Transcend: Integrity

Integrity is such a funny thing. Others can think that we are a man or woman of integrity, but we know the truth. To me, it seems like integrity is really how we react when challenged with the easy vs. best road when nobody else is around. Integrity can be revealed when others are present, but i see in my own life that it's those little choices or compromises that we make along our our journey while alone that build it or tear it down. Lately, I feel more conscious about what my actions are saying about God at work. I'm thinking that what i do at home or at work when nobody is looking is revealed in my actions and thought processes, regardless if i want it to come out.

Last week, i had a sad experience with a person in authority who showed a lack of integrity. I didn't want to see it, and i didn't go searching for it....it just slipped and came out. I don't think that they meant for it to come out, but it did. I don't mean to put them down, but it's just an example to me of how murky my heart can be too. What i mean is that until we submit to the Lord and allow our weedy parts to be pulled out from the root, they will continue to grow and sprout, even to the point where we can't hide them from others.

Lord, may you reveal to us each what weedy parts you want us to surrender so that You can pull them out by the root to make us more pure for Your glory. Will you give us opportunities to build our integrity, not by our strength, but by Your strength? Amen.

RMOJ: Deep and Wide

This morning, the kids are coming up and singing with worship.

And that means one thing. I get to pull out the ol' "DEEEEEP and WIIIIIIDE!"

Complete with wider and deeper actions. Ah, the faith of a child. Such amazing, simple joy. Don't lose that.

Transcend: Serious Passion

Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers (like people who write generic anniversary cards for a living). On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship
John Piper, Desiring God

Oh, how very true is that balance in our lives... in my life. I was talking about something very similar yesterday, doing training. Talking about presenting a worship set. There needs to be deep passion, but rooted in truth, otherwise it's nothing but cheesy. And the one label the church must avoid at all costs is "cheesy." We talk about the serious, passionate business of love, of life, of death and meaning. Besides these, all other pursuits - making money, being entertained - must fall by the wayside.

So let me issue a challenge to the readers: What is your serious passion? Why is it so serious? Why are you so passionate about it? If you're not passionate about something serious, then how do you get to tomorrow?

RMOJ: Bronco!

At work today, the van wouldn't start. So I got to take the Bronco.

Barely starts. Cracked windshield. Rally-tuned suspension straight from the 1980s. No rear-view mirror. Bench seat, done in 80's plaid, sitting loose in the back. Keys you have to eject. And FM radio. FM!

Safe? Hell no. Modern? Not by a long shot. Fun? Oh yeah.

Transcend: A peaceful mind and trust in God.

How much do you trust God? Fully? Whole Heartedly? Now what do you think about in the course of the day? "I wonder if Sally likes me?" "I don't think I'm going to have enough money to pay my bills this month...I'm screwed!". "I hope I don't break my leg at work because how would I pay my bills, I'd be really screwed!", "I wonder where i'll be in 5 years?!?!?" CRAP!

We say that we trust God but yet we haven't learned how to put our minds to peace about ALL things in our lives. We think that there are those little things that God can't handle that we would be better suited to handle on our own.

I've been on my own personal journey this year to find inner peace and even though I'm not fully there yet I really feel like I'm well on my way. Yes I still sometimes have those bad days where I'm concerned about finances and there's some days where you can't shut your mind off but I would challenge you all to challenge your mind and challenge those "doubts" that arise in your mind as they come up because if those thoughts are still there, we haven't fully given all of ourselves over to God. May we pray for a peaceful soul, a peaceful mind, and a peaceful world!

Inspire: Make A Difference.

A picture's worth a thousand words:

Transcend: Worth

Who am I?

A question that tugs at the bottom of every soul.

What is worth, what is of worth?

We are made in the image of the Creator, blood, dust and bone. We are reflections of a singular and unfathomable will. We are the children of the Word that fell from His lips onto the world.

There is something inherently of value in us, of us, that we radiate. It is in what we are, it is in the unlimited potential of the DNA in our cells, we are the many, we are the variegated, and we are the host of possibilities. There is something of His eternity in the incredible manifold paths that the complexities of biology offer us.

And that is merely in our form, our shape, our dust. And He showed fit to give us something more. He gave us His breath, the animus, the soul, the ability to choose. He gave us choice. He gave us the capability of understanding.

A question then follows, regarding understanding. We ask, especially to the literal translation: If Eve knew, truly knew the fullest consequences of her actions, would she have bit into that apple? Would she have enslaved us, a world, to thousands upon thousands of years of pain and suffering? Would the mother of us all condemn us in a moment, for the sake of knowledge? And yet, to push the literal translation, even her limited understanding of a choice between God and self would mean that she knew of good and evil.

Regardless, there is something rotten at the core of us all. There is a malignity to us, and it colors every decision that we make. We are bent, and everything we do is thrown askew. Yet, I ask, are we broken, in the fullest sense of the word? Are we incapable of understanding altogether, that we are totally and absolutely lost? Would being this broken not even allow us to be capable of self-reflection? Would we not even know how broken we are, unable to answer the question to why we mess everything up?

Do we mess everything up?

A man called Tolkien said once, “We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed, only by myth-making, only by becoming a "sub-creator" and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall.”

But. But: Are we not the reflection of a God that is perfect? Are we not the refractors of a pure Light? Is there not something in us that calls to Him? Is there not something in all of us that recognizes we are the vessels of His Light, His greatness? Is there not some worth in that?

We see through a mirror darkly.

So: the problem. We can’t, being the instruments of our own destruction, engineer a way out that destruction. If we see sin as death, in and out of this mortal coil, a death in the little sense during our life, and a death after we pass, then we’re f*cked. It takes something to straighten us. It takes something to repair this “broken” soul.

It takes something like Jesus. For God so loved the world. Notice the language. Notice what it says. He LOVED the world. He saw worth in it. He saw something worthy of redemption. He saw something that needed to come back to Him.

It is true that we cannot manufacture this worthiness by anything we do, for in the end it falls short of its mark, it bends in its skewed flight, it misses the target. It is not complete, it is not perfect. But that we do, that we know, that we try, that very fact is from what we inherently are, the image of God. We seek after His face even though we cannot give the very search its words. We look for transcendence; we look for that purpose, engage in that passion that will deliver us to something better. Worth comes then, when we are our truest selves, an independent agent of the Will of God, spun into the world. We see this, in the image of who Jesus is, and what he’d done. The greatest thing a man can do is lay his life down for his friends, a free act of volition, not some prescribed fate. Our worth is immeasurable, for God took an immeasurably worthy Son and had him die for us. Our price has been the death of the Son of God.

Let us hold to the value of this worth, with humility and gratitude. For we are bought, purchased with a coin of infinite value.

Inspire: Thanksgiving

I want to give thanks today.

And it has nothing to do with a turkey.

I recently got back from a vacation, and ended up in the post-vacation mode: Plop your bags down, to be dealt with when you have time, get ready to frantically head to work, try to keep some of the joy you experienced from flying away the moment you get back.

This means that the bachelor pad, already in a bachelor-pad-ish state, was even more so, with everyone and their baggage lounging around everywhere. We were up to our elbows in dirty laundry, dishes, and general mayhem.

Enter an angel in disguise. She asks if she can come clean my place. I am flabbergasted. I've never had the offer - someone that wants to just clean my house, to be a blessing to me, the guys, and the Lord. And she comes in when the house it at it's worst.

I come back home and find something beautiful I never knew existed behind piles of laundry and layers of dirt. Not only has she cleaned, she's done dishes, laundry, and unpacked my stuff (putting it all in the right places, to boot!). My day of "okay get it done" is replaced by a gratitude... this is such a gift.

So here's to angels - I know some of them read blog posts, and so know that this is one man who is forever thankful that I get to see this beauty you create.

Thank you.

Transcend: Fear

When I was about 11 or 12, I went to Malaysia with my family on vacation. We were staying with family for most of our vacation, but we also travelled to a remote seaside resort. My dad always loved sight-seeing, so we would often spend hours driving and walking to faraway destinations.

Upon arrival at the resort, my sister and I hurriedly changed into our swimwear and headed out to the beach. There was no one around, only a few people in the distance, and the water was kind of murky. My sister had her doubts, but I said, "It's fine, let's go in". So as I begin to walk in, I cut my foot on glass. At least that's what I thought.

As it turns out, I was bitten and poisoned. To this day we're not sure what it was (maybe a catfish), but I couldn’t have taken more than a few steps in. I told my sister to go and get a band-aid, but realizing the severity of the situation, she ran and got my parents. My mom instantly recognized that I was poisoned, and my dad carried me off across the street where – thank God – we found an English-speaking doctor. He had seen many injuries like mine before, and was able to administer antidote and pain-killer. Suffice to say I lived, but I remember the pain persisted for at least a full day.

From that day forward, I avoided stepping into any body of water other than a swimming pool. No lakes, no rivers, no ocean.

Then my mom told me that we were going to Hawaii for a family vacation this year. So when we finally arrived in Hawaii last week, I hadn't stepped into the ocean in roughly 14 years. It was deliberate avoidance. I didn't want to experience that kind of pain again.

But I decided to go in. I swam. I had fun. I feel like it had more symbolic and spiritual significance than any emotional significance. I didn't cry. I didn't leap for joy. But I broke the cycle. I left my fears behind, and they melted away in the beautiful oceans of Kauai. Truth be known, I was probably ready to go back in a lot sooner, but this was my first opportunity in a long time and I didn't want to pass it up. This time I didn't get hurt or bitten by any venomous creature. It was wonderful.

Understand, we can have fears about every imaginable thing. Losing a significant other. Going broke. Missing an opportunity. We are broken people, but God is putting us back together. God wants to restore all that was lost, and bless you beyond that.

Do you have fears from the past? I would encourage you to see it for what it really is and face up to it. Maybe you're not ready yet. That's okay, but your time will come. You'll be more than ready with God at your side.

RMOJ: Returns

The Hidden Ranch Close guys are coming back today after what was hopefully an amazing time away!

and the light flashes as bright as a polaroid.

I'm in an interesting place in my life. A place I never thought I would be in a thousand years but a place I need to be in non-the-less. I've been off work this whole week, I live on my own now in my grandma's basement suite as most know. I always knew that when I moved here there was a reason why I needed to move here but I just couldn't put my finger on it. Turns out this week is one of the reasons why I needed to move here. I've been learning things about myself this week that are almost profound. I don't really know how to even put it into words. Things are going very well! I feel like I'm exactly where I need to be in life right now. All the boys from the band are out of town to hawaii and BC. Tim is back tomorrow so I will have to make plans to see him this weekend but what a week its been. I would have never expected this like I say in 1000 years. Its amazing when your almost completely in aloneness and left with your thoughts what happens. And what kind of post would this be if I didn't talk about the thoughts that aren't mine but are there anyways. God's been paying frequent visits to me in the past week in unexpected ways and I'm so thankful. 
I realized that tonight was possibly the last chance I had to walk the park in above 20 degree weather. It was amazing tonight as the sun was setting to see the colors of the leaves on the trees, listening to chris walla on the ipod. Its almost like that album was made just for me at that exact moment in time. I had an aura about me as I walked, I knew it was on my face, people were looking at me. I can always tell when I'm exactly where I need to be in my life because random people will look at me and wonder what I'm going through because I guess I look happy. Its a happiness that has no explanation. When I started the year I said to myself that I wanted to find my inner peace and my inner self. Its not something that can be accomplished in a year but rather a lifetime but I feel like this year is certainly the starting point to which I will never forget about for as long as I live. This year is turning out to be one that I will look back on and be able to say that this year changed my life for the better.

Also sitting in the apartment today I got plans in my head to get another table for under the big window in the living room. I want to get a record player. Maybe even an old school looking one, with a great selection of vinyl. Then when more days like this happen, I can sit and read or write while sipping tea and listening to the best music a guy could ever want.