When Angels and Serpents Dance

Plateau

2011-05-15T15:36:00.001-07:00

*When did you get so watered down?
I thought your blood was thick.*
Lost Continent

I try to keep this blog from being about me too much (admittedly I fail miserably sometimes), but right now I just kind of need a bit of an outlet.

Lately, I've felt incredible burnt out spiritually. It's been a really hard year for a lot of reasons and I can tell it's really taken a toll on my faith.

I've always been terrified that I'm one of those Christians who burns bright for a moment and then burns out entirely and loses the way. Or that I'm just a tree that doesn't bear fruit. Honestly, I don't think my faith has ever made a significant impact on anyone in my life, no matter how hard I try to make it the central axis of my life.

I see people- people my age- who are honest, real influences. They're involved in things like causes, they can recite verses from memory, they know so much, they read so many books I've never even considered, and it's just like... That's who I want to be. Why am I not?

I'm terrible at remembering references of verses. I can barely ever get words out straight unless I'm writing them out. I'm not involved in any causes, I'm not making a difference or really delivering a message. I'm a kid with a blog, wishing I was more than I actually am.

I think if I'm blatantly honest, my faith has plateaued. Something that should never happen for a Christian. We should always be learning and growing. But I'm not. I'm stuck in place and I don't know why and I don't want to be. I used to have an incredible certainty and passion for Christ and for a while I was able to really use it to help people, but now it's like it's gone.

I keep trying to help people but the words don't come as easily and it's like I'm forcing them out instead of having them just pour out of me from the Holy Spirit like they used to. Maybe my time of usefulness has finished. Maybe my purpose was to help in those situations and now that it's complete I just have to wait until Heaven and see if I can make it.

I try reading lately but I don't get any feeling from what I read. I pray constantly but it's like talking to a wall. I'm so frustrated and stressed and I just don't get it. I've always been sure that God's purpose for me was to help people, but I'm not in any condition to help anyone. I can't do anyone any good like this.

Honestly, a lot of crap has happened this year that I haven't been able to let go of in part. There's a lot of stuff that happened that I feel like I could've stopped from happening for people, but I didn't. And that just makes me feel like I'm not living up to my purpose. So maybe I've stopped bearing fruit. Maybe my faith isn't what I thought it was. I don't know.

I'm just confused and exhausted and frustrated right now.

Get Over Yourself And Start A War

2011-04-19T21:44:00.000-07:00

"I hear so many Christians murmuring about their imperfections and their failures and their addictions and their shortcomings and I see so little war! "Murmur, murmur, murmur, why am I this way?" MAKE WAR!" --John Piper

Ever since I was a child, I have been a Christian.

Not because this was forced on me. True, I was raised in the church and taught about Scripture from an early age, but this was not my motivation.

My faith has never been my parents' faith which I inherited like hair color, eye color, or my unfortunate height. At least, I've always striven to prove this. I certainly hope this is the case. All I know is that Christianity is the only thing that makes any sense to me after what I've seen in my life.

But you must also know another thing about me.

Ever since I was a child, I have been a Thomas. I have been on the fence. I have been a doubter, a failure, and a seeker all along side of being a believer.

This doubt is not in the power of Christ, or in the truth of the Gospel, or in anything the Bible says.

This doubt is in myself.

Time and time again, I have asked myself in life:

'Am I REALLY a Christian? Is my faith real? Am I 'bearing fruit'?'

This stems not only from a complete lack of faith in myself but from an inability to believe in God's promises, in His grace.

He says that if I give Him my heart just once in my life, He will hold it forever into eternity.

So why doubt that? Why constantly torture myself, weakening my own faith by my own insecurities and pains? God has saved me. Yet even as I type that sentence, I feel that question rush over me like a tidal wave.

'Am I really saved? Am I really a Christian? Am I really meeting up to what I need to be?'

Obviously, I'm aware that I could never 'meet up' to what God deserves as a servant. This thought is accompanied by a works based faith that comes from arrogance just as much as it does insecurity. So why do I torture myself?

Clearly, I have some trust issues. I acknowledge this. I don't trust people. I don't often have faith in them. Also, I don't trust my Father enough or the promises He has made.

I am constantly worrying about the state of my soul. I am constantly asking, 'Is it neat enough, tidy enough, is it working right' and so on. Like a mechanic obsessing over a car.

This fear, this doubt, hinders me. Cripples me. Keeps me from being the light I could be. And I know that you have, at some point in your life, felt this same fear.

'Where is my heart? Am I truly a Christian? Have I really been saved?'

I remember this one time, I was working on a project for school with a partner. It was some kind of artsy thingamajig-- a poster or a presentation. I vaguely remember a movie. But I remember getting SO FRUSTRATED with him at times because every time we'd start making progress, he'd go back and triple check what we'd just finished. It was impossible to make any headway. Obviously I wanted the project to be good too, but he was so caught up in making sure things were 'right', that things were 'perfect' or 'up to standards' that we made so little progress. And it just drove me CRAZY. I was like, 'If we don't just start, we'll never get anywhere! Sometimes you just have to go!'

Do you ever wonder if this is how Jesus sometimes feels with you?

Like you're so worried about the state of your own soul, the state of your own affairs, that you're missing the point?

Like He's trying to teach you and you just won't hear Him 'cause you're so busy making sure you're meeting some kind of standard or definition of Christian?

Guess what guys?

STOP IT.

Don't take what I'm about to say the wrong way, as it can be interpreted different than how I truly mean it:

STOP WORRYING ABOUT YOUR SOUL.

We get so wrapped up in our own salvation and making sure we're 'good Christians' that we miss out on what really matters--

OTHER PEOPLE'S SOULS.

Stop worrying whether you're going to heaven or hell and just SERVE GOD. Just work for the good of His cause and for others. Stop scrutinizing yourself and keeping yourself from being a part of the world and truly helping people. Stop worrying about whether you go to heaven or hell. Worry about how you are AFFECTING YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

Are you leading them to God or away from God?

Some of you will be saying, 'But if we don't focus on fixing ourselves, what if we mess up and misrepresent God?'

Stop it.

Guess what? God created the entire universe! You think He only uses Christians to deliver his message? WRONG. He uses EVERYTHING. If God wants someone's attention, trust me, He'll get it Himself, one way or another.

Stop worrying about whether you are being a perfect example of a Christian. 'Cause guess what? Ya can't be. You'll never be that.

But if you keep obsessing, if you keep yourself locked up in your own heart focused on dealing with your failures and shortcomings, you will miss what your true mission is.

Your mission is to bring TRUTH AND LOVE TO OTHERS. Yes, you will screw up occasionally. But God uses every little screw up in some way or another to not only teach you but to teach all of the other people in the world.

God's creation is one giant social network. One person can't do something without affecting EVERYONE else in some small way. That's what being part of creation is.

Get out there, trust that God will guide you, pray, follow His word, and most importantly:

Stop being a Christian focused on your own salvation.

Start being a Christian focused on spreading the good news to as many as you can.

I know I am guilty of focusing on my own salvation. I worry too much. I am scared not of dying, but of hell. I admit this. I want to be saved. But it's not the fear of hell that makes you a Christian, it's the recognition of sin and the acceptance of Jesus Christ as your King.

So here's my new philosophy (and this may be wrong, this is just what is on my heart lately)-

I'm done caring what happens to me. Because this is not about me. It's about others. It's about bringing Him glory. It's not about saving my soul and where I will end up after I die. It's about trying to show others that He is the truth.

I would much rather end up in hell knowing I had helped save on soul than end up in heaven and realize I spent my whole life focused on the state of my soul alone.

Maybe that's asking for trouble. Maybe when the judgment day comes, I'll find out my faith was not what real faith should look like. But I'm going to try to bring as many people to Christ as I can now. Because it's not about me anymore. It's about my brothers and sisters, and it's about Him- my father.

OUR Father.

Yes, I am terrified of the idea of finding out at the Second Coming that I am doomed to hell rather than so blessed as to rest with my Father in Heaven. But if I keep constantly scrutinizing my soul because of that fear, if I keep constantly 'checking my faith to see if it's right', I will become so self-centered I won't be any good to what truly matters--

Bringing God glory.

So wake up. Get up, go out, proclaim! You've gotta let people know what you've heard. Give them the same Good News you've heard.

Your sin will be there until the second coming. But if you over-emphasize it, if you let it control your life through fear of failure, you will lose sight of the most important part of God's grace-- the fact that He took it upon Himself to nullify our sins. God is working each and every second of the day to shape you in His image if He has chosen you. So take heart in that, trust in that, and get to work.

You've got more important things to do than save your soul. Let me rephrase-- You've got more important things to do than save your soul only and no one else'. Get out into the world and be a light. Live selflessly and proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ. Spread his message and teach people how they should then live.

You think you can't do it? You think you aren't ready?

God is working EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY on YOUR TRANSFORMATION. You aren't the one doing the work here- God is.

So trust Him to use you and stop caring about yourself.

God bless.

PS- If I was at all unclear or there is anything you'd wish to discuss/point out/refute, I'm all ears. Just hit me up in either the comments section below or via e-mail at...

dystopiandino@yahoo.com

Thanks. Love to you all! :)

Foreverandeverandeverandeverandeverandeverandever...

2010-12-17T13:37:00.000-08:00

As I am writing this, I am sitting in a coffee shop looking out the window.

Outside, a train is passing by through the town center. Old fashioned, yet classy. I wish I could take a picture and show you all, because between the snow, thin dark trees, old fashioned train station, and setting sun, it looks awesome. Just awesome.

Why am I talking about a train?

This train has been going by for at least the last 30 minutes.

Oh, it's gone now...

Anyway. That was a LONG train. And it wasn't even going slow. 30 minutes of one train passing. Wow.

What on earth does that have to do with anything, and why am I babbling on about a very long train?

I've been thinking about time. Eternity. Continuum. (No, not the John Mayer album.)

I love a good ending. A solid ending that ties up all the loose ends. It doesn't necessarily have to be a happy ending per se, just one that really closes the book, so to speak. The lights dim, the credits roll, that's it.

I hate it when things drag on...and on...and on... And before you know you've just sat through all 4 hours of 'Gods and Generals' and you want to throw yourself out of the theater, screaming, 'WHY?!'

Sorry. Personal childhood trauma. I love movies typically, but Gods and Generals is an exception.

Back on topic. (Oh look, the train is back now! Both my train of thought and the afore-mentioned train.)

I like solid endings. I like conclusions.

So, I get kind of baffled at the promise of Eternity in Heaven after the Second Coming.

Part of me is like, 'What am I going to DO for eternity???'

Honestly, the idea of dying doesn't scare me. You live life, credits roll, the end. I sometimes find the idea of eternity more perplexing.

Eternity is a concept completely beyond our grasp. As fallen humans, we cannot comprehend what eternity actually means. In our world, we think in time. We think linearly.

So, there's not an end. It just keeps going.

That's one of the things I find some fascinating about God- We will have an ETERNITY with him and we will never learn everything there is to know about Him. We will have an ETERNITY with Him and never get tired of it. In fact, we're going to love it.

Which confuses me, since I barely made it through a 4 hour documentary without screaming in frustration and boredom.

Me? I'm never going to get bored? I'm not only going to be satisfied, but constantly in a state of amazement and excitement?

There's a saying that says 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.' But that's not how it's going to work with God. To say 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' is so very linear in thinking, so very human.

But in a world where time will not exist in the sense we think of it, and in a world where we will be constantly captivated by God, that doesn't apply.

Kind of mind-boggling, huh?

Not only will we never suffer again when He returns, we will never be BORED again.

It's like being a goldfish. Memory span of 3 seconds, so constantly seeing everything for the first time. Every time a goldfish sees something, it's technically the first time that goldfish has ever seen it.

I'm not saying we'll be reduced to the mental capacity of goldfish. Far from it.

But the fact that we will be able to be surprised and awed for an Eternity is...

Wow.

That's big.

That's exciting.

That sounds like a real adventure.

So does that mean there is no conclusion? Does that mean that there is no real 'stopping place'? No, human reincarnation isn't real. But the Bible promises that God's people will exist with Him in Eternity.

Eternity isn't just a place, it's a way.

They will exist with Him IN His eternity, as offered to us as a gift. It's a way. It's a form of existence. Unending, I guess.

AND, to top it off, God's people will exists with Him in ETERNITY. It's a place too. We are going to be in the same place as God, our Father, our King.

We are going to be in the same place as Him, and we'll be with Him in that place forever.

There is no more death, therefore there is no more 'the end'.

The Roman philosopher Athanacius referred to the death as 'the great offense' against God's creation. "Death was undoing what God had made." Death, the introduction of linear time into Creation.

So God will be pulling out the ending.

Christians so commonly refer to the Second Coming as a kind of finale, a kind of end. But the truth is, it's the real beginning. It's when life will ACTUALLY start. When things will be the way they are supposed to be, and they'll stay that way.

I admit, the idea of Eternity baffles me. Confuses me. Almost worries me, even.

But God has asked me to attend, and I'm in absolutely no position to say 'no' to an invitation from the creator of the universe itself. When God calls, we go.

This linear world will eventually end. Not to sound like a doomsday prophet, but we only have until then to decide whether or not we will take His invitation and be willing to join him.

In the words of CS Lewis, 'Christianity, if true, is of every importance, and if false, of no importance. What it cannot be is moderately important.'

This is something you have to make a decision on. This can't be put off until later. This will be THE MOST important choice of your life.

In the words of the band Reilly, 'We are running on limited time, sleep-walking half our lives.'

In the words of Jack Shephard from LOST, 'If we don't live together, we're going to die alone.'

This is an encouragement-

Seek truth. If you are looking for answers, dig. You will find them. Rather, He will find you. Matters of the soul can't be put off for a later date.

You have an open invitation from your Father who loves you to join Him. All you have to do is ask Him into Your life.

It sounds cheesy, but it's the best decision I ever made. Or He made for me. (We can have a debate about predestination in Eternity.)

Christmas is soon. The Christimas story is pivotal because it is about the introduction of Eternity into a linear world, a collision between forms of existence and power.

Much love to you all, brothers and sisters. God bless, and merry Christmas. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4tcRlHY-3Q

Do Not Leave Baggage Unattended

2010-10-15T21:39:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking about love a lot lately.

A million things spring to mind from the word love. It's one of those rare words that maintains its power and feeling throughout generations.

American culture is obsessed with love.

Most people would argue that these days it's actually sex, not love. I disagree. Our culture is obsessed with love to the point where it has become twisted and perverted out of the definition of the real thing.

People will take love wherever they can find it these days. Digging under what many call a sex-obsessed culture is just a world yearning for belonging and connection with other people.

A connection so surgically severed through the Fall.

The Bible is all about love.

Of course, you've heard that a thousand times. So that has probably lost its meaning at this point.

My girlfriend and I split up recently. Like all break-ups, it was not pleasant. I'll be the first to admit that I was not entirely blameless. However, the whole fiasco got me thinking about relationships and love.

(Admittedly, this was my first serious relationship, so I hesitate greatly to say I was 'in love'. I do know for sure I cared about this person a great deal.)

A few good friends of mine recently expressed a concern they had about myself. They told me they felt I tried too hard to make other people happy, despite the personal cost. This is something I felt was completely unfounded, since I am an admittedly selfish, arrogant person. These confrontations often wound up in very heated discussion. At one point, a friend was trying to give me advice and I was so caught up in the moment of the discussion I said exactly what I was feeling.

The funny thing about arguments with friends is they often function as incredible mirrors. They really do help you realize something about yourself you've never even admitted before.

The situation that had led to the end of my relationship with my girlfriend was very confusing and convoluted. It felt like lots of people were involved in something that should've just been between us two.

So, after the break-up, I'm having this argument with a friend who is trying to give me advice. And I blurted out something, in my anger, along the lines of:

"Why does it matter what I want? I just want these other people to be happy!"

My friend instantly showed me what I had said by repeating it verbatim. And it hit me like a hammer.

The Bible calls for selfless, sacrificial love in serving your brothers and sisters, doesn't it? The complete denial of one's self for the benefit of others.

But at the same time, in my attempts at that kind of love for others, I had successfully hurt some of the people I cared most about. In ignoring my own feelings and lying to myself to make others happy, I had pulled them and myself into a situation which would inevitably end with someone getting hurt.

Motive: To make everyone else happy.
Means: Complete denial of my own feelings.
Goal: To make everyone happy.

This ended badly.

So, what I'm wrestling with right now is this:

In attempting the kind of selfless love we as Christians are called to, I ended up lying to and hurting people I care about. Right?

But at the same time, I gave up everything for people I care about so they could be happy. I was loving them, wasn't I? There was no benefit for me in the situation. In fact, it caused me more grief and frustration than was ever necessary.

Where does loving others selflessly become self-denial?

Where did the good intention turn into something worse?

More importantly, DID it ever turn from good intention into something worse?

Did I do anything wrong?

Did I do anything right?

It seems there is a fine line between selflessness and self-deprecating.

I'm going to expound a little on this:

The Bible teaches that we are to love others before ourselves. However, it also teaches that any man who hates himself is incapable of actually GIVING love to others. This is often a case used with those who self-harm; if you can't learn to love yourself as a valuable child of God, you can't learn to love others in return.

Selflessness calls for us to be willing to lay down everything for God, despite our feelings. Emotions are fickle, so we are called to trust the word of the Bible as logical reason for actions.

We should always choose God's word over what we feel.

But what if, in trying to do so, we hurt those around us?

I'm in no way calling for us to trust our emotions over the Gospel.

We were created as beings of both logic and emotion; humans are both scientific and spiritual. This is something many people have trouble finding balance in. Some Christians weigh in on the side of science, saying emotion is just brain chemistry. This is where we get the very logical people. The other side of that coin is the lover, the person who puts more value in emotion and feeling than in science and logic.

It's tough to find the proper balance.

To quote the band Anberlin, 'There is no mathematics in love and loss.'

While I am moving on and have sufficiently closed the book on this chapter of my life, I continue to wonder about my actions. Did I do the right thing and handle the situation in a way pleasing to God? Did I do the wrong thing and handle it all wrong? Sometimes the best of intentions have the worst of consequences.

Am I dwelling on the issue? Maybe. But I do feel this is something that merits very careful meditation on the subject.

As I talked with another friend after everything went downhill, I told him I felt like I was a time-bomb. That no matter how hard I tried to do the right thing and honor God, I hurt at least one person in the process.

He proceeded to call me on my moronic ranting. He said something to the affect of:

"That's ridiculous. If you spend your life staying away from people, how are you doing what God has called you to do? How are you being in the world but not of it?"

It's great to have friends who are comfortable enough with you to call you on your crap.

As Christians in a sinful world, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we hurt those around us when doing the right thing. It's easy to assume that retreating from the situation will be the best for all others involved.

But when we try to pull away, we hurt those people we care about. Why?

Because in this fallen world, everyone is looking for love. Everyone is looking for acceptance.

The church is a community. We NEED other people around us to support us. We need our families, our friends.

By considering cutting off ties with people who needed me just because I was scared I would mess up again (and I indefinitely will at some point), I was not loving selflessly. In fact, not only was I denying these people love, I was causing them hurt because they didn't understand the retreat.

People need other people. We need to be there for each other. It's how humans manage to get by in this fallen world. People not only provide someone to lean on for others, they also serve as a reminder there is a hope we all hold on to.

I continue to search for the balance between selfless love and self-deprecation. I continue to wonder if love is about ignoring everything you feel to make others happy, or if that is really love at all.

Is it fair to others to completely ignore everything else you feel just to show them love and kindness? Or is this, in effect, lying to them?

Where does trying to be selfless become unfair?

I continue to wonder this while I move on, not because I'm dwelling, but because it is something that merits deep thought.

Tell me what you think, brothers and sisters.

Finding Your Niche

2010-07-09T21:10:00.000-07:00

I think that the thing everyone wants most in life is to find their place. The spot where they fit.

I'm not talking about fitting in or anything. I'm talking about finding and then leading the kind of life that satisfies.

Unfortunately, nothing on this huge, blue marble will ever satisfy. Ever. It may provide some slight satisfaction, but it does not provide ultimate satisfaction.

Again, I have to make a distinction: happiness and satisfaction.

What I'm talking about when I say satisfaction is just knowing that you are in the right place. If you know you are on the right path and are where you are supposed to be, it doesn't matter what kind of hardship or storms come- even if you are unhappy, you know you are in your place.

Your niche.

Your 'home', so to speak.

As I enter my final years of High School, people continually ask me where I want to go to college and what I want to major/minor in. Every time, I have to give a rather noncommital answer because, at this junction, I'm not sure where to go.

And they always respond the same way. "...Well, I'm sure you'll figure something out."

Which translates to, "This kid has no goals? No dreams? No motivation? He's in trouble."

It's not that I don't have dreams and things I aspire to. It's not that I don't have things I would like to accomplish before I die. I've got my 'Bucket List' so to speak.

People always expect you to choose a career path and then let your career define the rest of your lifestyle.

For instance, I had a Bible teacher who was also a musician. I knew another teacher who was write novels outside of his job.

When people hear that someone has a multi-faceted life, it tends to amaze them.

So when people take the time to genuinely listen to me about what I might want to do, they always use that response. "...Well, I'm sure you'll figure something out."

Mainly because all my ideas on what I wish to do with my life conflict with each other. Majorly.

How does one combine a comic book artist, a teacher, a pastor, a writer, a screenwriter and director, a musician, a veterinarian, an artist/photographer, a zoologist, and a psychologist/psychological profiler?

I've been thinking a lot about this lately.

It always seems to come down to two lists:

'What I Want' OR 'What God Wants For Me'

They tend to be really different.

Here's how you start:

1) Get a piece of paper.

2) Write down every possible career option you are interested in and leave some space between each one.

3) When you've done that, write a brief sentence explaining how this could be beneficial/helpful/enjoyable/whatever.

4) Read over your list.

5) This is the important one: Crumple up that list and throw it in the trash.

Exercise in futility, huh?

God has a plan for everyone. A predestination. It's all mapped out. However, as humans, we DO have a free will.

So maybe, instead of trying to lay out our life plans, we just need to start preparing. Training. Getting ready.

Be knowledgeable. Understand the world and the realities around us, and learn to live truly as an awakened Christian in society. Wake up and be ready.

Jesus uses the metaphor for the Second Coming of a 'thief in the night'. He tells us to be ready, because we don't know the day or the hour.

In Exodus, during the first Passover with Moses and the Israelites, they ate with their cloaks tucked into their belts. They made food that could be easily transported and didn't need to be carefully attended- unleavened bread. They stayed in huge groups sharing this meal, WAITING.

It was like a runner at his mark, waiting for the shot. Every fiber of his being is focused intently on his goal- mind, body, soul. Their cloaks were tucked in. They were ready to move. Ready to pack up and go.

Remember in Matthew 19, when the man comes to talk to Jesus about how to get eternal life? Jesus tells him to sell all his earthly possessions and follow Him. The man doesn't do it.

How about in Matthew 8:18-22? A guy comes up to Jesus and says, "I will follow you, just let me bury my dad." Jesus says (direct quote here):" Let the dead bury their own dead."

When I first heard that story, I thought Jesus was being kind of harsh. I mean, the guy just wants to bury his dad. What's so wrong about that? But sacrifice- REAL sacrifice- is the name of the game here, guys.

It all comes down to:

How much are you willing to give up?

In the Bible, when we are called to give up our lives for Christ, it isn't always a metaphor. There are real sacrifices that have to be made, but they shouldn't matter to you in comparison to Christ.

America is a culture steeped in greed and possessions.

You are defined by what you own.

Your nice house. Your nice car. Your taste in furniture. Your taste in music. What you can afford to eat. Money. Money. Money. Things. Things. Things.

I recently saw the movie 'Up In The Air' (George Clooney, 2010). In it, Clooney plays a man who spends 95% of his life on board planes and away from his apartment. He works for a company that hires out workers to other companies to fire people. He gets paid to fire people for other companies.

He has his life down to a science. He takes only what he needs, and discards all the rest- ESPECIALLY anything that might 'burden' him with a personal connection.

In multiple scenes, we watch him pack his small, black, rolling suitcase with what can only be defined as skill. Everything has its place. Take only necessities.

In one of the scenes of the movie, he is giving a lecture to other people like him, trying to explain how to cope with this kind of life. He tells everyone to imagine a backpack?

Got it yet? Once you have it envisioned, we move on.

He says to put EVERYTHING you own in it. This backpack is like one of those bottomless backpacks that can hold everything in old Loony Tunes cartoons. The backpack just gets bigger and bigger, but it never breaks!

He tells them to put EVERYTHING in there. House. Couch. iPod. Photos. Desk. Phone. Coffee table you bought. Computer. All of it.

Then, he jokes with them, telling them to try to walk. It's impossible.

Now he continues in his metaphor to include people and relationships- put them inside the bag too. That's where he and I are going to diverge for now.

So, you, a Christian on planet Earth, have all these things in your backpack. Only your material possessions. Not your relationships, none of that. Just what you OWN. Think of how much stuff that is.

Try tucking in your cloaks and running with all that.

Let's reconnect with the movie:

At the end of the scene, he tells his audience they need to burn their backpacks. Get rid of everything holding you back.

For the Christian- particularly an American Christian, I think- this holds great applicability. I'm not talking about the 'burn-your-connections-to-people-part'.

I'm ONLY talking about the 'burn-your-connections-to-possessions'.

(Let me clarify quickly: DO NOT go light anything on fire, please.)

My family worries about money a lot, which is something I've never really worried about that much. It's just money, it's just stuff. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter.

How many of you/your parents freak out when there's a car accident? How many of you/your parents would freak out if someone broke into your house and stole EVERYTHING YOU OWN?

If I were standing at the front of a classroom right now, I imagine I'd see lots of hands up.

Let's take a pause for a second to connect some dots, since I know this is a long one:

1) I started talking about finding your 'place' in the world.
2) Suddenly, I switched to talking about possessions and greed and money.

So, you're looking for your place and trying to define yourself. You define yourself with what you own and your appearance.

How many of us, if our houses burned down, would just shrug and say: 'Stuff happens.'

Maybe that's what we all need to learn to do!

Our over-attachment to material things is lulling us into a sleep so deep we have begun to lose connection with the single most important thing in our world: God Himself. We are practically comatose.

When Jesus sends out The Twelve in Matthew 10:9-10, he says:

"Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or staff; for the worker is worth his keep."

Jesus said in the Beatitudes that we should not worry because our Heavenly Father WILL PROVIDE FOR US.

Maybe we need to learn to let go of EVERYTHING and stop trying to define our lives. After all, if we gave our lives to God, and God has a destiny for us, won't He guide us to our place?

Maybe I just need to see where life- and by life, I mean my predestined life, ergo God- takes me instead of worrying about what my career will be. Maybe, if we stick to our own plans, we are building our own walls to keep us from getting to our place, so to speak.

So the next time something happens- a car accident, the house has to be fixed, a new medicine has to be bought- STOP THINKING IN TERMS OF COST. It's a necessity, so there's no point in being upset about it. You can't control it. It's out of your hands. Why worry about it? God will provide, always.

People- my friends, my family, everyone- matter to me, yes. In fact, almost everyone in my life matters more to me than they actually know. But if my laptop suddenly shut down and went completely dead, it's no big deal. If my iPod was stolen, it's no big deal. If my dog, whom I absolutely adore and love, was hit by a car...as sad as that is, it's nothing to get in the way of the pursuit of God. We have to learn to be willing to lose everything in order to gain the only thing we need.

It's not bad to have possessions, and it's not bad to like things. But you also have to be able to detach from them. They can't stop your life from moving.

To quote Switchfoot, 'We were meant to live for so much more!'

Maybe I'm a hypocrite. Maybe tomorrow, our house will burn down and I will have lost everything and I'll cry about it for days- maybe weeks. It's always easier to preach about something that hasn't happened yet, haha.

The only way we can find our niche- find satisfaction- is by giving up everything. Not in just the physical sense, but by learning to detach from earthly things knowing that we have been given something FAR GREATER: eternal life in Christ when this world ends.

We know we're in the right place when we are freed from the need to control things, in my opinion. By giving up control and accepting that things will happen, we will gain satisfaction.

Not happiness necessarily, but satisfaction- knowing we are in the RIGHT PLACE.

So tuck in your cloaks people, and be prepared. We've got to be ready for when God calls on us.

I'll wrap it up with one of my favorite quotes:

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo. Stepping out your front door. You step out into the world, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no telling where you'll be swept off to."

Be ready. Who knows, tomorrow you might be called to hop on a plane to Madagascar.

Teenagers

2010-06-01T21:26:00.001-07:00

Teens today are under more pressure than ever.

Yeah, it's a cliched statement and one that is used every generation, but it's true. Teenagers today have to deal with much more than what they used to.

I guess this entry is kind of coming as a result of the 'finally-done-with-finals'feeling.

See, I can't tell you how many times my parents have been amazed at how much homework I have to do for classes in one night. And I'm in the dumb classes. I'm not someone who is in all AP courses, so the work load isn't from there.

Let's break down this education crisis:

America's schools are ranking pretty low these days, especially in high school graduations. Because America is being compared to countries like Japan an regularly being told they aren't making the cut, the American education system has made a dramatic leap forward in an attempt to 'catch up'. Their solution, essentially, has been 'work harder, faster, producing better results'. It's a flame burning so hot it can't sustain itself.

As American education boards are pressured into returning America to its 'rightful' status on the education totem pole, a chain reaction occurs.

1. The officials in the government see the 'score board' with other countries.
2. They frantically try to develop all kinds of programs to 'increase productivity'.
3. These programs are formed into laws/regulations for the state.
4. Once these laws/regulations are passed, the head of the school board starts to sweat
5. Mr. Head-of-School-Board stresses out, urging teachers to alter curriculum.
6. Teachers, worried about being good educators, attempt to make alterations.
7. This results in dramatic increases in work for the students.
8. And the students grades start to slip as they can't keep up with the 'demand'.
9. The parents see the falling grades, and having inherited the stress from up top...
10. They begin to pressure kids. Urging them, pushing them too hard.
11. Kids begin to have break downs.

As parents begin to lay on the pressure (which, admittedly, comes from a decent place- a desire for their child to succeed), something changes.

Want becomes need. The relationship breaks down. Teenage rebellion begins, and the cycle continues. It's a vicious two-edged sword.

The other day, one of the first days after school had ended, my mom asked me to go with her to go run some errands. Seeing as they were simple errands like mailing letters, I saw no need and got exasperated. I'd been dealing all year with people NEEDING things from me. As my parents got more stressed during the tight economy, I began to feel somewhat neglected and used only as 'free labor' in the house.

Anyway, I had had a frustrating day (how selfish does that sound?)when she asked this, and I complained and complained. And complained. And I told her I really didn't want to. And I practically started a fight over it.

Finally, I snapped, 'What do you need ME for?!'

My mom looked really upset for a second and just said, 'I wanted to spend some time with you is all.'

I felt like the worst person in the world. See, I had gotten so used to people NEEDING things from me, EXPECTING things from me, that I had just gotten to the point where I only saw people as what they expected of me.

After all the pressure that I had been under lately to do well in school, finish up work, prepare for my sister returning home, and helping around the house, it was just too much. I mean, it was like my head was going to explode. There was just too much to deal with.

So, when I realized that I wasn't needed, but WANTED, it caught me off guard.

Being 'wanted' and 'needed' are two VERY different things.

'Need' seems to imply a selfishness. Even on TV in those goofy, overly-dramatic romance shows, when a person said 'I need you' it was all about them, not you. But being told you are wanted and accepted where you are is something vastly separate.

My generation has gotten to the point where we only feel 'needed', not wanted. This is no one's fault intentionally. It is the atmosphere that has been created. We only feel that we are 'required' to meet certain expectations.

If someone asked you, right now, 'what do your parents want you to do?', you could come up with a million answers.

- Get good grades.
- Help out at home.
- Manage time effectively 100% of the time.
- Etc.

And that's just because of what atmosphere has been cultivated in America. As children get older, there's something that happens where we begin to feel like our parents see us as nothing more than hindrances and inconveniences. We try to sort of stay out of the way, lay low.

It's all this pressure that is breaking up families and ruining relationships between parents and children.

But here's the worst part: it doesn't end there. As our parents pressure us and we begin to feel like we just have to meet every expectation, we begin to feel UNWANTED. Not in the abandoned sort of way, but in a pervasive feeling that encourages us to 'lay low and not be a bother'.

And as teens let that attitude sink in, something else sinks in.

Teens begin to feel unimportant and insignificant. This feeling encourages acting out. We begin to feel like nothing we do matters.

And THAT is how you get the apathetic teenager of today.

At one point in Ethics during the year, one of the kids in my class said something along the lines of (and I paraphrase here):

"I mean, come on guys, what are the chances anyone here is going to actually do something that matters?"

When I heard that, that just killed me. It wasn't laziness or anything on our part that had made us feel this way. It was what the world had beaten into us.

I like John Mayer a lot. I think he's a terrific artist, mainly because he can play guitar insanely well. But a lot of times, I don't agree with his messages in his songs.

How about 'Waiting On The World To Change'?

Me and all my friends
We're all misunderstood.
They say we stand for nothin' and
There's no way we ever could.
Now we see everything that's goin' wrong
With the world and those who lead it.
We just feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it.

So we keep waiting.
Waiting on the world to change.
It's not that we don't care
We just know that the fight ain't fair.
So we keep waiting.
Waiting on the world to change.

John Mayer hits the nail on the head, and I think he does it unintentionally. This is how teenagers have come to feel, evidenced by what my class mate said.

Multiple times this week on Facebook, I've seen posts from upset friends about how their families are telling them they aren't 'doing it right' or 'doing it well enough'. Their parents are unintentionally telling them they are worthless failures, because they are not succeeding in what they 'need' to do.

This is leading to a generation of apathetic, self-loathing Christian teens. If teens can't understand how a relationship with a parent is supposed to work, how can they even begin to understand the love in their relationship with the Father himself?

No parent actually wants to upset or pressure their child. Parents just want what is best. But as American culture tries to stay 'the best' at everything, this pressure is going to lead to the self-destructive behavior we see today, the rebellion.

Joss Whedon unintentionally blasts a hole in Atheistic world views in one of the lines from his show Angel. Angel, after having dealt with what was essentially an existential crisis, says:

"I guess I finally just realized that nothing we do matters."
"Well, don't you have a cheery outlook on life?"
"Let me finish. I guess, what I'm trying to say is...if there is no higher power, no higher calling...no grand plan...If nothing we do matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do. The smallest act of kindness can have such an impact on someone's life."

Back to the quote from my classmate.

So, if none of us will ever accomplish anything in actuality, then the only things that matter about our lives are what we do.

I am in no way implying my friend was coming from an Athiestic view. In fact, I have no doubt in my mind she is a Christian. But the world has done such a thorough job through this 'pressure method' at teaching us we don't matter.

I wanted to talk to her later on. I've always been a big believer that everyone God has chosen has a big destiny. Not big in the sense that we understand big, but big.

The metaphor for actions is usually the cliche one about dropping a stone into a pond.

I think, that since everything is predestined (obviously, I'm a Calvinist, haha), it's like dumping one of those massive, plastic jugs filled with spare change into a pond. Billions of individual coins striking the water and sending out waves in circular patterns. Since the coins will mostly hit the water at the same time, the ripples begin to collide, forming new waves that spread farther.

All from one coin.

If you don't get the metaphor...Fine, I guess I'll go into it. The pond is the physical, fallen world. Each coin is a person. When that person enters the world and begins making choices or doing ANYTHING, it affects other people and their actions.

My point is: Everyone affects everyone.

The Apostle Paul talked about the body of Christ being made up of many parts, none more valuable than the others. It's SO true. That's how actions work in this world. And that's what makes life life.

The pressure, the strain that teenagers feel (remember that from WAY earlier in the entry?) is transmitted in the exact same way. And very quickly, we forget we are 'wanted' and loved and begin to feel only 'needed'.

"I just wanted to spend some time with you." See? We're all people, and we all want to be wanted. We don't want to only be needed, though there is a place for that. That's the crazy confusing thing about God. That's why he's called the Father. He doesn't NEED us, he WANTS us. He wants what is best for us, like a parent, so He gave us the Bible. But he pursues us! We don't pursue him.

All about that imagery of the church being God's bride, that he is courting and 'wooing' her.

Teenagers are an amazingly powerful force, which is why I think Satan tries to separate us from our parents. Our passion and drive, when not being beaten away by the pressures of society, make us a deadly weapon. If parents and teens could get rid of this pressure, this feeling of expectations, it would be incredible how the world would change. I'm not saying abolish the Fifth Commandment at all.

What I'm saying, I guess, is keep the respect and the real responsibility and get rid of all this cultural junk that is separating you from your parents.

It would be a WASD entry without a superhero reference, so here we go: Parents and teens are like the Wonder Twins. Now, I've never really liked the Wonder Twins, but that's not the point. Separate, they do much more harm than good. Together, they are a powerful, unionized force that is capable of bringing great change.

Hey, teenagers got the '70s goin'. Just think of what would happen if teenagers and adults worked together?

God bless.

PS- I really hope that made sense in some form or another. It's late and I'm tired.

Monster!

2010-05-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

*If I were a monster, would you wince when you looked at me? If I were a freak, would you stare? If I were leper, would you say, 'Unclean!'? And if I was lost, would you help me get free?* -Monster, The Almost

"I've always felt like there was this darkness inside of me just fighting to get out."- Davis Bloome, Smallville

I had a dream once that really freaked me out. It was through my eyes, but I was watching it like I was on the outside as well. It was this dream where, I guess, I was evil. One of the worst nightmares I've ever had. I don't like to think about it much, but I make myself every once in a while.

Anyway, the worst part about the dream was that it followed the typical routine of my day. So, I watched 'me' go through a school day/weekend without any conscience. Then, when I went BACK to sleep, I had a dream of a 30 year old me being hunted by the FBI. Definitely not a restful night of sleep. It felt so logical, so... realistic.

Very realistic. It didn't have that quality of bizarre-ness that usually accompanies dreaming. It all seemed very possible.

When I woke up, I thought about it a lot. I asked myself, 'What would I do if I could get away with it? What if I didn't care about God or any form of morals? What would it be like to go through a day without any inhibition, following only my own selfish whims?'

I realized that if there were no repercussions, I would have done almost everything in my dream.

And that scared the hell out of me.

When I say 'no repercussions', I don't just mean not caring about following the Bible. Because we all have an inherent system of Ethics imbued in our souls. Let me explain.

God created the world, right?

And when He created it, He made it perfect. Without sin. Meaning we started as perfect.

So, since we are made in God's image, we are imbued with an inherent sense of right-and-wrong that we feel even when we are very young. We get mad when someone breaks the rules, because that's wrong. We don't know WHY we get mad, but we do.

So, humans started as pure and good, but sin has contaminated so thoroughly this physical realm that we are born sinful AND born into sin.

So, here's my point:

Sin is alien. Sin is foreign. It shouldn't be.

Imagine two beakers. One is full of water. The other is full of a chemical. Now, imagine pouring the beaker of chemicals into the glass of water. Watch as the chemicals react negatively with the water, and the water is overtaken and transformed into something dangerous and wrong. It becomes an entirely new substance, no longer water at all. It USED to be water, but it's not now.

The chemical disperses so thoroughly within the water that it mixes completely. The new liquid in the glass isn't water or chemical. It's NOT a hybrid. It's something new that has been created by the introduction of something foreign. Like oil and water.

In this metaphor, water is our essence. The chemical is sin.

Our sin transforms us into something ugly. Something WRONG. We are NOT what we are supposed to be.

I don't think it's a stretch to say we will be almost entirely different when all things are made new. Because our sin, this constant tug-of-war between what remains of our perfect nature and the sin nature that contaminates dictates our personalities in this world.

The band RED very accurately hits this idea on the head with their song 'Fight Inside'.

*Enemy, familiar friend.
My beginning and my end.
Knowing truth.
Whispering lies.
And it hurts again.
What I feel.
What I try.
Words I say.
Words I hide.
All the pain, I want it to end.
But I want it again.
And it finds me.
The fight inside is raging in me again.*

They also accurately portray this idea in their song 'Death of Me', in which they sing about Christians being their own worst enemies. Check out the music video:

Joss Whedon, in his show Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, created the most metaphorical version of vampires for his story. In Buffy, a vampire is a demon that takes the place of the human soul within a person, effectively destroying that soul. Sinful essence in a body representing normalcy.

To be even more metaphorical, Joss created the character Angel- a vampire who has had his soul restored to him. He is tormented by guilt and desperately trying to atone for his actions when he was controlled by the demon. Now, Angel is just a good guy with unfortunate dietary constraints and a non-beating heart.

The points is, we all have incredible potential for evil and incredible potential for good.

So what is it that holds us back from acting on every sinful whim?

It's that little voice inside our heads, right?

That voice is what remains of our original perfect nature crying out to us. The voice is trying to explain that things are not right.

But that voice can't defeat sin if all we do is act on it.

See, we need to accept Christ. Accepting Christ equips us with the weapons to fight back against this sin nature. If we try to do the right thing and do not seek Christ or follow His methods, we will fall to our sinful nature. That's how the world works.

Fortunately, Christ doesn't just give us the tools to do so after we accept Him. He jumps in and fights the battle for us, protecting us while simultaneously battling the darkness within our own souls.

Skillet, with their album 'Awake', accurately portrays these two aspects of spiritual conflict with the first two songs on their album. The second song on the album should be listened to first. It's the song 'Monster'. Then, go back to the first song and listen to the song 'Hero'.

Obviously, this is a popular theme with Christian musicians.

Ted Dekker is one of my favorite authors, and this is one of his 'short stories' of sorts he posted on his blog I found particularly relevant:

"I always wondered why babies cry when I walk by, and now I know. I am a beast.

You ask me how I know. You see, I was walking through a beautiful forest on a Sunday afternoon stroll when a horrible snort sounded in the bushes to my right. I whirled and came face to face with an enormous hairy boar with two red eyes and long bloodied tusks.

I couldn’t move. But when the boar charged I managed to uproot my feet and run. Through the brush, over rocks, leaping ditches—I don’t remember because panic had shut down my mind.

Blind with that terror, I ran straight into a small canyon and pulled up hard at the base of a cliff. I could hear the beast’s snorting behind and I knew that my back would be pierced by those tusks. When I spun to face it, the boar slid to a glaring stop, a ferocious sight that turned me to ice.

It grunted once and charged, and I lost my mind to fear. I screamed bloody murder and threw myself directly for it, perhaps with a desperate hope it would turn and flee.

It did not flee. It took me head on.

But instead of smashing into those bloodied tusks, I crashed into mirrored glass that shattered and fell to the ground. I stood panting. The boar was gone. The only blood was on my forearms, where the mirror had cut me.

So you see, that is how I know that I am a beast."
---Ted Dekker, 'The Boar'

We all have potential for evil. Each and every one of us could have been Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin. We see murderers, thieves, and rapists on TV and seperate ourselves from them. We say, 'They are worse than us. Below us.'

We all could be that person. For those of us who aren't, it's by the amazing grace of God.

No murderer is born a murderer, and no rapist is born a rapist. They are born just like you and me. But something in their life happened that pushed their conscience away entirely. Under different circumstances, that could have been anyone. It's like some kind of sick, twisted equation:

Broken world + sin nature of humans x circumstance= result.

We've all got this monster inside of us. Christians are no exception. That's the tricky thing about free will- it provides both the potential for amazing good or great evil. Yet God gave it to us anyway.

This is why God is incredible- because His love is UNCONDITIONAL. He loves all He has created, no matter what. God only hates sins- he does not hate sinners. God doesn't hate gays- he hates the sin of homosexuality that these people struggle with. God doesn't hate 'whores'- he hates the insecurity and fear that leads a girl to such actions.

People are not their sin. There are no 'gays'. There are people who struggle with homosexuality. There are no 'whores'. There are people who struggle with self-esteem. Their are no 'emos'. There are people who suffer with depression and self-loathing.

The call of the Christian- and consequently, one of the biggest challenges- is to look at people and see beyond their sin. Hate their actions, not them.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say here, but I have one last quote that will wrap it up:

"Pity? It is a pity the ring ever came to him (Gollum) at all. Gollum loves and hates the ring, as he loves and hates himself. Do not be too quick to offer up death in judgment, Frodo."- Gandalf

God bless.

The American Dream

2010-02-28T12:27:00.000-08:00

One of my teachers once said to my class:

"Why are you guys here in this class today?"

Everyone responded, "'Cause we have to be."

"Why?" he asked.

"So we can graduate," everyone agreed.

"Why do you want to graduate?"

"So we can go to college."

"Why do you want to go to college?"

"So we can graduate and get a good job."

"Why do you want a good job?"

"So we can... umm...ya know."

He summed it up in a way that really spoke to me. He said that the reason we want this is 'because society and our American culture has taught us this is what you must do so that in the end you can have a white-picket fence life with a beautiful wife, two kids, and a dog'. Granted, I'm paraphrasing from memory, but he did use the picket fence line.

He then told us that we shouldn't let our grade in his class control our life in his class. He wanted us to learn, or at least participate, even if we ended up not getting a good grade. He said that even if we failed the class, it wasn't the end of the world.

How very Dead-Poet's-Society-Mister-Keeting.

Moving on. Lately, I've been insanely busy with work from both Sophmore year and make-up work from Freshman year. And I've just asked myself, 'what's the point? What do I want to do with my life?'

Toby Mac, in his song Lose My Soul, says:

*Yeah, I wanna be a daddy who's in the mix.
I wanna be a husband who stays legit.
I pray I'll be an artist who rises above
the road that is wide and filled with self love.*

I've been thinking about college. And I just feel like... I need to be OUT THERE. IN the world, not studying away so that I can be happy. Many people will say that in order to be able to actually contribute and help the world you need to have the knowledge and skill of a college degree; it's a common consensus that you must be 'well-rounded' in order to help change the world.

I agree, it's important to be well-rounded and knowledgeable.

But...Every time I think about going to college, I get this feeling it's going to lead me inevitably to the place I do not want to be.

I do not want to be the guy who settles down so he can live his life with his family, only looking after my families' and my own interest. There's this part of me that feels like if I conform to the American dream idea, I won't have any lasting impact on the world. I'll have an impact on people, but not the world.

In Switchfoot's song American Dream, they say:

*This ain't my 'American Dream'.
I want to live and die
For bigger things.
I'm tired of fighting for just me!
This ain't MY 'American Dream'.*

I want to spread the Gospel and the word of Jesus. I want to help people! So, in thinking about my future, I've been thinking about careers:

My gift is in art. I want to glorify God with the gift He has given me. But I feel like I won't help spread His message if I become a comic book artist or work with PIXAR or another animation company. Could I have an impact on the life of others?

My other main gift is in writing- I have a passion for telling stories. This has also lead to screen-play writing and an interest in directing within the movie industry. I want to write books, directs films, help out with them, act, etc. Story is SUCH a powerful thing, especially today.

I love music- more specifically, singing. I'm not boasting when I say that I'm a decent singer. Musicians are the philosophers of today and Christian musicians have an incredible reach within our community to encourage other Christians to take action.

I want to protect people and save people. I could never be a doctor- but I've considered (and, yes, this is weird) the job of FBI profiler/psychologist. If I can help enforce our culture's laws (many of which are based on the 10 Commandments!), I want to! The human psyche and mind fascinates me. Maybe a prosecutor. I don't know.

After going through the things I have with an anxiety disorder and severe OCD, I want to help others who have dealt with that. I want to be a counselor. I want to help people who are hurting because I've felt that way.

I want to be a missionary of my own. I want to hitch-hike across America with nothing but a bag of a few necessities and the desire to deliver God's word. I want to have an experience like Don Miller when he lived for months within a homeless community among hippies. I want a REAL experience like that.

So, do you see all of those desires and emotions? And everyone else is just like me. Everyone has these feelings. I don't know what I'll do. Maybe I'll pursue art, maybe I'll pursue writing, maybe I'll pursue the criminal justice fields, maybe I pursue psychiatry. Maybe I'll go to Seminary and become a pastor.

But here is where the main point of this entry starts:

Thousands of people died in the earthquakes in Haiti. All around America, Christians are praying and the country is sending help in the form of the National Guard.

Here's my question: Why haven't we all bought plane tickets down to Haiti to help find people amongst the rubble? Why have we shaken our heads and said, 'That's a horrible tragedy. We should help!' and done nothing ourselves.

Yeah, yeah, regulations and laws of our culture.

I'm worried that if I go to college for the betterment of my future, I will lose this feeling, this yearning. I'm worried if I pursue my own interests instead of trying to help people, I will not be doing what I have been called to do as a Christian.

If you had asked me a few months ago what I wanted out of life, I would have told you:
House with a white picket fence, a wife, a job that makes good money that I enjoy, and two kids and a dog.

If you ask me now, I'd say:
I don't know.

I don't want to squander my artistic ability by ignoring it. It's a wonderful gift God has given me, and I should use it to honor Him! But if I end up working at one of my possible 'dream jobs', animating for comic books and publishing my own stuff, how will I contribute? The only thing people will see is my art. They might say, 'Wow, that's cool art.' But have I conveyed anything about God?

I guess, in the end, I'm torn between the careers I selfishly want to pursue and the careers I want to seek because I want to help the world.

In Smallville, (Let me guess: You just rolled your eyes because I'm making ANOTHER Smallville reference.) when Oliver Queen reveals to Lois Lane that he is the Green Arrow and then leaves her, he explains his reasoning thusly:

"There are more important things in this world than me and what I want...or what I love."

I find that quote so moving, because it just hits the note I'm trying to hit perfectly.

As the body of Christ, everyone is needed. Everyone is as important as everyone else. The body cannot function without hands. Ya know? So I understand that every job is needed, every occupation. But I just don't know what body part I fit in yet.

This may sound silly, but please don't laugh when I say what I'm about to say:

I want to be a superhero.

Not a spandex-wearing dude, no. I want to be someone who is making a major difference in the world without selling my soul to the views of any country's politics. I want the power to make a difference- whether by protecting people, sharing with them in their pain, or spreading the word of God.

Don't get me wrong: I still want what everyone wants- a loving family, a nice life with enough money not to have to worry, etc.

Obviously, I can't do any of this on my own. I need God to work through me. But I don't want to end my life knowing that the only people who will remember me in history are my friends and family. This isn't a hunger for greed or recognition- I just need to make a difference in the world somehow by using my gifts and my passions.

God put us on Earth for a reason. He will use His followers no matter what. But I don't want to waste my life worrying about grades in high school when there are people out there who are hurting and need love. The same applies for my thoughts on college, and then having a job later. Who cares about what your high-school diploma says? I need to interact and get to know my classmates and love them. I believe in working hard, but I refuse to allow school to influence my self-image. It's about how I interact with people, not about how well-written my essay on 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' was. I gave it my best. There's nothing else to say. My attention CANNOT be consumed by school, or I will lose my self to our culture's views and eventually lose my soul and individuality.

John the Baptist is one of my heroes. He's the guy who ate honey and grasshoppers while wearing a camel hair tunic. He was probably unshaven and hairy. And he stood in the middle of the streets and in the waters screaming God's message, proclaiming it loudly.

Lots of people will say you can't spread God's word without a 'proper education'. While I have the utmost respect for the educational system, especially Seminary. But when we're spreading the gospel, I think God is controlling what we say. God is using us as puppets in those moments. My friend Glen wrote a fantastic note on Facebook about his experience with this which I could not have endorsed more. He hit the nail on the head.

If you think you need to be smart or 'well-rounded' to help spread the Gospel, consider this: the disciples, and eventually the Apostles- lots of them started as fisherman. Not Pharisees. Not famous, intelligent teachers. They caught fish for a living. They were believers and understood their faith, but they weren't as 'well-rounded' as the Pharisees. They were rough around the edges.

In the Old Testament, there's the story of Balaam (spell check me on that one...) and his donkey. His donkey talks to him about God. A donkey is explaining the most important thing in the world to a human being.

David danced naked in the streets for God. If I did that, people would turn up their noses and say I was 'uncivilized'. Maybe that's what we need! David Crowder, in his song 'I Will Dance', asks his concert crowd to make a joyful noise and a loud noise. In the exact quote: "Not just a little itty-bitty quiet noise- a LOUD noise."

I don't care if I'm super-knowledgeable and well-rounded. I just want to be used to make a difference.

*If you want to live life loud,
Throw your hands up!
If you want to scream and shout-
Let me hear ya!*

-Hawk Nelson

Armor of God

2010-02-17T16:10:00.000-08:00

"'In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight! Let those who worship evil's might beware my power- Green Lantern's light!"- The Corps Oath

One of the most well-known super heroes of the DC Comics universe is Green Lantern. Who is Green Lantern? Let me fill all of you non-nerds now.

The Green Lantern isn't one superhero. There's an entire Corps called (surprise, surprise) The Green Lantern Corps. Around the entire galaxy, the Guardians of the Universe select beings who display extreme will-power to be members of the Corps. The person receives a ring, takes the oath, and then becomes a Green Lantern. Using the ring, the Green Lantern channels their will power to make stuff with their mind.

So yeah. Anyway. Green Lantern. What's this got to do with anything?

A'ight. Well, in Ephesians 6:11-17, it says to put on the full armor of God. The fulls verse says:

"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God."

So, when we're saved by God, we've been given all the tools necessary to combat evil. However, we are not battling evil- God is. Here's what I mean:

In the Green Lantern story, the rings of power get their abilities to channel willpower from the Master Power Battery guarded by the spirit Ion. The weapons (the rings of power) were created by a force INFINITELY more powerful than the Green Lanterns. These weapons were then bestowed on the chosen warriors. The chosen warriors use this weapon to channel both their own will and the energy of the Master Power Battery.

It's kind of like the Bible, isn't it? I mean, God gave us His son for salvation and then gave us the Bible as well, which was also a weapon. God protects us and fights for us, but He also fights along side us. I might not be making my point well... Uh...

Anyway, in Green Lantern, the Lantern's are weak against the 'yellow impurity'. The yellow impurity (AKA Parallax) is known as the living embodiment of fear and doubt. The reason the Lantern's are weak to the color yellow is because if they allow fear/doubt to enter their 'constructs' (the things they make with their rings), they are vulnerable. I thought this was kind of like doubting God.

See, if we trust in God fully we are told we can move mountains. Says so in the Bible. Anyone with faith 'as small as a mustard seed' could move mountains.

The rings are basically the most powerful weapon in the DC Universe, stemming from possibly the ultimate power at the center. But when the Lantern's start forgetting about where their gifts- their rings- come from and believe that they are the source of their own power, they become susceptible to fear and doubt. And when fear and doubt enters the mind of a Lantern, they are officially vulnerable to the bad guys, who have figured out how to tap into the power of fear. They're called (surprise surprise) Yellow Lanterns.

Anyway, I'm thinking that doubt follows arrogance once we forget God is at the center. God was the source of the Apostle's miracles, and God is the source for our everyday strength. Without the gifts He has given us, we're nothing. At all. Seriously.

I guess in the end I'm making two points (albeit rather poorly):
1) God is the source of our 'power' (spiritual gifts, evangelizing) and is working through us. We aren't channeling God. God is using us!

2) Doubt and fear are natural, but they're pointless. They aren't a weakness, they are what create weaknesses.

See, this devo didn't have as much of a point now as it will, 'cause my next big devotions are gonna be based on the power of story. My primary examples are gonna be comic book characters, so I'll be using comics to make most of my points.

Goodnight, Travel Well

2009-12-24T10:53:00.000-08:00

*There's nothing I can say...
There's nothing I can do now...
The universe is standing still...
Goodnight, travel well.*
- "Goodnight, Travel Well", The Killers

I had been thinking about writing a new entry for Christmas. In fact, I said I would.

I was on facebook, and I was trying to figure out what to put as my status. I put way too much thought into my statuses.

I thought about putting in some Christmas lyrics...

Or some Bible verses from the Nativity story...

And I was thinking about doing the opening verse from the hymn 'Silent Night'. You know:

"Silent Night,
Holy Night,
All Is Calm,
All Is Bright.
Round Yon Virgin,
Mother and Child.
Holy Infant
So Tender And Mild.
Sleep In Heavenly Peace.
Sleep In Heavenly Peace."

And it felt trite. It felt cheesy. Like it was just a sweet, mushy Christmas song. I chose not to use it.

So, I kept thinking. I thought about the song "Better Days" by The Goo Goo Dolls. That song always makes me think about the REAL meaning of Christmas. (Here's a link if you haven't heard it before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIFhst3DwPE)

But that still didn't feel quite right.

The reason we fall into materialism during Christmas, I think, is because we can't put the true meaning of Christmas into words that accurately convey the message.

Sometimes things get close to capturing it. Humans have trouble lumping profound things and child-like joy together.

Some people say stuff with a big grin, like, "Merry Christmas! Jesus is born!" and the profound-types roll their eyes at the simplicity of the statement.

But then, the profound-types say, "This isn't just 'Merry Christmas', we're talking about one of the biggest events in history!" and there's no joy in their words. No joy or happiness. Just quite reverence.

When Jesus was in the manger, surrounded by Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and barn animals, we get this impression that it was silent. We just have this instinctual inclination telling us that it was peaceful and quiet.

I think it was peaceful and quiet in an incredible, supernatural way. If you're in a barn, animals are going to make noise. Cows 'moo', donkeys 'hee-haw', chickens cluck. Etc. There's noise.

But we've got a silent night.

And nowadays, because we can't wrap our heads around the idea of 100% joy and 100% solemnity and peace, we bury ourselves in materialism.

Because who wants to have a major headache of confusion when you can just live in shallow bliss?

Finally, I just gave up on my Facebook status and said:

"Every Christmas at this time, I start thinking about the true meaning of Christmas and I just can't wrap my head around it. It's God's birthday. Mind-bogglingly powerful and confusing message..."

I just admitted I was confused. I think that it's very rare in life for us to have moments of true clarity when it comes to spiritual matters. Since the Fall, we've cut ourselves off from God. Meaning all things spiritual will make little sense to us. Every once in a while, you get that sudden spark during a sermon/worship service/prayer where you REALLY feel genuinely connected. It lasts for mere seconds. And then it's gone. And that's because of our Fallen nature.

Here's the other side of that coin:

God upholds the Covenant between Himself and man entirely. God does ALL of the work in upholding His promises. Christmas is a day to commemorate that God is active. God upheld his end of the Covenant and took action- He sent His Son Jesus, whom was fully God and fully human, down into a broken world in the form of a baby.

There aren't enough words. The true meaning of Christmas is similar to the true nature of God: indescribable. Because every time you try to describe it, it comes out trite and cliche.

You hear stuff that's either like:

"Come on, let's remember the REAL meaning of Christmas, guys. This is a serious matter."

OR

"Yay! It's Jesus' birthday! Praise God! :D"

And both are true, but both fall short of actually describing Christmas. Humans won't understand the true nature of spiritual things until the Second Coming. We're incapable. But as Christians, we try. We're truth-seekers. We WANT to know and to understand.

The point is, we can't describe Christmas because words will always fall short. So, just think about that as you're opening presents and eating with your families. You think OUR Christmas is fun? Wait until a REAL Christmas in a perfect world, where we understand the true meaning. That will be one of the most phenomenal things EVER. Understand that OUR interpretation of Christmas is broken, but it's important because we WANT to commemorate this incredible event.

If you want the true meaning of Christmas, well, you won't get it yet. But Christians try. Here's the best explanation of the true meaning of Christmas, from one of the brightest theologians of our times: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKk9rv2hUfA

Hope that wasn't over your head. :)

Anyway, Merry Christmas.

The Day The Earth Stood Still.

2009-12-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

*One man, one mission
One plot to save the world
Reclaim all races
And embrace our destiny

Changing history when the colliding comes
Where will you run
Come with us if you want to live

Join us in the army that's arising
The truth invades your mind
Every day the Kingdom is advancing
The earth invasion has just begun.*

-Skillet, Earth Invasion

It's Christmas time! This is the first time I'll be doing some Christmas entries on WASD, and I'm very excited. I'll do at least one more before New Years.

The other day I heard a youth pastor refer to Christmas time as 'the Holy Invasion'. He was saying that when Christmas roles around, the people that only go to church on Christmas and Easter will dust off their nice clothes and head to church. But the term really stuck with me.

'Holy Invasion'.

When we think of Christmas- more specifically, Jesus as a person- we think of peace. We think of the man we see in paintings with brown hair, grinning from ear to ear and holding a small child.

Don't get me wrong: This is Jesus through and through. Jesus is 'shalom'. So the term 'Holy Invasion' almost comes across a little... rude, doesn't it?

But that's exactly what this was.

Let's get a little more specific. The word alien, before it came to mean little green/gray men (whatever suits you), meant 'outsider'. Something FOREIGN.

A holy being outside of everything we know and could possibly understand sends His Son, a being who is also God himself, into a sinful, broken world as a baby.

When Jesus is born, He is a PERFECT human being. He has no sin. 100% clean, all the time. And, He's also fully God. And the son of God.

Pause one second: If you didn't think of it as bizarre and mind boggling at first, try to wrap your head around it- Jesus was the Son of God and God the Father himself. I don't know about you, but that seems pretty 'foreign and strange'.

God has set in motion the perfect plan. He has sent His Son down into the world of sinners, 'fullness of God in helpless babe'. Not only does this prove His intense love for these sinners, he's willing to save them.

He sends His Son Jesus to Earth, knowing full well that Jesus will be persecuted for His entire life, until eventually He is crucified. How could any parent do that? We know that Jesus' death pained God intensely. The loss of a child pains the parent.

So, he sends his son, the PERFECT being, into a world under oppression. Literally, this was a 'Holy Invasion'.

Think to all those images of alien invasions from movies like Independence Day, The Day The Earth Stood Still, etc. This fits the criteria for the title of 'alien invasion'.

Jesus later says in the New Testament, "I come not to bring peace but a sword." Jesus is bringing change to the world. He's invading the culture, changing the way people understand God, saving literally MILLIONS of lives, and totally turning the established order on its head. This DEFINITELY falls in with the archetype of 'alien invasion'.

Rewind: 'Before' Jesus went into action, He was a baby.

Pudgy cheeks. Feet in mouth. Amazed by hands. Those are the images that come to mind when I think about babies. How could JESUS have been a baby?

But he was. So let's take the story to another angle- three wisemen have been tracking the stars, doing their thing, and they see a new star. They saddle up their camels and follow it, until it leads them DIRECTLY to Jesus. A little baby in a feeding box, with a loving mother just after labor and a father seeing to his wife.

If I was one of those wisemen, I would have found that a little anti-climactic. I mean, there's a NEW STAR in the sky, and it leads to a baby in a barn.

They come to the conclusion this baby is not what he seems. It is revealed to them that Jesus is the prophesied King of Kings.

These three wisemen go back to Caesar and talk to him about it. Caesar is ruling an empire right about now. He's happy with his life. He doesn't want some NEW KING coming to take all of this from him. And Satan slides right in and starts pulling the strings on Caesar.

There's a scene in an episode of Smallville (yes, I'm talking about Smallville again) that really fits this moment. In the episode 'Splinter', Clark gets a sliver of silver kryptonite into his blood, and gradually becomes more and more paranoid. He even starts hallucinating. Of course, all of his paranoia is tied to his biggest fear: his secret being discovered by the entire world.

In one scene, when he's hallucinating, he sees Lex holding a press conference. Lex exclaims:

"Clark Kent is an invader from another world, the first of an armada bent on enslaving this planet! But I know his weakness. I know how to stop him."

This is what Satan whispers into Caesar's ear.

Satan never works in complete lies. He deals in half-truths.

He tells Caesar that Jesus is from another world, an alien. (Truth)
He then tells Caesar that Jesus is bent on taking control from Caesar. (Lie)

Caesar tells the wisemen to bring him to the baby, so that he may 'worship him as well'.

The wisemen are like, 'yeah, like that's what you're gonna do.' The wisemen want this child alive- they know He is the Messiah. So they take off. They don't tell Caesar.

I don't know what my real point is, here. I guess I'm just trying to point out that Christmas is something MUCH bigger than we ever acknowledge it to be. It's not 'just' the birth of Christ, it's the BIRTH OF CHRIST. Bold-face. Underline. Exclamation points. It's an invasion about to change the entire world FOREVER.

And, I guess what I'm trying to say is: that's a BIG DEAL.

Alcoholics Anonymous.

2009-11-20T20:28:00.000-08:00

"Today at the mall with my family, we passed a wishing fountain. I tossed a coin in and wished for an iTouch for Christmas. My younger brother, trying to impress my parents, said I was being selfish and wished for world peace. He tossed a quarter at the well, it bounced off the rim, and hit him in the head. You can't fool the wishing fountain."- MLIA

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words." -Matthew 6:5-7

Jesus was a man of action, not of words.

In my English class, we just finished reading Tartuffe. Tartuffe is an old play written by Moliere about a bogus priest who has convinced a nobleman that he is truly pious. The nobleman, named Orgon, is in awe of this 'holy prophet'. However, the rest of Orgon's family see Tartuffe for what he really is.

We, as readers, don't meet Tartuffe until quite a ways into the play. But when we meet him, he's truly detestable. He flaunts his prayers out for all to see, purposefully.

Jesus said that we are to be revolutionaries. We are the Elect. We're supposed to evangelize. But, right there in Matthew 5:6-7, he says we should pray in private. Jesus says believers should congregate and worship as a church, but again we look at this verse and notice he is saying worship should be private. So, which one do we do? Anyone else getting some mixed signals?

Well, let's look at the context of the verse, because after all: context is key. This is in the Sermon on the Mount. People followed Jesus, this man they thought was simply a fascinating teacher and philosopher, up onto a mountain and sat, listening intently while he spoke. Hanging on his every word. Jesus main opponents in that culture at the time were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a council of Jewish religious judicial officials. The word 'pharisee' literally means 'sit together', if I'm remembering my New Testament project correctly.

The Pharisees LOVED to show they were better than anyone else. That they could keep the law the best, that they could be the most 'perfect'. Time and again they try to stump Jesus with questions to trip him up, and it backfires completely on them. Their authority is challenged over and over and over.

All right. So, we've got a call to be active and loud as Christians, but then Jesus tells us we are supposed to pray secretly and discreetly. Jesus says this as a reference to the Pharisees. Like I said, they loved to show they were 'better'. They would pray loudly. For them, prayer was not spiritual. Prayer was about the attention they received. Up until Jesus came, everyone said, "Oh look at those amazing Pharisees!" But Jesus shows up and says, "You guys have it ALL wrong. You've twisted up prayer!"

Look back up at that little story at the beginning of the entry. Go on, it's funny.

When we pray insincerely for things just to gain respect, it backfires. God sees straight into our souls. I know that gets said a lot, but it's true. He sees our nakedness and our true motivations. So when we're fake-praying, when we're hamming it up to look good in front of others, God gets insulted. We aren't praying to him.

We aren't even praying at all.

In Ethics, we just finished watching a great old movie called "The Days Of Wine And Roses" to correspond with our class discussion about addictions. Anyway, before we started watching that, I had been thinking a lot about the idea of 'church'. What is a church?

And when I thought about this verse in Matthew, I thought: "Wow, are we doing this wrong? Get together and singing loudly and acting all good... Is this right?"

See, my definition of church was:

A place for the enlightened man to rise above the sinful nature and to praise God. A place to separate one's self from sin, from the ugliness of the world.

Then I watched "Days Of Wine And Roses". The movie is about a couple that struggle with alcoholism. Joe, the husband, eventually realizes he has a problem and starts trying to sober up. However, his wife Kirsten, whom had not been drinking until she met Joe, continues to drink. And drink. And get drunk. She starts to resent Joe for sobering up, because she thinks he believes himself to be better than her. She runs away and drinks herself into oblivion. On their final confrontation in their apartment, a sober and deeply-pained Kirsten says that when she's drinking, the ugliness of the world goes away.

The way the movie ends is depressing. She leaves, refusing to admit she is an alcoholic. Joe is left with a daughter and the weight of knowing he caused her drinking. But he's sober. He's been working with Alcoholics Anonymous.

And so I had this thought:

The funny thing about the way people-- believers and non-believers alike-- perceive church is skewed and wrong. Christians and athiests see church as the place where those who have 'ascended' past the sin of this world to gather. That's not what it is at all! Church is Alcoholics Anonymous. People who believe are recognizing their problem (sin) and going not to 'rise above' the world but to beg for forgiveness and to try and get away from the addiction. A church is not a place for 'holier-than-thou' people like the Pharisees. A church is a place for the sinners-- the adulterers, the murderers, the liars, the greedy, the gluttonous-- to go to acknowledge they have a problem.

The congregation is the support group! These are all people saying, "I have a problem too, and I want out of it. I need to sober up."

In a nutshell, church isn't a place for people who go 'because they're Christians' (although that's commendable). A church is a place for a sinner to go, showing an entire group of people he is a sinner simply by showing up, and ask for forgiveness with Jesus. A Christian will mess up and slip. We are fallen. Sinful.

And I'm not saying that acknowledging you have a problem is how to fix everything.

Think of it like this.

1) Man wakes up one day, disgusted with himself for his sin. He goes to repent on Sunday.
2) Man sees another 200 people there, who are all there for the same reason: they are disgusted with their sin and need to praise God for his grace.
3) By coming to church, the man is telling everyone else in the congregation he is a sinner and needs help. 'I'm _____ and I'm an alcoholic.'
4) And thus begins the journey. A church is just like AA.

How does this tie into the whole prayer thing? That verse we started with?

Jesus says we shouldn't be Pharisees. Don't go out and pray loudly at restaurants so that people look over and say, 'Wow, he's virtuous'.

Because people aren't going to say that. People are going to say, 'Christians think they're so much better, when they're just as bad as us. What hypocrites.'

People can tell when faith is ingenuine. Especially with Christians. Christianity is a faith all about changing how you act. So by putting on these big pious displays in public, we're setting ourselves up for a fall.

But Jesus says we should pray quietly and discreetly. Because those big, gaudy prayers don't impress humans, and they especially don't impress God. God sees right through them.

In the end of Moliere's play 'Tartuffe', Tartuffe is exposed as a total fraud and brought to justice. All of his false piety backfires like a quarter off the edge of a wishing well, and hits him square in the head. False faith will only get you hit in the head with pocket change.

So, here's the full point: we have to change how we understand churches. Stop saying a church is place for 'Christians to gather'. A church is a place for sinners who want to be made whole, who desparately want to be sober! Going to church says, "I'm a sinner and I have problem! That's why I'm here!" And that means confessing that not only to God, but to an entire congregation. But those people are all there for the same reason you are! They're sinners who want to be made whole, to be sobered.

If you go to church because it's 'what Christians do', your faith is leaning very close towards the Pharisees'.

If you go to church each day to be held accountable and to openly admit you are a sinner, you're living Matthew 5:6-7.

Jesus was a man of action. He walked the walk. Talk was cheap to him.

Teddy Roosevelt said, "Talk softly and carry a big stick."

If we say 'talking softly' means being brief with words and 'carrying a big stick' means walking the walk, we've got Jesus. Jesus, the Son of God, whom set the example for all believers on how to act.

I know some people are going to think this is cheesy, maybe even a little distasteful. But this imagery is far too powerful for me to avoid.

Jesus did indeed talk softly, living through action. In his actions, he LITERALLY carried a big stick. He was crucified on it. And He rose again.

Jesus was a man of action, who is the only person to ever successfully 'walk the walk AND talk the talk'.

Disclosures and Warning Labels

2009-11-08T18:00:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen one of those signs (or at least a picture of one) that's absolutely ridiculous? Or one of those warning labels that seems so blatantly obvious and useless?

Example:

Windex. Warning! Do not spray in eyes!

Nooo, really?!

Alright. And have you ever seen one of those disclosures on DvD boxsets. It's like, those ones that say, "The views expressed in the commentaries and bonus content do not reflect those of the FOX company" etc.

Here's what I'd like to say.

I'm human (I think. Jury's still out.). I'm fallen- A LOT. I'm prejudiced. I'm a jerk. I'm a bad Christian. And I'm doing a 'theology' blog.

When I started WASD, I just wanted to make a blog for me to spout my random thoughts on theology and God. I also wanted to aim it at other teens, so teens could relate to it.

This entry is a disclosure.

First of all, don't spray it in your eyes. Second of all, it has sharp edges.

No, but seriously. One of my favorite quotes is from Rob Bell when he defines theology. He says, "The word theology has roots in two Latin words. Theos means God and Logos means Talk. Theology is God Talk. Anyone can do theology."

Now, in Ecclesiastes 1:9, it says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

So here's my point.

A) I'm biased and fallen. Everything in this blog is me wrestling with scripture, so don't take it as Scripture. 'Cause I know it's not perfect understanding of things. These are just my thoughts. I want YOU GUYS to think a little bit. Get that hamster running on that wheel. I hesitate to say it's my opinion, since I base all my entries on what I know about the Bible and try my best to keep it in the context of Scripture.

B) There's nothing new. I'm not saying NEW stuff. Humans have been around for a while now. There have been dozens of philosophers and theologians over time. But this blog is MY thoughts. This is me trying wrestling with my spiritual questions and posting them in the hopes some discussion will result or some thought will occur.

So keep that in mind when reading my thoughts.

I'd also like to talk about Christian authors. Just as a general set of rules, here are some guidelines to follow when looking at Christian books:

1) Don't give much credence to books with pictures of their author on the front. I'm looking at you, Joel Olsteen.

2) Don't give much credence to books that say stuff like "Five Steps To A Holier You". The book was written by someone who is fallen, just like you. They aren't going to have anything to say that Scripture doesn't say. They can't.

3) Any books that have their author's photo on the cover or back should not be trusted. If there's a small picture in the dust jacket, that's fine. That's totally okay. But not big photos.

4) Cheesy is as cheesy does. 85% of the time, anything with a ridiculously cheesy title is not going to be that great, in my experience. Granted, Rob Bell named one of his books "Jesus Wants To Save Christians", and that was FANTASTIC. So, that's in the 15% category.

Yep. Just some thoughts.

"Jake, how many hamsters do you go through in a day?"- Crim

My Story

2009-09-12T19:38:00.001-07:00

*Fear can drive a stick, and it's taking me down this road- a road down which I swore Id' never go. And hear I sit, thinking of God knows what, afraid to admit I might self destruct.*
- Devastation and Reform, Relient K

Early on in my Freshman year, our New Testament class was assigned a project. It was a memoir/brief autobiography of ourselves. You know, one of those things teacher's assign to get to know their students. Basic stuff.

Well, the first line of my paper was, "I'm not interesting."

Okay, this may take a little explanation. See, up to that point, I'd say my life wasn't interesting. I didn't have one of those amazing stories about turning to Christ- I had one of those 'been all my life but really clicked during summer camp on year' conversion stories. Although there had been a few incidents in my life that were semi-interesting stories, other than that, nada.

At least, that's what I thought.

A few months later, something happened.

See, there's a slight history of anxiety in my family. You know, 'worry-wartism'.

During my fifth grade year I had dealt with a form of an anxiety disorder, and after several months, defeated it. I attributed the success to A) God's help, B)My will, C)Medicine.

Anyway, after that, I was normal, save a few eccentricities. But suddenly, something in my mind apparently just snapped- no, not like I went insane. It was like my body had been storing up all my anxiety and worry and fear over the course of four years. And suddenly, it just flooded.

Okay, that's not a good way to describe. But it happened so gradually, so deceivingly slowly, that in retrospect it seems like it just sneaked up on me. (Yes, it's sneaked, not snuck.)

So after Christmas Break, my world fell apart. I developed not only a new anxiety disorder but OCD- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

This doesn't mean I was crazy. In fact, MILLIONS of people suffer from some form or another of OCD. But suddenly, I developed this fear of contamination- not germs, but contamination. It's hard to explain.

Mostly, because to you, and to me NOW, it doesn't make sense. It's not practical. It was just irrational, uncontrollable fear. And it just started eating me up inside.

Suddenly, I was sleeping on an air matress in the living room instead of my room. Suddenly, all the food in the house was contaminated and I had to eat out. I couldn't make myself eat food at home. I wouldn't touch my dog or family. I couldn't touch anything in the house, essentially. And the outside world was similar.

It was soul-crushing. That's the only way to describe it.

In his book "Drops Like Stars", pastor Rob Bell makes a valid point. He says that when suffering strikes people, they always ask the question, "why?".

The 'why' is always the same: we live in a fallen world.

So the logical thought progression is, "Why would God allow it?"

Rob Bell says the question we should ask is, "What now?"

This may sound the same as when people say 'everything happens for a reason', but it's not. Because it's not in our human capacity to accept or truly understand that.

It's the idea that when suffering strikes, we take a step back, no matter how difficult that may be, and we ask:

What now?

Where do I go from here? What is my life now?

This isn't the same as asking "How is God using this to teach me?".

It's more of a step toward that thought. It's like we aren't quite ready to swallow the truth that God IS going to use it, so we take a baby-step. We ask, "What now?''

What are the truths of my life? Where do I go from here?

It's incredibly hard to do while suffering, and incredibly painful to do while in the face of suffering.

The first month into Summer Vacation, after MONTHS of psychological training and 'therapy', the OCD was defeated. Not gone, but defeated so badly that any time it chose to try and make me anxious, I could quell it.

And just recently, I have gotten around to asking, "What now?"

Fear guided my life for months. I know for a fact that nothing will ever be the same with me in light of that experience. It's too powerful.

My friendships suffered from lack of speaking and making contact for months. Never even seeing people. My life socially had changed dramatically.

So, I ask: "What now?"

I've been wondering what God was trying to teach me from this experience, because I'm finally at the point where I can start asking that question.

It's most likely you will say, "God is teaching you that He is always with you and that with His help you can get through anything!"

Or possibly: "God wants you to gain understanding of psychological anxiety disorders so you can move into a career on that subject."

I disagree with both, although they might be totally correct.

I think

He was saying,

"You ARE interesting."

I opened a paper just a few months before with the sentence "I'm not interesting", and within a few months, enter an ordeal that very few can truly say they have been part of. And it's happened before. Twice, I have beaten this.

What kind of kid can say that? Although OCD is common, on a smaller scale, it's semi-rare. I may be the only kid in my grade to ever have dealt with an Anxiety Disorder on this level.

And on a larger scale, many people with OCD just adapt to it. They never defeat it.

So recently I thought about my life.

And I realized, if you don't count those two incidents, I still have had a very unique life. I have stories in my past that make most people go wide-eyed.

I think God was just trying to tell me, "You ARE interesting. You DO matter. And if others don't find you interesting, well...I find you fascinating. Your life is infatuating to me."

God loves me so much. He cares so much about me. About my life.

And that's a concept I know I'll never fully be able to understand. But I sure will try.

I'll try because God is interested in me.

God vs. Fantasy?

2009-08-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

Throughout the Bible, witchcraft and dabbling in the dark arts is seen as one of the ultimate taboos.

But what does this mean?

GK Chesterton said, "Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us dragons exist, but that they can be BEATEN."

I grew up reading fantasy novels. My dad, a seminary graduate, read Harry Potter to me when I was little, as well as the Chronicles of Narnia. I grew up reading books about magic and wizards and brave knights and heroes.

Then came RPGing. I grew up when parents were scared that Dungeons and Dragons was leading their children into the occult and satanic practices.

Then the Harry Potter controversy.

Then, oh yes, World of Warcraft. The game that has attracted MILLIONS of players all over the world. Warcraft's world is full of monsters, demons, magic, healing, and fighting demonic powers.

I had been raised on fantasy novels and manga. It was no surprise I got into online gaming as well. I started playing Guild Wars, played the demo of World of Warcraft, engaged in ALL of Artix Entertainment's free games. Heck, when I was little, I played the card game Yugioh ENDLESSLY.

Is this wrong? Is this 'dabbling in the occult'?

I've read Harry Potter, Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Artemis Fowl, The Inheritance Cycle (Eragon), Broken Sky, some of the Warcraft novels, R.A. Salvatore's Forgotten Realms, and countless more.

I grew up reading-and continue to read-manga like Shaman King, Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, D. Gray Man, Fullmetal Alchemist, and more.

I grew up watching- and continue to watch- Magic Knight Rayearth, Fullmetal Alchemist, the movies of Hayao Miyazaki, and TONS more.

I'm an avid comic book fan. One of my all time favorite superheroes is Hellboy, a demon who refuses to follow his demon heritage and instead spends his time trying to save the world!!

So, I've read tons of fantasy.

I've played RPGS involving magic and supernatural powers.

I've watched anime involving magic and elemental abilities.

So again: Am I sinning?

What are the pros of fantasy?:

1) Fantasy openly acknowledges a struggle between good and evil, often involving supernatural abilities under many names. Jutsu. Kido. Magic. Elemental powers.

2) Fantasy's heroes are often children of no special background rising to become heroes. This mirrors the Christian's call to Christ.

3) Other times, fantasy heroes are children who are long lost children of Kings. These children are often raised in a poor setting with a small family. This mirrors Christ being born as the child of a carpenter.

4) The abilites the heroes use are often a gift from a higher power. This mirrors the Apostles being given great power by the Holy Spirit to do miraculous things.

5) The hero is often called to sacrifice himself in order to save the world.

I could go on and on about lessons fantasy can teach us. But let's look at...

The Cons of Fantasy:

1) The use of magic. While this is solely a story telling element, it can be dangerous. It's hard to say.

2) The decision to ignore the conflicts of the Spiritual War and say life is boring. Thus, we read fantasy. By saying that this life is dull, we are leaving ourselves unaware and unprotected.

3) Possible desensitization to the powers of darkness.

4) The occasional protagonist who believes he must have more power constantly. This is seen in manga fairly often.

5) If Christians that read fantasy are scorned for reading fantasy by other believers, this can potentially push people away from Christianity.

So, I leave the decision to you. That's what this blog is about.

God bless.

Uh-oh....

2009-05-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

"Turns out, I don't have as many thoughts as you might think."-Joey, FRIENDS

I've just noticed something. I'm out of spiritual musings right now.

NOT GOOD.

Shouldn't we always have spiritual musings? Isn't that what makes us Christians and truth seekers?

So far, I've minorly covered my musings on good and evil, demons, and a few other things.

Am I already out? Where did my spiritual musings go?

Praying for renewed spiritual vigor...

Let's See How Far We've Come

2009-05-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

There's a line in this song that I love.

*I sat down on the street, took a look at myself. I said "Where you goin' man, you know the world is headed for hell?"Say your goodbyes if you got someone to say goodbye too.*

I think for a lot of people that's how the moments goes. When God chooses the time to have them choose, this is how a lot of people feel I think.

Because people usually come to God in hard times. Right?

Chosen to choose to be chosen.

We were chosen by God to choose whether or not we would follow him- and even though he knows what our choice will be (to be chosen), he still offers the choice.

That's the little blurb of the day.

How then should we live?

2009-04-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

*This life is beautiful! I give it all to You, all for You!*

I've been thinking about what I'm going to do with my future and stuff, and an interesting thought occured to me.

Our physical life is sort. To quote the band Reilly, "We're living on limited time."

We are called to give ourselves wholly to God.

We have an eternity with Him.

So, should we put aside what we want for the future so that we can do what we are called to? Should I give up my passions and skills, all my plans for my life, and instead live as a missionary? As a teacher? A pastor?

We're living on limited time, but soon we'll have an eternity with the Lord Himself. During this eternity, we will be praising Him constantly. In this life, we praise God through the gifts he gives us.

In the movie Chariots of Fire, Eric Little says to his sister:

"Yes, God did call me to be a missionary. And I'm going to. But he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure."

So, what if we decided to live our mortal lives doing everything we could to spread the Gospel? To be a force for good? What if, instead of pursuing our passions on our career path, we threw ourselves into the work for God wholeheartedly?

We can enjoy the gifts He's given us in Eternity.

But really- don't we have work to do now? Our calling?

Just something to think on.

FOLLOW-UP QUESTION:
Can our gifts become an idol of ours?

Knowing Is Half The Battle

2009-04-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

Obviously, you've heard the expression, "Knowing is half the battle". It's used in ads ranging from various diseases and STDs to game show slogans.

Why am I using it today?

Because we completely misunderstand demons.

We paint horns on them, and draw them as hideous monsters. They love causing death and destruction, blood and war. And this is the wrong way to understand demons.

What are demons? As us humans understand through Scripture, demons are angels fallen from heaven who have chosen to follow the first fallen angel, Satan. They are spiritual beings, whereas humans are physical/spiritual beings. Of two natures.

It says in the Scriptures that Satan comes in the form of an angel of light. He doesn't come for you in fire and brimstone, with a pitchfork and fangs. He instead chooses to imitate the beauty of God's angels.

I think the most common misconception on the devil and demons is the way they work. We think they kill people close to us, or cause immediate pain. What we think of as physical evil acts.

But CS Lewis, in his wonderful book "The Screwtape Letters", puts it another way through the view of Screwtape, the demon mentoring the younger one Wormwood. Screwtape chides Wormwood for being so excited when Wormwood observes the beginnings of WWII. Screwtape tells Wormwood that although it might be slightly entertaining, war is bad for their cause. Death and near-death experiences cause humans to reconsider life and God. An athiest will often pray on his death bed.

There's a great quote that was in one of my teacher's classroom. It said:

"Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand."

That's the way demons and the devil work. They deceive by lulling us to sleep, numbing us to things like God. They don't attack directly. No, they use a means of distraction.

Often, we don't even catch that they've diverted us from the right path until much later in life. They can deceive a Christian into believing things about the Bible that aren't actually there. They can deceive a Christian to walk around threatening people with Hell unless they convert.

Demons are behind the scenes bad guys who are like the puppet masters. They don't really DO anything. They place thoughts. Like how Satan simply asked Eve, "Did he really say you can't eat from any tree in the Garden?" and other questons. Simply pushing her in that direction without actually doing anything.

Demons are, for lack of a better term, psychologists. But there is some REALLY good news.

Ted Dekker, in his novel "The Slumber of Christianity", describes Satan as a beast in death throws. Wounded, already deafeated, and yet insistent on continuing trying to win. The war is over.

It's nearly Easter by our calendars, which is a day we take to commemorate the winning of a war. Jesus crushed the Serpent's head under his foot.

In Revelation, there are a lot of scary things. They talk about Christians becoming horribly persecuted, and people being killed unless the bow to demons. But here's the great part: it's just a battle! Already, God and Jesus have won the war! Those massive events that they say will stretch on for years and years- in the eyes of a completely immortal, indestructable King, that's only a few moments! It's one battle!

It's Satan's last stand, his last desperate attempt to win. And I think he already knows he is going to lose.

Lot's of people are scared of demons and such. When we are in Christ, we don't need to be! Sure, we need to acknowledge them, but we are also so protected by Him that the demons can't hurt us unless He allows it! So you know what we can do to Satan?

We can stand there and laugh at him. Because he can't stand being mocked. Demons can't stand it when we are aware of their presence but feel no fear. And we feel no fear because the war is already won- our Lord rose from the grave and conquered death! He won the war!

It's Easter! God bless.

But I do not do what I want to do.

2009-03-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

"For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that is good. So now it is no longer I who did it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to do what is right. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who did it, but sin that dwells within me." -Romans 7: 15-20

Wow. If you're like most people, by now you are scratching your head and saying, "Whu?".

Me too.

When we fell from grace, we fell hard. I like to think of it like this:

Imagine this beautiful sort of forest, massive in size but doesn't fill the entire world. It's got boundaries too. There's this feeling of happiness, like those lazy summer days without the laziness. No discomfort from heat- everything is like climate controlled and awesome. Everything is beautifully dark green, and simple. The animals don't fight. The fruit is always perfectly ripe. There's this sort of subconcious music playing all the time, and people feel it more than hear it. It's like a wonderful dream.

But then we ate what we shouldn't have. And there was this sudden falling feeling, like when something goes very wrong and you feel your stomach fall. And you can't hear the music anymore. And there's this sort of massive vibration you can't hear, but you feel, like a sonic boom. Everything is quiet, and everything seems rougher.

This is the fall.

Ted Dekker, in 'Black', puts this story into a wonderful new form. There are two forests: the Colored Forest and the Black Forest. The Colored Forest is full of beautiful trees and takes up almost the entire land. But this Black Forest is scary, and all the trees seem dead. There's a massive green river dividing the two, and a small white bridge. Good and Evil in physical form, divided only slightly.

Eventually, one of the characters drinks some of Teeleh(Satan)'s water while ignoring Elyon(God)'s command. The Shataiki bats, these giant black bats of Teeleh's, swarm across the river in a massive black tidal wave. As soon as they cross, things start to die. Whenever the horde passes Elyon's trees and fruit, it withers. These huge bats attack anything living. And everything just starts dying.

This is our sin nature. Temptation and doubt led us to the Fall. Faith and wisdom will have lead us to God.

Paul puts the sin nature right there on the table, in words a small child can understand. In bullet-point fashion:

-We know what's right, but don't do it.
-We desire to do what's right, but don't.
-We desire to always do what's right, but can't. (...I know nothing good dwells in my flesh.)
-We are incapable of doing the completely right thing without God.

I see this in myself all the time. I am constantly aware of when I'm sinning, and so many times I do so willfully. So, questions to mull over:

-What does it take for us to be able to- with God's help- do the right thing?
-Considering 98% of our sins are willful, how can we be forgiven when we are told willful sinning is not forgiven?
-Is willful sinning sinning and not caring at all or knowing it's wrong (like Paul said) and doing it?

You see, the last two can, for all intensive purposes, be put into black and white.

Sinning and not feeling any remorse or caring is WRONG.

Sinning while understand it's wrong and having any guilt at all is how we should feel. And it's hard. It's VERY difficult to feel bad for your sin. I'd say 50-55% of my prayers are "Lord, make me hate and feel guilt for my sin."

Referencing Ted Dekker again (love this author), there's another set of events in the book 'Black' which I absolutely love, though not for the same reasons most Christians do.

Thomas Hunter, so desperately wanting to know and speak with Elyon, jumps head-first into Elyon's water. This would be something like trying to look at God.

Anyway, he get's in there, and, in Ted's own words, 'immediately knew it was a mistake'. Just a few seconds after complete submersion, Thomas begins to ripped to pieces. At first it's like he's being electrified, and then as he's drowning, the water turns red. He feels the pain of his own sin and hears the weeping of Elyon as he feels Thom's pain, as Elyon shoulders it. It literally almost kills Thomas, and he's about to die, when he hears Elyon screaming in pain, weeping in agony as he completely shoulders Thom's sin. And then Thomas really wants to die.

Most people love this scene because it shows how much God cares about us, but that's only one of the reasons I love it. I love it because it reminds me that if I were to stare my own sins in the face, I would literally be torn apart. It would kill me. I wouldn't be able to handle it. It would not only kill you, it would literally feel like you should be un-created.

And I'll admit, I almost cried reading that 3-4 page scene in the book of Thomas in the lake. Not only because of finally feeling like someone understands what would happen if we were to see our sin, but because the next part, which is why most people love it.

Finally, Thomas' pain stops and he is overwhelmed by raw joy and pleasure, not just because of what he's just seen but because it's being thrown at him by the lake. It's Elyon's joy. Thomas breathes in the water, and is fine. And he's laughing and swimming in it, and a voice asks him "Do you like it?". Ted describes the next part as Thomas shouting yes with every possible fiber of his being, both with voice and soul. And the voice says. "I made this." And while Thomas is still just so overwhelmed by the experience, Elyon tells him that he is loved.

It's got to be one of my favorite scenes in a book EVER. Because it just hit every note.

We have a sin nature that has consumed us so much it's nearly impossible to do the right thing. And when we try to do the right thing, it comes out all twisted and messed up. We have alterior motives and adulterous hearts.

It's impossible for us to do true good in the world, because only God is capable of true good. And I hope that when I finally see him, I can 'jump into the lake', because only once I've seen my sin and felt that pain will I ever even begin to understand what true goodness is.

*I'm a saint, I'm a sinner. I'm a lover and fighter. I'm a true believer with great desire.*
- This Is Who I Am, Third Day

Well

2009-03-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

*Rhythmical moving,
emotions are rising,
quivering to music,
trembling bodies in song.
Go unsteadily sliding,
devious gliding.
So beautifully sailing and floating on.
Life's real when angels and serpents dance.*
-When Angels and Serpents Dance, P.O.D

This blog isn't about answering the questions that are being asked so much as it is to inspire readers to think about these questions. These ideas. These thoughts.

I'm not perfect. I don't know the Bible cover to cover (yet, hopefully.). But I'm a truth seeker, searching for answers from a Christian perspective.

Rob Bell, pastor at Mars Hill Church, defines it this way:

"The word theology comes from two parts. Theos, meaning God. And logos, meanings talk or speak. Theology: God talk. Anyone can do theology."-Rob Bell, Jesus Wants to Save Christians

So, I'm definitely not perfect, and I don't have all the answers to these questions I'm posting. But I'm hoping that, by inspiring you to dive deep into the amazing world of theology and the Bible, we all can learn and grow in Christ.

Know this: As well as being a truth seeker, I'm a doubting Thomas. I'm the person who wants to put his hand on the scars before he believes, not after. My doubts are part of the inspiration to start a blog that can help people think about the same huge questions someone like Thomas would've pondered. Just because you doubt doesn't mean you don't believe. If you're worried about your doubts, you haven't lost your faith or gone astray. A dead fig tree doesn't worry about such things, because a tree worried about bearing fruit isn't dead.

Also, know another thing: I'm not building off of any theology, really. I'm a Calvinist, but I'm just reading the Bible in context and thinking about exactly what it says.

I trust CS Lewis and John Calvin the most when it comes to matters of theology, but I'm not taking anything from them. I'm trying to remove myself from all prerequisites and demands, just as Paul prayed.

God bless. Dive deep.

I don't believe in love- I think

2009-03-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

*Love is here, Love is now. Love is pouring from His hands, from His brow.*

I've been thinking (surprise surprise), and I'm not sure humans can love.

There's some philosopher who speculated that 98% of human actions is motivated by sexual desire.

Now, that being said, from everything I've seen, love is completely chemical and hormonal. Teens will say 'I'm in love with you' because their hormones are raging, thus tricking them into thinking they are in love.

Does this mean all feelings of love are chemical? Like my previous questions on good and evil, is love purely in the mind due to chemicals like pheromones and adrenaline?

This brings me to my next thought: Did God create humans as creatures who understand good, evil, and love through science? Did God create human beings as unique creatures because they understand these things through scientific chemical means?

While God and his angels understand true love and the notions of good(right) and evil(wrong) through the soul, do humans subconsciously understand these things through the way God has created the chemicals in the mind? And, more importantly, does this mean that God and Evil, in the human world, are very physical things?

It's been proven that by altering chemicals in people's minds will affect their personalities. While this may sound very science-ee, the mots simple example would be anti-depressants. They help the brain release chemicals so that you are HAPPIER.

I know I come across very skeptical, and sort of like Brennan on "Bones", but I feel this is something important to think about. There's an episode of the Mentalist where a company claims to have created a "Morality Engine". It's a machine that can stimulate a person's mind so that they are actually good or evil. While the end of the episode reveals that the machine is a fake and they were paying off the testers, it does raise the question: could a person be manipulated into being good or evil? And, drawing on my last entry, what are good and evil?

I believe that Jesus Christ, as a son of God, was definitely capable of true, non-chemical based love. His love was God's love. His love was REAL love. Jesus' love didn't come from chemicals in the brain. Jesus Christ-Yeshua's- love didn't come from anything but true love. That's why he died for us.

So, are humans capable of the same kind of love?

Good and Evil

2009-03-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

My dad and I were watching some of the old Smallville episodes the other day- we're big Superman fans here- and he pointed out something interesting.

We were watching the first episode of season two (to those of you who know your Smallville, that's when Clark is AWOL from life and running renegade in Metropolis...), in which Clark Kent is wearing a 'red kryptonite' ring. While in contact with Red Kryptonite, a Kryptonian (in this case, Clark) loses all inhibitions. Clark starts robbing backs while using his powers, and just acting like a complete jerk. He's in total rebellion.

So my dad asked, "So are good and evil chemical related to Kryptonians? Like, since he can become this way just by coming in contact with a mineral?"

Now, of course, I resisted the urge to blurt out that Red K is not, in fact, a mineral but a radioactive piece of Krypton changed while traveling through space, by my desire to enter this conversation and to hide my complete dorkiness prevented me from doing so.

Anyway, we talked about it for a while, and I left the conversation thinking:

Is good and evil a chemical thing? Is it just something in our brains?

Or is good and evil in the soul?

Is the reason humans are unique and loved by God because our good and evil is scientific? Or are humans special because the free will in our souls controls and enables good and evil for us?

What is evil? What is good?

You can instantly- and probably will- say good and evil are like right and wrong. You just know, somehow. It's good to help people and be nice. It's evil to kill and be a jerk.

Right?

What is true evil? Can humans be good? At what point does the man become the monster? When does evil enter a child? Are humans, after this fall, capable of anything but evil disguised as good?

Is good and evil in the mind, in science? Are there only evil acts, and no evil people?

Or is good and evil in the soul? Are there evil people and good people?

Will be exploring this in later entries....

"You say human like it's a bad thing."
"...Just going on what I've seen." -Clark and Milton Fein, Smallville season 5