i don't think i've ever forgiven somebody even 490 times.

First of all, i'd like to say that i hope my tendencies toward introspection are not confused for a somewhat joy-less or pessimistic or depressed outlook on the life i'm currently living. Yes, there are times when i'm confused and disturbed or even sad and angry, but i can honestly say that at the end of most days i realize that the final chapter has already been written and that God was won the victory over such things as confusion and bitterness. Notice that this is not every day, because like Peter, i deny my Savior at times.


Okay, so i love listening to a guy named Andy Stanley. He's the pastor of a church in the Atlanta area called Northpoint Community Church. If you get anything out of this blog post, please let one of those things be the following: find his podcast on itunes, and download the three sermon series entitled "Losing Your Religion." It's free. Now, if you're reading this and you don't believe in a God or a higher power or "intelligent design" or Buddha or praying five times a day or whatever, because you think religion is more harmful than beneficial, please don't ignore that you need to listen to those three sermons. If you can put up with me talking about God alot, then i'm positive you can put up with Andy. Essentially he goes ahead and says what people have been thinking for centuries, and that is that religion seems awfully ineffective. And weird. And dangerous. And stupid. That may offend you or make you uneasy. That means you should listen to what he has to say.

Now, to sort of mosey my way back to my "introduction," if you will. i admit readily, though probably not often enough, that i am what my older sister calls "emotive." What this means is a couple of things. Firstly, i am very passionate. i throw my whole being into activities (basketball, academic success, music) and ideas (OU football, UNC basketball, the Netherlands) and people (family, friendships, relationships that "friend" falls short of describing--brothers, romantic endeavors, etc.) and hopefully the God around which those other parts of my life must revolve. Secondly, i think so much about those things that i forget my face and body language show what's going on. This hits on more of the "emotive" idea. It's not just that something's "wrong" but usually more complex than that. While some people can brush things that happen quickly away, i analyze and reanalyze and maybe at times overanalyze. i like to use the word "confusion," because i think that it aptly describes my state of mind that prompts people to ask (because of cues my body language has given them) things like, "What's eating at you?" or "Did you have a rough day?" or "What happened?" Confusion is also a good word for what i think i can do to other people. By nature i am very introverted, but there are parts of me that at times just want to be a little crazy and weird and around people i know and love doing fun things. i think this confuses people because i seem to get my energy from being by myself sometimes and other times by being with people. i have seen this cause awkwardness on a number of occasions in which i meant no such outcome to happen.

Here's the thing: while i recognize that i am both confused and confusing at times, i cannot stress to you enough how very much i love life. i can sit here all day and write about God and how He does things that are crazy and incomprehensible and amazing and become a "banging gong," if you will (and i hope i'm not), and you may or may not think i'm sincere. But really, when it comes down to the very foundation of why i write and why i take time away from things like individual income taxation to write, it's because i so very much hope that the people God has put into my life that have blessed me beyond measure can somehow be blessed in return through what i have to say. You see, God isn't just a symbol of abstract theology to me. He isn't my "parents' religion." He isn't a republican or a democrat. He doesn't answer to superstition and no words can even describe Him fully. He is my Father. He has put purpose into a life that would be so bitter and angry and power-hungry all the time if He had not so graciously paid my ransom on a cross 2000 years ago. That's why i love life, because it is not my own. It is God's first and then it belongs to those i love. When i live that out, God gives me a joy that is not of the world in which we find ourselves.

So, in closing, i apologize sincerely for having a "down in the dumps" mentality at times. Whether or not i am at that moment angry or just pensive is hard to tell, i know, but please realize i'm working on it. i promise with all my heart that i have joy in my life. Promise.

bros

this picture is probably one of my favorite pictures of all time, if not my favorite. it sits by my desk and i don't know, but i just miss you guys. i don't know if any of you even read the blog, but if you do, just know i love you as brothers and often think of these times that were some of the best of my life. i'm praying for all of you.

how can we ever learn to be intimate with another if we are not first intimately aware of God?

i am a very easily confused person. other people confuse me, reality confuses me, and most of all i confuse myself. Something like, "What i don't want to do, i do; and what i do want to do, i don't do."

At any rate, i keep learning that living life is much less easy than it seems. As a Christian, i find it extremely difficult to come to terms with the conditions in which other Christians around the world live. They live in poverty, they fight constant battles against AIDS and other devastating physical illnesses, they live in constant fear of being killed. They are in no way immune to the tragedies the world offers. This is something i can't understand or fathom or sympathize with. In fact, it bothers me to such an extent that i often feel guilty for living a life that's so easy. i've alluded to my tendency to ask "Why?" about so many things. But quite recently, i have begun to realize that my life as a Christian in the U.S. is not easy. It is quite different from the life of a Rwandan Christian or a Chinese Christian, but not necessarily easier. i've often heard Christians from Mexico and other countries talk about how they pray for us because they realize how hard it is to walk with our God in the culture that surrounds us, but it hasn't really clicked till just now why they are so concerned.

Satan is not very blatant in a lot of ways in Western culture. It's not like we can very often see angelic and demonic forces evident in our day to day lives. You know, no exorcisms in the town village. No, it's a lot more complicated and covert. Constant bombardment with media is a nice tool for him. Music, movies, news, porn, etc, etc. i mean, some of it seems pretty bad right from the outset, but honestly the consequences aren't like having a demonic possession. At least not immediately. But a lot of it doesn't even seem like it's bad to begin with. It gets disguised with humor and intellectualism and emotional well-being and the like. The thing is, all of this bombardment eventually just throws up a wall of enmity between me, and you, and God. When the world is constantly communicating to us, and when we constantly communicate with the world, when do we have time for God? What's created is a type of immorality that perhaps is different than what you might find in other places. No better and no worse, just different. And that immorality, whether sexual or intellectual or spiritual or what have you, causes a pain that goes just as deep as the pain experienced by people around this world. And that is where the whole world is brought to its knees by sin. It matters not whether you make $5 million a year and live in Beverly Hills or if you live in a cardboard box in South Africa. We all have this "problem of pain" as C.S. Lewis put it.

So that brings me back to my own life. This past weekend involved a lot of what some people would call "soul-searching." Basically just looking at my life and the way i live and how i interact with people and the God who created us. One of the many things i've realized is that for some reason i'm at a place where God just wants me to realize the pain that others experience. And He's been trying to show this to me for 20 years now. Having 7 year old friends talk about their parents divorcing while mine were happily married. Having a friend who came to such a point in their life that they tried to commit suicide. Seeing family torn apart by a husband's selfishness. Having a friend go through a terrible boating accident before our senior year. Having another friend diagnosed with cancer. Knowing that my own parents have had to go through what no parent should have to go through. i could go on for pages about what i now see as God's way of trying to show me that my life is not my own. Trying to show me that He did not create me and me only. Trying to show me that He loves everyone enough to die for them. And so should i.

It all culminated this weekend when another dear friend of mine shared a part of their life that is full of more pain than i can even fathom. A kind of pain that no person should have to bear and which no one would if sin had not entered the world. As i was sitting there listening to a story of life that had been invaded by trauma, it was like all the pain of the people i've interacted with my whole life became suddenly real to me. It wasn't just something i knew in my head, it was something i felt in my heart and in my gut. It was a realization that sin has so messed up this world that people will do anything to hurt other people; that sin makes ugly what was meant to be so beautiful; that we can't escape it. But then my friend talked about something that just floored me. Healing. How in the midst of all of this pain could there be healing of any kind? How can there ever be healing from a realization that your parents don't love each other, or maybe even you, anymore? How can there be healing from a son or daughter's death?

There is healing because God's love for us is beyond all comprehension. There is nothing you can do and nothing i can do and nothing anyone or anything in all the universe can do that would separate us from the love of Christ. He who willingly gave His own life to save us from the sin that causes such pain offers healing that i would never endeavor to describe with words. Pain is too deep to be handled by ourselves. God, our Helper, the Great Physician, He is offering healing even now...

"The thought of my suffering and homelessness
is bitter beyond words.
I will never forget this awful time,
as I grieve over my loss.
Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning."

Lamentations 3:19-23

"i'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies..."

Love prevails. it conquers. it redeems. it is self-sacrificial. it is undeniable and made perfect in God. Only He offers it freely to us, and He demands that we offer it as freely as we can to those around us. It is much bigger and greater and deeper than romance or infatuation and is not confined by time, beauty, or attraction. This is how we know what Love is: Jesus Christ.

If you fail as often as i do at this, it's an everyday occurrence. We have gotten into this habit as a generation of throwing around the word "Love" as though it carries as much weight as a feather. We "love" our girlfriends and boyfriends until it's time for a new one because the old model wasn't putting out. We "love" our parents until they are inconvenient. We "love" our friends until the drama opens up in Act 1, scene 3. It's all wrong. "Sometimes the people who say 'i love you' will be the last to just have your back." John Mayer said that, and while he's not exactly the deepest guy in town, that's the truth in a nut-shell.

Look at what Jesus did for us. That's Love. It doesn't describe Love or characterize it or paraphrase it. It IS Love. It is not a question of definition, because Jesus and Love are synonymous. God has ordained Love from eternity past. The Trinity embodies it. No comparisons or analogies or metaphors, just IS.

pwned

i can't think of something right now. i'll edit later.

i used to watch the old Batman movie, and Robin said things like "Holy Sardines Batman!!!" i don't know why i just thought of that. One time i counted all the weird things he said, and it was a lot. i can't remember how many, probably 1000.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:37-39

"I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied!" ~ Marmeladov in Crime and Punishment

There's only so much ignorance of reality that can go on before you realize that, contrary to what you might believe, you do not make up the center of the universe, and that in fact, life in its realest state goes on whether you are living it or not.







"The moon will shine like the sun,
and the sunlight will be seven times brighter,
like the light of seven full days,"
But why?

These are things too great for me to imagine
My mind is, after all, feeble
To me, to my eyes, i don't know...
But the moon is already rich
And the sun is the definition of brightness in my head

And yet, in my heart there is something else
For there i can see and feel and know that truth is true no matter the source
In my heart there is change
In my heart there is Love
Though sometimes my mind and eyes and head would shroud the things my heart knows to be true
my Flesh is sinful

But always i know that my heart has been rescued
And that my whole self has been pardoned
Then my mind and eyes and my brain start to see the world
The way You see it.

hahaha

"This has been a comprehensive beating."

~Patrick McEnroe on Andy Roddick's performance against Bjorn Phau.