Jeez...

Jeez it's been forever since I have been on here. Well, I don't have much to say other than the fact that everything is going great in my life right now. Dad's better, Scott's in the navy, Evan's playing ball, and I'm just chilling. Making my way through the realms of this thing called life.

Conqueror of The Slide...

Sunday night, instead of doing a bible study we acted out skits of bible stories. Some did the prodigal son, Noah and the ark, and a few others that I can't really remember. However, ours was David and Goliath. So Emmy, Lindsey, Kaden, and I acted out a skit of a bully on the playground(they had to be modernized). So of course I got to be Goliath and Kaden appropriately enough, David.

The story obviously stuck with me until Monday morning. Monday morning is Pop in Play at work. For a certain amount of money parents can bring their kids in and play on the inflatables for an hour and a half. For a few weeks now there has been two grandparents bringing their grandson in to play. The boy however wouldn't go down the slide by himself. So week after week the boy and his grandma would go down at the same time. But, Monday, there was about ten minutes left for the play time and I had noticed that the grandma had began to make special efforts to get her grandson to go down by himself. It started of going down side by side. Then with him just holding her finger. Then going down with his eyes open. Then with his hands up. Finally she got him to go down by himself. You should have seen the look on his face. He was no longer scared. He had conquered the slide.

I can't help but relate this to our everyday lives. How many times are we too scared to take the jump? To ask her out. To ask for that raise that you so well deserve. How many times are we too scared to swim out into the open waters. I recall a certain fish touching the "butt" at this analogy. But seriously, how often do you think we go around life scared? Do you think it would help us if we knew that God had us by the hand the whole time? I'd like to think it would.

Made Me Glad...

I will rejoice, for He has made me glad.

Your call, Your touch, Your voice. It sounds so beautiful. So mysteriously wonderful.

My soul, where have you gone. Come back my soul, come back.Come home. To the place where you belong. The potters wheel.

Come, and let Me mold you. Let Me make you pure. I love you son, I love you.

Do you? Do you Father? How so, How can you love so much. I say, teach me this love, form me into the man you want me to be.

I love you. O' how I love you. From every hair on your head, to every mood of your day. I love you. I delight in you, and I adore your life. I made you for that reason. So I can teach you to love as I first loved you.

Why the trials, the pain, the torture of my patience. Why not heaven on earth?

I love you, be strong! For surely you will endure, and surely you will persevere. I made you strong, my son, and strong you must be. At all times, be strong.

Show me Father, light the way so that this Adam may once again walk with you in the garden. But I will not hide. I will be naked of my pain. Naked of my sorrow. For I will rejoice, cause you have made me glad.

Know this. I am with you, always. Be strong. But be careful. He sets traps for you, so that when you think all is well, you will slip up. But come back, come home my son. Return to me always. And always you will live. Go home, always go home.

A Silly Little Thing Called Love...

Go free, go, I say. Run and fly for the world you see is but an illusion. A mystery to my inner desire. My heart knows no such evil. I am free, and free I shall live. Away from me this hurt, away from me this coward body. I am free, and free I shall live. Go and fly, above this madness, away from this thing called pain. I am free. Go and live the life of beauty, the life of Light. Free I shall live. I am going, leaving this body behind, I will leave with none but my soul. O' my soul, how you rejoice in His presence. How you dance in the Light. O' the marvelous light. We shall go, oh, live free my soul, let loose my friend. And oh how we will live. O' to the beauty of the Father. Go free my soul, go free!!

I say goodbye, but only for a little while. Will it be but only a minute before I see your face again? Oh how I hope so, I pray so. Please let it be true. Will I long, will I miss? I know myself not without your hand in mine, walking in the garden of your infinite life and beauty. You make the sun rise and set and over again. But what am I? Your son. Your chosen bride. You chose me before I knew your name. How is that so, moreover, Why? I am your chosen bride, and a wedding we'll have. The ceremony of broken chains and amazing grace. What a glorious day. That I pray. You my Father are forever mine, and I am yours. But I have always been yours. Even when I walked in the valley, in the shadows, death lurking near, you were there.

I am but a child in your mere presence. But how you rejoice in me. Delight. O' to the Light of such a depraved world. O' to the Light of all eternity. Father, mold me, make me better, so that I can be perfect, as you were, so many years ago.

To the majestic,
To the glorious,
To the love of the Groom, to you I say, I am yours. Always, forever and ever.

How Much More Do You Have For Me God???

I talk a lot about Love. The importance of it. I don't know, it has just kind of become something I have become rather passionate about. If you are reading this then I assume that you have heard that my Dad has been in the hospital suffering from anything from a bladder infection to a heart attack. Love has just been something God has been reminding me of lately, and I am just now starting to see his full purpose in telling me this.

My family, well, we have been through a lot. My dad had quadruple bypass surgery when I was in the third grade. That same year there was a hostage situation that took place down the road from my house. That had a rather dramatic effect in my life. I was later diagnosed with depression. Not exactly the thing you want to be while in the third grade, depressed, and I would never wish such a thing on any child. Anyways, things never really got any better. A good time for my family was usually defined by going a month without having anyone in the hospital. Needless to say it rarely happened. Sinus surgeries, knee surgeries, "terminal illness", more surgeries, plenty of stitches and concussions to go around resulted in pushing my family further and further apart.

Where am I going with this is my family has lost the love that families are suppose to have. I know now, as I remind myself of what James wrote, that this is a time to rejoice. It is the testing of my faith and I must persevere. I would like to add to that, hold my family together. The last couple of days it has just been the three boys, me and my two brothers. I have seen countless times how the family comes together in a time of crisis but never realized that we are divided in the peaceful times. Life is tough, I'll give it that. But I'm not going to fold. We must persevere, all of us, anytime we go through crap just remember what James wrote in his first chapter.

Love will set us free, as Brett Dennen says. I know it will.

Pray for my family as we go through this hard time. I just found out some more bad news today, another page in a whole new chapter in this life. Or as John Donne writes.

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume, when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators: some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation; and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.

I really like that analogy because it offers hope. I use to think that heaven will be somewhat boring, you know, just "worshiping God" the whole time for the rest of eternity. However now I see that it will be great, a feast, a time to share stories and commune with one another. I can't wait to get there and hear stories from Paul about his missions, to hear Elisha talk about what it was like to be the only person to never die, and to here Davids stories about his run from Saul. Who knows what we are going to hear when we get to heaven, I just can't wait.

Love For The Wolves...

We will wear compassion,
We will wear it on our chests,
and sing with love at our throats
like a child, it's all I know.
-As Cities Burn

A child knows a few things.

They know who they belong to, who are their parents.
They know that they are loved and adored by most who see them.
They know what they like and what they don't like.
They love life and live it.
Among other things these three seem to sum most of it up.

Christ, throughout the New Testament, refers to us by several names. Brides, Sheep, even at times Goats. However the most appealing name he calls us by is Children. We are the children of the Father. Nothing more and nothing less is asked of us but to be His children.

The list above states a lot of what we are called to be like as Christians.
We are to know who we come from and to be proud that we are children of The Most High.
We are to know that we are loved, because he made the ultimate sacrifice for us.
We are to know what is good and what is bad, what we should approve of and what we shouldn't, what we should like and what we should dislike.

More importantly though we are called to love. Everyone, not just our fellow church goers. Not just our friends at school. And not just those who are in our close circle of peers. Everyone. That means the kid in your history class who makes bad jokes about you. The homeless guy sitting on the street. The people in the car in front of you who have to pull over because of car problems. Even those who persecute you. Show them love. I say this not just to you but also to myself.

I often struggle with loving. In fact, at times I would much rather just sit back and be hateful, not care, and to not invest myself. Wouldn't it be so much easier that way? It would. But that is not what we are called to do as children of God.

Luke 10:2-3
These were His instructions to them: "The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send more workers into his fields. Now go and remember that I am sending you out as lambs among wolves.

The truth is that life might be easier doing the things of the world, it may not. I know that me saying this is not anything that you have not heard but it is simple and to the point.

LOVE

That is what we are called to do, among the wolves, love.

Quotes from Enders Game...

-Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth.

-"There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you."

-"Human beings are free except when humanity needs them."

-"Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive."
"That's a lie."
"No. It's just a half truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war."

-He was a soldier, and if anyone had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn't have known what they meant.

-Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.

-"Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth."

-"Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it."

-"I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it."

A Toast To The New Year and All It's Mysteries...

So this weekend I went to Gatlinburg with my youth group. With the mix of Family Force 5, Shane and Shane, Matt McCoy, an illusionist, a comedian, a great speaker, great classes, and amazing fellowship with friends proved TCTC to be a great trip. I had a great time and grew even closer to my God.

We were debriefing Saturday night, going around sharing how God spoke to us that day when someone ended up confessing that they think they were just saved that day. We prayed over him and everyone went to bed. Well, not really. Some of the guys stayed up in my room talking about baptism. Some how it turned into a debate over whether or not baptism is necessary in order to inherit The Kingdom.

The debate threw me at first cause I had never really thought about how important it really is. I was raised in the church and was baptized at a very young age. An age in which you don't really give much thought about how important it is cause you are just doing it because you think it is the right thing to do. I decided by the end that it is very important that you do get baptized.

I think that it is a step that you take during the act of repentance. It is one of the final steps you take in saying "Here I am father, clean of my past and ready for my future" of course the last step is living your life fully devoted to Jesus.

I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God. -Matthew 3:11

That is all I need to know to make my decision. Baptism is (in my eyes) a necessary step in becoming a saved christian. I don't know about all of the hypothetical "what if" scenarios, but then again that judgement or any judgement for that matter isn't up to me.

Once Again... Why Not

Once, I wrote a post about how I think it would be so great to be stranded on an island, roughing it, surviving. To an extent there was some sarcasm in the post, but in a sense I was being some what truthful. I didn't really know it at the time, but now that I have finished season 4 of lost I realize that, well, it would be pretty cool.

Men dream of the chance to be, Men. That might not make sense so let me try to explain.

What glory is there in a mans life if there is not adventure. A risk. A chance, a chance to prove to everyone that they are men, worthy of a challenge, willing to accept, and able to succeed. I don't think that is too dramatic. I think that is how God made us men. To want to be daring, to live on the edge, that is how I am. God didn't make us men to be emasculated the way we are these days.

Think about it. Do we not have a daring and dangerous God? I think we do. And seeing as how we were made in his image is it wrong to also want to be dangerous, big, bad, and brave? Not dangerous in the murderer, crazed, insane man sense but rather the audacious, honorably noble knight in shiny armor way. I know that is what I want to be.

If you fellow guy readers are interested or intrigued by what I am writing then I suggest you read Wild At Heart by John Eldredge. He puts it a lot better than I ever can. If you have already read it then I hope that you can some how relate to this post.

And after you read the book it is helpful to watch every episode of Lost in a matter of weeks.

Thanking on Christmas...

So this year I have been, well, thoroughly confused on the seasons and such. It doesn't seem like Christmas. It's not cold and we have yet to see some snow. On a typical Christmas season there is the anticipation of opening presents and spending time with family, but this year it just has not happened to me. I took part in the Christmas Eve service at church last night and still, it was not on my mind that I needed to get home cause the family is waiting, anticipating my arrival so we can begin to open the presents.

Call me a Scrooge but I am just not feeling the spirit of the season.

I am however very thankful. Wrong time of the year, [whose to say I can't be thankful anytime of the year, right?] maybe. I am just so happy with where I am at with my life. I have an idea as to what I am going to do once I graduate, and other reasons. My point is, I'm happy.

Maybe that is what I should be doing this holiday season. Just be happy, and thankful at that.

I love you all and I miss a lot of you. Merry Christmas!!!

Oh Yeah!!!

I'm DATEFUL!

Innocence...

I just finished reading a book called Enders Game. It is a really good read. I am looking forward to the rest of the series. Anyways, it has a really interesting story line, one that brought up a few thoughts that I would like to share.

Ender is a kid (as in the beginning of the book) who has been monitored three of the first six years of his life. They monitor him to see if he is able enough to join the International Fleet (which is like the worlds army in space). So he ends up going to school in space at the age of six. That is about as far as I want to go with telling you about the book. What I found so interesting about this book is the age in which he is doing some of the things he does. All that happens in the book (which is a lot) happens before his 12th birthday.

This book was written in the 70's so it is not like the author wrote it knowing of all the crap that is going on in our generation. Kid's are losing their childhood too quickly. They no longer have the chance to be kids. Their parents are loading their schedule with all kinds of extra curricular activities.

It doesn't help when sex and homosexuality and greed and hatred are being preached to us through the media. My nine year old brother is starting to ask questions. Mind that he has already had "The Talk". Where in their tiny heads do they draw the line between what is right and wrong? Sometimes it is even foggy for me.

Random I know, but it is just so disappointing.

Got Milk???

Marvelous Light...

"I can see the light that is coming
For the heart that holds on..."

"Into marvelous light I'm running
Out of darkness out of shame
by the cross you are the truth
you are the life you are the way"

"The Word gave life to everything that was created,
and his life brought light to everyone.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.

John 1:4-5 NLT

Be the LIGHT. Live in the LIGHT. Love in the LIGHT. Be everything that you are called to be in the LIGHT. So that someday, it won't be a challenge to be the light, because you will live among people of light. Living among the brightest light that has ever shone. The Light of God!

Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.

Philippians 2:14-15

Signs...

Ok so this whole inspiration for this new post came to me a whole hour ago so it's a little scratchy with the details. Forgive me if I don't clarify my thoughts wholly.

So often, in the media, movies, whatever; where ever, people are always looking for a sign. A sign from God to show them their way. The path that they need to take. The choice they need to make. Sometimes I just can't help but wonder if we are over examining what maybe just a normal happening. Is that crazy, I mean am I the only one who feels this way? I wish I had some philosophical or theological comparison here but I am going blank. I guess we do over examine things, I do. But then, on the other hand, I know that God does speak to us in weird ways. For some reason I really want to tie this together with all of my pre-destination and free will opinions. I'm a free will kind of guy. So I guess you could say that it's hard for me to believe that God would present a situation in which I suddenly come upon a life changing epiphany. I would rather believe that He presented the opportune moment but He didn't "make" it happen. I am not a puppet that didn't have a choice. It's more of a t.v. show or a movie, the script is written, but how well you play the role is up to you. Yeah, if that makes any sense. I think that a lot of our choices come down to the way that you look at your everyday life. How and on what premises do you make your decisions.

I had my chance to disciple today, and I failed to take it. The whole time I was sitting there, knowing what I was suppose to do, what I needed to do. That is what I am getting at though, we have the choice. So make it according to what that christian that you know you are would want to do. Not that false self that people see everyday. I think Eldredge says it well with the whole false self thing, however, I don't have it memorized and I don't have my book. I will just have to quote it at a later date.

What did I do...

What did I do to deserve that comment?

Google Earth

Creeper

Your face, Your moms face, Your face feels nice

Tu Madre

Stop making everyone's life hard

3:10 to Yuma?

Story of my life

Pretty much

Wrong!

Point (Which I am winning, just so you know)

and of course, Jonathan's Face.

I think that covers it, yup.

I'm Sorry But It's A Must...

I wish I knew words enough to describe the phenomena in which I was just enticed to. FRINGE! Killer butterflies, hallucinations, accessing a dead mans memory, dead man killing a real living person, and hypnosis are all crazy reasons of saying that I love this show. J.J. Abrams has done it again. LOST, FRINGE, and now STAR TREK. He is a genious.

Ok enough of me sounding like I am advertising (although I would highly suggest you watch the both of these shows) cause I am obviously speaking to deaf ears. I just wish there was someone that I could talk to and share a common love with these shows. You all simply have NO IDEA.

January 21...

Call it an obsession, call it true love, call it whatever you like. My point is on January 21 the whole world is going to be turned upside down with the return of televisions best show.

LOST

I watched the beauty's watch the fire
and the fire burn the beauty in their eyes.
-The Manchester Orchestra

I think that quote pretty much wraps up everything there is to know about the show. Well, not really actually, philosophically speaking though. Expect the unexpected. And definitely don't get to invested with your likings of a character. Oh my gosh I can't wait.

Back to Faith...

Ok so I am so excited right now. Lately I have been stressing so much about the finances of my trip to Peru. I raised 20 dollars right off the bat but since have not raised anything. So I was pretty stressed. To the point of not even checking to see if any more donations had come in. So at the beginning of last week, upon reading a post from a fellow team member, I was convicted to hand it over to God. Like I should have done all along. I have been praying daily that He'll just take the stress away from me and do what He will with it. I decided to give it a couple of days before I checked again. So tonight I got up the courage to check my support status. Another donation came in. Yup, that's right. It is like it is God's way of telling me that I just have to have faith. Thank you father!!!

Talk Show???

Okay this isn't going to be one of those real long, random post. Well, Random yeah, but not long.

I was just watching a preview for an upcoming Dr. Phil show. The episode is going to be about a sex cult. One of those typical shows when this millionaire has regular people on his show, and these people spill their guts about all of their problems and all of the world get to see your miserable life broadcasted on our television ......... you get the idea.

It struck me that we live in a country where people can make money off of your problems. Is that right? I don't know, I'm done now.