Home is at times quite a fluid idea for our family.  Each summer we pack up and move to Camp Berea.  That becomes home.  We will be up here at Bean's Corner on a Sunday, right across the street from the house we live in, and yet we will say we are going home, referring to Berea.  Then we "move home" to Bean's Corner and then pack up and head to the lake where our camp becomes home.   You would think the whole thing would be rather confusing to our kids.   I was planning to write this blog post a day or two ago (before life ganged up on me).  Then last night, Sarah tells me of overhearing my youngest (now 4) telling his siblings, "when we are all back together, then we will be home because home is wherever we are all together."  They of course were returning from several days in Massachucets for a family wedding, me staying behind to close Camp.

Wow, I was floored by the insight and wisdom of my little guy.  Home is wherever we are all together.  My kids aren't confused about what home means at all.   We may make our home in different places, but our home is about the family, not location.   So that fits in with the original plan I had for this post.  We talk about heaven being our home, but really, our home is with God.  Some day heaven and earth will pass away and be replaced with new ones.  Home will be, and should be now, defined by being together with God.  Right now we are sojourning in a foreign land, but we look forward to the day when we will be together with our Father and be truly home.

This summer has reminded me of the ultimate lie of the devil.  In the garden, he convinced Eve that God was holding out on her, that God's love was actually restriction and that she would be better off doing her own thing.  This summer I have seen several people turning their back, not only on God, but on other people who love them and want good things for them because they are convinced that love is really restriction and loss.  Instead, they make choices that will destroy their freedom and happiness, and hurt many around them because they believe that if they follow their own way, that will be better.  It is so sad when you see someone go that way, so convinced in their mind that they will find happiness when you know that it will turn to ashes in the end.

I am reminded of a story my grandmother told me.  She told me that when she was a girl, she didn't want to have to go to bed at her bedtime.  She wanted to stay up.  So her mom and dad decided that she could.  They finished their evening and went to bed.  They had to shut out the oil lamps when they went to bed, leaving my grandmother sitting up alone with only the light of the woodfire.  Finally, after sitting around for a bit bored, Grammie went to bed.  Turned out she wasn't missing out on as much as she thought.

I think satan talks us into the same thing.  He convinces us that those that love us, especially God, are really witholding ultimate good from us and we need to break away and pursue something better.  But satan has nothing better.  Instead, all he has is empty promises and ways that destroy us.  God offers us love and life, if only we will accept Him and follow after Him.  There is no good outside of God and there is great good in Him!

Ok, so it has been a looong time since I last posted on the blog. With VBS, the Peacemaker Conference, Camp starting up, and life in general, I got seriously sidetracked and just haven't kept up with the blog. It is not a matter of simply being busy, it is being off a schedule and routine where I took the time to post. I am now catching the very end of July so that I at least have one post this month!

So, to the picture above. First, I was actually having a good time when the picture was snapped, I was just trying to give a good pose and it worked! The four young adults pictured with me are the four counselors at Berea this summer. They are great people who love Jesus, and love the teens. The girls are daughters to me and the boys are very much like sons to me.

It is this fact that leads me to this post.  This summer marks my 23rd summer on staff at Berea.  It is my 14th as Director.  When I started at Camp, I was a young 19 year old just finished with my first year of Bible college.  Now the counselors are still young people of college age but the 19 year old is now a 41 year old and looked on as a father figure.  How did that happen so fast?!?

Now, lest you think that I am complaining or bemoaning my passed youth, let me clarify.  I am VERY thankful for where I am today.  The Lord in His faithfulness has taken that young man who was so full of insecurity and doubt, and taught him, trained him, refined him, and matured him.  Now I still have a LONG way to go, but I am thankful that God has seen fit to now allow me to be a father figure and mentor to these young men and women.  In the case of the four pictured there, I have watched them grow up from young teens (or younger) into the fine men and women that they are today.  No longer campers, they now have the maturity and spiritual wherewithal to be counselors.  They too, like me, have a long way to go, but I am so blessed that God has seen fit to use me in some small ways to encourage and teach them as they grow in Him.

I have wanted a big family.  So far God has seen fit to bless Sarah and I with only three biological children.  Yet with each passing year, I seem to collect more sons and daughters who could use a dad, or another dad, to teach and guide them in their walk with Christ.    This is no reflection of my greatness.  It is testimony to the wonderful and awesome power of God which can take a poor, insecure, strange young man and make him a father figure to many.  To God be the glory.  This "clay pot" is thankful that he is useful and excited to discover anew each week God's exciting command to "Make Disciples!"

The link above points to an article on CNN by Ken Davis, who has  a great book out called, Don't Know Much About History.  He discusses the current stir about Paul Revere that Sarah Palin stirred up with her comments.  He stays out of the politics (thank you!) and instead talks about what the story really is, complete with context and detail.  As someone who really loves history and has taught it and read a lot of it, I really appreciated his article.  He makes a great point which I quote here.

But it is also dangerous when people "cherry pick" pieces of the story to suit their purposes, when the foot is cut to fit the shoe. A sanitized but incomplete, or worse, wildly inaccurate, version of history can be cited to support just about any political stand. Like scripture, the words and deeds of the Founders, mixed with bits and pieces of American mythology, are trumpeted to support positions on every issue from individual rights, states' rights, gun rights or gun control, to taxes, immigration, public prayer and, most dangerously, taking the nation to war.

As I was reading this, I was thinking, that's just like what people do with the Bible, and then he made the same point!  So often both Christians and Non-Christians take verses out of context, misquote verses, misapply verses, or sometimes just add verses that aren't even in there.  It is too easy to start with the point you want to make or believe and then go looking for proof texts to make you right.  Instead our approach is supposed to be to come the the Word honestly, letting it tell us what it says instead of the other way around.  We need to be prepared to set aside our biases, our traditions, even the things that we were taught by people we love and respect, and let the Bible tell us what it says.  And we need to do that by reading the whole thing and considering it as a whole, not cherry picking out the parts you like or don't like.  As Davis says,

But we prefer holding onto a tidy scenario of pride and patriotism that is neither accurate nor memorable, if we remember at all. Instead, we settle for ignorance, as periodic surveys of American knowledge of history routinely prove. Or we cobble together a sketchy narrative combining fact and fiction to comfortably fit our political agendas.

That is sad. And dangerous. It is sad because history is compelling, fascinating and instructive -- if we tell the real story.

The same can be said of the Bible.  It is sad and dangerous when we misuse Scripture.  Scripture is compelling, fascinating and instructive--if we tell the real story.

Finally, this is a good reminder that, as Christians, we should strive to be intellectually, historically honest and knowledgeable  Too often we have celebrated ignorance and given the cause of Christ a black eye as a result.  Jesus knew His stuff, we should too.

Ever get stuck?  You know, the tires spin but you don't go anywhere?  My 3 year old rides a bike with training wheels and now and then he gets to a place where the training wheels keep his main tire just off the ground enough that he spins but doesn't go anywhere.  I have gotten stuck in our driveway a few times in the winter as the snow and ice kept me from getting traction.  My favorite stuck story though is years ago when a girl in our youth group missed the church driveway and ended up in the soft lawn, getting stuck in mud.  By the time we got her out, we were covered!

This put me in mind of some people who get stuck.  I'm not talking about cars or bikes anymore, I'm talking about spiritually stuck.  At some point they have something happen to them that seems bad.  Perhaps they got hurt by a friend or coworker.  Perhaps they got dismissed from their job.  Perhaps they were cheated by a family member or otherwise mistreated.  Maybe it was something really big like abuse.  Whatever the event, the got stuck in it.  Oh, to be sure, they have moved on, but not spiritually.  The wheels might be turning, but if you listen long enough, you will realize that they are still angry, still hurt, still injured from that event and haven't moved out of that hole.  They're going on with their lives, but the spiritual life has never gotten past that event.

Why does that happen?  Unforgiveness and an unteachable heart.  The Bible tells us that God causes all things to work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.  That means that even things that seem very negative to us, are tools in God's hands to mature us and develop us.  When instead of seeing past the actions of man to see the overriding action of God, we instead focus on the hurt that someone else has caused us, we short-circuit that process and we get stuck.  We can't forgive the other person because we are focused on their act, not what God wants to do through that act.  We can't realize the positive power of what God wants to teach because we're still mad that it happened in the first place.  Often times, without realizing it, we have made the situation worse by spinning our tires and digging ourselves in rather than being humble and teachable.

I have to tell you that I have been mistreated before.  I have had people betray and hurt me.  I can't let that get me stuck.  I have to be like Joseph who looked back at the actions of his brothers and said,  "Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life."  (Genesis 45:5 NAS).  Notice that?  Not only isn't he angry, he doesn't even want his brothers to be regretful for what they did, which was so very wrong.  Joseph realizes that He is in God's hands and he is totally submissive to what God is doing, not focusing on what people are doing.  This is way beyond mere human forgiveness, this is looking at your life in a whole different way.

Are you stuck?  Is there an area where you still have anger, bitterness, resentment because of the actions of someone else?  Only forgiveness and submission to God will get you unstuck and allow you to start to grow again spiritually.