the light of His eyes pierces darkness.

finals.

finals are no fun.

and oh yeah, Yeezy

I must confess, I am an avid Kanye West fan. Not an avid rap fan (at least not main stream), but definitely a fan of him personally. I can't put my finger on one thing about him. I certainly don't agree with his point of view on some issues (e.g., women and politics), but i just typed the word "issues." How many musical artists, especially popular artists will even come close to the issues? Not many, for sure. I respect that he has opinions. So many in our generation don't. I respect that he actually has a vocabulary and uses it. So many people don't.

He's just different. He does things no one else does. But most of all? He's passionate.

anyways, i don't have a man-crush on him. i just these past couple of days have felt a biggie-sized burden relating to Kanye. Lost = Kanye West. I don't think he really has a clue about why he's here on Earth. His mother died recently and he and his fiancee have split up. His new album 808s & Heartbreak is all about those two things. But the track that really kinda started all this for me is the last one on the album, Pinocchio Story. It's a six-minute live freestyle in Singapore. The fans are screaming because they don't know English, and it adds an eerie effect to what he's saying. Now, I know that people have been through much worse than Kanye, but it just goes to show that at the bottom of it all, the soul of humanity yearns for meaning. Some type of purpose beyond the temporal, day-to-day life that we live. He doesn't have it, and neither do people all over the world.

here's some of his freestyle:

Its so crazy
I got everything figured out
But for some reason I can never find what real love is about
No doubt
Everything in the world figured out but I can never seem to find what love is about

Do you think I sacrificed real life
For all the fame of flashing lights?
Do you think I sacrifice a real life
For all the fame of flashing lights?

There is no Gucci I can buy
There is no Louis Vuitton to put on
There is no YSL that they could sell
To get my heart out of this hell
And my mind out of this jail
There is no clothes that I could buy
That could turn back the time
There is no vacation spot I could fly
That could bring back a piece of real life
Real life, what does it feel like?
I ask you tonight, I ask you tonight
What does it feel like, I ask you tonight
To live a real life
I just want to be a real boy
They always say Kanye, he keeps it real boy
Pinocchio story is, I just want to be a real boy
Pinocchio story is to be a real boy

in some ways, maybe in the most real ways, Kanye West is no different than anyone else. Whether or not you have fame and fortune, you're still lost. And whether or not you're really lost or just barely lost, you're still lost. But that's the cool thing. A guy who was God carried His own cross up a hill called Golgotha and died on it. And the reason he did that was so that people like Kanye, people like you and me, could be found. We could never find ourselves, but Jesus can find us.

thanks

"So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said: 'O King Darius, live forever! The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lions' den. Now, O king, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered—in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.' So King Darius put the decree in writing.

Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before."


Why is it that I am not thankful enough when living in a free country (which is my own)? Here Daniel is, already exiled from his home country, under intense scrutiny and he's giving thanks. Wait, he just found out that prayer to anyone other than King Darius would result in death by carnivorous lions. And he's still giving thanks. To recap, he's giving thanks, even though he's an exile, and even though it may cost him his life.

You see, I forget that Ephesians 5 says to give thanks for for "everything." Literally, everything. There isn't a lot of wiggle room in that word. I mean, certainly there are things that seem to lend nothing to the idea of thankfulness, but I think the idea is that we realize that God has a plan for us that is better than anything that we can come up with.

God has given me more than I could ever deserve. Do I know why? No. But today, and everyday, thanking Him for that grace will be something I do more often.

the profundity of simplicity.

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
~J.R.R. Tolkien.



Some of the most profound statements in life are expressed in the most simple forms.

here are some others to ponder:

"Love your neighbor as yourself."
-Jesus

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."
-Jesus

"Love God, and do what you will."
-St. Augustine

i am not, but i know I AM

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."
~John 1:14


I just started reading Louie Giglio's book i am not, but i know I AM, and was reminded of this passage from earlier this year when Mark talked about it at CRU. The more i read that sentence, the more and more i realize just how intense it is.

The Word. It stands for everything about Jesus: His character; His purpose; His attributes. But do you see and? Jesus didn't just exist in heaven with all those things. On top of His love, His grace, His truth, His mercy, His kindness...and. And means action. It means that the Son of God left the riches of Heaven to put on skin. He is not a god represented by ideologies and human thought, and the reason why is that He is and He became. He is the only God, and the reason why is that He is the only God who has represented Himself--through Himself--in the human form which He created after Himself.

And. The second one is just as cool. Not only did He come, but He dwelt. He took up residence on the earth He created. On the earth in a tiny corner of a tiny galaxy in a tiny corner of an infinitesimal universe. On the earth filled with a bunch of iamnots who often think much more of ourselves than we ought.

I cannot, nor will I ever be able to grasp this. God dwelt among us. He did it so that you and i could know Him personally. Personally! He dwelt among those He created and thus among those who hated Him. And yet the very reason He left heaven was to die for the very people who hated Him. He came to show grace. And because He shows grace, He gives us the truth. The truth is that He came to give us life. And not only life, but life abundant and full!

do you know the God who created you?

Chains be broken, lives be healed

"Come, let us return to the LORD.
He has torn us to pieces
but he will heal us;
he has injured us
but he will bind up our wounds.

After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence.

Let us acknowledge the LORD;
let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth."
~Hosea 6:1-3

What an amazing picture of God's grace! Knowing the whole story of Hosea makes this passage even more powerful, because it's an incredible picture of God's unfailing love and grace to His people Israel; the same love and grace He pours on us today.

This is the story of Hosea. He had married a woman named Gomer, and they had two children. Well, Gomer decided that she was done with Hosea. And so she became a prostitute. A prostitute. Can you imagine going through that? Can you imagine just how incredibly sickening it must have been for Hosea to see his own wife choose that lifestyle? I can't. All I can imagine is that that must be one of the very toughest things that could ever happen to anyone.
But the story doesn't end there, and this is where it gets really mind-boggling. Read this:

The Lord said to me [Hosea], "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods..." So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and 10 bushels of barley.

Wow. Here's Hosea--who for all intensive purposes is a widower because his wife was basically dead to him--making the conscious choice to love her still. And this is no cheap love. It's definitely not romantic, and I suspect it never was from then on. But it was still love, to be sure. He has to buy her back! He doesn't just say, "Oh yeah, I guess I love her, God." No, he has to buy her out of slavery!
The most exciting thing about this is that Jesus did the very same thing. We have prostituted ourselves to anything and everything. We've deliberately forgotten and even forsaken God. Yet He loves us so much that He sent His own willing son to die the death only we deserved. What love is this!

"There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."

i have been slacking in posting to this blog, and for this i am sorry. by now i've probably already lost the few people who actually read this blog to boredom. While I haven't written, I've been reminded of just how good, how great God always is, and how utterly disappointing I am. Just as I start getting comfortable and used to the status quo, unwilling to put effort into further growth towards my Savior, that is the very moment I have forsaken my first love. John talks to the church at Ephesus about that in Revelation 2. "Remember the height from which you have fallen!"

And yet even in this, the incredible grace of Jesus shines through. For whenever you or I realize that we have indeed forsaken our first love of the Redeemer, whenever we seek to re-climb the height from which have fallen, so the Father graciously greets us back into His open arms. Like the parable of the prodigal son, He actually runs to welcome us back into fellowship with Himself. I think that we sometimes forget this, at least I do. There is no end to God's grace. It is infinite.

David was a man who understood this concept very well, however. He experienced intense breaks in his fellowship with God, and yet he always rushed back to the One who created him and loved him. To sort of sum all my thoughts, I think what David wrote in Psalm 139 is perfect. We can't hide from God, so why not embrace Him?

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain!
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!

"Why were we created? Was it that we deserved to be created? How can nothing deserve something? There was a time when there was no human race. How therefore could a human race that hadn't existed deserve something? How could a man that wasn't yet created earn anything or pile up any merit? It couldn't be so. God out of His goodness created us. Why were we not destroyed when we sinned? The only answer is that God of His goodness spared us. The cordial, kind-intentioned God spared us.
Why would God the Eternal Son bleed for us? The answer is, out of His goodness and lovingkindness. 'Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings' (Psalm 36:7). Why would God forgive me when I've sinned and then forgive me again and again? Because God out of His goodness acts according to that goodness and does what His loving heart dictates that He do."

That last question is one that we all would do well to ask of ourselves daily. Why would God forgive me when I've sinned and then forgive me again and again? The goodness of God is infinite and perfect. It has no beginning and no end, no height and no depth. It touches every atom in His vast universe and comes to rest in the hearts of men who allow it. Do you realize the implications of that? Do you understand how much that can impact a life? Yet it goes much deeper. In His goodness, it follows that God would be just and righteous. It follows that He has plans for us. What I'm saying is this: to realize (as much as our earthly minds can) the idea of God's goodness, there is a required reverence that believes in the miracle of His love and the necessity of His wrath. They are both equally perfect and eternal. To be less loving or less just would cause a forfeiture of His deity.