beebies

the tomboy poodle, who we thought would forever delegate all responsibility and seriousness of life to her soulmate Molly, finally grew up.

Emma is doing great and never wants to leave the puppies sides (unless the doorbell rings, i guess some things are just too instinctive).

one girl, three boys. a fitting ratio.

ego-booster

so, if you can read my blog, be proud of yourself. i ran it through the "Blog Readability Test" and came up with this:

Movie Reviews

my previous blog from London came out College (Post Grad), so apparently i'm getting either more brilliant or more obtuse. or maybe its just the fact that my posts here are short and seldom . . . like an old wise man on whose words everyone hangs.

or maybe it just randomly chooses a level to play with peoples' minds.

revelation 7:9

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

by request

My parents were going out of town this weekend, so can you guess what the first thing I did was?

If you said bought beer and invited all my friends over for a party, you must be high or someone who doesn't know me at all.

I made a list. A nice fatty one, I think about 13 items on it. All things that I wanted to get done by Saturday evening.

It included laundry, cleaning, homework for my missions class (a TON of homework I might say, final paper due next week), wrapping a mother's day present, returning books to the library, weeding in the backyard, exercising, etc.

At exactly 8:43pm, I finished them all. And then sat down to write this blog, just for Amanda. And it wasn't even on the list.

gauntlet

This quote appeared in the reading for my class this week:

"Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger (wo)men. Do not pray for tasks to be equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle."

Did you really read that? Stop and read it through again.

This just blows me away. When I stop and think about all the things I pray for - I almost always come at it from other side: easy life, tasks equal to my powers, the miracle outside myself.

But he (Bishop Phillips Brooks) is right - what kind of testament is that?

I'd rather be the miracle.

unspeakables

She sweeps with many-colored brooms,
And leaves the shreds behind;
Oh, housewife in the evening west,
Come back, and dust the pond!

You dropped a purple ravelling in,
You dropped an amber thread;
And now you've littered all the East
With duds of emerald!

And still she plies her spotted brooms,
And still the aprons fly,
Till brooms fade softly into stars --
And then I come away.

- emily dickenson

visitors

we had a couple unexpected guests this morning.

hope

I just love this class I'm taking on missions. Mostly, because its about more than just "missions" as we tend to define it, its about the meaning of life.

I wish I had taken this class in college.

So today, I'm doing my homework and we're reading our chapter on the Kingdom of God. Just to put this all in context, the first week emphasized that God is at heart a "missionary" God - the entire Bible paints Him as the one who constantly reaches out to us, constantly seeks us, and constantly does whatever it takes to initiate relationship with us.

The second week was about God's mission statement, His own "meaning of life", which is to bring Himself glory. Don't think abstractly here: what is glory? It's brilliance, fame, the entire worthiness and magnitude of something. God's mission is that all of creation recognizes Him for who He is in perfect worship.

Just stop and think about that. That's the underlying reason for every single action He takes. The cool thing about God is that this mission plays out in two directions: in order to help us "glorify" or worship Him, He displays His glory to us - which basically means that He shows us the brilliance and magnitude of who He is so that we respond by worshiping Him!

God's purpose in life is to constantly show us how amazing He is so that He gets all the credit for being Himself!

On to this week: the Kingdom. If you are thinking heavenly real estate, think again. Kingdom is not a place, and its not primarily a realm: its all the qualities that dwell in a King which make him King. To be a King, you have to rule, so inherently it implies the power and authority to rule. If you don't have power to rule, you aren't a king.

When Christ came, he announced that the Kingdom of God had come. In fact, that's almost all that he talked about it. When God charged man with having dominion over the earth way back in Genesis, we surrendered it to Satan with the Fall. We started out with our own kingdom and it quickly became the Kingdom of Darkness. Jesus said no more - the Kingdom of God has now come and right now you can choose: God's Kingdom or Satan's. The Jews missed their Messiah because they were looking for the second coming of Christ when the Kingdom would no longer be a choice: it would be reality.

This passage in my reading for tomorrow puts it really well:

It has come quietly, unobtrusively, secretly. It can work among men and never be recognized by the crowds . . . The Kingdom of God is an offer, a gift which may be accepted or rejected. The Kingdom is now here with persuasion rather than with power.

This is why we have hope. Because we don't think God is merely holding things together until the end, because Satan has complete dominion and reign. We hope because we know that God's power and authority have now come to dwell on earth through us.

But we have to choose it. And we have to live it. The darkness of both spiritual and physical oppression will not be vanquished if we think that our eternal salvation is all the gospel is really about.

notoriety

Sometimes you just wish that those old writers would have gone into more detail:

Ephraim had a daughter named Sheerah. She built the towns of Lower and Upper Beth-horon and Uzzen-sheerah. (1 Chronicles 7:24).

glory

i have so much i could put in here, but i think blogs are meant to be digestable :)

lately, because of a class i've been taking, i've been thinking a lot about glory. and God's kingdom. and what those both really mean.

i grew up in church and sunday school and i don't think i've ever had a really firm grasp on what either of those two mean. what is the definition of glory? of the kingdom of God?

but i'm coming to realize that its important to figure it out. because Jesus talked about them more than anything else. in fact, throughout the bible God says that his mission is to bring himself glory. and when Jesus came, he said he came to proclaim that the kingdom of God had come.

i'm starting to think that these two things are what its all about.

callouses

evidence of my newly acquired skills - don't mock, I'm still honing them!

PST

Most of the time, it really sucks to live 2,3,6,8,9, and 13 1/2 hours behind most of my friends.

Except when I wake up in the morning I have emails from all of them because they've already started their day :)

I've realized that friends are like stocks: you should always keep a diverse portfolio of them. Kindred spirits, passing acquaintances, party buddies - the more kinds you have, the better the return.

noise

so this nature sounds guy said that in 1968, to get one full hour of pure nature sounds (no human-made noise), he'd have to record 15 hours (and edit the clips together).

today (like last year or something when he gave the quote), he has to record 2,000 hours. to get one hour's worth of pure nature sound.

I was challenged at this retreat I went on to turn off the noise - my radio, the tv, my own voice . . . and just listen to God speak in the silence. that is tough. but you know, it's something that refreshed my spirit more than sleep refreshes my body.

what voices do you listen to? do you show God that his voice is the most important one you listen to?

try turning off the radio when you drive to work today.

road trip

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This is where my brother and dad traveled yesterday and today.

They went a lot faster than they expected since the motorhome they thought they'd be driving broke down two miles from the house and they ended up just taking his Pontiac. Seemed like a huge setback at the time, considering that the motorhome was where my brother was going to live. Right now, he is probably arriving in Dallas with no clue where he will spend the next year sleeping.

On the other hand, the breakdown spurred on the amazingly compassionate staff of our church to call the school and churches in Dallas to locate affordable housing. Which led them to realize that they have contacts with a huge church in Dallas that has six mission pastors. Yes, SIX. Not a bad contact for a just-starting missionary to make.

Probably worth a broken-down motorhome and a scary road trip. When I mentioned to one of my friends that I thought living in a motorhome and not knowing where you'd be parking it sounded scary, he told me it sounded like a great adventure.

I hope my brother thinks like Luke :)

On another note, I found out that I have a new brother in Christ!!! Someone who lived in the residence hall I worked for in London. Someone I had a couple conversations with and planted a few seeds in. No matter if we plant, water, or reap, its still miraculous to watch. And I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate the new year.