Angst: strong worry and unhappiness, especially about personal problems (Cambridge Dictionary)
I have noticed a common sense of “angst” that cuts across almost all of us. There is a sense that life is not what we thought it would be like. There seems to be an undercurrent, especially in those rare times when we truly quiet our minds and assess the status of our hearts. We check in on our hearts and it whispers to us that familiar notion, “I was made for more than I am living; Am I not a king or princess?” We wonder where our life went astray. This sense we are not living out our true purpose. Ask anyone this question and I will bet a “yes” or a blank look as their mind quickly assess if honesty is the best response to keep their facade of “life is good” going.
This noticing of ourselves I believe is a nudge from God who made us in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:27). God’s image is not shown in our failures or shortcomings. For He created each one of us that we might live a life that glorifies Him (1 Corinthians 10:31)(Isaiah 43:6-7). If God is love (1 John 4:18) and we are His image bearers then our true selves must reflect His love. Love is patience, kind, doesn’t envy, never boastful or conceited, nor rude and never selfish (1 Corinthians 13:4). These are expressed in our compassion, friendship, truthfulness, intimacy, and giving up ourselves for the benefit of others which in turn glorifies God. These actions reflect His nature and our natural self before the Fall of our parents; Adam and Eve.
However, our image is marred by evil. Evil is the thoughts and actions which take us away from glorifying God. The evil has taken hold in each of our hearts because we, like our original parents chose to rely on our own abilities and not of our creator who made us for His purpose. This going away from God’s purpose is the definition of being a sinner. We are totally depraved in the presence of God (Romans 3:9-18) and not worthy of His grace, which He gives to us freely out of no act on our behalf (Genesis 6:5). Yes, I said trying to be good is not what our salvation and our predestined royalty is about. All sin has its roots, very simply, in lying to ourselves, others, and God. This, my friends, is what is keeping us individually and collectively in “angst”. We are constantly fed a stream of lies by evil, the ruler of earth and our culture (Matthew 4:7-10). Evil whispers in our ears that we are not good enough, pretty enough, smart enough or worthy of anything that is good. This pervasive doubt is why we don’t believe in heaven, for evil has convinced us that there is no such place. So out of this lie and doubt/unbelief, we try to be our own god (little “g”) and create heaven on earth.
We do a pretty good job at creating this false heaven; the heaven on earth I call the “American Dream”. We wall ourselves off to anything that is not comfortable or easy. We worship earthly success over Godliness, for we have become creators and controllers of our own destiny. Any of us who have lived long enough or have been broken realize that we have no control over our existence, life just happens to us. We are so mired in the busyness and mess of our lives we cannot step back and understand the larger story of our lives. It takes being broken to understand, we control nothing. It is the greatest lie the enemy to life tell us; that we can control our lives. We erect these walls out of fear of losing control, for if someone else is truly driving, where will He take us? He may just take us out of our comfort zone.
Most of daily existence is lived in this fear that is outside our walls. These are specially built walls which we think protects us. These visible and invisible walls are constructed in our minds by our beliefs in materialism and consumerism, and is re-enforced by bad behavior modification/suppression (religion) and painted by a pretty coat of numbness. In order to keep our walls up, we must oppress the rest of the planet by hording its resources. Once in a while we peak over the walls and see a broken world that we know needs our help! We look at the wall and tell ourselves “it’s too high, I can’t go over there it’s not safe, and/or I really can’t make a difference in what’s going on over there.” This “looking over the wall” adds to our angst and fear.
I have learned that behavior modification or better put using our own will to try to suppress our evil sinful ways, will only last for short stints, and then our wickedness returns shortly, followed by the guilt of having regressed and failed. This guilty knowing reveals itself in our angst. This behavior modification/suppression is what Religion teaches us and is why most of us at some point left the church and God to get away from the burden of guilt. Jesus spoke of this burden that the religion lays upon their congregations (Matthew 23:1-4) describes why so many don’t want to go to church.
The root of the problem is that culture/evil tells us to love ourselves MORE at the cost of others. This is not the commandment Jesus tells us to live by. He commands us to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves equally (Luke 10:26–28). Jesus commands us to love. Commandments are calls to action, something we do. Therefore, it is not a warm fuzzy feeling He asks us to find in ourselves, but a call to action. Maybe the way out of the guilt and the way to truly live is to look at the root of the problem and that is, who and how should we be loving? We all know the prevailing wisdom set forth by almost all the self help authors. They tell us to love ourselves and to strive for improving ourselves over the call to improve/help others. The message is “get what you want in life by taking it.” Looking at any magazine stand will give anyone a great snap shot on what dozens of so called experts want to tell you and I how to improve ourselves, thus resulting in a more joyful life. If this knowledge of self improvement is so easy, so accessible, and widely read/heard, shouldn’t it be self-evident that our culture is continuing to grow happier and happier, thus each generation is more joyful than the last? I don’t think the state of the world and the American family point to any such reasoning or that the success of these messages is having on us.
In my late teens and twenties, I too fell victim to these self-help shamans, who peddled these false ways. They spoke of prosperity and those things that come with it; fame, fortune, contentment, and safety. I drank the Kool Aide and became drunk on its promises. At some point in my thirties, I had attained everything they spoke of. I had won, or at least I thought. But deep inside there was this gaping hole of discontentment and angst. I tried to ignore it. I did a really good job of keeping my life busy and numb mostly by buying man toys and searching for the next river or outdoor adventure or business to conquer. The walls were doing a good job of keeping me from being able to see myself for what I was made to be. Then God made His will for me evident. He began to break those walls down around me. He took away my prosperity and what He revealed was a man who wanted to love and be loved (John 1:12-13). I began to feel and to have emotions. I now see people not for what they can do for me, but how can I know them and love them with my gifts (John 3:3). My heart and eyes opened to a whole new reality, like going from black/white TV to HDTV. This new way of seeing/feeling life is now filled with a whole range of experiences, from seeing pure evil, pain, suffering, brokenness to joy in finding love and seeing my son smile when he senses my approval, seeing brokenness restored, and all the while watching how God works out His will in others. It is a wild ride my friends. Nothing like I thought life would be like, but at times a sense of content rolls over me. Not often enough but the angst is still there!
I now know the angst feeling is God telling me that He has much more for me beyond this earthly life. He wants me to take my talents and my prosperity and give to those who have been disadvantage by geography, society, government, and economics. I will use this angst, not spur myself onto acquiring more things or in the pursuit if self actualization, but as God’s prodding me to take the gifts and wealth He has entrusted me with and spread it to those that are in need. It also pushes me to tell my story so that others can identify their angst and the hole in their hearts, in hopes they may too find a life worth living in high definition.
We are not alone in this angst and we are not without a guide, a Sheppard (John 10:10-11). Angst connects us all to God’s promise and His will. We just have to love Him and others by taking up our cross (Mark 8:34) and following Jesus for He came to show us the way. By loving others, our action(commandment) of love changes other’s lives for the better and not by sheer coincidence it give us Life and stores rewards for us in Heaven for eternity. Jesus said "for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:36-36)
May your angst nudge you back towards becoming the man/woman God designed you to be. My hope is you realize, that you are not in control, and that you were made for more. When angst arises it is the holy spirit, your intuition; a helper that Jesus put in the hearts of us all, which guides us to reclaim our true image (John 14:16-18). The answer is contained in our hearts, and by having faith, you and I will work out our way to God by following Jesus and not the ways of culture. Your heart is good. Let others see it. It contains your true image. This journey of the heart will hurt for their will be much suffering in giving up ourselves. Life/Salvation does not come cheaply. Live in angst, but do not ignore it.
I love you all more than you know.
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Man+Porn = Woman + Romance Novels
The devastation to men inflicted by pornography is due to our visual nature. Therefore the same destruction is happening for women with the romance novel due to their emotional nature. Porn and Romance novels distort reality and damage true intimacy which is a sin. One is acceptable in culture one is not! FaceBook Post
From JV - not all men are inflicted by pornography, although we are all visual, and not all women are inflicted by romance novels.......distortion is there only if you allow it
October 8 at 11:31am ·
From PP - what the hell are you trying to say?
October 8 at 11:47am
My Reply - We are all inflicted to some level by sexual perversion and lust. I was just pointing out to all the women what they think is harmless may be ruining their ability to be truly intimate with their husband or boyfriend just like porn ruins a man's view of his wife or girlfriend.
October 8 at 12:25pm
My Reply - Not all men I agree! I know it runs rampant in groups of men I know especially with the high school young men. Porn is a huge problem more addictive than alcohol and drugs because it requires nothing of us and cheaper and easier to get and just seconds away. I have stayed away from it and have had to ask people to not send me those type of emails. I would be lying if I didn't partake of it in the past. Start burning those romance novels :)
October 8 at 3:34pm
From SM - MP, my friend, pornography may ruin YOUR view of your wife or girlfriend... but do not generalize in your comments, as pornography itself is harmless, even beneficial if taken in small doses. It may help some to open up to unknown pleasures... It´s the misuse and abuse that is harmful... and that, my friend cannot be generalized.
October 8 at 4:17pm
My Reply - So your logic goes as if to make a little crack or heroine is ok? Porn like any other evil works slowly to own the user! If you said it in Spanish I wouldn't be able to reply which in some cases might be less offensive. One day we must meet again.
Mon at 8:14pm
From JV - not all men are inflicted by pornography, although we are all visual, and not all women are inflicted by romance novels.......distortion is there only if you allow it
October 8 at 11:31am ·
From PP - what the hell are you trying to say?
October 8 at 11:47am
My Reply - We are all inflicted to some level by sexual perversion and lust. I was just pointing out to all the women what they think is harmless may be ruining their ability to be truly intimate with their husband or boyfriend just like porn ruins a man's view of his wife or girlfriend.
October 8 at 12:25pm
My Reply - Not all men I agree! I know it runs rampant in groups of men I know especially with the high school young men. Porn is a huge problem more addictive than alcohol and drugs because it requires nothing of us and cheaper and easier to get and just seconds away. I have stayed away from it and have had to ask people to not send me those type of emails. I would be lying if I didn't partake of it in the past. Start burning those romance novels :)
October 8 at 3:34pm
From SM - MP, my friend, pornography may ruin YOUR view of your wife or girlfriend... but do not generalize in your comments, as pornography itself is harmless, even beneficial if taken in small doses. It may help some to open up to unknown pleasures... It´s the misuse and abuse that is harmful... and that, my friend cannot be generalized.
October 8 at 4:17pm
My Reply - So your logic goes as if to make a little crack or heroine is ok? Porn like any other evil works slowly to own the user! If you said it in Spanish I wouldn't be able to reply which in some cases might be less offensive. One day we must meet again.
Mon at 8:14pm
Monday, September 28, 2009
Have Not's and The Have's
Have Not's hate the Have's. The Have’s hate the Have Not’s. And nobody is left in the middle. I want the middle but I am finding it a hard place to find. Hey doesn’t Jesus want us to be Have Not’s? Maybe that’s why He has taken from me from a Have... to the middle on my way down to be a Have Not. Don’t hate me my Have friends, I won't take you down with me unless you want to go.
FaceBook Post
From JS - I dont think Jesus wants us to be a have not; but rather wants us to give generously on all occaisions; I dont think doing that as have not will not work very well.
September 28 at 1:53pm
My Reply - Bad Theology when I hear the Prosperity Bible Pitch. The Way as Jesus showed us: To Believe Jesus is God(faith), He chooses to save us, saved produces good works, we die, we are resurrected by Jesus who judges us by our works either rewards us or 2nd permanent death occur. Luke 14:27, John 12:25, Mark 8:35, Mat 16:26, Mar 10:25. I don’t think anything Christ talks about being a HAVE in this life! In the eternal life Have all you want if only if you have been saved and have good works.
September 28 at 2:44pm
From GW - HE wants us to focus "not of this world", but of the world of everlasting life. HE does want to bless us here on this earth ("in heaven as it was on earth") just not loose our focus. HE blessed so many in the bible, Solomon, David, Job - unfortunately, look what happens to most - they loose focus on the Word.
September 28 at 3:17pm
From JS - Here's a couple of verses that have meant a lot to me. I'm not a theologian so I would say any theology good or bad, on my part, was inadvertent. I have personal relationship with him that time and time again, I've experienced that he loves me so much and that he is my provision. Each and every time all my needs are met according to his riches. (Philippians 4:19) Jesus Came that we might have life and have it abundantly...John 10:10, 3 Jo 1:2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. and I always encourage people to remember that it is the "Love" of money that is the root of all evil. NOT money itself. And isn't the gift of "giving" one of the spiritual gifts? If it was more noble to be poor financially and to be a "have not" wouldn't we be cursing others when we give to them? Isn't this whole idea of poverty being piety, creating a double bind on all who hear it? I think that's why it's hard to find the middle.
September 28 at 4:09pm
From - GW - Well said Joseph
September 28 at 4:14pm
From JS - Thanks George. What if all the "Haves" loved the "have nots" ? then everybody would be covered. :)
September 28 at 4:40pm
My Reply - Joe, not coming after you but I hear so many people think and especially the churches tell people that if you just follow Christ life will be easier. Then the church gets people into doing Christianity and the hole point to Christ as you put so well it to have relationship with Him. It is that relationship that fuels good works and leads us away from greed, gluttony, pride etc.. those things that rob us from true life in Christ. Yes Yes TWO Commandments Christ said were the most important Love God and Love Each other and the rest would fall in place. Our evil run culture give us the Have and Have Not arena to keep us fighting and not loving.
September 28 at 4:45pm
From GW - Joseph, if all the Haves loved the Have nots this world would be a much better place. The most important commandment given us is to Love. period, no questions, no asterisks, just Love. All I concern myself with every day is this...Do I "HAVE" Christ in my heart and am I sharing HIS love with the "Havenots"?
September 28 at 4:59pm
My Reply -Have Not's Fear not meeting their needs. The Have's Fear not meeting their wants. Philippians 4 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. It is all about Christ
September 29 at 8:43am
From GW - To look at it another way MP. There are really only two groups of people in this world, the Haves and the Have Nots...I agree, but you either Have CHRIST and are saved, or you Have not and are lost...just something to think about.
September 29 at 9:04am
FaceBook Post
From JS - I dont think Jesus wants us to be a have not; but rather wants us to give generously on all occaisions; I dont think doing that as have not will not work very well.
September 28 at 1:53pm
My Reply - Bad Theology when I hear the Prosperity Bible Pitch. The Way as Jesus showed us: To Believe Jesus is God(faith), He chooses to save us, saved produces good works, we die, we are resurrected by Jesus who judges us by our works either rewards us or 2nd permanent death occur. Luke 14:27, John 12:25, Mark 8:35, Mat 16:26, Mar 10:25. I don’t think anything Christ talks about being a HAVE in this life! In the eternal life Have all you want if only if you have been saved and have good works.
September 28 at 2:44pm
From GW - HE wants us to focus "not of this world", but of the world of everlasting life. HE does want to bless us here on this earth ("in heaven as it was on earth") just not loose our focus. HE blessed so many in the bible, Solomon, David, Job - unfortunately, look what happens to most - they loose focus on the Word.
September 28 at 3:17pm
From JS - Here's a couple of verses that have meant a lot to me. I'm not a theologian so I would say any theology good or bad, on my part, was inadvertent. I have personal relationship with him that time and time again, I've experienced that he loves me so much and that he is my provision. Each and every time all my needs are met according to his riches. (Philippians 4:19) Jesus Came that we might have life and have it abundantly...John 10:10, 3 Jo 1:2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. and I always encourage people to remember that it is the "Love" of money that is the root of all evil. NOT money itself. And isn't the gift of "giving" one of the spiritual gifts? If it was more noble to be poor financially and to be a "have not" wouldn't we be cursing others when we give to them? Isn't this whole idea of poverty being piety, creating a double bind on all who hear it? I think that's why it's hard to find the middle.
September 28 at 4:09pm
From - GW - Well said Joseph
September 28 at 4:14pm
From JS - Thanks George. What if all the "Haves" loved the "have nots" ? then everybody would be covered. :)
September 28 at 4:40pm
My Reply - Joe, not coming after you but I hear so many people think and especially the churches tell people that if you just follow Christ life will be easier. Then the church gets people into doing Christianity and the hole point to Christ as you put so well it to have relationship with Him. It is that relationship that fuels good works and leads us away from greed, gluttony, pride etc.. those things that rob us from true life in Christ. Yes Yes TWO Commandments Christ said were the most important Love God and Love Each other and the rest would fall in place. Our evil run culture give us the Have and Have Not arena to keep us fighting and not loving.
September 28 at 4:45pm
From GW - Joseph, if all the Haves loved the Have nots this world would be a much better place. The most important commandment given us is to Love. period, no questions, no asterisks, just Love. All I concern myself with every day is this...Do I "HAVE" Christ in my heart and am I sharing HIS love with the "Havenots"?
September 28 at 4:59pm
My Reply -Have Not's Fear not meeting their needs. The Have's Fear not meeting their wants. Philippians 4 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. It is all about Christ
September 29 at 8:43am
From GW - To look at it another way MP. There are really only two groups of people in this world, the Haves and the Have Nots...I agree, but you either Have CHRIST and are saved, or you Have not and are lost...just something to think about.
September 29 at 9:04am
Friday, September 18, 2009
It's Not the Thought that Counts
"If there is anything I can do for you or your family just let me know!." I HATE THIS PHRASE. Come on people those words when spoken mean you are not KIND or COMPASSIONATE enough to stop your selfishness to help. Quit patronizing those that need help and just do it. I call this JOCO, I am too busy making my life safe/easy syndrome. Dam, just go hold her hand if can't think of anything else! FaceBook Post
From SM - MP, I would try to do anything for you, but you are hopeless ... !!!! :)
September 18 at 3:40pm
From CC - Is everything ok? If you need anything let us know... We are here for ya. :)
September 18 at 6:47pm
From TJC - MP, you know Shara and I are always there for you guys
September 18 at 9:40pm
My Reply - This is not about me my friends and thank you I know you are there and have been of great help when I needed it. My intent here was to share with you my experience with my sister who is terriably ill. I have noticed those that offer help and those that just give help. Soup kitchen,mentoring young people, coaching, helping at school are acts that we just do with being prompted for details. Just Help was the point. Do anything, most times people in need will not let you know.
September 19 at 6:54am
From CC - Couldn't agree with you more!
September 19 at 9:09am
From SM - MP, I would try to do anything for you, but you are hopeless ... !!!! :)
September 18 at 3:40pm
From CC - Is everything ok? If you need anything let us know... We are here for ya. :)
September 18 at 6:47pm
From TJC - MP, you know Shara and I are always there for you guys
September 18 at 9:40pm
My Reply - This is not about me my friends and thank you I know you are there and have been of great help when I needed it. My intent here was to share with you my experience with my sister who is terriably ill. I have noticed those that offer help and those that just give help. Soup kitchen,mentoring young people, coaching, helping at school are acts that we just do with being prompted for details. Just Help was the point. Do anything, most times people in need will not let you know.
September 19 at 6:54am
From CC - Couldn't agree with you more!
September 19 at 9:09am
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Prosperity Christianity Junk
If you think Christianity is about making you a nice guy or good guy then your sick. The truth makes you good not nice because speaking the truth hurts most of the time. Oh and this Prosperity Christianity thing is the devils way of taking you and me out of the battle stripping us of our passion to fight and defend. Here don't listen to me see what Pastor Mark Driscoll says! How pastors should be preaching! Enjoy the expresso shot. Click Here For Short Video
FaceBook Post
From DZ - Hey MP -Thanks for the post. After watching the video, it seems to me that Joel gets some his ideas about victory launched in the right direction, but they aren't targeted, nor refined enough. By trusting Jesus through his grace, he gives us the power over sin through his Spirit. We are new creatures and given a new life (Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4)with the ability to say no to sin because he conquered it through the resurrection. It seems to me this is where Joel's messages need to be strengthened. He needs to bring in more Christ. Another thing that it seems is missing is the idea of God putting trials in our path to test our faith to produce endurance that will lead us to be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4) I have yet to find God saying to us in the Bible that he wants to be comfortable, rather he wants us to be holy. That is he wants us to be perfect and complete ... and he will use any means necessary to make that a reality. Blessings.
September 18 at 12:53am
FaceBook Post
From DZ - Hey MP -Thanks for the post. After watching the video, it seems to me that Joel gets some his ideas about victory launched in the right direction, but they aren't targeted, nor refined enough. By trusting Jesus through his grace, he gives us the power over sin through his Spirit. We are new creatures and given a new life (Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4)with the ability to say no to sin because he conquered it through the resurrection. It seems to me this is where Joel's messages need to be strengthened. He needs to bring in more Christ. Another thing that it seems is missing is the idea of God putting trials in our path to test our faith to produce endurance that will lead us to be perfect and complete lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4) I have yet to find God saying to us in the Bible that he wants to be comfortable, rather he wants us to be holy. That is he wants us to be perfect and complete ... and he will use any means necessary to make that a reality. Blessings.
September 18 at 12:53am
Friday, September 04, 2009
Living To Out Loud
Ok! I will come down for bit. It is starting to hurt my hands and feet anyway. FaceBook Post
From TA -Nothing like the power of a committed man on a mission! Though I am not on exactly the same page with you, I really am inspired by your passion and commitment to what you believe. The loss ofvision in our world is devastating. When someone like you comes along with a powerful one, matched with a singular personal mission, things get shaken up and we all need more of that. Not the shouting and screaming at each other kind of shaken up that the news media loves to cover, but the soul-ratteling, belief-questioning, growing up kind of shaking up. Keep it up my friend. Blessings.
September 4 at 9:23am
My Reply -I am so far from His way. I am guilty of personal self fulfillment. These messages are me preaching more to myself than to others. Thank you for picking me up. When I write these messages I fear cultures reactions. I fear losing friends. I don't want to shout but the Gospel compels me to share His message. I love the exchange of opinions it pushes me to think and dive deeper into the Way. Sorry for the last post for those about the hands and feet I don't mean to make light of what Jesus did for all of us.
September 4 at 11:08am
From TA- Truth is found in the search. The Gospel - whatever gospel or teaching you chose to follow - is understood by living it, especially the struggle part of it. "Blessed are they that morn, for they shall be comforted." You are a good man, Mike. Carry on.
September 4 at 12:23pm
From FF - I dare to say you can't stop. Once you are awakened to the truth going back is a painful option that is normally a long slow slide to the middle. It is a blessing to be different amongst the masses and a blessing!
September 4 at 8:15pm
From FF - Thanks for sharing your passion via the facebook platform!
September 4 at 8:17pm
From TA -Nothing like the power of a committed man on a mission! Though I am not on exactly the same page with you, I really am inspired by your passion and commitment to what you believe. The loss ofvision in our world is devastating. When someone like you comes along with a powerful one, matched with a singular personal mission, things get shaken up and we all need more of that. Not the shouting and screaming at each other kind of shaken up that the news media loves to cover, but the soul-ratteling, belief-questioning, growing up kind of shaking up. Keep it up my friend. Blessings.
September 4 at 9:23am
My Reply -I am so far from His way. I am guilty of personal self fulfillment. These messages are me preaching more to myself than to others. Thank you for picking me up. When I write these messages I fear cultures reactions. I fear losing friends. I don't want to shout but the Gospel compels me to share His message. I love the exchange of opinions it pushes me to think and dive deeper into the Way. Sorry for the last post for those about the hands and feet I don't mean to make light of what Jesus did for all of us.
September 4 at 11:08am
From TA- Truth is found in the search. The Gospel - whatever gospel or teaching you chose to follow - is understood by living it, especially the struggle part of it. "Blessed are they that morn, for they shall be comforted." You are a good man, Mike. Carry on.
September 4 at 12:23pm
From FF - I dare to say you can't stop. Once you are awakened to the truth going back is a painful option that is normally a long slow slide to the middle. It is a blessing to be different amongst the masses and a blessing!
September 4 at 8:15pm
From FF - Thanks for sharing your passion via the facebook platform!
September 4 at 8:17pm
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
At War with the Devil
My life wasn't a battle until I became a threat to evil. Now its a full on war. There was a time when I didn't see/feel the war around me. I was numb to it. The veil of culture fooled me into thinking there is no war. This nullified my gifts(weapons) and made me a non-threat to evil. Now that I have been given the eyes to see the ears to hear the truth of how evil runs this world I have no choice but to fight/protect. - Facebook Post
Monday, July 27, 2009
Women: Getting more than you imagined
Culture and the media has rewired us men so far from what you women(spouses) want us to be that I doubt any method you have thought up will be stronger and more effective than the lies of the media. So some women join media/culture and use the power of their beauty to get what they want out of us. I suggest women find out what a man really wants(its not more sex) and you will get more from him than you can imagine.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
To Feel Life
Lord thank you for letting me FEEL life for removing the numbness that this culture imparted on me for so long. For I know pain all to well but do I ever now know joy! Lord make sure I continue to have pain in my life. Please make my life hard, serve up loss, disappointment, and brokenness often.
BP on July 15 at 5:29pm
Amen :) !!!
AS on July 15 at 10:12pm
This makes me happy for you.
SM on July 16 at 12:26pm
leather, whips and chains involved here? sounds like the ultimate masoch prayer while getting spanked... naughty boy, you!! lol !! Cheer up Mike !! Come visit...
GW on July 16 at 12:35pm
Great meeting under the stars and all GOD's glory talking with you my friend. Know as your friend and brother from another mother, always there for you!
ME on July 16 at 12:39pm ·
Its been a good week much to be happy about. Healing is always sweet. Can ya taste it!
AS on July 16 at 1:59pm
I know exactly what you mean. I've done a lot of healing, just in the past month!
BP on July 15 at 5:29pm
Amen :) !!!
AS on July 15 at 10:12pm
This makes me happy for you.
SM on July 16 at 12:26pm
leather, whips and chains involved here? sounds like the ultimate masoch prayer while getting spanked... naughty boy, you!! lol !! Cheer up Mike !! Come visit...
GW on July 16 at 12:35pm
Great meeting under the stars and all GOD's glory talking with you my friend. Know as your friend and brother from another mother, always there for you!
ME on July 16 at 12:39pm ·
Its been a good week much to be happy about. Healing is always sweet. Can ya taste it!
AS on July 16 at 1:59pm
I know exactly what you mean. I've done a lot of healing, just in the past month!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Desire Cure
**BREAKING NEWS** Stoicism is reaching pandemic proportions. (stoicism: the repression of emotion and indifference to pleasure or pain). There is a cure and its free. All you have to do is awaken the desires of your heart. Do YOU remember way back or seen a child laugh one minute the next crying in pain? Desire is good my friends real darn good! Go there...
JB at 11:53am June 18
I have no feeling or reaction to this...
TR at 4:10pm June 18
Is it just me, or is this disorder more likely to affect the male members of our species?
JB at 4:11pm June 18
call it rage contained.
SM at 4:14pm June 18
Uhhh, What?
ME at 4:16pm June 18
Research shows that it is highly contagious especially in Johnson County and most prevalent amongst the men. Our Dad's did not let us get vaccinated even though Mom insisted but that was back when it was a man's world.
JB at 11:53am June 18
I have no feeling or reaction to this...
TR at 4:10pm June 18
Is it just me, or is this disorder more likely to affect the male members of our species?
JB at 4:11pm June 18
call it rage contained.
SM at 4:14pm June 18
Uhhh, What?
ME at 4:16pm June 18
Research shows that it is highly contagious especially in Johnson County and most prevalent amongst the men. Our Dad's did not let us get vaccinated even though Mom insisted but that was back when it was a man's world.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Shutting Up
I want you to tell me something we should dare not talk about! (this is for those that can discern evil)
JB at 8:09pm June 15
are you high?
GW at 8:27pm June 15
We should not talk about others who have made mistakes, shouldn't gossip, should never do anything to knock someone down. We are suppose to love and forgive. Hmm, sounds like something that SOMEONE did for me.
AS at 9:52pm June 15
I'll just list the three party busters: politics, sex, religion. Although it certainly would be nice to ignore the rules.
TR at 1:00am June 16
I'm still working on responding to your email.....but in that same mindset; if we're honest with ourselves (do we still have that ability?)....what takes precedence in our hearts; our love for God and our heartfelt desire to do what He would have us do -- or our absorption in the "American Dream" (read: the unrelenting desire for more and better material things....?) CAN we have them both???
FF at 11:24pm June 16
Our society tells us we are suppose to keep our "hurts" secret. We are not suppose to admit to being weak, but it is when we can admit our weakness and face it that is can be healed by God's hands.....whether it be food, drugs, alcohol, relationships, materialism, sex, etc.
SR at 10:08am June 17
love your deepness Mike : )
JB at 8:09pm June 15
are you high?
GW at 8:27pm June 15
We should not talk about others who have made mistakes, shouldn't gossip, should never do anything to knock someone down. We are suppose to love and forgive. Hmm, sounds like something that SOMEONE did for me.
AS at 9:52pm June 15
I'll just list the three party busters: politics, sex, religion. Although it certainly would be nice to ignore the rules.
TR at 1:00am June 16
I'm still working on responding to your email.....but in that same mindset; if we're honest with ourselves (do we still have that ability?)....what takes precedence in our hearts; our love for God and our heartfelt desire to do what He would have us do -- or our absorption in the "American Dream" (read: the unrelenting desire for more and better material things....?) CAN we have them both???
FF at 11:24pm June 16
Our society tells us we are suppose to keep our "hurts" secret. We are not suppose to admit to being weak, but it is when we can admit our weakness and face it that is can be healed by God's hands.....whether it be food, drugs, alcohol, relationships, materialism, sex, etc.
SR at 10:08am June 17
love your deepness Mike : )
Sunday, May 17, 2009
We Deserve Nothing
The word "deserve" needs to struck from our vocabulary immediately and add to it "entitlement" because it so interrupts God's will for each of us!
DS at 11:18am May 31
I think I agree-you mean that we don't "deserve" anything but that it is by the grace of God that we have anything or anyone, right? Just as we are not "entitled". You are saying they are in the same vein, correct?
ME at 11:47am May 31
Yes same vein. We have everything by Grace. Nicely pointed out my friend. We can earn nothing in this life!
PP at 12:54pm May 31
I think my friend who works at McDonald's earning 7 bucks an hour would love to hear that it is gods will he lives in poverty.
DS at 4:57pm May 31
There is always somebody with less than you that has more than enough, and someone with more who is still ungrateful. It seems to me that if one can start from a place of feeling grateful and blessed for what they have, it helps keep things in perspective. I was not referring to "God's will". I don't think God cares much about whether I make $7, $70 or $700 an hour. I think he cares about what I do with my situation and how I love other people. Maybe the person who makes $70 or $700 an hour should choose to help the person who makes $7, or maybe the person who makes $7 can help the others remember what is really important. Not to mention the ones who make 7 cents an hour.
ME at 7:17pm May 31
Found this definition: Grace= undeserved favor, Gods approval.
DS at 7:23pm May 31
For me this is the "good news".
KO at 12:15am June 2
I'm with DS. So true! Thanks for sharing your insight!!!
DS at 11:18am May 31
I think I agree-you mean that we don't "deserve" anything but that it is by the grace of God that we have anything or anyone, right? Just as we are not "entitled". You are saying they are in the same vein, correct?
ME at 11:47am May 31
Yes same vein. We have everything by Grace. Nicely pointed out my friend. We can earn nothing in this life!
PP at 12:54pm May 31
I think my friend who works at McDonald's earning 7 bucks an hour would love to hear that it is gods will he lives in poverty.
DS at 4:57pm May 31
There is always somebody with less than you that has more than enough, and someone with more who is still ungrateful. It seems to me that if one can start from a place of feeling grateful and blessed for what they have, it helps keep things in perspective. I was not referring to "God's will". I don't think God cares much about whether I make $7, $70 or $700 an hour. I think he cares about what I do with my situation and how I love other people. Maybe the person who makes $70 or $700 an hour should choose to help the person who makes $7, or maybe the person who makes $7 can help the others remember what is really important. Not to mention the ones who make 7 cents an hour.
ME at 7:17pm May 31
Found this definition: Grace= undeserved favor, Gods approval.
DS at 7:23pm May 31
For me this is the "good news".
KO at 12:15am June 2
I'm with DS. So true! Thanks for sharing your insight!!!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Narcissism and Twitter
twitter= word vomiting due to loneliness sickness or a symptom of Narcissism. Nothing like feeding the NPD supply.
ES at 2:44pm May 12 v
Hey Mike...you hit that one on the head. I haven't started any of that crap because honestly who really has time to twitter all day. Hope you are well. Going back to KC this week. college reunion and all.
GW at 2:58pm May 12
So, people REALLY don't care what I am doing every minute of the day?
EH at 3:26pm May 12
LOL! I like it!
AS at 5:02pm May 12
I have to twitter about my job as part of my job. But even I do not subscribe to twitter posts because they are so disruptive! Not all social media is productive.
ES at 2:44pm May 12 v
Hey Mike...you hit that one on the head. I haven't started any of that crap because honestly who really has time to twitter all day. Hope you are well. Going back to KC this week. college reunion and all.
GW at 2:58pm May 12
So, people REALLY don't care what I am doing every minute of the day?
EH at 3:26pm May 12
LOL! I like it!
AS at 5:02pm May 12
I have to twitter about my job as part of my job. But even I do not subscribe to twitter posts because they are so disruptive! Not all social media is productive.
Friday, February 06, 2009
A Gift of My Self - sermon
Introduction
I want to take you on an adventure of our hearts. This great adventure is about discovering how we can as both physical and spiritual beings find the meaning in our lives. We will look at the origins of our sexuality driven by our strong desire to be know and become one with another person. We’ll see that love and serving each other is at the foundation to finding our meaning. This is not a “don’t do it” speech on sex, it is at its core, a rediscovery of the language and longings of our hearts. When we submit in service to each others heart, God's gift of intimacy appears. A gift God wants us to make to others and in particular our spouse. If we learn to make ourselves a gift of love, we may just find the true meaning to life in a very special way.
Open your hearts, free your mind of what culture has or is telling you. Let the Lord Jesus speak to you in this talk for where you are at today and for what you need. In this brief time with you I hope I can re-tell a story of God’s romance. The beauty of his original plan for us is truly his most special gift to us. It is up to you to discover what this looks like for your life. This romantic adventure will take trust, it will take solitude, and it will take much suffering of the heart. It will for sure ask you to die in some respects to things you thought you needed and understood about your physicality. I do promise you this for I have experienced it myself, there is no greater joy than loving someone with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength (paraphrased Luke 10:27). For this is the love God has for us. He wants us to know what 100% surrendered in love feels like, so we will love him in the same way. He gave us the gift of our body as a means to express his love.
You will find not all the answers, but a starting point to look at your own desires to be in relations with another. I give this as a gift from my own experiences and with a lot of help from Lord, who has put a fire in my heart to tell a different story. A radically different story, totally opposite from the story of the world around us which teaches us to be consumers/takers of that sex and intimacy for our own selfishness.
Much of what I contemplate comes out of reflections on marriage and my diligent search for meaning in my past marriages. It also comes out of the many wounds I gave woman with my selfishness pursuit of satisfying my own needs. But it is joy which I have felt that really drives me to show you the truth of God’s gift. I want you to know what true love is and how it works into our sexuality. This sexuality when combined with love is the closest thing we can know of what heaven will be like. It is one of the greatest forms of worship we can offer Jesus. In this talk I will totally depend upon God’s word in the Bible, along with a lot of help and direction from Pope John II sermons on the Theology of the Body. His sermons on this subject are a beautiful analysis of Genesis and Jesus’ Gospel about male and female relationships. I want to thank Christopher West for his summaries of John Paul’s work. It is revolutionary in its message. I encourage to read more of Mr. West's work. It will deepen and change your marriage.
The Fall – The Case for Sex Gone Wrong
The teachings of our culture and times tell us that sex is a selfish act made just for our own pleasure. It tells us we don’t need love to have great sex, we just need perfect bodies, the right perfume/cologne, a beer or the best clothes and you will get more sex. They also beat into us that sexual performance makes us who we are it defines our worth to society. Men are condition to be like race horses expected to give women unbelievable mountain top sexual experiences. For women it is being the perfect sex toy, with the perfect body, the best clothes to attract a man.
Men are ranked by other men on how many women they can conquer. Sex becomes a sport to use women for our own pleasures. Women are forced into pleasing men to be accepted or to keep a boyfriend by how well sexually they perform. Sex is everywhere because our culture instinctively knows its power. It has made sex into a selfish act far from the selfless act of giving our bodies as a gift to that special person we love. Evil twisted our inner most prized gift from God. God wants us to have it back not by controlling us to do so but out of loving us, giving us the freedom to reclaim his gift. For it is out of choice that love can be found. We must choose to be a gift to each other once again if we are ever to experience the original unity and deep connected love again.
When we have sex with another person before the establishment of love and commitments or any emotional depth, our heart senses the emptiness and lack of the all important foundation of love. We become confused about love because sex and nakedness of our souls and hearts came before love. Repeated like this sex becomes mechanical and purely a physical release and not the way God intended it to be. Our intuition tells us even when we are young for sex in this capacity never lives up to what culture or our friends tell us. So we search for better ways to experience sex like using sex toys, pornography, different sexual positions, and multiple partners to find that ecstasy that is so promised.
Making love (sex) is not about sex toys, positions, pornography, or whatever aberrations we can dream up. When we invite God into this place we have no need for all those tricks and gimmicks. Wrapped in each other’s arms, skin to skin, face to face, breath to breath, warm lips together, peering into each other’s eyes finding that complete intimacy and making a place for God and praising and loving him for this gift. Now that is making love. Sex any other way is letting satan use you for his pleasure which will lead to heart ache and dysfunction.
Researchers have known for a long time that teenage sexual activity and depression are linked. In a publication by (Smith and Denton pg21) Teenagers get depressed when they cannot understand the physical, emotional and spiritual loss that happens when the act of intimacy(sex) is not done out of love.
We use sex like a drug to make us feel good for a period of time but like alcohol we do experience not only physical hangovers but also spiritual and emotional ones to. Sex is a temporary escape from this world and like any other escape mechanism some become addicted to it just like drugs and alcohol. This is why we are seeing pornography become so destructive for it gives us sex without love and without another person. It requires nothing of us, it is an illusion and will lead to addiction.
“Addiction is the most powerful psychic enemy of humanity’s desire for God,” says Gerald May in Addiction and Grace, which is no doubt why it is one of our adversary’s favorite ways to imprison us. Once taken captive, trying to free ourselves through willpower is futile. Only God’s Spirit himself can free us or even bring us to our senses.
The "heart" has become a battlefield between love and lust, habitually threatening the meaning of the body. As John Paul says, because of man's disordered passions, "The human body in its masculinity and femininity has almost lost the capacity of expressing this love in which the person becomes a gift…" (General Audience 7/23/80).
How did sex get so twisted? Let us know look at what sin did to our original state of the male female union. How has evil and culture misdirected God’s original design. This starts back in the Garden of Eden in Chapter 3 of Genesis
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
Here the evil serpent convinces us not to trust God that we too can know good and evil. We can know what God knows but this taught us to grasp after God’s likeness instead of receiving it as a gift. All of a sudden we now see our nakedness, our flaws or inadequacies. We hide from God, we hide from each other. God looks for us, we are ashamed and this begins our fall from our original creation. This falling away continues we now grasp on to our original unity and nakedness. Out of this grasping the roots of lust come forward. We try to control and posses the opposite sex for out of fear of losing him/her of being alone and in some respects being found out. We find it really difficult to be totally naked again with each other. This is meant by the fall. The falling away from who we really are. Let us now try to find our way back.
Original Man before the Fall (How we were meant to be)
We have to go way back when God created Adam and Eve to understand God’s original plan for us as man and woman. Here we will find some clues how we were originally created and what life was like for the first couple. We will also see what God asked of them and what gifts he gave them.
There are two accounts of our creation in Genesis. It is important to note the first two accounts describe man and woman before sin. This is very important to the story because we have fallen away from the pure goodness of God’s original plan which is perfect unity of man and woman. Also I want to point out that Jesus who is the only man both of Divine and Flesh whose words offer us a direct understanding on how God wants us to live. Lets us begin with Jesus pointing us back to “THE BEGINNING” in Matthew 19 where we hear Jesus being questioned by Pharisees when they asked him about divorce. He refers them back to man and woman’s perfect unity “that in the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' God’s intention for us was to be in pure relationship or to have a perfect union
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Genesis 1:26-28 NIV
So we read here that God created us IN HIS IMAGE and in His Likeness. So we are physical but yet more than physical. We have a likeness to God who is spirit and who is love 1 John 4:18 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. NIV
He gave us rule over all the animals. He also created us male and female. He did not describe the animals in this manner. We know ourselves that we are much different than the animals, we posses His image therefore the image of Love. Also if we have his image our bodies must reflect Him in some way. So we must conclude that we can come to know God through our physical body. He also blessed us and not the animals. Again God differentiates us from the animals by blessing us. So this gave us a spiritual quality and creates a great mystery for we know we are more than just physical matter but like God in what way?
We can look further into how we are different than the animals by what God tells us next in Genesis 2:7
7 the LORD God formed the man [a] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Here God gives us the breath of life. The Hebrew word (nÿshamah, “breath”) is used for God and for the life imparted to humans, not animals. Its usage in the Bible conveys more than a breathing living organism. Whatever is given this breath of life becomes animated with the life from God, has spiritual understanding.(from the NETBible)
God’s breathes life into us. In some early traditions people did not speak name of God. To utter his name was too holy. God’s name in Hebrew was Y H V H which we would pronounce Yod, Heh, Vav, Hah which when we say it, it sounds like the rhythm of our own breathing. Is the name of God the sound of our breathing? (Rob Bell in Nooma: Breathe) So God is our breath without it we die without God we die.
Now that we have a foundation of being spiritual beings made in the image of God we can start to dive into the origins of our sexuality by further examining the next details that follow in this 2nd account of the creation.
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." 19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
So Adam named all the animals and realizes he was alone in the world as a person different from the animals. He knew he couldn’t love the animals so he felt alone in complete solitude. This alone feeling is something we all feel. We fear it, we hate this feeling, we cannot live without being in communion with others to find another to love and be loved back drives our inner most desires. To not be alone means to be in communion with another to be in love and be loved in return. This brings us back to what we identified early that God is Love. John Paul II concludes “Love is, therefore, man's origin, vocation, and end.”
So God says “it is not good for the man” to not have someone to Love and to have Love in, so God’s solution is create someone who he can love, so he creates someone that embodies His beauty and is the final touch on His creation this He called woman.
21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
John Paul II points out in a footnote that the word "rib" in the original biblical language is a play on the word "life" (General Audience 11/7/79). Woman comes from the life of a man. The man now has a missing a piece that rib that God removed to make woman holds a very special role. So a man longs to replace his missing piece and a woman longs to find a man to give her piece back to; the man she came from. This desire to find each other to replace the piece is our deepest desire. It is so strong and at our core that it drives almost everything we do in life. Next we hear Adam cry out what we all would love to say when we find our missing piece.
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man." Genesis 2:23
As the Pope explains, "there is no doubt that man falls into that 'sleep' with the desire of finding a being like himself. In this way, the circle of the solitude of the man-person is broken, because the first 'man' awakens from his sleep as 'male and female'" (General Audience 11/7/79). Immediately the man declares: "At last this one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." That is to say, "Finally, a person with whom I can share the gift of life. Finally, a person I can love!"
So we see here that God has given us the Gift of Life and in that he provided everything we need to know Him and to love and be loved by another person. Now that we have another to love how are we to Love? How are we to find it? How are we to know what love really is? When are we ready to do this? Let us try to answer these by looking into this Gift of Love and this ultimate reunion.
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (NIV)
For God tells us that we are to leave our parents. Are you ready to leave your parents? This is when God and most traditions tell us we are ready to be married to take a spouse in marriage to be reunited in one flesh. This God says signals our readiness for becoming one in flesh with our Adam or our Eve a reuniting of the flesh in holy sex and nakedness.
What does becoming one flesh mean? Is this not a better word for sex “one flesh”? As we unite our flesh in this holy reunion, God lets us go back to how he created us “in the beginning” pure in heart the world disappears around us for a brief amount of time bringing us to the place where we feel as one. This is total relief from our feeling of solitude and it must be the ultimate expression of love. For God made it so enjoyable nothing else in our physical life can match this experience for this is not sex as talked about by culture but it is the true act of making love. So special it is only here that God lets us co-create another human being with His help. In the act of making love we come face to face with each other naked bringing only our bodies to each other as a gift.
The Second Vatican Council teaches us, "man can only find himself by making a sincere gift of himself" (Gaudium et Spes n. 24). So with our bodies, in and through our sexuality, that we realize we are called to give ourselves to one another as a gift. Thus, John Paul can say, "we are convinced of the fact that the awareness of the body’s capacity to show love is the fundamental element of human existence in the world" (General Audience 1/16/80).
In this brief encounter of the flesh and spirit we replace the missing piece within us, thus completing what was once lost long ago. We get to relive part of God’s creation story in the intimate act of making love. Do you not see the power, the awesomeness of it? Is it no wonder that God makes our sex drive the most powerful thing in the universe? Can anyone name something we all think about more in common or more often than sex? The missing piece may be the root of our internal sexual drive not only to create new life but to replace this missing piece. How else do we describe where this urge or need comes from? We don’t know what drives us so passionately and strongly but this need/urge does not go away until we have been reunited with our own Adam or Eve, who holds our missing piece. Our hearts long for each other to dive deeply into the purely intimate act of rejoining and becoming one again with each other. For God wants this union to be a special one, one out of His love.
When this rejoining is wrapped in Love, it brings with it a filling up of our hearts. We feel gratitude, amazement, and joy or better put ecstasy that something so wonderful could feel this good. Webster’s dictionary defines ecstasy as “rapture from the contemplation of divine things”. Don’t you think our divine creator God wants us to have a divine contemplation of the eternal life with Him? Maybe it’s through this uniting of our hearts in the act of sex that God whispers into our hearts this secret that so many of us fail to hear. Once you have really listened to Him and have heard the secret you so would love to tell everyone, but you just cannot find the human words to express it. It is such a big secret God wants us to keep it safe within the context of marriage and not to share it with just a random person. It is so deep and profound, to share it with an acquaintance or friend would be reducing sex to a physical act of pleasure much like drinking a glass of water when you’re thirsty or eating your favorite food. Is not sex so much more than just satisfying a bodily function or controlling a selfish need?
We see that in our original sexuality that at the end of Genesis 2 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
When we find that true love, that piece, and become the truest gift to each other we feel no shame being completely naked knowing each other so intimately that we have nothing to hide from each other. Trust each other with each other’s Gift of Life.
Let’s look at how Moses describes sex in Genesis 4:25 using a few different translation of the Bible.
NKJV - And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore
NIV – And Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth
NLT - Adam had sexual relations with his wife again, and she gave birth
NET- And Adam had marital relations with his wife again, and she gave
In the Hebrew language the word for sexual relations was the word YADA defined as TO KNOW. Is this the first man and woman knew each other thus not feeling any shame. Can you imagine having a friend someone so close to you that you are ashamed of anything to tell them or show them? I find this at the core of why I don’t just have sex and intimacy with just any woman. For me and for most of my life even in my teens and twenties when I was single I knew I did not want to share my gift with just anyone. Does anyone feel that too? You don’t have t answer that out loud but answer that in your heart sometime.
Conclusion and Benediction
If we are to live according to the original capacity of our body’s ability to express love and thus "fulfill the very meaning of his being and existence," we must win the battle in our hearts over lust. We must come to see the body, once again, as the revelation of the eternal mystery of God (cf. General Audience 3/18/81).
I hope this truth of the Bible sets your hearts free from what culture and evil are trying to tell you about sex. You have been duped no longer. God created our bodies so we could show our spouses the sacrificial gift of Love through the union our bodies becoming “one flesh.” We must look at our body as a temple to God for we were made in His image. Our sexuality is so strong and powerful that God made it this way so we wouldn’t miss the purpose of it. The Bible is a guide to a great romance that God invites us to. It’s for sure not a legal document. The Bible uses marital love as analogy more than any other example to help us understand God’s eternal plan for us.
If we live in accordance to what God is telling us and has revealed through our bodies we will fulfill the very meaning of our lives and that is to Love. Jesus primary commandment was and is “Love one another as I have loved you” John 15:12. Jesus gave his physical body up for us for the forgiveness of Sin from our falling away from real union. On the cross he died a physical death as the ultimate gift to us. He showed us the power of giving ourselves as a gift, for his gift was to all of us. In his Resurrection he defeated evil and showed us a way back to “THE BEGINNING”. His way of life will restore our sexuality to the way it was meant to be before the Fall. It is why He came.
I challenge you to find your Adam or Eve when you are ready to embrace God’s will for marriage and sexuality as a gift. Be careful it is not much of a gift to the one you want to spend eternity with if you have given it to 10 others prior. Go out from here knowing that God wants you to have His gift all you have to do is open your hearts and wait. I leave you with this promise from God in 1 Corinthians 2:9-10
No one's ever seen or heard anything like this,
Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—
What God has arranged for those who love him.
References:
Man and Women He Created Theology of the Body by John Paul II (translated by Michael Waldstein)
The Pope’s Theology of the Body by Christopher West 2001
Nooma – Breathe by Rob Bell
Biblical verses from the New Internal Version
I want to take you on an adventure of our hearts. This great adventure is about discovering how we can as both physical and spiritual beings find the meaning in our lives. We will look at the origins of our sexuality driven by our strong desire to be know and become one with another person. We’ll see that love and serving each other is at the foundation to finding our meaning. This is not a “don’t do it” speech on sex, it is at its core, a rediscovery of the language and longings of our hearts. When we submit in service to each others heart, God's gift of intimacy appears. A gift God wants us to make to others and in particular our spouse. If we learn to make ourselves a gift of love, we may just find the true meaning to life in a very special way.
Open your hearts, free your mind of what culture has or is telling you. Let the Lord Jesus speak to you in this talk for where you are at today and for what you need. In this brief time with you I hope I can re-tell a story of God’s romance. The beauty of his original plan for us is truly his most special gift to us. It is up to you to discover what this looks like for your life. This romantic adventure will take trust, it will take solitude, and it will take much suffering of the heart. It will for sure ask you to die in some respects to things you thought you needed and understood about your physicality. I do promise you this for I have experienced it myself, there is no greater joy than loving someone with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength (paraphrased Luke 10:27). For this is the love God has for us. He wants us to know what 100% surrendered in love feels like, so we will love him in the same way. He gave us the gift of our body as a means to express his love.
You will find not all the answers, but a starting point to look at your own desires to be in relations with another. I give this as a gift from my own experiences and with a lot of help from Lord, who has put a fire in my heart to tell a different story. A radically different story, totally opposite from the story of the world around us which teaches us to be consumers/takers of that sex and intimacy for our own selfishness.
Much of what I contemplate comes out of reflections on marriage and my diligent search for meaning in my past marriages. It also comes out of the many wounds I gave woman with my selfishness pursuit of satisfying my own needs. But it is joy which I have felt that really drives me to show you the truth of God’s gift. I want you to know what true love is and how it works into our sexuality. This sexuality when combined with love is the closest thing we can know of what heaven will be like. It is one of the greatest forms of worship we can offer Jesus. In this talk I will totally depend upon God’s word in the Bible, along with a lot of help and direction from Pope John II sermons on the Theology of the Body. His sermons on this subject are a beautiful analysis of Genesis and Jesus’ Gospel about male and female relationships. I want to thank Christopher West for his summaries of John Paul’s work. It is revolutionary in its message. I encourage to read more of Mr. West's work. It will deepen and change your marriage.
The Fall – The Case for Sex Gone Wrong
The teachings of our culture and times tell us that sex is a selfish act made just for our own pleasure. It tells us we don’t need love to have great sex, we just need perfect bodies, the right perfume/cologne, a beer or the best clothes and you will get more sex. They also beat into us that sexual performance makes us who we are it defines our worth to society. Men are condition to be like race horses expected to give women unbelievable mountain top sexual experiences. For women it is being the perfect sex toy, with the perfect body, the best clothes to attract a man.
Men are ranked by other men on how many women they can conquer. Sex becomes a sport to use women for our own pleasures. Women are forced into pleasing men to be accepted or to keep a boyfriend by how well sexually they perform. Sex is everywhere because our culture instinctively knows its power. It has made sex into a selfish act far from the selfless act of giving our bodies as a gift to that special person we love. Evil twisted our inner most prized gift from God. God wants us to have it back not by controlling us to do so but out of loving us, giving us the freedom to reclaim his gift. For it is out of choice that love can be found. We must choose to be a gift to each other once again if we are ever to experience the original unity and deep connected love again.
When we have sex with another person before the establishment of love and commitments or any emotional depth, our heart senses the emptiness and lack of the all important foundation of love. We become confused about love because sex and nakedness of our souls and hearts came before love. Repeated like this sex becomes mechanical and purely a physical release and not the way God intended it to be. Our intuition tells us even when we are young for sex in this capacity never lives up to what culture or our friends tell us. So we search for better ways to experience sex like using sex toys, pornography, different sexual positions, and multiple partners to find that ecstasy that is so promised.
Making love (sex) is not about sex toys, positions, pornography, or whatever aberrations we can dream up. When we invite God into this place we have no need for all those tricks and gimmicks. Wrapped in each other’s arms, skin to skin, face to face, breath to breath, warm lips together, peering into each other’s eyes finding that complete intimacy and making a place for God and praising and loving him for this gift. Now that is making love. Sex any other way is letting satan use you for his pleasure which will lead to heart ache and dysfunction.
Researchers have known for a long time that teenage sexual activity and depression are linked. In a publication by (Smith and Denton pg21) Teenagers get depressed when they cannot understand the physical, emotional and spiritual loss that happens when the act of intimacy(sex) is not done out of love.
We use sex like a drug to make us feel good for a period of time but like alcohol we do experience not only physical hangovers but also spiritual and emotional ones to. Sex is a temporary escape from this world and like any other escape mechanism some become addicted to it just like drugs and alcohol. This is why we are seeing pornography become so destructive for it gives us sex without love and without another person. It requires nothing of us, it is an illusion and will lead to addiction.
“Addiction is the most powerful psychic enemy of humanity’s desire for God,” says Gerald May in Addiction and Grace, which is no doubt why it is one of our adversary’s favorite ways to imprison us. Once taken captive, trying to free ourselves through willpower is futile. Only God’s Spirit himself can free us or even bring us to our senses.
The "heart" has become a battlefield between love and lust, habitually threatening the meaning of the body. As John Paul says, because of man's disordered passions, "The human body in its masculinity and femininity has almost lost the capacity of expressing this love in which the person becomes a gift…" (General Audience 7/23/80).
How did sex get so twisted? Let us know look at what sin did to our original state of the male female union. How has evil and culture misdirected God’s original design. This starts back in the Garden of Eden in Chapter 3 of Genesis
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
Here the evil serpent convinces us not to trust God that we too can know good and evil. We can know what God knows but this taught us to grasp after God’s likeness instead of receiving it as a gift. All of a sudden we now see our nakedness, our flaws or inadequacies. We hide from God, we hide from each other. God looks for us, we are ashamed and this begins our fall from our original creation. This falling away continues we now grasp on to our original unity and nakedness. Out of this grasping the roots of lust come forward. We try to control and posses the opposite sex for out of fear of losing him/her of being alone and in some respects being found out. We find it really difficult to be totally naked again with each other. This is meant by the fall. The falling away from who we really are. Let us now try to find our way back.
Original Man before the Fall (How we were meant to be)
We have to go way back when God created Adam and Eve to understand God’s original plan for us as man and woman. Here we will find some clues how we were originally created and what life was like for the first couple. We will also see what God asked of them and what gifts he gave them.
There are two accounts of our creation in Genesis. It is important to note the first two accounts describe man and woman before sin. This is very important to the story because we have fallen away from the pure goodness of God’s original plan which is perfect unity of man and woman. Also I want to point out that Jesus who is the only man both of Divine and Flesh whose words offer us a direct understanding on how God wants us to live. Lets us begin with Jesus pointing us back to “THE BEGINNING” in Matthew 19 where we hear Jesus being questioned by Pharisees when they asked him about divorce. He refers them back to man and woman’s perfect unity “that in the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' God’s intention for us was to be in pure relationship or to have a perfect union
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Genesis 1:26-28 NIV
So we read here that God created us IN HIS IMAGE and in His Likeness. So we are physical but yet more than physical. We have a likeness to God who is spirit and who is love 1 John 4:18 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. NIV
He gave us rule over all the animals. He also created us male and female. He did not describe the animals in this manner. We know ourselves that we are much different than the animals, we posses His image therefore the image of Love. Also if we have his image our bodies must reflect Him in some way. So we must conclude that we can come to know God through our physical body. He also blessed us and not the animals. Again God differentiates us from the animals by blessing us. So this gave us a spiritual quality and creates a great mystery for we know we are more than just physical matter but like God in what way?
We can look further into how we are different than the animals by what God tells us next in Genesis 2:7
7 the LORD God formed the man [a] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Here God gives us the breath of life. The Hebrew word (nÿshamah, “breath”) is used for God and for the life imparted to humans, not animals. Its usage in the Bible conveys more than a breathing living organism. Whatever is given this breath of life becomes animated with the life from God, has spiritual understanding.(from the NETBible)
God’s breathes life into us. In some early traditions people did not speak name of God. To utter his name was too holy. God’s name in Hebrew was Y H V H which we would pronounce Yod, Heh, Vav, Hah which when we say it, it sounds like the rhythm of our own breathing. Is the name of God the sound of our breathing? (Rob Bell in Nooma: Breathe) So God is our breath without it we die without God we die.
Now that we have a foundation of being spiritual beings made in the image of God we can start to dive into the origins of our sexuality by further examining the next details that follow in this 2nd account of the creation.
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." 19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
So Adam named all the animals and realizes he was alone in the world as a person different from the animals. He knew he couldn’t love the animals so he felt alone in complete solitude. This alone feeling is something we all feel. We fear it, we hate this feeling, we cannot live without being in communion with others to find another to love and be loved back drives our inner most desires. To not be alone means to be in communion with another to be in love and be loved in return. This brings us back to what we identified early that God is Love. John Paul II concludes “Love is, therefore, man's origin, vocation, and end.”
So God says “it is not good for the man” to not have someone to Love and to have Love in, so God’s solution is create someone who he can love, so he creates someone that embodies His beauty and is the final touch on His creation this He called woman.
21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
John Paul II points out in a footnote that the word "rib" in the original biblical language is a play on the word "life" (General Audience 11/7/79). Woman comes from the life of a man. The man now has a missing a piece that rib that God removed to make woman holds a very special role. So a man longs to replace his missing piece and a woman longs to find a man to give her piece back to; the man she came from. This desire to find each other to replace the piece is our deepest desire. It is so strong and at our core that it drives almost everything we do in life. Next we hear Adam cry out what we all would love to say when we find our missing piece.
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man." Genesis 2:23
As the Pope explains, "there is no doubt that man falls into that 'sleep' with the desire of finding a being like himself. In this way, the circle of the solitude of the man-person is broken, because the first 'man' awakens from his sleep as 'male and female'" (General Audience 11/7/79). Immediately the man declares: "At last this one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." That is to say, "Finally, a person with whom I can share the gift of life. Finally, a person I can love!"
So we see here that God has given us the Gift of Life and in that he provided everything we need to know Him and to love and be loved by another person. Now that we have another to love how are we to Love? How are we to find it? How are we to know what love really is? When are we ready to do this? Let us try to answer these by looking into this Gift of Love and this ultimate reunion.
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (NIV)
For God tells us that we are to leave our parents. Are you ready to leave your parents? This is when God and most traditions tell us we are ready to be married to take a spouse in marriage to be reunited in one flesh. This God says signals our readiness for becoming one in flesh with our Adam or our Eve a reuniting of the flesh in holy sex and nakedness.
What does becoming one flesh mean? Is this not a better word for sex “one flesh”? As we unite our flesh in this holy reunion, God lets us go back to how he created us “in the beginning” pure in heart the world disappears around us for a brief amount of time bringing us to the place where we feel as one. This is total relief from our feeling of solitude and it must be the ultimate expression of love. For God made it so enjoyable nothing else in our physical life can match this experience for this is not sex as talked about by culture but it is the true act of making love. So special it is only here that God lets us co-create another human being with His help. In the act of making love we come face to face with each other naked bringing only our bodies to each other as a gift.
The Second Vatican Council teaches us, "man can only find himself by making a sincere gift of himself" (Gaudium et Spes n. 24). So with our bodies, in and through our sexuality, that we realize we are called to give ourselves to one another as a gift. Thus, John Paul can say, "we are convinced of the fact that the awareness of the body’s capacity to show love is the fundamental element of human existence in the world" (General Audience 1/16/80).
In this brief encounter of the flesh and spirit we replace the missing piece within us, thus completing what was once lost long ago. We get to relive part of God’s creation story in the intimate act of making love. Do you not see the power, the awesomeness of it? Is it no wonder that God makes our sex drive the most powerful thing in the universe? Can anyone name something we all think about more in common or more often than sex? The missing piece may be the root of our internal sexual drive not only to create new life but to replace this missing piece. How else do we describe where this urge or need comes from? We don’t know what drives us so passionately and strongly but this need/urge does not go away until we have been reunited with our own Adam or Eve, who holds our missing piece. Our hearts long for each other to dive deeply into the purely intimate act of rejoining and becoming one again with each other. For God wants this union to be a special one, one out of His love.
When this rejoining is wrapped in Love, it brings with it a filling up of our hearts. We feel gratitude, amazement, and joy or better put ecstasy that something so wonderful could feel this good. Webster’s dictionary defines ecstasy as “rapture from the contemplation of divine things”. Don’t you think our divine creator God wants us to have a divine contemplation of the eternal life with Him? Maybe it’s through this uniting of our hearts in the act of sex that God whispers into our hearts this secret that so many of us fail to hear. Once you have really listened to Him and have heard the secret you so would love to tell everyone, but you just cannot find the human words to express it. It is such a big secret God wants us to keep it safe within the context of marriage and not to share it with just a random person. It is so deep and profound, to share it with an acquaintance or friend would be reducing sex to a physical act of pleasure much like drinking a glass of water when you’re thirsty or eating your favorite food. Is not sex so much more than just satisfying a bodily function or controlling a selfish need?
We see that in our original sexuality that at the end of Genesis 2 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
When we find that true love, that piece, and become the truest gift to each other we feel no shame being completely naked knowing each other so intimately that we have nothing to hide from each other. Trust each other with each other’s Gift of Life.
Let’s look at how Moses describes sex in Genesis 4:25 using a few different translation of the Bible.
NKJV - And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore
NIV – And Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth
NLT - Adam had sexual relations with his wife again, and she gave birth
NET- And Adam had marital relations with his wife again, and she gave
In the Hebrew language the word for sexual relations was the word YADA defined as TO KNOW. Is this the first man and woman knew each other thus not feeling any shame. Can you imagine having a friend someone so close to you that you are ashamed of anything to tell them or show them? I find this at the core of why I don’t just have sex and intimacy with just any woman. For me and for most of my life even in my teens and twenties when I was single I knew I did not want to share my gift with just anyone. Does anyone feel that too? You don’t have t answer that out loud but answer that in your heart sometime.
Conclusion and Benediction
If we are to live according to the original capacity of our body’s ability to express love and thus "fulfill the very meaning of his being and existence," we must win the battle in our hearts over lust. We must come to see the body, once again, as the revelation of the eternal mystery of God (cf. General Audience 3/18/81).
I hope this truth of the Bible sets your hearts free from what culture and evil are trying to tell you about sex. You have been duped no longer. God created our bodies so we could show our spouses the sacrificial gift of Love through the union our bodies becoming “one flesh.” We must look at our body as a temple to God for we were made in His image. Our sexuality is so strong and powerful that God made it this way so we wouldn’t miss the purpose of it. The Bible is a guide to a great romance that God invites us to. It’s for sure not a legal document. The Bible uses marital love as analogy more than any other example to help us understand God’s eternal plan for us.
If we live in accordance to what God is telling us and has revealed through our bodies we will fulfill the very meaning of our lives and that is to Love. Jesus primary commandment was and is “Love one another as I have loved you” John 15:12. Jesus gave his physical body up for us for the forgiveness of Sin from our falling away from real union. On the cross he died a physical death as the ultimate gift to us. He showed us the power of giving ourselves as a gift, for his gift was to all of us. In his Resurrection he defeated evil and showed us a way back to “THE BEGINNING”. His way of life will restore our sexuality to the way it was meant to be before the Fall. It is why He came.
I challenge you to find your Adam or Eve when you are ready to embrace God’s will for marriage and sexuality as a gift. Be careful it is not much of a gift to the one you want to spend eternity with if you have given it to 10 others prior. Go out from here knowing that God wants you to have His gift all you have to do is open your hearts and wait. I leave you with this promise from God in 1 Corinthians 2:9-10
No one's ever seen or heard anything like this,
Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—
What God has arranged for those who love him.
References:
Man and Women He Created Theology of the Body by John Paul II (translated by Michael Waldstein)
The Pope’s Theology of the Body by Christopher West 2001
Nooma – Breathe by Rob Bell
Biblical verses from the New Internal Version
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Numb
No longer numbed by culture and my own ego I find the movement of my heart tough to bear. The energy and pain it takes to follow Jesus is much more than I ever expected. The church does not tell us the reality of this and they go so far as to tell us that Christianity is full of bliss and reward; the easy way. Maybe that’s numb Christianity, the so called DOING Christianity they are referring to. Numb meaning I shied away from any type of pain or sorrow. I avoid any sort of situation where compassion was needed. It felt awkward when someone told me they were hurting. I did not know what to say or do. Funerals no way! I looked for any excuse not go. I remember a good friend of mine died in college from a tragic car accident. His funeral was so unbearable to me. So I did life with an unreal positive outlook and convinced myself that if I was just positive enough nothing would go wrong. People that had problems just had bad karma from not being positive. How wrong I was, how dumb, how insensitive I must have been. In short I thought I was a little god that I controlled my world. Well in a way all that pain and sorrow built up in me stored in my heart and then over time I cracked. God started the process of cleaning me out. He took it all my marriage, a successful business, and all my materials thing after that he called my name and gave me my heart back clean and opened up. Now I can feel my heart again the numbness gone but not forgotten.
There is almost a guilt I feel when I tell people about my faith and love for God. Guilt in that I am telling them if they choose a life like I have (God chose me to have) they will no longer be numb and without the numbing medication of culture and their ego life will be painful. The pain I feel is seeing so many people losing their hearts and living for their own neediness and self satisfaction. I see the effects that anger and pride have on those they love. The harm this causes their wives and kids is hard to bare. I see through them into their brokenness; of the wounds their loved ones inflicted on them over the years. I see people walking around bleeding and in silent pain. I pray Jesus heals them; stops the onslaught from the devil on their hearts. Only thing that quenches this pain is love. Love of a woman, love for my kids and family. This only gets me back to feeling even, far from the joy the church promises. It is loving God that gets me above and beyond the pain.
So I tell you my friends that my life of old was like comparing a black/white TV when we had the old rabbit ears and most stations came in a little snowy/fuzzy to that of our modern color LCD flat panel TV. However, I am not seeing the Kingdom in high definition. I ask God every day to give me the eyes, ears, and heart to see His Kingdom. Lord will you give to me high definition for I want to know You more? I cannot go back to old way of life, no way I would rather die. In a way I am dying. In this process of dying to things of this world, I no longer find a need to acquire material things, conquer woman to make myself feel like a man, keep up with the Jones’, needing to make myself look good in the eyes of others, or worry about the judgments’ of others. I look forward to dying and my soul being released to be with God and loved ones who have passed before me. I look forward to eternity with those that I love.
There is almost a guilt I feel when I tell people about my faith and love for God. Guilt in that I am telling them if they choose a life like I have (God chose me to have) they will no longer be numb and without the numbing medication of culture and their ego life will be painful. The pain I feel is seeing so many people losing their hearts and living for their own neediness and self satisfaction. I see the effects that anger and pride have on those they love. The harm this causes their wives and kids is hard to bare. I see through them into their brokenness; of the wounds their loved ones inflicted on them over the years. I see people walking around bleeding and in silent pain. I pray Jesus heals them; stops the onslaught from the devil on their hearts. Only thing that quenches this pain is love. Love of a woman, love for my kids and family. This only gets me back to feeling even, far from the joy the church promises. It is loving God that gets me above and beyond the pain.
So I tell you my friends that my life of old was like comparing a black/white TV when we had the old rabbit ears and most stations came in a little snowy/fuzzy to that of our modern color LCD flat panel TV. However, I am not seeing the Kingdom in high definition. I ask God every day to give me the eyes, ears, and heart to see His Kingdom. Lord will you give to me high definition for I want to know You more? I cannot go back to old way of life, no way I would rather die. In a way I am dying. In this process of dying to things of this world, I no longer find a need to acquire material things, conquer woman to make myself feel like a man, keep up with the Jones’, needing to make myself look good in the eyes of others, or worry about the judgments’ of others. I look forward to dying and my soul being released to be with God and loved ones who have passed before me. I look forward to eternity with those that I love.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Yes or No Not "OR"
Have we lost the ability to tell each other YES or NO? It seems like we are so afraid of giving someone a definitive answer in fear of offending the other person or them thinking less of us. This is especially evident in the business world. The standard "great job, we'll get back to you." Then we spend the next few weeks with no answers either no or yes with numerous attempts and they don't even have the decency to return a call or email in fear of offending me with a "NO".
Jesus said "Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." Matt 5:37(NIV)
Take a look at your life. How often do you sit on the fence, blow people off just because you don't have the fortitude to tell someone the truth with a simple yes or no? The truth is "NO I am not interested". Then sometimes we say yes and then quickly figure out we should of said no in the first place but by then we have blown them off hoping they will figure out by our non-communication that it should of been "no" in the first place.
Yes, Jesus was right on spot and the human condition has not changed in two thousand years. Nothing good comes from not sticking to our commitments. Say no and mean no and let others go on their way and in the end we will all offend each other less and keep more friendships.
Jesus said "Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." Matt 5:37(NIV)
Take a look at your life. How often do you sit on the fence, blow people off just because you don't have the fortitude to tell someone the truth with a simple yes or no? The truth is "NO I am not interested". Then sometimes we say yes and then quickly figure out we should of said no in the first place but by then we have blown them off hoping they will figure out by our non-communication that it should of been "no" in the first place.
Yes, Jesus was right on spot and the human condition has not changed in two thousand years. Nothing good comes from not sticking to our commitments. Say no and mean no and let others go on their way and in the end we will all offend each other less and keep more friendships.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
There is MORE!
Take a minute to listen to someone who has acheived it all. How many of us would want to have what he has $50 million salary and a super model for a girlfiriend. Could a man want anything more at the age of 30?
This is an excerpt from Tom Brady's Interview on CBS 60 Minutes New Magazine show at the end of December. Tom is the star quarterback of the New England Patriots football team. This audio is a little over 4 minutes long.
This is an excerpt from Tom Brady's Interview on CBS 60 Minutes New Magazine show at the end of December. Tom is the star quarterback of the New England Patriots football team. This audio is a little over 4 minutes long.
Yes, yes! Tom there is much more to life than attaining fame and fortune. We were all created by God with special unique gifts. I know by the way Tom talks in this interview that God has blessed him with a bigger and better gift than quarterbacking a football team. When he does find that within himself with the help of God's word, he will then find the joy he has yet to experience. This is evident in his comment that the next superbowl ring will be the best one. False, the next thing he will finding that means anything at all is his real purpose. The reason God created him for and once he gives that gift to the world so many more people will have their lives changed from versus the last game he won. So Tom if you read this and only by the Grace of God would you find this blog post, go ahead and read.
--Romans 12:3-8
3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. 4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
Find your gift and give it!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Moving My Heart
Intimacy
Connecting to someone on a deep level. Sharing with them my heart, my passions, my dreams, my fears. To let this person find me out even at times when I don't know myself. To let the ego go and reveal to her who God wants me to be. The need to bring my heart to a even deeper and deeper knowing. God knows my depth already, the challenge is sharing this story with others and this sharing which is so not respected or taught in our culture.
Beauty
I see God threw the mountains, a sunset, the feminine and mother nature. As a man I view God in very masculine ways, most of which God created to move a me to action. A beautiful women, a mountain to climb, a sunset to chase, a river to fish, a new road or trial to ride my bike.
Adventure
I need like the little boy I have always been to be outside exploring new places, conquering physical feats, getting lost in God's Kingdom. I need to discover new things about myself and others. Not knowing whats going to happen next adds to the adventure. Does she really want to join me and can she take the risk?
Action
God calls me act on each of these areas of my heart with absolute truth. This call to action is so ingrained in me that I can only describe like an innate instinct bred into from birth. Intimacy brings the feeling of "I want to see inside of you to see what makes you tick." Beauty brings the feeling of I want to acquire, feel, touch, to soak in the beauty of Gods work he has done in you or in the world around me. Adventure brings the feeling of "let me discover something new, let me get lost, let me see something I have never seen before."
Connecting to someone on a deep level. Sharing with them my heart, my passions, my dreams, my fears. To let this person find me out even at times when I don't know myself. To let the ego go and reveal to her who God wants me to be. The need to bring my heart to a even deeper and deeper knowing. God knows my depth already, the challenge is sharing this story with others and this sharing which is so not respected or taught in our culture.
Beauty
I see God threw the mountains, a sunset, the feminine and mother nature. As a man I view God in very masculine ways, most of which God created to move a me to action. A beautiful women, a mountain to climb, a sunset to chase, a river to fish, a new road or trial to ride my bike.
Adventure
I need like the little boy I have always been to be outside exploring new places, conquering physical feats, getting lost in God's Kingdom. I need to discover new things about myself and others. Not knowing whats going to happen next adds to the adventure. Does she really want to join me and can she take the risk?
Action
God calls me act on each of these areas of my heart with absolute truth. This call to action is so ingrained in me that I can only describe like an innate instinct bred into from birth. Intimacy brings the feeling of "I want to see inside of you to see what makes you tick." Beauty brings the feeling of I want to acquire, feel, touch, to soak in the beauty of Gods work he has done in you or in the world around me. Adventure brings the feeling of "let me discover something new, let me get lost, let me see something I have never seen before."
Sunday, January 06, 2008
The Matrix- Red or Blue Pill CHOOSE
Here is a excerpt from one of my favorite movies. Oh there is so much to the this movie. Remember the seen when Neo choose what pill to take from Morpheus? The Red or Blue?
Pay special attention to the red text. I have placed in green text my take on what it symbolized for me and my walk with God.
He nods to Trinity (as Neo's teacher and battle mate she represents God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in one) and she exits through a door to an
adjacent room. They sit across from one another in
cracked, burgundy-leather chairs.
MORPHEUS
I imagine, right now, you must be
feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling
down the rabbit hole?
NEO
You could say that.
MORPHEUS
I can see it in your eyes. You
have the look of a man who accepts
what he sees because he is
expecting to wake up.
Ironically, this is not far from
the truth. But I'm getting ahead
of myself. Can you tell me, Neo,
why are you here? The Ultimate question we all ask about ourselves.
NEO
You're Morpheus. You're a legend.
Most hackers would die to meet
you.
MORPHEUS
Yes. Thank you. But I think we
both know there's more to it than
that. Do you believe in fate, (Do you believe you have a plan a fate set by God?)
Neo?
NEO
No.
MORPHEUS
Why not?
NEO
Because I don't like the idea that
I'm not in control of my life. (Our ego's don't want to lose control, so but deep inside us we realize we control nothing.)
MORPHEUS
I know exactly what you mean.
Again, that smile that could cut glass.
MORPHEUS
Let me tell you why you are here.
You have come because you know
something. What you know you
can't explain but you feel it.
You've felt it your whole life,
felt that something is wrong with
the world. You don't know what,
but it's there like a splinter in
your mind, driving you mad. (we all know there is something very wrong with our lives and we feel it, something has gone very wrong. We ignore it or cover it up with what culture(matrix) says should make us feel right or happy or fulfilled none of it works.)
It is this feeling that brought you to
me. Do you know what I'm talking
about?
NEO
The Matrix?
MORPHEUS
Do you want to know what it is?
MORPHEUS
The Matrix is everywhere, it's all
around us(our culture or better put Evil's Kingdom designed changed or modified to keep God's reality from us. He even sent his Only Son to show us how to take it back.), here even in this room.
You can see it out your window or
on your television. You feel it
when you go to work, or go to
church or pay your taxes. It is
the world that has been pulled
over your eyes to blind you from
the truth. (the truth of how God wants us to be like)
NEO
What truth?
MORPHEUS
That you are a slave, Neo. Like
everyone else, you were born into
bondage, kept inside a prison that
you cannot smell, taste, or touch. (the enemy is very good he works to keep of us slave by little things, white lies, pride, prejudice, keeping up with the jones, egos, and materialism, hate, self fulfillment etc.. )
A prison for your mind.
The LEATHER CREAKS as he leans back.
MORPHEUS
Unfortunately, no one can be told
what the Matrix is. You have to
see it for yourself. (Most of us cannot be told we have to experience the pain of living in the matrix before we can really know this)
Morpheus opens his hands. In the right is a red pill.
In the left, a blue pill.
MORPHEUS
This is your last chance. After
this, there is no going back. You
take the blue pill and the story
ends. You wake in your bed and
you believe whatever you want to
believe. (most choose the blue pill, to believe in themselves that they can figure why they were born, stuffing themselves in the false belief they can find it with God's help. Good Luck I have tried that way it did not work.)
The pills in his open hands are reflected in the glasses.
MORPHEUS
You take the red pill and you stay
in Wonderland and I show you how
deep the rabbit-hole goes. (Choose Red means choosing to walk with God and to serve Him and not what culture tells you. God will take you place you never imagine to dreams, fulfillment and ultimately eternal life in Heaven.)
Neo feels the smooth skin of the capsules, the moisture
growing in his palms.
MORPHEUS
Remember that all I am offering is
the truth. Nothing more. God offers you the real truth just try it. You can always go back to the Matrix. The enemy is always recruiting.
For those wanting to watch this part of the movie again. 4 minutes long.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
A CHRISTmas Gift - the gift of Joy
In keeping with doing life differently I wanted to make CHRISTmas 2007 different not partake in the materialism of culture. This letter to my Grandmother should summarize how giving something from the heart is what Jesus wants us to do.
Dear Gram- 12-27-2007
A late merry CHRISTmas to you! The three DVDs you see in this package are pictures of our family taken over the past 40 years. I have scanned and organized over 2,000 photos dating back to the 1940’s. After having scanned all the paper photos to digital I then organized them loosely by decade. The next step was to put them into a format in which I could share them with anybody especially those who don’t have access to a computer. The DVD can be played on any DVD player that one has attached to their TV.
I wanted to also share with you the reason for making this project. It was about the Joy of the past. Photos are a great way to remember the GOOD in life, the joy of specials days like CHRISTmas, birthdays, births and family visits. It is our human nature to remember the bad parts of life; the tough days but we need something to remember the joy. I hope this brings tears of happiness to you as it did for me. It reminds of how blessed I am to have lived a life filled with great people such as you.
In making this project I wanted to show my kids the joys of my life as grew up. It is important that they see the people who shaped me. So as I show them these same movies they ask lots of questions and it is in those times I share with them the great and joyful memories of the past.
Lastly this project was about celebrating the birth of Jesus the way he would have wanted us to celebrate how his birth changed us all. I believe he wants us to share joy of his new covenanted; his new way of life and life that was so different then that of the Old Testament. Jesus showed us how to love everybody no matter what. In this season of CHRISTmas I celebrate in a new way, to give gifts to which tell them how much I love them. This means giving from the heart not the wallet. Its not about the material things its about gifts of love. To give something that means something or crafted by your heart means so much more than a shirt that goes out of style in a few years. A great example of this is the fisherman’s sweater you knitted and gave to me at CHRISTmas many years ago. I still wear it and it keeps my heart warm thinking about how great of gift and its memory of you and the time it took you to make it. Thank you!
In closing I am also sorry for not being present in your life. I promise to make in a priority to make it to Maine this summer with the kids so they may get to know you.
With great love I give this gift. May you remember the joy of time spent with us and the family you bore, a family that makes earth more like God’s intended kingdom.
Love, Michael
Here is a little 3 minute sample of the video I created using Microsoft PhotoStory 3.
Dear Gram- 12-27-2007
A late merry CHRISTmas to you! The three DVDs you see in this package are pictures of our family taken over the past 40 years. I have scanned and organized over 2,000 photos dating back to the 1940’s. After having scanned all the paper photos to digital I then organized them loosely by decade. The next step was to put them into a format in which I could share them with anybody especially those who don’t have access to a computer. The DVD can be played on any DVD player that one has attached to their TV.
I wanted to also share with you the reason for making this project. It was about the Joy of the past. Photos are a great way to remember the GOOD in life, the joy of specials days like CHRISTmas, birthdays, births and family visits. It is our human nature to remember the bad parts of life; the tough days but we need something to remember the joy. I hope this brings tears of happiness to you as it did for me. It reminds of how blessed I am to have lived a life filled with great people such as you.
In making this project I wanted to show my kids the joys of my life as grew up. It is important that they see the people who shaped me. So as I show them these same movies they ask lots of questions and it is in those times I share with them the great and joyful memories of the past.
Lastly this project was about celebrating the birth of Jesus the way he would have wanted us to celebrate how his birth changed us all. I believe he wants us to share joy of his new covenanted; his new way of life and life that was so different then that of the Old Testament. Jesus showed us how to love everybody no matter what. In this season of CHRISTmas I celebrate in a new way, to give gifts to which tell them how much I love them. This means giving from the heart not the wallet. Its not about the material things its about gifts of love. To give something that means something or crafted by your heart means so much more than a shirt that goes out of style in a few years. A great example of this is the fisherman’s sweater you knitted and gave to me at CHRISTmas many years ago. I still wear it and it keeps my heart warm thinking about how great of gift and its memory of you and the time it took you to make it. Thank you!
In closing I am also sorry for not being present in your life. I promise to make in a priority to make it to Maine this summer with the kids so they may get to know you.
With great love I give this gift. May you remember the joy of time spent with us and the family you bore, a family that makes earth more like God’s intended kingdom.
Love, Michael
Here is a little 3 minute sample of the video I created using Microsoft PhotoStory 3.
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