bottom of the ninth...

But you walked away from your first love—why? What's going on with you, anyway? Do you have any idea how far you've fallen? A Lucifer fall! "Turn back! Recover your dear early love. No time to waste, for I'm well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle.

Rev. 2:4-5 (The Message)

I'll start this blog post by speaking allegorically. You know when your walking through dense brush (and yes I know, using "dense brush" in an allegory is proof of my surroundings already) and you get all these branches, are tripped up by logs, and the occasional spider webs finds its way into your mouth? You have a goal in mind - you love the forest, you love what the forest means but sometimes we get so wrapped up and bothered about whats in the forest and we forget about the forest itself - we lose sight of the bigger picture.

Bible college is a dense brush.

As I wrestle through the challenges of proposed doctrines, investigate deeper into Greek and Hebrew origin, and attempt to wrap my head around theology - I am beginning to lose sight of Jesus. I am losing sight of love.

Yesterday was my first hour time slot in the prayer room here at Kaleo and that verse in Revelations was nagging me the entire time. I say nagging because in all honesty I would much rather prefer to consider myself above simple forgetfulness, above that beginner stuff. But God has been revealing to me the many flaws in my foundation. I pondered the doctrine of election before I pondered the idea of giving that homeless guy my sandwhich.

There is something profoundly, deeply, and perversely wrong with that.

So as I sat in the prayer room I looked at the pictures of all the students on the wall, and as I prayed for each one I realized how little love I had for this community, for these people, and it sucked. I wish I could use a better word but a simple and obvious word tends to work best for simple and obvious experiences. Wasn't it Jesus who said that anyone can love someone who loves them, and that true love is loving your enemy?

If this is true - which I consider the words of Jesus to be - than this affects me. In all likelyhood it probably affects you as well. Often if I find myself at odds with someone I quickly pull out and build fantastical arguments against them in my head, why it is ok for me to not like them - they obviously have some stuff they need to work on. And that's just liking people, dear God - am I ready for loving people?

I'm not sure what this looks like - to love people, in all honesty I'm not. And thats tough to type coming from someone who has heard of love for his entire life. Like most things this year I figure it is going to be something I am going to wrestle through...He just couldn't throw me a freebie eh?

So as I journey in prayer this week I would ask that you would come alongside - holding up myself, and the Kaleo community here. I pray 6am - 7am Tuesday morning (which is less than five hours away), 11am-12pm Wendesday, and 3pm-4pm on Thursday. On Friday I have been asked to lead the final chapel for this week so I ask that you would be in prayer for that as well, asking God to give me direction for this chapel and that it would in no way be to glorify me but in all ways glorify Him.

Again, thank you, thank you, thank you - for journeying with me thus far this year.

Love,

Jake