Ryan & Jordan

with Pioneer Bible Translators

Tag: shalom

October 25, 2013

Table Rock

by ryan

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Jordan and I went up with my mom and watched the sunset over Boise.  There’s a big cross up there which is lit every night for the city to see.

Being on a rock like that brings much to mind: Mount Zion, the stone table in Clive Lewis’ Narnia, Jerusalem, and of course, Jesus.

Jesus wept as he approached Jerusalem.  The Gospel according to Luke reads,

Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. (ESV Translation)

Jesus knows a lot about making peace and I am trying to learn from him.  How about you?  What do you like to make and who taught you how?

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September 14, 2013

There & Back Again: not quite yet

by ryan

We’re interrupting our road trip recounting because our hearts are heavy.

Would you please pray for justice & peace in Syria?

Would you please pray for peace in Lebanon and in the nation-state of Israel?

This world is full of pain & sorrow, and yet in the midst of it all we can be surprised by Joy Himself.  Grace.  And in that moment God draws us closer to himself.  As the Syrian civil war has been raging, I have often been convicted about my priorities.  So often I am self-focused and running about because of things that don’t really matter much.

All of this reminds me of a conversation a group of us had this week with Brian Doerksen and Dorothy M. Peters.  Many of the Hebrew songs in the Bible come out of a state of anguish or lament (Psalms 3,5,6,7,10, 137 to list a few), yet we do not often sing these songs (ever listen to “Christian” radio?).   Often the Psalms are an intertwining of praise & faith in the midst of pain, or praise because God has delivered (Psalm 30 for example).  Let us learn from the psalmists, singing new songs to God in confident trust not hiding our tears or fears, knowing he is the Sovereign One.  Even in our pain & mourning.  His mercies are new each morning (Lamentations).  And his faithfulness?  Psalm 36.

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