Silence

Have you ever been somewhere that was so absolutely silent that you could hear the blood flowing through your veins? It is quite incredible. You hear your own pulse and the low murming of your body doing what it constantly does just to keep you alive. The rest of the world is absolutely still and quiet.

Lying on my back in the middle of a massive salt pan one still night and gazing up at the stars, I was able to experience such silence. It is a very rare opportunity in this day and age and requires the perfect environment and conditions in order to occur. It's a little bit strange, but silence is so out of the norm for most of us that sometimes we hate it. A safari guide was telling a story at dinner the other night about a family from New York City who came to stay in camp and actually had to play recordings of city noises on their computers at night in order for the children to fall asleep. Believe me, honking taxi cab noises seem very out of place in an area like the Kalahari desert, but if noises are what you are accustomed to, then noises are what will make you feel comfortable. 

Aside from outside noises that reach our ears, what about inner noises that fill our minds from the thoughts we think? You can be in the quietest place on the planet and still "hear" lots of things in your mind. Men are said to have a "nothing box" where their minds can go and be completely empty as they zone out and think about absolutely nothing. Whether that is true or not, most people's minds are thinking the vast majority of the time rather than sitting dormant. What do we think about? I have personally been guilty of claiming to have been in my nothing box simply because I didn't realize what thoughts had been passing through my mind just moments earlier. Seriously, who thinks about what they are thinking about? But now I have you thinking about whether or not you think about what you are thinking about, right? I thought so. 

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." (Philippians 4:8 ESV)

What thoughts we allow in our minds is very important. And yes, we are the ones who allow thoughts to stay in our minds. They may pop up seemingly out of nowhere, but whether or not they are allowed to stay is up to us. As 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, "Take every thought captive to obey Christ." Those of us who belong to Christ are no longer subject to a yoke of slavery, not in our minds or our lives, and must be masters of our thoughts under the Lordship of God. 

So in any moments of silence you may have throughout the day, meditate on your blessings, on the Bible, and on things that bring honor to our Savior. When thoughts that are not good creep in, get rid of them! I will be right there with you trying to do the same thing. 

"For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him." (Psalm 62:5 ESV)

Just keep spinning, just keep spinning

Within a one week span, I got my truck stuck in the sand - twice. A little bit of digging and a friendly tug from another vehicle was all it took to get me right out, and, so as to not make my truck look like a sissy, there were two other vehicles that we had to also assist in getting un-bogged. Coming from east Texas I am much more used to mud than sand, so it was an interesting experience just driving through the stuff let alone getting stuck. The second time the truck got stuck was the worst. As it tried to plow its way out of a deep patch of sandy road, I could feel it digging itself in deeper until the chassis bottomed out on the sand and the wheels just spun freely without touching the ground enough to pull it forward any further.

Sometimes I think we feel that way in our lives. Our wheels are spinning and spinning as we get up early every morning, work hard all day long, and go to bed exhausted at night just to repeat the cycle again the following day. We feel stuck in one place. What progress do we have to show for our hard work? We feel as if we aren't going anywhere. What is the point of working and working all the time anyway? 

It is easy to get stuck in a rut and lose sight of why we have even been traveling the road we are on in the first place. In college when a certain test or project was weighing me down and clouding my mind with doubts as to whether or not all of the effort was even worth it, I would look back in time to the way God had led me to that place and that remembrance would strengthen my resolve to press forward. I may not be in college anymore, but real life is much the same way. When the alarm clock goes off before the crack of dawn and another long, hot day of flying people from one place to another stares me in the unshaven face I wonder, "what in the world am I doing in Africa? I could fly much faster and cooler airplanes in America and be closer to family and friends that way. Why am I here? This routine is going to get old." And then I look backwards at my tracks through the sand and remember that I am here for more than just the completion of a daily routine. 

Don't get so focused on the road that you miss the beauty of the passing landscape. The purpose of my truck's spinning wheels was to carry us through the amazing countryside and allow us a glimpse of God's incredible handiwork and creativity. Our daily routines of work, eat, and sleep are for the purpose of propelling us through life where we can look around us and reach out with a helping hand or kind word to others traveling this road of life. 

I think of Peter walking on the water and how he was doing just fine until He looked away from the face of Jesus and down at the waves swelling up on every side. Don't let the sand or the waves pull you down. Those wheels have to keep spinning. Those feet have to keep walking. 

Hunger

I live in Africa. Every kid in America knows it as the place with starving children who would love to eat their vegetables. Naturally there is some truth to that stereotype, particularly in certain African countries, but the people of Botswana don't generally go hungry or face the threat of starvation. Not physically at least...

Like anywhere in our fallen world there is spiritual hunger here. Like anywhere in our fallen world it is often fed with false religions and lusts of the flesh. And like anywhere in our fallen world the bread of life is still available for all who will come and partake. All of us have that "God sized hole" in our hearts that nothing but Christ can fill, and yet I believe that even with Christ we are still hungry - at least we should be. Just as physical hunger of the stomach returns every so often once the most recent meal has been digested, our spiritual hunger for God's word and His presence should start to gnaw at us if we go too long without feeding it. 

The flight schedules here in Maun are busiest between 9 AM and 4 PM and I regularly have back to back to back flights during that seven hour period. I don't mind the work or the flight hours, but as I was first settling into such a daily schedule, my stomach complained. There is no time to eat lunch when you fly like that. Occasionally you can sneak in a sandwich in-flight if you have an empty leg and remembered to pack one, but eating with passengers on board is both rude, unprofessional, and dangerous to any weak stomachs onboard that might catch a whiff of the food's scent. So I have gotten used to only eating two meals a day for the most part. It isn't a bad thing. I still weigh the same amount as I did six years ago when I left home for college. I have gotten used to it so much that my stomach has given up grumbling around midday. And therein lies the danger. If we quench our conscience and the hunger pangs of our spirit enough times we may eventually lose them. We may grow accustomed to the new normal of a dry spiritual life and fail to yearn, desire, and hunger for the bread and water of life. And that is a bad thing. 

So as I sit here slurping down spaghetti noodles and smacking on some well seasoned butternut squash, the delicious food reminds me of what I was missing out on all day long. As I read and ponder the Words of Life from my Bible tonight before bed, the delight that it brings my heart and the fruit that it bears in my life will remind me of the importance of keeping a steady diet of scripture flowing to my soul. 

Starving children would love to eat your leftover vegetables. Dying souls would love to know the truth about life in Christ. 

Windings

A little over a week ago I was flying along Botswana's borders with South Africa and Zimbabwe doing my best to make sure I didn't violate international airspace and get into all kinds of trouble for it. There is no wall in the sky along the border to indicate where the forbidden line to cross extends upward into the blue sky. The corresponding lines on the map and the GPS indicate that the border is very wavy and goes all up, down, and around as it makes its way across the countryside. Why couldn't someone have just made the boundary between these countries a straight line and prevented me from needing to change my course so much as I fly between airports? I crane my neck to look across and downward through the passenger-side window at the border down below and find my answer. Thousands of feet below lies a winding river, snaking its way across the otherwise dry landscape. That river is the borderline. And for reasons of gravity and terrain, rivers don't normally flow in a nice straight line like the border I wished for would need. They wind back and forth, and so did I as I followed along the northern side of this particular river. 

As Christians we often refer to the "straight and the narrow" way that we follow to Heaven, and there are a number of Bible verses we can refer to which talk about straight paths. But in reality it seems more accurate to refer to following Christ as the narrow way and to our lives on this earth as full of turns and windings rather than being straight. Certainly we must maintain the straightness of truth compared to the twisting of evil, but a straight path is one you can look ahead on for many miles and see what is coming. If you can look years ahead in your life and see everything that will come, then three cheers for you. As for me, I am doing good just to know what might happen tomorrow. 

As humans we want answers. We want advance notice. We want time to prepare. But life doesn't always give us what we want - surprise! Change happens fast. We really don't know what tomorrow holds. As the saying goes, "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken." Since my arrival in Botswana there have been ups and downs with immigration paperwork, pilot licensing, flight scheduling, and so on that taught me to be prepared for the unknown and to expect the unexpected....if that is even possible. People have come and gone with our organization and life continues to wind its way back and forth. Doors have opened in one direction and closed in others. But as different as the path for each of our lives may be and as many turns as we must make away from what we expected, all of us have the same final destination. Like Ecclesiastes 1:7 says of flowing water, "All rivers run into the sea" so all lives end in eternity, either with God or apart from Him. 

As the windings of a river, so my life twists and turns along it's course. 

Faith. By Definition

Words are strange things. Basically they are shortened or condensed versions of what we are trying to say. Think about it. A single word has a meaning (or even multiple meanings) that requires many more words just to explain. Try to imagine what it would be like for us to talk in definitions. Instead of saying "I feel happy today" it would be "I perceive myself to be in a state of mind characterized by or indicative of pleasure." It reminds me of the way Eugene Melsner from the Adventures in Odessey radio show talked. When I am sitting in church here in Botswana and listening to a translator take an English phrase and turn it into understandable Setswana it sometimes seems like they are having to define the English words rather than give a direct word-for-word translation because they use so many words in place of a very few English words, or vice versa. 

I was thinking about words and definitions today as I read Hebrews 11:1, which is basically giving a definition of the word faith. The verse says, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." That right there is a definition of what faith is. And yet, when I read it I am not satisfied. All of my questions about faith are not answered by that. So a word needs a definition and then a definition needs an explanation and the explanation may change depending on the application. See, I told you words were strange things. 

If we keep pressing on into Hebrews 11 after the definition of faith there are many examples of it and how it was applied in the lives of certain Biblical characters. Here is a non-exhaustive list by verse:

2. By faith men gained approval

3. By faith we understand

4. By faith Abel offered a sacrifice

5. By faith Enoch did not see death

7. By faith Noah prepared an ark

8. By faith Abraham obeyed God's calling

11. By faith Sarah received the ability to conceive

17. By faith Abraham offered up Isaac 

29. By faith the Israelites passed through the Red Sea

30. By faith the walls of Jericho fell

So in all of these instances people had confidence in what they hoped for, whether they were hoping for a child or deliverance or victory, and assurance about what they did not see, whether they didn't see how the world could flood or a sea could part or an old womb could be opened. Sounds simple enough. I think the problem comes with the definitions of confidence and assurance. Confidence means "full trust" and assurance means "full confidence" or "full full trust" if you will. That is a lot of trust. It leaves NO room for doubt. Zero. Zilch. Nada. And that, my friend, is not so simple - as least not for me. 

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. (James 1:6 ESV)

Desolate

The word desolate has a few different meanings. It can mean barren, solitary, forlorn, dismal, or deserted. To me, this picture of a salt pan in Botswana looks desolate. There is nothing but hard packed dirt for as far as the eye can see in places like this. 

Sometimes my spirit feels desolate. If a heart surgeon were to open me up at times like that he might not find anything but hard packed dirt inside (or maybe not). But seriously, there are moments and places in our lives where we feel solitary, dismal, or deserted. Perhaps it's because of how someone we love has treated us. Perhaps it's because of circumstances that always seem to be going against us and beating us down. Perhaps it is even because we are not allowing the Holy Spirit to well up inside of us with a spring of living water like He promised. The only chance a desert has of getting any greenery to sprout up or plants to take root is if it gets sufficient water. Likewise, it is the living water of Jesus which is our only hope for growth and life. 

So whenever I see a desert I think "Wow, this place could use some water." Then when I see a person with a parched soul I think "Wow, this person needs Jesus to give them new life." But let's not fool ourselves. I can become a parched soul too if I quench the Spirit as 1 Thessalonians 5:19 talks about. An occasional rain in the desert does no real good. It takes good steady rains that come consistently for a long time to bring about any change to desolate salt pans. I also need consistent time in God's Word and in prayer with Him to be the fruitful follower that He wants me to be. 

Instead of living in desolation, I choose to dwell in the land of milk and honey - the only oasis in this dry and dying world. 

2,160 Hours Later...

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 6 ESV)

The time for casting away the distraction of the Internet has ended for me, and the time for keeping in touch with the world again has returned. As of the 1st of April my 90 day hiatus from the World Wide Web (and I have discovered that it is world wide just like it claims) has come to an end. I am grateful for the time it allowed me to have for focusing on the Lord, getting settled in my new home, and starting to connect with the people God has surrounded me with here in Botswana. It was a blessed time that was beneficial in more ways than one. 

Not surprisingly, 3 months of being away from the world in a sense was not a cure-all that caused all of the problems and trials of life to go away, but that was not what I expected anyway. A recurring theme in my Biblical lessons learned recently has been about trials. Paul talked about them a good deal in his letters to the New Testament churches, and I have learned, or at least been reminded again, of the value that hardships can have our spiritual lives and the very fact that they are to expected as we follow The Lord and walk in His way. Trials and difficulties come up on a daily basis here at work, but as my supervisor likes to say, they are just opportunities to grow in grace. And there lies the key to it all. We must learn and grow in the midst of hard times instead of allowing them to make us hard, cynical, or bitter. The notion that hard=bad is neither accurate nor Biblical and yet it has been something that I have had to change in my way of thinking. It seems like an easy life makes a soft Christian, and a soft Christian makes only a tiny impact for Christ if any at all. That is not what I want. And so The Lord continues to work in my life day after day in both the hard times and the good times. 

The main changes that have taken place for me in the year 2014 are that I moved permanently up to the town of Maun, successfully went through a month of initial operating experience in the Cessna 206, and am now busy flying in and around the Okavango Delta region of northern Botswana. On the Sundays when I am free I attend services at the local Baptist church (which is quite an experience in itself) and I have been plugged into a small group Bible study that occurs most every weekend as well. In addition to the other Flying Mission personnel that I work with each day I have had opportunities to develop relationships with safari camp staff and a few local people that I come in contact with regularly. The flying is great, but it is the people that matter the most. 

Every day is a new adventure full of new opportunities, and not just because I am in Africa. God gives us all life that we may have it more abundantly. My life is abundant, and I am very thankful.

The End of an Age

The past decade or two has been called a number of different names – the information age, the digital age, the computer age – and has been a time of immense growth in computer technology and the internet, among other things. With the new technology many new opportunities, moral and ethical questions, scientific and medical possibilities, temptations, and much more have entered the everyday lives of the modern populace. Do the benefits of technology outweigh the negative influences it has exerted on culture and common life? That’s a debate that I don’t care to have. However, I am planning to do a sort of experiment on the subject.

On January 1^st of 2014 I am going to drop off the face of the earth. Not literally, of course, but in the sense of disappearing from the digital world of internet and computers. For personal, spiritual, and perhaps even scientific reasons, I am taking a sabbatical from the social media world of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. I am turning my back on my numerous email inboxes (except for my work email, for hopefully obvious reasons) and even my prestigious online blog (ha!). I am refusing to keep up-to-date on global news via online networks and websites.

To put it bluntly, I am fasting from the internet for 90 days.

The majority of the world won’t know and certainly won’t care that I am going “offline” until April 1^st (no fooling), but for the tiny minority that will care and will notice, I thought it best to offer a little advanced warning and a sort of explanation. No, I haven’t un-friended you on Facebook. No, I haven’t been eaten by an African lion. The world will go on without me. I'm pretty certain of that.

Outside of my co-workers, fellow Botswana residents, and the tourists/passengers on my flights, the only contact I plan to have with “the outside world” will be old fashioned snail mail sent to my company address in Gaborone. If you want that address, feel free to contact my family or to look it up on the World Wide Web. Plan on 2-4 weeks of transit time for any letters you may mail. The donkey carts that deliver mail over here are pretty slow. Not really, but the time it takes for me to get mail will depend on the flight schedule of our air ambulance planes, so it is unpredictable.

In case of emergency, contact my company or my family. Or you could just call 911.

Enjoy the internet for the next 90 days! It should be faster without me clogging up the bandwidth. If you would continue to pray for me during this time of internet silence, I would most definitely appreciate it. As for me, I’ll be enjoying life as it used to be with no internet to distract, to communicate, or to enlighten. I am actually hoping it will be the best of times, the age of wisdom, the epoch of belief, the season of light, and the spring of hope for me rather than the opposite. And just perhaps, during the sabbatical I will be able to say with my own personal meaning, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I [have] than I have ever known.” Oh yes, and I do plan to read some Charles Dickens with my additional free time. It will be great. 

Family

Christmas is about Jesus Christ. Christmas is about the gift of God's Son as a savior to the world. Christmas is about remembering and celebrating the virgin birth of baby Jesus. Christmas is about family.

The birth of Jesus was so important because of who He was, and especially who His Father was. Millions of babies have been born on this earth, but none of them besides Jesus were the son of God Almighty. Jesus was important because of His family. 

As Jesus walked the earth and ministered to its inhabitants, He was building the foundation for a spiritual family. Being fully man and yet resisting every temptation to sin that you and I as humans must face, Jesus conquered sin. Dying on the cross while completely innocent, Jesus conquered sin. Rising from the grave after three days of being dead, Jesus conquered sin. He was the perfect sacrifice that has torn the curtain between humanity and God the Father to allow us all to become children of The Most High. Because of God the Father and God the Son, we can now be adopted into the family of God. 

We celebrate Christmas every year with our biological families or families by marriage or by adoption on this earth, but we also get to celebrate it with our spiritual family around the world. All of us who have been saved by the blood of Christ are brothers and sisters to one another. We are all related. In a way, it is because of the first Christmas that we are all part of the same family.

Here in Botswana, thousands of miles away from my biological family in Texas and my adopted family members in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Florida, and Puerto Rico, I am thankful that I have spiritual family members with whom I can celebrate the birth of Christ. At the same time, I will most definitely miss being with my brothers and sisters by birth, my parents, and my aunts, uncles, and cousins that I have been with for every Christmas up until now. So let me encourage those of you who have the blessing of spending this Christmas season under the same roof as your loved ones and family members to make the most of it. Remember that the presents and food and traditions are only as good as they are because of the people you are with as you enjoy them. Remember that not one of us is guaranteed another Christmas with those that we love and that each moment, each smile, each memory made is precious. Enjoy Christmas with your family! Whether you spend this holiday season with biological, adopted, or spiritual family members, remember that you and I are blessed. 

In the midst of our Christmas joys let's not forget those people who don't have a family, whether physical or spiritual, to be with on Christmas morning. The world is full of orphans, widows, and lost souls who will be sad and have an aching heart this December 25th. Perhaps besides simply counting our own blessings this Christmas, we can somehow manage to also be blessings to those who need it most. This is one of my favorite Christmas songs and says it even better than I can: http://youtu.be/XvDBGVoGKD0

Christmas is all about family! 

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"Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father..." - James 1:17

Praise Ye The Lord!

The Bible, especially Psalms, is full of commands and reminders to praise God for all of His wonderful works. Honestly, though, I forget to do that as much as I should. It certainly isn't because He hasn't blessed me or exhibited His power and greatness in and around my life every single day, because He has done that. My lack of sufficient praise unto God is due to my failure to recognize and appreciate all of His blessings in the midst of everyday life and its busy schedule. What a lame reason.

Last week was an incredible testimony to the greatness of God and yielded many more reasons to praise Him. To set the stage, let me explain how things work here in Botswana when foreign nationals initially enter the country. When citizens of another country cross the border or pass through customs at the airport they are given a stamp in their passport that basically serves as a tourist visa and allows them to stay in the country for a maximum period of 90 days. People like me who are trying to move here for a job must apply for a residence permit and a work permit through the immigration office or else they will be required to leave the country after their 90 day pass expires. The past few months have been a difficult time for international applicants to obtain approval to stay or work in the country. Some of FMS's new employees have had to leave the country and are going through an appeal process to attempt to be able to come back and work. Lots of other organizations and individuals we have talked to are having the same problems. That being said, last Friday was my final day to be able to stay in the country on my 90 day passport stamp. The clock was ticking and my days were disappearing rapidly last week when I was called into the immigration office on Wednesday. Four and a half hours of waiting in line later, an immigration officer handed me a residence permit and a work permit over the counter and I walked out of that office with a miracle in my hand. With only two days to spare, God showed Himself strong on my behalf and has allowed me to stay and to work in Botswana!

God deserves praise for more than just opening doors and providing for His children. Look around. His creation is awesome! Over the weekend I went camping at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary with some FMS friends. The pans (large, flat open areas of ground) were covered with rhino, wildebeest, kudu, ostrich, impala, springbok, zebra, giraffe, eland, warthog, gemsbok, water buck, and a variety of neat birds (watch the video from the trip here). Watching all of these animals frolicking around as the sunset lit up the Botswana sky was amazing. Not to be outdone, the night sky was filled by a crescent moon and a plethora of dazzling stars and constellations. The flickering flames of our fire, the distinct smell of African wood smoke, and the varying tastes of delicious foods were all small and often unappreciated examples of the creativity, power, and greatness of our God that we experienced that night.

I have always loved this quote from Robert Louis Stevenson: 

"The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you."

Life is full of wonderful things that we should praise The Lord for every single day. He has done great things and will continue to do great things. Just praise Him!

 

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"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!" - Psalms 150:6