Pete's Blog

I’m looking back on the four years that I’ve served at Carleton. I could have been bolder, taken more initiative, had more faith, read more books – and the list goes on. It was only just now that I realized that I could have prayed more.

This morning the Lord revealed that my ambitions are too small. I want to get married. I want to plant a church. I want to reach the lost with the Gospel. I want to see Africa healed of all of its aches. A common glance at those doesn’t immediately reveal a problem. However, there is a systematic problem. These are all finite goals. It’s not Jesus. Let me illustrate this by elaborating on the first ambition that I listed.

I’ve been listening lately to a Podcast from Focus on the Family called The Boundless Show, produced for Young Adults. It talks about money, culture and other issues surrounding Young Adulthood, but in each of the episodes that I’ve listened to, it talks about BGR (i.e., Boy Girl Relationships) to a certain extent. I’ve been getting pretty excited at the thought of being married someday. I started wondering whether it (alone) was spurring me on in my walk of sanctification (i.e., becoming more holy). I ask myself that a lot: Am I trying to lose weight to show the unbelieving world that I have self-control, or to attract a girl? Am I reading my Bible so that I can talk about it and have a leg up to catch a girl’s attention? This morning I was praying that God would lead me to my wife and I asked myself, no doubt, filled with the Spirit, What are you going to be praying for when it happens?

That hit me really hard. I prayed right away that God would give me a thirst for His glory. That I would desire to seek after Jesus more than anything else; more than marriage, more than Africa, more than perishing souls. I really don’t want to be an idolater. I want to find Jesus. (More on this later.)

And this brought me to prayer. I am convinced that there is so much that I can’t change: I can’t change the colour of the sky, I can’t make night day, I can’t force my father to see the evil of the world, confess his sins and receive Christ, I can’t raise up labourers for the harvest. The Sovereign Lord can!

The biggest thing that’s eating me right now is that I didn’t pray enough for where I was. This past year I’ve led the Young Adults group at my church, led the Engineering student MDA (i.e., a Movement Develop Area, or as Ottawa student, Mandy, rephrased it, an Area to Develop a Movement), led a DG (i.e., a Discipleship Group), which unfortunately was disjoint from leading the MDA, and coordinated Weekly Meeting. So many things to pray for, and yet so little prayer offered up. And when I did pray, it wasn’t specific, it was vague. I think that much of the time that I spent praying for Engineering students I was giving lip service, just wanting to get it over with.

So I think that I’ve learned a valuable lesson, that I really do have access to the supernatural resources of God through prayer. I need to pursue ways to make sure that I’m praying for those areas that I’m leading. If I’m not, then who is? I need to regularly cast the vision to myself of why I’m ministering where I’m ministering so that I care. I need to make sure that I’m not serving in so many areas that I get overwhelmed praying for all of them, all the time. I need to schedule prayer times and keep them. I need to gather people to pray with me. I need this to happen, for the sake of the salvation of my soul and the glory of God’s Name.

Labels: Abbreviations, Ministry, Miscellaneous, Prayer

Today I read Exodus 36 for my devotions. In it, Moses records that Bezalel is building and putting together the Tabernacle. Interestingly, all of the dimensions of the Tabernacle are recorded here as Bezalel builds and works, even though the exact same dimensions were recorded in chapter 26 where the Lord commands how His Tabernacle is to be made. So why did Moses record it again? You may say that Moses was emphasizing Bezalel and Israel’s obedience to God’s commands. They were zealous to “not turn aside to the right hand or to the left” (Dt. 5:32). But this isn’t the only place where there is repetition in Moses’ writing.

In Genesis 24 Moses wrote the story of how Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, was found. In verses 12 to 27 Moses recorded how Abraham’s servant found Rebekah. Then, in verses 42 to 48 Abraham’s servant is telling Rebekah’s family how he found her, and Moses records this as well. Moses tells the same story twice within the span of forty verses. I don’t know why.

There is lots of repetition in Moses’ writing. (As another example, read Exodus and see how many times he repeats "blue and purple and scarlet yarns, and fine twined linen." If I was writing that, I may have said something like, "the fabrics for the Tabernacle" and defined them once.) I find it intimidating. Moses is clearly employing this literary device, and I strongly suspect that it is for a reason (2Ti. 3:16), but I don’t have a clue why. I’m not a student of language arts.
Aspiring to be a pastor someday I expect to be studying in depth the Lord’s Word on a near daily basis, and preaching it on a weekly basis. What will I do when I come to these difficult parts? Will I skip them and stick to what I find easier to understand? I don’t think that I will. I am eager to see how God will provide. I wonder whether commentaries will answer the linguistic questions that I am oblivious to. I’m sure that God will make provision for His servant.

Labels: Bible, Ministry, Miscellaneous

I will often refer to unnamed third party individuals. To avoid being cumbersome (i.e., using the correct "he or she") and to avoid incorrect grammar (e.g., using "they," since it's plural, despite its use in common English as either plural or singular) I will refer to a hypothetical or unnamed third person as "he". I will even do so in some cases when talking about a female third person.

For example, if I am writing about something that could be embarrassing for a certain girl or woman, and I don't want to name her, I will anonymously refer to her in the third person as "him". Concretely, consider the following fictional story:

Stacy, who was a lead singer some Sunday mornings in front of her congregation, was caught stealing an expensive sweater from a store. Suppose that Stacy is close within my circle of friends. If I wanted to comment on this, without letting any readers of my blog know whom I am talking about, I might write, "A friend of mine just did an awful thing. I'm surprised that he did it." Pretty simple.

There will be exceptions. I expect to say "her." Don't be surprised. But also don't be surprised if I talk about a girl, but refer to him.

Labels: Disclaimer

This is a surprising first post. I figured that I'm going to be writing a lot pertaining to the Bible, and in so doing I'll be using mostly abbreviations for the Scripture references. Some may not be intuitive. Therefore, I've decided to leave it unambiguous, by posting on it:

Book (Abbreviation)
Genesis (Ge.)
Exodus (Ex.)
Leviticus (Le.)
Numbers (Nu.)
Deuteronomy (De./Dt.)
Joshua (Js.)
Judges (Jd.)
Ruth (Ru.)
1 Samuel (1S.)
2 Samuel (2S.)
1 Kings (1K.)
2 Kings (2K.)
1 Chronicles (1Ch.)
2 Chronicles (2Ch.)
Ezra (Ez.)
Nehemiah (Ne.)
Esther (Es.)
Job (Jb.)
Psalms/Psalm (Ps.)
Proverbs (Pr.)
Ecclesiastes (Ec.)
Song of Songs (So.)
Isaiah (Is.)
Jeremiah (Je.)
Lamentations (La.)
Ezekiel (Ek.)
Daniel (Da.)
Hosea (Ho.)
Joel (Jl.)
Amos (Am.)
Obadiah (Ob.)
Jonah (Jo.)
Micah (Mi.)
Nahum (Na.)
Habakkuk (Hk.)
Zephaniah (Zp.)
Haggai (Hg.)
Zechariah (Zc.)
Malachi (Ml.)
Matthew (Mt.)
Mark (Mk.)
Luke (Lk.)
John (Jn.)
Acts (Ac.)
Romans (Ro./Rm.)
1 Corinthians (1Co.)
2 Corinthians (2Co.)
Galatians (Ga.)
Ephesians (Ep.)
Philippians (Pp.)
Colossians (Co./Cl.)
1 Thessalonians (1Th.)
2 Thessalonians (2Th.)
1 Timothy (1Ti.)
2 Timothy (2Ti.)
Titus (Ti.)
Philemon (Pm.)
Hebrews (Hb./Hw.)
James (Ja./Jm.)
1 Peter (1P.)
2 Peter (2P.)
1 John (1J.)
2 John (2J.)
3 John (3J.)
Jude (Ju.)
Revelation (Re./Rv.)

Realitically, I'm probably not going to speak on most of these books, but it doesn't hurt to address them before they come up.

Labels: Abbreviations, Bible, Disclaimer