Blessing is the lube of God working in the world. I used that phrase the other day and got funny looks from everyone, and of course it wasn’t assumed that I meant anything about car parts. So a better way to express it is that blessings are the middle man between God and what he is trying to do in the world.

If this is the case, it makes sense why God would bless Abraham to be a blessing. It makes sense why some of the people God blesses never really see for themselves the fulfillment of the blessing. It makes sense why being blessed comes with responsibility. It makes sense why blessing invokes a deeply interconnected set of events that carries from one to another. Blessings are when God moves and bestows his will on the world in which he created. These things can’t be contained within one individual but by their very nature get passed on.

Blessings are the middle man between us and God. It is through blessings that we hear him speak and see his will for the world. It is through blessings that we pass on that to others and the people around us. Blessing is its own sort of language; a language that speaks to our souls and something much deeper than our selfish desires. Blessings are how God keeps reminding me of the way it’s supposed to be and the way it can be if only I live in them and give them to others. It’s two parts that come together; speaking it and listening to it; reading and writing. You can’t say you know a language until you can read and write it, listen and speak it.

Those are just some thoughts I’ve been having about the idea of blessing in Genesis lately.

The word blessing comes up a lot in Genesis. Jacob spends his life wanting it, and then ends his life giving it. God sets up the whole book starting twelve chapters in on blessing nations, not to mention the blessing of creation before that. Everyone wants a piece of this blessing that God is giving out. This month at theStory we are spending it on the idea of blessing, because if its this central to the book, then we better have looked into it, or else we end up reading into everything else.

The church in today’s world has the tendency to misinterpret what blessing means. Entire denominations are started up based on the belief that God wants to bless us and shower on us his gifts and love so we are as comfortable and taken care of as possible. I just got a letter in the mail today from Peter Popoff telling me that God had a blessing in store for me (and told him so) and there was very little I had to do for it (the little being send him a few bucks). We have a very specific view of blessing, not to mention are views on curse, and they usually benefit us and make us feel all right.

Starting right from Genesis 12:1-3 the idea of blessing is very laid out for us to understand but unfortunately most of us stop reading when it says we get blessed and think that’s the end. We read “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you” and remind ourselves that God is on our side and he is blessing us (so easy for us in the West to say). We downplay the next few lines, the ones that tell us multiple times to be a blessing, and that we will be doing the blessing. The entire Bible hinges on these verses. These are the verses that call out Abraham, which whom Israel comes from which whom Jesus comes from. These aren’t to be taken lightly.

I’m starting to see the idea of blessing as something that can be done to me, but then to use a gaming term of sorts; needs to be activated. I can have a full bank account and lots of material possessions and some people would consider that being blessed. However, I don’t know if it is much of a blessing at all. The blessing is in the use of it what’s been given, not in receiving it. The verses in Genesis seem to hint that when Abraham gets blessed, he is now intrinsically tied into that blessing. When he is blessed, God blesses in return. All nations are blessed through his blessing. Blessings aren’t just a promise for Abraham, but they are a promise for everyone.

This is where I think the church could do some work on our ideas of blessing. Blessings are never individual gifts that someone receives. Blessings are a deeply connected set of events that multiply wherever they are passed on to and move from one person to another to another. It’s not a one time thing. It reproduces by itself. This is what God is up to in the world. He, being the only true source of blessing has started a chain reaction that is being passed all around the world. It is our job as followers of Christ to keep evolving the blessings that have already been started. Whatever comes our way we give away. Whatever blessing is given to us it is never for our own good but for those who we can give it to.

Maybe Jacob never really fully understood being blessed until he was finally (in the last chapter of Genesis) able to give blessings. Maybe Abraham’s blessing didn’t all happen when he was alive, but it was never about him anyway. It was about starting a new movement of good through him. Maybe what we think are blessing now is really just selfish hoarding and being blessed by God in actuality is when we bless others. Blessing maybe feel great to receive, but I’m starting to doubt if they are ever truly received until they are given away.

Sometimes I like to take a look at a situation and then split people up into two categories so I can understand them better. So like for instance, there are two kinds of people introverts and extroverts. The fact that I understand something like that gives me tons of insight into people’s lives that I interact with on a day to day basis. I do it almost daily in conversations, so much so I should probably start a new category just for my categories that I shove people into.

My new one that I’m starting to see is that there is two kinds of people. People who work so they can do what they want (ie. have money to travel) and then there are people who do what they want in work. If someone gets both well then props to them and we all envy their lives but for the most part I think that is a fair separation. I personally fall into the latter category. If I’m not enjoying myself at work well then I just don’t do it, and it is hard to find the motivation to do it. Where as Rachel (my wife) will work 40 hour work weeks at something she despises to be able to give her the freedom at other parts of her life later on. It’s been an interesting thing to discover together.

Now that I’m typing this, I’m realizing I have probably read the dichotomy before, in that you either live to work or work to live. So maybe my thoughts aren’t that revolutionary. I can’t tell you how freeing it is though to finally grasp these concepts for the first time and see how our human makeup has us all bringing different perspectives to the table. Where do you find yourself on this spectrum? How does someone who works to live decide when he’s worked enough to finally live? Where is the line or the balance? I don’t think I could live a single week of working to live, I have a hard time doing things that my heart isn’t in and it emotionally affects me. Maybe it’s because I can’t see beyond the forty hour weeks.

Through our study of Genesis at theStory, no story has stuck out to me like that of Jacob’s narrative. Maybe its because I don’t see a lot of redeemable qualities in his life. He’s a swindler and deceiver from the start and my heart always ends up going to Esau who seems like he was the more upright individual who was taken advantage of over and over again. Maybe its because I don’t see him caring a whole lot about other but instead is always trying to get stuff for himself and bring safety for himself. It’s hard to see a line of the people of God coming through a man like this.

Today we looked at when Jacob wrestles God/the man or angel and then he gets his name changed and his hip broken. We’ve sort of rested on the fact that his name changed shows his past and his hip sort of defines his future. One thing that we have not been able to come to grips with yet is why even thought Jacob’s name gets changed twice in Genesis, both times to Israel, no one ever acknowledges it. The narrator and other characters always continue to call him Jacob. Unlike the story of Abram and Sarai when their names get changed it happens immediately with no looking back. With Jacob though it seems to take five or so decades before he finally clues in that he is Israel and not Jacob.

So much of Genesis is about Jacob’s struggle to make God his God. We see in some verses how he calls God the God of his father and of Abraham, but it takes a while before he finally calls God his God. God tells him twice that his name has been changed but its not until the Genesis does he actually acknowledge it. The story of Jacob wrestling isn’t about this single scene of Jacob wrestling God and walking away with a blessing. Instead I see it more as it being a story that defines Jacob as a character; his desire to be blessed, his inclination to be wrestling with God’s way of doing things and then in the end God getting what he wants and Jacob wanting what God wants.

Jacob’s story is a beautiful story of how God blesses and protects those that don’t deserve it and even those that try to force it. God doesn’t allow our selfishness or even our own plans get in the way of his own and we can either be bent to his will or we can participate with him freely. It’s not really a story about a hero who makes it in the end, but a story of a failure that God uses to accomplish his purposes.

The film that I'm working on with some friends called Ugly Lights was recently showcased in the localaper. They did a full page spread on the film and our work on it. Check out the article here or read it below. There was some cool pictures too that maybe I'll post later.

When the lights go up; film shoot takes place at trinity lounge
Posted By CATHY DOBSON

It started out as a bit of fun among friends.

Nothing serious, just an experiment to find out what a bunch of local 20-somethings could do on film.

The result will be a feature-length movie, produced on a shoestring budget using the combined talents of about 60 writers, actors, producers and editors.

"We're having a blast," says 23-year-old Nathan Colquhoun. "We're all having fun working with film and meeting a lot of new people."

He met writers Mark Tetreault and Michael Higgins last fall through a friend and decided to lend his technical skills to the project.

Tetreault said he wanted to make a movie and pulled together a group of people who might be interested. None had experience beyond home videos but everyone brought some sort of talent or at least some enthusiasm to the table.

They rented cameras and put out a casting call in early January for men and women aged 18 to 30. About 60 showed up to audition and virtually everyone was given a part, either playing one of the eight pivotal characters or filling in as extras.

The script for "Ugly Lights" was written in a couple of weeks, including three rewrites. It tells the story of a group of recent high school grads gathering at the end of summer at a local watering hole, each making critical decisions about their future.

Ugly Lights refers to the lights switched on at the end of the night as the bar clears out.

"You see things for what they really are when the lights go on and you see that some of the characters are making good decisions, while some are making decisions that don't make any sense at all," Colquhoun explains.

The owners of the Trinity Lounge on Christina Street allowed the moviemakers to use their bar for three days of filming free-of-charge.

"The price was right and the place was really unique. It works as the characters' neighbourhood hangout," said Colquhoun.

He's built a computer specially for the many hours of digital editing ahead and will take on the task with SCITS co-op student Branden Dale and two others.

The editing team intends to start work on more than 36 hours of film this weekend. When they're done, Colquhoun estimates "Ugly Lights" will be anywhere from 50 to 80 minutes long.

"It's amazing what a group like this can do on film these days," he says. "It's a great way to express yourself because it's an art form that wasn't anywhere near this accessible just 10 years ago."

It's being produced "dirt cheap" with about $1,000 raised among the writers and producers.

Colquhoun says it's possible the group will recoup some of their money by having a showing at the Imperial Oil Centre for the Performing Arts and by selling copies on DVD.

"If we sell a few tickets, that would be great but for me it's just fun," he says.

"It's been a way to meet more people."

.

N.T. Wright in Time magazine talking about his new book and hinting that Christians may be wrong about the way they look at heaven. You don't say.
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If you are depressed, don't go shopping. Studies show that sad people are more prone to spending. This was a short but great article.
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I'm almost done watching all three seasons of Arrested Development, and I must say I'm thoroughly impressed overall with the show. It got better and better as the episodes grew and evolved in its intracacy and humour. I'm also following Lost Season 4, which I can't help but say is one of the best shows television has ever seen. Rumour has it also that Arreseted Development might be doing a movie in the future. Never really watched TV much until lately, but I've just taken on a new fascination with film, writing and production.
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We are trying to buy our building that we are in for theStory, if you ever wanted to follow the details of how a small little church plant like us ends up with a building, the costs involved and the future, follow us on the site.
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10 Google Search Tips
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Microsoft and Yahoo to team up and merge to take out Google?

Every year my life gets more complicated. I'm trying to think back to the days where I wasn't kept on track by a calendar, because I didn't make appointments and my only commitment was to go to recess early for a basketball game. Now as the years pile, so does the responsibility. I'm married now, helped plant a church, run a business, looking to buy a house and am trying to follow Jesus intentionally in the midst of it. All those things take up a tremendous amount of time; time well spent. Yet I can feel the pressures already to focus and be consumed by things that are bi-products of those things, especially now that we are looking to buy a house.

The pressure to live in a constant state of consumption is behind every door. I am always going to need new paint colours (at least every seven years right?), new furniture (to match my new paint colour), new tv (crt looks horrible compared to watching plasma), best surround sound system, new deck, new floors, new rooms, new cars, new pictures, new knick knacks and new clothes. In fact you are seemingly out of taste and our culture if you refuse to match, or refuse to buy something new, or God forbid you by your mattress second hand.

I'm fascinated by the pressures of design, fashion and the latest. This video explains it beautifully (we are showing it at theStory in March). I want to try and live simply. Buy used things to stop the production of old things. Buy less things, because I don't really need them. Buy only things that I need for survival, instead of comfort, luxury and pure greed. I really need to learn this discipline, because I find myself getting drawn into the opposite daily. Why do I have to eat out as much as I do? Why can't I just stay home and eat healthy and save money?

Our job as Christians should be to teach and help each other model a way of life that doesn't keep others in bondage, and one that models Jesus. A life that is dedicated to the causes of the kingdom, not the causes of materialism, capitalism and consumerism. Simplicity, selflessness, peace and giving our trademarks of this kingdom we are to model. It becomes hard to do that when I'm chewing on a $7 big mac meal, in my expensive shoes and sweater, reading news about the poverty in Africa and shopping for my new big house. God continue to teach us to live on less and give more.