kingdom travelin'

So I’ve left Hungary and have headed south to Serbia. Circumstances caused me to walk from Humgary to Serbia and as I passed by I snatched this pic of the famous fence.

  
Emperor Hadrian had his wall, now PM Orban has his.

  
Pastor Andy and I pause for a thoughtful photo on the way from the train station to the center of town for coffee and conversation.

Meanwhile, this guy was playing “Killing Me Softly” 

  
It was killing me.

The following is a helpful taxonomy that gives a means at self examination. It comes from Prayer by Tom Keller. If you choose to be a disciple of Jesus, you will find no more helpful book. 

Sailing
Are you “sailing”? Sailing means you are living the Christian life with the wind at your back. God is real to your heart. You often feel his love. You see prayers being answered. When studying the Bible, you regularly see remarkable things and you sense him speaking to you. You sense people around you being influenced by the Spirit through you.

Rowing
Are you “rowing”? Rowing means you are finding prayer and Bible reading to be more a duty than a delight. God often (though not always) seems distant, and the sense of his presence is fairly rare. You don’t see many of your prayers being answered. You may be struggling with doubts about God and yourself. Yet despite all this, you refuse self-pity or the self-righteous pride that assumes you know better than God how your life should go. You continue to read the Bible and pray regularly, you attend worship and reach out and serve people despite the inner spiritual dryness.
Drifting

Are you “drifting”? Drifting means that you are experiencing all the conditions of rowing—spiritual dryness and difficulties in life. But in response, instead of rowing, you are letting yourself drift. You don’t feel like approaching and obeying God, so you don’t pray or read. You give in to the self-centeredness that naturally comes when you feel sorry for yourself, and you drift into self-indulgent behaviors to comfort yourself, whether it be escape eating and sleeping, sexual practices, or whatever else.
Sinking

Are you “sinking”? Eventually your boat, your soul, will drift away from the shipping lanes, as it were—and truly lose any forward motion in the Christian life. The numbness of heart can become hardness because you give in to thoughts of self-pity and resentment. If some major difficulty or trouble were to come into your life, it would be possible to abandon your faith and identity as a Christian altogether.
Choose to Row

In any case—pray no matter what. Praying is rowing, and sometimes it is like rowing in the dark—you won’t feel that you are making any progress at all. Yet you are, and when the winds rise again, and they surely will, you will sail again before them.

From the last chapter of Prayer by Tim Keller

Having been in Budapest for the last 6 days, it’s time to head south. So I’m on the 8:07 from Kobánya-Kispest to Szeged.  

 
This visit was highlighted by the 6th anniversary of the Dél-Pest church at which I challenged them to look forward and make a choice to follow Jesus as a disciple and make disciples along the way. I used the illustration of daily excercise to urge disciples to train daily in prayer and Bible reading if they wish to grow in the Lord.

Afterward I got this awesome shot of the gathering!

Through the week I was pleased to meet with and encourage other disciples to press on toward a deeper following of Jesus.

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭2:9‬ ‭ESV‬‬

http://bible.com/59/1pe.2.9.esv

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”‭‭James‬ ‭5:13-20‬ ‭ESV‬‬

http://bible.com/59/jas.5.13-20.esv