A servants thoughts

I'm very familiar with the parable of the talents. I've taught on it, I've heard it taught on many times...but something had never sat quite right with me. Its the response of the third servant or more accurately the lack of correction from the master to the servant's response. Here is what the servant says.

'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.-Matt 25:24

it is paralleled here in Luke.

Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. 21I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.-Luke 19:20

This is a harsh picture of the Master, especially when the master is the God figure. I understand the fear of the servant but it is how the Master responds. As the figure of the loving God we serve he doesn't correct the servant or remind him that all he does is for the good of the servant. No he agrees with the assessment. In the Luke passage he admits to that being his character and then judges the servant by this assessment.
When I think of the God i serve I don't want this image. I don't want this God who is a "Hard man." I want a God who is loving and caring and wants what is best for me and we allow me to have the things i desire and work for. But this is not the Master from these passages. This master takes what he wishes without caring if he has a right to it. This is a master who cares about results. This is a master I don't want to serve.
This may sound like a bitter post and it is, I admit that. It comes from a place of hurt and bitterness. As much as I want a kind caring master who makes me a high priority that isn't my master. AS much as I want to focus on God loving me and being a member of his family, which I know I am, I'm also a servant who serves a "hard man." Everything in my life is open to his plunder. And he seems to want to take the things I most desperately want to keep. He test my loyalty by taking my mina and asking what am I going to do about it. Will I still serve? Last Saturday God and I had a long fight about this because it is not in my nature to serve. (we will look into that later) The funny thing is that once I submitted, once I responded with loyalty, he returned my mina or should I say the mina he has entrusted to me.
As of late I tend to be relating more to God as the servant and less as the child.
I wish I was the child.

1+1=2 but how?

My friend had a really great idea once. It was about how we classify each other. Before you finish your undergrad program it is all about age and level of school. Post undergrad it is about relational status. ie Single or Married. It seems like post college this is what most defines us, until we become seniors that is, for most of your lives we are defined primarily by if we have a spouse or not. It was a great thought. This is a follow up thought to that.
All my life pursuing a relationship has been very easy. The girl of my affections has always been close. She has been a girl in the neighborhood, or at school. Seeing her and interacting with her was easy. We always had a common bond. Even during the colleges years we'd come home to each other or see each other at school but that is not the case any more. In the new post-college life, where the only common denominator is the fact we want a relationship with the other person, how is it done.
How am I to build a full relationship with a romantic interest. For some this is easy you got the co-worker relationship or you happened to meet someone around town and so you have those things in common. I'm talking about the girl you meet your last semester or while traveling.
There is the long distance thing but that is hard and you can develop habits that are hard to break. It is hard to have a close relationship when you are used to having a distance one. Not to mention the out of sight out of mind struggle. Its also hard to really know how the relationship will really work when you don't get to really have life together.
There is the whole relocating thing but what if that doesn't work. You move to this place to be close to someone only to find it didn't work out and now you are stuck there.
Seriously how do you do this?

rain fall

I used to sit and watch the rain.
It always made me think of her.
We used to love just like the rain.
Sometimes hard and passionate
with nowhere to run or hide
and sometimes we wouldn't love at all
we'd just hold it in and watch the other die.
But we always knew that given time
the drought would pass and rain would fall again.
And we'd end up back in each others arms,
the only place we belonged.
Then one night I sat outside.
I waited for the rain to come.
I waited and waited but she never showed.
After that it rained no more.
Now when it rains I watch it come down.
Silently I sit focusing on the sound,
waiting for love to come back down
as thoughts of rain wash her away.

basic czech math

Jerry+Ceska Drahy (Trains)= intense loathing and hatred!

hot off the press

Here is a new poem I wrote this morning. No one else even knows it exist right now. I travel a lot by train and most of that time seems to be by myself. Last weekend as I wa son the train the rough ideas of this poem came into my mind.

My time on trains
Some times I sit and try to forget
here I am and that its not home
I try to get lost in the sky
and the colors on the trees
or words on a page
as I let my music cover me
I pretend that I'm not lonely
and that I'm quite by choice
I try to think I'm back home
and the strange names are new places
some immigrant town on my way home
But i always know the truth
the rumbling train is enough to keep me awake
and away from the dream I long to sleep.
This is what I do on a train.

...among the youth of eastern Europe...

One Percent from Josiah Venture on Vimeo.


http://www.2x3campaign.com/

A movement of God...

http://www.2x3campaign.com/


Next Generation from Josiah Venture on Vimeo.