He loves me

I love the King and He loves me!

Desire for the real

Yearning more of the cake you just tasted is miles apart from yearning for a cake you've only heard of.

Too often we make the gospel and Christ just distant shadows we've heard stories of.

Don't lunge blindly into empty space hoping on chance you'll grasp something - Search, knowing that it is real.

the more you talk

the likelier it is that you'll say something stupid.

i find this to be very true with people who frequently and often update their twitter, facebook status updates, aim profile away messages, google buzz, and anything of the sort.

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In other news,

I had an ephiphany in  the bathroom today regarding awkward interactions with temperature.

Awkward Warm = when you sit on a toilet seat and it's warm (from previous person's body heat)
Awkward Cool = when you plop a dung and the water splashes back up
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The above is a great example of how the more you talk, the more likely it is that you'll say something stupid. Thank you

Pale

There are times when I find things in my life so pale when put up next to you. Really, so pale. So pale that it's depressing. There are other times though when your light just makes everything brighter. But at this moment, everything else pales. Everyone pales. Nothing can hold its worth and all of its existence is lost -- even its shadows.

Breaths are longer and the lung processes slower. Do I have the strength to shout your praise in this disenchanted demise?

What makes it all dark and gloomy is that as everything pales next to Christ, even Christ Himself does not shine bright.  If I were an artist, I would draw an amber sun across an ashen sky and its rays would be lost amidst a shroud of clouds.

amigos

I have great friends.

Probably the best group of friends I can ask for.

Especially the men.

The few lady friends I have, you're awesome too.

But particular praise for the men.

Thank you God. Really..thank you.

cold and hardened.

i feel this way at times.

i look at various things that happen. walks for cancer. walks against sex slavery. collection against this, marathon against that. Pop stars in support of relief efforts. Teenagers against poverty.

Ack. I see it as all just sympathy fulfillment activities. You know? The sympathetic/empathetic portions of our souls that itches to be satisfied as easily as possible. Is this an unfair judgment? And honestly, almost 90% of the time, I find the action to do very little against or in support of whatever claim/action. I have no research to back this up, but this is how I feel. Don't judge me cause I have all these feelings and never really put in the proper backbone research to qualify my thoughts/feelings. This is me just sharing reactionary feelings to some things.

 I really want to go on missions, I do. But not really most of the stuff that goes on. I want to go with real skill sets and long term. I want to be able to apply my experiences, knowledge, and my abilities to a situation and help others. I don't want to just be somewhere. I understand this might be contrary sounding to faith and pure love/help. Or even the modern church sentiment of just go, pray, be and God will use. I don't find this to not be true. I agree. Except, when I sit here thinking about missions, I really want more.  I want to help people long-term and with skill sets they find difficult to acquire or tap into due to poverty or just because people don't care enough for them.

This just leads me to ramble. I want to live missionally (is this a real word?). I want everything I learn and absorb to be something that I can pour back out into communities and people in positive ways. This gives me a real passion to improve as a person and to learn more. And most importantly, to always pray that God be the motive and center of my life.

But you know honestly.. all this rambling and thoughts, when I really look at the core of it all, is because I think highly of myself at times (a mix of arrogance and confidence). I feel like I have so much more to offer than I give at usual mission trips. I also want to be in the thick of things. Not on the outside doing support, raise-some-money marathons. Stick me in the middle, make me aware of the realities, and let me a direct agent of change in that reality. That is my hope.

But really more than belief in myself, I've always believed God can do great things through me if I allow Him.

With all this said, I have nothing really against any of the things I mentioned. Well, maybe, personally I do. But nothing at all against the people involved in it. I really admire what people are doing. Keep it up. Personally, just for who I am, I just want to be involved differently.

complaints

my finger is ugly and still hurts.
my job makes my brain melt.
i have a moderately sized gut.
i do not want to spend beautiful days in the office.

and so on and so forth.

yet he has placed in me Phillipians 4. Rejoice


It is well with my soul.

routine

Everyday the boy wakes up, breathes, eats, breathes and lays his head back to sleep. Scattered between these five actions are other actions that differ from day to day, but when taken up as a whole are all the same group of actions on random repeat.

He realizes and a thirst for novelty awakens. "Truth is novel," he says. He yearns for the real, but searches for it on the abstract edges where searching is most exhilirating. With the searching begins rampant dreams. Some said outloud because sometimes when things are loud/big enough, we believe in it. Others said outloud as some form of a purging or cleansing process always followed by a long sigh, thick with doubt.

Dreaming and searching then become a part of the melting pot of actions that make life so routine for the young boy.

As a result, searching for truth ceases -- but it happens without the boy's knowing. Unaware, he keeps searching, but little does he know that he is only searching for novelty...and not truth.

Something new. Something beyond normal. Something different. I feel it all escapes us far too much.
At the same time, I think all of us wants routine, just not the routine we have now--it's either the wrong things or the wrong order.


note on the slight 'nonsensicalness' of this entry: Sometimes you write, and your writing transcends your thoughts and when you re-read it, it's not that it doesn't make sense...it's just that you don't fully understand it yet.

such little understanding of grace.

at times i feel far from being a 'sinner free'.

I feel like a sinner locked up, trapped up, and without much hope. That makes me want to lie face down away from God and whisper for his forgiveness -- trembling in doubt and a pitiful feeling as I tell myself, "I fully understand if you don't accept me now".

These feelings don't come from grave, 'serious' sins. But 'small', 'little' ones that bring me back to the dark corners within me. There is no measurable scale on sin, but I believe there are certainly some things that bring us faster to our shadows than others.

"Grace," I yell. "Grace," I scream. I raise my voice louder to extract from the volume some kind of conviction and belief, but layered under the loud yelling is just a hollow hope that echoes a fading desire for something to be real.

Rather... today, I feel and yearn for only your mercy. Father, I understand your wrath and reluctance if ever it exists within your heart.

"Mercy..." I whisper it softly through my trembling lips.

I do not understand Your grace, but praise be to You for it.

sah-seum

As the deer panteth for the water so my soul longeth after You.
You alone are my heart's desire and I long to worship You.

power of the cross

Lately, I have found myself gazing more at the cross. And I find no beauty in it.

Gruesome. Ugly. Gross. Weak.

What worth was placed in me that death on two intersecting pieces of dead wood was deemed 'perfect love'?

Beautiful Lord. Your light shines bright and makes corners that were once dimly lit pitch black. There is no grey area within me that have hints of hope or love. I am a vanishing mess of black.

Thanks be to God for promise of new hope -- a wholly new creation. No fixing, no glue, no mess; all is discarded and I am made new -- like the virgin Mary, new life has been borne within me without cause.

Praise be to God.

worship

Singing songs and basking in your worship reminds me of what it feels like to do what I was created for. It strangely brings me comfortably to foundations I do not know much of -- like finding absolute comfort in a stranger's bed. This is where I belong. This is where I was meant to roll around in joy all along.

In 2010, may I approach you ever boldly in prayer with an unrelenting faith in it. May I sing worship to you in awesome wonder and love.

hush

I didn't want to say because I didn't want one to think that it would change me. It does not. I am still who I am, and I have neither grown more humble nor proud. Talking about it only makes me uncomfortable because I see how one perceives me changes -- both for good and bad. Public perception and status sucks. I don't want more or less of your respect because of what happened. So hush I will be because I have this thing inside of me that wants to prove to all that it does not change me. Only Christ does.

I feel as if lately I have been getting disappointed in so many things. I realized disappointment for me often happens when I feel like I am in a place of 'right'... so to speak. A sense of righteousness and entitlement almost goes hand in hand with my disappointments. So, when I do feel disappointed, I often have to remind myself to step back, think, understand, and love. Yet, in a way unknown to me, I feel like I've lost this ability or more so, lost the drive to will this refining process in me. Why? I don't know. This whole thing makes me feel like a more bitter person.

Is it any wonder that without you, I feel darker? Without you more empty, yet less desperate? Starving, but a loss of hunger? Without you, the instinct to live disappears. Father, you know me and the depths of my hearts.  Search me and when you find me, please nourish me. Love me tender for I am still tattered and torn.

I am thankful cause I still have this urge for your intimate touch -- at least, I didn't lose that. Thank you...

resentment

i will be the first to admit that i have my own insecurities. I think everyone does.

However, people who are wholly insecure annoy the crud out of me. People who just constantly want attention annoy me too. People who are dumb and incapable also annoy me. People who are socially awkward, although usually bearable and funny, becomes really annoying when in mix with any of the three aforementioned characteristics.

Somehow, my officemate is all four.

I resent it. GAH!

"What do I know of holy?"

this song is great.

i love the lyrics:
 "I think I've made you too small, I never feared you at all. If you touched my face, would I know you; looked into my eyes, could I behold you? What do I know of you who spoke me into motion? Where have I even stood but the soil along your ocean. Are you fire or are you fury? Are you sacred, are you beautiful?

And the girl who sings it, sings with such a pleading and dismayed, yet curious and hopeful voice. It's a song that comes to grips with realizing the distance from God, but also realizing there IS a greater intimacy that she has yet to come close with but desperately longs for.

Jesus, I love you and I want you, but what do I know of holy? What do I know of you?

Trick

I pulled off the greatest heist since Ocean's 11.

A trick so well done, it is surreal.

switchfoot

switchfoot - hello hurricane.

i am in love again. i love switchfoot... 3 out of their last 4 albums (exception being 'oh! gravity' which I thought was mediocre) have been absolute rock star quality

Everyone please listen to Switchfoot - Free. Something about its melody really makes me feel like i am being freed...

I love this line:

There's a hole in the neighborhood where shadows fall
There's a hole in my heart but my hope is not in me at all
I had a dream that my chains were broken , broken, broken open

dark

The most pessimistic, negative, and darkest thing I have heard in my entire life is the quote, "You started dying the moment you were born." Or something along those lines...

Man...that is dark.

random

Everyday is a struggle to love.

I am done with my apps. Or at least a good chunk of them, and I am so relieved.

I think everyone needs to take time to look outside of themselves -- not just some time, a LOT of time.

The best way to avoid ourselves is to focus on others (this is not a good thing) -- whether it be negatively (trash talk, anger, hate) or positive (effusive praise, prayer requests, idolatry).

Accepting ourselves is essentially the same thing as asking ourselves to realize that we suck.

It's easy to ask everyone to make hard decisions when you put yourself in a position where your decision is easy.

No, it's not the truth. It's what you would like for to be the truth - your truth, your version, your angle, your way.

Don't judge too quickly. Don't really judge at all. But don't be a foolish smiley nice guy and call everyone happy people. Discern wisely at all times.

Yes, discerning people is different from judging. How? I think I know, but I am not clear enough to put it in words. Educate me if you are so clear.

I think we all play too much hide-and-seek. What do I mean? I mean that we hide ourselves and look at others too much.

The opposite doesn't exactly work either, but I do think it's better: Seek ourselves and hide others.

I think it's difficult to love people when you can't accept yourself.

Honesty is tougher, because honesty is less and less valued. The value of honesty has to be realized first before honesty takes its bold course.

without love

I need to be more gentle. Slower, warmer, and less edgy around the corners. Sometimes, I look at myself and find myself highly abrasive. I think it's indicative of my insecurities of seeming weak and unable. My heart motive for respect.

Q: How was Jesus so edgy, passionate, and confidently decisive, yet so gentle, approachable and warm?
A: He loved with a love that I cannot even begin to understand

I need to love more, and not try to change conditions and habits of mine. I am who I am, only love can affect me. What is it that 1 Cor. 13 says that I love so much? Without love, everything is just a resounding gong or a clashing of the cymbals? A resounding gong is dull, repetitive, ineffective, without meaning, and I think slightly irritating to always hear. On the other hand, a clashing of the cymbals is highly abrasive, irritating, overbearing, loud, and edgy.

And clearly, the passage was not asking to find a medium between the two, but already presenting that medium by prefacing that statement with.."without love".

I need to love. Not love more, 'cause just loving is hard enough.