God's Grace, God's Love: Abundant, Overflowing, Invisible?

You may be confused by the title, and in theory, the concept of God's grace and love being invisible seems a bit far fetched. After all, God is, was, and will be now and forever. The Bible speaks many times of the depths of his love, and though I know it is there, my humanity cannot fathom a love that runs so deep to care about the dregs of humanity (myself included!)

I was reading Ephesians 3:14-21 the other day, and it is a refreshing promise. Yet how many times do I in my own life wallow in self-pity and misery to ignore his love!

Picture a bright, sunny day, sitting on the beach. Standing there, you look at your companion who is shivering and whimpering. You ask them why they are crying and shivering. They reply, "the wind is freezing, and the clouds are covering the sun! Look how foggy it is!" It doesn't make much sense, as the sun is out, blazing, and there is no wind. Yet how many times in our own lives to we convince ourselves that we are freezing, when the sun is so hot our feet burn in the sun! I know in my own life, I tend to do this. Yet God's love is so powerful that to be fully exposed to it would overwhelm us.

¹⁴For this reason I ^(A)bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, ¹⁶that He would grant you, according to ^(B)the riches of His glory, to be ^(C)strengthened with power through His Spirit in ^(D)the inner man, ¹⁷so that ^(E)Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being ^(F)rooted and ^(G)grounded in love, ¹⁸may be able to comprehend with ^(H)all the saints what is ^(I)the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹and to know ^(J)the love of Christ which ^(K)surpasses knowledge, that you may be ^(L)filled up to all the ^(M)fullness of God. ^20(N)Now to Him who is ^(O)able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, ^(P)according to the power that works within us, ^21(Q)to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:14-21 (NASB)

culture shock

About two weeks ago, I returned to the Dominican Republic from a vacation in the U.S.A. A funny aside - never thought I'd be taking vacations from the Caribbean to the USA, always thought it was the other way around...

At any rate, the culture shock, conflicting worlds, collided several days ago. Julie and I went to supper at a Dominican couple's house. It was a lovely supper, aside from their child throwing up because of the pasta sauce, but that's another story.

My estimation is that less than 50 words were spoken in English the entire night. Now I'm by no means fluent in Spanish, but I do OK conversationally in most situations. However that night, I threw in the towel and became a casual - albeit frustrated observer. It was the straw that broke Pete's back. *sigh* The last time I truly felt this way was 2 weeks after getting married, and the time before that was August of 2003. There are many "things" that factor into this:

• seperation from family
• no matter where you go, you are different than everyone else
• having even a simple conversation is laborious and draining of your mental/emotional energy
• island life is nice, but for a guy who grew up in the Plains it can make one feel claustrophobic and trapped at times.
• little things become so frustrating - going to the store to buy a green pepper and you can't remember the name (aji, in case you were wondering), using sign language and saying "pimento verde" when I know that pimiento refers to the pepper in the shaker, it's just that I don't know another word...

But I must say "PTL" (Praise the Lord) for inverters! This little beauty converts 12V battery power to the 110 for our electrical system. So when the juice turns on and off at random or inconveniece, we hardly notice. Whereas before, we would groan, scramble for matches by the light of cell phone to ignite the kerosene lantern. Really put a damper on studying or any movie, cooking, etc that we might have been doing.

In other news, trip the states was great. Had some amazing food, and wonderful quality time with family. I'm so blessed to be a part of the family that God put me in.