things to get closer

i sent out this facebook message (now slightly edited) to our youth group about half a year ago, towards the end of summer before i came to OU (thought it might be helpful, and feel free to add on):

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hey, a couple of us compiled this list of things we could do to try to get closer to God at my house this past night, and i thought it might be useful to others. keep in mind that...these are only things that are supposed to bring us closer, to help us fall in love. they're only tools. if one starts to do them simply for the sake of doing them, one is missing the point. here's the list. feel free to add on - message me or something.

--tell God what happened today - converse freely. you can look around your room or setting and thank Him for what He's done. it might help to even go on a walk. the idea is...it's prayer. and prayer isn't necessarily and shouldn't completely be just asking for things - it should be conversation. in the process of prayer, there won't always be some kind of catharsis, but being in communication with God should be a time of honesty and letting go or realizing that someone is listening to anything you want to say. and the more time you spend with anyone, the more you become like them.
--secret/sacred place - somewhere personal where you can simply expect to meet God, on a personal level. like a prayer house, or just somewhere where it is either set aside for you to focus on God or somewhere where it seems you can escape. another good point is that expectation is great...expect to see God in certain areas or times of your day (like true desire), and He seems to respect that very nicely.
--periodic quiet times - self explanatory. a little groove is nice, as long as it stays interesting or exciting. would probably help a lot in times of desolation. additionally, if you're having trouble getting started, i think the short letters in the New Testament are great - Galatians through Colossians, 1 John, 1 Peter, James. a Proverb a day means the whole book in a month, and i know several of my friends who do a Psalm a day. a little consistency is nice. sometimes there is grace to do it in the morning, but it really does make a difference the more awake you are.
--write things down - keep a journal or just jot down quick notes. it seems like i never remember anything from a sermon if i don't write anything down. and it used to be that anything really important would end up on my wall. in high school, they always said to put your list of goals on your bedroom door so you would see it every morning.
--visual reminders - on your mirror, planner, hand, walls, bedroom door, etc. simply a reminder. i think all those WWJD bracelets served that purpose very well
--watch your input - TV, youtube, facebook, etc. (it could even be relationships) what you spend your time doing determines a lot of the way you think, a lot of the content you think about.
--daily Bible verse - hey, facebook has one of these apps. Air1, a Christian radio station, has a daily Bible verse e-mailed every morning. you could probably find a lot of different services that would get you a verse a day. beats the SAT question of the day any day.
--fellowship - hanging out with people. supporting each other and getting supported. and having fun and relaxing and sometimes pouring out emotions and expressing things that you just need to let out. this helps having a small group or ministry that you can count on, especially if they meet once or twice a week. you should just be able to be real with them, without having to feel like you have to be someone else. community is incredibly important.
--outlets for expression - things like art, music, dance. things where it seems like you can be yourself. i guess for me, it's sorta like running, because i sorta find God there and i can express myself that way. it could really look like anything. painting, basketball, playing piano, knitting, listening to music, hanging out [people/social interaction]. it could be anything.
--constant prayer - mike did this thing where his watch would beep ever half hour and he would just pray something and then maybe go back to whatever he was doing. he said when he did it, there was extreme grace to do it, so that within a week or so, he found he didn't need his watch to beep anymore beacuse he was perpetually praying.
--worship - it helps if you play an instrument, but singing is just as legit. worship is something that you can lose yourself in sometimes, whether you are playing an instrument or listening to music. some suggestions for cool worship music? Hillsong United, Chris Tomlin, David Crowder Band, Matt Redman, the Passion CDs
--carrying around a Bible and reading it it really is the Word of God. God is all over it. if you need somewhere to look to find Him, the Bible is a place to look.

there it is, hope it helps. incredibly important to stress that it doesn't take any of these things to fall in love with God. it's just that some of these things could help bring us closer to God. at the end of the day, it's still always about what God did for us and whether or not we were able to take steps towards Him, not how much we were able to accomplish for Him.

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really dwelling on God (being God-conscious) seems to result in really spending your day or time with God. it is like He is really there with You, and time spent with God does not go in vain. there is a connection going on on a heart level, whether you are in church or in class or running a race or shopping. also, being in prayer and focusing on the things of God makes you more spiritually minded, so i think you really begin to hear God speak. there is an incredible stress on the Bible, prayer, and church, because these are three very strong connections that we have to God, but all of these can be misused and manipulated by some so that they no longer lead directly to God.

i would add to that list that fasting is something that can be used, God willing, to grow closer to God. it seeks to replace the desire of human flesh with desire for God, so much that we are fed and satisfied by God Himself rather than food or Facebook. fasting and prayer should go hand in hand.

something else, though it probably wouldn't fit into a single day, is short term or long term missions. to do the work of God by building houses or relationships and seeking to blatantly live for the gospel. it is something great to be out on the missions field, to be called a missionary, and to be able to say and believe "the only reason i am here is because of God. i am serving God in this place, and that is my purpose and identity."

another thing - it helps to get sleep. it helps to be well rested. it is hard to pursue or even just think things through if your mind is lagging. at the same time, it helps not to be so bogged down by a schedule or activities so that you cannot think of anything besides what you need to be doing or what you should be doing. on the other hand, if God has called you to that and that is where you are supposed to be, then go with that. but it might be counterproductive and distracting to try to balance so many various activities as well as maintain a healthy relationship with Christ.

hope this helps. and i bet there will be certain areas in your life where you might really simply feel God, in some weird fascinating sense. basketball, gardening, even school. God can be found anywhere, and we are all uniquely made to enjoy Him. hope this helps [and would love input]

things lately (battle of grace and pride)

apologies again for the scarcity of posts. the days seem to be rolling off, and spring break is closing in fast. two tests this week, an unending flow of homework, and supposedly two recording sessions for a guitar player here at OU. things...have been a little interesting lately, but i'm not sure how relevant or significant they really have been.

i don't really know what's been going on lately, but today has been a good day. Restoration prayed last night and i played guitar and i think i began to really desire to fall in love with God again, or that desire was put in me, i'm not really sure.

i was reminded of a song earlier today called Worlds Apart, by Jars of Clay, and a line from the chorus reads: "The battle between grace and pride, I gave up not so long ago." i thought about it on a run, in which i started out too fast and was getting shin splints within the first two miles...and began to realize that when the lines from the song mentioned battling between grace and pride, when we choose pride, it is like trying to establish our own righteousness, trying to say that we can do things on our own. grace, much the opposite, is unearned, and is not highlighted by what we have done but what we have received.

it's been a while since i really remarked that i can't do anything on my own. when i run, it's stupid to think i am running to be faster than other people. when i study, it's pointless if my motive is to be smarter than other people or have higher incomes which somehow justifies myself. Romans 14:4 says "Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand."

i can do nothing of my own strength. why consider it my own strength, my own works, then? especially if we all answer to God, and God makes each of us personally to stand or fall before Him. i was thinking about this when i was running, so i was thinking in a running context. each step is because of God, each bit of strength is because God provides. why then do i spite other runners, because it is God providing them with their steps just as He provides for me? and why then spite other runners because of their hearts? who cares if they are proud about it? each of us individually will be made to stand or fall to our masters.

just because God provides the strength and the grace to run though, doesn't mean that we can make wrong choices. if i choose to go out too fast, i will have a more difficult time in the long run. God's grace is sufficient, and it covers our mistakes, but we shouldn't continue to commit stupid mistakes. after going out too fast the first couple times... experience gathers and we should realize the importance of smart decisions. but it is no doubt a learning process.

God will provide the strength that we need, and each step will always be because of Him, but our decisions still play a role in the run. to extend the analogy, any kind of step is because of God - even in desiring after God. God provides the strength to draw near to Him and God provides the strength to draw away from Him. everything goes by His consent, nothing goes without His knowledge or notice. well, when we pray or when we try to get ourselves or others psyched up about God...that is not even from us either. it goes back to the battle between grace and pride - pride says we can do nothing on our own, grace says we can be used by God to spread His righteousness, but as vessels. everything still must flow from God.

this is bit of a big deal on a personal level for me, and on a larger level because i have wanted to be involved in leading youth group for a while now, and it's time that i realize or re-realize that it's not because of me, and it is to my privilege that i would get to be put into that position, but even that is because God has chosen me to be the recipient of His grace in that area. if i really desire to see God work in our youth group or in my life... it will come from God. it will not come from me. "Every good gift and every perfect is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17). we cannot will it ourselves. we can choose, but it is God who is the substance of our choices and our prayers. it is by God that we have any strength to draw near to Him.

i used to remark a lot about a track workout i had a year ago, when we were running repeats of some kind, and i was spent or maxed out when we were only about halfway through the workout. like i was seriously dying. but i continued to max out, and after each repetition, i would grow more and more fatigued and weak. somehow, though, there was this energy that got me through it. but i promise it wasn't my energy.

and maybe what i like so much about that workout is because that's what reality is like sometimes. we're already maxed out, we're weak and we have nothing left within us, nothing working for us. and at that point, all that is left was whether to continue to spend my all or compromise to pain. i made a choice - that was it. God did the rest. each step came from Him. i made a choice, but God was the substance of that decision, God was the One who put my desire into action.

and it's the same way when we pray. we pray, but God is the One who intercedes for us, God is the One who responds and chooses whether or not to fill our hearts with our desires. when we might pray for guidance, for vision, for desire, God is the One who might put that within us. but we are just vessels, shaped by the Creator for His glory, to enjoy Him and be close to Him. a battle between grace and pride, whether we will consider ourselves vessels or gods ourselves.

hosea

i had a short remark on Monday night that God rarely comes unless invited; like He doesn't make a home in Your heart until You let Him in. in the same way, i don't think He fully descends on a place like fire unless He is desired in that place, whether by the people there or people somewhere praying. when Jesus healed people, they would say "if You are willing, You can do it," and one of His common responses seemed to be, "I am willing. You are healed by Your faith"

i think one of the points that should be made is that it took guts to get out of your house or your city to pursue God, to get off your couch and look for Him. not only could it maybe be embarrassing ("you really believe this guy can heal?"), but it would be dangerous because you make yourself vulnerable to Him. lepers would go to Him when they couldn't go to anyone else, with a sliver of hope - knowing that He could be no different from the others. they would let themselves be susceptible again to love and it might not be returned. He could be all hype - you could get your hopes up for nothing. He could even hurt you... what if it was instant gratification and then produced adverse effects? what if He wanted money that you didn't have? but most of it all, it was a blow to your pride. do you really need this guy? do you really need help?

and once there, would He perform the miracle? not only was He capable of performing it, but would He? and some people probably didn't leave their house or their place because they didn't believe Jesus could do it, but some people probably didn't pursue Him because they didn't think He really would heal. not for them.

and reading through Hosea, you begin to see some sorts of contradictions. God says "I will never leave you nor forsake You" somewhere in Scripture and He says that He died out of love and He is love and that this is His character and He won't turn His back on His people. Scripture says love never fails and says that even if you had everything, you wouldn't have anything of value without love. and in Hosea, God tells Hosea that the Israelites are no longer His people, He says that He will leave them and cause them to be frustrated beyond belief and that He will take away their clothing and hedge in their paths so that nothing works and they will find no satisfaction anywhere.

the first time i read this, i wasn't sure what to make of it. it seems like a huge contradiction - does God forsake His people or not? the second time around, it occurred that when God was saying, "these are not My people," it was because He wouldn't claim them because they were proud and they weren't following or pursuing Him. because this people had found their comfort and satisfaction in false gods or lovers and outside of God. He wouldn't claim them. His response: frustrate them with such pain that they would become desperate for a real solution. He would take away the power from their fake lovers so that they no longer satisfied, He would take away the privileges He had provided. He would take Israel's kings and priests and powers - there would be nowhere to turn to. they would be lost, misguided, broken-hearted.

Hosea 5:13... "when Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to King Jareb; Yet he cannot cure you, nor heal you of your wound." the Israelites feel their pain and their response is to turn to Assyria for antidotes or solutions. but the king has no power to heal them.

Hosea 5:14... "For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear them and go away; I will take them away, and no one shall rescue." God will, in a sense, forsake them. He will "tear them and go away." they will be frustrated and alone, stolen away.

Hosea 5:15... "I will return again to My place till they acknowledge their offense. Then they will seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me." this is the kicker. He takes them away, He takes all of their things away, so that they will be His. since they put their faith in their money and their lovers and their feelings, He eliminates each one so that they have nothing left. then He will have what He wants. God is a loving God, but at the same time - He is a jealous God. He is not weak - He will change circumstances so that He gets His people. "in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me" - in other words, they will invite Him. that invitation - that giving over of the heart - is what God wants. it's not that He doesn't love His people - He does.

if you want to look at circumstances and think that God doesn't love because of death or bad grades, i will admit that the pain really hurts. i don't want to be undermining pain at all. that's a real emotion and it deserves to be felt. but just because one is afflicted doesn't mean God doesn't love. sometimes, it's because God is loving that one feels affliction. other times, maybe it's just God working in other peoples' lives, weaving His story for others, working in ways higher than ours. but i don't think we can say God doesn't love, not on the basis that we had a bad day. it hurts to feel like crap - and the pain is real. but perhaps it's necessary. maybe the sorrow is a small price to pay to be able to enjoy a good and real God forever. and maybe one is forced to trust, all the more, that God really knows what He's doing. and that, because He wants you, His love won't stop at anything until you're His.*

*but He won't jump the gun. He won't enter your heart if you don't invite Him into it. there's free will. if there wasn't, we'd be like robots, not really living. the philosophical debate begins: how could a loving God let people burn in hell? i can't say that i know. i know that God loves to save and i really believe that He has His love set on everyone, that no human is an exception. i also believe that a willing heart is all that's necessary, no matter how torn, broken, or wrecked that heart might be. i guess it's the people who won't let Him in, who stick by their lovers and refuse God, who will be stuck with what they ask for - their powerless gods. God only wants people who actually want Him.

A Rumor about Christ

---this was my final essay for my Expository Writing class. i thought it was pretty good, so i'm putting it up. i don't usually proofread very much what i put up here, so this one should actually be grammatically correct and everything. i thought my penultimate paragraph was pretty good, but i felt a little egotistic in the last paragraph.---

I am a Christian. If I only had one chance to tell you something about myself, that would be it. One thing I wouldn’t tell you, however, is that you’re going to hell if I don’t approve of you. I wouldn’t say that I am any better than you or that you are wrong if we don’t agree. Christianity is so much more than trying to figure out who is right and who is wrong. The term “Christian” seems to have been condensed to simple morals, loyalty to a church, and the jeering and pointing of fingers at political parties, homosexuals, and anyone else who fails to meet the church’s approval. Being a Christian is anything but these things. The real idea of a Christian is someone who has found life in God and is so fulfilled by God that nothing else matters.

This is my story: I grew up in the Christian church – I’ve never known anything else to do on a Sunday morning. When I was young, I would pray the exact same prayers every night before falling asleep. I believed I was a Christian because of this and my church attendance, and at the age of twelve, I was even baptized to publicly declare my faith. Once, I even played Jesus in the Easter skit. And the strangest thing was I wasn’t a Christian. I believed that I was automatically a Christian because of the things I did. But Christianity has nothing to do with works – a Christian is simply someone who believes, knows, and loves God.

As I grew older, I learned I didn’t really believe in God. I found my lifestyle was anything but Christian. I cared about my social popularity and grades more than I could have ever cared about God, and I was okay with that. I had huge fights with my family, and I secretly looked at porn. If you had asked me, I would have told you that I was a Christian, because I still went to church, prayed, and read my Bible. But honestly? I don’t know why I did any of those things – I didn’t believe any of it. And my life was anything but Christian.

I guess I believed in God. I believed all the right things, all the things they told us we had to believe in order to be considered Christian. I believed them like a student memorizes facts for a test without learning anything. I solely wanted to be accepted, so I committed to God and enjoyed the approval from the adults and my peers. Entering into high school, I secretly and subconsciously departed from Christianity. I was still doing everything I thought a Christian should do, but it was just something I did without thinking about, much like homework. If Christianity was just these things, it was useless.

I started to struggle with depression. My grades sucked, I couldn’t be myself around my friends, and I continually fought with my mom and sister. I had no reason to live. I wasn’t on the verge of suicide, but I was getting more and more frustrated with the idea that I was only living to get A’s in school and to be popular. I needed something that gave me purpose, something that wouldn’t be worthless after a week like a grade or date. After a while, I started going to a new church. I needed answers, and church seemed to provide them.

The youth pastor at my new church, Mike, had some very different ideas about God and what Christianity was like. They were different from anything I had ever heard. Mike literally believed in God. He talked about God like a real person, as though Christianity wasn’t just about doing things. He said God was still alive and He could actually help you out and talk to you and solve your problems if you approached Him and tried to listen to His voice, no matter who you were. My paradigm began to shift. No longer was the qualification of a Christian whether or not someone was a good person; it even says that in the Bible: “A man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ…by works of the law no flesh shall be justified” (Galatians 2:16, NKJV). God seemed to reveal Himself to me, though I’m not sure how to explain it. I just felt like He was there and He was talking to me everywhere I went. He seemed to show me how great it was to talk to Him and what it meant to really let Him control my life and what the result would be if I stayed obedient to Him.

I had a reason to live again and was discovering something much more lasting and exciting than anything I had ever experienced in school. Besides the way it made me feel, it made sense. I have to admit that I think there are certain things we can’t understand about God; He’s not always logically sound. But if I let go of only investing myself in things that I can understand and rationalize, I think God makes sense. And I could certainly see the change in my life. I stopped fighting with my family and myself, and I didn’t have to pretend to be somebody else when I was with the people at youth group. And if God was really God and all He wanted from me was a relationship, then it didn’t matter how good my grades were or if I was popular. All that mattered was relationship with Him, and if I had it, then I had everything.

This contradicted my entire conception of what made someone a Christian. I had thought Christianity was all about reading the Bible and being a good person, but I didn’t realize that God could actually be real. I began to think that a Christian was someone who spent time with God, who knew God and believed in Him, and had gone as far as to commit and base his life on a relationship with Him.

I began to believe that someone wouldn’t get to heaven by doing all of the right things well enough, but by loving God. But I don’t think everybody thinks like this. It seems like no one really loves God anymore; everyone is just doing. Many people claim that they are Christians and say that they love God and that they are going to heaven because of it, but their lives don’t show that they love God. Ridiculous things have been done in the name of God, by people who call themselves Christians, and I think if they truly loved God, they would realize that some of the things they do are destructive and can hardly be considered Christ-like.

Because of what “Christians” have done in the past, many have responded by turning away from God completely and wanting nothing to do with Christians. Christians have made a reputation for themselves for being arrogant jerks and clueless idiots who don’t know how to love people. Too many times have we encountered Christians who stand on street corners, telling everybody that they will go to hell if they don’t believe and repent. Jesus never said things like this, and I don’t think He would approve of things like this being said. I believe that Jesus didn’t come to condemn man (John 3:17), but He came to provide life to the fullest. He actually loved people. And I think most Christians nowadays don’t.

At the University of Oklahoma, it seems that everyone on campus is a Christian. But it also seems that no one really loves each other. They only care about “saving” people. And truly, when I am having a bad day, I don’t need someone to throw a religion at me and tell me I should believe or else I will go to hell. It is not that these things are necessarily untrue (if anything, they are gray areas and it is up to God to judge who goes to heaven or hell), but I think the approach misses the point of Christianity. Not only does this method of evangelism seem condemning and rude, but Christianity is not supposed to be about the afterlife; it is supposed to be about loving God no matter what. I don’t want to hear someone tell me God will crush me if I’m not good enough; I need someone who can tell me that God’s love is unconditional and things are going to be okay if I continue to trust that He will help me. The point of the church is not to make others like them or to judge them; the purpose of the church is to show others that Christ loves them.
I have not exactly found a church that I feel like I belong to since moving to Norman. I just don’t feel like I fit in with any of the churches in Norman or campus ministries at OU that I have attended. It is not that I don’t feel welcome; it is more like I have not found people with whom I am comfortable being myself. Sometimes it is a disagreement of doctrine, and at other times, I honestly just don’t like the people. It’s not hatred; we just seem to be from different backgrounds and have different interests and personalities.

I don’t mean to be critical, but some churches also seem to be filled with pretenders, people who appear very religious or spiritual and yet know nothing about God. They know all about the Bible, but they haven’t applied it to their lives. They know all about God, but they don’t have real relationship with Him. They don’t sit down and talk to Him because they enjoy it or because they know that God enjoys it. They do everything out of impulse, if they do it at all. I should add that I am not so different; at times, I am just like these Christians who have forgotten about God. I’m also wrong to judge, but this is what some churches feel like to me, and I think that the fake holiness that abides in the church is what non-Christians find so unappealing.

My roommate isn’t a Christian because he is fed up with all of the pretending that goes on in the church. He realizes that the church is filled with hypocrites who use God to reap the benefits, people who say one thing and do another. The last thing my roommate needs is someone to tell him he’s going to hell. I don’t try to save him; I try to love him. And I realize that I still fall short. I could never fully communicate the love that God has for him. I call myself a real Christian because I believe in God and interact with Him, but I am still only human. I struggle with the same thoughts, doubts, fears, and sins as anybody else. I try to be pleasing to God and to base my life on a relationship with Him, but it’s hard. I struggle with judging people and I show favoritism and still look at porn, and these are not things that belong in the life of someone who calls himself a Christian. I also know that my theology isn’t perfect, and I’m not trying to say that I’m right or that I know what’s going on. But I still believe in a God that is real and active, and I believe that I need someone like this God in my life.

I think that this is what really matters to God – a true desire for Him. God could really care less whether we went to church every Sunday of our lives, and He even says in the Bible, “Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me…When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you” (Isaiah 1:13, 15, TNIV). There is nothing wrong with good works, but if they are not done out of a love for God, they are missing the point. Reading the Bible isn’t bad, but it is wrong to read the Bible for the sole purpose of making yourself look better.

Jesus chose to eat with the criminals and prostitutes instead of the Pharisees, who were the religious leaders at the time, because the Pharisees had taken God out of Christianity. They did the works, the “meaningless offerings,” not to be seen by God, but by men. If they could convince others that they were strong Christians, they could manipulate power in their favor. So they would stand on street corners and pray aloud and they would fast and disfigure their faces so it looked like they had given so much to God, but really, they did all of this so they could be seen by men. They didn’t want God; they wanted their own glory and power.

It seems that many Christians have become like the Pharisees, people who do certain acts only to be seen by men. I would argue that these people have taken Christ out of Christianity and made it about works instead. And when Christianity is no longer centered on God and interaction with Him, it stops being so appealing. Most of the reason of why I am a Christian is because I have gained so much from learning about God and what He has said and done. The excitement doesn’t come from going to church or reading my Bible; the excitement comes from interaction with God Himself.

I was talking to one of my friends who said he used to believe in God; he said he would read his Bible and pray, but eventually, he got to the end of it. If Christianity is just reading stories and morals out of a “sacred” book and praying to an impersonal God, then it is pointless. It wouldn’t really do that much good. But if Christianity could be about God, then it would actually mean something. It would mean that people could start putting their trust in God out of a belief that He actually exists. We wouldn’t have to be consumed by school and getting high paying jobs, because they wouldn’t matter; we wouldn’t have to worry about who we are going to marry, because we would know that God has already planned the perfect spouse for us. It would mean social hierarchies would break and everyone could be accepted. It would weaken poverty, because people would actually care about others and give away the things they don’t need. The ramifications of what Christ-centered Christians could do are endless.

It is because of these ramifications that I am a Christian – because I desire something bigger than this world and something greater than money and fame. I think God provides this. I am a Christian because my life seems rather empty without God and only a relationship with Him has filled that void. I don’t love God because I want to go to heaven. I don’t love God because I want to be able to say I am a better person than everybody else. I love God because I think that is my purpose in life, and I love Him because He is worthy to be loved.

apologies and euclid (edit...other one was kinda lame)

apologies for the scarcity of posts. since returning from Michigan, it's been some running around, trying to figure out what it is that we should be doing, as well as some typing up of my mission trip journal, which i think i could get up in a reasonable two days or perhaps by tomorrow, and there will probably be two versions again - a spiritual light and heavy.

as far as news go, i have about three or four weeks until moving in at OU. MACCSR is about a week and a half after school starts, and i am anticipating something amazing. our youth pastor is one of the three main youth speakers, and he or our church is in charge of the worship, which means that i have been blessed with the invite to learn bass and join the worship team. Mike's birthday is tomorrow and then he is headed out of town for about two weeks, but when he gets back, we're all going to start getting together and playing. so truthfully, i've been thinking about MACCSR more than i have OU, but OU should be pretty amazing.

and so that i don't leave you with just a bunch of news and updates, i wrote this a while ago and found it on my computer:

truth is my anti-drug. don't need drugs. need truth.

from a book entitled "what we believe but cannot prove":

"Einstein said, 'you must learn to distinguish between what is true and what is real.' science is a relationship between what we can represent and think about and what's actually 'out there;' it's an extensions of good mapmaking. when we guess in science, we are guessing about approximations and mappings to languages, not guessing about 'the truth' - and we are not in a good state of mind for doing science if we think we are 'guessing the truth' or 'finding the truth.' this is not at all well understood outside science, and unfortunately some people with science degrees don't seem to understand it either...[after stating a conjecture]...this still seems like a good guess to me - but 'truth' has nothing to do with it."

i want to stick away from scientific, logical arguments, just because i don't want to battle theory. there are smart people out there and some might agree with me and some might crush me with their intellect, and the argument gets to be about the argument sometimes and not about truth at all. it's just who can convince the other, and usually it seems like no one ends up being changed or convinced; it's just people trying to prove to the others that they are smarter or better because they are in the right.

mike was talking, a while back, how two people can be in a debate and argue convincingly for both sides and how the all-too-common case can be that both are wrong - neither is right. we have ways of thinking of things, sometimes black and white ways, and since these ways are limited to our own perceptions or even intuitions, to make a claim of truth would be guessing at things so infinitely huger than yourself and your own understanding.

[in the account of Joshua's Battle of Jericho, Joshua is met by the Commander of the army of the Lord right before they choose to enter into battle. Joshua, frightened, "said to Him, 'Are You for us or for our adversaries?' So He said, 'No.'" i like this because it shows how we truly look at things as for us or against us, or what kind of significance or relevance does this have for me? and when the Commander of the Army of the Lord answers No, it ends up a very appropriate answer to the question]

bertrand russell learned geometry as a little kid, but when he learned that it was founded on euclid's four axioms - axioms that could not be proven and relied strictly on the validity, or truth, of our perceptions - he was outraged and didn't want to learn geometry anymore. the foundations to geometry are not proven and were only there because they make sense or appeal to our views. well, people wanted to call geometry true. bertrand russell didn't, because he wondered what would happen if our perceptions of truth were not true at all - just because a different kind of geometry (than one based on Euclid's axioms) seemed impossible, unimaginable, and completely wrong to us, didn't mean that it couldn't be truth. so now we have non-euclidean geometry, which is incredibly hard to think about for me, because it just takes out the axioms/foundations and says things like "two parallel lines can cross" and that there is a chance that a straight line cannot be drawn from two points. the argument is that what we understand has little effect on what is truth.

one of my friends said that us trying to live Christian lives means that we only get to see glimpses of the painting of God's plan. we don't see the entirety of the painting, we just see little spots of it, tiny portions where we fit in that we can actually comprehend. this is true. people like me get mad at God because we don't understand Him. because we can't package Him and sell Him and control Him. because tragedy happens and people die and His ways are so high that the path to Him is not only a narrow path, but it seems impossibly narrow. but if we could know some of the things that go on, some of the promises that have been made, some of the truths that are going on behind the scenes, we wouldn't care. in fact, our whole perceptions would change. instead of the path being an impossibly narrow path, we would realize it is indeed very possible. we would realize that as long as we never gave up on it, we wouldn't be able to help but find the end and finish the race. we would realize we need for God to be controlling and loving on us instead of our own desires for us to be gods and for the authority to manipulate the real God.

save this for a rainy day, pt 2

this is what i learned today: i want to be honest, but i also want to be accurate. i want to honestly seek God, but to some degree, i also wanted to be right. i didn't want to have to be corrected when it came to God or my faith or my walk. and...being accurate will get me no more. i'll go as far as to call it irrelevant - it doesn't make a difference. what makes a difference is being honest with God. being right before God - not the same as being right with God - is like wanting to impress God rather than actually sit down and know Him and be close to Him. we're still learning. we're never really gonna have everything down, not here, anyways. honesty admits that. we're gonna screw up. honesty also admits desire. i want to stop pretending i'm someone i'm not. and though i know i want God with all of my heart, i fail to trust the depths of my heart and know that if God were not helping me get to Him, i would fall away from Him faster than i could express.

---the rest of that first chapter, continued from part 1 of this rainy day series (and today actually ended up to be a pretty rainy day, complete with lightning and an onslaught of hail)---

Today was student council elections, and it was kind of strange because I felt absolutely no urge to vote at all. I told my friend and he said, “Really?” like that was something unheard of and then he asked if he could have my ballot. It’s strange because, I mean, everybody has a voice, and I hear that it’s supposed to be an obligation to let people hear it. But some guy from MIT disproved the thought that your vote actually counted, and I think I was probably hesitant to elect someone that would do a horrible job and it would be my fault – which is ironic because I agree with the guy from MIT who says your vote doesn’t matter. Anyway, I ended up only voting for two of the five positions, and even then, it was pretty obvious who would win. Later today, I got a questionnaire about a school issue and I was going to fill it out, but then I realized that all that I was going to say would only be matched or beaten by everybody else in my grade, so I kind of stopped. I think I like my voice, but I can’t figure out why I don’t insist on people hearing it.

I read this book from Donald Miller about how it’s somewhat important to grow up being at least told that the world was hinging on your performance and your capability to contribute to the world – that you were essentially a large part of the society and that you actually did matter, maybe even that lives were riding on you. This was the distinction that President Eisenhower had, I think, and it was the basis to his being a leader – that he had a strong voice he had no problem in letting people hear. I don’t think that it’s a lack of confidence on my part, though that could very well be it – I just don’t feel a need to participate that much.

Our last DFC meeting was how it was important to put yourself third, letting God be first and others second. Afterwards, I noted that yourself should be a close third, because placing myself at a value is actually something I struggle with. That whole self-esteem issue, I fight with that. It’s weird – God requires that we lower ourselves and be nobodies. And then God makes us “somebodies” and, I guess that is when we have matured enough to rise to somebody status in the world and start showing people new things. That must be it. Since God has fixed us, it really does make sense that we should rise in the world (to some level) and assume leadership roles – we might as well believe that what we know really is that strong voice that we really do need people to hear. In fact, you could go as far as say that the world is hinging on our every move and whether or not we allow our voices to be heard, or should I say God’s voice?

I think it’s really important to be no one at least for a little bit. When you’re no one, you don’t have to meet a standard and you have enough time to figure things out for yourself, without the stress of expectations and demands from everybody else requiring things from you. Though I’m not sure that it’s even possible for some people to be no one for a little bit. I think if you’re no one, you get to see life in a completely different light – as someone who can go anywhere they want in life, like an open field. Being someone means you have responsibilities and commonly, you can’t show emotion or meet the status quo or crack under pressure. The difference between being someone by the world and being someone by God is that when you are someone by the world, everything comes from you and what you can do. If God makes you someone, it’s God’s work and that’s everything. The end…it’s just God working in your life, and all you have to do is show respect and obedience to Him. You don’t have to be good enough for Him, because I don’t think we can do that, since the standard is, well, perfect, and the idea of perfection usually eludes me. You just have to be real…I think that’s what God wants. An open heart, looking to Him for life. Then He makes you someone. Somewhere in Matthew, it says God shows the blind what it means to see and he shows those who think they see that they are really blind.

More and more, I think God really intended for us to be perfect, because sin, the one thing standing in our way between God is simply imperfection. If we didn’t have sin, we could just go with God and God would let us be perfect. Since we are not perfect, we have this need to find a solution that will make us perfect, and that is how sin came to be. Sin isn’t having money, but loving money – starting to believe money is a worthy solution that can justify and make one perfect, because we are in a search for perfection – sin is not being perfect because that love for something besides God cannot make you perfect. It is investing ourselves in something that is not satisfactory, something that can’t complete us – I think that might be the entire essence of sin, whether trying to satisfy yourself with riches or pride or fame. The essence is that those things can’t be perfect or be good enough for us, no matter how much we believe in them and invest in them. These pursuits can’t be good enough for us, because these pursuits aren’t perfect or perfecting. We were created for perfection – we were created for God.

That means it makes sense that all the songs we sing in church say that God is ‘worthy of being praised.” It also makes sense why Heaven is called our home, and Heaven is perfect. When I first heard about Heaven in elementary school, they told us that we wouldn’t have to sleep there. That would be great. I don’t think I like sleeping – it takes too much time. Though what is time in the face of eternity?

DFC is fasting, so we met at Kafe Bona and had a good discussion. I think fasting is like saying “I’m just not gonna live off food, I think I’m gonna live off God.” And not so much food all the time, but a lot of different temptations that we have grown to maybe not indulge in, but at least accept. It’s a strange concept to keep yourself from doing something, like eating or looking at people a certain way, because it’s like second nature – how much strength it really does take to keep from satisfying yourself. It really hasn’t been that much with food for me, but a lot with other things like lust, and it’s just strange to say “no, I think I’d rather follow God,” because it makes things a lot more obvious that you are investing in God and not investing in keeping yourself comfortable and satisfied. We spend most of the entirety of life trying to satisfy ourselves, so we buy clothes and tell crude jokes and watch TV – it’s really a strange concept that we would just stop and go for something that is uncomfortable and even a lot more challenging.

Another thing is that if you suddenly just decide to stop eating, you suddenly don’t have anything to spend your time or money on (exclusive of Taco Bueno’s dollar menu). It’s weird – you really learn how dependent you are on food and how important it seems to keep yourself happy. But you also learn how to overcome, and how it really is true that “man does not live on food alone.” Some people give up eating to play World of Warcraft, but I think it’d be more amazing to give up eating to find God, specifically with everything you have. It’s like dropping everything, absolutely everything, to focus on one thing with as much as you as you can (at least for a moment). I think that is really being no one – like when Jesus was calling the apostles and it says that they dropped everything and simply followed. To just drop everything – not exactly food, which is necessary to some extent, but other things like temptations and concerns and inconveniences – and follow.

save this for a rainy day, pt 1

i think i'm going to be taking a break from writing up here for a while. i'm in Tanzania with people from my school on a mission trip starting Sunday for about three weeks, and then i'll be back again. think i'm gonna be doing more journalling on paper because i haven't done that for a while and it seems to mean a lot more when i write things down on actual paper (because it is more time consuming, at least). i usually journal when i'm on a mission trip, and once i get back from Tanzania, i have a week until i leave for Michigan, so i'll just keep on journalling and get the whole summer. hopefully i can see the changes in me between each trip, so it will hopefully all be good. as for this Blogger, i'm not gonna put anything new up while i'm in Tanzania (i suspect), and i think i'm just going to be putting up things i've already written because i'm a little brain dead right now; hence the title Save this for a Rainy Day, it's a little long. this was the first two or three pages of the first chapter when i started an idea for writing a book a year ago:

I spent a night outside praying one day, just sitting on my front lawn and watching stars, the first time it started getting cold here. The thing is, I had been going through some pretty hard times. I fell to lust earlier that day and I had spent the week not only battling that lust, but battling scorching hot track workouts. I should have really felt condemned, and I’m kinda surprised that I wasn’t. Instead, I had peace and everything seemed fine, even though it was still kind of bumming that I had allowed myself to fall. And that was God, and I spent that time wondering if the really nice, cool weather was just for me – the whole idea of a personal God. That great weather…that was the thing I thought about the most, probably. I later realized that the pains from running in the sun the entire previous week had never entered my mind – that everything bad that had happened had instantly disappeared. God picks me up with sunsets and cold nights, so much that I forget that I’m the one that doesn’t deserve any of the grace and should rather be sent to hell or honked at obnoxiously.

I like thinking of myself as a big deal, like if I could ever get MTV to make a reality show out of my real life, I think a lot of people could learn a lot. I guess that's why it's so huge that God is a personal God, and you actually get a relationship with Him. I think if you really do think about it, it would stink to worship an impersonal God because you're trying to worship something that doesn't really notice you at all - you're just another one of millions of people doing the same thing. that's why all of the people who try to get on TV end up only being another face in the crowd, but if you try to go after God, He'll always pick you out of the crowd for something amazing, something that feels like you're the only one who can do something. He'll always notice you because He's a personal kind of God and if He wasn't, then you probably could never know Him and He could never know you, and that ruins everything.

I think when you move away from God and try to serve Him impersonally, everything fails. You really have to communicate personally, like you kind of have to be real in how you talk and how you live and everything - you know, abandon herd mentality. There was this huge stadium event Acquire the Fire this spring break and it was kind of lame because I started trying to worship God impersonally - you know, cheer at all the right times and not think about anything and make promises that I would be able to save the generation. But the God I believe I know doesn't require me at all to show that I'm excited about Him at all the right times or say that I'm going to save the entire generation when I know that I'm not going to be able to do it. You know, I can make very personal promises and not clap when someone says something fundamentally accurate - but I can clap when someone says something that isn't significant to anyone besides me. Personal worship...what's the purpose of doing things like anybody else anyway? I think God kind of demands that you do things His way in your own specific way. Like when He talks to you, it'll always be in some kind of specific personal way that has relevance to you and maybe you only. Like, nowadays, if you go out walking along the street and see a burning bush (metaphorically), then it’ll be in some kind of personally significant way so that it might only make sense to you (though if you literally saw a burning bush on the streets and did not hear anything from God, it might be a good idea to put it out).

Ever wonder how so many people could be wrong? It’s kind of baffling, really, to think how a lot of people are just the products of society. I went to a bookstore some random day and saw a book titled “Everything you know is wrong,” and it disproved all of these obscure myths that the media feeds the public. When it comes to Christians, I guess we get the same kind of beef, and every now and then, it gets pretty frustrating looking around and realizing that the world as a whole is completely against the idea of you being a Christian. The entire world would really just prefer you to consume their products, and it just so turns out that they’re selling sex and drugs and things that aren’t bad at all, but just take away from the idea of living a Godly life. no time for God if you’re too busy playing World of Warcraft, and judging by the people I know who do play, it really is an addiction. One of my friends says he knows people that have given up eating so that they can play World of Warcraft. What you do kind of defines who you are.

Identity is strange like that. When I first heard about people who tried to be Renaissance men during the Renaissance (they were probably just called men back then), I thought that it would be great to be one. So now I’m a runner, former class president, sound technician, guitar-playing pianist, programmer kind of guy, I guess, because I thought by then, I would have found myself. It didn’t really get me anywhere, and I think it sorta made me start thinking that there’s something bigger than just trying to leave a legacy or finding your niche. For some people, I think leaving a legacy just comes naturally, but if you have to do a bunch of junk to get people to remember you, which is what I was doing by joining a bunch of clubs and whatever, then it’s not really worth it. People change so much to get what they want that they forget who they are in the first place.

Like if you have to beat someone up to get your point across, it might not really be worth it because instead of being able to show them that you have a qualified point, it’s your fist that shows them instead that you’re right because you’re bigger and stronger. And that doesn’t work either if you’re small and weak. Unless God lets you go out and beat someone up to do something in them…I think it happens with my youth pastor Mike sometimes, only not so much being told to go out and beat people up. God told him to go out to the movies and eat popcorn though, which I figure must have not only been the right thing to do at the right time, but also very fun. I’m a popcorn-kind of guy. Anyways, I guess if God really wants to make His point, then He can use anything to show someone it, and that includes getting beaten up, which is pretty funny, cause it’s love all the same. I don’t think God’s told me to beat someone up yet. But I think that the next time I get in a conversation with someone who just won’t listen, I’ll try throwing my Bible at them. A book really seems like the most inopportune weapon to throw at someone, but I bet throwing a Bible at someone in a life-or-death situation might be better than throwing knives or pencils or bombs.

Back to leaving a legacy, why force it if you have to change yourself? Like how most people have to change themselves or get as close to changing as they can get to fit into certain cliques and tables at lunch. Might as well be yourself – unless it turns out you can fool people forever (almost like a politician). I heard lyrics on the radio today that said “I’ve been everybody else, now I want to be something closer to myself.” Even after I knew it was bad, I still probably kept on going after that legacy...the tricky part always ends up being going into action against something that you know is bad. I read this book by Joshua Harris that said the smallest battles against something you know is bad is really what’s important and even if you end up failing, it’s okay because obedience is what’s really important.

I like how Christian faith and obedience on a personal basis is far more important than doing things like looking good and tithing and more like following God’s voice. As it turns out, it seems like following God’s voice is far more important than just tithing and going to church and singing loudly, like I used to think justified good faith. You should tell the world that – it’s so easy to just fall into the Christian-esque style of things and ignore what’s really important in listening to God speak and move. And it’s a big relief that it’s our submissiveness to God that’s important, because it really does get annoying to keep on falling in an endless fight against sin. And trying to be perfect… It’s like going against the grain – it’s just not supposed to happen at all, that we would have faith and completely go against centuries’ work of culture trying to disprove and belittle God. But that never means we should give up because we can’t be perfect or because it does not seem like we can win – we keep going for God because He’s the one that’ll make us perfect, and it’s not that hard to find God or be found by Him. Since it’s obedience against sin that’s important, it turns out you win completely by never giving up. Just as long as you keep playing the game, you don’t lose.

Today is my birthday. I like that. You know, even though it really doesn’t make sense that it should have any significance, everybody just treats it like a big deal. And the idea that it is a big deal is actually kind of relaxing, because it says you’ve done something worth noticing without really any major feat (besides living). So I liked today a whole lot, and not because a lot of people recognized me in the halls and I got some kind of huge party or got to do whatever I want. I liked it because the entire thing almost sorta gave me an excuse to be happy for a change, to look forward to a day, some inexplicable reason why I should be happy that possibly nobody can really understand.

I liked that people didn’t know it was my birthday. Only about three people knew today at school, aside from my youth group that I think might throw me a party, and I made it through the entire day last year without anybody knowing. I wish everyday could be my birthday because then I’d have initiative for living each day like it was monumental and nobody else would ever change, they would just keep treating me like it’s not my birthday.

Things get boring and time gets annoying and mostly now and then, I forget what living is like and take the days for granted, just wishing I could stop time and take a break. I guess that’s why it’s particularly important to have some kind of initiative for the day, even if it really just is being happy because it’s your birthday. Next week when it’s not my birthday, I’ll be forced to look to other things to make my day. It’s always the really small things, like getting a compliment for playing the piano or waking up to an amazing sunset or getting BBQ chips for lunch or watching the Matrix, because that’s a great movie. Big things don’t really get me going anymore, maybe because everybody will realize big things and I’m not sure I like the idea of being realized – I think I like small things because they are personally significant, and big things are for everybody to see and then they can criticize me. That’s why everybody knowing my birthday isn’t as fun – because then everybody changes and sees you a different way. Like how people drive next to police cars.

Maybe being introverted is really bad; you could definitely make a good debate against it because it’s not exactly healthy and there are just some things you can’t do alone, like jump rope or have a missions trip. But I don’t seriously mind keeping to myself and being personal…I eat lunch by myself in the arts building. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but if I tried to eat lunch by myself in the cafeteria, then people that I would rather not talk to or feel obligated to talk to would think I was feeling lonely and sit by me. No offense to the company, but sometimes I just feel like being by myself because that’s the kind of attention God gives me. I like being able to focus on God and specifically being able to feel Him, and not to say you can’t do that in a group, I just don’t feel like doing it while eating lunch with a bunch of my Christian-apathetic friends (or sympathetic acquaintances). I guess that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be willing to go and eat lunch with a crowd, I’d just prefer being alone because if you’re alone, then you’re forced to think about things and life instead of just gossip or lack-of-substance living, as I call it. It’s hard to get intimate with people you don’t really know.

I was at a retreat last summer in Arkansas and I watched my friend get saved and that same morning, I had grace to ride the roller coasters…and the last night, one of the adult chaperones told me she thought I was depressed because I was so quiet and withdrawn. I still don’t think there’s anything wrong with me or wrong with being personal, except maybe if you really are depressed.

So, back to today, I went to youth group and had a nice party, but I ended up being pretty bummed because this girl I like has been different for the past two weeks. I had no idea what was going on with her, but for the past two weeks, she wouldn’t speak to me or even look at me. I was pretty confused. Well, it’s a big deal because we had kind of committed to each other, verbally and spiritually and everything. I called my youth pastor who was doing confidential work after locking myself in the bathroom, but then the wireless phone died and I was left with a verse in Matthew that says something like “no one knows where or when the wind will blow.” And then my youth pastor said something like “you really have to get used to God moving you through things unexpectedly.” I got a ride home more confused.

I talked to my best friend Billy, who called me on my cell phone, which was on silent and on the ground in the living room, as I was heading back out the door. I had the idea to just sit on my front lawn and watch the stars. If he had called any other time, like five seconds later, I would have never talked to him. He’s growing strong in his faith, and we talked for about an hour or something like that and I had my sleeping bag, but the night was cloudy, so I couldn’t see stars. I used a Spiderman 2 analogy, one great movie – how Spiderman, Peter Parker, couldn’t advance with Mary Jane, his desired girlfriend, because he knew that she would then be threatened. I thought this, like with the girl I like, was completely opposite, and she and I would never kind of be split up or our relationship couldn’t be played with by God – that everything would work out the way I wanted it to, and we wouldn’t have to go through huge trials both together and apart. Now, I am just more confused.

But I think Billy and I decided that being confused really isn’t so bad, because being confused also means that you can be amazed. We are amazed by God and other things because we don’t fully understand them or can even predict what might happen. It’s usually the very simple things that are amazing too. Billy said “we didn’t need to know everything,” as in God’s plan. That was amazing, I guess because that makes faith everything. He said it must be so amazing that God even notices us, that He can call us His friends, that He can wrap us in His arms… but he said that the most amazing thing was that God can look down on us and smile, knowing that we have Jesus in us, that we have accepted his gift. I think that’s beautiful… God’s smile, taking pleasure in our very lives that He has made possible.

I talked to Billy today and he said that that was really God instead, and he can’t really remember anything he said. He did happen to say that he’s starting to realize that AP’s aren’t really that big of a deal, and it’s not really all that important how you perform on it, because God kind of does a lot if you let him. He said he took this National Latin Exam earlier that year and felt horrible about it, even as he was taking it. When he got the results back, he had a 100%, which he believes is impossible, and I would think to be generally unheard of on a national Latin exam… and he changed me, in what he said that night. I think if he could ever go out on the streets and say anything close to what he told me that night, with words of peace and higher calling and fulfillment, then people would be changed and amazed and so would Billy.

If God ever happened to give me a bumper sticker company, I think the first bumper stickers I would make would say “Circumstances,” “How could God be fully represented by man?” and “You have no Idea…” I think it’s because people will listen to bumper stickers, but they won’t listen to the preachers on the sides of the street that supposedly tell them they’re going to hell – and to the preachers who actually do that, I bet they don’t save many lives that way, no matter if it’s truth or not. I use “You have no Idea” a lot – it’s the title on my blog and shares the title with another one of my blogs, the other part of the title being “Something Worth Reading.” I keep on google searching “something worth reading” and nothing ever really comes up that is actually worth reading. But I don’t think I would put “Something Worth Reading” on a bumper sticker, because that would be pretty ironic.

When I finally went back inside from the nice cold, I was about to take a shower when I picked up my cell phone and saw a missed call. Like the two preceding weeks, I was hoping it was the girl I liked…unlike the two preceding weeks, this time it actually was. I called her back and she told me what was going on. That was amazing too. I wrote my AP Spanish essay about how everything would be better (or closer to it, at least) if we could all communicate. So I was pretty relieved to find out we were talking again.

Turns out she’s been having a pretty rough time. She ended up being in a class that she arguably didn’t like just so she could witness to one of her friends. Towards these last two weeks, she really tried to witness to her friend, but circumstances overwhelmed her and the friend she was trying to witness to actually ended up influencing her more and leading her to a lifestyle she really didn’t want to live. I think she started to listen to non-Christian music again and started cussing again, and I think she skipped putting an effort into AP tests because that was just the influence her friend had on her (not to say AP tests are exactly worth putting effort into). Yeah, she’s been having a pretty rough time.

Our first words were online and I told her I had something big to tell her, but I wanted to be talking on the phone instead of online. Turns out, at that point, she thought I might call it quits on the whole relationship. You know, strangely, and she doesn’t know this yet, but I was going to tell her that I think I love her. I seriously think I do. In that last week of silence, apart from her, I thought a lot and thought about her struggling and I really started thinking that if I really could do something to keep her from falling or stumbling or having problems, I would sincerely try to do it. If I could take the pain and the trials away, if I could give her happiness or the freedom to walk with God, I would do it. I’m not really sure if that’s the real essence of love. I told Billy and he said that that was the highest level you can get, that something like that was really huge. I asked my youth pastor Mike and he said it’s the basis to love. I hope it is love, because that would be nice – you can’t get any bigger than love when it comes to relationships.

I went to sleep that night more amazed than confused by God – because I had sincerely felt like crap for maybe about an hour or two, walking around as if my head was cut off, wondering why God wasn’t there and making everything perfect. I have horrible sight… I knew God would come out of nowhere and make everything better and all of us would end up better, drawn more towards Him but I didn’t like it at all. There’s a Ginny Owens song that says “I’ll walk through the valley, if you want me to” and how, if everything really is true about being a Christian, that you are made better by trials and pains, then the most logical thing one could do would be to voluntarily walk through those pains and sufferings. I was seriously ashamed that I had questioned God so much, gone so crazy that I didn’t have my way. That I couldn’t have trusted Him so much more to make everything right, just as He had always done and could never not do, being who He is. My pastor said a couple weeks, as a very obvious statement in the middle of something a lot bigger and more complex, how we pray prayers of faith and confidence, not prayers of doubt. And though it is pretty obvious, it’s really pretty significant – to come to God expecting to be fulfilled, even confident in it. I should have been solid in my faith…I really should have.

My physics teacher read an editorial about the Duke lacrosse incident and how the entire legacy of Duke can be defined in saying that “ignorance walks side by side with privilege.” That made things very clear…how you read in the Bible how we should all rejoice in temptations and trials and being challenged. My youth pastor Mike says we have to stay in shape, spiritually, so we have to go through all of these battles to make sure we don’t fall asleep or lose focus. We should never lose faith, but the only way we can keep our faith strong and healthy is by constantly having to protect it and justify it and facing all of this crap from everything else. Just as the privilege of whatever you may call it – living a perfect life or not being challenged or not having to do something you don’t want to or that makes you uncomfortable – opens the door for you to be ignorant and be caught off guard.

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.”

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.

knowing who God is, pt 2

today was all about worship, that's all we did today in the English service. and what was weird, was that, once i had really gotten into it and everybody else had, i found myself saying "this is God, this is who God is" over and over again. i looked around at the room and the hands going up, i looked at mike and lisa playing and singing and i saw Richard in a corner with his eyes closed and just praising and i saw Jerry doing the same and i saw Jojo on his knees beside me and i saw Billy praying with Leo, and i saw the girls standing with their hands up, and i saw all sorts of things like this...and i couldn't stop thinking "this is God. this is what our God does, this is who we serve."

because i look around the room and it's more than just people i see, it's what's going on. i see the change that is happening, i see the brokenness that is healing, i see the lives that are being renewed, being brought to actual life. i see the excitement that is happening, the truth that is being revealed, the sensation of things coming together and beginning to make sense, the fire of a Lord that doesn't come to steal or to kill, but to bring all of us life, true life. i see people starting to lose control, people starting to give everything away to God, whose very character is that He is right, that He knows what's going on.

and so...this is our God. One who came to liberate, one who sets on fire the lives of His children, who is leading us back to Him, who is getting us excited about life, who even just flat out brings us life. and that is what is so exciting, because today is a day people won't forget. today's the day people got a glimpse of heaven, they got a glimpse of what all of the God hype is all about - that it's real. you can feel it in the air, you can feel the hope, you can feel the love. you can feel that there's more going on than just us, there's more happening than simply a bunch of people gathered together doing something called church. you can tell lives are being changed, that there is something significant happening.

and... it's all amazing. the next big thought was "Don't let anybody miss out." because... i hope no one has to miss out. i hope no one is stuck thinking everything sucks, that there is no hope. i hope everyone gets to know what it feels like to know who God really is, that life isn't supposed to be about always trying to get better at the things you are doing, it's about finding out who God is. because, if everyone just knew what God sees in them, everything would change. to know that there is someone who died for them. there is someone who said He would never leave them, someone who said I love you. so many have never heard it, have never felt it. they've never known that they could mean so much to somebody. but we have a God who died for us, this is our God.

i started praying for people. it was great. sometimes worship feels like ecstacy - a lot of crying and whatnot, but today it wasn't like that. today it was... honest seeking. true acknowledgement that God is our everything, that God deserves all of us, that God is our only answer. no more expectations of what things should be, no more compromise with sin, no more limit to how much we choose to give to God, it was just God showing up. and He showed up...

i started thinking about this song once we had finished worship; it's called This is Our God, by Chris Tomiln