I am EXCITED to announce that I will be attending R-a-d-¡-u-s International training in AUGUST 2024!
Thank you to all who have been asking about my future plans! Since graduating college in September, I’ve been working with my local Body to prepare to Go, and working to save as much as possible for the upcoming training!!
the next three steps to become a cross-cultural good-news worker are:
- training for one year
- accepting partnerships with you to reach the unreached (one-two years)
- working overseas to see His orphans become sons & daughters
After prayer and elders’ consideration, I am attending R-a-d-¡-u-s training this fall. Thank you all for your prayers and friendship on the journey.
Because my work is highly sensitive, I cannot go into details about my future here. Instead, I would love to get dinner. Then we can both share what HE is up to!
In order to be able to go to R-a-d-¡-u-s training and beyond to reach the unreached, I am seeking people to partner with me materially for the upcoming year.
If you are interested in getting together and learning more about partnership, would you simply reply to this email? Or text me at 262-765-2403.
I would love to connect with you and leave you with a clear picture of the long road ahead.
Praise HIM for:
- the eager disciples He has brought me
- a decent daytime job until August
- the elders/brothers at my local Body I am learning so much from
Please ask Him for:
- wisdom on beginning to need financial support
- please join me in asking Him for the full amount I need for training:
o $17,000 for one whole year of tuition/grocery/insurance expenses.
- wisdom with how I use my calendar in the short months until August
- Brothers who can rise up to take my place in current ministry roles
New Website
P.S. I finalize my tax-deductible status sometime this month. Then I will have a giving link. In the meantime, here is my new website:
Still finishing college and working in order to get overseas to lost people. In the meantime, be encouraged from my short journal today:
Tuesday, 02/07/2023
I usually desire the relief of knowing I’m treating myself more than the actual treat.
One of the last scenes of When Harry Met Sally nails it: Harry, all alone in a park, one bite into a fresh ice cream cone, he looks around, pauses, grimaces, reluctantly drops it in the trash as he walks out of the frame. We see Harry’s face, and we know ice cream had nothing to do with what Harry really wants. Then it dawns on him, he runs to her (in New Balances, I’m pretty sure), the movie ends.
Lord, such it is with everything but you.
Everything else is the ice cream cone that makes us realize… walking through a park alone on New Year’s Eve is not what we want!
God, you made us with desires… and in your image! How many times do we have to take a single bite of something else just to realize… it was really you all along!
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I hope you’ve enjoyed peace and quiet in your inbox since August 29th, the last time I posted. Time to ruin the fun.
I’m writing because I’ve been moved since my trip to pray, to pray specifically, and to surrender even the best ambitions to Him, trusting that He will provide. Not that He will provide for my goals or plans, but that He will guide me to where HE wants me to be and will provide for THAT.
I know that He wants me to be overseas, but not until I finish college (April 2023) and missionary training. So until then, let’s pray.
God has been pinning me to the mat of life every day until I surrender. He has made me realize that I’m not doing this alone, because, I’m not even the One doing it. HE is making it happen and HE has promised to build His Church.
I want to form a team where we can live out this reality.
By making our requests known to each other through even a short text, we are trading a piece of our own self-sufficiency for God’s sufficiency. He owns the cattle on 1000 hills. I don’t even own a dog. I think His sufficiency for mine is a good trade.
I want YOUR input on which stepping stones my path should touch as a young man who wants to live out the Great Commission:
who’s training should I go to?
who’s taking the best long-term approach in the 1040 window right now?
does taking this route or that route look more like Jesus?
Who should be more accountable for me as a gospel-worker, my church or the mission board?
⚠️ IMPORTANTLY⚠️, I don’t just want your prayer requests either, I need them. Your prayer requests give me the opportunity to STOP prioritizing only my needs, and to bear your burdens before a generous Father. Imagine if I only ever sympathized with my needs and wants. I would be a complete me-monster.
I want this group to be challenged to:
intercede for each other
and
think critically about the obstacles facing Great Commission obedience in the 21st century
if you want to do either of those two things, join here
or just reply to this email that you’re interested.
or use this QR code:
Since my time in South Asia:
My younger sibling, B, has gotten married
I returned to full time work and business college
I’ve applied to go to a year of missionary training: I am praying for guidance on which year (fall 2023 or 2024) to go.
Yahweh provided a more stable, full time job while I’m in school
I’m looking forward to welcoming my future step-mom into our family and our family’s purpose
God has been providing some of the sweetest believers that have become like aunts and uncles to me. Getting dinner with people from my local church (and others!) has been a huge highlight of my year.
Again, a huge thank you to all who were involved in my trip to SA this summer. If you missed a recap of my trip, email me and I’d love to send you some pictures or get dinner with you! I can’t wait to be back overseas, and for the majority of my years left. Until then, God has me here in dairyland, and that’s okay too. Go Bucks.
Here’s my favorite video of the week if you like encouraging words:
Thanks for reading and praying,
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Today we’re continuing the story of Yahweh’s offspring persisting over the offspring of the serpent. In the last post, we saw that when humanity chose corruption, God implemented the consequence (death), but still chose one man and his family to carry on His original purpose. This happened with Adam, then Noah, and finally Abraham. With Abraham’s story though, the picture transforms from old antenna TV to an IMAX-theater experience: we get a lot more details.
Abraham’s story is the foundation for the rest of the Bible, and it’s confusing.
Abe’s nephew Lot sleeps with his daughters, Abram pretends his wife is his sister, twice, because she’s so beautiful he fears for his life, but despite being beautiful, she’s also too old to have children. A crowd collectively tries to rape Lot’s visitors, who are Yahweh. God turns a woman into salt and asks our main character to kill his own son.
……What?
Genesis is trying to tell a story about offspring. In an earlier post I wrote:
Adam and Eve have descendants until humanity is so evil that God wipes them all out in a flood. What was happening there? Genesis 6:1-8 describes evil spirit beings bearing children with people: literal families of the serpent.
“And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.” - Genesis 6:12
So humanity was continuing to choose Corruption, and in doing so they had identified with the serpent. Physical and spiritual Corruption were happening here. God didn’t want any more babies of the serpent’s lineage. You probably wouldn’t either……
Go On, Git
Abraham’s story starts with a bang. God shows up for the first time since the Tower of Babel incident, which Abraham’s still-alive great x8 grandfather Shem lived through1, and God’s like, “It’s your lucky day. But get out of your hometown.”
God promises Abram land, blessing, and a ton of offspring. If you read this alongside Genesis 3+6, you can see that God is now, again, going to set apart His offspring through one man and his family. But this time is a bit different. God had never promised to make anyone into a “big nation” before.
The same Corruption from Genesis 6:12 returns, and Abram is not unaffected by it: the culture in Egypt causes Abram to fear for his life, and give his wife to Pharaoh.
Abram rescues his nephew Lot when the city Sodom gets taken captive, and refuses to take any of the spoils of Sodom, crediting Yahweh with his success instead, and avoiding any potential disputes. Yahweh comforts Abram with promises of deliverance and big wages, but Abram’s not having it: “Lord, Yahweh, what will you give me, when I’m going to die childless…?”. Yahweh tells Abram to count the stars, because that’s how uncountable his offspring will be.
The One-Sided Promise
He makes a pact with Abram, which Abram doesn’t get to “sign” because he falls into a coma2. So God signs the pact by himself. This means that God’s promise of land, blessing, offspring will happen regardless of Abram. By signing the pact alone,
Yahweh is indicating that the promise to bless all kin-groups of the earth will be accomplished by Himself.
God’s offspring will be fruitful and multiply, enjoying Yahweh’s blessing. Now, if Yahweh promises that all the kin-groups of the earth will be enjoying His blessing, what does that mean for the kin-groups that are opposed, being devoted to the same Corruption from Genesis 6?
It means they must be wiped out. The serpent’s offspring, opposed to Yahweh’s, will not be enjoying the blessing.
So is genocide ok when God does it? I mean, I’m getting ahead of myself, but why did some groups need to be wiped out?
Genesis 12 states God’s desire that “by [Abraham], all the kin-groups of the earth will bless themselves by [Abraham].”
God desires every family, every culture, to know him. To be included in the promise. Genesis 12 is a hint at a glorious eternal future where every kin-group on the earth belongs to God. But a kin-group that refuses to become offspring of Yahweh, having offspring instead with demonic forces, they have destined themselves for destruction.
Speaking of Destruction, Exhibit A
We see this Corruption in Genesis 19 when all the people of Lot’s town are desperate to rape Lot’s two visitors (who were Yahweh). Yahweh accordingly burns those cities with fire. Abraham pleads with God “not to put to death the faithful with the faithless”. And so, Lot is rescued from Sodom.
But Lot’s family can’t leave Corruption behind. Lot’s wife dies longing for Sodom, and his two daughters sleep with him. That incest creates two sets of offspring who would worship other gods and rival Yahweh’s “big nation” for the rest of the Bible. Enmity between the serpent’s offspring and Yahweh’s. Rinse and repeat.
God cares for those outside the promise
Abram charges ahead and has a son, Ishmael, by Sarai’s servant girl, listening to Sarai’s advice. This causes major tension in the house, and the servant flees.
Yahweh has grace with Abraham and the servant girl in this way: even though the promise wasn’t going to come through the servant girl, He comforts the servant girl and makes an additional promise that her lineage will be great. He reassures Abram [name meaning father] and Sarai, by clarifying his promise and renaming them Abraham [ancestor of a great multitude] and Sarah [‘Princess’]. He clarifies that their pact will be permanent (Yahweh guarantees it) , and institutes circumcision as a covenant boundary.
He also THENclarifies that the covenant, the promise, will come through only Abraham and Sarah. Clearly God didn’t prevent Ishmael from being brought into the world. Why?
God cares for the servant girl and Ishmael. Ishmael becomes a great people, who were certainly still capable of saving faith in Yahweh. Even though he himself would not carry the promise, Ishmael’s line becomes another kin-group that was still eligible to “bless themselves by [Abraham]” like in Genesis 12. Later, Ishmael and Isaac actually bury Abraham together as equally Abraham’s sons.
A Reprehensible Test
Abraham’s story reaches a climax in chapter 22, where everything God has promised is tested. The decades of waiting, all the confusing chapters of Genesis and Abraham’s life come to focus on one moment. God asks Abraham to kill and burn the son of the promise as an offering. It’s important to note that this is at the end of Abraham’s life. He has seen Yahweh rescue him and bless him for trusting in Yahweh, and so he thinks, “God will see for himself to the sheep for the burnt offering…”.
Yahweh does exactly that, just as Abraham is about to slit Isaac’s throat. Yahweh is also tested: He demonstrates His provision for the promise, that He will guarantee it, just as he guaranteed his covenant with Abraham. Abraham is able to see Yahweh providing a substitution, in order that the promise of land, blessing, and a great nation may continue through Isaac.
Chapter 23 and 24 of Genesis conclude Abraham’s life, as Sarah passes away, Abraham negotiates for land that God will give his descendants, and Yahweh provides a wife for Isaac, that the promise, the offspring may continue.
So that’s the story. But why should you care?
You care because it reveals what God has always wanted: when all know him and fall under his blessing. The story reveals God’s faithfulness to that purpose, and it demonstrates that the Great Commission is not a nice passage about one of our moral duties as Christians, but the foundation of God’s character. The Great Commission is demonstrative of God’s desire for His people since Adam and Eve. Everything God does illustrates his desire that “none should perish, but that everyone should arrive at repentance.” (2 Peter 3).
Yahweh’s plan for all people persists despite the chaos of Genesis 3-24. Abraham trusted God and yet: Abraham’s father dies early, Abraham gives his wife to other men, Abraham’s wife gives him to another woman, Abraham goes to war against kings, and God prevents none of this. But God does guarantee that Abraham would be rewarded for his faith, and he guarantees that his plan will continue through the son of Abraham. So despite the chaos stirred up by mankind, Yahweh’s goals from Genesis 1 are continued.
If the God of Genesis is real,
how does that change your life?
Only you could know.
ICYMI: The Abrahamic Covenant
Land: there will be a nation with a specific land entity.
Blessing: descendants of the Abrahamic covenant will be a blessing to the earth
People: specifically all kin-groups on the earth will be blessed by it, one day.
Look at bullets 1 and 3. It seems as though a nation with a specific land entity would be incapable of blessing all kin-groups on the earth, unless they’re sending blessings in the mail. This is later fulfilled both in the specific borders given to Israel, and in our commission to take Christ to every person on the planet. Israel’s land served the purpose of bringing people into God’s glory, and our task is to bring God’s glory out to the rest of the earth, until one day when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14).
I don’t have a direct application of all this for you, because there isn’t one. Genesis isn’t a moral manual, it’s a movie showcasing God’s character. If the God of Genesis is real, then how does that change your life? Only you could know.
I think you get it by now. God wants all people to be his. He wants you to be involved. The rest of Genesis will be more of the same, with new details about God’s character each time. How is God considered just, across the bizarre pages of our Bibles? Next time we’ll read about Isaac and Jacob figuring it out.
Noah’s son Shem lived to be about 600 years old and actually outlived Abraham by about 35 years. (Genesis 11). This also means that all those living outside the Abrahamic covenant would’ve been able to know Yahweh, just like Noah was able to know Him. The Abrahamic covenant would separate Yahweh’s nation from all the other nations, as would the Law. But until the law, people were able to know Yahweh, as they had access to flood-survivors.
Some scholars think that Abram was drunk. I’m not sure, because my translation also says that “a great dark dread was falling on him” (Goldingay, 2018). I think God may have caused the coma, so that, when Yahweh signs it, the entire Abrahamic Covenant is dependent upon solely Yahweh.
Goldingay, J. (2018). The First Testament (1st ed.). Intervarsity Press.
Hey guys! Thanks to your SUPER generous support and prayers, I am going to Asia this summer! I still have just over $1,000 left to fundraise, to cover the costs of food and rent while I’m overseas, and many of you have asked how or where to give, so here it is:
[redacted]
I have bought tickets and am working with the locals to get a place to rent while I’m there. In the meantime, I am learning some useful words, finishing my semester (did I mention I was a full time student?) and working and saving for the trip. I’ve calculated that after my man-hours at work, I have just under 200 free hours until my flight departs. Please join me in using that 200 hours to pray, seek the Lord’s will, and mentally prepare for the trip to a foreign country. Pray that I would be fully supported, that we would both be encouraged, and that I can make the most out of this trip by learning everything I can.
Love all of you, please please please email me and let me know how I can be praying for you, too!
P.S. if you ever forget who the1040guy is, just email me and I’ll let you know! I know it can be a struggle to remember since I write so anonymously. This covers my identity!