Controlling the Blaze

Becky and I have been going through Linda Dillow's Calm My Anxious Heart, which is about contentment in all aspects of life. This week we managed to get to the chapter dealing with greed and Dillow includes a really great quote from A.W. Tozer:

Within the human heart things have taken over. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.

Dillow also refers to Proverbs 30:14-15a, but what caught my attention was 15b-16:

There are three things that will not be satisfied, four that will not say "Enough":Sheol, and the barren womb, earth that is never satisfied with water, and fire that never says "enough."

So verse 16 combined with Tozer's quote got me thinking...It is really easy for me to fall into the "fire that never says 'enough'" trap. I latch on to things and can't seem to get enough, particularly things of God: fellowship, word, and worship. Now a desire for these things is good, we should never be quenched, we should never be complacent when it comes to our walk with Christ...but I take it a little too far. I get fanatical (almost psychotic) about things.

Especially worship. God has given me a definite heart for worship and has allowed me the opportunity to use that by placing me in a worship band. But I've noticed that I may take things too far. I would love to worship 'til sunrise but sometimes I question my motives; whether I want to keep worshiping because we are giving God the glory due Him or because I love the feeling I get when worshiping and don't want it to end. When we close worship, I have to be careful not to sink into disappointment as I have done before. Instead of riding the afterglow and recognizing the value of the time just spent in worship, I begin to resent that it had to end.

I've done the same before with time in the Word. (I have a different theory as to why I crave fellowship so much, but that's another post.) I can easily fall into treating God as a drug, focusing on the high rather than on Him. And then I'm upset if/when the buzz isn't big enough.

All this, of course, makes me all the more thankful. I mean, any man (or woman for that matter) wouldn't take such abuse...

Quote from the back of my Global Expeditions shirt:

We must be global christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.
-John Stott-

The Fruits of Idle Hands

My roommate and I have finally found something to do with the pile of recyclables in the corner (as neither of us has the presence of mind to actually take them out to the bin). We're weaving a 4'x2' VT out of Fanta and Cherry Coke wrappers. The bottles themselves will be used for hallway bowling later on...

I know, you marvel at our ingenuity. This is what happens when one person has absolutely nothing to do, the other is avoiding actual work at all costs, and they have both been listening to a German Techno station for two days straight.

We are still trying to figure out what to do with the Mountain Dew and Sprite bottles... Any suggestions?

Yawp

I love college. It's the whole class thing I'm not too fond of.

Mid-Atlantic Nav Conference II

I told you there was another part coming...

I have to admit that, at the start, the conference didn't go too well for me. I was thrilled to be there, I was really enjoying the sessions, I was learning a lot of good stuff, but I wasn't really there. I have been having a really hard time focusing lately, and Saturday morning was no exception. Then I got taken down a couple of notches.

We had some free time after lunch. After a failed attempt at instigating a snowball war, I decided to spend some time in the Word as it had been a while since I had a really quality quiet time. I struggled through a few verses, thinking all the while that God was trying to tell me something and I just wasn't getting the point. So, instead, I got frustrated, gave up, and went for a walk so that He and I could chat.

Apparently that's what I really needed: to get away from people and other distractions and just wander. So I wound up in this field and God was finally able to get through to me on some things He's been trying to tell me for quite some time. I thought I had learned those lessons, I thought I had given things over to God, I thought I had already grasped those concepts...I was wrong.

There I was, in the middle of this field of snow, ranting at God wanting to know why I was so frustrated, why I hadn't been seeing the growth I wanted in my walk, why I hadn't gotten an answer to a prayer I've had for some time and why I couldn't focus.

And all He had to say was "Surrender." Which made me break down entirely.

Can I just say I love it when God does that? I mean, the still-small-voice thing. It just blows me away every time.

Anyway, God managed to point out how I've been trying to do things on my own power. Sure, I was having quiet times, but I was treating them more like study sessions. I was praying that God's will would be done in certain situations, but I was still trying to get things done on my own. I was praying for an answer, but I was searching it out on my own. He pointed out that He couldn't move in my life until I stepped out of the way; He couldn't guide my situation until I handed it over completely; and He couldn't give me an answer until I turned everything over and was able to listen to Him instead of my own reasoning.

So He asked, I gave, He answered.

After that, the conference took on a whole other tone for me. I could focus and actually learn. A lot of what was said in subsequent sessions reiterated what God had blindsided me with. One of the points that most sticks with me is this (regarding surrender, go figure):

There are some things that we surrender to God once and that is it. He takes care of it and we never have to deal with it again. There are some things that we have to deal with continually, that we have to bring before God every day. He wants us to come to Him and surrender those things to Him daily because He wants us to depend on Him.

God wants us to be dependent on Him...what an addiction to have.

Mid-Atlantic Nav Conference

I have quite a bit to say about this past weekend. I would have said it earlier but I got to come back to a research proposal that was due today. My final title for that being Effect of Human Presence on Flight Initiation and Habituation in American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis), which is just a fancy way of saying I'm going to see how close I can get to the birdfeeder before I scare the birds off. Scientific writing is great. I mean, at least you sound like you know what you are talking about.

Right, so back to the conference. I'm going to have to do this one in two parts: what happened, and what I learned (as I am still trying to get it all into words).
The conference was a blast. I love road trips anyway, so spending 5 hours in a car with some really great people just rocks. So the way up, my group was the last to depart, but it's all good. After last week, I was just glad to be in the car. Laura and I got to catch up. I got to talk with Nate and Josh, a couple of guys that I haven't really been able to get to know much until then. So it was really fun.
Our speaker for the weekend was Mike Jordahl, National Navigator Collegiate Director. Good stuff, man. The theme was a new thing and we drew a lot from Isaiah 43. wow...

Back on track. We had a lot of time for fun/mischief and Laura and I managed to start a snowball fight. Well, we started one...it didn't really last. But there was time set aside for group prayer for our campuses. An hour was not nearly enough time, we still had so much to pray over. And there were a lot of campuses represented: Maryland, PennState, Rutgers, VT, Howard and more that I can't think of off hand (helps that I lost my program from the weekend).
After a couple more sessions talking about new purpose, new paths to walk in, and the like (more later), we had more good fellowship time. There was an open mic night in the dining hall but the VT group migrated to the gym. Where there is any concentration of VTNavs, there is a good chance that swing will break out. That probability increases if someone managed to remember to bring swing music (as I had) and there is an available stereo (which there was). So really, it was inevitable.

I was definitely not ready to come home on Sunday. I woke up early and just sat outside taking in the view. We were up in Greencastle, PA at Camp Joy-El. Absolutely beautiful up there. We were in the middle of farmland and everything was covered in snow, sigh...There was even a stream with a small waterfall. More session Sunday and we headed home around 2 or so. Carloads got shuffled for the ride home so it turned out that Laura and I wound up in Robbie's truck. Laura slept the whole way home so it was just Robbie (yes I am actually friends with the HokiePundit, you should all be insanely jealous) and me and ska for 4.5 hours straight. I'm definitely going to have to get ahold of some of those cds...

To top it all up, when we got back, it was snowing in Blacksburg. What an end. I was so exhausted I was actually in bed by 9. I haven't gone to bed that early in quite some time.

I promise, I've got more substantive stuff coming about what we studied and how God (quite literally) knocked me off my feet and to my knees this weekend. All I can say for now on that is, "He is amazingly faithful."

Hmm...

Only one comment. Me thinks perhaps you care not what nor why I write....
Pigeon Pi came from hours of deliberation. I thought through many names: "Hokie extempore" was a little stuffy but almost got used; "Pigeonhole" came up but, alas, had already been claimed; "Pigeon Piety" was even considered, but didn't quite ring right...So "Pigeon Pi" it is. Pigeon comes from my surname which, apparently, is Czech for pigeon. Pi was actually grabbed at random from the dictionary as meaning an amount of type that has been jumbled or thrown together at random; although I like the whole pigeon/dove/pi idea. I may have to pretend that I actually put in that much thought...