Drawings and such!

Spider-man!

Iron Man!

Psalms 73: 16-17

"When I considered this in order to understand it, It was a troublesome task in my sight, Until I went to the sanctuary of God; Then I perceived their end."

Footnote on 'sanctuary':
Lit., sanctuaries.  The solution to the psalmist's perplexity concerning the prosperity of the wicked was obtained in God's sanctuary.  First, God's sanctuary, His habitation, is in our spirit (Eph. 2:22) and, second, it is the church (1 Tim. 3:15).  Thus to go to the sanctuary of God, we need to turn to our spirit and go to the meetings of the church.  Once we are in the sanctuary - in the spirit and in the church - we will have another view, a particular perception, of the situation concerning the wicked (vv. 18-20).  In our spirit and in the church we receive divine revelation and obtain the explanation to all our problems.

Quidditch!

So last week I witnessed my first Quidditch match.  Yes complete with brooms and balls and what not. 

Now for those of you who do not know of the Harry Potter world, Quidditch (as defined in Wikipedia) is a popular fictional sport in the fictional world of Harry Potter created by J.K.Rowling . It is described as an extremely rough, but very popular, semi-contact sport, played by wizards and witches around the world. Matches are played between two teams of seven players riding flying broomsticks, using four balls and six elevated ring-shaped goals three on each side of the Quidditch Pitch (field).  The seven players consist of a seeker (who catches the golden snitch), a keeper who more or less functions as a goalie, two beaters who use wooden clubs to hit the bludgers away from their teammates, and three chasers who try to throw the quaffle ball into the three hoops.  So the quaffle balls are used to score goals and each goal is worth 10 points.  The game proceeds with the chasers trying to score goals, the keeper guarding the three goal hoops and the beaters hitting the bludgers at the opposing team.   The game ends when the seeker catches the golden snitch which roams about the area until it is seen at which point the seekers on both teams will chase it until they catch it.  Upon catching the snitch the game ends and 150 points are awarded to the team with the snitch.  In most cases the team who catches the snitch ends up winning the game.  I'm sure you either find this fascinating or you are completely lost as to what I'm talking about.

Now I'm sure you are wondering how does one play Quidditch if you are suppose to be playing on flying brooms?  Well they do have brooms that they stick between their legs and run around throwing balls at each other.  These people are quite serious about their game.  I was walking about the ISU campus and happened upon a Quidditch game just beginning.  Now of course I had no idea what they were doing because most of the time you don't see people running around with toy brooms in between their legs throwing balls at one another.  I asked the student I was walking around with what they were doing and she said they were playing Quidditch.  I have never heard of such a thing and I was highly amused that they would go so far as to invent a Quidditch game that muggles (non-wizards/witches) could play.  First of all I don't think it's particularly fun without the flying aspect and second they just look a little silly trying to run around throwing balls at each other with brooms between their legs.  The balls don't fly either like they would in a real game.  Instead the balls are all lined up in the center of the field and when the game starts all the players, minus the seeker and the keeper, run towards them and starts throwing the balls around.  Now you are wondering where is the golden snitch right?  For those of you who don't know what that looks like it's a golf size golden ball with wings that flies fairly fast trying to get away from the seekers.  So in the Muggle world the snitch is really a person that has a ball in a yellow sock looking like thing attached to his belt.  He then proceeds to run around campus until a seeker spots him and starts chasing him.  The game ends when the seeker can grab the yellow sock thing off of his belt.  

You must think that this is all too incredible to be true?  Or you just think that these people are just silly bordering on ridiculous.  Well let me tell you that there are actual tournaments for this.  Schools will compete with other schools...like Harvard and Princeton...  As you can see the Harry Potter world is spilling into the college scene.  You still don't believe me well I have video to prove it!  

Yes these matches even made it onto the news.  

My conclusion at the end of all this: these college students need GOD to come into them to be their life, enjoyment, and everything.  It's really quite simple, you should try it.  Just call out loud: O Lord Jesus!  The End.

I have had this urge to cook these last few weeks.  Normally this wouldn't be a problem but with me wanting to cook everything from stove top mac and cheese to chicken tikka masala to drunk chicken I now have too much food to eat...sigh.  I have also decided that I want to make beet chips.  I need to stop making so much food I can't finish.

New Post!

Haven't update this thing in so long...well we finally finished all our beginning of the school year activities.  Now I can go back to a more normal schedule.  Now I wish I could sleep for 12 hours or so and I'll be good to go.

College Training! (part 1)

So last week I went off to the distant land of Ohio for the College Training on "A Man of God" based on 1 and 2 Timothy.  It was really good.  I got to see some old teammates, Marvin and E.J., as well as meet quite a number of people because I was so kindly chosen to do a filming project.  I had absolutely no idea what I was doing most of the time while I was filming but it's okay.  I think it turned out rather well all in all.  I pretty much filmed a bunch of interviews of the college students on what they enjoyed of the training.  I even got one in French!  Of course doing such interviews requires me to hunt down students and ask them if they are willing to be in front of a camera to talk for 3-5 minutes.  I had to use my master convincing skills in order to persuade them to step in front of the camera.  However it is very hard to do that when you are going up to someone whom you have never met.  It being less than a year since moving out to the Midwest, I definitely don't know that many of the students but luckily my dear teammates were there to help me (I should bake them cookies in order to thank them).  Not to mention that it helped my roommates for the week were from Canada so I enlisted their help to get the Montreal and Toronto students to do some interviews.  It was great.

Now you might be wondering what in the world is the College Training.  It is a week long excursion into the depths of Ohio (really it's just Fairborn but "Fairborn, OH" sounds less dramatic than "the depths of Ohio")  where college students gather to enjoy the Lord.  This year the topic was on "A Man of God" which is a particular phrase in the New Testament to describe Timothy.  Why is such a phrase significant?  Well if you consider that Timothy was a young person between the ages 16-25 years old, it is quite impressive that Paul the Apostle would call him a man of God.  A man of God is one who partakes of God's life and thus being one with God in His life and nature and thereby expressing him.  Sounds impressive no?  Well this was Timothy.  I find it rather encouraging that someone so young would be called a man of God which means there is hope for the rest of us!  Did you know that in the Old Testament only five people were referred to as men of God?  They were Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, and David.  In the New Testament only one person was called a man of God, Timothy.  So...don't you want to be a man of God?!

Now of course your next question would be how do you become a man of God...well young grasshopper there are some basic qualifications of a man of God and those are: (1) an exercised spirit (2) a good conscience (3) a pure heart (4) an unfeigned faith (5) a proper humanity.

So starting out with (1) an exercised spirit, first things first do you know that you have human spirit?  If not then you must read 1 Thessalonians 5:23, "And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."  There you go, now you know that you have a human spirit.  So what must you with you spirit?  Well you know with your body you can use it to move around which you can categorize as exercise and with your soul (or in other words your psychology...your mind, emotion, will) you also use that everyday which can also be categorized as exercising it right?  Therefore one concludes that your spirit should also be exercised in some way.  So in John 4:24 it says, "God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness," which shows you why you need to use your spirit, but how do you actually use your spirit?  Well a few ways are to call on the name of the Lord (O Lord Jesus!), pray at all times and in every place, hold a good conscience (meaning there are no offenses between you and God as well as between you and man), and fan into flame the indwelling gift of God (meaning don't put it out).  What does this all result in?  Exercising your spirit will result in you living a life of godliness, which is the a living that is the expression of God.  Timothy was charged to live this way by Paul, "exercise yourself unto godliness" in 1 Timothy 4:7 so the same charge is being spoken to us today.  Exercise yourself unto godliness by exercising your spirit to live Christ in your daily life.  All it takes to start off is just by calling on the name of the Lord wherever you are and in whatever you are doing.

Now what does it mean to have (2) a good conscience?  First of all what is the conscience and what does it do?  The conscience is one of the functions of your spirit that enables man to differentiate between right and wrong, to know what God justifies and what He condemns and to represent God in ruling over us.  God comes to us by touching our conscience as I'm sure many of you have experienced because it is the leading part of our spirit.  So how do you obtain a good conscience and not only that but a pure conscience?  A good conscience is one that is without offense and a pure conscience is one that is without any mixture.  Should your conscience be tainted with offense either between you and God or between you and man then the only way to take care of it is by confessing the offense and being cleansed by the blood of the Lord.  If we confess then the Lord is faithful and righteousness to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).  Don't forget to take care of any offense you have with people!  Otherwise your conscience still won't be without offense.  With all that taken care of, you are able to have open communication, open fellowship with the Lord and people without any sort of barrier.  This is the way to keep a good conscience and a pure conscience.  All this will result in your growth in the divine life, a maintained fellowship with God and with other believers, and will safeguard your Christians faith and life.

END!  Well for now anyway...I'll finish up later.

Simply Katherine: a Christian on campus: Christians on Campus (Part 5)

Simply Katherine: a Christian on campus: Christians on Campus (Part 5): "Continuing from my recent post in the Christians on Campus series, so my mom and grandma went to Austin with me. I came about a month earl..."