The Builder and The Architect

Another work week in the books. Another fine Friday afternoon sipping coffee at Starbucks at 7th and P’Tree. (and boy do I love coffee and a book, even if it is for school). Right in front of he window looking out, no less. Perfect people watchin’ spot. It’s raining; weather is kind of miserable, but, that’s ok. And while I love the winter because of the potential of snow (yes, I love snow, even if many in the country no longer do), I do love to be out in the spring sun. So I am looking forward to the warm up. I could stand another good snow here, maybe without all the freezing rain next time.

Life is a sacrifice. You can never have everything you want. You ways have to give up one thing to get another. I guess the only way around that is to convince yourself that the thing you are giving up is something you didn’t really want or need. We give up sleep for school. Money for things. One person for another. Abs for donuts. Always a trade off. Old man for new man. Sin for grace. Short term for long term. Long term for short term.

I make no value judgment over whatever you decide or decide not to sacrifice for. Just an observation. It’s just that I used to say that in life we sacrifice one thing to get another. But I am changing my mind. It’s not something we do in life, but it IS life. Our life is a sacrifice.

Back to the Future. Today was the day that I was supposed to start my first day of grad school. Sunday it snowed. Monday it rained then froze. Guess I’ll have to wait until Wednesday. False. Closed again! Well ok. I guess it’s ok to start out your first semester at grad school by missing the first two classes. Or not. But I’ve waited three years to get back into school. I can wait another week.

That’s right. I am starting grad school to be a counselor, and I already can’t wait until I graduate. Only this time, I don’t know how long it will take me. At least three years. Maybe 4. I hope not 4. Good thing grace is strength and not just pardon. Good thing God calls us and makes us able to walk by faith and not by sight. I’ve got a long road a head of me, though.

We’ve had a few days off from work because of the snow. Kind of ironic that the first real snow day I can remember comes as an adult while working a full time job and just about to start grad school. It’s been a lonely few days. But I have tried to stay productive. So that has been good.

It’s 1/11/11. I wonder what it will be like on 2/22/22. On 3/3/33?

How many of you in your late twenties or early thirties still find it weird when you or someone else refers to you as an adult?

January 6 traditionally is the the feast day of Epiphany. It is the first day after the end of the Christmas season (December 25th being the first day of Christmas, January 5th being the 12th.) The timeless God’s entrance into an real period of time in human history changed everything. The timeless God’s entrance into your life changes everything. He is intensely personal. And he has shown that to us.

Sure there will, in 11 months, be 11/11/11. And there was 01/01/01 just a decade ago. But still, 1/1/11 is pretty awesome. An awesome day to blog!

I have two things to say. First, the beginning of the year is pretty neat. December and January are like a paradox. They are together 11 months apart and one day apart. The end of the year has an altogether different feeling than the beginning of the year, and yet it changes, literally, over night. The new year change is so weird at times because we spend 6 months in the latter have of the year, the dog days of summer, the crisp fall, and just slightly begin the chilly winter. Things feel as if they are winding down, getting wrapped up, then BAM! you’re right back at the beginning. It almost feels as if we are are in a horrible cycle, an infinite loop (well, we are, duh). But this one is ok. Almost feels like the movie Groundhog Day. Watch out for that first step, it’s a dooooozy! I got you babe all over again. Where’s the toaster? (you know, throw it into the tub, trying to end the cycle-don’t freak out, I’m making a joke.) But things do change. We aren’t doomed to repeat the same things over again. This isn’t a “oh, we have a new lease on life! we can start all over again fresh” post. I am just juxtaposing the weirdness of being at the end of the year and all of the sudden being at the beginning of the year. The yearly cycle isn’t a pendulum swing, although I think a lot of us would like it to be. I would like that from time to time. But nope, we go around and are shoved right into the start without so much as the courtesy of open debate!

So what do you prefer more. Would you like the year to feel more like a pendulum swing (and do you feel that way already), or do you like the cycle feeling of ending and beginning quite abruptly?

Second, this year I have gotten to more shin-digs, parties, and gatherings during the holiday season than at any point in my Continue reading

I’m glad for both. Such as, here am I, at a cafe, coffee and a book in front, posting to this blog on my phone, just like last year. But my phone has changed. So has the cafe. Some things haven changed, and I am glad. Some things have changed that have made my heart heavy. Still, there are things that have not changed and I pray that they would.

It’s so strange what changes and what does not. I cannot say that everything I have wanted to change hasn’t. But I can say it is hard to endure those things which changed without my consent, and those that have not though I whole heartedly want them to. Still I am thankful. What else can I be? God is still good and fair. His faithfulness and mercy endure to all generations.

It’s almost Christmas. Advent. Another season of Waiting, preparing, then celebrating. I think seasons like Advent and Lent are great seasons that teach us about living life. A good portion of life is spent waiting and preparing: for Christ to come, to enter in, to finish his work. We recognize in Advent and Lent what we experience all year long.

But the neat thing is we know that God has already entered in, met us, and finished his work. And just as he has done for all creation in all eternity, he will do in our lives, in his perfect time.

Is it ok to get excited about Lent? I mean, it’s supposed to be a season of reflection and preparation, prayer and fasting, deep examination and repentance. Am I even allowed to smile? So why am I excited? I’m not giddy, jumping up and down excited, but I can feel somewhere in my brain or heart an excitement for this season. Not excitement over sin or any feeling like I will magically be cured of all of my sinful habits. But perhaps excitement for this concentrated time of discipline, or the fact that it is something the church participates in as a family, or the fact that it has been part of my life for so long now that having the same thing reoccur in my life every year is comforting. Maybe it comes from all of those places, maybe none, but I am ok with it.

Things that happen on a yearly basis do given an interesting perspective on things. The yearly perspective. Last year I came to Atlanta for the Ash Wednesday service at Trinity as a visitor. I was very encouraged. Earlier that day I sat at the Starbucks on Howell Mill (when my Psalm reading for the day just happened to be Psalm 51), with no idea that the next year I would be sitting there again, but this time as a citizen of the city, not just a visitor. How things have changed in just a year! It is exciting not to know what things will occur between this year and the next Ash Wednesday.

Observing Lent is not biblically obligatory, but I believe Continue reading

God speaks to us in many different ways, like through his Word or his Spirit. Most of us probably can’t hear him or don’t recognize him when he is speaking to us. But how does God speak WITH us? LIke in a converstaion?

I ask this question because I I was reading a blog post about praying and it mentioned how one way we can pray is just to talk to him. Talk to him as if you were talking to a friend. The post contrasted this against how we typically hear people pray. That is, in “prayer talk.” A transformation in our speeh patterns and grammar and the amount of times we use some form of God’s name as we approach him in prayer. The post says this is not necessary. It says that we can talk to him as openly, as harshly vulnerable, and as simply as we want. As if we are chatting with a friend, or baring our soul.

I totally agree with that, especially when praying is an intensely vulnerable time. However, is this not even more difficult. Why don’t we do this in the first place? Why do we default to prayer talk? I think it is becuase it is easier. I think it is because we don’t feel like we are actually conversing with God. I mean, when you stand and give a speech, you don’t talk in a conversational style. You don’t get any verbal input from the audience until later (and it is poor speech etiquette, but that is a different subject). But I think it is because we know we aren’t going to have this back-and-forth conversation with God, where we say something and he immediately responds and vice-versa, that we default to prayer talk, that we find it difficult to merely converse with him. At least, that is how I feel. Not that I am overly flowery when I pray. I really try to be “down to earth,” as it were, too. But isn’t there just something different when you are talking to someone you know isn’t actually conversing with you? (Not that God isn’t, in the big picture, conversing with us. But I am refering to the immediate conversation style one would have with another as if they were conversing on the phone or face to face.) Or am I just missing it?

So I agree that that is how we should talk to God, but I don’t see how it is easy or at all natural.

What do you think? How do you talk to God? With prayer talk or conversationally? Which do you find easier?

Imogen Heap. I just heard a couple of songs by her. She seems pretty pleasing. I also found out that Jason DeRulo sampled her song “Hide and Seek” for his song “Whatcha Say.” His song hits hard and his chorus, from Heap, is cute. I am not a fan of the lyrics. I won’t belabor you an explanation. But what’s worse is that the lyrics from the chorus just do not seem to fit into the rest of the verses. It just doens’t make sense.

That said it’s a such a catchy song! I really like listening to it, but am comically conflicted for singing a song that has lyrics I don’t like. Of course, I think the chorus is the best part and the biggest reason why I like it, and given it was sampled from a non-hip-hop song, that makes sense (for me). But until tonight I didn’t know it was sampled; so I was excited to hear the real version. I also noticed that DeRulo modulate Heap’s version to a higher key, which is why I origianlly though it wasn’t Heap singing. It is her, just modulated. Anyway… I was just writing to say that I noticed the modulation.

Rung in the new year with my Amanda and some friends. Very nice. A year ago New Year’s Eve night we watched GA Tech get slaughtered at the Chic-fil-a Bowl. The football game was not lovely. Amanda was. Three days later we decied to start dating. January 3, 2010 marked our first year of dating. Good stuff. Since then I have moved to Atlanta and read a few more books. I took the GRE and applied to grad school. 2010 looks to be an even better year.

On the third of January we went to see the Avatar IMAX 3D experience. Visually, the movie was a very good experience. James Cameron is a great director. But he should stick to directing. The story, by Cameron, was too predictable. It was, however, classic. But it also seemed like I had heard that story a million times before. The plot was predictable as well as the characters. There were too many cliched plot devices. The characters sof the General and Jake were so predictable it was painful. There were lines by characters all throughout the movie that were either dumb, unnecessary, or expected. Nothing surprised me in this movie. Did I enjoy it? YES. I was especially impressed with how Camera got the main character’s legs to look extremely atrophied and useless without it looking fake, although the actor really can walk. But the only thing worse than knowing what is going to happen at the end of the movie is it actually happening the way you guessed. Well either that or seeing something happen at the end of the movie that you realize its existence was totally set up earlier in the moive and was set up only for that scene.

What I appreciate about it is Continue reading

I had hoped that once I updated my blog with the final entry concerning my trip to Honduras that I would write more often. I was putting off writing Anythng until that post was done. But now that it is done all I can write about is not being able to write.

I have found that I am not a jounaler. I want to be, but I am not. I am not a blogger. I want to be, but I am not. Perhaps it is in me, but I lack whatever it takes to do it regularly and creatively.

Christmas party at our house tonight in Decatur. Now I am relaxing at a cafe typing this on my iPhone. I’m gonna do some reading and a little bit of a devotional then go back home after downing a cup or two of coffee. I don’t need it, but I like it while I am reading.

Trying to remind myself of the gospel. Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient and covers sin. I can’t seem to rmember that most of the time? Can you? If so, comment and let me know how you like to do it.