People Watching

I like rain. I like Jazz. I like sitting in a coffee shop by the window, looking out at the rain. The inside of the shop is warm, but the window side of your space is colder than the rest of the room. The music filling the place is nice, classical, but only I can hear Miles Davis play his trumpet.

My outlook is a lower than the normal level so I can see everyone’s shoes at eye level as they walk by outside. The many cars leaving the shopping mall, to who knows where, continue to leave my view.  Some travel to their families to enjoy what’s left of the Sunday evening, some to their homes, but only to sit and watch nothing on TV until they decide they are tired enough to go to sleep. Some to sit and ponder the holiday season and wonder where their families are, while others sit, barely, with excitement knowing the families will soon be there or they will soon be with their families.

There is a young couple at my 10 o’clock trying to make conversation, but having only nominal success. The older couple, at my 12 o’clock, try the same thing, but the man stares hopefully out the window for something that is not the person holding up the conversation.  Close to me sits an aged woman reading a book, frequently looking up to possibly reminisce about past days. The young man sitting alone across the room roams the free internet across the vast social network of today. The baristas look tired, not very interested in the coffee they are brewing, just working to earn the paycheck to fund December.  One of them is getting ready to walk out of the door, rain jacket ready to brave the possible storm outside.

There is a young man sitting with a toothpick in his mouth and a coffee to his left, typing thoughtfully at his keyboard.  Every time he takes a sip of his coffee a small grimace comes to his face as if to ask, “What went wrong?”  There is a book in a Borders bag on the table, probably for a younger sibling. A children’s Bible.  He closes his eyes as if to think thoughtfully about the music in his small headphones.  He looks through the window for a possible destination. Perhaps a physical one, perhaps a future.  He has a mark around his ring finger as if something is missing. There is a ring with a small gold cross on the leather strap that hangs around his neck.

He moves the toothpick as he takes another sip of coffee. There is the grimace again.

Have you ever just sat and watched people? It can be quite interesting. Every day I am in a new house installing HVAC equipment. I try to figure as much out about the people that live there is possible. It is astounding what you can glean by observing the books people read, the food they eat, how they talk in casual conversation, what they drive, how they move. It is all little peeks into their lives.  What is important to them? What do they invest time in? What do they like doing?

I wonder what people’s answers would be to those questions about me. What do they observe? I wonder if they could tell me what I would die for? I wonder if my coworkers could. My friends, my family, the guy at the parts store I see every day.

It’s interesting.

What parts of our lives do we leave on our sleeves? What parts can even the slightly observant person notice about us? Is the majority of our lives held back for only the closest of friends to know?

I was thinking about the fact that if I was married and didn’t including time I was asleep. I would be spending more hours of the week with my install partner than my wife. What does he know about me? Not much.

What is observable? What can people know about you from every day interaction? What do you let be known?

I like rain. I like the saxophone filling my ears. I like watching people and thinking about the stories that fill the rest of the book that I am only reading the cover of.

For the curious, I am listening to the Genius Jazz mix on my iTunes. It’s nice.

Common Grace

Well, here I am sitting in a Starbucks with my Mac. I have just finished the Jewish book (Our Father Abraham). I call it the Jewish book. And I am enjoying some of the Starbucks Christmas brew. Don’t worry it does not hold a match to any Stumptown Coffee. I realize this PTown People.

It is December 5 and a lot has happened since I have had a computer in August. I left Jonah, I finished being the program director and more importantly finished its responsibilities, I buried Soka, a part of me since the summer of my Junior year, under a waterfall off of I-84 (metaphorically speaking, it is another story). I moved into my parents house and started looking for a job, I had an interview at Best Buy one week after I arrived in Sherwood. I worked there for about 10 weeks. After 8 weeks there, I was offered a job at the heating place my Dad works at. It is a full time job doing manual labor with frequent over time and no responsibility because I am a peon (aka helper). I moved into my apartment, down the street from where I work, with my brother. My Grandma helped me find a burly Jeep wrangler and I have been going to Red Sea church for nearly a month. Oh yeah, and I finally got a Mac and some outstanding speakers to listen to my music with.

What have I learned from the ridiculous, last four months? Common grace is a thing I am very thankful for. I have received a massive amount of it all and I am extremely thankful to the King for it. Just for education sake, Common grace is different from Saving Grace, that is the grace of God saving our souls and redeeming us to be one of His. See the next paragraph for what Common Grace is.

Common grace defined is basically anything better than hell. We all deserve hell and thus all the good things we experience every day are graces that we do not deserve because our crimes against the God of the universe could immediately throw us into the pit for the rest of our sorry existences (which is a very long time). So basically, when you are eating a just ok meal you can realize, “Wow, this is way, way better than hell. This is common grace. Thank You, Jesus.” And when you are enjoying good, cheap, happy hour food from Mcmenamins with a Nitro Tap Pumpkin Stout beside a dear friend you can think, “Wow, this is exponentially better than the damned existence I deserve. Thank You, Jesus.”

Has the last bit of time been great? Not all the time. There has been times I have definitely hated it and times I have been uncomfortable in where I was, but I have recognized much grace that has been given me and for that I am truly amazed. I have been given many things I do not deserve (from a job, praise Jesus, to headphones, praise Jesus again, to friends who are willing to drive to pick me up so we can hang out because I did not have a car for about two months, Thank you Jesus.) Even now, my life is not where I want it to be, there are things I want to change about it, there are areas I want to be better at, there are things I want to be doing, there are bullet points on my goal list that are not checked off. Who Knew? But amidst it all I recognize that God has given me much, much, much more than I have ever deserved and all of it on top of the fact that He has saved my sorry, wretched soul.

Today at least, just look at your life and thank Jesus for all the things that are better than Hell. Trust me, no matter how crappy your life is there is much that is way, way better than eternal damnation.

Well, consider that a return to the freeway of my blog after a long detour on some back roads with no internet access. P.S. Starbucks does not have free wireless and that is really dumb. I need a chill coffee shop to hang out at.

For the Curious, I was listening to the Classical Mix compiled by my iTunes Genius Mixes. It included, Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, Nessun Dorma, Eric Whitacre and Joshua Bell.

Camp or Church?

Let me tell you why I liked Camp.

When I first started working at camp it blew me away. I thought to myself, “This is great. We have chapel everyday and there are a bunch of people learning about Jesus together and being challenged to be more like Him.” Honestly, I liked camp because it was very much how church should be.

You see, as a college student, I became very discontent with the church and frankly didn’t want to go. Why would I go to another weekly meeting to listen to a poor speaker give a lacking message that is trumped by my teachers and is followed by horrendous romantic love songs to Jesus? Granted, not all church is like this, but you get my point. I don’t like meetings, why another one? I don’t like lame, beating around the bush messages, why another one? I like good music, why would I torture myself?

With all of this in mind I found myself in the camp culture of people learning about Jesus and being excited about it. I saw a bunch of people living in community and challenging each other and of course camp also has a lot of fun activities. So it is an easy next step for me to think that camp is a lot cooler than church because camp is doing all the stuff the church should be doing.

So instead of investing in the church I decided I would rather do camp.

Enter the Holy Spirit. I have been taught and stretched a lot this year and I am learning more and more about the church and I have come to some good conclusions. I am not going to defend the current status and say, “You should go to church because it is your moral obligation and you will just need to deal with how boring and pointless it is.” But what I have realized is that instead of running away from church to camp I should work hard to reform the church to get it back to where it should be, not unlike the great reformers of the Great Reformation who reformed the church from its Catholic holdings. Bluntly, Jesus’ bride is not the camp, but the Church is and the training/sanctifying ground of the Church is the local church. 

I have been blessed by seeing a few churches who are working hard to do church that is pleasing to God. The weekly meetings become a time to be trained in the Word and worship musically and corporately with a bunch of believers continuing their worship from the week. These churches have community groups design to bring people together to live the Gospel out on a day to day basis. The idea is to live in a missional manner, meaning you are a missionary in whatever context you find yourself living and your job is to naturally live out the Gospel in your context so that those around you are constantly seeing it. With this model, “church” or the Gospel is a way of life and not another stupid meeting to add to your schedule.

All that to say that I am a huge advocate for the Gospel, the Church, and thus the local church as a training ground for the believers of Jesus, I want to work in the church and help train and challenge believers like I can everyday at camp.

I am a stupid kid that is learning more about Jesus and thus constantly developing my thoughts and I pray that God will use me in mighty ways for his glory.

For more information on missional living check out the great Resurgence blog.

For the Curious, I was listening to Hillsong, but I don’t know why.

To Want Discipline

I find myself in a curious position, perhaps one that I have never been in before. I am 22 years old, a boy just beginning to walk like man, just out of college, starting to adjust the weights of life on my shoulders so that I can walk straight and yet I find myself thinking a curious thought: I want to be disciplined.

Now if I left it at that I sure I would sound like a masochist or something odd to be sure, so don’t worry I will explain. I remember when I was in early High School, I was talking to a friend about what to do with our lives and I recall saying, “I want to grow in Christ,” or “become more like Him.” It was something of the sort and he replied that if I truly ask for something like that I am going to have hard times. He said it was kind of like asking for patience, you will be doing a lot of waiting. The thought of “Hard Times” freaked me out a little bit and I think then in my mind I only half asked my request. Lame.

Now I am older, as if that means anything, and I find myself with a huge desire to grow and be more like Christ. That is what I want, to worship and be like Him. I have been reading in Hebrews and the truth is clear. “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Discipline yields righteousness and righteousness is what I want.

“If you are left without discipline…then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” The idea of being not a son is a tragic one or as Lewis words it, “as scripture points out, it is bastards who are spoiled: the legitimate sons, who are to carry on the family tradition, are punished.” I don’t want to be a bastard, I want to be a son. I don’t want to carry on the traditions of this world, I want to carry on the Family traditions. I don’t want to be spoiled, I want to be punished and by being punished in such a way I will surely be spoiled in grace.

Of course, the idea of how I will be punished brings a little bit of uncertainty, but I am confident the righteousness that proceeds will far out weight the pain and the scars will be something of joy if they produce character that can be likened to Christ’s.

I pray for all of you, along with myself, that pain and punishment will be something we long for and when we find it may we face it with a bold intensity knowing that it can be counted as all joy when we meet trials of various kinds, because we know that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that we may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

 

 

For the Curious, I was listening to The 100 Most Essential Pieces of Classical Music. Namely, Tragical Overture, Ave Maria, Chorale, and the Hallelujah Chorus.

Lewis quotes from The Problem of Pain, Chapter 3. Hebrews quotes from Chapter 12.

Hope is Coming for Me

Here is an entry from a couple months ago. 

Thought some of you may enjoy it.

Here is a little story of an epiphany. I was recently helping out a fellow camp ministry in Portland for a couple days. I was driving to work on the first day. The rain was falling just enough to darken the atmosphere and there was the perfect chill in the air that beckons the wearing of a jacket. I really love rain and there is just something about a crisp, cold, and wet morning that is great for driving or walking. 

 
As I was driving on a wet road I was listening to Brooke Fraser, a vocalist from New Zealand. The weather was secluding me in my car in such a way that I could finally give my full attention to the song, C.S. Lewis Song. 

 
   “If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy, I can only conclude that I, I was not made for here.”

 The song began and my thoughts followed it on the path it would lead me on. The song continued to proclaim that we are people, Christians, living in a world that is not our own, not where we belong, not where we feel at home. Totally involved in the song the bridge impacted me with an emotional, crescendo hit to my soul. 

 
   “For we, we are not long here.”

The words flew and I could feel in my chest all my emotions, wanting to come out in instant tears of understanding. For a moment I had a glimpse of the true location of my real home. I am here in this world that is not where I belong, in a place that at times, can be so full of pain, betrayal, hurt, confusion, and uncertainty. In a “home” that forces me to “know” what I am to invest my life in. No career ever comes to mind, only Jesus and service to Him. My mind is so often in an eternal focus and not on this temporary ball that swirls through the cosmos, filled with image bearing orphans that so often can influence the way we look at this temporary abode, despite the fact our inheritance and citizenship reside in a kingdom that puts to literal shame anything this ridiculous tent has to offer. THIS IS NOT WHERE I BELONG AND I SHOULD NEVER FEEL THAT WAY.

 
   “Our time is but a breath, so we better breathe it.”

 
But I am here and I have much to do, because the God, Ruler, and King of this existence has chosen me to be one of His sons and has me on this earth to glorify Him in everything I do and to draw other adopted children of His to Him. 

 
I am not here for very long, in all eternity but a breath. I must breathe it all deeply because I have but one chance to breathe and make all the eternal impact I can for my Coming King before He takes me home forever.

 
   “Hope is coming for me. Hope, He’s coming for me. Hope is coming for me. Hope, He’s coming” 

 
My God and King is coming for me. He will come in such glory that all will worship Him. He will remedy all the pain and evil that this world has produced and take his redeemed, bought in blood, children back to His eternal Kingdom and my Home.

I just finished Revelation yesterday and the ending of such a wonderful story was pure beauty. Jesus comes back, punishes evil forever, and takes His own back. It is like reentering the Garden of Eden with the screw up behind you. I will worship God Forever. Hallelujah and Maranatha.

 

For the Curious, I was listening to C. S. Lewis Song by Brooke Fraser from the album Albertine

Left Handed Jesus

I was recently reading about Jesus (hmm, who woulda known it) and I was looking into the subject of Jesus’ humanity and whether He was really fully human or whether he could really be tempted and if He really can sympathize with us and our weakness.

First off, let me say that I believe the Bible and when it says He was tempted in every way (Hebrews 4:15) then I believe it. When it says that Jesus was made like us (John 1:14) I believe it. Now just because I believe in something does not make it any easier to understand. I believe in the Trinity, but does that mean I understand it, NO. If I think too deeply about the Trinity I am half convinced my brain is going to fly out the back of my head. Anyway, I know that God was fully man and fully God and that He was tempted in every way that I am, but without sin.

So, I was thinking about this truth and I thought of this possibly helpful metaphor. If it does not help you can throw it out the window.

My sophomore year of college I was in an education class, I think it was Child Development. One day I came to class and the teacher had all of these different activities that helped us understand learning disabilities. She had us tie shoes with mittens on, read with bad glasses on, and write with our non dominant hand. Mine was the left. I remember getting genuinely, extremely, frustrated with the fact that I could not write well with my left hand. I was weak.

Now Jesus became a man, like us, and can sympathize with our weakness. First, Jesus was God immaterial, He didn’t have a body like you or me until the incarnation and now He does. When Jesus became a man it was like He started writing left handed with His whole life. He took on flesh and forced Himself to use it His whole life so that He can sympathize with us. I am sure life got tough and frustrating, but He never sinned because He is awesome. I felt like cussing under my breath after writing left hand for five minutes, Jesus lived His entire life left handed and never sinned.

It is such an incredible truth that Jesus (God) would humble Himself to live a left handed life in its entirety so that He could die the death we should have died and resurrect and be the sympathetic priest that stands between us and the Father on our behalf. He is the great prophet, teaching us truth and being truth, He is the sympathetic priest, understanding our trials and helping those who are being tempted, He is the King sitting at the right hand of God who will come back in Glory and set all how it should be, unhindered and swinging a sword and in His right hand: a rod of iron.

I would encourage you, like the writer of Hebrews, to draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, not because we are worthy, but because Jesus, who made Himself like us,  paid the penalty with His own blood and we can now be seen through His righteousness and not our sin.

Worship Jesus who could have let us choose our way to Hell but instead lived left handed so we can enjoy eternity with Him.

 

For the Curious, I was listening to Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron and Wine.

For the Extra Curious, check out the book Vintage Jesus. It is a book about Jesus by Mark Driscoll 

Theology Thoughts at the Movies

First, I apologize for my lack of frequency when it comes to writing. I would love to write weekly, but life gets busy. However, God has used me to execute two Winter Camp where at least three campers were saved by Jesus, so praise God.

For those of you that don’t know, I am working in Trout Lake, Washington as a program director for Jonah Ministries. There are about 450 mail boxes in this community, meaning not very many people and few things to do. I have been reading a lot but you can only read so much so my roommate and I have taken it upon ourselves to watch the top 100 movies of all time as ranked by the American Film Institute. Doesn’t it seem weird that there is an institute dedicated to movies? Do they just watch movies for work and vote on them during meetings? It all seems ridiculous to me, but they have made a quality list of quality movies so we thought it would be a good idea to watch the best.

So far we are on number seven, don’t worry though we started with the top not the bottom, and I have noticed a very interesting trend. Of the first seven, best movies of all time, five of them fall into the same category. They are biography of sorts, centered on a person who is a miserable example of living a good life.

This is interesting for a few reasons. Usually, stories depicted in movies are inspiring, encouraging, or thrilling. There are always the movies about the crappy sports team that finally has a break through and wins the Super Bowl or World Series even though they were a little league team. There are always the movies about the person dealing with a lot of persecution or segregation and they persevere and make the world a better place. There are always the movies about the love that is fought for during the entire movie, which could span years, and in the end true love is perfected and people live happily ever after. And all of these movies are, “based on a true story.”

We are used to watching these types of movies. We want to see how good the human race is and all of the good things we have done which makes the aforementioned fact all the more curious. These five movies, of the best movies ever, are about miserable lives, failed perseverance, prideful ambition, evil, and in a word, sin.

It seems to me that for a moment, the world knows that the human race is corrupt, evil, depraved and thus the best movies are the ones that show us for who we are: screw ups. The number seven movie tells the story of a man who does great things, but only because of his pride and eventually spirals down to insanity. Six is a disgusting story of a woman’s pursuit of the love of a ridiculous example of a man. In the process she ruins relationships and people, never learning anything or maturing from her start as a 16 year old girl and in the end she is holding on to nothing but materialism. Four is about an egocentric boxer who wants to do things his own way and pushes away two wives and even his brother in an effort to get there and we see him as an overweight, has-been oblivious to his pride in his later years still saying, “I’m the boss, I’m the boss.” Two tells the story of a man who becomes increasingly evil as he becomes the crime lord of a family. Finally, one is the tragic story of a man who, to the world, did great things but was really a prideful, egocentric man who pushed everyone away and died amidst a mansion of material possession that, in the end, were burned.

These stories all tell the same thing. If humans do things on there own they are disgusting, depraved, evil creatures always leading themselves to destruction. This sounds a lot like Romans 1. I am constantly reminded that we are creatures designed to worship and we are either going to worship God or ourselves and clearly the latter only leads to a horrible ending. Maybe the obvious truth seen in these movies is too true for people and we don’t watch them so often. I saw number eight years ago and know that it is based around the same type of story with a little bit of hope. It is a story of the holocaust fittingly depicted in black and white.

I don’t know if all of you will learn anything from this, but I would like to help. Maybe you can watch the movies, experience some sadness amidst a well made movie, and realize that humans are not these good people that the world says we are, but that we are all headed for hell, walking our own path to misery, thinking the whole time, “I’m the boss, I’m the boss.” Thankfully by God’s grace He has set some of us straight and is calling the rest to look at the sacrifice of His Son that was given for our stupidity, evil, and sin.

In short, don’t walk your own path it leads no where good, but heed to the call of God who has done all the work for us to have a life worth living, worshiping Him instead of ourselves.

 

 

For the curious, I was listening to the album Both Sides of the Gun (Disc 1) by Ben Harper.

For the extra curious, the movie list is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI’s_100_Years…_100_Movies_(10th_Anniversary_Edition).  I am watching the updated edition.

Worked through despite ourselves

I have been noticing recently how easy it is to find myself being filled with pride. Obviously, we as humans can so often find ourselves thinking that we are more important than we truly are. In reality, we are complete sinful jokes that deserve nothing good and constantly cry for justice and blessing, putting out of our own minds the fact that sitting in the searing flames of hell is exactly what we deserve, when we complain about the weather or wonder why some bad things happen amidst the common grace we encounter everyday within all of God’s beautiful creation. We never even think that it is complete grace that we even exist on this world and still we look at ourselves and say, “Look how good I am doing.”

I have a couple of stories that show how God works through us despite our idiocy.

Last summer I found myself needing to speak for a Jr. High Adventure Camp having no prep time and a few ideas from the speaker of the High School Adventure Camp. The first talk I tried to do by my own prideful self and found it to be quite awkward and unproductive. Thankfully, by God’s grace and His working, the next four chapels I found myself in the back of the group praying for words before I spoke. I told God that I had nothing to say and only by His working would I be able to share anything worth listening to or following.

During last chapel of the camp, I stood on the stage and told all of the campers that I was terrified to stand on stage and tell them something so important. I think telling the people you are talking to that you are terrified of speaking such an important message really gets people to listen with anticipation. God used me to share the Gospel with all of the campers and I was able to see multiple campers saved by Jesus that night. One camper even said, “God found me tonight.”

I think the point of this story, at least for me, is that our immense skill or talent is of no benefit to God. He doesn’t look at our resume and say, “Wow, this looks great. I can really use you.” He sees us all as we are, useless. God is so much more powerful than we ever give Him credit for and He uses incompetent people, like me, to bring glory to His name and more people to His glory that will in turn bring glory to His name.

I continued to work at camp past the summer and just recently directed a winter camp for high school students. Again, though with more preparation, I found myself completely unskilled to do such a task and begged God to glorify Himself despite me and that He would work through our efforts. Things started a little rough, but picked up and turned out to work really well. To my discredit, on a few occasions during chapel I found myself thinking, “This is going well. I am directing this pretty good.” Once this thought came I would realize how prideful I was being. I wish someone could have walked up and just said, “Who the hell do you think you are?” God reminded me that all of the camp was only working because He is graceful and the people that were being impacted were being impacted by the Holy Spirit, not the band, not the speaker, not me.

I tell you these stories not because I think I am a great example of humility in any respect, but because I have seen God work despite my stupidity and I see it as an awesome reminder of how great and gracious God is and I would hope that you would give yourself to God in such a way that He can use you and your efforts and not use you despite yourself and your efforts.

When we bring ourselves to think of the cross and not ourselves we have no other option but to be humble. If you realize why Jesus died on the cross, it was because we are wretched people irredeemable by our own works and could only be brought back to relationship with God if God did the redeeming, it becomes ludicrous to look at ourselves as more important than we really are.

If you are not doing it for Jesus you’re doing it wrong.

 

For the curious, I was listening to Jackson Browne, Solo Acoustic vol. 1 and also Trace Bundy, Solomon’s Splendor.

Christmas: Lonliness and Longing

Here is a little thought on Christmas or at least the season of the year. To start off, I have only been celebrating Christmas since I was 12 years old which makes this Christmas my tenth. I can’t decide to whether to feel like a ten year old or a deprived twenty two year old. I think I will be pick a twenty two year old who is not deprived at all but very thankful for Jesus.

I think that fact that I have not been a part of the festive activities all my life makes my most common emotion during Christmas all the more prevalent. You see, I find the Christmas season to be one of the most lonely times of the year. Now, don’t get me wrong, you should not see me as some depressed bum sitting in the corner crying while everyone is opening presents and drinking egg nog. That would be dumb, I don’t know why I wouldn’t be opening my presents, and I really like egg nog. I will try to explain what I mean and if it doesn’t make sense then you can throw this blog away, well actually you can’t, but you don’t need to read it anymore.

For one, I see Christmas as the most romantic time of the year. Which makes that fact that I am single a very undesirable thing for at least a month or two.  I always imagine these great little moments that are flooded with romantic perfection and lacking any of the awkwardness that reality can give to any good situation. I see me and my wife (or at least the girl I know I will be marrying), walking down main street of some cute little town with shops and shop owners who are nice enough to put lights up and down the entire street and leave there stores open into the evening giving me an excuse to walk there with the beauty on my right. (Of course she is on the right because that is the side farthest from the street.) Anyway, we are walking and it is snowing just enough to make it memorable.  We are both wearing good beanies, scarves, and pea coats (because I like pea coats) and she is lovingly embracing my arm as we walk just because she is glad I am there. I am surely smiling with some stupid grin because, “holy crap, I am married to this wonderful girl, or at least will be.”

I could go on with the ridiculous imagined idea in my head, but I am sure it would become far too mushy and unbearable for all of you, so I will move on.

Secondly, I love music as some of you may know. Which makes some Christmas music very hard to listen to, but that doesn’t mean that Christmas has not put out some beautiful music that nearly brings me to tears when I finally understand the meaning of the message. My favorite Christmas music is of the hymn type, the standards that will probably stand until Jesus comes to earth once again. When someone asks me for my favorite Christmas song my mind quickly looks on songs like O Holy Night and O Come O Come Emmanuel.  These are the rich songs of the Christmas Season; these are the songs that bring out the truth of what it is all about, these songs are about Jesus. I, without getting into too much technical music talk, can say that many of my favorite Christmas songs are in minor keys and minor keys have a sorrowful feel to them.  I can’t say for sure, but I think that the great Christmas songs have a sorrowful feel to them because they speak of something we want to happen again. God came to earth to save the world and it was beautiful, but many of us know it will happen again. Jesus will come back and dominate Evil forever and set up the world the way it should be.

I think these songs, in looking back to something so beautiful, can’t help but remind us that well, Jesus was here on earth and died for all of us wretched people and also that though He is not here right now He is coming back and that is a glorious truth that should put a longing in our souls that cannot be remedied until that day when He charges in on a White Horse proclaiming victory.

The older I get the more Christmas becomes all about Jesus. I am glad I did not start until I was twelve because I don’t have memories of Christmas presents in the morning I have memories of thinking about why I would celebrate this holiday and I can say with confidence that I celebrate the birth of God who came into history in a beautiful redeeming fashion.  The more I mature, the more these great songs find me in some Christmas Eve service in a church with low lighting and candles and while hearing them I gain another level of understanding and thankfulness while tears pressure themselves to be seen because of my immense gratitude toward my God.

I guess the feeling here is not necessarily loneliness, but longing for a return. But I rejoice that Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit, also God, until He returns. What another beautiful gift.

Thirdly, all the other songs that are not of the hymn, minor key, longing quality are so often about walking around in the snow with a girl or getting married by a snowman or make you think about cuddling on a coach by a warm and inviting fireplace with chestnuts roasting. I don’t even know how to roast chestnuts, but it just sounds great.

Finally, I have full confidence that God did not bless me with the gift of singleness. I am created to not be alone and I have known that for quite a while. This comes to mind when I am buying gifts for my family. I love to buy gifts for my family. I love to think hard about what I should buy them. Something meaningful and lasting not just the coolest thing right now that will be lame come February.  It is true that giving a gift is often better than receiving one.

When buying gifts for my family I always long for a girl to buy a gift for that I can spend time thinking about it and planning about the right gift and handing it to her to see her face when she opens it up and sees how much I care about her based on the thought and care I put into buying her the gift. Don’t get me wrong, me buying gifts is not the only way she is going to see that I love her. For crying out loud, I walked down Main Street in the snow with her, remember.

Well, this is far too long, but in conclusion: Christmas is the most romantic time of the year, the great songs produce longing in a regenerated soul, the less great songs are always stupid romantic, I do not have the gift of singleness, love to buy gifts and want to buy one for my wife.

But in far better conclusion: Christmas is all about Jesus and I am deeply grateful He came as my Creator to die for me, His created. This is an absurd truth that I worship Him for, because there is absolutely nothing I can do to reach righteousness on my own and only because of His grace do I have righteousness in Him.  The great ending to this story is that He is coming back some day to take His bride and conquer evil forever and set up a kingdom that will have perfect shalom. Maranatha.

 

For the curious, some Dave Matthews Band from a Story Tellers episode playing in the background as well as some Andrea Bocelli. 

Decrease

Lately, I have had the desire and the time to learn more about the Bible and its greatest hero and main character, Jesus. The desire comes from, I think, the Holy Spirit causing me to want to grow and thus want to read the Holy Scriptures. The time comes from the fact that I live in a slightly isolated area and therefore have a lot of time on my hands to read or watch movies or play video games, lately I choose the reading.

I love to read and I love even more to learn about Christ and all that He has done for me. The only legitimate response to such knowledge is to strive to worship Him in all and that is where I am beginning to find myself more. 

I think I am writing this for the sake of myself and not necessarily you five people that happen to read it. You see, the more I read and the more I learn, the more I realize how much of a joke I am. I am a pile of sinful mess and the God who created me, died for me. If this idea doesn’t leave you sitting there in deep awe, read your Bible more. Usually, this truth did not affect me very often or for very long. However, the more I read and learn, the more this truth becomes all too evident and continues to sound more ridiculous and continues to be seen as what it is, truly beautiful.

I read the book Humility by C. J. Mahaney, it was a good read. One of his key points about how to be humble is too concentrate and focus on the cross. The more I read the more the truth and beauty of the cross continues to come up and I cannot help but see myself as rubbish, a heap, a pile of shit. No, that does not sound pretty, but it is what I am. Only through and because of Christ do I have any worth and my worth is only in Him. I will not believe American pabulum that says that I need to have high self esteem and believe in myself.  That is a joke and a lie. My worth is only in Christ and success is only because of Christ and any recognition that I receive in this life should be all for the glory of Christ.  John 3:30 says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” This is all too simple and easy to explain. You and I must decrease, become less, go down to nothing, think less of ourselves in a self esteem sort of way and Christ, the Creator of the world and the Savior of our souls must increase, become greater, receive more worship, be glorified by more people, especially me. Of Course He Must. He is God and He deserves nothing less than to increase by us glorifying Him more and worshipping Him more and serving Him more.

I have the slightest inclination to write a book of confessions like Augustine did (a book I have not yet read.) I am sure the process and writing of such a thing would continue to push my exalted view of self down and bring me an increased view and exalting focus on Christ, God who died to pay for sin. I love Jesus and I want my life to be all about Him.

Here is a short story before I go. I was in my sister room just a little while ago and she had done a newspaper assignment for school. She is in fourth grade so that are writing autobiographical type stuff. Anyway, she had to do a newspaper about herself. One of the articles she had to fill in was who her hero was.  To my shock, she wrote that here hero was her brother, Aeric. This brought the hint of crying to the surface.  First, because my sister looks up to me but secondly that I know who I am and to think that someone would see me as their hero is something that makes me want to be better, perfect even, because I do not want someone to have an incredibly flawed hero. Many thoughts flew through my head. What if I become a leader and people look up to me? I am not perfect. Someday I will be a husband and father. I am not perfect. People will look up to me and want to be like me. I am not perfect. It all brought me back to Jesus.

I was recently thinking about who my hero is. For instance, if someone were to ask me, “who is your hero.” I thought about it and with fear of sounding like a ridiculous, with much emphasis on the word ridiculous, I would have to say my hero is Jesus. Who is the most significant person in your life? Jesus. In all of history, who are you most drawn to? Jesus. Who is your all time favorite figure? Jesus. Who do you want to be like? Jesus. Who is your Hero? Jesus.

Who is your hero?

I have the desire to read and learn and grow and these desires have done the great work, through the Holy Spirit, of pushing me down so that it is much easier for me to look up. I pray it continues and that it would happen to you as well, whoever you are.

 

For the curious, there was no music playing within my earshot when I wrote this down.