Been Too Long... ...In a Bad Mood.

I have been feeling slightly empty lately... I do not like it.

I am not where I want to be, and I am struggling to get there, and I feel as though I cannot do this. I want to rest in the Lord, but my burdens distract me from it. I am not energetic like I used to be; never inspired. The kindness that came from my heart is dimmed and I feel as though I can no longer be genuine when I tell the truth. My posture is horrid and my attitude is worse. Occasionally I can feel my face pursed into a position that shows that there is not an ounce of happiness within me.

I feel as though I am a remnant of my family; not truly one of them but cannot truly separate. I consider myself a burden unto my friends. I cannot keep my word even to myself, yet dare to call myself a man of his word. Everyone that walks past me seems more like shadows of people I once had a connection with, not the people in search of becoming greater that they truly are. Everyone is better than me, and I am chasing an idea to find a peace that cannot exist within me.

It even feels as though I have even run Christ out of my life, accepting him into me and asking him to change me, then forcing him out at the first sign of him doing as I had wished. I blame him in my spare time, asking him how he could allow things to get so bad, and never choose to see that he may be making me better, or even that much of this is my own doing. I act and talk as though I want him in my life, but have on several occassions felt the need to question if this is even true.

I sought discipline, and turned out to be another disaster. I still seek it, but I lay awake at night wondering how I could have managed to let another day go by without even considering the disciplines I claimed to desire. I do not pray, meditate, fast, study, submit, serve, confess, worship, guide, or celebrate, not even when forced; nor do I seek simplicity or solitude. I am a creature of disgusting pride, showing off my latest gadgets to everyone and telling everyone of the "great progress" I have been making in my life.

I let time slip away from me while I do nothing. I spend the entire day thinking of all the things that I should have done by now, and never actually spend the day doing those things in order to carelessly spend time on things and people who truly need it. The time I waste is not even on me, its just voids of my life, creating no memories or chances for something great to happen.

Truly this cannot be what I am to expect of life, there must be something greater in store for me. Am I in a dark night of faith? Is there something great headed towards me that I cannot see because of my self-inflicted spiritual blindness? Is God going to fulfill his promises to me? Can I feel connected once again to this world and the inhabitants of it? May I one day even come to love greatly those who I consider despicable? May I feel loved once again, or truly for the first time?

I have not been as focused as I could be lately; my studies, my relationships, and my body have been suffering because I have kept myself weak and unguarded. I feel the pressure building upon me and I still fail to do what is necessary and do not show that I have what it takes to truly succeed. I cannot even submit to the Lord properly.

Music is dull to me. Television in no more than a waste of time. Food tastes bland and redundant. Water does not quench my thirst. Alcohol does not lift my spirits. Games do not entertain me. Clothes do not cover me. My bed provides no rest. Technology is no convenience. No shower can make me feel clean. So why can't I just seek the Lord, like I know I should, and finally gain the peace and joy I have been seeking so long? Do I not want Him?

I want to let go.
I don't want to be lonely anymore.

Pray, I need you.

Interesting Day, I'm Ravenous.

I have gone thus far into today without food -intentionally- so that I may grow in my spiritual journey into a better relationship with God. My intention is to do this every Wednesday so that through constant practice of this spiritual discipline, I may be frequently reminded of my need for Christ. I read and understand the idea that the practitioner of this discipline should not seek to tell others of the practice, for it will only feed into the vanity of that person and lead them to be one with themselves, and so continue towards their own destruction. My contention is that I am in need of others to pray for me as I work through this exercise, as I am still fallen and prone to temptation as much as any other. So in tell this to you, I expect that you would understand that this is an attempt to rally your spiritual support. If this is true, please do not encourage me on this subject directly, because then the chance for my vanity to be fed will truly be great; but rather, I urge that you silently keep me and all others that you pray for in you prayers.
The process of fasting has been quite interesting, and I am unsure of what my full response to this will be until I am past this. Today, I have felt a great encouragement by only truly feeling hunger pains to any large extent only once today. On the other hand, I have been feeling a draining of my energy, which could heavily relate to the lack of sleep I have been getting. I do not hunger now, but I do not feel like I have affordable energy, though I know in my heart that this is truly just my fallen nature trying to resist its own self-denial so that it may continue to love itself before God.

But that's just a single part of my life...

Recently, I have been hearing quite a number of people trying to discuss how Christians are to view the question of why bad things happen to good people. I think about this from time to time and seem to come up with the same or similar answers each time.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and during the six days of creating earth, God said that the creation was Good, and on the sixth day, God looks at all creation after he had created man and said it was Very Good. I do not think that God was saying that man is good, but that the whole of creation, then prefect and unaffected by the fall was so amazing that the Ultimately Pure and Perfect Creator declared it to be Very Good. This, however, was before the fall, which was caused by man and effects all of the Creation. It seems to be, then that man stripped the world and its individual creations from their status of being good; so then, how could we possibly be considered good? Further, in the New Testament, a man calls Jesus the Good Teacher, and Jesus replies by asking why he was called good, for no one is good except for the Lord. This was to show that Jesus is the Lord, and that he, unlike the world he humbled himself to be in, was good. So we see here that we cannot be good, for only Christ is good. The area of contention, then, is that now we have Christ in us, and so there is an aspect to us that is good, but as we are still under the fall, we will not be good until the consummation of God's promise.

The question should, then, be asking why good things happen to bad people. This is less easily explained but grants to us so much hope that one must do nothing other than weep for greatness that we would never be fit enough to receive by our own merit. The Lord grants good things to bad people so that the work of bringing people into a relationship with him may be fulfilled. The Hebrews understood, as a desert people, that when the Scripture says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, that this a reference to a good thing happening to all, as the people who live in a desert need rain for provisions. Good things happen to bad people so that God's love may be fulfilled, for as bad people live without good things, they feel like they have more of a reason to reject God; but in the midst of their struggle, God's helping hand will prove the validity of the gospel and the Holy Spirit will bring those people into a proper relationship with Him. This is not a fair enough answer to a more provocative question, but hopefully it stimulates thoughts within you. As for me, I am glad to be a person who receives good things that I do not deserve.

Christ, however, who dwells within me, deserves all things that I can give him. For the many good things he has done for me, including my pains and struggles, the least I can do is give him my all and become as a living sacrifice unto him. So, as a result, I will continue to work with him in order to grow with him and become more pleasing; not by my own merits, but through the works he has accomplished in me.



Oh, and on a side note, I told my friend that I was going to go with her to the discussions being held today and failed to do so. Since my word should always be true, I want to take this time to apologize, without excuse, and ask forgiveness; which I am certain she will extend for she has always been a fair friend, but I ask anyhow because it is still needed to be heard. Sorry.

Mourning Dove Woke Me Up Today

I am such a simple and fallen fool.

Thank God for being so great and wonderful! I failed yet again to see what he had wanted to show me and now I am beginning to piece together just a little more of what the Lord is working to accomplish in my life.

Over the past few days I have been feeling a little down and slightly depressed. I was not sure why this was, but I recognized that I needed some encouragement in my life and my attempts to become a better person. I only realize now that this thought was foolish and the mark of a person who was not aware of the true goings on in his own life. The search for encouragement was really a vain attempt for recognition of the efforts I have been putting forward to make myself a better and more Christlike man. What I failed to realize was that the Lord was holding me back from feeling these encouragements because He knew that I would only use them to give credit to my own efforts, even though the one who is truly doing all the work in me was not myself, but the holy Creator.

We all need encouragements in our lives from time to time, but there is also times when we need to focus on knowing that it is the Lord who deserves all the credit. The Father has been using this experience to help teach me this and gain in me a greater wisdom that I may use to further the Kingdom. The Christian life is to be filled with both blessings and hardships, both of which is truly a blessing from the Lord for the furtherance of His Kingdom.

The Lord has been helping me grow in patience and lessen my need for instant gratification, helping me to become more dependent and trusting on Him and to become more of the man I truly need to be.

On to a different matter...

I have been praying and meditating to the Lord with the intention of building a greater relationship to Him, and yet I feel as though my relationships here are dwindling and few in number. I am not saying that I need more friends, but that I am in a state where I feel disconnected and that I am losing contact with others. I want to feel as though there is somebody in the same place that I am in my spiritual journey and I want to hug them and cry with them. This does not mean that I am depressed, but rather I want to find them and have a deep connection with them and dig to deep emotional levels and truly let out all my feelings and feel like there is somebody that I am truly and fully open to.

I do this with the Lord in my prayers and meditation, but I sometimes feel that I do not have that tangible person who I can feel see and hear with me expressing the same level of openness and trust. Call me out on this if you feel so led, but I sometimes feel that the Lord does not want to fully open Himself up to me because I am not yet fulfilled to His loving standards, and until then I cannot be fully trusted either. In my heart I know he is this way with Christ, who is in me, but I feel that because I am not yet complete that I am blocked from feeling Him. O how I want to be that way, and how my heart longs for this, but I cannot help but feel damned and humiliated by my own fallen nature and my own resistance to my own will.

Pray, because your life depends on it.

Tougher Than Expected

I find the process of becoming a better person to be filled with more difficulty than previously projected, and that my life is and has been in far worse shape than I would have originally thought.

Now that the base layer of the entry is laid out, let me begin with notes of interest...
God is good, great, and the perfect redeemer. He has brought me so far from where I was and is guiding me ever more towards a more refined aspect of betterment. He has been with me and my family and has helped me to become something far greater than what I could have thought of myself to be. The Lord has blessed me far more than I recognize and far more that I would deserve if it were not that He is pleased in Christ, who resides within me. Through Christ, I am not only forgiven my sins, but am pleasing to God, and I am grateful for this.

So why am I so down-trotted?
I am sad to say that I took on this venture ill-prepared, not fully recognizing the weight of sin in my life (not claiming that I have seen all my sin thusly, but that I failed to acknowledge the fall to its true extent) and how great the impact of the fall has been permitted to reign in my life.
When I went home, I was tried and tested by people who were not aware that they were testing me. At home, I reside in a secular social sphere; and they act in a manner that they see fit that they fail to recognize as sin. The result of this is that they encouraged me to maintain a life of sin without even knowing it. The problem was that they were not aware of the goals that have been set before me in my quest to become more Christlike; the result of which is that they continued on as though I was not pursuing change or have even changed at all at that point.

What became the most alerting was when I returned back to Geneva after the Spring Break. I was not aware that people held certain views of me as strongly as they did. If you have not known or I have not made it clear to you before, I have for that larger portion of my life placed myself at a lower setting than I should have carried myself in order for people to not depend on me for anything. I did not want to be in a relationship with any person, I didn't even want to be considered as an asset to people. I maintained friendships only for the reasons of maintaining my sanity and to serve my own purposes. People were not a priority on my list, and I did as I pleased so that no man could say that I was lower than them.

Where this manifested, however, I was not prepared for. As I have begun my process of seeking out the best possible me, I thought that the most encouraging place would be my house at Kerr, with my brothers in Christ. The day that I came back was St. Patrick's Day. Most of the house wanted to go to the local bar, and I opted not to go. I thought this was a simple refusal of a night with alcohol, but the dismissal of the invites led to shock among the people who live in the house. This made me come to quite a realization. I tell most people that I will drink usually at most of once a week, and more than likely not to any excess (often not even to the point of legitimate intoxication) on account of the strong alcoholism that lies in my bloodline on either side of my family. So when I turned them down, it seemed natural to me, and it was not the first time I did not go drinking with the guys. When they were shocked, though, I realized that they had an expectation of me that involved me being a habitual drinker who was anticipating the Christian holiday that is stereotypically honored via sinful behaviour with great delight. This act alerted me to the expectations peole hold for me, and that I often dive into head first without much thought. One of the other exectations is that I will swear at a seemingly constant rate, and that the word that most often comes out of my mouth is more than likely of ill-repute.

This means that there is an even greater amount of work that I have to do in order to become a better person. Reputation is an important thing, and Christians should be aware of their reputation because it can heavily affect your ability to do great works for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. My reputation is of a rather lowly person, from whom love does not overflow and who delights in exploring sins as a replacement for the Lord. I was for a time not even aware that this is what people subconciously depicted me as. Now I have to do something that I would have never even considered as an intelligent or reasonable thing, I have to live down a bad reputation. I have to let people down as the leader of sin. The Lord has opened my eyes to the fact that I have to deny myself by letting people down in their expectations of my heavily flawed character, whom they found to be endearing because of their fallen state.

Please continue to pray for me, I am in need of your help.

Christian Meditation?

I have taken ill... pray for me.


This is a bit of a bummer, but Since the Lord is on my side, my quest towards betterment will continue. Quite a bit has happened since the last post, and I am constantly praying that I may keep an attentive ear to the Lord so that I may grow in wisdom and faith. I have finally sat myself down to read the book Celebration of Discipline, by Richard J. Foster, and so far my analysis of the book is quite positive, which would be a shock to anybody in my Evangelism class, since most of the time, I just pick those books apart to find fault in them.

The book is a rather interesting discussion of Spiritual Disciplines, and I am taking my time with the book, though it is a fairly simplistic read. I finished the section on Meditation, and I have to say that I am already very encouraged by the book. After discussing the need for meditation and how one does not have to be one of the Religious Elite, whose names will be heard in theological history until the second coming, in order to be a strong practitioner of meditation, all it really takes is desire and commitment. Discussing the difference in purposes between Christian meditation and the meditation of commonly thought of Eastern Religions, Foster shows that where the Eastern religions work to attain separation from the world to seek oneness with a false pretense of the world, Christians meditate to be more firmly planted in the world, shining the light of Christ. He pointed out that Christ, and many well respected biblical characters, had often searched for personal refuge and time alone with the Almighty. I was then encouraged when he described the many methods by which people have meditated and gained a better relationship with the Lord because of which.

One such method, which is the one I have personally been using, is the Quaker method, nicknamed "Palms Down, Palms Up" meditation. This method involves three rather simple steps, which I am sure to complicate.
The first step is to be in your position (the most preferred is sitting, but any position would work) with both of your palms aimed down, as though you are giving to the Lord. During this step, you will specifically give to the Lord, naming things specifically; giving as much as you can or wish to - though keep in mind that the Lord wants all of you, so I give all I can.
After giving all you have, place your palms up, so that you may ask and receive of the Lord all He has to give and all that you ask. Again, be specific, but understand that the point of these is to exchange all of your being with the Lord, that you may share in your identity completely with the Father who loves you.
Lastly, there is the time in which you remain silent, specifically you, and not the Father. In your complete silence, with even your heart calmed to no more than its beats, you listen to God. After doing this form of meditation, I have felt greatly relieved, and excited about the day to come, and hope that you may experience likewise if you should so choose to do this.

There is so much more that I wish to share here, but as I said at the beginning of this, I am ill, and do not feel like going on would be the most advisable choice for myself. However, I do pray for you, all of you who have chosen to read these posts. I pray with an understanding that the Lord will take care of you, and may keep you from falling to evil. I pray with full confidence that he will keep us all under his will and will grant to all of us more and more of His holy wisdom every glorious day.

God Bless all of you,

Ken

Don't Be an @$$hole for Too Long!

I have been finding much wisdom packed into the past couple of weeks. It has been coming from all sorts of sources, and I feel that I am starting to really open up to it, which is less than fun for me because I have for so long been a creature of rebellion and dissent; to the point of identifying myself more by that than by my relationship to Christ.

My problem is that I am coming to an end pass where I am being forced to decided who I am and who I want to be. I have to really look at myself and find my flaws and strengths, scrutinize and label my character and reputation. This is not an easy thing to accomplish because my mood for that day can really affect my ability to see into myself. If I force myself to do this, though, I will at least have some footing in the process of becoming a better me.

Heads up before I get too into me, though; I have found strange sources of wisdom, noticing how they have come into fruition through these strange sources because I have made too clear a choice to ignore God's Word where I should be listening to it. These sources include my sadness, drunkenness, and most strangely during a moment on which the remote control was not working. This moment was when I was flipping through channels and it stopped on VH1, and on this channel there was a Kanye West performance. As irritating as this was, because I have for the most part thought of Kanye as a man who lacked the significant talent necessary to come up with original music, Kanye was working in spoken word (as opposed to rap - because there is a difference) and was saying about how he grew up in Chicago and that everyone there engrained him with such homophobia that he was afraid to even be near one, lest he be called one himself. Asking, rhetorically, what to say to a man who was raised like that when he wants to talk to a homosexual, he resolved to say that Chicago was wrong, and pointed out that his broken nature built up by his home was wrong; ending this verse - which utilized the words far more artistically - with the phrase "Don't be an asshole for too long."

This, and many other things, really got me to thinking about myself. I know that on surface level - and most likely to some fair depth - I am and appear to be an asshole; something I have even prided myself on. I cuss WAY too much, I insult people relentlessly, I never care enough about my education, and my nonchalance has become a burden to far too many people. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it is the start of it all. Why has this come into being for my life? Why do I work so hard to have a negative image? Most simply, I want to be that person, I want for people to be distant from me, becaue I don't want to be vulnerable again. My bad experiences in life have led me to want to separate myself from those who can hurt me, which is why I can make so many people like me yet minimize the amount of people who I would have intimate conversations with. If people are nearest and dearest to me, that means that they have they ability to let me down harder than anyone else can. I dont want to put that burden on anyone, nor do I want to be that burden. But no, this is not true, either. I want to be that guy in everyone's life, and I want others to be that for me. I want someone that is in my life and involved in my life, to push at me and accept me totally; pushing me to become better. I want to be the person people come to in times of need, when they need to confide in someone, find wisdom in, or simply ask for advice.
Here is the problem though, I fight things, because I am weak. I appear strong and fortified, but barely scratch the surface and one would be able to see that I fall to easily to sin, rebellion and the advice of the unseen devils. My pain is affecting me to extents they never should be allowed to, because I have allowed my past to go far beyond suggesting my present, but dictate it with unyeilding pressure. Like gangrene, the sins cast against me in the past have infected much of my body and are still trying to spread into my heart.
There is hope in the Lord, and in this I am certain. Because my God has promised to free me from sin, I can rest assured in Him and know that he will remove it all, so that all it is is a tool for His glorious kingdom.

My problem is this - Discipline
Because I have failed to properly excerise discipline, I have failed to be the best person I can be. Without discipline, I do not understand depravity, nor do I have focus. Discipline is a driving force behind wisdom. I need to practice discipline, so that I may truly experience a right relationshi with God, with people, and with myself. I need to develop control of my body, of my tongue, of my mind, of my soul. I need to learn how to give myself up, how to become true to all, and how to properly alignmyself with the Will of the Lord.
I know that I said I need to control my tongue, but I know it is necessary to repeat Kanye to make sure that the emphasis is correctly placed, because he had a very stong and profound point when he said "Don't be an asshole for too long." The center of the sentence is pivotal, because it has character to it. The harsh word is not known to be used very often as a term of endearment, in fact, it is known to be used as a oint of giving a person a very distinct and negative personality. The very meaning of the word is one that is recognized for the oint of it being related to human waste, so right of the bat, being called or described as such, a man is refered to with the same conotation as a person who is the exriment of society. Moving on in the sentence, beyond the meaning of the word used, Kanye has a point that he may not have even realized himself. By being one for too long, a person will always be known as that, and the reputation will be difficult to get away from. With such a reputation, the likely course of action will be for such a person to embrace it (like I have) and continue on as such so that he will not have to worry about letting people down. Also, by being one too long, one will begin to believe that about themselves, and may be stuck as such a person, and never challenge themselves to become any better, to seek true humanity.

Recently, a good friend of mine challenged me perhaps far more than she realizes. During a conversation I had with her, she dared to tell me that she had looked at me at a far deeper level than I allow to be seen to most, and she told me that I was a good person, and that I had potential to be great, and that there was a chance for me to be the best me. More than many of the things she had told me during this conversation, this opened my eyes to something; I don't have to be the person I have been identifying myself as. I don't have to swear a lot to get my points across, I do not have to be insulting to gain notice. Most shocking to me was the idea that I don't have to be an asshole. As odd as it seemes, up until now I did not even realize that I was living under the idea that I have to be an asshole. I do not have to have an abrasive personality, and that I can let people in and can be vulnerable. Now reborn under Christ, I have choice and free will, and I really can choose to be a better person.
So what do I want to do with this? Here is what I know I want:
1. Stop cussing - It is a gross habit that is unattractive and brings humor out of vulgarity, showing only that I was too undisciplined to come up with a more fitting way of saying something I intended to be comedic.
2. Stop insulting/gossiping - There is no need to tear down my brothers and sisters, they have just as many insecurities and vulnerabilities as I do. Bringing a person down is not the correct way of pulling myself up.
3. Gain control over my body - This is not an issue of weight & body image, but a realization that this body is my temple, that I am supposed to worship through it and that evangelistically a person who does not take care of their body does not seem to be representing a religion that makes a difference in people.
4. Develop a stong prayer & devotion life - My lack of spiritual disciplines is noticible, but the issue is that I am experiencing a lacking in my relationship with my Lord because of my own foolish decision to not try at it. If I cannot assemble a decent relationship with the Lord, how can I even dare to think that I am fit for a good relationship with another person, or even truly seek an intimate relationship with somebody.
5 - and fairly unrelated -. I need to fix the "p" button on my computer - While I was in Australia, I was eating rice over my computer, and a single grain managed to get under the keys. while coming back to America, the grain moved from under the left arrow key to under my p, so often the key does not actually take, and this is very annoying, I dont need this kind of struggle while I share intimate moments in my life.

If you have read this, far, thank you. Also, please pray. I would appreciate any prayer for me, but I would really like that you prayerfully consider yourself, that you may find a way to become the best you. Also, pray for my family, and for yours as well; we are not the only ones who struggle.