craigslist

I put two plastic drawers up for sale on Craigslist for $5 each ($10 total). Yesterday evening, the person who contacted me about buying it showed up outside my door. He was a Jewish man, with a suit, top hat, and braided hair down the side of his face. He took the drawers, and dug around in his coat for some change, and came up with $9.50. He then asked if he could pay the remainder of the $0.50 with a pair of organic vegan chocolate bars.

What the random. :O

I don't know if I should eat those chocolate bars...

priesthood

It's hard to appreciate an argument for something you already believe. So I think I've been under-appreciating much of the New Testament because much of it contains arguments for things that I've been taking for granted. One such argument is the fact that God planned, from the very beginning, to bless and make His name known among the Gentiles as well as the Jews. That preaching the gospel isn't a New Testament concept, it's very much an Old Testament concept, too. That there was, and is, a cohesive picture that wasn't haphazardly stitched together after the coming of Christ.

Just a few thoughts taken from various essays I've been reading:

1. The tribe of Levi was set apart as a tribe of priests, mediating between God and his people, the Israelites.

2. The nation of Israel was set apart as a "kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:6), called to be a conduit through which God blessed all the nations (Genesis 12:2-3), and through which God's name is made known (Psalm 67).

3. After Christ, we are a "priesthood of believers" meant to proclaim God's excellence to the entire world (1 Peter 2:9).

4. Christ is the ultimate High Priest, interceding for us (Hebrews 5:1-10).

When all of this is put together, it seems less strange that God would, in the middle of Genesis, set apart a seemingly random group of people to be His. This setting apart isn't an act of exclusivity. God meant to use them to bless the nations just as God used the tribe of Levi to bless His people. And when Christ died and the veil separating the Holy of Holies was torn, the separation between Jews (the kingdom of priests) and the Gentiles was removed, just as the separation between the Levites and the rest of the Jews was removed (the Levites were no longer needed). Our access to God is now through the ultimate High Priest, Jesus. And all believers (Jews and Gentiles) are called into a royal priesthood so that we might bring God to those who have yet to believe.

tl;dr - When God set apart the Jews, He meant to use them to bring the other nations to Him. God sets us apart so that He can use us to bring every nation to Him.

from the ISS

journal

I recently bought a journal, and I've started journaling. I wish I started earlier. I can't see myself re-reading what I wrote too often, but just the act of writing really helps in terms of slowing down my thoughts, and forcing me to be more introspective. It also puts me into a mindset that is more conducive to prayer and meditation, both of which are things that I've been struggling to do. This probably means I will be writing on this blog less often than I already am.

redemption

We have this perverse attraction to evil. Not so much because we like it, but because it allows us to point at it and be outraged by it. And feel superior and indignant at the same time. So the media obliges, by providing us with sensationalist stories, sometimes warping facts in the process.

But I think, I think, that deep down we desperately want people to be good. When we hear of a crime, we are outraged. But when we listen to the other side of the story, when we find out that the perpetrator of the crime was not the embodiment of pure evil that we thought him to be, that he had reasons, that he was justified to some extent, we are relieved. Or maybe that's just me.

I see a video of contracted mercenaries, recklessly speeding through Iraqi roads. They accidentally hit a woman but drive on. I am speechless. But then I realize that the woman contributed in some part to the accident, having spontaneously stepped out into the street without looking both ways. And these Americans, they can hardly be expected to stop, because this might be a setup for an ambush. Ambushes such as these have taken countless American lives. Does this justify their actions? Maybe. Maybe not. But the world is no longer as evil as I thought it to be. The injustice is not so great, and so my indignation subsides.

And yet it lingers. Because the world is much more broken than I know. And I am more blessed than I know. I'm slowly learning to see that. This is a world where one man might stumble upon a government job and enjoy financial stability for the rest of his life, and next to him a single mom of approximately the same age is struggling to get a nursing degree in the hopes of making ends meet. This is a world where the rich are oblivious to the poor. A world where even in America, cops abuse their power to a disgusting degree, where politicians are selfish, where office politics are incredibly insidious, and the list goes on. Every person has their own individual justifications for what they do, but the consequences of what they do are still very real.

I used to want to invest in this world, to change it. But how do you approach a task so daunting? And so I think my greatest sense of relief comes from the fact that this world is not permanent. And my only recourse is the hope of redemption through Christ.

career

I think that after graduation, there is this implicit assumption that your job is going to be the center of your life, and everything else will evolve around that. It might be uncomfortable hearing it said out loud, but that doesn't necessarily make it any less true. I think for a lot of us, our expectations conform to this idea. Weekends are a break from work (unless you're an i-banker). Sunday might be church time. Getting home from work early is a luxury. You carve out time from work to take a vacation. You're happy when you're doing well at work, devastated when you get passed up on a promotion. You measure yourself against others by the type of work you do, and work defines you more than you'd like to admit.

And all of that is fine. I just didn't realize that I naturally assumed that work was going to be that large a part of my life... until it wasn't. In another life, I would be working for some private tech company, getting home at 7pm or later, and happy with the fact that I'm working on some really cool project. Even when I got home, I'd probably be thinking about this project, coming up with new ideas. I'd probably think about promotions, salaries, stock options, and my place in the company. But in the government? Work is completely secondary. Weekdays are a slight disturbance in my week. Oh, it's Monday? Okay lets go to work really quick and after that I can get on with the rest of my life. It's a weird feeling, and one that I didn't really expect. But I sort of like it? Maybe I'm getting old.

Maybe it's okay for work to be the center of your life, if you're passionate about the work you're doing? But maybe it's also okay for work to be completely secondary to what you're really passionate about doing.

imagination

Meant to write this a few weeks back. Mostly thoughts from a sermon I heard a few weeks back... should have taken notes.

What does it mean to "be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2)? That one day "young men shall see visions, ... old men shall dream dreams" (Acts 2:17)? Could it be that we are too easily content with the status quo, that "our lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak" (The Weight of Glory)? That as we get older, we naturally tend to be more conservative and less liberal in our thinking (not politically)?

What Jesus preached was nothing short of radical:
1) Whereas before, it was enough not to commit murder or adultery, Jesus asks us to go beyond that and asks us to examine our innermost thoughts and desires.
2) Whereas before, it was enough to keep an oath, Jesus asks us to go beyond that and let our yeses be yeses.
3) Whereas divorce is technically legal, Jesus asks us not to.
4) Whereas an eye for an eye is well and good (I used to think that this was a law of revenge, but it's not! It's actually a law of limited retribution. If someone takes your eye out, it would be inappropriate for you to kill their entire family and burn down their entire village, so it defines appropriate levels of retaliation), Jesus asks us to go beyond that and turn the either cheek.
5) Whereas before, there was a difference between Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female... in Christ, these distinctions no longer matter.

That was 2000 years ago, and most Christians now would agree with those teachings. But why did the church take so long to stand up for racial equality? Why did Martin Luther King Jr. need to write his "I have a Dream" speech? More importantly, how is the church too conservative today (again, not politically)? Are our imaginations too small? Are we loving God with all our hearts, soul, strength, and mind? Are we dreaming big enough?