high school girls

as you might know, i work at alliance redwoods.
i'm a program staff employee, meaning i send kids off ropes courses and take them rock climbing and biking and the like. the cool thing about our camp is that we have the schools and church groups bring their own counselors. this wway the kids get to know people who they will see for more than a week, but still have a naturalist they grow close to at camp. tis means i work with alot of kids and quite a few counselors at my job. usually a group contains 3 cabins and their counselors, so around 20 kids, and three adults. this gets semi challenging, considering that if i have to spend too much time trying to disci0line the kids i lose track of things and people can get seriously injured (cause usually they are hanging on a rope that is only holding them because i am working)all in all we manage, cause the counselors are there to keep their kids in line.

my least favorite part is when the counselors are younger than me.
this week was one of those weeks.
all my counselors were in high school. one of them talked about three years ago when he was a camper. three years meaning he was in sixth grade, and now he's a freshman. and he is supposed to keep sixth graders in line? luckily he was the younger of the two guy counselors, so while the older one was busy flirting with the girl counselor, he was able to keep track of the boys. (at that age girl campers take care of themselves pretty well)

but thats not why i am writing this. that was on thursday. i am writing this to talk about wednesday. my morning and afternoon sessions were spent on the leap of faith.
the morning group i was working with scarlett who is a rather quiet girl and is really gentle hearted. (thatis sometimes a good thing, but not when she is in charge of getting counselors to help with harnesses. )

so scarlett let me go up in the tree and she belayed. that means i was the one who had to convince the children (who had just climbed 75 feet up a tree) to jump for a trapeze bar. easy job. the problem was the counselors. the guy counselors were too busy talking to eachother about how they had pranked their campers the night before. and when they weren't doing that they were trying to impress the girl counselor. from 80 feet above them in a little tree i could easily see them. they really looked pathetic sitting there in their laid back male model poses with their best clothes on sitting on a dirty log trying to swat mosquitoes and look good. if they could have seen themselves they would have been embarrassed. luckily for them the girl counselor didn't seem to notice how stupid they were acting. see, she was busy the whole time checking me out. and before you get all mad and think i'm just being arrogant, scarlett said she heard one of the girls tell a girl from another cabin "my counselor thinks Ohana is hot" (Ohana is my camp name) i realized how sad it was that she was checking me out when all she could see was a silhouette 80 feet above her.

that afternoon i was working the leap by myself. luckily the flirting counselors and their groups were going on an educational hike, and i don't do those. so i was by myself with a new group on the leap of faith, and the counselors were extremely helpful. unfortunately two of the guys walked over and asked me how old i was. so i made them guess, and when they said "20?" i said yes. then one turned to the other and said "see? i told you he wasn't too old for her!" then promptly walked over to one of the girl counselors and talked to her.

so i made up my mind to grow a full beard, stop showering and start telling kids i'm 30 and homeless.

luckily today was an all guys group of paintball.

then again the second girl was kinda cute...
:)

God calls Samuel... I am samuel? or at least samuel-esque

today at church clurie spoke about life with God as an adventure, but first he talked about lsitening for God and how we have to wait and be silent first.
We read samuel 3 where God calls young samuel. its a good verse, the weird thing is that i went through something last night that relates.
i heard God call my name. he does that from time to time. talk to me, its pretty awesome and everytime i sit there in awe for half a second then respond " yes lord?" the weirdest thing was that last night, as i lay there trying to go to sleep early ( so like 11:30 as opposed to 4:00) he called me in a familiar voice. so it wasn't audible. he didn't actually displace any air molecules with a for-real sound wave. but i heard it in my head. the weird thing was the voice. it was my dad's voice. but ten times stronger and more authoritative. and an hundred times more gentle and loving.
other times God has done this it never had a voice attached. it was attitudes and words, but never a voice. this voice reminded me of how samuel heard God call and went to Eli, his master.
usually when God calls my name he tells me something after. he reassures me, or tells me to encourage someone, or reminds me He loves me, or even tells me to shut up and listen. last night he put the story from Samuel 3 on my mind, and that was it.

i now realize he was prepping me to hear what Clurie(our junior high pastor and soon to be youth pastor) was going to say this morning. he talked about following God and how we need to sit and listen. then he talked about how eventually since we have to sit for a while God will call us to get off our buts and do something. something hard. something awkward. something for Him. he talked about jonathan and his armor bearer attacking the philistines, he talked about a few other things. the part Clurie ended with was a challenge. he said "don't pray for God to bless you or love you or protect you. he already does that. pray for big things. and expect big things. oh, and pray for courage, cause when you pray for big things he does them then you have to go do scary things."

pray for big things.
i'm praying for God to wake me up in the middle of the night, or to keep me up late at night, and put people on my heart. to make me unable to sleep until i pray for them.
and i'm praying specifically for some friends to experience the same thing. so if you consider me a friend, get ready to pray when you were planning on sleeping, cause God has been keeping his end of the deal for me, so he might for you too. ( i'm secifically praying for a few epople, but also just for anyone i am close too. so if you fall into either of those categories, i'm sorry, but you might be kept/woken up. and honestly i'm not sorry.)

okay, thats all for today.

a good charity

i've been thinking about doing this for a while, but realizing it wasn't worth it. i need a new amp. i have for a while now, but i realized i could make my amp be good enough if i just replaced the tube. so i did. i took the old one out two weeks ago and ordered a new one. since the old one was shot i figured i might as well jsut leave the amp open and not waste my time putting it back together. so i haven't played through my amp in two weeks. good news: the tube showed up today! other good news:i put the tube in today and my amp no longer makes that random crackling noise. other good news: my amp no longer sounds thin! bad news: thats cause my amp doesn't sound. at all. no noise coming out of the stupid thing. so i officially am starting the "fund andrew's investment in an amp that actually works!" fund. all donations can be delivered to me personally, as i am the treasurer, and checks should be made out to "Andrew Ratiani" with a note saying either "amplifier" or "tone machine sweetness" or "vox ac15"

thank you for caring. just 600 dollars a day for one day can make a huge difference. also ask about our "two easy installments of $299" plan.
:)

my last three blogs

from the reactions of my last three blogs, i have decided to do one of two things. either A, get friends with no lives who have nothing to do but read all day, or B. write shoreter blogs. cause i wrote about 2000 words in twenty four hours between the listen part one and listen part two.

listen part two

the other part of lectio divina that you do when in a large group is sharing. josh and julie both shareda lot about the part of the psalm where it says "i have banked your word in the vaults of my heart so that i will not sin myself bankrupt."

in my new testament class a year ago we learned about the new testament concept of the human being. it was a five layer onion basically. each layer was seperate but learned from the layers around it. the layers went (from the middle to the outside) Heart, Mind, Body, Social life, Soul. the heart is what you feel. the mind what you think, and the body what you do. the soul is not part of the human being in philosophical terms but part of the human "becoming" meaning who you will be in the essential spiritual aspect. the heart mind and social character are all part of the becoming also, but the body gets replaced in the becoming. ( this is probably going right over all of your heads (all two people who are reading this)) but its okay, i barely get it and i took the class. anyways, banking something in your heart means it is locked behind the mind and body and social aspects of who we are. for an outsied force to get our body to sin us bankrupt it would need to corrupt our bodies which would corrupt our minds which would corrupt our hearts.

the thing is the new testament thinkers thought of the layers as having equal influence over the ones out side them and inside them. so the mind was effected by the body and the heart equally. the body by the social aspect and by the mind. and the heart was affected by the mind, but was also in contact with itself, being the inside circle. so if you place the word of God in your heart, your heart can only be affected by the mind and the word of God. it does not matter how your body is corrupted, there is always a desire to be redeemed if you have the word of God in your heart. the heart can also be called the spirit.

basically you can't screw someone up when they have the word of God in their hearts.


the other thing i thought about was the song " from the inside out" by hillsong. the main part i thought of was my heart and my soul, i give you control. consume me fromthe inside out" and "the cry of my heart is to bring you praise from the inside out lord my soul cries out "

the heart is the inside, the soul the outside. this is easy to figure out. the cool part is the cry of my heart would be something that influences the mind. and the mind cries it to the body, which cries it to the world around you. which declares it to your soul. for it to go from your heart to your soul, you must be a witness to the world. i really like that song, but now i like it more. to sing that song and not be a hypocrite means you are showing Jesus to the world around you in a tangible way.


thats really all i have to say for now. this blog was not eloquently written, and i did not explain half of what i eluded to, but whatever, dinner is ready. at least i kept this shorter than the last two so people can actually read it...

listen one

so my brother has taken our young adults group down a new path. he wrote a blog about it a few months back. i don't feel like going into detail. its called a LIFE cycle. eaach letter of life stands for something. Listen, intercede, Family, and Encoutner( i think. i forget if encounter is right but i like it so i'll leave it until josh corrects me.)so this week was listen. granted it was monday, and i had already blogged monday then spent three hours praying and listening to God, so i was kind of in the mindset that i had "met my quota" for the day, but i was excited to see what was going on. i showed up and we did lectio divina on a verse in psalms ( i forget which one.) lectio divina is one of the oldest bible studying methods around. basically you read the verse slowly and listen to the words. you listen for a word or phrase that sticks out. then you read it again. then you think about the phrase. after that you pray about the phrase adn ask God what he wants to show you. then, you listen to him. after you share. i might have skipped a step or gotten something wrong, but once again until josh corrects me, i'll leave it as is.

my favorite part is that it forces us to listen. we spent fifteen minutes that felt like half an hour to me. as someone who likes to sit and listen to God for three hours a night, that fifteen minutes was long. part of what we did was not allow ourselves to respond for part of it. it made you really sit and listen to make sure ou had all of what God was saying. my mind always races. but i had to still it and lsiten. i loved it. it was awkward. it was perfect.

out of this day i got two main ideas. the first i will share is what God showed me through the listening part. it really played off what i wrote about that morning about spending more time alone with God.

Verse portions "i ponder every morsel of wisdom from you"
"i will not forget your word"
the first really spoke of spending time in thought and in prayer. pondering every morsel says we are to use our minds to think about the depths of God's words.
the part about not forgeting God's word made me think about knowing his word. i need to study the bible more. alot more.
talking to God makes us learn about who he is up close. the immanence. he is right here. we need to learn about who he is right next to us by simply interacting with him. we need to commune with God.
the part about studying his word is teaching us about his transcendance. it is rare that we feel his awesome power that is so far above us. by studying the word we know that he is HUGE. we know this part better by studing his word. there are places where he tells us how powerful he is. those are where we learn about his awesome size.

in the part of lectio divina where you respond and put that into ways that the ideas manifest themselves i broke it down into four steps that i can always be looking for in my life:
learn the facts, experience his love, love the world ( in a missional sort of way) and teach the word.

the other portion of the things God showed me i will have to share tomorrow. i am tired. i know God has called me to be a pastor. He has also called me to be a lover and an encourager. next week is intercede. i am so excited. its a dream come true for me. i have been praying that God will show us things to tell each other. that he will kep us up at night so we will listen to him and know how he wants to use us to encourage one another next monday. its going to be awesome.

bed time theology

in the more recent years of my life i have one week that stands out as the spiritual high point. the weird thing is that this happens to alot of people. most of the time it is camp, or a conference like "when God dreams" that the stirring put on(i didn't go, sadly. i had work) and thus they try as hard as they can to get back to that place. people come to alliance redwoods because they met christ there. don't get me wrong, the idea of a week away from your life to focus on God is a good idea. and the return business is good for me since i work there. but for me i have a dilema. see my spiritual high week was not camp. it was not some mega conference with some huge band leading worhsip and some critically aclaimed author as the key note speaker. it was not organized in any way. my week was chosen as that week because giving us easter break as a week long would make summer and spring breaks too close. the recent highpoint in my life was easter break.

God spoke to me. God speaks to us in lots of different ways. some times its through nature, or people or a song. sometimes he gives us certain feelings of compassion or restlessness. or rest. and sometimes its more clear. there are words invloved. you know how you can think the idea of a sentence, then think the words out in your head, then speak it? well for me God speaks the loudest in that middle stage.
any time he does this i feel like yelling it to the world. when he does this for me every night for a whole week, i yell it to the world multiple times.

over that week i found myself unable to sleep. i would hit the bed at midnight ( like i usually do) and not fall asleep. one o'clock would roll around and i would wonder why i was still awake. every night it seemed like God was sitting there waiting for me to figure it out. and so i would pray. i would ask God "what are you trying to show me."

it was one sentence that had so much behind it.lets skip the whole me complaining part, and the part where i tell you things you already know. i know you know, and simply by saying i'm listening i can feel the same comfort in your strength ( i just used the tylenol motto for God... )just what is up?

and he would answer.

he would put thoughts in my mind that got me going and i would respond in thought. when i got close to what he was telling me i would begin to smile and cry and laugh out loud. and i would begin to doubt. i would be on the verge of coming too some realization and think i understood and then i would remember "lean not on your own understanding" and i would freak out. and i wuld verbally ask Him to tell me what i needed to hear. to tell me i was right if i was right and that i was wrong if i was wrong. i didn't mind if it was rebuke or encouragement. i knew i needed to hear it from His mouth.
and for the entire week of late night prayer conversations he always told me " yes, thats what i am saying."
he would set the thought in my mind and let me wrestle with it. when i got scared of what i was thinking about he would encourage me. when i got close he would tell me to ask him what i was thinking. and when i asked he would respond. then i would smile realy big, begin to laugh in sheer joy, or cry in sheer thankfulness. i would thank him. he would tell me " Andrew, I love you. of course i'll tell you." and then repeat the thought he had set in motion back to me. it was not always in the same words, but it was always loud and clear. He reminded me one night it would not always be this clear, but also said i should search for it to be this clear. to always strive for more. but to notice the little hints. to respond to the little hints.

it came to a point where. by friday, i realized i wanted to get to bed. not that bed is the only place i hear God, or that he only exists right above my face when i am about to be asleep, but that it was a time when no one would barge in. where i could be alone with Him. so friday night i thought i wanted to spend more time talking. i noticed i was always asleep by three thirty in the morning, and i wanted more. so i went to bed earlier. and i stayed up until 445 that night. just talking with my creator. i woke up the next morning at the crack of noon and had breakfast.

see i am faced with this dilemma. because my place where i meet God has always been " tghe creek at camp" or "during Devotional time at summer camp." now its my bed. but i do not always meet God in bed. sometimes i go to sleep when i get in bed. or i can't sleep so i put in a movie. my dilemma is that i am finally at a place where direct conversation with God is easy. but now i forget. spring break was a spiritual high for me, and today i realized that i can get back there right now. i'm going to bed at midnight tonight. no later, maybe earlier. and i probably won't be up until noon the next day, cause i plan on talking to God tonight. (that is not to say i can't earlier. like right now. or like five minutes ago.) but i have finally found my quiet time with God. and when it's done, i can just fall asleep.

i am now at a point where i more fully grasp how simple it is for me to hear him.
and i am amazed by it. i have been told my whole life that i need to spend time with God, but now for some reason it makes more sense.

so here is something he has been showing me:

God is transcendent and immanent. transcendence means He is way up there watching over us. immanence means He is right here. if i focus on the transcendence i lose sight of the fact he is right here with me. i become a deist. if i focus only on the Immanence i lose track of His power. of his provision. of his omniscience, omnipotence, of his omnipresence.
instead if i focus on both, i find out more of who he is. if i focus on God's Immanence where he is right here, but i also remember his transcendance, where he is infinitely far away, any thing that wants to get to me has to go through an infinite amount of God to get to me. the only way to do that is if he lets it though to strengthen me.
if i focus on how far he is and how powerful he is, i have to look deep into him. he is right here. i open my eys and look he touches my pupil. he's CLOSE. get it? okay. so to focus on how high and "above it all" he is i have to look through all of that God-ness. its really pretty awe-inspiring. and comforting.

go in peace to love and serve the lord