Now that I am back in this country, I am just thinking that this blog will just become my random thoughts for what I consider will/is the most changing season of my life (yet). It began with Australia, where I was put in an entirely new country, city, with new people and new struggles and I enjoyed and survived the experience. There I learned that God has a plan, and whether or not I like it will be accomplished, but He does not leave you see it through alone. This last semester of college I see as another change because I currently have no idea what will happen after graduation. There are possibilities, but honestly they are vague grasps at some attempt to find the “correct” direction. So for now I will trust, that God will continue His plan for me and while I search He will distinctively let me know by opening doors…even if it means that my next job is training penguins.
Before I left Sydney I left the world of Psalms and started reading the book of John. Though I actually feel more comfortable with the material presented in the New Testament, I have never read John. Why? Mainly because I, like almost everyone on the planet, feels like John is just that incredibly over used book. “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Did you skim read that? Did it sound like it was delivered in a singsong manner? Well my answers would be yes to both and that is exactly how I thought about the book of John. Honestly reading this book has been difficult because I know the reaction I am supposed to get from it, you know the “this is the most epic book in the bible” reaction. That is something that I have to get over when I read this, because otherwise its useless to read. The one thing that has gotten me so far is that Jesus knew he was going to die, how, and the folks that were going to betray him and STILL He went forward. Jesus was asking people to believe in something different that what the educated and revered Pharisees were teaching as his popularity grew, so did the hate for him. There was hate for Jesus and there love, and in the end even those that loved him most betrayed Him. I’m not just talking about Judas either, Peter denied Him to the crowds…and Jesus straight up told him he would and Peter made a big ol’ stink about it, yet he still did. There’s that tendency in us to just go against what we know is right and it makes everything so much harder, I mean if Peter had admitted to being with Jesus back then he may have been killed earlier…and avoided being crucified upside down (you know if you had to pick your poison). Anyway, Jesus knew all this and yet in John 3:17 he prays for Himself, but it is about utterly bringing glory to God. He knew his fate, and therefore all he did was pray that the disciples be strengthened in their beliefs and they be the hands and feet of the glory of God because Jesus did not want future generations to miss out on receiving everlasting life (as stated early on in 3:16). So while I still do not LOVE John 3:16, and I think 3:17 is better…I understand that the beginnings (of the book of John) provided the foundation for the end. So I will take my changes and watch as they lay the foundations of the future.
