Once Upon A Time + As We Go

Once upon a time, just a month ago I stood on the other side of a doorway waiting to seeing my bride for the first time. In that moment I stood there thinking everything is about to change. The world I once knew will no longer be the same and the future is just on the other side of the door. The future, the unknown, the adventure is about to begin.

“Once upon a time”… those words at the beginning of every good story that tell you something is about to begin. That moment in which you are about to be swept away to a different place and time, and everything you once knew is going to change. There are a few moments in my life that could be prefaced with the words “Once upon a time”. Like Once upon a time I packed up my car said goodbye to my parents and sisters to set out on a long drive to a small college I had never visited in Kansas. Or once upon a time I lived as a missionary and english teacher in Brazil, South America for six months. Or once a upon a time I packed up everything I owned to move by myself to North Carolina to be a youth pastor.

When I left for Kansas I knew I was setting out on an three year adventure for which I had hoped would bring me the opportunity to learn and get a college degree. The goal was set and navigating the trails was to be much easier than the Lewis and Clark expedition. Then when I set out to go to Brazil my visa only allowed for one hundred and eighty days in the country and so it was obvious when I would return home. In Brazil the future was not as clear cut as college, however, once I figured out how to teach and adapt on a missions field the adventure mostly enjoyable. After living in Indiana, Kansas, and Brazil, North Carolina just seemed liked another place to explore.

However, all of these other “Once upon a time” moments in my life pails in comparison to that moment where I stood waiting for my bride to walk down the aisle. As those doors were opened and I saw her standing there in her white dress any fears I had of the adventure a head of us was swept away with joy. For the first time in my life I realized I was not walking into the unknown future alone. In Genesis God said “It’s not good for man to be alone”, and everyday that becomes more clear to me.

If there is anything that I have learned over this first month of marriage it is that life is meant to be shared. Not just the living space, or the bed or the food we prepare for dinner, but the experience of life itself. The experience of our everyday living should be shared. When we decided to get married we were making the decision to be a community, a family, best friends, and partners in exploration. A team that is committed to love and share as we go through life.

Yesterday at a bible study at the church were I serve we had a discussion about missions and what does that look like to live out the call that God has given us. As you might expect we turned to the typical verse about missions Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV), “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.” Over the years I have been a little skeptical of the people that point to this verse and say lets help missionaries, but do little of anything but send money to foreign fields. We often forget that this was intended for us. For us to make disciples. Our senior pastor made the point that in the greek the “Therefore go” is better understood as “AS YOU GO”. As you go through life make disciples, baptize people, teach and do everything that I have done.

I think we have it all wrong if we think that the only way that we can make disciples is if we have classes or invite people to church. When I look at what Jesus did with his disciples I see a man who was willing to share life with people. To love them despite their faults, to teach when necessary, to forgive always, to tell stories, to travel with, to eat with and to simply live life together. Jesus lived out an example of what it meant to make disciples and so those disciples knew that meant that the future was not going to be clear cut and obvious. They learned that following Jesus was more of an adventure than a college course on truth.

Likewise in the past month I have been reminded that despite how many marriage counseling books or classes I taken, I have to learn to love as we go. I am learning that Jesus can us as a married couple to make disciples out of each other. To walk as Jesus did sharing life as we go.

Once upon a time Jesus descended into heaven leaving his disciples standing there in the field looking for him. They stood there much like I stood there waiting for my bride. Neither of us knew completely what the future would hold but the Holy Spirit has and will give us the strength to go forth into what God has prepared for us.

We the church are the bride of Christ he is waiting for us to walk through the door. To walk with people and to begin to be and do what he has called us to do. I can not say that I will ever fully have marriage figured out and I can honestly say that I may never fully have christianity figured out. However, I am committed fully to both, to living out to the fullest in sharing life with my wife and to following Jesus in this adventure of life. As we go, as we learn, as we share may we fix our eyes on Jesus knowing each moment is a once upon a time story that is just about to begin.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Healing is like Gutting a Pumpkin

“Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.  Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. ⁵When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”- Mark 2:3-5

 

There are times that I wonder what it would have been like to be one of those people that Jesus healed. To be one of the lepers or the blind man who got mud smeared on his eyes, or the man with the shriveled hand or the deaf and mute man who had never uttered a single word. I can close my eyes and try to imagine I’m blind but I’m sure that it’s not the same, because I have seen so much of the world that I can imagine things I have seen and can’t really comprehend not even knowing what light is. I am sure that it would have been mind blowing for some of the people that Jesus healed. One day your whole concept of life changed simply because what use to be a black mass or blur became clear and beautiful. From reading about the brain and neurological system that runs most of your body there could have been major brain trauma if Jesus had healed just the eyes themselves, but Jesus went deeper than just mud on the eyes, he healed the whole person and left them far better than he found them. It wouldn’t make sense if Jesus just healed the man’s eye balls yet left him with no real grasp of the world he could now see. He would have been confused and just as lost in the world of light as he was in his former world of darkness. Perhaps there are times that we only want Jesus to heal part of us, just enough to take away our sins but not alter our way of life or concept of the world.

In youth group yesterday we studied Mark chapter 2:1-12 which is the story of Jesus healing the paralyzed man. In order to try to grasp what it would be like to be paralyzed I had all the students lay down on the floor and close there eyes and not move for 2 min while trying to think about not being able to do their favorite thing or not being able to feed themselves. They said it was challenging and left them feeling a little sad yet hard to comprehend what that really would be like.  As we discussed and read the story one of the main points that I was trying to get across to them is how Jesus didn’t just simply heal the paralyzed man but he went deeper. The fact that Jesus first words to the man wasn’t “why did your friends rip a hole through the roof?” or “just get up and walk cause your interrupting the flow of my talking” or “can’t you see it’s already packed in here”, might have really surprised people what were there and should surprise us a little today. Jesus does the unexpected all the time and this time he just says “Son, your sins are forgiven”. After Jesus says that the man is still laying there paralyzed. Nothing changed that we could see.

People weren’t happy that Jesus was forgiving the man. In that time people who were disabled were thought to be that way because of their sin or their parents sin. They were outcasts and thought of as worthless. When Jesus forgives the man’s sin he isn’t just forgiving the man but he is also speaking to the crowd that has gathered around him. He is saying ” I have the power to forgive sins and I don’t believe this man’s life is worthless, just look at those four friends who were so driven and determined to find healing for their friend that they ripped through the roof. Why don’t you have faith like them?”. People knew that Jesus could heal the paralytic if he wanted to, they had faith because they had seen him heal others and that could be why so many had come, but they lacked the faith that jesus could heal the whole person from the inside out.

When we were discussing this fact that Jesus has the power to heal from the inside out Eighth grader Lindsey Davis said “It’s like carving a pumpkin, you have to clean out all the guts and seeds from the inside so his light can shine through us.” Thats exactly what Jesus is doing in this story and wants to do in us. He is cleaning the gunk from the inside of the man so that his light can shine to the rest of the crowd. That they might experience his true and real forgiveness. That they might be fully healed. Thats why when Jesus healed people their lives were changed forever, not just physically but spiritually. They were in the streets telling of all he had done for them, shinning the light from the inside out. They had reasons to shout it from the mountain tops and let the whole world know.

Jesus didn’t just forgive the mans sins that day but he also gave him his life back. He went home walking, skipping, running and jumping, carrying his own mat with no need for anyones help. Do we go home jumping and shouting about what Jesus has done for us? or do we just settle for having a little faith that he just might forgive me but he really cant change me. We paralyze ourselves with excuses like I am to old, I am to stubborn, I don’t have passion, I don’t care enough, or I have fear that I’ll just keep on sinning, or what i say won’t come out right, or no one would really think anything has changed. We are like the paralytic laying there on the mat, we have been forgiven yet we don’t move, we don’t act like we are forgiven, we don’t celebrate the fact that we have life and that we have the opportunity every moment to shine that light. To tell others our story. To show the world we are different and God loves them.

When we get up and take our mats we have the opportunity to be like the paralytics friends. We have a choice to make, to be determined and driven enough to tell the world and love those around us. I challenge anyone to read that story in Mark and find yourself in one of the many people in that story. Who are you? Where are you at? Are you allowing Jesus to fully heal you and give you life, life to the fullest.

-Caleb Ross 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

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 52 “A Year of Thoughts”: Our God is Greater

To often I forget that my God is greater than all my worries, fears and all that is overwhelming me. I fail to remember that God is greater than any feelings, situations, circumstances and that which is troubling my soul.

When I am able to place God as the ultimate authority in my life then he is able to use me, transform me and move me where I need to be. To daily remember that God is greater and that he is the one I need the most in my life must be my goal. He is writing a story where the main characters are you and I and Him but we must not remove him.

 

Live each day truly knowing and Believing God is Greater.

This is easier said then done.

It will be lived though we try to forget God

He doesn’t forget us.

Our God has given us life.

Be Joyous!

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 51 “A Year Of Thoughts”: Worry, Why Worry?

Jesus words in Luke of how we cannot even add a single hour to our day is followed by Jesus statement “Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”.

Why Worry?

I found myself stressed and worrying today but when I expressed that to my roommate he pointed out that the chapel message last week was over this passage in Luke.

Why I worry?

Because often I lack the trust and confidence I really need but when that fades I find that God can be trusted more than I believe and his confidence and plan for my life is far greater than my own.

Why Worry?

I have no need to worry, for God has taken my heart and kept it beating, taken my voice and gave it a song to sing, breathed into my soul to make it sour and he provided my every need to this point so I trust that he will everyday forward.

Why Worry?

God holds the whole world and still loves you. He’s writing your story. Allow God to lead you, feed you and clothe you. Worry wont give you any of that. I resolve to express my worries to the Lord and trust he will provide.

 

Read Luke 12:22-34

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter