God connects himself with children here, or perhaps more accurately all the virtuous traits a child has, is similar to the nature of God. God is not limited by social boundaries. He is innocent. He loves to make things. He is enthusiastic. God is childlike in nature. We should become more like Him.
The last point of the passage is God's overwhelming love for children. You can see in the passage Jesus's severe warning for someone who harms children. God has a blazing, fire-filled, passionate love for children. This is true for those who are very young, who do not belong to Him, but it is also true for those that He has adopted into His family. The church. The body of Christ. The next time you face a challenge, remember this, God has not only chosen each one of us as one of His children, not only ransomed us from sin. God loves you passionately, with an undying love. His wrath against those who assault those who believe in Him is great. He will take care of us. None of us needs to fear.
So live encouraged, children of God. When you feel small, God is big. He is with us in the valleys and the peaks. Give praise to Abba, our heavenly father.
Sincerely,

Thoughts of a Wayfaring Child

Ick. Wet.

I think most people agree when I say that having wet socks is one of the most nasty feelings that could will ever experience.

This weekend I went on a "Fight Camping Trip" to WC where I was informed we would camp outside in the backyard. In case you don't know, Fight is a book study that some college guys from our church do for we, the younger gentleman. In other words, when the messaged finished at 12:30, we played poker till 3:00 AM.

Well, when I heard "camping" trip. I determined camping would be involved... Then it rained.

Call me an idiot, but hey... I'd come here to camp and that's what I planned to do, so I grabbed my sleeping bag and pillow and made my way out through the drizzling rain to the tent. Rain. Tent. I should be okay... I thought, making my way through the rain to the tent.

It took me a good two minutes to figure out how to open the tent, and when I finally did I heard growling from inside. One of them was growling at me, which I assumed to be jokingly, and we had a coherent conversation. Apparently, he was sleep talking. He can't remember the conversation.

I should have been more frightened.

There was enough room in the tent for my large form, which is something that isn't always true when camping. It appears the rain scared a lot of them away, wimps. That left me and a bunch of soon-to-be-freshman (similar to he-who-shall-not-be-named). I spent a little while wriggling around trying to find a comfortable position. As I reached my feet out across the tent, I felt the edge of my sleeping bag turn cold and wet. "Wuh-oh" I muttered and curled inward. The issue was I knew that now I couldn't lay completely stretched out... I needed to. I spent the next hour or so tossing around, while attempting to remain quiet for my fellow rough-it-sleepers. Eventually I drifted off to sleep somewhere between 3:30 and 5:00 AM. I awoke again at 6:00 AM, in what seemed like seconds, to the rising of the sun and the chirping of the birds. I quickly lamented my lack of sleep then attempted to go back to sleep till about 7:00, at which point I gave up and just went and sat in a chair. Why? I was soaked from shoulder to toe. The tent had slowly pooled with water throughout the night, leaving my sleeping bag sopping wet. I never knew how nasty a wet sleeping bag felt until I woke up covered by it.

Back to the wet sock bit. Wet socks are nasty. Awful. Terrible. Well what I discovered through this experience is that a sleeping bag is just like a giant sock. This is not a metaphor. This is reality. This is unghhhhhhh. If you know that terrible wet sock feeling, perhaps you can sympathize.

This is the last time I camp in the rain. I've done my time.

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A Few Brilliant Ideas...

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