Pittsburgh

Some of you may not know that I am a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Well, I am, and I am not a happy one...the game I just finished watching where they played against Arizona was possibly one of the most pathetic attempts at Defense on the Steelers' behalf I have possibly ever seen. After Palomalu left, everything fell apart. Combine that with some absolutely trash offensive drives by Roethlesburger & Parker and what you get is a loss like what they just suffered. Why the heck did Troy Palomalu leave so early? If he was injured, why was he pacing on the side lines with his helmet on half the time? And, finally, why does the Steelers have so many players with funny last names that I don't quite know how to spell?

Thankfully, they didn't thoroughly embarrass themselves, and manage to close their loss to only a 7 point difference.

Anyway, back to my regularly scheduled Geology lab...

Let God Invade Your World

You know, my experiences in the past few weeks academically have really thrown me for a loop. As damage control, I tried my best to put my "spiritual life" in a different category from my "academic or 'real' life", so that my personal problems wouldn't affect my ministry work.

No wonder I've been so messed up this past month!

One thing that seems to happen to me and I am sure happens to some of you is that we let the world invade our "spiritual life", our relationship with God. Or, if we can see that will be a problem, we separate God from our "real world" to avoid letting bad things leech into our spiritual life and as a result don't let Him out to change things.

We should be doing the reverse. I should be letting my relationship with GOD invade my world. When I feel stupid as I'm beating my head against Geology lab work, I should let the truth of how much I am loved and valued drive out dark thoughts of inferiority. When I feel overwhelmed as I try to juggle an endless onslaught of Chinese homework with imposing Geology labs, work study, ministry, and Lord knows what else, I need to let my knowledge that God will care for me as he cares for the sparrows invade my life. When I feel lonely, I need to let the knowledge that I am loved by the Most High invade my heart.

We KNOW so many things about what God thinks about does, and does for us. But to we take it to HEART? Do we let it come true in our lives?

I try so hard to fight back against problems. But this much is true: The battle is the Lord's. It's time to let the Lord fight back for me. I want God to invade my life completely. Will you let him invade yours?

Action and Reaction

I noticed a peculiar pattern in how I view the way I communicate with people.

For me, it's more like "the reaction is up to the other person" not "my action automatically will cause a reaction in another person, so I should walk on eggshells". A friend of mine once had an argument with me about this issue; I believe that, for example, if someone punched me in the face, I have every right to be angry about it and that there is nothing wrong with it.

My friend proceeded to argue that actually I had a choice whether to be angry or not. And that, ultimately, I should choose not to be angry that somebody hit me, because my religion dictates that I deal with people with grace and love, not anger and hate. I told him that it's pretty hard to make the choice not to be angry right then and there. He told me that when somebody does something to you, the "ball is in your court, and you have to choose what you're going to do with it, regardless of what the other person has done." I may have a right to choose to be angry, but should I allow myself to be such in light of what I believe?

But instead of applying this good lesson to myself, I applied it to all Christians and expected them to react with love and grace even though I do not. Hence me telling people the truth without love. It's the lazy way out. When I wrote a letter to my dad about my beliefs, I spent days on it and had people read it to see if it would be provoking in a bad way. I never do such things when communicating with Christian brothers and sisters.

So in other words, I've been punching people in the face and expecting them to smile about it and give me a pat on the shoulder. It's actually a pretty funny image, but the fact that I'm actually doing that figuratively is not a good thing. There may come a point where someone I communicate to in this poor way may not be able to handle what I say gracefully.

Ah. I just thought of something. I realized that I only "say" dumb, angry, hurtful things when I write. My Dad did a great job of conditioning what I say to people, and that isn't too much of a problem for me. But I never conditioned myself how to write, and therefore I never did control myself in quite the same way as a writer. Looking back now, a lot of my essays of argumentation came laden with warnings from my instructors about using demeaning language meant to personally attack the other person/idea instead of focusing on the point. The way I write was distracting people from the main point of the essay.

Well, at least I'm getting somewhere.

Like a Diamond

I am not clay. Far from it. I am diamond. Formed under unimaginable pressure and made of that which is as common as charred firewood and ash or your very exhaling breath. Like a diamond, I am filled with fire at my core that emanates out. And, like I diamond, I am transparent, and people can see right through me. And, like a diamond, I am without value, even for saw blades, unless I am cut in the right way.

When God shapes me, it isn't like a potter shaping clay, but a jeweler cutting a diamond, the hardest substance known to man. Because I am a stubborn man who does change shape easily. The good news, though, is that like a diamond, I do not lose my shape once I am cut. I do not take steps backwards and be what I was. I do not break under pressure (except that which God applies, which can crush anything). I do not lose my loyalty when I have been shaped. And I am being shaped by the greatest jeweler there ever was.

Compliments vs. Thanks

The Thought Engine is roaring at full speed today. Here is another thing that has been on my mind since last night, when I was acting Roadie for the IVCF Skit/Gift night.

First, let me start with a definition (this is my definition, I don't have a dictionary handy):

Complement v/n: a comment made form one person to another indicating that the recipient has not only met the standard, but that they have exceeded the standard and have done better than what was expected or required.

Thanks v/n: An expression of gratitude for an effort made, regardless of its quality or inherent value.

On Compliments:

I have a couple of problems with them. The first is that they are often done out of flattery, and flattery is absolutely useless to me. The second problem is that one person's idea of what is extraordinary and above the standard does not always align with what another person's idea of what is above the standard. The third is that I hate when they are done in a public manner, because they feel...patronizing. If someone were to seriously sit down with me and compliment what I have done, then that is different. My gripe is about public compliments.

As an example, I remember someone complemented me for "being brave" and stuff like that when I went up to read poetry (probably because I sometimes stammer or screw lines up, and so they think that me going up there is an act of bravery because I sound like somebody who is terrified of public speaking). I don't give a crap about whether I'm brave or not, that's besides the point. I didn't go up on stage to be "brave" I went up there to read my poem and get the point across! I went there because God called me to, and I need to be sure that I did a good job doing it. So telling me I was brave isn't helping me do a good job.

And, I have to admit, I do appreciate complements on what I create itself. It is my hope that perhaps in the future I will be able to do things that are worthy of compliments. Given how high I set the standard for myself, I doubt that time will ever come. I guess what I mean to say is that I use how I am right now as the standard. So if I do a great guitar lick on stage, I would consider that compliment worthy because I have never done it before. Now that the bar is raised, I wold expect no compliments if I did it again. I don't compare myself to people other than me.

I guess my point is, unless I have done something you deem truly extraordinary, do not compliment me out of hand in public. Compliment me because I did something that moved you or because you thought it was awesome, and compliment me in private, because the most honest, flattery-free kind of compliments are done where no one else can see. If something as easy as moving boxes is awesome to you...you must be easily impressed, in which case you should come listen to me play guitar sometime. I'll have a small following of groupies in no time :D

Really, I think the only person that deserves public complements and praise is God. Because God does the impossible every day. So if you are about to give me some kind of public praise...praise God instead.


On Criticism:

If there is one great thing about criticism, it is that it is never flattering, so it can be done publicly or privately, though doing it publicly is humiliating on the part of the recipient of criticism. I take pride in my work, and so I value constructive criticism above all things, because it helps me do my job better. If you are telling me things which will help make me do my job better, please, by all means speak up. Nobody criticized me for how I moved stuff, because that's a pretty hard job to mess up *smiling* but if they did, I would try to do it better. But I would no more want someone to tell me "You move boxes great!" publicly anymore than I would want them to say "You suck at moving boxes" publicly.


On to Thanks.

I see thanks as being different. "Thanks" means that the person was happy that you did something regardless of what it was and doesn't imply that you are somehow great or exceeding the standard. What it means is that the person sees that you care and did something. Thanks is something I am willing to accept, even if I was only doing some basic thing. Some people have thanked me, like Grace, Mitch, and Jen (for some reason...). I greatly appreciate this and take it to heart. I like it when I am recognized for what I have done without it being glorified, flattered, or patronized with unnecessary or public complements.

I feel it is also easier for me to remain humble when given thanks instead of complements.

So, for those I in turn thank people for their thanks. Thank you for having something for me to do for the kingdom, even if it was only something as rudimentary as moving mics and speakers around. It is my hope that someday, I will be able to do even more.

Another Lesson in Humility

Consider me thoroughly chastened.

I need to take a serious look at how I react to people, and a good dose of humility is in order. Apparently, what I desire (love), and what I am capable giving of are two monumentally different things.

You all have my formal, no-BS apology. I am sorry for any emotional distress or wasted time my comments have incurred. I have recently been...enlightened...that I am apparently one heck of a "Type A" personality who does not like to be wrong and who does not seem to be capable of communicating in a right way. So I am sorry for my inability to properly communicate what I mean.

One thing God keeps telling me that I really, really don't like:

"Get used to being on the receiving end of Grace. A lot. Because you say dumb stuff that makes people angry, which due to the fact that you love me, means you eventually feel convicted about it and either have to humble yourself or destroy your relationship with that person, and since you care about people (because you care about my command to love people), you have to humble yourself, and when you humble yourself, you are putting yourself in a position where you are relying on the other person's ability to dispense Grace from Me."

And there's no arguing with God.

Hilarious

Today, while doing Chinese homework, and up to my hairline (which isn't high per se, but definitely higher than my eyeballs) in Geology labs to do, I was watching a Strong Bad email on Homestarrunner.com. This one episode is about someone wanting Strong Bad to write his English paper for him. Given that I'm kind of under the gun with all of this irritatingly demanding and outrageously trivial lab homework, it seemed fitting. When Strong Bad added the diagram to the kid's paper, I burst into tearful laughter for about 5 minutes, and felt inspired to share my fun moment with whoever it is that reads this thing.

Strong Bad Email # 64: "English Paper"

Enjoy. I'm not sure how funny it will be to you, but it was "the right thing at the right time" to make me laugh.

What's Causing the Thought Engine to Sputter

Right now, Academia is beating the snot out of me like a red-headed stepchild. That's OK, I'm used to rolling with the punches. It doesn't mean I like it, though.

I would also give most of my possessions and maybe a limb to know what's in store for me after school (and how I can avoid it if it's bad...) but God likes his secrets.

The loneliness thing is merely icing on the cake, really. Not nearly as much as a problem as my academic ones, because people aren't investing time and money into my love life (but lacking a love life is easy to wax poetic about, so that's what I write about most). But my grandparents and my mother have devoted themselves to the cause, and I don't want to waste anyone's time/money.

So when Chinese sucks, Structure 1 sucks, and Surficial Processes sucks, I have a serious problem on my hands. I need to know if I have picked the wrong major, am just going through a tough spot in my major, or need to man up, take the thumb out of my mouth, and do the work. My natural inclination is to pick the last one but never do it. Hooray for self-destructive thought processes.

So now you know the crux of the issue. Yes, I want to be useful, and do meaningful pursuits. I also want to do a good job. I take a lot of pride in my work. So when I'm not doing a good job, I take it personally (even if people don't accuse me or anything). In some ways, I'm still in "welding" mode. The only difference is that my work is not as tangible as a steel beam holding the roof over little kids in a new school, it's some stupid lab paper in Structure class that doesn't mean a DAMN thing.



Have you ever seen The Incredibles? It's an awesome movie. If you haven't seen it, drop what you're doing and go rent it. Right now. I'll be waiting.

...now that you're back, I was getting ready to say that I feel like Mr. Incredible after he's been forced to go underground and work a humiliating job at an insurance agency instead of going out and saving the world like he's used to. I want that feeling of doing something TANGIBLE again.

Mr. Incredible at is insurance adjusting job.

The worship ministry is a part of that need. But make no mistake, it isn't merely something to make me feel useful about myself; God's work has consistently been the most rewarding thing I have ever done. It goes beyond saying "I helped people". It is like "I helped people for a greater purpose that is so awesome I can scarcely comprehend it, and I did it for a God who is so uncompromisingly good and loving that it sends shivers down my spine to think about him".

That is awesome. I hope that maybe someday the drudgery that I do today will translate in to works for the Lord someday.

Concerts

So far this week, I have been to two concerts and plan on going to two more by next Monday...

The first was a Christian hard rock band called The Giants of Silence, who came all the way out from Indiana to rock out for Campus Crusade...they didn't have whole lot of people, and the crowd was kinda subdued, but they rocked out anyway and it was fun to watch them play and listen to them.

The second was last night at a bar called the East End Cafe. What a misleading name. Anyway, a guy in my Chinese class plays bass and backup vocals for his band...they play stuff along the lines of Green Day, The Ramones, etc. They were fun to listen to, and actually I just sat there by the stage and did Chinese homework the whole time, bobbing my head. The environment wasn't awesome, but they played very well anyway.

The next one will be this Friday, a Christian artist named Jeremy Riddle will be playing at the Vinyard Fellowship Church (formerly called Newark Christian Fellowship). Finally, there is a concert I'm going to next Monday, at the brandywine library...some dude who's good at playing guitar, I've heard, so I gotta come and see.

Rock and Roll!

Friends, Family, Brothers, Sisters,

I am sorry that I have not been present to offer encouragement. I cannot say little else for the selfish behavior on my part, as I know I have had time where I could have said something, and did not, in the case of many friends I have.

I have been through almost debilitating lows of loneliness in the past week, and I know I am not the only one who suffers. It has reached a point that while I will not allow my sorrow to make me incapable of functionality, I live in a state of sadness or expectation of it. That our Savior has suffered with us in loneliness is something that is in part comforting to me, and I hope is consoling to you. Jesus never married. He never had a girlfriend, never had a significant other. He was alone. He was born alone, to live alone, to die alone separated from the Father.

I told my friend Brady a few days ago that I couldn't imagine living that long and never having a romantic relationship. I told him I would have gone insane, because my desire for family and romantic love is so strong. Christ not only lived for 33 years as a single man, but as a single man knowing that he had no hope of having that companionship that men and women were meant to have from the beginning. Christ never had that gift and knew it would not be there for him all along. Could a mere person live with such a defined and irrefutable truth of something he would lack his whole life? That what your kind was supposed to have would never come to you?

I have a new way to be in awe of my Savior. It is that as I am now, in my sorrowful condition, Christ was his whole life on this Earth. He knew the groaning loneliness of our hearts. And unlike us, he knew that the Lord had no plans to assuage it. Christ fell at Calvary, his life a wasted ruin to the world. And yet he rose victorious as a king of all, who has triumphed over everything. Christians, too, shall rise victorious and with unmatched joy, in our own time.

We do not suffer in vain. We suffer because the Lord has called us to take up the splintered cross and follow him into the crucible. Through pain and sorrow. I have resisted sin last night, and have gained nothing for it. But Christ did not call us to resist sin so that we may have gains of our world, of our condition here, but gains in the Kingdom. That is where I know my gains must be. If my gains are bought with tears, with sleepless nights, with anguish of my soul, then so be it. I will refuse to curse the name of my Lord for lacking unnecessary love I desire. I will refuse to let my desires lead me into slaking my thirst with anything other than the living waters that have been given to me. I will refuse to let my sorrows burden others, nor my troubles cause others to stumble. My Lord hears my cry.

Come with Jesus, to the Place of the Skull, Golgotha, where he lost everything. We have lost everything already. Look at your life in earnest. What have you gained? What is there that you have that cannot be torn from your hands? What smiles do we bear that never turn downward? What will follow you beyond the veil of death? Who loves you who will not return to dust and love you no more? What fellowship do you have that will never disband? What convenient philosophies of life do you have that do not yield to the relentless advance of mortality? If all things we can have here fall out of our hands and wither away regardless of what WE do, let us forget about trying to gain them back and look toward our Lord's victory at hand.

Though I walk in pain, I will not turn aside.

Eternity looms, and there is a knock at your door. Answer, and let the Lord enter.

Living Up To My Imaginary Image

Well, I played my second gig at SNA tonight...I played electric guitar publicly for the first time, and it went pretty well, except that I rock out so hard that my string broke and I had to drop out 2/3 of the way through the show. What can I say? It was probably good anyway, 'cause I was totally showing Brian up...naw, I'm totally messin', if you're reading this Brian, you rock man. There's no way we could run SNA without you (or Liz)!

I'll have to post a picture of Brian and/or Liz some time. Both kinda came out of the blue this summer, and have been instrumental in keeping SNA afloat for the past few months. I am immensely thankful for their input, insight, and efforts in this service, and couldn't possibly overstate their part in it (and wouldn't dare understate it). You both are truly a blessing, and help make it a joy to serve the Lord and His people in worship.

Some Proverbs seem apt:

"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." 17:17
"The pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel" 27:9

The Hamburg Diet

Burgers burgers burgers burgers! If I eat any more hamburgers, cheeseburgers, or any derivative of these this week, I am going to turn into a cow. Given my current "thumb exercise" regimen of video games, that is becoming more and more likely.

Leadership Redux

It's about a week since I've taken over leadership of the SNA worship team with Brian. I also played my first gig tonight at SNA...I played for two songs that I knew, then dropped back onto playing the djembe. Graham, the leader of SNA, said it was (spiritually speaking) the best SNA worship time in a long while, which is saying something because there has been a spirit of...I don't know how to put it other than slothfulness or depression in the worship, and last night was radically different. It reflects the new policy Brian and I have implemented where we are going to focus on playing upbeat, faster songs that will keep people's heads up. So far, it seems to be working. Brian's exhortations of prayer and thanks to the Lord were also spot on.

This coming Friday, our worship team will establish 20 songs that we will practice and get to know so that we are all on the same page in our worship. We already have three that we have voted in, so that helps narrow things down a bit.

I have to thank the Lord for being such a blessing, that I have been given the talent that I have and that I am growing daily in my ability to play. This past week was, overall, a pretty ugly week. My bike was stolen, I haven't been performing up to par in my Chinese class, and I have been overwhelmed by feelings of loneliness. Last night, it all of the darkness swallowing me up withered before God's glory.

As one of the songs our team played last night says: "How can I keep from singing?"