An Overdue (and Brief) Update

It has been so long since I have blogged that WordPress has changed. I hope I remember how to do this.

If the school year is a season, this is the playoffs. Let me give a quick rundown of some of the things going on in the life of Ben Blakey.

–Uganda Trip. Things are coming along in my team’s preparations for our trip. We are all vaccinated now, so it is starting to set in that we are almost leaving. We leave in less than a month! Please pray for the trip. Pray for safety and health, but more than that, pray that God would be glorified by our time in Uganda!

–Hotchkiss. It has been my pleasure to serve as a Resident Assistant in my dorm at Master’s this year. The job involves lots of practical things like putting in work requests for the guy with the broken light, but it also involves shepherding a wing of guys spiritually. This has given me a lot to do recently! We have already started preparing for next year’s dorm staff. Two of the RAs next year will be moving from an off campus dorm that is closing down; I’m excited to work with Brett and James! Also, this year’s staff is trying to finish strong in our last three weeks. I’m excited to see how God works in the hearts of the men of Hotchkiss over the next few weeks, and I’m expecting great things.

–Dr. Halstead owns my soul. Next week will also be busy with homework for New Testament with Dr. Halstead. My final set of outlines (54 of them) is due next Monday. Next Wednesday, I have to recite the book of Philippians from memory for Doc. Needless to say, these tasks will keep me busy.

–Baseball season. In the midst of all the hecticity (yeah, I made up that one), I am enjoying the beginning of a new and wonderful baseball season in which the Braves will hopefully win their second World Series in my lifetime. Chipper Jones is batting around .450. Look out, Ted Williams… (ok, so it’s only April.)

That’s all for now because I need to sleep. It’s gonna become a scarce commodity over the next couple weeks.

Finding Family

One of the great joys in life is that of family, whether that be parents and siblings or those friends we care about like family. These are the people we share life with. They have seen our best and worst days, and we have seen theirs. No matter what we are doing, we would rather be doing it with them.

So I guess you could call my Spring Break “Family Time.” I spent most of last weekend with my dad, my mom, and my brother Billy. We did not do anything too spectacular (We went to church, enjoyed some good food, and watched Back to the Future), but we enjoyed being together.

On Tuesday I traveled up to Dallas to spend some time with other family, my “SPO’7” family. One of my professors from IBEX is now working on his PhD at Dallas Theological Seminary, and about 10 of my fellow Ibexim made a road trip out to Dallas for the break. I was able to join them for a couple days.

Again, our time was not marked by anything too exciting (we didn’t sneak into the Old City or hike through any wadis), but we loved being together. On Wednesday, we slept in and had a big breakfast before doing chores all around the Bolens house. Afterwords, we took the kids to the park and played soccer and “hot lava” monster before enjoying dinner, a movie, and Blue Bell Ice Cream together. It was a very family day.

As I was getting ready to head home on Thursday, my dad called and told me that he was on his way to the hospital with my mom, who was going to have her appendix taken out. Needless to say, I didn’t waste any time getting home, and I have spent the last couple days chilling with the parents and watching a lot of college hoops.

It has been a good Spring Break. I have enjoyed all this family time, as well as some of the time I have been able to spend with the Lord. I am looking forward to heading back home (to my Hotchkiss family) on Monday and diving into what will surely be a busy rest of the semester.

But I guess one of the lessons of Spring Break is that it’s not so much the things you do in life but the family you do them with.

Teams, Plays, and Beaches

Today I was confronted about my lack of blogging.

This is my repentance.

The last few weeks have been busy. They have been filled with school work–not so much sleep. But I must admit, they have been full of a lot fun…and teams, plays, and beaches.

Two weekends ago, I a good deal of time with a great group of friends. Throughout the course of various ridiculous outings, we have started calling ourselves “Team 20 Seconds.” This particular weekend was very theatrical. On Friday night, five of us saw a wonderful performance of “The Importance of Being Earnest” by the Drama Club at The Master’s College. The two leading actors live in my dorm, and it was great fun to watch them.

The next night, the whole crew headed down for a night in Hollywood. We enjoyed dinner at The Farmer’s Market at The Grove, where I had my first shwarma since IBEX. We celebrated Becca’s birthday with an incredelicious strawberry cake, and our dinner conversation was ridiculous, as usual.

After dinner, we made our way to the Pantages Theatre, where we saw WICKED! I had never been to a play like this before, so I did not know what to expect. I was definitely awed by the end of the night. The performers’ voices were incredible, and the story was interesting and funny. When we got back to the dorm, Ona and I raced to our laptops to see who could get the soundtrack the fastest. I won. Here is a picture of the team with our playbills.

The next weekend was centered around another team–Team Uganda. This summer, I will be spending six weeks with this wonderful group on a missions trip to Uganda. From the beginning of the semester, our team has grown close quickly. We love hanging out together, so we thought we would spend the weekend hanging out in Orange County. Why Orange Country? I had the pleasure of teaching at True North, the high school group at Compass Bible Church. (You can listen to the sermon here.)

It ended up being a wonderful weekend. The Lord enabled me to preach well. I spoke on Matthew 6:25-34. Getting ready to preach was a sanctifying experience. Every time I was tempted to worry about teaching, I had to ask myself, “What am I preaching about again? Oh yeah, don’t worry about your life!”

After church, Team Uganda went to In-N-Out (where else?) and then randomly decided to go to Laguna Beach. We had a wonderful afternoon napping on the beach, checking out art galleries, talking with each other, and enjoying daylight savings time. Here is a group shot.

On Tuesday night, Team Uganda had another random outing. For our weekly team time, we went to Diddy Riese in Westwood to celebrate Hugh Jackson III’s birthday. We were trying to hurry back to school (some of us had meetings), but when we realized we wouldn’t make it in time, we rescheduled our meetings and decided to head to Santa Monica, where we hung out on the beach and at the pier. We talked and laughed until about 1:30 before heading back to school.

Yeah, so I don’t think we have to worry about Team Uganda getting along. I excited to see how the Lord continues to draw us closer together as a team and closer to himself. Please be praying for us this summer as we serve the Lord in Uganda!

Now I am in Texas on Spring Break. My Spring Break will involve hanging with the fam, going to Dallas to join up with some IBEX friends, and figuring out how to get shots before my Uganda trip.

Kelly Langenberg, thanks for the rebuke. You have won your brother.

Outlines: Done.

Yesterday, I finished one of the most monumental school projects I have ever had to complete–Outlines for Doc Halstead. Here at The Master’s College, this assignment is almost legendary. Each semester, Doc offers a New Testament Survey course, and Outlines is the main assigment.

Let me give you a little glimpse into Outlines. I just finished the first set of Outlines for New Testament II. In this set Doc breaks the books of Romans and 1 Corinthians down into 57 sections (29 in Romans and 27 in 1 Corinthians.) For each section, the student must come up with a title for the section, analyze it (or interpret it), and respond to it (or write how to apply it.) By the end of the project, each outline was taking me about 30 minutes. It took me longer at the beginning.

While it is a beast of a project, it is a great assigment. I loved going through Romans and 1 Corinthians section by section and analyzing it and trying to truly grasp the meaning of these rich texts. I also enjoyed how the “Response” section of the Outlines forced me to see how God’s Word applies to my life.

Yesterday was somewhat of a reflective day as I did outlines. I was finishing up, so I was in 1 Corinthians 15. A year ago yesterday, I remember reading the same passage of Scripture–but in a very different setting. I was visiting the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem for the first time. This chapter makes a compelling case for the importance of the resurrection. It makes clear what the consequences would be if there was no resurrection, but it also shows the wonderful consequences that are true because the resurrection DID happen. We have a reason to put our lives in danger for the sake of the gospel. We know that death has been defeated. We know we have glorified resurrection bodies to look forward to.

One of the most encouraging parts of this chapter is in the last verse, where Paul reminds the readers that their labor for the Lord is not in vain. As we get caught up in the routines of life, it is easy for us to think of many of our consistent, mundane labors as “vain.” But the Bible makes it clear that this is not the case. To understand this, we must think with an eternal perspective–or a resurrection perspective. We might not understand the purpose of many of our labors until eternity. Until then, we must–by faith–always give ourselves fully to the Lord.

This verse gives me so much encouragement in the midst of the busyness of school. Whether I am working on homework, talking to a guy on my wing, or having my devotions, I know my labor for the Lord is not in vain.

It’s pretty cool I got to learn that for homework.

Updates

-Thanks to everyone who prayed for Victor and his sister. In surgery on Monday, the doctors discovered and fixed the problem. She is on the road to recovery; Vic is back in Hotchkiss. PRAISE THE LORD!

-Outlines are harder than I thought. They give your semester this feeling that you are never done. Even if your other assignments or projects are done, you can always be doing outlines.

-Tonight, I got to go to a USC-UCLA Men’s Volleyball game at the Galen Center. UCLA is ranked #4 in the country. USC is…well, they’re not ranked. USC won in five games. I’ll go so far as to say it was the best men’s college volleyball game I have ever attended.

Now I am on lounge duty, where I’ll be working on…

…outlines.

Fight on!

Back to the Never-Ending Grind

All vacations must come to an end. My winter break ends tomorrow as I dive back in for another semester of college!

Honestly, it’s nights like tonight when I feel my nerdiness the most. I am way too excited to start school again.

Here’s the class load:
New Testament Survey II (with Doc Halstead, so I will be doing outlines)
Foundations of Science (more commonly known as Foundations of Sheol–most hated GenEd class)
Machiavelli (with Dr. Frazer)
American Political Thought II (with Dr. Stead and four other students)
Foreign Missions Prep (I am signing up to go to Uganda this summer with a Master’s missions trip)
Possibly Sermon Prep, but I think I might drop it now that I am signed up for Missions Prep
Collegiate Singers
RA Class

College is busy and difficult, but at the same time it is way too much fun. I am excited for another semester of classes at TMC and life in Hotchkiss.

During RA re-entry, one of the Resident Directors (Gunner Gundersen), led the guy RAs in a discussion on prayer. The discussion was framed around one big question:

What would your life look like if you believed everything the Bible said about prayer?

This is a powerful question because prayer is a powerful thing because our God is powerful. I hope this semester is shaped by prayer more than any semester yet.

And here is one practical application: I just got off the phone with Victor Martinez, a guy on my wing. His sister just had a baby, but she lost a lot of blood and was not doing well. Now she is doing worse. (The baby is fine.) If you read this blog, please pray for Victor and his sister. Pray that God would bring her back to health. Pray that Victor would be confident in the Lord. Pray that this would open up opportunities for the gospel. She is being moved and operated on tomorrow so please pray.

“The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
-James 5:16

Why I Thank God for John Piper

During my junior year at Believers Academy, I started meeting my Bible teacher, Tyler Sultze, once a week at Taco Cabana for breakfast. While the food was scrumptious, the fellowship was also delectable. The first book we went through and discussed over breakfast tacos was Be Satisfied by Warren Wiersbe. Next, we decided to tackle Desiring God. It was then that I was introduced to the writings of John Piper, for which I frequently thank God.

Why do I thank God for the ministry of John Piper? Let me put it this way: I often tell people that if you would have asked me at the beginning of high school why I was a Christian, I would have said something like, “I’m a Christian because that’s what I’m supposed to be.” But if you asked me the same question at graduation, I would have said, “I’m a Christian because that’s what I desparately want to be.” Piper’s writings were instrumental in this change or perspective.

Piper helped me see God as desirable. The gospel is great because it reconciles us to him. Sin is worth fighting because the pleasures of sin are utterly incomparable to the superior pleasures of God. Giving your life to Christ is worth it because by losing your life, you find it.

And it is not as if he was making this stuff up. He was simply pointing out how obvious this concept is in the Scriptures. The Psalms overflow with language that delights in God. Even the “hard” teachings of Jesus reveal the superiority of living for Christ. Whoever has left houses or lands or family will receive a hundredfold and eternal life. The man who finds a treasure in a field does not sell all that he has out of obligation, but with joy over the treasure he has found.

These concepts are crucial for Christians to understand. The Christian life is not one merely of obligation, but of joy. As my dad likes to say, “It’s not a ‘got-to’, it’s a ‘get-to.” And yes, the Christian life is hard–Scripture makes that clear. But denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Christ is worth it because nothing compares to knowing him.

This Christmas Break, I have started reading Piper’s Future Grace, and I have been greatly refreshed and energized by it. This post was primarily the result of one quote I read last night:

Christian hedonism [or pursuing ultimate satisfaction in Christ] is the final solution. It is deeper than death to self. You have to go down deeper into the grave of the flesh to find the truly freeing stream of miracle water that ravishes you with the taste of God’s glory. Only in that speechless, all-satisfying admiration is the end of self.

I thank God for John Piper because of quotes like this and books and sermons that teach that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

Happy Christmas!

This time of year many people flip open their Bibles to the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke. There is good reason for this because these passages beautifully recount the good news of the events of the Savior’s birth. It is unfortunate that not as many people turn to the opening chapter of John because it helps us understand much of the spiritual significance of the incarnation.

It says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (1:14) John tells us many interesting things about the Word, who is Jesus. He was in the beginning with God; in fact, he was God from the beginning. And in him is life and light.

Christmas is life coming into the world because it is through Jesus that we can experience true, eternal life, which is knowing the Father. (John 17:3) Christmas is light coming into the world because we can truly understand the truth through Christ.

These are only the beginning of the blessings Christians should celebrate at Christmas time. Through the incarnation we have beheld the Father’s glory, which is full of grace and truth. From him we have received grace upon grace. And if we receive the Word, if we believe in him, John tells us that we have the right to be called children of God. Try wrapping your mind around how awesome that is this Christmas.

Last night at Believers Fellowship’s Christmas Eve service, the prelude was a piano performance of the Hallelujah Chorus. Hearing this melody reminded me of an experience I had in Israel. Our group had the privilege of seeing Handel’s Messiah performed for the first time in Hebrew. I enjoyed the performance, but I will never forget one thing that happened at the end of the Hallelujah Chorus. The crowd had risen to sing with the choir, and as the song ended I noticed one choir member near the edge of the risers. One arm was raised to the sky, and he was looking up with tears streaming down his face. He wasn’t just singing Handel’s Messiah, he was singing about his Messiah.

We have so many blessings because the Word became flesh. Therefore, we have every reason to sing hallelujah this Christmas. We have every reason to ponder in our hearts the wonder of what God did for us by sending his Son into the world. And we have every reason to have a very, very, happy Christmas.

Give Me a Break

Last Thursday I turned in my absolute last thing of the semester, a paper for Dr. Stead’s U.S. Constitutional History class. As I turned the paper into his box, I expected a rush of excitement to come over me and explode into a good Dean Scream as I sprinted back to Hotchkiss. However, a wave of exhaustion hit me, and as I walked back to the dorm I almost literally fell asleep in the middle of the soccer field.

It was a long, crazy semester. SLS Retreat feels like it was two years ago. But as I walked back from North Campus last Thursday, I couldn’t help but realize how many ways the Lord had blessed me this semester. One way that came to mind was that I did not get sick all semester! Well, that was until last Friday night, when I did get sick. It was pretty bad, but it would be ungentlemanly of me to elaborate.

All that to say, Christmas Break is here! Four weeks of no homework! I spent the first week of it bouncing around SoCal, hanging with the fam in the OC, chillin with my grandpa in Santa Barbara, working at a basketball tournament at school, and watching the local news with the Crawfords (which can actually be pretty entertaining.) Today I arrived in Texas, where I will be staying with my parents for the next three weeks.

Here’s what I hope to accomplish over the break:

Sleep. Oh yes. It will be nice when 9 hours a night is the norm, not 6.

Hang with the fam and old high school friends.

Watch all three Lord of the Rings extended editions. Honestly, it’s been too long.

Read. I do not have any uber-ambitious plans here, but I am working on A Heart for God and hope to finally ready Future Grace this break. I also want to stay current on reading the news while I’m here in Texas, especially as the primaries get underway.

Pray and Plan for the future. I want to spend time thinking through what I want to do after college. This probably will involve starting to study for the LSAT.

Memorize. I was not too consistent with memorizing Scripture over the semester, so I’d like to be more diligent with this over break. I’m starting with John 1:1-18.

Call. I want to keep in touch with my friends back at school. Thankfully, I’ve already been able to do a lot of this so far.

Rejoice. Like every Christmas, I want to spend time rejoicing in what God has done in sending his Son for us! I think John 1 and its discussion of the Word becoming flesh deserved more attention at Christmas time, so it is the focus of my personal Christmas meditation/rejoicing this year.

While it may not sound like a lot, I’m sure all of this will keep me busy for the next three weeks until I return to California for another semester.

Sanity in Insanity

Let’s face it: sometimes life gets CRAZY! Lately, my schedule has been filled with papers, books, exams, soccer games, Bible studies, and all the random things that college life entails. In addition to that, Southern California has literally caught on fire since Sunday.

A couple weeks ago, I was able to sit down and write out a few things I wanted to remember during the busiest time of the semester.

Remember that it’s all about God, not about you. It’s easy for me to start thinking things like, “I have so much I have to do.” I quickly forget that everything I do should ultimately be for the glory of God. Remembering that it’s all about God can be a very liberating thought. Suddenly, all the things I have to do are no longer boxes on my “to-do list;” they are ways to glorify God.

Remember the gospel. Whether life is good or bad, busy or calm, Christians always need to remember the gospel. When my life is crazy, there is nothing more important for me than to recall that I was dead in my sins and headed to hell but God saved me and gave me eternal life in Christ. The beauty of the gospel always helps to give perspective, and nothing brings joy to a stressful day like remembering that all my sins of been forgiven.

Keep your best friends close. My brother gave me this advice. When life gets busy, you lose touch with your closest friends–even your roommates. You might still see them, but conversations are brief and sometimes rushed. In the midst of craziness, I have found I must fight for time with those closest to me. Taking a break and making a Wal-Mart run with your roommate can make a big difference in the midst a research paper and an exam.

Enjoy. If you want to learn this principle, read Ecclesiastes. There is nothing better than for a man to enjoy his labor. Whether I’m practing music for Bible Study, sitting in class, or researching Harvard Law Review articles in the library at 11pm, I need to remember to enjoy what I’m doing! All the different work God has given me to do is a gift!

That’s all for now. Until next time, seriously pray for the fires in Southern California and all those that are displaced. Also, pray that this situation would create opportunities for the gospel!