Strange Encounter

So over the past few months the church I am apart of, New Life, has been going through this book, and it really has been my first encounter with the idea of postmodernism. I knew nothing about it, but find out that I was more postmodern than I would like to say, though I am working through it and reaffirming my foundations.

Postmodernism has a wide definition but to sum up part of the idea, it would be the idea of pluralism, where truth is subjective if there is any truth at all. Meaning that what is necessarily true for me is not necessarily true for someone else. Another vein of this is self-enlightenment, which means if you want to obtain a higher since of spirituality you must dig deep within yourself and find new wisdom inside of yourself.

So this leads me to my encounter today. I was walking to the bus from Zachary when a man stops me and proceeds to tell me that I look I enjoy knowledge, and to a point I do, then he tells me that he is with a group of traveling monks that give out these books on how to obtain knowledge. As you can imagine this is a thick book, I mean it has all the knowledge you could ever want in it. He believed that all that we need as humans was more knowledge, then as a society we would become less fearful and more peaceful, and this knowledge came from within in which this book helped you obtain.

He was a really nice guy, and I have to admit I some what stereotyped, I mean he told me he was a monk I was expecting brown robes with a tassel around the waist and a bald head, but all he had was the bald head.

What I am sad to announce is that I should have talked to him longer and as I walked away I was convicted to talk to him more, and yet I let my selfishness lead me away from him. This was a perfect opportunity to talk to him about knowledge not coming from within but from God and enlightenment being a gift from God. As I think now, I could have talked about how we are all wicked people in need of a Savior, and even if he didn't believe it at least he had heard about it. He was so willing to talk to me about what he believed and yet I was too cold, too tired, too focused on school to talk to him about the truth of the Gospel.

I am thankful that God revealed this to me, convicted me of it, and that I know that this is something I really need to work on. There is absolutely no reason to not talk about Jesus.

Christmas music

This is most likely going to make me sound like a terrible person and you know what I might have to repent, but I have a disdain for Christmas music. I have had it for as long as I can remember. This is not to say I won't sing it on certain occasions, such as caroling and what have you, and one of my favorite Shawn McDonald songs is O Holy Night. Overall though I just really don't like it.

What brings this up is the fact that every year KSBJ does nothing but Christmas songs from Thanksgiving day til Christmas day, and I dread it.

Is there something wrong with me that I can only handle Christmas songs in small doses?

Really this only pertains to those really cheery and happy songs like "Here comes Santa Claus", "Jingle Bells", or "White Christmas".

I promise I not a Scrooge, even though it sounds like it. I just can't handle the fakeness of this season. In reality this is one of the craziest and stressful times of the year for a lot of people, and it is like this music is suppose to counteract that.

Well I will not be fooled by lies of this Santa music! I have made it a point to revolt against the norm in this case. Down with pointless jingles and snowy white holidays that have been abused and distorted!

Yeah sorry about that sometimes it just comes out.

What is next?

It is almost that time when I have to start looking for companies that I would like to work for or that will take me, and sending resumes out to them, getting my name out there. I knew this time was coming again... and I felt that I was ready for it, but now I am starting to become more aware of the economy that so many were telling me about and what I was hearing on the TV and radio. I am not necessarily worried about finding a job, I think that will happen in due time as long as I am making a good effort at searching and emailing, but I am conscience of the fact that I might not be here in College Station.

I love College Station, mainly because of the people I have met and the church that God has brought me too, and it is where I would really like to stay and start a family and career. (big plan small steps that is what I tell myself)

Though I am willing to go somewhere else, I don't really want to start all over again, kind of a selfish reason, but it is the truth. There is just so much I have learned here and so much growth that I have been able to see that has gone on here, and I know that I won't stop learning or growing just because I move away. How easy do we relate an experience to a place? Like it couldn't happen somewhere else or as if God doesn't move in other places. Haha. That is how ridiculous our thoughts are sometimes.

So this is going to be an interesting next few months as I trust and wait patiently on where God will lead me. I have seen and know He is capable of amazing things, and I am excited about finishing school and getting back to work to be able to provide for myself and/or family if that so happens to take place.

My prayer is that I would trust God, that He always provides even when it is not the way I want Him too, and in that I would be constantly reminded that I am not in control(that is a hard one for me at times). There so much stress when we try to take loads that we cannot carry and so much peace when we give that load over to Christ.

Religion vs. Christianity

I have for some time now argued, mainly with myself, this idea of calling myself a baptist or any other name for that matter, other than Christian. Before I start I must put this disclaimer, there is nothing horribly wrong with being called a Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, or Calvinist, but there is a problem when that name defines you. Let me try to hopefully explain all this.

All my life I grew up in a baptist church, I was lost but that is what I grew up going to, and what I remember of it is a lot of do's and don'ts. Every time someone would ask me what denomination I was I would always say baptist, and as we continued to talk we would talk about what we do and don't do as a religion. I don't know how I got to this point but I just remember having enough of explaining. I was tired seeing the expression on peoples face when I said I was a baptist. The actual idea of claiming to be a baptist made me sick, I mean who cares really what religion you are, religion is man made.

I believe we have twisted these words, such as Baptist, to define what we do and do not do, and we leave out the biblical applications of why that religion existed in the first place. The problem I have is not with the word Baptist or Pentecostal, but rather with what we have made those words mean today. I refuse to ever call myself a Baptist or a Calvinist even though those are the two main groups that I agree with when it comes to biblical understanding. The term Calvinist leaves just an unsettling feeling inside of me. Here is my reasoning, when I call myself a Calvinist or Baptist I am saying this is what I line myself up with, this is what I follow, and don't misunderstand me that in itself is not bad, but why would I call myself a Baptist or a Calvinist when I could say that I am a follower of Christ and cover both of those titles? I believe the answer is because we have made the Bible say what we want it to say, we leave out scripture or we lift up other scripture as more important, and so "Christian" becomes very broad and can mean a host of things, so we try to narrow it down by using "Baptist".

Understand I agree very much with guys like John Calvin, John Piper, D.A. Carson, C.J. Mahaney and Mark Driscoll, I do look to these for better understanding over passages I don't get, but I would never call myself a Piperian or a Carsonite.

I wonder what John Calvin or Martin Luther would say if they were here today and you said you were a Calvinist or a Lutheran. I can't imagine that they would be ok with that. We are to follow Christ that is who we are to be imitating.(Ephesians 5:1-2)

It seems that we dilute every title that is good, and I think we are doing that to the title of Christian as well. We say we are Christians because in Texas is it good for business or because that is what girls look for in a guy. So we use that and abuse that and distort the true meaning of it. Christianity is not a list of do's and don'ts, it is freedom, it is realizing that we can do nothing good and we can not save ourselves. We needed a Savior to save us from our sin and that is why Christ came that if we believe in Him alone we might be presented in the righteousness of Christ before a just and holy God.

This is the difference of religion verses Christianity... to me

I miss summer

I realize when most people put up a picture it is to represent what the blog is about and this one is no different, so I am sure someone might be confused.(Whoever reads this thing)

It is barely even fall and I already wish it was summer again. I mean don't get me wrong I am loving this weather, it is pretty much amazing, but there is still so many things about summer that can't compare. One of those things is surfing in warm water or if the water is cold at least the beach is hot.

June 1 of every year is like a birthday to me, I get excited when it starts getting near. It is the start of hurricane season! Now I am not some fool who is bent on destruction or people losing everything they own, I am content with a hurricane spinning out in the Gulf of Mexico for a while and then dissolving, but that doesn't happen and it has to go somewhere. In Texas, in the summer, hurricanes = big powerful waves which = good surfing.

All I ever hear is "you can't surf in Texas", in which I have to wipe the "are you kidding me" look off my face and kindly say "yeah, you can."

I owe much of my enthusiasm of surfing to a good friend from Bryan, Texas, who I randomly met in a physics class at Blinn. I have no clue how this guy got into surfing, sorta crazy when you realize that Bryan is 2 hours away from the coast. This guy pumps me up all the time, and is always trying to get me to make crazy trips to the coast, what can I say, when it comes to surfing I fall to peer pressure. Well, this summer he finally got me to make a trip with him. Destination? Jacksonville Florida for Hurricane Bill. We drove 14 hours on a Thursday morning got there surfed 12 foot waves for two days and came back on Sunday stoked, sore and ready for more. That was definitely one of my favorite trips.

But now it is winter...and hurricane season is 7 months away

Overwhelmed

I am not real sure how I am still functioning. Is there a point where you just can't contain anymore information?

If so I am almost there. Whether it is studying for school, morning Bible study, what it means to be a church leader, or just meditating on thoughts going through my head, there is a lot to take in and think about.

I continually ask myself if I have committed to too much, did I pass the point of my potential? And yet I am amazed that I have made it this far into the semester and not utterly lost it. God's grace and strength is showing forth.

Over the last few weeks I have never had more questions about my faith, nor more testing of my flesh. I was overwhelmed and my thoughts were wrong. I thought that I could merit favor before God, like there was something I could do to make Him love me more or think better of me. I had to step back and consider why I was doing the things I was doing, was it cause I loved Jesus or did I just want to feel important(self gratification). Why were these thoughts there in the first place? I know I am saved and yet I still heard a small voice (Satan) saying well how do you know? Where are the cold hard facts? I forgot the simple assurance of Hebrews 12:5-6 which says "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punished everyone he accepts as a son."

I must confess that I did not go about this the right way. The best thing I could have done was to tell some of my close friends and even leaders of my church, and allow them to help me through this struggle with prayer and counsel.

Finally today I talked about it with my close friend and mentor Chris, and even though I was a little reluctant to talk and once I was talking I didn't feel like I was much making sense, he understood me and was quick with words of discipline and encouragement. If you are asking do those two words go together let me answer, yes they do. One of my biggest struggles is transparency letting people in and telling them what is going on in my life, such as things that are on my mind or where I am at spiritually and mentally. It has been great to get to know Chris and all the Feldmans, for that matter, they have helped me more than they can ever know.

A great quote from Matt Chandler has also refreshed my thinking, he says "Holy is about being, and we have made it about doing."

By the grace of God and through His wisdom He has revealed this area where I have struggled. Where I have made holiness about doing things with selfish motives, instead of being holy and reflecting Christ through the things I do. I am extremely grateful that He choose to show me this, I mean I could still be ignorant to that fact and living in selfish sin.

So where am I today?

Well I am freed, I know I will not have all the answers and I don't need too otherwise faith would be useless, I am striving to be more transparent, and I am reevaluating all that I do. My primary focus must be on making the truth about Christ known. It is not about me and what I can get out of it, rather it is reflecting the actions, words and finished work of Jesus.

Our friends the Atheist

Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA is a company that offers service to Christians that are also pet owners. They are willing, for a minimal price, to take care of our pets once the rapture happens. I mean how nice can you get? I can only imagine that this is a joke and yet I wonder how many people claiming to be Christians have signed up for this. We all know a person who has just a little to deep of a relationship with their pet, I mean I have seen people stuff there pet once they die because they still want that pet to be around. Freaky!

At first before talking this idea over I assumed that this website did believe in the rapture in which my response was:

How can you call yourself an atheist and offer a service that requires you to believe that the rapture is going to happen? Here is what I found the defintion of an atheist to be : atheist - One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods. If you deny there is a God then you deny that there is a rapture. I will look past the fact that people don't really know what it is to be an atheist, that they just want to be something different than other people or a so called "individual".

Then I was enlightened to the fact that most likely this website is playing off the fact that they think Christians are suckers and are waiting for this "rapture"event to happen, and just want to make a profit off of someone's beliefs. This part saddens me, deep down I wish that everyone could recognize the greatness and reality of God and what Christ did for us, repent and believe in that, but that isn't the truth and many will reject Him. I am sure I will come back to this later.

On a side note I almost want to by a T-shirt... Oh yes they have T-shirts as well here, but they are to expensive and don't really feel that I could support their cause. If you get a chance read the terms and conditions as well. I wanted to pee my pants it was so funny.

When mammal meets metal

What do you get when a deer crosses the road at 10 MPH and you (in the car) are traveling 70 MPH?

You get a deer that is propelled 30 feet in the air to a ditch and dies, a huge dent in your car, and then fire....?

Here I was about to leave my house and head over to a friend's house, when I get a call that says "Hey can you come get us we just hit a deer and the car is on fire." I have to say this is the most bizzare sentence that has been spoken to me. After I absorbed what was being said to me, I headed out on 21 to see the entire highway stopped. When I got out there the fire department was hosing of the car. Praise God that no one was hurt....besides the deer but I am sure he didn't feel much and he looked a little young to have kids so most likely he was single.

 How on earth does a fire start? This is my guess, you ready for this.

So when the deer impacted the car the shear weight of the deer was so much that it actually pushed the under carriage of the car to the ground which then shot sparks flying in every direction, and in turn caught some left over oil residue on fire and then spread. Whether that really happened or not I might never know, but it sounds good right? I mean even the tires were melted that is just crazy to me, I can't imagine what the fire must have looked like.

One of the humorous parts of the night, that I think made the situation a little more bearable for the famil,y was when Patrick's younger brother got his picture taken with the deceased deer and one of the officers gave him a piece of the deer's antler, that had broken off, as a momento.

It was such an encouragement to see the family's reaction to what had happen, when they could have complained about lossing their car or their plans being ruined they didn't, rather they praised God that they all got out alive and no one was hurt. We should always remember that we are never promised another minute.

Where the wild things are

First off I don't even know how you can make a movie out of 13 page book with only one sentence per page, but they did it.... and they shouldn't have. Not going to lie it was a bit creepy and depressing. I mean you would think that they could have put everything that was in the book into the movie. I just wanted to slap the kid and his mom, I don't have kids or anything but I am pretty sure if my kid said "he was going to eat me", there would be some problems for one of us and it wouldn't be me. I don't think I have seen more randomness in a movie ever, but all in all as a movie it could have been worse, so I won't be to much of a debbie downer.

Tatoos

I have this fascination with tattoos, I think they are awesome. There is nothing like seeing a person with a full sleeve of intertwining pieces of artwork. If I had the guts to do it I would, but I rationalize and evaluate to much. I already have one tattoo and I am wanting to get another one.

Even though I know what I want my tattoo to look like I am still determining if I am really going to do it or not and where it is going to go. So I have laid out a short list of pros and cons

so first the pros

• I enjoy the artwork
• I just want too
• I enjoy people asking why I would get one and why I picked what I did

Ok so wow there aren't so many pros now that I have to actually lay them out... Well there are a more cons

Cons

• I am not sure if I can handle the look on my Grandmother's face
• it is extremely permanent
• what if I didn't want it anymore (though that is unlikely)
• they cost a lot
• is it really necessary for me to live

Even with the amount of cons out weighing the pros I still want one. I love how my reasoning is so terrible sometimes.

So just in case you didn't know what the tattoo represents let me explain. It is a tree which is the obvious but in the roots is God while through the trunk is Jesus, and the tips of the branches say Ekklesia, which is Greek for "the Church". This idea stems from John 15:5 which says "I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." and also Matthew 7:24-27 which is a parable on the foundation of a house. Where God is my foundation or roots and it is through Christ the vine or trunk (in the case of the drawing) that reaches out to make smaller branches, which are the disciples of Christ or "the Church".

Community picnic in Bryan

Today was Living Hope Bryan's community picnic, and was a great time. There were tons of people from the surrounding community who came out had lots to eat, lots to do, and got to hear from the Bible about Christ. I showed up late but I got to see first hand some guys come to accept Christ as their Savior. I can imagine how hard that is being a full grown man in front of your neighbors and everything saying "man something is not right with me and I need a Savior." It is truly amazing how God works and when He works nothing can stop it.

Also it was good to see all three churches there hanging out and fellowshiping with each other and with the surround community. It was just a great example to onlookers to see three different bodies come together, all for the purpose of telling others about Christ.

My very first post ever....

I have no idea what I am doing or what I am going to talk about, but I felt that there was a need for me to get my thoughts out. One of my friends tells me I am terrible at communicating, and in some aspects I agree with him. So this is my attempt to talk about stuff that is running through my head on any given day and also to hopefully at some point here other people's thoughts as well. Whether anyone reads this or not doesn't really matter, I want to learn how to put into words my thoughts. So here goes nothing...