What is your legacy?

The verse says it all. Many times I read the book of Ephesians and wonder if I am specifically an Ephesian at heart. I feel like it was written specifically for ME. Thankful I have scripture to walk through and learn from - and people who walked through the same struggles I do in God's word. Thankful God is willing and wonderful enough to give me the grace and mercy I need to learn from Him how to walk in truth.

Unfortunately for me, a lot of my motivation, self-worth, image, etc. is held in what people think of me. I journey through this and repent of it often. I have to take off the old man daily and put on the new.

And, although I planned to speak my mind and struggles, God is simply showing me right now that HIS grace is enough and that the gospel applies very much right here. I am not a captive to my sin. I am free.. and I can live in HIS grace.

I wanted to major in anthropology.

Not the store; the actual study of people and cultures.

This being said. I'm in LOVE with the Scandinavian culture of Seattle.

I cannot wait to learn more about it as I study to teach Seattle history. I love knowing where a city was, how it started, why it started and why a city and its people deal with different cultural and religious situations and struggles... what is it rooted in? Where did it begin?

I cannot WAIT to read and learn more about Arthur Denny, Henry Yesler and Chief Seattle (etc.) and  I can't wait to find out how I can pray even more for this city I call home.

I have a deep LOVE for this city. I never realized when I moved here how much I would fall in love not only with its people, but with this place. So thankful God has called us to this city, and I cannot wait to see how that will flesh out the longer we are here. :-)

I've never actually stopped to think about this. Sure, he made tents - and I think we tend to stop there. Okay yeah, that's what he did. He killed believers, he made tents, he met Jesus, got saved, stopped killing believers, made tents, got put in prison, wrote a lot of letters, encouraged believers [that list isn't a timeline b.t.w.]. I think about those things, I don't stop and think about his education.

This man went to places of education and proclaimed Christ. - He reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the market places every day (while in Athens at least). He conversed with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. (Acts 16)

I'll let an excerpt from Doug Wilson's essay "Intro to Antithesis in Education" take over from here:

"Paul was not unaware of Aristotelian philosophy. He had been well educated under Gamaliel, and demonstrated in his writings a thorough knowledge of Greek philosophy and culture. He knew the language (Acts 21:37), he knew their poets (Acts 17:28), he quoted Diogenes the Cynic (1 Tim 6:10), he knew their current philosophies (Acts 17:17), and he knew the thought of Aristotle. In short, Paul was well-trained in classical culture. But this did not gain him an entry into their circles. The only problem was that he was a classicist who would not play the game of autonomous and humanistic philosophers. He was a classicist who did not fit in well at the philosophy department at the University of Athens (Acts 17:18). They didn't think a lot of him, but then again, he was happy to return fire:
       Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, the wisdom of God, the world, through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe (1 Cor. 1:20-21).  

But it is the next chapter that he deals with Aristotle:
    But the natural man does not recieve the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:14). 

When modern Christians read the phrase natural man, they tend to think of unregenerate man at his worst-- the drug addict, the philanderer the alcoholic. But Paul is making an entirely different point. He is talking about unregenerate man at his best. The word natural here (psychikos) was a word that was coined by Aristotle, and was used by him to refer to a man at the peak of his form -- man the way he would look after he had completed a rigorous and "classical" education. This is the man, who, according to Paul, does not know God, cannot know God, and does not receive the things of the Spirit. 

So we see in Paul a biblical classicist. He does not run away from classical culture, nor is he defeated or comprimised by it.  Rather, he declares the lordship of Jesus Christ over  it. He does not run away, he does not compromise  He takes every thought captive to Jesus Christ. He uses his vast learning in the cause of the gospel (Acts 26:24)....  

Someone did something cute in class. Wait. Stop. Take a photo.

I made an awesome meal. Wait. Stop. Take a photo.

I made coffee in my coffee press. Wait. Stop. Take a photo.

It's Thursday. All my friends really need to see what I looked like years ago. Wait. Stop. Search photo database. Post.

I'm reading a cool book. Wait. Stop. Take a photo.

I was given something awesome. Wait. Stop. Take a photo.

I made something. Wait. Stop. Take a photo.

on. and on. and on. and on. and you're actually interested in this?


Monday, I made some fettuccini with fava beans and sautéed swiss chard (which is absolutely delicious by the way) and then I went to work on some zucchini bread and cleaned the kitchen. And I want to tell everyone I know about it. So I did through instagram. Then I stopped and actually thought, "This is very weird."

Maybe you can relate to this, maybe not. I feel this weird pressure to document what I do, so it appears I'm able to do amazing house wifey things, so that it appears that I am awesome and trendy, etc. Who gets the glory? Well, I guess I think I do- or does that depend on how many likes I get? (why do you guys like some of that stuff anyway?). So, well, obviously it's narcissistic and sinful behavior.

Let's just focus on being a housewife - since that's a more concrete example. I feel this pressure through social media to look like a good house wife, and a good wife. I think there has always been this pressure, but now it's simply fleshed out quite a bit differently than it has been in the past. I'm seeign a need in myself to kind of cool it with instagram - pace myself, maybe.. I need to be the wife God is calling me to be to Seth - and no one else.


oh and I just totally thought about taking a photo of this blog post and instagramming it.