Hope Interrupts…

“This may be a dark world but you don’t have to live in the dark. Hope interrupts.. Jesus Interrupts”

– Pastor Pete Hise

This morning I was listening to a message by Pete Hise, lead pastor at quest community church, in the current series titled “…Then hope interrupts”.  To be completely honest this message is what I needed to hear. I needed to be reminded that though the world around me may be dark, depressed and look rather hopeless we do not have to live in that darkness. Jesus is not just a promise to us he is the promise, the gift, the hope and the incarnation.

I have always heard that word incarnation or incarnational ministry, all through high school and almost every day at Bible college however, I always felt puzzled by it and confused, yet when Pastor Pete was talking about incarnation as in the context of jesus not just promising to bring us hope but being the hope it made a lot more sense. Not that I haven’t heard that before I am sure, but this time it sunk in. It actually means a lot more when I begin to understand the magnitude of Jesus being human, present and the Hope.

Pete mentioned in his sermon that for the people of Jesus time God felt distant, far off and for the greek and roman gods unthinkable that god would make himself known in a tangible way to humanity. The jews knew of the prophesies in Isaiah yet had trouble seeing Jesus because he Interrupted their picture of God and what the savior was going to come and do for them.

God is not distant, he is not far off and he is not simply a promise for the future. Jesus came incarnate. Human as the rest of us. He came as hope. He interrupted the disciples lives and forever changed their world. he wants to interrupt our lives if we will let him.

Trying to grasp Jesus as the incarnation, the hope, shatters part of my false picture of Jesus. I am no longer holding tightly to what I imagine Jesus to be in far of heaven but allowing God to renew my mind and thoughts about who jesus really is. Even after years of studying the Bible I need God to renew my ideas of who he is and restore my hope.

To often we focus on everything that we think will bring us worldly hope. When I was without a job this summer I was guilty of just making my hope come from the prospects of getting a job, or even now I have been guilty of putting my hope in my desire to be engaged or getting a new car or all these other things that the world screams I need, YET they leave me without any real tangible living hope.

Jesus is the hope. Jesus is the hope that needs to interrupt our lives on a daily basis.

Jesus Doesn’t ever say he is going to save us from our troubles and hardships, the storms are still going to come but Jesus does say that he will walk with us through the storm.

Open your Bible.

Allow Jesus to interrupt your day, your week, your life.

Do you need some Hope?

You will find it with Jesus.

Just today I was watching a youtube video about an interview with N.T. Wright who as my theology professor would always remind us is the modern day leading Scholar of the New Testament. In the interview Wright was asked if he had any tips on how we might read the Bible. He said “The Bible should be read Frequently and Throughly is the best answer… Allow the thing to wash over you “. 

That is a challenge to us. To frequently allow Jesus to interrupt our lives and throughly be reminded that He is our hope.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

P.s. Extra Stuff.

I would encourage everyone to listen to Pete’s message that can be found at

http://questcommunity.com/watch-listen/series-archive  under the “and then hope Interrupts icon.

Also the interview with N.T. Wright can be found here at

“I Can’t Forget God’s Love Endures”

Stop

 

Pause

 

Read Psalms 136

 

Over the course of this week I have had such a mix of emotions, the ups and downs of my emotions have effected my thinking and my actions. There are moments I am excited for the future, the unknown, the risk, the challenge and the lessons to be learned, however in the next moment I can turn to being lonely, depressed and overwhelmed and even scared at times. It has not made for an easy or enjoyable week.

To help clear my mind and relax a little my girlfriend suggested I drink some hot tea and read Psalms 136. At first I didn’t believe that was going to help and just found Psalms 136 to be really repetitive. After reading through a few times I closed the Bible and prayed God would remind me of the fact that his love does endure… Forever.

I was reminded how in high school I use to light candles in the bathroom and take my guitar and sit in the bathtub and sing when I was feeling really sad, so I lit the two candles, turned out the lights and grabbed my guitar. I played and sang through the chores of “Awesome God” and just felt annoyed by the insincerity in my voice. So I sat there praying, me my guitar and two candles in the middle of the floor. As I was praying and just trying to be honest with God about how I have been feeling I just said what my soul seems to be saying

“I have long since forgot why I am here,

I have long since forgot why I should care,

Yet He never seems to give up on me

Yet He never seems to give up on us

This scared soul of mine can’t find a reason to forget

His love endures more then I seem to care

His love endures through the hell I put us through

His love endures so I can’t forget

I can’t forget His love endures.”

 

Simply put, “I Can’t forget God’s Love endures” for as soon as I forget, I am overwhelmed by my thoughts and insecurities, the things that are outside of my control and often lead me to a place of paralyzing sadness, yet I don’t have to remain in the hell my mind creates, yes, my soul may be scared and fearful but God says do not be afraid, read Psalms 136 repeats over and over that God’s love endures forever, he never seems to give up on us because he never forgets about us. That is what I must not forget, not here, not now, not ever. I must remember no matter how I am feeling His love endures.

 

-Caleb Hunter

 

 

Tell a Story, Live the Story

Every time that I read a story or watch a movie I can’t help but feel that I am a part of the story. As if in someway I have a connection to the imagination of the author. I know that is an insane thought however, isn’t that how we should live our lives. If our life is a story or a small chapter in the larger picture of the novel shouldn’t we have some connection to the author.

God is not only our creator but the author of life, We have the opportunity to turn the page each day on new lines he is writing in his story. Lived out in and through us.

Somedays I honestly struggle with the motivation to live and to write and tell “MY STORY”, however, when I step back and realize the story is already being written and I am a character with curtain experiences and adventures that still and always will point back to my author, then i find motivation to pen words that tell of Him rather than ME.

If I am to write, create, paint,speak or live, for that matter, for me than I will never be motivated, never fulfill my potential or ever really matter, however luckily life is not about ME. When life is about me I get lonely, unmotivated to do anything and nothing really makes any sense. But GOD has set out to transform my mind and heart and has placed his story upon my soul.

Humanity is God’s story being lived out full of individual characters and sub plots yet the over arching theme remains. The theme

of humanities struggle for meaning and purpose. A struggle that leaves us lost if we rely on ourselves, confused by the pain we

cause each other in our attempts to edit the story, yet hope though sadly found by the few, those who choose simply to walk out the story and plot God laid before them.

So what is my story that God is asking me to live?

What is that one thing you know that you were meant for?

Doesn’t have to be complex of world changing but it does have to be what God has made for you to live.

I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt God has asked me to tell stories, to live a story, and to share his story with the world. I was created with my potential in the mind of God, my potential has always lay in him and he is my motivation.

As long as God is still writing my story I will keep living.

Think about this…

Perhaps we were all born to do the same thing, to tell God’s story, to live what he has written, yet the way we tell it is in our own unique way.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Awake and I Am Still With You

“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.”– Psalms 139:17-18 (ESV)

Are not God’s thoughts far greater than our own? Are not his ways better than our own?

As I awoke this morning with a pounding migraine, I felt frustrated and alone, I found tears damed up in my tear ducks and ready

to overflow like the flooding of Jamestown, Ohio, but they came slowly, quietly like a refreshing mountain stream flowing from the cool cold rocks. I tried to forget my loneliness and pain in sleep only to wake minutes later to what sounded like a canon going of

in my head. Migraines are one of the most annoying inconveniences in life and only slightly worse is the empty nulling of loneliness.

In the garden of Eden God said, “It is not good for man to be alone”… I wonder if Adam woke with tears and migraines before Eve came along. I am sure Adam felt pain, I hate waking up alone and when I have someone to miss it is as if that pain is magnified even more.

However, now I have peace though in pain, hope though I am lonely, and love I am sure will never leave me. Reading Psalms 139 was my reminder this morning that God made me, He knows me better than anyone yet he wants to know me more. In verse 18 it says, “I awake, and I am still with you.”

Though we may be physically alone and our hearts hurt with loneliness we sleep and we wake and God is still with us. That should blow our minds, that his presence never leaves. He holds the very fabric of our being together and he is still there. I need to know that and be reminded of that often. When I am falling apart he holds me. He is still there.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 57 “A Year of Thoughts”: This is Something

This is something isn’t it?

Life that is, the breathe, the air

We breathe don’t we every second

Yet no human taught us or told us

We just did in the moment we had lungs

We found our breathe and learned

As if God were telling us in the womb

One moment explained, next in the experience

This is something isn’t it?

Life that is, who we are and become

We hope don’t we, move forth

Into each moment slowly turned to memories

The air shaped and bent by the wind as we hold together

By the elements mined deep within our soul

For where ever we are or where ever we go

This is something isn’t it?

Life that is, calling us to live it.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 41 “A Year of Thoughts”: Speak From The Heart

 

There are times when I fail to speak love from my heart. God has created us as human beings to love from the core of who we are. Yet we collectively fail at love each day.

 

I’m dying of heart failure for all the times I’ve failed to speak love from the core of who I am.

 

I’ve been selfish, withholding love. I fail at patience, I fail often at kindness, my words lack meaning and become that of a clanging cymbal. If my heart were a symphony I am the one instrument out of tune. My pride withholds love from those I might know to need it. If I am to live love, love always trusts, can I trust myself when my past is full of lies that lack trust, the failure to hold honestly to the truth.

 

                  But there is hope. 

 

Love still speaks because love keeps no record of wrongs, love forgives, it rejoices with the truth despite the evil of the past. It speaks through silence and pain, through joy and
laughter, love speaks when our hearts bleed. When we open them so that God’s love might begin to heal our wounds, so that we might find confidence to love despite our failure to love.

Love helps, it heals, it hopes, it’s kind and patient even when we aren’t. When I say I Love you I hope my heart speaks out of the core that I am.

 

1 Corinthians 13

 

Love speaks from the heart.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 18 “A Year in Thoughts”: Big Bird in a Small Cage

There are days that I feel like a little bird in a small cage with a lot on my mind. Big thoughts, big dreams, big hopes, big plans for the future, but sometimes the cage just seems to small. My soul sings like a big bird in a small cage. It mourns for things to change, mourns for the world to change. The world would like nothing better than to sit and sing along and yet do nothing to free the little bird that mourns.

 

Like a little bird in a cage humanity mourns for change.

 

For some reason today I felt kinda caged which could come from sitting in class and having little time to stop to think, create, and just reflect on this day that God has made. But as my evening slowed down just enough to have maybe an hour to spend sometime thinking and creating, I had this song running through my head. A song that I haven’t listened to in a while but for some reason it has always seemed really catchy to me and obviously has recorded it’s lines into my head. The song is “Big bird in a small cage” by Patrick Watson. In an interview about the song Patrick said he wrote the song seven years after he had visited this guy in Asia who had a house full of birds, and in those rows of cages there was this one big bird in a small cage. So he asked him why the big bird in the small cage, the the bird-keeper replied simply “because when you put a big bird in a small cage it will sing you a song.”

When I went back to listen closely to the lyrics of the song I found the song to be rather sad because when a big bird is in a small cage it mourns. It sings because it would rather be anywhere else but in that cage.

 

I don’t believe God gives us hopes and dreams and then puts us in a cage to small. We may find ourselves in small cages by own own choice and mourn every moment to be where our souls can be alive and free. The soul of humanity is mourning. Like a big bird in a small cage. But we are not created to be caged, not created to sit and do nothing about the state of humanity. God is leading people around the world to break out of the cages, to fly free and help others. God is healing people and turning their mourning to joy.

I don’t want to just listen to the birds mourn I wan to set them free. I don’t want to just sing along with humanity as it mourns but I want to show them to the truth that will set them free. You and I are not caged but free. Love helps. Love sings a different song. Love doesn’t cage the ones around us but empowers them to live a life more full. To move beyond the bars, barriers, doubts and fears. To stop mourning and see that the cage door is open. The life God offers is far greater than the life inside our little cages. It may not be as safe, or as comfortable, or as easy.

 

Humanity Mourns and God offers Life.

 

Not life in a cage he offers LIFE.

 

 

Life to the fullest

 

Think about (You can read about it on almost every page of the gospel)

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

 

 

P.S. Below are the lyrics to Patrick Watson’s “A Big Bird in a Small Cage” and a link to it on youtube. Think about it.

Big Bird in A Small Cage

There was a house halfway ’round the world
And I was invited in for a small taste of gin

There was a hallway a thousand birds long
But the biggest one of all was in a cage too small

I asked the caretaker ‘cuz he was their maker
He looked at me and laughed took another sip from his glass

He said ‘open up your ears and hearts
You put a big bird in a small cage and he’ll sing you a song’

That we all love to sing along
To the sound of the bird that mourns

Well we rolled into town and the sweet New Orleans
To the Apple Barrel bar it was a hole in the wall
The ceiling weren’t tall and the floors filled with grime
But the sound that you would make would just warm their hearts

Well it was quarter to 12 and the boys walked in
They got their black suits on and the songs would begin
You open up your ears and hearts
You put a big bird in a small cage and it’ll sing you a song

That we all love to sing along
To the sound of the bird that mourns
You put a big bird in a small cage and it will sing you a song

 

Day 8 “A Year of Thoughts”: Discontent? Well Good Let it Move You.

For the past month I have sorta been lazy and a little discontent about that laziness. Every time I would watch a basketball game I would get excited and want to play again. In close games my heart rate would go up and I would wish I was back on the bench supporting my team and coaches.

One of the earliest pictures I have of my childhood is me standing in dad’s shoes shooting the basketball into my fisher’s price hoop. I grew up in the Hoosier state which is known to be the heartland of basketball. For years I lived and breathed basketball. I slept with a brand new ball in my hands in sixth grade and dreamed about playing for championship every night. The game was taught to me at a very young age and after three tries to make a traveling club team in 8^th grade I made it. Three years later my team went on to win both a state and a national invitational championship, and when I walked off the court of the national championship I made the decision to move on from the sport and peruse other things. I gave up playing for the final two years of high school. That was over six years ago now, yet the game is still in my blood. I can’t remove the teaching that I received as a kid, I can’t look at the game through anything but a coaching lenses, I can’t step back on the court and not feel a little confident that I can still shoot the ball.

When I was playing basketball I always wanted to hit every shot. I wanted to be ready for anything. I spent hours on my shooting form, making it perfect (yet the whole of 140 pounds of a 6′ 3” man that I am now still would just get pushed around out on the court, so it had to be perfect). But as much as I knew the game and as much as I was perfect at the little things I wasn’t that great, I’m still not great. I grew discontent, I had made basketball such a huge part of my life and when I finally won my championship (from the bench mind you), I allowed that discontentment to move me to a place of changing and finding ways to make my life more full of things that I believed would help me grow.

For most guys growing up in Indiana, basketball is something that they are born with yet it’s not for every guy. Unlike basketball though I was reminded today by Donnie Hinshaws sermon that we are all born with faith. It’s a gift that God has given us to propel us forward in hope.

I have always had faith in basketball…

That may sound like a silly statement, because it really is kind of a silly statement, but for me growing up it was true. I may not have always had that great feeling of having faith in God and trusting that he knew what he was doing. But I sure had faith that my favorite teams could win ever night, I had faith my 3-pointers were “Boom-babies” every time just like Reggie Miller back in the day. However, my understanding of faith today grew in a way that changed things.

See when we accredit God with giving us our faith then nothing we can do will earn that faith. Faith is a gift. I know you can’t work for salvation and we are saved by grace, but faith is not something we tweak in our form, or practice over and over until we are perfect at it, either. Faith is nothing like being taught as a kid to play a sport. Faith is a real part of our lives, God is waiting for us to live with Faith, to awaken what he has already put within us. To trust him knowing that he knows what he is doing. To hope fully in what God has for you.

Donnie said this morning, “To hope in something means the state of life you are in is a state of discontent”

To hope is to be discontent, to know that there is more and a way to live that is different then the one we are in. Discontentment is not a sin. Discontentment should move us to a deeper faith and hope in God. I think this is why faith is always seems to be growing in our lives, why theology is expanding as we are moved to learn and experience more of what God is revealing of himself to us. Why the closer we get to God the crazier and more awesome life seems.

I have a hope that lives can be changed. I have a hope I can learn to love. I have hope and faith that God can do the impossible. My discontentment moved me away from basketball because I had a hope that my life could be more than a sport. I have had discontentment in my heart for the next generation, for my own life, for the future, for I have faith that God can do more than what we are dreaming.

If God can take my little insignificant dream of playing a sport I loved for 16 years and winning at it come true then I have faith God can give me even bigger dreams and complete those a thousand times over. I’m not content with settling for less. I want to take risks and live by faith for hope holds my future forever in God’s hands.

Basketball maybe in my blood and I may never get it out now. Faith is in my heart and it’s pumping through all that I am. My heart is discontent to settle for anything but living life full of faith…

Sometimes we have to walk away from things to pursue in faith what God is leading us too.

Just read Hebrews 11 it’s a list of men that lived by faith, they did crazy things, they risked everything, and they walked away from a lot. But will you? Will I?

Heck yes I will.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 3 “A Year of thoughts”: Breathe Inspiration Through the Lungs of Encouragement

Encourage– “To inspire with courage, to breathe courage into one another”

Nearly a month ago I heard this definition of encourage durning a sermon at a church that I was leading worship at. I wrote it down on the back of an empty offering envelope and I’ve spent sometime thinking about what it means to encourage and to inspire. But today it really seemed to make sense as the day unfolded…

After rolling out of bed at 10 AM eastern time I met my good friend Bill Pierce at Teppanyaki Grill & Buffet, it’s our favorite chinese place on the east side of Indy. It’s awesome if you love chinese food and even more awesome when your super hungry. But Bill and I don’t just go there to pig out on the Chinese food and leave five hundred pounds heavier. We go there to talk, we hit a recored low of only filling two plates apiece, however, we had our fill with more than just Chinese food.

Bill is one of those guys if you don’t really know him you might look at his life and say “Wow that guy is just crazy”. See Bill is a high energy, passionate, middle school pastor, who is married and has five kids under the age of five. Now that sounds crazy but it’s NOT, it’s just Bill. Bill lives life with gusto.

Define Gusto..

Gusto: “A hearty or keen enjoyment, an individual taste all it’s own.”

Bill lives life with gusto… he enjoys life but he has a way about him that is just Bill. There are times where he will do the most unexpected things… My favorite and most disturbing memory of Bill was when I was in middle school camp a long time ago and Bill was an intern under one of the pastors. During the talent show the last night he licked peanut butter out of another man’s arm pit. If that were the only encounter with Bill that I ever had I would have called him crazy and sick… yet I know now it’s just Bill.

He lives with gusto.

Watching Bill growing up has always inspired me. As a sixth grade kid I didn’t want to lick peanut butter out of another guys arm pit but Bill won every guys respect for the way he really grossed out every girl at that camp that year. Bill has done some unexpected and surprising things in life and to this day Bill keeps inspiring me. Whenever, I come home from college Bill and I have tried to take the time to sit down and talk, because we believe there are things that we can encourage each other on.

Today was one of those days. As soon as we sat down there was a buzz between us as we started to share what is going on in our lives. We shared our where’s, how’s and what’s of what we believe God is doing in our lives and where He is leading us. Bill and I both have big dreams about what God is doing in our lives. They are both similar but different. When we talk about those dreams it feeds our collective excitement about what the future holds.

Define Future..

Future: “Something that will exist or happen”

We both believe these things that we have been dreaming and envisioning will happen in time. But over our conversation I was encouraged by Bill talking about how we shouldn’t be shy of the future, but we should be taking action to make it happen. We both believe that many times people say we are waiting on God’s timing to do this or that, but God’s timing never comes and they never do what they believe God called them to do.

So if God calls you to do something do it without delay….

There are a number of things that Bill told me I should go for and do in the next year or so. God’s time is now and we have to trust that he will work through us…

Be encouraged to breathe inspiration into the people around you.

Bill breathes inspiration into my soul

In sharing my dreams I hope to breathe inspiration back into him.

I hope to breathe inspiration into all those that I meet.

See breathe is a vital part of life. We all need this air that we are pulling into our lungs and pumping back out. We all need the oxygen or we are all but dead. We all need encouragement. We all need inspiration. So why not breathe it into others…

Encouraging others may mean we have to step outside of our comfort zone. To inspire others we may have to take some risks. To encourage others we may have to show who we honestly are, hurts and all. To inspire others we may have to search in different or far off places. To be encouraged we may have to admit that we need someone to breathe life back into our weary lungs. To inspire we may live life in a way that most of the world says is crazy…

But when the world says we are crazy be encouraged. God is calling you to something that may be crazy to them. It may be different, it may be risky, it may hurt, it may lead you through failure but those failures will make you better, it may lead you to places you never dreamed of going and doing things you never dreamed of doing.

In short Bill encourages me not only in the way that he lives and speaks but by he breathes.

Be Encouraged.

Let this inspire you…

“Just do whatever God calls you to do the moment that it is clear to you. Do not procrastinate; do not hesitate; do not deviate from whatever course of action He calls you to. But I want to warn you, the closer you walk with Christ, the greater the faith required. The more you trust him, the more you’ll risk on his behalf. The more you love him, the more you will love others. If you genuinely embrace His sacrifice, you will joyfully embrace a sacrificial life”

–Erwin Raphael McManus

Take the risk to breathe inspiration through the lungs of encouragement who knows it might start something crazy that might just change the world. Take courage and breathe it in…

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Hello My Name is The Next Generation

Hello My Name is The Next Generation

Confused But Hopeful
Hurt But Healing
Lost But Searching
Shaken But Dancing
Burdened But Passionate
Afraid But Fearless
Empty But Loved

Hello we are the Next Generation.