Notes in raw form from Regeneration's Sunday service (1/19/09)

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Jonah 2 - God to Fishy "Pick up Jonah and remember don't chew. I've got plans for him." Approach our doubts in a thoughtful way... "Thank you for being a skeptic." The point of Jonah isn't the fish. It would take a miracle for this story to happen.

1:3 - Jonah gets down into the lower depths of the boat. Later in the chapter he's thrown overboard. For an Isrealite that's the lowest you can go... it's death... He doesn't pray about going to Tarshish... He's not talking to God anymore. No longer praying. Finally begins praying awhen he ends up in the fish...

We have so many other things to do that we forget to pray... too many distractions... we don't have to face reality. God brings Jonah to the lowest depths to get his attention.

Chapter 2 - At this point the story changes. To the jews this is the lowest you can go. In Pslams if I made my bed in hell, you are there... God will help you no matter. He understands that when you are at rock bottom and have no where else to go...he's there...

Third day is always the big day in biblical stories. Jonah was vomitted onto the shore... projectile sort of vomitting. This story falls under comedy.

Chapter 1's funny events... Jonah is Charlie Chaplin.. he runs the other direction, pagan man of god encourages him to pray, thrown overboard, God appoints a fish (Nemo to the rescue) to save him... But then the story chnages... We see GOd is great. We find stiff necked people to not be that difficult for God. The things we see as grave and serious are not beyond God.

2 kings 14 35 - Jonah from Gathipticure (sp?) near Nazerath...

Jonah means Dove... Jesus also descended into the water... He was also in the "belly"

Jonah is a foretaste to Jesus... sorrow, death, etc loses... Love wins. There's no low that GOd can't save you from.

Art in the catacombs - who is found the most in the OT? Jonah second most. Lazarus is the first. There is no death for the Christian. The third day is coming... Jonah is a "holy comic book... death has no sting...death has no power... it's the door to the rest of our lives..."

What do we do when we hit rock bottom? Pray.

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. 2 He said: "In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, 'I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.' The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God. "When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD." And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Jesus comes and says, "I will meet you at your lowest point... there is a third day..."

I joined the scripture memorization group at Regen and our first homework assignment was Psalm 1. At this point I don't really have any thoughts on it so I'll post it here, "raw". If you have any thoughts on it feel free to speak up:

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Though personally I prefer the Message Bible's version:

How well God must like you— you don't hang out at Sin Saloon, you don't slink along Dead-End Road, you don't go to Smart-Mouth College. Instead you thrill to God's Word, you chew on Scripture day and night. You're a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, Never dropping a leaf, always in blossom. You're not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust— Without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people. God charts the road you take. The road they take is Skid Row.

I started this blog in order to blog about Christianity and my thoughts thereof. I haven't posted much since I started it. Things I was going through felt too personal to blog about here. However I come through a time of deep soul searching and find myself desiring to share my thinking about Christianity again... I don't know where this will lead but I can promise one thing... It will be painfully honest and unusual, just like I am.

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The world at large calls religion/God a crutch for which we lean on. I completely disagree!

Anyone who struggles with trust issues will understand how hard it can be to trust someone whom can seen, touched, or smell but trusting someone who is unseen and only "felt" can be damn near impossible.

The last year, plus, I have spent a lot of time researching trafficking and sexual abuse and the affects of abuse on the human physche. Trust is lost in these situations and often times so badly lost that one can barely trust themselves. If this is the case, how can they trust an unseen God?

God understands and works with us, one step after another. He works with us in small things and then moves to bigger and bigger things as we learn to trust him. A crutch is something you lean on when you cannot stand or walk. In the case of abuse, just learning how to lean on something or someone else is harder than going it alone.

We hear the tale of the "Footprints in the Sand" and wonder if that's really for us. Do we deserve it? Am I really that special that this "loving" God would walk with me through the good and the bad and even carry me? For abuse survivors, the answer is almost always no. They can only trust themselves and even at that, can they really? God isn't a crutch. God is a really just another disappointment like everyone else. He is not to be trusted.

If the world, the church, really understood this struggle maybe they would see a totally different God than the one that's been painted for them and maybe then there might be more compassion found within the church for the sinner and less judgment.

I love Sex and the City but never got into it until I moved to NYC. Then it was like I suddenly "got it". Not to say I was running all over the city with men having sex all the time like Samantha or any of the other girls on the show but it was a mind set and mentality that I understood.

Now that I am back in California, as much as I still love the show, I have started thinking, "Why are so many women wrapped in the idea of finding Mr. Right?" Most of us love the idea of finding the right person to spend the remainder of our lives with but I think we are obsessed with it and it's not just here in the states but all over the world. This is such an obsession that I meet women all the time who would rather settle for Mr. Not Quite Right than to risk being alone and single. I find that sad.

I don't think people realise the joy of being single. Sure it's hard because we all want companionship but there is so much we can do as single persons that I think singledom is overlooked. The world considers it a horrible thing but God's word says otherwise (can't find the verses at the moment) but claims it is a gift to be single. That God can do wonderous things with the single person.

Having spent at least 1/2 my life in a relationship of sort until I finally stepped back and focused on being single and healing, I can honestly say being single is a gift. I do desire for companionship but there is so much God can do with me that I think at this point I would only "settle" for someone who is my friend first, a partner in life, and together we are greater than we ever were apart.