9.23.2009

Why is God so good to us?

When you think about it, he has every right to be angry. We've spurned him time and time again, and yet, he loves us all the more. He loves to see us light up when something goes the right way. He watches our emotions run rampant through our minds and our bodies and yearns to help us but we don't let him. He's a good father who wants the best for his kids even when we're ungrateful for everything he's given us. He gave us this amazing universe that is constantly being filled with new and exciting things for us to discover. He gave us this [once] perfect little planet for us to steward and care for. He gave us family and community to enjoy and endure trials and joys with. He gave us the capacity for intimacy with someone we'll spend our lives with. Why? Because he is good and just.

This is a short one, but I feel it gets the point across fairly well. God loves us too much and is too good to us because that is his nature. Perfect and fulfilling.

7.29.2009

To be or not to be.

What does it look like in your life to be satisfied? I tend to think 'I'm happiest when I'm satisfied with something'. If this is the case, wouldn't it be a really good idea to be satisfied completely in God? He doesn't let people down, he's not a disappointment, and he definitely doesn't get the credit he deserves the majority of the time.

The word satisfy means " to fulfill the desires, expectations, needs, or demands of (a person, the mind, etc.); give full contentment to". The original word is "satisfier" from the old french "Satisfaire" from the Latin "Satisfacere" meaning "to discharge fully, comply with, make amends, literally: do enough." This comes from "satis" (enough) and facere (perform). Satis + Facere = enough + perform

So if "Satisfy" literally means to 'perform enough', and God always out-performs our expectations, doesn't it make logical sense to be satisfied in him? John Piper says it best (I think) when he says "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him".

Essentially what he is saying is when we're satisfied with God, it shows. Other people see it. They see us as Christians being happy and satisfied and they wonder what is so different about us that we can have THAT kind of joy. The only difference is Jesus.

Habakkuk's name means "embrace" or "struggle". How fitting that the book he wrote has to do with his struggle with the evil in this world.

It's not unnatural to look around at the world, just as he did, and wonder "God, where are you in this?" The key is to know and understand that God didn't make the world like this, we did. We threw ourselves into this mess when our first parents listened to Satan.

[p.s this is mostly ramblings...therefore, no commenting]

In the name of the crazy king

In the name of the crazy king
who thought he had found the Favour
he slew and wreaked havoc on unsuspecting followers.
He strung words prettily together and they listened.
Boistrously from his tower he would proclaim:
"Peace can only be won with war!"
And oh, how they cheered;
the thunderous roar of their jubilant shouts,
not realizing they were the casualties.
When silence fell, once again he shouted,
"Only in blood will we find our freedom!"
And the loyal subjects begged for more.
"Our hope will find itself in the faces of our dead!"
And so the war raged on.
Thousands slain in the streets and on market corners;
Citizen Soldiers was their name,
"Our blood, our land" was their cry.
All in the name
of the crazy king.
Who lost the Favour,
who lost his way.

7.10.2009

Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips.

I have had that song stuck in my head for the past I don't know how many hours, but it's been a long frick'n time. It's a good song though, so I'm not really complaining.

Oh, dear blog...dare I say it? I'm surprised. Delighted and surprised. I have only found a minute number of young personnelle of the male gender who I am aware of that can actually form a coherent sentence. The more of them (men) I meet, the smaller the number seems to get in comparison to the average person.

Well, young men with good grammar, congratulations. You have aquired another member.

Now, I won't go into details because this is the internet and that's just a stupid thing to do, but trust me when I say it surprised me at first, but now it's easier than ever to believe. That's what is so wonderful about it.

[SHIFT]

For some reason people have been popping back into my life without warning. One person in particular I was wondering about because we used to be sort of close-ish. All of the sudden, out of nowhere, he decided we should hang out. Not a problem, it's just weird after this long. So we've started hanging out again a little, and while some things have changed, there are just some things that will never (and I mean never) change.

He's grown up, but has managed to keep that little kid sense of fun about him. He'll make you laugh one second, and then the next give you something to think about for the rest of the night whether you wanted to or not. He'll still be the same goofy kid I know from highschool with the same weird quirks that make him who he is, and he'll always be the one who no matter if I want him to or not, protects me in a brother-ish sort of way.

He might act like he doesn't care, but his friends mean more to him than I think he lets anyone, even himself, know. Finally, his eyes and his smile are definitely the cherry on top. A genuine smile will wrench you from whatever funk you're in and completely change your attitude if only for a moment. At the risk of sounding like a total girl, it's breathtaking.

We've had our spats, but we've both grown up so much in the past two years that it's almost like starting over, but not really. He's still the same goofy kid, and I'm the same person he knew in highschool.

[SHIFT]

I do that a lot...transitions, that is. It seems like my life is one constant transition. Once I get comfortable in a situation, something changes and I have to shift again. Change is inevitable, I get it. Complacency breeds soft people and soft leaders. People who recycle friendships like paper or leaders who don't try to solve new problems in new ways are poison to any society. Change simulates growth. No matter how much it sucks, change will happen. You can fight and fight and fight some more, but it will happen with or without your consent.

[SHIFT]

The world doesn't need us. It just doesn't. I'm not one of those 'we're causing global warming, yadda yadda yadda' kind of people, but I'm pretty sure the world could manage without humans.

I'm learning something very humbling: God doesn't need Christians to spread the Gospel. The Bible says the rocks could do it! We GET to be apart of something so cool as telling people about Jesus, and yet most of us shy away from the everyday opportunities. I'm not perfect; I've done it too. I'm just saying that when you finally start to get your head around the idea that we are privileged to be apart of this, the more you start to realize what an honour it is.

Also, if you're wanting to feel even smaller than you already feel, just look at a picture of a nebula. Particularly the Eagle Nebula. It will blow your mind. We're talking CLOUDS that produce STARS. Yeah, stars = HUGE; nebulae = HUGER.

We think that because we're the only planet thus far that has life on it that we are big shit. WRONG. We are a tiny, insignificant, little dust speck in the eye that is the universe. It's huge, it's dark, it's horrendously beautiful, and we are but a speck. Our galaxy is relatively small compared to some of the others just in our vicinity.

Bee tee dubs, Andromeda, one of our neighboring galaxies, is currently munching on the other galaxy next to us. Mmmm, galactic cannibalism: gotta love it.

[END]

6.22.2009

...

Every time. Every frick'n time I do this. I post something and then forget about my blog. Don't get me wrong, I like to get ideas out of my head just like anyone else, but damn. Why call it a blog? What the F does "blog" even mean!? Merriam-Webster (My home-boys) had to come up with an entirely new entry because whoever came up with the idea for blogging couldn't use a word that was already in their dictionary! They define it thus: "A Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer ; also : the contents of such a site" Really? Honestly? They couldn't just use "Journal" or "Editorial"? Blog? WTF.

But let's switch gears, shall we?

The next person who says prostitution is a "victimless crime" is going to get a punch in the face from yours truly. You've got to be kidding me. Victimless? DO YOU NOT PAY ATTENTION WHEN PEOPLE ARE SPEAKING? Read a frick'n newspaper from time to time, for Pete's sake. A newspaper in the UK recently reported a sting on a brothel containing victims of Human Trafficking. Hellooooooo, those kids and young women didn't CHOOSE to be there. They were forced. That's the point of trafficking. Even if women choose to be prostitutes they're still victims. They're victims of a society (aka, HUMANS) who blatantly ignored their pain or refused to do anything about it. If you say prostitution is a victimless crime, then you won't mind if I call you a dumbass. Because that is what you are.

Again!

I haven't had time to read (booooo). At all it feels like. I hate that. The Roman author Cicero said, "A room without books is like a body without a soul". I love that. Because it's true. Librarians have it lucky; they get to work in one of the biggest resevoirs of 'souls' in the WORLD: Libraries. The sole purpose of a Library is to provide people with A-More knowledge, and B-A means of escape from reality. NOT DAYCARE. Honestly, how hard is it to watch your kids and make sure they're not running around the stacks?! Put them on a leash if you have to! They make these things now that look like monkeys and various other animals with leashes attatched so the kid can't run away. Normally I'll say "Free the leash kids!" but in a Library, I feel they are necessary. Now, for the most part kids will stay in the kid's area. It's the ones who are adventerous you need to watch out for. For instance: shortly after I had started work one day, there was this little guy, oh probably around 4 years old (super cute with his little mini shoes and outfit) running up and down the aisles until he saw me and my cart. It was like nothing he had ever seen before! He stopped and stared at it, then tried to push it and quickly became frustrated because he didn't see me on the other side stopping him from going anywhere. Upon my telling him "let's not do that" he looked up at me and asked the quintessential kid question: Why? I told him I didn't want him to hurt himself, and so he stood up, gave me a quick defiant look, and then promptly started running again. Where was his mother? In the furthest possible spot away from her child. Ladies and Gentlemen, we're civil servants, not daycare workers. Watch your own damn kids.

Annnd again!

Within the next few days (6/22 or 6/23) I'll be officially an aunt. Yes, I will be Auntie Jess for the first time EVER! The little bugger's gonna pop out and there will be another Moritz running around the world. Let's hope the world can handle one more. Seriously though, between my brother and my sister-in-law they're going to have one good lookin' kid. Smart too. You bet your knickers he's going to be reading by Kindergarten; my siblings are reading fiends. Needless to say we're all excited. One would assume they (being the parents) are even more excited, not to mention scared. Kids are a whole new realm of trouble and fun. They can't help that they're poop machines and they always have that weird smile and gurggle-laugh that makes them so cute while they're filling up. Kind of a weird image, but I've seen it a lot in the last 6 months. Babies are popping out everywhere with no signs of slowing down. And I'm happy about that.

Last time, promise.

If you're a dude, you might as well skip this because it's mostly a chick thing.

Ladies, don't you just LOVE it when you have a really close male friend who "dumps" you when he gets a girlfriend? It's wonderful isn't it. That feeling of rejection from someone whom you thought was your friend. But my favourite part is when you call them out on it and they say "I'm confused..." and wonder why you're upset. It's not like you expect them to ignore their girlfriend, it's just that you want to still be a part of their life because you know that when that girlfriend finally sees how bloody immature that little boy is, she's gonna ditch him so fast it'll make his head spin and he's going to come crawling back wanting you to fix it. Do I sound bitter? Nooooooo, I'm irate. I'm livid. I'm royally pissed off. I'm about to rip his larynx out through his eye socket. I'm a thousand other synonyms for adjectives meaning "angry" in a thousand more languages I don't even know.

And what's worse is that when I try to explain how I'm seeing this situation, he never listens and still gives me that blank "I'm thinking about anything else but this" look. Back in March this whole thing started. All he had to do was listen to something. LISTEN! He didn't even have to DO anything. Just LISTEN to something and then we could get back on track in our friendship. Apparently, I (someone who has known him for 18 f-ing years) didn't mean enough for him to simply LISTEN to something.

When someone who has known you for almost all your life turns their back that easily on you, you start to wonder what's wrong with you. What did you do? There must be something wrong with you. Never them, as it should be. Nothing is wrong with us, the rejected party (most of the time). If I were to sue his ass, I'd only claim nominal damages, mainly because that's all I'd be entitled do, but it's the moral of the thing.

As friends, or especially as Christians in this world we can't afford to simply throw eachother away like that; with such ease and fluidity. There are some people who you just have to let go and that's reality, but when it's someone close enough to you to consider them family, you can't do that without feeling something. When we stop feeling we stop living. We stop existing as humans. When Christians throw eachother away without feeling the pang of sorrow or guilt, what is there to separate us from the non-Christians? The only thing that separates us in the first place is Jesus, and if we don't feel Him, we don't feel anything in the way it was meant to be felt.

Sorry that was kind of a rant turned theology, but you can't ignore the truth. Some people do a really good job of feigning it, and they're idiots; but sometime sooner or later, we all have to stop running.


[Thanks].

4.21.2009

This is exssssssssssssssiting.

Yes, I know, I spelled that incorrectly. It only further shows how excited I am about this.

I AM A MEMBER OF MARS HILL CHURCH

Do you KNOW how exciting that is?! If you don't, IT'S VERY EXCITING! Ahh!! I don't have the right words for it. It feels so good to finally be connected somewhere and feel like people want me to be there. I'm not just another fixture or another number, I'm a human that people want to know. I'm not treated like an outsider because I help out at another church from time to time.

No offense to some of the people at Eastside, but that's how I feel every time I walk into that building a little late because I was at Community Group.

You know what really hurt? Was when I told someone whom I thought was a friend that I was an 'official' member at MHC and they literally turned their back and walked away. I would never do that to them just because they go to Eastside and not MHC; never. I find it interesting and a little shallow that they would think it's ok for them to do that to me. Or when someone tried to talk me out of being a member at MHC. Who cares where I'm a member as long as the church loves and worships God and I'm growing in my relationship with Him? What difference does it make?! NONE!

Sorry, that was a little rant, but it's ridiculous.

Either way, I'm stoked beyond reason to be a member and I'm SO looking forward to what's a head :D

3.02.2009

Oh, we move alone.

Update:

My PureVolume playlist is still in tact after almost a year of not using it! Hooray!
I'm actually going to finish my Mars Hill membership this month...finally.
There's a community group that is pretty rad and I like a lot.
God put people in my life that are actually reliable and don't use me, so I'm forever grateful for that.
I'm selling Pampered Chef stuff now. Need kitchen stuff? Let me know!
Slowly, I'm beginning to realise that I deserve so much more than what I've been seeing.
Nature has never looked so good.
Despite the cold, I'm finding ways to be outside and just soak it all in.
The sun is affecting my moods drastically.
Annnnnnnd, my mum got a new car. It's pretty flippin' slick.

So, that's about it.
Oh. School is almost done. Hooray!