Texas Spring

The weather has been absolutely wonderful this week.
Summers and winters in this part of the country can get rather extreme. Spring doesn't last long enough- for a few short weeks we get 70 degree weather and bright sunshine.
Once in a while I've just let everything go, and taken a midnight stroll through the campus grounds, just watching squirrels scamper by feeling the cool breeze brush past, and taking in the many shades of green on the oak-tree foliage. Even for half an hour it's nice to forget that I have a lab report due the next morning that I've yet to get started on...

It's funny how we seem always to be living for "tomorrow"- I need to get my homework in order so I can get good grades, so I can get into a good grad school, so I can get a good job- we spend so much time stressing about the future that we forget to embrace the joys of the now.

Take a walk in the park. Spend 15 minutes of your day admiring the patterns on the tree-bark. Life is short.

camping

This spring break I learned NEVER to go camping in San Antonio.
It rained four of the six days I was there- and when I say rain, I don't mean the sissy little drizzles that people in Fort Worth try to pass off as rain, I mean 80mph winds and flash floods.

Eventually we just gave up on the "rustic outdoors" idea, folded up our tents and slept in the lodge.

In the intermittent periods of time when it wasn't raining, we had to put up with sunburn-inducing desert heat.

Feels just like home...

Does God speak?

Take a look at this article.

Are you skeptical? I would have been, as recently as a few months ago. Since then, I have had so many people tell me about their direct encounter with God that this article seems more underwhelming than unbelievable.

Take Katey for instance- her family is so poor she can't afford a cellphone. Yet she came to TCU, all the way to Connecticut (some context here: TCU is a snotty-rich-kid private school that costs US$30000 or so a year to attend) because God told her to. She didn't want to come here (most north-easterners are a little afraid of Texas)- and she had never heard of this school until God commanded her to go to "Texas Christian University" . More bizarrely still, her father heard the same message, independently. She has no way to pay her fees, and yet this is her fourth semester here. Money just miraculously pops up every time she needs it.

Then there's Jonathan- Jonathan was one of the first people I've met in Texas. He's a geology major, scientifically minded, slightly cynical, intelligent- basically all that science majors should be. He's not someone that can be bullied into believing something that's he doesn't think is true: he believes in evolution for instance, though many people in our church don't. Jonathan has claimed that he had a major divine encounter in which God revealed Himself through visions. Jonathan said that God allowed him to see the spiritual realm, temporarily. (he says demons look like court jesters) I know Jonathan well enough, and I understand the "scientist" mode of thought well enough that I'm sure he wouldn't have claimed these things unless he was dead certain they were true.

There's Keaton. Keaton told me that a lady in Japan whom he had never heard of, invited him to come to Japan, and paid for his air ticket. She prayed over him, and the Lord cured him of the debilitating migraines that plagued him all his childhood.

This is just some of the stuff I've heard- I've also been told of first-hand testimonies of miraculous healing, divine intervention- stories so outrageous, so "out there" that I can't put them down to mere exaggeration.

When I grew up, I didn't believe that God spoke overtly, or did miracles, or healed, or gave visions- at least not anymore. I'm not sure why I thought so, to be honest. Supernatural works of power have been God's modus operandi from Genesis to Revelation, and there is no indication anywhere in the Bible that He intended to stop.

I've never seen God overtly exercise His power first hand. And I suppose it's possible that all of my friends are crazy and/or are compulsive liars. And I guess, from your perspective it's possible that I am crazy and/or a compulsive liar.

But you know what? I know these people. I hang out with them. I go to class with them. I go to church with them. I know they aren't lying. I know their judgment isn't any less trustworthy than mine.

Make of this what you will.