Today (Letting this speak for itself)

"Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together."Hebrews 10:24-25

We are all capable of being spiritual sluggards; we do not want to mix with the rough and tumble of life as it is, our one object is to secure retirement. The note struck in Hebrews 10 is that of provoking one another and of keeping together - both of which require initiative, the initiative of Christ-realization, not of self-realization. To live a remote, retired, secluded life is the antipodes of spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.

The test of our spirituality comes when we come up against injustice and meanness and ingratitude and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritual sluggards. We want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of retirement. We utilize God for the sake of getting peace and joy, that is, we do not want to realize Jesus Christ, but only our enjoyment of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things are effects and we try to make them causes.

"I think it meet," said Peter, ". . . to stir you up by putting you in remembrance." It is a most disturbing thing to be smitten in the ribs by some provoker of God, by someone who is full of spiritual activity. Active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work may be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The danger of spiritual sluggishness is that we do not wish to be stirred up, all we want to hear about is spiritual retirement. Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement - "Go tell My brethren . ."

~ Oswald Chambers

Peace in Him,

MJW

Chill Day

Multiple adventures could have been taken today.  I had been planning a trip to Prague with a friend here, though that fell through at the last second.  I also had the opportunity to go hiking again in a beautiful region of Saxony called "Saxony Switzerland."

However, to all aspects of me, mind, body, soul, and spirit, I needed time to myself.  Thus, after waking up past noon, I began to wander around to places in Leipzig I had yet to explore.  Part of this was to awaken certain parts of me I sensed were slumbering.  I needed to get out of my dorm, but I still wanted to be alone.  Ever wanted to just drop everything and be someplace by yourself where you can be as loud or as silent as you wanted?  That was me today.

Thus, my first attempt was to visit a lake just west of the city, Kulkwitzer.  Unfortunately, it was crowded for the most part, so it took me a while to find a rather solitary place on the lake, away from the site of naked sunbathers (yes, this is normal to them).

Stared hard at the lake for a while, sang spontaneous songs to God out of a heavy heart, confessing various failings, and also reading parts of Hearing God.  Left there with a bit more peace than I had before, God seeming to whisper how He would be go ahead of me to make my way straight.  I still don't know if I understand everything, but I pray I would gain the faith to trust.

I then wandered around the city center some, desiring to find the Herrnhuter star I had seen the other day from a tram car.  Ended up finding it in a park, though I still don't know the significance of why it is here in Leipzig (the plaque beneath it told of how it was celebrating the 100th year anniversary of a school; don't see what that has to do with the Unitas Fraternitum).  On the way there, however, I found a piece of the Berlin wall that had been moved to Leipzig.  On it, there were 4 words, 3 of which are not found in google translate.  However, the last one is simply "gone" in English:

Also wandered into a free museum all about the GDR days of Germany, though it mainly focused on cultural images from around the world that seem to capture people's imaginations.  For example, they had this image of the Warsaw ghetto in the museum:

Essentially, the descriptions that followed were how this photo captured the oppression of the Polish people during the second World War, though now it is a more expansive symbol of oppression for people of the world.  The same sort of analysis was undertaken with pictures of the flag raising at Iwo Jima, and then a photo of a GDR officer jumping over barbed wire to the side of the West.  Needless to say, the exhibit did show that a picture is "worth a thousand words."

After that, wandered back to the dorm with some ice cream on my lips, hiked to a local park and found a cool Russian orthodox church (unfortunately, closed), then headed back to cook some pasta.   The sauce I used was pretty diverse, encompassing a premade meat sauce, an italian salad dressing, mustard, weight watchers butter, and pepper (but it tasted goooooood :P).

The highlight of today was at its end.  God had allowed me to see an older man on a bench yesterday as I was leaving a park near my dormitory.  I had been wrestling with how on earth I was supposed to minister to the people of Leipzig, since I did not know the language.  I prayed moments after I passed him, "God, how do I minister to him?"  And He whispered, "Break bread with him.  He will be back here at the same time tomorrow."

I doubted Him a little bit, when I came an hour earlier today and didn't see him today.  I went back to the dorm, and as I ventured the internet, I noted the time.  I thought, "why not?" and walked over to the park.  There he was, same place, same time.  Quickly, I walked back to my dorm, praying, "God, I don't know how this is going to happen, but this has got to be Your love and not mine.  You've seen where my heart's been all today and this week.  Help me love him as You love him."  I quickly put together two nutella sandwiches on knackebrot (imagine hard, wide, tasteless crackers that you can put anything on), and walked back over to him.  I gave him some, and he seemed rather amused that I sat down next to him when there were other benches around the park and it was 10 pm.  I briefly explained in broken German that I had come to Germany to study and to pray.  He just smiled.  I sat on the bench with him for a good while, mostly attempting to communicate anything I could to him (the most he said was a word I didn't know, an offer of a cigarette to me, and a comment on some random fireworks behind us).  I asked him what I could pray for him, though he did not respond, but only smiled.

I left the experience at peace, knowing that I had obeyed what God had spoken.  In fact, leaving the experience, I felt the greatest joy that I had known all that day.  I guess (not guess, but yes, this is) Christ speaks truly when He speaks of desiring mercy and not sacrifice, and of obedience to the Word rather than just having it around us as an oft-seen symbol.  If it is not in our lives, what good is it?

God, continue this work in me.  Let me speak and do and be who You've called me to be at all times.  Not my will, but Yours be done.

in Christ,

MJW

Sans la nommer

This one's going to be all over the place, guys, so buckle your seatbelts

For the recent happenings/thoughts in the life of Mark Wells, edited edition, please see these links, though there's more info below the links about my thoughts:

http://www.daad.de/blog/leben-in-deutschland/a-personal-pilgrimage/

Really was a great time for me to get away on my own.  I was able to finish the book A Sinner's Guide to Holiness, while also being able to pray with the Nepali woman from YWAM.  Also offered up a prayer to God regarding my college campus in the States and missions at the church where Zinzy preached.

http://www.daad.de/blog/reisen/symposium-solemnity-and-a-surprise/
Oof, so much in this one.  The symposium was also cool because there were also events in the evening, one night at the zoo and the other at the Porsche museum.  The zoo we visited after hours and saw some of the elephants they kept, and some of the workers performed some sort of skit... WITH FIRE!  The Porsche museum, if I had to be completely honest, grieved me more than anything.  It was materialistic to the point of sickening, and I didn't know what else to do but to isolate myself in a bathroom and pray for some of the time.  I tried to take pictures, and pose with people, but at the same time, I was grieving on the inside.  Quite difficult... Also in the post: I can't really say much more about Buchenwald... you just had to be solemn in such a place.  As for the rest of Weimar, well: visited a Franz Liszt festival, went into underground caverns beneath the city, entered and won in a t-shirt contest, and visited the houses of various authors.  That's that :P

And now for the unedited stuff (dun dun duuun)

So my suitemate (aka, flatmate) has been living with me for just over a week now.  We have been getting along okay (he’s rather phlegmatic... which can confuse my hyperactive self), though we’re similar in our frequent need to apologize to one another.  We’ve had some cool talks about issues of faith, though I don’t know how to gauge the depth of the talks.  I want to talk more with him about my testimony, though sometimes my time is eaten up by work and small groups, leaving me back in the dorm around 9 (another reason why I haven’t been updating this as much :P).

My hyperactive mind has also tried to keep myself occupied, but God has continually been pulling me back to his side. Also learning about feeding the flesh vs. the spirit. Realized something: it's not the context one resides that makes fasting hard, but the flesh that we carry around making excuses. "Oh, but if someone asks you, then you'll have to tell them," "Do you really think God will work more powerfully through you because of this?", "You have to take care of your body," etc.

How long will it take to get the dying twitches out of the corpse?

Been talking to a girl in my lab about things of faith off and on. Actually, we talk about a lot of things, which I find good, as I don't want to be the guy who incessantly beats the Word down people's throats. Good to have a friendship... just pray that it would be used of God as well.

If I were to be completely blunt, I don't know how I can really evaluate my growth with God right now. Sometimes I am in love with Him, at other times I can sense Him drawing me away with Him, and then some mornings, some evenings, I am disconnected from the Head because I am in my own head. I don't believe or want this to be a pattern, but God must be my center at all times. I want no more of this sliding hither and thither, my thoughts to His thoughts and then back again, only to take any knowledge I receive from Him for my personal analysis or to attain some fleshly goal.

God, make me salt and light to this earth. I don't want this to be a flickering, shining flame, but one that would be on at all times, in peace, in love, in joy, manifesting all that You intend it to manifest to this earth and ultimately to the glory of Your name.

Love,

MJW