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
"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
"You can't score if you don't shoot."
- David Yang
My LCG said this profound thing today. It's awesome because I think about this a lot. I'm so afraid of missing that I don't actually take a shot. But that just means I'm never gonna score. Plus, there's no room for faith.
"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
- Hebrews 12:2
As Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith, he redeems those shots.. Both the ones we make and the ones we miss.
I walked by the Starbucks on South U today, only to see a sign that said "Wi-Fi Unavailable." Nothing out of the ordinary, except someone had crossed out with black Sharpie "Wi-Fi" and had written "Water" instead. The sign read "Water Unavailable." Below it, also in Sharpie, was written: "We cannot make any bevrages at this time." (And yes, they spelled beverages wrong.)
I wanted to let the workers know about this atrocious prank (and I also wanted a caramel Frappuccino), so I walked in and told the guy at the counter. He looked at me completely seriously and said, "I know."
"You know that there's a sign on your door that says you're not serving beverages."
"Yes. I know."
"This is Starbucks. All you guys do is make drinks."
"I know."
"So why aren't you serving drinks. What does this mean, you don't have water?"
"We don't have water. The water main broke, so we can't wash our hands. So by health code regulations, we can't serve any drinks."
"So... why are you open?"
"We're selling bottled products and pastries."
This Starbucks sucks.
"Okay. I think I'm going to get a bottled mocha Frappuccino."
I picked up a luke-warm bottle.
"Oh, I think there are colder ones."
I touch all four bottles lined up. They're all the same temperature. Guy comes around counter and touches them too. He grabs one, says, "This one's the coldest."
Whatever. They're exactly the same temperature. But whatever you say.
"Okay. Thanks. I'll take that one."
What's the point of having a coffeeshop that doesn't serve coffee? It's just counterproductive, like the millions of other things that don't make sense in the world. People especially don't make sense.
You would be amazed at how awesome I am at wasting my weekend away.
The past four days were a blur. I played volleyball, tinkered with web stuff for a little bit, served at church, and played FIFA for 4 hours (by far the biggest regret of the weekend). I'm never playing FIFA for more than an hour at a time.
No, seriously. It's not just something I told my mom when I was younger. I'm being serious. No more than an hour.
So I had fun, had different opportunities and chances to take steps in the right direction and be challenged and put my faith in Him. But you know, chances go by and I remain rooted to the spot, still taken up about what people think and about little things that mess with my mind. I wish my mind weren't so complex.
I scheme a lot. Can I just have a childlike heart and a childlike faith? Just to know that the next minutes will be taken care of - that my Father is in control and He knows where I'm going even though I'm not? I don't want to have to yell "Are we there yet?" every fifteen minutes. I do, though.
"And he said: 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.'"
- Matthew 18:3
I am a weekend warrior. There's a battle over souls, and I end up giving in most days. But it's okay, right? It's slow going, but there's no knowing, that one day...
