1. Ebay and 2. Holiness for Service

1. I won my first Ebay auction last night - for a flute. It's something I've wanted for a long time, and went to buy when I was in Hali on the weekend. But the place I'd been planning to get one didn't have any left. SO, after assisting Chris Stephens during ministerial using my PalPal account (which I had never used before) it occurred to me how easy and potentially fun Ebaying could be. I'm going to need some serious boundaries now that I've caught the bug. I've already told myself that I'm not even allowed to LOOK on Ebay again until my flute arrives.

2. It's been a long time since I thought seriously about holiness, which makes me sad because I used to be so passionate about it. Last night on the phone my mom and I discussed the differences between Calvinism and Arminianism (she was brought up Calvinist as a Christian Reformed --- they actually had a hymn they used to sing in "Young Peoples" that was entitled something like "Calvinists are We") and it got my brain returning a bit to my days of academia where debating and owning these concepts made me first desire to be and then proud to be a Wesleyan-Arminian.

But in Sunday School (there's a women's class here with people around my age in it - I GET TO *GO* TO SUNDAY SCHOOL! I LOVE IT!) we talked a bit about intimacy with God and Christ, and I realized that while I've longed for holiness, it's always been for SERVICE, not to produce intimacy. I.E. I don't long for intimacy. Does that make sense? I believe that I am called to holiness because true holiness is God's answer to the wrongs of the world. It is as holy followers of Christ that we can most effectively fulfill our mandate of loving others as ourselves. But the idea is starting to take root somewhere inside me that it is as holy followers of Christ that we walk in closest intimacy with Him. And I don't care as much as I should, even though the mandate of loving the Lord with all your heart actually trumps loving our neighbours in the grand scheme, and really is a prerequisite.

I've obviously got a lot of reprogramming to do.