Pass it on to the Next Generation

Yesterday I had the opportunity to preach while our senior pastor was any on vacation. Yesterday was also mothers day so I thought it would be appropriate to talk about passing on what we have learned and experienced to the Next Generation. The following is my notes from yesterday’s sermon, I hope that they help you be inspired to pass it on.

 

Pass it on to the Next Generation

“1 My people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth with a parable;
I will utter hidden things, things from of old—
3 things we have heard and known,
things our ancestors have told us.

4 We will not hide them from their descendants;
we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
his power, and the wonders he has done.
5 He decreed statutes for Jacob
and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
to teach their children,
6 so the next generation would know them,
even the children yet to be born,
and they in turn would tell their children.

7 Then they would put their trust in God
and would not forget his deeds
but would keep his commands.
8 They would not be like their ancestors—
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
whose hearts were not loyal to God,
whose spirits were not faithful to him.”

-Psalm 78:1-8

 

To sorta set the table for the main points of the message today I wanted to tell you a little of my story, as a Son. I was born May 18^th, 1989 in a small hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana. I was the second child of my beautiful red haired Mother. Before I was born my parents had been married four years, my mom was a pharmacist assistant, but not long after I was born she made the choice to stay home and raise us kids. She made the choice early on that she wanted to teach us and I don’t know that she knew at the time but she was going to be the greatest influence any of us kids would have.

 

My mom told me those early years were scary, raising a boy was harder than raising my older sister. There was a lot of fear when I didn’t walk when I was suppose to, and when I got tested positive for ADHD, and when I had a hard time reading and writing, but mom never gave up. I remember struggling through each word of the easy reader book and how nothing sounded right yet her voice assured me I would get it, eventually. When I wanted to give up mom was always right there to encourage, even when it was obvious that my struggles were frustrating her.

My mom championed homeschooling, designing our lessons around how we learned as kids, with hands on science experiments in the kitchen right before lunch, to our individual reading and math lessons, to taking us to historical places all across the country so we didn’t just read about history but we got to experience it ourselves. Sometimes when my mom didn’t know something she would study long enough to be confident to teach us. She was dedicated to telling, teaching, showing and ultimately passing on what she had learned and experienced.

Over the past couple of years I have realized just how much my mom influenced everything about my life and if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be here today. Really I wouldn’t be here.

See when I was four years old I remember sitting on my mom’s lap in the floor of our playroom while she read to me from my picture Bible that my parents had got me for my first birthday. She read to me about Jesus and after a few of my curious four year old questions, she explained how he died for me so that we could be friends with him. At four I didn’t have many friends other than my older sister and my imaginary friend johnny so I asked God to forgive me and I started a relationship, a journey with him. My mom was the one that really introduced me to Jesus, her confidence and willingness to share her experience with Jesus was passed on to me.

I wish I could say everything was a smooth ride from there but thats not really how life works. In middle school, through a lot of things that happened I started to doubt my faith and ran from God. But also during that time I was surprised how my mom didn’t give up on me even though I thought it was obvious she knew I was running. When I was sixteen I recommitted my life to following Jesus. My mom had always encouraged us kids to find ways to live out our faith and experience new things. That same year I had the opportunity to go to Brazil for the first time. That trip literally changed my life.

After the trip there was one night that I remember God clearly giving me a vision of people, their faces were hard to make out, many of them I did not know, but in that moment God told me “tell and lead the next generation”. For a long time I’ve wondered what that really means, why me?, but the last eight years I’ve noticed that moment has affected a lot of my life.

God used my mom to tell me about Jesus, her steady encouragement moved me to following Jesus.

Today I want to talk about passing it on to the Next Generation. There are a couple of things I want to talk about from the Psalms 78 passage. First, “How can we pass it on if we have not experienced?”. I think this is an honest and sometimes hard question. How can we really tell anyone about Jesus and what it means to follow him if we aren’t doing it ourselves?

Psalms 78:1-3 “Oh people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter hidden things, things from old- What we have heard and known, what our fathers told us.”

Just this last week we started a new series in youth group titled “Follow Me”. The first weeks lesson dealt with when Jesus called the disciples. He didn’t just say believe that I will save you and go on fishing. Jesus said “Come follow me”, come experience life with me, eat what I eat, go where I go, see what I see, be where I am and I will teach you from showing you and not just telling. Jesus wanted his disciples to experience. They left everything to follow him.

David Platt Writes, “Sadly today we have subtly and deceptively minimized what it means to follow Jesus. We have replaced challenging words like, “Leave everything and follow me” with trite phrases like:

-Ask Jesus into your heart.

-Invite Christ into your life.

-Pray this prayer after me, and you will be saved.

Should it alarm us that the Bible nowhere mentions such a prayer? Should it concern us that nowhere in scripture is anyone ever told to ask Jesus into their heart or invite Christ into their life?”

I think the reason that it is never minimized to that in scripture is because what Jesus calls us to is to “Follow Him”, to follow him means there is going to be risk, it can’t be minimized or boiled down to one simple pray and thats it. That may be the beginning but there is so much more to following Jesus.

If we aren’t really following Jesus how can we invite others to, and if we haven’t experienced him how can we pass it on?

 

Second, What is there to fear? Often times I think what holds us back from sharing our experience with Jesus is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of saying the wrong thing, or fear of what others might think if they knew I was a Jesus freak.

Ps 78:4 “We will not hide them from their children, we will tell the next generation”

Growing up I was far to familiar with fear. It controlled my life. The first time my parents took me to the ocean I was almost two year old. They took me down toward the water and set me toward the waves. The water never really even got close to me but each time a wave crashed onto the beach I thought it was coming for me and the sound scared me to death. My parents told me I cried until they turned me around. If I couldn’t see it then it didn’t effect me… they hide the ocean from me!

 

I had a lot of fears like fear of flying, fear of Simi-trucks, fear of the dark, even fireworks on the forth of July scared me. But slowly as I grew older I realized fears didn’t have control over me. A lot of the time when I was running from God was out of fear of both the unknown and fear that God wouldn’t love me anymore. I believe when we really chose to follow Jesus he can release us from the prison of fear. We underestimate the power of the holy spirit in our lives and forget that he is with us.

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:6-9 “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus.”

We all have times we fear but when that fear holds us back from following Jesus and sharing him with the rest of the world maybe it’s time to leave it behind. We have to surrender our fears, our excuses and trust that the things that we lack God has in control. Don’t let fear hold you back. We have to be committed to not hiding God from the Next generation we have to pass it on.

Third, We are all Called to pass it on. I believe whole heartedly that we are all called to pass on and share in our experiences with others. I believe following Jesus though it is an individual choice we each make it isn’t a singular or selfish thing. We who truly choose to follow Jesus, we who say we want to be his disciple, our experience with Jesus it should transform our lives into being about other people.

Passing it on to the next generation starts with our commitment to follow Jesus no matter the cost and in everything learning to love. It troubles me sometimes when we boil Christianity down to being about “me getting to heaven and me being saved”. Life is not about me.

The greatest lesson that I ever learned from my mom was that “life is best spent serving other people”

I believe the greatest way that we can introduce people to Jesus is by loving them wholeheartedly. People are watching us because they want to see Jesus. The next Generation is watching because they want an example to show them what it means to truly follow Jesus.

People will know that we follow Jesus by our love, not by our building, not our programs, not our VBS, not by the name on our sign, or how we use to do things. People will know we follow Jesus by the way we love them in the present, in each moment of this life that we have. They will know that we follow Jesus when we can share our experience with Jesus with them.

Our fresh new purpose statement here at Cedar Square Friends Meeting is “Loving God by Serving all People”… this is what we want people to see and know us by. We we are all in, loving God with all we have it means we are passing on that love to everyone we me. You and I are the Next Generation of Christians and we are all called to pass it on.

I had a professor in college tell me “Caleb, the next generation is the generation before, the generation after and the generation you are in. They all were a next generation at one point or another and they need sometime to pass the gospel to them.”

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

 

 

 

We Are Not Of Those Who Shrink Back…

“But we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved”

– Hebrews 10:39

In Jerusalem the crowds had gathered from all around the Roman Empire to celebrate passover, some had traveled for days or weeks before reaching the city walls. Some had come for religious reasons, some simply out of tradition and others just to see and partake in the excitement of being in such a place with so many other people or because they were told “Jews like to party”.

On Easter sunday the crowds will gather again much like they did two thousand years ago. There will be those who have traveled across the states, those who took extra vacation time just so they can be with family. They will file into church wearing the best of whatever they own, some come for what they consider religious reasons, others will come for the sake of an age old family tradition and still others come confused with how chocolate, baskets and bunnies have to do with the once a year church visit that is awkward, boring and often feels meaningless.

Back two thousand years ago, to those outside of the Jewish faith the passover was just a time when everyone ate nasty yeast-less bread and rehashed the story of how Moses led them out of Egypt. It carried little meaning to those who did not understand the significance of how God had led his people out of slavery and toward the promise land. I imagine the routine of the passover became mundane and faded to just something families did every year. It lost it’s meaning even though the story was told. Even in my own life I have been guilty of showing up on Easter morning bored and uninterested. There are times I’ve felt offended by the fact that people are more fake about their faith on Easter and Christmas than any other time of the year. It’s as if they do not choose to believe any other time.

Following Jesus is not a once a year thing.

In the crowds of people that had gathered in Jerusalem for the passover there were those who had come because they believed this was the time that Jesus was going to rise up as their fearless leader and over throw the Romans. There were those who had followed him simply because he healed them or satisfied their hunger. There were those who followed just for the excitement of the crowds that seemed to be amazed by him. But there were a few who really believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the savior of his people. Not a savior over Roman oppression but a savior over sin, guilt, shame and separation from God.

For those few who really truly believed they were going to quickly learn that following Jesus was not going to be a once a year thing, it was not going to be an easy thing and it was not always going to be that exciting either. When Jesus was arrested the people that were following Jesus seemed to shrink. There were those who had shouted “Hosanna in the highest” when he had entered the city but found themselves screaming “Crucify Him” by the end of the week. There were those who wanted to follow Jesus when it seemed safe, comfortable and the popular thing to do, but when things changed they were quick to shrink back and run away.

People are no different today as they were two thousand years ago. There are still those who only follow Jesus because he healed them or satisfied their hunger, there are those who think the crowds that gather on Christmas and Easter are exciting, and those who come once a year because they respect anyone who does something to cause a holiday.

But who are we.

Who are we in this story. I love how the writer of Hebrews speaks of the supremacy of Christ and assures his reader that Jesus is the son of God. He reminds them of why Jesus came to live and died and rose again. Then he goes on to speak of those few that continued to believe in Jesus after many had given up…

“Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised… But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.”

• Hebrews 10:32-36,39

After Jesus death and resurrection it was still not easy to follow Jesus. There was no once a year follower of Jesus. It was either all in or all out. The risk was high and the cost was at times your own life, yet there were those who did not shrink back. When Jesus was crucified there were many who just gave up, they shrunk back, he did not do what they thought he was going to do so they gave up on him. I believe there are those who think they are following Jesus, but know nothing about him and there are those who as they get to know him and everything he did they choose to leave him, but we do not have to be those people.

We have a choice to follow Jesus everyday, learn more about him not for the sake of knowing facts, but for a relationship with him.

The early followers of Jesus did not always know what they were going to be getting into or what God was calling them to do, however, they made a choice to follow any way. Following Jesus is a learning process. It takes time, we have no need to shrink back or throw away our confidence. For those who believe we have ten thousand reasons to tell the world about Jesus. There will always be those who only come to church on Easter or Christmas, but there is no reason that that should be the only time all year that they hear or see Jesus.

 

We are not of those who shrink back from carrying the good news to the world. The good news of love and hope. The world two thousand years ago was in desperate need of hope and an example of love. Jesus calls us to carry that same message to our world that is longing for some hope and is often confused about love. We need to remind those who believe that we are not of those who shrink back.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Mind Renewal and Butterflies

“Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will”- 12: 2 

I read this verse a few weeks ago in a devotional that I am going through and have continued to come across it in a few books that I am reading. Also a week ago I saw a short video about the brain that mentioned this verse. Finally it kinda hit me this morning as I was starting my day that maybe God was trying to get through to me to stop and think about it for a minute.

Romans 12:2 is one of those verses I could just easily just pass by without thought. Its a obvious verse that is often over quoted and I have read a million times. STOP for a second if I have read it a million times and heard sermons preach about it why then have I given it so little thought. Maybe because When we stop and really think about our lives, the way we think, the way we act, and the way we do anything for that matter we might just have to rethink thing because our patterns are just like the world.

While reading yesterday in the book “Plan B” by Pete Wilson I came across the verse again but this time the following paragraph from the actually made me stop and think about it.

“So what is the pattern of this world? If we look closely, we can probably discern several distinct patterns. There is the pattern of hurry -now, now, now, faster, faster, faster. There is the pattern of debt- enjoy now, pay later (if at all). But one of the patterns I see every single day in the lives of people I rub elbows with is fear and anxiety. I truly believe there is a pattern of fear in our culture, probably made worse by our constant media presence. We’re constantly alerted to the possible sources of danger, conditioned to see threats all around us. We’re instructed to cover our tails, to trust no one, to avoid failure at any cost”- Pg 56-57

Hurry, hurry, hurry… this seems to often the one we ignore and I believe like Pete it is out of fear of many things that keeps us from slowing down long enough to listen to what God has to say. I can say all the times that I read through this verse in the past few weeks were more than likely out of hurry, hurry because well often times for no other reason than to feel like I accomplished something which in turn is fed by a fear that comes from being told you better not fail and better do everything right. I can say I am in the process of letting my fears go and trusting God but I have to slow down to do it.

It’s interesting to me that the word transformation is in this verse. Transformation is one of those buzz words for me that makes me excited and thoughtful (most of the time when I slow down). Transformation is simple put the Process of Change. The word is closely tied with the greek word for metamorphosis, which as most boys who have ever been fascinated by bugs understand is the process of going through the stages of a caterpillar to a butterfly. I use to be obsessed with bugs, but thats another story, however, understanding that transformation is a process helps when connecting transformation to the renewing of our minds.

We often point to the caterpillar and the butterfly when we think of metamorphosis yet we don’t ever really think about the cocoon stage. We like the beginning and the end. Doesn’t that sound familiar, as humans we love birth and celebrate or morn death but rarely do we focus on how we have changed through those times. We hurry from birth to death so we can be in heaven, sadly we miss out on so much of the life that Christ already offers us here when we hurry through everything. Jesus wants to blow our minds here, make us STOP and really think through life. To be renewed in mind through the slow process of thinking through what patterns we are living and how we can allow God to change us if we let him.

A caterpillar will eat and eat and often die before it get to be a cocoon because it over eats or gets squashed by some little kid, hurry and eat, hurry and eat, but for the caterpillar to reach the cocoon stage it has to stop and allow the shell to form around it.

It has to stop hurrying, it has to change every pattern of life that is has ever known. 

That statement alone can define what a christian life should be like, it changes everything we know. It change us to the core and shapes us into something we never dreamed of, yet, often times when we hear that being a christian, following christ or simply

renewing our minds means we might have to change we simple respond in fear. We continue our patterns of worry, hurry, and fear because flowing jesus might mean changing everything.

If you want examples of what what looks like just look at the disciples, look at paul, or any one in the early church. When we truly

encounter Jesus Everything changes.

The caterpillar has to trust God that he will make it out of the cocoon someday. I’ve seen caterpillars that never made it out but Idon’t think that the fear of not making it ever kept them from not trying. We have to stop fearing failure and start trusting that God knows what he is doing even if we don’t make it out, even if following Christ is an experience that is painful, hard, and often full of times that we fail by the worlds standards.

It’s your choice. Your life and your mind. You can choose to stop and examine life and seek change and allow God to truly transform you through the renewing of your mind. The promise is there that we are better able to discern the life God has for us when we stop and allow him to change us.

As for me. I’m setting out to continue this process, to follow Jesus no matter what even if it does mean I have to change everything about everything that I ever knew. Its a challenge and though in my humanity it comes with fear I hope that through the renewing of my mind daily that fear will become so small that I will walk with confidence through the valley of the shadow of death.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Watch this: http://vimeo.com/54866496

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

Heart’s Are Messy

I am not sure why I have not written in few weeks but I am sure that it is linked to this apathy and laziness that has crept into my life over the past few months. I’ve gone through the motions of life with very little emotion or effort to really care about everything I am doing. However, recently I have read the book “Empty Promises” by Pete Wilson and that has brought to my attention the great many lies that I have been living and believing. Lies about myself and what really matters. I have set up little idols that I have often placed before God and made a fool of myself in many areas of my life. One of the major lies that I have often believed is that the world just does not care and I am worthless. This lie is couture to everything I have been taught at Bible College and through my many experience of life. However, this lie is still beating me up from time to time. It is in those times when I choose to believe the lie that no one cares that I don’t care. I become lazy and simple minded. As I was reading in proverbs tonight I came across these couple verses.

“Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public square; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateway of the city she makes her speech: ‘how long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge”

-Proverbs 1:20-22

That “how Long” seems to ring in my ears, “how long will we be simple minded”. How long will we live lies of laziness because we wont change. The word simple here means “live without much thought and are to lazy to change”. How long will I be so prideful and lazy that I will not change, will I continue until I become more of a fool and full of mockery. My lies, have created a mocker out of me. I have in times rebelled against God not because I chose to be a rebel but because I was lazy and simple.

The messy state of my heart is a reminder of my brokenness and need of a savior. The messiness of my heart however should compel me to change. The writer of Proverbs goes on to say, “If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you.” vs 23. God is our source of wisdom, he longs to our his heart out on us and make his thoughts known to us. Will we let him? How long will we lie to ourselves that he doesn’t care? He does care more deeply than any human could ever care.

Tonight I wanted to make some kind of art work. I like to be creative when ever I can or should I say I care about what I am living out. Anyway, in my creative process of mixing wire and twine held in place by the weight of crayons , that I had planed on melting to the cardboard canvas that has been sitting on my art table, (the art table is a piece of art itself, shaped from an old shelf I had made for my record player and now the proud pallet of many different painting explosions), for weeks, why because I’ve been lazy.

Intentionality has to come with a cost and a choice. You have to chose to do whatever it is you intend to do and that may cost you everything. In this case a few hours, some crayons (the people that know me really well know that I can not say “crayons” I say it “crowns”, my girlfriend laughs at me for this) and the electricity to run a hair dyer. What I was not expecting was that the blowing power of the hair dryer moved my crayons and created something new but beautiful. The more I looked at the piece of art, that some might say is crap, there I saw a messy heart. The messy heart got me thinking of my own heart and the brokenness and lies and though it is messy it is still a beautiful piece of art in the hands of our creator. God didn’t accidently blow crayons and find a heart, he was intentionally making us in his image and is intentional about pouring out wisdom and is intentional about loving us even after we have made a mess of our lives. We have a choice each morning to chose to live life and respond to wisdom as she raises her voice on the streets.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Aug 1^st, 2012

Day 60 “A Year of Thoughts”: What If

What if the world really did need to know?

What if they really did need to know our life stories in memoir form so that they might learn from our joy’s and failures and be encouraged to live more open and honest lives. I hope the world does come to know the importance of story. To know their deepest needs and bloodiest wounds can be met and healed through countless life changing stories. For by telling our story, our whole story and nothing but the trust of our story despite the pain and open wounds the world might come to know the healing that we all so desperately need.

What if we took off our masks, spoke our insecurities as we turn them into confidence.

What if we know the world would end tomorrow would you want everyone to finally know who you are.

What if I told you all my lies and secrets to a world that would listen.

What if people could really see the things that have changed in my life over the past twenty-two years.

What if the ones who know me the best really knew my struggles.

What if I were Honest…

Then what if the world would follow.

What if a small honest life were all it took to change the mind of the world.

Wake up to What if?

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 56 “A Year of Thought”: Imagine this is something

Imagine This is something

 

 

Space

 

 

full of potential

 

 

Beauty

 

Color

 

 

Unbound

 

 

Free

 

 

Moving, breathing,

 

 
 Everything that was and is you are creating….

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 31 “A Year of Thoughts”: Relational, Not Baking Cookies

 

“Becoming a Christian might look more like falling in love than baking cookies”- Donald Miller

Relational, relational, relational, over the past weeks and months the lessons I seem to be learning and being reminded of keep pointing back to the fact that God is relational. Life is not about rules, laws, rituals and recipes but about relationship and growing in love. I want everyday to be a day to fall more in love with God. I want my life to be about relationship with God and his creation.

Today, I met with a senior pastor and youth leader about taking over the youth leaders position when he leaves. I was encouraged by our conversation and we wound up on the topic of Donald Miller. Donald is one of my favorite authors and I share a lot of the same ideas about life. I have read all of Donald’s books and find that through reading them I can see the maturity and change in Donald’s life as he has grown as a man. It’s encouraging to me to read about someone wrestling through some of the same thoughts and ideas.

One of the books he has written is titled, “Searching for God knows what.” I underlined a number of quotes from this book. As I flipped through these quotes many of them are about relationship.

“It doesn’t make a great deal of sense that a person who went to Bible college should have a better shot at heaven than someone who didn’t, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense either that somebody sentimental and spiritual has a greater access. I think it is more safe and more beautiful and more true to believe that when a person dies he will go to be with God because, on earth, he had come to know Him, that he had a relational encounter with God and not unlike meeting a friend or a lover or having a father or taking a bride, and that in order to engage God he gave up everything, repented and changed his life, as this sort of extreme sacrifice is what is required if true love is to grow. We would expect nothing less in marriage; why should we accept anything less in becoming unified with Christ?” (156)

It’s a long quote but he makes a really good point, being in relationship with God is the point. Being in relationship is like falling in love, for love to grow there is sacrifice and life change and required much of us. Relationship requires we give our lives, relationship beckons us to give our all and hold nothing back. You can’t just bake magical cookies and get to heaven. God wants to be in relationship with his creation. He wants to be in relationship with you and me. He doesn’t just want to know us and for use to know Him, he wants to walk in relationship with us through life.

“It would be most tragic for a person to know everything about God, but not God; to know all about the rules of spiritual marriage, but never walk the aisle.”(204)

We were born, created, made, to be relational people. What we are searching for is relationship. Our souls yearn for relationship with God. In the Bible it talks about the church being the bride and Christ being the groom. That is relationship. A marriage where the bride and groom know nothing about being in a relationship with each other is not just awkward but tragic.

This relationship and preparation, this falling in love is hard, it’s not a formula or recipe or time frame. Love grows with choices, choices made to live love, to sacrifice. God started the relationship by loving you. He bought the ring and has asked you for your hand, He has even sent his son to buy you back from your enslavement, adultery, and despair. God loves you.

Your soul is searching for a relationship.

God loves you.

Do you get that?

Can you grasp that?

Do you live like you know that?

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 27 “A Year of Thoughts”: A Sweater and Mr. Rogers

Every time I put on a sweater I am reminded of Mr. Rogers

I put on a sweater today therefor Mr. Rogers was in my thoughts…

For many of us that grew up in the 90’s Mr. Rogers was iconic, A HERO.

As I child I remember watching Mr. Rogers and thinking he was the coolest old man ever.

He always had something to say that made me think and helped me learn.

A few years ago I read a book about Mr. Rogers by Amy Hollingworth titled “The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers.” I learned a lot about my childhood hero and his deep faith and the love that he tried to show through his children television program. Mr. Rogers wasn’t just a man who wore a sweater everyday, had a train set, happened to share life lessons in a way that any kid could understand. He was a man who knew the importance of teaching love and being a neighbor.

In a sense I want to be like Mr. Rogers.

I may not have a Television show or wear a sweater everyday or have three degrees, or any of the many other things he did but I want to be a neighbor and I want to help people learn to love.

Simple faith can move mountains, simple faith can change the world, simple faith shaped the man that was Mr. Rogers.

Next time you put on a sweater think of Mr. Rogers.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 19 “A Year of Thoughts”: Your Face Tells a Story

Today is Day 320 in my adventure of taking a picture a day for a whole year. Mathematically that means I’m 45 days away from completing my goal. For me this has been a great learning experience and more of a challenge then I thought it would be. There were somedays that just seem to beg for the camera to be taken out of the case and taken on some grand adventure to fins those things worth taking a picture while there were other days that taking a picture was an after thought once everything else the day had to hold had ran it’s course.

I learned to not get disappointed and not compare one day’s picture to another because each day was different. Each day had it’s challenge. Each day had it’s different sunsets and weather to case that sunset was my choice to make. Each day had it’s unexpected and it’s planned moments but when to take a picture was always different.

 

This has challenged my commitment level each day, even though taking a picture is a small commitment it has a lasting effect on me knowing that I can do something everyday for a whole year. Not just something like brush my teeth or take a shower, but something out of the ordinary, something that stretched my creativity and also challenged me to think more outside the box.

 

There were days I would think for hours about how I wanted to take a certain picture or catch an idea or message through a picture and then do it. There were days that I would create something to go in the picture and if it didn’t turn out the way I wanted I would create something else. (This happened a lot actually.) There were days were ideas came fast and quick. The pictures taken could be anywhere from on average 70 to 150 pictures on a good day or as low as 10. Taking a picture a day opened my eyes literally to a passion that I had dabbled in as a kid but hadn’t really considered pursuing until I took on this challenge.

 

There is just something about capturing a moment, or framing a day, or a place, a time, an idea, a message or just anything. For me these pictures have created memories for me. I can tell stories about most of the days from the last year because of these pictures. I like the challenge, I like to be challenged, especially when that challenge deals with being creative.

 

As a little part of this challenge to myself I wanted to explore a little more about myself and getting to know me for me. I know that sounds a little weird, but one of the questions that has come out of this past year in a number of ways is how can I be more honest with myself and others? So why not through pictures. Many of these picture have captured little parts of me, my passion, my heart, my thoughts, my feelings, emotions, travels, stories and life.

 

I have taken over 120 self portraits over the past year to help me understand me. To catch a moment and look back and try to think through what I was thinking through. The self portraits are not because I want attention on me, or need everyone to remember what I look like, no the self portraits tell me stories. As if my own face is telling me my story over the past year. I think I read somewhere or I’m making this up that a photographer can look at a picture and always see beyond it, in it and though it, they were in that moment so the story is there for them. The rest of the world my not understand the story but they get it. Now I get it…

 

One of the pictures that has come to mean a lot to me from the project 365 and is one of the self portraits is this picture I took while sitting in a bed up against the wall in a room that my friend David and I used as our teachers lounge while I was teaching at the International school in Carpina, Brazil. The picture was taken in the midst of my trying to stop crying because for two hours I had the worst homesickness of my entire twenty-two years of life. In that moment I had been telling God he had to carry me through the rest of my time in Brazil. I was tired and worn out and I had three months to go. In that moment I knew all my tears were not in vain, I realized how human I was, how much I needed God’s strength and how deeply I really wanted to learn how to love the students I was teaching. That for me was one of the defining moments in that trip.

 

 

 

 

 

Another portrait that I really like is this one where I’m looking through a magnifying glass. I remember finding the magnifying glass somewhere in the school after I had gotten done teaching for the day. But in the picture you can see parts of the sky behind it. I wasn’t planning on catching the sky but it happened. The picture is a reminder to me of how much I love to adventure and find new things, to find the unexpected and to look close at life. Life interests me more than any other subject. How we live each and every day of our lives must be examined, experienced, and sometimes looked at through a magnifying glass.

 

 

 

 

One of the cool self portraits that I took came when I discover my interest in lighting. With different lighting you can create different effects on the face or object. I don’t think I really thought about lighting until I started taking pictures each day. This one picture basically was just my face pressed as close to the light bulb as I could without touching it and seeing if I could get half my face to disappear. It took me a while but it worked. So I have the picture to remember.

 

 

 

 

There are obviously many different pictures that I have taken over the past year that are “self portraits” and each tells a story but to share them all would make for a really long blog post that even I might not want to read. However, the last one that I want to share is a picture that I titled “Justice” it’s a self portrait that I took in response to human trafficking and the sex trade. I feel strongly about these things and finding justice for those who cannot speak for themselves. To me the pictures says a lot with saying very little.

 

Through project 365 I have been able to learn a lot about my self and my world. I believe many people assume they know themselves and they assume they know the world around them but I challenge them to take a picture, to really be honest with themselves, to look deep into their own life. To take a real honest look at the world, did you know that there are human’s enslaved right here in the USA, did you know that most of our youth, the next Generation are broken and longing for healing, did you know that most people go through life without meaning or purpose, did you know that your face tells a story every single day.

 

You are telling a story… Remembering your story, understanding yourself honestly will help you tell that story.

 

Even when this project is over I hope to keep learning and being challenged to become a better photographer and help people tell their stories.

 

How will you live?

 

How will you tell your story?

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter