Wind. Spirit.

John 3:8
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

The Spirit goes where it pleases? Like the wind? Its free to take our lives on whichever path it chooses? As you can hear the wind blow, the spirit is known through the transformation of our lives in time. I can see how the spirit has used different things in my life to start getting me into changing my life. I'm not the same person I was at all before I understood my relationship with God. I don't quite understand everything that the Spirit has me going through yet, but in time, I will see how this plays an important role in my character hopefully? I feel that the Holy Spirit ultimately can be trusted...even though sometimes its REALLY hard to see the good through such crazy pain.

smorgasbord

So I know that I said that I was going to try and post every single day. Well I was doing ok for a while, but this weekend hit and I was EXTREMELY busy so I didn't take the chance to just sit down and write. There WERE believe it or not, a lot of things that I DID want to write about so I'm going to take some time to briefly write about all of them in one post...

youth conference weekend.

I ran sound for a youth conference this weekend and I really enjoyed it. It would be amazing to work for a church doing all that stuff. Maybe someday, God will open up some doors to work for a church (nudge nudge wink wink, God) ha! But until something like that comes along, I'm stuck doing whatever I can find. Some thoughts on this particular conference though were about the speaker. I felt as though the speaker was very out of touch with the audience he was speaking to. Most of his lessons were about self discipline and about how you should live a life pleasing to God which is a very good lesson to teach essentially.

But with such a topic, comes a lot of responsibility in determining the best way to approach and connect to your audience. The way he did, I felt as though he were speaking to a small group of male, Christian adults. He even got on a kick about how the parents should have boundaries set for their children. Preaching about that, when his audience is a bunch of kids! Now, if that wasn't enough to disengage the rest of his message probably was. Now I can't say that he literally said this, because that would mean that I was paying WAY much more attention to his words than I really was, but throughout his lessons, I couldn't help but think that it sounded as though he was saying that in order for God to give you love, you have to live a life pleasing to him.

Now this struck me very deeply, because this was and still is an issue that I had with my relationship with God growing up. No matter how hard I try sometimes, I CAN'T stop sinning. Now you can call that what you want, but that is the nature of my crappy human self. I try all the time to stop and sometimes I can go a while without. But eventually I mess up again. And growing up, going to many of these types of conferences, I grew to think that God only loves me if I live a pleasing life.

I need to fix my problems before I can have a relationship with God.

That is basically what I thought about the whole Christian thing until about 2 years or so ago. And slowly God has been detoxing me from that mindset. I've had the real truth in my heart since 2006 and I STILL struggle with seeing that to be truth every once and a while.

I'm scared these kids heard lies instead of the truth about God's love even though I KNOW with all my heart that this speaker has pure intentions. God loves us regardless of what we do or who we are or who we were or what we've done. And because of this, when we finally start to feel this love to be real, God loves us too much to let us live our lives the way we have. So slowly, he starts to clean us up. At our own pace. Breaking down walls, breaking down addictions, breaking down false beliefs, breaking down false images of him.

THIS is some of the truth that kids and young adults like me need to hear. Not more people telling us how good we have to be. Us church kids already know how good we're SUPPOSE to be. We've heard it our entire lives.


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Me. God is using me?

So today at church my friend got baptized and on her video she mentioned MY name as one of the people who helped her to that decision. Did I REALLY help her to that decision?! When did this happen? HOW did this happen? For the past year now, I have felt like a failing Christian. I have felt so stagnant not only in my christian walk, but also in my career. I have felt SO trapped and SO lost and about everything and STILL do?! I have never been so unsure of myself in my life until this past year and right now in my life. Hearing my friend say that I'm still making a difference in someone's life made me feel a little bit more at peace tonight. The lesson at church tonight was about pivital circumstances and I have been feeling like I've been going through one since I've moved here. But hearing that God is still able to use someone like me when I'm not nearly the man that I someday hope to be? That is truly amazing. That is truly a blessing. Maybe God really IS turning me into the man I want to be. The man HE wants me to be.

they're exercising their rights... (sigh)

Dancing Is A Right.

...All the rights we have as a country and these are the ones they use to try and make voting more appealing. Do we REALLY want the people who would actually take this type of video to heart voting anyways?

...just a thought.

Character Plant

Today was a day of feeling satisfied with my work and not getting compensated the correct amount for the quality of work that I did. I have had a lot of days where I have not felt satisfied with my work and felt bad for the amount I did get paid, so I guess these kinds of days are where karma evens you out. Which isn't a bad thing. We must learn to always try our best and work to the best of our abilities because Character and Integrity is like a plant. When it is planted, it goes unnoticed except by the gardener. It takes much patience and carefulness to care for the plant. But sooner or later, as it digs its roots, there comes a time for this plant to surface and when it does, its beauty is not easily looked over. Its shade is enjoyed by all who gather underneath its branches.

7|22

So I was kind of thinking about what was said at 7|22 tonight and what has been said in the past at 7|22 and its cool and all...but I'm scared that the message might be taken the wrong way just like many church messages are taken. 7|22 seems to want to be VERY mission minded as in wanting to go out and change the world and bring people to Christ and blah blah blah...which is a very good thing. But I feel there is more to the message than just this. I feel in being able to do this, you have to be continually seeking Jesus in a personal very closely knit, relational way. I feel that the only way you're going to be able to know for sure if your heart is currently in the correct place for such a big responsibility is through accountability and through having men or women very close to you who can see what needs to be addressed and what needs to be worked on.

I don't really EVER feel this is the case at Buckhead Church. Maybe this is just because I have found it so hard to find some men in the church here to do this with and am still struggling with having men up to the task of this, and I hope that I am the only one who is having this problem, but I don't think that is the case. I feel that BECAUSE Buckhead Church is a "Church for people who don't like Church" and because it is a church of very young faith amongst its believers, that we as a congregation do not even know that this is the sort of stuff we need to be effective at loving others outside our walls.

My point to all this is how would you know this type of stuff if you weren't told? You wouldn't. Its not like while your reading your bible during your quiet time you can just read a verse and it just pop into your head...I need accountability to effectively love someone else! erecka! And I don't think that we put enough emphasis on that importance of personal accountability and integrity and the responsibility we have to let the Holy Spirit pour into us so that when we do have the chance to pour into the lives of others, we aren't spiritually dried up and just simply going through the motions of Religion that too many of us are familiar when it comes to trying to trying to invite a friend to church or have that discussion about Jesus with our outsider friends. Because we learned about it this summer at 7|22 and we have to recognize it...they like Jesus, but they don't like the Church.

I lied

Today at work I lied to my manager. I don't know why I did it. I don't know any reason whatsoever why I did it besides the fact that it got me out of having to pay him $5. Now this is ridiculous because I'll tell you why...

For $5, I compromised my integrity to where now, my word can't even mean the same thing to me yet alone it meaning the same to that manager personally, yet alone all the other managers that he asked around about to see if I WAS telling the truth or not.

For $5, I started my day off HORRIBLY where the whole, prolly first hour, I was just thinking about it and letting it dwell, I was scared to say other things in fear that I would be cornered into having to make up other lies so I didn't really speak to anyone at the beginning.

In the end, I ended up telling him and giving him $5, so I could salvage what dignity I had left and feel like a man again instead of a coward. So really, I didn't even get the $5 this was about. Sucks doesn't it? I don't know...I feel better now though I guess? Hopefully he finds it in him to forgive me and forget about this little mishap. But at least the burden of this is off my shoulders. And that is a good thing. I don't handle stuff like that very well.

Mixed Signals

I really wish I could just choose a routine and stick with it. I would love to have a way that I spend my days every day and that be my little thing. Wake up early every morning. Go on a run to my gym that I'm a member of, work out, run back to the house, jump in the shower, spend my quiet time, catch up on some news off my iPhone, eat breakfast, get to work, actually feel competent enough to feel satisfied with my performance, get home, do some reading from my current book of choice, eat dinner, go to my evening activity for the night whether that be small group, the living room, band rehearsal, a concert, or just hanging out with friends, and then go home, get online, do my blog, check my facebook and myspace and email, write in my journal, then go to bed and wake up and do it all over again. I wish that could be my routine...but its not. How perfect would that be? haha.

I don't even know where to begin on getting that kind of a routine started? I guess finding a career that isn't so unstable? On the other hand, I would LOVE to be more into the music scene, working concerts, going to see bands, signing bands to my label, managing bands, talking to labels and studios about recording contracts, tour dates, talking to venue owners about booking gigs staying up late, sleeping in late, waking up, getting all my stuff done, then doing it all over again the next night.

Then again, I would LOVE to work for a church. Pouring into peoples lives, helping them weed through some of their false images of God, helping them experience the HUGE, loving, responsible, just, merciful, all knowing, purposful, relational God that I don't even really know all that well (because God is infinity) then I wouldn't even have to worry about work and all that stuff cause going to church and having a ministry IS my work! that would be amazing too.

I wish I could make up my mind on what I want to do with my life and I wish I had a bit more clarity on which direction God wants me to take. I guess you kind of have to just pick one and go at it until you get a clear response on whether that one is correct or not? who knows?

"9 Be happy, young man, while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the ways of your heart
and whatever your eyes see,
but know that for all these things
God will bring you to judgment.

10 So then, banish anxiety from your heart
and cast off the troubles of your body,
for youth and vigor are meaningless."

Ecclesiastes 11:9-10

masquerade

It pisses me off that sometimes I feel like the only Christian with problems. I know I'm not...the bible teaches me differently. But that still leaves all these Christians running around our churches week after week seeming to not have a care in the world. I wish that maybe once a month we could have a Sunday where it was all about getting our anger and frustration out as worship to God. Where we could all just go there...maybe have a worship band up there who sounded like Norma Jean or Underoath, and we could mosh and sweat and praise a God who is DEFINITELY the one...being...object? that can handle some of our rage as a people. I feel that this would help us to first, find people who we relate to the most through our pains and learn from each other on how to handle certain things. Then two, we would be able to just unwind a bit. Chill out. Let God take our angers and pains away so that people wouldn't have to be at the recieving end of it all. I have just a bit under two hours until church starts and I can't say I'm feeling it at all. I definitely won't be having a friendly face on tonight I'm afraid.

"18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that^[i] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will."

Romans 8:18-27

Least of These

So I found myself thinking throughout the day about the people who I consider hard to love.

For me these are the incompetent people who feel that the world owes them something for them just being them. The people who no matter how hard you try, you can't seem to talk to them without getting into an argument about something. The people who just won't stop nagging or, to use an old saying, won't stop "beating a dead horse." And then the last one, one that has just started to enter into this category, people who practice the art of pull. These are the people who use favors or other types of "gifts" against you to make you feel guilty or to make you feel obligated or make you feel like you owe them something.

I think what got me started thinking about this was while making lunch today, my cousin had the T.V. on and tuned into the Murry show and it had people on there in hopes of finding out test results to see who the true father of various women's babies were. It broke my heart first to see these people on there not knowing anything different on how skewed their lives were and second, that we actually find people like this entertaining instead of feeling a dire need to help them find something deeper. My next thoughts were then, how in the world do you love someone like the types of people these people are? What does that even look like? How would they even begin a journey into Christianity, when for all you can see, they would already be too far gone to ever understand anything about what it means for them to be a Christian?

God loves these broken people. What does it look like for us to prove that to them?

The Titanspark Requiem

I've decided to start an official blog. There. I've done it. The easy part is over and it wasn't even all that easy. I had a time thinking of the name for my blog and after sitting here for a bit listening to Brand New, flipping through some of my favorite movies, books, music, and video games, thinking of different quotes from each, thinking of similarities AND differences between them all and how to connect them all to my blog while still keeping MY thoughts and MY interpretations of these ideas as original as what I would like to think of them to be, I have decided on the name, "The Titanspark Requiem."

For my first blog, I would like to explain the significance of this title as it pertains to me. First, Titanspark, a mixture between the words titan and spark. A titan, as defined by the Oxford American Dictionary, is a person or thing of very great strength, intellect, or importance. A spark, defined by the same dictionary, is a small fiery partical thrown off from a fire. As a young man who has willingly decided to dedicate his life to a man and his teachings, in hopes of the promises he has made about eternal life, in believing that he truly IS the way, the truth, and the light to our father, God, I hope to be a spark resembling that fire, resembling that titan, the man, the God, Jesus Christ. Requiem, as defined, is an act or token of rememberance. I want this blog to be both an act and a token for that rememberance of my commitment to being the Titanspark, a disciple of Jesus.

My hopes for this blog is for you to read this and be inspired. Inspired to take steps into a deeper faith. One that is personal, living, breathing, painful, beautiful, and loving. Whatever that might look like to you personally. This blog is about what it looks like to me. I'm just as messed up as you are, if not worse. I'm not claiming to have any answers for any of your questions. But I am promising that there is more to the Christian faith than what our culture in America has come to know. I've started to experience it. And it has completely messed my life up.