Wading in Water

One statement hit me today as I was sitting with my 9-monitor hub station. As I was dazing off into the abyss of ever changing lights of turbines, wind data, alarm pop-ups and other nonsense, I felt like I was swimming. An odd sensation, considering that it's 2313PPT in an office building. But it brought me back to a sermon I once remembered back when I was in the middle of Romania.


I remember as a kid loving to swim. My parents called me a "water bug", because once they threw me in (yes, literally threw me in) I could never get out. I was at the pool almost every day during the summer (not much for water in MN winters...) hanging out with my buddies. We would have cannon-ball contests, hold our breath to see who could stay under the longest, and play chicken on top of each other's shoulders.


Of course I didn't start out just learning how to swim. I had to take lessons with the ridiculous flapping inflatable arm tubes, screaming every time my head went under water. The wade pool seemed like a dangerous torturing device at the time. But eventually I learned to do different strokes, tread in water for long periods of time, and eventually I even became a lifeguard. I loved the water.


I feel as if, in life, our faith is like our swimming pool. We go in this mysterious substance, and it seems odd and terrifying. After learning, pushing ourselves to be better, testing the waters, we go deeper and deeper. It might take time, but we continue to keep heading into the waters.


I have a confession though. Even though I love swimming, I'm terrified of the ocean. The fact that you can continue to swim and never see the bottom, not knowing what's underneath, chills me to the bone. But I'm at a point in my life where I need to explore. I can't be afraid to keep swimming. I need to get out of the wade pool and plunge in headfirst into the sea. I love God with all my heart, and I know that he will keep me afloat as I continue to search out the depths of my faith.


So I challenge you. Are you going to walk around with your inflatable tubes with ducks printed all over the sides, or will you embrace your faith and find the hidden treasure buried beneath?

Out of Touch

Two years

It's been about two years since I've last updated this blog. In those two crazy years I've had some crazy and amazing things happen in my life. I watched my family excel, my job moved me from the middle of a cornfield to the vacation hotspot of San Diego, and I got married to the most incredible woman of all time. Things seem on the up and up...

                 ...except something is missing.

To be honest, my faith life has all but washed away. I could see day by day myself slumping back, talking the short cut route of materialism and greed. My new life is so appealing to the outsider, but I traded it at a terrible cost. There's a part of me that feels empty, almost desperation. My choices reflect on both my inner and outer being. And truth be told, it flat out sucks.

But don't get me wrong, I am totally grateful and blessed that I have a beautiful wife, a well paying job, and a semi-stable lifestyle. But that feeling...that feeling of trading my whole world, and losing my soul. Know that verse? It's like a slow sucking leach that binds, latches on to kill quietly. You'd never even know it was happening. With such richness, not just in money but life, I made it easy to slip past my to calling to Christ, and slip on the robe into the comfort zone.

Nope.

I want to be rich in faith. I want to be rich in Christ. I'd trade in these riches for rags to be closer to God. Cut out these distractions, place on the armor of God, and move forward to fight the good fight.

My wife and I reached out a couple of weeks ago, to join a life group. Feeding in the desperation for Christ was like giving a starving Ethiopian child the biggest birthday cake you could imagine. I literally couldn't contain myself. My wife had to slap my hands so I wound stop fidgeting.

But the best part, that little step, changed the whole ball game. And that's all it takes. Choosing in, and choosing Christ, and you have changed everything.

Spiritual Anesthetic

"But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Be not rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you." - Ezekiel 2:8

                  I live in the middle of nowhere....

No really.

     Even in the U.S., I still have to drive 10 miles to get a decent phone reception, 35 miles to work, and 40+ miles to get the groceries that I want. Now don't get me wrong, I love it here. We've got lakes for fishing, corn, open plains, corn, the small town welcoming feel....oh, and did I mention we've got corn?

     But even upon the ridiculous imagination I sometimes scare myself with, even I can be flat out bored. But getting past that, I've noticed something different had changed in me. I noticed from what I talked about in my first blog about being "zombified" to now. I noticed my awareness had arisen, to recognize the situation I was in. I came to the conclusion that even as I was proceeding further and further in my studies, making the effort of changing my ways of seeking the Father, there was one thing I did not expect.

I was numb.

     I must admit the hardest, scariest, and the most dangerous times in my life were the times I grew apathetic, and could not feel a thing. These were the times that I was so barred down with pain, hopelessness, and despair, that I grew a sense of simply not caring anymore, just so I could move on. And I had to stop and think, if this kind of feeling is the same feeling I'm sharing with our ever-loving, ever-seeking, ever-holy God, there must be some thing wrong.

                                                       Very wrong.

     I picked my brain over and over to find a solution. Why can't I feel the love through all the effort I'm putting in towards God?...or more so, why couldn't I feel anything at all? There really wasn't any pain, but no joy either. I could sit and read my bible, go into worship with my guitar, take notes on sermons and still not be moved. Was there something wrong with me? Was I just....broken?

     In the midst of enduring this profound mystery, I discovered that everything, even the worship and the bible studying;  I was making it about me. Me, me, me. I wanted things to happen, I wanted to do things a certain way, I want to be happy and feel loved. NOW.

     I had a piss-poor additude because nothing was going my way. And the only reason I couldn't feel anything was because I had completely forgotton my other half. I can't even believe what it's like to be married, not to mention I could only imagine how my spouse would feel like if I had completely forgotten about her. But this is God. He loves and cares for us, nutures us, feeds us.

     When you don't eat there are almost kinds of stages your body goes into. First, you get hungry. Then, you get really hungry. Soon your stomach starts to physically hurt, the pain starting to swell through your body, over and over, feeling like it's about to burst...and then all of it stops. And by now, if you haven't eaten anything, and you don't feel a thing, it's not a good sign.

     But the same goes with God. We as people make it about ourselves, sometimes even if we're not trying to. We miss out on the spiritual food that God is sitting there just waiting to give us, and we starve. We become spiritually dry, barren, and we start to waste away. We can get caught up in the acts of God, professing faith, and carrying out His deeds and miss the message ourselves.

The resolution: simply listen.

     I went out to my favorite quite spot the other day. You know where that is? You guessed it, a corn field. I just layed down in the middle of the dirt and yelled out, "Okay God, it's your turn." Soon I was overwhelmed by thought after word after feelings of the Holy Spirit rushing in. I felt joy, peace. But most of all, it was the feeling of restoration finally setting in.

     So, are you finding yourself feeling nothing when you read your bible? Wrapped up in yourself rather than God? I encourage you in the most inspiring, caring, and loving way possible:

Shut your mouth...and let God do the talking.

The Walking Dead

     Among all of the things that I could have first written on this new blog, my purpose, my background, etc., I chose something a little different to start out with. Something that hit home pretty hard, and hopefully you'll see why. I chose to write about...zombies.

The first definition given to "Zombie" by dictionary.reference.com:

1.The body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose.

        Naturally when you first think of zombie, you generally think of two things. The first would be the typical brain-consuming, flesh-devouring, wailing dead creature that would more often than not have a broken limb or two, dragging its slow carcass around aimlessly until it finds it's prey. The second, like the first, except where instead a real person has the incapacity to wake up like a normal human being (or has simply awaken earlier than the body allows), supernaturally walking around the house with their eyes closed, reaching for the pop-tarts box with gangling arms, moaning only to await "thy holieth caffeine consumption".

(Agreed, I do fall under that second category)

     Yet, I want to propose to you another type of zombie. A zombie that you actually see probably everyday. And I'll do this by breaking down the original definition and re-inserting my own.

"The body of a dead person given the semblance of life..." 

Faking it. Totally faking it. 

     There are people who go day to day going through the same monotonous routine, coasting through week after week, month after month, to simply past the time. They put this mask on, simply putting on a smile, buying new things, getting into new hobbies, when really their soul has been lifeless YEARS ago. Hiding behind a failing wall, building it up more and more, only to crumble upon the inevitable day of death....is that truly living?

"..mute and will-less..."

     Not only do people insist on hoarding inanimate things or jam-packing their schedules, nobody will speak of it.  They slip into this subconscious state of mind where life somehow becomes a grocery list of things to do. It then generates fixed responses and emotions, nullifying any actual use of free thinking. The typical "How are you?" are easily deflected by "Good" and any conflict that might come up has been avoided.  And if something actually gets out of sync, like a parasite the "existing" self clings to a new host, a new "thing", in which the process starts over. 

Surprisingly powerless, considering us being the most intelligent beings on the planet. 

"..by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose."

When asked, I highly doubt a person would agree to leading a life of complete and total meaninglessness and look forward to the day that life would cease to exist. But when we want a finger to pin all of this nonsense on, to catch the red-handed thief that stole the passion, joy, and meaning of our own lives...we only have ourselves to blame. In the bible,  Mark chapter 7 it says:

"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceeds evil thoughts...All these evil things come from within and defile a man." (KNJV)

     Jesus goes on to explain in the parable that it's never the outside world that will make us sinners. It is we who are the culprits. We have a choice to stand for reason, justice, and truth. We have a choice to be passionate and caring people. We have choice to fight against sin. And to our own surprise, we ignore it. We become mindless, self-absorbed beings that just simply exist.

      The are some hard realizations out of all of this. I know that I've sat and watched others become "zombies". Some of my family, even some of my best friends. But what is even harder than that...is to realize I have fallen into this.

I have done the same damn thing.

     I have become okay with easing by, working a full-time job, coming home to fulfill my own engagements rather than the Father's, and slowly slipping away into my own spiritual suicide...

NO

     Our God didn't create us to just sit out on the side lines. He didn't take up a cross for nothing. He didn't die so we could simply die too.

He DIED, so we could LIVE.

     I'm not talking about living as in skydiving or whitewater rafting (although they're definitely on my bucket list).   I'm not talking about just some other adrenaline-junky fix. I'm talking about fulfilling our obligations as a church, the body of Christ. I'm talking about seeking out our purpose as children of God, quenching our thirst for the Holy Spirit. I'm talking about living a life that's full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. We need to STOP this self-destructing apathy and START taking responsibility.

I'm sick of being a zombie.

I want to live.