a message to the masses

please note: i have absolutely no verification or reason to believe that anyone has even stumbled upon this site. this is all the more reason that i be all the more real and sincere that i can be. i am not trying to make myself seem any better or righter, and i have no reason to, especially since i have no account of anybody reading this.

i fell today to lust. went to friday night Bible study and it was only us six guys, but it was nice, and we watched a Nooma video called Trees about how we are called to be alive. how our lives right now, aren't just waiting rooms for something called eternity. we're not waiting for anything - we're not supposed to. the gospel is relevant to today, and we're not just waiting out this life so that we can start anew in heaven (though that is sorta what we will do). we aren't supposed to wait for this new life, our new life started when we turned to Christ, so as Christians, we are called to live.

we aren't supposed to find success the way the world defines success. aren't supposed to be happy the way the world knows happy. in fact, our Christian lives are supposed to be so radically different from the lives of the world that there should be little similarity - ours should come as a shock, to be in love with our neighbors and our enemies and to truly embrace people and not get really mad really easily and be impartial. the world shouldn't be able to comprehend us, just as the "darkness did not comprehend the light." Rob Bell, who does Nooma, not to mention wrote Velvet Elvis and pastors one of the fastest growing churches in American history (Mars Hill), made the main point that the lives we live right now - they are relevant. we aren't waiting to start eternity and to have eternal life then - as Christians, we are called to live. and that doesn't mean live like the world thinks it means, which might include a lot of drinking and sex. we start living, meaning we start being like Christ, finding Christ, because Christ is love. we start learning how to embrace people and love people and that, by itself, is something amazing. we have fun in fellowship and we play worship and we do things that are meaningful, rather than playing videogames all day and repetitive zombie-like motions in school.

we talked a little about how we should be more ready to leave our convenience and our homes in order to take charge and spread the gospel - that we can't just be sitting around telling people to come to us for God, because that is much less likely to happen and we will become spiritually obese in that case. we have to leave our city on a hill and pursue people. we have to leave the world and the system - the whole idea of what life should be - because God is calling us to His life, His eternal life. we have to give up competition and being the best and being self-sufficient, because once you start playing that game, that doesn't leave much room for God and God's plans for you. when you get down to it, there isn't much variety, spontaneity, or fun in what the world calls a successful life. but all of those things are present in God's calling - there is freedom in this light.

after all of it, we played Texas Hold Em and yang was on fire. it was really relaxed and fun, and we played long into the night until matt left. we listened to the same KJ-52 compilation about three times. when matt left, billy, richard, and i played ERS with Uno cards (adds to 10, 6-9, 7's, doubles, sandwiches, top-bottom) and after that, we played Ziggity and just talked about how much fun we had last week at church. when i came home, i ran a quick mile and swung on a swingset in the rain. i think this is cool, because on our missions trip, i saw one of the girls (who went with my sister to Urbana) swing on a swingset and it was just really cool. she pretty much totally zoned out. she would get really high, she would swing for like 20 minutes and wouldn't get tired or bored of it...she would just do it and enjoy it and i have no idea what she thinks about or even if she's thinking, but that's what she does to escape. swing...i think that's amazing.

i think...choosing God should be simple. a yes or a no. we complicate things.

leaving on a jet plane

college is going to be nice. don't get me wrong, i'm going to miss home, and definitely tulsa and my parents and friends, and church, but college is going to be nice. freedom and no real curfew, late night or early morning runs, free schedule, cafeteria food, dorm rooms, lots of new people, college football, fellowship and clubs, and classes that are optional to attend. hundreds of miles from home. but i'm going to miss things here.

i wonder... the summer is going to be the last time for a lot of things. to see people, to be with people. or maybe not, but if i had my way, i'd be leaving a lot back here and pursuing something else, at least for a while. what God would have in store would be beyond my imagination. but it sounds bad. that i might be gone from everyone's lives. i'm not going to go over to jojo's house and leech off him and his pudding pals and i'm not going to go to Agape to play basketball or billy's house or even Kaffe Bona which shares fond memories. and...i don't know. my friend who's apparently already exited my life. i didn't think it should have to be finalized like this. one day comes and she won't talk to me, and a couple of months and it's like it never happened.

i don't know exactly what i did. i think i was wrong, on several levels. i didn't know how to love, and i guess i started to forget why she was so important to me, and what a privilege it would be to have her call me hers. i forgot all these things and then acted out of impulse, and it was over before i knew what i had. before i knew how i would give so much to have anything like that again - a relationship i could trust and one that i sort of needed. i don't know why she doesn't like me. you don't just stop talking to someone. i don't know. she doesn't deserve blame or shame, so i better not give it to her. but maybe i wasn't wrong. maybe it wasn't supposed to work out. or maybe i was wrong, and i screwed it up. i can't tell.

woke up today and hardly did anything. finished Ted Dekker's The Circle Trilogy, and it goes insanely highly recommended by me, because it is a shocking allegory of the story of Christ and His sacrifice, fixed with all of the twists that you could fit into two realities. the physical and the spiritual. it's about a man named Thomas Hunter who basically comes to life in one reality as he sleeps and dreams in the other - so on earth, he is awake and walking around when he is dreaming in the other spiritual-esque reality (though it isn't that obvious) and as he dreams on earth, he wakes up in the spiritual reality. Ted Dekker is amazing and one only has to wonder whether or not he knew all of the twists he would lay down or whether he was simply making them up as he went. the right details and occurrences lead to a very strong image of what Christ must have gone through to love us, though it is still only that - an image, failing in comparison to what it truly must be.

billy, richard, and i went biking, maybe 15 miles, if you're feeling liberal? don't know, but when i got back, i left and went to work. work is getting kind of boring. certainly less exciting, but i bet that will change. anyways, i have to quit next week, i think, pretty much, because Botball is starting (this national robotics competition) and i'm one of the main reasons we are even having it this year, so i should probably be there. we pretty much make two robots out of Lego's and program them to compete head to head against other robots in some various task where points are scored by some repetitive motion like moving balls over to your side.

the Jesus Freak church

walked for a bit, looking at the stars. scientifically, they are just elements in the universe, serving no real purpose, and they eventually burn out and disappear, just like us. but i read one time how science doesn't understand beauty and can't begin to think poetically. and poetically, stars are beautiful. they show the vastness of the universe, point to how small we are in this world and point to how great their creator must have been. they point to God's glory, just as the sunsets do, just as the forests and the lights at night and everything around us scream God's glory.

i got to thinking that God deserves nothing less than me. how God, having everything and being omnipotent, would create this huge universe - and fix stars and planets in the skies, and plot all of us here on a tiny dot in the grand scheme of things, and how He's too good for us. how we don't deserve Him - we don't deserve His mercy or even His attention, but He gives it to us anyway. He looks past our simple mortality, past our shortcomings and our sinful ways, even looks past that we've killed Him and perhaps would kill Him again. looks past all of this in order to look like a fool - for what? for love. He values us more than we could ever imagine, so much that He laid down this ultimate sacrifice, of letting Himself by mocked and ridiculed and killed at our hands.

i don't know. i just got really pumped up, and God was there. God was there reminding not to run too fast, because then i might miss the stars. i might miss the big picture if i didn't open my eyes. so i got back and called billy and we talked for a while and psyched each other up and now we're thinking about different types of ministry outreach we might be able to do to get something going. apparently, there is Christian revolution happening in China, Africa, as well as the Middle East. I think it stinks that America is not on that list. kind of want to do something about it. as i ran, i thought about the different things i would say if i got a chance to lead a DFC Bible study (trying to make an analogy from some lines from the movie Alien vs. Predator) and what we could do at 30 Hour Famine. additionally, billy and i have concluded that joining a YMCA basketball league would be a great idea, because we would have great fun and fellowship, and all of the different people we would be able to attract. people that used to go to youth group and have fallen away and people that are greatly opposed to it. but God will have to be there. i think this is a great shot.

Rice & Road Trips

so my sister and two friends from church are going to this huge conference in St. Louis called Urbana, which is sorta like Passion, except it must be much more exclusive because this only meets like once every four years, just like the Olympics...or the Winter Olympics. my sister was going to go to this other conference in Kansas City at the IHOP (International House of Prayer) called One Thing, but somehow she got the money for Urbana, which she wanted to go to, so she went. this meant that a whole bunch of kids from Rice from the Houston Christian Church came to pick her up on the way to the conference. but it's cool because pretty much all of the people from the Houston Christian Church are college students from Rice...and i am greatly interested in Rice.

maybe it was something where you had to be there to understand. but all these kids from Rice...they were really cool. like really cool. talking about Christian authors like CS Lewis and John Piper and Yancey and how they want to teach university-level math, because all of them are seniors, and how they think they should be teaching elementary school kids base conversions along with their unit places (like the tenth or hundreds place). and they talked about Rice's football team and all of this stuff. they were really nice, and i thought it was cool how, just like our own youth group, you can see how each person contributes to the group, and each member is no more exactly important than anyone else.

like in my youth group, you have Jerry, who totally adds all of his slang and gangster-esque antics. you have jojo and richard who add all of this humor of goofing off, but can be actually quite serious and add a lot to a discussion. you have billy, my best friend, and me, who are just sorta there and like to lead things and think a lot. you have the girls, who make everything balanced and actually do things since us guys are usually way too lazy to accomplish anything, but they are equally intellectual or fun-loving as the guys are. each person there changes the atmosphere, the environment, and the result has been our youth group since the last mission trip.

and...i think this is crazy cool, because one of my friends from youth group, who is in youth symphony and is a senior about to go to OU next year, got to go with all of these college kids to Urbana. i think that is crazy cool, because it's a lot of freedom. there's a lot of God gonna be going on over there, and you're pretty much on your own, with people who seem to be genuinely interested with you and care about you. i don't know. i just think that they're going to have a really great time. i would like to be a leader, just like that. i want to drive people around to big conferences and see people get saved. i should be willing to take anonymity though. i shouldn't be telling God anything about who i should be.

i was trying to worship earlier, maybe like two hours ago, and i couldn't get girls out of my mind. billy told me a while ago how either my youth pastor or his wife had said that you can tell, sometimes, what an idol is, because that's what will be distracting you when you try to worship and focus on God. i remember reading Mere Christianity and how CS Lewis was saying that, if you want to see heaven on earth - basically, if you want to have the earth - you need to turn your eyes to heaven primarily, and the result might be the earth you wanted. but your eyes, in the first place, need to be pointed towards God. then everything will pretty much fall into place. when you have peace, what doesn't line up doesn't phase you as much as it would before. you focus on the blessings, not the shortcomings.

in the light

my alternative blog. i've got a xanga and another blogger as my sorta deep spiritual experiences , so this is what didn't make the cut - which you know, isn't necessarily any less important, but i'd like to get it out. i don't want to use my xanga simply because...i don't know. i fear being seen as stupid. as being thought less of.

i know from youth group that being real is something you really need to deal with - with God and with friends - it's just, i kind of want to put this somewhere else. so this is what's been going on:

there's this huge battle going on over at YouTube - a guy claiming to be a Christian pretty much called out all of the atheists on YouTube and said "let's battle," so now everyone who is either atheist or simply inclined to disrespect is answering back. and viciously. some are smart, and some just have barks worse than their bites, but they're leaving a mark on people. it kinda stinks, as a Christian, to see this happening, because no one is listening and it was even the first guy who claimed to be a Christian who started it all by pretty much saying that "no rational, sane person" would ever believe what an atheist believes. so everyone is running around with torches and pitchforks about to burn YouTube down.

i would like to run a marathon. running is pretty much, for some reason, what calms me down and helps me think things through, burn off stress, and enjoy the weather. it helps me pray, and to be running fast with the wind and the weather and to feel my legs moving just makes me feel like something is right there. and it helps me think of running the race of faith - for God - because, the race of faith draws so many comparisons to just normal running. or plain normal life - running will teach you a lot of that. how you should run your own race, and be satisfied with your own performance because success is definitely relative, and you would be an idiot not to discipline yourself in your race, and you have highs and lows, and the thing about the Christian race of faith is that as long as you keep running, you're going to be the winner. it says in that Isaiah passage about flying high on the wings of angels that those who wait on the Lord will run without tiring. i think that would be great.

my sister is back from college in Houston, so it turns out that things were great when she came back, and now it's just not as great. the momentous joy of her being back has slowed down, and she spent today watching a couple Alias episodes on my laptop in my room. today is also Christmas. nothing happened today. my expectations were let down. my expectations have been let down a lot - are they a bad thing? i don't know.

i got out of a relationship a couple months ago, and i can't seem to move on. whenever i think romantically, or even whenever i start to feel lonely or like i want to talk to someone who isn't a guy, i feel the pangs of this relationship. i want to talk to a girl. but i have this relationship hanging over my head, and i am convinced that if i start trying to talk to girls, i will only be doing it to replace them with my old friend. or at least i'm convinced that they will think that. you'll probably be hearing about this a lot.

the thing is, i can't manage to convince myself that she's not the one for me. no matter what it is she does, i just keep on believing that it's meant to be, you know. i guess that sounds pretty foolish. i don't know. well, anyway, my friend from OU who invited me to go on his missions trip to Chicago over spring break, gives me advice, and he said that she wants space, and i should pretty much wait for her to choose me, if anything. there was a short time when i was okay with everything. then she kind of came back for a little bit and i got my hopes up right as she left again. i guess that's why they call it a game.

i really want to see Sanctus Real in concert sometime. i am thinking about making that one of my New Years Resolutions. they are great.

i have this college dilemma as well - Rice or OU. i haven't gotten into Rice yet, but i am thinking that if i do get in (i applied early action), i will go. but there is still the case of money, and God, so i am not sure what is going to happen. it's still a pretty big deal to me though.

anyways, it's after midnight, and i'm reading this book by Donald Miller called Through Painted Deserts and i want to get to the part where Donald Miller's friend travels with him up to Oregon and meets his wife for the first time. thanks for reading, and leave your comments if you will. thanks, God bless.