define: Jared Barden

Danielle and I were reading through the story of Moses the other night, and a couple of things really stuck out to me that I either hadn’t read before or just never really noticed.

1.) Moses changed the course of history.

You might say, “well yeah, Jared, we know that.” I’m not talking about the plagues and leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Don’t get me wrong, that was a miracle, but there was another moment where Moses was used to change history.

The back story…Moses has been on Mt. Sinai meeting with God, receiving instruction on all sorts of different subjects for a long period of time. The Israelites left in camp become restless, they ask Aaron (who, by the way, is supposed to become High Priest) to build them a god that they can worship, Aaron complies and builds the golden calf. Moses hears the sound of the Israelites throwing one wild party, and God becomes extremely upset, and rightly so. Can you imagine being miraculously led out of Egypt, and then complaining that Moses hasn’t come down from the mountain, so you want to worship the golden calf that “led you out of Egypt?” A little crazy, right?

Anyway…God is so incensed with the Israelites that he decides to burn them up. Moses asks God to spare the Israelites in Exodus 11:13-14 (The Message)

Stop your anger. Think twice about bringing evil against your people!

And God did think twice. He decided not to do the evil he had threatened against his people.

Just goes to show the effect that someone cane have when they truly connect with God and ask Him to make a difference not only in their life but in the lives of people important to them.

2.) God uses imperfect people.

I thought it was quite ironic that God still allowed Aaron to be priest after this little episode. Because, while Aaron is busy building the golden calf, Moses is receiving detailed instructions regarding Aaron’s priestly duties. Yet, God still allowed him to serve as priest, despite his playing a part in the Israelites’ sin.

It’s encouraging to know that we serve a God who can work with imperfect people.

3.) The whole sacrifice system must have been a mess.

When you read about all the different sacrifices that had to be performed daily you start to realize that it must have been a big bloody mess, between the slaughtering, removing of certain organs, etc. etc.

Thankfully, Jesus performed/was the ultimate sacrifice during His death on the cross so that we could be right with God without all the mess of animal sacrifice.

This past weekend, Danielle and I and are friends, Dave and Jenna, took a group of 8 kids to Carlisle for the annual Breakaway weekend. This year’s weekend was themed around the film, Over the Hedge.

These weekends are always a blast, and this year was no exception. In spite of my worrying, we arrived at the conference center with plenty of time to sign in and unpack before the evening service began.

The services start out with lots of loud, energetic music playing while the kids hit beach balls in the air and get some of their energy out of their systems. Praise and worship time usually follows soon after, followed by short lessons, more singing, prayer, and of course - game time.

As I mentioned, the theme was about going over the hedges in our lives that keep us from telling our friends about Jesus and about God’s great love for them. It seems so simple when you look at it from a child’s perspective, and yet so difficult sometimes when looked at from an adult perspective. I know the weekend definitely challenged me.

The kids were also treated to some puppet shows featuring Joe the Gardner and his puppet friend Kenny, who was shown working up the courage to witness to one of his friends throughout the weekend.

As an added treat, the boys won the points competition this year. All weekend long points are calculated based on games, Bible verse memorization, and other activities. Since the girls’ team lost, their mascot (the raccoon) had to take a pie in the face at the end of the weekend.

It’s funny, because the first night the kids wanted to stay up just about all night long, but by the second night, Dave and I were actually the last ones asleep.

We had our share of mishaps along the way, including me getting sick and one of our campers locking both doors leading into our bathroom, but we had a great time. I’m always exhausted when I come home from the retreat, but it is well worth it.

I wish I could more adequately put down in words everything we experienced this weekend, but sometimes that is a difficult thing to do.

I would be remiss if I didn’t share the message we learned from this weekend by the end of this post. Please know, whomever you are, that God is real. God loves you. He loves you more than anything in the world. He sent His Son Jesus to die for you so that you can have forgiveness of sins and spend eternity with Him. It’s really that simple when it comes right down to it. It all boils down to:

1. God Loves
2. God Gave (He gave his Son, Jesus)
3. We Believe (in Jesus and accept Him as our Savior)
4. We Receive (the gift of eternal life)

My wife, Danielle, caused a little bit of a stir with her latest MySpace blog post having to do with Texas offering the HPV vaccine to 6th graders.

I won’t comment too much about the post here. I already did so in the comments on Danielle’s page. I must digress and state that sometimes when I get writing about a topic, especially if I feel passionate about said topic, I feel like I have to fight the urge to wander in my writing. But I digress.

I find it strange that they feel the need to vaccinate school children for a disease that can only be caught through sex. Some people say the girls might get raped and would thus need the vaccine, but you can’t vaccinate a the whole population do to the chance that a horrible tragedy will happen to a few members of that population.

It definitely seems to be one of those moral choice issues. I believe strongly that choices have consequences. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, ” etc. etc. That’s how God operates. He is a loving God, but He won’t be mocked. He gives us choice, but also warns that the choice may have unwanted consequences. That goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. God gave both Adam and Eve plenty of fair warning, but in the end the choice was theirs’.

The debate seems like a dialogue between two people.

Person 1: “We’ll treat your burn you got from playin with the fire.”

Person 2: “Why not just not play with fire in the first place?”

Person 1: “I can’t believe you would suggest that this person not play with fire. Everyone plays with fire. It’s inevitable. Don’t you want to treat people burned by fire?”

Person 2: “Yes, I want to treat them, but if they hadn’t messed with the fire in the first place, they wouldn’t have gotten burned.”

I know it’s a little more complex and emotional than that, but there is some truth, I believe, to that exchange.

That’s the great thing about the ‘Net, free speech, and blogs. I can have my opinion and express it, Danielle can have her’s, and you, beloved reader, can have yours.