This past year the Lord has been teaching me what it means to obedient to His will. He has taken much selfish ambition and vain conceit from my heart, and has replaced it with a willingness to follow as He leads, wherever that may be. He has taught me to go deep with Him and experience the inexpressible joy and contentment in life that comes with obedience to Him. Christ has specifically shown me how amazingly BIG He truly is. His glory and will are reflected in ALL of creation; He continues to show Himself to me as the God overall, true to His promises, and faithful in pursuing our sinful hearts. He is the ultimate pursuer of my wayward heart, and He’s shown me just HOW MUCH He truly loves me!
The confidence and security that comes with knowing Him alone has given me faith to step out in my career and all aspects of life – a new assurance that He has revealed to me this past year.

This past year has also taught me to walk by faith and not by sight. I have learned not to rely on what I see and what the world tells me because although I want to sometimes believe it, the life that the world leads is dry and pale compared to the life of faith in Christ! This dichotomy has been especially evident in my career and spiritual walk. A few years ago, all I wanted in life was to be extremely successful in my career, as I have been blessed with talent and many wonderful connections within the design community. The Lord was providing me with opportunity, but I was always searching for the deeper meaning. Design just didn’t fulfill me the way that I thought it would. I worked really hard in school to land the best job, and I interned at the best design firm in the cities, and yet somehow, I was extremely dissatisfied and very discontented with my life. I knew that I had to give it all to the Lord, but I was so afraid of Him taking my passion for design away. I have worked TOO HARD for this to not be my life. Looking back, what I’ve now realized is that the Lord has not taken my passion for design away, but He’s replaced my personal ambition with His ambition; namely to view the broken world with a heart of love and compassion towards all people! Wow! This type of heartfelt motive could not have been derived from my own heart, only from His. He has given me eyes to see the world as He does, a world impoverished and in desperate need of a Savior. Death is impending and inevitable; we need to live in life of this reality.

An inescapable truth

Why must reality always dash our most vivid hopes and dreams against the rocks of an end that is merely inescapable? Death must always lay its cold grip upon all that is fine and good - and ALL that have lived, and will ever live, must experience it. It is the most final end, yet an indiscrete end at that because it never announces its approach - it takes you before you have even realized what has happened.

The juxtaposition of the beauty in nature is contrasted with a harsh reality of what is really possible. If a life-taking event occurs, nature still marches on in steady rhythm. It doesn't stop, or quiet itself for a moment in reverence or respect - nature in itself is not respectful to humans. It's tough and raw and extremely real.

The same breathtaking mountain top where we play and ride in the summertime is the same today as it was a month ago - yet it has claimed the lives of two men. Men who knew the mountain well and have lived in the mountains for years, yet I ask myself, why? How pious I am in the wake of my "mountain-top" experiences to not respect the fear and danger of reality - it is always the last thought on my mind. The beauty and awe overtake my emotions and I am swept away in self-forgetfulness and complete awesome wonder.

In contrasting this situation to real life, how often I forget how close the danger actually is. I don't like to think about, and push it out of my mind much the same way I don't fear death when I'm on top of a beautiful mountain. But that doesn't disregard the reality that it's there and I will eventually have to succumb to its grip. So in knowing this ultimate fate of my life - what, or rather who, do I trust? I will fall. I will fail. And I will eventually die. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in 6 months, or maybe in 60 years - the point is that I CANNOT escape it, and that upsets me.
So what do I invest my life in? Definitely not anything that is mere mortal or the beauty that I see with my own eyes because it is NOT enough to save - it has existed long before me and will exist long after me. As 1 Timothy 6:6 says," For we came into the world with nothing, and we will leave with nothing." The mountains and the skies that echo their Maker's name with the steady rhythm of time from one daybreak to the next have existed from the beginning of creation and will march onward until the very end of history - nothing I do or say can or will stop that.

I simply cannot trust something that is not living - yet all living people RIGHT NOW on the earth will one day be gone as well. As much sympathy and admiration I receive from others in my lifetime is from souls that will one day die. That leaves me alone and destined to inescapable death. How I wish I could tell myself enough that this is simply not true, but I have to face the facts of reality - and oh how AWFUL they really are! I have two options: I can blatantly suppress this acknowledgement and just "have fun" and "make the most" of this predicament that I've found myself in, OR I can sober my heart to really question why.

Why would someone create me to place me in such a horrible circumstance - no matter how "good" my life may seem? What a means of cruel and unusual punishment - is this just someone's idea of a sick joke at my, and humankind's expense? Not if God is Love and has heard our pleas for help from our destitute situation. We have all fallen short, and we desperately need help. I need help. My friends need help. My co-workers need help. We are ALL in the same position - no matter how good or bad of a person you truly are. God has heard my cry and has answered through the most amazing gift of Love I could ever ask for - namely, Himself. He heard and He came for us. The God of the universe humbled Himself to come down to this lowly PIT of a place to DIE for me. It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem possible, but then again, do we really have any other choice when we HONESTLY evaluate our current situation? It's like rumors that most people don’t think are true, but why not search to find the root of it? Why not? What do you have to lose? It's only your life that is at stake. Jesus promises that "when you seek you will find". And believe me, you WILL find life more abundant than all this world has to offer! If only you would step out and believe - you will find that it is not merely a rumor, or organized religion, or spirituality, but a Love so deep and real you know that you were created to this end. All else pales in comparison to His love. It is real. It is eternal, and most of all it is True. He pursed us first, I didn't pursue Him. He sought me when I was still a sinner and will continue to sin until the day I die. And best of all, He died for me and took away the sting of death so that I could truly live. What a wonderful Savior!

Questioning...

I don't understand the confining chains of reality in life. Yes, they are as real and present as any mere physical absolute, such as gravity, but they are so confining on an emotional and spiritual level as well, that sometimes I just can't take it. Having experienced true freedom and love and validity in Christ has given me the liberty to break those chains - yet why do they always linger back as if I am still confined by them? Certain ideas and perspectives have ceased from within my being after becoming a Christian, yes, but many a time I find myself sinking back into the pit of constrained nothingness and utter hopelessness and desperation. This manifests itself in just a loss of zeal for anything - but mostly people and the Word of God.Thought: Could my life ever become so overrun with worldy/secular demands that I may concsiously give into the never-ending temptation of "just living for the world?" I pray not, but that God would grant me a repentant heart and a vision far greater than that of what I am enduring right now.

At what point do we need to be drawn back to the cross and to Jesus for clarity on life - every minute, a few times each minute? Or is it rather a concsious stream of communication with the Lord throughout every moment in which we live and breathe?As believers in Christ, we are called to live in the world, but not of the world. That means the daily constraints will be ever present, and the darkness all around does not want to embrace light - even when it's the most pure and innocent this world has ever seen. How clear we now see with new spiritual eyes that are called to love those who do not love us. How humiliating, yet how joyfull and hopefull it makes us! For it is not for this present moment that we are living, rather, our hearts, minds and joys are found in the One who accomplished it all before the creation of the world and who will reign forever as Lord and King of the universe!

We are distant creatures, and uniquely odd ones at that. Here we stand along the banks of the mighty rushing river, with one foot in and one foot still planted firmly on land. We can not fully lose our footing on the solid ground, for it is all we know and the only physical reality we have. We can see, touch, feel, and experience the glorious rushing waters with part of our fleshly bodies and deeply long to be swept along in its warm embrace. As Paul said," We only now see in part of this amazing Truth, but someday we will see it in full." We know it's there. Christ Jesus is just as real to me as the physical aspects of this world, yet I know that someday I will not just be touching Him faintly, but experiencing ALL of Him forever. To live is Christ, to die is gain. Just like a seed that must be buried deep below the warm sunshine and earthly wonder to die, decay and rot in the ground. It must if it is to produce new growth. There is no way around it. It must struggle and lose its tough, outer shell to allow what is on the inside to pierce through and create endless amounts of fruit and yieldings from now until eternity.

Ok, so I used to blog it up all the time, but I don't really know when or why I stopped. Partly because I ran into the fact that I only want certain thoughts or ideas floating around for all to see. However, I have recently come to grips with myself and my true feelings, so now feeling like I can impact the world for the better, I will begin documenting my thoughts on-line. No juicy details on surface stuff or even people or situations for that matter. Just stuff on life and love and the real meat and potatoes of REALITY...if there really is such a concrete, absolute in and of itself. Ok, that's all for now. Ciao.