hoping, wishing, waiting, thanking

having 3 roommates and 20 housemates is actually pretty fun. i have offically found a couple places to get alone with God, though- which is challenging to say the least on a base where approx. 200 peeps live. both quiet spaces may or may not involve small rooms commonly referred to as "bathrooms"...but, hey - there's a lock and it is a space for just me and God...it works.
the ants continue to assault with a fierceness unparalled to most wild beasts, seriously what's that about? 2 out of 3 of my daily meals here are salads. they have stuff to accompany salads and sometimes it's pretty good. the other night i was stoked to get steamed broccoli and chicken tetrazinni (not as good as yours Ma), but it was the first time i got seconds. it was yummy.
i am so happy and feel so poured into by the seasoned, refined and experienced Christ-followers here. dang. they're so cool. we're supposed to find out today where my group of 20 or so will go on outreach in october and november!
and all my peers rock too. it seems to be pretty close to the Church written about in Acts. everyone sharing stuff, eating together, sleeping together, praying together a lot and thinking about other's longings before our own. crying together. laughing together. playing frisbee together. and praying for the ants to be utterly destroyed in a very painful way.
uh, i mean, all of God's creatures are valuable.


o.k., some thoughts:

"The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation." C.S. Lewis

Oh the trying yet amazing experience of anticipation. God's beautiful delays add such excitement, strain, and glow to our lives. in the same way i get all bottled up inside if i haven't played my guitar for a while or how i daydream about how to escape & get some time in silence & solitude with just God, or how my body screams out when it hasn't gone walkin or joggin for a while...our souls are built up, encouraged, challenged, matured, and excited when God asks us to put strong longings on the backburner and just wait and focus on other things with 100% passion for now.
wait = trust. and it's good for us.
greek for "hope" = patient expection. the Message version of the word calls it "passionate patience", how sweet is that? the laborious efforts towards waiting cause us to finally see and in turn admit our needs and wants. they force us to stop running from desires and start embracing. they are so often God's avenue to true delight and ecstasy. and every day is part of a whole. no experience in and of itself is disconnected from God's full view.
praise Him over and over, continually for His love towards us, His kiddos.
i am so happy to have a God who loves us and values us above all creation. even those super cool plants that eat bugs or over the always-moving ocean and the never-the-same sunsets He paints. we get to be married to the Being who created the human eyeball with over 1 million parts.
yet, your God sees you as more valuable than all that combined.
and, like my earthly pops taught me- boy o boy does He ever love for His kids to have fun with Him. laugh with Him. including Him in it all. inside jokes and thoughts, our struggles and victories- do we always go to Him first, the closest to us evvver or do we run to another human with nowhere near the same amount of deep knowledge and love for us?
He gets a kick out of us when we ask, look for, and continually knock on His door for things He truly longs to give us. but He'll always give us the best, which can sometimes look differently than our pea-brain, temporal idea of "best"! He ALWAYS has the highest good in mind for you.
What a good Daddy we have in Him.
thanks for the opportunity to wait. thanks that You whet my appetite for things before you bless me with them. and then smile and giggle when you see how i smile & giggle.

guys - i am getting a blessed revelation lately that i wasted so much of my life. i subconsciously ran around trying to prove my value to myself and other humans.

come to find my value has already been settled.
and my Hero has even been slayed because He alone can see it in its entirety.

i truly love the movie "Braveheart". seems that all this time our Jesus and us are actually living it out. He fought and fights for the value that He placed in each of us uniquely.

live everyday in light of this truth.
because if anything is reality, this is it my brothers and sisters.