Familiar Story

I grew up knowing the story (or parable or whatever it technically is) of the Prodigal Son. To the point where I can't even remember hearing for the first time. Well, after a life time of church and Sunday School, this story got a little old for me. I had heard the sermons on it more times than I cared to recall. Well, Tuesday in my Acts and Pauline Epistles class, the story suddenly came to life for perhaps the first time. I discovered that I really didn't know it as well as I had thought I did. The teacher talked about the story and brought to light an interesting point which I think is good for us to mull over every once in a while.

When I mention the story of the Prodigal Son, your thoughts probably turned immediately towards the Prodigal Son. Understandably. Your mind probably flitted through the basic outline of the story, reached the bit about the fatted calf and then trailed off. That seems to be what most sermons do. They end with the fatted calf and how God will forgive the rebel (if he will but fall on his knees and repent today! Can I hear an A-men?! *cough* moving on!) and then briefly mention the other son throwing a hissy fit... or get bitter... or both.

The other thing that seems to happen with most sermons is that the preacher goes through, gets to the end, starts a sermonette on bitterness, using the other son as an example, and then closes with an invitation asking if we're like either one of the sons.

Nothing wrong with either of these things. However, when was the last time you heard a sermon, or more than a half-related rabbit trail in a sermon about the father? The father is really quite interesting once you start to look at him. He forgave both sons before they even asked for it with gifts besides. To the prodigal son he gave a feast and a fatted calf and to the other son he reminded him that he has access to all his father has.

It was the last bit with the other son that made me do another double take. (I already looked twice at the father... I'll explain why in a moment.) Honestly, I have a little bit of a hard time identifying with the prodigal son... mostly because I've never squandered all my money after running away from home. But, I do understand how the other son felt. There he was, serving faithfully the entire time, and it didn't seem like he got any recognition, but then the "bad" son comes home and suddenly there's all sorts of hoopla and the "good" son feels neglected. Now, take a look at Luke 11:31-And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. I think this is rather self explanatory. We sometimes forget that we are joint heirs with Jesus and have access to all of everything because of Him and God. We feel jipped... when we aren't. We're blessed because we don't have the scars the prodigal son has. So yeah, he gets a fatted calf and he, like us, has access to unlimited everything, but he has memories and scars and we don't. See the point I'm trying to make?

Now, back to the father. I might be blind and forgetful, but I honestly cannot remember ever hearing a sermon in which the father in the Prodigal son is paralleled to God the Father. It's pretty obvious, is it not? That was my first double take. the father is the Father and He is always waiting to forgive us before we even ask for it and rejoices when we come home to Him.

The parable of the Prodigal Son is really a beautiful example of the brilliance of Jesus as a teacher, story teller, and author. There are lessons to be learned with each character in it, there are multiple layers of symbolism... it is loaded, simply loaded with meanings and lessons. I strongly, strongly encourage you to go read it. It can be found in Luke 15:11-32.

I know it seems like one of the old, faded, worn out tales from Sunday School, but it is anything but that! It is fresh and vibrant!

Down-right Randomniscity

Is randomniscity a word? *checks on Merriam- Webster.com* Apparently not. I should submit it. It's a good word. Perfectly describes when I post, what I post about, and virtually everything else about me.

Another new word: Predictarandom- Predictable randomness.

Enough with creating words! What is the word for that...? Ah, forget it.

Before I got a word further, I would like to thank you all who prayed for mom's mini-van to be fixed because it was and for much less than originally thought! PRAISE GOD! As a result, they can come up and visit me this weekend for my burfday! WHEEE!!! We shall "eat cookies, drink pop, and be MURry happy." -BC

Anyway! All those who have ever written a story of any sort, or even a poem, can understand how utterly annoying it can be to have a wonderful idea in your head, but when you go to put it on paper have it not translate very well. Such has been the last week. I don't know if it's lack of sleep, too much sleep, or just my poor little mind finally going hay-wire, but my imagination has been all over the place. As a result, I've had some marvelous scenes running through my head that are worthy to be put in a story. However, when I go to write them down something gets lost and the whole thing just dies.

I have been struggling with that all week. That is, until today. I think I might have a breakthrough folks! On paper, it's looking marvelous! I'm hoping this marks the end of my drought of inability to creatively write. It's miserable when you know you can write short and long stories but nothing comes to you. It's nice when you can sit down with a pen and paper and just go and the story just comes. That hasn't happened in a while, so I'm really really hoping it finally is coming back!

I'd love to give you all a small taste of what I'm working on... but I'm going to make you wait. I'm so mean.

Alright, to change gears... I will now take this opportunity to randomly praise God for the awesome great semester He has given me! Missions conference last week was amazing. I now understand why it's so many people's favorite week! I learned a lot about missions, what it is and isn't, that's it not truly a sacrifice... I'm going to park on that last one for a second. As I was giving it thought, I came to the conclusion that serving Christ is not a sacrifice. Nothing given to God is a sacrifice. To give up what you don't need or what is harmful to you isn't a sacrifice. To keep what you don't need or what is harmful to you is foolishness and idiocy.

Let me show you how I worked through this.
It's not a sacrifice to give up drinking pop (carbonated beverage). I don't actually need it, I just like it. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not essential. So no big deal.

It's not a sacrifice to give up smoking (I don't smoke, but I wanted to pick a physically harmful sin/addiction). It's bad for my health and generally harmful. Hard to do because it's addicting, but it can be done and needs to be done.
So...
To let something as silly as "modern conveniences," or the American Dream to keep me from serving God is foolish.

To let some sin in my life (whether it be fear, worry, or unwillingness to serve) keep me from serving God is harmful to my spiritual walk and idiocy.

You all probably saw where I was going with this prior to my little examples, but I always like it when someone introduces a concept and then puts it in the simplest terms possible. Not sure if I did that, but I think I made it a little less foggy.

All for now... Oh, before I scoot off, GO WINGS! and I made that whole Africa wall paper thing. I'm thinking of doing a set of all 6 peopled continents. Might break it down into regions... still undecided. If interest is showed in you peoples actually wanting one of these, let me know and I'll make them in different sizes.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen. (I Corinthians 16:23-24)

-Frank

Not a typical post...

I don't usually do this, nor do I plan on making this a regular habit, but I am asking you all to pray for me and my family right now. It seems like everything is going wrong. The plumbing in our house probably needs redone, Mom's mini-van needs repairs, Dad is having problems with asthma, and just a lot of things. It's a bit stressful and discouraging, and we all would just REALLY appreciate the prayers!

Thanks!
-Frank

Late One Night

As I sit here at some unnatural hour of the morning, munching on a piece of lembas (Yes, I know how to make it. No, one small bite does not fill the stomach of a full grown man.) I decided to take a little bit of a different turn with this blog post. I decided to post, what is called in Fanfic jargon, a one shot (more or less a short story that may or not may not have an actual plot).

You'll notice that the naming isn't exactly creative... and I'll just tell you right now it's not entirely accurate... the yard is a blend between my yard, my grandma's, and my own little fictitious world. Alright, with out further ado...

Blankly she stared at the empty page before her, pen in hand. She made one small stroke, scratched it out, and made a curve. She did not like that either, so she scribbled over it. With a grunt of frustration she scrawled out the words, “NO INSPIRATION!” diagonally across the entire page, crumpled it up, and chucked it as hard as she could at the nearest wall, where it bounced off and hit the ground with a crinkle.

Frank stood up from her desk and stood by the sliding glass door that separated her study from the outdoors that she loved so well. “I wish I could go out there,” she muttered to herself. “But I can’t until I at least get a start on this stupid story!” she added loudly.

She walked past the desk she was beginning to hate, and flopped herself down on the cranberry chaise lounge that occupied the area next to her bookshelf. While gazing at the ceiling, she reached over and grabbed her scribble book off of her shelf. Many stories had been born out of random words scrawled out in frustration in that book, and she was hoping that would be the case with this story as well. With the mechanical pencil that she left clipped in it, she began to write out, “frustrated, green, golden sun, forest, water, naiad, peasants … I got nothing!!!” She beheld her work and tried to find the plot line that eluded her. The inspiration she sought was not to be found. She tossed the notebook back onto the shelf.

“Lord, whatever happened to ‘Seek and ye shall find’? I’m seeking and finding not!”

She began to muse over the word “seek” while waving her hands around as if she were conducting music.

“Seek. Seek. Hmm…” she said to herself as she stood up. “Seek the gate.” She blurted out, as if this phrase bore some significance. Her mind was now in a day dream. She wandered out the glass door and into the yard. She lived on a substantial amount of property, and let most of it be wild. That which was tended, however, was fenced in, and a gate led to the wilder part. Her mind was now fixed on that little wooden gate, and she had every intention of going out of it. Barefooted she wandered out into the yard. With each step she took, things changed. Her red tank top and denim shorts disappeared, being replaced with a long gown of leaf green silk with silver embroidery and a belt of silver lace. Her pony tale was taken out and a circlet of silver and diamonds sat upon her brow.

Out of the gate she went, leaving it open behind her. She danced her way into the trees to music from a place unseen. She sang a song that she had written, and once her song was done, she gracefully sat herself down upon withered leaves with her back against a tree. She listened for a while to the breeze, and heard the birds singing. A happy sigh she gave as she closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

She had officially left Michigan and entered her own world, a world with no name. There were very few names in that world, and few things to be named to match. It was her imaginary world, the one she had frequented and lived in all through her childhood, teen years, and college. She had never completed it, despite several attempts, and left it as it was, partially finished. There were some green glades, at least one forest, and a castle somewhere, but what exactly was there no one knew. Which was the problem.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto the tree. “One of these days,” she thought to herself, “One of these days I’ll...” but she didn’t finish her thought because she heard her mother ringing the bell for dinner.

So, that's that. Not my best work... which is one reason it's here... I'm willing to part with it... so to speak. Well, now that I've sufficiently shaken up my unexistant routine, I'm off!

-Frank

Let it Snow!

Yesterday morning for my devotions, I decided to read about snow. Inspired by the massive amounts of it falling this morning, I went to oneplace.com and did a search for "snow." It was very interesting what I found. Almost half if not more of the references to snow were using snow as an adjective (right?) to describe something. The first several verses were saying leprous people were white as snow, then of course there were a fair number of verses saying something to the effect of, "wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."

But those weren't what was I looking for. I was looking for verses on the fluffy, cold, white stuff. I found them! Job, Psalms, and Proverbs mostly. It was quite interesting too! Such a simple and common thing (at least in northern Wisconsin) was used and referred to in a wide variety of ways; even in reference to the cold stuff.

But of course, it would be slightly ridiculous to meditate solely on the white and fluffy lest I was going to write a poem about it. So I thought about what the verses were saying and in context. It was varied food for thought to say the least. I ended up reading Isaiah 55:10-11. In that passage Isaiah uses rain and snow as a metaphor for God's word and... God said it best so... "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."

Other passages I looked at were... Job 38:12-23 and there I was reminded that I know nothing about something so simple and common as snow. Another was Proverbs 26:1. That one triggered thoughts about the foolishness of preaching and all that. I'm still mulling that one over. Another verse I looked at, which was actually the one I wanted to find in the first place, was Proverbs 25:13- "As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to them that send him: for he refresheth the soul of his masters."

So, I thought on snow... Fresh Snow.

-Frank :o)