Lost in Ambition

                                                   
                                         "You just gestured to all of me"

A very good friend of mine once told me that I'm a lot like Hiccup.  I've got the hair.  I definitely don't have the voice.  But regardless of physical characteristics, I feel like Hiccup a lot: ambitious but feeling incompetent and significantly smaller than life.  I like to think of How to Train Your Dragon as my life story and I just happen to be stuck in the beginning: Toothless is still an angry beast, Astrid is still suspicious of me, and I have no reason to think that anything I'm trying to do is going to make a difference.  I also believe that my circumstances will change.

When I think of people that felt significantly smaller than life, I think of Amos.  Amos was a prophet of God, and yet he wasn't always.  Once he was a nobody.  As a matter of fact, he always considered himself a nobody.  After the king rejects Amos' message and insists that he leave the country, Amos says "I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'"

Hiccup wanted to train dragons.  I want to change the world through writing.  That's a pretty big task.  It's obviously unrealistic.  It's unbearably childish.  But you see, Amos and I have something in common.  I'm a kid from Orleans, Indiana: home to 2,000 residents and one lonely stoplight.  I'm a nobody.  I'm a nobody that serves Yahweh.  That makes this a whole different ballgame.

Ephesians 3:20-21: " Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."  God works in His servants.  That brings two things to mind: first that I'm not allowed to say "I can't."  Second, that I have a responsibility to be the kind of person that He can work with.  A friend of mine once said that there are two kinds of people in this world: those that submit to God and those to whom God says "Have it your way."  I know which one I want to be.

So am I Hiccup?  I have no idea.  But if I can spark half as much change, I will consider my life to be well spent indeed.

"It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this." - C.S. Lewis

Christian Warfare

Warfare is an interesting thing.  It turns kind fathers into snipers and farmers into machine gunners.  It turns kind small towns into burning piles of rubble and tears families apart with every death.  War has been glorified by movies, television, and video games; but one thing will always be true when it comes to reality: war is ugly.

Ephesians 6:12: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  It’s time for us to wake up.  We’re in a war.  By that, I don’t mean that we’re behind a screen shooting zombies or sharing the heroics of Owen Wilson “Behind Enemy Lines,” but a real war with very real consequences.  Our comrades are dropping left and right, we have bullets piercing through us, we’re in danger of bleeding out on the battlefield, and still we insist that we aren’t doing that bad.  All the while, we seem to be afraid to use our weapons.  It’s time to wake up.

I’ve been reading a book lately called “The Game Plan” by Joe Dallas.  The book relates specifically to sexual purity, but there’s a concept in it that I think applies here.  He makes the point that when you are involved in sexual sin (or sin of any kind) you are not fulfilling your primary function.  My point is this: we haven’t been fulfilling our primary function.  Christians have gotten shy, and as we sit back in our comfort zones, passively wishing things were different, homosexuality continues to undermine Christian values, violence pervades our culture and entertainment, mindless shootings continue, and sexual sin destroys more families.  It’s time to get serious about the situation, stand up for the truth, and work for God.

I for one see the signs.  I can see the doom of our country and our world as clear as day.  Oh, the United States may continue for many more years, maybe even many more thousand years, I have no way of knowing that.  But spiritually our nation is dying fast.  Spiritually the world is dying fast.  It’s time to stop huddling in the fetal position.  It’s time to act.  I’ve decided to submit myself to God and to do what He wants me to.  So Satan, you better watch yourself.  Cause we’re on the offensive.  And we’re coming for your people.

"It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this." - C.S. Lewis

The Untriumphant Return

I’ve been away for far too long.  You know you are truly a writer when you go for a few weeks without really writing and you believe you are starting to lose your mind.  When I started seeing scenes in my head and felt like my characters were giving me dirty looks, I figured it was time to get the right side of my brain working again.  You see, I’ve been avoiding the issue.  Feeling sorry for myself, I guess.  And writing forces me to be honest with myself.  I’m slowly starting to realize that a large portion of my innumerable flaws are changeable.  You’d think that’d be fantastic news.  On the contrary, it’s humbling and humiliating.  Because they’re still there and the while I could’ve changed them, but I haven’t.  Yet. 

Romans 12:1-2: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  This is a difficult one.  I’ve known this passage for a long time, but only recently have I spent real time thinking about it.  I’ve not been a living sacrifice.  Oh, I’ve been alive.  With two bullet wounds and a broken leg; but that’s hardly living.  I’ve not been renewed.  A new paint job doesn’t help the engine run any better.  

A man I highly respect lately was telling me how we need to be treating our lives more like a war.  Get angry at Satan.  Hate Satan.  Recognize what he's using against us and let that upset us.  In God alone can be the victory, but we must see His enemy as our enemy.  Along with that has come the realization that I've been feeding him.  If there's one thing I've learned in the past few weeks it's that Satan is not fed on sin alone.  We tend to look at things as states of being: I'm either in sin or I'm righteous.  I'm quickly learning that God looks at things in relationship terms instead.  Satan doesn't need me to curse God to His face.  He doesn't me to kill somebody, lie, or commit fornication.  He just needs me to distance myself from God, and the rest will take care of itself.  The sad truth is that so many of us are playing church, and we may even dare to play Christianity.  I'm realizing that the result is always the same: I get burned.  You get burned.  We all get burned.  The subtlety of his attack is so devious, it's almost impressive.  It makes me realize that I don't have a clue what I'm doing.  But I know someone who does.

So I’m changing.  Slowly but surely.  It’s proving to a painful process, and I’m starting to feel awful bruised.  But I’ve seen what I could look like down the road and it’s worth it.  So here goes nothing.

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance.  The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." - C.S. Lewis

Snow, Service, and Wibbly Wobbly Impulse

There’s white stuff on the ground now.  My first impulse was to burst into song, specifically “What’s This?” from The Nightmare before Christmas, but I restrained myself.  A good thing, since I was at work at the time.  I’ve never been too crazy about winter, but I figure if it’s got to be cold, we might as well have snow.  That kid that loves snow and I hoped every year around Christmas that it would come never really died in me, and I’m not ashamed to admit that.

It does have its downsides though.  Among them is the difficulty it poses to travel.  As a result Wednesday night services were canceled tonight.  I understand why that has to be done, but still I was pretty disappointed.  I look forward to Wednesday nights.  I need encouragement through the week.  We live in a dangerous and sinful world and it becomes difficult to maintain our focus if we only receive spiritual encouragement one day out of the week.  As I continued thinking about this, it led me to another train of thought: why did I experience disappointment at Wednesday night services being canceled but I find it hard to convince myself to set time aside for God during the week outside of assembly times?  After all, I did study my Bible tonight, but when I got home from work that wasn’t the first thing I did.  First I watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special from last night.  That bothers me.

To be clear, I’m not someone that thinks all entertainment is evil.  I’m listening to Relient K as I’m writing this post.  Instead, I’m concerned with priorities.  I’ve always had an obsessive personality.  When I discover something new or exciting I latch onto it like a parasite.  I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (over 900 pages) in 4-5 days.  I stayed up reading the novel Unwind by Neal Shusterman until 2 a.m. one morning because I found it that thrilling.  When I first discovered Doctor Who, there were some days I watched four episodes in a day.  Why can’t I get that excited about the Bible?  Why can’t I get that excited about prayer? 

There’s a question that inevitably follows this train of thought: why do I get excited about my obsessions?  Sometimes it has to do with a gem that I find in the message of a particular movie or song.  Unfortunately, though, that’s often more of a perk than a direct reason.  Looking at the things that have attracted my attention in recent months (Doctor Who, Dreamworks Dragons: Riders of Berk, and Owl City), it’s usually because I like it.  I love fantasy and science-fiction and I happen to love Owl City’s music as well.  I’ll be honest, there’s times I don’t feel like reading my Bible or praying.  It makes me feel inadequate and inferior; because I am.  My problem then, as may be the problem of some of you, is that I’m serving myself more than God.  I care more about what I feel like doing than I care about serving God.  Maybe, just maybe, priorities stem from motivation.  Why do I do what I do?  Maybe if I had my motivation straight, I would more feel like doing that which helps me do what I am aiming to do.  If you find yourself in a similar position as I have found myself in, maybe you should do a similar sort of soul-searching.  For everything you “feel” like doing, ask yourself a short but infinitely important question: why?

A Sleeping Giant

  I have a lot to say and I'm not really sure how to begin.  A lot has been going on in the last couple of weeks and my brain has been firing on all cylinders, thinking about a thousand things at once.  I guess you could say that I feel like I'm lost on Hoth, nothing but solid white in all directions and as I've been trying to follow a path, I've realized that I've been using the wrong map from the start.

  What kind of world do you want?  That's a tricky question, I know.  I like to envision worlds outside of our  own realities.  It's what motivates me to be a writer and what makes me a sci-fi and fantasy nerd.  But I've thought about this in a new light: what would I change about our world?  I can tell what I would want in our world: a world where God's special union of marriage is held in honor, unadulterated and unperverted; a world where people are more concerned with the effects of their influences than the enjoyment of them; a world where people don't ask what can do but instead what is best; a world where a person cannot make any observation without being met with a connection to God by a neighbor; a world where good is rewarded and encouraged and evil is punished and discouraged; a world where people are obsessed with the Bible instead of Justin Beiber, Twilight, or The Hunger Games; a world where myself and people like me can proclaim the truth and not be afraid; a world where we truly look at everything through Christianity's lens; that is the world that I want.

  I realize that many of you have very similar dreams for our world.  These are not things that are really unique or original, they are things that we want.  So why do we seem farther and farther away from this the longer that time goes on?  People offer a variety of reasons.  The most common is an answer of utter defeat. It sounds something like this: "this world is evil.  It always has been and it always will be.  Satan has a foothold in the world and so it will continue being evil, and it's too big for me or you or anyone else to do anything about it."  Let me be blunt.  That's about as good of an explanation as saying lightning happens because Thor is angry.  It's true that Satan has a foothold in the world.  It's true that there has been sin in the world since the fall and that there will be until Christ comes back.  But it doesn't explain why marriage was respected in the 1950's, why we used to say prayers in our schools, and why we used to have a God-centered society.  Something changed, and I'll tell you what it is: we shut up.  Somewhere along the line we either got burned or saw somebody else get burned while standing up for the truth and we decided that we were going to save ourselves the trouble.  We got pushed around and we buttoned our lips and have tried to keep our heads down ever since; and if you have been told that there is nothing that you can do that will make a difference in the world, you have been lied to.

  Last Spring, Kirk Cameron made some comments regarding homosexuality on the Piers Morgan show that made national news.  He was labeled as homophobic and was portrayed as someone hating gay people, all because he believed that homosexuality was damaging to society as a perversion of God's plan.  He was attacked for weeks.  Recently Mike Huckabee gave his comments on the shooting in CT and said that if we had not so entirely removed God from our society, perhaps we would have spared ourselves such horrible consequences.  The lash he has received has been drastic; some have said he should not be allowed to speak on the air ever again.  Both of these individuals remained firm in what they said and many have been encouraged as a result.  Let me issue a challenge: what would happen if we all decided to not keep quiet anymore and become passionate about our faith.  What if Mike Huckabee and Kirk Cameron weren't alone?  What would happen?  I daresay if we all stopped caring so much about the next cat video on Youtube and who's going to win the Superbowl and started caring more about serving God, I am brave enough to say He would give us all of the power and resources to change the world we live in.  I dare you to prove me wrong.

Embracing Violence

Yesterday in Newtown, Connecticut, a twenty-year old gunman, after killing his mother, went to a local elementary school where his mother worked, and killed 26 people, 20 of whom were children between the ages of 5 and 10.  He subsequently shot himself.  The shooting was instant national news and there has been an outpouring of sympathy towards the families and a lot of discussion has followed about what to do to prevent these things from happening in the future.  Most of the talk has to do with legislation: gun control laws in some cases and in other cases even giving teachers means to protect their students.  As a huge supporter of the freedom of speech, none of this discussion is bad.  However, I believe we are barking up the wrong tree.

I talk a lot about the influence that culture has on us as individuals.  I want to go back to that for a second.  Earlier this week I read an article about the AMC television show “The Walking Dead.”  If you don’t know about the show, it is AMC’s biggest hit and follows people trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.    The PTC criticized the “TV-14” rating of the show, citing its gory nature and use of profanity to say it should be rated “TV-MA.”  I myself have watched the show a few times.  Among the violent things the show depicts is a man getting stabbed in the eye with a piece of glass and a man breaking off a zombie’s arm and pulling a bone out of the arm.  Sounds quite grisly, doesn’t it?  In video games, the examples are even more direct.  Grand Theft Auto, one of the most popular video game franchises on the market, thrives on the player’s ability to kill and steal in every scenario imaginable.  In the song “Little Piece of Heaven” by Avenged Sevenfold, a somewhat popular hard rock band, the repetitive chorus says “Must have stabbed him fifty ******* times/I can’t believe it/Ripped his heart out right before his eyes.”  At the culmination of it all, we have the latest teen fad, The Hunger Games, which revolves around the story of throwing a bunch of teenagers into a “game” in which the goal is to slaughter everyone else in the game with you and emerge the victor.  And we wonder why tragic shootings happen in our country.

The answer to this situation is not gun control, security, or legislation.  When a culture removes God from among themselves, there is no moral standard left, which inevitably gives way to violence.  When a culture embraces violence as a means of entertainment, it is only a matter of time before that fantasy finds its way into reality.  We have made it clear we don’t want God among us.  This might have been God granting our wish.  Now is the time to stop and reflect: is this really what we want?

Writing Playlist

  To those of you who don't know yet, I'm working on writing a book.  Now before you ask how long into I am, I honestly don't know.  If you want a specific idea, the Word document is at 25,000 words right now.  I may post a couple teasers in the near future.  I almost always listen to music while writing, and what I listen to greatly depends on the type of scene I'm writing.  So here's some of my favorites.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzhNXoo6rwE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWGGSgfkZ0k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_tUr7Z5jTE&list=UUREP-L_BSC8r3FNgPJ6BnFQ&index=2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7HmzwI67ec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCl1fDOUpvQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KXNSYL93m4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwpe5pYe-Y0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTbXCnc2qdU

Last but not least:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CihLLn9WTvo