God is the Centre

I’d like to share with you a fairly well-known story in the Bible. This is a story of a couple who inspires me to build character and authenticity. In the Old Testament, there is a love story that plays itself out in the book of Ruth, Chapter 2 and 3. Ruth joins her mother-in-law, Naomi, on the trek back to her hometown. The two women are both widows. They are both poor, so what poor people did at that time was gather left-over sheaves of wheat behind the servants harvesting a field. Ruth goes out to gather wheat for herself and Naomi.

Keep in mind that Ruth doesn’t have to be doing this for her aging mother-in-law. She could have left Naomi (like her sister-in-law did), and she could have gone to her own hometown, gotten remarried and have been reasonably comfortable. No one would have had a problem with that, or held it against her for it. In fact, Naomi had encouraged her to do just that, instead of wasting her youthfulness and opportunity to remarry on an aging woman. If you were a woman in that time and culture, you would probably want to get a husband asap. That was your provision, and identity to some extent.

The field that Ruth goes to gather wheat from belongs to Boaz, who shows great kindness and generosity to her and Naomi. Boaz is quite aware of the character that Ruth has; to care so lovingly for her mother-in-law. News has spread in the area about what kind of woman Ruth is. Boaz is a man of good character and is also known for it throughout the community. The long and the short of it is that Ruth and Boaz get married.

Now what’s interesting is how quickly we connect to the ‘happily ever afters’ in love stories. It’s a very attractive thing to build a stable relationship. What may be overlooked is how Ruth and Boaz built their blossoming relationship. Some of the best advice I’ve gotten when it comes to marriage is that ‘marriage is a three-part thing: you, your spouse, and God. The more you make God the center of your marriage, the closer you draw to one another’. For Boaz and Ruth, it became very natural to make God the center of their marriage; because, individually, God was already the center of their lives.  They didn’t just engage in their relationship with God when they met each other.They already had their lives very much centered around God long before an attractive significant other came along.

So in a culture where there is so much emphasis on the perfect relationship, we remember that we already have access to the perfect Person. God is that perfect person, and he wants to be everything to us. Whether one ends up getting married or not, God will be one’s life fulfillment. God is identity. God is all. Marriage is simply an avenue to show God’s love to others and grow character. Ruth and Boaz convince me that character development through a relationship with God is worth its weight in gold.

It’s interesting that they both Boaz and Ruth more or less shared the following characteristics:

-They were invested in their relationship with God prior to meeting one another

-Their character was shaped by their relationship with God

-Their character shaped them to be generous and loving to those around them

-they served and loved without fear of it appearing unglamorous

-they were not slow to give and to help; they helped almost out of reflex

Now, I’d like to introduce you to just a few of the many friends that God has gifted me with at Trinity Western University. It’s been such a blessing to be around people who are invested in their relationship with God. It’s a very life-giving thing. Since I’ve started my time at university, I’ve come to the realization that I have so many friends in my life; in and out of school. If you’re reading this, you probably are one of those friends! So thank you for reading. The following photogenic friends are Jen, Dan, and Olivia (thanks guys for letting me take photos of you, it was a lot of fun!).

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Modes of Connection

Today in Chapel, Bruxy Cavey gave an example (I don’t think it’s a real life example) of a couple who was rather busy with jobs and kids, and their relationship had been neglected. At one point the wife tells her husband of how she needs the fire back in their relationship; she needs to be wooed again. Now he decides to surprise her with a romantic dinner to a restaurant, with certain key highlights to the evening. That week, their relationship is going really well. Now the husband thinks that he’s found the secret to their relationship, and continues a nearly exact routine every week of that romantic dinner for a year. The whole time he thinks that he has been doing it for his wife, and making it about her. If you could honestly talk to her though, she’d probably say that her husband had good intentions, and maybe it was about loving her initially. But now it’s become about the routine for him, and he lost track of her, and there’s distance between them. Bruxy Cavey connected how we tend to try to connect to God based on routines that worked in the past, to the extent that we fall in love with the way it the mode through which we’ve become closer to God.

I think that’s been a big thing for me lately: falling in love with the ways of intimacy rather than loving God and the people around me for who they are. With my friends, I thoroughly enjoy sharing a deep conversations. Sometimes I think I’m a consumerist for deep talks about the very meaningful components in our lives. I just get so much out of the experience. It’s a very bonding thing for me with other people. With God, sometimes keeping a journal, praying, listening to a certain song, epiphanies I get from Bible reading, all those things I sometimes enjoy the feeling they give more than I enjoy God himself. That is a true tragedy. To get so close to everything being about God in my life, and then falling for the pleasure of the way in which he has blessed me in the past. All these things are simply tools to spend time with him, because he is what matters. Don’t enjoy and fall in love with the feeling of being at the restaurant more than you enjoy  and fall in love with your date, whom you enjoy the evening with.

And now, for a few photos of Morgan from earlier this month: 

A Better kind of Different

It’s like beginning a letter to a friend you haven’t spoken in a while; writing on this blog. I have to say that these past few weeks have been busy. I started university, and I have to say that it is amazing!! I’m meeting so many wonderful new people, as well as getting to know people I already knew a little bit better. This stage in life brings so many joys in it and I feel so blessed to be where I am at in life. It’s been been a change in schedule for sure. Regretfully, there are moments I forget the extreme privileges I have in my life; and that God has a purpose for all these blessings. Maybe a good portion of life should not be spent so much on what I want, but rather to remember the beauty of all the things that God has put in my life. The truth of the matter is that I won’t be able to appreciate whatever I hope for my future if I don’t learn to be ever-present in the now.

For every new stage of life I move into, it’s important to remember that I’m moving away from a time and a circumstance that was, at one time, new. I’m moving from an old change to a new one, with it’s own set of new things to learn. I think those changes that we go through in life are always beautiful whenever we’re strong in our relationship with God. In that way, I think every new difference is a better kind of different, when we’re journeying closely with God.

With the blessing of university comes busyness, as well as some reconsiderations for what I should be devoting my time to, and what areas God is wanting me to grow in. One thing that I’m struggling with is what role photography has in my life. On the one hand, I feel that God has called me to university, but on the other, I don’t think he wants me to completely drop photography. I guess it’s just figuring out what shape it takes in my life. But it becomes difficult to justify purchasing new photography equipment if I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with the skill. Saying all this makes me sound like a musician stepping away from their music career or something. I don’t think that’s the case, so you don’t need to take it that way.

Now, let’s move onto the photos, which I know some of you have been waiting for you patiently. Let me introduce you to a very good friend of mine. Her name is Colbi, and she is amazing. She’s just finishing school for doing movie make-up. So I hope to one day do a movie marathon of all the films that she will have done the make-up in. And then she can give me a commentary on the process.  I took these photos back in July… so if it looks pretty warm and sunny, you know why. Ladies and Gentlemen, enjoy!