Jericho

So this is something I've been pondering the last few days, ever since God pointed it out to me in worship at theMILL Northern Hills on Friday.

The key text is Joshua 5. In the first 12 verses, we find Joshua, the leader of Israel, having just crossed the Jordan. He's just recently taken over from Moses, the man who really is the Old Testament Messiah of the Jewish people (if you look at the parallels between the Old Testament and the New Testament, it's really easy to see why the Jews of the 1st Century AD were looking for a socio-political messiah.. the parallel they had in Moses brought them physically out of slavery and physically up to the borders of the new land)

Now, Joshua has a big challenge ahead of him. If you go back to the story of scouting the Promised Land, Joshua and Caleb went in together, they saw what they were going up against. When they came back, they didn't say "Aw, guys, there aren't really giants, and they cities aren't that well fortified, and the people look impressive, sure, but they're really not all that strong". They said "we can take possession of the land, we will swallow up the people there, because their protection is gone, and the Lord is with us".

So Joshua is facing a strong enemy, and this as one of his first tests of leadership. He's in command of a mighty force (so mighty that the people in the land are afraid of Israel), and he's just been shown to have God's favor by the crossing of the Jordan during flood stage. But we know he's nervous, from the exchange in Joshua 1 ("Be strong and courageous").

So he decides to do this whole thing the right way. Between crossing the Jordan and beginning the conquest of the land, we see him purify and circumcise his whole force (which, interestingly, is a very dangerous thing to do when in a hostile land, when you consider the story of Genesis 34), and he celebrates the Passover. I'm sure there are military preparations in there too, but Joshua is covering all his bases.

So the twist comes in verse 13.

At this point, Joshua is either scouting out Jericho, or since he's already sent the spies, he may very well be leading his column for the actual attack on the city.

13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.

Ok, hold up, everything is off now. Joshua knows this isn't one of his scouts, he'd recognize him. And this guy, whoever he is, is apparently blocking Joshua's way with a drawn sword. Not really a good sign. Joshua makes a pretty logical next step...

13b Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"

Makes sense, right?

14 "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come."

Whoa. Neither. Didn't see that coming. Now, if Joshua was asking, "are you one of us or one of them?", this answer would make sense.

But that's not what Joshua asked.. he knew that this chap standing in front of him wasn't one of his men.

At this point, God (the commander is often believed to have been pre-incarnate Jesus) steps in and says that he is neither for Joshua, or against him. Doesn't fit nicely into our little Christian mold that God is always for us and that all things work for our good, does it?

14b Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for his servant?"

15 The commander of the LORD's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.

God is reminding Joshua that while he is not necessarily on Joshua's side, Joshua is on His side, that Joshua is acting to fulfill God's will. The scripture goes on to show God's plan in action as Joshua defeats the defenders of Jericho, the most impressively defended city at that time in Canaan (as shown by the archeological record)

I wonder if we often make this mistake, of assuming God to be on our side.. The question we really need to ask is if we are on God's side. Are we serving God with our actions? Are we working to accomplish his ends? Or have we decided that these challenges are our own, and we simply need Divine help?

My 6 cents. Inflation is getting ridiculous

Paintball

After that last post, this one should be much easier.

So, yup, I play paintball, a lot. Once a month is the absolute minimum, and now it's more often 2 or 3 weekends every month. So, from 8-25 hours per month practicing or playing, not counting time I spend drilling in the house.

I got started through a church small group in Pueblo. We called ourselves a Band of Brothers (after Shakespeare, not the silly TV show), and had a bible/book study, beat each other up in swordplay, played basketball and played paintball about every other month. One of the guys had been playing for about 10 years with his brother and friends in North Carolina, so he took us all out for the first time one frigid day in February. We played down on his parents' ranchland in Beulah, about 40 minutes south of Pueblo, in about 6 to 20 inches of snow, depending on if you were in a drift or not. Ryan and I had plastic pump markers from walmart, Larry and Josh had spyder clones, and Nathan, being the paintball expert, had a Tippmann 98, I believe. We froze our hindparts off, were soaking wet from the snow, and I'm pretty sure I didn't shoot anyone, but it was a blast!

Well, as time went on, we got more and more people out to the games. Over that next summer, I think we were getting about 40 friends from our church to go out with us, and some of us were really enjoying it a lot. The core 5, as we called ourselves, started a team, keeping the name Band of Brothers, and that really got us to take off. We organized and started drilling for a league called the SPPL, which is a national woods paintball tournament series. Actually, looking back, our drills were ridiculous. We didn't have the money to spend practicing with paint, so we had rubber band drills in the church on Sunday nights (take into account, these are fully grown men, for the most part).

All winter we prepared and organized and analyzed the rulebook. That June, 12 of us headed out to Oklahoma for our first event as a team. Nathan, Ryan and I were there from the original 5, plus Ryan's dad Scott, Joey and his dad John, my neighbor Craig and his dad Randy. Thomas, Aaron and Jaden came out from Alamosa, and Paul, his sister Jen, and his cousin Matt were there. Guess that's 14, not 12. Whoops.

Anyhow, looking back, we were incredibly lucky to get the schedule we did, for a few reasons. For one, we weren't pitted against any of the top-tier teams (this was back before teams were in seperate divisions based on skill), which gave us a confidence boost, and secondly, the two teams we played (US SOCOM and WolfGuard) have become some of our closest friends over the years. We actually won all of our games, I think, but only narrowly, and therefore weren't able to advance to the semi-finals and finals. No prizes for us. Except for the fact that in the SPPL, there is a sportsmanship award equal in value to the 1st place prize, which by some set of circumstance, we were awarded! There's a longer story behind that, but I'll keep moving. Anyhow, we came back honestly pretty proud of ourselves (we took home prizes in a National level event and won all our games), and that event really sparked a few of us to play more, become better, and focus to a large degree on playing the SPPL.

The next year, we went back to Oklahoma and to Utah, and had a really good time, although we never placed. As the league grew and became more popular, better teams were being attracted, teams with players who practiced every weekend or every other weekend, and practiced hard. As a group of players who played for fun, we really weren't on the same level.

I'll skip the rest of the backstory, and come to this past year, where I've been in Golden. Effectively, Band of Brothers is no more as several of us have moved to college or have shipped out with the Military (Joey is Army Scout Cav, Jaden is Navy SEALs), and many of the others are spending more time with their families. Because of this, and my personal change of location, I'm now playing with a team from Denver called BlackLight Company (www.blacklightcompany.org). BLC is a great team who we always enjoyed playing with or against in the past, and a team where one of my best friends in recent history plays, David "Torch" McClannahan. Torch and I are now entering our third year playing the SPPL together, and he's pushed me farther and harder than I ever would have gone on my own. We both play at the front lines, pushing into opponents territory, making the battle up close and personal. We both love a few types of paintball markers (particularly 'mags and Minis, for anyone who follows paintball), and we're both Christians doing our best to reflect Him in our actions on and off the field.

Anyhow, I played informally with BLC over this past year, at a lot of their recreational games and practices, and since I've had a lot of experience with the SPPL, I was advising them through their first season, in the newly founded Rookie Division. I also had the chance to guest with them at the Kansas Flood event. Yes, it was biblical-scale rain. Which causes interesting problems in competitive paintball. I also travelled with them to the SPPL National Finals in Georgia over Fall Break, where they took first in the series, and I reffed on another field.

Partially due to my brilliant play in Kansas, and partially due to my stunning good looks, BLC then invited me to become a full member of the team about a month ago. Ok, I'd be surprised if either contributed. But the short story is now that BLC is my new paintball family, and I couldn't be happier with any team in Colorado.

A lot of you will also know that I write about paintball. I'll save the entire story for later, but as it stands now, I run the Articles section of the webpage for Special Ops Paintball out of Salt Lake, Utah. It's a great job, a lot of fun, and they're taking good care of me, which has been a huge blessing. So, if you see this Greg, Jayson, Travis, Mo, thank you all!

There is a brief history of me in paintball. I wanted to get it out there to kind of cover the bases, if you want to see more or ask questions, leave a comment, and I'll elaborate. Just be careful. I can go on and on and on.

Lo

Women

Ha, this should be a tough enough topic to tackle right off.

Women are great, I love many women in varying senses of the word. Hopefully this will help cover bases and make sure I don't have a screaming mob outside my house in the morning.

Ok, I kid, I kid. This won't be that kind of blog entry.

I'm going to talk about me and women. Particularly my thoughts on them in the past, in the present, and my hopes in the future.

As with most guys, I eventually came around to the point where I was interested in the young girls around town. Wow, that sounds awkward. In the normal sense. I don't remember in particular when this was, but I think it was fairly early. That's because I grew up in a Christian household, and figured out very early on that they weren't lying in Proverbs with "he who finds a wife finds a good thing." Being surrounded by healthy, loving marriages made that even more solid.

Throughout my teen years, I was actually fairly despondent about the whole marriage scene.. I wasn't incredibly concerned, knowing I had time to go, but as I looked around, finding a woman who truly pursued God was tough, and those who were were lifetime friends, not exactly romantic material for me. I went through High School and my first year of College without dating at all, partially because I didn't find anyone in Pueblo who God called me to, mostly because I knew it wasn't the time, it was too early.

The only exception to this was when I attended FSI/DSI at New Life Church in the summers during high school. Those 10 day stretches were infinitely difficult, going from a "Godly Young Women deprived condition" to being surrounded by an abundance of wonderful, beautiful Godly women. I remember each year having to repent during one of the many worship times of not having His plans in mind, but being preoccupied by the girls there. It was rough. I still hold that against you girls! (jokingly of course.. you are all still some of my dearest friends).

Right about when I was finishing my first year of college, God turned my plans for the future around when He told me that I'd not be living a typical suburban American life, but would be spending my life in the refugee camps of the Middle East. Among other things, that night as I lingered in His presence, he told me that I had a few tasks for the next years: To go to Mines and graduate from the Humanitarian Engineering Program, to begin learning Arabic, and that I would find my wife as part of this process.

The first two have been challenging, certainly, but the third is the most dangerous task he put on me. I can't help but let that influence my actions to a degree, and haven't found a balance for it. On one hand, I know that the great majority of interactions I have with women in these three years at CSM will not be with my future wife. But, best I can figure, at least one will be. And I'm not going to tip-toe around it, I'm excited about it!

I've had one relationship so far, early in my Sophomore year, which I'm not ashamed to say was an excellent few months of getting to know LG better. I honestly cannot regret anything about that time, as I learned a lot and really enjoyed just spending time with her as we took our early morning walks. In the end, as much as I fought it (almost a month, if I recall), God told me that He had a separate plan for her, that I had to let her go, and that was hard. But looking back, I'm glad to have obeyed Him, even if I can't see why yet. L, if you see this, thank you so much for all that you taught me, even if you didn't realize it, and for understanding in the end.

Coming back to this after a few days to figure out where I was going, I suppose that's all to say that I'm an awkward fellow around women, and it's not all my fault! However, introspectively, I'm making the same mistake I often do, and becoming so pre-occupied with the end result that I don't think to stop and enjoy the process.

Yes, I know you are wondering, there is a special person in my life right now, who I'm prayerfully considering and growing into a deeper relationship with. And I would be utterly blessed if God comes back saying "Yes, Ian, I will teach you to love her as I love you." I did a study on this right about when I left home, going through the Gospels to really learn what it meant to love my future wife as Christ loved the church, and I realized how many different shapes that can take. I suppose that's really a great way to discover what love truly is (and praying for it, I've been praying for some time that God would teach me to Love as he does, and I highly suggest it). I'll save my in depth analysis on that for later (I'll need to dig up my notes to treat it properly). But for the moment, I'll leave you with a list of the things that I look forward to in the future.

I look forward to meeting my wife
I look forward to trying to convince her I'm not entirely crazy
I look forward to the nights of agony, praying for blessing on her
I look forward to the nights of joy, simply spending time loving God together
I look forward to the day that God puts a spirit of peace in my heart when I ask "Is this her?"
I look forward to asking her father for her hand
I look forward to the excitement and nervousness of planning a proposal
I look forward to actually proposing (probably after I've missed a chance or two)
I look forward to wedding preparations (at this point, some of you older, wiser folk are laughing at me.. Yup, I accept that)
I look forward to the day when I'll stand awkwardly at the end of an aisle
I look forward to that first kiss
I look forward to the moment we are introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Ebersole, knowing that we are each other's forever
I look forward to the days when wedding bliss wears off and we again discover what it means to truly love
I look forward to spending a very significant portion of my waking hours serving her needs and desires
I look forward to the day when we discover we will be blessed with our first child
As odd as it sounds, I look forward to the long months of pregnancy and the long nights shortly thereafter
I look forward to raising a child of my own in the way that is right, in the path of God.
I look forward to the challenges that will present
I look forward to eventually sending my children to college
I look forward to growing old with my bride, reveling both in the days of the past and those to come
I look forward to serving God in the capacity he chooses along the way.

and most of all
I look forward to learning how to reciprocate the boundless Love that God has showed us.

Hopefully you can follow that all without too many aspirin
For the Lamb's Reward
Lo