Relationally Thinking

The other day I was pondering what it means to "have a relationship with Jesus". I was watching this video a church made about their history and growth and someone in it was talking about how they never had "a relationship with Jesus" before, but rather church was just religion. Now before I get ahead of myself I agree that we are created to be relational creatures modeled after God (the Triune God). I agree that it is imperative that we have a relationship with Jesus. But since Jesus is in heaven with God the Father, how do we have that relationship? The easy answer is through the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God (the Bible), and through prayer/meditation. This doesn't quite satisfy me though. So I started to ponder it and think through some of the practical issues with that. Here are my results:

1. We are relational creatures made in God's image and therefore must have relationships in order to operate as we are designed.

2. The church is the literal physical body of Christ. Jesus is the head, we are the body. We must operate as a body and be unified in our local churches.

3. In order to have that relationship with Jesus, we must work it out through the body of Christ. It is through living in the church community that we have the opportunity to flush out the intricacies of being a Christian.

This is not to say that it is only through community that we can have a relationship with Jesus, but rather to say that through community we are able to have a complete relationship with Jesus. We must still be spending time in the Word on our own, in prayer on our own, and relying on the Holy Spirit daily. So the bottom line is that you better be involved in a community of believers where you can serve, love, rejoice, mourn, celebrate, pray, meditate, worship, and live relational lives which will reflect who our Creator is.

Observations on Observing

This post is going to be one on observation. Since attending Multnomah Bible College years ago (man time goes quickly), I have really begun to learn to observe things. It began in my Bible Study Methods class but then began to encroach upon many other parts of my life. As a guy, I tend to think in boxes, each individualized and separate, so this observing thing is getting out of hand. I notice things about the world around me, about systems, about glaring problems at my place of work and elsewhere, and all sorts of other things. One of the problems I'm running into regarding the problems, is that once I notice them, I have to think about them and try to figure out how to fix them. And then usually I will figure out how to fix them, get 70-80% of the problem fixed, but then see another problem and fail to finish the first problem. So then I am surrounded by various problems which are only 3/4 fixed, but the last quarter is the main problem. Perhaps I need to stop observing things and then I won't have to worry as much. It would be an easier option, however I don't know that I can at this point. So I suppose I should figure out how to finish the problems I address, thereby making less problems in the long run, therefore causing me to need to observe less.

The Countdown is Close

After months of waiting and staring out the window, baseball is about to start again. A fresh start for every major league club. Every team starts on the same footing. Every team is an equal number of games away from the pennant. After Monday, that all goes out the window. Teams will win and lose, some closer to the pennant, other closer to the cellar. Buy everyone gets that fresh start. Much like the Grace of God through Christ, we are all equal again. This weekend also marks the most important Christian holiday (sorry Reformation Day). The day that Jesus rose again. The day he beat back death and opened the door for all to be restored to the Father. So come Easter, come. Celebrate the resurrection as we celebrate the new baseball season, only this celebration is eternal.

Nostalgia

I have expanded my photography interests as of late. I recently got a Holga 120N for Christmas from my wife. The Holga is essentially a toy camera. It was designed as a cheap camera for anyone to be able to purchase and use. Then film changed and everyone switched to 35mm instead of 120mm. The Holga has only a few basic settings: Aperture (which doesn't actually work), Focus (four basic settings), and Bulb (quick shutter speed or long shutter). There is a hotshoe for a flash, but I don't have one so I don't use that. The back sometimes falls off so I hear so I've put a rubberband around it so it will stay on. There's also a lot of customizations you can do for it which are referred to as hacks. I'll let you know if I try any of them. So the Holga is basic and I am pretty excited about this. It's sort of like going back to my high school days of shooting photos. Back when you were on a leash in regards to how many shots you could take in a day. Back before digital took over. Not that I'm against digital. I have a Nikon D40 and I love it. But there's something about using film, especially 120 film and only having 12 shots per roll. I'm planning on getting some developing equipment and really take it back to high school photo days. The photo included here is literally the first picture I took with the Holga. Overall I feel it turned out ok. I like the results you get with film. I scanned this on my home printer/copier/scanner, so quality is less than ideal. Hopefully I can continue to afford the film and developing and get some more prints on here.

A Passing

I got the news the other night that my grandfather, Stanley Hudson Westlund had passed away. While most people would see this as horrible news, I am quite happy about it. Before you break out the mat and "jump to conclusions" (see it's a mat and you can 'jump' to conclusions-sorry, Office Space reference) know that I had a wonderful relationship with my grandfather. He was pretty much the awesomest guy ever. On a scale of 1 to godly, I think that only Jesus beat him. When it came to loving someone regardless of who they were or what they had done he was also awesome at it. So now he gets to go home. He gets to meet his Savior face to face. In fact, a few times this last year he had to be revived and was quite upset about it. He was ready to head home. So now we'll head down to California and celebrate with hundreds of other people. We'll celebrate that Grandpa Stan is home. We'll celebrate the countless lives he affected. We'll celebrate the life he lived and think about how we all want to be as awesome as he was.