Honest Encouragement

All of these young men dying of old age
To feel alive could cost you everything
It's hard to hold onto your ideals
When you lost your innocence

When the dreams you've caught
Aren't the dreams you've chased
Now your hearts are bleeding
To keep this pace

The kid you were
Hates the man you became
You can't remember what you wanted
You just can't
Feel the same

Remember what you wanted
Remember what you chased

365

365 and nobody knows

What's waiting in heaven or each place below

Blue dusty footsteps with big airy smiles?

Liquid bugs and inflatable wing-balloons?

more hairy poems through orange kazoos?

No such thing as future news

Nothing left but to get in and go, still. again. to go

palms up chips down chest bare

heart with a so desperate and happy prayer

365 more of who knows how

many left I'll have

to lay down lonely, stand up crippled

Hungry for truth, not cheese.

This stuff is important

Steady the treads, ready the heads and make extra soft the beds

For the faltering, wandering, stumbling, wondering, hurting

beautiful feet that you love.

Silent thunderblasts, you know the ones

Stabbed straight through and swept under the lungs

A fragrance of just the right colour (the one without a name) whisper of just the right shade image with just the right..

Caress.

Those three that remain, they're all we got left

And we all know which one is the best

The one we all so often confess

Make it true, root it down deep

When it's not, well we all know the stories

Of slippery slopes that tend to be steep

It's all we got left, so God...please.

Take all the world away. These shiny, wonderful shooting stars

that are literally made of poop.

The trash we never wanted that we can't even keep

even if I tried for each of the

365 and who knows how many

more we'll get

Humbled and uplifted all in the same

Ideas that keep us believing and (in)sane

Like throwing all the doughnuts out the window of the van.

Dying all the time is the only way to live

And i'm way too alive to be able to give

What needs to be built

Enabler, do your stuff

Love your love, cause that's all we got.

Steady... steady.. steady as she goes

365 and nobody knows

Opposite reactions to the same idea

Here's an interesting thought:

An idea that will give a believer great hope and joy will drive another to despair and suicide.

What thought? It could take a lot of different shapes but the basic idea is this:

"I don't belong here."

There are things to hate about the world. We were not made for this world and it constantly attacks us.

Nothing about this world gives my heart any real satisfaction. I am always wanting things that I will probably never get here.

But that's how it's supposed to be. There are many different paths that one could take when they realize that they don't belong here: self-pity, anger, depression, hedonism, etc.

Or you could defy the oppression of the world by telling the world that it's not the authority, that physical earth and the misery it causes is not the be all end all. That there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it is a glorious one.

To someone who has no faith, this world is the only world there is, so when they realize that there is nothing of value here, death begins to look like the only feasible option. The idea of not belonging on earth makes them want out, and they get out by dying.

Believers also get out by dying, but instead of getting out just to stop the pain and disappointment, we go out into something greater, when we leave we go where we DO BELONG. Where our hearts WILL BE SATISFIED. We will go to the place that our hearts are made to long for. That is what gives hope and joy.

Keeping the big picture in mind helps you trudge through the smaller battles, and for faithless hearts, the big picture is actually a very small picture.

So really, it all hinges on that one thing called faith.

Having faith is DIFFICULT. It is a war and you can't be idle about it.

But aren't most good things also difficult?

We need help. Glorify God by asking Him for it.

Tragedy and Victory

These two words have been on my mind quite a bit lately. They are two of the most powerful words there are, in my opinion.

I remember reading the book "All Quiet on the Western Front" in high school. I found probably the most clear example of what I would call tragedy.

There are two soldiers who have been best friends throughout the war (World War I, I think), and they have been through all kinds of terrible situations together. They have narrowly escaped death a number of times, they have been in and out of foreign prisons, and have watched each other's backs through everything. They have seen many of their fellow soldiers killed. I think that soldiers often try to prevent building emotional connections with other people during war, because there is such a high likelihood that those around them will be killed, and it is easier to see someone you don't care about die. Well, in this book, these two did not follow that model. They were close. During a relatively quiet time in the war, one of the two soldiers gets knocked unconscious by what I believe was a grenade blast, but he was still alive and would recover. The other picks him up on his shoulders and, using all the strength in his sore and hungry body, starts running through the woods to get him to safety. One can imagine the extremely intense fear going on here.

While he was running, another grenade went off in the distance, and a small shard of shrapnel flew from it and went through the unconscious soldier's head. It took the running soldier a while to realize what had happened. His friend died silently, by a complete freak accident, a tiny shred of metal flying at random through the woods and hitting him where it was most sure to kill him.

How is one to even process something like this? There is absolutely no apparent purpose to what happened - he just died. The only friend this soldier had was taken away for no reason at all. He made it through so much danger - thousands of bullets, mortars, mines, bombs, that COULD have killed him, but in this one quiet, safe forest, that one little piece of metal was determined to end his life.

Sin is always tragedy. Genesis 3 introduced it into the world, and it is all around us and very often inside of us.

People die, they get betrayed, they hurt you and leave you feeling empty. They do things that show that they are not who you thought they were. Sin is everywhere.

I get depressed sometimes. I feel like almost all there is to life is tragedy. In my easy, comfortable, full-of-ridiculous blessings life, I have seen some tragedies that have taken a serious toll on my heart. I see them everywhere because I am a very sensitive person. I have lost friends and been hurt by people. I have seen potential joys fall into ruin. My desires are sometimes held right in front of my face and then yanked away from me.

People like myself tend to be in tragic places because they are bad at preventing it. I am by nature a reciever, not a giver. A follower, not a leader, a reactor and not an initiator. Something about that means that tragedy is attracted to me. As Proverbs 18:9 says, "One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys." I think that relates somehow, though I'm not sure how to explain it. Instead of actively causing tragedy, I will just sit back and let it happen. I'm no better than the destroyer.

It would be easy for me to just be completely bitter. To let my soul shrivel up and become hard, crusty, angry, calloused, cold. That's WHAT THE WORLD WILL DO TO YOU. It will wear you down until you can't keep going. It will suck your optimism away and give you nothing in return.

But, there is a name and a word that are greater.

Jesus, and Victory.

What else do we have? Without Him there is no such thing as victory. There is only tragedy, death, pain, bitterness.

But time and time again I find that if I am to have any hope in this life, I have to believe that there is a true and real victory that is more powerful than any of the deepest, most twisted tragedy.

It doesn't matter how abused you have been, how many times you have been lied to or stabbed in the back, how many loves have been torn apart,

Really there is no other hope than to believe in the victory that Jesus has won, has bought, and extends to us.

I have found that there are no other words of life other than the ones from His mouth.

No one else can offer what He does.

Jesus offers a return to the innocence and purity that was in Adam before the fall. What is more tragic than the loss of innocence? Nothing is more beautiful than innocence - than purity of heart. The ultimate essence of beauty is found in something that is unstained by the world, as James 1:27 says. The world stains us. Jesus washes us. He makes beautiful things out of wretched things.

The very idea of beauty died so long ago, but sometimes I catch a glimpse of You. At the call of Your name, at the touch of another's hand. I see this place as Adam once saw Eden.

I don't think anyone is quite who they want to be. I certainly know that I'm not. I fail so many people in so many ways on a daily basis. My heart is constantly wandering and is full of lies.

But again, I have to believe that there is something that can restore me. And, as a result of God's unsurpassed love, there IS. No matter how twisted I am, I am not beyond restoration.

VICTORY WILL ALWAYS TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY.

It's not easy to believe, but I have to believe that. That is my hope. That is everyone's hope.

Fix your eyes on the One who authored a perfect world, who is Himself perfect, and who walked in flesh on Earth in order to give us the only victory that gives us the ability to overcome the cursed sicknesses of this world. Cling to that hope, because it's all we have. It's all that keeps us from a steep fall into depression and bitterness.

This is what I think victory sounds like

Praise the only true King.

This isn't the way things were meant to be...

Please give me the strength to do something about it

Some Thoughts and a Poem

How often do we say we love God?

As MewithoutYou has put it, "When they swear their love is real, they mean I like the way you make me feel."

I honestly think that people are very prone to using God for their own purposes, when the truth is that we must give ourselves entirely to Him, to be used for His purposes regardless of what we think we want. Should we wear God as a badge, should we wear our crosses like a crows, should we love God for no other reason than because He lets us do whatever we want and still loves us? Don't cheapen His love.

This God is no joke, He can't be diluted. He demands everything from us. All of our heart, our entire being, must belong to Him and Him alone, and there's no other way that we can say we are worshippers of Him.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."

This doesn't mean, "if you're a Christian, God will make your life perfect."

I believe it means something much closer to, "When God becomes the only thing that you desire, you will finally be content and know true joy."

See how those are kind of opposite of each other? One uses God for our own ends, the other says that we want to be used by Him for His own ends, which are better. Our joy is simply a byproduct of worshipping God because He is holy. We don't worship Him because of how He gives us joy.

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."

It costs everything, changes everything, means everything to us.

I believe that runs a lot deeper than any of us realize. Be challenged and encouraged to seek God's heart as if it were something so valuable, you would sell everything you have for it. Because He is that valuable.

I speak these things to myself. If God is real, and we believe that He's real, we must act like He's real. And there are so many ways I see myself and others not doing this. God help us to see Your path and not our own, and to truly love You with our whole hearts.

It’s all pretty upside-down, can’t you see?

Besides the fact that You’re You, and I’m me.

All the fake things shine brighter

Than the dull things we need

And the mountains, they’re uprooted

By a tiny mustard seed.

Those who win the race

Are the ones who give up first

And the people with nothing

Are so full they could burst

The rich have no rest

While the simple are blessed

And the smarter you get,

The harder the test.

Children boldly speak

Elders stand in fear

Infants understand more

Than those with ten times their years

We desperately hoard shadows, ghosts and dull shapes

While the actual substance stands right in our face

Those who try to climb high always come crashing down

And the blessedly low wear the most brilliant crown

The most precious things aren’t much more than dust

While men live and die for what will decay and will rust.

We hate those we love, and love those who don’t care

If we can even call it love... well, I’d hardly dare.

The love that we feel is the love that matters less

Than the love that we do, cause that’s the true test.

Our anger burns hot, and forgiveness lies cold

Though we’ve been given more grace than could ever be told

The things we can touch are what all float away

And the invisible stuff is the stuff here to stay

What seems the most real is what changes and dies

I still can’t see more than an inch past my eyes

We want what we can’t have, that’s a universal rule

And I literally feel dumber, the longer I’m in school.

There’s lots you can see, but only when you’re not looking,

And the food will never cook, if you try to watch it cooking

That clock will only move slower, the longer you stare

But boy will it fly, if you ask the hands to stay there.

We work ourselves to death for the trivial, pointless, and vain

But never try for what matters, cause we’re too scared of the pain

Should we give the least time to the One we claim to love the most?

I’ll happily sacrifice for myself, but with Him, I’ll just coast.

We’re quick to speak and slow to act,

Our sinfulness isn’t a theory, but fact.

We will break a promise before it’s even off our tongue

But when someone lets us down, “tie a noose, they must be hung!”

A stray pebble falls in a river, and it may change direction

All its mass thrown around by the little round stone

A great insurrection caused by a small imperfection

But try to change it yourself? Nope. Not on your own.

A clear little slip of plastic or glass

Is the difference between blindness and sight

Try the Snellen chart without it, you’ll never pass

Squint and strain as you might

This world is maybe just a little absurd.

If you are bought as a slave, you’ll be free as a bird.

The King of Kings was glad to stoop low and to serve

When we beat Him and mocked Him, He said not a word.

This King, the Holy One, His blood was spilled

But His love defeats death. God cannot be killed.

I hope you see a bit of what I’m trying to show

Though words can’t do much, as we all too well know.

The Faces of God

C.S. Lewis has a series called "The Space Trilogy," which is an amazingly creative set of novels. They are basically one giant metaphor. A big theme in the series is spiritual warfare - a fascinating topic, without a doubt. In the last of the three books, there is an organization quickly gaining power that is dead-set on tearing down all organic life, and creating a different society by making a small, ruling class of people who would be "cyborgs," you could say, with incredibly enhanced intelligences and who could live for an indefinite period of time through the support of their mechanical enhancements.

Obviously, this is bad. There is a small resistance against this organization, led by a man named Ransom who has the "favor," I guess you could say, of the gods of all the other planets of the solar system.

Well anyways, once this evil organization gets powerful enough, it gets the attention of all the other gods, and they come to Ransom's house to hold a meeting to decide what to do to stop it.

My favorite chapter of the book is the chapter in which the gods gather. Each of the planetary gods in the book are different ways of describing the true God of the real world. It's amazing because you really can see all of these aspects of God in each of the different gods of the Planets. And it's even more amazing to think that they are all contained in one being. It's so interesting to me.. something I've thought about for a long time is how different people take different things from God. Everyone sees Him a little differently, sometimes a lot differently. Is God love? Yes. Is He wrathful? Yes. Did He create music for us to worship Him with? Yes. Is He infinitely above us? Yes. Did He come to dwell among us and serve us? Yes. Does He control everything? Yes. Does He sympathize with us? Yes. Does He discipline us? Yes. Does He comfort us and bless us? Yes. and so much more.

I think most of us are right. We just focus on different parts of the same God. Isn't that funny? Some people will naturally understand one of God's "faces" much more clearly than the rest.

There is one god (Venus), who is the embodiment of God's love for man, at whose arrival Ransom's heart aches and he cries at the sheer purity and beauty. If we really were to experience God's love in such a direct, unmitigated, personal fashion, I don't think Lewis would be far off in describing how "They were blinded, scorched, deafened. They thought it would burn their bones. They could not bear that it should continue. They could not bear that it should cease." One god (Mercury) who is the embodiment of all meaning in the universe, the creator of language and the art and beauty of communication, and one who is the warrior-god, the god of order and power, valiant and unstoppable. He made all of them want to fight. I understand that feeling - He is Mars.

Anyways, Lewis describes in pretty amazing detail how Ransom and all the others undergo massively emotional experiences which match up with the personality of each of these planetary gods, when each of them arive. This one the one that I can relate to by far the best out of any; Saturn. This is the face of God that I most easily see. This is what first comes into my mind when I think of God, in most cases at least. I was blown away by this section of the book. I was also convicted that I need to seek the other faces of God, instead of always dwelling on the one I know best: the one that falls most in line with who I am. There is so much more to God to be explored. I am stubborn in my thinking. How foolish of me to focus only on the God that I can easily see without seeking out the fullness of the God that contains all things.

This one is

Saturn:

Saturn, whose name in the heavens is Lurga, stood in the Blue Room. His spirit lay upon the house, or even on the whole Earth, with a cold pressure such as might flatten the very orb of Tellus to a wafer. Matched against the lead-like burden of his antiquity the other gods themselves perhaps felt young and ephemeral. It was a mountain of centuries sloping up from the highest antiquity we can conceive, up and up like a mountain whose summit never comes into sight, not to eternity where the thought can rest, but into more and still more time, into freezing wastes and silence of unnameable numbers. It was also strong like a mountain; its age was no mere morass of time where imagination can sink in reverie, hut a living, self-remembering duration which repelled lighter intelligences from Its structure as granite flings back waves, itself unwithered and undecayed but able to wither any who approach it unadvised. Ransom and Merlin suffered a sensation of unendurable cold; and all that was strength in Lurga became sorrow as it entered them. Yet Lurga in that room was overmatched. Suddenly a greater spirit came - one whose influence tempered and almost transformed to his own quality the skill of leaping Mercury, the clearness of Mars, the subtler vibration of Venus, and even the numbing weight of Saturn.

The sheer overwhelming, impossible greatness of God is described here. Transcendence. The God who we can't even fathom. Heavy to the point of crushing everything. Infinitely wise, strong, unapproachable by our feeble humanity.

The next one to come is the one without his own planet, he is the ruler of all of them. The King of Kings. Lewis says of him, "Before the other angels a man might sink: before this he might die, but if he lived at all, he would laugh. If you had caught one breath of the air that came from him, you would have felt yourself taller than before. Though you were a cripple, your walk would have became stately: though a beggar, you would have worn your rags magnanimously."

That should make you smile.

It's good to be stretched to think outside of my little box of thinking. That needs to happen more often, I think.

More Than Conquerors

Many metal songs have been written about this idea. It is truly amazing though, and it's vital to understand. I believe that the more real this idea is to those who believe in Christ, the more passionate and self-sacrificing we will be. Nothing can touch us. Our bodies may die, but that's nothing. The hope in Christ as redeemer is what motivates us to Sacrifice every part of ourselves for Him. That is why we deny our flesh, rid ourselves of sin, make ourselves miserable for His sake.

MORE THAN CONQUERORS

This glory is such that it eclipses death

With this purpose there is no fear

Without fear there is no impossible

The grave holds no sway

There is no terror in the sword

For my God defeated death.

And His victory is my own.

Come plague, hunger, pain, and death

Rain down blackness, hate, and Hell itself

I welcome them all with a smile and a laugh

Light and fleeting trouble

A distraction, annoyance compared to the life He will bring

A short sigh in the infinity of time

A blink of light in the blaze of the sun

The world itself will crumble away

But we will stand under His wings.

My God is accomplishing His task

My only duty is faithful surrender

My body means nothing without You in control

So I offer it up, along with my soul

Never lose sight of the goal, my brothers

The presence of the King changes everything.

EVERYTHING.

Life is so much crazier than I ever thought.

And I still know nothing at all.

So I guess I'll just say this:

You brought me this far, don't bid me farewell.
Give me the courage to finish it well.
Keep my feet moving forward and my eyes above.

Condemned

Don't let a label define you.

It's ironic, because not only can we judge others, but even ourselves.

Don't act a certain way just because you have been told that's how you are.

"This is my love language"

"This is my style of influence"

"I have this psychological disorder"

"I'm just a _______ person"

Don't condemn yourself!

There's nothing that is beyond your grasp, through the power of God.

For goodness' sake, if the blind can see, and the lame walk, surely someone with "ADHD" can have a clear and focused mind, and a timid, sensitive person can step up and be a leader.

Give God a chance to change you.

Don't tell Him about your shortcomings, let HIM tell you what you can and can't do.

Moses learned this perhaps better than anyone:

But Moses said to the Lord, "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue."

Then the Lord said to him,

"Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak."

But he said, "Oh, my Lord, please send someone else."

Don't tell God what you can and can't do. Ask Him and listen to what He wants you to do, search His Word, and trust that He will be with you as you do those things.

I am telling this to myself as much as to anyone else. Strive, grow, be excellent people and show the world how much better it is to love the God that we love.