"i'm so goon. summertime, no June..."

even the skrippers. Jesus walks with them.

Finals.

They are hard.



i'm realizing more and more each day just how much i need a Savior. It really isn't very easy for me, to be quite honest. Probably for most people it isn't very easy. We have this condition, this sickness that would try its hardest to keep us from realizing our need for Jesus. It's called sin. The problem with sin is not what we do through sin. The problem with sin is just its very existence that permeates the universe down to the very smallest atom and to infinitely smaller depths that we don't realize exist. That's why i need a Savior.

i'm really tired. i spend a lot of time studying and using my brain and learning, and i was really just discouraged today about accounting. When i say i spend a lot of time studying, that probably should be clarified, but i won't endeavor to do that now. just ask a close friend. most people think i'm crazy. maybe i am. i have no qualms with the fact that i am very driven to get good grades, because God gave me a brain and i enjoy using it. Anyways, i had an exam in the hardest class of my life last night, and i studied a long long time for it. i was well prepared and expected to do well. i went and took it and felt extremely good about it and it made my night. Well, today i looked and saw my grade and it was quite a bit lower than i expected. By now all of you are thinking about just how ridiculous i am for letting this affect me. i understand, but at the same time this is just me. i'm sorry if you think it's stupid, but it really is who i am. i am reallllly passionate about school, and especially this field of study known as accounting. i've come to realize that this quality or flaw, whatever it may be, makes it hard for some people to share their lives with mine, because they don't think i understand what real life is about. i apologize for seeming that way, but i also think those people are largely mistaken. here's the thing. i'm going to be really honest. If you think it's dumb for me to spend 20 hours studying for an exam, i can see your point and will give it to you free of charge. Now, my turn. i think it's dumb to pay for college (or go into debt for it, or have your parents pay for it) and spend all your time throwing frisbee and acting like life is too short to spend your time studying. Get real, please. Look at where you are. A university. A center for learning. If you call yourself a Christian and you aren't out there busting your ass to be the absolute best student you can be, then don't expect respect from students or professors when you start telling them that Jesus can change your life. If He changed your life, then start acting like it in the classroom. At no point in His 33 years on this messy planet did Jesus in any way insinuate that it would be okay to give a half-ass effort in anything in order that you might tell more people about Him. There are, quite simply, 24 hours in each persons day. We all can and should find, no make, the time to be diligent in the classroom and out of it being students and children of the Most High. And it should be seamless. You cannot have one without the other.

i feel like i get on that tangent every now and then, and i didn't even mean to. sorry.

Here's me, though. What i learned today with gusto was that there are just times when you can work as hard as you can, and give your absolute best and still fail by someone's standards. And that is what i did. Not only did that happen, but it about ruined my whole day. The biggest but, though, is that the someone is not the One. That is why i so need a Savior. i need Him to remind me that His standards are not A's only. His standards are not 4.0. i often make those His standards, and that is why it hit me so hard today. i couldn't understand why i could fail when i shouldn't have. Life is hard, though. Much harder than class. And we all will fail even when we are doing the right things. It's at those times when the Comforter makes His presence felt. It's in those times, like today, that i realized that He is the only thing that can complete me. Because everything and everyone else will inevitably fail. No woman on this earth can complete me. No job or any amount of wealth can complete me. I will even fail myself. But never, ever, ever will the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come, fail me. And He will not fail you, either. He promises to bear our burdens with us. He never said He'd take them away, but He'll shoulder them right along side of us, and His half is so much bigger than ours.

Here is Love, vast as the ocean, Lovingkindness as the flood.

In my bedroom in my apartment, i have a picture that is basically just to the left of my head when i am at my desk. This picture contains a group of guys which affectionately call themselves "The Bros." The picture was taken at one of our high school's football games our senior year. It's probably my favorite photo. I love those guys like brothers, and that is why we call ourselves by that name.

i typically am a person who really enjoys having things laid out in front of me. i have no patience for not knowing. This is not all bad, because being in the field of accounting requires this type of person to some extent. But i'm just so tired of being busy. i'm tired of feeling like God is an old friend from high school. i'm tired of remembering when talking was something we did all the time and knowing that it's now just something i do. i'm tired of feeling like worship isn't real. i'm tired of feeling calloused. i'm tired of carrying everything on my back like the huge textbooks i seem to be forever buried in. For Jesus is my first and only true love, and while i am continually seeing Him work in and around me every single day of my life, i have been feeling for some time now that i am putting up a wall in our relationship. David said in the Psalms that all God asks for is a broken heart. He doesn't want fancy sacrifices or cool prayers or memorized Bible verses all the time. He just wants my broken heart. A heart that longs for nothing else to fill it except the Love which has turned the world upside down forever. A heart that realizes that at the foundation of mankind is the same problem. The problem of sin. There is no good person or bad person at the bottom of it all.

Only God and sinners.

God calls for me to be broken over my sin and realize that the only thing that can bridge the chasm between sinners like myself and the holy God of the universe is the cross upon which His Son Jesus died. i know this is true and i have placed my deepest faith in His promise to all of us. But so often i forget from where it was that i was rescued. More importantly, i forget from whom i was rescued. i was rescued from my self. On an October night in 1993 i was made new, but how often i forget! Oh how often.

Christians in Rwanda and in poverty- and war-stricken places all over the world are praying for Americans right now. Even those of us who would call ourselves Christians. Why? Because we are never broken. We are always put together. At least we think so. But because nothing on the outside, nothing in our culture or society can break us, we refuse to allow ourselves to be broken so that God can refine us like gold. So we continue to live inside a huge lie that keeps many of us, even Christians, from tasting the abundant life that Christ offers. An abundant life that is peaceful and rich even if i have nothing to my name besides the clothes on my back and if i am living amidst civil unrest. That is what i want. i want a life the is so real that my circumstances cannot dictate it. i crave an existence that matters for eternity regardless of my reputation. i need to feel God surround me once more in the way that He so longs.

The Great Rescue

I see the mountains before me
The ocean beside me
The canyon behind me
And my sin surrounds me

And fear lives inside me
Unless someone will guide me
The love of a Father
The strength of a Savior

Now the mountains are growing
The ocean is storming
And the canyon is so wide that I could never cross it alive.

So Jesus, rescue me!
Reach Your nail-scarred hands
And save me from myself
Tell me I am Yours
For You are my first Love
The world will never be the same
The Greatest Rescue is God with us

Higher than the mountain
And deeper than the ocean
So much wider than the canyon
Nothing can separate us
From the Love of Christ that saves us

pero Dios...

There is in Mexico City a spirit of revolution that i have never felt in my life before. The air is thick with the smell of rebellion and change. It cuts through the smog of the city like a sword, and leaves in its wake the fragrance of a mighty King. I saw it in the eyes of the Cali 6--guys who came down to the city with a common vision of living life among all kinds of Mexican people in the same way that Jesus would have. A life of genuine relationship and devotion to the interests of others. I saw this spirit in the eyes of my friends Abram and Daniela--students at a university with 300,000 others. They want nothing more than to see their campus transformed into a living, breathing vessel of Christ-followers who will change the entire world. I saw it in the eyes of those who had never heard of such an idea so radical as the one we proposed to them. An idea that the God of the universe--indeed, the God who created the universe--would love each one of them (personally) enough to leave His home in heaven to die in their stead. An idea that life goes beyond intellect and touches each social and spiritual part of our lives. An idea that God offers life itself so abundant that each day begins with a definite purpose that crosses cultures with a cross that is the one and only symbol of Grace. Most importantly, an idea that God offers that life as a free gift for everyone.

i so wish that i could feel that same revolutionary spirit here. What if we all just got on our knees and were just prayer warriors for the campus we live on; for this city; for this country? What if we were intentional about spreading love to people here in our actions and words? What if we got out of our stupid bubbles of "christiandom" and were willing to be vulnerable with people who are different than us? What if we celebrated our weaknesses so that God's power could be made perfect in us? He promises that He will arrive in powerful ways.

"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 6:3

It hardly ever rains in Mexico City during this time of the year, but we witnessed a spectacular thunderstorm on Thursday night. Maybe, just maybe, God was trying to tell us that He has heard the cries uttered on behalf of la Ciudad de Mexico and is raining His Spirit down upon it. Maybe you'd like to be a part of that. i know i do. History is being made, and what could be better than being part of a revolution that God started? It stands no chance of failure, though the enemy will try his hardest to put down the insurgents. The God of Light longs to redeem these Mexican people, and they are longing for a Savior.

we are living on the edge of eternity.
how are you preparing for it?

locus sigilli

"For there is love that is as strong as death
Jealousy demanding as the grave
And many waters cannot quench this love."

God bends His ears just to hear what they say

It's snowing really hard right now. Earlier, i was tired of doing homework, and so i closed the books and just walked outside for a while. You know, i really love snow. i have always just really enjoyed seeing it fall. i don't ski or snowboard or anything on it; i just like to watch it. It brings me peace and it allows me an escape. As i was walking i began to wonder if i would like snow as much if it was always falling? i don't think i would.

Then i began to think, what if i began to look at the hard times in my life in the same way i look at snow? What if i saw in my trials that same cold, hard, vivid beauty of the snow covered mountains around me? As something which makes the beauty of Spring and Summer that much more alive? As an opportunity to deepen my appreciation of the warmth of the unfathomable love of Jesus Christ?

All too often i am just like the people here who complain incessantly about the snow, simply because it makes their morning commute a little messier than normal. Simply because they have to wear ugly boots and wear unfashionable clothes and have messed up hair. i complain about the smallest hardships in my life, refusing to see them as the "light and momentary afflictions" that Paul speaks of. The thing about snow is that i enjoy it because i know that i can run back into my apartment when it gets too cold and windy. And so it is with my life, although i don't often live that way.

The reality is that the world can be bitterly cold at times. It can batter you around with a wind so furious that you lose all sense of direction. It can blind you and leave you feeling numb to everything and everyone around you. But that is why i believe so firmly in the saving grace of Jesus and what He did on the cross for you and i. He said "in this world you will have troubles, but take heart, for I have overcome the world." That is only thing that really gives me a purpose. i pretend all the time that other things fulfill my need for meaning, but when the rubber meets the road, these are just lies i feed to myself. And people say that Christians just use Jesus as a crutch. Well, i have yet to meet a person that didn't need a crutch of some sort. My God is much better than a crutch, though. He is mighty to save.

only Love could make a way

i haven't had much sleep lately. and i've had a sinus infection. and exams. and stuff i hate dealing with. i just have a huge aversion to all of these things happening at once. it's like, come on, do i really deserve this now? i'm trying to have a life here, God. i'm trying to make A's and be cool and say nice things and just be the man. i want to have the right answers at the right time and sneer at people who have wrong answers all the time. i want to be recognized and envied. i'm 20 years old and i would much rather be 25. i hate wasting time, and yet my definition of wasting time is often completely twisted.

i don't know. i'm just ranting. But if i can't be honest here, where can i be honest? i guess what i'm getting at is that sometimes stuff happens--and maybe this is true in your life, too--where i just realize how utterly and completely i am lost in myself. Seriously, i am so prideful that i get to a place in my day where i get angry at other people for not noticing me in the way i think they should. In fact, there's a good chance that if you're reading this blog and know me, that you've experienced this part of me, whether you were aware of it or not. It's nothing short of sickening what this stupid, fleshly, carnal part of me will do to gratify itself.

i have nothing else to say, really. i have sin in my life. and not until i realize that what i make excuses for is actually sin do i begin to see that these are the things that Jesus came here for. He came to cleanse me of the black, slimy, corrosive sin in my heart. That's what is worthy of awe. Though i don't always realize just exactly what He has done for me, each time i get a glimpse of it, it just bowls me over. Only when i delight in who i am in Jesus can i keep from being consumed in who i pretend to be in my flesh.

simple on sunday

sometimes i wander
and circles i turn
and find myself lost
where am i going?

sometimes i wonder
and my self is unsure
who am i today?
where is I Am?

sometimes i ponder
and mirrors are blank
why is there death
and why is life defiled?

so everything moves
my body, mind, and soul
and the road becomes narrow
that leads to the Truth

but Truth is real
in my heart i know this much
for death was defeated,
life was restored

do you wander, wonder, and ponder?
what burns in the depths of you?
what road have you taken?
and if you had one sentence more,
what would you say?