News Update – April 26th

2012.04.26

Today Vicky and I celebrate our one month anniversary! We returned from our honeymoon in Cyprus about two weeks ago, we had a lovely, relaxing time at the beach and hiking through the Cypriot hills. Since our return, we have been working to get into the swing of regular life as a married couple.

So much has happened in the last month – where to begin?

The Wedding:

First off – a big thanks to all of you who contributed to our wedding! A wedding is an expensive endeavor, especially in Jerusalem. I was a little nervous because, due to my lifestyle and choice of profession/income, I don’t have that kind of money saved up. Any worry was for naught – we were blessed beyond our expectations, and stand in awe at the goodness of God. Thank you all so much!

My Beautiful Bride

The wedding was fantastic – we had a great time. It all started just after sunset, on a balcony in downtown Jerusalem overlooking the Old City. My beautiful bride walked into a part-vocal / part-instrumental rendition of “The Circle of Life” from the Lion King (it’s the African sounding one at the start of the movie). Our parents held the chuppah as our friends blessed us. We exchanged vows, the glass was shattered, and the magical kiss took place. And then, in true Logan & Vicky fashion, we skipped out of the procession (literally). Here’s a couple of the pictures, but there were hundreds. You can check them out (as well as print and order, if you’d like) on our photographer’s website: http://www.photosbylonestar.com/vickylogan2012.

About the Webstream: We successfully tested it multiple times, but who would have guessed that we would have been having internet trouble on the location the day of. I’m very sorry for those of you who were unable to to watch it, especially those of you who had changed around your schedules for it. However, we will be getting the footage from the videographer and posting it online so those of you who wish can watch the ceremony. I’ll be in touch about that as soon as it’s ready.

About the Reception: We are planning on having a reception in the White Mountains of Arizona sometime near the end of August. We don’t have a date set yet – we still need to piece together a few bits of information regarding the dates of Vicky’s finals (school semester is different here), as well as my visa status, before we can decide. Hopefully we’ll have a set day in the next couple of weeks. Stay posted

Day-to-day life, here’s what it looks like:

Contrary to most of the horror stories I was fed during my childhood by the media, Vicky and I have not had a single argument about whether toothpaste should be squeezed from top or bottom, who does the dishes that night, or who needs to take out the trash. Both of us have been living with multiple roommates for quite a while now, so reducing life to just one roommate that you really really like has actually been quite an easy transition. I remember asking my friend Andy Lemeron what the best thing about marriage was when he was a newlywed. His reply was, “You don’t have to say goodbye every night.” My friend, you were absolutely correct.

We’re starting to get back in step with normal life. Vicky is racing to catch up in all of her university classes (and doing quite well, I might add). I am also continuing to go to Ulpan – Hebrew Language school. We just had our midterm, I hope I passed! I am normally not the type that would be happy with getting a 70 in a class (I remember one ‘C’ in my life. Art History). However, between the wedding, honeymoon, and an extremely complicated language, it’s about all I can do. I am happy that I am advancing though, my ability with the language is definitely improving.

I am still volunteering with the house of prayer and doing watches. The youth watch that I have been leading on Sunday nights is going well, there are five (thirteen years old or younger) who are faithfully coming every week. They all voted to increase our watch from being one hour to an hour and a half. I am excited about what God is doing with them. I also am getting geared up for the Elav Conference this summer. I will be overseeing a lot of the technical responsibilities for this annual youth and young adult conference, including the webstream broadcast (trust me, it will work a lot better that the one at my wedding did . The conference is July 7th-10th, Eddie James is our guest worship leader and Wes Hall is the guest speaker. More to come in the months ahead.

Apartments and Visas.

Now onto the more challenging aspects of life. Vicky and I have a few major things going on, in addition to all of the standard marriage paperwork, name changes, etc. These are the main areas that you can be praying for us (of course the general prayer that we would love God well and love people well and be a pleasing fragrance to Him is also much appreciated).

Our lease expires with our current apartment at the end of May, and we will need to be moving out then. It is the apartment that Vicky has lived in for the past two years with her roommates, but it is more expensive than just the two of us can afford. Apartments are very expensive in this city (from what I hear it’s about on par with Washington D.C.), and without a car it’s not possible to get very far away from the city center without committing 2+ hours per day of our lives to sitting on a bus. Please pray for favor for us, that we would find the right place.

The next one – and this is the big one: I am having some visa issues. Basically, my visa for the house of prayer expires on May 2nd, and because of some changes in our personnel as well as the country’s legal policy, we will not be able to renew it like we had been expecting. I also cannot apply for residency for another year, Vicky is a new immigrant and has some different restrictions and things for the first 3 years of her citizenship. God preemptively helped by allowing me to get another tourist visa as I entered the country from our honeymoon – this gives me til the beginning of July before I would have to leave the country. We have been discussing different options. Please pray for wisdom for Vicky and I in this. We’ll see where He leads us in this.

Vaya con Dios!

The Wedding

20.03.2012

Six more days til the wedding!  Vicky’s mom flew in yesterday, my parents and the rest of her family will get here in the next two days or so. It’s hectic, of course, but things are going well.

The main announcement: The webstream is good to go! We will be streaming our wedding LIVE from Jerusalem on March 26th. Visit the webstream page of our site, http://loganandviktoria.ourwedding.com. It’s as simple as clicking on the link provided on the page. The broadcast time for multiple time zones is there as well. If you have any questions, e-mail me (before the wedding day, I won’t be doing much troubleshooting on March 26th ).

I don’t have much more to say than that. Vicky and I will be honeymooning in Cyprus, and returning back to the grind on April 15th. This is my last post until then. Bless you all!

~Logan

Psalm 37 (Part 4) – Delight and Desire: Becoming Like God

17.03.2012

Note: This will probably be my last post on this subject ’til I get back from my honeymoon, a month from now. I’ll be posting another news update next week which will have more information about the wedding and the webstream.

Thus far we have looked at three different points, our ‘action-items’ for overcoming worry and pursuing trust in the Lord.
1) Make the initial decision and heart commitment to trust in God.
2) Do good and dwell in the land – walk in righteousness according to His Word, and stay in the place where He last put you.
3) Feed on His faithfulness, get your strength and hope from God’s perfect faithfulness.

These first three points are all more “defensive” – meaning they are more aimed at securing ground and not being overwhelmed by the onslaught of worry. This next point is the first “offensive” point, where we go in and take some ground, progressing towards our goal of full, lasting trust in the Lord, unto complete rest in Him.

“Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, your justice as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him, do  not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger and forsake wrath – do not fret, it only causes harm. For the evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.” Ps 37:3-9 NKJV

Delight, Desire, and the Likeness of God:

As God becomes our delight and our joy, we will be given the desires of our heart. Now, I don’t think that it’s saying here that as long as we enjoy God we’ll get whatever we want (though it may be partially true). My personal stance on this verse is that as we delight in God and He fills us with pleasure, He gives us desires in our hearts. That is to say – as we enjoy God, the things that He wants becomes the things that we want.

Here’s a good, practical example of this:

My friend Harris is a fan of the Creighton Blue Jays, a university team in the NCAA Basketball tournament that is currently going on. Now, I don’t really care much about basketball, much less a random team that I had never heard of. However, I really enjoy my friend. And although college sports is definitely not my thing, I found myself rooting for Creighton’s victory, and was happy to hear that they won against Alabama 58-57. It’s not as though I was planning on following the team through the tournament, but because I delight in my friend, I have found that his desires have been influencing mine. I can now enjoy something to which I was formerly indifferent, simply because of enjoying a person.

It’s the same principal with God. As we enjoy Him, as we choose to be happy with and in God, we begin to like the things that He does.  We want the same things to happen. We want to become more like Him, and we want to see all of His plans come about. The great thing is – it’s in that place where anxiety, discouragement, and disappointment are overcome.

“He will not fail nor be discouraged, till He has established justice in the earth,” Isa 42:4.

God will not be discouraged when His ideas and ways take a long time in coming about. He is not anxious about them, and He experiences no disappointment – He never fails. As we begin to delight in Him, and therefore our desires become more like His, we are beginning to lay siege to the strongholds of discouragement and disappointment, progressing one step further to overcoming worry. God will never fail and will never lose heart in accomplishing the things that He has said He will do. If we want what He wants, we eventually will begin to adopt His attitude about what He wants. Delight in God is the sure way to overcome depression and hope-deferred.

I will say one more thing briefly about the effects of delighting in the Lord. As I was singing in the prayer room earlier in the week, I began to realize how delighting in God, being filled with His light and desires and will, all lead to holiness. Holiness is, essentially, being like God. It’s loving the things that He loves, and hating the things He hates. As our desires are conformed to His, we enter more and more into holiness. If you want to be holy and without sin, if there is something in your life that you want to overcome but can’t quite get the energy or the willpower to do so – start with delighting in God. Knowing the law never made someone keep it – loving and enjoying the one who wrote it will eventually ensure it, every time.

How to delight:

So we’ve established that delighting in God does a lot of really cool things – we learn to enjoy ‘holy’ things more, we can overcome disappointment and discouragement, and it helps us to not want to sin and even causes us to really desire and enjoy righteousness. Sweet! But how do we delight in something?

First off, we need to get the right picture about delight. We generally think of our likes and dislikes as something that is ingrained in us, a random happening of nature in our genes over which we have no control. Challenge this mindset- it’s wrong and is a great excuse for us to be lazy and not put any effort into enjoying life. We choose what we delight in and what we enjoy – it just takes some energy. Think about it – you can teach someone to like most any kind of food, sport, or recreational activity. It all depends on if they want to try to like it. Over the years I have taught myself to love whole wheat bread and playing music. I had to consciously make effort to do so, but it worked. And my life is richer now because of it.

We can choose to enjoy something. Here are some of the practicals how:

- Attitude: If you go into something certain that you’re not going to like it, then hope is lost. I was certain as a child that I would hate spinach, movies and other kid’s comments gave me that attitude. I had never eaten it, but I already had decided I didn’t like it. Now I’m fine eating it – and not just because I ‘grew up’. It’s because I made the conscious decision, ‘alright, let’s give this thing a try. Maybe it will be good.’ Have a good attitude and expect to find pleasure, in time there are few things that you won’t be able to enjoy.

- Time: The more that you put your time into something, the more that you will love it. Who loves a city more (with an endearing and enduring enjoyment): the family who just moved there the month before or the couple that has lived there for thirty years? If you want to enjoy something deeply, you can’t just do it once. You need to press in and pour your life into it.

- Worship: It doesn’t always need to be with Matt Redman in the background, but worship God. Dance in your room, sing songs, try and beatbox the Psalms, whatever it takes. Declare He is good and His mercy endures forever.

- Thankfulness: You can’t be happy with something if you’re not thankful for it. Thank God for Himself and all the great things He has given to and done for you. I encourage you – really press into this one. You will not be very successful in any of the above without thankfulness.

Come to God expecting that you will enjoy Him. Give Him time, worship Him, and thank Him. He’ll put desires in your heart, and you’ll love having them fulfilled.

Prayer Alert: Obama, Netanyahu, Israel and Iran

05.03.2011

I want to encourage everyone to be praying for Obama and Netanyahu today as the two heads of state will be meeting, presumably talking about the current Iranian threat. Please spend some time today praying for wisdom for our leaders and for God to direct them in His will.

Israel, Iran, and Syria

There is a lot of talk flying around about Iran these days, Israel going to be attacking them, wars and rumors of wars. I’ve had numerous people ask me what it’s like here and Israel and what is really going on. I don’t claim to know much about politics and international affairs, it’s never quite been my cup of tea, but I will give you a few thoughts for the purpose of prayer.

Question: Is our current situation serious?
In my opinion: Yes, of sorts. From what I’ve heard, the American media is making it a more dramatic situation than I have heard from other sources (British / Israeli primarily. For those of you interested in reading the Israeli news in English, visit www.haaretz.com). Most Israelis that I know aren’t all that concerned – though the reason isn’t because of a lack of real intensity in the current situation. It’s primarily because we/they have lived in a constant state of threat ever since the nation’s inception into the modern world in 1948. Every month or three there is some new potential threat or reason war could break out. After a while, you don’t hear as much of the chatter about it – when it happens (as it has and assuredly will), it will happen, and we’ll do all that we can. In the meantime, to put our full attention and hearts into everything that is said in the rumors of war would mean we have to live in a constant state of fear, and in the end be no more prepared. All that to say: Yes. In my opinion, the tension with Iran is quite serious and could even possibly escalate to war or crisis.

Question: Why don’t you leave?
Answer: Very simply, because God hasn’t told me to. Sometimes He gives people warning telling them to leave when judgment is coming, sometimes He tells people to go to the place where judgment will happen in order to be a vessel of mercy. There are only two places I can think of in Scripture that give direct instruction to flee from a city in a time of destruction. The first is in Matthew 24, where Jesus tells us to flee from Jerusalem (and arguably many other cities) at the time that the Antichrist shows up on the scene and commits the abomination of desolation. Seeing as how there is currently no temple, I’m not worried about that one. Secondly, in Revelation 18:4 when the believers are instructed to flee Babylon before the final judgment around the time of the second coming. Those are the two large-scale directives we have from the Word. In my opinion, any other situation is going to be a matter of personal revelation and wisdom. And both of those right now tell me to stay and pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Question: Syria? What? That’s not in the news.
In my opinion: It’s not in the news, and I don’t have a good historical reason for it. However, my personal belief is that one of Israel’s primary threats working alongside Iran is Syria. Between some leading in prayer, a few shady things in the news over the past ten years, and the advice of a few friends, a number of us in the house of prayer are making it a point to pray for Syria in this time as well. Never hurts to pray

Question: What do we do?
Answer: Well, little will be accomplished by boycotting oil and having public demonstration rallies. I do think there is wisdom in being prepared with basic supplies (having some water and food, and being knowledgeable about what to do in the event of a disaster). I also believe it is wise to watch what is going on, though honestly more for the point of prayer than knowing how to react to the situation. The primary thing that we as believers can do, is pray. We have very little influence in the world, when it comes down to it. There are few things that a single person can do to have impact in the natural. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely times when men and women can rise up and change the course of history – but I believe for every Esther or William Wilberforce out there, there are ten thousand more praying for the purposes those few would so boldly champion. Prayer is the way that God has given us to exercise the authority of His government and kingdom in our world today. And it really does change things.

On Tuesday evening, the fast of Esther will be starting – this is the annual time of remembrance when Esther called a three day fast, won the heart of the king, and saved her people from destruction. Please stand with us in prayer – and I encourage you to fast in some way too – for the deliverance of Israel in this hour.

Please pray:
- For the peace of Jerusalem – that Israel would be blessed with Peace
- For Netanyahu and Obama, that God would give them clear revelation
- For Iran, that God would change the hearts of the leaders in the nation and bring them to repentance (see Dan 4)
- For Syria, that God would reveal any secret plots of the enemy and that the wicked would be exposed

News Update – March 2nd

02.03.2011

Snow in Jerusalem!

So they tell us that Israel is warm and never rains. The past four days or so have been an unceasing downpour, culminating with a short flurry of snow this morning (praise God, we need the moisture).  The above picture is the view from my apartment this morning. By now (15:30) it’s all gone, but it was nice to see while it lasted. I remember four or five years ago reading about snow falling in Jerusalem – I had no desire to come to Israel then, it wasn’t at all on my radar. People that are now my friends here in the land have told me about how that was the last time that it snowed. It has been like a piece of thread knitting together the before and after Israel portions of my life together.

Wedding Website & Registry – it’s Updated

A number of you have commented that you would like to be getting us wedding gifts – we wanted to let you know that the registry is up and running! http://loganandviktoria.ourwedding.com. Wedding planning is coming along, we are quite hopeful that we will be able to webstream it – I have a test run scheduled for next week to confirm. Please keep praying for us – there is a lot to be done still, and we both are very busy. Also, just to brag on my girl, Vicky has been doing amazingly well in her first semester of University at Hebrew-U. She has completed nearly all of her final exams and has straight A’s so far, and is in the top of her class. *high-five to my almost-wife*

Friends 

My good friend Nathan C. is flying in today. I am really excited, he is the first person to arrive for my wedding, and actually the first person to specifically come for me to Israel since I first came over a year and a half ago. He is one of my most favorite people in the whole world – truly a gift to me. He is going to be helping out with wedding planning and some of the watches, and for just general support. My friend Paris will also be arriving in a week. Praise God for good friends!

That’s all for now! More will be posted on Psalm 37 next week, and I’ll probably shoot out one more update before the wedding. Cheers!

Psalm 37 (Part 3) – His Faithfulness: our sustenance, source, and strength

24.02.2012

How do we overcome worry, and how do we walk out our faith in God? Ultimately, how do we enter that place of trust and rest in Him?

We’ve gone through most of Psalm 37:3 so far. The first step we talked about in Part 1, that we need to make the initial decision to trust in God. In Part 2 we talked about taking it to the practicals – how we can actually begin applying this trust in God by setting ourselves to walk in righteousness and not be discouraged in that which He has called us to. The issue is, it takes a lot of energy to keep up the decision to trust and to keep walking in His will, especially when there is resistance from the enemy and we feel that God doesn’t really care. How do we maintain the strength and the hope to carry on?

“Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, your justice as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him, do  not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger and forsake wrath – do not fret, it only causes harm. For the evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.” Ps 37:3-9 NKJV

Feed on His Faithfulness:

Once we have made the choice to trust in God and walk in His will, we must look to the next step: finding a way to sustain it. Imagine a few warriors going on a long trek. It doesn’t matter their strength or the difficulty of the path, eventually they are going to run out of energy if they don’t have a way to feed themselves. You have to have a source from which you can draw energy if you expect to be able to carry on. Likewise, as we journey on this path of life, we must have a way to receive strength. If we don’t we all will eventually grow weary and stumble, unto the point of not being able to get back up.

His faithfulness – it is to be our food and our nourishment. It is what will sustain us through the storms of life. When we look and can’t see God or what He’s doing, when we’re offended and dry and bitter, it is feeding on His faithfulness that will give us the hope to carry on.

So how do we practically do this?

First – be intentional about calling to mind the times when God has been faithful to you, and thank Him for the ways that He has led you and kept you thus far. If you have trouble thinking of one, start with this dream a friend of mine had, and go from there. He was standing before Jesus, and Jesus was just talking with him. Then Jesus came closer to him and started tapping his chest with His finger. At first he thought it was a “Listen here sonny” kind of tap, and that a rebuke was coming with it. Then he noticed the tapping was rhythmic, and was actually in beat with his heart. “That’s kind of cool,” the man thought, “Jesus knows my heartbeat He knows me so well.” Jesus kept smiling. After a few moments the man came to a horrifying realization. It wasn’t that Jesus was tapping in rhythm with his heart. His heart was beating because Jesus was tapping. It’s not as though we control the muscles in our heart, you know? Just the fact that you were given life and breath and a pulse and still have at least enough of it to read this is a great place to start seeing God’s faithfulness. Think about where and how He has been faithful to you, and thank Him for it.

Second – declare that He will be faithful in your current situation. Don’t skimp on this last  part – it’s really easy to look and go “Yes, You helped me through this and this and this,” and never translate it into the present/future and say “Surely You will carry me through my current trial too.” Disclaimer – this doesn’t mean that you have to know how He’ll bring you through or that you’ll like the way He does it. But He will get you through to the other side of it nonetheless. And no matter where you come out, He’ll be with you as the Good Shepherd leading you tenderly and loving you patiently. Say it out loud, sing it, pray it, dance it, declare that God is going to be faithful to you and will never leave you. Even if you don’t believe it (or don’t feel like you believe it), do it anyway. I guarantee you that your emotions will follow your actions. And with your feelings, your faith.

In the end, trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Surely He is faithful to the end, we just need to stand til the end in order to see it.

Psalm 37 (Part 2) – How we trust Him: The Basics

16.02.2012

***One quick note: I forgot to say it when I published my last post (though I added it later). If as you are reading this series you realize a specific reason that you have difficulty trusting in God or something of that nature, please share it if you are comfortable doing so (either in the comment box or e-mail me if you’d like to keep it anonymous, loganbentley@gmail.com). I would like to see how many of these difficulties we have get addressed by this Psalm, and also focus on things relevant and important to us as I write the remainder of it.***

In my last post I brought up how we need to make the initial decision to trust God – that’s the beginning of walking on the path of faith. Although it can be quite a difficult step, it’s not very complicated. The question is, after having decided to trust in the Lord, where do we go from there? What are some practical steps we can take?

“Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, your justice as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him, do  not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger and forsake wrath – do not fret, it only causes harm. For the evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.” Ps 37:3-9 NKJV

Do good & Dwell in the Land

Here’s the place to start. The psalmist tells us to do good, and to dwell in the land – I believe these two commands together are the basic, fundamental answer to the question “How do we trust in God?”  We’ll look at those two points first individually, then how they can practically be applied.

1) Do good. This isn’t a grammatical mistake, he’s talking about performing good and righteous works. Luckily, the Bible is full of information on that subject (righteousness and goodness) – namely, His commandments. This is the first (and primary) way that we are given to walk out our trust in God. It is a demonstration of us walking in faith, that what He told us and the commands He has given us are right. It’s saying, “I may have no clue what is going on, but I am at least going to do my best to follow Your instructions and hope that You were right.” Doing good ultimately is us believing that God is going to be faithful in all the promises that He made to those who are righteous and acknowledging that all of His warnings to the wicked are legitimate and right. It’s trusting that He really is just in the end, and honoring Him as the Judge of all.

2) Dwell in the land. This one isn’t quite as straightforward. If we take it literally without context or common sense it means that if we aren’t physically living in Israel then we aren’t trusting in God. Now, I’m all for living here in the land, but I don’t think that’s the point that the writer was getting at. We have to remember the context; this psalm is written for the Israelites at a time when living in the land where God had set them was difficult; their enemies were prospering and threatening. After a bit of prayer and thinking things through, over the past years I have come to the conclusion that when the psalmist says this, he is simply saying to stay in the place that God has put you.

This is the second way to walk out trust in God; if He has set you somewhere – stay there. Now, this one is a little more complicated – it requires not only trust in God, but trust in our ability to hear His will, as well as His ability to communicate it. It’s really nice when you feel, ‘Yes! God is calling me to this!’ You press into it with all diligence, but a year or three or thirty later when the going is rough and you don’t have much to show for it, the question ‘Did I really hear You back then?’ is bound to come up. How to hear Him or know that we did is quite a heavy matter, and I don’t believe it’s able to be answered easily or quickly. However, I will say that we are blessed in that we have a living God who still talks with us. If we felt He said something but are unsure about it now, if we talk with Him about it I’m sure He will give us a pointer or two.

If we know that He has put us somewhere though, the way we can show we trust in Him is to remain there. To remain in a difficult place simply because of the direction or promise of someone else, in spite of your own ability to leave it or end the tension – that is one of the greatest displays of trust. Think about Jesus: He was God in the flesh as He hung there, bleeding on the cross, and He had the ability (and even the right) to come down as they taunted Him and show them all who He really was. The God of the universe, who created all physics and matter, allowed Himself to be held in torture by a few iron nails – simply because He knew it was the Father’s will that had placed Him there. If God puts us somewhere, we can trust Him by tarrying in that place – even if it’s uncomfortable or painful.

The Practicals:

Do good, and dwell in the land. So how do we walk those out practically?

First we set ourselves to walk in righteousness. Fear and worry can cause us to do some really crazy and stupid things (I’ll expound on that point when we get to verse 8). Start by resolving to walk in righteousness, how God has told us to. If we are seeing lying or stealing as a potential solution to our problem, we can cancel that option out right off the bat.

Then – we keep going on with the orders He gave us last. Sit down and have some time with Him, ask Him to remind you of things He has said and the promises He made about where He was putting you. Write them down, pray about them, and then decide to keep on doing what He last told you to do. Trust in the fact that He really is a good communicator, He is much more capable of leading you than your forgetfulness, or even of the enemy’s ability to deceive. He’ll let you know when the plans change. And if you do think you missed it, take a step back and ask Him. Try thinking about bird migratory patterns (stick with me, this will be good). God made it so by instinct (that means given knowledge and ability they didn’t even have to work for or try to maintain) all these birds know how, when, and where to fly all across the globe to be in the right place they’re supposed to be. If God leads billions of these “bird-brained” creatures all around the world, don’t you think He can guide your heart too? Talk with Him about it.

So to summarize:
- Decide to trust in God
- Resolve to walk in righteousness (do good)
- Stay where He’s put you. If you don’t know where that is, listen to Him and try to figure it out.

The next post will be on combating worry by declaring truth – feeding on His faithfulness. Blessings!

Psalm 37 (Part 1) – Who do we trust?

13.02.2012

This season I’m in is probably one of most trying (if not the most) that I have ever experienced. Now – when I say ‘trying’ I don’t mean ‘bad’. I mean trying as in pushing me to the limits of my capabilities in multiple spheres of life. Between the wedding in 42 days, the young-adult conference in five months, administration for the house of prayer, learning a foreign language, managing two apartments in Israel (not to mention my house in KC), visa/status difficulties, and financial tension, I am constantly running into my own limitations and insecurities. Mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually – it feels as though the heat has been turned up on them all.

One of the main enemies that I find coming against me is the slimy thief called “Worry.” As I am consistently coming to the end of myself, I am tempted to fall victim to the grasp of worry, fear, and doubt. It’s only natural. When we don’t see a solution by way of our own ability, we only have a few options:

1) Believe that some other source of strength will assist us. This can come in various forms, being an inward strength we are unaware of, another person, or divine help.
2) Believe that the problem will change/diminish and we will be able to handle it after that has happened.
3) Believe that we will fail.

All of them require some sort of belief. What do we have faith in? Are we trusting in ourselves? Others? Even trusting in the problem/situation, that it will overcome us? In whom do we put our trust?

Trust in the Lord

Psalm 37 has been my lifeline for the past couple of months. Over the next few weeks I am planning on taking you through parts of it and sharing different nuggets that have blessed me.

“Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, your justice as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him, do  not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger and forsake wrath – do not fret, it only causes harm. For the evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.” Ps 37:3-9 NKJV

Trust in God. This is the crux of it all, the core of the matter. Like I said above, in any problem or trial we encounter, in any source of tension, we must put our trust in someone or something. The issue for discussion is not IF we are going to be trusting, but WHO we will trust. Many times, we do this unconsciously. As you’re driving a car you’re probably not thinking about your trust in the engine. I guarantee you it’s there though – this is made evident by the times that you’re driving and DON’T have trust in the engine, you spend the whole trip listening to every odd noise, constantly looking for the nearest place to pull over, feeling a jolt in your heart with every bump in the road. The trust shifted from your vehicle, to physic’s ability to break your vehicle.

We must always have faith in something, even if we are not aware that we are choosing to. Who do we trust?

Trust in the Lord. This is the first step to slaying the scoundrel of worry. Make a conscious choice, a declaration to trust in God – and keep it up.

Now, if you read that last sentence and your first thought was “yeah right” or “it’s not that simple”, I encourage you to read on. There’s a lot of reasons that heart response exists in us, here are a few – all of them I’ve found in myself at one time or another:
- It’s one thing to say “I trust in God” and another to actually do it.
- “Trust in God” the phrase is too vague. There’s no actual way to apply it.
- I don’t understand how He works – or know what to expect from Him.
- I’ve seen too many people use “Trusting in God” as an excuse for being lazy or negligent, and I don’t want to be like that.
- When I’m honest, I don’t think God has been faithful. I don’t think He’s trustworthy.

If you admitted to the last one, bonus points. It’s something that many of us have deep in our hearts but for some reason it is extremely shameful for us to say and acknowledge – which is a lie from the pit of hell that the devil uses to keep us from being healed and therefore keep us from ever being able to fully trust in God.

Anyways, there’s plenty of reasons why we shouldn’t trust in God. Between the lies of the devil and the lies of men, we will see an unending stream of them voiced everywhere we go until judgment day when He ultimately proves Himself faithful, just, and true. The question is, will we still? Forget what it looks like and how we walk it out – we can get so focused on those points that we miss the greater picture. It all starts with the decision to trust in Him. Even if we don’t know what it looks like or what the future holds, “for better or for worse, in sickness or in health,” so to speak – we must start the process of faith by choosing to do it. It is the first step in the journey, and it doesn’t matter how much you know (or don’t know) about the path to come, if you never make the decision to start walking you will never get anywhere.

Trust in God. Even if it hurts, even if when you say it you say it’s with clenched teeth: “God, I put my trust in You.”

What it looks like, we’ll start to look at in my next post (hopefully Wednesday).

***post edit***
For the brave souls out there, please comment with some of the reasons you find it difficult to put your trust in God. If you want to remain anonymous, you can just e-mail me: loganbentley@gmail.com. I am interested in seeing how many of them will get addressed by these couple of verses we’ll be looking at, and I would also like to tailor my posts to be addressing relevant things for people. Blessings!

News Update – January 18th

18.01.2012

So to start things off – please be praying for Vicky and me; wedding stuff specifically, but also life in general. The past few weeks it has seemed like one step forward two steps backwards, everything taking much more energy to accomplish than it should. For instance, within the last week we’ve had our stove/oven break irreparably, significant people in the wedding become unable to attend, a wedding dress debacle, and our wedding date given away by the location. Praise God we have had a ton of favor with the manager of the location, he likes us and fought to get us our date back. Nevertheless, it seems like a ton of energy is being expended and hardly anything is getting accomplished. It’s all in His hands, and in the end all we can do is lean on Him. We both are doing quite well in light of the stresses that have been springing upon us; I know I am totally being stretched and learning to trust in Him more – which is excellent. However, it would still be nice if things went smoothly from here on out. Please pray for favor for Vicky and me.

Wedding Plans

There isn’t a whole lot of development on the wedding front – we’re working on getting our honeymoon set, invitations sent out, and housing for some of the guests. I could talk about it in detail, but this isn’t supposed to be a wedding blog, so I’ll refrain. However, we do have a website up: http://loganandviktoria.ourwedding.com/. It’s still in-progress, but for those of you who are interested, most of the info will be posted there. Also, we are contemplating trying to stream the wedding live on the internet so that people can watch the ceremony live. It would take some effort though, and we’re wondering if it’s something that would be appreciate. If you have opinions on us having a live webstream of the ceremony, please post a comment below or e-mail me. Thanks!

House of Prayer – Worship, Intercession, and Caging in the Drums

My time serving in the house of prayer is going quite well. 5 days a week I am serving with the team leading the room during a watch; worship leading or prayer leading, singing, or playing an instrument. It has been a growing/stretching season in multiple aspects: I am singing much more than I had been – so my vocal abilities are being pushed and enhanced, I am playing piano with a worship team (which I had never really done before, I was always solo), and I have been in the role of a prayer leader more than I ever have before. A flame is being kindled in my heart again. Parts of me that had grown cold towards and in the house of prayer over the past five years have ignited once again – I find myself getting excited the way that I did when I first went out to IHOP in 2006. It definitely is a sweet season of remembering what God has called me to, and taking delight in it.

There are quite a few things that I feel God has been speaking to me about lately. He’s talked a lot about faith and not worrying. I have been touched by Isaiah 62 and God’s love for this city. I have been encouraged by meditating on the family of God and my being brought into it. Just a few nights ago, God nudged my heart about walking worthy of our calling: I.E. fulfilling what He has given us to do and not settling for less or just a half-hearted job – using all of the talents that He has given us instead of burying them. With some of my spare time in the next week I’d like to be making posts about these to share some of my thoughts with you; I know that God has used these little snippets of revelation to minister to my heart and I believe He can do the same for yours.

One last thing of note – the drum cage project. For a while we have been throwing around different ideas on how to control noise volumes in the prayer room, build unity, etc. My proposal for a drum cage has been accepted, materials have been and are being purchased, and assembly will begin in around 47 hours. We will take the 12am-3am watch for two days and worship the Lord with the drill and hammer. I am really excited to be taking a concept birthed in my head into the real world and have it benefit others. Please pray that everything would go smoothly with the drum cage, and also that God would build unity in our house.

 

Thank you so much for your prayers! Blessings!

 

Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas!

25.12.2011

Holidays, holidays, thank You God for holidays. Hanukkah started on the eve of the 20th, and will continue for another two days. You’d think that Christmas started today, but my fiance informed me yesterday that actually the 24th is when it all happens. Apparently in German culture it all centers on Christmas Eve. Similar to America, there is a church service and a big feast, however also that night there is the giving and receiving of all the gifts. The 25th is a much more chill day where you relax with family. After a few minutes of heated debate on which method of celebration (24th evening vs. 25th morning) is more logical and enjoyable, she and I reached the compromise that whenever we’re in America we’ll celebrate Christmas on the 25th, if we’re in Germany we’ll celebrate it on the night of the 24th, and in Israel we’ll get down on Hanukkah.

Our Gingerbread house! Vicky & her mom were the decorators, I the architect.

I spent my Christmas making a gingerbread house with my lovely fiance and dearest future-mother-in-law (thank you so much for my new shoes!). We also made some progress with wedding plans, and then the day was concluded with a four-hour watch in the prayer room. It’s a good life

A little overview of Hanukkah:

Hanukkah is one of the feasts that isn’t mentioned in Torah or Tanach (Pentateuch or Old Testament) because it originated after they were written. Around 200 BC, Antiochus III (the Selucid empire from Syria, commonly just referred to as the Greeks)  took over the Egyptian empire, which at the time included Judea. His son, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, got really crazy around the 170 BC mark, and in 167 BC he did a lot of nasty things to the Jews, including building an altar to Zeus on the Temple Mount, sacrificing a pig in the holy of holies, forbidding circumcision (remember, that’s their sign of their covenant with God).

The Jews revolted, led by a Jewish priest named Mattiyahu.  He died and his son Judah continued on in his place. By 165 BC the revolt was successful; the Temple was liberated and rededicated. For a more detailed account, check out the wikipedia article. For a much more fun account (you’ll still get the gist of it), check out this song on youtube – Candlelight, by the Macabeats.

Now, the story goes that when they rededicated the temple, they only had enough oil for the menorah for one day, but it would take eight days to properly make more (things like oil & incense for the temple are a very specific and important process). According to tradition, the menorah kept burning and the oil didn’t run out. Because of this, we celebrate the holiday with a nine-tier menorah (the normal one has seven slots),  eight candles to symbolize the eight days and then a ninth “servant candle” with which to light the others. We also make a point to eat lots of fried food: Sufkaniot (jelly-filled donuts) and Latkes (hash-browns). With this, we remember the oil that didn’t run out.

Here's a picture of one of the Hanukiahs (electric & big) near Jaffa gate. There are small ones with actual candles in most people's houses, but there are a ton of these big ones all over the city.

I’m not a huge fan of lots of tradition – this country has certainly more than its fair share. However, I’m always down with an opportunity to eat some good fried food and praise God for His provision and faithfulness.

Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas everyone!