Thoughts Before Departure

With days before my departure to Indonesia I can't help but experience copious pools of emotions. Thoughts seem to flood my mind with persistence. The other night I lay awake with nervousness and anxiety of what I was getting myself into. 2 years! I'm moving to another country that I have never been to for the next two years of my life. Not only that, but I am suppose to teach these children English. I don't have much experience with teaching. How am I suppose to just waltz in there and begin teaching these children with confidence and competency. These thoughts continued to invade and infect my mind with despondent sentiments.

As I began to blockade and divert my mind from spiraling into these pools of emotions, the Holy Spirit began to convict me of where God has taken me through this current season of life...

In this season, God has open an entirely new paradigm and lens of what defines faith. For many, faith is a term of ambiguity and abstraction. We are frustrated at the concept or (cop-out) of "you just need to have more faith". This just doesn't settle right for the majority, and I believe there is a reason why this is so. Faith is not some abstract or ambiguous concept awaiting its intricacies and complexities to be solved. More importantly, faith is our Identity.

Let's think back to the stories of faith that have become posters of faith inscribed throughout the Old Testament. The epic stories of "David and Goliath", Shadarach, Meschack, and Abendego", Daniel, and many others. We have defined these stories over the centuries as having exemplary faith experiential moments. Yes, these men and women of God have decided to act out in faith in trusting their Father in heaven to be there protector, provider, and stronghold. If we were to look deeper into these incredible stories of faith we would find the true meaning and definition of what faith is. Their faith was not just an action, it was their IDENTITY. You see, When David walked up to Goliath David knew that there was not an ounce of talent/strength in him that could take down this giant. This was an obvious unequivocal truth to David. However, David knew that he was no longer identified in himself. Yes, David was identified in the God Most High. This is where his entire identity rested. In this knowledge, David knew that God would prevail in any circumstance. As we look throughout the faith stories of the Old and New Testaments it is this very concept of faith/identity that we begin to see.

Correspondingly, we look to the New Testament and find this very theme of faith. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galations 2:20). This is our very identity. We need to wake up and realize this incredible life-changing reality, that we no longer live, but Christ lives inside of our very body. We live, move and breath through Christ and in Christ. Unavoidably, this is who we are. We simply need to realize this.

As I lay there the Holy Spirit had shook me to the core. I had forgotten my identity. How can I be afraid of failure and my insecurities when it is no longer I who live? Christ lives in me, and with this knowledge I know that God will guide my footsteps into where I need to go and what needs to be done. Ultimately, I am a tool in the toolbox of God's gloriously magnificent Kingdom reigning/coming here on/to earth.

Thanks be to God. May His glory be revealed through His children.

The Dreamer

I’m a dreamer living in a dreamland

Reality is a train wreck, leaving only fragmented images behind

Forming what seems to be a convoluted puzzle,

The pieces lost in the vast emptiness of the mind

It’s half passed 3 A.M., yet a man in a black suit illustrates the scene

Cacophonies scream in a dampened alleyway

I’m left with no light, the blackness contains me

The painted dreamland is drowning away the distress of a broken world.

Flooded, the paint drips from the scene,

Effacing tattered hearts and obscene reflections of darkness

Days become a blur within the contraption of my mind

Eccentrically exhilarated thoughts become illustrated images

Painted within the mind’s apparatus

Transcending me into a muddled delirium,

Inundated by nostalgic sorrows

The mind is forever inspired by the dreamland,

Perpetually anticipating the revelation of the painter of the dreams

A New Season Awaits

It has been a very reminiscent season as I enter into life's next endeavors. As teaching in Indonesia awaits me, I can't help but recollect where I have been the past years of my life. To think that my Undergrad career has come and gone bewilders me. My time spent at Vanguard holds some of my most cherished memories. I could not have been happier with the education that I have received, the friends I have acquired, the numerous conversations about life, and the many adventures that took place. Although I am nervous of my future in Indonesia and plans to come, I am constantly reminded of my identity in where I come from. All of these memories have come to not only be cherished, but identify the very person that I have become. In the knowledge of this, i can rest in the confidence of who I am and where God will choose to take me. As Vanguard as my stepping stone into the future, I grow only more confident in what will come. This is something to praise the Lord for!

Living Among Brothers and Sisters in Christ

What does it mean to be brothers and sisters in Christ? Throughout the New Testament the Church is continually revealed as a body of believers, labeled as brothers and sisters in Christ, called to keep one another accountable, with the immediate desire to push forward the Kingdom of God. This theme becomes increasingly prominent in the book of Acts. With this as our identity, how now shall we live?

More specifically, the concept of accountability has been significantly impeding my thoughts. According to the scriptures what does this mean? Easy enough put, one may say simply: coming along side someone when you know that what they are doing is not in line with what the Word of God preaches. Sure, this may read well and sound good on paper, but when it comes down to it, accountability becomes incredibly complex. An satisfyingly adequate definition for "accountability" is lost between emotion and words. Now, here is where my mind has been for the past month.

I am a firm believer in "let your convictions be your own". Let me explain. Don't worry I'm not a relativist. In the least I hope to be thoughtful on the topic. "Let your convictions be your own" simply refers to the notion that each individual has their own intimate and personal testimony. With this in mind, inevitably, each individual has encountered different experiences including: their culture, family habits, traumatic experiences, etc. As our culture and personal testimonies interpret the world around us we begin to create a moral compass. As a Christian believer, I firmly attest to the Law of human nature (a shared morality across all cultures attributed to a God). Although there is a shared core morality across cultures, for instance, Killing another human is not "good", every individual will distinctly interpret their own individual moral compass against minor moral questions, such as, drinking heavily or smoking marijuana. The latter would be considered a minor moral question because the choice of whether or not to partake does not immediately effect another human being, although it might.

How do we decide then, when accountability should take place. Well, here is what my mind has developed over the past month, while conversing with a couple friends. Accountability is intrinsic to the Christian life. Intrinsic meaning essential and innate to a bodily make-up. Accountability becomes intrinsic to our being the moment that the Holy Spirit penetrates our hearts. It is the Holy Spirit that guides and convicts our hearts daily. Most importantly, it is the Spirit that invokes our hearts to desire community in the Kingdom of God, and this is where accountability takes place. This is beginning to sound like a bunch of "Christianize" I know, but here me out.

As the Holy Spirit guides and convicts the individuals living in community with one another a reaction takes place. Accountability can only take place when two or more people desire to approach one another in a vulnerable, humble, and committed environment. This, and only this, is where the Holy Spirit begins to work. Again, I firmly attribute the conviction to live in accountability with one another to the Holy Spirit. As we live in desire to live in correspondence to the Kingdom of God, living out Christ centered lives, we inevitably become destined to live lives of accountability. You and I cannot be responsible for those who chose to disregard the Kingdom of God, when the Kingdom of God is at the core of the Christian life. Judgement does not need to be placed here, but ultimately we simply need to live our lives in desperation for Christ's Kingdom, being like Christ to a dieing world. This is what we have been called to stand up against. Stand strong and encourage one another in the faith.

Life...

It has been quite the interesting journey throughout my senior year here at Vanguard University. Growth in establishing my identity in Christ and in my own individual self has been the overarching theme that has brought me to a place of pure joy. At times this year I have felt that I had lost my identity. I felt as though I no longer knew who I was. Trapped in a world of confusion and chaos I felt as though I was drowning and could not reach the surface for a breath of air. This season brought me to the immediate reality of a broken world. I no longer understood anything and everything. Everything became incredibly ambiguous and equivocal. Nothing made sense. This has definitely not been the greatest season of life. Here I am on the brink of graduation from Undergrad and I was petrified of what the world look like. Everything I knew and dreamed of seemed beyond realistic terms, so I began to give up the dreams i had gathered in my time here at Vanguard. I was broken, lost and trapped in a world I knew nothing of.

Although this season has been hard and unbearable emotionally at times, I now stand overjoyed in triumphant victory. I noticed that I had begun to look so far into the future that I was unable to live life day to day. It was this realization that guided my heart to prayer. Every morning I began with a time of prayer that simply confessed to weakness and brokenness, desperate for the strength to get through the day. Slowly I began to see my heart changed. My heart and mind began to fixate upon the here and now excited for the next moment. I have been privileged and blessed by God throughout my life, what makes me think that now God would hand me over to complete destruction. God is faithful. This was something that penetrated every thought that I had had about depression.

Genuine conversations with great friends has tangible encouragement from God, while being inspired by the world around. Another form of inspiration has been through the films. Recent films including Soul Surfer, I Am Number Four, and another random film that I forgot the name of have all expressed some form of inspiration. With an enamored heart I set forth into the world, exhilarated for the future and with the knowledge of success. Although I may fall at times, I will get back up and continue running the race of life. God is good and faithful!

An Illustration of Restoration

An Illustration of Restoration

April proves to be the cruelest month

The dreary skies compliment the sentiments eroding a tattered heart

Leaving diluted metaphors interpreted through the poet’s voice

A mist awakens covering the moonlit sky, depicting a scene of weariness

Time slows… to the progression of the unsettled clouds

Guided by the cadenced patterns of the wind

A young lad sits, swaying to and fro on the porch swing

A downcast heart saddens the tempo of the composition being played,

It’s begun to resonate, unmistakably harmonized

As if composed by the master artist himself, so tenderly woven into time

Crafted with a thread of serenity that has proven to sooth the melody

The talent of the master artist overwhelms the scene, yet his voice remains unheard…unspoken

As the young lad persists…swinging, back and forth on the porch swing

The storyteller once said, that there were no unhappy endings

Every narrative ever told encloses a symbol of goodness, something that’s meant to be heard

The narrator dictates the story into existence, claiming his mastery over the scene

Along with it, he carries our hearts, our minds … and our souls

We’re lost in a reverie, far beyond our thoughts intentions

Unknowingly attached to an ideal principle of reality,

Obscured by the risen ashes of the volcano

Blurring the normality of a bent world

Natural tendencies collide with the idyllic habits of the storyteller

The avalanche is closing in, with every intention to deconstruct the minds of a world troubled

Inhabited by the sleep-walkers…caught in their dismal like trance

A legend of old tells of a divine storyteller, one bound by nothing but himself

The words emanated from His mouth create a lasting impression

Upon a race that is raped by egotism, left with broken pieces of glass that once formed an identity

Now tended by the glass-maker,

Positioning each piece gently into the oven, to be refined by the fire

Left in its transparency before the maker

Time has consumed all that once was, like a cataract engulfs the water below

The dullest moments in life leave us with something to reminisce

As if a picture had been painted in the memory, scene after scene

The images remain untouched, guarded by time itself

As the memoirs linger in the mind, newness deadens what has been left behind

Like the wildflowers in their blossom out of the blackness of the field

An illustration of restoration

The Weight of Glory

The Weight of Glory is a compiled work of C.S. Lewis in attempt to approach copious theological controversies. The first of which, tackles the topic of the title The Weight of Glory. In this chapter Lewis manages to deconstruct the meaning of Glory in the context of a biblically informed worldview and heaven. Interestingly, what Lewis discovers is that we have been led astray in our attempt to form, construct, and construe an appropriated understanding of what a heavenly definition of glory resembles.

Lewis always manages to baffle my thoughts, yet interest and captivate my attention in his numerous analogies that progressively unfold the definition of which he hopes to clarify. Is glory directly correlated with fame, or may it be better assembled with a representation of luminosity? This is roughly what Lewis pursues to determine through critical and ardent analysis of the human understanding of glory. We are conditioned throughout our childhood to hold on to an objective goal juxtaposition with our action. Our education system for example. We are persistently cultivated in childhood education to achieve certain marks in accordance to a previously written grading scale, which measures our intelligence and our ability to learn. Inevitably, as we are forced to be held accountable against the grading system, the grading system then becomes the ultimate goal. Is this a healthy approach to education? No. The purpose of education is to learn, inspire, provoke imagination, experience, promote critical thinking, and ultimately, to encourage the aspirations of our young generations. The objectified, tangible, and immediate evidence of learn knowledge against a set mark hinders the young generations capability to do the latter. They are limited to a specific mark, which if not attained, they become despised, ruled as unintelligent, and therefore, left behind. My apologies, I did not mean for this to become a written critique on the current education system.

In continuation of this topical discussion Lewis ascribes the notion of mercenary behavior to our conditioned thinking. We're taught to seek the reward of meeting the highest marks, as opposed to being inspired to think, be critical, and imagine. Glory defined in this sense is the immediate reward, acceptance, acknowledgement and fame that is subsequent to reaching the mark. This is explicitly what glory has become in the Christian context. Humanity desirably seeks the acceptance, acknowledgment and fame among their peers. What good is it to attain such goals, aspirations, and good without people rewarding you with the gift of praise and glory. We won't explicitly say it, but we indelibly seek to be recognized. We have become mercenary for the praise and glory of our peers, when we are to be seeking the satisfaction of our God. What good is it to do good in the name of the Lord, yet be willing to take credit when people desire to praise your for it. It seems then that the "good" has been lost, the only good that remains is the previous objective action that had taken place.

Our fundamental purpose as followers of Christ should be, specifically, the longing to hear "Well done, thy good and faithful servant" at the end of the age. This is solely the greatest glory that can be attained, and this is the glory that Lewis embarks to define. The luminosity of our achievements, good works, goals, and rewards should be reflected upon the name of Jesus Christ. The definition of glory lies in the hands of the Father, not in the praise of man. It is our sinful, self-seeking, and egotistic behavior that blinds us to this reality, as we desperately hope to attain status, appreciation, and acknowledgement in a self-pleasing world.

To interject a side note, Lewis persistently advocates subjective thought throughout his exposition, and this can further be seen in his work entitled The Abolition of Man. The desire and attempt of the poet to depict meaning through the form of poetry, subjectivity, nostalgia, metaphor, allusions, abstractions and allegory unravels meaning that otherwise could not have been tapped into. It allows for the reader and listener to hear meaning within the beats of reality. Poetry breaks apart the definition of reality challenging true meaning. Our generation has become satisfied with Greek philosophy, logic, realism, and and rationalism. We are forced into this particular categorical thought, because otherwise, the world cannot relate as they continue to be satisfied by pure logic. Don't get me wrong, logical and rational systematic approaches to Theology and Philosophy are of great importance, however, we have jettisoned the reflectiveness of poetry and imagination as aids for interpretation and thinking. Our minds have become enthralled with the philosophy of the Greeks, as our imaginations have become numbed. The gift of imagination taps into new realities, unforeseen beauties, and intricacies, that otherwise logic leaves us empty-handed.