Building the Temple

Shortly after God adopted Israel as His own by bringing them out of slavery in Egypt, He gave them the plans to build an earthly Tabernacle, a Tent of Meeting. It was the place where His presence dwelt and where the Israelites could come to sacrifice and meet with Him. It was quite an extravagant "Tent," which you can read about in the Old Testament book of Exodus.

Until the reign of King David, the Tabernacle was in use as God's home.After making his own home in Jerusalem, David desired to build a more permanent structure for God to dwell on earth. But because his life was littered with war and bloodshed, God promised David that his son, Solomon, would build the Temple instead.

Because of his love for God, and desire to be a part of establishing the Temple, David gave much of his personal treasure to fund the future Temple. 1 Chronicles 22 says that David gave 100,000 talents of gold, a million talents of silver and too much bronze, iron, timber and stone to count.

One talent was about 75 pounds, which means that David donated 7.5 million pounds of gold. At today's market value, he donated more than $150 billion dollars in gold and silver.

After David died, Solomon began  the task of building the Temple. It tells us in 2 Chronicles 2 that 80,000 people worked in the rock quarry shaping the stone (for both his house and the Temple), and another 70,000 bore the burdens (i.e., they carried the finished stone to the Temple sight). Out of respect for God, none of the stone work was done on the Temple mount.

They spent seven years building the Temple.

All of this is background for what happened next. When the Temple was finally complete, they threw a big dedication party.

2 Chronicles 7:1-2 says, "When Solomon finished praying, a bolt of lightning out of heaven struck the Whole-Burnt-Offering and sacrifices and the Glory of God filled The Temple. The Glory was so dense that the priests couldn't get in - God so filled The Temple that there was no room for the priests!"

Did you catch that? The Glory of God was so thick that the priests couldn't get in the Temple.

Fast forward to today...to you. If you believe in Jesus, the Temple is now located in your heart. What does your Temple look like? How much of your time, resources and blood, sweat and tears do you spend making sure the Temple is the most beautiful place for God to reside?

The good news is that He will clean it up, we just have to dedicate our lives to allowing Him to do His good work. The bad news is that a battle is being actively waged to keep your Temple broken and bruised. Even this week I've felt the onslaught of the enemy seeking to widen cracks, cave in the roof and board up the windows to keep the Light out.

If we want a thick Glory of God, we must actively pursue righteousness, actively renew and restore our spirits. It's a lot of work, but well worth the effort. Once you've seen the Glory of God, nothing else satisfies.

What would your life look like if you lived that way?

A Metaphor for Life

Imagine if you will, an oasis in the middle of a desert. (Don’t close your eyes or you won’t be able to continue.)

As much as the desert is ruthlessly hot, fraught with danger and unrelenting in its assault on your body, the oasis is a haven of peace, rest and healing.

In the middle of the oasis is a well, filled with life-giving water. It is deep. It is pure. It is easily accessible. It supports the entire ecosystem that makes up the oasis.

As you crawl in, depleted…physically and emotionally, you are in awe of the richness that now surrounds you. You see the well and realize just how thirsty you are, but as your eyes drink in the sights your heart races at the possibilities as you begin to explore. Distracted by the beauty you think, “I’ll make it to the well in a moment, but I want to enjoy the cool shade.” Hour after hour, day after day you enjoy the food and the other survivors you meet.

Somehow you never make it to the well. Everything else just seems good enough. Until it isn’t.

Dehydration takes its toll. Every time you feel its affects you head toward the well. But that pineapple or mango take off the edge and the well seems less important. Eventually you die of dehydration.

Our culture is a moral desert. It is sucking the life out of us. It is as unrelenting as the Sahara. The church is an oasis in the desert. It is meant to provide and sustain life. All we have to do is drink from the well.

The well is far more than what we do for Christ. It is our connection with Christ, who we are in Christ. It is not about our salvation, but our sanctification, or growth in Christ. Though the well is rooted in our spiritual disciplines, it is not those disciplines alone. It is our orientation to find all we are in Christ, and then to surrender it all to Christ. 

Unfortunately we get distracted too easily…serving, living, surviving…too busy to ever make it to the well. And, we wonder why we’re thirsty. We’re in the oasis, isn’t that enough? We live as if our world will spin out of control at any moment, as if we’ve lost our center. We think that the more we do to make the oasis a better place, the better off we’ll be. We’ve become spiritually dehydrated.

The well gives life. It alone makes the oasis the best place to be. Drink from the well.

My nose job...

I had a nose job yesterday.

No, not the kind that will leave me looking more like Brad Pitt.

I suffered from an internal problem. According to my great doctor, I had one of the worst deviated septum he's ever seen. He's convinced that I've broken my nose at some point in the past. I must have blocked the trauma. He also shortened my Inferior Turbinates, which isn't a character statement about my turbinates - we all have them (as well as Superior Turbinates). Although, since he shortened mine I guess they are inferior. For those of you who are not Ear, Nose & Throat doctors, turbinates aid in air flow. He also fixed some concha thing that was basically an air bubble in my middle turbinate.

You'd never know by looking at the outside of my nose that there were such problems on the inside. However, you can't hide these kinds of problems from the expert who can fix them.

The same is true for our heart problems...in the spiritual sense. Proverbs 10:9 says, "The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out." [NIV]

Integrity has been described as being undivided. It is consistency between our public self and private self. I don't know about you, but I prefer to walk securely. I like having nothing to hide. Life is a lot less stressful when you don't have to worry about someone finding out something that you're trying to hide. And, as Solomon reminds us, the natural consequences will bring our lack to light at some point.

Of course, our lack of integrity is always known by the God of the Universe. God cares deeply about our integrity. When the outside doesn't match the inside, He finds it offensive.

And trying to worship an offended God can be a bit challenging to say the least.

Do you need a nose job of the heart?

I love my GPS!

I love my GPS. I use it all the time. Most of the time I don't really need it for directions. I am not generally directionally-challenged. I love that it tells me my speed. It even tells me the posted speed limit on most major roads. I've been amazed at how accurately it changes when I drive into a new speed zone.

My car is less helpful. The speedometer is off by a few miles per hour (that's kilometers per hour for those of you reading in the rest of the world).

When I start out on a journey, I like to program in the destination because it tells me how far I have to go before I arrive. When I am driving into new territory, it takes a bit of the stress, of which road or exit to take, away. And when I decide to drive a different direction it says, "Recalculating...When possible make a legal u-turn." Sometimes I think it should say, "Hey stupid, just turn me off if you aren't going to pay attention to me."

With the miracle of modern technology it also shows me where I can get gas...for my car or my stomach...even shows me where there are ATMs so I can fill up my wallet.

It's really quite helpful. Sometimes it even helps certain back-seat-drivers from pitching in their two cents.

My father-in-law argues with his GPS frequently.

Psalm 43:3-4 says, "Give me your lantern and compass, give me a map, so I can find my way to the sacred mountain, to the place of Your presence, to enter the place of worship, meet my exuberant God, sing my thanks with a harp, Magnificent God, my God."

In this journey we call life, God has gifted most of us in such a way that we can do normal life without much dependence on Him (not that we should, just that we can). So we do. And we spend our life reading the billboards that our culture puts up alongside the road. You know the ones: things satisfy, busyness equals fulfillment, more is better, you can have it all. Sometimes the billboards are subtle and other times they are in your face. But they lead us away from the narrow path that God calls us to walk. And it's a struggle to get back. We get so far from the intimacy God would have us experience with him that we begin to wonder if he is even real?

He's given us a lantern, compass and map. A GPS, so to speak. Do you even know how to read it? When was the last time you did?

The only thing that satisfies is the presence of God. Everything else is hollow in comparison. When was the last time you made it to the Sacred Mountain? The Secret Place where you soul connects most deeply with the God who created you for fellowship with HIM?

Maybe you should "recalculate" and "make a legal u-turn"...now. If you are off-track it may take a while to get back onto the right path. It's worth the work.

Day 7 in Honduras

A day of relaxing…ISH. Most of us decided to go zip lining over the Honduran forest. Sambo Creek Canopy Tours was our destination. It included 16 zip lines that zigzagged across the mountainside, with the longest one being over half a mile. It held a beautiful view the Caribbean Ocean. We could see as far as Roatan. Below us were cascading waterfalls, both cold and hot, so steam rose like clouds over the trees.

Before we left the hotel we had to sign waivers that said things like: I acknowledge I will be doing an activity that is not up to the safety standards of the United States, Europe, etc. I recognize that there is no medical attention readily available.

It was all of our first time zip lining. We didn’t know how physical the activity was. But man, what fun we had.

One of us got hurt. OK, it was me. I was coming in to the platform at the end of the longest run. I was going pretty fast, and couldn’t really get myself to slow down the way they had taught us. The instructor was helping someone get started on the next zip line, so was late to position himself to help me stop.

I saw it coming, but figured I’d use my legs on the tree to cushion my stop. Did you know that everything is slick when it’s raining? My feet slid up the tree (kind of sprawled, really), and my tuckus took the brunt of the stop.

I will be bruised for a while. It only diminished the fun for a few minutes.

After we finished the 16 line run, we walked down to the hot springs where we enjoyed the natural setting, with hot water running down one waterfall, and cold water down the other. A masseuse was on hand to give us 20-minute massages.

We returned to the hotel to leave for El Progresso where we will spend the night. It is only a half hour from the airport, instead of the 3-4 we were in La Ceiba.

Day 6 in Honduras

We loaded up the bus, said goodbye to the Hotel Doama, and headed into Nueva Mendes one last time. Our hard work was done. Left were the final steps of installing the pump.

We are all tired, but eager anticipation energized us.

Last night after we left, the men of the village poured a concrete slab around the well site. We left at 6pm so they worked mostly in the dark, one bulb hanging from a tree to light way for them.

By this morning it had hardened enough to stand on. We pulled out the submersible pump we had left in overnight and began dropping 150 feet of pipe…the final pipe…one more time.

It was hard to get an average well depth from Dennis and Nugget. Sometimes they only drill down 25 feet (we wondered what the team did the rest of the week…sleep?), at other times 50’ or 80’. The deepest well they drilled last year was 120’. Our well was 150’. No wonder we were tired.

Since our well was so deep, Living Water had sent a new pumping system that helped deep wells work better. This is the first time they’ve ever installed it.

After dropping the pipe into the well, we dropped the plunger and the water drawing mechanism, then capped the well with the hand pump and we were ready to go.

We spent the next hour dedicating the well, and reminding the children about some of the hygiene tips they’d learned.

Then we all gathered at the well and Brad and Erik tried to pump up water…emphasis on the tried. Then Chris and Josh tried. Then Justin tried. Then Dennis.

It’s a little anticlimactic to work hard all week in anticipation of the moment only to have no water come out of the well. They think they know what the problem is, so the Living Water staff will return tomorrow to fix it. They’ve promised to send a picture of our well with water coming out.

We packed everything up and started our drive back to the Palma Real in La Ceiba. Upon arrival we quickly changed into swimwear and had a glorious swim in the Caribbean Ocean. Beautiful. Tomorrow is a rest day. Well deserved. We have plans, but you’ll have to wait to hear what they are.

I’m going to try to load some pictures on FaceBook, but Michelle was picture happy…there are over 1,000.

Day 5 in Honduras

Apologies…this was posted the morning of day 6 because we had no internet yesterday.

We got to sleep in today…30 minutes. Yahoo! We’ve decided that the first day that we were here there were 24 hours. The second day lengthened to 48 hours long, and today was an eternity.

It was supposed to be an “easier” day. It was less muddy to be sure, but no less easy. I’m sure our weariness factors in to the “how hard was it” matrix.

After the usual devotions, breakfast and ride to Nueva Mendes, we began by testing the depth of the water in the well. We found that there was 100 feet of water in the 150 foot length…a great sign.

Next we got out the plunger (doesn’t look like ours at home, but does the same thing). A past team returned home after their trip to Honduras and invented it for the purpose of plunging the well. Before this they did exhausting work at it for sometimes up to 8 hours. This plunger made it possible for the well-drilling machine to plunge for us, turning the process into 80 minutes. The purpose was just to help clean out the gunk.

After plunging we fitted the well with an air compressor hose sunk to the bottom. The thought was that we would literally create a vacuum and blow the rest of the gunk out of the well. Hah. It kept getting plugged so we had to do it the hard way. By putting smaller pipe down the well until we reached the bottom, and flushing the water up and out. A hundred and fifty feet of 2” PVC gets heavy. It took all of us to hold, screw in and lower the pipe.

Did I mention the sun was shining? Beautiful and hot.

Next came the submersible pump. Again, after pulling up the 150 feet of 2” PVC, we attached a 30 pound pump and had to lower it all again. Even heavier.

It will pump out water through the night, trying to fill the well with clean fresh water from the aquifer.

More children, more men, more women. Lots of laughter. Erica, our 16 year old for North Carolina has boys of every age fawning over her. Whenever they ask her to be their girlfriend she just replies, “Mean daddy!” Smart girl.

Let’s see…big spiders…salamanders…screaming women…that about covers the day.

Tomorrow we assemble the pump and dedicate it with the community. Then off we go, back to La Ceiba for a day of rest. Well deserved, I might add.

BTW...My REAL AMERICAN DIET COKE was incredible!!!