Hey there everyone!
So, this time around the blog entry will be coming out on the defined date. Last week we were 1 day late, but hopefully today will be the forerunner to a multitude of blog entries to follow. With that being said, let’s get down to business.
There’s been a few occurrences in our life of late as far as I’m concerned. 
Just prior to mother’s day we officially welcomed some new life into the world in the form of 8 little ducklings (or as I have been affectionately calling them, duckies…). I believe that these duckies were first observed swimming around the pool behind their mommy on Saturday morning. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to witness new life as it first began to experience the world and the site was truly moving. Just in case your interested there is a (rather sizeable) movie that I shot and edited for your viewing pleasure should you desire to see the duckies in action.
I was struck again by the grave sin of man to look at a world as complex and beautiful as ours is and, in his desperate attempt to deny God and rule himself, declare that it was only chance that accomplished this great feat of creation. You cannot observe the miracle of renewed life every year and honestly say that there is not a God. As Charnock might say, it is a great folly for the atheist to deny the existence of a divinity, thought it may not be so outlandish for him to claim that the divinity is not the Christian one. However, the existence of God truly is painted upon every facet of his creation. I pray that God would help me to continue to marvel at the works of his hands and to be moved to worship him at every turn in his world.
I’ve also been lead again to the extreme importance of effective use of my time. I had a dream recently that I was in a car on a major highway and that I could not control the car. I wasted a large amount of energy because I would just randomly begin to swerve all over the highway and eventually I would be pulled over and taken back to the beginning where I would have to begin to drive again. God was telling me that I need to start reigning in my passions and begin to focus my energies on the “one thing needed” (Luke 10:41). So I recently totally reexamined my schedule and have been attempting to follow it with renewed vigor. I want it to be said of me when I stand before God that I was an anointed communicator of Biblical Truths and that my heart swelled at the thought of my Lord. So I’ve attempted to align my schedule to aim at that end. I also believe that God has called me to be an excellent web designer so I’ve included that into my schedule.
The use of our life energies will be directed by someone, whether it’s me or the Devil. God has a dream for my life but he wants me to chase after it with my own free will. It brings him glory when the dream that he has for me is what ignites my heart to passionate pursuit. Therefore, that is how I want to order my life. Beyond that, as a nod to purely selfish motives, I know that the things that God has for me are where I will truly be satisfied, no matter what this world or my mind has to say about it. I’m in this to have my hunger and thirst quenched.
Recently, Jess and I were rocked by a message from Lou Engle called “The Call to Go Beyond Mediocrity”. If you want to hear it, it was the most recent release (5/11/06) on the OneThing Podcast, so hook yourself up with that. It’s a great resource anyway just for things to be feeding your spirit on, so I would recommend signing up for it just because. Anyway, the message is really a call to Nazirite consecration in the face of a culture that downgrades utter devotion to God. Our culture has bought into the lie that God is at best a thing that provides you with a warm fuzzy feeling and that until we’re “forced” to “bear with” his presence all day long, we should get all the enjoyment we can out of this world. This is utter nonsense. God created us to enjoy him. He is the only thing that will bring us true pleasure. Therefore, it is utterly insane to say that we should be well rounded individuals with God only occupying one of the many compartments of our lives. I like what Lou Engle said; “We only have so much passion and energy. If we’re called to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for sports and other things.” It’s the call to “fast the legitimate pleasures of this life in order to enlarge our capacity for the superior pleasures of God himself.”
The message really helped me and Jess understand what we’ve been going through all of our lives. I actually commented to her in one of our many conversations about it that I hadn’t connected with a message so much since the first time I had gone to One Thing. Truly, Lou Engle has been given a message that is an echo of what God has placed in the hearts of my generation. We’re sick and tired of dead religion that is lacking connection with the heart of God. However, we’re not leaving the Church, we’re running in the Church. We’re called to be John the Baptists. We’re called to be burning and shining lamps (John 5:35). Lou Engle said that it is always God’s way to raise up Nazirite lovers as an answer to Barren Mothers. I’m happy that it is God who has released this utter dissatisfaction with the things of the world into me. However, I now know that the call is high. Because at any given moment I can choose to feed on the things of this world.
You see, I realized that the problem with movies is not that movies cause you to sin, it’s that movies give the devil ammo to use against you. I recently watched The Greatest Game Ever Played. Truly, there’s nothing in that movie that I would claim was immoral. I would even say that as far as entertainment goes, that was about as clean as it comes now-a-days. However, what I realized is that I could have taken those 2 hours and fed on something from eternity. I could have listened to a message, or read my Bible, or prayed, or simply gone to sleep, and the images that I now have in my head would not be there. My soul would have lacked the food that it now has that it is feeding on. In other words, I could have fasted that movie (as far as I’m concerned, a legitimate pleasure… Unlike some movies) and fed my spirit. This is the war. It’s a battle over the gate of the eyes, and the question is what will we feed ourselves with. Will we feed ourselves with junk that ultimately serves no purpose? Or will we feed ourselves with eternity; with that which strengthens our inner man instead of weakening it.
God, I pray that you would unleash dissatisfaction into my heart and the heart of my generation. Show us where true pleasure lies. Show us where the longing of our hearts can be answered. Turn the pleasures of this life into ash in our mouth. Incline our hearts to your truth, God. Enlarge our capacity to feel and embrace you. Set yourself as a seal upon our heart, stronger than death. Burn us with a coal from your alter and set us apart.
Well, I had more to say here but it’s just going to have to wait. I’m gonna have to rethink how I do this because I just flat-out ran out of time. Perhaps we’ll need to be more focussed in the future. But at the moment I’m way over schedule, so, I gots to get goin!
