Friday's Thinking Thoughts

1) The glorious moment your professor tells you the 20 page paper that was suppose to be due in five days is now due in two weeks.

2) Was able to interview the franchise holder of Chick-fil-A. I reminded him that my boss and I called four years ago. They're late, but here so it's okay.

3) The next year of grad classes are planned. No more 12-hour semesters. Yes, I learned a valuable lesson - listen to your mom/dad/boss/girlfriend/friend/kat.

4) Leading worship this Sunday at Journey the Way. Kinda nervous and excited.

5) Reading "The Horse and His Boy" it's my favorite Chronicles of Narnia book.

6) Psalm 23

7) "'Pull over!' 'No, it's a cardigan, but thanks for noticing.'"

8) The next three weeks will be filled with fun! And by 'fun' of course I mean papers, projects, presentations, finals and the like...

9) When you laugh so hard you cry with your roommates. Good times.

10) Maybe it's true; that the thing you rail against and hate the most is the thing you're most prone to fall into. For me I hate the idea of a theology centered on man. Where God is forgone for feeling or emotionalism. When God is seen as a vending machine not as the terrifyingly majestic and gracious God he is.
Yet, it is true, I'm prone to fall into feeling and emotionalism when God should be centered on me and my wants. When the beginnings of my thoughts with God are not, "Be my Shepherd," but rather, "This is what I want, so provide it, now."
I hope you see the juxtaposition. While in my mind I serve the law of God, that of who he is as revealed in Scripture and in my heart I serve the law of my flesh. Romans 7 is being written again in my life by the actions and inactions of a heart and mind at war for the supremecy of Jesus in my life. So, like always, this verse must be the reigning peace over my heart, "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Pre-Trip Thoughts

1) I hope I can post something to the blog somewhere in the trip.

2) I’ve bought so much music in the past 3 days that if I listen to it all before I get back it’ll be a miracle.

3) There will be a post-trip list of all the random thoughts had.

4) I won’t eat bacon for 6 days… it hurts just to say it.

5) Psalm 23

6) My travel partner has reserved some first class tickets for the trip home. That's. What's. Up.

7) If I can’t drink the water there then chances are I can’t drink the coffee there… poo.

8) Taylor Swift is comfort music. (Judge away judgers.)

9) I hope I packed everything.

10) The Kat is in good hands. Whew.

Bonus:

11) Let’s do this thing.

Alone Writing

The other day I went over to The Humidor to write a bunch of papers (It’s my writing place). After I bought the new Bruce Springsteen album (which I rather enjoy), I got to writing.

But, of course, I was distracted by the other men sitting in the fancy leather chairs. Most of them were older (late 50’s to mid 60’s) but there were some other young’ns like me there. But the older men, it was easy to spot the lack of wedding rings.

As they’d put their cigar to their mouth there was no shimmer of gold, not gleam of silver, not even the hint of a faded tan line. Granted some of these men just might not wear a ring, but more than likely (considering America has the highest divorce rate of the whole wide world) these men came to smoke a cigar because going home meant being alone.

Alone.

Fun word right?

It can be freeing and damning simultaneously.

To be honest I don’t know where to go with this post. I can take the one road and point out we’re never alone, God, the triune God, is always there, always with us, sustaining and upholding.

On the other road we could think about the difficult times when being alone just down right sucks. Or we could talk about when being alone is exactly what our heart longs to be, or, still more and most troubling, that feeling of being alone in a crowded room.

But let’s do this: let’s take this rout, that of being lost and alone. When one can’t find their way out of the night, and the valley has too many curves and turns and drops to seem to ever have an end. As John Mark McMillan says, “The valley of the shadow knows our names…”

What then?

I woke up last night reciting this: “Even in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me.”

So to all the alone roads their end is the same. When lost and alone, refining and tempering is going on, and there, in the midst of the confusion and sorrow, right beside us walks another who the valley knows well. When the crowded room might as well be empty, even then the end is the same. When our hearts need the space, there we are being comforted. Jesus is there and knows.

So alone? No. Not at all. Never alone.

But, to be terribly honest perfection doesn’t always keep good company with sinners like us. Though he’s there, he’s not always what we think we need.

Death is Grace

What do we think of when we think of death? Often, I assume, we think of caskets and crying widows, Psalm 23, or the manner in which a friend died. Driving by graveyards with our breath held because it was a fun game when we were 10. Viewing the, “Homecoming Escort,” as both annoying and morbidly intriguing.

We usually steer clear of the discussion of dying. And, to be honest, we rightly do so, for it is a vast unknown. Some have faith, and some have science, but both are not 100% sure what will happen.

As one being saved by Jesus I would fall into the category of faith of an afterlife and an eternity with God. But sometimes I have my doubts. And sometimes I want nothing more than to be there now, and it of this I wish to write.

‘Longing’ might be a good word here, longing to die. To be free of earth and sin and myself, to look beyond that vast unknown chasm knowing what it felt like when my last breath was gone.

(Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Get this dude a psychotherapist because the suicidal thoughts in the post are everywhere.” Societal thought has made death taboo however it’s just as much apart of life as love and we can talk about that without need of psychotherapist all day long).

But here’s my point: when we feel and understand so deeply our revulsion to sin we are, in that moment, screaming at the top of our hearts, “O death where is your victory? O death where is your sting?” And it is then when we see death as a grace not as a monster.

For what good God would let his loved creation wallow in the self-deprecating pitiful state that is Falling Short? How could a loving God be loving if he sat aside and let all men trudge along rather than bringing them away from the monotony? How could a glorious God be glorious if he did not eventually show his awful power and beautiful splendor to those he made to behold it? You see, death is a grace.