Wednesday, April 11, 2012

LOVE

My life (and also some random stuff that I read in school that may or may not interest you as well)

What I learned in Canadian Lit today: back in the ol' days, PDA was so unacceptable that if you were caught kissing your WIFE in public, you'd be put in stalks for a few days. Sounds fine right? Yo have to wear socks for a few days? Yeah, no. These are stocks. http://clio.missouristate.edu/chuchiak/New%20Webpage%20Images/Stocks.JPG The worst part is, this wasn't just a stupid law that no one followed. Guys actually got caught on charges of PDA and put in these things for days. If your legs were too big to fit in them, they didn't care, you'd just have to deal with it and hope your legs didn't fall off. 

So my conclusion is: The 1500-1600's sucked. 

This was just one of the Levitical laws that they completely over-interpreted. They took many other laws from that book and over exaggerated them in a similar stupid with similar stupid punishments. They lived by this deal called "theocracy". Basically, they pretend their government was ruled by God himself, which would have been a good idea if their theology of God himself wasn't so screwed up. *sigh* Oh people of England in the 1600's, you were so dumb...

My spiritual life (CORY ASBURY IS DA BOMB)

Just a few days ago, I got back from FreshWind youth conference in Toronto. It was amazing (Cory Asbury was there! HECK YEAHZ!). It was kind of that “spiritual energy drink” that I needed.

But the question I ask myself now is this: How long with this “spiritual high” last? I’ve been inspired, and have worked hard on my spiritual life before, but I never seem to stay in that exact state where it’s just easy to spend time in God’s presents. Somehow, I don’t think it’ll be any different this time.

Man, I must sound like such a downer right now, just talking about how even though I was just inspired I’m already preparing for that inspiration to leave. But I don’t look at this as a negative thing. Sure, inspiration is awesome, and it’s definitely a necessary part of the Christian walk, but I’m actually really happy that being a Christian isn’t easy. Let me explain with an example.

Let’s say there were two people: Henry and Bob. Ok sorry, those are awful names. How about “Hercules” and “Everett”? Better? Great.

Both of our two friends reached a point in their lives where they began looking for companionship. On one hand, we’ve got Everett. He was a fairly nice person, but his real strength was computers. One day Everett decided to begin a project to create a robotic companion; someone with whom he could share his ideas, or play mini-put. He worked on it hard for over a year, but finally it was done. He had a friend to call his own. A friend he could control and make love him. He decided to test out his new artificial friend by going on a trip to Jamaica. They had fun, surfing and bungee jumping and whatnot. Anyway, let’s move on to the more important guy in this story.

So Hercules was a really great guy, also looking for a partner to live his life with. One day met a really nice girl. They got married and went on a honeymoon to Jamaica. It was great, they spent all day hanging out at the beach and stuff. All in all, a really healthy relationship.

One morning while in Jamaica, both Hercules and Everett had a similar idea. They both decided to go out and purchase a gift for their corresponding partners. They both got up early in the morning, and got into a taxi. The same taxi actually (Yes, they get around via taxi in this part on Jamaica. Shut up).

While being driven to the local market they ended up in a horrible accident, and both of their faces were mutilated being recognition. When they woke up from their comas, they were so beastly ugly, the hospital staff wouldn’t let in their companions at first, but both Hercules’s wife, and Everett’s Robot argued so hard and passionately that they finally let them come into the rooms where they were being treated.

The two bodies were completely and totally covered in bandages. Fortunately too, since underneath, they were broken bloodied messes. Both destined to be paraplegic “beasts” for the rest of their days.

When Hercules’s wife first saw him, she couldn’t even bring herself to fully believe
who it was. But when he opened his mouth and began to speak, she knew it was him.
“You don’t really want me anymore. I’m disgusting. I’m totally broken. I’m not the man you married”. In disregard of his totally dis-figured face, she embraced him and told him
“No! That’s not true! I love you more than anything! I’ll never let you go!” (yada yada yada, more mushy crap.. So basically, she still loves him even though it’s going to be really hard, and she’s going to have to take care of him like a baby for the rest of her life).

On the other side of the room, our buddy Everett was hanging out with his pet robot. He quickly did some minor adjustments to his robot’s personality, and his partner once again accepted him.
          “I love you. I will take care of all your needs. I will never let you go” (in generic monotone robot speak, obviously).

THE END

Wasn’t that touching? Ok no. Kind of weird probably. But look at both of those relationships. The bond between a healthy relationship of a man and his bride is beautiful because she chooses to accept him (hard as it may be). The bond between the man and his robot is flat, and boring since his robot has no choice, and it is not difficult for it to accept him since it has no preference.

If your relationship with God were the same as one of these two, which would you prefer? Would you rather have no choice, and no difficulty accepting your partner (like the robot)? Or would you rather choose your companion out of love (like the woman). Even if it was hard, Even though she wouldn’t be as successful in life, Even though she’d have to spend the rest of her life working to support her husband, she chose to accept him out of love.

God chose the second option. He didn’t want his creation to simply love him because they had to. He wanted to make it difficult, so it MEANT something. And it does! I’m glad God makes it difficult to love and trust him, because then he knows so much more how much I really DO love him when I put my trust him.


[EDIT]

I feel like I need to explain myself, and slightly change my "view" on this subject. But.... i'm really lazy and it's 1:41 AM... So I'll just write a super long blog post again soon and you can all hear about how much God's love is awesome, and how I'm trying to understand it better.

My stuff (that I record and produce... for other people usually)

So I'm finally trying to start this space show that I've been wanting to do since early 2011/late2010. If it all works out the way I want it to, we'll start airing episodes this summer (on the internet) and will hopefully air on some radio stations too. Again, if it all works out the way I want, the first season will be around 11 episodes long (including a shortish pilot episode to introduce the show and the characters). Almost all of the scripts are written, and just need some polishing up, but most of them need some finishing up. Some of them are just outlines or even ideas that haven't been turned into scripts yet. I hope this all works out, because the scripts we do have are pretty awesome. Don't get too worked up about how awesome it's going to be, because I'm still not sure of details and how everything's going to work out, but I really hope it does so everything can be awesome and stuff. It'll be awesome. Hopefully.

Also I'm done AE’s new demo that I was working on for the last ever. You can download a free single from it here : http://tinyurl.com/cxco7q9

12 comments:

  1. Your little story wasn't weird! Maybe a little jumpy and lacking some character development (I kid, I kid), but it got the job done. It was a great example of walking with God. For once, robots aren’t awesome.
    Keep us posted on the space show!

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  2. Very good! I love the part where you say, (yada yada yada, more mushy crap... :) funny stuff...

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    1. Don't really like the song, though. Just not my style, I guess.

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    2. Haha, yeah. Not everyone likes that style.

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  3. I don't think God makes it difficult to love Him. We make it difficult. It's our sin that separates us from God and makes it difficult to love him. That was never God's intention. From the beginning of time God gave us a choice to love Him (this is true love), but He gave it to us in a world without sin where we could be with Him and know Him intimately without anything standing in the way. He didn't create the chasm between us, we did.

    I liked your example in that it points out that we have the choice to love Him, and that is incredible. What I had a bit of a problem with though is that the people became unlovely... which "people" DID, but GOD DID NOT. He is not disgusting, totally broken, handicapped or unlovely. He is beautiful, incredible, amazing, He is the One who gave us the ability to love Him, He loved us first, and He IS LOVE. It is against his nature to make it difficult for us to love, when that is who He is, and that is what He desires most. We became broken and unlovely. He still loved us with REAL TRUE LOVE. I love what you said in your last post about asking God to reveal to you that there's more to life than earthly pleasures. God seems hard to love because we aren't seeing Him clearly... not because He is hard to love.

    That being said, how do we deal with the fact that it seems so HARD sometimes to get close and stay close to Father? There are many reason, but I feel like one of the main ones is that many of us fall into a mentality of works-driven love in our relationship with God rather than love-driven works. Our love lives with God should be that of response to His great love for us, not out of obligation... but how do we get there? It is by getting a greater revelation of His true Love.

    Sometimes it's not that we don't think that he loves us, but we feel like He can't love every part of us... because we don't even love every part of us. In Romans it says that while we were still His enemies, Christ died for us. Awhile ago I felt God speak to me and say, "If I showed my greatest act of love toward you while we were still enemies, why are you trying so hard to earn my love now that we're friends?" Now we have the righteousness of Christ... and it's not a facade covering up our unlovely parts. We are truly righteous now. And because of that, we can come boldly to His throne of grace (Hebrews 11) without fear or shame.

    There's so much more, but I'm sure you're skimming by now.

    SOOOO.... I LOVE YOU! With REAL TRUE LOVE! And I'm thankful that you're difficult to love, because it's making me a better person. JUST KIDDING!

    Deanna

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    1. Right, I was going to make a note of how bad an example that was when it came the the guy being all gross and messed up, but I still believe that God knew it would be difficult to love him when he created us anyway. I'm not trying to say God intended it to be specifically hard to love him, but exactly what you said, that he gave us a choice, which makes our love to him mean so much more than that of a robot. Perhaps the story wasn't the greatest example of what I way trying to get across, but to be fair, I'm in total agreement with what you just said. I'm probably just a horrible storyteller :P.

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    2. Also, this comment wasn't THAT long. I've had walls of text longer than this deleted on me before on message boards, and it sucks... That's why whenever I'm typing something even slightly lengthy, I copy and paste it to a word doc as soon as it starts getting a little bit long.

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    3. Romans 7:21-8:15
      THIS IS HOW MOST PEOPLE THINK CHRISTIANITY WORKS:
      21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
      So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin.

      THIS IS HOW IT ACTUALLY WORKS:

      1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has SET YOU FREE from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[c] And so HE CONDEMNED SIN IN THE FLESH, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, WHO DO NOT LIVE ACCORDING TO THE FLESH BUT ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT.
      5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is LIFE AND PEACE. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
      9 You, however, are NOT in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life[d] because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of[e] his Spirit who lives in you.
      12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
      14 FOR THOSE WHO ARE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD ARE THE CHILDREN OF GOD. 15 THE SPIRIT YOU RECEIVED DOES NOT MAKE YOU SLAVES, SO THAT YOU LIVE IN FEAR AGAIN; RATHER, THE SPIRIT YOU RECEIVED BROUGHT ABOUT YOUR ADOPTION TO SONSHIP. AND BY HIM WE CRY “ABBA, FATHER.”

      God never intended for us to battle sin. Just because He knew we would choose sin and separation from Him, doesn’t mean it was His desire. That is why He sent His son, TO SET US FREE from the battle within… to remove the chasm that we created. We should never be thankful that sin makes it hard for us to follow God. We should instead be thankful that Jesus made a way for us to walk away from those things that make it hard to follow Him! THANK YOU JESUS, WE FIND FREEDOM FROM THE WEIGHT OF SIN IN HIM!!

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    4. This is the essence of Christianity… not that we in ourselves struggle to love him underneath the weight of the world, but that HIS GRACE SET US FREE from the weight of the world! THANK YOU JESUS!

      Ephesians 2:1-9

      1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you USED TO LIVE when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God RAISED US UP WITH CHRIST AND SEATED US WITH HIM IN THE HEAVENLY REALMS IN CHRIST JESUS, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the INCOMPARABLE RICHES OF HIS GRACE, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and THIS IS NOT FROM YOURSELVES, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works [our ability to love in spite of difficulty], so that no one can boast.

      Ok I’m done. BUT GOD IS AWESOME!! Haha!

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    5. OH PS I loved talking with you on Skype tonight! I hope we can do it again soon. I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!

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  4. Oh, and by the way, I love your heart, and so does Father. I am so proud of you and so proud to call you my brother. I love to watch you grow, and I wish I didn't have to do it from the other side of the world. You are an amazing man of God... If Aaron looks up to you and follows your example, I would be overjoyed. Miss you, little brother. Let's talk again soon!

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