Thoughts on Retiring.

You ever wonder what it would take to be truly happy?

In my mind, this can only go one of three ways:

1)Yes.
2)No.
3)Only on the weekends.

Addendum: "Ask me in five minutes".

Yet I wonder, should it 'take' anything to make us happy? Truly? Should it occur naturally, or do we create our own happiness? Is our ultimate glee wrapped up in a force beyond our control or is it consumed by what's going on on the inside?

I have a friend in my life right now that believes heavily in the force of karma. This person and I have had many a conversation about this. I think that everything happens for a reason and that their ultimate happiness is wrapped up in its positive return.

This friend believes one must do good. I agree fully, I say. But how can doing something simply because they feel it will make them a better person not simply translate into selfishness?

I have a few people in my life like this. They believe they can get to the end of their life on "good behavior" and then let it be it. No life after, no continuation. No fellowship.

Fellowship and friendship is the way we know there is a God. To what good end would having friends and family and then to be somehow nothing or separated from these people after our death?

I want to know that at the end of my life, that I will see people like my Grandpa Cummings and my Uncle Doug.

Not some black nothing and a fake gold Rolex.

The world is small.

Many of my friends who are in missions full-time or were at some point will agree with this statement:

Missions makes the world smaller.

Obviously it doesn't make the world physically smaller. Come on. Christians would pretty much have a corner on physics if this were true.

I'm talking about how the distance between people is so infinitesimally critical when you are a missionary. Even having been apart from missions for over a year, I still manage to run into people with whom we have a mutual friend, family-member, or person who taught in a school we were in.

Take this person for example:



My fellow Salem Winter DTSers know this person. SHE WAS IN MY HOUSE TONIGHT!!!! She's marrying a good friend of my brothers. My family has been good friends with his family for about 10 years now and we know them primarily through YWAM.

I got to talk to her about what's happened in the time since we last saw each other, what she and her soon-to-be husband are planning on doing, and what's become of the other people that our DTS worked with while in Kampong Cham, Cambodia.

It's true, missions does make the world smaller. Just do a DTS, wait some inordinate amount of time. You will run into someone you met after being separated by distance and time.

Just watch.

A Short Dissertation on Returning Home

This is an act so seemingly innocuous as to often be taken with a certain amount of anxiety. Call it experience or smart planning, I have been known to arrive back home from some time overseas and get the old stone-faced, disinterested look. Those who have spent time for extended periods of time and weren't parching the hell out of their skin will attest to this: People simply do not care what 'God does in your life".

A generalization you might say. Whether or not this statement is universally true, I have discovered that people's interest in vicarious missions is somewhere around a marginal 1%.

So with that said, I am reluctant to return home and face all my friends, family and co-workers.

I spent a few hours walking around the YWAM Bangkok base, reflecting on my time over the last two months. What I came out with was a looming feeling of depression. It seemed to arise from thoughts of leaving. Leaving something behind that you have invested in; actually invested in. This is something completely new to me.

Yeah, I went to college, graduated. Haven't seen a payoff from that yet. This DTS has exposed me in the error of my ways and shown me how incredibly self-centered and materially driven the majority of America is. This caused everyone on our team to turn towards the people and give the only thing we knew how to give --- love.

So back to the walk.

I realized as I was walking through the night market, with impressive force, that I was going to have a BIG decision to make. The decision that I've heard countless people who have spent time on a DTS or even in short term missions voice. The slow, calculated choice to stagnate, rot and die (spiritually) or respond to the knowledge to which you have been exposed. One of our speakers during the 5th week of my lecture phase said "Man is responsible to the amount of light that he knows".

If an unsaved person suddenly realizes his need for God and does not do something about it; he is, in a sense, sinning against himself and God. His lack of a relationship with Christ is evidence of this anyways; but this is a completely different subject matter for a different blog.

So much like the unsaved man, my responsibility lies in what I know.

The proof of the pudding will be in the tasting, as they say.