"Ask me for what I am living or what gives me strength that I'm willing to die for..."

I read this passage today:

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

-- 2 Corinthians 5:14-21



I heard this song today:

Life and love and why
Child, adult, then die
All of your hoping
And all of your searching
For what?

Ask me for what am I living
Or what gives me strength
That I'm willing to die for

Take away from me
This monstrosity
'Cause my futile thinking's
Not gonna solve nothing tonight

Ask me for what am I living
Or what gives me strength
That I'm willing to die for

Could it be this?
Could this be bliss?
Could it be all that I ever had missed?
Could it be true?
Can life be new?
And can I be used?
Can I be used?

Give me a reason
For life and for death
A reason for drowning
While I hold my breath
Something to laugh at
A reason to cry
With everyone hopeless
And hoping for something to hope for
Yeah, with something to hope for

Could it be true?
Can life be new?
Could it be all that I am is in You?
Could it be this?
Could it be bliss?
Can it be You?
Can it be You?

--"Life and Love and Why" by Switchfoot




I thought they went strikingly well together.



Our lives have purpose. A purpose that exceeds ourselves; that transcends ourselves.


Our purpose is God.


With that in mind, I can face anything this life has to throw at me.


You can too.


Goodnight.

The Long Day Is Over.....

WOW Saturday was today. Oh my gosh. It was insane. I am so tired right now, it's not even funny.

God is awesome. Seriously. He gave me so much grace today.

A scab is a truly marvelous thing. I have a rather large one on my knee right now. Amazing. It honestly is a testament to God's ingenuity.

Ok, I'm exhausted, so I'm going to bed.

Close but no cigar, Plato...

One of the most comforting thoughts that has ever occured to me is that this is not all there is. Imagine if it was. Imagine if you were born, lived, and died, and that was it. Oblivion. This world is as good as it would get.

Now that's depressing.

Plato (pictured to the right) believed that there was a world beyond this one, a "world of ideas" from which everything stems. More than that, everything in this world is a shadow, a corrupted reflection of the true thing that exists in the world of ideas. A tree in this world is merely a shadow of the "idea tree" in the world of ideas. A horse in this world is merely a corrupted reflection of the "idea horse" in the world of ideas. According to Plato, the things that populate the world of ideas are perfect, immutable, and eternal. Death reunites us with the world of ideas.

How close!!! Augustine once commented that if Plato had lived in Christian times, he would have been a believer. Everything in this world does indeed stem from a source that is Eternal, Immutable, and Perfect. Everything in this world is indeed a corrupted form of what it was originally intended to be.

But the truth differs from Plato's theory in a few instances. The biggest difference is one worth noting. In Plato's theory, there is only one realm outside this existence. However, in reality, there are two destinations potentially laid out for our souls. I said at the beggining of this blog that "this world is as good as it gets" (under the presumption that there is nothing outside of this life)-- how false a statement!! Heaven's joys are unfathomable. However, that's not to say that this world is as bad as it could get, either. Hell's horrors are unspeakable.

The path to the joys of the afterlife lay not in philosophy, or being a virtuous citizen. The only way is through Jesus Christ. There is nothing else. Peter responded correctly to Jesus inquiry as to whether the disciples would leave Him-- he said "Lord, to whom else shall we go? You have the words of life. And we believed, and have come to know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

The good news is that this world is not all there is. The better news is that Christ offers you a life better than this one.

Glory Days....

There are only a few things that strike a chord of dread in my soul-- things that cause my stomach to knot up and my throat to run dry and a cold sweat to breakout on my forehead. One is helicopter blades or pretty much any large propeller of any kind. Those things scare the ever-loving crap out of me. Another thing that still makes my blood run cold is the word August.

Why August? Is it the heat? Nah. Is it the fact that school is starting shortly and summer's over? Nope. I'll tell you why August freaks me out-- Hell Week. No other event, no other reason can cause me to work harder or lose more weight than Hell Week did. It wasn't to impress girls, or for my own personal health, that I would sometimes shed 15 pounds in pre-season training-- it was for survival. Hell Week isn't called Hell Week because it's fun.

But the torture was worth it. The sweating, the bleeding, the sprains, and of course, the constant vommitting; it was all worth it. Especially your senior year. All that practice and training paid off on game night. And later. Walking to class on Monday morning, after you led your team to victory the previous weekend, wearing your varsity letterman jacket, having all the younger kids look at you and all the girls say hi, it was worth it. At least in a fleshly, gratifying, pride-filled sense.

But at most, a season can last 13 weeks. That's if you go all the way to the championship game, like my team did my Senior year. Then all of a sudden, it's gone, and you're just some high school punk. And it's Basketball Season (shudder).

I found myself really missing my football days yesterday, so I picked up a really good book I like. It's called Bleachers and it's by John Grisham. It's about a former High School football star going back to his hometown 15 years after he graduated and reliving his former glory days with his old buddies. I found a great quote in their that I thought would be appropriate for how I'm feeling right now:

"You count the years until you get a varsity jersey, then you're a hero, an idol, a cocky b*$t*&d because in this town you can do no wrong. You win and win and you're the king of your own little world, then poof, it's gone. You play your last game and everybody cries. You can't believe it's over. Then another team comes right behind you and you're forgotten."

How true. It reminded me of something else I've been dwelling on:

For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten... When there is a man who has labored with wisdom, knowledge and skill, then he gives his legacy to one who has not labored with them. This too is vanity and a great evil.
-- Ecclesiastes 2: 16, 21

All this thinking about the now-faded "glory days" has got me thinking about yet another thing, something I read in an awesome Piper book:

Only one life, will soon be past;
Only what's done for Christ will last.

Football was great. I miss it a lot, especially this time of year. But it's fleeting. It's over. There's more to life that High School football. And what's more, as Christians, we are to focus on the now, the present, and how we can glorify God with the time we have, not the time that has slipped away. To dwell longingly on the days when I was Captain and a starter and All-State is foolishness (to quote my good friend Hugh Jackson). My focus is to serve Christ now. It has to be. All other ground is sinking sand.



(In case you're wondering, the pics above are taken my Senior year. I was about 180 pounds but could bench 70 pounds over my body weight. Any of you who know me now know that that's definitely not the case now ;-). The photo of me and my brother was taken right after we beat our rivals in a comeback victory and in doing so, won the all-leage title. It was great.)