Memory, Mind and Moving Forward

 

“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”- Colossians 3:2

 

Memory: (noun) “the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms”

 

Over the past few years I have acquired a growing fascination with the human brain. The thought that we think sometimes blows my mind. There is such complexity and mystery to the brain that anytime that I spend any amount of time at all contemplating it, I am blown away and in awe of how it all works, of course this leads me back to the very creator and engineer of this complexity.

As a group of friends and I were sitting in a house in Mebane, NC last night discussing some of the things that we were going through someone made the comment that “the fact that we can remember, or have the capacity for memory is an awesome blessing that God has given us.” In the context of our conversation we were discussing experiencing God and how often times, that is what our heart desires but we get discouraged because we go through times where we don’t feel him. And that is where memory comes in, in those times where we can’t seem to feel him, God has given us the memory of when we did.

Just yesterday I was looking back through some of my earlier blog posts and I found one that I wrote while still in college out in Kansas. In that blog I quoted Donnie Hinshaw who was the pastor of the church that I attended out there,

 

“To hope in something means the state of life you are in is a state of discontent”

 

In that sermon I remember him talking about living with a Holy Discontent. A discontent that says where I am is not where I always want to be, a “holy” discontent is when that discontent is focused on experiencing God and being in a relationship with him. Right now I would have to say I have a pretty holy discontent. Not because where I am at is a horrible place but for the fact that I want to know, experience and feel God more, then what I do right now. I can remember those time where God really moved in my life. Those times where what I was doing and how I was living was intentionally geared toward pursuing a relationship with him. Those moments moved me forward, allowed me to take risk and strengthened my trust in God.

I think sometimes we get these ideas that the life of a christian should be full of these mountain top experiences and everyday is going to be full of miracles. However, that is not how it works, granted we may have those mountain top moments where God blows our minds, but in reality God wants to be with us in every moment. God takes the mundane and fills it with meaning. Just look at the life of Jesus, the majority of his life was spent living with twelve men. He traveled around taking the daily things of life and teaching them with those things. He did miracles but there were days where he didn’t. He blew the disciples minds but there where times where they were confused because he wasn’t the Messiah that everyone was expecting. Jesus spent three years helping the disciples experience him and fill their minds with memories of his life with them, so that when he was gone they could share those memories with the rest of the world.

One of the things that really stands out to me about the early church is that they were in each others homes, they were building community, they were eating together so that they could share together in the memory of Jesus. At the last supper Jesus said “Remember me when you take this cup and eat this bread.” He didn’t just say this because he was going to the cross the next day he said this so that this moment would be written in the minds of his disciples, that they would remember all the moments they had with him and that memory would move them forward.

Moving forward. What I mean by this is that our minds have the capacity for an endless amount of memories. Jesus doesn’t just tell them to remember, but rather to go and make new memories, to go and make disciples. To go and live life with people just like he had lived life with them. The disciples could have just settled into the mundane. They could have just kept the memories to themselves and let those three years be the only memories they had with Christ. The apostle Peter even tried this by going back to being a fisherman after Jesus died, but Jesus showed up and reminded Peter of what he had taught him and asked him to do (John 21:15-25).

So what does this have to do with us. I think sometimes we settle for simply living off the memories of old rather then making new ones. In the context of the church I think this is why so many churches around america are on the verge of dying. They have stopped living, they have settled for the mundane, they say this is what we use to do and this is what we will always do and we can’t change. Those churches like to talk about the glory days, they like to talk about when all the pews were full and about all the things they use to do. They speak of these experiences like war stories, there is this feeling of it being a long, long time ago in totally different situation. What breaks my heart about this is that it leaves a feeling that there is no future, there is no hope, and any discontent there may be is a discontent for what once was rather then what could be.

We as human’s have this ability to get overwhelmed with what the world around us is doing. We focus so much on the crazy messed up world that we forget God, we forget we have experienced him, we forget he loved us, we forget he saved us, we forget how to be in relationship with him, we forget that church isn’t about the program, numbers or methods but about the people being in relationship with God and each other. We forget that we have the opportunity to experience him everyday. We forget we have hope. I believe churches will close their doors and they will figuratively dye because they refuse to move forward. A whole generation may wonder in the desert like the Israelites because they have a great fear of moving forward, a fear that experiencing God in a new way may challenge everything they know, a fear that everything might change, a fear that the new memory may be painful, hard and risky.

The memory of Jesus will moved forward not by the organized established church but by the people that are willing to say “the memories I have with God are not enough, I want more”. The people that are willing to move forward, pick up the cross and move toward Christ with the holy discontent, that where they are isn’t where God wants them to stay. I can say that is is a challenge for myself as well, I realized recently that I had been riding off of my memories of past experiences with Jesus and others rather then making new ones. I realized that I had settled with just being content with who I was and what I was doing, but when my wife pointed out something to me the other day that I need to change it challenged me to really look deep into my own heart and ask myself what I’m doing.

As I have thought about this I have tried to put this into a context of where I am at in life right now. Just this year I got married to a beautiful young woman that I love very much, it took a lot of risk on both of our parts to trust that this what we wanted for our lives. It forced us to change, it daily challenges us in the way that we live and how we see the world. I can’t live the same way I was living before I had a wife, I had been living alone, eating frozen pizzas and hamburgers, watching what I wanted to watch and doing whatever I wanted to do. Having a wife has made me realize how selfish that way of life is and providing for her and myself isn’t ever going to be easy but it’s totally worth it.

Another thing that I have realized recently is I can’t continue the relationship simply off of old memories. Where we are living is a whole new place from where we started dating, in almost every way. To strengthen our marriage we have to be intentional about creating new memories and doing the same things that we were doing while dating doesn’t always mean that much. We have to do new things, take new risks and say “what I know about you isn’t enough, I want to know you more.” Sometimes that is scary because that means we have to open up, be honest and move forward.

I have a holy discontent for life because I want to make new memories with God and those around me that I love. It starts with setting my mind on Christ. Setting my mind intentionally on pursuing a relationship and being willing to move forward. Right before the Colossians 3:2 passage Paul reminds the church at Colosse that they had been raised with Christ and Christ was seated at the right hand of God. In this he is reminding them that Jesus had already concurred death, he had already forgiven them, he had already saved them, and that setting their minds on things above was to set their minds on Jesus.

Going on from there Paul says in verse 3-4, “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life, appears, then you will appear with him in glory”…

 

And in Verse 5… “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature”…

 

Then he lists all these things that aren’t what we need as followers of Christ for we wont find him in those things and in contrast he writes in Verse 12-17… “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievance you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

 

Paul reminds the church that Jesus is their life and then he reminds them of what that looks like to live as if Christ really was their life. He encouraged them to continue in the future to live this way, to continue to experience what it means to be God’s chosen people. The memories we have with God should move us forward toward more. We have to ask the question is Jesus just a memory or a story I read about or is he alive, seated on the throne and is he my life?

 

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the Life.

 

I am discontent with anything short of Jesus being my life.

 

-Caleb Hunter

Memories Framed in Our Minds Like Photographs

 In the past month life has been a crazy awesome adventure. Right before Christmas I flew out to New Mexico to see my best friends and was pleasantly surprised to be surprised by my girl friend being there. My friends had flown her out there so we could

have the whole break together. Surprises like that are wonderful memories made and really mean a lot to me, because it says myfriends really love and care about us! After a few days in New Mexico we flew up to Seattle, Washington to spend Christmas with her family. While we were there I asked Megan to Marry me and she said YES!

Those days leading up to asking her were nerve racking and exciting. After talking to her parents her Dad asked me what I would have done if he had said “No”, and my response was “Well… I guess it would make for a awkward couple of days”. But when her parents said “Yes”, I just felt this huge relief and for the first time in months I could really relax. I had bought the ring a few months ago and sometimes I have a hard time holding a secret, especially when it’s something really exciting. It’s even harder when the secret you are keeping is for someone you love and talk to everyday.

So on December 22, 2012 I could wait no longer, Megan and I went on a date night to Lights of Christmas, which is this christmas light display put on by a camp where Megan use to work. I had the ring in my pocket hoping there might be a place romantic enough, but as we walked around and saw the lights there were just to many people around. From

there we went out to dinner and headed back to her house. When we got there we went out to take pictures under the lights her family had put on in the front yard, after taking a few of our goofy pictures I bent down on a knee while she was looking at the pictures on the camera, as I went to pull out the ring she handed me the camera, I dropped the camera and han

ded her the ring.

The only thing I really remember saying was “Will you marry me Megan and go on this journey of life with me?”, She just smiled at me and said “yes!”

I won’t forget looking back at the house and seeing her parents peaking through the window on the front door as

they oowed and aaahhed. Over the past year Megan and I have taken a lot of pictures and tried to capture the memories

of our time together. One of my favorite songs titled “All the memories” by the band The Classic Crime says

“Oh, all the memories we had
Framed in our minds like photographs
Take a second, take a second
And make this last
Here where the future meets the past
I can never fall in love again
I can never fall in love again”
All our memories are framed like photographs in our minds and hearts. That whole night I was looking for the right spot and the right time to ask. For months I had lost sleep over trying to figure out a plan or what it might look like, but now looking back at it a few weeks later, it was the perfect moment and I couldn’t have planned it. It wasn’t until we were our goofy selves, taking pictures and laughing about the faces we were making that the opportunity was right. I can say, I will never fall in love with anyone again because I found the one that I want to love. Our relationship has been anything but easy, the long distance and short bursts of time that we have been able to spend together over the past year have stretched us and challenged us. It has been emotionally draining at times and everyday we have had to believe and fight for the hope to carry on, but isn’t that what love is all about. About fighting for what we believe in, over everything else and forgiving when it just hurts.

Love isn’t some fluffy idea of an little naked angel on a cloud shooting lonely hearts with arrows. Love isn’t just a word that middle school students throw around to mean whoever they have a crush on that week. Love isn’t just attraction, or a spiritual fruit or 60’s

 rock n’ roll song lyric. Love is not something we will ever fully grasp or understand. Love is giving everything we got, sharing evenwhen it doesn’t seem fair, driving forty miles to find cold medicine when she’s sick, writing letters on what ever paper you can find including paint samples, moving half way across the country in faith that God will close the space between where you and her are because you believe God called you there, Love is calling back five minutes after they said something that made you mad and responding with I love you. Love is always, always, always a learning process that will take more time than we have and always have something new to teach us everyday. My assumptions of trying to understand love have been reshaped by my relationship and everyday is framing new memories to learn from and enjoy.

-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 50 “A Year of Thought”: Places and People

“Places become important because of the people we share them with”

Do you know those places that hold special meaning for you? A place where great memories were formed and you can always seem to see that place even when your far away from it? One of those places for me is a tent outside the dinning hall, the fall of my sophomore year of high school, I recommitted my life to Christ and shared that moment with one of my best friends Luke Russell, that night at camp. That moment is a memory tattooed in my mind and I was able to share it.

In front of my parents house there is a flower bed where there use to be bushes but thanks to Luke and I’s discovery of a tunnel under the bushes they had to be taken out from our jumping in them to many times. Another shared moment for Luke and I, though we got in trouble it’s a memory all the same. Every time I think of that place I think of our adventures as kids. That place though now a small flower bed holds such meaning for me.

Today at church Pastor Stephen Wing talked about how Jesus shared his transfiguration with his disciples, his friends. It wasn’t just the moment at the top of the mountain but more of the long hard climb up the mountain that would enable Peter to remember this moment for years to come. The hard climb up the scruffy unkept mountain side. This is often life for us, a long hard climb up a mountain but sometimes we get to the top to see the transfiguration. Those awesome moments and we forget what we went through to get there.

Peter saying in Matthew 17 “it’s good for us to be here”, it’s good for us to not only share the mountain top experience but also the climb. Though it’s hard it’s worth sharing. Though life is hard it’s worth sharing. When life is shared with others thats when it has meaning.

Who do we shard these places with?

Who do we share this place with?

When we live life with others life has meaning. For those who never understand this place will become meaningless because they haven’t shared it with anyone. When we share life an ordinary scruffy place becomes holy and full of meaning.

The path we climb may wear us out but it’s not about the path, it’s about who we follow and who we share it with. Share life.

When we look back we remember we were there and we shared those moments. There are a number of places that hold a lot of meaning for me right now and are forming memories, like a dirt road outside of town, a bon fire, a path in the park, a picture we painted that hangs on my wall, and Amarillo, Texas. Just an ordinary kind of scruffy places and things but all of them and so much more that I share with my best friend Megan. Those all hold meaning because of who I share them with. They are memories because they can be shared.

Who are you sharing your life with?

Your Climb? Your Story?

I was introduced as the Youth Director at the Pratt Presbyterian Church today and am walking, hiking, climbing a new mountain with them and experience and a journey that I get to have and share with them. I was warmly invited in as if I were a part of their family. I know the place I share with them will be full of meaning.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

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P.S. Sorry for the delay on updating the blog. I have not missed a day but have not been able to move the writings from my journal to the blog, but slowly and surely I will have them for you to read. God Bless.

Day 42 “A Year of Thoughts”: Hockey and a Doughnut Date

Eight rows up from the ice right behind the goalie makes for great seats to a hockey game. The seats are even better when you get to experience the game in a packed arena with your best friend. For a sorta valentines date my girl friend and I went to a hockey game. It was her first ever and she really enjoyed it.

 

After the game we got coffee and then drove around until we found a Krispy Kreme doughnuts, we bought three doughnuts. We ate the first two with some speed out of hunger but the last doughnut we decided to heat up. Since I don’t carry a microwave in my car the best option was to turn the defrost on and place the doughnut box in the dash.

 

It worked… well sorta worked… we ate the doughnut like ten minutes after putting it on the dash and it was warm…

 

 

Perhaps trying it longer for better results.

 

Days like today fill me with such joy and make memories that will last for a long time.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter