Affluenza

Have you caught the flu yet? In Sydney where I live, there is an epidemic sweeping through the suburbs. Take precautions – it’s highly contagious!

Af-flu-en-za (n). 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by the dogged pursuit of the Australian dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth.

Affluenza – a thought-provoking read! In essence this book helps demonstrates that we, as a society, are loosing sight of our reality, and we are becoming miserable because of it. We no longer have the ability to separate what we ‘need’ from what we ‘want’. Luxury fever has struck, and the simple things in life no longer satisfy. Our society is obsessed with wanting more!

We eat-out more than we do in. $6K honeymoons become the expectation. Louis Vuitton is a household name. Baby bonuses are spent on flat screen TV’s. Cap plans have saved us from $100 mobile bills. We drive 4WD’s because they are safer. People pay 18% interest on their credit cards. We mortgage our lives.

The banks love it! Each year they set a new billion-dollar record profit fuelled by this disease. “Waiting is boring, get what you want now with a personal loan from St George”. No wonder household post-tax savings have gone from 16.4% in 1975 to -3.2% in 2004 (even though real incomes have almost doubled in the same period). We no longer need to save for anything; we simply get it now on credit. Instead we save by shopping for great deals at the sales. A friend of mine recently told me that he bought himself a bargain in the USA! He only paid USD$200, compared to AUD$500. That is a bargain, until you hear that all he got was a pair of jeans. As we no longer have to wait to get what we want, we don’t have time to assess all the pros and cons of spending our hard-earned savings. As a result, we have more, are satisfied less, and we waste more.

We have lost perspective of how rich we really are. 62% of Australians claim they can’t afford everything they need – and 46% of our richest 20% of households agree. By world standards most of us are filthy rich!

The side-affects of this disease are nasty! I owe I owe it’s off to work I go … Debt and overwork are big problems! In 1990 average household debt:income was 56%, it’s now 125%. Despite having a reputation of being lazy and leisurely, Australians now work on average longer than any other country in the developed world. We have less public holidays than Japan (15) and most EU countries (12). EU countries average 5 weeks annual leave, with Germany and Holland getting 6; in 2002, only 39% of Aussies managed to take their 4 weeks.

This disease (and the burden of paying it off) also take their toll on our health as we work longer and harder, our families and friendships when we are not around (and worn out when we are) and our communities. Do you think the 45% of us who work more than 50 hours a week have time to coach little Johnny’s soccer team?

The smart guys from the Australia Institute know it, Ross Gittens often writes about it, the Downshifters live it, and Simple Plan are singing about it:
Tell me what's wrong with society
When everywhere I look I see
Rich guys driving big SUVs
While kids are starving in the streets
No one cares
No one likes to share
I guess life's unfair
Is everybody going crazy?

How come the Christians don’t see it? Are our preachers teaching it? Jesus speaks more about money than any other topic doesn’t he? You know what he says:

“don’t store up treasures here on earth … So I tell you, don't worry about everyday life--whether you have enough … Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things?”
"I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

As followers of Christ, our attitudes and activities towards money must go beyond giving 10% to reach the 10%. We must live within our means. We must spend like salt and light. We must elect governments for better reasons than keeping interest rates low. We must become ‘worldly’ to see how wealthy we really are and help those who are not. We must serve only one master!

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
~ Jesus of Nazareth

“Be Still and know that I am God”

My life is usually anything but “still”. There are always things to do, places to be, people to see. Stuff that keeps my body, mind and spirit occupied.

Last weekend I had the chance to be still. I was attending a retreat on a spectacular private residence within Sydney’s Royal National Park. We were instructed to go away and be still. I found a bench by the creek that ran past the house. I sat. I closed my eyes. I listened to the wind in the trees. I breathed the fresh air. I opened my eyes …

To my initial surprise, and later delight, I saw a red-bellied black snake sliding through the grass next to the creek. My first thought was to get-up and back away from this venomous snake. But instead, I sat there, remained still and enjoyed watching this beautiful creature go about its business. Looking for some lunch, the snake struck at a dragonfly that was hovering a foot in the air, above the creek. Having missed, the snake turned its attention towards me. I continued to sit still and enjoy this rare experience. Curiosity brought the snake two meters from me. Our eyes locked and then it slithered on its way.

Across the creek the bushes started to rustle. Then nothing. Rustling. Nothing. I sat silently and watched, expecting a deer. To my surprise, an echidna appeared, slipping and sliding down the hill, coming to the creek for a drink. More rustling and an Eastern Water Dragon boldly emerged, looking to sun itself on a rock by the water.

I have spent lots of time in National Parks. Usually, I am hiking, biking, paddling (recently hunting rattle snakes). While all these things are good for the soul, quite often they don’t allow us to be still. The animals, although all around, know not to show their faces while we are being noisy.

The creatures copy their creator, only showing themselves when we take the time to be still. That day I was still and the Lord showed me some of his often-unseen creatures and in doing so, reminded me that, indeed, He is God!

a shameless plug

Brothers & Sisters – please forgive me for the shameless plug in support of another brother.

Nathan Tasker has a new album, “Must Be More” coming out on on 24 Nov. I was in the USA with him recently and got to hear some rough cuts of his new work – this will be a great album! As this CD has been created in ‘truth and excellence’ seeking to ‘share a beautiful and believable Jesus’ (Nathan’s mission), as always it will prove itself to be a an encouraging and challenging piece of work which you, or people you know could benefit from, in this long walk of faith with our Lord. Being a Christian muso in Australia isn’t the easiest road to walk along – if you’d like to support and benefit from Nathan’s ministry, buying the CD is a great way to do that. Check it out at nathantasker.com

for U2 fans:
http://preferredseating.com.au/public/ticket_waitlist_item.html?waitlist_id=281&d=vip

Forgive me for the plug(s) ...
AH

Communion As Community

In a recent conversation with my father, he shared that he believes the church in the western world is in need of community more than anything else. Looking at the state of people in the western world, he may very well be right. Churches offer small “community groups” that are really little more than Bible studies and speak of Christian community, but many people still live their lives independently, making decisions on their own amid a corporate body that feels little responsibility for the actions of the individual. Yet living this way, we are living a lie – and our yearning for community betrays this.
The word “community” comes from the same Latin root as “communion,” that being communis, which means “common” or “shared.” Perhaps, in order to fully understand community, we must first go back and consider communion and what this identifying tradition is all about.
Most of the Christian world celebrates communion every Sunday, if not more regularly. Only the Protestant tradition has reduced this to a monthly, quarterly, or yearly event. In my experience, Protestants would also be among the first to abandon the practice of taking communion. However, for the rest of the Body, the thought of forsaking communion is tantamount to forsaking one’s faith. This emphasis on communion grows from a proper understanding of its place within the life of the Church and its necessity as a basis for community.
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. (1 Cor. 11:23-26)
Communion signifies many things: it is a new Passover covenant, reminding us that, as we are marked with the blood of our Lord, God’s judgment will pass over us; it is a taste of the great wedding feast of the Lamb that is to come, where we will live in the presence and light of our Lord; and it is an act in which we proclaim our participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus. This final aspect of communion is the most central to understanding the significance of communion for community in the contemporary church.
When my Grandma was doing Weight Watchers, she had a magnet on her refrigerator that was shaped like an ice cream sundae with the words “you are what you eat” superimposed on the ice cream. Theological arguments aside, communion is, in some profound way, a consuming of the body and blood of Christ, at least he wanted his disciples to understand that, as they shared their Passover meal, they were verging upon a new covenant involving his broken body and shed blood and that this covenant too must be remembered. As we “proclaim the Lord’s death” through eating the bread and drinking the cup, we “are what we eat.” If I remember year 10 biology correctly, our bodies break down the bread and it is carried through our blood stream to our cells giving us energy. In churches that use wine, the alcohol too is carried to every cell, altering our blood chemistry. And this is where community comes in. We do not eat many bodies of Christ; there is only one body, often visualised by a single loaf. We do not drink from a different metaphorical cup, hence the practice of taking from a common cup. And in this, we become part of one body – the same body that Paul and Peter, Mary and Martha, Timothy, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Theresa, and John are a part of. As the communion elements become a part of our body, we become, again, a part of each other and we proclaim that we are not our own.
While Paul’s words that follow are not specifically in reference to recognising that we form one body, I think they are still very applicable. He writes:
Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. (1 Cor. 11:27-28)
When we fail to recognise the significance of what we receive in communion, both in terms of Christ’s death and in terms of that which with we are aligning ourselves, we sin against the very death of our Lord. When we fail to see that we are truly “not our own,” we ignore the metaphysical reality that we are a “new creation” in Christ and now incorporated into his body. Understanding this forms the basis for Christian community as we belong to each other. We are not a community because of similar ideals, hopes and aspirations, because we share the same culture and socio-economic class, or because we like each other and think each other wise. We are a community because of the shed blood of Christ and as such we are responsible for each other – for each other’s actions and thoughts, for each other’s needs and pain, and for each other’s encouragement and hope. If we are to bring about the desperately needed community within the western church, then we much first bring about an understanding of communion with Christ as our saviour, husband, and head.

The world is too much with us

The world is too much with us; late and soon
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
-excerpt from Wm. Wordsworth 1802-1804


Come August, we face the daunting possibility of packing up our lives in Manly for a new life in Canada. Talking and dreaming about this move – the opportunities for study, things to see, friends to make – wakes a great deal of excitement for what will come. This view toward a new (and hopefully good) future also makes the dullness of year 8 and insolence of year 9 tolerable as, thankfully, it too will pass and the end is in sight. But thoughts of leaving dear friends in Sydney and the sunny, colourful world of Manly are sad. As these warring emotions compete for our attention, this desire to be so firmly rooted in Manly doesn’t dull the eagerness of moving, just as expectancy of life in Vancouver doesn’t dampen our desire to be in Manly. Consequently, we are trapped in paradoxical emotions that breed a deep desire to live life in a fully present and anticipatory way.

An old saying speaks of some Christians, “they are so heavenly minded, they are no earthly good”. Many, especially in earlier generations of believers, were keenly focused on Heaven, often to the detriment of their work in the world around them. In my experience, we seldom speak of Heaven, apart from evangelical situations where we are warning people off Hell and offering them Heaven. We have cast aside streets of gold and pearly gates for less concrete, albeit theologically sounder, ideas of Heaven and consequently, we speak very little of where we are headed, making me wonder if we are not so earthly minded that we are simply no good. Perhaps Wordsworth had it right. We see only what is before us – the job, the purchases – and we believe it will go on forever, which makes us blind to the real, and very passing, world that is around us.

This week, while reading through 1+2 Thessalonians and 1+2 Timothy, we noticed that Paul repeatedly reminds the early believers of their life to come in Heaven. They are to be faithful and focused on the end result of Life with Christ, the reality of which we only glimpse here on earth. This is because, as the Church, we ought to be keenly longing for that which awaits us. But this excitement is the sort that should open our eyes to the reality of now, to our short lives here. We should, as we look toward our upcoming promotion, live with the intensity of a people who know their days are numbered. Instead, we speak little of heaven and seldom encourage each other with visions of our future. The result? The world is too much with us. We spend our days wastefully, unconcerned with our very real scarcity of time. We fail to enjoy our families, friends, nature, food, drink, sex, with holy appreciation, always figuring there will be time tomorrow. We live with little anticipation or joy toward the future because we have forgotten where we are going. Perhaps if we, like those before us, encouraged each other with “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thes. 16-17) we would begin to feel the excitement of the future and taste the joy of today.

the journey continues ...

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

We have been back in Sydney for a week now after a great time away in North America. Our time with family in California was very special! Many great Mexican meals, world-class national parks (Yosemite + Joshua Tree), roller coasters, outlet shopping, driving California freeways, In-n-Out Burgers and flying remote-controlled airplanes were excellent ways to spend some really special time with our North-American family. The time was less relaxed than planned, but we enjoyed every bit of it!

For those who prayed for us while we were away, especially regarding our possible future at Regent College – THANK YOU! We were also very touched by the encouraging emails from all around the world, the phone calls, SMS’s, face-to-face conversations and even a returned letter with a waxed seal! Thank you all!

We do feel that those prayers and encouragements were not ignored by our good Lord. We had a challenging but good time in Vancouver exploring our future at Regent. We were encouraged by the conversations we had with students about their experiences of the college and Regent community, plus their willingness to share with us. The faculty and admissions people we met with were so good to us as well, praying over us as we were exploring the opportunities. Also a big thank you to our Aussie friends in Vancouver who we stayed with and met up with while we were there – all who were really supportive of us as we talked through their experience of the college and life in Vancouver in general.

While we did not hear an audible divine call (although the sun was shining on our first day there!), we certainly felt that Regent seemed like a really good place to be and to continue our journey with Lord, being trained for whatever and wherever He may take take us beyond our time there. We feel like the Lord has been doing a lot in us already to get us to this point and physically across the world to the college. The next step is to submit our application by the end of the year to potentially start our studies in September 2006. One step at a time is a good for us as our fears about going and leaving our lives in Sydney behind still remain.

Can we ask you to keep journeying with us as we continue along this path – with your prayers, insights and encouragements.

May the Lord’s blessings be with you all ...
Andrew & Jessica

Visionary Dreaming

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

We grew up on vast continents whose stories are no less expansive than the landscape. The American west and Australian outback are characterized by sweeping western landscapes, uninhabited except for a few brave couples and the resulting children. Their stories, set against jagged mountains and oceans of grass, spoke to a deeply rooted desire for a simpler life within each of us. A simple life – one without fashion magazines and TV’s blaring, without incessant music and advertising, without all the soul-sapping features of modern life. It is no wonder we first fell in love exploring Thoreau together. Dreams of nature, solitude and beauty still inspire our souls and imaginations.
We have a dream of a place, a plot of land. We dream of a piece of land with a house large enough for a few guests, a home for one small part of the Body surrounded by vast spaces and big skies with a lake or ocean. It is a dream bred in vast continents with exploration histories, where land and landscape are known for their power to change and renew, inspire and kill. John Muir wrote, “everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
Our small corner of earth would be a place where people could go for study, reflection, relaxation, adventure, inspiration, prayer, renewal. A place where an evangelical pastor, a charismatic preacher, and a catholic priest could share a meal around a campfire or large table and, as brothers, have a hearty, challenging, and uniting discussion. A place where the world weary could find respite from the too heavy concerns that cling to the edges of the mind, even while asleep. A place where those who are searching, young or old, could read, study, ask questions, work the land, camp, and meet God. A place where backpackers could stop for a week or a year for an entirely different type of adventure as they search for themselves along the leaves and trails of the world. Our dream is of a love child between L’Abri and summer camp’s that was raised in a monastery. A small part of the Body working out what it is to love our Lord and each other from day to day, no matter who is in the room next door. A community centered around our Lord, prayer, work, exercise, worship, rest, adventure, solitude . . . We call it a retreat center, but perhaps a better word for it is a homestead, a homestead open to whoever passes by.
We have a dream. Some would accuse us of being visionary dreamers as it is a dream of Christian community, an ideal of life together with other believers. If you have read Life Together, you would remember that Bonhoeffer does not approve of visionary dreaming. In fact, “God hates visionary dreaming.” While Bonhoeffer’s original point, in context, is a good one, being a visionary and having dreams is not always bad. If the dream becomes the end in itself and the dream becomes more precious than our Lord and the broken reality of his Body, then it is abominable. And if it is a pipe dream – a hope that has yet to be fully explored or realized but a desire that is whispered over and over again, a dream that you hold with open hand and pray for God to do what he will, waiting without hope or thought . . .
Visionary dreaming? Maybe. But we are not dedicated to serving this ideal. It is merely a dream we are willing, even happy, to have God change, strip, redefine, or refine. Until then, we dream of going to the ‘woods because we wish to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if we could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when we come to die, discover that we have not lived’ (Thoreau).

Join us ...

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

We wanted to write to our brothers and sisters in the Lord, to share with you the beginnings of a journey we are on. We want to invite you to travel with us in spirit and bless us as we go.

On 24 September we will fly to the United States to spend two weeks with our family in California. This will be our first trip back to the US since we were married in November 2003 – we can’t wait to be there again! On 10 October we fly to Vancouver, where we will spend 4 days. The main reason why we are going to Vancouver is to explore the possibility of studying at Regent College.

Before we met, we both felt a deep desire and calling on our lives to serve the Lord beyond what is practical in our current 9-5 jobs. As a couple, we feel called to this together. We are still unsure of what this looks like, but we feel that being trained and equipped to more deeply know and understand our great God, his creation, his people, his work and his Word is the next step. This is where Regent College fits in. We are not sure what lies beyond, but we do have a pipedream of what it may look like … to find out more see our blog entry ‘Visionary Dreaming’.

Regent College is very appealing to us for several reasons. Regent is a truly international and interdenominational community, which provides a unique opportunity to experience the beautiful variety of the Body of Christ. The College has a history of attracting some of the most acclaimed theologians, writers, thinkers, teachers and witnesses in the contemporary Church. Regent College is known and respected in Australia, North America and right across the World. Vancouver is a stunning setting. After spending the first few years of our marriage in Australia, being closer to the other half of our family for a time is appealing to both of us.

Over the last few months, we have tried to learn as much about Regent College as possible – from the experience of studying there and what we will learn along the way, to the people we will meet and where our studies are likely to take us. We have been in contact with former students over coffees and emails, and had dinner with Paul Barnett, a Regent College Fellow. We have also been thinking about what it would mean to leave Sydney – our home, our friends, our family, our careers, our life as we know it – to take a path into the unknown.

This is an exciting yet daunting road ahead for us – a journey that we don’t feel that we can travel alone, nor do we want to. It is an adventure that we would like to share with you, if you will let us. As we prepare to leave and as we are in Vancouver in October, would you support us with your prayers?

Could you pray that we will have a safe trip and a wonderful time with our North American family; ask the Lord to give us clear direction about the next step in this journey, be it Regent College or something else; pray that we will continue to grow in the knowledge and love of God through this process.

Either before we go, or when we return will you share with us your wisdom about the opportunity we have ahead?

Walking on (again) …

Andrew & Jessica

Distracted from Distraction by Distraction

“Continual partial attention.” Microsoft apparently coined the phrase to identify the current human experience in the developed world. Marketers know this, consequently, in order to sell a product, they must be quick, engaging as many of the senses as possible – a barrage of colour, sound, flashing lights and disconnected images to engage the subconscious and conscious mind while keeping the ears listening and the eyes focused.

But it can’t last for more than 30 seconds.

At that point, even when saturated in stimuli, we know how to tune out, engage something else. Or worse, stay with one ear focused while the other locks on something new. Multi-tasking is the nice word for it. That glorious ability to answer emails, talk on the phone, listen to music, help the kids with their maths homework, and cook dinner all at the same time. Many wake up to music and fall asleep with their little while earphones, like tiny seashells, plugged in their ears. The noise is deafening, and that is the point.

Our world is, in a word, complex. Complexity is good, mature, wise even. We like the complex flavours of an exquisite meal or complex body of a nice red. We work in office complexes, we live in apartment complexes (if we are American) and we know that to be a complex person is to be interesting. We want every second of our lives packed full of action, information, excitement, entertainment, complexity. Living lives that are a tangled web of friendships, work, family, finances, social commitments, we cannot slow down and we will not stop. Besides, why would we want to bring an end to all this wonderful amusement? If we did, we might get bored. Instead, we rush from one thing to the next, "men and bits of paper, distracted from distraction by distraction."

If we rebel against complexity, we are left with the simple. To be simple, a generation or two ago, meant to be developmentally disabled. Even today, if something is simple, it is easy, obvious, unsophisticated. Simplicity has a slightly better rap thanks to vegetarian yoga magazines encouraging a simplicity in living and interior design, which usually involves brownish lentils, drinking water, and buying a frosted glass coffee table with tribal wooden accessories. Simplicity is only chic if it is expensive and cliché. Occasionally, we embrace this simplicity, but no more.

And we are tired. The world truly seems weary and stale underneath all this fun and we are, in truth, living "lives of quiet desperation." Even in church, the music often remains loud and slides accompanying the lyrics are increasingly colourful. But we can’t hear our own crying for all the noise and we certainly can’t hear a small voice whispering “be still.” If we could hear it, would we listen?

“Come aside to a quiet place and rest a while.” Jesus called is disciples away from the busy-ness of their lives after they had returned from ministering in the countryside. In order to find a quiet place, we must first remove the distraction. It is true, God can speak to us in the noise of the world; he is God, after all, and he is free to do as he pleases. Yet, we often find, as Elijah did, that the voice of God is not in the whirlwind, earthquake, or fire, but in the silence.

Getting away from distraction is difficult, especially with a TV in front of us, earphones in, and the internet an arm’s length away. In order to develop lives of stillness, we must first have lives characterised by simplicity. It is not always possible to quit work, take off for the bush, and live simply. Yet, in the rush of everyday life, we must find ways to turn off the images that bombard us, to silence the chorus of voices that keep us from hearing our own voice and, more importantly, the voice of our Lord. We must find ways to step outside the cultures that tell us we must have everything now, that we must be beautiful and popular and strong and funny. We must find ways to “be still” and know our God.

"Shadrachs"

It was 1993, I was 15 years old. My school had a work experience program, and we had to choose and organise 2 weeks of work experience. My first choice was to spend a week with a family friend who owned a sporting goods store in a big shopping centre. Since my first taste of working ‘retail’ I have had 3 retail jobs. The first two were great, working for a few months at a time in a ski shop. First time around in Vail, Colorado & the second in Whistler, British Columbia. These jobs were bearable as they served a purpose other than earning money – skiing! My third experience was less pleasant, actually the hardest job I have ever had! I was a Retail Travel Consultant. This job was more about sending my clients away on great adventures. My conclusion: Retail is not a great career option!

My second week was different! I spent the week doing all kinds of things. I have joked before that these included mountain biking, rock climbing, meeting people for lunch, watching Star Trek into the wee hours and visiting book stores - it sounds pretty good doesn’t it! What job was I experiencing I hear you ask? Being a Youth Minister at my local church is the answer.

The week I spent with Ken Moser, Youth Minister of Christ Church St Ives in Sydney Australia changed my life! I got to spend the week with a man who was living the life the Lord had wanted him to live. Ken is a great Youth Minister and the Lord has used His servant well and lowly but surely He is 'changing the world’.

That week I was given a nickname “Shadrach”. Ken named me Shadrach, as I was going to be his ‘slave’ for the week. Ken got this idea from a friend of his, Noel, who was a Doctor. Noel spent some time working in Africa, where he had a servant boy to look after him – his name was Shadrach. Ken bought together Shadrach from Africa and Shadrach from Daniel Chapter 3 to create my nickname. Later on 2 friends of mine were nicknamed Meshach and Abednego – nicknames that did not stick.

My nickname has stuck for the last 12 years (hence the name of this blog), but more importantly my desire to open my life to what the Lord of the Bible wants from me has stuck too. My Grandmother used to ask me “What do you want to do with your life?” I used to tell Grandma “I want what the Lord wants for my life”. In one sense I still don’t know what that is … I keep praying that I will have ‘eyes to see, ears to hear and feet to follow’ when He chooses to show me. In another way, I know that being “willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God” is a big part of it – I am trying to do both!

One incredible blessing that has come from living this way has been meeting my (now) wife, Jessica. How that happened is another blog in it’s self. Jess is a blessing in so many ways to me, but one big one is that she wants the same thing for her life as I do for mine – we want what the Lord wants for our lives! That isn’t always easy, in fact it’s a struggle of epic proportions, but that’s what we are striving to do. We have become ‘Shadrachs’.

fromthefieryfurnace is Shadrachs blog, Shadrachs story, Shadrachs journey, Shadrachs struggle – yet it is also the Lord’s. The Lord is the one leading us, opening and closing doors, changing hearts and minds, making us His own. Join us …