Stories

The author, Donald Miller, states that no movie is about a man who really wants to buy a Volvo.  We aren't lining up in the movie theaters to watch the man gently pat his precious car as tears stream down his face, driving his baby out of the parking lot.  It wouldn't make a good movie.  It would bore us.

Then he goes on to state that while we know that such a plot wouldn't intrigue an audience, many people in the audience are living stories that are very similar to the boring plot line.  We try to save money for a car, or we try really hard to get good grades, or we play video games religiously or we try to get a raise or promotion in our job.  We are living stories that even we would admit wouldn't interest us.  This metaphor gripped me, because in all honesty, I'm living a fairly boring story.

I go to school, in which I get good grades.  I go to church, and enjoy it.  I play piano, and I play it a lot.  I read books, a lot.  I listen to music.  I text.  But where is all this going?  To what end are my actions taking me?  To a decent job with a good family?  To a life of comfort, with no struggles, and not much to fight for?  That's a fine life, but where's the story?  Where's me taking a risk, developing as a character, changing something that needs to change?  Why am I content living a life that wouldn't even excite me if I were watching it as a movie? 

The most popular movie is a movie centralizing in the romance.  A man desperately loves a woman, and he fights through his own flaws and the circumstances that he's in, so that he can woo the woman.  That's all well and good, but I don't want that to be the only indicator of a life well lived.  I don't want to base my life over wooing my love.  I win her love, then what?  "Happily ever after" doesn't really work in reality.  There's conflicts, and jobs, and circumstances, and maybe 50+ more years of living.  When I get married, then what?  My identity has been entirely defined by my spouse, and I have wooed her.  Now what to do with the remainder of my life?  Is it over at the altar, and the rest is the credits?  No, there's something more that I have to be living for,

I think it has something to do with taking risks.  Being daring.  Stepping out of the known and the comfortable and going into the necessary.  Into the unknown, the stuff that changes lives.  Not buying a Volvo, even though that's fine.  Not wooing a woman, even though that's a beautiful thing.  That's not my chief end.  I'm convinced that my job is to let God be known.  I think my job is to love like Jesus loved.  Revolutionary love.  Love that's not dependent on the other person's affections.  But an unconditional love that changes lives and changes circumstances, despite the risk.  It's my time to step out of the audience and into the story line.  It's time for me take a risk and to live a good story, marked by a complete faith in God and in boldness and daring.  The only thing stopping me is me.  So will I step out of the boat, or stay in my comfort?  Will I be changed by love and will I love radically?  To be honest, I don't know.  But I know which way I want to go, but wanting to walk on water and stepping out of the boat are two completely different subjects.  And yet Love drives me, motivates me, and changes me, whenever I come in true contact with it.

"May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you." - 1 Thessalonians 3:12

If Salvation Came From Working Hard

If salvation came from working hard,
From fighting well, and standing guard,
From covering flaws and hiding sins,
And acting like you're fine within.

If joy was found in leaps and bounds,
Past the one who slinks and frowns,
Past the many needing crowds,
To the ones who've got life figured out.

If Christ came to heal the well,
The ones who have no pain to tell,
The ones who never left at all,
Who don't know the scars of when you fall.

There would be no hope for me,
Crying out from broken knees,
Salvation comes from pain and hurt,
But the One's who died but left the dirt.

In His Shadow

I find rest in the shadow of Your wings,
In the wake of Your strength, in the presence of the King.
I find rest in the shadow of Your wings,
when I finally come home from my many wanderings.

I find comfort in knowing that I'm Yours,
In knowing that You love me when I'm covered in my sores.
I find comfort in knowing that I'm Yours,
I'm home in your arms when it rains, when it pours.

I find peace from the cross, where You died.
The cross where You bled, the cross where You cried.
I find peace from the cross where You died,
When I have nothing else, in it's shadow I will hide.

Why do I embrace the cros, when really I should hate it?
Embrace the same place in which God's glory appeared faded?
Why do I embrace the cross, when really I should hate it?
Because the grave that saves has always stayed, quite amazingly vacant.

So I will rejoice in the One who has blessed
Me with everything I need, comfort, peace, and rest.
Despite my insufficiencies, I always will attest,
to His affinity for healing, when all else seems messed.

Truth

Truth is,
you are more than just polluted,
you are more than unworthy,
you are more than just dirty.
You are not your past,
you are not your sin,
your time has not passed,
you're not where you've been.
You're more than your mistakes,
you're more than fallen,
you're more than people's thoughts,
you are more than your heart ache,
you are more than a heart that's darkened,
you are worthy, for you've been bought.
Bought, at an exorbitant price,
bought, because of exorbitant love,
bought, because you are much more,
than what lies will whisper.
For you have the love of Christ,
you have the love of,
the One who knows your
past, but is the builder
of your future, and will
speak life into your veins,
for He will not abandon
you. He fills,
the earth with rain,
cares for his children, His plan is not random.
In Him is your worth,
in Him is your value,
so rise from the dirt,
for the Lord will have you.
You have freedom, you're not frozen,
You are cherished, you are chosen,
for God so loved the earth.

Prodigal

Whine, complain, beg, and ask
Leave, squander, spend, and laugh
Saturated on sin til the stomach is full,
For I am the prodigal.

Abject, gloomy, dark, and bleak,
Shattered, broken, despondent, weak.
Humiliated, hopeless, hungry, alone
The only road now is the road home.

Fallen, destroyed, down, dirty.
Jaded, tired, weary, unworthy.
Shoulder's slouched, head down,
Guilty with my father now.

Seen, pursued, held, hugged,
Cherished, precious, treasured, loved.
Head still bowed, but slowly coming,
Seen by my Father, and He comes running.

Mercy, grace, sinner forgiven.
Restored, refreshed, welcomed, living.
Eat with my Father til my stomach is full,
For He loves the prodigal.

Kalo

The year was 2141, and Adais and Astoches were very happily married on the planet named Kalo.  They were very happily married, you see, because they hadn’t realized that they had another choice.  In fact, they didn’t even realize that they were married, but they were quite happy.

                 They were 5^th generation inhabitants of Kalo, which was the planet that their great-great-great grandparents had chosen to settle on during The Great Move in 2020.  That was the time in which Earth was found to not be the only life-sustaining planet in the universe, and many people had moved to the other planets for the various benefits that the Chancellors had offered them. 

There was Idiofyia; the planet in which its Chancellor had promised would bring forth genius ideas to all inhabitants.  There was Agapi; the planet of love.  There was Mousiki; the planet of music, and there was Trofiman; the planet of food.  There were thousands of planetary options, each with their own appeal and Chancellor.

Kalo was the largest and most popular planet by far, however, for Kalo was the planet of goodness.  The Chancellor of Kalo promised the inhabitants that this planet offered no evil.  Yes, this planet seemed to exemplify perfection, and all its inhabitants were very happy, mainly because they knew of no other option.  There were no natural disasters, no pain, and nothing that hinted at Lathos, which was the planet of absolute evil.

In short, there was nothing.  The Chancellor knew that if his planet fell short of his promises, there would be a tremendous revolt and he would be put to death.  He had been close to that in years past, during the uprising of 2095 in which a carpenter discovered that the same board in which he made tables could be used to hit his neighbor.  That hurt neighbor started an uprising on the basis that there was evil on Kalo.  The Chancellor barely escaped with his life by promising the inhabitants that he would change the system so that no one could hit anyone else.  That carpenter has since been moved to the Lathos, the planet of evil. 

But that incident showed a bigger problem on the planet Kalo: that something that could be used for good could also be used for bad.  Thus, the Chancellor decided to get rid of heavy, solid things like a board of wood that could be used to hurt people.  After he got rid of solid objects (including people’s bones: too dangerous) people started spreading malevolent comments about the Chancellor and his policies.  This was considered an imperfection as well, and the Chancellor struggled to find a solution to that.  He realized that the way to do this would be to remove air, so that bitter or mean comments about anyone would not be carried to another person.  This change meant that each person would have to have their own sustaining life-pod, which he provided each person.

These pods were just able to fit an average man, and became necessary for each inhabitant to use.  They came with a recirculation machine that enabled one to never have to eat again (because one might not like the taste of the food, and that would be no good), oxygen tank (there was a terrible shortage of oxygen otherwise), and a device that deadened the brain, so that no one could ever think of an evil thought again.  Endorphins were constantly being pumped through the inhabitants so that they would be considered happy.

Adais and Astoches continually stared blankly at each other, a half-smile permeating each of their faces, in a world of no evil.

Symptoms

Lately, I've been sick.  Lying on a couch for 5 days gives one plenty of time to think about stuff.  However, having a fever and lying on a couch for 5 days means that my thoughts consist of "I'm awake, why am I awake?  I want to sleep?  Why did that Neti Pot not work and only made gross tastes come into my mouth?  Can we consider Sandra Bullock the greatest actress of the 21st century?"  So all that said, this may not be the most in depth or thought provoking blog post ever.  But as my dad says, "We want results, not excuses."  So here we go.

I feel like I've been sick a lot lately.  I missed 2 days of school a couple weeks ago, and now I've stayed home a week with this one.  The first time, I just remember my breath smelled and tasted really bad.  I tried everything to stop it.  I brushed my teeth about 5 times that day, and that didn't work.  I would eat food to try and mask my foul odor.  That made it worse.  I tried whitening my teeth.  That just made me feel like a woman.  I tried all this stuff, and none of it worked.

I got pretty desperate.  I didn't want to be around anybody in fear that they would think I was gross or something.

I tried a ton of stuff to try and mask that horrible side-effect, and yet none of it came close to working. 

And we do that so often without realizing it.  People focus on their sin so much and they want to stop being proud, or they want to stop lusting after people, or they want to stop being greedy, or whatever.  So then they work on it.  They try to be humble.  They try to be all that they can be by pounding away at what they're bad at so that they can become good people. 

But what a lot of people don't understand is this:  They aren't fallen because they sin, they sin because they're fallen.  Sin and all that bad stuff is a symptom, not the disease.  Thinking that sin is the disease would be like shoving Kleenex up your nose and saying that you don't have a cold anymore, because your nose isn't dripping anymore.  It's silly.

Rather than change our habits, we need to change our hearts.  We need to stop focusing on what we do, and instead focus on what or who we love.  Where are desires are.  Because until we can point our desires to God, he'll seem like a grumpy old man who gives us rules to keep us from annoying him while he's in his room reading books about science or something while eating salmon and drinking old, expensive wine.  That scenario took me farther than I wanted to go for sure.

But the point of the whole matter is this: Let's get to the root of our issues and focus our desires on God.

And also, does watching chick flicks count as a sickness symptom?