Being Sting

Long days at the office mean little time with my wife, little time putting our house together, little time with friends, little time making art, little time making music.

My, how my agenda will always be full! I could spend the rest of my days feeling discombobulated.

TO LIVE IS CHRIST, TO DIE IS GAIN.





All these things are meaningless... Lord help my unbelief.










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Morning Prayer

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Good Morning, Creator
I'm feeling still,
I can see you everywhere

There is a cool breeze that beats at my knees
I'm wearing shorts today
shorts and a sweatshirt

and I came in to work early
on accident
but not on accident
to you

You design me.
Everything.

Like a blind man's cane, you make noise...
sometimes I'm on carpet and its hard to hear
then sometimes its fake wood that echos
over
and
over

I hear you.
Making noise, telling my feet what I'm about to run in to.

I like the noise you make.

And if my sight is gone, may my ears never be!
Oh what a thing to be blind of the King!
But to be deaf too?

Kill me.
Actually, that won't be necessary.
I'll be dead already.

I can stay alive without seeing what you're doing.
But if I can't hear your
anger's boom
Or your wind's whisper
If my ears can't detect your sovereign speech
Or your fatherly discipline
If I don't listen
I will walk smack dab into the middle of interstate 35 and be obliterated by an 18-wheeler.

Prone to wander.

But you're The Medic.

You'll find my arms on either side of the highway
and put them back into my cleverly designed ball and socket joints.








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Paradigm Shift

Rather than try to wrap the message of this blog up in tho rhetorical questions and profound statements, I feel that it would be better for me to simply share my heart.

Imagine you are in a well lit room, and you crack the door open to a dark closet. The closet is illuminated. That tiny glimmer of light reveals the contents of the closet, and the darkest shadows are made bold and the thinner shadows begin to disapear.

This closet is my heart, and over the past few days the LORD has cracked the door to expose the shadows in my soul; the dark parts of my heart that are still wicked. I have laid speechless at his feet when I have come to realize my warped thinking. There is so much wrong with me. My carnil mind buys into lies of greed, ungratefulness, arogance, and judgement. In the past I have tricked myself into thinking that I have earned a right standing with God by my good behavior (though I would never have put it that way). I know the gospel, and I know how I should act. There is, however, something about confessing sin to others that can really bring us to a healthy humility that God deeply desires.

The wages of sin is death, and when I think about the grave ammount of sin I have commited I get frantic because I know I should die a million times before God even gives me the time of day. BUT, the Bible says that we who are in Christ were baptised into his death, so when he conquered death, we also conquered death. This also means that God sees us through a Jesus-shaped-lense, and we are given the righteousness that Jesus posses. This means we’re new creations. NEW. We are no longer in bondage to sin because we have been afforded the righteousness of God. (Rom 6:1-14 and lots of other places)

These things are too great for me to comprehend. As I said before, I’ve been so humbled by God’s gracious decision to reveal these things to me.

It is the wrath of God to be left undisciplined, it is his grace to expose our faults.
I have been disciplined, and suprisingly, I’m so deeply grateful.








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Beliefs I Don't Believe

1 Peter 1:10-21

All scripture is God-breathed. I wish I believed that. I mean I would tell you that I do but I have to believe I would cherish it more if it were true.

Here in 1 Peter he tells the reader that these are not "cleverly invented" stories, but accounts from eyewitnesses. These men lived with Jesus for years and still believed he was God. If there were faults, they would have been revealed.

But there were none.

Jesus really was God. The stories in the Bible are historical. Not embellished. Not conjured up by men removed from the content, but men who watched Jesus do the things we read about.

That means the blind man really was healed. The lame man walked. Jesus actually put that guard's ear back on. He really was pierced for our transgressions.

Oh, and the Old Testament... Samson really killed all those men by himself with a donkey's jaw. Daniel really was saved from the Lions, and the brothers weren't burned in the furnace. Solomon really had everything, and Job really had everything taken away.

An the God that achieved all of that pulls me to himself?! Even now he draws me closer to his voice through scripture.

Out of begrudging submission I opened my Bible, but he showed me the truth of his power. How deep the Father's love for me, that he lead me out of a coldaesack life and into the gospel. May I press in to the Holy Scripture. May it cut me, and sharpen me. Praise Him for answering my prayer for a thirst for scripture.

He is God and the Bible is true and I am here.

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NECKBRACE

In this shade I find rest.

The sun’s coming out, winter will soon be gone.

As far as I can see to the right, the sky is crystal blue.

As far as I can see to the left, it is the same.

Why, God, did you choose blue?

And now, this wind blows my hair and the pages of my journal.

My God, how did you think of wind?

There are people walking everywhere.

You thought of their muscles. You engineered their brain!

The stresses of this world weigh heavy on my back, but it is good.

I used to walk around with my head down, focused on where I need to go. I had my plan and I had a need to execute it. But recently I’ve realized there’s a lot going on around me. I started loking at people’s faces when I walk by them. Man, the LORD is creative. There are some really funny looking people, and there’s some really stereotypically beautiful people. Me personally, I think the fact that everyone looks different makes everyone beautiful. Its just a shadow of whats really going on inside.

That’s another thing I’m realizing. The world doesn’t revolve around me, and my problems aren’t the only ones in the world. Some people wear their stress on their face. some are exausted. Some are so incredibly happy to be alive. Others walk with their heads down, looking up ocasionally just to see if any one notices them. Sometimes we feel invisible.

I want to notice everything, because I feel like my God has creatively shaped my world for a reason. If I could begin to realize that the human population is far greater than myself, a lot of my narcisistic pride would fade away. I am but a face in the crowd, but God has been gracious enough to lift my head. I once was the one that tried to be invisible, but God has sanctified me and told me “lift your head, My world is good.”

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THIS TOY IS MINE, DADDY

I feel like I've been so insanely busy lately that I haven't given myself time to sit and ponder another intricacy of the LORD. Wow. That sounds so frightening to actually write down. Because even if I'm busy with good things, if they become my best things I become an idolator.

How does this life work? Because I'm still in school and I don't have a job, but I feel like I'm pressed for time every day from 7AM to 10PM, and by the time 10 rolls around, all I want to do is veg-out. Ugh! But even as I write THAT I know there are little time wastes during the day that are okay, but they sometimes become my best things.

It is painful to say that I think I am not loving my God better today than I was yesterday.

But then again, circumstances in my life (specifically the ones I'm busy with) are TOTAL blessings. So does the LORD give blessing occasionally to see how we react? Yes. I believe many of the good things in our lives were given to us to see if we recognize that the blessings don't terminate on us, but are meant to spur some kind of worship in response to the Lord's hand in our lives. Because surely I won't say that all the great things going on in my life were given to me because the LORD thought "here ya go kid, ya done good." Because I haven't done good! DAILY I am constrained to be a debtor!

A man cannot come to the father unless the spirit draws him (John 6:44). I am TOTALLY deprived and in need of forgiveness! And God, in his grace grants me not only His forgiveness, but but blessings too! His forgiveness is endless and His grace overwhelming.

So then, praise be to God, The Forgiver, for showing mercy on me in my rebellion. But praise also be to Him for granting me a beautiful life, one that I love very deeply, and is full of moments where a higher power is undeniable.

P.S.

I wrote all that, and then opened my Bible and the LORD lead me to 1 Peter 1:6-7, which says:

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials, these have come so that your faith- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor, when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Pretty cool huh?

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GRAVEYARD WALK

My feet sink into the rain-soaked ground: treading lightly as I subtract four numbers from four numbers,
pondering people, life, and death.
It is not cold out today, a light jacket will do just fine,
but the headstones of toddlers and infants make me wince and shiver as if the wind was blowing hard.
Death, though you have no victory, you remain a mystery.

This solitude and silence speak to my soul.
Will I be a twenty-something who had the years snatched out of his palm?
Will I be a middle aged man?
Or will I be a 100-year-old grandpa who's grandchildren only remember him as crippled and senile; now buried in a distant field?

I am, at last, speechless at the stone marking a life that lasted just one day.
I lap my tongue in my mouth and swallow hard.

Now there is a pep in my step to find the exit.
I want to go home, put the wheel back on my bike, and ride to the horizon.
My inhales are long, this air tastes good.
And I can see you smiling.
I hope I can find you.





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