Over a hundred years have passed since he started following the Voice. Abraham has learned this Voice is reliable. It told him to leave everything he had ever known and given him hope, protection, land, and descendants. This Voice had kept his promises. Abraham trusts this Voice, and when asked by his son if he has any doubts about the character of this Voice, he responds “the Voice will provide.”

Like Abraham, how long before we learn to trust and obey? How many scars will we sustain before we learn this Voice is reliable, we can trust this Voice?

“I believe, help my unbelief.”
Mark 9:24

for further study:
¹ Genesis 22

Hello Hurricane, you’re not enough
Hello Hurricane, you can’t silence my love
All your death and fury’s not enough … you can’t silence my love

Hello Hurricane / Switchfoot

Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.
Isaiah 50:10

For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.
Proverbs 24:16

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
Romans 8:35

Recently there was an interesting study that contrasted the Japanese response to personal trials with the American response.  The question was, How did people comfort themselves during these difficulties? The Japanese consistently said, “I think about my family. I imagine that my family is with me. ” The American response was typically, “I can overcome this, I just have to work harder.” Or there was self-talk that was intended to inflate the needy self: “I’m great. This person can’t beat me.  I am better than he is.” In other words, we live in a culture that emphasizes the individual over the corporate.  Americans often use variations on the phrase “self-reliance.”  This phrase is a notorious problem for translators.  In some Asian countries the phrase makes no sense, or it is a sign of mental instability.  The person should never be self-reliant, according to most Asian traditions. The person should be interdependent.

This has everything to do with the fear of man.  When we think of ourselves as alone and isolated, we will always be prone to fear other people.  Isolation and fear of man are close companions. Yet when we truly understand that God has called us to participate in a larger family (ie, the church), we are free.  Church begins to feel a little more like a family sitting with us in our living room. Better yet, we feel like a  family sitting together at the feet of Jesus, sitting around the throne.  With family, the is no self-consciousness, no embarrassment, no fear.

Notice the results if we neglect to see the importance of biblical community.  If we privatize Scriptures, turning “we” into “I,” we have the following dilemmas:

I have to go into all the world and make disciples (Matt 28:18)

I have to pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17)

I have to give proper recognition to the widows who are in need (1 Tim 5:3)

I have to teach the older men, younger men, and younger women (Titus 2:1-8)

Remember that at that time you (Ephesian Church) were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you (Plural) who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Consequently, you (Church) are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of His household.
Ephesians 2:12-13,19

This radically changes the way I view my circumstance when I consider I’m not alone.  That my family is for me and with me.  It seems this mindset of “self-reliance,” and “independence” has been ingrained in our culture.  Asian culture would call us mentally unstable for holding such a belief, and it seems the scriptures echo that sentiment.

You and I were born into Adam’s line.  We are born diseased with Sin, and bent toward rebellion – trusting ourselves over this most wise God.  We seek first our kingdom, our glory, and our way.

This act of treason subjected all of mankind to futility.  The just penalty for treason.  Death would reign and mankind would perish.

God always had a plan.  He would demonstrate His great love.  He would rescue, redeem, and save mankind from the disease that would ravage and destroy him.

Job 38:2-4,12

Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.

Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place?

Romans 9:20-22

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

The rights we have as clay is receiving our just punishment – futility, destruction, and death. Do we really want want we deserve?  The Gospel means ‘victorious news’  – news of victory.  God sent Jesus (God in the flesh) to ransom us – to stand in our place.  He took upon himself our death penalty.  He took mankind’s guilt and punishment and died so we could live.  God’s greatest act of justice and mercy perfectly reconciled in Jesus.

The potter (the most wise God) made you for a purpose, and who are you clay (man) to think you know what’s best?

Titus 2:1-8 (4-8)

Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

I find this passage makes me somewhat uneasy. Especially the words to us as younger men and women. Are we being obedient to God’s word, if these are the qualifiers for Godly men and women?

Paul goes on to remind us and Titus that this isn’t about earning our salvation, it’s about obedience. We obey because we’re accepted.

Titus 3:4-5a

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.

Further study:
Gen 1:27-28, Gen 2, Proverbs 31, Micah 6:8, Ga 5:22, Eph 4:1-3, Col 3:12, 1 Tim 5:10

Your love is like a rock when i’m spinning…

we’ll i’ve been hit from every corner, i’ve been thrown from side to side
i’m cracked up on the inside, so i come to You for life

Your presence always heals me, so i’ll wanna drink it in
You know where we’re going God, and You know where i’ve been

and Your love is like a rock when i’m spinning,
Your love is like a rock when i’m spinning
Your love is like a rock when i’m spinning around

yesterday i felt so angry, and today so insecure
and i hate it that i wrestle with the God i adore

and i know less about You, but my heart loves You so much more.
Your the bright in sadness
Your my brightness

i wish this thing could pass from me, but i’m wanting what You want.
so bring me high, or bring me low, just hold me in Your love

(Charile Hall – My Brightness)
[audio:mybrightness.mp3]

these are the words my heart has failed to speak, thanks charlie.
take everything LORD, i just want You.

I was born to my parents Andrew and Jeanette Tufano on November 13, 1984. I weighted 9 lbs and was 22 inches long. I’m not sure if you know much about newborns, but I was huge! I even won a candy bar in my biology class 7th grade year for being exceptional in that category! Interestingly enough by the time I reached 1st grade, my parents concerns shifted one-eighty. They felt I wasn’t gaining enough weight and was too skinny, so they took me to our family doctor, who promptly informed them that I was perfectly fine and would fill out soon enough. Well here I stand at 23, six foot tall and about 170lbs. I guess our doctor was right!

Psalm 139:16
Your eyes saw my unformed body
All the days ordained for me
Were written in Your book
Before one of them came to be

Standing out

I was also born with a mark on the left side of my face, essentially a large portion of the left side of my face is a different pigment, or skin color, and since I was born that way, it’s called a birthmark! I’ve met a lot of people in my days, and none yet have one like it.

So your probably wondering why I’m bragging about my awesome birth stats, my toothpick status as a 1st grader, and my unusual facial features. Well, it’s because I’m weird and so are you!

Since I don’t want you to get the wrong impression, I’m not sharing this with you to receive sympathy, or to show how I’ve overcome life’s obstacles. Instead, I believe God fashioned me uniquely in order to serve the purpose for which He created me.

Psalm 139:13
For You created my inmost being
You knit me together in my mother’s womb

What’s it to me?

“Okay” you agree, “your weird, but what’s it to me?” Well, I believe He created you uniquely as well, or as I’ll affectionately call it, weird!

My dad and I are almost mirror images. I share his strengths as well as his weaknesses. We are both analytical, both athletic, same personality, same temperament, same sense of humor, and on I could go.  So growing up, my dad wasn’t exactly the most objective person in helping me identify my own weirdness. Since we shared the same weirdness, to him it was normal. On the other hand, mom was totally different, but she was my mom, and any weirdness just made me that much more endearing. So although she could identify it (my weirdness), she’d never point it out. She couldn’t see the value in doing so, only the possible hurt it might cause.

Turns out the type of people who reveal it the most, are the ones who are most different from you. So unsurprisingly, it was during my high school years that my weirdness was most recognizable. Everyone during those years was extremely gifted at pointing out anything that was different about everyone else.

My facade

Although I recognized my own weirdness, instead of embracing it, I did everything I could to hide it. My belief then was that although it was okay to be weird, you didn’t want to go around advertising it. I didn’t care about fitting in, but I definitely didn’t want to stand out. Anything that stood out was put on display and publicly mocked. So at home I could be weird, because at home weird was acceptable, but out in public I put on the facade I thought everyone wanted to see.

As the years passed, I began to realize how extensive this facade had become.  My facade served it’s purpose well, it kept people from hurting me, but it had an unintended side affect, it kept people from knowing and loving the real me. The person looking back at me in the mirror and the person people knew didn’t match up. So the person who had classmates, coworkers, and friends wasn’t me, but a facade I’d created to protect my heart from rejection. My parents rejection of each other by divorce when I was 2, my father’s rejection during my childhood; whether to career, self interests, or women (he’s on wife number 4), and my mother’s rejection when she moved away to bible college. I’d placed my value and worth in their love and acceptance, and they failed me.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
James 1:2-4

New lenses

But God never failed me, instead, He used their failures to remind me of my adoption and identity as His son. He mercifully revealed that He alone is steadfast and unfailing and that in Him alone would I find meaning and purpose. In seeing through these lenses, God began destroying the facade I created. He began reconciling the person I saw in the mirror, and the person people knew. It was through this process that God enabled me to embrace my unique weirdness.

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2 cor 12:9

What once brought shame God now uses to breath life. He used my broken and dysfunctional childhood to endow me with an understanding of suffering, so I can relate and have compassion toward the suffering of others. He uses my frame and unusual facial features to make me stand out, people seem to remember me and the words I speak. He has graciously called me, and uses me as His instrument to speak and convey the truth of His son and the Gospel.

1 Cor 12:7;11
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He gives them to each one, just as He determines.

Your weird too!

This is just my unique weirdness, the way God has chosen to fashion me. I am but one part of the body, and the body requires all of it’s parts to function. You are another part, and God has fashioned you uniquely as well. I pray you that you would see through Gospel lenses, and that He would enable you to embrace your unique weirdness.

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
1 Cor 12:14-20

the brilliant sight that greeted me this morning! as the clouds ushered in the arrival of the sun!

[Psalm 8]

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is Your name in all the earth!
You have set Your glory
above the heavens.

from the lips of children and infants
You have ordained praise
because of Your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

when I consider Your heavens,
the work of Your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which You have set in place,

what is man that You are mindful of him,
the son of man that You care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of Your hands;
You put everything under his feet:

all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,

the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is Your name in all the earth!

Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. It may get tough, but it’s a small price to pay for living a dream. – Peter McWilliams

i don’t know this peter mcwilliams man, but he’s on to something here. comfort isn’t what i want, i want a life that’s pleasing to the Lord. and to the mexican i become mexican to win some for the gospel, so i will continue to live “inconveniently” because it’s all part of the adventure He calls us to.

we were meant to live for so much more -switchfoot