"Humans and the understanding of the gods"

There are very few people I know who hasn't at one point or another found Greek mythology fascinating, or at least some of the creatures that have come out of the imagination of old Greek bards. Sometimes I find myself amazed by how much our culture is influenced by ancient cultures that have all but died, but that is trailing from my point.

Tonight I was thinking about how so many stories in Greek mythology that involve interaction between humanity and the gods are totally bizarre. In said stories, the deities crave worship from humans, but ultimately do not understand humans. They toy with them, trick them, fall in love with them, seek to do good for them and screw things up, or just choose to kill them. Whats interesting is that it is the fault of the "gods" that man advanced in knowledge at all. A single deity comes forth and give man the knowledge of fire, and the rest is "history" (lol).

As a Christian, I have a very different perspective on the interaction between God (note singularity) and humanity, or at least...I should.

I think it's fascinating how many times worship leaders take the time to make sure people know that "Jesus understands all of [their] pain. He's been through it all!", and yet it seems like it never really gets through to anyone. There minds and hearts are split saying that God understands, but in practicality living and praying as if He doesn't.

How is it exactly that God understands everything that we are going through? I mean, last time I checked, Jesus wasn't exactly suffering from AIDS and he didn't ever get His arm chopped off; He never had Multiple Personality Disorder. So does that statement that worship leaders make so often really hold water? For most...yes. For the shallow or spiritually immature...yes. For the normal person who grew up in church...yes. For the new believer...yes. For the "christian" that wants God to bless Him/Her and to "bring forth their harvest and just let the river of blessings flow" right into their bank account...absolutely. But for the over analytical and critical Christian like myself...not really.

Many like me would probably think "how could Jesus possibly relate to me...a young adult in the 21 century (that is what century it is right?!?!?!) in America? Well there is a simple answer to that...He's God. Duh right? We have a tendency to forget what that means I think. It means...

1. He's all-knowing
2. He's all-powerful
3. He's all-present
4. He created us.

All these are huge! But lets just focus on a couple. God knows everything, everywhere, at all times....even if it hasn't happened yet. He didn't have to be incarnated now to understand "now", but instead He understood "now" before He ever was incarnated into humanity. Why? He's God. He CREATED us. There is not a single shred of DNA, psychology, or spirituality that He does not understand because He designed it! He knows what pain is because He designed our bodies that way. He know what does what to us and how each thing affects us. He knows what we can handle and what we can't. He created us. God understands...and in His love He able to sympathize with our pain. He is not surprised by it or shocked when we cry out to Him about it, because He is fully present with us in it.

He is a God who sees. He is a God that allows us to experience darkness and pain, knowing that in the end greater things will come about. It's comforting to know that we serve a God that doesn't interact with us or relate to us as those of the Greek thought. 

2 AM Thoughts...

Ok so I'm probably going to regret his post in the morning. After all, I have been told many a times that if one gets an idea after 11 PM, they should sleep on it and see if it is still a good idea the next morning or not. Well, here I am unable to sleep...so here we go!

So what could I possibly be thinking at 2 AM? When did the world become so complicated?!?! Did anyone else notice that it seems to have come out of no where and that it seems like just a decade ago the world was perfect?!

Was it sudden, or was it did it happen so slowly over time that we did not notice it until it began to overwhelm and consume?

Now, here I sit. A 22 year old man, not even a teenager...but a man! Like...what the heck?! When did I grow up?! Where are the years that labeled me a teenager? Why did college come and go so quickly and leave me with more questions than I came with? How did my coming closer to God leave me knowing less about Him? These are just a few of the questions that swim about y mind tonight.

One of the more pressing things in my mind right now is my realization of my poor opinion of women. Sure, ask any of friends about me and they are more than likely to tell you I am a gentlemen and one of the most unperverted persons they have ever met, in over all I'm not going to argue those statements. Why? Because I pour a great amount of focus and effort into earning those statements, to not be yet another male scumball on the earth who devalues and perverts the female gender or uses them as a commodity. That's not who I am. However, I find that it is "poor" in the manner in which many females perspectives of men are "poor", thinking of women as mostly (not all!) vain, self-centered, naggy, and manipulative.

It is not my desire that I should feel this way towards women, and it is sad that I have come to embrace this stereotype in my mind. Although I hold women in a place of honor and respect, I still struggle to not allow these feelings of distrust.

Now I will note that I have some really amazing females friends out there who I find to shatter my stereotype that I have placed upon their gender, though unfortunately it is rare for me to see a good number of them because they live so far from where I'm at (for example Minnesota), one works weird hours in mental health facility, and another I had the pleasure of seeing earlier tonight but is usually 2 hours away.

I did not write this post to make women mad at me, though I'm sure there are a couple who will be quite hurt by this. I don't wish to project my bad experiences upon other women. It just happens. I'm sure I'm not the only guy out there who feels this way, and so I send out this plea. Please, prove me wrong...

In other news I am constantly crushed by stress and find myself consistently emotionally drained and demotivated from doing what I desire to do on a daily basis. No matter how much I argue with myself or try to motivate myself, nothing seems to really push me. And now I will link a song that I feel highly reflects where I am right now in life. enjoy...and goodnight!

Grace and Minnesota Plains

"God Expects of us only what He Himself has supplied"                                   -Tozer

Recently I had the wonderful pleasure of being in the wedding of two dear friends of mine in Minnesota. Since I live in Tennessee, I get inquires as to how I know these people that are so far north. To which I respond, "well, the bride is from Minnesota, the groom is from Hawaii [at this point there are eyebrows being raised] and I met them both when I went to Italy", and the reactions are like..."seriously?!" haha. Ok so enough background story as to why I was in Minnesota, what's important is what happened while I was there.

I severely enjoyed my time there and I got the chance to relax. After several days of being with people and getting wedding arrangements settled, and then actually doing the wedding, I got the opportunity to hang out with my old friend Kathleen, whom I also met in Italy, and a newly made friend Josh, whom the bride and groom met in Italy a year after meeting me (yea...Italy is awesome). I was so blessed to have met some amazing new people and to make connections with people that I would not have normally gotten to meet. It was my last day in Minnesota and my friend Kathleen and I dropped off our newly made friend Josh and we went to dinner to get caught up on life. THIS is where my title starts to be relevant...

For the first couple hours Kathleen and I shared our most recent life developments and expressed what we thought God was doing in our lives. Additionally we had some amazing gas station diner cuisine! After we had finished sharing I found myself staring out the window. Evidently it was obvious that I had something on my mind 'cause Kathleen asked me "What are ya thinking?!" This is a question that in the past has been one I avoided at all cost. I used to hate this question with a passion, and whenever it was asked of me it was like my mind would take everything and shove it away. I would immediately throw up walls and just say nothing. I never wanted anyone to know what I was thinking. That all started to change, however, when I was back in Italy with Kathleen, Bryson (the groom), and Abby (the bride) and we asked all sort of questions that beckoned us to share our thoughts and opinions, and even more recently Amanda (a friend from school) and I had made it a rule that whenever one of asks each other "what are you thinking" we would always answer fully and honestly. 

So when Kathleen asked me it was only natural for me to begin sharing what was on my mind. At that I spent the next couple hours pouring out my heart and soul at a small booth in Middleofnowheresville, MN. Yes...yes I did cry. My friend sat there and listened with great patience, love, and grace at everything I had to say, allowing me to vent out some of my darkest pains and fears. after a great deal of time, I got to the point where I felt like I had completely emptied myself of my thoughts and could settle down again. It was a God ordained moment in which I was able to talk out things that I wasn't able to with others and had been holding back from quite some time. 

One of the things that stands out to me now as I reflect on that conversation is our discussion on my being a perfectionist. I demand of myself that I live to a standard that no man can ever meet, resulting in a an overwhelming sense of failure and inadequacy. When I began to talk about God's grace, I was once again overwhelmed with great emotion and struggled to talk about it, but then I said "I know that God has given me grace, but I don't expect or trust humans to give me grace...but I guess I'm not supposed to right? That's not what grace is about. It's a gift, and I shouldn't expect grace form anyone, even God." Then I said, "I am so grateful for the grace that God has given to me, it's overwhelming and at times it feels like it's too much for me to bear because it is such an undeserved thing. I wish that He never had a reason to need to show me grace at all, that I would be perfect and not require grace for me to be with Him or anything." 

Grace. It's an overwhelming, and incredibly complex characteristic of God and something that is often severely misunderstood within the Church, even though it is the foundation of our cause and existence. Christians have a tendency to totally misuse grace or forget that it exists. 

This morning I say down to read a book called "Inspired by Tozer". It is a collection of essays written by many great Christian artists, musicians, and preachers about how they had been touched by the writing of Tozer. As I was scrolling through the list of authors I noticed that a preacher that I used to list to quite often (and who is highly revered by the church I formerly attended), Judah Smith. So I opened it up to his exert and began reading. The connection between his writings and the conversation that I had but a few days ago with Kathleen were incredible. The title that he chose for his essay was "Embrace Grace." 

Pastor Smith likens grace to the gift that one gets from an aunt that he/she doesn't know what to do with and then simply puts in the closet, or to an awkward side hug given to an old friend. He makes the statement "Most of us don't have trouble believing that God could save us by grace. We know we are sinners, and that Jesus died for us..." and then goes on to say...

 "pride is one of the greatest enemies of grace. We want to be good enough; we want to earn everything-that appeals to our egos. But we need to learn how to receive how to receive [grace] so that we will be able to give back out of the abundance of what God has given to us."

Lets just look at the other all attitude of Christians worldwide. Very few actually embrace grace for what it is or treat grace properly. Nearly every single one of use can find ourselves resting (and/or swinging) between the two extremes. Those on the left find themselves using grace as "get out of jail free card" and say things like "Oh well God has given us grace and I'm saved so I can do what I want. God loves me anyway." While those to the right will acknowledge grace, but generally in the context of one having prayed and read their Bible daily and attended Church regularly saying things like, "well if you don't go to church and don't make sure to repent regularly then you might end up in Hell. You gotta be holy!" 

I'm not debating whether one can lose his or her salvation here (though this could have definite implications concerning the matter). I talking about having the correct mindset concerning the God of the universe and our relationship with Him as sinners. Grace doesn't allow us to just live like Hell and say "hakuna mattata", nor does it demand that we meet a checklist of legalistic disciplines before it will deliver us from "this nasty, sinful existence on Earth" (that's a whole other topic matter). For us to say "it's ok God is gracious" is the same as husband cheating on his wife and saying "oh it's ok cause she loves me enough that she will always bring me back no matter what I do." For us to say "If I do everything to utter perfect then I will earn God's love and grace" is the same as saying "If I do enough chores and buy the right things and say all the right things then maybe my parents will love me enough to show me affection and maybe even put me in their will (but oh no they can here my thoughts and I shouldn't want to be in their will cause that's the wrong motivation for wanting to please them!)" 

God loves us, and in His grace he has made a way that we can approach Him and be able to repent of our sins in a great transaction of forgiveness. We are given grace to be able to have grace. Grace squared. As a result of grace we are given the Holy Spirit so that the same grace that has been given to us might be displayed by us and so that out of grace we might do what is holy and pleasing to God. For outside of grace we are not capable of having faith and without faith in God we cannot desire to honor Him and therefore we cannot please Him. We seek to honor and please Him because we love Him, we love Him as a result of grace, not to earn grace. 

"For is by Grace that we are saved through faith. Not by your own doing, but a GIFT of GOD. NOT by works lest any man should boast."                                                        

-The Apostle Paul, letter to the Ephesians

In conclusion, what I experienced that night was grace. I realized my need for grace, I experienced grace at the hand of my friend, and then was show grace as God demonstrated His love for me and began to renew my understanding grace. As I said before, I wish I never had anything for God show grace for. The fact is, however, that I do have reasons for needing grace from God and it is well time that I let go of my self-centered pride and quiet moping about how I wish I was perfect and live in acceptance, love, and gratitude toward the God who deemed it within His good will to love me and show me grace in light of all that I've done and all that I am. I work towards a goal of sinless perfection, knowing that I am incapable of ever reaching it in my sinful state. It is my wanting to please the God that I love. I love Him, because He first loved me enough to grant me the grace to be able to love Him. Grace.

Age Distortion

Today has been one of those days where I actually feel like 22 year old. Most of the time I feel like a 40 year old that is 16 years old. So in my tradition of first sharing a bizzare and somewhat parradoxical statement, I will now explain what I mean.

Sometimes I think I hit my midlife crisis extremely early, but how I precieve family life is that existence is much like when I was 16 and first started to gain any independance and figure out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. In the area of dependance, therefore, it as if I'm still a teenager, but how much I think about death and meaning leads me to question my purpose for existence much like that of a middle aged man.

Honestly it's a very messed up way of living and precieving the world. Today I am living in a completely different way. So it is a nice vacation from the dysfunctional mindset that I have found myself in of late. Today I did not worry about the fact that time is running short for my life, not did I feel like a teenager trapped under the authority of his parents. I was a 22 year old adult.

I think what led to this was a visit to a Baha'i temple. My mom is in a Religion and Psychology class for school and is required to write a paper on her visits to two religious services that she is unfamiliar with. She chose to visit a local Baha'i group and asked me to join her. After the service she engaged in conversation with a couple of the people their and asked her questions while I went down stairs to have coffee with the others. There I was able to ask my own questions and engage in conversation with other adults who valued my opinion and appreciated my honesty and curiosity.

While I disagreed with many of their beliefs, I appreciated being able to have real conversation with others, much like I was able to do with the sheikhs in the Jordan. Some how, this helped bring about the security and independence that I needed to see in myself. I need to see that I am more than just a wallflower, but instead I can engage with adults of other backgrounds, histories, cultures, and even religions without the help of another or the security of a friend of family member to fall back on for support. It's nice to feel and act one's own age. 

Between the Lines

The other day I was thinking about how my entire life I've grown up in a society that has roads with different yellow lines and white lines painted on them. Then there's traveling containing flight pathes, directions and road signs, and various rules and regulations that set up boudaries in life. And I think it is possible that this has had a significant impact on my life.

Perhaps it is mere speculation, but is it possible that having had road signs and pavement with yellow lines my entire life caused me to have a lacking ability to provide some direction for my own life? Based off of looking at my friends around me I would say it is more of a matter of nature rather than nurture, but lets get a little more personal with this. I can seehow in my life there have been proverbial paved roads in my life that define what is acceptable. They have laid out where I can go and what I can do, and me being the type that isn't much of a rebel I have not contested those boundaries till recently.

What I have been doing is enjoying the natural formation of a man made river (think about that for a few minutes...ok). I have a misguided perspective of what I've always seen as the "natural course" of life when in reality I was experiencing some thing that is formulated and planned, touched by humanity and depravity.
There comes a time when people are faced with reality; when all that has been taught to them has been put to the test and either stands or is laid to waste.

 I find myself at the age of 22 lacking direction for my life. I desire to do a thousand and ten things but I struggle to do even one of them. I desire to be many different things, but am none. If I wish to survive the future I must gain vision for my life quickly and pursue that vision with all my soul...or my soul will go blind and become nothing more than a beggar. I have rejected most of the "roads" that were paved for me and now find my self needing to make my own. Where do I start?