A Few Scattered Thoughts..

A certain friend does this thing with his blog almost every Sunday night.  He just starts to type bullets about his day & his thoughts usually go into a really interesting direction.  I thought I’d try this out for a bit & see what I think.

Every Monday night for the next four weeks (excluding next week-  could end up being posted on Sunday).  I’m going to post some of my thoughts on the weekend, as well as the week ahead.  Play this song while you read-  Could make this post more interesting and make your day a little better at the same time!

• Love the fact that I go to a church that isn’t afraid to topple the ’sacred cows’ that the Church as a whole is too afraid to even address.
• Took too many notes on yesterday’s sermon.  Ran out of room to write and there was still five minutes to go in the message.  We should offer bigger worship guides to frantic note-takers.
• Seems that I’ve been forgetting to eat lately.  I ran around all day yesterday on just two cups of coffee and a Nutri-grain bar.  Wish I knew where my energy came from!
• Discovered one of my favorite guitar lines to play EVER.  And from a worship tune-  Check out this guy do a semi-ok job  of covering it.  Love the stripped-down simplicity, yet harmonic tone of the melody.  Sounds much better when I play it though! 
• Spent a total of five hours at Starbucks today and yesterday.  Could be a Pro, could be a Con.  You decide.
• Really, really pumped about my future.  Wish I could skip the rest of high school & keep doing what I’m doing now.
• That’s not reality, however.  I WILL go into this next school year with Spiritual armor and a desire to see change in my generation.
• Been constantly reminding myself of this line from a sermon lately:  “What is the one thing you would do for God if you knew you could not fail?  Now do it-  because you are a coward that doubts God’s power if you believe He won’t move you in a position to fulfill that task.“   INTENSE!
• On a less heavy note, I really like my new Mac.  Always felt like a Mac person at heart-  bound to a sentence of using PCs. 
• Installed Covenant Eyes on it too.  Didn’t feel like risking the integrity of my future for a dangerous temptation that I don’t even need in the first place.  I feel so much better, and you should do the same.
• The entire church staff is volunteering with some great people tomorrow-  Get to head up some ‘Olympic Games’ for summer camp kids.  It involves water!
• Discovered the Mac app ‘Things’.  I really like it-  but still trying to convince myself that paying the $50 to keep it is worth it when the trial time is up.. Going to be a tough call.
• I feel like my greatest desire to write comes late at night.  So weird.
• Shared vision with a great guy today-  Hard to find people with the same level of commitment and passion to serve that he possesses.  So encouraging!

That’s all I’ve got for you, folks.  Please give me feedback if you like these kinds of posts-  Not used to them, so they feel a little random.

Night!

Silence

I’ve forgotten what silence means.  And it’s become a problem.

I can’t remember the last time I secluded myself for more than 10 minutes without reading a tweet, checking my Facebook, responding to email, watching TV, listening to music, reading a magazine, typing a text, talking to someone, reading a blog.. You get the picture.

What I thought:  Information brings knowledge.  The more people I follow on Twitter, the more music I buy, the more blogs I read, the more knowledge I’ll gain.  This made sense for a while.

What I’ve learned:  

True understanding cannot be obtained through a lifestyle of noise.  

In the same way, are close whispers heard at a crowded concert?  Can the cry of one sheep be distinguished from a flock of hundreds?

My point is, I can’t hear from God if I’m busy filling my mind with information that’s not relevant to my life from the get-go.

If I’m to fully confide in Him with all my heart, soul, and being, why am I placing my obsession with information above His ultimate intention for my life?

I’ve decided to cut back.  Less blogs, less tweets, less information.  I’m reaffirming the integrity of my foundation to allow God’s purpose for my life to permeate my soul.  Silence brings revelation, revelation brings understanding, and understanding brings security.

New Title

I’ve always wanted to find something in writing that represents my aspirations as a follower of Christ.  One verse in the bible has always stood out among the others.  I think it represents this current phase of my life more than anything else.

1 Timothy 4:12 // ¹²Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

The 54th book of the Bible, the fourth book, and the twelfth verse.

That’s it.  I could go my entire life on that one verse and never open the bible again.  I wouldn’t advise that of course, but consider this:

As someone that is still “learning the ropes” in life, so to speak, I’ve been given an incredible opportunity to alter the course of my generation.  My perspective has deeply changed over the past year or so.  My generation is living their lives with an entirely different outlook on life.  Their view of purpose, or self-worth, is the backwards representation of God’s definition of purpose.

Why would I want to go on living like every other teen, when I can live with a renewed sense of purpose while carrying out God’s desire for my life?

Don’t get me wrong, living for Christ is difficult for me.  It will never be easy.  We were never promised a path without struggle.  I heard a Pastor say once, “The process is the point.”  If God wanted living for Him to be easy, why would He allow sin to permeate the world we live in?

On the days when I feel it would be easier to just give up and fall into the same fate as so many others, I turn to that verse.  1 Timothy 4:12.  Set an example.

How can I set an example if I won’t leave the crowd?

I’m back.. Maybe.

Today is June 12, 2009.  Perhaps six months since my last post.  Lots has changed since then.

Just felt like writing a little bit today.. We’ll see how it goes.

Over the past few months I’ve been blessed in so many ways.  I was given a car to drive.  I was given the opportunity to intern for the job of my dreams.  And, on top of that, I get to work at my favorite place in the world.  I made it through this school year with mostly A’s and only two B’s, and I’ve got an incredible family to back me up in all that I do.

Something was missing though.  A weird emptiness occupied my heart.  With every new blessing, that emptiness just seemed to grow.  I tried waiting it out and shoving it aside with a passive attitude.  It didn’t go away.  More friends didn’t fill the gap.  A great job didn’t fill the gap.  A front-row seat to an incredible spiritual movement didn’t even fill it.  People were looking to me as a role model; an image of how a ‘good christian’ was supposed to act.  I wasn’t feeling it.  Pastor Steven did a series a while back that would imply that I’d hit “The Dip” in my spiritual walk. Here’s what I came upon in my sermon notes a few weeks ago:

Trusting God is not a passive gesture, it’s an active movement.

I can’t assume that I can do everything on my own and pass off the “big problems” to God.  It took getting everything I desired to realize that I wasn’t actively pursuing the one who blessed me in the first place.

God doesn’t want my spiritual “left-overs” or half-hearted gifts.  He wants my active pursuit of His word and the life in which He is preparing for me.

Are you doing the same?

Update!

So… It’s been a little while since my last post (a month and a half…) so I’m going to try to make this one count.

Blogging is hard for me to keep up for a couple reasons:

1.  I never feel like I have anything interesting to say.

2.  Number 1 is really the only reason.

Anyways…

School’s been going in full gear since we started in August.  Seems like I haven’t gotten a real break in a while.  It’s been hard for me to see my purpose in going to school lately.  Sundays are always the day of the week that I look forward too.  My Thanksgiving was awesome.  All our family came in and had a great time together.

My music’s been improving a lot too.  I’ve been trying to model my ideas off of Coldplay and U2, and everyday is a little different.  Some days I feel really encouraged when I play, having come up with a new melody or idea, and other days I wonder if I really have any future in music at all.  I guess it’s kind of like writer’s block for musicians..

Some great new tunes have found their way into my head lately::  including the new Killers album and Coldplay EP.  Check them out!

There you have it.  This could be the last post for a while.  In the meantime, check out this guy’s blog for your reading desires.  He’s always got something interesting to say.

Merry Christmas!

Mid-October Chills and Thrills

Listening to:

Love Lockdown by Kanye West

Mr. Brightside by the Killers

These two songs are really amazing.  Our church did a killer rendition of Love Lockdown yesterday, which included a drumline and a soul singer.  That’s pretty wicked in my opinion.  Mr. Brightside recently became a favorite during a shuffle session on my iPod.  There are three killer melodies in that song, all of which have the potential to power a song on their own.  But, when combining the three into one super, mega-melodic song, you get an explosion of harmonious goodness.  I love songs like that.

After sitting in school for seven hours of the day, I decided to take a walk out in the cool, Autumn air.  Days like today are my favorite days of the year.  The colors have yet to change entirely, but the sky was blue and the breeze was nice.  I believe the first day of Fall should be a national holiday, so everyone can enjoy these wonderful days.  (And the joyous Christmas season isn’t very far away!)    ___

Just add on the fact that I get to see Relient K on Friday, and I felt confident after my highly-anticipated civics test, and this day pretty much felt like Christmas.  (…but not really as good as Christmas)  Happy Autumn everyone!

Here We Go.

Sometimes I have trouble coming up with titles of blogs, as well as information to blog about.  So, today I’m just going to share a bit of what’s on my mind.  Here We Go. 

Today, a teacher asked one of my friends “What is the most important thing in your life right now?”  This isn’t one of my closer friends, but I know him pretty well.  His answer was “Religion”.  Up until that point, I hadn’t really had a very high regard of this friend, but when he made this statement, I began to rethink my respect for him and admired his boldness.  But, at lunch I heard this same friend talking with some other friends about “the girls he was going to get” at a youth retreat coming up.  He was talking about sleeping with them in a very dishonoring and arrogant way.  So, I confronted this friend in front of everyone.  I asked him why he said the most important thing in his life was religion, when he talks about sleeping with girls after class.

He asked me, “Why can’t I focus on God and get girls at the same time?”  This really troubled me.  This friend told me another time that he couldn’t wait to go on his youth trip (because “it was so spiritual”).  I asked him about the party he held while his parents were out of town, and why he served alcohol.  He couldn’t give a reasonable explanation.

Sadly, this mindset represents so many teens today, who claim to love God in front of their friends, but commit inexcusable sins that poison their lives and their relationships with God.  It really makes my heart ache when I see friends make a commitment to God, and then throw it away when they can find some means of “justifying it.”

Churchgoers and “Christians” by our standards are the ones committing the sins they look down upon.  This is all true, and it seems highly hypocritical.

The Church needs to be the one standing behind its beliefs, rather than covering up its problems, and giving teens insufficient armor for the battles they face everyday.

Recently…

School is really stressful.. and it pretty much occupies all of my time.  But, here are some other things that have been going on:

Been listening to lots of Coldplay… trying to learn just how they create amazing songs with such simple melodies.  It’s challenging, but it’s really fun.

Our band has been rocking lately.  We call ourselves Technicolor.  I play with a group of guys usually once a week & we’ve been working on a song for a long time that I’m super excited about.  It’s killer, man.  I’ve never felt so good about anything I’ve written before.  We’re auditioning for the Providence Variety Show (or a giant school-wide talent show, whichever you prefer) next week.  I really think we’ve got what it takes to make it into the show.

We recorded it on a little device that may allow me to post it in the near future.  So be looking out for that…   And, who knows?  Maybe Technicolor will become a household name someday.. You never know

Currently Listening to: Lovers in Japan by Coldplay