On Thursday,December 12, Barbara Walters hosted her annual television segment in which she interviewed the most fascinating people of 2010. The list included Kate Middleton,Justin Bieber,Sara Palin,Sandra Bullock,Fergie,Betty White,the situation,and Katy Perry. I harbor no ill will toward any of thes individuals;but guess what? They are not the most fascinating people of the year. Let me share with you who deserves to be considered the most fascinating people of 2010. In Afghanistan this year several female humanitarian aid workers who were Christians were kidnapped and held hostage for months. The woman who were willing to give their lives in an effort to improve the living conditions of others. The women were tortured and brutally raped to the degree that when they were released from their captivity they could not utter a sound for months due to the shock resulting from their harrowing experience. I also believe in time they will be willing to put themselves in dangerous situations again if it allows those who are downtrodden and least fortunate to rebuild their lives and ultimately thrive.


Every patient at Walter Reed hospital is one of the most fascinating people of 2010. As I write this there is a soldier who has returned from Afghanistan,and he lost his arms and sight in battle. He is fascinating because he was willing to sacrifice his life on behalf of others.

Mirror, Mirror

We all with unveiled faces are reflecting the glory
of the Lord,and are being transformed into the same
image from glory to glory.
2Co 3:18
I don't want to be beholden to the brokenness,changing whims,and frustrations of others;and neither should you. I want you to have permission to recieve the perfect reflection of the glory of Jesus Christ at the cross for all of your significance needs. When you are able to see who you truly are as you gaze into the mirror which now boldly shines forth the wonder of Gods acceptance of you it will no longer be possible to see yourself as anything less. Don't walk away from the mirror and forget exactly who you have been made to be.

World Vision

I believe there are several factors that would enable me to be an asset to World Vision. First, I have been fortunate enough to to have grown up in a Christian home where the truths of Gods word were faithfully shared. At the age of six during a childrens church invitation at Shiloh Hills Baptist Church a volunteer led me through a sinners prayer;and I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior. A few weeks later during a church service led by the evangelist Tim Maharis I told my mother that I sensed a call to be a missionary in Africa. I am greatful that Jesus has chosen to pursue a relationship with me. Throughout the seasons of my life because the principles of the word of God were instilled in my heart and mind as a child;and I have been able to return to these guiding principles that are the foundation for the man I have become today. In 2010 I went through a Hope Mentor process through Buckhead Church where I have been able to replace many false beliefs that had stunted my walk with Jesus Christ over the years with the truths about my identity in Christ. It is my utmost joy to proclaim that Jesus Christ is my savior.





Although I have not earned a degree I believe each major I have been involved in prepares a student to pursue any number of helping professions. I have taken several upper level classes in social work,psychology,womens studies and theological studies throughout my college career. This year I attended Liberty University. My course work has shaped my perspective in a way that causes me to be aware of the injustices that exist.





I have worked at Publix Super Market for a total of twelve years. Publix is one of the premier food retailers in the world,and is time and again considered one of Fortunes top 100 places to work. You may be asking how does all of this relate to World Vision? Publix is not just a grocery store because the focus of the Publix mission is customer driven. At Publix it is our desire to satisfy the customer at all costs. I realize this message has been taught and modeled so well over the years it has just become second nature to me. I believe my work at Publix would prove to be a vital asset and skill set when working at World Vision. The Publix mission of excellence can translate well into any helping profession. The desire to serve the guest(or those in need) at Publix has been successfully instilled in me. In fact about a month ago I was able to find a product for a customer after she had already left the store. When I found her gettting in her car I gave her the product free of charge. The next day a coworker told me the same customer let her know that she is new in the area,but plans to only shop at our store because I simply chose to honor the ethos of customer focus,customer satisfaction. The next week the customer told me "You know how to respond to people." I believe I am customer focused, and as I enter my fourth year at the Buckhead Publix I have noticed that many customers know me by name,and this is encouraging to me. I hope they are able to see Publix as a little better place through our efforts to please our guests. I have realized that I can exhibit qualities of leadership without being recognized as a manager. Over the past ten years of working at a premier supermarket it has caused me to realize the great division that exists among the rescources throughout the world.We are so blessed,but the varied food selection seems to be almost wasteful in light of those who will go without.

I had a profound insight when I was able to see the special needs of customers all around me. I had to ask myself as a follower of Jesus Christ do I even care? I thought if I cannot serve here how could I serve with World Vision? So over the past few years I have made it my mission to recognize specific needs as they occur,and choose to meet those needs in the best manner possible. The particular Publix I work at is eclectic in a way that no other Publix is. We have such an influx of Europeans who move to Atlanta,and their children attend the International School. I have come to realize the demographics of the store are phenomenol if you are interested in missions. I find this particular store is much like the world passing through on a microcosmic level,and I find reaching out to so many different people in the community inspiring. I have learned in my community that great wealth truly does exist;but through volunteering at Buckhead Christian Ministry which is an organization that provides assistance to the working poor I see that such great wealth is not true for so many who are struggling to make ends meet;and I find this to be troubling.



Lastly,I experienced challenging medical circumstances in 1999. I was able to move through a process of healing ,and I can point to those circumstances as defining momements which shaped a personal mission statement when I came to the realization that in healing our brokenness it can produce a fertile bed from our pain within to be poured out in healing the lives of others. Only when we get to this place,albeit a result of tragic circumstances can this be understood and for others.

Transformation

Transformation


Transformational


Transforming


Transmutation


A complete change usually into something with an approved appearance or usefulness.


Transforming is the act of process in transforming somebody or something.(dingy attic to sunny loft)Transmutation changes one form of substance or nature state into another(gold alchemy).





Encanta World Dictionary North American Edition 2009 Microsoft Corporation All Rights Reserved Developed for Microsoft by Bloombury Publishing Pic.

Only the one Begotten of God

Jesus Christ is the begotten of God which means He is the exact physical revelation of God in flesh. The sacrifice of Jesus seen through the eyes of God is absolute perfection on behalf of all peoples. When God sees the sacrifice of His son being the just atonement for mankind it is more pleasing to Him than the creation of the first man;and God said: "It is good."(Gn 1:31)



It is my desire to come under the annoninting of this offering where our significance must come from if we are to be truly blessed. Ultimate purpose and fulfillment is derived from the offering of the one and only son of God. The highest order of beauty is in the fact that when God sees Jesus he sees and knows Himself,and this is the love given that can truly transform the lives of individuals, even in the fast paced whirlwind of activity that makes up our postmodern world. Its not so much what we do,but its who we are and whose we are. Its more about what He has done and will continue to do in the lives of believers. Ultimate transformation within the human spirit can only be fulfilled through a relationship with Jesus Christ. My hope for you is that you would allow God to initiate you as you respond to his leadings into the mystery that is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which is ours to partake of. This is not new like a fleeting cultural whim that is constantly subject to change.. No this person of Christ Jesus and all that He completes among the sons and daughters of God has been known and ordained since before creation and time began.

Not only is the sacrfice of Jesus complete and perfect; it was ultimately fulfilled by all of the strtength garnered and called forth by the power of God as the begotten was risen from the dead on the third day.

Let it Pour

Take away my sins Lord.
Let them spill out of my heart like the rains released from a grey cloud
full and bursting with moisture upon the desert terrain
Where deperate creatures like the lizard and the scorpion
scurry to find a trickle flowing from the surface of a desert boulder.

Stopping Time

Time is whirring by, spinning faster
Right before our eyes
With nothing to hold us still and in place.
I want to capture something
and bring it close to me to hold and
defy the spin of just passing by
in the revolutions of the earth.
There has to be a meaning more permanent like a part of yourself'
left behind that made a lasting difference.
I drag my feet in the circle of time hoping to slow it all down.
Its not that your going to stay
but you found that which will remain beyond our day.

Lk9:23-24;1Pt1:6-7

It is often times in the extremes of our circumstances when the broken places in our heart and mind surface in a way that cannot be ignored any longer. As our lives become frayed and fraught with trouble in a situation we cannot understand; God comes alongside your struggle with an inevitable breakthrough of profound consequence in your life.In the time of testing you will assuredly experience a most excellent breakthrough as you will come to know the person of Jesus Christ in the most abiding way that your heart and mind could ever concieve of. If you persist in the faith you will be ushered into deeper and deeper realms of the beauty and strength that is the knowledge of Christ Jesus the one and only Son of the living God.


I have heard pastors like Joel Osteen say that its all about your happiness,and the abscence of pain. Yet adversity is the universal way to bring about growth that endures and always hopes. Did not the Christ take up His cross and suffer before entering His glory?



So many times we just want the pain and the harrowing struggle to stop long before the glory arrives. God longs to show Himself strong as He goes through the trial alongside us so that we can obtain the birthright God has prepared for believers in Jesus Christ.

Breaking the Cycle

My mother Barbara Mooney grew up in an abusive home. Her father my, grandfather, Hugh Harcrow was an alcoholic and a violent abuser. I believe this instilled within my mother a desire to become the best mother she could be for my sister Melissa and I to provide a healthy home life that she was robbed of as a little child. My mom was determined to break the cycle of family abuse by one day raising her children in a family quite unlike what she experienced in her home. I believe my mom made a conscious, nurturing decision probably even at a young age carrying what little torch of hope she had to one day do it differently as a parent. My mom has provided everything I have ever wanted. It was my moms sole purpose to have Melissa and I enrolled in Shiloh Hills Christian School during our formative years where we were fortunate enough to be given a foundation based on sound principles of the Bible that we have returned to even as we have grown older. I still remember a verses from Psalm 19 that I was led to memorize in second grade. "The law of the Lord is sweet like honey dripping from the comb."





When my mom was a little girl one night her tv was too loud for an angry,hungover Hugh. You have to remember this was the time of Ed Sullivan,Elvis ,and the Beatles which should have been an exiting and defining time for a young person,but my mothers father stormed into my mothers bedroom and twisted and bent completely the tv antenna so she couldn't watch tv anymore. Imagine living in a home life where you were threatened,and felt like your life was in danger if you were playing too loud;and you knew Hugh was sleeping off another hangover and headache in the next bedroom.





Because of the prescence of the scars my mom has carried all of her life as a result of the abuse at her own fathers hands I was appalled at the funeral for her father who had committed suicide in late December 1998 when the sherrif of Newton County which is in Conyers,Ga who has since retired said:" You know you should have visited your daddy more often." Maybe the sherrif knew about my moms abusive past or not. He lived in Newton County for decades. In most cases people know about the horrific situation,and they just chose to remain in denial and act like it never happened.





Any time my mom visits the home she grew up in memories like ghosts all come to life screaming from the walls of her childhood home as if each event is unfolding in present time all the memories of a traumatic past. Even 40 years after the abuse my mom can take you through her childhood home and recount what specific torment she endured. "If you go through the kitchen door this is where my daddy chased my mom with a pair of scissors."It was at this very mirror where my dad would say nobody will marry you Barbara Ann. Your going to stay right here." So Mr. sherrif, please excuse my mother for not visiting her daddy more often.

Lets Get It Together

There comes a time in a believers life through all the seemingly disconnected experiences and hardships where God will lead you back to a centered place. God will begin a great,new work in your life of centering you so that God can use you as He has planned. It is not in the nature of God to simply allow you to be lost in the wilderness forever.

Which Path Have You Chosen?

Its amazing to consider the tragic consequences that existed beyond the portal of a tree and its forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve moved through. Perhaps the the omniscience of all the good and evil that was to come to pass was revealed. There was no longer the ability to know how to choose the good. It would become a constant struggle for mankind who knows the prescence of sin. Imagine Adam and Eve as they stood before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The entire spectrum of all the good to be done in the known universe carried down a path,and all of the evil that could ever be known to occur existed along a spectrum of time. We do know for a fact that death itself was waiting beyond the taste of forbidden fruit(Gen2:17). Yet God did not leave Adam and Eve without hope. God would provide the seedling of a messianic savior that would be born of mankind(Gen3:15)- "I will put hostility between you and the woman,and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head,and you will bruise his heel.The seed of God would come as the only begotten Son in Jesus Christ."The Holy Spirit will come upon you,and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the holy One to be born will be called the Son of God."(Lk1:35) This same Jesus would eventually die on a Roman cross for the sins of the world. He said that "the son of man must be lifted up so that everone who believes in Him will have eternal life." Jesus used the words" lifted up" to be symbolic and to foreshadow the cross that was freely taken up by Jesus, and raised for all the world to see and know upon Golgatha's hill which is called "the place of the skull".

Answer the Call

I was born on Friday,November 14,1975 in Athens Ga at Athens Regional Hospital. The time of entry into the world was 11:30am. It was snowing when my mothers water broke;and when she was able to bring me home the temperature reached an unseasonably warm 80 degrees.I was presented to ecstatic parents Barbara and Phil Mooney. The name Jason can be translated "One who heals." The Bible passage that correlates with "One who heals" can be found in Is 61 and Lk 4. I was raised in a loving,Christian home where the truths of Gods word were presented faithfully and in an exiting manner that awakened in this boys active imagination a desire to follow Christ in some way. When I was about six years old,and in childrens church at Shiloh Hills Baptist church there was an invitation time. I told a church member named Gerald Keeslor that I wanted to accept Jesus Christ into my heart. So he led me through the sinners prayer. I have never forgotten the purple and yellow pains of glass in the secondary chapel that let such comforting light in. I made my decision to accept that a very big God had a son who died for me,and at this moment in my young life Jesus was calling me to respond to the most important decision of my life. I knew many fears as a child,but I also realized that Jesus longed to fill my whole heart with His love. A few weeks later I went forward when an evangelist named Tim Maharas led an invitation. I told him with my mom standing close by that I was called to be a missionary to Africa. I never did anything with my faith after this early decision. I do know that if you call upon the Lord like a child and you sincerly accept Jesus into your heart you will be saved. I have also understood that God can use fragments and threads of the gospel into a beautiful woven tapestry that leads to decision of mature faith when you realize Yes,it is Christ alone.
It may sound surprising that a young boy would be so matter of fact and convicted in making such a decision for Christ,but in order to recognize this it can only be seen by surveying the precious foundation that had providentially been inlaid all around my childhood in that most crucial time as a young person when you are so impressionable and most formative. I know my mother prayed scripture over me when I was in the womb that "God would give me a future and a hope and plans for my welfare and not for disaster."(Jer 29:11-12) "So when I called out to God one day He would be found by me." As my mom glided gently back in forth in her favorite rocking chair reflecting on my soon to be birth she would even pray aloud for my future mate.
I gravitated to the experience of God that was taught to me through stories of the Bible which were shared as truth without any doubt or skepticism in a way that my tender heart was stirred. I was involved in AWANA at Shiloh Hills Baptist Church which is an athletic competition that emphasizes the memorization of the truths of scripture so that "one may be an approved workman who needeth not to be ashamed,rightly dividing the word of truth." As I have become a man I am so greatful that those Bible verses covered over my ears at a young age and deposited wisdom into my heart and mind,because this foundation would prove instrumental in ultimately giving over the control and direction of my life to Jesus Christ later in life. Now dont get me wrong I wasnt packed and ready for Africa just yet. I would begin to say to my mom Awana,Awana,Awana quit before each Tuesday evening that my Awana team met. I would consult my moms nursing textbooks to try to come up with an illness if it would keep me from awana. I also had many fears as a child that would often wake me up in the middle of the night. I would yell out to my parents because I was afraid;and my mother would always suggest that I get out my Bible, because the living God cared about my fears.



I adored my mother and father as I was growing up. They were affirming,and instilled in me the fact that I was special. I embraced life with an air of possibility and exitement. Around age 5and 6 I remember how exited I was when my dad came home from work at Oxford Industries. My dad was a touchstone of unconditional love. We spent time together working on piecing together and painting model airplanes that we would string up and tack through the cieling which became a virtual skyline full of aircraft battle that my vivid imagination would summon any time I looked up in my room. My mom was a nurse;and I remember her tender care during those times I was sick with the flu. I will never forget how she would gently message my cheast with vicks vapor rub to soothe cheast congestion.



To be lost as a child in a world of National Geographic,The Chronicles of Narnia,by C.S. Lewis, and Choose Your Own Adventure books allowed me to become someone else in an instant. National Geographic became an open door to adventure,and a busted out window to a place of light far removed from some of the dreary moments of esteem issues that seemed to surface really no more than a gentle dip into a blue sea in my soul where some unexplained sadness tended to float by often unrecognized in the ebb and flow of a childs life. Each month when I recieved a copy of Natl Geog it was like a ticket for a far flung journey amidst the exotic places and people of the world. As I expectantly turned page after page of each issue what was impressed upon my heart was the handiwork of God throughout the earth and the far reaches of the universe. I will never forget those coveted trips to Gritters Library adjacent to Shaw Park in Marietta,Ga. I can still remember the moldy smell of worn books and stretched binding. I even enjoyed just rubbing the yellow stained corners of pages between my fingers;and it puzzled me to think about this peculiar and growing affection toward words that seemed to follow one another into orderly sentences as if from nothing, in some strange other world. Who are these writers I would whisper aloud if I was brave enough to break away from the childrens books in pursuit of the stacks which held adult, classic fiction books I had overheard my group reader mention. It was all about savoring the experience of the inner life of ideas awakened.

In 1982 when I was six years old I attended Greater Atlanta Christian School. I was selected to be the reader for several school plays including The Giant Turnip. The Marietta Journal did a piece on an airline trip my class went on to Montgomery Alabama. There was a picture of me taken from the cockpit,and in the article I was called the "inevitable cassanova" when I disclosed to a reporter that "I had just broken up with another girlfriend because all they do is pester me."

Binding the Brokenhearted

I remember a verse my mom shared with me at an early age that made quite an indelible impression on me that has remained with me to this day. Even when significance issues began to uproot the fibre of my innermost being I believe the themes of Isaish 61 that my mom shared with me were influential in shaping the man I have become.The name Jason can be translated as "One who heals";and it coincides with Isaiah61:1."The spirit of the Lord God is upon me to bind up the brokenhearted." Often times on my journey I have sought out the power and comfort in this passage of scripture. To me what makes these verses so powerful is that they prophecy a time of the Annonited,Messiah in Christ Jesus. In fact when Jesus entered the synagogue on that day He turned to Isaiah 61 and read the passage;and then He revealed to those in attendance that the famous passage in Isaiah 61 was about Him. In effect as Jesus proclaimed that "the spirit of the Lord God is upon me" He revealed His sonship and likeness to the Father. Jesus words that day were astonishing because the people knew that Jesus was born in homely and backward Bethlehem. Its interesting to me when you realize that God has walked into the assembly,and those in attendance had so the bar so low for even Him in the person of Jesus Christ. It was an intentional purpose in my life to place myself under the annointing of "the spirit of the Lord God is upon me." I knew I was one of the "broken hearted" who certainly needed "binding." Only such a great promise of the Lord God revealed in Jesus Christ could meet my needs so unconditionally. As I have been discovering healing and freedom in Christ I can look back on a time when my precious mother bestowed such Godly favor on my life in sharing Isaiah61 with me as a child. Back then we could have never imagined just how vital and critical a Christian foundation would prove to be in our family.

In the Garden

I sit outside the tomb(sepluchre) in the garden of my life like Mary Magdalene who leaned against the rock waiting for Jesus on the day he resurrected from the dead.
I'm waiting for the stone to be rolled back in the garden of my purposes,and Christ Jesus a glow with heavenly light to emerge into the resurrection of the purposes of my life.
The growth of vine and brown brush has completely overtaken the grey stone covering the tomb. The weed and grasses are waist high in most places. I will wait,and keep a watchful eye upon the signs of life that are awakening within the garden of my soul.

Media Bias

This is not to take anything away from Alec Baldwin's talent as an actor with comedic flair and genuis,but there is a double standard in the media coverage of his career as opposed to Mel Gibson. Baldwin's situation in regards to his daughter was shocking and quite reprehensible,and the media chose not to cover his situation more than a few days. In the case of Mel Gibson his conduct was embarassing like Alec Baldwin,but the media covered it for almost two years non stop and with such vitriol. Why does the elite media seem to give Baldwin not only a free pass,but a renewed place as one of our great entertainers. Many hope that Mel will never be able to work again. I believe Mel was bashed so extensively not just because of the racial language that he chose to use during a drunken arrest,but I think on a much deeper level many people despise the film The Passion of the Christ that Mel Gibson directed,and they were given a great opprtunity to nail Mel Gibson in an attempt to find any way to take away from the success of the film.It amazes me that some non believers who may be atheists become so infuriated when it comes to Jesus Christ suffering for the sins of the world. In interviews journalists still feel the need to refer to Mel's situation when he promotes a film two years out. If an elite,liberal member of the media were to throw Alec's flagrant abuse toward his daughter up to him in an interview they would be excuriated and probably lose their job. There is a double standard in the media when it comes to the extensive coverage of the shortcomings of people of faith as opposed to cultural figureheads the media accepts as valid.

Testify,If Your a Witness of the Wonders of God

Why is having a personal testimony important for a believer in Jesus Christ?
In our modern culture a misconception about God and Christianity is that God is not relevant,and that an experience with God is distant and could not be grounded in our busy personal lives. Sadly to report many people in our culture do not even believe a personal God exists at all. These misconceptions of God often cause the curious seeker to miss out on a fulfilling relationship with the God of the universe who fashioned the tiniest atom in the process of vital cell division,and a God who shaped the deepest desires of every heart. The God whose name is spoken so many times in vain that the name is just passed over with little regard to its incalcuable meaning, fashioned the innermost desires of each human heart. God orders the breath of this moment allowing me to write these thoughts known by God before the thought ever entered my mind.
We are commanded to be responsible and ready to give an account for our faith, or (elpidos in the Greek) not to just hear ourselves talk or prove someone wrong,but through love we are urged to draw men and women to an understanding and worship of Christ who longs to unveil His true purpose for their lives in ways that they have never considered. God uses our personal testimony to share with others in a genuine and convincing way how the living God who may seem obscure to a faction of culture has called each and every Christian witness engaging in apologetics,which is defined as "a logical and reasoned defense of your faith in a context of objection"(Caner,30) to effectively reach others with the gospel through what God is doing in the lives of believers. God has called us to be light,and to be an exact reflection of the life of Christ in our culture. God needs our help. God still uses the functioning of His church to act as His hands and feet and the many,varied stories of lives changed and awakened to project His life to a lost and hurting world.
On a mission trip to Romania in May 2008, God inspired me to parallel the emotional struggles of my past and freedom in Christ with the story of the fall of oppression and communism that has finally enabled many in Romania to declare a newfound belief in God. I hope I was able to form a relevant bond and connection with the Romanians I had the privilege of sharing with. Yes the trip was difficult. I was simply yielded to be a vessel representing the freedom and broken chains that Jesus Christ has released from me.
I work with many Hindu people at a Publix Super Market who are from India.I often wondered how I could be able to introduce some aspect of my Christian faith with a Hindu. Then on a Public Broadcasting special I knew how I was going to share in a topical way. The piece was about the Ganges river that is deemed sacred to the Hindu culture in India. I was able to tell Hadijjah that in Christianity we also celebrate a ritual involving water. I told her that in baptism a believer in Christ will be dipped and taken under the water because this is symbolic of the death and burial of Jesus Christ. Upon being raised up from the baptismal waters the believer is identified with the new life and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It was exiting to share the gospel and connect with someone who may not ever be presented with the gospel through topical apologetic.
Sometimes we make witnessing too difficult when it can be simple;but believe it or not your story is crucial and important to God's story. So much so that God,the LORD, Yahweh,I am,the Most High gave His only begotten Son to redeem every detail of the story of your life so that you could in turn be a voice for the hope of God that has been placed in you with someone else who is searching for a redifined storyline of their life.
Yes,having a personal testimony is important for a believer in Jesus Christ.

Crossing Through +

Help me Lord to lean into your cross. I need wisdom and discernment to obey.
Though it may be splintered at every precious caress Help me to choose your way.
Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power
of God unto salvation.
1Co1:27 God has chosen the world's weak things to shame the strong.

Are You Religious?

Usually when I hear someone say O you must be religious it often comes across with a negative connotation to the Christian in this type of conversation. Christianity is not a religion its a relationship with a living,resurrected Lord and savior. In Christianity God stepped out into human history through His son Jesus Christ to die for the sins of the world and thereby redeem humanity from the fallen life of sin. Religion is all I do; and all my efforts to atone for personal loss and failings of character to in essence make things right and become good. Jesus Christ has taken on your every struggle and spiritual inequity,and has purchased salvation through all that He has done. If your feeling like you dont measure up well, your in the right place.You can never measure up,but its been done for you in Christ Jesus. All that one needs for salvation and life are found within the person of Jesus Christ. Think about this Jesus Christ didnt come to start a religion.

Finding Elements of the Gospel in Moby Dick,Herman Melville

According to Ishmael in the classic book Moby Dick by Herman Melville he is so aware and cognizant of the fact that his adventure on the high seas is not an accident of mere chance;but the unseen and powerful workings of fate and providential leading. Maybe Melville was a rigid determinist,or a believer in the idea that free will and determinism can coexist in harmony.I found it fascinating to see all of the references to determinism when it comes to the affairs of man that are underscored in the first chapter of Moby Dick.I will highlight a few passages. "This the invisible police officer of the fates who has the constant surveillance of me, secretly dogs me,influences me in some unaccountable way-he can better answer than anyone else.(Melville,31). "And, doubtless, my going on this whale voyage,formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago"(Melville,31). Now when Melville speaks about fate through Ismmaels voyage on the high seas he chooses not to focus in upon a singular manner by word, the name of God, it is apparant that given the actual time of Melvilles life and culture being set in the mid 1700s and leading up to 1851 when Moby Dick was first published the language of the Bible was widely known. Again Melville speaks of determined fate as "Stage managers of the fates put me down in this shabby part of a whaling voyage" (Melville,31). Maybe your ready to hear about free will in this discussion. Ishmael speaks about the inducements of fate which led up to his voyage in the form of "circumstance,springs,motives,part,cajoling,even disguises,all the attending marvels of a thousand sights and sounds(Melville,32). It was Ishmael himself who had to choose and decide to respond to the leading and prompts of fate;and their in lies the aspect of free will amidst what would appear to be a backdrop of crude determinism and the life of the automoton. Ishmael did in fact set out on the journey of a lifetime on a great quest. In todays postmodern culture fate implies harsh control,yet it was good and in line with Ishmaels every wish. In much the same way sure, it can be difficult to surrender to Gods will,but maybe we would be better off if we accepted it as perfect and the best suitable means in which to live. Ishmael who recognized his limitations; embarked on the greatest adventure he would ever know.
I would submit to any reader that your destiny is calling out like the "grand programme of extensive performance" that surrounded Ishmaels life of adventure.Melville,31) The gospel of Jesus Christ is constantly being played out before your very eyes.Instead of an undefined element of fate it is the everlasting God seeking each and every one of us. It is exquisite and all around you like the arrangement of notes in a grand symphony. First of all God has given us the created order to testify to his goodness and power. The Bible is the most accurate book ever to be preserved. It is the accurately inspired word of God that maintains its inerrancy throughout the translation process and canonization. On the cross the love of God has been revealed in Jesus Christ the only begotten Son. Are you ready to tear another page from the book; and find out what the scriptures have to say about all of us? "For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to give you a future and a hope. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart" (Jer 29:11-13). "Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth. For I am God and there is no other." "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness,so the son of man must be lifted up on the cross,so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life."(John 3:15)
"Why was no one there when I came? Why was there no one to answer when I called"?(Isa 50:2) "Just like clay in the potters hand,so are you in my hand"Jer 18:6). "He humbled you by letting you go hungry:then He gave you manna to eat,which you and your fathers had not known,so that you might learn that man does not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD" (Deut 8:3). "Doesn't wisdom call out? Doesn't understanding make her voice heard" (Prv 8:1)."For a long time your ears have not been open"(Isa 48:8). "If anyone is thirsty,he should come to me and drink! The one who believes in me,as the scripture has said(Isa 55:1), will have streams of living water flow from deep within him"(Jn 7:37). I believe just as fate guided Ishmael on his fictional adventure on the sea God has provided "springs,circumstances,motives,parts,cajoling,even disguises of things" yet to be revealed through His word to guide our lives.

Moby Dick: Published by Barnes and Noble Books. 122 Fifth Avenue. New York,NY 10011
Holman Christian Standard Bible Publishers 127 Ninth Avenue North, Nashville, Tennessee 37234.