rest

God created Adam and Eve on Day 6.

On Day 7 God rested.

So the first experience Adam and Eve had with God was rest.

(Thanks Lisa for telling me about this nugget you gleaned from Wayne Barber–and telling me.)

Here’s what their first experience with God wasn’t:

• A to-do list
• A sermon
• A boring choir practice
• A quiz on the first 5 days of creation

Can you wrap your mind what that must have been like, resting with God? Wow.

And how ironic that resting with God is what we’re created for…yet it’s elusive for so many of us.

Because Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant, and we live in the days of the New Covenant, the Sabbath isn’t the day of rest.

Jesus is our rest.

Oh, Jesus, drip this veracity into my soul like a truth I.V.

You are my rest.

natural-unnatural

I pulled both items of the fridge and left the room to get something.

When I came back I realized the sad, sad dichotomy.

Yet it didn’t stop me from swilling the diet Pepsi with Cherry amidst bites of carrot sticks double-dipped in PB.

If I believed in yin and yang this might totally work in my favor.

A-ha #250: God is not like a needy trough

On Monday, our team watched a video by John Piper.

It’s Friday and I’m still chewing.

The essence of what Piper said was:

God is like a fountain.

He’s not like a needy trough into which I pour my water buckets of service attempts.

Whew. I need that truth today. This week has me spinning like a top with the Virginia Tech news and helping keep the Campus Crusade staff family abreast of the news.

Emotionally, task-wise and physically I’ve been running. (The 5K last night was a literal picture of that.)

It’s so easy for me sprint ahead in work.

If I was in a plane, the situation would be so clear. Little Angie–if I could even see her on the ground–with her little bucket of service, running to the trough. Um, no, I don’t think Angie’s little bucket will add much to the big picture.

It’s not about me.

Exhale.

I needed to be reminded that He doesn’t need my bucket. Or my water. I’m so glad! That is intoxicatingly freeing when I stop running and realize.

He’s not the trough. He’s my fountain.

Here’s my cup, Lord. With the bottom popped out. And I’m sticking it in the downpour of water.

molly’s story on CBS and ABC

Molly taped 2 interviews Wednesday–one with CBS and one with ABC. Each one took almost 2 hours. The interviews were emotionally exhausting for Molly and anyone involved.

Molly is a freshman that is involved in the ministry of Campus Crusade at Virginia Tech. She lived next door to the first victim of Monday’s shootings.

Watch Molly’s Story

• You can now watch ABC’s interview with Molly. It mentions her involvement with a Christian Bible-study group.
• You can also watch the CBS interview with Molly Donohue on their Web site. It’s a short, 1 ½ minute package that aired Wednesday night on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. The CBS coverage was changed from what they’d originially planned by the breaking news of the DVD the gunmen sent to NBC.

4 campus crusade students gone

Among the shooter’s fatal victims were 4 students involved with Campus Crusade at Virginia Tech.

It makes me think back to my life in Boulder, Colorado as a new staff member with Campus Crusade. A young 22-year-old who was off to change the world at CU, God blessed me with some great young college women to work with: Christine, Nadia, Janessa, Joy, Jennifer, and many others.

It could have happened at CU. (Actually the Columbine shootings happened during those days.) It could have been Christine. Or Nadia. Or the others.

How my life and the Campus Crusade movement…and campus life would have been different without them.

And I think of Virginia Tech and my staff friend there, Sarah. The ache to lose young friends.

The Campus Crusade group is having a closed-to-the-press prayer time tonight. Tomorrow is a day many in the Campus Crusade family are praying for Virginia Tech.

Want to join us?

The staff team at Virginia Tech have asked us to specifically pray for the following things:

1. The families of the students who were killed.
2. The students who were injured and still in the hospital.
3. 4 students who were involved with Campus Crusade were killed. Please pray for their families and friends.
4. Survivors of the shootings who witnessed the horrors of that day. Pray for God’s grace and comfort.
5. Pray for wisdom for the Campus Crusade staff member and other campus ministers and pastors as they seek to counsel and love the hurting students

Ongoing Blog

• Visit the official site of the Campus Ministry for an updated blog written by a Campus Crusade staff member at Virginia Tech.
• Thought-provoking and faith-inspiring articles about evil, forgiveness and suicide, sponsored by Christian Leadership Ministries, the faculty outreach and training arm of Campus Crusade for Christ.

virginia tech tragedy

It is unbelievable what took place at Virginia Tech yesterday.

Last night I called one of my staff friends, Sarah, who is on the Campus Crusade team there, working with college students. I was preparing myself for her voicemail–knowing a little about the volume of calls they’ve been receiving from the media and others–when she answered.

I told her how sorry I was to hear of the great loss of life on the campus. I asked her if someone on their team might be willing to write up a short paragraph or two about how the staff team and students are doing that I could publish on the Staff Web, knowing that the rest of our Campus Crusade family would be concerned; wondering if they are OK. She said she’d talk to the team and get back to me.

This hit my inbox at 11:30 p.m. last night:

“By now, if you have watched any sort of national or, for that matter, international news, you have heard of the devastation on our campus of Virginia Tech Monday.

All of our staff members are OK. We were together for our Monday morning staff meeting when the shootings happened.

The latest is that a shooter killed 33 with 27 being wounded and some not even out of surgery yet.

We had a prayer meeting Monday night for our students and the students of some other organizations. Most students are shocked and numb at this point, not sure what to think and feel. I feel the same way.

We know of at least 2 of our students who are not accounted for at this point, as well as 1 who was killed who had come to our meetings.

All of this information is coming through the network of students, as no names have been officially released yet (until after the families are notified–most likely Tuesday). I think that is the hardest part–the waiting–not really knowing who has been touched by this tragedy.

Our staff team is spending the day in the Cru office Tuesday–making ourselves available to pray with and/or counsel students.

We will take a break to attend the university-wide convocation at 2 p.m. where the Virginia governor is slated to speak.

We are gathering at noon on Wednesday to pray with other Christian groups on the drillfield–a very central place on campus.

Please pray that amidst it all that the Lord would be glorified, families would be comforted and students would grieve appropriately. I have a feeling no one is going to know how to move on from here.”

By Dave Broadwell, on behalf of the Virginia Tech staff team in Blacksburg

Since then I learned that we are unable to confirm the loss of 4 of the students involved with Campus Crusade but it does appear that they were among the casualties.

It’s just so sad.

Driving to work I was thinking about how those students and faculty got up yesterday morning with the underlying assumption that their life would stretch through seasons of marriage, kids, grandkids, retirement…

Yesterday’s events remind me of the brevity of life and the urgency to tell people about Jesus. Now.

Here’s a great article to forward to a friend who might not know Jesus yet, who might be asking questions about faith now: Where’s God in the Midst of Tragedy?

a sweaty weekend

Nothing like working out with 1,250 friends to make a weekend memorable!

white socks & oil changes

“Got any whites?” Deb called out to me from the laundry room.

“A few,” I shouted back. “What temperature are you washing them in?”

“Cold.”

“Cold?”

“What temperature do you wash them in?”

“Hot.”

“Really? I’ve always washed whites in cold.”

Let’s just say Deb and I are older than 20, so that’s a few loads of whites in cold over the years.

Made me remember a conversation with my dad only a few months ago. The topic of oil changes came up. I told him about a recent oil change. He asked where I’d gone for it.

“The Ford dealership,” I replied.

“Why?” he asked.

“Um…because you always told me to go to the dealership. I guess the idea is they’ve got more invested in taking care of my car.”

“I never told you that.”

“What?” It was as if he’d confessed being a spy for the Ugandan government.

I’d based my oil-change patterns solely on a comment he never said…or I misunderstood. I’d been living an oil-change lie for my entire 16-year driving career.

I had to really stop and consider: What other patterns or habits do I have simply because I’ve always done it that way? Or believed it should be done that way?

If I’d lived when Jesus’ sandals marked the dirt, I fear I might have been a Pharisee. Sticking to my rules and the Law because that’s all I’d known.

Going about life in our own strength and our plan has never really panned out for men and women since the ricochet of the apple bite sounded off of the trees in Eden.

So Jesus stands before us and beckons us to do life differently. For me, it’s like a wake-up call for my soul.

And, really, it’s what I’ve always wanted to hear.

“I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of” (John 10:10, The Message).

good friday

It took me years before I understood the seeming contradiction that Good Friday was really good because Jesus paid my sins on the cross that day.

Tonight, the reality of Good Friday sank in even deeper as I sat, eyes transfixed, on Jesus in The Passion of the Christ.

I’d seen it in the theater 3 years ago when it came. Now, 3-years-of-days older and 3-years-of-days longer on this walk with the Lord, these are what came to mind as tears rolled down my face.

• “By His wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5 & I Peter 2:24). As that played over and over in my mind as the minutes wore on, the word that God seemed to emphasize in my heart is “are”–we who have accepted the incredible price He paid for us of exchanging His perfect life for our sinful one–we are healed, spiritually. Not we will be healed. Truly, It is finished.
• Stop!!! As the beatings and scourging went on and on I felt myself wanting to scream out “Stop! Stop! Stop!” It overwhelmed me to consider all that Jesus endured, physically, even before all He had to endure spiritually. I was reminded of a Sunday School discussion one day when I was in high school. The teacher asked the question, “Why did Jesus say, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?'” The class all responded, in various ways, that Jesus was doubting what had happened; that, perhaps, He’d heard God wrong. And I didn’t speak up. How I wish I had! The amazingly terrifying truth is that, in that moment, Jesus exclaimed that because He was separated from the Father–for the first time. It was only in that separation from the Father so that He could be the curse–that He could carry the sin of the entire world, even as He was perfect. Dying for them…for me…to pay the penalty for sin and satisfy the wrath of a Holy God. Someone had to die. A forsaken, sinless Jesus did that. Mel Gibson’s hand was the one in the movie that nailed Jesus’ hand to the cross. But it was me, too. And you. It was all of us. When I saw the movie 3 years ago, I found myself saying, over and over out loud, I did that to You. I did that to You. And yet the beautiful thing is that Jesus laid down His life of His own accord. It wasn’t taken from Him. That is love.
• Blood brings life. Near the end, Jesus’ mother Mary holds Jesus’ lifeless body in her lap, wind stirring her head covering. Her lips and cheeks marked with her son’s blood, her eyes are fixed in the distance. He looks near inhuman; He’s coated with blood and torn skin. And I thought of how this moment was so similar to that first moment Mary held Jesus after she gave birth in the stable 33 years before. Both events brought life. In the first instance it was life for one. In the second, it was for all Life for all who would accept it.
• Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. We don’t wait for Easter anymore. It is finished–paid in full. The resurrection has happened: Jesus rose from the dead, showing that He has power over even death. I have no idea where you are on your spiritual journey, but if you haven’t said yes to Jesus, I can’t think of a better time than right now. Where are you in the story?

the sign

Some people ask for signs from God.

I didn’t. I got one inadvertently.

For April, we Jazzercise instructors are encouraged to put bumper stickers on our cars and hand out stickers for our students for their cars.

Kind of like mobile advertising for the best workout known to man (make that women, mostly).

At the meeting in which we got our bumper stickers, I was also awarded a big ‘ol magnetic sign for my car.

I slapped it on today after work without thinking–on the left side, behind my driver’s-side door.

Fast forward a few hours. Tonight, I was running errands.

Barnes & Noble for a gift card. Check.

Lowe’s for a new battery for my epass. Check.

Target for milk and on-sale no-salt butter. Check.

McDonald’s for a craving-driven hamburger. (Did I mention I wasn’t hungry?) No check.

As I pointed my car in the direction of the salt- and fat-mecca I had a vision:

Me pulling through the drive-thru asking for a hamburger at 9 p.m. with a big ‘ol Jazzercise sign plastered to the side of my car. On the side of my car where only a blind McDonald’s employee would miss it.

So I bypassed Ronald and headed home.

I hate it but I love it that God thwarted my plan.

I thought I was just advertising for Jazzercise. Who knew God had His own marketing plan for it.