Circles of Influence

There is something I am concerned about.  Well, there are many things, but this is one of the giants that have shadowed my thoughts as of late.  The horror of what is becoming has finally reared its ugly head to the point of me being able to openly address it in my own life.  My hope and prayer is that you will be able to relate with my situation and we may seek out a solution together.

Being a “Navy brat”, I am used to having a few good friends for short periods of time.  Over the course of 20 years, I’ve had several best friends, many close friends, and I daresay 100s of acquaintances.  In fact, most of them I keep up with on Facebook.

I remember a time after I had been settled in Virginia for many long years when I had many friends and I kept up with each of them as best as I could.  I cared about everyone.  I had a large circle of influence over those I interacted with.

As the years have gone by, I have seen this slip in my social life.  I have become less invested, even interested in the lives and troubles of others.  I still have a group of close friends, and I am ever loyal to that small circle of people.  But what I have realized looking back is that I once had a bigger circle of people I was loyal to.  I once cared more about many instead of caring more about few as I do today.

My influence has lessened.  My passion for people has dwindled.  When I try to pinpoint how exactly this happened, I can safely conclude that things in my personal life spun out of balance and I became socially selfish and spiritually introverted.  I closed up my walls and locked the doors while I did some repairs emotionally.

In the process of doing that, I became less concerned for others.  I became hardened to the struggles of others because I was dealing with my own junk.  Over the past few years, I have become hard hearted and cold towards the suffering of others because of the ordeal that I myself had suffered. 

But this is not an excuse worth hiding behind.  I used to be a trustworthy companion.  I used to lead by example and be the friend to many.  In short, I used to love people.  And now I see myself only loving my friends.  Jesus had something to say about that. “If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that” (Matthew 5:47).

I have some heart changing that I need to do.  I have not loved selflessly and made myself truly available for the people in my life in a long time.  I can feel myself becoming a shell of who I used to be.  This has got to end.

There is a scene from the movie 10,000 BC, in which an elder warrior is explaining to a younger man with a great destiny before him what it means to be great.  Here’s what Tic’Tic says:

“A good man draws a circle around himself and cares for those within.  His woman, his children.
 Other men draw a larger circle and bring within their brothers and sisters. But some men have a great destiny. They must draw around themselves a circle that includes many, many more.  Your father was one of those men. You must decide for yourself whether you are, as well.”

The fact is, it is expected of us as social creatures to take care of those within our circle.  But a greater person is the one who draws a larger circle around himself and draws as many into it as can possibly fit.  I used to draw larger circles than I do now.

I am called to draw large circles and care for those within.  I am called to leadership.  I am called to bravery.  I am called to serve the Lord and the souls He puts in my path. 

I am not called to close in my walls and invite in only a few and offer no love or help to others.  I am not called to form my own little social club and bar the gates so that no other can enter.  And yet this is what I have done, in a way.  For someone who spent years in service to those around me and seeing God work through that and finding true joy and contentment out of that love and service, there is shame in the coldness I feel towards others today.

The challenge God has laid at my feet and I am throwing at your feet as well is this:  have you allowed the pain and suffering of your own life to shrink your circle of influence among your friends?  Have you allowed your own trials to stop you from being a bright light of hope and love towards those who you interact with?  Today is the day to end the selfish social game.  Today is the day to start serving and truly seeing the people around you.

I’m going to call my brother out onto the floor again as I did in my last post.  We are men.  We are not dominate or better than others, but we have been called to a role of leadership.  That role requires service and love towards others.  Just as good king loves his land and his people, a good leader must love his followers and serve them above himself.  A good man must draw a large circle around himself and lovingly invite all to enter into it.  Tear down your walls of self pity, prejudice, and selfishness today.  All are worthy of your time, your smile, and your service.  Take up the mantle of manhood that Christ calls us towards and open up to the people around us.

What does your circle of influence look like?  It is large and open to many people, or has it shrunk over the years and do you now only trust a few with your time and love?  Examine your heart and make the change if a change needs to be made.  So God has spoken to my soul and so I have declared it to you. 

A Rally Call For Guys!

I did not sleep much last night.  In fact, I went to bed around 7:00am.  Just before I finally crashed into a coma, I had the clearest thought…the clearest realization about myself.  I want to be the epic hero that I see in the movies, but that’s not who I am.  Why is that? 

Why do I even watch movies in the first place?  Why do I have this need to be entertained?  You see, it takes a very specific thing to entertain me.  I have to be moved.  Most often, I watch action/adventure movies with a hero who is given a difficult challenge that seems impossible to overcome.  I hold my breath when they’re on the edge of failing, and cheer for them when they walk out alive and victorious.  Hollywood is filled with stories like this. 

But to return to my question, why am I drawn to movies like that?  Could it be that my very soul was designed to be in that kind of an epic role?  Could God have created me for the purpose of throwing myself up against the difficulties in life and overcoming them?  Could it be that my life is meant to be as entertaining as the best that Hollywood can offer?

My favorite movie characters are all men.  They all have characteristics that I wish I had myself, whether I admit it or not.  Aragorn from Lord of the Rings resisted the temptation of Sauron’s ring and let Frodo go on alone.  Persevering, he faced impossible obstacles and held out against the greatest of evils.  Though he had at first chosen exile, he eventually faced what he was meant to become and accepted his role as king and leader.  He made the ultimate difference.

Then there’s Balian, son of Godfrey in Kingdom of Heaven.  We find him at the end of the film holding the burning city of Jerusalem against thousands of Muslim soldiers.  The other leaders have long abandoned the city, yet Balian remains behind trying to save the people.  I get chills every time I watch the enemy swarm into a breach in the wall and Balian and his soldiers bravely stand guard and fight them back for hours and hours. 

Balian and Aragorn are just two of my heroes.  I have many.  And each time I watch a film like that, I find myself needing the hero to win.  I need him to be victorious no matter what it costs him.  I have this need in the deepest corner of my soul to see good triumph and evil flee.  So I pursue and obsess over any sort of entertainment in which I can quench that thirst.

Here’s what I have realized.  God put that thirst there.  But He didn’t put it there so I could enjoy movies where the good guys win and the bad guys die.  He put it there to drive me forward in living out His purpose.

Now we’ve got a problem.  If this innate desire to overcome evil and be “heroic” comes from God, why am I so keen to sit down on the couch and watch someone else live out my dreams on a TV screen and not live it myself?

I am passive.  Like most men in this twisted American culture, I have become dull and tolerant.  I am more content watching a movie about a hero than actually being that hero to the people around me.

When did this become okay?  Such atrocity should have never become the norm in our society.  It is time for me to rise up and become the man I thirst to be, but am too weak to risk becoming. 

I am all too familiar with the hardships involved in being strong.  It is much easier to be weak.  Hollywood depicts being the hero in movies like 300.  We watch in awe as 300 men fight off thousands and thousands of men for days.  Hopelessly outnumbered, they don’t stand a chance.  Yet they fight anyway. 

It is so easy to say that I want to be like that here in the comfort of my bedroom, but when push comes to shove, could I really join the ranks of the 300 and wage a war I could not win?  Do I have that kind of strength in me?  That kind of courage?

Most men do not.  And I am becoming sick of being one of the many who will never get up from their couch and become the kind of men they find so entertaining.

This is a rally call for the guys.  I will not pretend to understand woman, but I know the heart and soul of a man and I feel the quench to be great like all men do.  And I know what God calls me to be.  I am called to leadership.  To wage war against a spiritual enemy far older, more experienced, and more frightening than any enemy ever seen in a movie.  And my very soul and future is at risk.  There is not room for me to be passive.  There is not room for us to be passive.

Guys.  We are called to be men.  Leaders of nations.  Heads of the households.  The loyal friends.  The loving brothers.  Elite soldiers in a kingdom too great to be imagined.  This is the destiny laid before us. We are all called to be heroes.  Warriors.  Brave and honorable. 

Aragorn, Balian, Maximus (Gladiator), King Arthur.  Men such as these are only giants in our entertainment industry because American men do not have stories and lives to rival them.

This is it, guys.  A call to arms against a passive lifestyle.  An empty lifestyle.  Let’s go. 

Late Night Reflections: The Barbarian Inside Me

Here I am, pacing like a lion anxious for the kill.  Passion, fury, anxiety…they engulf me.  Consume my thoughts.  I long for days of warriors again.  We have soldiers, but the day of the warrior is dead.  Where did they go?  It seems like the only place left to look for the brave soul of a warrior is backwards into the halls of history.  What about today?  What about the fighting spirit that beats against the cage of my heart threatening to break loose?

Here I am, my hands finding every weapon within sight.  The broadsword feels strong in my hands.  Its weight not a barrier, but an addition to the strength I feel growing in my veins.  My Roman sword, light and strong, I whip it around with flashes of speed, seeking a target.  The Katana has a familiar weight, I swing it with precision and comfort, having trained in its arts for years.

I wield my weapons like a madman ready for war.  My heart refuses to stop pounding in my ears and my blood boils.   I feel my strength grow in intensity and my yearning to leap and run about digs deep.  There is a gleam in my eye and a fire in my soul that I do not know what to do with.  It runs deep, an intimate part of my very being.

The consuming need to fight.  To throw myself at another to test my skills and my heart.  I yearn for it in a way I have not yearned in a long time.  Long has my discipline held, my resilience to the call to arms.  And yet now I feel as though my heart was caught by surprise as I arm myself to the teeth, my flesh has become steel and my heart burns for conflict.

Simply, I am a man.  Worst still, I am human.   A complex web of emotions, passions, and desires that drive me forward until my days end and I rejoin the dust of the earth.  I do not pretend to understand my nature, only that I must be myself.  I cannot resist my own soul.  And my soul desires to be tested, for my body to be made war upon. 

Is this the Barbarian Way I have so long pondered?  To not just endure fear, but to seek it?  Only a madman pursues his doom and yet every fiber of my being seeks to be confronted and overcome.  Only that I might face the odds and conqueror.  Or die.  Neither outcome frightens me.  And yet both frighten me. 

I look around in my life for the warriors of my generation.  I seek and search and I see domesticated men.  I see passive souls.  I see fear and unwillingness.  I see selfishness and cowardliness. I do not see honor in my generation.  I do not see brave, untamable souls set on fire for a road of purpose and passion. 

I wish I could live my whole life within this spark of vigor.  Even now I feel it dwindling.  Seeping out of the pores of my skin like water in my hand.  There is no containing it.  I cannot even begin to grasp it.  Where does my passion so earnestly flee to?  And how might I take it captive?  I need my soul back.  Not this hollow shell of domestic living.  I was created as a man.  As a warrior with a burning soul.  A soul burning with the spirit and passion of God almighty. 

I see what I could become.  And yet I see where I still remain.  Am I unmovable in my weakness?  In my love for being passive and small?  Lord, set fire to my bones and let them never cease to burn.  Let my passion never be quenched and the warrior inside me never sleep.    

The Early Church: Back to our Roots

To get a completely fair and unbiased view about the church, let’s take a look at its history; starting at the very beginning with the Book of Acts.  It all starts in Chapter 2.  We see the Apostles gathered together at the temple in worship when suddenly, the Holy Spirit comes and fills them!  I find it interesting that in the Old Testament when we see the Holy Spirit work, we see that it “comes upon” never that it “fills within”.  For the first time in history, we see the Spirit of God coming to dwell within men.  This is the beginning spark of a blazing fire.  Upon being filled with the Spirit of God, the Apostles begin to speak to each other in other languages so that all in the temple could hear and understand them! (Acts 2:4)

And yet here, at the very beginnings of the church, we see opposition.  In verse 13, it reads “Some, however, made fun of them and said, ‘They have had too much wine.’”  Really?  A group of uneducated guys get up in the middle of the worship service and start speaking to each other in multiple languages and you call them drunk?  “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight” (1 Corinthians 3:19). 

Anyway, following this, we know that Peter gets up to speak before the crowd who, is at this point, a little freaked out.  He quotes the prophet Joel and then proceeds to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  When his audience heard this, “they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other Apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”  Peter instructed them to repent and trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  Peter promised them that upon their confession, they too, would receive the Holy Spirit.  We learn that about 3,000 people trusted in Jesus and were filled with the Holy Spirit that day.  (Acts 2:41)

So this is the beginnings of the church.  What happens from there?  They had no buildings, no organized doctrine other than the very words of Jesus, and were not respected, or even acknowledged by their society!  We know from the end of Acts 2 that the believers banded together, becoming their own private community and selling their possessions and sharing with among another.  They were in the truest sense, a family.

When I think of my “church family”, I think of a group of people I see once or twice a week and put on my “church face” to and not really share any of my problems.  They might know what passage of the Bible I’m reading that week, but I keep them out of my private life, my private sins, and my deepest fears.  All too often, the church never sees more than a mask.  And people wear masks well.  How do we cut through those lies and deceptions?  Well the early church literally lived among each other.  They experienced life together.  They were a family in a deeper way than even their blood families. It was not unheard of then, just as it is common now, for only one member of a family to become saved and join the Body of Christ.  This spiritual salvation and change in lifestyle could easily isolate someone from their blood family, whose priorities have yet to change.  So in many ways, the church was the only real family some of these people had.  And the body of believers took that responsibility seriously.

Throughout the Book of Acts, we see the community of believers growing, experiencing opposition, and yet still growing.  Something that made them unique that I don’t see in church today is this particular verse: “All the believers were one in heart and mind.  No one claimed that any of his possessions were his own, but they shared everything they had.” (Acts 4:32)

What if we did church like that?  The unity and fellowship the church shared during this time period is what accelerated its growth in the spirit as well as numbers.  Early on, we see a committed community of people who were passionately opposed to the society they dwelled in.  They were not just a part of, they WERE a radical movement that was in conflict with their Jewish and Gentile neighbors. 

I’ll stop here.  I want to devote a whole separate post to the church being a radical movement.

Intro: What is Church?

What do you think of when you hear about “the church”?  Whether that be your local church or the Body of Christ as a whole?  Honestly, being raised in a family and environment where church was okay, if not normal, I do not get a tingly excited feeling when I think about the church.  In fact, I think back on my Southern Baptist understanding and association with “church” and I get a bunch of well dressed and well-behaved people sitting up straight in pews or very uncomfortable chairs listening to an older and wiser man preach from a pulpit that is usually twice his size.

When I think of the church doing stuff, I think of potlucks, a game of flag football in the park, mission trips, or doing yard work in a neighborhood as a youth group.  And when I consider what the church is within society, I see it as part of the community.  A place of peace and grace where with open doors inviting people in to meet Jesus and change their lives so they can fit in with the rest of the well-dressed and well-behaved people.  And I’d like to think that is a fairly accurate and okay view of the church.

I have felt a great sense of unrest recently about my views and associations with the church, its people, and its purpose recently.  I hate and reject the notion that church is for the elder and the civilized and that a wild young man with dreams of swords, kingdoms, and an epic adventure is out of place on Sunday mornings. And yet, when I look around at my generation whose life is consumed by Call of Duty video games, dating, and being popular, I can see why so many find the idea of Sunday School to be unappealing. 

I have struggled with this.  Does church have to stop being “church” or do the teens have to grow up and extend their priorities?  I have attended churches with dead or even nonexistent youth groups and I have attended churches with youth groups huge in number, and yet small in spiritual growth.  Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule.  I hope to one day witness a group of people my age who, as the majority in a group, are working fervently and passionately for God within and outside the church.

But what is it that is lacking in this situation?  Is it the church refusing to cater to a new generation or is it a new generation feeling that church is old, irrelevant, and dry?  Perhaps it is both.

I am coming to a revelation about what the church used to be, is meant to be, and what it sometimes is in America.  As a young adult, I am greatly familiar with the interests, dreams, and desires, of teenagers, especially guys.  And I have a great desire to see young people my age and younger to truly be excited about church.  But truthfully, if all the people my age see in church is a Sunday Morning service where they have to dress nice, behave, and sit still…and then the occasional community project on the weekends, they will miss the point of church. 

In this short series, I will be posting my passions in life as a young man, and how I see the church, and more specifically, Christ, bringing that out in me.  I see church as a way maker, not an obstacle to achieving my great dreams and purposes in life.  I know that most people my age do not share this view though.  In fact, my generation is hostile against church, religion, the very idea of God.  And until people my age see church as something beyond boring or just tolerable, I fear greatly for the future generations and the heritage Christians will leave behind.

So again, what is the church?  I look forward to exploring this concept in my next post.

Changes in 2012

So I haven't really posted much of anything in the past several months.  The last thing I wrote was a re-post of something and that was way back in October 2011.  It is time for me to get off my butt and write again.  Not because I necessarily want to...but because I need to.  I have many friends who have taken up daily writing and I see the impact and response they get and it brings me back to the times when I wrote because it was a passion. Life circumstances have really snuffed the fire out of me when it comes to writing and simply expressing myself in general.  But now it is 2012.  I am determining to change.

Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking.  I guess that's what happens when you change to major to a major in Philosophy. Haha.  Anyway, something has really been weighing on me, though I have spent long months putting it off and ignoring it.  My encounters with sin have changed gradually over the past several years of my life.

I remember a day long ago when thinking a thought of hate alarmed and unnerved me.  Now it is all too easy to mutter curses under my breath without a second thought.  I remember when the idea of adultery sickened me.  Now my personal life and social experiences are plagued with it and it has become more normal to me.

Sin, in almost every way, has crept into my lifestyle and has been welcomed openly. Whereas, I was once openly opposed to the idea of sitting in my own misery and filth, it is now all too easy to resist it with my words while embracing it with my actions.

Simply put, I remember when my encounters with sin were conflicts.  Now it is more like a family reunion.  There is not much battling with sin any more...it is more like a massacre.  Sin kicks me around and puts my head on a stick and I stand by dying to my convictions without a sword in my hand.

But now I have determined that needs to stop.  I have just recently turned 20 years old.  I am not a teenager any more.  I cannot afford to be childish or ignorant. What I do with my life matters and I can't continue to trash my life now assuming I have my whole life ahead of me to fix it and do what I need to do to be doing.

I have come to the realization in my heart, not just my head, that Christians are sinners too.  The only thing that is different about the lifestyle of a Christian and someone who has yet to accept Christ is not the sin itself.  It is the conviction.  Someone who lacks Christ lacks conviction for their evil because they are not guided by the Holy Spirit.  Someone who has embraced Christ and His lordship should feel that conviction.

As time has gone by, I recognize a significant loss in conviction over my sin.  My anger can fly off the handle very easily though I hide it fairly well.  My pride and arrogance...my need to be right...blinds me from learning from others though I pretend to respect them more than I do in my heart.  This is not the way of a Christian.

I have absolute certainty in my salvation.  But I have come face-to-face with the shallowness of my faith. God has become distant.  Because He moved away from me?  No, because I have drifted.  I have allowed myself to love others things, desire other things, believe other things, and fall prey to a desperation of not relying on God for contentment and purpose.  This much is obvious to me when I examine the low level of conviction I feel about my faults and sins.

But I cannot go on living this way.  I have wasted so many opportunities.  I have turned my back on too many people, even if they never realized it.  I have not been the man I was trained and raised to be.

Now God is re-teaching me what it is to be a man of God.  I am remembering how it feels to go to battle again rather than flirt with my temptations.

One of my dearest and most treasured friends told me not too long ago that she always saw me as a warrior who fought for what I believed it.  A man of conviction and strength.  But the weakness I was displaying and the attitude of giving up on being who I was supposed to be and settling for a lesser and more miserable person really caused her to lose respect for me.  That struck me hard enough to land me on my face and really shake me up.

I guess what I am trying to say with all this is, I can see a period of time in my life over the past few years where I have veered away from the man I was created to be and settled for a lesser creature.  I am a shell of my former self and have become distracted and brought down by my own despair and frustrations.  My willingness to allow the Holy Spirit to guide and convict me has faded over time and I have been letting a lot of people down on a daily basis.

That is not the man I intend to be any more.  I have seen this side of the fence.  I like to think I have been through hell, but mostly I just stuck my face in the dirt and cried about it.  I got bruised and pushed around a bit in battle and gave up and sat down, allowing the enemy to claim my position on the battlefield as their own...meanwhile, I have been remaining inactive and refusing to rise again.

It is a new year now.  I have grown and have enough years in my life to look behind me and weep at the despair I have caused for myself.  This will not continue.

Today, I am re-engaging in my war against sin.  I have forgotten what it feels like to grasp a sword again, but I know I am not alone on the battlefield and am not without purpose.  God has been standing by, my marching orders in His hand...waiting for me to finish my pity party and return to Him.

This day, I return to the battlefield.  There will be no more massacres. Though I realize I will not win every battle, I know that my commander has already won the war.  I will persevere by His side until He takes the victory He has already claimed and takes me home away from war.

I have spent long days in a pit of misery, refusing to represent my faith.  I have been called up out the pit and back to battle.  Today, I am answering that call.  I pray that each of you who reads this will keep me accountable to that call.  I only have one life.  I cannot afford to live it going backwards.

The Everblack

"A blackened sky
A wasted land
A shattered heart
Shifting sand

A blood-stained knife
A bullet-torn corpse
A fallen fortress
A blood-slick floor

Here is pain
Here find death
Behold the misery
Behold His wrath

Welcome to the Everblack

See the sickness
Become diseased
Play with fire
Burn without cease

We are helpless
We are doomed
For hope, there is no room

Welcome to the Everblack

This is our fate
This is our road
Here’s where we head
 If that’s all to be told

But there’s a God
There’s a Love
There’s a Savior
There’s a Way

His name is Jesus
And He saved you
Laid aside His will
As the nails pierced through

But not even Death could claim…
The Son of God

He lives in you
Behold divine love

Behold this Man
Behold your God
Hold His hand

You’re rescued from the Everblack"

No Identity and Malnourished?

So I was spending this evening sitting on the couch feeling sick and watching a baseball game when my doorbell rang.  It was my neighbor.  Her problem?  A stray dog laying on her front porch and blocking her from getting in her front door.  At first glance, I didn't think that dog would be alive in 10 minutes.  But after calling Animal Control and waiting about 40 minutes for them to show up, the dog was still breathing.  In fact, about half way through our wait, she somehow managed to get up and walk around a bit.  She was starved, her eyes were oozing, she was wet and sticky all over, and she barely had the strength to stand.  "I could see her ribs" is a gross understatement.  But she was a sweet dog.  My neighbor came and got me because she was concerned the dog might try to attack her, but even if the dog did have the energy to do so, she was much too sweet.

Forsaking my personal hygene, I got close to her and pet her softly.  Most of my efforts were in keeping her there for the Animal Control lady who was taking forever to arrive.  In that time, I spent most of my time talking to her and just giving her a soft, caring voice.  I do not know if she had been abused, but she had certainly been on her own for quite some time.  In the short time I was with the dog, I grew fond of her.  She was homeless, battered, weak...literally ready to die.

When Animal Control got there, the lady had little trouble getting the dog to come to her and put her in the truck.  As she was loading the dog, my mom, my neighbor, and I were commenting on how she needed a bath and some food.  The Animal Control officer's response?  "They'll put her down probably in the morning."

I was mortified.  Honestly, I was angry.  The officer explained that she had no collar and was in really rough shape.  She would not be given an opportunity to recover and maybe be adopted later on.  I did my part in keeping her alive tonight so that she could die tomorrow.

I can't help but think about the near hour I sat by the dog talking to her.  Encouraging her to keep breathing and that help was coming.  I had no idea that the "help" would give her little hope of surviving. 

What if she had been wearing a collar and looked relatively healthy?  Would they have still decided to put her down?  Or would they have decided that she still had a fighting chance?  I would like to think that they would have given her the chance to live had circumstances been different.  Though I wish that they would give her the opportunity to recover in her present circumstances as well, but life isn't always what we want it to be...

What about our lives?  The dog had no collar and she was starved.  Malnourished and lacking identity. Are you and I not the same way sometimes?  We can crawl through life as if we're barely hanging on....we look and act starved of God and His Spirit and outsiders can see no dog tags on us.  So often we fail to represent Christ and identify with Him.  So often we neglect His teachings, His grace, His word, His fellowship.  And so often we can be found on the porch barely breathing...starved of the essentials of our life: His provision.

We all have those "wilderness experiences" where we feel like we've strayed from the righteous path.  We have all tripped on a bump in the road and have diverted in a different direction.  But like the Prodigal Son from Luke 15, we must come to a place where we repent and return to active fellowship with our Father.

That dog had been abandoned, starved, and left hopeless.  And her fate hurts my heart.  I know if I were in her position, I wouldn't ever want someone to give up on me. 

If you feel like that: a stray with little hope of making it through the rest of your life...do not let go.  There is everlasting help.  There is never-ending grace and love in the arms of a tortured and brutalized King.  He has already suffered all there is to suffer on behalf of our sins and has invited to a place of greatest privilege at His side! He lives on still and intercedes for us before God almighty...the Father of creation.  If you feel out of hope, out of strength, and done with fighting...surrender to the One who has not given up on you.  He has a hope and plan for you.  It is His design that you back away from the doors of death and enter into the gates of divine grace.  Never quit fighting.  You were never meant to be caged by your suffering.

And if you know somebody like that....you do not give up on them either.  When the Animal Control Officer told us the dog would be dead by tomorrow, I clenched my fists, clamped my mouth shut, and went inside with a heavy heart.  The few minutes I had spent with that dog showed me that she still had a will to live.  And they were going to take away that will to live because she was in rough shape and lacked a collar to identify her with someone. 

If I ever hear that a friend of mine has given up on someone else because they're in rough shape, and it seems like they don't have a master to identify with, I will personally kick their butt.  There is always still hope of recovering.  A drug addiction, a porn addiction, an uncontrollable temper, a lack of motivation...whatever it is, there is time to forsake the wilderness and return to the path that person was made and designed to walk.  And if you give up them, how can they be expected to not give up on themselves?

I know a lot of people in my life right now that are living really hard lives.  They are enduring difficult circumstances that are putting enormous pressure on them.  I can even look at my own life and see the footholds that Satan has found that were not there just a year before.  Life is a battle, and the fight lasts as long as we still draw breath.  Sometimes we stray and find ourselves without a collar that links us to Christ.  We discover that our actions are rejections to Christ and His work on the Cross and we must repent of those things and re-connect with Him.  We must put the collar back on and be identified with Him once more.  And just as often, we may find ourselves starved of His word and feeling lost about what to do, how to act, and where to turn.  But we do not have to be starved of Scripture forever.  Indeed, God is calling all of us to dig deep inside His word and discover and embrace His truth. 

Outside of His calling, we will waste away.  We are dead...lifeless in action and purpose until we come awake to His plan for us.  Let that be you today.  God has not given up on you and me.  We may be acting like stray dogs right now, but Christ is not ready to give up on us.  Recovery is possible if we choose it. 

I challenge myself and my friends to commit to such a recovery.  Revival is within us.

Loving and Gentle vs Firm and Confronting

I know I am not alone in that I socialize with a variety of people on different maturity and spiritual levels.  I have those who are not quite where I am because of an age or experience barrier, I have my peers...who are supposedly on my same level (sometimes I doubt that though :P), and then there are the older generation of folks that I mingle with whose experience and maturity outweighs my own.

One day, I feel like the elder, having to correct/offer advise to another.  Then the next day, I feel like the young child with people correcting me and guiding my steps.  This duel role-playing is a healthy balance, but sometimes it makes it hard to distinguish a "chain of command" and a way to address certain people in certain situations.

When it comes to confronting and correcting someone, Scripture teaches us to present our faith with "gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15) and that correction should come out of a motive of love and not to puff yourself up (Matthew 7).  Yet when Jesus was engaged with the religious leaders of His day, I do not see Him speaking to them with gentleness or humility.  I do believe He spoke to them out of love, that they might see the evil of their ways, but He didn't do it politely.  I am not a scholar, but I am pretty sure "brood of vipers" isn't a compliment, yet Jesus addressed the Pharisees and other religious leaders like that more than once.

I know that Scripture is meant for the purpose of teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).  Yet, Jesus drove businessmen out of the temple with a "whip of cords" and overturned tables, while Paul advises Timothy to be gentle and loving in his ministry.

Question: Is gentle correction for the ignorant and a stern confrontation for the arrogant?  Where do you draw the line from speaking with gentleness and love to overturning tables and shouting?

Thoughts?

Life's Path

Understand that the path before you is not an isolated path.  Throughout life, we come to many intersections and are given the choice to step onto a different and new path.  You are not fastened to the road you are on or walled inside it.  You walk upon it freely and you can leave it freely.  You have choice.

Many people realize this and teach this.  Such a mentality is correct…but not complete.  While living the life you lead right now is totally a choice, choices have consequences of their own.  My choice to take my hand off of the hot stove saves my hand from being burned more than it already has.  I can make that choice.  Or I can make the choice to stay on my path and burn my hand until it is a red and blistered. 

What path do you tread now?  Is it one that you are pleased with?  When the end comes, will you regret which road the God of judgment will find you on?  Consider your life’s direction and your pleasure in it.

For me, that is the Christian path.  Though is not the smoothest or most broad road, it is one that reaps the greatest rewards.  And each day, I must wake up and decide if that road is worth walking that day.  I confess, there are many days that I straddle two roads or even dare to walk a different one for a time.

I make mistakes.  I choose unwisely. Some days, I serve another master other than the One I’ve committed my soul.  I do not shy away from this.  Some of my closest and oldest friends can testify to times when I was walking a different path.  Wavering from the way you have chosen can happen.  The important and necessary step after this, however, is to examine the path you are on and the one that you have left.  Was the path you left worth leaving?  Is the path you are on now worth taking? 

I am convinced that there is no other path more worth walking than that of the Christian’s Road.   

This is why my blog is named what it is.  But that is my personal conviction, after encountering the Spirit of God.  Unless you share my experience of facing God and being left ashamed, you may not agree with my assessment that the Christian Road is most worthy to be walked.  How could I convince you to consider it?  By living out my life in such a way that demonstrates the worth and value of being in the center of God’s purpose…that is one such way.  Consider your path.  Consider who else is watching you walk it.  Count the cost.  If you consider the path you walk most worthy, then walk it boldly.  If you find your journey empty and lacking, I would encourage you to seek out a new path and embrace it.

When We Pray For An Easy Life And God Listens

Allow me to begin with an account on how today went.  Today is the 2011 NFL Superbowl.  And the fact that I work for Domino’s Pizza means that I must work on Superbowl Sunday.  We don’t get a choice.  I’m sure you can imagine the intense level of stress that such a day could bring.  I spent much of my time today praying and pleading that God would make today not stressful.  Frankly, that He would make it easy and there wouldn’t be any issues.

Well, God came through.  As Superbowl Sunday goes, our store wasn’t very busy at all.  I was there for five hours and I took six deliveries.  That is an incredibly low amount.  After a six hour shift, I walked away with barely $20 in my pocket.  There have been days in the past when I made twice that amount on just a four hour shift.  Today was exactly what I asked for…it was easy.

You see, as I drove home, I was complaining to myself about making so little cash on what was supposed to be one of the busiest days for us out of the whole year.  And then I realized that it was wrong for me to ask and beg that God make things easy for me, but that I would still get paid well.  That was such conceited thinking on my behalf.

The Lord is teaching me something about the value of hardship.  So many of us are scared to death of pain and go to great lengths to never experience unpleasant situations.  I have friends who have scared themselves out of the idea of love because their heart was broken in the past.  I know people who had one bad experience at a certain place one time and they haven’t gone there again since.  You and I are so quick to snatch the value away from “bad” experiences.  But the Scriptures teach the exact opposite.

God’s Word instructs us to take joy in our sufferings (James 1:2).  This is completely backwards to how I naturally operate.  I am naturally born with a desire to preserve myself.  And I naturally steer away from things that I know will bring me suffering.

To be honest with you, martial arts training or not, I do not enjoy pain.  I dread stress.  I have learned to manage physical pain well, but mental and spiritual pains are things I am not good at tolerating.  This is where the Lord is working on me.

As a Christian, trials and hardships should be the story of my life.  Un-ending pain, sacrifice, heartbreak, deep suffering…these were the trials that plagued the early church.  And yet I do not see a lack of growth in their numbers or their spiritual maturity.  The earliest Christians grasped something that we, being modern-day Americans, have failed to truly grasp: the value behind suffering.

You see, there is absolute good involved in pain.  And suffering through discomfort and even anguish reaps its own rewards.  I believe that at the end of the day, Job learned this.  Despite his situation, he was able to say “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be stripped of everything when I die.  The Lord gave me everything I had, and the Lord has taken it away.  Praise the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)

Can you and I say the same thing?  I know I can’t.  Instead of giving glory to God when He bring me to my knees, I pray and beg that He not bring me hard times.  That is so foolish of me.  Can I expect good things from the Lord and not be willing to endure the bad?

Scripture shows us that blessings and hardships are of equal value and of the same purpose (Romans 8:28).  Both are meant to further the Lord’s glory in our lives.  Through His blessings, we testify to His goodness.  And in our suffering…we testify to His goodness.  This is starting to make sense to me now.  I pray often that the Lord would shine blessings on me in my workplace and that I would represent Him well in front of my coworkers.  Tell me, how hard is it to be a good example and be a nice guy when everything is going well?  It is really simple!  And I am now realizing that I am contradicting myself by praying that I would be a light in my workplace and then beg for easy shifts that do not allow room for His light to shine!

But God knows what is best for me and sometimes…He gives me what I want so that I may see how empty it is.  I’ll tell you what; an easy shift at work is empty.  My pockets are usually empty when I leave at night as well.  When you ask for things to be easy, your reward is thin.  But when you endure much suffering, stress, and tension…your reward is full and satisfying at the end of the day.

I find myself ashamed of my desire for “easy” and will be cautious of praying for an easy shift in the future.  I can testify to this fact: praying for an easy life is more deadly than suffering hardships and persecution for the sake of Christ.  Hoping for a comfortable lifestyle where everything goes your way will leave you empty of passion and lacking in faith.  It may be the easy road, but it is shallow in depth and lacking in its rewards.
Strive to be worthy of hardships.  Attract enough attention to yourself that the Lord sees fit to have you be a vessel that shouts out His name in praise when your life is sinking like the Titanic.  Through blessing or trial, may He be praised equally in the lives of His people.

The GPS Lifestyle

So me being a delivery driver for a living, I lean heavily on my GPS to get me around.  A GPS is a very useful invention and I love it dearly, but it has some flaws.  It knows where you are and where you need to be and it calculates what it believes is the best route.  The problem is that sometimes, what it thinks is the best route, is really not the way you want to go.

My GPS will only use the main roads when telling me where to go.  But when I need to make a delivery quickly, I try to stick to the back roads as much as possible.  So when I turn off of a main road, my GPS freaks out.

But here's where it gets interesting.  My GPS doesn't immediately recalculate and provide a different route.  Instead, it tells me to do a U-turn or make a series of turns to get back on that main road.  My GPS has its eyes set on one route and I have to veer way off course before it will eventually give me a new set of directions.

You and I are like a GPS.  We know where we're going and we have set our course.  But the Lord knows what is best for us and will sometimes redirect us.  He takes us down a side road and we scream out to turn around and go back to where we were.  We want to navigate life using the route we believe is best.  But you see, a GPS cannot see a car accident up ahead and does not know when traffic is backed up.  All it calculates is the distance and an average speed.  It does not comprehend traffic signals, slow drivers on "one lane" roads, or anything else.  It is blind to the circumstances around it.  We see a wreck ahead and make a detour.  The GPS is oblivious to the wreck and tells you to get back on that road.

Or sometimes the GPS will tell you to get on a road that isn't there...I had one delivery where I was supposed to follow a road down to another road...only the road I was on became a dead end at someone's property.  The GPS did not know that and told me I had another mile on that road even though my car was stopped in front of someone's house with no more road to follow.  I ended up backtracking and using a different road...much to my GPS's displeasure.

You and I can be so narrow-minded sometimes.  God wants something great for us, but it requires a detour.  And we are slow to allow Him to deviate from our original course.  We want to navigate life for ourselves and do not easily trust God's wisdom and insight.

Now whenever I make a detour or change my route and my GPS freaks...I smile.  I think of how God must feel when He tries to direct us down a different road and we kick and scream...God is a good God and has never let me down.  I must learn to trust that He knows best.  Now if only my GPS could do the same....:-)

Cheers To Mistakes

Today is an important day to me.  This day marks the 3rd anniversary of one of the my most risky decisions.  Three years ago today I threw my heart into something having no idea how it would result.  It was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Today, life for me is different.  The results of that decision hurt.  Even today, my heartstrings are strained.  Things did not go as planned.  I made mistakes and circumstances ended some of the happiest days of my life.

For months afterwards, I grappled with myself.  Anger...regret...and then more anger.  I had taken a gamble and loved the results for almost two years.  But then the dice rolled where I wished them to not go and my world was rocked.  My tower of happiness was toppling and I was ticked that I had taken such a risk.  I made myself miserable for months.

I was a fool.  Selfish, un-focused, stubborn...I wore my heart on my sleeve and hated my risky decision because of the pain it brought.  I was quick to dismiss the many months of happiness and contentment that it provided.

To this day I bear the scar of my decision.  And the pain is still real.  But...I am no longer fearful to harbor the pain.  To embrace my hurt and accept it.

I have since realized that I do not regret the decision made three years ago.  It remains one of my most treasured moments.  But I was reckless in my speech and my actions.  I made myself hard to handle.  And it cost me much more than I was ever willing to give up...

But cheers to mistakes.  Salutes to the pain.  The bleeding my heart has done this day and every day since reminds me that I live still.  And the scars are a constant reminder of the risks of happiness.

The hurt keeps me vigilant to not repeat my mistakes.  You see, wise men are just fools with a good memory.  They are not better than the rest of us; they just learn from their pain.  I have determined to be wise.

Three long years later, my life looks nothing like it did when I risked my heart as a young, ignorant 15 year old.  I am harder; I have experienced deep pain.  I have faced and have been asked to live with betrayal.  I have uprooted my whole way of life and now live among different people in a place I never expected to be.  I am changed.

There is a blessing in mistakes.  They rip your heart apart so that you learn to survive them and grow stronger.  I would not have been able to handle the past year without the pain of my risk three years ago.

Not a day goes by that I don't miss what I had.  But had I not experienced the rough pain that kicked me until I stood up and faced it...I couldn't have handled what was coming.

Cheers to mistakes.

My Review of The Chronicles of Narnia Series

Alright, haven't blogged in a while and jumping back into things...

So my family went to see the new Chronicles of Narnia movie yesterday.  I had heard mixed reviews of the film and was curious to see how the 3rd movie turned out.  I was not disappointed.

I really liked the first movie...The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe was a work of brilliance on paper; Disney and Walden Media did it justice.  When Prince Caspian came out, everyone rushed to the theaters to see if Prince Caspian would be as good as the first.  I still think that the 1st movie was better, but as movies go, Prince Caspian had its highlights.  I enjoyed the action and war scenes in this film much more than in the first and that success really bolstered them into this 3rd film.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was epic.  The animations were, as always, fantastic.  The action has continued to improve with each film and this one kept me engaged the whole film.  I am curious as to why Disney dropped out on this 3rd movie when they were doing so well with the previous two.  They were certainly making money off of this series, so perhaps their reasoning was deeper than budget...perhaps they needed to step away from everything else to focus on the anticipated film: Pirates of the Carribbean 4...which is expected to blow the other three out of the water.  We shall see.

Anyway, back to the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  As movies go, it was excellent.  I have heard very few people complain that the movie was low quality.  The major complaint I hear...is that the movie strayed from the books a little more than fans desired.  This is the common concern when movies are inspired by books.  Here is my opinion on such things.

There is a definite difference in a book and a movie.  Books appeal to one set of audiences and movies appeal to another group of people.  Sometimes, you will find someone in the crowd who loves books AND movies and they expect harmony between the two.  I am not convinced that such harmony would be fair to either side.

C.S. Lewis is a genius.  Aside from the Chronicles of Narnia, he is the author of many other popular books and I have found him to be a great source for Christian quotes.  The man was and should always be a great blessing to the Kingdom of God.  Few dispute this.  And if any do...such discussions should take place on a different forum focused on Lewis himself.

But if we can agree on Lewis' brilliance, we recognize that he created something incredible with the Chronicles of Narnia.  He wove a masterpiece that we would be hard-pressed to perfect.  In fact, when I heard that they were making Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe way back in 2005, I was concerned then that they would butcher it.  I am of the opinion that they did that with the Eragon movie.  Christopher Paolini is a young author who hit it big with one series.  His fans (me included) anxiously await the last book of the cycle.  When we heard that an Eragon movie was coming out, I could hardly control my excitement.  I was greatly disappointed with the results, however, as they messed with the plot so much that making a 2nd movie to match the 2nd book was too difficult to attempt and the movie Eragon has faded from memory for many.

I was relieved when this disappoint was not repeated with Narnia.  The difference is that in Eragon, they were given free reign to create a film based off of the idea created in a book.  The movie was not a copy of the book and so those of us who knew the book well were frankly offended with the lack of purity to the heart of the book.  Narnia was different.

As I said, movies and books are different.  And to return to my orignal point, movies should not feel pressured to be like books.  I feel that books are created in a different way and with a different heart than movies are filmed.  Authors and directors are not of the same mold.  And because of this, I feel it is unfair for some to expect a filmed copy of the book.  The Chronicles of Narnia books are INCREDIBLE...at least, those that I have read.  I have yet to complete the series.  Seeing the latest movie has inspired me to get back into the world of C.S. Lewis and having a break from college will help.

Anyway, the books are a work of genius and it does not do them justice to be copied.  Books are most effective when allowed to stimulate our imaginations.  My favorite books...Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of The Rings, The Inheritance Cycle, Ranger's Apprentice Series...all of them worked my imagination.  And the novel that I am devoted to creating is a blend of inspiration of all these great works together.  That is the way books work.

Movies are not the same.  A film cannot leave things up to someone's imagination because a film is visual.  And so adjustments must be made.  My concern is not that Walden Media would stray from the details of the book, but rather, I feared that they would stray from the HEART behind those details.  They strayed from the heart of Eragon and it was a miserable failure.  Though I dislike the Harry Potter series, Warner Brothers has stayed true to the heart of the story and that is why they have been so successful.  The grumbling that they may get from fans are from those who were expecting an exact visual copy of the books.  It has helped that they have the author, J.K. Rowling, on set for much of the film and this is not possible for Walden Media as C.S. Lewis is long gone.

However, I am pleased with their work because I truly felt that they stayed true to Lewis' heart.  In truth, Narnia is one big, elaborate presentation of the Gospel message and the film stayed true to that.  If you are a fan of the book series as I am, that is great!  Read and enjoy the books and bask in the creativity that stemmed from the pen of C.S. Lewis himself.  And if you are a fan of adventurous, action-packed movies like I am, then this is a fantastic film to indulge in.  If you are both...as I am...then please recognize that balance must be maintained and that a film is not the same a book.  The important thing is that the movie reflect the heart and message that Lewis had for the world.  I think that on those terms, the film was a success.

The movies may be the only Narnia some people ever experience.  Especially in this day and age, we find fewer and fewer people who love to sit down and read a good book.  It is then the responsibility of the film-makers, then, to shine the message of the books in the films.

The last ten minutes of the movie is what did it for me.  I recognized the symbolism portrayed and I LOVED how the film did it.  The movie may have been the only Narnia some people ever see...and the reality of Jesus Christ shined brightly on the movie screen for the last ten minutes of the movie.  I cried.  It was a great movie, yes.  But my joy comes from knowing that everything Lewis was striving to teach us in his books...was vividly and loyally portrayed in the movie.  I think that C.S. Lewis would have been proud.  His books will endure.  But for those who may never pick up a copy of his work...Walden Media has shown us the heart of C.S. Lewis and his desire to see us recognize God and His plan in our lives.

I sincerely hope that Walden Media continues with the rest of the series and makes their future films with the same thoughtfulness that has made the previous three films so incredible.

Slowing Down

So in today's culture, we like to be busy.  We naturally create schedules that have us all over the place all the time.  American culture is such a fast-paced culture.  We have microwaves, fast-food restaurants, quick dieting plans, etc.  We are all about being fast.  Patience is not commonplace in the world today.

Well I, live many people my age, am not much different.  I am a college student with a part-time job and Church commitments.  I have places to be, people to see, and things to do.  And being active can be a good thing...but being too busy is not.  And I was succeeding very well at being much too busy.

So God, in His sovereignty, made me slow down.  How?  Well what is the obvious thing I need in order to fullfill my busy schedule?  A car to get me all these places.

And so God has taken my car away for a little while.  He did it in the perfect time, I have access to my mom's car to get to school and I may end up using it as my delivery vehicle, but losing MY car really hit home.

God never ceased to be a part of my life.  As many of you know, I have been keeping up with a Book of Romans study on Facebook and have been actively praying and keeping God around in my schedule.  But He was no longer the main part of it.  College, work, and church had become the three giants of my schedule and God was the thing I used to fill in the cracks.  And no, church and God aren't always the same thing.

Anyway, losing my car has forced me to slow down.  My busy schedule is now rocked a bit and I have a bit more time on my hands than before.  To do what?  Study extra?  No...to get back where I need to be spiritually.  I have a stack of biblical books that I need to get into again...I have a prayer life that needs sparking again.  I have priorities to change and that can never be done while I'm "busy".

So God fixed it!  It may cost me several hundred dollars in the end, but it could have been much, much worse.  And through it, I am learning a lesson.  God comes first, everything else second.  He is more important than my education and my work.  Does that mean I neglect those things?  No.  But it does mean those things do not come before me spending time with Him.  He is the main thing.  And I lost focus on that when I got too busy.  But God has fixed my schedule now and I have plenty of time to get this right.

Even in the midst of what seems to be a bad situation, God is good.  And He is looking out for me.  But I can only see that when I slow down and look at a big picture...with Him at the center. :-)

A God of Size

So this week I started an 8 week long Math course.  Because we have fewer weeks to meet, we fly through the material faster and there is more homework...Math is not my strong point.  So extra Math work on top of my normal classes and work schedule has made this week...interesting.  This week, I really needed a break and a re-focusing, so I pulled out a DVD copy of Louie Giglio's sermon called "How Great Is Our God."  Yes, the sermon title is based off of Chris Tomlin's worship song. :-)

Anyway, I popped the DVD in and sat down and just watched in absolute awe as Louie shared some astronomy with his audience and showed images of different planets and stars.  Truly, by the end of the sermon...I felt very small.

Let me give you just a few examples Mr. Giglio used in his sermon to express God's greatness: the sun is 93 million miles away from the earth.  The SUN!!!!  The star that we can best see and is most involved with life here on earth is 93 MILLION MILES away?!?!?!?!  Wow!!!!!

But it gets better!  If the earth were the size of a golf ball, the sun would be 15 feet in diameter!  That would mean we could 960,000 earths in the sun (enough to fill a school bus)!  And guess what?  The sun is pretty darn small compared to a lot of the stars out there. 

What's the biggest star out there?  Canis Majoris.  If the earth were a golf ball, Canis Majoris is the size of Mt. Everest!  There would be enough earths to fit inside Canis Majoris to cover the entire state of Texas 22 inches deep!   This star is HUGE!!!!!

Psalm 33:6 says "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth."  Can you imagine our God in heaven breathing out a star like Canis Majoris?  Science tells us that there are hundreds of billions of stars out there...Cani Majoris is the biggest one we have found SO FAR.  I'm sure there are even bigger stars out there.  And God created them.  We are specks on a golf ball that is barely seen in our own solar system which is just a dot on the canvas of the universe.  And yet sometimes we want to act like everything revolves around us.  In truth, NOTHING revolves around us.

You and I are very, very, very, small in the grand scheme of creation.  We like to forget that God created outside of our little box called Earth.  We are not the focus on His creation.  We are ants in our own little ant hills surrounded by miles and miles of forest.  We are not the focus.

But God Almighty is a God of size!  He holds the universe in His hand!  A universe that we haven't even come close to exploring all of.  I'd guess we have only seen about 2% of the whole universe. 

And yet we spend a lot of our time when we pray telling God what He should do, we councel Him, suggest to Him, argue with Him, we try to reason with the God of creation.  How arrogant are we that we diss such a great God?

He is not a God that needed help when He fashioned the stars and the planets.  When He wove the fabric of time together and spoke light into existence, we were not there.  So why then, do we sometimes act like we know what's best for us?  He is the universe-maker and mankind's Savior.  Does He need our help?  Does He need us at all?

I think not.  Our God is a great God, and He is without need of help or guidance.  He is holy in all He does and everything He creates, He creates perfectly.  Let's think twice before we question the judgement of the One who created the universe that we dwell in.

Let's give Him the praise and glory that He so rightly deserves.

The Concept of Truth

So I have been having several short discussions with people over the past few days revolving around God and His existence.  I have interacted with athiests and pluralistic people before, but it seems that more than usual have been showing up in my social circles over the past few days.

So what exactly is truth?  Is it something that we create and define or is it beyond us?  Is truth something that we can ever really know or is something that we can guess about and hope to get close? 

From what I have heard and seen from the people around me...and from my college Ethics class, truth is not attainable.  Truth is transcedent and we have no idea what real truth is.  We can only guess and hope we're right.  But truth itself is elusive and different people see a different angle.  What is true for you may not be true for me.  And that is okay.  In the end, we'll all end up in the same place anyway and live happily ever after.

Really?!?!?  The culture we live in today defies anything that supports the idea of absolutism.  Did you know that there are philosophers out there today who question whether or not you and I exist?  They believe that all of life may be one big illusion and that nothing is as it seems.  Nothing is real.  The chair that they sit on as they contemplate life may not be real...it may just be their imagination.

Did you know that there are those who know God exist and refuse to acknowledge Him anyway?  The Book of Romans talks about that...for more on that, check out my Facebook Note on Romans 1.

But seriously guys, we live in a day and age where I can't even be sure of my own breathing!  Humanity has tried to quench the concept of absolutism to the point where they believe that anything is possible...thus believing nothing.  That is not how I will live.

God is real.  He exists and operates in the universe whether you and I give Him permission to do so or not.  Simple as that.  Our beliefs do not dictate reality.  And yet we try to assume some sort of god attitude when examining life around us and we assume we got it all figured out without God ever entering the picture.

You see, we were really created by a chemical reaction that exploding out of nothingness and formed a simple-celled organism that evolved over millions and millions of years into a complex and intelligent human being that can reason and use logic.  And now we are the masterminds of the universe who have mastered the art of creating and think that one day, we will know all that there is to know and nothing will be hidden from us.  We rule our own fate and nothing can rule over us because we are a great people.....yeah.......not.  Yet that is the filthy lie that people today sell.

Well one, explain to me how we were created out of nothingness if there was nothing there to start with?  Have you ever tried to create something?  Maybe a picture or a sculpture....well try drawing a picture without paper and pencil.  Just stand there and wrinkle your nose and concentrate on a picture until it explodes out of nothingness....absurd, right?  Well that is exactly the mindset of evolution!

Next, people who continue to deny God try to explain that this absurd evolution idea is only possible because the earth is millions and millions of years old.  If the earth was only a few thousand years old, then this evolution idea of theirs wouldn't work...so they make Earth older to accommodate their theory.  Doesn't matter that they use circular reasoning when trying to explain how they measure the earth's age and they really have no idea...

Then once they got all that out of the way, they have succeeded in "explaining" life without God around.  But now something has to sustain it.  Nature does!  Nature is just so awesome that it can take care of itself apparently.  We just don't understand how it does everything it does, so we study nature and how science works in order to create loop holes around the obvious fact that an intelligent Creator was responsible for what we see.

And then they have the boldness and pride to say that one day, we will understand all there is to know about Science.  That the things we can't explain right now will be explained in time.  One day, they will have an answer for how the millions of stars were placed into space and how all the hundreds of galaxies fit together into the universe which is ever expanding.  They will have an answer for it all...and a divine Being will not be it.

How arrogant are we today?  God, who created all of existence with nothing more than His voice, is ignored, discredited, and insulted by our pretending to comprehend truth without Him in it.

The problem is, truth does not exist outside of God.  He is truth.  All that He says is true and His every character trait is character in its truest form.  God is absolute truth.  You cannot understand how the universe operates without getting to know the God that made it.

Whether you like it or not.  God does not stoop to our feeble will.  He does not recognize any man-made authority.  He is the God of the heavens and we are but ants underneath Him.  He chooses to love us despite ourselves, but that doesn't mean we have any real voice when it comes to nature and when it comes to reality.  We can choose to side with the truth that God is who He says He is, or we can continue to rebel against it.  End of story. :-)