thoughts from Hungary

This blog is great. To carve out a space where we can communicate our thoughts and experiences..I am extra extra grateful to have been invited here. So, thanks :)

This is my second year teaching in a Hungarian high school in Budapest. Although I am with a Christian org. and my best friends are believers and I have a great church and all of that...I still FORGET. I forget that I am here for God's glory, that I may be the only Christian my students and colleagues may ever meet. Why do we forget? For me, it isn't a simple matter of 'getting into the Bible' more..being more disciplined in my quiet times. That just doesn't fly with me. So, what is it? I will be diligent for 2 or 3 days and then the tyranny of the urgent comes back with a vengeance. And while I am trying to pray, all of the unfinished business of my day comes to me. Or I will be so overwhelmed with guilt for not spending the time I need, that I can't even pray.

What I want to do I don't do. And here, with all of the pressures of living overseas and all of the temptation and the darkness, I need to be closer to God than I have ever been. So, what is pulling me away? Lately, my friend has been really overwhelmed with the darkness of this city. The streets are strewn with litter, the dogs leave little 'gifts' on every corner for you to step in, grafitti blemishes the most beautiful buildings, and the nicest buildings are crumbling. And that can be irrating but after a while you get used to it.

Just like the spiritual climate. At first it is overwhelming, and you get depressed and it is just HARD. But then, you get used to the despairing glances of people on the trams because you have your nose in a book. You get used to the way the old woman clutches her handbag in fear... the signs for sex shops and strip shows that smack you in the eyes at every corner, because you just turn your head away and keep walking. But that is not why I am here. I am not here to just survive. To just turn my head and keep walking. I am called to be a light. But maybe I am being God's light when I don't laugh at my students' lude jokes, or when I look away from the posters that promise me fulfillment by a myriad of avenues. Maybe? Or are these excuses? Hm. Only God knows I suppose. My thoughts for today.

Sunday night service

Attending Sunday night service I heard Pastor Tony talking about spicing up your walk, with some tabasco sauce. He really was pointing out how we need to be challenged, and ask God to make our lives as Christians more spicy with challenges in our everyday situations. So the next day I was thinking about it, and when i was at work I realized I'm surrounded by new age believers who could use a little of God's love. I try hard to be different so that they will notice I am a Christian by my words and deeds, but I also want to be bold enough to tell them and explain what God means to me. I really believe in my experience that the new age beliefs are some of the toughest to crack, with most of them believing that they are infinitly more knowledgeable than the writers of the Bible could have possibly been. But that's a challenge God has thrown my way. Now he's telling me "swing away"
JOhn
I was bad last night, pray for me!

Message from Benjamin

Grace. Grace. Grace.

This past week the pastor of our church preached on Luke 13:6-8. Some of the points he made hit me like a ton of bricks.  It has been a considerable long time since I have been hit with a message that sank deep in my heart. Like many around me, I have been a christian my whole life and have grown up with amazing amount of bible knowledge poured into me. So when something hits me like this simple scripture it just reminds me that I don't yet have it all figured out! (well, I already knew that, it is just a healthy reminder)
The part that hit me the most was the ending part of the scripture below. The part about the man and the apple tree. I love how Jamie (pastor) brought up in his message to us at CLA that this could well be the most overlooked scripture of grace in the bible. So applying it to my life over the last week and remembering that even when people do bad things to us, there is always another chance. It is my choice on how I react to the situation. What I do with the choices ahead of me.
I also love how this scripture liberates us to move on. It encourages us that our father (God) still believes in us! That there is hope for our lives! We can change things!!!
So I will continue to ponder on this and apply it to my life. I am glad this has become a revelation to me! I pray it will change my actions!

Luke 13 (Message)
Unless You Turn to God

6Then he told them a story: "A man had an apple tree planted in his front yard. He came to it expecting to find apples, but there weren't any. 7He said to his gardener, "What's going on here? For three years now I've come to this tree expecting apples and not one apple have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?'
8"The gardener said, "Let's give it another year. I'll dig around it and fertilize, 9and maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn't, then chop it down.'