Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Happy End of the World!!!

I mentioned in my last post that I would follow up with one other amazing thing I got out of the book, Perelandra. This last part makes me look at how I view the end of this world differently from how I ever have and it takes place with a conversation between the main character, Ransom, and Venus' own Adam, the King. I'll paraphrase some parts so that you're not bogged down with the sci-fi jargon of the book.

"'Then it is [God's] purpose to make us free of [this world]. Our bodies will be changed, but not all changed. We shall be as the [angels], but not all as [angels]. And so will our sons and daughters be changed in the time of this ripeness until the number is made up which [Jesus] read in His Fathers mind before time flowed.'

'And that,' said Ransom, 'will be the end?'

'Your thoughts are unlike ours. About that time we shall be not far from the beginning of all things.'"

Go back and read that one more time. I'll wait.

How amazing is that?!

We're so confined by our finite little minds that we fail to see how insanely small we are in comparison with the rest of the universe. We are unable to conceive of the fact that, even if this planet is 65 billion years old, that's not even a drop in the hat of eternity.

It's almost audacious to consider the end of this world to be the most important event ever. That's like only reading a book's prologue and never bothering to see what happens in the first chapter!

Just considering this stuff makes my head spin. That last line completely blows my mind. I'm just not able to wrap my head around it. I hope that you spend a little time thinking about how big God is. How unbelievably infinite He is. And with all of that in mind, consider the life He lived as the Incarnation, the death He willingly died and how He overpowered that death for your sake. Even though He is outside of my ability to conceive, He still cares about me.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Happy Easter!!!

I just realized today that this is the first Easter ever where I haven't partaken in the delectable beauty that is a Cadbury egg, yet. It's sad times growing up. I just might have to go hit up a CVS clearance bin tomorrow.

Now, on to the topic at hand. I just finished reading the marvelous C.S. Lewis' book, Perelandra yesterday and I was completely blown away by it. The basic premise of the entire space trilogy, of which this book is the second, is looking at the biblical possibility of life on other planets with the view that they didn't fall as we did. The other worlds are very aware of, not only our fallen state, but of God taking on the form of a man to redeem us. This humble act changes everything in the universe, not just Earth.

Two things about the end of the book stand out to me the most, but, with today being Easter I believe I'll talk about one specifically and address the other in my next post. One line reads, "When He died in the Wounded World, He did not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less." That just blows me away! Jesus didn't die for the all encompassing salvation of mankind. His sacrifice was much more personal than that. It was all done on such an individual level. He brought about, not mankind's salvation, but David's. He views each of us as we are and never as just another face in the crowd.

I can't get over the fact that the God that created everything could even care about me, let alone making a steep sacrifice on my behalf. I'm so thankful for Christ's obedience and He deserves more praise than I can give Him.

Sometimes I tend to get a little stale and emotionless towards my faith. I have a proclivity to so closely associate my faith with my emotions that the latter often overpowers the former. But the fact that Jesus died, not for men, but for David, shows me that it doesn't matter how I feel. My emotions can never change that Christ died for me or how real He is, whether I feel it or not.

Thank You Jesus for your humility, obedience to Your Father and for Your power to overcome death!!!

Happy Easter everyone!!!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Words cannot express

I am so humbled that I get to do what I do with the youth group at my church. I have some of the most amazing guys in the world and tonight just proved that.

I was given the privilege to pray over a few amazing guys tonight who took a stand to say that they know that living a true Christian life could lead to ridicule, but they want to do it anyway and break out of the mold of of listless "Christianity."

It's really amazing to me that when a couple of my guys were moved to tears they sought me out to pray with them. And even talking to a few of them afterwards, some of the things that they said just blew me away. They're only twelve but they seem to get it.

Two things in particular stood out to me after the main service. The first one being a talk I had with one of my guys and hearing him talk about his dad. This guy's dad is taking a major part in his son's spirituality and really is discipling him. He looks up to his dad and thinks there's no one like him in the world. I believe his exact words were, "Even when he's old, he's still going to be really cool." That excites me because that's the kind of dad I want to be.

And the other things that pumps me up is that a few of my guys approached me and Matt, my co leader, about reading through the Bible together. Granted, we decided against their idea of starting in Genesis, but it's just really awesome that they approached us and not the other way around. I know that I didn't start having a quiet time with God until I was a sophomore in college, but the difference it's made in my life has been huge. So seeing that these guys really do want start now just excites me. I am so incredibly unworthy of being able to do what I do, but I'm so glad I get to do it.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

It's a doozy!

I've found in my life I have a bad habit of not taking first steps. When I was in school I would wait until the last minute to do research on a paper because it was arduous and boring. I wanted the research to be done and just concentrate on the fun part of actually writing the stuff out. (And in case you're wondering, yes I did, in fact, like spending hours writing out my opinion knowing that someone was paid to read it, so they had to.)

Even now, while looking for a job, I find it hard to actually start looking. It's hard to start the laborious task of wading through the thousands of "EARN $65,000 A YEAR AT HOME SITTING IN YOUR OWN FILTH!!!!!!!!" job spams and actually find a real job that I have a chance of enjoying. Once the looking's done, I never mind applying and interviewing and all of that fun stuff, it's just a matter of taking that first step.

And worst of all, I so often feel all alone in this search. I might speak aloud that God is the God of everything, but in my heart I know I really mean that God is the God of everything except my career search or my dating life.

But here's a cool thing that God's shown me in scripture lately. Acts 10 has two really cool stories in it. In one we see Cornelius, a gentile, getting a vision from God telling him to go find Peter, a man he's never met before, and bring him to his house. At the same Peter is getting a vision that has to do directly with the gentiles. God let's Peter know that the Kingdom of God is for gentiles too. Until Cornelius has Peter in front of him we have two unconnected stories, but once Peter is brought to Cornelius the idea of being afraid of that first step seems preposterous. And due to their courage and faith, the gentiles hear the Gospel for the first time!

So, as I sit and quiver over my fear of taking step one, God might already have everything that I'll need for step two just waiting on me, all I have to do is have the guts to stand up and do something.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Deep Thoughts

Brandon has his small group from church over at the house for the night and it's been fun having guys around the house that are small enough for me to beat up. It's so cool! I hit them and throw them around and they just stand back up like nothing happened! I love middle schoolers!

At one point in the night though, one of the seventh graders exclaimed, "Man, you guys live awesome over here!" He, of course, was referring to the fact that we have a dart board and a PS3 in our living room on top of the fact that we can eat ice cream at 10:30 PM. But it's just a sad realization for me. I'm 23, single, and living the dream life of a 12 year old.

In one way, that's a sad fact, but if you consider the fact that I once was 12 as well, I've really arrived. Granted, that means that that also stands true of some 40 year olds that live in their parent's basement for "a lot cheaper than an apartment, so it really is more financially responsible than moving out" but that's really beside the point.

But that's all beside the point. What really matters is that someone looks up to me!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

A couple of things

Tomorrow's going to be a great day. I'm working at Unleash at my church instead of working at my real job. I just wanted to take a second to share these gems. This is what I do during my down time during the day.

These make me smile. You might not like them, but I hope you do.

There's the VBS story and the preacher's wife one.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

I need a little help

This is just a short prayer request if any of you could oblige me. It was made painfully clear today that I'm currently doing anything but what God's put me on this earth to do at my current job and I really want a new one. The problem is that I have no idea which way to go and what to pursue.

The main thing I could use prayer for is wisdom, patience and peace. I could really use wisdom to know what to and not to pursue. Patience to not just up and quit my job which would be immature and unwise since it would be unfair to ditch my current coworkers without a decent notice and I would still have bills due until I get a new job. And I need peace in the meantime to help me not to accidentally lose my temper with some poor customer since I seem to suck with the whole anger issue.

Oh, the warmth

I just had the most amazing experience this morning! I got to take a hot shower for the first time since January. It was, by far, the most amazing experience I've had in this house so far.

As happy as I am to know that I'll now get more than two minutes of luke warm water before getting large chunks of ice flung as me by the shower head, this experience has made me realized how lucky and spoiled we are to have hot water in the first place. I almost wrote about how other parts of the world don't have hot water, but that's an understatement. People down the street from me don't have this luxury. I really am blessed!

Monday, March 10, 2008

A few thoughts from the day...

  • First of all, I don't have everyone's balance memorized, so if the first thing you ask me is "What's my balance?" without giving me the least hint of who you are, I might not make it physically, but I will be rolling my eyes and giving you a "you're stupid" look in my head.
  • The day goes by faster when it's busier, but it's still annoying when someone comes in at 4:55 with a bag full of thousands of dollars.
  • If you have $20 in quarters, it'd be really considerate if you'd wrap them before you poured them on my counter.

That's pretty much all of my annoying stuff. Here's some good stuff.

  • I get to spend all day Thursday working at my church for Unleash. The best part is that I'm taking a paid, personal day. So I'll be making money while I'm there, which, while not necessary, at least gives me something to rub in the college kids' faces.
  • Lately God's been challenging me to be bold and unafraid of being honest with others about who He is and what He's done in my life. Especially today reading Acts 3-4.
  • I'm on a job hunt again. I have very little clue what I'm looking for, but I'm still looking and hoping that I find something that I can be passionate about and glorify Jesus through.
That's it for me. If you know anyone who's hiring, let me know. And if you work with me and accidentally stumble on this, I don't know when I'm leaving, so don't tell anyone please.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Passion

One of my all time favorite things about myself used to be that I was passionate. Sure, sometimes it made me come off as loud and even a little obnoxious at times, but overall, it was for good reasons. I've always been a passionate guy.

But lately it just doesn't seem that way and I think I've figured out why. Stagnancy makes me a much more glib person. Whenever I'm passionate, I'm a converting machine. Allow me to demonstrate.

Have you ever heard of the band Gomez? Probably not. But neither had any of my friends. They are my all time favorite band, therefore I was always listening to them and telling people about them. This was especially true around my junior year when I got most of their albums and was listening to them all the time. I was always talking about Gomez and a lot of my friends started to like them because of my passion for the band. And then I got all of their albums, listened to them over and over again and eventually knew all of the words. Then there was nothing new to listen to and the passion slowly died...

Then they came Atlanta for a concert and I was completely excited again!

Then I tired out a little more again.

Then they released a new album and came to the Orange Peel all in one week!

And now I'm probably going to be less excited about them until their new album comes out.

It's sad really. I'm capable of so much passion in my life yet I allow myself to get lazy and it just dies out. I'm not sure how to fix this problem, though. I'll try to touch on this a little more later. But either way, I now realize that Gomez is awesome and really needs to come back to town. I miss you Ian!!!

I'm back!!!

I'd like to take a second to apologize to all of my devoted blog followers for my extended absence. So, Mom and Theresa, I'm sorry.

But I'm back now and I'm going to try my best to make this blog a priority in my life. The fans demand it and who am I to rob them of my online voice.

So raise your hand in the air and let out a grand, "Huzzah!" for I have returned.