Wisdom

"My son, keep my words and store up my commands with you. Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, "You are my sister" and call understanding your kinsman; they will keep you from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words."
-Proverbs 7:1-5

I have come to the conclusion this week that though I pray daily for wisdom, I will never have it as long as I think I am becoming wise. A wise person would never claim wisdom; that would be foolish. No, a truly wise person doesn't just have the knowledge and life experience; they seek more. I don't think we will ever reach wisdom in comparison to someone like Solomon, but if we did we wouldn't know it. Being wise means you are humble. Being wise means you know your petty role. I seek wisdom, but I also seek to be like Christ. Just as we cannot achieve pure perfection as Jesus, I am skeptical we will ever achieve a maximum level of wisdom.
In my life testimony, I view it as a landscape. I have had valleys of course, and I have had mountain-like experiences. However, I can't help but think we are all going to be climbing the mountain for the rest of our life. And I think that is good. We should keep rising. We stop attaining wisdom when we plateau.
I really do want to gain wisdom in life. I have put myself in enough learning situations to be fairly wise already, but I hope I haven't missed it. Just know we may achieve a significant level of wisdom sometime in our life, but if we ever think we have become wise, we better re-evaluate. We won't ever have wisdom as long as we assume we have it.

Trees

I've been thinking a lot lately about the significance of Trees in God's Word. My first revelation (in the words of Mac Powell) directed me to the passage in Psalms 1 that speaks of us as Godly people being trees planted by streams of water, yielding fruit and prospering. How often, however, are we moreso like the tree that crucified our Savior? In other words, how much more often are we inflicting pain and even killing our Lord, than are we being content to wait on God and be planted in His Word? In my own life I have been much more like a tree of crucifixion, even more like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, causing others to stumble and being a stumbling block to my Christian friends. I have been much more eager to point out the splinter in another's eye, than to evaluate the plank in my own.
I desire to be a tree deeply rooted; unmovable with yearning for Christ and His Kingdom. I want to one day eat from the tree of life in Revelatinon 2:7 and I want to be the voice granting every ear the ability to hear of God's grace, like the passage says. Obviously, I could go much deeper and much farther with a list of metaphors like this, but the point I hope to drive home, is that we can choose what type of life we want to lead, or what tree we decide to be. Let us focus on God first and being deeply rooted in Him, seeking to lead others to His Tree of Life.

Is He Not Enough?

I've been reading in the first chapter of First Samuel for the last few days since a friend and I were discussing it's context. In the passage, Elkanah has two wives. Hannah was one of Elkanah's wives and was barren, whereas his other wife had ten children. Elkanah loved Hannah very much and even showed favoritism towards her, but she still became distraught because of her inability to have children, and her rival's abrading. Hannah wept and and starved herself year after year; making herself sick all because she was yearning for children so heavily. In verse 8, however, Elkanah questions Hannah, asking why she is weeping, why she is starving herself, and why is she so sad? He asks her: "Am I not more to you than ten sons?"
Questions to think about: Why do we wail about our cares, yet seem perfectly content with a world of lost pagans going to Hell? Is our God, who sent His Son to die a tragic demoralizing death for our sin and rose him from that same grave, not more to us than our own cares? And why do we moan and drag about crying about our desires if we have already deemed our situations hopeless?
Honestly, to the first two questions, I would say that we really don't care. Especially not to the point we should. According to the most recent statistics I found on Christianity (2006), 33% of the world's population called themselves Christians. I actually think that is probably high for the actual percentage of true Christians, but either way, that means that some 67% remains unaccepting of Christ's atonement. We were commissioned in Matthew to do a crucial job, and frankly we haven't done it. Actually, I think if it weren't a conversation piece like this blog, we wouldn't even think anything of our downfalls. We just don't care. That is no way for you and I to treat a friend that sticks closer than a brother; no way at all.
Finally, in response to my last question, I think we have given up hope. We give up hope on praying for sustenance, our needs, and our desires. Truly, I'm afraid we may have given up on pursuing that 67% with the salvation of Christ. I hope that is not the case, but if it be, let us dry our eyes today and start pursuing a common goal in Him.

Reminder

Lately, I have been failing in the regularity of my posts because of two consecutive Chrysalis walks and the preparation for those. (Which went amazingly, if you were wondering.) Anyways, God has shown me many cool things in the last couple weeks that I can't wait to share, but today is less of a scripture reference and more of a generalized thought. It seems many of us have lazily allowed parts of the salvation story to "slip through the cracks." We rarely fail to appreciate the death and suffering of Christ for our life everlasting, but we try to keep Him in the grave. He rose. The anomalous reality is that Christ lived a perfect life, was fully human while fully God, walked among thieves and tramps, and died for our sake, then he rose again. I think we all get caught up in the death of Christ which took on our shame, but even more miraculous is the fact that He lives now!
It is my desire to show people the relevance of this part of the story, because any man could have died, only one could rise from the grave. Look at the world today through this lense; one that doesn't skew our salvation and doesn't inhibit the true accomplishment of Christ.

Convincing Stuff

So it has been a while since I have gotten to connect with the blogging world (mainly because of a weekend away at a Young Adult Chrysalis walk), and I feel so inspired and overwhelmed by Jesus Christ. I have been reminded repeatedly in the past few days of one of my favorite verses, Romans 8:28, and it's validity and power. It says "and we know all things work together for good for those who love the Lord, and are called according to His purpose." Simple enough, right? Well, if we take out the word "all" and replace it with "some" or even "most" then it becomes simple. However, for some reason that word "all" seems to trip us up. We can make all the good things that happen to us fit in the verse easily, we can even take the initial bad situations that turn good fit in, but we can't seem to make sense of the terrible things that don't seem to have a favorable foreseen outcome.
I was reminded this weekend on that Chrysalis walk of the power of Romans 8:28. As I shared my story of how I was deep in my own transgressions and squandering everything God had given me to the point I wanted to give up on life, I felt a little apprehensive, maybe even a little embarrassed by my honesty. However, I was told time and time again after my talk about how God was using me and how my story had helped someone else. I received even more confirmation when a girl told me yesterday that my story was so similar to hers she felt like she was standing there with me. I didn't want to share my past, and my past may not even be as bad as some, but I did, and God's promise in Romans paid dividends.
It makes me think of one more trying time of my life when I lost one of my dearest friends in a car accident not even a year out of high school. It was one of the toughest times of my life, but it also healed a massive amount of pain I had been concealing. I even marked and highlighted a verse in one of my good friend's Bible I gave him. (he was family to my friend that passed) Can you guess the verse I marked? Romans 8:28.
We know that God doesn't make empty promises, so let us try to live today and every day henceforth with joy knowing it will all work out.

Dreams

When I was a little boy I wanted to sing music all my life. That was most certainly going to be my career no matter what. Some other kids wanted to be firefighters, doctors, astronauts, etc. I just wanted to sing. I don't know if it's the kid still in me with childish ambition or what, but I still just want to play music. I could do other things, sure, but they don't feel right to me and I feel like if I only have one life on this planet, I should get to do what I love with my life. Not for money's sake or so I can be famous, I just want to be able to support myself (and possible family), and I want to make music that helps people through the day. I don't think I should have to let that go.
Don't assume I just think I am privileged; I don't. I think everyone should enjoy every breath they have on this great big ball. Sadly, I have wasted many of my breaths thus far in life worrying and mulling "what if's." There wouldn't really be a problem with world of everyone doing what they actually wanted to do would there? Sure, it would look different than our current world, but not necessarily bad. We would still have people in all sorts of positions. Some things don't even interest the average "fella" that I enjoy and vice versa. I just would like to see everyone like that for one day; in a niche that they absolutely loved. Maybe that would turn more people to know Christ even; to be grateful for all their blessings. I don't know, I'm just a dreamer like any other dreamer who hasn't given up hope on this world yet. I don't think anyone deep within their being really wants to hurt another human either if there weren't a trigger in their past somewhere. Call that being naive if you will, but it's practicality to me. One of the many definitions for being naive is having sincerity anyway, so maybe my naiveness isn't such a terrible thing anyway.
Remember we can do all things through Christ as we see in Phillipians 4:13. The Bible isn't a fictional novel, it's an absolute truth that was very intentionally written. That verse wouldn't be in there if it were not true. So, if you're an irrational dreamer like myself, lets take that chance, and trust in God to make it happen.

Balance

Something struck me this morning; a thought that I haven't been able to move from my mind since. It seems to me that somewhere in each person's existence there is a line drawn. An imaginary line of course, but nevertheless, there is a a discrepancy between one's humility and self worth. It seems we are closest to God when we are humbled, even broken, and yet God wants us to also know we are special individual creations crafted by His hand. This makes questions pop up uninvited and on their own will in my mind. I have questions like: is there actually a line between the two, or are they two completely different sectors of a person that are sufficient parts all by themselves? Also, if there is such a line, is it different for different people, or is there a specific dosage of humility and pride in a person required by our Creator?
I honestly don't have the answers to these questions, but I can't help but brood over them again and again in my mind. When I stand to sing in front of hundreds of people about my Savior, I want the worship to be entirely focused on Jesus, but can I honestly say I don't let applause boost my own esteem on occasion? No, I cannot. Part of the problem is we are all human. Well, in actuality, I guess that is more like most of the problem instead of part. Regardless, we all have something inside us that wants to be recognized for doing something right whether we admit it or not. We all might want to donate a hundred bucks to a local charity, but deep down inside we want someone to know we did it, too. However, the pendulum swings just as far the other way. We can't allow ourselves to become so caught up in our own depravity that we forget we are beloved children of God on high. Hence, we must find a balance. Where that balance is, perhaps none of us mere mortals truly know.
Take a look at 2 Samuel 9 sometime and read about a guy named Mephibosheth. I'm not 100% sure, but I think God can answer all those aforementioned questions with this story. Mephibosheth was the son of Jonahan, and was crippled. He felt unworthy, and even called himself a "dead dog." However, as a token of appreciation for Jonathon, David had Mephibosheth eat at his table like royalty. In a similar way we were (and still are) unworthy, but thankfully God sees us as friends of Christ. And as a token of His appreciation for Christ's sacrifice, we no longer must lay limp on the floor, yet get to rise to sit at the king's table, where our crippled legs are not even visible.

2010

Well, it's a new year.
A new year means new possibilities, new challenges, and new people in my life. As ready as I am to leave 2009 behind as the worst year-to-date for me probably, I am curious where a new year will lead me. Everything I have posted thus far has been related to things I've been mulling over myself or I have struggled with. The biggest thing I am analyzing over the last 24 hours is my life thus far. I have lived for at least part of three decades now and it really hit me hard that I will be in my thirties at the end of this decade. What's the worst for me is not that I have messed up so much in my life, because that is irrefutable. The biggest problem is I have been on the planet so long and I don't have anything to show for it. I am not speaking material pleasures, or physical assets; I simply can't think of how I have positively affected anyone enough to make a difference. I want to be a difference maker; a crusader for everything that should be right in the world, and I want to be known as a stand-up guy that had passion. So many acquaintances of mine are content with their lives to live in the small town, settle down, and have a decent job. I have always wanted more for my life. Not saying those things aren't okay; they're just not me.
My hope is that I won't just say I want to change the world and spend the next ten years repeating an empty statement.
In my first 21 years I have been, at least at times, complacent, depressed, abundantly sinful, cynical, and even cruel. I know that's harsh, but it's an unfortunate truth for most of us as human beings and Christians. I'm not proud of my past but I want to be proud of my future. I can't help but to think of Revelation 3:2a which says: "Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die." Strong words given to a generation of people that feel like I do: spend the next decade living, not putting off death.