Shadows of the sun.

I enjoy sharing my heart with you. Like I said, these are my dialogues with God, and I think those are best published. Besides, a good student can explain what he’s been taught.

I think I said somewhere along the way that God told me to read through the four Gospels. I think it was a dare, but it was a dare I couldn’t refuse. 0=) I posted a few times on Matthew, got swept away by Mark and Luke (Mark cracks me up, by the way), and now I’m in John. I usually read three chapters a night, regardless, either in one sitting or broken up. Sometimes I read more. Occasionally God decides I need to read something several times and mull over it, and then I might get through four verses.

Tonight’s reading was supposed to be John 5-9. I got through chapter six. It’s difficult to jump into this without explaining first, so I’ll set this up.

Chapter five: Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath (I mean, the nerve!) and he goes to the temple. Later he finds the man still carrying his mat. Now, maybe I’m a little odd, but if a man heals me and says “Take your mat and walk,” I think I’d understand that I’d walk home. Or, in a Jewish man’s case, go present myself to the priests to prove I’m healed (I mean, the lame guy walking’s a bit obvious, but maybe the priests are slow), then go on home.

This guy won’t go home! He keeps running around (but who could blame a guy who couldn’t move an hour ago) all over town until Jesus makes him go home and put his mat down (It’s still the Sabbath, after all).

Then he calls God his father again, and they all get ticked off. From our perspective, this is to the Jews as it would be to us if some backwater Joe came out of the brush and started up a following, then said he was Jesus come to save the world. Kool-Aid, anyone?

Well, almost. That’s their shock factor. But, as we know, these guys knew the Scriptures and still didn’t understand. They wanted a conquering hero, a William Wallace, a Maccabee to come save the day! They wanted mighty King David with Elijah’s power. They wanted Superman (I’m more into Batman myself, but you get the point).

So Jesus hears them get ticked off and Jesus goes on to describe the relationship he has with his father. Most know this part: “the Son does nothing apart from the Father; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son does.”

Translation: Jesus is not saying he’s impotent. Quite the opposite. He’s saying his power comes from the Father, and that he is in the Father and sent from the Father into the world. His will and his Father’s will are the same. They think and act and live and move and breathe as one. They are one.

Because of this, for the Son to be separated from the Father is literally severing him from himself. And maybe that’s how God dies. He separates himself from himself, is born into flesh, lives to die, and because they can’t truly be separated, he lives again.

But now I’m trying to wrap my brain around God, and that isn’t ever going to happen. So if you don’t agree with what I just said, it’s okay. You could well be right. That was brain gymnastics.

Anyway. The Father constantly reveals greater and greater things to the Son, which he shows to those who follow him. See? There’s none of this staggering back, running around, sliding back and forth stuff. You are his follower, or you aren’t. Peter may have screwed up, but he never stopped following. Thomas may have doubted him, but he didn’t call it quits just because he had an eternal amount of questions (indeed, Thomas may well have gotten to heaven and subjected Jesus to two thousand years of questions; and I don’t think Jesus has minded).

Then he says a strange thing. “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whomever he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”

Hang on. We’re back to that “gentle Jesus meek and mild” thing again, that I so “gently” pointed out in my Matthew encounters. Like I said, compassion is dangerous. Jesus is dangerous.

Before you think this is too weird, remember that this is the same Jesus who said, “Don’t think I’ve come to bring peace, but a sword.” If you like cross-references, check out Daniel 7, then flip to Revelation 1. Jesus called himself the Son of Man, who stood before the Ancient of Days and had dominion over the world (Daniel), who had a double-edged sword coming out of his mouth and dressed in a judge’s robes, and freaked his own disciple, John, out (Revelation).

This is the same Jesus who said, “I didn’t come to condemn the world, but to save it. For whoever does not believe me and my words is condemned already.”

Huh?

Okay, think of it like this: Have we ever, ever been saved by works? No. It has always been by grace. The Law of Moses cannot save. It can only condemn. Jesus came to fulfill the Law, not to obliterate it. Faith and deeds work together (James – thank you, Brandon). There’s an interesting analogy in James (one I wouldn’t have made, because my English teachers all are painfully aware that my little brain does not like analogies) that does this:

Faith : Flesh ::

Deeds : Spirit

This baffled me when I read it. We humans would never have done that. We would have said that faith is to spirit as deeds are to flesh. Makes sense, seen and unseen, tangible and intangible.

Or maybe that isn’t even the point. Maybe we’re not even supposed to think about it like that. If faith is evidence of things unseen, it must itself be visible. It’s one thing for me to say “My dad will catch me every time I jump off the roof.” It’s quite another to actually jump off my roof and expect Dad to catch me.

Facing the Giants had a perfect analogy. It was beautiful, and I wish I’d come up with it myself. The main character’s talking to this older man, and he asks the man a question. The older man replies, “There were two farmers, both praying for rain. One went out and tilled his fields, planted, and prepared for rain. Which one had faith in God?”

The main character responds, “The one who prepared his fields.”

So, who has faith, the one who listens to Christian music, attends church, and can quote the entire book of Leviticus, or the one who forgets to read his Bible more often than not and can’t ever seem to get out of bed for church, but always, always has a word of encouragement, a helping hand, and is proceeding as if he’s gotten a “yes” from God before he’s even done praying?

Mine isn’t like that, but I continually find myself falling back on the prayer of a man with a demon-possessed son: “I believe! Lord, help my unbelief!”

Oh, right, back to John 5.

Jesus goes on. “If you can’t believe John, who came before me, and you can’t understand, much less believe, Moses, who prophesied me, if you don’t understand all these shadows of things to come—You can never, ever believe me, and thus you cannot be mine. You’ll kill yourself studying and you’ll beat yourself with rosaries and mission trips and student council and dessert theatre and worship music and writing and painting and all of these things—But you’ll never find me because you’ve refused the very thing you were looking for.”

He goes on, and finishes up this part: “But don’t think I’ll be the one accusing you. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. But since you don’t believe him, how can you possibly believe me?”

The shadows of our fathers. Shadows of the futures, foretellings of things unseen. It wasn’t just the rituals and the sacrifices that were shades of the sun; it was the heart of the law itself, all 600 parts, summed up in:

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord your God, the Lord is one! And you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength!” (Deuteronomy 6)

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19)

Now for chapter six. Bear with me. I’ve made you read three pages of rambling to come to the point. Remember: Jesus has said, “I am life. I am from the Father, I am with the Father; I am in him and he is in me. If you believe Moses and John, you can believe me, because they testify about me; the Father testifies about me…and if you believe me, my Father has enabled you to do so. And so you are mine.”

Now he’s going to do another 5000+ impromptu potluck again. So he does. Again, there is extra. And a strange thing happens that’s really a little amusing. Jesus sneaks off so the crowd won’t try to force him to be their conquering king, and he goes up a mountain. The text indicates that the disciples knew where he was, left him alone, and refused to tell anyone or let anyone bother him. When the sun goes down and Jesus isn’t back yet, the disciples already know their next destination (this is why you communicate with your teacher, so you can find him when he appears to be lost) and go on across the lake. He walks across the lake and joins them (that’s enough to freak people out, but evidently this is not the same instance where Peter did his little “me too” trick).

The next day the crowd realizes the disciples are gone, Jesus didn’t get on the boat with them, and they can’t find him. Which is pretty funny to me. They finally find Jesus again, and Jesus seems only mildly impressed.

“You came looking for me,” he says, “not because I put on a show for you and did some miracles, but because I fed you and satisfied your hunger. But don’t kill yourself for food that spoils. Come to me for food that will ensure you never go hungry again.”

Sound familiar? Oh, right. The woman at the well. Remember? “If you knew who asked you for a drink, you’d ask for living water, and he’d give it to you.”

Remember Matthew five? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

The first part of Matthew five is one of fulfillment. It’s not a “prosperity” doctrine; it’s spoken in Spirit, and in Spirit is it understood.

Blessed are the meek, the pure, the mourners, merciful, the poor, the persecuted, the hungry and thirsty, the peacemakers.

What’s the rest? They inherit the earth, receive mercy, are called the sons of God, are comforted, are filled. Can you see what’s casting the shadows yet?

But there are more shadows than even this. Remember how the newly-freed Hebrews ate manna and quail in the desert?

So the ask Jesus what they have to do to obey God. What do they have to do? Now, they’re expecting him to say something like “Memorize the Torah” or “keep all 600 laws”. Well, a few of them know better. A few of them have about killed themselves trying to do the will of God, and it’s these he’s really talking to. These are the ones hungry, thirsty, desperate.

And Jesus aims to satiate them. So he says, “Believe in the one whom he has sent.”

Translation: Believe I’m the one he’s sent, and that I come to bring life. That I am life. That I can satisfy your cravings for the things of the Spirit.”

Now, the whole “I’m sent from God” discussion is still fresh. They didn’t change the subject here. They’ve been talking about Moses, about food from heaven, about the Messiah (sent from God). In the desert, the Hebrews ate manna, which, ironically, means something like “What is it?” He’s talking about him being living bread from God that you can depend on, and they think of manna. So they want a sign, and they durn expect him to give them one.

They’re much closer than they look at this point.

So he says, “My father gives you true bread from heaven [manna], for the bread of God [manna] is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

He’s calling himself manna, but they’re a bit shy of the connection. So he goes on to the big “I am the bread of life” speech. He is the bread of life; whoever comes to him will never go hungry; whoever believes in him will never go thirsty.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Manna.

No one who believes will be turned away. For, “my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son [remember the bronze snake from the desert?] and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Remember, “Just as Moses lifted the serpent in the desert, so shall the Son of Man be lifted up.”

Tracking?

And they really get mad about this, because he calls himself manna—the bread that came down from heaven.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me. I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me shall never die. I am living water. I am the good shepherd. I am the door. I am the narrow gate. I am the bread of life. I am the one who came down from heaven – manna – and was lifted up – like that bronze snake in the desert. Those were all but shadows of me.”

There is a reason they thought he was blasphemous! You can’t listen to Jesus for five minutes without him saying something like “Before Abraham was, I AM!” Jesus didn’t leave room for much discussion. You believed everything he said or none of it.

Then he repeats everything he just said in a nutshell (poor Jesus really needed an aspirin by the end of the day), and without so much metaphor.

“Oh, stop your grumbling! You can’t come to me unless the Father draws you to me. And you will be taught by the Father because it’s written that way. If you listen to the Father and learn from him, you’ll come to me, and I will satiate you. No one has seen the Father but the one sent by the Father. Whoever believes me has eternal life.

“I am the bread of life. I am manna! Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, and they still died because it was only bread! But I am living manna! I am manna from heaven, and if you partake of me, you will never die. Eat this bread” – as he jabs himself in the chest – “and live forever! This, this bread is my flesh, and I give it to the whole world!”

And at this point the crowd’s thinking “How can he let us eat him?” and I’m thinking “Jesus isn’t a cannibal!”

He doesn’t even bother to respond to that utter nonsense. He just keeps going, because, like I said, he needs an Ibuprofen or something by now. Can’t you see him, eyes squeezed shut, heels of his hands pressed against his eyes, fingernails digging into his creased forehead?

“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. And I will raise you up on the last day. And in case you think I’m speaking in metaphor again, I’m not. My body is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him [see John 14].”

“I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him…”

See what I mean? No crazy man can keep this straight for three years; he’d go, well, insane. No liar can either. There’s so many twists and turns and wild metaphors that we mere mortals would lose our minds. We do just reading the thing.

So he says, “Just as the Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.”

In other words, “No, I’m not promoting you literally eat me. These things are very real, but I obviously am not talking about making myself dinner.”

“Your fathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever” (John 6.58).

I love the footnote. “By the way, he said all this in the temple.”

Can you imagine Jesus walking into church, stepping up to the podium, and saying “If you don’t drink my blood and eat my flesh, you will die”?

Well, they understood he wasn’t talking about cannibalism, and that the teaching was a hard one, but I’m not so sure they got it. I sure haven’t.

But I think all of this is to say, “It isn’t enough just to believe in me. Abide in me. Cling to me. Don’t just follow me around looking for scraps and handouts. I can give you so much more than a crust of bread and a glass of bad-tasting water. But you have to stick around. Crave more. Eat it up. Drink it up. I have more, and I’m not going to run out. Indeed, you can’t even eat and drink all that I have for you.”

Then his disciples are mad because they don’t get it either, and, remember, they’ve dropped everything, left everything, forsaken everything, to follow him all over the countryside. So they’re worried they’ve lost everything for nothing.

“Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I’ve spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who don’t believe.”

So the majority of the crowd of disciples takes off. They’re gone. So he asks his twelve if they want to desert him, too, and he sounds really upset when he asks it.

Then my dear little Peter. For all his antics, I love him. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Jesus doesn’t correct him, but I can almost see his eyes darkening and his face falling just a little.

Remember, in talking about all this, he’s been talking about his death. For him to give everyone life, he has to die. To eat manna, you have to gather it, tear it up, chew it up, swallow, and digest it.

The Son of Man came from heaven like manna and was raised up like Moses raised up the serpent in the desert. Like Jonah, he was a dark belly for three days, then spat back out.

”Have I not chosen you, the Twelve, Peter? Yet one of you is a devil!”

God sent bread from heaven to feed his children. He ordered Moses to raise a bronze snake in the desert, and anyone who looked at it lived. Jonah was swallowed by a whale and spat on shore three days later.

Shadows of the sun.

Introductions.

I'll be honest. I stink at formally introducing characters to each other. It always looks stiff and contrived.

So far I've written the meeting of Desiree, Knoa, and Marsen with Varen, Slay, Taro, and Anathia (too many in one place, for one thing) three different ways.

Originally, Knoa gets separated from Desiree and Marsen and washes up on shore like a drowned rat. Varen plays a little joke on him (not nice to do to a half-drowned stranger) and that solidifies both their friendship and Knoa's nickname as the "little fish." A week later, Marsen and Desiree finally arrive as well.

I had taken it out because I hadn't liked how Knoa got separated in the first place. Besides that, the whole "let's make the foreigner think we're gonna eat him" thing just wound up looking dumb to me, although Varen got a kick out of it .

So, version two: they all three arrive at Hikaru-Itzal at the same time, and Knoa mistakes Varen for Braddok (they're look-alikes). This leads to a stand-off that leaves Knoa looking rather foolish and Varen rather annoyed.

And it just read dumb. :P

So I tried again. This time, all three arrive at Hikaru-Itzal nicely and it's a bunch of "okay, hi, I'm so&so, nice to meetcha." BORING!

I dun like it.

I really may do the splitting them up thing (minus Varen's prank) and let Knoa wash up on shore. It just looks better. I dunno. I'd toyed with them already being there, but then we never get into why they're on the run in the first place.

My brain hurts.

G'night.

Sins and Guestbooks

Oh, and in case anyone wonders what happened to my guestbook: after two years of not posting, I've forgotten the password, and I'd signed up with that guestbook service with an email account that no longer exists. So I just took the thing down.

Sins of the Son update:

Chapters: Six.
Wordcount: 11,700.
Page count (in Word): 48.
Page count (wordcount divided by 250): 45.

I'm keeping a running number mostly to get a feel for proportions.

Edit: Oops. Shows I can't do math. I forgot my numbers.

Pagecount (in Word): 45.
Pagecount (wordcount divided by 250): 47.


I should have realized that when my "real" count was smaller than my Word count.

I'm Sinning.

Lame joke, but by now you know I mean I'm working on Sins of the Son, part of my The Phoenix and the Dragon set.

After, quite literally, more advice than I knew what to do with, I decided to almost scrap the whole thing and start over. Basically, it'll be the same story with a different POV character. Kind of like telling Batman Begins from Robin's POV. Mostly because, well, poor little Taro doesn't have a clue what's going on for about three fourths of the book.

So, basically, it boils down to Braddok v. Slay v. Varen. The Chisleh master v. the Chisleh keeper v. the Dalish protector. And for some reason that has a nice ring to it.

And I know I freaked out Alicia the other day -- but I promise I'm still sane. And I know a few of you were worried I was overcomplicating the story. But I don't think I am. I'm just finally centralizing it and forcing some direction out of the thing. Too many characters, for one thing, and pieces of the puzzle that just won't make sense until Tenebrae.


But that's kinda the idea. Some things in Sins won't come to fruition until Tenebrae, and some things in Tenebrae won't come to fruition until Shadowless. But I do promise -- Shadowless is worth all the frustration of getting Sins done right. Sins is the hard one; Tenebrae is the dark one. Shadowless is the fun one. mwahaha.

And really, in a way I'm simplifying it. Instead of trying to throw all the pieces out at once, I'm only throwing a few at a time. Why Braddok and Slay? "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." And you gotta admit: they are brothers.

See, my dear Elf; I didn't hurt myself. 0=)

So yeah, it'll be a whole new story with a few pieces of the other stuff, a few key scenes that I just can't get rid of. Beyond that...I'm kinda getting excited about it again.

Alright, time to greet the day, whatever she may bring.

Slamming my head against the desk.

I've been working on Sins of the Son since last March. I finished it last September, and I've been doing rewrites for that long. About January I decided to scrap sixty pages and pretty much start over. Unfortunately, that hasn't really worked either. My brain fries if I think about Sins too long.

So I dunno what I'm gonna do. The story swallowed me alive, and now, even if I tried writing from scratch, the original is so burned into my skull I can't see it any other way.

Mulling over Matthew.

Well, you know that, long story short, I asked Jesus to be my teacher, and he promptly said, “Read the Gospels. Oh, and while you’re at it, every sermon, conference, and Bible study you attend is going to be related to discipleship. Just to make sure you get the memo. Time management’s a problem for you? That’s okay. We’re going to play the elimination game, and we’re going to work on this whole discipline thing, because, frankly, you’re not near as hot as it as you’d like to think you are.”

Fine, so it wasn’t quite like that, but that was the gist of it. Well, a month later I finally decided obedience is a good thing. And, to be honest, I’ve been reading this thing like I’ve never seen it before, and there are far too many things for me to hit all at once.

But I’ll share a few. Tonight I read Matthew 17-20. Hey, I hate stopping mid-way through a sermon. It’s just not cool.

Jesus makes me laugh. It’s okay to say that. I make him laugh too. Sometimes he freaks me out a little, but that’s alright. But check this out:

The Pharisees ask Peter if Jesus pays taxes. Peter says yes. The minute he walks back home, Jesus asks him who pays taxes, the ruler or the subjects. He says, “The subjects.” “Oh,” Jesus says, “So the children are exempt.” “Yes.” “Well, just so we don’t tick anyone off, go fishing and pay both our taxes with this coin in this fish’s gut.”

Stage two, shortly after. The disciples are still clueless, asking who will be the top dog in the kingdom, so Jesus calls this six-year-old kid to him. I can’t imagine how this looks from the kid’s POV, but it’s got to be pretty intimidating to be called down by an adult and then stand there while a pack of them talk about you.

He says, “Be like this boy. This six-year-old, innocent, helpless boy.” Maybe it was a girl. Beside the point. But Jesus is just warming up. He says, “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest. This little boy who didn’t question me, didn’t hesitate to come to me when I called him, and who expects me, the adult, to protect and take care of him.

“Furthermore,” and this is where Jesus gets dangerous, “If you so much as welcome him with open arms, you do so to me, and you’ll have your reward. However, if you do anything that causes this little boy to sin…if you teach him to steal, to lie, to be arrogant, to kill—You’ll wish you’d drowned yourself in the ocean before I get through with you.”

Yeah, yeah, gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Don’t get me wrong. Jesus is full of compassion, but that’s what makes him dangerous. Love is dangerous. Show me a good man and I’ll show you the scariest man alive when any injustice is committed. His compassion is what makes him dangerous.

But Jesus is still early in the second quarter. He’s got plenty more to say. He goes on. He issues a woe, a curse, on the world should it make any one of his children – that’s you and me – sin. Then he goes on. “If the world traps you and you sin,” he warns, “Cut off the offending part. Get rid of that sin as quickly as possible, because you’d be better off maimed than dead.”

Maimed then dead, like a war veteran with no limbs, no ears, and no teeth – but he’s alive, and that’s what matters. He gets a purple heart. Probably a lot of them.

What? He’s not done yet? Gah!

Remember, this is only chapter eighteen. I’m not even to that “go to your brother” part, and it’s taking me eons to figure out how he got from “go fishing” to “Resolve the outstanding issue with your brother.”

Why?

Okay, he gets back to his children. Remember, Paul will tell Timothy about twenty years later not to let anyone look down on his youth. Here, in Matthew, Jesus says, “Don’t look down on my children.”

Interesting, eh?

Then it’s back to parables, because Jesus “didn’t say anything to them without parables,” which probably drove his disciples crazy, to be honest.

But I think I get this lost sheep parable. He’s said that the world is going to try to make us sin, and we’d be better off maimed than dead. Then he says don’t look down on anyone.

What? Oh! Oh! Pick me, Teacher; pick me!

Wait. We’ve been talking about making the children of God sin, and how to deal with it if you do actually fall into sin. Remember, these are the followers of Christ, not unbelievers.

Don’t look down on anyone when they sin? Because they’re a lost sheep. And this one lost sheep, wandered from the fold – Don’t miss that, they are his sheep, his children – sought out, and brought back.

Remember the prodigal son? Sure you do. The father got more joy from the return of this son of his that wandered off and came back than the son who stayed with him his whole life and became bitter to the point he couldn’t celebrate his brother’s return.

“The one who turns a sinner from his way covers a multitude of sin,” James will later say.

So Jesus has gone from fish to children to sin to talking directly about his disciples who turn off the road and later come back.

But we’re only to verse fifteen now. The kingdom of heaven is about repentance from sin. It’s a constant turning from sin and a turning toward God. Got that?

Now, somehow Jesus makes this jump from searching lost sheep to what you do if your brother has a grudge against you. And, you know, I think it’s more or less the application part of his point.

Holding a grudge is sin, remember? And this whole thing has been about sin. So he says, “go do everything in your power to resolve it. If he still refuses, treat him like a pagan.”

Do what?

Yeah. Remember, we are one body with many parts. At some point, you’ve done everything in your power to help someone. If they won’t take it, you don’t have a choice but to cut them loose and leave them for God to handle. Why?

Because people who hold grudges are spiteful. They’re bitter, mean, and temporarily insane. They gossip, spread rumors, and malign. They work just like yeast…through the whole dough. They’re poisoned, and they’re spreading that poison.

Woe to the one who causes another to sin. Blessed is the one who turns his brother back from his sin. Trackin’?

Then he gets to another strange verse that I’m not sure how it fits either. “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you that if you of you agree on anything you ask for, it’s yours. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am with them.”

Um, Jesus, are you off-topic?

Heavens, I hope not.

Do your best to resolve the situation. If it doesn’t work, cut him loose. Treat him like a pagan. Hang on. What do you do with non-believers?

You pray that the Spirit will bring them to repentance! Ah-ha!

So, Jesus didn’t rabbit trail. He said, “Be humble and obedient like this child. How you treat my children will be repaid to you tenfold. Don’t cause them to sin. If they do get led astray, I’ll bust my butt to get them back, and you’ll still pay for it. If you go astray, cut off the offense in your life. If your brother goes astray, try to bring him back – and if he won’t listen to you, leave him to me, and I’ll do it myself.”

Then Peter, bless his heart, wants to know how many times he has to forgive (no, he’s not nuts; he’s just remembering what Jesus said about the guy with the grudge). But that’s not really what Peter’s asking. He’s asking, “How far is too far?”

In other words, when am I holding a grudge, Teach?

And Jesus’ answer is, obviously, another parable!

This is the one about the master settling accounts with his servants. He has mercy on a servant who begs him, who owes him millions of dollars and can’t possibly pay it back. But then the little twit finds another servant who owes him twenty bucks and has him thrown in jail for it.

The master hears about it (I can only imagine his initial reaction to this, because he’s ticked) and calls the guy in. Because he did not forgive his fellow servant, this grudge-holding servant was not forgiven by his master. Instead, his master gave him to the torturers.

“In case you’re wondering, Petey,” Jesus finishes, “This is how my Father will treat each of you if you don’t forgive each other.”

And that, friends, is Matthew 18. Kinda scary, really.

Well, this is long, and I never did get to nineteen and twenty. Maybe tomorrow. I made some notes. Twenty is really pretty funny, if you asked me.

Ever in the strength of his grip.

"May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi."

That's a quote I got from Brandon, who was quoting someone else who's name I can't recall. It's a Jewish saying, I believe.

Now, where do I begin?

Back in early spring I asked Jesus to be my teacher. My rabbi. And it's been amazing to me that, even though I don't get my homework done, even though I skip class, and even though I don't always take notes...He's honored my request.

Most people, from what I can tell, have an easy time reading the New Testament, or at least the four Gospels, but they really get stuck in places like Numbers and Habbakuk. I'll be honest, I don't have a "boring place" in my Bible, but maybe it's because I read theology for fun.

Truth be told, the cleanest part of my Bible, where the pages are the whitest and easiest to read, fall between Matthew and Acts. I have no real reason why; maybe it's because I hear the stories so much at church that I think I know it already.

But about August the Spirit said, "Read all four Gospels."

Let me back track a little. I've never consistently read my Bible. From seventh grade until I graduated, I made a point to read three chapters a night and make at least one journal entry...but there's always those nights where you have a test or a paper or you get home late....y'now, the "cares of the world."

So, you have to understand, "Read all four Gospels" is a serious order from a Teacher who dun play games. And I"m a bad student, admittedly.

Backing up further. A lot further...way, way down memory lane...left down the history timeline, past 2006, past 2002...past the Y2K non-event....into the seventh grade year of me.

Junior high. A time I didn't care for much, but in which sparked in me an insatiable, ravenous monster that refused to be satisfied with the ordinary, refused to be satisfied with doing and saying and believing things strictly because it'd been taught thus.

I described it then as "hungry, ravenously hungry, and in the kitchen. There's lots of good, wonderful things in the kitchen, in the pantry and in the fridge...but nothing appeals. Nothing can satisfy the monster."

Time passed; the monster got bigger, and with him his appetite. In tenth grade I informed one of my teachers that I was "sick of hearing what other people had to say about God, and I'm not listening anymore."

His reply surprised me then. He said, "Good. Now get to know him yourself."

By eighteen my monster was out for blood. A simple salad or a delicous Twix bar wouldn't do: No, no... a T-bone steak, potatoes, and the cow possibly mooing were on the menu.

And then I was in college. The first year, I think I was okay. I ran into a few detours, but I wasn't taking care of myself...and by December finals of my second year...I was running out of gas.

My second and third year I became a God wrestler. Remember Jacob? Step aside, boy -- Kucu's in the ring. My poor, wonderful roommate Robin, who's put up with so much crap over the eleven years of our friendship -- just ask her. I was going to bed at midnight and waking up at three. Sometimes I didn't go to bed. While she slept I railed in silence at the heavens, pacing the floor and demanding answers to questions almost a decade old. I am the queen of temper tantrums, even if only God believes it.

Somewhere during that time I told my amazing friend Micah, "I don't have a will of my own."

To which he, in all his then high-school wisdom, replied, "Good. That's one less thing to worry about."

"Micah, what am I supposed to do?"

"Do? Who told you to do anything? Who dared tell you to do anything, Kucu? It isn't your job to do anything! That's God's job, not yours."

I don't argue with Micah. It's usually stupid.

My third year, with my most wonderful community group/mission team ever. I'm pretty sure I was depressed for about a month, and that depression warped into this bitter, angry stage that lasted a semester in which I would think I was fine, have a great time...and then completely blast out my rage.

Funny, I never would have admitted, nor fathomed, being angry with God. But I'm not sure I really was. I think I was just angry. That ravenous monster that I thought had died in my gut, imprisoned and starved in my shrinking spiritual belly -- I'd stopped doing the things I should have been doing -- exploded to life. And it was ticked. A dormant volcano exploding like Mount Vesuvious.

My fourth year was probably that of a healing. It was...relatively peaceful and uneventful, like the eye of a hurricane. And maybe I"m still in it.

The thing is...spring 2005 came, and about March or April (whenever spring break was), I had a shocking revelation:

All that time I'd been screaming in God's face, he'd been speaking to me, and doing the very things I had accused him of not doing!

Well, time passed...mostly non-eventful.

Then this spring happened -- shortly after spring break, so it had to again have been March or April. Possibly May, and I said, "Jesus, be my teacher. Treat me like a kid if you have to...but be my teacher. Make me your disciple."

And a very strange thing happened.

Every sermon, every Bible study, every conference, and every Sunday School and Wednesday night topic has had one constant, resounding theme like a bell or a gong that rings and continues for hours: What does it mean to be a disciple of Christ?

You have to understand: I'd asked this question for so long I forgot what I was asking -- and for the longest time I'm not sure I even knew what I was asking. I reached the point of absurdity before I finished high school. I have questioned every tradition, ritual, belief, and doctrine possible. I've discussed, debated, argued, fought, and wrestled to the point that I couldn't get up off the floor -- I passed out from spiritual fatigue. And that has to be why I said I felt "dead and dying" for so long.

But all of it, I now realize, boiled down to one, single question: What does it mean to follow Christ? Not "to be a Christian" or "to be saved," but "How do I follow him? What does it look like? What does it mean?"

Elementary, my dear Watson.

Sort of.

This post is far longer and far more extensive than I ever thought it would or could be, so I may have to do a "part one/part two" gig.

So, this spring I asked Jesus to be my teacher, and, God in heaven, he's delivered. I mean delivered.

Well, so I said that. Then time went on and it sort of went by the wayside. But strange things began to happen. I found myself at this place I wasn't sure I wanted to be (and, if I'm honest, still am not sure), drowning in this ocean of instruction on discipleship (some was more indirect, but it still had the same idea).

I miraculously (and yes, it was miraculous) wound up at this job doing exactly what I'd always said I wanted to do: use tech writing to feed the fiction writing. Guess what my job is? I'm a tech writer at a software company. Insane, hum?

To make it crazier, I went to the ACFW conference. Now, it's exciting enough for a wannabe writer such as myself, but my spirit couldn't stay in my corpse, I was so excited. I thought I was going to die and go to heaven right there.

But now it's October. I made my promise to do whatever Jesus said if he'd be my teacher back in May at the latest, and I haven't come through. This is equivelant to going to a top-notch, world-class prof and begging him to teach you, then refusing to do anything he tells you. Stupid, ungrateful twit, you'd say, wouldn't you?

It's okay to say it. It would be true.

So Jesus told me to read all four Gospels straight through. Just read. Nothing too profound there. My little three chapters a day would suffice.

Hah!

I finally caved in sometime last week. I missed the weekend due to my own stupidity, but at least I showed up for class, even if I didn't do my homework.

I've made it through chapter thirteen, as of just before I began this beast of a post.

But here's the thing: I'm reading this like I've never seen it before. It's mesmerizing, intoxicating...it's as alive as I am sitting here. I can see the scenes in my head, I can hear each voice...and I'm telling you....it's never taken me so long to read three chapters for as long as I've been alive.

This was actually going to be a short post with some commentary on Matthew, but I can see that's going to have to wait.

And I am speechless.

Cop an attitude.

I know, I know -- you've all heard it: Attitude is everthing.

But in a lot of ways, it really is true.

I've said before, probably a thousand times a thousand different ways, so often it's now a standard mantra, that there has to be more to life than living, dying, and scrambling through the day. More than websites and message boards and email and IM and school and homework and tests and work and church and Bible study and family time and movies and the gym --

And all those thousands upon thousands of other things we try to cram into 24 hours a day multiplied by seven, multiplied by fifty-two, multiplied by 365, multiplied by about 70.

It's easy to burn out. It's easy to run yourself to the ground -- and on the surface level, everyone would agree that you can't let any one thing rule your life, consume you, drive you, enslave you...because that one thing will nag you, gnaw at you, and ultimately destroy you.

It's also far too easy to get tunnel vision, which I admit I do on a pretty regular basis. Tunnel vision, in the larger spectrum, is really just another term for selfishness.

No, really-- Think about it.

I'm used to taking all my syllabi for the semester and mapping it out in my planner. Then I mark out what needs to be done by the month. Then by the week, then by the day.

Which works to a point. That point is usually when this insane thing called Reality sets in.

That's the thing. In Reality, I have to play the waiting game. In Reality, I have to eat food, take showers, and sleep. I have to take into account that there are other people with their own lists, and their lists have to get done, too -- by the semester (or quarter, if you think business), by the month, by the week, and by the day. Possibly by the hour, but that really is micromanaging.

In Reality, I can't just come home at five thirty, change clothes, and screw around for three hours before getting to my writing, or reading a book, or email, or whatever else it is that was on my list (or not on the list, but I deviated from the list).

In Reality, my day really looks (or is supposed to look) like this:

6.00 Get up, shower, get ready.
7.30 Be gone or be late for work.
8.00-5.00 Work.
5.30 Get home, change, and help Mom with dinner and/or around the house. Eat food. Help clean up after dinner.
7.00 Bible study, read, write, etc.
10.30 Go to bed.

But you know, "We are far too easily pleased" (CS Lewis). And we're lazy. I'm lazy. Fact is, if I want something done, I want to "marathon it" and knock it all out in one long, single setting. Then it's done. Over. Next item.

Oh really.

Sounds good in theory, anyway. But what's the matter with this picture?

Well, for starts, if I come home and hole up in my room all night, several things happen:
1. I'll only do what I want to do, not what I should be doing.
2. I'll never see my family or my friends.
3. I'll be the lazy slug daughter who never helps around the house.
4. I'll be the anal-retentive coworker who refuses to do what it takes to get the job done, and I'll just be frustrated (and arrogantly so) with my coworkers who "are taking too long and I'm sick of waiting on them."


Then it comes back down to the whole fast food versus slow-cooking idea. What do I mean? Well, I'll steal from my friend Brandon. He was actually talking about spiritual growth, not attitude, but it all ties back anyway. You have a choice, a McDonald's hamburger or a roasted chicken. One is immediate...and it's food....and it'll get you by. It's also unhealthy and will ultimately kill you.

The other takes time. Patience. You don't just throw things in the oven or on the grill. You prep them, season them, then watch while it cooks. And you turn it. It takes time and effort, but it's well worth it.

Why do I say "cop an attitude?"

Well...because it's all about the attitude. Have an attitude. This is very Scriptural and very kosher.

The real question is, what kind of attitude are you copping?

Are you patient? Kind? Gentle? Humble? Honorable? Are you loving? Joyful? Peaceful? Selfless?

Or are you impatient, selfish, and so focused on yourself and what you're doing you can't possibly see anything or anyone else? Do you have tunnel vision?

Hey, I'm writing this for me. Yall just get to tag along.




Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

~Philippians 2. 4-8



Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. 2As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 3For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.

~ I Peter 4.1-3

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

~Galatians 5. 16-24

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

~Philippians 4.4-9