So...funny story, for all of you anyway. Tuesday night we started recording for the Servant Christian Community Foundation project. I borrowed my friend Jeremy Davis' beautiful Taylor guitar to do some of the recording with and offered to bring it by when we were done. Well I went to the studio and we had a good "get our feet wet session" (first sessions are really highly productive), and finished up around 10:45 or so.
I went from there to pick up my Dad from his office and found the most unusual site. There was a note on the door that said, "Mom picked me up." But that wasn't what was unusual, what was rather amusing is that there were 5 deer just chilling in the parking lot. They would just kind of watch me, decide I was rather impotent and go about there business of filling up parking spaces just feet away from me. That was weird.
But on to the real story. Post leaving my Dad's office, I dropped my Jeremy's house to give him his guitar back. It was about 11:15 by now, and I didn't want to wake up his parents, so I knocked lightly a few times. No answer. I knocked a few more times. Still no answer. I tried the knob to see if I could just set it inside. That didn't work. So I did what any half-way intelligent improvisational American would do - gather the known facts and create a plan of action for returning the guitar.
Looking up and to my left I could see the lights still on in a bedroom. Seeing how I am only 5'11" and the bedroom was on the second floor, all I could see was the baseball wallpaper going around the top of the walls. Aha! My friend Jeremy is probably the biggest baseball fan I know - this was clearly his room. Plus he indicated that he would still be awake. So I resorted to the tried and true method of chucking objects against the window. Unfortunately there were no rocks around, so I fished my wallet out of my pocket and launched it at the lit window. The leather object met the glass with a thud and dropped to the concrete driveway below. As I was retrieving my wallet I heard a voice above me, "Yes?" it questioned. Only the voice was not coming from Jeremy, but from Jeremy's Dad. "ummmm...," I stuttered, "hi, uh sorry about that, I was just trying to drop off Jeremy's guitar..." Then Jeremy came and opened the front door laughing at me. Apparently his room is in the basement. So yeah, that was my Tuesday night. Now it's time to leave for the airport to fly to San Diego:)
Friday, September 29, 2006
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Finally...
The REDEEMED will walk there...
The GIRL who finds that her night with her boyfriend has left her pregnant
The BOYFRIEND and GIRLFRIEND who went one step farther than they should have ... again
The LEADER who lives a double life steeped in pornography thinking no one else knows
The BOY who thinks he can never be free from his past, that he has gone too far
The SATANIST that has sacrificed a child to attain power
The UNWED MOTHER who has sacrificed her child to attain freedom
The STUDENT who has failed his last class and is on academic probation
The MAN who wakes up from the previous night wondering what he did...and why
The ATHLETE who loses his scholarship because of one mistake...and wonders where his life will lead
More than likely every person who reads this can identify with at least one of these things. In Chapter 35 of the book of Isaiah from the Bible, where Isaiah was prophesying about heaven, one phrase jumped out at me, THE REEDEMED WILL WALK THERE. Not the perfect. Not the sinless. Not the ones who walked with God from the womb. No, the PROMISE is to the REEDEEMED. To people on that non-exhaustive list above who God has called out of their sin and forgiven COMPLETELY. Who God now empowers and indwells and infuzes with Jesus to live a life SANCTIFIED to give them a PURPOSE to give them HOPE.
How is this possible? How can God take a life RAVAGED by the worst of sin and make it a life RESTORED with JOY and MEANING.
Because...Jesus became our TRANSGRESSION, our SIN, to bring us our REDEMPTION.
HE did that...the perfect one...the one who never screwed up, who never deserved it...
HE did that...for YOU.
HE did that...to pull you into His story of grace, His story of redemption, so that HE could be glorified and you could finally...finally....finally...be satisfied. Finally...have rest. Finally...have peace.
Finally...Finally...Finally...found what you were made and redeemed for - to worship God.
The GIRL who finds that her night with her boyfriend has left her pregnant
The BOYFRIEND and GIRLFRIEND who went one step farther than they should have ... again
The LEADER who lives a double life steeped in pornography thinking no one else knows
The BOY who thinks he can never be free from his past, that he has gone too far
The SATANIST that has sacrificed a child to attain power
The UNWED MOTHER who has sacrificed her child to attain freedom
The STUDENT who has failed his last class and is on academic probation
The MAN who wakes up from the previous night wondering what he did...and why
The ATHLETE who loses his scholarship because of one mistake...and wonders where his life will lead
More than likely every person who reads this can identify with at least one of these things. In Chapter 35 of the book of Isaiah from the Bible, where Isaiah was prophesying about heaven, one phrase jumped out at me, THE REEDEMED WILL WALK THERE. Not the perfect. Not the sinless. Not the ones who walked with God from the womb. No, the PROMISE is to the REEDEEMED. To people on that non-exhaustive list above who God has called out of their sin and forgiven COMPLETELY. Who God now empowers and indwells and infuzes with Jesus to live a life SANCTIFIED to give them a PURPOSE to give them HOPE.
How is this possible? How can God take a life RAVAGED by the worst of sin and make it a life RESTORED with JOY and MEANING.
Because...Jesus became our TRANSGRESSION, our SIN, to bring us our REDEMPTION.
HE did that...the perfect one...the one who never screwed up, who never deserved it...
HE did that...for YOU.
HE did that...to pull you into His story of grace, His story of redemption, so that HE could be glorified and you could finally...finally....finally...be satisfied. Finally...have rest. Finally...have peace.
Finally...Finally...Finally...found what you were made and redeemed for - to worship God.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Response to my fiance's lettter
Jesus, I miss You too! I hate how eratic my time with You has been! You're right, I have had other lovers. I cry now writing this. I know the pain it has caused You. They never satisfied me - they always left me wanting something more. They can never give what I find in You and in the purity of our relationship.
Whenever I spend quality time with You, I see that You are better, I know that You are better! - but my lovers kept returning, they won't let me rest until the wedding - at least then they will be gone forever. Oh the pain that have caused me - and I know now - have caused You! Jesus, chase them away, claim me! Tell them I am Yours. They don't listen to me unless You are here. They tremble and run from me at the sound of Your approach - even the sound of Your name! I want to be presented to You as holy, as pure, and I know that You are the deepest desire of my heart, that every time I feel alone and worthless, You are what I'm missing!
Jesus, I will return, I must return! Where else can I go? There is no one better than You! There is nothing better than You!
Hold me...come, hold me... I need Your reassurance, I long to hear Your gentle voice and feel the caressing of Your love on my heart! I am Yours. Forgive me for my past sins against You, for my former lovers. I will learnk, love, and grow by Your mercy, grace, and by You loving example to me. Thank you for pursuing me! My heart skips while I am with You, and I too, cannot wait until the wedding day that I am forever Yours!
Maybe you can relate to these past two letters. Write your own response to Jesus, as we as the church are collectively His bride!
Whenever I spend quality time with You, I see that You are better, I know that You are better! - but my lovers kept returning, they won't let me rest until the wedding - at least then they will be gone forever. Oh the pain that have caused me - and I know now - have caused You! Jesus, chase them away, claim me! Tell them I am Yours. They don't listen to me unless You are here. They tremble and run from me at the sound of Your approach - even the sound of Your name! I want to be presented to You as holy, as pure, and I know that You are the deepest desire of my heart, that every time I feel alone and worthless, You are what I'm missing!
Jesus, I will return, I must return! Where else can I go? There is no one better than You! There is nothing better than You!
Hold me...come, hold me... I need Your reassurance, I long to hear Your gentle voice and feel the caressing of Your love on my heart! I am Yours. Forgive me for my past sins against You, for my former lovers. I will learnk, love, and grow by Your mercy, grace, and by You loving example to me. Thank you for pursuing me! My heart skips while I am with You, and I too, cannot wait until the wedding day that I am forever Yours!
Maybe you can relate to these past two letters. Write your own response to Jesus, as we as the church are collectively His bride!
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
My fiance's letter
I saw you today. You were looking pretty busy. I tried to wave and I called out your name, but you were with your other friends. I guess you didn't hear me. Maybe I was naive, thinking that our relationship would be like it was last semester. I wish it were. At least you made time for me then. That's what an engagement is about.
I wanted to get to know you better, to understand you, to fall deeper in love with you -but I never thought it would be this one-sided. I wanted to share the same activities, to like what you like, to do what you do, but you have made that impossible. You know how much I hate those things! How I remember the seperation from my Dad when He looked at me and saw your activities as if I had done them. But it was worth it. It was the price I had to pay so you could know me, so that I could be with you!
But why do you do those things? Do you think that because I can see what you will do, the pain I receive from your actions is any less? It is worse than the bouquet of thorns that was pressed into my scalp on your behalf. That was nothing compared to the searing anguish in my heart.
But I will bear it. It's worth it to know you.
I know about your other lovers. I see you flirting with them before you yourself have even realized what's going on. I still love you, though my heart breaks every time like a stain-glass window being hit by a wrecking ball.
Please come back to me. I miss you. I want to be with you. I know your dreams. Some of them I will give you, for they are what I want for you. Please listen to me as I give you new dreams, for I want to save you pain, and I want to give you pleasure. Don't settle for less then what I give! Please...
I know you, and I know your potential, and your future...and I know that if you pursue your dreams on your own apart from me that you will regret it.
Never forget my zealous passion for you, how I love you enough that I gave everything for you! I can't wait for our wedding day! But oh, how much sweeter it will be if you will get to know me first. Remember, our engagement is a time for learning, for loving, for forgiving, and for growing, and it is a time that cannot be skipped - and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
I wanted to get to know you better, to understand you, to fall deeper in love with you -but I never thought it would be this one-sided. I wanted to share the same activities, to like what you like, to do what you do, but you have made that impossible. You know how much I hate those things! How I remember the seperation from my Dad when He looked at me and saw your activities as if I had done them. But it was worth it. It was the price I had to pay so you could know me, so that I could be with you!
But why do you do those things? Do you think that because I can see what you will do, the pain I receive from your actions is any less? It is worse than the bouquet of thorns that was pressed into my scalp on your behalf. That was nothing compared to the searing anguish in my heart.
But I will bear it. It's worth it to know you.
I know about your other lovers. I see you flirting with them before you yourself have even realized what's going on. I still love you, though my heart breaks every time like a stain-glass window being hit by a wrecking ball.
Please come back to me. I miss you. I want to be with you. I know your dreams. Some of them I will give you, for they are what I want for you. Please listen to me as I give you new dreams, for I want to save you pain, and I want to give you pleasure. Don't settle for less then what I give! Please...
I know you, and I know your potential, and your future...and I know that if you pursue your dreams on your own apart from me that you will regret it.
Never forget my zealous passion for you, how I love you enough that I gave everything for you! I can't wait for our wedding day! But oh, how much sweeter it will be if you will get to know me first. Remember, our engagement is a time for learning, for loving, for forgiving, and for growing, and it is a time that cannot be skipped - and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
revealing
I did not write the following, but I really liked it, and you should read it, because it's so true.
Tim seemed to be a reasonably mature, stable teenager as he prepared to go off for his first year of college. He always looked clean and neat, he was polite, and he did well enough in his high school studies to be accepted by a good university.
It was a real shock to see the contrast between the boy who left in August and the boy who came home for Christmas vacation after the first semester. His once-neat, medium-length hair had become long, dirty, and shapeless. He had gained 25 pounds. He wore a dirty, smelly T-shirt and jeans, both checkered with holes. His tennis shoes were rotting away, and their pungent smell preceded him into a room. Tim's mother was also less than thrilled to discover that he had brought home with him a large laundry bag full of clothes, towels, and sheets for her to wash--none of which gave any evience of having been laundered since he had left the previous summer! Tim's father, on the other hand, contemplated the fact that his son, who had always gotten A's and B's through public shool, had managed at college to achieve one C and three D's, and had avoided an F only by dropping a course before the final exam.
What had happened to Tim? Are these the usual results of a young man going off to college? If so, you might conclude, let's not send our children there. But we had better take a closer look at the facts before we draw a hasty conclusion. in partiular, we need to examine what Tim seemed to be BEFORE leaving for the university.
I mentioned that Tim had seemed to be a reasonably mature 18-year-old, but on closer examination that appearance turned out to be artificial. He always did look neat and clean, but that was because his mother did his laundry and insisted that he wear clean clothes, and his father supervised his haircut and style. The polite manners that he displayed turned out to be the result of a lot of nagging and dire threats from Mom and Dad. His acceptable grades in high school were generated because his parents strictly enforced curfew rules, demanded to see daily work, and promised money and privileges for A's and B's.
In short, what looked like qualities of maturity and character in Tim were in reality a mere facade that was propped up by Mom and Dad. He really had very little character of his own, and that was proven by what happened when Mom and Dad were taken out of the picture: Tim immediately collapsed into a fat blob of immaturity. Without Mom to do his laundry, it didn't get done. Without Dad to make him do his studies, Tim didn't do them. Without anyone telling him when to go to bed, Tim stayed up to all hours, went to late-night fast-food restaurants, and slept through his morning classes. When he came home for Christmas vacation, he exhibited the fruit of four months of undisciplined, unrestrained, immature living.
Did college make him that way? Absolutely not! All going alway to college did was to reveal the lack of character in Tim that was already there by removing his artificial props called parents. In other words, freedom did not make Tim immature; it revealed the immaturity in him that already existed.
[...]
The ultimate practical proof that the law is useless to prduce Christ's life--the fruit of the Spirit--can be seen when it is abruptly removed from the teaching of Christ living in and through you. You'll sometimes see Chrsitians reacting to their newfound "freedom" much like Tim did when he finally escaped from Mom and Dad: They go wild. Then the accusation comes, "See what happes when you don't keep people under the law? They go out and live like the devil. That's what the teaching on freedom produces!"
No! That's what keeping people under the law produces--a total lack of Christian maturity. Taking them out from under the law merely reveals the lack of character in them that already existed. The teaching of God's grace does not make people spiritually immature any more than going away to college made Tim immature.
Bob George, Growing in Grace (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1991), 161-163, 165-166.
Tim seemed to be a reasonably mature, stable teenager as he prepared to go off for his first year of college. He always looked clean and neat, he was polite, and he did well enough in his high school studies to be accepted by a good university.
It was a real shock to see the contrast between the boy who left in August and the boy who came home for Christmas vacation after the first semester. His once-neat, medium-length hair had become long, dirty, and shapeless. He had gained 25 pounds. He wore a dirty, smelly T-shirt and jeans, both checkered with holes. His tennis shoes were rotting away, and their pungent smell preceded him into a room. Tim's mother was also less than thrilled to discover that he had brought home with him a large laundry bag full of clothes, towels, and sheets for her to wash--none of which gave any evience of having been laundered since he had left the previous summer! Tim's father, on the other hand, contemplated the fact that his son, who had always gotten A's and B's through public shool, had managed at college to achieve one C and three D's, and had avoided an F only by dropping a course before the final exam.
What had happened to Tim? Are these the usual results of a young man going off to college? If so, you might conclude, let's not send our children there. But we had better take a closer look at the facts before we draw a hasty conclusion. in partiular, we need to examine what Tim seemed to be BEFORE leaving for the university.
I mentioned that Tim had seemed to be a reasonably mature 18-year-old, but on closer examination that appearance turned out to be artificial. He always did look neat and clean, but that was because his mother did his laundry and insisted that he wear clean clothes, and his father supervised his haircut and style. The polite manners that he displayed turned out to be the result of a lot of nagging and dire threats from Mom and Dad. His acceptable grades in high school were generated because his parents strictly enforced curfew rules, demanded to see daily work, and promised money and privileges for A's and B's.
In short, what looked like qualities of maturity and character in Tim were in reality a mere facade that was propped up by Mom and Dad. He really had very little character of his own, and that was proven by what happened when Mom and Dad were taken out of the picture: Tim immediately collapsed into a fat blob of immaturity. Without Mom to do his laundry, it didn't get done. Without Dad to make him do his studies, Tim didn't do them. Without anyone telling him when to go to bed, Tim stayed up to all hours, went to late-night fast-food restaurants, and slept through his morning classes. When he came home for Christmas vacation, he exhibited the fruit of four months of undisciplined, unrestrained, immature living.
Did college make him that way? Absolutely not! All going alway to college did was to reveal the lack of character in Tim that was already there by removing his artificial props called parents. In other words, freedom did not make Tim immature; it revealed the immaturity in him that already existed.
[...]
The ultimate practical proof that the law is useless to prduce Christ's life--the fruit of the Spirit--can be seen when it is abruptly removed from the teaching of Christ living in and through you. You'll sometimes see Chrsitians reacting to their newfound "freedom" much like Tim did when he finally escaped from Mom and Dad: They go wild. Then the accusation comes, "See what happes when you don't keep people under the law? They go out and live like the devil. That's what the teaching on freedom produces!"
No! That's what keeping people under the law produces--a total lack of Christian maturity. Taking them out from under the law merely reveals the lack of character in them that already existed. The teaching of God's grace does not make people spiritually immature any more than going away to college made Tim immature.
Bob George, Growing in Grace (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1991), 161-163, 165-166.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Crikey!
there are no words to express the sadness...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060904/wl_asia_afp/australiapeopleirwinwildlife_060904071925
We will miss you, Steve.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060904/wl_asia_afp/australiapeopleirwinwildlife_060904071925
We will miss you, Steve.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Free Derek Webb!
Hey go to www.freederekwebb.com to download his new cd Mockingbird for absolutely free! I'm downloading it right now...63% done. Thanks, Derek!
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