I have been conditioned to wander aimlessly,
drawing my bow at every apple under every tree fed by the sun, and the heat thereof. In spite of the hand that made my legs, I smash them with a mallet, then crawl around this earth questioning my worth. That's the curse of our father, that's the death of us all, And I'm less than a Martyr for an insignificant cause. What's the purpose of vanity? Cause I don't want to finish my days embracing the emptiness of these same mistakes.
0 Comments
As I'm young-"young" being a subjective term for a body that is nonetheless aging- the idea of being lost and forgotten in light of all of the theologians, poets, musicians, thinkers, and all of those we've inadvertently made into idols is often motivation to set my sights on being one who's name will be remembered. I intellectually accept that fame is of no value, and that being known and redeemed by the almighty God of the universe is of infinite value, yet there is a parasite of sinful hope clinging to my heart that I will be someone who's name is esteemed higher than my words or actions for the glory of my creator ever were. My love of knowledge is often synonymous with my desire to be known as a wise man making his way through a generally uninspired southern Louisiana blue-collar workforce, and my outlet is the social media feeds. You may or may not see my tweets, but truly I'm often a mere buzzard in the street with all of the other buzzards feeding on each others insecurity induced egos. You'll see my name attached to all of the lighthearted one-liners, the shared Desiring God articles, and thoughts of ideas within the gospel that genuinely inspire me, and in all honesty I contain a hope that I could use those things to encourage someone who feels a sense of lowliness; yet that parasite of the selfish insecurity of not being known still clings. Introspection such as this can be dangerous, for while in examining my own heart's selfishness, I simultaneously put much focus on what hinders myself instead of how my own selfishness hurts my friends whom I love. As a great influence of mine and many others, CS Lewis famously said, "humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less", which is a thought in which I believe stems from the words of The Holy God in Christ being "Those who find their lives will lose it, yet those who lose their lives, for my sake, will find it". In the pursuit of righteousness and eliminating sin, I generally emphasize what harms me personally in my own relationship with Christ my beloved King and savior instead of how my flaws are harming my brothers and sisters in their pursuit of cherishing Him.
All of that to say that maybe a great deal of being sanctified and growing in the joy and peace offered by Christ is by meditating on how we can love one another better, and in doing so, forgetting ourselves. Our pursuit of joy isn't tainted with sinful ulterior motives, but our pursuit of joy is actually hindered by them. The entire true pursuit only moves forward as the baggage of unholy motivations are stripped, which to a large extent means forgetting ourselves by the process of reprogramming of our minds to focus on the greater good of others, which is their knowing of Christ. The irony of it all is that my name is yet attached to this blog, so please read this as cynically as I expect you to, because truly, you have every legitimate reason to do so. February 13, 2017
Assurance: Standing on the cliffs of eternity, The burning lake stands below, Will I fall? That I do not know. To this world, my wretched heart clings, And in anguish my mind can't make it see, That if no one comes, that lake waits for me. On the battlefield I cry "have mercy!", But there's no strength within these frail bones to wave my own white flag, And for this, I take no more solace in my most sincere pleas, For what once seemed like a renewed being, Now just seems a reoccurring bellowing in vanity; By trying to be the tax collector, I was becoming the Pharisee. No word, no deed, no cry, no plea, None have I to offer the king, Yet this is where I'm told to be, So daily, contrite I remain, Restless on your promises, I will wait for thee. We seek to conquer the world by warfare and murder,
Yet Jesus conquered death itself by turning the other cheek. Fill our tanks with arrogance, surely we'll scrap anything we can to fuel our journey home
Seek the shore, The riverbank is drenched in the oil our fathers poured for us upstream, where all life along the way paid the price for their greed. We left with more than enough food to drown our own children in, We filled our stomachs with every so-called sin. The acid only burns our throats long enough to forget our grief, Yet, we still must remind ourselves that this meat is fruit if we want it to be. Truth is the word we use for hate. Father, give me a snake and call it fish, The venom will surely choke my conscience. Mostly written sometime in the summer of 2015
The Layman: There is a command so great, To contribute to the needs of the saints, To be of service to the ones this world has no right to call it's own. I am but a layman, the hand that works the wrench, That keeps the feet moving by keeping the mind at rest. No great works, that may ever be known, but for centuries on end, my savior's glory be shown, For I am but a layman, and there is no shame, in giving my all, yet all without fame. A labor of love, all the while there's no love for the labor, For the sweat on this brow was not intended for pleasure. In the grueling heat, I toil for my family in the fold of our Father, As they are my prize, set apart from any other. And forever we exist, We forever exist for one another; Reflecting our triune God, Reciprocating as the air in these vents, Is the glory through His members: The plans of The Father, Through the work of The Son, By help of The Spirit, We are made one; So, we are all laymen in the business of grace, for only One name in heaven is the name that can save. It's true that our philosophies and doctrines inform our emotions. Growth in Christ (which can be a depressingly slow process at times, let's be honest) is the product of letting the word of Christ dwell in our hearts. In Colossians 3:16 Paul says "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God." Thankfulness, singing, and teaching are definitely emotional outbursts of a heart posture regenerated in the character of Jesus. Another example of this is in 1st Peter: "but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15 ESV). Kindness and Hope are things given to us by God as listed in 1st John. They're genuine "emotions" per se of the true believer who honors Christ as holy in His/Her heart. Many false teachers and "motivational" speakers teach people to have a "good attitude", but why?...and how? The flaw with that nonsense is that you can't generate a fake attitude [especially] in bad circumstances without hope of a greater reward. Thankfully we have the word of God to inform and fuel us to emotionally respond to what is good or evil correctly, and to give us true attitudes that are of Christ. As sinful humans, we learn that we must restrain our emotions in order to keep peace in our lives and in society, and that is definitely a good thing to do, but we only have to do it because we are indeed sinful, otherwise we would be in tune with God and would never have to consider our potential actions before we carried them out. For example, Jesus teaches that if we hate someone even without physically harming them, that we've still murdered them. August Burns Red has a lyric that goes "I'm just as much the problem as the man behind bars, he did with his business what I do in my heart". In simple terms, we do bad things because we are bad people, and the intentions of our emotions are often not God-honoring, and if carried out in actions, they would result in terrible terrible things for humanity as we know it.Yet still, it is true that all emotions, even anger rooted in hatred, are not bad in and of themselves, for we are specifically commanded to hate what is evil, [evil] being sin that kills us and is a perversion of what God made good. Anyone would agree that what we put into our minds is ultimately what becomes the objects of our love, adoration, shame, guilt, hatred etc. So, day by day we must be filling our minds with the correct things to inform our emotions. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you"(Philippians 4:8-9 ESV) Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. (Romans 12:9 ESV) One day, we will no longer have to restrain our emotions for the sake of keeping peace, because one day we will have remade hearts and new bodies that will be in tune with the holiness of God. Because of Jesus's genuine and sinless life, and his bearing of the cross and resurrection, we who trust in him will truly know what it's like to be real. This is our hope, which is honorable, pure, just, and lovely; and that is the character of Jesus Christ our God, who is the only one worthy of capturing our hearts and minds to create true, guiltless emotion now and for the eternity to come. Any theology that claims salvation can be lost is a "theology" that opposes the gospel. No one who has ever truly had the embrace of Christ and believes in his atoning work, who understands the depths of his/her own sin along with the riches of God's grace can truly "fall away". Those are the one's who lose their lives for God's glory
I saw the injustice in my cinematic thoughts,
In black and white like 1965, but this time with a red tint. I held back my rage just as always, but God I feel it's a battle worth figthing. A simple mind clinging to a prejudice concept, how do you not see the folly in your precepts? 50 years have passed, and in time we've abandoned our brothers to the shanties, the urban wasteland, and in our neglect they've created a culture of hate. It wasn't the slaves nor the segregation, it was the lack of love and acceptance. We take the guns we made in our own image, and with the malicious rounds awaiting in the chamber, fire at will at the ones at fault, then kill us all. There was no sound, And just as I came from the ground,
I faded away all the same, I laid in my thoughts, Floating through my memories, And they just threw a blanket on my wasting body, As I waited still, There was the most lovely peace, For I've never had a friend quite like me, And if I died alone, I would be with the only one that ever truly loved me. I may spend the rest of my life connecting the dots of a ruined childhood, But what will this ugly picture do for me? I've never been one to color inside the lines, so why would I start trying to accept my past for what it is now? This is not worthy of a melody, complain about the past and everyone tells you to suck it up, They don't understand, they could never effing understand. So I'll carry on, with my head on my sore shoulders, but I'll never be normal, I will never be effing normal |
None of this is in chronological order, and many of the dates accredited to these posts are just estimates because I would edit them sometimes several months after they were originally written in my iPhone notes. I decided to gather all sorts of things I've written since I've graduated high school and have them stored here for safekeeping.
Between notebooks and iPhone notes, my scattered mind has only had a few dry seasons and an entire iPhone 4 worth of notes was lost containing my thoughts from around 2013. Will probably sporadically add things over the course of time, not that anyone but me may ever really care Archives
February 2017
Categories |