"My soul is losing."
"My heart feels heavy."
"My punishment must be coming because I do the very things I hate."

How do we win?
How do we overcome the temptations that our minds and bodies throw at our souls?
How do we get out of this hole of hopeless battling?

How do we grow?
How do we put a stop to our boredom?
How do we gain the qualities we want to have?

How do we know Jesus?

Meditate.
Meditate on the words that God himself wrote for us and our specific situations.

Meditate--to contemplate deeply.
This is what the Bible tells us to do.
How we do it is through memorizing the words and keeping them in our thoughts as we go about the day.

I have forever been horrible at this.
This method helped me:
-get a small journal
-print out the verses you are going to memorize for the week and tape them to the front of the page
-keep a tally of how many times you say them each day
-write your thoughts on the verses you are memorizing on the back of the page
-don't try to memorize too many verses each week...it'll make you not do it (1-4 is good)
-look back over previous weeks to keep them fresh and accessible

R.I.P.

Rest...In...Peace.

We see this everywhere around Halloween.
Blood, guts, and gore are our entertainment.
"Hey man, my costume is cooler than yours because, I mean, you look dead, but I look really dead."
The nastier the better, right?
It's interesting that, in the middle of this, a subtle message of beautiful hope has squeezed it's way in.

What if...what if this statement is for life, and not death alone?
What if peace is something we could gain and rest was simply the result of that gain?
The promise of entering into rest still stands.
So let's reach it.
Peace cannot come from something that has no peace...aka...me.
So it must come from something out of this world.

If you are tired, peace is your answer.



Joy found in gravestones.

I have a bonsai tree.
I have a bonsai tree because it makes me feel like Mr. Miyagi.

I want to feel like Mr. Miyagi because he seems like the type of guy who lived a contemplative and meaningful life because he thought through his decisions instead of immediately responding with ignorance.

Wax on.
Wax off.

I went up to the park today.

The book I just bought was longing to be read so I took it up to the park to read it. The reason I had time to go to the park in the first place was because the work I had to do this evening was cancelled. I often like it when things get cancelled…mostly because of my laziness, but also because things getting cancelled causes me to actually think through what I am going to do with my time instead of flowing past moments and days.

Anyway, as I was leaving the park, I walked past a guy with a metal detector. I looked around for the beach and the other old guys with metal detectors, but neither were there. Now, because there was no sand around, I had to stop and study the situation. He was walking all around the park, through mothers chasing their children, past the flock of geese and flying frisbees, just following his plotted path to search the whole area.

I thought to myself, “I would never do that.” It just seemed like a goofy thing to be doing; walking around waving the metal detector over the freshly-cut grass. My eyes moved from the guy to my car door as I approached it.

As I went to turn on my car I looked up to see the guy bent over digging something out of the grass. Then I laughed and reminded myself how much of a judgmental goof I was.

Because even things that seem purposeless have rewards.

Fake Me + Real God = Religion
Real Me + Real God = Gospel

"What now?"

Taken by my dear friend, Kyle.

I talk to middle schoolers about the Bible on Wednesday nights.

"Come, Holy Spirit, come."

That was our prayer.

We have been studying the Holy Spirit and tonight was an awesome night of worship and discussion.

"So we have the Holy Spirit. Now what do we do about it?" was one of their questions.

First thing we thought about was giving our shoes away to people who need them more than us.

So that's what we're doing.

There are a lot more "what now's" left though.

They are ready to keep asking.

Monkey.

I realized today that there might be another reason to why I don't get what I want all the time.

Here it is:

The things I desire seem to be good things. They seem to be the best things, at times. They are obviously things I think are good because I desire them. And I know we live in a "you can't always get what you want" society. But I was asking myself, "What if I could always get what I want? Would I want that?"

Then I thought about birthday parties and Christmas.

Sometimes you get what you want and everyone is happy. "Yay, we all knew it," is in the air.

But what about the, "No way! Really? This is awesome!" presents? The kind you remember for years and you define your Christmas by as a kid. "That was the year I got the..."

What if God wants to surprise me?

What if He knows what I want and just simply wants to give me something better that I can't see yet?

What if He wants to blow my mind and say, "You thought this was what was best for you, but look at what I've set up for you."

God wants to surprise me.

Speaking of blowing minds...read about the whirlwind in Job 38.

Beautiful...what does it mean?

Feet in the sand.

Scarf on the neck.

Boat on the water.

Swing on the porch.

Storm over the ocean.

Melody in the ear.

Family at the table.

Waves on the rocks.

Air in the morning.

Feeling of the look.

Story of the friend.

Person at the door.

Picture on the desk.

Moon through the trees.

Rain in the night.

Warmth of the fire.

Road under the wheels.

Mountains in the fall.

Explanation in the smile.

Reason for the question.

Beauty is seeing something beyond anything we've ever seen before, and, in the getting-to-know, we realize it is what we have needed all along.

I went to the U2 show last night.

Two special moments:

-Fist pumping and yelling the words to "Elevation."

-Listening to Bono transition from "Amazing Grace" to "Where The Streets Have No Name." Could it be that that is exactly how it works? Amazing grace takes us where the streets have no name. I don't mean for that to sound cheesy. All I can say is the experience was beautiful.