songs all sound the same

I love doing this.

a few heartbreaking thoughts

Church plans Quran-burning event

It makes my heart hurt to see places called churches be so hurtful. It's so hard for me to balance understanding to what extent we need to accept "liberal" churches, and to what extent we need to condemn them. I don't know if these people are right are wrong.. In fact, if you ask me, Islam is of the devil, like they say. (I mean, what else do I believe? Everything that doesn't mesh with Christ must be of the devil). But they're not really expressing their message in a loving way. Go back five years, I would've probably celebrated the day, but now I read this article and shake my head.

I know it's important for people to know that they're sinners. Because that's part of the truth, whether we like it or not. I like to avoid that part of the message, because I like it when people like me. These people seem to be going over the top and forget what it means to be a witness:

"Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings."
- 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

On that note, reading Paul's letters always confuses the heck out of me, because I feel like half the time he talks about not judging, and the other half of the time he talks about living a holy life and judging and fleeing evil. I don't know what that means in a practical sense. And it just makes me question if all these letters are really part of God's Word, because I just can't reconcile it with some of my other thoughts.

I did hear, though, that reading the Word and praying go hand in hand... because the words in the Bible aren't magical and somehow going to pierce my heart in themselves - that's the Spirit's work. I don't pray all too much, so that probably explains a lot of my confusion. If only I could get into it like I got into working out.

"For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief."
- Ecclesiastes 1:18

At least I'm not alone?

plank

I find it funny that every time I discover something radically new about myself (usually something bad), I'll go ahead and apply it to the rest of the population in the world and start judging them. Like when I discover that I sometimes spend so much time looking for attention, suddenly everyone's blog posts, jokes, spiritual growth, words, and stories are all just reflections of their attention-seeking nature. And I'm like, why is this world so screwed up?

And I don't know why people do the things they do. Because you just don't know. But sometimes I do assume the worst in people. I know - I have a plank in my eye to get rid of first.

hmm.

I think I found the secret to the kind of music I like. Too bad I can't play the piano or I would write a mega-million dollar hit single right now.

Listen to the intro for this:



And then for this:

motives

"I'll be very personal, to give it it's sharpest point. If in the coming years I commit apostasy and fall away from Christ, it will not be because I have not tasted of the word of God and the Spirit of God and the miracles of God. I have drunk of his word. The Spirit has touched me. I have seen his miracles and I have been his instrument for a few.

But if, over the next ten or twenty years, John Piper begins to cool off spiritually and lose interest in spiritual things and become more fascinated with making money and writing Christless books; and I buy the lie that a new wife would be exhilarating and that the children can fend for themselves and that the church of Christ is a drag and that the incarnation is a myth and that there is one life to live so let us eat drink and be merry -- if that happens, then know that the truth is this: John Piper was mightily deceived in the first fifty years of his life. His faith was an alien vestige of his father's joy. His fidelity to his wife was a temporary passion and compliance with social pressure; his fatherhood the outworking of natural instincts. His preaching was driven by the love of words and crowds. His writing was a love affair with fame. And his praying was the deepest delusion of all -- an attempt to get God to supply the resources of his vanity."
- John Piper

I always have to ask myself why I do what I do.

paper planes

One thing that I'm learning from being an orientation leader is about know-it-all syndrome.

It's the pride in every man that speaks when they're unwilling to stop when they're lost and ask for directions. It's the pride in an orientee when they are asked whether they need help and they say "no." It's the pride in me that tells me that I can figure things out if I sit down and think and rationalize long enough.

There's so many a time when I ask whether a student knows where he/she is going, and I get a hesitant "yes" in response, so I leave them be. I find them 20 minutes later wandering around, looking for their destination. It's quite frustrating. If they had just simply asked at first, I would've obliged.

But it's pride that keeps them from asking. The same pride that keeps me from asking questions and says, "I'll figure it out fine." I understand why people in charge of me get frustrated at me sometimes.

I get ticked when we tell students what to do, and then they don't listen and screw up, and then blame us for it on their evaluations. I understand how professors feel now.

And I can't imagine how heartbreaking it is to God to see us play that game. What it's like for us to go 60 years of our lives trying to get through on our own, never stopping to ask for direction, feeling like He wouldn't give it to us even if we asked. I've rarely tried asking, but I figure as clueless as I am, God wants me to ask. On top of that, I never really have faith when I do ask; God isn't my only hope, He's my last resort.

I don't know it all, and I don't know why I fool myself into thinking it.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."
- Matthew 7:7

It's like paper airplanes. One of the few things I vividly remember going to my parents to ask help for was when I was making paper airplanes. I could never crease the paper accurately enough with my small hands to make sharp folds... and my planes always sucked. But I soon realized that my parents had long, nimble fingers to help with just that. And I asked my parents to make the folds every time I made paper planes. And you know what? They would always stop to help.

I have small hands, God holds the whole world in His. I don't live like I know it.

well...

The glory isn't mine. It all won't last.

king

This song's been running through my head lately. It's just a really catchy song. But it seems to be some ridiculous coincidence that there's a phrase in the chorus that goes, "Who died and made you king of anything?"

I have never heard that phrase used in regular everyday speech. But yesterday I said, "Just stay silent," to one of my friends, and someone pulled the "king" thing on me.

First thing is that I'm kind of tactless and I realize I shouldn't really ever tell someone to stay silent, but the second thing is that it just seems weird that I hear that phrase the week after this song comes out.

What's more, our Sunday sermon was all about being a king - about King David in the Old Testament. Talk about eerie coincidences (or not). Anyway, there's a passage that stuck out in particular that I've pseudo-memorized:

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
- Philippians 2:5-11

Who died and made me king of anything?

P.S. I floss everyday now.

carousel

I can see, I can feel myself
Sliding down a slippery slope
Desperately grabbing hold
Taking the hard way out

I will fall, I will slip
Not knowing there's another way
I'm blinded by the things
That haunt my dreams that I can't explain

So here it goes again
I'm spinning in slow motion
Yeah here it goes again
The carousel is turning around and around

I've lost my sense of direction so I jump
Only to find, you've been by my side

I'm so afraid what's inside of me
'Cause I don't know
To be myself would be to
Give in to a shadow

Why's it a surprise
That I'm imperfect
Again I fool my heart
Through living by my effort

You're by my side
I'm changing inside
When you're by my side

voices

"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.  We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated."
- D.A. Carson

"A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord."
- Proverbs 19:3

Voices of wisdom.