Dawson's Creek message

This morning I was watching Dawson's Creek, which is not standard for me but I saw something interesting. I am watching an episode about Pacy's 18th birthday. Now all those of you who are not familar with the show Pacy is one of the main charactors. Now in this episode it is his birthday and his girlfriend decides to throw him a family birthday party. The part that made me stop and think is that he is surrounded by his friends and family who begin to tell stories about him ( all suggested by Pacy's mother to get closer to him). Every story that his family instinctively tells from memory is about how Pacy messes up, destories something, or fails at something. This to me made me think of my older brother. All through out his life I would focus on how he screwed up or messed up and in the end we are not close. Why is that? I think the reason is humanity naturally focus on the negative in everything. Someone cut YOU off, I will be late for so and so, and it goes on and on. Not one day that has gone by has helped me in this negative thought. Never has it helped with my relationship with friends, family or roomates.

The message of Jesus is not about focusing on the negative. Here is an example I meet weekly with a bunch of guys to just spend time talking about God. This last tuesday only two others showed up and my first response was where are the other 3? What was so important that they couldn't come and spend time with God? You know what my friend next to me said "what about the two that are here?" This floored me. I just sat there thinking how much of a jerk am I? This is not helping me love anyone. All negative thoughts do is fuel my hate, anger and rage which are not of the spirit.

"But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself." (Gal. 5:13-14)

"For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealously, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunknness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kindom of God." (Gal. 5: 17-21)
Here Paul is talking to the Galatians because they have turned from Paul's message to them and is getting confused by other teachers about curcumcsion. What captured me this morning was he talked about the spirit and the sinful nature. Anyone out there ever felt like they have to different people inside them . . . here is why. This morning I realize that I have let too much of my sinful nature dictate my like because my fruit is fits of rage, impurity, envy and hatred. Now I am not focused on this but when I see what is coming out of me even in the slightest degree it bothers me because I am not living the best possible life. Negatvity just fuels the sinful nature. Now that I have spend my time giving the negative side of this message lets flip.

Look at the fruit of the Spirit:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self - control." (Gal. 5:22)

How beautiful these words are with this hope. I am not telling anyone even myself to focus on these because you don't seek God through a focus on any of these. Each one of these traits are consequences of spending time with God and letting him work on your heart. I look at these to see do I have these am I showing these to my fellow man because if I am not, then I am letting the sinful nature dictate my actions and not the spirit.
The sum of this blog is really tell let you think. Don't listen to me I am just a man but atleast question yourself where you are going and what your focus is, because the world generally focus's on the negative. Where do you stand?

The Loser in Me

You ever played game with anyone, especially one that had alot of straedgy? On average, once a week I play chess with some buddies of mine at a starbucks in the area ( yes, yes I know we are geeks but atleast it doesn't cost anything). Chess of course is a mind game that can test you in more ways you can count. Anyways have you ever played a game where your saying to yourself I want to win but your the back of your mind says no your going to lose. That is something I have just become aware of. When I play a game I want to win but my mind tells me I can't I am not as good as the opinion I am facing, so I will give a good fight but he will win. After playing like 4 consistant games o chess and losing all of them first you might say you are just no good but then you realize there might be something else here. Tonight I was introducted to how much of a loser I have let inside of me. Now I am not trying to dog myself or complain just be honest. If I constantly tell myself I am going to lose then will which by definition is a loser. How did I come to this? What do I do with it?

Well first of all I have to look at the big picture because with everything there is a bigger meaning to it all. If I am telling myself I will lose at simple everyday games then what am i telling myself about how I deal with life? In a certain light life is a game in itself. So, I am going through life with a loser mindset, battling satan with the mindset that he has already won so I will give a fight but he will win. HOW MESSED UP IS THAT!!! I don't want that in my life. I don't believe Jesus came and gave a message that everyone is better than you. I believe the bible tells that He is saying we are all equal. Yes he tells us to serve our brothers and lift them up but where does it say everyone else is better than you? This is where the destruction comes in leading a life that it is all over death will come and it wins. Well this is one MAN THAT WILL SAY NO! NO I will not go quietly into that good night!

Now we come to what do i do with this knowledge about myself. Well frankly there is no formula. All I know is I need to work on changing my mindset from loser to winner. Not that I am better and will win all the time but that I have just as much of a chance as anyone else. I will not look at death and say it has a hold over me because there is more to life after death. So, how do we change our mindsets? With a very simple idea and a very difficult application. You deal with it day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, and second by second. Life is about dealing with the moments as they happen, because once there over that moment is gone forever and will never return.

A glorious failure

I am an architecture student who has usually alot of work to do. Architecture school is about designing, building models and exploring ideas. Well, to explore you have to build models and sketch ideas. For me I find it hard to just jump into ideas. My logical mind wants to get it right the first time I do something. I will sit for hours stareing at a blank piece of paper because I don't want to fail. Does this at all sound familar to any of your lives? I am afraid to try or I want to get it right the first time. I was reading more of "Rich Mullins an arrow pointing to heavan" and he had this to say that made me stop:

Once you come to understand that life is unbelievably brief and that we really can't do anything
that's gonna change anything, that we don't really amount to a hill of beans - then all of a sudden
you go, "so it doesn't really matter if I'm not great. And if I don't have to be great that means I can
fail. And if I can fail, that means I can try. And if I can try, that means I'm gonna have a good
time."

We have to realize we are already glorious failures in the grand sceme of things. So all this crap we try to do to redeme ourselves to God DOESN"T matter, Jesus already died. That's it, we are free! Now we know we can fail but that makes the trying even sweeter. There is so much freedom in trying now. This sounds like such a simple idea but a sorry sinner like me has the hardest time, not trying to pay God back. I have just not moved for fear of missing a step or falling, but I will trip and I will fall. That is ok. In the end I will be better for it because I will run to the father. I leave with one more great quote that relates to this idea of freedom and stuggle:

Questions bring freedom. Freedom that I don't have to be God and I don't have to pretend that I
have it all figured out. I can let God be God.
~Rob Bell (From his book "velvet Elvis" Look it up)

A generous giver

I went to a homeless shelter sunday evening called Calvery Refugee. It is a place for those without homes to get a second chance. they come to the facility in the evenings getting dinner and a place to sleep. In the morning breakfast and a sack lunch because they are not aloud to stay at the facility during the day. This promotes them to finding a job and thus getting themselves back on their feet. Well our church tries to take some days and go down to this wonderful place and feed some dinners to these people. This sunday I ended up spending my time talking to a father of 3 with one on the way named Maric. This man awed me with his love for his family and how much he thanked God for his kids. For about 10-20 mins I let him talk about his faith, his love for his kids and his troubles. In those few moments it gave me volumes of joy. Why? because God showed up and showed his love for his children. For those moments it didn't matter what I looked like or he looked like we were just to brother's in chirst listening to each other and feeling each other's pain. I ended the night asking for him to write down his name and the name of his family so that I could remember to pray for them. He wrote it down on a table napkin and gave it to me. I ended the night with thanking God for this moment.
Two days later I get discouraged in my fight and just feel like giving into the world, getting over stressed and just fearful. I find that table napkin in my pants as I clean them out. I almost instantly hit the floor with tears in my eyes. I am stressed and concerned about school and my life while this man struggles to find a home, to find a way they can get to school, work or calvery with no car, and struggle with his own inablity to provide for his family. How selfish am I? This man gave me his time and his love. I forget it two days later. I went to calvery to give to the unfornuate and came away with a man who had very little giving me the greatest gift.
I don't write this to make anyone feel like they should give because each man sees how they should give. I write this to share with you the shear joy of giving not just with money but time or even your heart.

Random stuff that makes you stop

I was sitting in the living room of my apartment, it is also the dining room, eatting lunch and I happen to look at the calendar on the wall. I like to have a calendar cause then atleast I know what the date is plus I enjoy crossing off a day that has just ended. Anyways I am sitting there looking at the calendar and I see yesterday crossed off and I think,"you know yesterday is never going to come again." That one day has existed for what it is and it will never come again. For that moment it Carpe deim seemed to make sense to me. In this moment at this time I will exist like this and never again, Seize that!
There are those out in the world that would cheer for me saying seize the day because they feel that means do everything that is fun. I disagree with this view. The phrase is about pointing out, " do everything that best you can because this time will never come again." Excellence can have such a negative view if one uses it to do negative things. An example is I am trying to be an excellent killer, which has negative results and will end negatively. My view is excellence only works when you are using it for positive end results. Everything Christ did was ultimately for a positive result, not always his positive result but it helped someone. That calendar on the wall now is a reminder that these are the days I live what will I do with them?

The stresses and failures we want

"May all of your expectations be frustrated,
May all of your desires be withered into nothingness,
That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child
And can sing and dance in the love of God,
Who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
~Brennan Manning

I write this quote above because it is in a book I am reading right now called "Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing To Heaven" by James Smith. The book is wonderful in showing the heart of God but back to my point at hand I read this today and thought this is so true becaue my life is not about what I want but what God wants. There is such Freedom in this through the fact that I don't have to worry about where I will go because I follow God. God never stops talking to us we just stop listening. Just as Jacob discovered in Genesis 21:10 ( I might be wrong) " Jacob awake and said, ' God was here and I was not aware of it" God never just shows up He is always there we just don't see Him. Suffering and struggle are one of the hardest things to grasp in the christian walk. To hear someone say you are learning something by going through this pain is a cliche. I like how Rich Mullins puts it,

"Sometimes it's hard to believe that life is good. It's not always pleasant, but life is a great gift, and your job as a human being, is to go out there and live it the best you can. Christianity doesn't answer all my questions or make me comfortable and happy. What it does do is five me a context for living."

I was riding to school after reading all this and I ended up listening to a song by the late great Five Iron Frenzy. If you have never heard of them find a book store or look on line and get one of there cd's, but one of there great songs is "On Distant Shores" in the song there is a great line, " Running at full tilt, my sword pulled from it's hilt. It funny how these things can slip away, our frail deeds, the last will wave good-bye." We strive for some much want so much and so much can be taken away and we ask why. This is why so many lost can't understand God. Christians feel the pain of lose but they ultimately feel Gods love through this difficulty but the lost never feel His love through pain because they don't have a relationship with Him. It doesn't matter if He loves them or shouts as hard as he can it falls on def ears. Remember the day is "toad mayod" AKA it is good. For everyday gives you a new challenge and fight.

Sincerely my heart

I am extremely behind in my blogs

I have neglected my blog and it is too bad. I am averaging a blog a month, which maybe helps people want to read them more if anyone is reading them. I will try to write something everyother day and see if anyone gives me a comment to see if they are reading these. Until tomorrow and Taylor you blog is quite cool.