Good Friday

Up on a mountain our Lord is alone,
Without a family, friends or a home.
He cries, "Oo, oo, oo, will you stay with me?
Oh, Oh, Oh will you wait with me?"

Up on a mountain our Lord is afraid,
Carrying all the mistakes we have made.
And he knew, oo, oo, it's a long way down.
Do you know, oh, oh, it's a long way down?
                                               -Welcome Wagon



Between the celebration and last meal Jesus had with his friends, and his pain and suffering of the cross, was the Garden.

On his last free night, Jesus went for a stroll with his closest friends.  After preaching along the way, they arrived at a favorite spot of his, the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus knew that time was running out and getting short, and he knew what was ahead of him.

I can't fathom how he felt.  I know what it's like to know God is good, is sending me on a certain path, and that he will take care of me.  The whole time I don't always feel the same way.  I am pretty sure that God is going to bring me through, but I never know for certain.  I wonder if there was a hint of the same with Jesus.  How certain was he?  There must have been, at least in his mind, a chance of things not going the way he thought they would.

Now I've never had to face anything like Jesus did that night.  I don't think anyone can say for certain how much Jesus knew, but he knew his scriptures and all of the prophecies about the Messiah.  He knew he was going to die, and it wasn't going to be pretty.  And I'm sure he knew God was going to turn his face away, and for the first time ever, the Trinity would not be in full communion.  That's some pretty big stuff.  And somewhere deep in his heart, something inside him was telling him to get the heck out!

He was so troubled, conflicted and afraid that his body started pouring blood.  He was so utterly stressed out that normal sweating didn't cover it.

But what strikes me the most was that the Son of God needed his friends.  He brought them with him, and he asked them to pray and stay watch with him.  He craved their support.  Of course, they did a pretty crappy job of it, like any of us would.  But the fact that he relied on them speaks much to me.  If Jesus needed friends and prayer from these friends, how much more do I need it?

I will never go through anything as horific as he did.  Even if I suffer the same death, I know that in the least, I will not feel the wrath of God and he will not turn his face away from me.  So whatever I suffer pales in comparision.  Yet I need support.  I need people to pray and keep watch with me.

This is not easy for me.  I tend to be reclusive and solo.  I like to do things on my own, figure them out myself.  But if Jesus needs folks, then I need to let my guard down and need folks too.

So, friends, will you pray for me?




And how can I pray for you?



[Check out the Welcome Wagon's song that I stole those lyrics from: "Up on a Mountain"]

Do You Remember?

Do you remember when we used to fill the courtyard with our shouts and laughter?  Our voices bouncing off the walls and bringing vibrant life to those bricks?

Do you remember when the waves came crashing in on us as loud as a seashell?  The wind was howling around, and was so strong we could almost lean in without falling.

Do you remember when we stood in silence with no words to speak, as the snow shone brightly and sang an unheard tune louder than our voices or the waves could ever be?  Our hearts joined in, speaking words our mouths could never produce.

I Am Full of Dirt

I entitled this blog "Beautiful Collision" because of how powerful and lovely the image of infinite, holy, perfect God, literally colliding into finite, dirty, imperfect human. To me that's breathtaking. I continue to struggle with the reality of this, all of the implications, the full truth of it. I'm fully conscious of my dirtiness, and God's holiness, but the whole Him diving from Heaven to collide into me is still hard for me to grasp.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"-Luke 10:27-29

My Best Friend

My best friend is Conner Clemens. I haven't spoken to him in several years, and that was but a brief and awkward moment. It was years before that, and years before that. I would say in the last 15 years I've spoken with him three times. Maybe. All of them brief.

I moved to Oregon in August, a few months before I turned 7, and one month before school started. I just moved here, not even settled down, and then I had to take another leap into the wide world of Public School. First Grade. Mrs. Hubadavacheck. Yep, that's a real name and a real person. I remember being scared to death, and wondering how I was going to make it without my mom being there. But I did somehow, and out of it I met my best friend. We had a fantastic Elementary School boyhood. He had a "field" for a back yard (it was just a big yard, not at all a field. It's sad how things get smaller the older you get) and we liked to play war, football, knights, whatever back there. We would stay up late at his house playing his Sega and watching TV. The house he lived in had four bedrooms, and two living rooms, so his sister, mom, and himself would move around from room to room. It seemed like it was always a different room each time I stayed the night. Sometimes his mom would take us into town, and we would play with all the toys in the store. Every year we went to the fair on bracelet day. The only word to describe those days is scrumtrulescent.

Life is like..

Forrest Gump (and his mom) once said life is like a box of chocolates. This may be true, but I think life is also like raking leaves from a yard. You get the all the leaves raked up, and then the next morning it's back like it was before.

Failings and Shortcomings

...are all too familiar to me. I think I even try to set myself up for failure, because that's what I'm comfortable with. I am much more comfortable with failure, than success. That scares the heck out of me. I don't think I would know what to do with it. If I really think about it, what scares me the most is falling further. The more successful, the harder the fall. So I'd rather fail, and then I can just give up.

I've failed. I didn't meet my goal of publishing a post every weekend. I wanted to try and see if I could do it, and I didn't. I didn't make it very far. But there was actually another reason I wanted to set a mark that I didn't think I could attain. I kind of wanted to fail. In a good way. I wanted to have something that would be tough, and if I succeeded would be very rewarding, but I also wanted to have something that was tough in order to have a good chance of failing, and getting back on the old horse and keep trudging on. I am really, really good at giving up. I'm not good at getting back up. So I'm getting back up, not giving up on this goal. And though I'm publishing this late, I am publishing this, AND it's before the next weekend. That means I have a chance to keep somewhat on track.

Paul said something about God's grace being perfected in our weakness. I hate weakness (in myself at least). I want my grace being perfected in my perfection. That's not how God wants it to happen though. He wants (and deserves) all the glory. I know I have weaknesses, and so I try my best to not let anyone else know. What I need to be doing is resting in God's grace. Let my weakness show, don't strive to be perfect. To not give up and quit, but instead continue walking. It's hard for God's grace to shine when you shut down at every failure, which is what I normally do. So I'm going to try and not shut down, no matter how much I may want to. I'm going to try and continue through failure, so that God may be glorified when He, ultimately, turns it into His victory. (Something that may help me along this way is lining up my definition of failure with His definition.)

Hoarders and Hell

Sara and I watched the whole first season of Hoarders in a 48 hour period. She started before I joined her, so she saw a bit more than me. But small details aside, what a fascinating show.

Super super sad, but fascinating.

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, Hoarders is an hour show on A & E (or in our case, Netflix instant watch on Wii) that follows two people each episode who are diagnosed as "hoarders." The intro to the show tells us compulsive hoarding is a mental disorder marked by an obsessive need to acquire and keep things, even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary. The show then sets up an introduction for these two people with a psychiatrist or therapist of some sort, and a team of cleaners ready to help them clean up.

Here's a quick run down of what happens: the subjects spend some time explaining themselves. They say something like how they can't help themselves, but they hate it. They understand that it's not right, yet they can't seem to stop. They then seem to give off the impression of being scared, but optimistic; hopeful for a change. They meet their counselor who tells them they can do this. Change can happen. But the subject is in charge, and nothing will be thrown out that they don't want thrown out. Then they get to it. And the subject starts to get really anxious, and has to go through every little thing. They have a hard time giving up control, deciding on which things to throw out, and parting with a lot of things. Usually they work through it, but it is a slow and painful process.

I think this show is a dead on perfect picture of what Lewis describes as Hell. Which is simply, getting what we think we want. These people have created a god out of not only their items, but their control. They must be in control. I'm afraid to say that I know how that feels, at least on a smaller scale I hope. They are unwilling, in most cases, to allow anyone to throw anything at all away until they have approved. Most times they end up going back through some of the garbage and taking at least one or two items back out. This control, this inability to let things go, has led them to be literally overwhelmed with stuff. You would be amazed that people actually live in these houses. And more often than not it's with someone else, who loves the person, but usually is having a really hard time being committed to that as they drown in crap. The hoarders usually know this too. They know that they are living in a chaotic mess, and they know that it's hurting their loved ones. And they hate it. They hate it. Not enough to stop though. So in reality they love their god of items and control more than anything else on earth. They need this. And when it comes time to throw things away, they realize it. They realize how much more they love it than they hate it. Or more importantly, they realize how much it controls their life. How much life they actually get from it. How much they feel they won't continue to live if they were to allow these things to go. If they were to allow control to go into somebody else's hands. Once again they look to control for their answers, for their hope, and the more they try to gain control themselves, the more it actually goes into the hands of their items. The vicious circle continues.

That's where an outside force that knows what it's doing steps in and shows them a way out. They don't force them. They don't throw stuff away while they're not looking. That never works. Some family member try this technique, and it always ends up making the hoarder try to tighten their control and become more unwilling to let go of things. No, the expert allows the hoarder to retain control, or at least feel in control. They just gently push them and encourage them and show them that there is a way, that they can let go of these things and continue to live. They don't make them. They don't force them. But they give them a chance to get out of Hell, and I think that is beautiful.

Fall

Fall has officially arrived here in Oregon. Just one week ago it was getting in the seventies, but now it's crisp and overcast.

Today Sara and I went for a walk out in it, and I was reminded how much I actually enjoy Fall. I know Sara loves it. She says it's her favorite season. She likes the crisp air, kicking up fallen leaves, and all the "pumpkiney" stuff that comes along with fall. She loves pumpkin stuff. Both pumpkins themselves, and pumpkin flavored stuff. I, however, love Summer. All the sun and blue sky. And warmth. It seems all she remembers of Fall is the good stuff, and all I think about it is dreary, constant, gray, overcast wetness. For those of you who haven't been to Oregon, it rains here quite a bit. But more than rain, it's just wet. It's not really rain, but everything somehow is wet, and stays wet. And gray all the time. You can't understand until you come here. It gets pretty depressing. Amongst all that dreariness is a lot of beauty that I tend to forget about, and truly appreciate whenever I encounter it. Like the crispness of the air; the smell of fires in fireplaces; the leaves changing colors and falling, even all that gray wetness can be beautiful at times. Normally I hate that the sun starts setting early, but in the beginning stages of Fall, I even enjoy that. The gray skies are beautiful in their own way in those early evenings, and the rapid darkness forces people to turn on their lights, which to the outsider creates a magical world to look into. There's something so unearthly about light glaring into the darkness. I know it's not as magical when you get inside, but looking into from the darkness it sure does look great. Lewis even commented on this, and the ache for our true home that this creates. Us here in the darkness, looking towards the light and longing to be home and be a part of it.

So it turns out I actually like Fall. A lot. I know after I bit I will be tired and "bored" of it, because I'm a human, and a pretty ungrateful one at that. But also because Fall herself is a part of this fallen world, and she loses her beauty and grows old. I will try my best to seek it out though, and enjoy it while I can, both in the obvious good, and in the seemingly bad, much like I hope to do with this season called my life.

Commitment: Part 2: Commitment Returns!

~Deep movie announcers voice~
"In a world, full of unmotivated people, Commitment has returned, to kick procrastination's butt, and whip those people into shape, in order bring peace to the minds of blog readers worldwide."

So, as I've said before I don't like commitment, because it has brought me to the place I was afraid it would bring me to. And now here I am Sunday night typing as cheesy a movie sequel tag-line that I can think of at 9:30. Which, if I was in charge of things, would be my bedtime. But I'm not. And commitment is sitting here forcing me to get to it.

I haven't "felt" like writing anything this weekend. Well, mostly just today. Yesterday I was legitimately busy, so I can skate by on that. But today, not as much. I had most of the afternoon available to do productive things, anything, and I didn't. So now it's past 9 at night, and I'm exhausted. But back to feelings. Last week I felt very motivated, very confidant, very energetic. And then I got drained all last week. And had a great day yesterday, but again, draining. So I don't feel like making an emotional and mentally demanding investment in something that, in the grand scheme of things, really isn't that important. Commitment however, told me to get my butt in this chair and start typing. So there you go, week one down. Not a very good post if you at me, but a post nonetheless. I'm going to bed now.

Commitment

I don't like it. And yet it keeps running into me and forcing me down to the ground. Or maybe I keep seeking it out trying to conquer my fear of it. If I'm honest, it's more of the latter. I still don't have to like it.

So here I am committing again. Something I am afraid of doing. So maybe I will make it a small commitment. For the rest of the year (that's only three and a half months or so) I'm going to commit to posting something every Saturday or Sunday. I want to make this commitment, because I want to see if I can do it. I would like to get better at writing, and I believe the more I do it, the better I get. And if I make a commitment to do it, and I make it public like this (although I'm doubtful very many, if anybody, is keeping track) that will force me to keep writing. So there you go, as soon as I hit the publish button, commitment made.

While we're on the topic of commitment, maybe I could delve into what I don't like about it. Failing. That's what I don't like about it. If I commit to something, that means I need to do it. Now the reason why I wouldn't want to do something most often lines up with my fear of not being able to do said thing well, or to be brutally honest, perfect. Because I'm a bit of a perfectionist. My wife may say a big bit. My family members may agree with her, because we're all Morgans. To do something means you might fail, and to commit to doing something means you might failing doing it, or you might fail the commitment by not doing it. So you're forced into risking a failure either way you go. Which I hate. So I hate commitment, unless I'm absolutely sure. There's the second thing I hate about commitment. I'm unsure of the future. Committing to something means I have to go down that path no matter what the future holds, and I may or may not want to be down that path when the future gets here. Which ties back in with the overwhelming desire to be sure before I commit to something.

To summarize: I like to play God. I like to be in control. Things need to happen how I see them fit, and yet I recognize that that is not how it's going to be, and so I am afraid. I am afraid of not being in control. And I'm trying to work on that. I recognize that this isn't right. Which brings me face to face with commitment. Surrendering my control of the future, acknowledging my imperfections, (and accepting that God will be more glorified through them, than me being perfect) I make this, albeit small, commitment.

How He loves...

"We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean we're all sinking;
And Heaven meets Earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about, the way, that
He loves us, O, how He loves us, O, how He loves us, O, how He loves."

Regrets. I have a few. Well, more than a few. I have a lot of regrets. I pretty much screwed up my life several years ago, and I just have not been able to live with that. Things have kind of worked out. Well, more than worked out. I have a great family, good friends, a fantastic wife, and now a beautiful house/home. Everything around me is great, just not me. How do we live with, or get past regrets? They have become an every day, every hour, almost every minute part of my day. And they keep adding up. They affect my relationships, and confidence, and quality of life. The exponential power they have over me is truly overwhelming.

Grace is something that I am drawn to and repelled by at the same time. I love it. But I can't seem to just accept it. I keep trying my best. Ganbatte! And of course, my best seems to fall far short of what I think it should be. I can't seem to escape it though. Grace that is. It has invaded my life with blessings that I most definitely do not deserve. I've done my best to screw up my life, and succeeded in many ways, yet things have seemed to turn out ok. I do not regret marrying my wife. I do not regret purchasing this house. I do not regret where I am now, I just regret who I am. Many people say I don't have regrets, because if my past hadn't happened I wouldn't be where I am, or I wouldn't have meet the love of my life. Sure. But what I regret is not how things have ended up, but how I've ended up. I want to be a better man, and husband to my wife. I want to be a better man, son, and brother to my family. I want to be a better man and fellow citizen to my community. Right now I don't feel sufficient for any of those things. I feel very broken, and unable to allow myself to be fixed.

Logically I understand that Grace doesn't care about the past, and I can move on. But practically I seem unable to do so. I hope that this might be a part of the process.

The Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Failure. I hate it. I'm tired of tasting it, and don't even want to risk it anymore it seems. You can't fail if you don't try. Something inside me screams this is absolutely not the right way to think, but my life and attitude disagree. I hate failure more than I love success, or even true peace. I love a false peace/comfort more than I love rightness. I hate failure. It's taste is disgusting, it's weight unbearable, and I refuse to allow anyone else to carry it. I hate the scent of my failure so much, I cannot stand to be near it. Flee from any hint of it whenever I can. And yet I revel in the heaps of my past failures, unable to let them go, surrounding myself and my decisions with them, so much so that you would not think that I hate failure, but instead love it. I bathe in it, drinking it and pouring it all over me. I deserve this. This is my reward for the long battle fought and lost. A victor may get to bathe in sweet success, but I get to bathe in the steaming rot of my failure, and no one can take that reward from me. Especially not freely.

The Fairness Paradox

It seems to me that every human has ingrained in them some sort of level, ruler, of fairness. Every single human on this planet (or maybe just at least America, I dunno) strives for, or regards highly fairness. If something is not fair, well that's just plain wrong. Maybe even evil. Exhibit A: any child that can talk. "That's not fair!!!" This lasts until teenage years at least. Anyway, so I'm thinking about how strange that is. Why the heck are we so ingrained with fairness? Why is that the standard? I was also thinking about how even seems to usually be the best of most things. Not too much of this, not too much of that. Balance. That coincides very nicely with fairness. Kinda on the same path. But then also following along on my thought process I got to thinking about paradoxes (which I am fascinated with) and how they are everywhere, especially wherever God's hand is evident. Let's look at a few cases. First off, God becomes Human. Whoa. Big one. Then He decides to go ahead and dwell IN humans. Yeah, that's kinda weird and not quite right by normal thought. Then there's men and women who are supposed to live together and become one as husband and wife, and make a family. If you know a man and you know a woman, then I think you know what I'm talking about. They're pretty opposite. Also there's the whole saved by grace but also you have some sort of free will. God is sovereign but He wants you to be involved some how. Predestination some how meshes with free will. You have to die in order to live. Anyway, so all of this is kind of going through my brain, and I'm thinking about how we love fairness and it's so ingrained in us (of course unless it hurts us, and then we conveniently ignore fairness) and how I can see that fairness is pretty tied into justice. We all know God is a God of justice, so it almost seems like fairness is a skewed perspective, an almost but not quite there form of justice. An image of God, but from the imperfect human side. Our own try at being a god if you will. But here's where the fairness paradox comes in. And I have to thank Relient K for this one. We so much want fairness, but God will not allow it. He will not allow the fair thing to happen. He must impose His grace, thus being very unfair and a little bit biased. I mean come on, we go about gallivanting and imposing our will and wants, showing, proving that we are gods, spitting in His face and just walking away, yet He will not allow the fair thing to happen. For some reason (and I think some part of it's God's love for the paradox) He comes in and won't let happen to us what deserves to happen, and forgives us. All the while maintaining His pure Justice and inflicting punishment for our crimes. Yet not on us. So not fair.

Sweating Blood

I'm sorry, but Mark Driscoll has now become a somewhat large part of my life. Maybe significant would be a better word than large. Or influential. Anyway, I've downloaded several of his recent sermons onto my I-Pod and I was listening to one of these a few weeks ago. He had a couple of sermons on prayer, and he was talking about the Gethsemane prayer, where Jesus was like, "Listen, God, I REALLY don't want to do this. But not my will..." I was washing the dishes the other day (yes, I do that sometimes) and for some reason I started thinking about it. So here's where Driscoll's influence comes in. He pointed out that Jesus was in agony over what was about to happen. But probably not the reason we all think (excruciating physical and emotional pain) but instead about taking on the wrath of God. Whoa. For eternity He has been God, has been in relationship, has known nothing else, and now he's going to experience God the Father turning His back on Him and releasing all of His wrath. Whoa. That is mind-blowing. So Jesus is sweating blood because He cannot imagine, doesn't want to imagine being separated from God. That one kinda hit me strong. So for some reason, as I said, I was randomly thinking about that, and I started thinking about if there was something the Father wanted His Son to do, but His Son REALLY didn't want to do it, maybe that's ok to have that emotion. Maybe it's not necessarily a sin to not want to do what God wants us to do. But it really all comes down to, are you going to do it? I know that there has to be some sort of fine line in what's going on in your heart. I know there's a difference between, I don't want to do this, but I'm going to because I love you; and, I don't want to do this, but I'm going to do it because I want to prove how righteous I am, or something along those lines. It seems to me there has to be something going on in your heart, but what it all comes down to is, do you submit? Do you do His will? For some reason this is reassuring to me. I'll be honest, a lot of times I don't want to do whatever God's will is, mainly because I am stubborn and prideful. Anyway, my point was, that the main point is that we submit, even if we have a time of not wanting to, and maybe even if there is a large portion of us still not wanting to while we submit. But I also don't want to ignore the point Driscoll made: Jesus was sweating blood because He didn't want to be separated from His Father, even for a little bit.



Thoughts?...please! Am I off my rocker on this one? Does any of this make sense?

The Sound of Music

I've always thought life would be much more enjoyable if it was a musical...I mean, who doesn't want to just bust out in song with complete strangers?

Sermon Notes

Ok so here's my first shot at putting up some sermon notes. Quick intro: Mark Driscoll gave a teaching on Spiritual warfare to a group of leaders in his church (Mars Hill) and my Bible study group has watched the first two, and I took notes on the second episode. Without further ado....



MARK DRISCOLL-

SPIRITUAL WARFARE PART 2:

-Warning: Driscoll tends to be long, so I wrote a lot of notes. Also, they are notes for me, so they may not make sense to you. I'll try and work with it to help you out-


-Satan didn't show up and attack Adam till he was married. He likes to ruin familys.

-Those who preach false doctrines are demonically inspired. False doctrines usually has verses, but it doesn't have teh whole truth. Gen 3: Knew God's word, changed a little. Eve added to it ("we can't touch it"). So much of what constitues spiritual warfare is false doctrince. Heresy. Sometimes obvious, sometimes very subtle.

-Plain old sin it another tactic. Involving false doctrine and false lives.

False Doctrine= death of truth. False Life= Death of Holy.

-Ordinary Demonic-(very subtle)

• Sexual Sins: "married couples shouldn't withhold from each other except by agreement, so as not to allow Satan in." Withholding is demonic. Not feeling like giving it until you get something is demonic. It can lead to sin and heartache: wants intimacy-->rejected-->bitter--->Satan stirs up and makes more bitter---->(not sure what I wrote here. I think it was "temptation from word" but that makes no sense...sorry.)---->sin.
  
• Marriage/dating between Christian and non-Christian: "what does light have to do with darkness?" God desires Godly offspring.
  
• False relegions/teachers/Jesus: Some do have supernatural experiences, but from Satan. the Jesus of Oprah is demonic. Ask that Jesus if they are from Nazareth born of the virgin Mary.
  
• Bitternes: Eph 4:17-32. vs 26:"Be angry but do not sin." Anger is the right response to sin. It can be a great motivation to do something that is just and right and good. {side note-worldy sorrow: will confess to you to get it off their chest but don't feel sorrow, remorse, don't want to "go and sin no more."} Don't feed it (anger). Give no opportunity to the devil. No corrupting talk, but only that that builds up. Bitterness is a demonic foothold. {Explained: if I sin against you do I feel guilty and convicted or bitter? (guilty and convicted would be the correct answer). Vice versa? (you sin against me) I feel bitter. Bitterness happens to the one sinned against. 1: You sin against me, I don't forgive, I get bitter. 2: I think you sinned against me, but don't forgive, I get bitter. 3: Jealousy/You have, do something I want. Somebody says no to you, you don't get what you want, you get bitter. Dig up the root of bitterness, otherwise it will grow up and defile many. Bitter people are proud to blame those around them for their bitterness. Amy Carmicheal: "sweet water glass, gets bumped, sweet water comes out. Bitter water in glass, gets bumped, bitter comes out. Other people don't make your insides, they just reveal them." Bitter people replay the instance(s) over and over again. Obsessive. They are most likely to be bitter against those closest. Someone you expect something from but they fail to deliver. Naomi said to change her name to bitter because "God made me bitter." She did confess it though, and ran to God's people to get some help. Eph 4:31 talks about the dangerous growth process of bitterness: I'm not gonna forgive you--->replaying it over and over--->getting angry, hot, emotional--->doing something against that person--->talk about them to others, get others on your side. Put bitterness away before it reaches Malice. Malice is the next level, where you stop caring aobut consequences just to get revenge. 2 Cor 2:11 says "Satan will not win if we know his schemes." How to deal with bitterness: be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving as God forgave us. Bitterness is an epidemic. Everyone gets affected. So many groups distinguish themselves by what they hate. Unite under God's love.
  
• Foolishness and drunkeness: Satan likes to party. Be filled with the Holy Spirit like a boat's sails. When you party, go out drinking, doing stupid stuff with buddies, you're putting your sails down.
  
• Idle gossiping and busy-bodying: house to house, email to email, text to text. Budybodies need to know what everybody's doing and mask it as sincere caring. A woman who is a gossip and busybody is working with Satan. Difference between somebody inviting you in their life and saying they want to have accountable relationship and you barging into their life. {Busybodys are pushy, emotionally manipulative, hyper-spiritual: wants to know everything about everybody, drama queen.} First they try spiritual tactics, "Let's get together, Christian community, pray for you." Second, you decline, they become emotionally manipulative. "Oh I thought we were friends.." Women's Ministry is dangerous if led by the drama queen. Wmen gather to bash on their husbands as "prayer requests." A single woman that says, "I want to marry a paster" is dangerous. They probably desire power, gossip knowledge, authority, center of drama.
• Lies: Satan is the father of lies. Lying is his native tongue. Lies work. People are in bondage to lies and the truth will set you free. Example: Woman believes her husband is doesn't love her, is cheating on her. Not true. Will this affect the marriage? Fo sheezy! A helpful way to combat lies is to write down in a journal all the lies you believe, about others and yourself. Include what you may think are lies. Also, have spouse journal the lies they see you believe. RED FLAG: if you believe something but you would never tell someone that, it's a lie. Believing a lie, feeding it, is a sin. Repent, be free in the truth. (Side note for someone counseling a person dealing with this: Ask enough questions to figure out what lies that person is believing)
• Idolatry: worshiping creation, not Creator. People who commit sexual sin are worshiping the body (creation). The opposite of Christianity is not Atheism, but Idolatry. We are all worshipers, but where do we put it?

-Extraordinary Demonic-(what most people think about when they hear demonic)

• Tormented: Acts 5 talks about being tormented. Hear voices, see demons, taunted by people controlled by demons, physically attacked, bleeding, ongoing health problems.
• False Miracles: other religions have spiritual powers. Some can see, some can heal. Don't believe the spirits, test the spirits. Is this an angel who loves Jesus, or one whoe got kicked out?
• Accusations: conviction of repented sins. Specific or general feeling of guilt. Vain regret. Something keeps coming up. (bitterness and accusations are the two most common attacks) Rom 8:1 "Now no condemnation for those who love God." Holy Spirit convicts us of specific sin so that we can repent. We can't repent of something we didn't know we did wrong. He doesn't just make us feel bad in general. Accusations often happen by hearing it in the third person. Do you have negative self talk? Does it involve the word "you"? Do you always talk to yourself in the third person? Keep a journal of all third person accusations.
• Death: "All who hate me, love death."-God. Goal of Satan is always death. Doesn't care how, if it's long or slow, cheeseburgers or guns.
• False Spirits: do not believe every spirit (again, test the spirits)

Well that wraps it up. That's all the notes I have. Again, this was only one part of the entire teaching, and I haven't seen the next part yet. I would highly recommend you checking out the sermon by Mark Driscoll though. You can get it on iTunes very easily or by going to http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/spiritual-warfare

Tuesdays With God...

So I stole the title from a pretty known book. I've never read said book, or seen the made for TV movie, so this has nothing to do with that. Sorry if you're disappointed. I just needed a title. I wrote this a couple of years ago, and I just found it again recently so I thought I'd share it with you. I know this is kind of cheating, but oh well. Enjoy my cynicism:

i wake up, stretch and then begin to talk to God, who meets me here in the morning. i tell him that i want to serve him today and ask him to speak to me. he starts to open his mouth, as i jump up and grab my clothes to go take a shower. he shakes his head as i walk out of the room. while taking a shower i praise him with songs that pop into my head, focusing on how well i can sing, and how much i like the song. i get out of the shower feeling refreshed and ready to go. “wow that feels good, god thank you.” he starts to reply as i think of what i’m going to do today. “well i don’t have to work. so many possibilities. i could really spend time in his word and then maybe do some prayer walking. or maybe i could hang out with my friends today and see how things are going with their walk. or maybe i should clean my car out. god what do you want me to do?” again he starts to open his mouth right when my phone rings. “hello. oh hey man. yeah i’ll play some disc with you.” the rest of the days a bit of a blur. i ask god to bless a couple of my meals. i talk about him a little bit. but never with him and my friends at the same time. i talk about work and stuff. my friends talk about their life and the decisions their facing. they talk about some things they’ve learned recently. they talk about something they’ve read recently. they talk about things that i cannot even remember because they’re so important. i come home. i’m tired. but i want to spend time with god. that’s the most important thing in my life. that’s all i want out of life. that’s all i want to do in life. so it is very important that i do that. “hey god. that was a good day. i had a lot of fun. you know it’d be great if you could give me some direction about work, and school and life. and there’s this girl and that girl going through my life and i don’t know if you want me to get married or not and who to and if it’s sooner or later. because you know if i get married it will be hard for me to spend this quality time with you like i do. but if i don’t it will be hard for me because i really want to. i’m so torn because it is obvious that all i want is to spend all my time with you and if i get married i don’t know if i can do that. so will you show me what you want me to do? because obviously i want to do what you want because that’s best. oh and there are some people i’d like you to meet. like my friend hank, and george and my coworker francine. they’re really cool people and i really want them to know you because you’re really cool too. and i don’t want them to miss out on this super fun awesome time i’m having just spending with you all the time. and it’d be great if you’d show my family things that you’d like them to do and if you’d just bless them with the cool blessing you give. like a good place to live and a great job and lots of money and a good time and that they’d just be so happy all the time and nothing would go wrong. and if you’d bless our church and make it so that a lot of people come and are there to hear about you and to sing songs that’d be great. and thanks for everything you do for me, like let me play frisbee and drive. and please let me sleep real well tonight and be refreshed for tomorrow so that i can be a witness for you. and thank you jesus for what you did on the cross even though i know it was kinda hard. in jesus name amen. oh and god please speak to me tomorrow and show me what you want from me. thanks.” breathlessly i end my prayer hoping god will speak to me this time. and again he opens his mouth to say something, but i just roll over and start snoring. he sits there and smiles a gentle smile and tells me he loves me. and tells me this life is not the life he wants me to have. he tells me about the far reaches of space as i dream, and of all the angels and what a sight they are. he tells me of his throne and the creatures that surround it praising him constantly. he tells me of the forming of the world from nothing into something so beautiful, but pails in comparison to his beauty. and then jesus tells me about the cross, and how it was hard, and painful but he loves his father so much that he could not even bear with thinking of doing anything else. and he tells me his father loves me so much that he could not even bear of thinking of doing anything else but sacrificing his only son. and he tells me of how he wants me to share in the life he has now and not in the shadow of life that i have. and i snore on and dream. and as god talks to me through the night until sunrise, i sleep soundly. the sun rises. i wake up. and stretch. and god in his faithfulness once again meets me here, or rather is still here from the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that since before time. “hey god, please give me a good day, let me be your tool, and please speak to me.“ he starts to open his mouth as i run to the shower. and so it goes.

Here it comes now...

So I've started a blog. Hmmm... Not too pretty right now. Shows my lack of html editing skillz, and fuzzy memory of what little I knew before. Also, I'll be honest, I'm just not very creative.

So the title(s) of my blog are stolen from a genius songwriter, Mr. David Crowder. If you have never heard of him, or haven't listened to his album A Collision, you need to stop reading this and go and get it and start listening. It is the greatest album in the world, and if you disagree I.....will....fight you!

Anyway, I'm not sure what all I'm gonna do with this blog. My good buddy told me a should start one so that I could put up the notes I wrote down for a Mark Driscoll sermon. I think that's a good idea. So I'm probably going to put random thoughts up here, and copy random sermon notes that I have lying around. Maybe somebody else could get some use out of them. Anyway, enjoy. And comments would be greatly enjoyed by me.

Unless they're always mean.

We're going to Olive Garden

I had the privilege of eating lunch outdoors on the beautiful U of O campus the other day, and overheard a conversation between a mother and her young 3 or 4 year old daughter. The daughter had her hand in her mother's, and she was asking what they were going to do now. Mom said, "We're going to Olive Garden. And then we can have some pasta. Do you want some pasta?" Daughter didn't really like this suggestion, and promptly made it known. Mom didn't bat an eye, just kept saying, "We're going to get some pasta. You like pasta." This wasn't enough to convince daughter. I'm not sure what she had in mind, but as they left my earshot, my imagination took over for the rest of the trip. From my limited experience, I could imagine that they went to Olive Garden, daughter protesting all the way, Mom patiently telling her that it's good, she's going to like it. I imagined this would continue right up until she convinced Daughter to try just one bite, and if she doesn't like it she doesn't have to eat it. This makes since to the 3 year old, so she tries it and...."Mmmmm! That's really good!"

I was so struck by Mom's patience. She didn't get upset, she didn't get manipulative, or forceful. She just held her daughter's hand and kept walking, telling her she was going to do this, and she WAS going to like it. My thoughts immediately went to my Father. Patient. Holding my hand. Telling me that it's good for me, that I will enjoy it, no matter how much I don't want it, or how much I want to do something else. My relationship with my Father is not the best. Not where I would like it, certainly not where He would like it I'm sure. But I do know that He continues to hold my hand, and continues to lead me somewhere, maybe where I think I don't want to go. And I've got to admit, I'm a protester. And I'm pretty sure I know what's best most of the time. Maybe that's why our relationship isn't the best. Jesus told a parable about how if your child asks you for something, what father would give them a snake. He goes on to say how much our Heavenly Father loves us even more. If this is true, and this mom is a dimly lit mirror of God's patience, then I am blown away.