Parkside Mission

How does God speak to your desires? Desires might be the difference between humans and any other creature. Never content to have just what we need, we are driven by desire. Call it a thirst for something more. Call it a hunger for more than bread, more than meat. The ancient revelation of the scriptures ask us to not just control desire, but to listen to our desire.  For example, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah poetically related our desire to an invitation from God. Listen to how God wants to meet us in our quest: “Come, all you who are thirsty,   come to the waters; and you who have no money,   come, buy  and eat  .  Come, buy wine and milk   without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread,   and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,   and you will delight in the richest  of fare.   Give ear and come to me;   listen,  that you may live. 1 Did you not...

Strange looks occasionally resulted when I would begin to speak English in the university student dorm in Zagreb, Croatia in 1993. "What is an American doing here?" some would ask curiously, but what followed was always some expression of Croatian hospitality. I had moved there with a team of recent college graduates to help start a Christian ministry for the university students. We had been warned that that young people in the former Yugoslavia might be disinterested in Christianity after their government being held for 50 years by secular, Communist leaders. Thankfully, this was not really the case. We found many students interested to learn about God, the Bible, and especially worship. Worship can describe the excitement we feel in the presence of music hero or the awe we experience in the face of a huge natural phenomena. Part of what it means to be human is to respond to beauty, power, and wonder with feelings of respect and admiration. We are wired to worship. And hi...