The words of Job.

when I sing...

Thu, 02 May 2013 13:36:01 -0700

I’m dancing a fine tightrope, teetering on the edge between chaos and melody, frolicking in and out between explosive, ecstatic joy and thoughtful, brooding contemplativeness. It’s like drifting, between losing oneself and maintaining sanity.

bad poetry.

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 01:33:54 -0700

Ohh how I hate being stuck in the present… where progress is nowhere to be found and joy is a lifetime away.

I pine for the past, it’s sepia-toned nostalgia… maybe it’s the more recent past that grinds at my bones… the kind of carefree existence that is unsaddled by stresses and guesses, only a future as bright as the clean presses that printed news for a bygone day.

I yearn for the future, that big ol’ unanswerable colossus. What do you have up ahead? What’s coming? What’s on the way? What won’t make it there? What’s the dealio, oh future?

But we are here, some way, some how. And I suppose we’re to make the best, of where we are now.

Good night.

"It is finished."

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:49:00 -0700

First:

Second: Thoughts.

“Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer.”

Perhaps that is the beauty of Grace. That He takes away our need to answer for our sins. His answer for us is grace. We are washed clean: fully and utterly clean and pure and secure, without blemish.

“But this, I know with all my heart, I know that it is finished.”

“It is finished.” - John 19:30

With those words, sin was broken forever. Our wounds were healed. Our wretchedness was awful, but is now no more.

He has taken every stain and wiped them all clean with an awesome, cosmic Tide stain remover. We have been given a clean slate. As the heart ponders this impossible idea, the soul begins to quietly rejoice… not quite with jubilance as of yet. It is the rejoicing of one who has been dead to sins, gingerly rising, stretching cracked bones, shaking off the rust and dust… like one who has dwelt in dark caves for many years, who slowly crawls into the light and squints at the brilliance.

And then, Joy. Boundless joy, only to be found for one owing an immeasurable debt, forgiven. Completely. Wholly. Unconditionally.

This is Amazing Grace. This is Unfailing Love.

not made with hands.

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:35:23 -0700

“For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens… so whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.” - 2 Corinthians 5:1 and 9

——-

Years ago, one of my favorite movies was the Civil War history drama “Gods and Generals.” One of the more impactful moments for me as a 13-14 year old was this scene, in which Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson reads 2 Corinthians 5 with his wife, his “esposita,” Mary Anna Jackson.

I remember feeling emotional, like a part of the soul I didn’t know existed yet was knocking at my heart, saying “hi! I exist!” Today, for some reason, that verse came back to my mind and is currently wrecking me. I now know why I felt that small tug years ago.

Here’s a quick background to set the context for this clip, though. The 4-year bloodbath, the most mortal conflict ever fought on American soil, was on the verge of boiling over. Jackson, loyal to his home, Virginia and the South, was about to head out to war. Before leaving, he read this verse with his wife. I’m not sure this happened in real life, and it’s been quite a few years since I fostered my Civil War-era nerd-ssession, so I can’t confirm that I’ve read of this singular moment. But that is besides the point.

Check it out. War is bloody, messy, and offers no guarantees of survival, even for high-ranking officials such as Stonewall. For wives who had to stay behind like Anna Jackson, there was very little solace to be had in human wisdom. It was more likely than not that Anna knew her husband would not return the same way he had left, if ever at all. But this verse offered what little comfort could be had for the Jacksons.

These bodies we live in are not forever. They are temporary, and can be destroyed. But thank the Lord above that we are not tied to this earthly abode. We toil, groan, fight, and claw while here on earth, but our hope and our sights are for a place we’ve known all our lives, yet have never really known – a place “not made with hands.” Sometimes, that part of our soul we hardly remember is there awakens and says, “Hi! I exist!” And we realize more and more each time that we’re designed for greater glory, and greater purpose, not fashioned by human designs but by the Divine.

And yet, until that day comes, we are entrusted with the here and now: The Present. That’s why they call “now” a “present.” You know, it’s a gift. We are gifted with an ability to feel, to experience joy and delight, and to love. And amidst pain, we are gifted with Hope.

We fight. We sit still in peace. We build where God has placed us, and move when he moves us. “So whether we are at home or away,we make it our aim to please him…”

And until the day when “what is mortal may be swallowed up with life,” we continue on. On and on and on.

heading home.

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:32:38 -0700

Ever driven with the windows down?

Ever been brushed by the wind’s soft-swaying crown?

The California sun is creeping lower, over the hills

we’re heading home, heading towards the evening still

my little friend, the bird.

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:12:45 -0800

I was walking on a trail the other day. It’s a normal-ish trail, except for the fact that it was made of pavement. But it did crawl through some of the hills in my town, which is aptly named Chino Hills. While it was warm and sunny out, it was also a rather blustery day. So as I walked through the hills on this blustery day, I came across a little bird.

This bird was having a heck of a time flying against the strong wind. I saw him hanging in the air, just staying put… like he was stuck. As he hung there, he began to flap his wings, but the winds kept pinning him back, until he finally had to come back down to the ground to regain some strength. Soon, he began to fly again… or attempt to. Again, he was stuck, hanging in the air in suspended animation. He flapped furiously, but seemed to be making no headway.

Finally, he began to dip and fly back up. Now, I’m not so sure about the mechanics or science of bird flight, but he began to make progress! Slowly but surely, dipping up and down again, he began to slice through the harrowing wind and fly further.

He kept at it, but had to fly back down to the ground again – the wind appeared to be far too strong for him. But as I walked away from that little scene, I had little doubt in my mind that my new feathery friend would fly back up and try again, dancing about in the wind, making headway here, sinking back down there. Yes, I’d say it looked like a dance.

I couldn’t help but identify with the bird a little bit. Many times throughout my life, I’ve felt like I was flapping furiously against the wind, struggling towards the great lights of progress, only to get beat down again. I’m sure I’m not unique, either. But maybe the key for us, is that we try to be like my little friend the bird, and adapt to what the winds of life throw at us. We dip through little highs and little lows, sometimes needing to sink back down to the bottom of who we are before rising up and trying again. Perhaps true progress requires navigating the lows and the highs. Perhaps life is all about dancing in the wind.

calling.

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:15:00 -0800

I want to talk about a little thing called calling. There are several meanings for the word “calling.” For one, the word “calling” represents an event in which one person calls another person via a thing called the telephone. For another, the act of “calling” involves yelling at a person to come over. Also, when someone finds their “calling” in life, they engage with it and move forward.

But the funny thing is, almost every meaning for the word “calling” involves a conversation. When you call someone, you talk to them. When you yell at someone, you’re also talking to them. When you look for your calling in life, you’re having an inward dialogue with yourself or with a higher being or power. Whatever.

The results of that conversation would naturally inform your next step. After your conversation with your friend, you hang up and go on with your life; whether the conversation went well or went badly decides how you go on with life. When you yell at someone, I suppose your next step would be to punch him in the face or give him a big hug. (I don’t say “her” because punching girls in the face is wrong, and giving girls hugs is un-Christian. Just kidding.) But the manner in which you call to that person will determine how your interaction with him goes. And, once you wrestle with God or your inner self, and decide to act on your calling, you move forward and do it.

All of that to say, I want to talk about a little thing called calling. The God-wrestling, inward dialogue kind of calling. I’m of the persuasion that God tells us to do things, and we decide whether to do these things or not. The people who normally do what God tells them to do change the world, and the ones who don’t, don’t.

But how do we know if what we hear is God or our inner thoughts? Are we having that inner dialogue with our heart or with our God? I suppose I don’t know the answer to this, which explains this rambling, poor excuse of a note thing.

——-

James Goll, a preacher who came and talked to me a couple weeks ago about stuff, just tweeted this 15 minutes ago:

“We can no longer afford to hear the urgent word of the Lord and walk away passively.”

——-

James Goll looks like this:

——-

I like James Goll. He looks a little like Santa Clause. I half expected him to bring out a sack of presents and give his books away. But he didn’t. He just put his books on a table and signed autographs.

But he spoke something to me that made me think; without going into detail, he said a few things about God’s plan for my life that sounded very similar to the words another guy told me a few months back. James and that other guy don’t know each other. James and that other guy didn’t and probably don’t still really know me. But they said the same thing to me about God’s plan and calling in my life.

I don’t like confusion. It bugs me. I hate not knowing. But sometimes, God makes things clear in our lives in a way that makes all confusion unnecessary. The frequency with which he reveals things might be overwhelming, but probably shouldn’t be ignored. If your baby wakes you up in the middle of the night, he/she won’t stop crying until you address him/her. I’m not saying God is like your baby, but I suppose he was a baby once. But I also suppose God will keep telling you what to do until you do it; he keeps telling me what my calling is through James Goll and that other guy, and that one girl before him, and that other guy.

But I hate confusion. I hate it so much that I confuse myself all the time. Don’t confuse yourself. It’s bad.

So I guess I was supposed to talk about this little thing called calling. I don’t know what your calling is. I’m still figuring mine out.

So… I guess you should just pray and maybe God will send Santa to come and tell you what to do.

"But, Grace."

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:32:10 -0800

Luke 15:11-24.

He has restored everything. I feel as though I am a new creation… still fundamentally flawed, and yet no longer guilty of said flaws. Still sinful, but also washed clean, like a beautiful, glorious contradiction. A counterfeit soul, and yet genuinely made whole.

And it’s all because God said, “But, Grace.”

new Switchfoot song is awesome.

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:07:28 -0700

new Switchfoot song is awesome.

finally playing with the D600. she’s a beauty. #vscocam...

Sat, 27 Oct 2012 12:02:08 -0700

finally playing with the D600. she’s a beauty. #vscocam (at Anaheim)

silly.

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 22:50:20 -0700

I feel my knees weaken and my soul stir. My heart rate increases just a little, and I pause to notice that this calm song can do such to me.

I can only think of this: How great is the love of Christ. “Be still and know that I am God.”

I try to sit still. Out of my hands, my worries are; for the moment, they are abated. And this stillness is filling me with ecstatic joy. Trials may come, pain is on the way, but I can brag and boast that I have the Creator on my side. Why would I ever be afraid? silly.

/Thoughts for a quiet Monday.

life-goal.

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 20:58:37 -0700

“He is to be glorified, magnified, and served! A Christian’s life should be CONSUMED with this purpose. It ought to be your everything. It ought to be the reason you run. The reason you rise in the morning. Not just for your Sunday soul, but your permanent, all-encompassing life-goal.”

Quote:

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 12:24:05 -0700

“We’re caught up in the mysterious symphony of life: listening for the hook, looking for the melodious phrases that might somehow bring meaning to the dissonance and the blue notes of our lives.” - Jon Foreman

——-

Quote machine, that Foreman character.

“I’ll show you a place… where there’s no...

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 02:49:21 -0700

“I’ll show you a place… where there’s no sorrow or pain… where the streets have no name.”

Quote:

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 22:38:48 -0700

“I write songs about things I don’t understand: God, girls, mathematics…” - Jon Foreman

“Lincoln - Unite” goosebumps.

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 00:03:11 -0700

“Lincoln - Unite”

goosebumps.

faith.

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:53:52 -0700

“Don’t just look back and see God’s faithfulness. Look forward and have the faith to see it in the future as well!” - Dr. Klink

sleep-driving.

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:59:25 -0700

I grip the wheel a little harder, fighting off the haze that threatens to cloud my vision. It’s been a long day, and as I drive home, my struggle against sleep is starting to waiver. It’s a contradiction, really. While Eddie James bombastically sings, “I wanna shout louder than before!! Freedom, freedom!” , I find that sleep starts to handcuff my senses, pushing me on towards the edge of unconsciousness, sleep-driving towards oblivion.

What jars me awake is a thought: perhaps we travel through life half asleep. And as I begin to ponder this, Switchfoot’s lyric “Maybe we’ve been living with our eyes half open” begins to make sense all anew. And as I drive my two ton scrap of metal on wheels further towards home, I begin to realize that maybe, just maybe, our life is like this car.

Every time we get inside a vehicle, we are putting a huge amount of responsibility in the hands of a machine that, at any minute, could combust. Likewise, the air we breathe is just as fleeting: at any moment, we could draw our last breath, our heart could beat for one final time, and then, eternity is upon us. LIFE is a gift, and yet, we oftentimes take it for granted.

I know I do. Every good thing in this life comes from above, a gift from the heavens, and yet I find myself dismissing it as a coincidence. Imagine receiving a thoughtful present from your best friend, only to spit all over it, stomp on it for a few minutes, grab a baseball bat and smash it a little more, than hurl the now maimed present straight into your friend’s jugular. That is me on a daily basis. God, why am I not as talented as “so and so?” Why do I not have enough patience? Why can’t I get my camera to focus on anything? Surely you could’ve given me more skill? Why can’t I sing? Why can’t I dance? What good am I for?

And yet, I’ve got every opportunity to wake up in the morning, thankful that another day has arrived. Thankful for another sunrise. Thankful that for one more day, grace has allowed us all to breathe another breath, take another step, and yes, drive another 100 miles. How can we live our lives, directionless, when we’ve got at least everything to be thankful for?

How can we stumble through life in mediocrity when we possess such great blessings? This automobile known as Life is a huge responsibility; I want to do more with it than just sleep-drive.

moon.

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 21:29:23 -0700

I roll out the trash cans. This has become part of the weekly Sunday night routine since I stopped living at school. It’s a mundane task, and it’s not the highlight of the day by any means. The sky is dim, but still has some of the bluish hue that characterizes daytime… but the one thing I notice on this late-summer evening is the moon.

Yes, the same moon I see every night, but for some reason, it dawns on me this night how amazing that moon is. So… God decided to use this giant ball of rock and somehow reflect the sun’s light in order to illuminate our nights here on earth? Not to mention the fact that it’s located at just the right distance from the earth so as not to cause gravitational deficiencies or excesses? Simply amazing.

Tonight, it is half-lit, giving it that yin-and-yang appearance that is familiar, and yet altogether mysterious. It makes me think of how appropriate a picture this is of God’s crazy-awesomeness: on the one side, it’s bright and brilliant, a small taste of the Glory of our Creator. On the other side, it is dark and shrouded in enigma.

God reveals himself to us in amazing ways, and yet our human minds will never quite understand it all. Mind-blown.

Good night, moon.

born.

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:36:51 -0700

“Do we choose to be born? Or are we fitted to the times we were born into?”

From Spielberg’s “Lincoln” movie.