A is for Angels

Angels we have heard on high.

Angels in the Outfield

Touched by an Angel

Amanda.

All examples of angels in today’s society.

But what does that really mean for us?

We look for angels in all areas of our lives. Statuettes of angels crowd every corner of people’s homes. We talk about our guardian angel. We imagine our dead grandpa to be our guardian angel. We picture heaven and it’s filled with angels of every shape, size, gender and nationality playing their harps and drifting on their own personal cumulous.

Where are we getting this from?

When did this... 

...become this?

I would hope that my guardian angel would look more like Michael than a 12 year old teeny bopper.

Let’s first look at what an angel is. (If I were in a classroom this is where I would pull down one of those screen things and have a pointer)

So an angel is a part of God’s creation. They were created by God for a specific purpose. Believe it or not that purpose is not to help a rag tag baseball team. But we’ll get into that. As part of God’s creation they are beneath God. They aren’t meant to be praised. They aren’t God. They are made, not begotten.

Not only are they a part of creation, but they have been for a really long time. They are something that we are compared to but not something that we become. Just like there will never be another Amanda, the angels that we have are the angels that will be.

I already broke your heart by telling you that the main purpose of angels is not for the purposes of making baseball interesting (far too impossible) so why are they here?

Our guardian angel is a real thing. To what extent I couldn’t tell you but I’m sure I need 2 or 3. They’re present as messengers, as guards and even as warriors. Again I don’t think that puny girl up there is going to do much good against an army full of trained warriors.

God created angels with a purpose. He created them to guard, to guide, to be messengers, to be warriors. He did not create them as robots. As we see in several different records in scripture one of the angels took his responsibility as a perfect creation of God to a place that ultimately caused his downfall. The angel that you and I know as Lucifer was one that was created for a great purpose. He was in the upper shallot and was incredibly wise, incredibly beautiful and incredibly aware of his greatness. It was this awareness, this pride in what God had given him that caused him to believe himself to be like God, to be equal to God. This awareness awoke a desire to be greater than God and the slippery slope of free will descended into that of greed and pride; sin at its worst. This descent included several other angels and created Satan and his demons as we know it today.

God’s creation of angels is one that goes far beyond our understanding. It is unfair to place them as we have; as puny 12 year old girls playing harps, floating on clouds. They are capable of greatness, or even of the absolute forms of evil. They inhabit a role that is far beyond anything that we can properly understand.

And this, my friends, is the letter A.

What happened at VBS-Day 5

Thank you for your patience. We will now resume “What happened at VBS-Day 5: The Final Frontier”

Papa Lions has the best thinking face

Day 5 was filled with enthusiasm as we heard about Daniel’s miraculous salvation from the lion’s den. We heard about how we went from a hero sandwich to a plain old hero. Our theme of the day was that God is with you when you’re thankful. We can pray to God at all times, whether we’re happy or sad; whether we need something or we want to thank God for what we already have!

Babs and Papa Lions were there again to show us what magnificent gifts we have been given by God. Even though we don’t get to hang out with them every morning, well, I do, but that’s beside the point, we can be thankful that we were able to learn from each other. Thank you Babs and Papa Lions for showing us this week that God is with us always, and especially for showing us today that God gives us plenty to be thankful for!

Right before we started the hoop on fire

After meeting up with Babs and Papa Lions we made our way to the royal palace one last time to hear the finale of Daniel’s story. And it was a doozy! After being trapped in a pit with a pride of angry, hungry, sharp-toothed lions, Daniel made it out unscathed! Not even a lion scratch on his luxurious mane, I mean, face! God was with Daniel when he was in need of protection, and when Daniel rejoiced with the king, God was with them then as well!

In games the kids were able to experience for themselves what it is like to be a lion…in a manner of speaking. Have you ever been to the circus? Have you seen the craziness of the lion jumping through a hoop? And then they set the hoop on fire? Ya. We didn’t do that. But there was some pretty intense hula hoop people weaving. Basically the same!

What a gleeful expression on his face

Speaking of lions, of which we spoke a great deal, we made the most darling little lions in crafts today! Now answer me honestly what was your favourite commercial from the 90s? That’s right! The chia pet! We made our very own versions and they were just adorable. And by that I obviously mean ferocious! And about that whole idea of God being with us when we’re thankful…I’m thankful that all that soil and grass seed was confined to the craft area!

Already learning the hip jut

Music served as yet another reminder that God has given us a lot for which we should be thankful. Not only that, he has given us so many different ways to show him how much we are thankful! We can sing, we can dance, we can sign, we can play, we can craft, all of this is using what God has given to us and thanking him for his great mercy towards all of us!

At the end of this somewhat shortened day we had the chance to show our parents all that we had done this week! The kids were amazing as they sang out with all their might did the actions with amazing gusto and even performed “We bow down,” using American Sign Language. It was truly an amazing sight to see.

Best smile ever

As any good Lutheran knows, one simply cannot have a social gathering without a ton of food…and this was no exception! Thank you to everyone who came out and partook of this amazing adventure! We enjoyed spending time with the kids as we learned about Daniel and thoroughly explored his story but we were also really thankful that we had the opportunity to share what we had learned with our family and friends!

Papa Lions, reminding you that God is WITH YOU!

Thank you to everyone who helped to make this week such a huge success! Thank you also to everyone who came out and participated. I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone again next year and remember:

God is with who?

WITH YOU!!

What happened at VBS- Day 4

Well friends, today is going to be pretty short because we have been left hanging about what has been happening with our friend Daniel.

We learned that “When you are lonely, God is with you,” and Daniel was a very lonely fella today, and it appears that he wasn’t the only one.

The morning started off with Babs and Papa Lions and poor Babs was just so lonely, you know she doesn’t know many people here in Babylon! Papa Lions was pretty sure that Daniel had some similar issues when he was here too, but couldn’t quite remember all the details so we went to talk to Ash to find out more about this!

Turns out that Daniel was alone in a much scarier way than Babs was. Daniel was all alone in his worship of God…while everyone else was worshiping King Darius, Daniel was worshiping God, even though doing so was punishable by death! Ash told us that Daniel was punished for worshiping God by being thrown into the lions’ den to be eaten alive…and that was where the story ended! I sure hope that God can help poor Daniel!

In music the final touches were put on the song that we will be performing tomorrow. There are 4 songs that our groups have been working really hard to perfect. I gotta tell you, it sounds, and looks, pretty perfect to me!

Now what kind of VBS would we be running if we didn’t include a water games day? We broke out (and broke!) the old slip and slide and everybody had a grand old time getting soaked to the bone! I think that there may have been some damp children’s body prints on the back seats of their parent’s cars!

In crafts we were missing our regular craft lady extraordinaire and instead had to make do with a DPS who has more enthusiasm than crafting ability. In spite of this the children made some Babylawesome necklaces. We can wear these necklaces and be reminded that God is with us, even when we feel all alone!

So that was day 4! Tomorrow is sure to bring an awesome end to our exciting adventure! 

What Happened at VBS- Day 3

And now the hump day presents: What happened at VBS- Day 3!!

That’s right friends, we’re halfway there. Woah-oh, we’re living on a prayer.

Day 3 was awesome. We veered slightly away from Daniel to learn about his friends Shoe-rack, Meat-shack and A-bed-I-go, or as you may know them: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Let me tell you, they have quite the sizzling story. Get it? Cuz they were in the fiery furnace? It’s a good thing there’s an r in furnace, there’s nothing fun about burning.

Our theme for today was “When you’re afraid, God is with you.” Sometimes we have big fears, sometimes we have small fears, but either way, God is with us.

Babs has a fear of bees. Oh boy, if you could have seen her running around like a fool when she thought she saw a bee. She was so afraid! Papa Lions told her that even though she does get scared sometimes, God is always with her, God can use her times of fear to make her stronger, and He promises to do that for everyone!

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had a fear of being burned in the furnace. They were afraid to stand up for their beliefs, but they did and God protected them. He even send an angel to be with them so that they would be safe. It’s quite an amazing tale!

Ashpenaz keeps getting confused about this, “only one God,” thing. Luckily these kids are very good at letting him know that we only believe in one God.

Speaking of being afraid, I had a big time fear walking into crafts today. There was sand everywhere! It’s amazing how one little grain of sand seems like no big deal, but when they all gather together it’s all of a sudden a huge mess! This can happen with our fears too. When we are afraid or nervous about one thing, it doesn’t really seem like a big deal, but when there are a lot of fears, it’s more than we can handle! Putting the sand on the box reminded us that God takes our fears and turns them into something good.

The music continues to be sooooo awesome! These kids are pretty much music pros. Admittedly, I didn’t get to spend as much time actually IN the music station, but I could hear them all the way from my office and it was really something. However, there are no teasers here…you’ll have to come on Friday to actually hear them sing!

And FINALLY we broke out the parachute! It was possibly the windiest day ever, so the parachute was a little crazy, but boy oh boy did those kids make it work! While the leaders couldn’t only produce a lame looking mushroom, the kids created one of the most elaborate games of cat and mouse…talk about your being afraid!

If the first half is any indication, this week is going to end off being amazing! We have had so much fun and everyone here is just amazing! It’s great to know that God is with YOU!!!!

What Happened at VBS- Day 2

And now for our second installment of, “What happened at VBS?”

So after working out the kinks of yesterday we moved on to even more excitement today! Today’s theme was “When you need help, God is with you.” We met up again with Babs and Papa Lions and you gotta feel bad for poor Babs. She’s a gardener who is having a lot of trouble telling poison ivy from a dandelion. Luckily, there was a dandy lion there to remind her that God helps us with all of our problems, big or small, he helps us all!

Ash didn’t feed us any delicious treats today, but he did feed our spiritual needs. He shared with us the story of Daniel and how he was able to do amazing things with God’s help. When King Nebuchadnezzar demanded the impossible, Daniel prayed to God and God helped him to both know and understand Nebuchadnezzar’s dream…ultimately saving Daniel’s life!

Daniel wasn’t the only one who was courageous today…our craft helpers showed a lot of bravery as they broke out the paints, both watercolor and finger, and helped us to make some amazing dream journals. Hopefully the dreams we record aren’t as upsetting as Nebuchadnezzar’s!

Today we were very thankful to have Judy and Norm come in and teach us sign language too! Music time is more than just singing with our voices, it is using our whole selves to give praise to God!

Here in Babylon we don’t like to do things the way people expect. Games today turned into an impromptu spelling test. See if you can tell what our youngest crew is spelling out!

As always, we leave VBS reminded that God is there for us, no matter what! Thank you God for an amazing day and we’re all looking forward to what tomorrow brings!

What Happened at VBS-Day 1

Here’s a new segment in our blog called, “What happened at VBS?”

For those of you who were unfortunate enough to not be involved with the transformation to Babylon you can keep up with all of the shenanigans that we have seen.

Before you start viewing I need to warn you that the activities that you are about to view are incredibly adorable and you may not be awesome enough to handle it. If you are, please feel free to continue!

Our theme for the day was “When things change, God is with you.” No matter how big or small the change, God is always there! There were a lot of people and activities that helped us understand what that really means!

We met Babs A Lawn and Papa Lions, two incredibly awesome characters who are here to guide us through our Babylonian adventure. Babs is a confused gardener and Papa Lions is a reformed man eater and totally tubular surfer bro who is here to tell the story of Belteshezzar, or as you Westerners might call him Daniel.

Ashpenaz helped us to learn more about what it would have been like to be Daniel as he was taken away from his family, friends and the only life that he had ever known. The kids were not very impressed when their names were changed and they had to go through the rest of the day as Nabo or Hehasaseat. The haddaz with the kazzap were pretty delicious though, poor Daniel and his bag of carrots!

We also created a sc-roller that helped us change a boring piece of paper into a brand new message. It reminded us of the changes that Daniel went through in his life and also the awesome change that we go through when we are brought into God’s family.

Speaking of awesome, how good was that music? I know that I sure saw a whole lot of dancing, some enthusiastic singing and even learned a little sign language! The actions and signs are really helpful for a tone-deaf gardener!

And a day of VBS wouldn’t be complete without some crazy running around time at games! Our young Babylonians recreated the hanging gardens beautifully with their chalk interpretations, and there were many smiles and giggles all around! Our older Babylonians had a little too much fun with a rolled up newspaper and a whole menagerie of animals. Bet you wish you were there to see that!

 All in all it was a pretty eventful day here in the Lion Den, I can only imagine the shenanigans that will unfold tomorrow!

Refresh America…err…Canada

So a while ago, apparently 2 years ago from what the ever knowledgeable Wikipedia says there was a certain initiative started up by Pepsi called the Pepsi Refresh Project. Now the thought behind this was to provide an opportunity for entrepreneurs to wow us with their amazing ideas about how they would have a positive impact on the world around them.

It all seems like a really great idea until you stop to think about the whole reason behind this project…what are we trying to refresh?

If you’re working on the Internet and your page stops loading, you’ll refresh it and reload the same information.

If you see something that’s out of the ordinary, you’ll find that refreshing.

If you’re thirsty, a cold glass of water can leave you feeling refreshed.

How does this multifaceted term fit into our everyday life?

The way that I would like to focus on refresh is most like the idea expressed in refreshing a webpage; the idea that you are returning to the original state.

With the Pepsi Refresh Project, that ended up being the predominant theme in the majority of the contributions. The winners all desired to make an impact by highlighting negative changes in their environment and focusing on fixing these changes. The decrease in fine arts education plays a prominent role, as does environmental damage and the role that we should have in repairing this loss in our society. In the Pepsi Refresh Project that becomes the main theme; refreshing as repairing.

Now, of course, you could choose any project you want as this has become a major theme in several different facets of life, I chose this one primarily because of the focus on the idea of refresh.

As Christians, this isn’t necessarily a word that is used in our vernacular. We have the idea, but we use words like restore or sanctify and veer away from the common term that we use everyday.

We recognize that there is a great deal of imperfection in the world and that the world we live in now is far different from the perfection described in the Garden of Eden. We recognize this and we would like it to be different, but how do we refresh this world?

Unfortunately, the Pepsi project won’t cut it. Even as they are attempting to do good, they are doing so for selfish reasons; to promote their city; to fund this idea that they think would be fun; even to promote themselves.

When we think about being refreshed as a Christian it comes from a far less self serving ambition. And by far less I mean, not at all.

Take a second and turn (or click) to Matthew 11:28-30. I’m sure it sounds crazy familiar to you and that is just swell.

Let’s look at this and place ourselves in the situation.

Half of us reading this really don’t know what a yoke is other than from reading through the bible and hearing our grandparents talk about it. So I’m going to steal a little bit from Max Lucado and use the imagery of luggage. Now some of you are probably really good packers and you can fit a week’s worth of stuff into one carry-on sized suitcase. I can’t. I pack for every eventuality, I pack things that I never use at home, but might need while I’m away. I have three different outfit choices for each day and enough hair products to ensure that if I ever happen to wear my hair down it will be covered in gels and sprays.

I never use half of what I pack.

I bring a lot of stuff along because I feel like I should. All it ends up doing is weighing me down, causing me grief and exhausting me. When someone offers to carry my suitcase for me I am both relieved and embarrassed. Relieved because it’s so heavy that it comes as a welcome relief and embarrassed because I don’t want someone else to take on all of the decisions that I made that caused this suitcase to be so heavy.

This is how I imagine the yoke to be. It’s all of those bad decisions, all of those worries and concerns that we’ve packed in. Not only do we carry these worries upon us but they seem to grow and it’s more like the suitcase at the end of the trip where all the stuff you brought, plus the stuff you bought is all crammed in and it is way too heavy. But still not so heavy that you want to give it up.

This is when we are refreshed. When we are at our most stressed, when we’ve piled so much upon ourselves that we can barely move forward. We are refreshed not because we want to be but because we need to be. It comes after we have yelled and screamed and kicked up a fuss. We try to avoid giving up everything that we’ve worked so hard to accumulate, even though it is slowing us down and making everything more difficult. We don’t want to hit that refresh button, and really we don’t. It takes God coming to refresh us to realize how badly we needed to be returned to original state, how badly we needed our luggage taken from us. We will fight and declare that we don’t need to be refreshed but when we take that light load and give up the heaviness that we have been carrying, it becomes even more evident how badly we have been struggling and how much we really do need to be refreshed and return to the original state that only Christ can offer.