"Suffering is a Beautiful Hermeneutic"

I heard this quote by John Piper this past week at a conference in the city. No, all you young, hip Calvinists that are running to your collection of Piper books to look it up won't find it. It is a quote from a lunch conversation that was had with one of our conference speakers. According to the story, Piper had just found out he had cancer, but no one else knew. The man at lunch with him had just gone through cancer. Piper asked him what he learned and his reply was that besides God and his wife, cancer was the best thing that ever happened to him. At that, Piper, who hadn't smiled or barely talked all meal, dropped his fork and looked up with the Piper smile and whispered, "Suffering...is a beautiful...hermeneutic."

The funny thing is, I feel like I am experiencing both right now. I am finishing my last class of the year and ironically enough its hermeneutics. Hermeneutics refers to the process, both art and science, of interpreting, exegeting, and "rightly dividing" Scripture. There are all kinds of methodologies out there when it comes to hermeneutics. People have presuppositions and preunderstanding that causes them to approach Scripture with a bias. Bias isn't wrong, its inevitable. All of us approach the Word of God with our experiences, culture, doctrinal and theological slants and desires all in front of our faces. Because of these factors we all view Scripture in certain lights. So what do I think Piper meant?

I think he meant that when we suffer, when we experience the consequences of the fall in full force, we are then given the opportunity to see God for who He is and read His word to us in a correct light. Its amazing to me that all over the world Christianity is flourishing. People in areas of China are hiding a page of the Bible at a time in the ground for fear of being found with it. Only the the Western world are we tearing the Word apart, calling it literary criticism. Only in the Western world are there churches that call themselves churches yet don't believe that the Bible is God's Word. Everywhere else people trust it, love it, live by it and thrive by it. What is the difference?

Everywhere else people are suffering. What do we know about suffering in America? Honestly, our scale really isn't even comparable to that of Christians in Asia or the Middle East, but we experience suffering nonetheless. We suffer because though we are "rich and in need of nothing" nothing escapes from the consequences of the fall: the pain, the tears, the disorder of a creation rebelling against its Creator.

So we suffer. For some its financially. With the economy the way it is, some are losing houses, jobs, investments for the future and even their minds. Some are experiencing sicknesses like cancer, kidney failure, diabetes, and heart disease. Some are struggling to have babies.

As we experience and walk through this suffering we have an amazing opportunity to see God. We have an amazing opportunity to see God for who He is. Sovereign, gracious, loving, redeeming, powerful, trustworthy, faithful, merciful, and gracious. We have the chance to see a loving Heavenly Father who carries us through the suffering of life. Sometimes all that suffering does is lead us to a great knowledge of who He is. And I would say...that is enough.

So as you suffer, suffer well. Understand that in God's sovereignty, He knows and allows all. Maybe its time reap the benefits that suffering brings: a greater knowledge of God and His perfect character.

Pumpkins and Caramel Apples

Noah and me before the madness begins...

This weekend I thought it would be fun to carve pumpkins and make caramel apples...

The boys like to act like they thought I was nuts but deep down they loved it










Noah carving his masterpiece with a knife.

















The Finished product...I forgot what Noah named
him but I will update you when I ask him :)











Kimmel and I had bought another pumpkin so she brought over some real pumpkin carving tools and we made the most beautiful pumpkin I have ever seen... Go Gators!We decided to make caramel apples to really celebrate fall...


And here was the finished product. I never realized how hard it is to eat a caramel apple.

October Update

Catching up...
October has been a pretty amazing month. We had the opportunity to see family as we made our way back to Eldorado for a few days. Spending time with family is always good for our hearts. Noah spent a couple days in Atlanta going through Power Plant coordinator training. Power Plant is a ministry of the North American Mission Board that connects church youth groups with church plants in cities across the US and Canada. The students spend a week learning about church planting and evangelism and the church planters get a week of free labor. Noah was asked to be the St. Louis ministry coordinator, recruiting church planters and teaching for the week. Directly after getting of the plane from Atlanta we rushed downtown STL to attend the second half of the “LEAD for the city” conference. At this conference we went through our final couples’ assessment with the Acts 29 Network. It went extremely well and we are even more excited about what God is doing and how He is orchestrating everything.

Harvest the City...

We get a lot of questions about the name “August Gate.” And rightly so; because that is exactly what we wanted when we came up with it in the spring of ’07. We want this new church to be about three things: loving God, loving people, and restoring the city. To do so, we believe that we must be a church that prepares people to be missionaries in their own daily context. Ephesians 4:11-16 explains that God gives the leaders of the Church to just this; to train people with the Gospel so they may live and speak the Gospel. Matthew 9: 35-38 explains that as Jesus looked upon the crowds of the cities He was moved with compassion for them because they were lost and without hope. We believe that God is moved with this same heart of compassion when He looks upon our cities today. Jesus’ next words are crucial for all of us, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” We believe that we are just a few of those workers that God is sending out into the fields for the harvest. He has sent us to St. Louis, Missouri to harvest the city that is knows as “the gateway to the west.” Where are you called to? Where is God (literally) “thrusting” you?

We need your prayers. We don’t want to be ignorant of the tremendous amount of spiritual warfare that is going to begin and is already going on because we are walking in obedience to God’s call. We are planting in the area of St. Louis that holds one of the largest Mardi Gras celebrations in the world (2^nd only to New Orleans itself). We are going to a city with a high crime rate and low number of evangelical churches. But we are confident in what the Lord has in mind, for just this week I heard “the light is much brighter where the darkness is much darker.” We want to gather a group of people who will commit to daily and weekly prayer for us as a church and as individuals. If you are such a person, please contact us and we will tell you more.

There is a ton more going on in our lives... we will keep you updated :)

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog. We would like to know your questions, comments, thoughts and prayers. Feel free to leave us a comment.

Sift Me Like Wheat...

These last several weeks the Lord has really captivated my heart through the image of the threshing floor. As most of you know the first several years of Noah and my marriage have not been easy. I feel that we have been put through the fire and often selfishly feel we have walked this road too many times. I will not get into the specific circumstances of which have captivated our hearts, minds, and beings but trust me when I say that I wish these circumstances on no other person.

At Mathias’ Lot we have been studying Luke since Noah and I have moved here. A few weeks ago, Marc, the pastor, was speaking on Luke 22:31-38… I would encourage you to read it for yourself but for the sake of keeping the flow I am going to focus on the first 2 verses of this passage.

31 Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat 32 But I have pleaded in prayer for you Simon that your faith would not fail.

Chew on that for a moment. When we were reading this passage in the service a couple Wednesday nights ago it hit me square in the stomach. My mind was immediately taken back to the night that Noah and I were engaged. If you have not heard the full story of the man prophesying over us ask me about it and I would love to fill you in… but for the sake of staying on point I will talk about a very specific point of that night.

As my mind was taken back to the beach in Ft Lauderdale FL around midnight with sand in my toes and the waves crashing behind me I vividly remember this man who told my future husband and me that anything that Satan would try to bring against us would have to go through God and He would have to allow it. I couldn’t fathom what that meant that night, I had no idea what the future had in store.

So back to the passage… two things stood out to me 1. Satan had to ask God permission and 2. Satan asked to sift him like wheat. Here became my obsession … what does it mean to be sifted like wheat? What is a threshing floor?

To give a very simple description a threshing floor is a place away from the town often on a high hill exposed to the wind so it can aid the workers. It is here where the wheat and the chaff are separated. The chaff, which is useless, blows away in the wind because of how light it is. The grain is heavier so it falls to the ground and is gathered for the harvest. I cannot tell you how many times God has brought this image to me in the midst of feeling "threshed" in order to remind me that He is the one who does the sorting in my life.

This brings me to one of my favorite passages in scripture 1 Ch. 21:18-28 (Please Read)

It is in this passage that King David goes to Ornan to buy a threshing floor from him, to build an alter to worship the Lord. When he gets there Ornan offers it to him free of charge. David insists on paying full price for the threshing floor and he says in verse 24 I will not offer a burnt offering to the Lord that cost me nothing. David grasps what true worship looks like, he grasps that true worship is a sacrifice of our lives, our wants, and selfish desires for His.

So what does David do next? He pays Ornan 600 pieces of Gold for the threshing floor then goes and builds an alter to worship the Lord.

How beautiful is that picture? The question then is...

How can I truly worship the Lord with my life and my whole heart if it has cost me nothing? Also when we do feel the sifting shouldn't we consider it a joyful experience?

I so often find myself crying out to the Lord begging Him to tell me specifically what my offering should be, when He tells me I have to then ask for the strength to be faithful and give it away. This is ultimately my hearts deepest desire.

Now my prayer is to be found faithful.

Mathias Picnic

This past weekend was the annual Mathias/ 2 Rivers picnic. I wanted to post our most recent family pic. This is Noah and me getting ready to represent on the fields. Noah played football and I played on the coed softball team. Even though the football team lost we ended up winning in volleyball and softball so Mathias took home the trophy again.