| Of the journey, ever onward |

Just a poetic and rather random thought pattern.

You are on a journey, nomadic, sporadic, ever wandering through this maze of life.

You are a pilgrim called to be potent and bright - salt and light - standing opposed to apathy and plight.

As a sojourner, you keep your eyes to the city of God, your feet ever moving through the city of Man, and your hands free to serve and to save.

As a child of light, you empty yourself, strip away conceit and pride; you step aside, to show light, pure light.

And yet you linger long on certain treasures, worldly pleasures, weighing your wealth on earthly measures.

You begin to store up for yourself gold and silver - heavy as they may be - and you use your hands instead to polish and to shine these, your precious.

Your pace slows, stalls, stops, and eventually you are too tired to carry on.

You settle down, set up fences and walls, and begin to convince yourself that keeping the world out is your call.

Instead of venturing into the public and profane streets, you house up holy thoughts behind high walls and strong towers.

Instead of reaching out with empty hands and brilliant radiant light, you block out darkness and hold your doors firmly.

Instead of stepping forth to change the world one unredeemed moment at a time, you pray that God's will be done.

But what is His will, other than that you would be a liberator, an overcomer, a sojourner ever reaching and ever shining for His glory?

Forget not the journey, forget not the purpose you were called to.

Lift up your heads, oh you gates, be lifted up you Ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is upon you.

| Of cut and paste monsters |

I've been pondering and mulling over the idea of monstrosity lately. We're all a little bit like monsters at times; we all have some truly disfigured and disformed monstrous internal qualities about us. In my last blog I wrote a poem that - for me - was a representation of the process of redemption, from creation to monstrosity to new creation. Then today as I was playing around on my guitar, I found an old song that I'd written in August 2008. It's entitled Paper and Glue.

It's really about the shape that this monstrosity takes in my life. While it may be frail and fragile, it is a cut and paste composition of an internal suffering. So before you read it and think that I'm suicidal or depressed, I'm not. I'm just really intrigued by the idea of sin and how it takes so many shapes in our lives. For me, I recognize it, see it, hear it, and despise it. For others it is a skulking stalking shadowy figure that hides in the deep caverns of the heart.

Paper and Glue - Steve Coupland, August 27 2008

Break my skin, make me bleed

I need this, I need to concede to

Suffering, and selflessness

A lessened me means a greater you

Refrain

For underneath this fragment of skin

Dwells a monster made of paper and glue

A construct, a masterpiece

Ever-growing, and ever-hungry too

And this monster simply subjects me

Muddles my memory, and makes my heart unglue

And my morality faces fatality

I’m no more a servant, but a slave to paper and glue

Bridge

Is there hope for me?

Can I overcome?

With claws dug in so deeply

Can we find a way

For me to escape?

Oh take all of me, take its place

So break my skin, make me bleed

Begin the purging that I so desperately need

Then take up scissors, dig them in deeply

No remorse for paper, no sympathy for glue

| I am worshiper; I am loved |

I am clay; man made from dirt, breathed into life, moulded and shaped by the Potter into vessel of worship.

I am worshiper; man given purpose, meaning instilled, posture attributed so that I may fix my eyes to the Mountain and before Him bow low.

I am lowly; fallen, fruit of temptation casting me down, burden of sin drawing me downward into the pit of despair.

I am despair; hopeless and hapless, unable to climb out from the mire or the fire, from judgment or calamity.

I am calamity; warring against friend or foe, disaster lashing out void of rational, a make-shift monster moulded from muck.

I am monstrous; hideous self, self loathing and self destructing, longing for freedom but finding only rejection.

I am rejected; unloved and undead, a walking self-hating zombie, covered in the scabs and sores of sin.

Yet I am accepted; welcomed by an inclusive Son of Man, losing life and gaining life, monstrosity embraced, calamity calmed, and rejection ruined.

I am ruined; destroyed and amazed, knowing not love until love was poured out.

I am loved; cherished and pursued by whip and tree, my scabs and sores nailed to flesh, offering eternal hope.

I am hopeful; the need has passed to climb forth from the pit, he on Jacob’s ladder carrying me up toward redemption.

I am redeemed; brokenness surrendered, uselessness offered up on bended knee, broken cistern made new by the Potter.

I am new; hard and brittle clay made malleable again, reformed and refashioned into vessel of worship.

I am worshiper; new eyes to see, new hands to stretch out, and new songs to sing about love.

| Of magazines and coffee shops |

I began my Tyndale experience in 2004. For two years I tried my best at an education, only to realize that my desires and my passions weren't for an education at that point in time. After a year off, I came back to Tyndale in 2007, met the girl of my dreams, and lived happily ever after.

For so long, I've been asked about school and work. 'How many more courses?', 'When do you graduate?'. But now that I am graduating, the line of questioning is much different. 'What are you going to do after your graduate?'

I've always had a rather witty response to the first line of questioning, for it will have taken me six years to finish my BA, and so, like God, I will do work for six and then rest. But now that graduation draws near, I really must approach the all too scary reality that a year of rest is neither realistic nor desired. I didn't struggle and toil through six years of school only then to sit on my education. Thus, I have turned to lofty dreams and unimaginable heights for inspiration. What is my heartbeat for this life? What is God's heartbeat for my life?

I know I love two things: coffee and God. I love the idea of a third-space café church, where people gather to commune with one another and with God, over a hot coffee. However, I'm not really sure where lofty dream meets realistic goal; I'm not sure how to actually go about doing this. I really wish I'd taken one or two less religious studies courses and one or two more business courses. Then I might know how to run a not-for-profit organization.

What do you think? Is it feasible? Is it an interesting idea? Is it Biblical?

Beyond that, I'd really love to start a magazine (aka a 'zine). I like the idea of un|bind as a title. I think it could start out as a Wellspring-specific outlet, communicating the hard truth about addictions that - for the most part - the church is not really addressing. There is so much hindering and binding people in this day, and it breaks my heart to see these obstructions hold people back from really embracing God and being embraced by Him.

To my readers, would you consider posting some thoughts in this 'zine, if it took flight? Certainly a magazine full of a single author would get a little repetitive.

Cheers.

| The senseless pursuit of worthlessness |

Too often I have seen and heard of people who once claimed the mantle of Christ and now no longer do. Their eternal destination is beyond my comprehension, and so I will not venture in that direction with this entry. But I do wonder why. Why give up something of so much worth as a result of its mere inconvenience? Is there any other reason? None that I can come to right now.

When I think about the journey of the Christian life, I cannot help but think of its all encompassing nature. The Christian life is not a funky armband you wear that lets you store your salvation like you would store your Ipod or Iphone. No, the Christian life is - at first sight - burdensome. We are called to let go of worldly treasures, to pick up a big ol' cross, put on full spiritual armour, and then journey through life as the enemy shoots venomous arrows at us. It's a funny picture, but one that most Christians take seriously; the Christian life requires our all.

And yet there are some who seemingly turn away from God, giving up the Christian life in favour of all sorts of earthly treasures and pleasures. The inconvenience of the cross and the armour and of being the subject of target practice seems to outweigh the twofold prize: then and now, future and present.

I love the words of Jesus as he states, "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" Thus the prize for "then" becomes eternal life with God through Christ Jesus. And the prize for now becomes a plethora of amazing gifts: safety, security, passion, vision, truth, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and so on, and so forth.

Perhaps the inconvenience begins with the illusion that we can have both the world and our soul. Perhaps there is a sneaky desire to have it all. Or perhaps we are like children who constantly test our Father. We slowly - one piece at a time - grab hold of the world and look to heaven to see if He will punish us. But I assure you, our punishment is our miscalculation. Economically speaking, giving up some temporary loot in favour of eternal and everlasting riches, you'd be a fool to give up on God. This is why I say, giving up on God is the senseless pursuit of worthlessness.

| Un|bind |

I tend to linger on certain snippets of Scripture for extended periods of time. For a while it was the great 'hymn of Christ' of Philippians 2:5-11. As of late, I have lingered long on the words of Jesus in Luke 4, as he quotes the prophet Isaiah.

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."

I believe that the Spirit may even be directing me toward this verse for the Hlinsko CZ sermon that I'm to preach. While it is not the gospel message per se, it is the gospel implication. Certainly we would all agree that the gospel message is that this Son of God entered into frail flesh and blood, lived among us, humbled himself to persecution and eventual death, only then to rise from the dead three days later, thus defeating death and ushering in the age of new life through the Spirit. The gospel implication then, is to be people who mirror the life of the Son, who proclaim this good news to the poor, who proclaim freedom for prisoners (of flesh and of spirit), who do our best to give sight to the blind, to take a stand against the oppression of the evil one, and to declare this all in the name of the Lord and his favour upon us.

To me, this is what being unbound is all about; to me, the gospel offers us release from all that binds us. And as we are unbound from all that corrupts, contains, and constrains us, we then are called to be people who unbind the nations.

Where the Spirit of the Lord, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17)

I urge you to consider your own freedom. How free are you?

| Of old faith and new frontiers |

We've all heard the oft-used metaphor of the mustard seed. 'We can move mountains if we have faith the size of a mustard seed'. Well, a few months back now, I was asked to consider joining a missions trip overseas to Hlinsko, Czech. It would be a trip that used the game of hockey as a springboard to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ across the world.

I must admit that I envisioned faith to take on a very concrete size and shape at that point in time. I must also admit, it wasn't a mustard seed. It was $2300 *sigh*. I distinctly remember walking and praying, asking God to help me make this decision. I remember wanting God to make the first step. I wanted God to "show me the money" before I was willing to take a step, no - a leap - of faith. Yet as the Spirit moves in wonderful and mysterious ways, so the Spirit reminded me of something I had forgotten to remember.

You see, last year I had taken a course on the book of Hebrews. Part of our class mark came from memorizing and reciting a chunk of the book. I chose Hebrews 11 for I could easily break the section down into little sections, each with its own hero of faith. Hebrews 11 is about faith. It begins with "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." And so this verse that I had memorized last year now came to the forefront of my mind, and God told me to have that kind of faith.

Instead of waiting for God to make the first move, He called me to leap out in faith, knowing full well that he would provide for my every need. And now I'm going to Czech. Next month I'll get on my very first plane, use my very first passport, and enter into a new frontier of life. I'll be stretched thin and stretched wide, but God is good and He will sustain me. I even get to preach through a translator while I'm there. Exciting and terrifying times await me, but I'm glad to be going with good friends.

The following is my support letter. I encourage you to read it and consider supporting me through prayer or through a one-time donation. "For the cost of a cup of coffee a day, you can..." Okay, I won't go there.

God bless.

-steve

Hello Friends and Family, February 18-March 1, 2011

I am excited to tell you that this coming February, I will be travelling to Czech Republic for a ten day missions trip. I will be joining the organization SOS Canada (Salvation on Skates), an organization that has been reaching out and ministering to people in Hlinsko, CZ since 2006 through the game of hockey. The game of hockey is used to break down barriers so that the gospel of Jesus Christ can be shared. However, hockey is not all that we will be doing in Hlinsko this February. We will be sharing our testimonies in public schools, spending quality time with kids in the orphanages, teaching ESL classes, and working alongside a local church, all for the glory of God! I will also have the opportunity to preach at a local church in Czech through a translator.

Czech is a lot like Canada. They have a similar climate, friendly people, and they love their hockey. While hockey is not the total focus of our trip, it is important to give us an opening to share our faith. The Czech Republic, formerly part of Czechoslovakia, was under communist rule until 1989, so there still is very little Christian influence. We are not there to force our beliefs on them, but to let them know that we care, and to share our reason for traveling so far.

God is truly wonderful and mysterious. I never saw myself going overseas on mission. Yet He has put together the challenge of mission with my favourite sport in the world; comfort with challenge. He truly knows the hairs on my head!

So what can you do to help?

One of the joys of this trip is that so many of us are from different churches. That means all of these churches are part of commissioning and praying for this trip. I need you to pray. Pray that God would work in great and mighty ways, that language would not be a barrier, that the gospel message would be planted on good soil, and that God would be glorified in and through this trip.

One of the challenges of this trip is its financial cost. If you are able, any donation to this cause would be greatly appreciated, as it will cost me $2300 to go. SOS Canada is a non-profit ministry registered with the Canadian Revenue Agency. To support me financially, make the cheque out to SOS Canada and attach a note indicating your support for me, as well as your personal information (name, mailing address). Donations can also be given in person or through the mail.

Thank you for your support, I trust that God has a plan for this trip specifically and I hope that I can be used to achieve His purpose.

“The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

-Numbers 6:24-26

| Of building blocks and writers block |

I have writers block.

I've written a half dozen half blogs, only to find myself unsatisfied with the blog in some manner.

Any thoughts or inspiration?

| a tempest in a teapot |

So I'm not perfect. While I doubt this is a surprise to anyone, I figured that I should post that sign high above my blog. Many of the entries I write are reflective in some manner, but they can appear to be thoughtful consideration directed outward, with little personal application of my own. Perhaps as a person and as a blogger, I keep people at arms length, rarely allowing for the type of close relationship that enables people to tangibly interact with my brokenness and my flaws. /preface.

While at the gym last night, I was listening to a sermon from one David McGhee. A Freedomize Toronto preacher of olde, David was preaching from Romans 12:17-21. It was a message on revenge. While running and biking and "pumping iron", I listened as David eloquently and artfully spoke painful truth into my life. I can be a person who struggles to forgive; I can be a person who desires to see the wicked punished. Like the psalmist or like Jeremiah the prophet, I can be one who enjoys seeing the righteous prosper and the wicked suffer. I like justice. No, I love justice.

I can get so bent out of shape over the actions of others, all the while forgetting that my actions can be equally as hurtful or crude. And then I found this phrase in a theological textbook, "a tempest in a teapot". I've not used it in the same context as the book, for instead I saw it as a looming disaster contained in a very small and fragile package. As the vengeance inside of me slowly spins, eventually it becomes a surging and spinning tempest. And yet I am a broken cistern of Jeremiah 2; I am a fragile little teapot. The tempest inside of me - if left unmanaged - will eventually break free of me and wreak disaster on others. And yet this is what the vengeance inside of me wants; this is what the tempest desires.

God spoke to me last night about my own life. Through the voice of David, God called me to look inward at the surging winds that I have allowed to gather speed. He called me to consider my own desire for vengeance, and then to vanquish it with love. In Romans 12:17-21, Paul speaks about repaying evil for evil, and then contrasts it with the repaying of evil with love. That to truly lavish love on an enemy - to lay aside hurt and hate and truly encourage or exalt an enemy - that this action is like heaping burning coals on their head. This act of unhindered and untamed love will actually be more influential and more powerful than allowing the tempest to be set free.

I know that I stopped in my tracks and thought about a certain co-worker that I have. This week I'm going to try and show love to this person. Perhaps it will break the spiral of vengeance that exists between us. Perhaps it will calm the storm that lays siege to my cracked and fragile teapot.

Thanks for reading.

Oh, and check out David's "vintage" sermons at http://www.freechurch.ca/Content.xjp?novar=&id=662&CalendarSearchType=SPEAKERALL&CalendarSearchText=David+McGhee

| Luke 3 - Baptism and the Spirit |

New sermon up. Check it out if you so desire.
http://www.wellspringtoronto.ca/church/Podcast/Entries/2011/1/9_January_9%2C_Steven_Paul_Coupland.html