Normalcy (and what Jesus did)

I wrote this a couple months ago and just recently found it on my computer and polished it off. i wanted to add a part about Romans 6, the first couple verses, but couldn't find a smooth place to insert it, so you might see that on an unpcoming post. but anyway, hope you enjoy it.

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think about it. what it feels like to have nothing - to be without hope, without companionship, to be in a place where you can't think or function anymore. when you’ve lost everything, when nothing is going to work out, when you’ve got nowhere to turn, no one to talk to, no one to comfort you.

well that's what Jesus did for us. we think that we know that feeling of loss whenever we have been backstabbed and our investments and expectations don’t come through for us, but we have no idea. It’s a little of what Jesus must have felt when His flesh was torn by the ones He made, when He was ridiculed by the ones He could have killed so easily.

John 1 reads “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.”

can you imagine how much He invested in us? can you imagine a single reason why someone would step down from their throne and let themselves be prone to our physical limitations and our pointing and jeering, our sick presentation of what society is. Can you understand how someone might leave peace and sufficiency – essentially everything worth living for - and allow himself to be belittled, to be spat at, to be hated when He should have been welcomed and loved, being who He is. Our Creator, our King.

can you imagine the pain that must have occurred when you worked so hard, not for the sake of gaining followers, but for the sake of giving a chance of life, a chance of feeling everything but nothingness, and nobody wanted what you had to bring. When all you brought was hope and what it means to be great and what it means to be satisfied and to be refreshed in your mind and your spirit and nobody wanted it. Nobody wanted what you came to sacrifice, even in their absolute need for it. Can you imagine working so hard - not for yourself, but for others, so that they could have it all. and what if they didn't accept the gift? What if they failed to even acknowledge it? Jesus was killed by the ones who didn't know what He was there for, what He was doing for them, for everyone.

can you imagine? can you imagine the stake slamming through your wrist? can you imagine the burn of your ankles being nailed together? the burn of a crown of thorns mercilessly spilling blood? can you imagine being suspended by your arms, spread out? being completely vulnerable? each breath a challenge?

no, you don't. you thought you had it bad. you thought you might understand when school and trying to be cool and still have fun and just being a good kid wasn't good enough, wasn't enough to feel the gaps for love. but you always had something. you always had something that stood in the way of you understanding nothingness. that was Jesus. that was Jesus who experienced nothingness for you. you should have had your own cross. you should have had nails staked through your wrists and your ankles - you should have had been hanging between two criminals no matter how good you might have been - you should have been the one hanging naked and helpless while your killers gambled for your clothes, playing away your last bit of dignity.

that's what Jesus did. He went through what we rightfully deserved, so that we wouldn't have to understand what it feels like to be helpless, what it's like to be desperately without love. He gave us everything. He made it so easy for us. He laid it out for us - all we have to do is surrender. it's what we're supposed to do - it's His master plan. if we do, we're set. the greatest thing, the most sensible and perfecting thing we could ever do, is nothing at all. to lay down our lives to Christ - to simply surrender instead of doing anything else. giving Him our lives just as He gave His. living so that He doesn't hang on the cross in vain, so that the pain isn't all the more worse knowing that the one He died for - that was you! - couldn't even appreciate it all.

do you know what it's like to be hurt? to feel pain? everything Jesus did was so that we could be without it. so that we wouldn't have to know what's it like to be judged, to be taken advantage of, to be in desperation or to have emptiness in our hearts. it's not to belittle the burdens and the chaos that we feel – all of these burdens are devastating and deserve attention, deserve being relieved and fixed. it's just that...we were designed so we wouldn't have to feel the weight of our burdens. God has it figured out. we don't have to live like this. we don't have to be lacking - we don't have to feel tired or busy to be justified, and we don't need success or failure to be sufficient either. we need God. there's no conditionals or "what-if's?" we need God.

but if you find yourself in that position, hurting, having realized - truthfully realized – that what you're doing isn't going to cut it, isn't going to be enough to be worth it, rethink and commit to something. commit to God, because He's the one thing that won't leave you or forsake you. He's the One, the single one that is worthy of being our refuge. no matter what you do, He is always there, waiting to erase your past and start you again anew, because He just wants you. He just loves you.

if you find yourself hurting, don't put yourself in a position where you will continue to fall, continue to try the same things over and over again, hoping that these pursuits will finally begin to work after every time they have failed. search out truth - search out one thing that you can't deny. and stick to it. and remember that dependence even after you have been restored and no longer feel hurt, because that urgency and dependence should have no reason to go away - it should be constant, or else you will forget and fall away from this truth. as for God, all it takes is a heart that asks forgiveness. a heart that says "i will change," out of love. There’s no qualifier. This is what love is. All He wants is for us to come to Him.

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Jesus, with His sacrifice, essentially was telling us who we needed to be, who we were supposed to be, who we were meant to be. We are supposed to be people who inherit the earth, people who are filled with righteousness, who see God and are called sons of God, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This brings up the question about being normal. What is it to be normal? To be accepted. To be what you were meant to be. To be sufficient, to be enough, not to be an outcast and not to have it seriously wrong. But to be who and where you were created to be – that is normal.

So when we see glimpses of this life being fulfilled, glimpses of God in ourselves – it’s not supposed to be temporary. You’re not supposed to see those flashes only when you are tired or in tribulation or in an ecstatic worship set. These things are supposed to be normal. When you’re walking down the hall and a girl flaunting her body walks by, and you make the choice to look away, or even better – look into her eyes and try to see who she really is – that shouldn’t be temporary, that should be something that we do all the time. That shouldn’t even be something that is hard to do. It should be second nature: it should be normal.

And when we give money to charity – that should be normal. And when we allow ourselves to be associated with outcasts – that should be normal. When we love people, even the ones that nobody else loves and maybe you don’t want to love either. And when we hear the voice of God. That should be normal.

I am at a loss of how to go about my driving, because I’ve been in two accidents in the past month, and I’m trying to determine if I can change my idea of normal driving to being synonymous with my idea of safe driving: like actually stopping at stop lights and following the speed limits and whatever. It must be possible, because changing our perceptions of beauty so that they are normal and not corrupt is unconsciously a daily event for me. It is just that to change something into being normal, you have to realize that it’s not already normal in the first place – that however you were doing it in the first place just wasn’t cutting it, wasn’t sufficient, wasn’t what it was meant to be. And after you notice the problem, you actually have to want to change it.

I can acknowledge that I am somewhat of an aggressive driver, though I will more easily acknowledge that I just don’t like getting in car accidents, so I should probably do something to change that. So I must take steps so that I eventually change into the driver I want to become – more aware and more safety-oriented. Apparently if I stick with it, it should redefine my normal. But change is entirely necessary to that normal, once you have become something else.

You may have noticed something about who God calls us to be. He calls us to inherit the earth, to see Him and to be comforted (Matthew 5) and He says that for this we are blessed. But He mentions something else about who we are. That we will be poor in spirit, mourning, the ones who will be persecuted for the sake of righteousness. But this is not bad. "Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you" reads Matthew 5:12. Who cares about inconvenience? I read a poem written by one of my classmates that argued that the point of life was convenience, and if we based our lives on lies, then things would be a lot easier. But easy and meaningful are too different things.

To be able to enter God's kingdom, in able to even be comforted or fulfilled - we have to deal with inconvenience. And the only way this will happen is if we know what our reward is and that God is waiting at the end of the finish line, and that it is His love alone that makes us who we are. We have to be willing to endure the hardships and the challenges (which are inevitable), knowing that if we do, we have treasures in heaven with our names on them, and that the temptations and battles we are forced to fight only make us more dependent on God, only increase our hope in the only one who will save us. And lastly, we have to know that every little choice we make, every minuscule step we take towards God, we are acknowledging His power and His love. We are giving Him something to be happy, we are telling Him, “You didn’t die in vain. You didn’t waste Your grace on us.”

2 Hours and Every Little Thing

sophomore year, I think, DFC went to this huge Delirious? concert at Victory, and that was sorta before I was a real Christian and I didn't even really like Delirious. It turns out that they're an amazing worship band that is sorta revolutionary in the UK and if you ever get a chance to see them live, I assure you they will blow you away. i think the people in front of me were getting saved, and i was trying so hard to lift my hands in worship, but i couldn't for some reason. i think...even then, i knew there was some kind of significance to lifting my hands to God, and i didn't want to do it for the wrong reasons, even if everyone around me was doing it.

anyways, at this Delirious? concert (yes, there's a question mark at the end of the band name), they played this song called Every Little Thing, and the chorus goes "Every little thing's gonna be all right" over and over again. That's it. and so they played this chorus over and over and over again, and the lead singer talked in the middle and then he would sing it over and over again, and i think God was working on peoples' hearts because this is such a paradigm shifter because we don't really feel like secure people and now we get this promise that every thing's gonna work out, and this seems contradictory because it doesn't seem at all like every little thing has been all right in our lives. and the thing about that is - every little thing will end up all right. but there's a good chance this won't look anything like what we want.

for me, i was going to go to Rice. actually, i was going to Duke and double major electrical engineering and computer science, and i remember this vividly and i was going to go to all of the basketball games because i think Duke basketball is arbitrarily awesome. but then i wanted to go to Rice and not Duke, and it ended up that i didn't get into Rice. and i probably got mad at God about it. but you know what? every little thing's still all right. i was listening to this sermon from Donald Miller yesterday night about how discipline is all about love. that we can't have everything we want because we don't know what's best for us - and yet, God does, and so He's like a father to us. making sure that we get what we want, more than what we cry for and complain about not getting. and we probably won't like it at all, because it hurts when we want something we don't get. but every little thing ends up all right. more than all right. we're heirs of the kingdom, the one that can't be shaken.

and on a more personal note, i had a good night last night, with my 2 hour meeting that ended up closer to 4. and the thing is...there's no real promise that things are going to go anyway that i want them to go. there's no promise or agreement that i get what i want. but now i know - things are going to be okay. no matter what happens to each of us and even if nothing happens between us, things are going to end up okay. she still cares. and things are going to be okay. well, it was a good night. every little thing's gonna be all right.

on another note, i'm gonna start compiling all of these blog posts and some of the things on my computer and see if i can get a book going or something. some of the things i've written are repulsivelly horrible to me, but i looked back at some of my old posts up here and some on my computer that i hadn't known i had written and i think they would read well with a little bit of proofreading and fine-tuning. and today's my last day at the internship, so i got a good while before i have to do anything again. hope everything's going well with everyone.

confessions, pt 2 + 2 Hours (EDIT!!)

If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. -1 John

i had a long night. i talked to billy and sorta got psyched up and then i went outside and talked to God, sorta. for a while, it was just me singing songs, which is easier than actually having your heart changed. and by the end, i think i had at least taken a step in the direction of God. the air was cold and the grass was bouncy, and the stars were so much bigger than my imagination. and yet God was still watching me. and i didn't deserve it, i felt like a "retarded rock." and i still didn't deserve it, but i asked God to put a desire for Him in my heart... and i continue to pray this will be what happens.

this is from an e-mail i got yesterday after i sent this post to someone:

"God alone saves your life. i can't save it, you can't save it. and God's in the business of saving lives. i mean, think about the crazy amount of "coincidence" it takes for someone to finally accept Jesus into their hearts? and how much did it take for you?" and the answer to that is...i wouldn't have been able to help it. finding God wasn't my work...it was my pleasure, it was my salvation or liberation or answer. but it wasn't my work. that's the last thing it was.

"go, and know that you are saved. saved...by grace and by the love of God the Father. you can't save your own life - that much is certain. you cannot save it. i mean sure, there is some active part of faith that's involving...but when it comes
down to it, you can't save yourself. God alone can save you, and know that He will...for His glory. and for His love to you."

and these 2 hours... well, we underestimate grace. i'm just gonna try to keep my eyes on God. and confess...

there's this feeling you get at the end of a track workout, when you have pretty much laid it all down and you stop caring about your workout and all you want is for everything to be okay. you see, it stops being about us. it stops being about being better. because even if you were better, you're nothing without people to share it with. and...at the end of the day, when you look back at how you spent and presented yourself, you don't care how much you got done or how good you are. you just want to feel someone's embrace that says "i care. i saw you. i cried when you cried and i rejoiced when you rejoiced. you don't have to worry about being good enough for me. everything's going to be okay."

you had to have been there. at the conference championships, after i ran my half mile. that's the only thing i would have cared about. someone who would let me fall asleep on them and rejoice with me.

--ORIGINAL--

i thought i was going somewhere, but it doesn't feel like it anymore, at least today. it feels like i'm not running anywhere or for anything. i'm not running for school, because school is kind of a joke. and i'm not running for running, because...well, i'm not even running anymore and i don't have that much reason to be. and i think, in all the truthfulness that i have discovered today, i was running to be remembered in the youth group. that's why i get selfish, right? and it's great, because i don't even have that anymore. i'm not the popular guy. and now i'm selfish, so it makes sense, doesn't it? i placed my value in social economics. and when i'm not one of the guys talking to the girls, cause us guys now talk to girls, i get selfish because i would have to compete for attention and i don't want to compete. because today, it feels like none of it's enough. God isn't enough. that's what it feels like. and even though i have billy and ruth who says i look cute and my mom and mike and lisa and chris chou and all of these other people who would die for me and would say they really respect and admire me, and even if i have God on my side, the Creator of the Universe, looking down on me saying "you've stolen My heart," it doesn't feel like anything.

it feels like it's perishable. and that's completely wrong, but i feel it. when we went down to Mexico City, we worked with this pastor we called Dr. Cary who pastors all of these churches and fathers all of these orphanages, and he said he wasn't always like who he is now. he said he used to be a drug dealer, one of the biggest and most feared names in Mexico. he had a huge house on the side of the street, which is a big deal, because those cost a lot. and he used to run - he actually ran in the 1984 Olympics in Mexico City for the Mexico team. and he said when he gave his life to God (i'm not sure what prompted him to do that), he said he knew it was either all of this fame or anonymity. and he picked the anonymity, because it meant that he might know God.

i was reading Ecclesiastes, because Mike mentioned that if we wanted to know what "all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind and all of your strength" really meant, we should read Ecclesiastes. so i started reading yesterday, and it's talking about King David's son, who is pretty much the smartest and richest guy ever, in the history of everything, a little like Dr. Cary. and all of these works - he keeps comparing them to grasping at the wind. it reads pretty well, like a poetic monologue. he talks about all of the different things he used to quench his satisfaction and how he went through all of them trying to find something to spend his life on, and at the end, he calls them all vanities. futilities, absurdities, frustrations, nonsense. he says it's grasping for the wind.

well, i haven't gotten to the end, but i'm thinking he finds God and then he knows he has to give his life to God because his life is nothing without God as a Savior. because he says, he has all of this wisdom, all of this power, all of these possessions. but it doesn't make a difference.

So I said in my heart, "As it happens to the fool, it also happens to me, and why was I then more wise?" Then I said in my heart, "This also is vanity." For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forotten in the days to come. And how does a wise man die? As the fool! -Ecclesiastes 2:15-16

so, the question is...what will i do? and the answer...i don't know. i've got big things coming up, not to mention i can't say that i'm right with God anymore, and pretty much everything i'm about to face will fall apart if i'm not right with God. and what's tough, is that i have to genuinely want to be right with God for the sake that i owe it to God or for the sake that He deserves my life, not because i care about all of these things i'm about to face. i have like 2 or 3 hours coming up one of these nights...2 or 3 hours to maybe save my own life.

a year in review and confessions, pt 1

the room spins, and the grinds of a blender and a female vocalist to a slow tempo-ed song make the background. School is over, it is my internship now. And waking up at 8 is a challenge. I have gotten in this not so comfortable groove of going to sleep at 1 or 2. and i played worship last night for a while and I am starting to see that I have fallen this past year.

These past two school semesters, I am not sure I was even thinking about quiet times. I'm not sure I realized I was missing them. After the first semester, I realized I had forgotten what humility meant. Acquire the Fire was...okay. Chicago during Spring Break was pretty amazing, and I haven't forgotten what happened, but I forget that I am supposed to keep it happening. I missed a lock-in for Chicago, and I hear that the lock-in was just mediocre as well. There was a weekend where there was just this enormous propensity towards worship, so I pretty much worshipped the whole weekend and God was there.

We watched a movie called the Revival Hymn on a Sunday morning and I thought that might be the time I would never turn back. It seemed so obvious - God wants us, for us to be with Him. Who am I to stand in the way of this Creator and lover who would give everything away for someone like me who might not appreciate. God usually seems like a Lamb to me, but that day, He was a Lion who ferociously wanted His children to come back to Him.

And there was another Sunday when Daniel was back and Mike talked about making sure we didn't get caught up in the repetition of a system and things of that sort that we think we have to do when we really don't. And that wasa day we played worship all the way until lunch and skipped Sunday school, and i was crying a lot and Daniel kept on telling me to let God love me, and I think I finally let Him for a change. I realized, God wanted me to come to Him just as I was. I didn't have to be anybody else. I didn't have to be good enough and I didn't have to be ashamed of who I was - a murderer, a liar, a luster, all of these things. And so that was a great day.

And I spoke in chapel one time and led a couple of DFC's that got me excited. We did 30 Hour Famine and one of the girls threw up, so we gave her a banana, and Robert Aery had some fellowship/teaching meetings that he called the "Crossing" and those were pretty amazing, and Stephen Pittman started playing worship in the chapel and even in front of the whole school on the last chapel of the year.

And i went running. And maybe you had to be there to understand, but when I ran a personal record at SPC in cross country and came back for Friday Night at Billy's and could hardly move my legs, I had run for God's glory and He was lifted high. And in track, much the same case. I ran for God. And being a runner is somehow some integral part of my identity, though it isn't my prime identity. But it is, for some reason, how I find and enjoy God.

And yet now I remember, I didn't run my best race. I fell asleep, I stopped running so hard. "Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength...They will run and not be weary." and at times, I was no longer running. I may have even been going in the other direction. I underestimate grace sometimes - that's what this is all about. To run and not be weary is grace. And yet, I run like I must preserve myself, like I am clinging on to things holding me back, like I am not running as fast as I should. And all God wants from us is to run. To run like crazy.

And I forget. I stopped having quiet times. I fell completely away from the idea of spending time with God. And without that learning, your faith can't go anywhere. And I compromised. My eyes were watching other things than God. I wanted to see grades and girls and running and friends lifted high in my life, not God. And I wanted to justify myself. But now I'm coming back. Now I'm running as fast as I can and when it gets hard, I better keep that mentality, even if I'm going at a snail's pace. It's not about the pace, it's not where you are now. It's what you're gonna do. Because everything I've done is behind me, all of my successes and failures. The race isn't finished, there is more to do. And at the end, I could care less about my time. I want to know if I ran my heart out.

I want to leave no mistake. God is my God. I'm not trying to follow anything else. Sign me up for this. God deserves all of me. Nothing left back. There are bigger things going on than me and you. Sacrifice needs to be made, we need to wake up.

new kind of running and Spiderman 3, pt 2

now that track is over, i find that i have the freedom to do what i enjoy - running. which is kind of weird, because i've been running for the past two months, six days a week, every week. but now...this is a new kind of running, it seems. a free kind of running. i've been going out at nights, for the past three days, running to random places to catch the sunset and then walk home the last bit in the dark. and it feels really great, and it's weird because running hasn't felt so good for a while. i think because it's not running simply so i can say that i'm running, because i don't really have a reason to keep running, and it's not running just for the sake of getting faster or better, because i'm not going fast, hard, or long enough to be able to say that (or even trying, for that matter).

anyways, my love for running is being reaffirmed, and...it's great, though i still can't put my finger on why it is i like it so much. it is nice because it seems to slow down time, and it is something better to do than just staying home watching YouTube videos all day. and for some reason, i can talk to God when i run. i think it might be because when you run, you get tired, and you have to think about something, and if you are tired, then you get to be sort of vulnerable, and you just want for things to be okay, and at the same time, you find your mind wandering and thinking about what happened to your day and whether you are satisfied with it and all of the different things that are going on and whether you are turning into the person that you want to turn into and etc. and so it easily turns into a self-evaluation kind of thing, i guess. and maybe it's because of this that i find God easier to talk to...when i'm being real with myself about what's going on. because i think if i stopped running, it would be harder to realize this because i would never stop and think about my day and what happened, because time would be going too fast...

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Spiderman 3, part 2: WARNING: SPOILERS

at the end of the movie, Spiderman essentially pulls Eddie Brock out of Venom, separating the two. and Eddie Brock says that he wants to stay in the suit, that Spiderman shouldn't destroy it, because the suit lets Eddie feel good and it lets him stay mad (and this is an interesting point, because it really does feel good sometimes to be mad. i used to get irritated when something wrong would happen and i would be mad, but i wouldn't be able to stay mad and feel more important). but the point is that Eddie loved the suit, but he wouldn't have ever escaped had it not been Spiderman. furthermore, he might have not even realized the effect that the suit was having on him had he not been separated from it by Spiderman. and finally, the suit might have never been destroyed had it not been for Spiderman.

and this is a lot like God and us (though the lines get blurred because, though Jesus came and walked around with us, He still stayed separate from sin, and He never let it get the best of Him like Venom got the best of Spiderman). because God is trying to sanctify us, always - He is always pursuing us. He is always pulling us away from Venom, from our sin, and trying to get us things that are better than what we have with our sin. and yet, it is essentially important to know that we have a choice. we either choose to separate ourselves from that sin and take a step closer to God or to return to our sin. because Eddie had a choice - he could start listening to what Spiderman had to say, or he could try to jump back and salvage the suit and try to kill Spiderman and get his revenge. and that's the same way with God, because we certainly do have the choice to love or not to love.

and the point is that Spiderman ultimately destroys Venom, just like God destroys our sin. but what is interesting is that Eddie loves the suit so much that he jumps in the last second and essentially dies with it. and there's no question about it that Venom made him feel good and that's why he pursued it - there's no doubt that sin feels good. but it doesn't satisfy. it doesn't resolve problems, it doesn't change things for the better. it ends up consuming you, turning you into someone you don't want to be, making you do things you don't want to do, and exacerbating problems. but anyway, when you talk about God killing people and God doing all of these horrible things to the world... it might not be like that. because God is killing sin. God won't tolerate it. He'll tolerate us, as people, created in His image, but He won't tolerate the sin that has corrupted us, and so He destroys it. and we watch as He destroys it, and we can either choose to jump back into it (and essentially die with it) or try to go without it.

so this is what God is doing, i think. He is constantly pulling us out of our sin, trying to get us to go without it so that we can end up being who we were meant to be, so that we can see the reality of the situation and that we are hurting ourselves. and when we resist what He is doing, we are jumping back towards our sin, investing more of ourselves into this venom. and so, it really does simplify to taking a step towards God or taking a step towards sin, in many of the decisions that we make. and here lies my challenge: how will we respond? it's called sanctifying, when God is trying to make us more and more like Him. how will we respond to it? because it'll probably hurt, and it probably won't feel as good as not caring does. will we resist? or will we just decide to try to be sanctified?

Spiderman 3 (WARNING: SPOILERS)

apology for throwing some Bible verses at you to start this off, and you should know that spoilers may be present in this post:

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. Hebrews 13:14

Do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. [You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!] Romans 6:12, 17-18

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. therefore take up the whole armor of God. Ephesians 6:11-13

and i throw all of these verses at you because this was one of the key themes of Spiderman 3. the whole idea is that you got two sides of Spiderman - one who is good and one who is bad, but before there was bad, Spiderman was mostly only good. he only became bad when he was invaded by some kind of alien virus thing called Venom, which pretty much instilled all of this malicious intent in him and emphasized aggression and let him live his life out of revenge and a feeling of being mad. and that screwed up everything. he felt bad because he killed this man and because he lost his girlfriend and even hit her which is something he would have never wanted to do, and pretty soon, he is living with all sorts of consequences. he's got Sandman trying to kill him and he essentially turned a photographer into Venom who tried to kill him and his girlfriend. so pretty much, when Spiderman got attacked by Venom, it felt really good.

he got to do whatever he wanted and it felt good, because he got to get his revenge. but pretty soon, all of this started falling apart and he had become someone who he didn't want to become. and even after he had stripped off Venom and started trying to do things right, he still had to live with all of these consequences, and nothing would ever really be the same. and the idea is that Peter Parker or Spiderman started making the choice everyday - should i put on the red suit or the black suit? the black suit that makes me feel better and more powerful and lets me operate under revenge, or the red suit that... is just there? that is another one of the big themes - no matter how bad the cirumstances and conditions, we still have the ability to choose to try to make things right.

and so we have this choice - will we put on the red suit or the black suit? will be preparing ourselves with the armor of God and live with the fruit of the Spirit, choosing to love and whatnot, or will we let ourselves act under aggression and pain and try to just have fun and just feel good. (there's nothing wrong with feeling good, but we can't feel good all the time. there has to be some kind of discipline sometimes.) and even then, i think it's disturbing. because no one can serve two masters. i want to know - who am i living my life for? who has control over my life? is it my sin or my desires? or is it God? because i'd rather it be God, because...i don't know. you just have to live what you believe. i don't want to wake up one morning and look around and see that i have become something that i didn't want to become, like Peter Parker once he hit Mary Jane and reality set in that he had hit the one person he swore he would love.

another part about Peter Parker - he had been good up until he had been invaded by this alien Venom which brought out the bad out of him. it's interesting, because on at least two different occasions, we hear people say that Peter Parker is a good person. he is just facing problems that he has to overcome, but still - he's a good person. this is huge, because... we don't hear this that much. people have the idea that, if we start screwing up and things start going wrong, then we are just plain bad people. if i get a 3 on my AP Stat test, then i'm a bad student, and if i am caught speeding, then i'm a bad driver, and if i go to jail, then i'm a bad person. and it would have been so easy to see Peter like that. he's bad because he killed someone and he even almost killed his best friend and he doesn't face his problems and he is a jerk to his girlfriend, etc. and yet - people still knew that he was good.

and i don't know about anyone else, but...just to know that people will still see some good in me is a huge encouragement. to know that people see something better out of me, that they see past my failures, that they see some real value in who i am...i think i would try so much more to overcome just to please those who believed in me when no one else did. and when it comes to God...He sees good in all of us. it's His love that is always pursuing. and even when we do all of these things that are hurting everybody around us and even ourselves and even Him, He still thinks "that person's still a good person. he's just going through some rough times." not that He tolerates our sin. but He chooses to overlook it and see what is good.

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another Spiderman 3 post to come. i should get to sleep. AP Calculus tomorrow. Houston on Friday, my sister's coming back. not much more that i'm thinking about.

SPC Championship and Short on Relationships

i'm truthfully tired and...confused, i guess. it feels like i'm just gonna try to get through this next week, like i'm just doing all of the different things that i have set aside for this week, and i don't like when things are like that because then that can take up your whole life because it has no end. but anyway, i'm gonna tell you a story:

we were in Dallas for the SPC championships in track, the one thing that we had been planning for and thinking about for essentially the entire track season, the last two or three months of my running life. so when we got there Wednesday night, you could imagine that i had trouble sleeping, also knowing that this would be my last races and i had to run my heart out for us to do well. so, due to the gloomy circumstances that one of our best and most gutsy runners had sprained his ankle two weeks prior to the meet, they ended up putting me into the 2 mile relay, which was the very last event on Thursday.

and you should know that i was freaking out. i am pretty sure that, for about 24 hours, all i thought about was the little over two minutes that it would take me to run the half mile i would be running at about five o'clock. so when we finally got set up to the track, i was the third leg, and i was freaking out. our second leg was over on the infield throwing up, and everybody was sorta watching him throw up and almost doing the same in response. when the first leg got down, this guy who goes to Church on the Move and i had known as a Christian, we were about in fourth or fifth place, and i was getting more and more nervous. and i had been thinking why i really wanted to run well in this race. and when i figured what it was, it was ultimately because i wanted to please God. i wanted to glorify His name, but mostly, i wanted Him to be able to say "this is my son, in whom I am well pleased."

so that was mostly my motive for how i would run that half mile. and the guy who ran the first leg came up to me right after his run and said something to the effect of this: "you're a man of God. He's really blessed you with His favor, so just go out there and use it all, leave it all out there." and, being nervous, i didn't think that much of it, but i just kind of let that reinforce the whole idea of pleasing God. they were coming down the back stretch and our guy had gotten us into third place - medal position, which i do have to admit to think a lot about. and when i got the handoff from him, i took off, and i was crazy nervous.

i was supposed to be pacing myself, but i had absolutely no idea how fast i was running and i am pretty sure i had absolutely no control over myself. but i do know that for at least the first fourth of the half mile, all i was thinking about in my head, over and over again, was "Please God, please God, please God, please God..." over and over again. and that continued for a while until a guy totally just sprinted past me...which was weird, because i was assuredly not running slowly at all. well, anyway, i pretty much died on the second lap, and i felt terrible, and once i finally handed it off to the final leg, i just kind of stumbled around and lowered my head down with my hands over my eyes because i thought i had failed God.

i didn't think i had run hard or fast enough, i didn't think i had run in such a way that was pleasing to God. i didn't think it was good enough. cause that guy had passed me, and it was over so quick, and i hardly had a kick, and i knew i was supposed to be getting faster, but i wasn't, and i had spent 24 hours thinking about how i would give it everything i had once i got done with the first lap and how the last straightaway would be like running through hell, but i didn't do any of that. so all i said was "I'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry..." over and over again, because i felt like i hadn't been pleasing to God.

and it's funny because when we got done, i found out that i hadn't run a slow time at all, and that everybody else thought it was a great time. but i looked back and realized that...i had been pleasing to God. i truly had been. to have lived my life in such a way that someone could call me a "man of God"...that must have been so pleasing to God, so much more pleasing than any half mile i could ever run. and... i'm glad things are that way. because if i had to run a faster half mile to be pleasing to God, if i had to run faster and faster times, if God's love and approval really depended on me being good or fast enough, then i would be so screwed. and i would never get to hear God say "you are my son, in whom I am well pleased."

since it was the last event, we all smashed into the bus and went back to the hotel to shower before dinner. and...it was great feeling so physically tired. it was great feeling like i had actually done all of this for something. i like our coach because he connects track to life. he says that track isn't about the winning or the medals or being faster or better than other people. he says it's about signing up to do something, something that is hard, and trying your hardest to do it well - essentially, having integrity. and this is life. because life is hard, but we have to rise to its challenges, we have to rise above all of the inconveniences and really try our hardest. we have to honor our commitments to do what we said we would do and when the whole season is over, we look back and we don't remember our times and necessarily all of the different things we did and what happened. we remember the people we spent it with and whether we were satisfied with our performance, whether we gave it all, what it felt like at the end of the day. and to feel so physically tired, i'm not sure i'm ever going to get to know what that feels like again. but it felt good... it felt very good.

and he talked about unity and how he wants us to be the best looking team at the track meet and how he wants us to be the ones held to the highest standards, with the most true commitment and discipline. he was so proud of us when all of us showed up on Senior Skip Day just so that we could go to track practice later that day. and when we got back after the first day at the track meet and he said that we were the best looking team there, i thought he was just saying that. but the next day, when i was watching the girl's race their mile and i saw how much heart was going into it and how well all of them were running... we really were the best looking team there. and when they finished and all of them were crying because it had hurt so much and they had still done it, we were the best looking team there.

the part that is "something worth saying"...i am not sure whether it will be or not. because whenever we drive around on a bus at night, it is a time for all of the boyfriends to sit with their girlfriends and fall asleep in each other's arms. and... i know i want that. i want to feel someone's touch, to hold someone's gaze or fascination, to have someone's unconditional interest. and i know this is wrong, because God is the only one i should be looking to for things like that, the last phrase at least: to have someone's unconditional interest. but truly? i don't like waiting. i want to be with someone. so that when i run my heart out and i am so tired at the end of the day, i can fall asleep in someone's arms. maybe that is wrong to want those arms to be a girl's... because everyone or everything seems to say that all you should even be thinking about is God being the answer to all of your problems. but maybe it's not exactly like that. you can find God in things...you can find Him in relationships. it's just whenever those relationships get to be for the sake of the relationship and not for the sake of God when they start to become questionable.

well, i don't know. and that's why i'm pouring myself out onto the Internet instead of just calling a girl up and talking to her. because i'm scared that i will be turning to her just so i can hold her attention and instead of because i want to talk to her.