"Friendship is Rare, Do You Hear What I'm Saying to Ya, Friendship is Rare..."

So there are two ways to look at this past weekend: it was one filled with fun and great times with friends, although I had a minor setback...OR this weekend started great, but as always, something blew up in my face, and reality kicked me in the butt to remind me that life should never be this good and it never will be. Confused? Let me give some background: A bunch of us decided to take the weekend off and travel to Chicago. I (in all of my infinite wisdom) decided to take my Honda because, well I love to drive everywhere, and I was gonna try and make my little cousin's 5th birthday party. All was going well for until Sat. afternoon, an afternoon in which the timing belt on my car snapped while I was driving it. Since it was late in the afternoon, no auto mechanics were open, leaving me stranded until Monday when they finished working on it. After a long day, I received a bill for around $800 and arrived back on my college campus at around midnight on Monday night. It was not fun, by any means. And i'm the kind of guy that lets the whole world know when im not happy. But as I sat in the mechanics shop on Monday, and drove home Monday night, I was confused, because I had a certain peace about the whole thing. I prayed about it, and pondered why this situation was different. God hit me so hard with the answer on that drive home that I just about (I didn't :) ) cried. The answer was so simple, yet I had missed it until then. It was my friends.

When my car broke down, I was surrounded by 6 of my friends, some of which were in the car with me. While they saw me in my prime, and by that I mean raging mad, they also helped to calm me. Ok, they also helped tick me off a little more, but thats ok, thats what friends are for, and later on we laughed about it. The truth is, i needed them there, i didnt show it, i didnt say it, but i did. I get so down sometimes by the crap that happens, and i forget that God has really blessed me with great friends. So here I get all down on life, and I forget that at least I have people who i can talk to about it, and laugh with. So I want to dedicate this entire post to my friends (now Im gonna leave people out, please dont be offended, I'm juts absent-minded).

Mike-Words can't describe how much you've been a rock for me. I've dumped so much of my troubles, worries, whatever, in your lap that I can't believe you haven't told me to shove off yet. Thanks man, and I really don't know what next year is gonna be like without ya, it scares the crap out of me.
Bryan- Man, what can i say? So many good times. I'm glad to see that you're happy, and it's on your terms. Don't forget about us here at the WU next year. More road trips, and microbursts, and whatnot!
Aaron- Can't believe you're gettin married...I'm just glad i can be there, and give the best man speech, which will be sweet!
Ben- good times in the apartment.
Mike B.-stud. nuff said.
GK- best friends since 7th grade...nothin will change that man.
Jeremy G.- My first accountability partner...thanks for everything..Job 31;1 man
Sara- thank you for being a great listener and encourager. It means more than you know. You inspire me.
Derek- You are the leader, in my mind, of the religion department for the class of 09. I look forward to asking you the tough questions that Mike has asked me for the last three years. Can't wait to work with you on hacking Sara off some more as well :)


So thats what I got...the best friends in the world. I have other friends too, and hopefully, those will grow stronger with time. Thanks God, for blessing me. Thanks to my friends for puttin up with my crap. I am lucky.

Poetry of the Heart

So I've spent the last few weeks ranting and discussing issues that either irritate me, puzzle me, or encourage me. In these discussions, its clear to me that this is the way that I find God, through discussion, questioning, researching, argueing, and hopefully, finding. What I do little of, however, is create stories, poems, haikus, songs, or any other form of rhyme and recital. Then I read the Psalms, I read Homer's "Odyssey", and I see the power of poetry. It expresses things in ways that normal sentence structure couldn't. I exposes a part of my heart that I would rather keep hidden. It makes me vulnerable. And I don't like being vulnerable. I hate it, in fact. So i keep that part away from God.

If I'm so slow to express that kind of love for God, why is it natural for me to get all romantic and gushy for a relationship I might be in? Why is it easier for me to write a poem for Valentine's Day and not for my Lord and Savior? Is it because I know that vulnerability with the girl will always go over well? Probably. Is it because I want to express those feelings in a unique manner, so that the girl knows it's different and special? Definitely. Here's the kicker though...When I do that with God, its a huge step..it means being exposed to Him, to be vulnerable to the One that sees my every move, knows my every thought, and hears my every prayer. With the girl, ii might mean more intimacy, more seriousness, and more snuggles (my favorite! :) ), with God, it means more sin must be removed, it means more lines in the sand must be drawn, and it means more self-examination. That scares the daylights out of me.

I've been listening to a lot of music lately. Not worship songs, although I think worship is great, I prefer to hear songs that are about God, dedicated to Him, but not produced for the specific purpose of corporate worship. I like hearing songs that are vulnerable, that are painful, and that expose the singer or writer for who they are. Let me give some of my favorite examples:

"would you catch me if I fall out of what I fell in
don't be surprised if I collapse
down at your feet again
I don't want to run away from this
I know that I just don't need this"

-Somewhere In Between- by Lifehouse

"I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
And wipe away the crimson stains
And dull the nails that still remains
More and more I need you now,
I owe you more each passing hour
The battle between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago
So steal my heart and take the pain
And wash the feet and cleanse my pride
Take the selfish, take the weak,
And all the things I cannot hide
Take the beauty, take my tears
The sin and soaked heart and make it yours
Take my world all apart"

-Worlds Apart- by Jars of Clay

"Father up above
Why in all this hatred do you fill me up with love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love is all around"

-Christmas Song- by Dave Matthews Band

"I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well yes I’m still running

You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believed it

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for"

-I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For- by U2

These are the poetry verses of my heart. I just wanted to dedicate this post to my Savior...call me corny, but it's all that I can think about today.

Lending An Ear...

OK, so Spring Break is over. I'm recovering from sun-burns, peeling skin, too much sleep (usually an oxymoron in my life), and the loss of any hopes of saving money this year. Now I've got time to think about the trip, what it really meant, the failures and successes, and how it changed me, if at all.

I'm not sure what it means to represent Christ in all I do. I know, I'm a bad Christian, this should be the no-brainer lifestyle, right? Well, bear with me. Here at IWU, it's very easy to wear the t-shirts, talk the talk, pray the prayers aloud, and worship freely. And these are great. But take one step off of this campus and that changes. Take Spring Break. Am I the only one that refrained from publicly holding hands in a circle and praying aloud amidst drunken parties on the beach? Probably not. Am I the only one that didn't take my Bible everywhere I went, or wearing the apparel of One Truth or any other popular Christian clothing? Probably not. In fact, I really didn't talk about God all that much this last week. Not that I was afraid to, but it's a litle difficult to bring up salvation when most of the people I was talking to were too drunk to look at me straight. So, in a situation such as that, how do I represent Christ?

I think it's important to draw a distinction here. Representing Christ, to me, is not about what you wear, the things you say, or the Bible you carry around. It's who you are. While nothing on my outward appearance showed Christ in big bold letters, I was able to listen to a lot of people. I know, I know, that sounds like a cop-out, but I don't think it is. I rarely had the chance to preach, but I did have many chances to meet people, and really listen to them. It's amazing what a couple beers will do with someone bearing their struggles, pains, and failures to a complete stranger. But I think that I was given an opportunity to just be there for them, not to give advice, not to speak some unknown truth, but to be an emotional punching-bag, in a sense. Seriously, one cried, one guy shook me in anger, and none of it had to do with me, but with what was bottled up in their lives.

Call me crazy, but I think we Christians talk too much. We try to convince too much. We try too much. It seems to me that in Christ's ministry, He met the people's physical and emotional needs first, then He led them to spiritual fulfillment. We live around people that need a lot. Be it money, clothing, or just encouragement and love. We live around needy people. But we seem to ignore that, and treat people as jobs. Get them saved, get em in a church, move on. Is this what Christ called us to? God, I hope not. Maybe we're just called to listen, to love, and to shut the hell up sometimes. I use harsh language here, but it's how i feel. At IWU, preachers are taught a strategy that is called "Sell when the congregation is buying", meaning "know when to shut up". We constantly try to tell, and give evidence, and convince. Do we ever listen? Do we ever really try to understand where the people we meet are coming from?

I'm tired of talking. I want to listen. I want to know the hurts of people before I can try to heal them. Maybe i'm young, dumb, and too stubborn to see that this is foolish. Then again, maybe I'm growing up finally. I don't know. What do you think?

Finding Balance

Living the Christian life can be a lot like walking a tightrope. Like most tightrope walkers, we know the path fairly well, we know how we should walk the path, what will cause us to fall, and how to get by without looking like a moron. While all of these are important to have in our faith, most of us don't have the one thing that all tightrope walkers need in order to keep from falling: balance. Tightrope walkers use a balance beam to keep steady and to guide thier steps, as they struggle to not look down constantly. Christians fall because of their lack of balance; balance between acting out of pure faith and acting out of reason and knowledge. I'm not saying that acting out of faith always means a lack of reason, but it's usually the case that faith requires defying logic and believing that God is guiding us.

Confused yet? I'll try to break it down. Let's look at the life of Peter. Peter, im my opinion, is Everyman. If I lived, walked and talked with Jesus, I would be the one rejecting Him, rebuking Him, and falling into the water because of my lack of faith. Peter constantly fights between acting out of faith and not knowing just what that faith means, and acting from logic without having the faith to believe in what he is doing. I like Peter because regardless of how many stupid ignorant mistakes he makes, Christ restores him and uses Peter to set up His Church. Peter makes an amazing comment near the end of his life in 2 Peter 1:5-11 in which he states: So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. 6 Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians,* and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.
10 So, dear brothers and sisters,* work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away. 11 And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is the end result of a life of balance. I'm giving away the ending, or to look at it another way, I am giving you the picture on the front of the puzzle box before putting the pieces together. Peter, near the end of his life, finally seems to get it. But in the Gospels, we see that the journey to finally get it is one marked with mistakes and failures. I want to break those down:

1) Peter has faith, but doesn't realize what that faith truly entails.
We see in Matthew 16:13 that Jesus is asking His disciples who people are saying He is. They repond with answers such as John the Baptist or Elijah, but it is here that Peter makes an amazing comment of faith. He states to Jesus that "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." (Matt. 16:16) Peter's comment shows great faith, but we see that just 5 verses later, Jesus begins to tell His disciples of his impending death and resurrection when Peter rebukes Him! This shows that Peter did not truly understand his faith, and that this lack of knowledge led him to believe something about Christ that was not true.

How many times do we do this? I would venture to say that for most of us, we have made a decision based solely on trusting God. What happens if that decision does not turn out well for us? We usually blame God. While I believe that action out of faith is important, I also sternly believe that we must have some knowledge and reason involved in our decision process.

2) Peter acts out of reason and knowledge, but his faith is lacking.
There is one main time in Peter's life where it is obvious that he is lacking in faith, and listening to pure reason. This time comes when Christ is walking on the water. Peter calls out to him and says "Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you by walking on water." (Matt. 14:28) Christ tells him to come, and when Peter steps out onto the water, he becomes aware of how high the waves are. It is at this point that he falls into the water. Jesus saves him and states "You don't have much faith," (14:31). Peter's call to Jesus was a call to "prove that you are Christ". He wanted to know logically that this was Jesus. It was his lack of faith that caused him to fall.

While we may hear this sermon, I think that the fact that Peter acted out of reason is usually neglected in place of "how much faith do you have?" While this is a valid point, I think we must consider that Peter had faith, but instead relied on his knowledge and reason rather than his faith.

OK, so maybe you agree with me and maybe you don't. For those of you that do, what now right? I think the first thing to do is assess yourself. What camp do you act primarily out of? I'll be honest. I act out of reason much more than faith. I trust in what I see, hear, and know rather than what is unknown to me. Once we know this, we need to challenge ourselves to act more out of our weakness. Step out in faith, if thats your weakness. Or study Theology, Orthodoxy, and find out why you believe what you believe, if logic and reason is what you neglect.

We have all of the tools to know the "tightrope". Instead of focusing so much on how not to fall, we need to focus more on how to be balanced, which is the starting point of our walk. To get back to 2 Peter, his statements close this nicely, as he states that your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. 6 Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians,* and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8). We see by his statements that faith and knowledge are the starting points, not the building blocks. Doing this, according to Peter, you will never stumble or fall away. 11 And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (1:10-11) That's the hope of tightrope walkers, and of Christians.

If My Life Were a Movie, What Kind of Movie Would it Be?

Ok, so first off, I should say that I am totally copying this post from Jeremy Summers. I read his post and it got me thinking about it. It's hard to step outside of your own life and really know what it looks like to someone else. But there is a website that does this for you, and I think the results are fairly accurate. Here's what my life would be like:

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Cult Classic

Quirky, offbeat, and even a little campy - your life appeals to a select few. But if someone's obsessed with you, look out! Your fans are downright freaky. Your best movie matches: Office Space, Showgirls, The Big Lebowski

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

What about you? Check it out and let me know!
http://www.blogthings.com/ifyourlifewasamoviewhatgenrewoulditbequiz/

The Role of Integrity

I've heard it said that integrity is "who you are when no one is looking." Fine. So, do I look at porn? Am I the same person by myself than I am when surrounded by people? Do I wear masks? These are all black-and-white situations, as for most people, are a great way to give a false sense of integrity. No, I don't look at porn. Yes, I am the same person alone and with people. I've been really confronted with some situations these past few weeks that have shown me the "gray areas" of integrity, and who I really am. These situations have also given a whole new insight into the role of integrity; but first, I believe that I probably should give some new insights into what integrity is or isn't:

1) Integrity is NOT perfection.
So many times I have called my own integrity into question because I have stumbled, or have made a mistake. It's not the fact that I screw up, but rather what I do as a result of that mistake that defines my integrity. Do I strive to correct that wrong action, aiming not to make the same mistake twice?

2) Integrity is not about YOU.
Sounds strange, but I believe it is true. So many times I hae looked at myself to see if I am developing personal integrity, rather than looking at how I treat others, what they need, and how the actions of others affect me to really know if I have integrity. Confused? Let me give a few examples- in the past few weeks, a good friend of mine has been steadily growing closer to another friend of mine. When the "relationship" kind of became official, I was overjoyed. Finally, both of my friends are with people I know are good for one another, and will treat each other with respect and devotion. While I am happy for both of them, I also realize tha this narrows the already short list of single guys besides myself that will be sitting around feeling sorry for one another come V-Day! Do I focus on that, or my happiness for the two of them? This, in my heart, is the crucial portion of integrity in my life. And, I'm glad to say, is one test I passed.

There is one other example that I'm not so sure I did pass though. As a misnomer, let me just state that relationships and Jason do NOT go well together. Either I'm an idiot, and mess it up, or I am so high that I can't help but be rejected, whichever of the two, relationships are a series of failures in my life. But, as any guy does, I still keep hope. Ok, back to the sitation. I am the kind of guy that pursues one person, not 10, and I'm fairly forthcoming to that person. When that particular person comes to me for dating advice, do I give them advice that puts me in an advantageous situation, or do I give the advice I know they need, even if it means waving "bye-bye" to any hope of more than friendship? Now that, my friends, is a question of integrity! Like I said, I'm not sure if I passed the test or not. I tried to give the best advice, but did I seperate my feelings from the conversation? Probably not. This tells me that there could have been even better advice I could have given.

3) Integrity is not always people-pleasing.
So I just explained that integrity is not about you, and now I'm saying that integrity is not people-pleasing. This leaves only one option: pissing someone off. I know I pass this test! What if the best advice or statement you make to someone is one that you know might drive a wedge in your friendship? Do you speak the truth they need to hear, or do you preserve the good relationship you have with them? Once again, who's more important here? This is integrity.

So integrity in not just "who you are when no one is looking." In fact, I would say that integrity is "who you are...period!" The role it plays in my life is that it IS my life. It directs every decision, every thought, every emotion.

What do you think? Am I full of it, or is there truth to my interpretation of integrity? I'm looking forward to hearing your responses.

Why Post?

It's pretty obvious that I am terrible at updating my blog. In fact, it's been too long since I've typed anything. I've spent the last few weeks really diving into many other blogs, and I think I have found a few reasons why I don't post hardly ever:

1) I am not a scholar
-As a student, I find it difficult to state that I "know" something as fact, when the truth is that I am still learning and developing my beliefs, ideas, and passions. While some blogs are personal journals, I am not one to share my every thought. I may post on a topic, but part of me is worried that I will sound arrogant (a fault I struggle enough with, believe me), and that I will only fuel fires and create arguments.

2) I bury most of my thoughts
-Yes, its true. I carry my struggles, pains, disagreements, and emotions like a 2 X 4 on my back, and it's usually when I can't carry anything else that I finally let it all out (this is usually directed at one person, who most of the time is not at fault). Blogging is not a form of venting for me, although I could easily turn it into one. But that wasn't the intention of this blog. I hoped to discuss issues with friends, classmates, and maybe even professors. I don't want everyone to know my inner-most thoughts, and I'm just not built to share my struggles, except for a few close friends, I shut most people out.

3) I'm scared to death to have an opinion
- This is the real kicker: I am at IWU, where I am surrounded by biblical scholars, philosophy gurus, and all-around geniuses. I am not any of these. In fact, I am pretty honest and blatant, a personality trait that is not looked at as a "positive trait". I speak my mind, and try to act as though I could care less what others think. The truth is, I know that my thoughts and beliefs will be subjected to severe punishment at times, if i happen to post them. While this will help me, I just don't want to be seen as an idiot. The fact is, I am trying. I discuss with professors, I read, I even do what I can to expand and get additional information on certain topics in class. But a part of me is terrified to find out that I can't hold my own around some CM majors. This is the heart of why I don't post.

Ok, so maybe that didn't explain anything. And maybe for the first time, I'm sharing whats really on my heart. I guess it's a start right? Maybe from now on, I won't worry so much about what others are thinking, or about how I will be perceived. Maybe I will post without fear, only to find that I do have a solid grip on Theology and Philosophy. Or maybe I will just realize that this is who I am, come hell or high-water. And maybe, just maybe, I'll learn to enjoy that about myself.