A Fear and a Cure

I have written before about my fear. It is a common fear shared by many. So though I might make light at my fear of the dark... get it light, dark? ...anyways, I am afraid of what could be out there, even if it is nothing. But the other day, I was lying in bed and I felt a rush of worry, almost a bit of dread wash over me. Something came into my head that scared me more than the dark.

The last few days I have had the though keep popping into my head. While I was listening to the sermon at church, while I am selling car parts, it even popped into my head while I was playing Minecraft. Even writing about it now, kind of makes me feel uneasy.

I am very much afraid of getting older. OK, I know someone out there just laughed as they read this. Why would you be afraid of growing up? No its getting older. My church is full of old people and as very sad it is to say, their numbers are slowly dropping because of death. Maybe saying of getting older isn't exactly the right thing, but its the best way I can think of to say it.

I like to think of myself as a rather smart person. I love to read and study whatever might be interesting to me at the time. I love to learn. I also love to do stuff. Exercise and work out, though to be totally honest with you, I don't do it much anymore, and by much I mean at all. The problem is, getting old means things hurt more, I already feel a rather dull constant pain in my knees. I don't want the pain to get worse, I saw what my mom had to deal with before she got both her knees replaced in her 40s. I don't want to lose the small useless information that I have acquired over the years.

But what it really all means, I don't want to get old because that means I am closer to death, and what if death does come, and I come before the Lord and he says "I don't know you." I am not too worried about the idea that there is no God at all. If there is none, and I die, then I just cease. I'm not worried about the thought that maybe we get reincarnated. Because if we do, then when I die, I just come back and do it again. What makes me so much more scared of the dark, is the thought, What if I die, and I let God down or worse. Showbread said it well when they sang:

"Now here I am, as I've grown to know You, still haunted by my fears and my doubts
Just a man, just a vapor, just a waste of your space
All the good that I've done is in spite of myself
I’m not sure that I can look You in Your face when I finally set foot in Your kingdom"

I love God. I do. I want nothing more than to make him proud of me. But what if in trying to make him proud, I get prideful and end up letting him down. What if that horrible part of me where the sin has taken its horrible hold on me, has kept me from really giving my whole to Him, and he just simply doesn't know me? That thought seriously scares me. I have even cried, praying to God, that he take these thoughts from me, that he holds me and brings me peace. Then he does just that.

Every time I have felt so bad that I am the worst of us all, God can't possibly love me, he holds me and lets me know, in his own quiet way, that he loves me. I still am scared of the thought of dying, and most times its only because I don't want it to hurt, but at least I have a God who will reassure me over and over of his great, amazing love.

An no time of the year is a better reminder than Christmas. Christians celebrate the birth of the assured hope, and the most amazing love there could ever be. Jesus might not have been born when we celebrate Christmas, nor all the things we do totally Christian around this time of the year, but that isn't what it is about. It is not about being with your family or the whole present thing, it is about receiving into your heart, the gift we really dont deserve, nor could ever earn, and embracing THE Family that it brings.

Christmas is about hope. Christmas day is not the end of the season, it is just the start. At least it should be. It should be the start of the single longest holiday season ever. We should be celebrating his Birth, life, ministry, all the way to his death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. (I was going to call it by a better name, Resurrection Sunday, but it felt weird using resurrection twice like that. So bare with me on using Easter.)

Got the pic from this place.

So through the winter and into spring, we should be celebrating. Because during this season, God has given us all the reasons never to fear what might come when we die. Sure, because I am a mortal, (Don't let that get out.) I will still feel that horrible fear inside, as I worry about letting Him down. However, I can embrace the Truth and keep it close to my heart as a reminder when I am afraid.

It is OK to fear what comes after death, not too many people have gone to the other side and returned. It is an unknown to many of us and like the dark, it is the unknown that we are actually afraid of. If you keep Jesus ever by your side that when you do feel that fear, you can let the guy who single-handedly defeated death bring you a wonderful peace. Again, when that fear is creeping in, Showbread managed to say so well what it is like when Jesus is close by:

You place Your hands around my heart, You quiet the emptiness in me
A king that kneels, a God made a servant, You set the captives free
You wait for me, a wretch of a man, no record of wrongs do You keep
You are comfort when I mourn, You are strength when I am weak
Jesus Christ, the king of kings
Though we ache, though we cry, never break, never die
We sing of His great love again and again
And His love reigns forever, and forevermore
Forever and ever, Amen

Musing of the Stars

As I was writing a previous blog, something came to mind, a great analogy of sorts. But first let me tell you some sciencey things. About some awesome stars in our universe.

In science there is a thing called Gravitational Compression. That is when gravity compresses the mass of an object, reducing it in size, but increasing its density. In the life of a star, gravity begins to pull in and collapse molecules until fusion begins. In short, Gravitational Compression is what pulls the stars to start shining. Some stars, which are called main-sequence stars, like our very own sun, meet an equilibrium of sorts where the pressure of hydrogen to helium fusion and the pull of gravity balance out and the sun burns for millions of years until the hydrogen is nearly used up. The thermal pressure is reduced and at this end of the Sun's life, gravitational compression will turn it into a white dwarf.

"White dwarfs are thought to be the final state of all stars whose mass is not high enough to become a neutron star—over 97% of the stars in the Milky Way."

A white dwarf.

Sometimes the compression is greater than the fusion reaction and the star burns its fuel faster. This is usually found on stars much more massive than our own. They end their lives in a supernova. Then Gravitational Compression continues until the star is either a neutron star, or a black hole.

A neutron star variant called a Pulsar.

"Neutron stars contain 500,000 times the mass of the Earth in a sphere with a diameter of around 16 mi."

So what does this bit of science mean? A star, under extreme pressure can either turn into something really pretty cool, like a white dwarf star, or explode in glory as a supernova. Sometimes, if it is big enough, can even become a black hole, which is what keeps our whole galaxy together in its beautiful spiral across the vastness of space. We are about 25,000 light years away from our black hole (Sagittarius A*), and still can feel the effects of this wonderful creation.

If you really stop and think about life, and our will to serve God, we are very much like these stars. Sometimes we have so much pressure from our lives, that we feel compressed, feel like we are burning out, our personal light is fading and we cannot escape the coming end. These feelings come from things like stress and Depression. We feel like we cannot go any farther, we are finished, that God doesn't care anymore. But this is where we have a choice.

If you want to go out as a rather common way of stars, as a simple white dwarf, who will probably end up being consumed by a bigger, brighter star, you can chose to give up. You don't have to push anymore, just give in and let life run its course. Chose to be the 97%.

Or you can chose to live for God. The outcome is very similar your short story called Life, will end at the moment of your death. But what you turn into is drastically different. You can shine so bright, so powerful, that you can be seen hundreds even thousands of light years away as a bright burst of light in the darkness. You can be a supernova for God's glory, and be written, with a permanent role, into the greater story that is God's unending glory.

And sometimes, if we are lucky, we can be even more. When some stars die, they explode and leave behind large beautiful nebulae. In those pretty clouds of gas and debris, are all the elements that enable new stars to be born and maybe some planets. And each star born from the death of the last one, has yet another chance to shine so bright and beautiful. God uses the death of something beautiful to support and house things even more beautiful.

He can do it with you, and the best part that not even the stars are lucky enough to have, is we don't even have to die. You can be a nebula, a neutron star, or even a pulsar every day. God wants us all to be shinning and wonderful beacons of his eternal love. Some of us may die spreading God to the world, and those that do, you are so special and amazing. But this life, our story, is not our end. Ours has no end. Ours only has God and I can't think of anything better to have for forever.

God can and will use us in our most broken moments. Our most compressed times, which we must push with every ounce we have through them, God is ready to ignite our lives. And when we do ignite, every Christian should be striving and pushing for a chance to be that next nebula that God uses to produce even more stars to sing his glory.

Not mountain Nor Valley

I started this blog as a way to out my creativity, sharing stories, poems, and other ideas. Sometimes I feel like there is a dry spell over my thoughts, like anything I can think of is dumb and not worth sharing. I try my best to let people see a better view of Christians, and to share my art with the world in hopes someone out there might might be helped, inspired, or benefit in some way of my musings and ramblings. When I look back at what I have written I see a trend of dreams and authenticity that I really would love to see everyone reach.

In one of my more recent blogs, and ones before as well, I said God wants us to have our dreams to the fullest, and he is willing to do whatever he can to make it happen, when the time is right. God does love us but so many things can keep us from being who we are meant to be and who we dream to be. Things like stress.

Stress builds up in us and eventually it erupts into a volcano of broken trusts, dead friendships, and hurt feelings. And the worst part is stress comes from just about everything. You get stressed at work, home, church, playing games, watching TV. Everywhere you turn, you are bombarded by stress and things that want to stress you more. I bet some people will argue with me, and some might agree, but even doing what God wants us to do gives us stress.

When we think "God wants me to do what?" we begin to worry, we begin to be stressed out. We think we have to do so much on our own, and we quickly lose what God wants us to do and replace it with something a little more twisted. I know I am this way. I don't want to leave my comforts and have to worry about where I am going to sleep or where I am going to get some food. I like my comfort, but God wants us to trust him, so the lack of comfort creates stress and He alone is a great stress relief.

I know when I start thinking about what God might actually want me to do, I right away start saying things like "I can't do that. I am not good enough to do that." And any number of things that put me back down instead of letting myself get picked up into God's story. It is hard for me to keep in my head, but there in Him, you can let the stress finally have a little rest as you are filled with the comfort of Jesus.

Depression also often keeps us from achieving that real us. Not just, "Woe is me, my boy/girl-friend broke up with me!" but a depression deep inside ourselves that never feels good enough. Never can see the light in the dark because we feel alone, broken, scared, insecure. Depression is a very real and very serious problem for all people. I find myself losing my temper more when I am feeling depressed. Some people feel the only way to end it is with the end of their lives. Depression really is a feeling of being pressed down by force.

Stress and depression are a very closely related issue that arises in our everyday, chase the American Dream lives. We are told to work harder, work faster, that we are expendable, that our ideas aren't good enough, that we have dry spells that keep us from things we love to do and the all will boil down to over stressed and deep depression. That is if we don't let God lead us through the darkness.

God has eyes that can pierce any darkness, and a heart that loves so far beyond anything we can imagine. In our eyes, the greatest love you can have for anyone else is willingly laying down your life for them. Which truly is a great and marvelous love, considering this is the type of love God showed to us while we were still horrible and unlovable people. But God's love goes much farther beyond this, to a love so full and pure and yet my words are failing to capture anything close to that love.

Sure God is above all things, but he still wants to be with all the things he created. But we keep ourselves distant with stress, worrying, depression, anger, jealousy, and hate. Though we keep pushing away, God is trying everyday to reach right to our hearts. In the stars, in the flowers, in the depths of the oceans, to the highest peaks, he wants each of us to come to Him willingly.

Stress and depression isn't going to stop being a problem until God finally comes with an end and a new beginning. But He has given us ways to reduce the pain, ease our hearts, and learn to be happy again. Jesus will be with us, the Spirit will pray on our behalf when we are without words in our prayers, God will be waiting like a father as his child takes those first shaky steps toward him.

Together in love and friendship, the Church can be a big brother or sister in supporting the young ones as life throws mountain after valley that we need to cross. Together we can show the world that Christ has come. We can show them a glimpse of the love God has for us. That when life is hard, we are most crushed, that we have the ability to shine the brightest.

Five Traits of a Martial Artist: Perseverance

While I was working on being a ninja, or training in martial arts, there were so many times that would help me become a better person, and closer to what God has desired for me since the beginning of me. Trials that would become strengths, sorta.

After I hard received my purple belt, and a few years after the hotel incident, I was now preparing to go for my next belt, the first of three levels of brown belt. If I got it, I would then be two belts away from going for the amazing honor of my black belt. But as things go, sometimes you don't always get what you want, and sometimes its for a good reason.

As I have stated, my mom also took karate, and though I lost interest and 'retired' she is actually still active to this day. We both were going to be in the same test, hers was for her blue belt, mine for my purple. The senior belt tests were hard. First they wear you down with a spirit drill, or a more friendly term, Thousand Hours drill. Ten different techniques, one hundred times each, most of them as fast as you could do it, or as fast as the testers could yell. Then you went on to everything you learned. Every move, under the careful eye of no less than three black belts, in this case I believe there were six there. Two hours later, you had a ten minute rest before they put you right back in for questions about the handbook, pledges, why you joined karate, history of our founders, followed by twenty to thirty minutes of kata.

I had a few disadvantages this day. For this test it was just me and my mom, at this point in her life, my mom had already received bi-lateral knee replacements, and she was my mom, it is not the same as working with the guys, you hit a guy, you don't feel bad, you hit an old woman, you are not a very good man. But regardless of how old she was, which now she is much much older, She was my partner for it all.

We both worked fast and hard. Snapping punches within an inch of each other's faces. Kicks flicking our uniforms. Sometimes there would be a nice thud, mostly me hitting the floor or getting hit. She even went far beyond what the knees were made for, and hit the ground each throw and sweep we had to do. My mom is a tough old woman.

At one point, one of the testers, my Sensei, set his clipboard down, and stepped in to attack me. I executed the moves flawlessly, like the rest of the test, and just assumed they wanted to see me with someone different. In a way they did.

After the test was over, we continued on with our day. In a coincidence I just noticed, this story also takes place at one of our national weekends, we rarely have testing done those days, but it did happen sometimes. The next week, when we were to get out belts, my Sensei took a moment at the end of class, something he enjoyed to do, which was torment to the ones who just tested, and presented my mom with her belt. She was now the same rank as me. Then we bowed off the floor.

I was at a loss. Why was I not given my belt. Knowing I would want to know, we went right into his office and we talked. He told me they though that when I was working with my mother, I was softer, a bit kinder to her, but when I worked with him, I was harder and more fierce. Which is exactly true. He then went on to say that they wanted to see me keep up the intensity the whole time, regardless of who I was working with.

Oddly to me this was how a man should be. To his mother, and to the women he loves, he should treat them kindly, with gentleness, but never weakly. Though my mom could easily take a hit. I was never weak during the whole test, just that I went up higher with intensity when I had another man to hit. But regardless of how a man should treat a woman, I had failed my test. Again three more months before  I could test again.

But this time I would pass, despite the set back, despite the complaints of gentleness to my mother, I would come back, and show them the same intensity, the power and skill they were looking for. I pushed forward and went farther.

This also taught me about perseverance and to keep pushing no matter what sets you back. You have a goal, and despite all that assails you, you push forward, fighting harder and harder. I fear in the years to come, it will get harder and harder to push forward as a Christian. Our perseverance will be put to the test repeatedly, and there will be many who will falter. But for those who keep pushing, fighting the good fight, running that race, there will be rewards across the finish line.

It is with the same perseverance that I felt in this test, that God will use to mold me into the man he will have me be. I might be a bit proud and this foolish to say, but I feel like I am getting closer. I am far from the real me, but there are glimpses that I catch of a me who is way more Ninja than I am now, but also more Godly.

It is very hard to keep pushing when the weight of the world is crushing you. But with God, we can do it. He has the strength to pick the world up, He has the wind to refresh you in your run, He can renew your strength and raise that intensity to levels unheard of before. He can do it and he will do all this and so much more, if we let him in and let him work.

I like to think that the verse: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, is not about you doing, but more about Christ giving you the resolve to keep pushing and support to not faint. He will accomplish much through you. Stay strong my friends, brothers, and sisters who are growing tired of the fight, Jesus is coming with the water bottles and towels, and the next round will be coming soon. And you will find that he has been molding you to be exactly who he wants you to be. The real you.

Of Crafting Mines

So I finally let my friend talk me into playing Minecraft. I started on the free demo, which I already knew I would love because I played the Minecraft Pocket Edition demo for hours before. And it wasn't even by the time the demo ran out, that I found myself wanting to buy it and only having to wait a day or two till I got paid. I then became a proud owner of Minecraft.

Minecraft is a great game. For those few of you who read this and don't know what it is, it is a game that revolves around digging and building anything you can dream up. Sure there is a story and a boss and endgame stuff, but the bread and butter of it is the building. I play the building on creative mode because when I get the itch to build I really didn't want to have to spend the time making and finding the materials.

Inside the Mansion

So I started with a rather militaristic looking warehouse like place. but that was just a place I could put my bed. After building a base, I ventured underground. Right away I was lost and spent hours making and cleaning up halls and trying to memorize my path. This was before I learned the "torches on the right side" tip. Eventually I found my first giant rift deep underground. And this would become the center of my underground world.

Right away I was building bridges to get across the whole thing, finding exits and stuff that would get me out of there, building glass bridges over lava just because it looked cool. Eventually I started adding 'shops' to the sides and making it into an uninhabited underground city, worthy of any dwarf.

I actually started feeling like I was a dwarf. Sure there are no dwarves in the game, but how I am and how I see myself and how I played the game, I was a dwarf. I dug out a bank so large I actually got lost in it. The cavern that was once there, replaced by stairs and chests. The disorder of the blocks, replaced with clean stone and smooth walls. Deep underground I was a stone master and this was my Mona Lisa.

Then I moved above ground and started building more houses. One I call the turtle, which is a big round structure with really cool lighting at night thanks to all the windows in the roof. Made one inspired by the house I designed in school, one with a giant Tri-Force on the front, which was modeled like the mansions in games like Resident Evil and Eternal Darkness, with a large central stair case leading to two wings of the house. This house, what I call the Mansion, floats high into the clouds.

The world I have seen

Then I got into the railway stuff, and making mine carts and tracks running to all of them. Then I wanted to get creative there, I made a track that goes through a water tunnel above the ground, then dives down and cuts through a mountain past a waterfall, and then into the river, all before it ends up winding around trees and ends at a giant cave opening in a mountain. And I found a whole new love in just making railway tracks that do something different.

I felt so good creating stuff, I started to move cows and pigs so my farm had something happening in it, instead of just looking cool. I started to make things look alive by adding furnishings. I made a cottage in the mountains, a home with modern architecture. I built a tower on top of a peak just because I could. But the game is missing one thing.

Having someone occupy the houses I made, run the stores waiting to be filled with product, work the land around the farm, some one to ride the mine carts around just because it was fun. I did this stuff, but there was nobody to share it with. No one to fill it with. But with all the creating that Minecraft has, you cannot create a person. Sure you can add villagers so you can trade and sell stuff with, who can now also harvest and plant new crops, and you could make the game on a realm so you can add your friends to your dream, but I can't fill the world with life.

Sometimes I imagine that was what God was feeling like when he was creating the universe. Maybe he made certain things to shine a bit brighter because he liked the color when they did. Or wanted to see what it looked like if a solar system spun the opposite way ours does. Did he put the animals in the farm just because he wanted it filled with something so it was doing something more than just sitting there? What if all of this is just a big Minecraft game for God? One where he too wanted to add people who would live and breathe and work the stuff he created.

I remember back in the day, there was a whole sub-genre of games called god games, where you played as a powerful being controlling a world of smaller people, trying to take care of them so that they would grow and become better. One big one that I played was Black and White. But never did it have the creation feeling that Minecraft does. In Minecraft I can build whatever I want mostly how I want.

Hubble Deep Field shot. Those are not stars they are galaxies

But if I was able to create people to fill my world, give them the ability to work, grow, create and live a life, and did it all because I was happy to see them doing what they do, and they began to ignore me, and say I didn't exist and the few people who still believed in me were called morons, simple-minded folk, wouldn't I be saddened by my creation? Wouldn't I try to bring them all to me, but because I loved how they did their things by their own free will, never force them to me?

This is a universe full of created things that are loved so much by their creator. God loved us so much that he even sent his son to us, to tell us about him and how much he loves us. He is trying to remind you every time you look at the stars and wonder what's out there, that he loves you. When you see the bright spring colors, smell the fresh rose, look at the rolling hills, he is writing you a love letter of the sweetest most beautiful words that exist.

We take what we see for granted because we see it everyday. We stop thinking of the beauty and start thinking of how we can use it to better fit ourselves. A jamais vu on the scale of the universe. Yet God is repeatedly hiding things for us to find that makes us happy, which makes him happy. God really does want the very best for all of us and he is more than willing to give it to us if we simply stopped, looked and listened to the world around us. The world is breaking apart the farther we get from God's love. The pieces are so fragile that only the original creator can manage to put them back together.

M74 galaxy from Hubblesite.org

This world needs the hope and love that can only come from God. In my opinion, we are far from his most impressive work. Quantum and Particle Physics, all 118 known elements out there, the way gravity works, how light travels its speed regardless of how fast you are traveling, or all the millions of galaxies out there and the billions of stars in our own galaxy, or the way a flower pops open in the morning sun welcoming the warmth and light of our little yellow sun are all way more impressive than us. But in all the impressiveness that is out there, God loves us so very much. This is what I have learned from Minecraft.

Kickstart David

This will be short, I was talking to my mom today after church about my last blog post, and how great some of the kickstarter stuff is. I love the games, the tech, and a great many other things that I would back in a heartbeat if I had the money to do so. While we were talking, I mentioned that there are a rather high number of Christian based games but they always seem to be rather lame, or overly simplistic and worse, simply not entertaining.

Like many nights, I decided to browse Kickstarter for anything interesting. And I found a game. Simple titled The Bible Videogame: David, it is a game about the major life of David from meeting Samuel to killing Goliath and his running from King Saul. The little of the game play showed a nice looking side scrolling 3D game. It looked fun, and it is being made by people who also understand that we do need a good game based on the Bible. A game that just might be able to reach a few people where typical sharing wont reach.

I really do believe this game is worth backing and I will be doing so, even though I might be short on cash for a few days. The Kickstarter ends on November 1st. This gives you plenty of time back it, let your friends know, and spread the word around that we might be able to get the game made. I normally do not talk about these like this, but how things worked out, lined up, I really feel this game should be made.

The goal is only 35,000 which they are already close to being made, so we will get 3 stories about David, up to his fight with Goliath. But if they can manage to raise 385,000 which might sound like a lot, but really is a very small amount for a high quality game, they will be able to bring all of David's story. Most big games, and even the smaller crappy ones, tend to be 10 million to as high as 40 million with an average of 18-28 million. So this 385,000 is very low but can be really good for thousands of kids out there. They have an ultimate goal of making a game out of the whole Bible, but for now will stick with David. It is meant to be true to the bible, not adding or changing the stories but making them an exciting game of the stories.

They have industry veterans, and the two leads are twins who have worked on Lego games, Star Wars, Assassin Creed. So pray about this. See what God says to you about backing this game, sharing it with friends, and let's see how big we can grow this. Thanks for taking a look and I really hope you will join me in backing this.

Check the game out here.

Kickstarting our Lives

I am an avid Kickstarter. For the few of you that might not know what Kickstarter is, it is a crowd fundraising site. From clothing to video games to movies and anything in between, Kickstarter, and others like it (i.e. Indiegogo.com) are a great place to make your big dreams come true. Sure, there are a lot of dumb things on there, and sometimes even the really cool things don't find enough people to make them happen, but every day there are new and exciting things on there that are trying to make things easier, prettier, or cooler.

I am mostly into the board games on there, I have several of them and I find them to be every bit of fun that some of the big expensive mainstream ones are. But from time to time I have gone into the fashion one, I recently backed a belt made from used bicycle tires. I also have from the same person, a wallet made from them as well.

I backed a technology start up called Lima, which allows me to set up a device on my network that will act like my own personal cloud. Space is limited only to the size of hard drive that I put on it. All my music, stories, and whatever else I wish to back up will be available to me on almost any device. If I bought two of them, I could even set up a back up at another location to help assure I never lose a file.

I have card decks, po(r)ker chips, (Which might be some of the best ceramic poker chips out there, mostly because they have the commandments of bacon and cute little piggies on them.) metal dice, poker chips, and soon coins with a tinker/steampunk feel to them.

Sure Kickstarter has problems, sometimes the thing you feel is so awesome you don't know why anyone wouldn't want to back it, fails to find its audience in the massive sea of other things. Or sometimes the person you funded falls flat and you never get what you backed them for. It is frustrating, but it is all part of the thrill and fun of the hunt.

I talk about cool projects or try talking others into something I found on there fairly often. If I had more money, I would back so many more of them. Sometimes there are ones that look cool, I just can't afford to back it at that moment. It also makes you feel rather good, you donate money to help start someone on the path of their dreams. Dreams that you have no invested in and hope they turn out amazing.

Someways I think our lives are like the Kickstarter website, and God is like the ultimate backer. He has donated so much to helping us fulfill our dreams and invested endlessly in an effort to make these dreams into something rich and amazing. The best product we could produce. Yet we often fail to meet the goals we set out to meet at the beginning, and like some Kickstarter projects, get overwhelmed by it all.

It is hard to see sometimes, with all the pain and suffering, all the hate and intolerance out there, that God has chosen to back us with all that he is. All we have to do is give all that we are to him. When we do that, we can live the dream we have wanted. God said he will give it to us, several times Jesus says ask and you will receive. But no where does anyone ever say that we will get it all while living on Earth.

Contrary to what some people say out there, God never promised riches and big houses. Never did he mention that if we follow and love him he will give us fast cars to park in our over sized garages. But he did tell us that whatever we lose in His name, we will receive tenfold in heaven. In heaven, is where our ultimate prize waits for us. It is there, at the foot of our God, that we can finally have our whole dream realized.

It is hard to do, but I hope to make God's investment in me, worth it. I hope that I can turn it into somehting more and more for His glory. I want to be who I really am, living my dream, with God right there with me. God is our Kickstarter, Jesus is our backer and his spirit is our funding. So let's get out there and create the ultimate project to honor and glorify our God.

Five Traits of a Martial Artist: Honesty and Integrity

When I was a child I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle. I loved the show and still have my action figures. I saw all the movies in the theater, had all the TV show on VHS tapes. I wanted to be Donetello, he was smart, he created things that were just awesome to use, and he used a bo which I thought was a great weapon. (As I write that, it really dates me and to think some kids won't even know what a VHS tape is.) So when I became old enough, my mom got me karate lessons for Christmas, which is still one of the best presents I have ever received. Right after Christmas I started.

I quickly went up in the ranks, partly because me being the curious boy I still am, wanted to know exactly how the things worked. Soon I found myself wanting to be any kind of Ninja. I was physically good at it and made myself technically good as well. I went as far as my first degree black belt before I began to tire of it. Now I no longer go, but there is a large part of me that would not be me if it were not for the teachers, students, and the overall discipline of martial arts. I am very much still, in my heart, a Ninja and a martial artist. (Just out of shape. Retired if you will.)

Among the techniques and kata that we learned, we were also taught how to be a better person. One of the things that stuck with me all my life are five traits of a martial artist. Honest, Integrity, perseverance, self-control, and indomitable spirit. Little did I know, what I was learning in karate, was also preparing me to be a better Christian in life.

Honesty has always been rather easy for me. I would blame it on my mom for making me be an honest person. She told us from a young age, that we should tell the truth, lying will only make it worse. Our punishments were always less if we admitted what we did that when we lied and tried to cover it up. The same was also true in the karate world.

Many moons ago, at a national weekend held by my karate school, I was in a hotel and was playing a practical joke on someone. I’m not normally a practical joker but I do them sometimes. Some of those times they are great, while others are not. This is a case of the not.

At the time, I was a blue belt in karate. I was getting ready for my purple belt test the following week. I don’t really remember, or if I ever knew, what belt the other kid was. I was playing a joke on one of my friends, Eric McMillan. He was a brown belt at the time I think. He might have been a purple belt but over the years certain details have turned rather gray. We were pretty good friends. We played video games together on occasions and went to the same school, though he was a grade above me.

Two other kids and I decided to pick a girl in the room, and give her a letter telling her how much Eric liked her. It wasn't true to my knowledge. We looked out over the room for a few minutes when we found someone that would do very nicely. Her name was Rebecca. She was very beautiful. She had long red hair, and long I mean it was down to the top of her posterior or close to it. She was wearing a black dress that showed her rather fine figure. I know I thought she was good looking.

We watched for a bit after we had the letter written. We saw she had her things under a chair on the side of the room. While she was out dancing on the floor, we left the letter under her chair. Some how, I still don’t know how, a kid, who, by some crazy random happenstance, was also named Eric found out about it. He thought it was about him. Being that he was from the same school as she was, I don’t think he liked the idea of people writing things about him to someone.

After the note was placed, my friends and I went laughing to my room. Little did I know, Eric from Michigan somehow found where my room was. We spent a bit of time in there laughing and joking about what we did. And talked about what young kids in karate talk about. Truthfully, I couldn’t even tell you a single thing we talked about. That part of the night seemed to blur.

We finished our talks and decided to go back down to the banquet hall. I walked out of my room, and looked around. The hall was clear. We turned toward the elevator when I heard the stairs door close behind me. I looked back and saw Eric from Michigan running toward me. He might have yelled something or might of just ran silently, I’m not sure. As he neared us, I threw a sidekick and hit him in the hip. It turned him around and giving me a chance to grab him. I put him in a choke hold and told him something along the lines of “Don’t mess with me.”

I pushed him off me and we stood there for a few seconds, which felt a lot longer at the time, just looking at each other. He then turned and I watched as he walked back toward the stairs. I was shaken up a bit, I could feel the adrenaline running through my veins. We went into my room and sat there till I calmed down.

Fear gripped me then. I knew by then that everyone down stairs would know what just happened. I didn't know what to do. I do not remember what we said, but we soon split up. After awhile I also left the room and walked around the upper floors for a bit before I decided to hide under the stairs. I hid there for a while half crying half worrying what I was going to do and scared to death what my Sensei would do if he found out that I got in a fight at the National Weekend.

After a lot of introspection, I finally got up the courage to face the problem I had created. So the first thing I did was go talk to my mom. She is also in karate with me. I knew she was looking for me. Looking back I’m pretty sure that others were too. She and I went to find our Sensei. Fear had me tightly in its hands as I went up to him and related my half of the story. They understood and told me to talk to the other kid.

I gathered strength and went down to the banquet hall where the party was being held. The karate parties were always long and great. I saw the other kid standing on the opposite side of the room. I swallowed hard and walked over to him with millions of butterflies in my stomach all of which wanted to get out in a bad way. I told him I was sorry. I told him that it was not meant to cause any problems with anyone. I was just trying to play a joke on my friend. At that time, it seemed as if we were the only two in the whole hotel. We talked and he accepted my sincere apology. Done, I turned to leave the room.

It was then, that the girl came up to me and told me she saw what I did. Since I was a very shy person, and I liked her, I felt like my insides were about to push their way out of me and run somewhere I wasn't. She told me that she thought it was a brave thing to do. I said thanks and tried to get out of the room. All I wanted was to go back to my room and hide. I had way too much attention for at least a month that one night. Then she surprised me, she asked me to dance. I was very reluctant to do so. I had a few problems, one, I liked her and thought she was beautiful. Two, I didn't know how to dance, and three I was out on the floor with a attractive girl where other people could see me. This was not a night for my shyness. I mustered up all the courage I could find and I agreed. All I remember was holding her close and dancing.

She was the other part of the joke and somehow the joke seemed to turn around on me. Over all I regret the whole night. C'est la vie or so they say. Sure there were a few good things that happened to me. My first dance that happened to be with a girl I happened to actually like… well actually that’s the only good thing that happened to me.

The next week my Sensei took me into his office and closed the door. We talked about what had happened over the weekend. I like to think that he told me that he was proud that I went back and apologized to Eric from Michigan but I still was wrong on what I did, but I really have no clue anymore. But I do know that as a punishment I was not allowed to test the following weekend for my belt. It meant I had to wait for three more months to get my belt. I was sad that I could not test but it was a good thing.

I learned that no matter what happens, whether good or bad, life goes on. I also learned that one should stand up and not cower. Take responsibility for you actions. Therefore, with that in mind, I try my best at everything. Even if I hurt someone, it’s my responsibility. Even today, I take responsibility for what I do and always strive to be better.

My honesty and integrity were both put to the test this night. I am sure I could have lied my way through all it, maybe even been able to test for my belt when I wanted to, but would I have been a better person for it? No I do not believe so. I do believe that it was my honesty and integrity that made the punishment much more bearable than it could have been. And any faults there were then, have been beaten back some and I am a better person, and such, a better Christian because God lined everything up for me to use this as an example in the future. 

Honesty, integrity, they are steps to becoming the way God designed you. The two compliment each other, enhance each other, and promote a better you. The more you work them, the better they are to you. We will explore a few more steps to becoming a better you through Martial Arts.

Of Human Nature and Preservation

We recently went to the Akron Zoo. Though very different than the Cleveland Zoo, it was a great experience and a wonderful zoo to visit. One thing I really liked about it was the fact that the zoo was very linearly built. Following the path, you will see just about everything the zoo has to offer. If there is a offshoot for something, it usually wrapped around to almost where it started. This is also my only complaint with the zoo. Not a whole lot of reasons to go back multiple times a year since you can see it all on a 4 hour trip through the zoo.

This is opposed to the Cleveland zoo that has a lot more land and is a lot more spread out, if you want to see it all, you almost have to go two days. This does make it a more worthwhile to visit the zoo several times throughout the year. I really feel both Zoos are wonderful to go spend and afternoon with your family, regardless of anyone's age.

Another nice feature of the Akron Zoo, that could totally be worth going several times a week is at random points on the trail, there are workout like activities you can do. From push-ups to step-ups and arm rotations. They are spaced nicely apart that you could walk, visit animals, and stop for a brief moment of workout then keep moving. If I lived near by, I would get a season pass and, with a few friends, go and do the zoo workout challenge couple times a week.

While we were talking and watching the Bald Eagles sitting around, I overheard a woman talking to one of the zoo workers. He told her how these eagles have it made, no competition for food, and are able to live happy and long lives in their care. She then admitted that she once thought zoos were bad for keeping animals locked up in small cages. This is something that is often an argument against zoos. But as he pointed out, Zoos keep animals safe that would otherwise be hunted down to extinction as is the case with the Red Wolves.

Red Wolves are rather small and, in my honest opinion, rather ugly wolves. They used to roam the wilds from Florida to the Virginia's, from the coast to the plains. It was a huge range, but thanks to hunters, trappers, and urban growth, they are now down to a small spot around North Carolina. In the mid 1900's, the Red Wolf was officially considered extinct. Thanks to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in the 70's and 80's, the wolf has made a comeback and now are only considered Critically Endangered. This is the power that zoos have.

This all leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, how cruel and horrible man is that we must hunt and kill things to extinction because we are either afraid of, mislead about, or foolishly feel a need to hunt. I am not saying hunting, trapping is bad in anyway, I rather love deer meat, and think hunting is a great thing if you are actually doing it for food. If you are killing them just because you can, and use nothing of the animal, you are a killer and wasting one of God's critters.

We kill animals to extinction all the time, and countless are dying everyday in the rain forests that we are cutting down for 'progress.' There are ways we can get what we need without the mass destruction of things. This leads me down a path of thought and to the idea of how the nature of mankind  has no good in it, and can be summed up as disastrous. We as humans are evil and destructive, we love misery and suffering. People who say that human nature is good and kind are only fooling themselves and leading weak-minded people off on the wrong path of thinking.

I realize I sound kinda mean here, I am not trying to be mean to anyone but take a look at humans and tell me where in our history is there a nature of goodness? All of our history you have a few years of people working together until greed gets its hooks in and civilization begins to crumble. The rest of it is plagued with wars, murders, and any other destructive selfish desires you can think of.

Yet though we are hateful, evil and selfish people, we have a God who loves us faithfully. While we kill his creation, he wants to give us everything we could ever want, though we try to deny his existence, he wants to shower us with every blessing he can. All we have to do is believe, accept and glorify him. This is the crazy part of the love of God. Despite everything we are, despite our nature, He wants to be with us. It is this reason that He sent his son Jesus to the earth, to become sin so that we could be cleansed of our sin.

Man has shown over and over we do not deserve anything from God, not his love, not his son, we don't even deserve to exist. We constantly kill each other, the animals God made for us, and destroy the world he made for our home. Yet he still loves us. The only thing we do deserve is death, yet God still is willing to give us life.

I recently had to kill a raccoon that was eating our chickens. This was hard for me since he was not doing anything bad. Well, not to him he wasn't. He was being how God created him to be, which was in conflict with how we choose to live. I admit that I felt terrible about it, so I prayed that God would tell the raccoon sorry for me, that it was something that had to be done, and asked God if he would hold that raccoon for me and when I get there, I will play with him.

Killing animals is not a horrible thing in its own right, As I've said before, I love meat as a whole, steaks, burgers, bacon, these are foods I cannot live without, I love the taste, the smell, how they fill me up so very much, but it is how we treat the animals that gave us the food. That is where you can see our cruel and evil nature of man shine its dark light. We abuse and torture these animals. Yet God still loves us. It is so messed up that a perfect and holy God can love someone so evil as us, but he does.

We Christians should be among the first of the people out there fighting for better animal rights, fighting to stop the destruction of our forests and our world. With the very same love that God gives us, we should be giving to the animals and planet. This is our only home, the animals, and the planet are the the very first thing God told us to take care of. His very first command was to us was to rule over the fish, the birds and the animals. Ok, actually it was the second thing he told us to do, first being to go and be fruitful and multiply. Good rulers do not kill off everything under their rule, but build them stronger and keep them safe.

Let's start protecting and treasuring the world and all of its creatures. Since we are to go and make disciples of all nations, let us go and protect the land and animals of those nations from human nature. Everything God has in mind for us is against our very nature, and for that I am very thankful.

Love of "christians"

I wish the self-righteous, hateful people who call themselves 'christians' would shut up. They spout off everything that really is against what Christ is all about, all the while being exactly what they should be fighting against. Here is the thing, I do believe homosexuality is a sin, but so is my use of bad language, so is the lust that I think about when I see a  beautiful woman. I am a sinner, we all are, but Jesus did not do what he did, did not give up everything he had, all his glory, power and majesty for people to picket people who they disagree with, hate on people of other beliefs, sexual tendencies, or skin color. Jesus did NOT come to condemn anyone. He came to show them the eternal LOVE of God.

Take a look at John 3:16-17:

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

So if Jesus came to save the world not condemn it, where do these 'christians' get off condemning all of these people they disagree with? This really gets me angry when they claim to follow Jesus but show nothing of love, kindness, mercy, of anyone other than themselves. What did Jesus do when a woman, who was CAUGHT in the act of adultery, was brought before him. The leaders of the day were calling for her to be dealt with.

7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

So, now that you read that, what did Jesus do? He ignored them and went on with his teaching. After being bugged more about it, he told them, if they are sinless, then they can stone her. Of course no one was sinless, so they left, the mob defeated by love. Jesus said straight up to her, "I do not condemn you, now go and don't do it again." I paraphrase of course, but still, Jesus showed to her the love of God, and the forgiveness God has for our sin.

So if Jesus can forgive a woman like that, why can't his 'followers?' I put quotations around these words because from how people act, it is fairly clear they are not Christians at all. That is a rather bold claim and maybe even a rude one, but anyone who berates and demeans another human being and still somehow tries to claim the name of the Lord, knows very little of the Lord and what love is.

Jesus never talked about how bad the sinners were, most often he would tell them they are forgiven and to go and sin no more. What he frequently spoke out against was the leaders of the church, like the pharisees and other leaders of the community.  And like some 'churches' out there now, Jesus would have actively gone after them because they are worse than the average sinner, they are the ones who are leading people away from Jesus and his holy love.

We need to get out there and let these people, who are crushing people because they are so full of hate, know that we as Christians will no longer accept what they are doing. We need to get in there and show them how wrong they are, how hate is never the way, nor should ever even be a choice. We need to get back in there and show them the love Jesus had for sinners, and the world.

Let us raise our voices louder and stronger than the horrible people who still call themselves christians, and show the world who real Christians are. Show them that you and me are different because of our love. We will fight the false teachers because we must. Jesus is our King, we are at war against sin, and though I do not believe any one sin is worse than another, but there are some that are louder than others, and hate and intolerance of any person that is different than you is the loudest. So, my friends, let's go silence the loud-mouthed folks and show the world real, compassionate, God filled love!

My Time with a Beta: Playing a Video Game, Not With a Fish

So I recently played hours of the new expansion for World of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor. I thought I would share how I felt about it with you. I will start off at the beginning of the Draenor quests, a battle for the Dark Portal. Very first thing I noticed was this was a big battle. Much like first getting into Outlands in The Burning Crusade. You are tasked to try and fight back the onslaught of the Iron Horde. The horde and the alliance start off in Tanaan Jungle, which will be familiar to veterans because you can still see Hellfire in it. That is one thing I have really liked so far, is that you can feel the old Outland stuff there, but it is all new as well.

It is soon noticed, that you will be losing this fight if you don't regroup and get out of there. The next group of quests have you running from one place to another, picking up new people and trying to out run various Orc warlords, like Bladefist and Kilrogg. After a few fights and some close saves from Khadgar. After a really cool intro, one that felt very much like the first few hours of Pandaria or at least until you got to Dawn's Blossom, you are sent to the starting zones, for the Alliance it is Shadowmoon Valley and for the Horde it is, Frostfire Ridge.

Both zones, the first quest chain you do, is to start your garrison. I only got into it a bit, but if you have played some of the popular games on mobile devices, you probably will be familiar with this. You start off with gathering resources and killing mobs so you can build the garrison. Then they teach you how to build buildings.

It plays, in my opinion, much like games like Clash of Clans or any other light RTS games. You simply click it and it begins being built. When it is done, you can send people out to do stuff for you. Each person that goes out, has abilities you can use to make sure the job gets done, sometimes someone just isn't good for the job. I ended up with 3 or 4 people before the last beta reset and I did lose a mission, but mostly I won them making sure who I sent had something to counter the boss of the mission. I honestly couldn't get rid of the feeling of it being just another mini game like pet battles.

I thought it was interesting, in that even in Pandaria, you were called commander, now you actually have troops working for you, and you actually feel like you are part of the battles instead of just one way overly powered person, taking on the world. (Though that feeling is still there.) I do not see me playing in great detail, with the garrisons, though I will do what I can like I did my farm to get things done on at least one toon.

I liked the Horde side a bit more, as that even when you finished the big battle, you still were fighting the ogres to gain control of the fortress. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was just doing the same quests all over again. And that brings me to my complaint with the expansion. I have done this before. Yes there is a lot of excitement for new things to explore, places to see, new quests, new experiences, but is it really that different than anything else I have done in WoW for the last 5+ years? No it is not.

I love World of Warcraft. It has been a great game and a huge part of my life over the years. I have met so many wonderful and amazing people whom I still talk with even outside of the game. But with the all the new MMOs that have come out, and will come out, and all the new gameplay  mechanics that they use,  WoW is just feeling very dated to me.


I recently played the beta and also dozens of hours of Wildstar and though it feels much like WoW, it feels much newer than WoW. WoW has managed to keep what made it so great to begin with, but it has never grown past that. It has been on a steady decline and I sadly feel this expansion won't be bringing back the legions like they would like it to. Mind you, World of Warcraft still has the largest subscription base and active players of any MMO out there, and they will for sometime, but I really feel it is the end of the game for me.

I have already bought the expansion, and I will give it a good play when it comes out this November, but I do not see me going for the long haul in the game anymore. I hate to lose my friends that I have met, but thanks to some great apps by Blizzard, like the battle.net app I can stay in touch even if I am not playing anymore.

Couple things I really liked is that you can now assign bags for certain things, equipment,  consumables and trade goods. These are nice since I had tended to do that anyways, keeping some things in my first bag, and others in my last bag. Another is that when you mouse over an NPC, mob or player, they highlight noticeably different, kind of like an aura, and even at a distance, you can tell if it is friendly or hostile.  They have added a toy box for all those small items that are unique but not needed, like your Brewfest Pony Keg, your Elune's Lantern, Cremating Torch, and the things you made from Archaeology and many more.

I am sure there will be many people praising the new expansion, and many people condemning it as well. It has some nice features, but I just couldn't escape the feeling that it wasn't for me anymore. I feel like for everything they add that I like, I am tired of, bored of, or just not thrilled anymore by, something else. My feelings may change when I can play the final game with my friends, but sadly I do not believe that to be the case. I feel the garrisons are just too weak to be the main focus and selling point of an entire expansion. (Yes I do realize that I never got a chance to grow my garrison completely, but to be brutally honest, I can play games that are very similar for free on my tablet or phone.) I guess eventually we need to move on and forge ahead a new thrilling path for our lives. What we learned, who we met, and the experiences we had will never leave us, they are part of us. We are not the same people when we started, and I like to think that I am better off than I was before with every person that has come my way.

Fear That Keeps You Here

Fear. I know I happen to be afraid of many things. Some kinda stupid, not as stupid as a button phobia, but there are things that make my fingers feel like I want to rip the skin off them. There are things that make me want to run and hide beneath the covers, there are things out there that I don't even know that I am afraid of yet.

I am scared of the dark. Yep. It is true. Some people do not believe me, but I am afraid of going out after dark and there being something just beyond my sight, waiting to devour me. So much so that when I come home after dark, from work, I calmly walk onto the porch and then with all the speed I can muster in the last 10 feet, I push through the door and slam it closed behind me. Fact: Closed doors keep all scary things out.

I am also afraid of being alone. Yes I say often and I do mean it, that I hate people. I cant stand stupid people, stupid drivers, and I really do wish I could have the road all to myself, or to a few dozen people that know how to drive. But I don't really want people to disappear. I fear the loneliness of being... well alone. I don't want to be alone, I just want a better class of people around me. Ones more like me than like the dumb driver who starts pulling onto the circle before I am even at the intersection and have to wonder if he is going to sideswipe me.

I am afraid of being uncomfortable. I am 'Murikin! I deserve to be comfortable, I deserve my foods on the tables, the womens cooking it all day, all the while, cleaning the house! Ok I am joking about that last bit, but I am afraid of not having my comforts that I have grown to enjoy and love. I am afraid of not having a home to rest in. Afraid of uncertainty and instability. But that maybe is where there is the biggest problem among Christians in 'Murika. Maybe we have grown too comfortable and placid with where we are.

Imagine if David was afraid. Well, though the Bible doesn't say so, I bet David was pretty darn afraid when he walked out onto the field with a slingshot and some stones to face down Goliath. There stood Goliath, a giant among a battlefield of men, a great warrior among his people, and across from him, stood a boy, with no weapons but a slingshot. It wasn't even a slingshot, it was just a sling. I bet Goliath was pretty sure who was going to be the dead one in a few minutes.

I bet David's heart was racing. Fear I am sure kept nudging him, "Dude, you should at least get some armor. Man, why don't you have a sword, or spear, heck even a hammer?" I bet there were tons of thoughts in David's head trying to stop him from going out on that field that day.

What would have happened if David had been too afraid to go fight? The Philistines might have beat the Hebrews in battle that day. God would surely not have shown so brightly before the rest of the world. God might have been thought of as a joke, much like people now think he is.

What if Daniel was afraid to speak the truth to the king? The king had been killing his 'wise men' because they were not able to interpret the dreams he was having. He was angry when Daniel had heard about this and asked God to reveal the dream and what it meant, so that he could tell the king. What if Daniel had been afraid to ask to see the king? Kept silent while the king was killing men over and over. God would not have been glorified, and Nebuchadnezzar would not have proclaimed Daniel's God to be God of gods.

What would happen if you were so afraid to lose your comforts, your toys, your house, or worse, your life? What might happen? Would people continue to die, not hearing about the only God who can truly save them? Stay in bondage and miserable instead of knowing a God who can give them freedom and joy? How would God's glory be shown among the nations? How will our kings ever proclaim, God is God of gods.

My fear of the dark is small, and insignificant compared to the fear of going out there and telling every man, women, boy and girl about Jesus. If I told one person, who truly got it, truly loved it, truly lived it, then if that shadow in the dark devoured me, how more amazing would life be?

What I have said is hard. Believe me, I am terrified of having to be out there, with strangers that hate me just because I am a Christian, and telling them of Jesus, but it needs to be done. I do not want to lose a thing that I have, but Jesus has told me to give them all to him already, why do I keep holding on? I am not a brave man, but I know my God's love is so much greater than anything else. We are not called, but commanded to go out there to all nations and share the good news that is Jesus.

It is the fear that keeps us here. Fear that keeps us settled in our church pews, enjoying one hour of idle worship a week. It is fear that keeps a wall between those who do not go to church and those that do. It is fear that keeps Christians from being strong like Joshua, brave like David, wise like Solomon, patient like Moses, faithful like Abraham, enduring like Noah, bold like Elijah, devoted like Daniel, and a teacher like Paul. Fear keeps us from being like our namesake, Christ Jesus.

"Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand." Isaiah 41:10

Taking Back Control

I have been reading a few things and seeing things on the internet about how to gain control over your life. What a great idea! So often people feel so helpless and lost. Who wouldn't like some kind of control over their dreams and aspirations. Then I read on and there are so many ways to do it, making lists, writing in journals, working out, finding hobbies. They are all great ideas. One that I kinda like is write down the bad things at night, and then throw them out. Or on the same vein, write down what makes you happy each morning.

As helpful as they all are and they are all very helpful, I believe they are missing the big picture. They are all incomplete. I have found, though I am struggling with it everyday, if you really want to gain control over your life, you need to lose it first. I know this goes against all of human thinking. I'm not really talking about dying, but giving it up. Give it up to who? Well Jesus naturally.

Jesus said to daily take up your cross and follow him. To me this means that every day I am to lay my life down so that I can follow him. I give up my control of my life and let him lead me. I let the Spirit guide me where I can be the most useful.

Found on this blog.

The thing about control, is that if you work so hard to keep control of everything, you often miss the little things because you are not looking in the right direction. When we fight for control, we stay focused. We miss our children growing up, we miss our families as they also fight for control for themselves. I am not saying you shouldn't try to control yourself, you should have discipline and self control, but if you lead your life in the ways you want to go, you will undoubtedly end up miserable and alone.

I feel I should talk more about self control and discipline. Those are two very important things to have. You should have control over yourself. If you can't control your own emotions and doings, how can God control your life? Discipline is important to have, without discipline we cannot grow into the people God wants us to be. But self control and discipline are not the same as having control over your life. God will lead us, because he is in control of it, we need to keep ourselves focused on God.

"As males, we always want to prove that we are impressive, that we do not need help to handle anything that life throws at us. But in our desire to be respected and present a strong image, our weaknesses actually gain power. The truth is, many of us are isolated and alone, lost in a desert of secret vices and unresolved pain because we have chosen to go it alone."  Andrew Schawb

I felt this quote is a good example of how trying to keep control of our lives really leads to us having less control. Control of our lives is characterized by respect from others, being strong, being the best. But when we have all the control, we tend to be lost and wandering, missing so much of something we can't seem to figure out.

We can see how so many wealthy people are always missing something and so they buy new things, bigger things, faster things to make up for the lack of the one thing. Jesus is completion. I kinda find it funny how one man, one God can be all you could ever want or need. Jesus has no desire to be part of your life. He doesn't want to be your go to guy, your friend, the guy you show off to your friends. He doesn't want a hour each week, or even each day, He wants every hour of every day of every week. He wants all of you, all the time. He wants to be your everything so you can have everything.

If Jesus is everything, and he has total control over your life, then he can bless you with riches that would make Bill Gates feel like a pauper. That is what it is to be a son of God. We are heirs to everything, and everything can be ours if we give up control of our lives, give the reins over to Jesus, and work to bring God glory in all the world.

Community

My WoW time is up in a few weeks. For the first time in 5 years, I have seriously thought about not renewing. The things keeping me there the most, are the few people I call friends, and it being the only way I interact with them. This is a world of distance. Though the web as brought all four corners of the earth together, it also has put a huge distance between the people you actually live close to.

I have friends that I have had since I was a child, they live near by and we meet up from time to time, but most of our interaction is all online now. There is the same distance between me and them as there is between me and my dear friend Hails. My childhood friends live with in 20 mins of me while Hails lives in Australia. Our interaction is about the same. We talk just as often online, we play a WoW or get in vent just as often. It is as if we are all the far away from each other. We live in a digital world stretches as far as the universe is wide.

Online interaction is so much easier, we have screens to protect us, we don't have to look someone in the eye, and we don't need to feel the sting of rejection. We don't have to be nice, we can let the ugliness inside us out and do what we want because there is no one watching what we do. Video games often teach us that if you get mad at someone, get revenge. Most games do not give examples of how to overcome in the face of adversity. They show either brute force or underhanded sneaking will get you what you want. You either punch someone till they give it to you, or you secretly sabotage them until they give it.  A lot of games rarely show you how better things can be if you worked together.

I have found that in my 5+ years of WoW, there are less and less people helping build community and more and more people finding ways to tear down other people. This has spread into the real world now. If you wanted to find a community where you could find help and feel loved, you will only find angry bitterness, distrust, and old grudges. I am talking about you Church. Church used to be about showing the world God's love but now the Church is known for its hypocrisy and intolerance.

I do not mean to say that all churches are that way, more so I mean that is what the news, media and the powers that be, want you to think this is how it is. So we need to work on that perception the world has labeled us with. Did you know the easiest way to change perception of yourself to other people is to have Jesus do it? Yep, you alone will never change its easier to stay the same, even if you have all the good intentions to change and all the right reasons for it. But when you let Jesus work his way, mostly by surrendering all, really following, and losing yourself in him, are you able to really change.

I am working through some big changes, things have been weighing on me that never used to bug me. It started with an unhappiness in World of Warcraft, a sadness in my heart and now it is moving into learning what I can to be a better follower of Christ, to listen to what Jesus really said in the gospel and not try to put my faith into the American Dream of Christianity. It is a long journey, and I will be honest, I am scared where it may lead me, but I want to take the trip regardless. I hope that when I set out here, God will bring me to the point where I can meet my companion.

I think I need to be more social, actually hang out with friends that are close by, instead of playing with them on a game. I plan to keep playing for a bit more, I do not feel my time is completely done. Just need a break from it. In the time I am taking I am going to try and be more like God wants me to be and less like I want me to be. God has been talking to me a lot, he knows what is best for me, even if I feel I should resist it.

Pic from this site.

In the time away, I want to help show the world what Christ is really like, what Christians are really like, and what the church can really be. I want to see a spirit lead church grow from the ashes of the corpse of the old one. I want to go and see the glory of God shine in the world. I want my anger to disappear and be replaced by love from God. I want to be known as a follower of Christ. I want to build a community of believers, gamers, friends and family all striving to be even better than the day before. I want to live in a community where love and kindness goes right beside work and business. Where greed doesn't run our lives, but sharing the gospel does.

These are lofty goals, but I believe Jesus is calling us for something better, not the afterlife, not eternity, those are the gifts for doing what he is calling for us to do. He is calling us for something better in this world, he is calling us for his glory. Come with me on this trip, let us go together into the world and make disciples and shine so brightly that the world will have no choice but to say Christians are full of love and joy. Let's get out there and take care of the world.

How do You Let Go?

How do you let go? It is a very hard question. I know I do not let go very well. I am going to start to ramble here, but sometimes it is how I manage to get my thoughts out. I have a friend who I care very much about. She has been so wonderful and helpful, and of course stupid me, I thought I had developed feelings for her. I can look back now, after some clearing of my mind and a whole lot of prayer and I realize that I never did really like her that way, but I still feel hurt that we don't spend time like we used to as friends.

I mean we still play some, but it is always with other people and never just us. I don't blame her for not wanting to play, but it hurts that my friend won't just be my friend. And then one of my other very good friends, is too busy to play, and it sometimes seems too busy to just talk. I feel like all my friends, one right after the other, are pulling away from me.

So what does this have to do with letting go? I have no clue. I guess I just need to learn how to let them go. I guess its more that I NEED to let go. But how do I let go of people I care about? What do I give up on what made us friends in the first place? I don't know. It seems that so often in our lives, people come into it like a storm, fierce and crazy and get so into the relationship that after the storm has hit, there isn't much to do from there. We end up drifting at sea until we just end up drowning.

That sadly is a truth about friends. Some of us will just drown to our friends and we will no longer exist the way we did before. So there is really just one thing to do and let them go. What good is it to hang on to a dead body in the middle of the ocean when all it will end up doing is dragging us down to the bottom. But it keeps coming back to how do we let them go.

Some will say its easiest to end it with a fight or something that is a rather sharp and final end, but what of the friendship? Did it mean so little, you just want to cut that hand off that is clinging to you? That's not it, though a final end would be easy. I would think that if I was just to quietly drift away, not be there so much, less texts, less overall talking, it would be easy to pass them off to another ship in the sea. But that too feels like it is just pretending not to care. Which, for me, causes me more hurt because I play it through in my head over and over again and I very much care about them.

Only thing I can think is kind of combine everything into one and wrap it all up with Jesus, place it at the foot of the cross and leave it for Jesus. If you really wanna take a deep look at it all, the reason we lose ourselves in books, movies, video games, hobbies, friends, or anything else, is to find a place we feel happy, that we belong, and to feel special. I keep going over the painful thoughts of why my friendship is on the rocks, and wanting so much to make things better, that I let go of the only anchor that keeps me from floating away, the bloody and amazing cross of Christ.

It is at the foot of the cross that we find ourselves. It is there we find everything we have ever wanted. We find ourselves, we find happy, peace, belonging. We find a special-ness that cannot be found anywhere else we look. We find Jesus there. The only way I could ever let go of my friends, is to cling so tightly to my Jesus, with white knuckles in desperation. Jesus is the only friend who you can go to over the same thing, time and time again, and he will never get tired of hearing from you.

Jesus is the only friend, who will let you cry as long as you need to and never complain about a wet shoulder. He will give you a hug so big and tight that all the pain in the world couldn't stay in you. He is the only friend that can complete you. And the best part of it all, Jesus wants not only to be your best friend, but also wants to be your hope, your dreams, your joy, your desire, your love, your peace, your go to man, your Savior, and your God. Jesus wants to be your everything, if you will only give everything you are to him.

It is hard to let Jesus be everything to you. It is true, we are physical and God is spiritual. But if God is your everything, and his spirit lives, in part, in every single bit of matter, then even a gentle breeze is like a hug from the Almighty. The lick of your puppy can be like a kiss from our Lord, though that is kinda a sloppy kiss. But anyways, we each need to find our way to let Jesus be our everything and give our everything to him.

It does seem odd that we wouldn't let him be our everything, but you can see it in the churches, other Christians, the whole world, we don't want Jesus to be everything because we are not willing to give all we are to him. We hold back something, maybe even the smallest mote of ourselves, but we hold it back and keep it locked away from Him. If we can find our way to give that last bit, that last tiny mote of our lives to Jesus, we can let go of all the earthly pain we feel. Let go of the friends that are slowly dragging us down, or maybe even pull them out of the water so we both can have everything with Jesus.

So to answer the question I started off with, we can only let go of whatever, by clinging to the Cross of Christ and to Jesus and giving all we are to him in exchange for him being our everything we need. It for sure is not a small task, and not easy, but if we manage it, we can let go, and be free.