Aaronm.NET

Well, I’ve been pretty quiet on here the last little while.

I’ve been busy!

For the last little while I’ve been working on a new website for YWAM Reef To Outback (YWAM Townsville), which, hopefully, should be unveiled by the end of next week. It’s quite nice, although it certainly still needs a bit of work! I’ve been working on it pretty steady over the last three weeks; before that the plans designs were too volatile for me to do much work without having to redo it all in the end, anyhow.

It’s been pretty frustrating the last few weeks working on the site, so I am pleased the project is nearing it’s main end (although web sites need constant input, hopefully that won’t all be me). Since I have multiple responsibilities beyond the web stuff, I have to juggle a few different projects at at time, it feels like. I am still the go-to guy for technical problems on base, although Nick is shouldering a lot more of that load, which has been very helpful. Unfortunately, I have been the most fixed I.T. guy over the last couple of years, so I seem to be the default person to go to.

On another note, though, I have joined up with a local band here in Townsville, which as been quite nice, meeting together with them and doing a bit of jamming, learning their songs, and such things. I am certainly blessed to hang out with them, and I’m hoping we can have a lot of fun in the next few months.

As always, we will see where God takes me in the next couple of months.

Well… I have and I haven’t had a lot to write on in the last few weeks.

I’ve been sorting through some issues surrounding my role in the ministry here, and I’m not even sure how it’s going. I am able to convince myself for various amounts of time to maintain some sort of heart towards what I am doing; at other times, I am ready to pack it in and ship back to Canada. Actually, even in the former state, I would love to head back to Canada, but the draw of being here holds more fast and subdues that urge.

For me, it feels like I am required to put my hopes, dreams, and desires on the shelf to adopt another dream, one which is bigger than myself. How can one do that? I don’t know how to remove the cloak that defines me and don one that was fit for another, so to speak. It just feels awkward, I can’t move in it as well.

What do I do? Do I continue to wear the new cloak, to break it in? Do I need to break myself into the cloak? The latter is how I feel, now… I am in a place where I must mold myself to fit a role I never really wanted.

The great temptation for me, then, is to try again… somewhere else. This I have done more than once, each place seeming somewhat better than the last, but in the end, just as unbearable.

I know it won’t go away if I go somewhere else, at least I don’t think it will; but the attraction of a period of relief which comes at the heels of new beginnings sounds more attractive than the continued struggle of my present endeavor.

Revelation.

What does this word mean to us? For some, it might immediately bring to mind cataclysmic events decreed by God; searching for the word in Google immediately associates it with the events described in God’s Revelation to John in the book commonly referred to by the same name… Revelation.

And rightly so, I think! Here is the definition of revelation from the Miriam-Webster dictionary:

Main Entry: rev·e·la·tion
Pronunciation: \ˌre-və-ˈlā-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English revelacioun, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin revelation-, revelatio, from Latinrevelare to reveal
Date: 14th century
1 a : an act of revealing or communicating divine truth b : something that is revealed by God to humans
2 a : an act of revealing to view or making known b : something that is revealed; especially : an enlightening or astonishing disclosure <shocking revelations> c : a pleasant often enlightening surprise <her talent was a revelation>
3 capitalized : an apocalyptic writing addressed to early Christians of Asia Minor and included as a book in the New Testament —called also Apocalypse —

This is how I think of revelation. Those of you who know me even a bit might recognize that sometimes, I can be fairly stringent with the definition of words and how they are used; at the very least exploring a bit of a word’s etymology (I should also not that I love slang, as well). When we are on the receiving end of revelation, something is shown to us, disclosed by another, not sourced in our own means.

Revelation transcends knowledge and understanding. Revelation is the apocalypse of something unknown, that is, the uncovering or unveiling of something hidden. One cannot guess or deduce with certainty the contents within a box which is covered in a sheet; they (in perfect conditions) could not even tell wether it were a solid block, a box, or a wire frame. When the sheet is removed though, the observer receives revelation of the nature and contents of the box.

I think of this often when I am studying the Bible. For quite some time, I have been taught various methods of studying the Scriptures, most of those methods being oriented around a literal interpretive framework (what does the author actually mean?). I have found them to be of tremendous value, and cannot be neglected by anyone wanting to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the written Word of God.

However… not all things can be deduced and induced by the acquisition of knowledge. The apostle Paul is an appropriate example of this: the man (Saul at the time) had been trained his entire life in the Jewish religion and tradition, a Pharisee, and zealous! For all his knowledge of the Word of God, though, he failed to give proper attention to Jesus, for the Christ’s nature was hidden from him, until Jesus himself accosted Saul on the road to Damascus.

Similarly, Peter did not somehow deduce that Jesus was the Christ, it was revealed to him by God (Matthew 16:13-17).

This we must keep in mind, when approaching our faith and approaching the Scriptures. We may gain knowledge and understanding through study of Scripture (and we should!), but many of the primary aspects of our faith must be revealed to us. Indeed, the first step we recognize of our Christian lives, the understanding of the gospel, is not something we deduce… it’s something that is shown to us by those around us and revealed to our hearts by the living God.

Prayer and worship are so foundational to knowing God, to truly understanding Scripture, to knowing who we are. We may well approach the Scriptures with academics; but only if we are being unceasingly steeped in the Presence of God.

May God meet you were you are and impart to you such wondrous things as your heart never imagined.

Well, I’m sitting here with a cup of tea, considering what I have done today. Mostly, I have been reading a lot lately, which is great. I have gone through a few books in the last month, which has been nice.

After some thinking one night, I have decided to attempt to write an album. Of music. I have planned out most of the songs and their content, and have begun preparing rough tracks that will guide the recordings. Even if I never finish the album, the project has been good for me, already. Normally I write somewhat aimlessly, if a song comes to me, then that’s great. Trying to put an album together as a whole, though, having pre-planned the songs,… it guides the content and feel of each songs.\, and yet I feel it guides and hones the creative process, a swell.

It will be quite some time, I think, before I get to the recording stage (if I do). At this point I am planning to do at least the electric guitar parts myself. There are a couple of people I will try to include in practice and recording for vocals, bass, acoustic guitar; and another friend is willing to do drums. So far, no piano/keys have come into the songs.

I think that’s it for now. As I develop more of the album, I might post a bit more about it’s feel and content, which I am also quite excited about. I would actually appreciate your prayers, too… pray that I can stick at it despite working full-time somewhere else, pray that  the album as a whole comes together as I am hoping it should, and that the band would be able to work together well in creating, practicing and recording.

Well, it seems another busy week is in store for me.

This week our ship, the M/V Pacific Link, arrives in port here in Townsville; it’s new home. Last year, we were given the Pacific Link, and for the last year or more we have been in preparation for it’s arrival. In February, the ship first arrived in Newcastle, and then toured down the coast before making it’s return trip pst Newcastle. It will be here for a week, I believe, and then continue on up to Cairns.

My involvement, as far as I know at this point is fairly minimal, but it will be exciting to see in person the ship I have heard so much about over the last year and a half.

It will be interesting to see how I handle the ship activities (few though they are) on top of what I already have, which I struggle with. Lately I have forced myself to be more voluntary about several activities that go on around base, but a couple times it has come back to bite me, as I always fear it will. I often feel overcommitted, which is a feeling I can’t tolerate. Maybe I’ll have to get use to it… I can’t come up with a good reason why I should, though, especially if I commit to doing something I don’t have much care for.

How do I do that? I’m here to serve God, to serve people, and yet most of the time I feel like I would rather be away from them. I live in community, I share a bedroom with two other people… I don’t get a lot of time to myself. I can’t go anywhere except by walking, so I can’t get away. Around noon, I am ready to find a obscure closet where nobody will find me and hang out there for the rest of the day by myself.

So… by the time five o’clock comes around, I’m ready to go home, flop on the couch and vegetate. I’ll play guitar, read a bit, maybe watch a movie. Then I have to convince myself to go to bed at a normal time, but usually fail to to so before one o’clock in the morning.

I’ve come to view what I do as a job, something I’m bound to, something that lasts from eight to five every day. I don’t feel like a volunteer or a missionary most of the time, just a guy who does a job that he’s bound to but doesn’t get paid for it.

I don’t want to view it like that. I want to find joy in it, to know that I’m doing a good work. People tell me it is, that it is effective, and affects hundreds or even thousands of people. Great; I don’t feel that in  my heart. Do I want to? Yeah, but I don’t know how.

A while ago while working on data export from a Microsoft CRM 3.0 server, I ran into this issue. I had quite a hard time finding a solution for it, anywhere, so I thought I would post it here in case anyone else comes across the issue . I hope no one is still using MS CRM 3… anyways.

Server Error in ‘/’ Application.

________________________________________

Exception from HRESULT: 0×80044151.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the

current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about

the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: Exception

from HRESULT: 0×80044151.

I figured out that this was a SQL timeout error… probably because I was trying to pull too much data with that query. Anyways, here is how I worked around it:

1. In the registry editor of the machine hosting your Microsoft SQL server, open My Computer/HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/MSCRM/
2. If it does not already exist, create a DWORD value named OLEDBTimeout with a Hexidecimal base. Set the value data to 180 (this is in seconds… 180 = 3 minutes. Default is 30, implicit if there is no OLEDBTimeout DWORD already in existence)
3. In Command Prompt, type in ‘cd %windir%/system32&’
4. Type in the command ‘cscript iisapp.vbs /a CrmAppPool /r’ (this resets the Application Pool for the CRM, necessary in order to the changes to take effect).

Hopefully this helps somebody out there, somewhere.

For quite a while now, I have been reading A Practical View Of Christianity by William Wilberforce, who is famous for campaigning the abolition slavery in the British Empire in the early 1800′s.

William Wilberforce

In his book, he sought to (and was successful in) present a clear, no-frills picture of what the Christian life ought to look like; it’s quite convicting, some two hundred years later. We still need to be reading this book.

I was just reading through the third part, Defects Of The Religious Systems Of Confessed Christians. In part of this chapter, Wilberforce responds to a proposed “Opponent” in a “Consideration of the Reasonableness of Affections towards an Invisible Being”.

In this section, Wilberforce argues (and he is quite long-winded at times) that it is not seeing or hearing that most affects our affections (emotions) but the closeness of contact. Wilberforce quotes Adam Smith’s Theory Of Moral Sentiments: (continue reading…)

I’ve been thinking about my future.

Click To Zoom

Right now, I have no idea where I am headed.

I am somewhat dis-satisfied where I am now, this much I know has been evident through the blogs I have written lately; obvious enough that more than a couple of you have picked up on that. If you could pray for me, I would be much appreciative.

I am thinking I will take a few days just to fast and pray… go somewhere out of the way where I won’t be interrupted by people, and examine my heart. Here, there isn’t much room to do it, even in the prayer room.

What are the main things I need to consider?

Where is God leading me in the ministry I am currently associated, for the remaining months I am here (or am I even supposed to stay any longer)? What recurring issues and attitudes continually sneak up on me that need to be addressed? What sort of a future am I preparing myself for? Do I choose one passion to pursue or try and balance them all, or only a few of them? What are my real passions?

Why am I here?

I assume these are normal questions to be asking for someone of my age.

Why are these questions coming up now? I think it’s probably a combination of my circumstances and the things that are immediately ahead for me, things that I am not fond of considering. The very fact I am so opposed to those things makes me want to examine my heart to see what’s going on.

Anyhow… if you want more detail… email me! If you are willing, please do remember to pray for me, I have no doubts whatsoever about the efficacy of prayer.

Well, I ended up being sick. Yesterday I bummed around all day, sneezing and headachy… I did get a fair bit of work done from home, here, but still… working isn’t the same when you’re sick.

I felt a lot better today, and went in to work… my headache is gone and my nose is mostly clear, but now I have a bit of a cough developed. Stupid!

I would like to share a picture I found the other night on the internet which has amused me greatly, today: (continue reading…)

Well, throughout the day I’ve been feeling worse and worse.

Last night I actually went to bed shortly after posting my blog, and woke up in the early hours of the morning. I was able to sleep fitfully for a few more hours, and then I had to get up to run sound for the worship guys. When I got back from lunch, I started feeling worse and worse, and now I’m sneezing and have a wicked headache. I plan to go home, have some tea, and read my book for a while… hopefully I can get to bed and have a decent sleep, and then we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

On another note, I have been reflecting (partially because of the book I’m reading) lately on the depravity of man. Meaning you, and I. It is a humbling thing, knowing that even our best efforts amount to nothing in and of themselves, on our our power. We are so desperately in need of God’s grace, because of that. Some think it is a bad thing for Christians to constantly remind themselves of how wicked we tend to be; I, however, think that when we do that we deceive ourselves.

We cannot say “I may have done ___, but Jesus blood covers that.” While it may be true that it is covered by Jesus’ blood, that does not in any way lessen the gravity of the act, and it does not change the fact that we did it. If we view all our sin as paid for and move on, then we never actually address the issue. No, we must face it head on and admit it’s filthiness before God. We must look at our sin and state: “That is disgusting. I can’t believe that I would give this thing more attention than God, that I would rather glorify this filthy rag than my own creator.”

Isn’t that what it comes down to? You are choosing something to glorify, to worship, instead of the Living God. Interesting.