Likes and Retweets

There is a saying: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Over the years, I've found that I prefer another saying, "Absence sharpens love, but presence strengthens it." Love, friendships, relationships in general are easier to establish and maintain when you are actually with the person in question. Seeing someone face to face, having a conversation, being able to see and interpret body language, all of these play key parts in strengthening a relationship. My generation has removed itself from this level of personal connection, instead choosing to rely upon a variety of other social media interactions.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love texting, Facebook, Skype, and Twitter as much as the next guy. But there is still something more... corporeal, solid, something more elemental about being about sit down across from someone and simply talk to them one on one. The advent of the internet and wireless, instantaneous communication has created a generation of youth desperately searching for fulfillment, for interaction. Yet our relationships, whether online or physical, tend to lean toward the impersonal. We have become a quantitative, rather than qualitative, culture. We can have a person's vital statistics at our very fingertips: age, gender, interests, dislikes, hobbies, friends, organizations they belong to, their taste in music, clothing, literature. We can view countless photos of them, see how they live their life, who they hang out with, what they do. We can read Facebook status updates and Tweets to get a feel for someone's emotional state. We can do all this... and yet never really know this person. They become a nonentity.

To put a different spin on this whole situation, let's take a look back at this beginning of this post. In it, I mentioned a need for contact in a relationship. I've had several relationships suffer (and die) because either I or the other person involved have simply not had contact for a long while. This same is true for our spiritual relationships. If we don't talk to God, if we don't communicate with Him, spend time with Him or in His Word, then we can't really get to know Him. And likewise, He suffers a disconnect from us as well. We need to constantly be with Him in order to foster a solid relationship. It's not simply tagging Him in a status update, or mentioning Him on Twitter, we need to sit down and have an active, engaging dialogue with Him. Otherwise, God to us becomes a nonentity. Worse yet, a nondeity. We forget about Him, and continue to live our lives, shallower and for the worse off because of it. The relationship suffers.

"Absence sharpens love, but presence strengthens it." This rings true in all relationships, whether material or spiritual. A good relationship needs to be relational. It's simple and cliche, yet true. I'm trying to put these words to action in my own life, and I'd encourage you to do the same.

My Life As A Fish Hook

It's not every day a fish hook falls into your shoe.

Let me rewind a bit.

The night is young, a crisp autumn's eve; and there he sits, quiet and still, on a lonely park bench. Staring up into the starless skies above, thinking idly to himself, to God, to no one, really. A small wooden rod lays at his feet. Intrigued, he picks up it, notices the nails stuck into the wood at either end. Curiouser and curiouser, he thinks to himself. He begins the short walk back to his home, swinging the stick by his side. Suddenly, the sensation of cold, slippery.... something... slides its way into his shoe. Violently he throws off the offending article of fashionable footwear and checks it for whatever produced this decidedly slug-like sensation. There! On the ground! A glint of light reflecting off the shape of a.... fish hook?

That's right. A fish hook fell into my shoe. Not even like a wussy, three-pronged baby one. No, this was a serious, not-to-be-screwed-with fish hook. I'm talking serious serious hookageness, here. This thing was fearsome. Now, for me, sharp metal objects materializing inside my comfy, well-worn DC's is not something that happens every day. So here's the deal (non-sappy story-like). I was sitting on a bench this evening, when I noticed a long wooden rod by my feet. It had nails sticking out of both ends. Naturally, being the adventurous type that I am, I decide to keep it as a walking stick for the hike back to my dorm. After the fish hook fell into my shoe, I took a closer look at the piece of wood. It was a homemade fishing rod, either from some kid or an entrepreneurial (albeit non-artistic) college student. Wrapped around the nail at one end was a bit of fishing wire, which somehow had snapped, loosing the fish hook which then fell into my shoe. Like I said, not something that happens every day.

Yet this odd occurrence struck a chord with me. My personal belief is that everything happens for a reason, that it's all part of God's plan for me and everyone else on this planet. I take incredible comfort in the concept of predestination. But... that's a story for another blog post. Anyways, I was wondering why something this random and weird would happen to me, maybe it was just unimportant, maybe God was having a laugh on my part, I don't know. Yet in the end, it gave me an idea for a blog post and a funny story, so I guess it had some meaning after all.

Here's what popped into my head as a walked slowly back to home sweet Sparrowk, idly caressing this large metal fish hook.

Let's look at this as an analogy. Say there is a man fishing in a pond with this homemade fishing rod. A simple piece of wood (with nails stuck in at either end), fishing wire, and a hook. He cocks it back, then with an expert flick of the wrist sends it skimming over the water to the exact spot where he wants it to sink.

Now let's pretend that fish hook is us, and the fisherman is God. He throws us into this stream, these waters of life. Once we hit, we immediately sink (this line doesn't have a bobber, it's pretty low-tech). That would be the effects of our inherent sin, dragging us deeper into the dimly-lit depths below. As we drift through the murky waters of this life, we get swayed back and forth by the currents running just under the surface. We are influenced by a variety of sources; friends, family, the media, our culture in general. We are tossed around, not knowing where to turn or where to go. Sometimes, we get caught on a log or a some reeds, anything from sex or drugs to simply making bad decisions. We get mired down, caught in this snare. It takes a little tugging and prodding from the fisherman to get us out. Sometimes it's painful, it is almost never easy. Yet gently, surely, He pulls us out of our entanglements and drags us back to shore. Now let's take this one step deeper. If we are the fish hook, then suppose the line is our life and our faith, and the rod in the hands of our fisher God is Jesus Christ. We are connected to Christ through our faith and actions in this life. God sent His son to be used as a tool to guide us and teach us and ultimately to die for us, saving us and keeping us on track in the waters of this life. We are able to connect with God directly through his son. God uses the rod to direct our life (and therefore us) in this world. Many times we get snatched away by the current, but He always has the ability to reel us back in. To continue the analogy, if we are a fish hook, then the rest of the world are the fish. They're worse off than we are in many ways. They don't have the benefit of the fisherman's direction; they simply wander up and down the stream aimlessly. Our job is to catch them. There is a reason that Jesus calls for his disciples to be "fishers of men". Our purpose in this life is to first, glorify our Lord in all we do, and second, bring others to Him. Now, this process is not always pretty. Many times it's hard, even painful. It's not easy to surrender control of your life to someone else. It's not easy to completely open yourself to anyone, even your Creator. I find it slightly ironic that we try to hide things from God, like He doesn't know us better than anyone else in existence. (But I digress). Many people will try to fight God, like a fish on a line. But slowly, surely, He reels them in, a bit at a time. And, sooner or later, through us, the fish is reunited with the fisher. Now, this is where the analogy kind of breaks down... seeing as a real-life fisherman would probably gut and then cook the fish. But you get my point.

I thought that was an interesting analogy, and especially so because the real-life homemade fishing rod that I found had nails stuck into it... just like a cross. Hmm. Maybe everything does happen for a reason.

Definition and Declaration of Faith

I just listened to a pretty amazing sermon by the Reverend Dr. Abraham Waya on the issue of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. As I've never truly discussed this, and as it's a fairly important topic to me, I've decided to post an account of my definition and declaration of faith.

I am a Christian, in the sense that I am a follower of Christ and His teachings. I dislike labels, but I'd rather be called a follower of Christ than a follower of Christian religion. I believe that Jesus Christ died, for my sins and the sins of the world, and was raised back to life. I believe that Jesus was the son of God, and as such, wholly mortal and wholly divine. My life is dedicated to learning, serving, and spreading the Word of God in as much depth and in as many ways possible. This is what I believe and it is who I am.

I am a scholar, in the sense that I am actively interested in learning and exploring God's Word.

I am a follower, in the sense that I willingly submit to and obey my God's commands, directives, and teachings.

I am a teacher in that I believe it is my duty and my calling as a follower of Christ to spread my testimony and the news of God's gifts of salvation and love to the world.

I am a leader, in the sense that I try to the best of my ability to lead and assist others in their walk with God.

I am a musician, in that I attempt to bring others into the presence of God through musical worship.

I am a warrior, because believe it or not, every human being on this planet is knowingly or unknowingly engaged in active spiritual warfare every minute of every day.

I am a servant, in the sense that I serve others out of a love for them and for God.

But more than all these things, I am a man. A simple, fragile human being, easily shaken and easily distracted. My wish and my fervent hope is that this declaration will not only aid me in further strengthening my roots in my own faith, but help bring others to a more complete knowledge of Christ.

If you have questions, I'm always more than ready to share how God has impacted my life, and I'm always up for honest, open dialogue and discussion.

From Pleasure to Pain

In C.S. Lewis' book, "The Problem of Pain" he writes, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." I know, growing up in a Christian school environment, I heard this quote a lot (especially in Mr. Dietrich's class). But it never really hit me until a little while ago. Here are a few thoughts on this topic.

"God whispers to us in our pleasures": God delights in what gives us joy, (within reason. God has designed certain things to give us pleasure, such as music, food, sex, etc. But taken outside of the boundaries of God's law, they become a perversion, and He doesn't enjoy that. But that's a post for another time). When we follow Him and take joy in our world and each other, we can hear a dim echo of God's voice in us.

"(God) ...speaks to us in our conscience": if God is whispering to us when we are pleased and obeying Him, he raises His voice a little when we're not listening very well. When we stray off the path, when we begin to swerve away from what God has planned for us, He uses our conscience, (an inner moral guide) to speak to us and say "This is wrong, don't do that." Yet if we continue off this path, eventually we will encounter pain.

Now, pain is not necessarily a bad thing. It's your body's natural reaction to an intrusion or injury. Physical pain can be helpful in determining what's going wrong with your body. For example, if you accidentally cut yourself, you'll begin to feel pain, telling you that you've hurt a certain part of your body. Yet there are many kinds of pain, physical, emotional, even spiritual anguish. Pain is a reminder that things are not as they should be. An angry break-up, watching a friend destroy their life, even a broken arm: all these different kinds of pain are warnings that something is wrong, that things are out of the natural order of life and need to be put back to the way God desires them to be. God shouts to us in our pain. He's trying to tell us, "Hey! I love you! Come back to me." And we need to listen to that.

Test of Faith

This is a link for a CNN article about the last Jew in Afghanistan.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/05/09/afghanistan.last.jew/index.html?iref=allsearch

I find it interesting and slightly disturbing that there is only one professing Jew left in the entire country of Afghanistan. In the interview he talks about persecution under the Taliban... I find it amazing that this man is willing to leave behind his children and his family in order to serve God. I see that as the kind of faith that Abraham had. True faith.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way

My apologies, loyal readers. I took a vacation this week and didn't post anything. To make up for it, A Day In The Life Of An Average Guy (henceforth known as ADITLOAAG) will have not one, but two posts today. The first is serious, the second... not so much.

Let's begin.

One of my all-time favorite bands is Coheed and Cambria. They're an extremely interesting and talented group, and I highly recommend them. I enjoy their music for a variety of reasons; the backstory behind it, their distinctive sound, the melodies and rhythms. I was recently listening to a Coheed song called "When Skeletons Live", when one line of the lyrics struck me. It said, "The truth is relevant, but not for long." It really got me thinking a lot about truth, what we see as true, and what actually is true. Think about that statement a little bit. On the one hand, there are certain physical, inherent truths. Take gravity for instance. What comes up, must come down. It is the way that things are. It is true. Yet on the other hand, there are things that people have long believed to be true that turned out to be false (the concept of the Sun revolving around the Earth, for example). Now to bring it closer to home, in this day and age we are surrounded, permeated by, and bombarded with all sorts of "truths". Some are true, some are partly true, some are blatantly false. Think about the world of advertising. If every single ad that you saw on television or in a magazine portrayed the truth, companies would lose a ton of money on their products. Why? Because we as Americans don't want the truth. We'd rather have the "great American Dream". You know what I'm talking about: nice job, fast car, beautiful wife/handsome husband, two and a half kids, suburban house with a white picket fence. It's what everybody wants, right? We deserve it.

Or do we? Let me float a rather radical idea past you. We don't deserve much of anything. Actually, according to Bible, what we do deserve is death. So I think we should be thankful for not getting what we deserve. (but that's a different story).

Back to the main idea: life is not always handed to us on a silver platter. In order to discover what is true and what is false in this world, we have to have a standard to compare it to. Do you know how banks train tellers to find counterfeit money? They have them handle the real thing, over and over, until they can almost instantly tell the difference between a true bill and a false one. I propose that we take the same approach to life. In a world filled with half-truths and even outright lies, it can sometimes be a little hard to tell what is good and pure, and what isn't. Fortunately, we have a standard to compare everything to. God's Word. If you are a Christian, then you believe that every word printed in the Bible is inherently and unfailingly true. If that is correct, then we can take what we learn and read, and apply it to our daily lives. In order to find our way to the truth in this world, we need to spend time in God's Word. Read it. Pray about it. Think about it. Talk to people about it. The more time you spend in the truth, the easier it will become to spot what is false.