The Atlantic was born today and I'll tell you how...
The clouds above opened up and let it out.
I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole.
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
Making islands where no island should go.
Oh no.
Those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door have been silenced forever more.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh no.
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
So come on, come on
So come on, come on
So come on, come on
So come on, come on
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
I've Got It: Ultimate Revelation
So For years now I have been living life with this hunch that the majority of the people around me know something that I don't and there is a connection I ahve not made and there is something that is missing. And as rediculous as this might seem to those of you who have relized this long ago, I was thinking to myself last night as I was falling asleep that connection that I have been missing is the fact that I have lived for a while now in a balance of knowing what is asked of me as a Christian(Bible), as a student, as a son and what God is leading me to think/be/do, but rather living to what I see to be just short of fulfilling those roles to fullest, but acting like I am fulfilling them well enough so that anyone I encounter at first glance will get the impression that have it all together.
I know that our society in general, if they were to be honest, would say that they live in fear, and the sorce of this fear is that they are afraid that the world around them will reveal them to be the broken and incomplete person that they really are. I am broken. I am incomplete. Now what? If I were to meet a complete stranger that would admit to being broken, incomplete and then were to ask me "Now what?" I, as should any Christian, might just cry tears of joy for the simple fact that this would be the ultimate opportunity that God could give us to proclaim Christ's victorious, transforming and healing power in that person's life.
Now, I am again realizing/ admitting that I am broken. Now you are asking yourself, "where is he going with this and what is his ultimate revelation?" Last night I realized the reason behind my decisions for the past 6 years and maybe even earlier. I have been trying to figure out who I am, who God wants me to be and how do I make those two one in the same. My personality, my passions and my decisions combined over the last 6 years, if closely studied, would point to the fact that I have been living and am living searching for the ultimate HOW? How do I become who God wants me to be? How do I become the man I was created to become? How do I get to the point where I can undoubtedly say that I KNOW God and not just know of or about him? It has been a journey that I have taken not always being aware of it, but i realize it now. And I also realize that the answer is no that there is a point where I will have arrived. I will never "arrive". There will never be a point where I will say, "I have arrived!" unless it is when I am with God after my life on earth is done.
The answer to all my searching is that becoming who God wants me to be is found in the attitude that says, "Lord, I am willing. Not my will but your will be done"
Now the question is How do I live that? I will not be able to wake up every day and say confess that! That is impossible!
STOP! That is the point! The fact that it is impossible is the point. Because it is impossible on our own. You may have heard this before, but it can never become cliche or old or over used because it is the simple truth, and truth is always good and new and freeing. "The sinners prayer" is as simple as " I cannot but Lord you can. Lead me on."
The reason I have been feeling like everyone else knows what is going on and I don't is because I have been living in the balance of not fulfilling my roles of Christian, student, son. I simply have been lazy. I do just enough so I can act my way through life, instead of giving so much of myself that I almost kill myself trying to become the most amazing me there can be. I cannot expect good fruit to come out of my life if I o not put any effort to produce that fruit. One of my teachers in high school had a quote on her wall that said, "If you want something different than you 've had, then you must do something different than you've done." The band Audioslave wrote a song "Show Me How to Live" that says, "Live in my head, oh my creator. You gave me a life now show me how to live." Well when God shows you how to live the key is that you actually have to go do it, and God will speak to you through the Bible and through other Christians. So if you are not reading your Bible how do you expect God to speak to you? How can you expect to hear if you are not listening?
The key is to be willing. Lord I am willing. Not my will but your will be done.
I know that our society in general, if they were to be honest, would say that they live in fear, and the sorce of this fear is that they are afraid that the world around them will reveal them to be the broken and incomplete person that they really are. I am broken. I am incomplete. Now what? If I were to meet a complete stranger that would admit to being broken, incomplete and then were to ask me "Now what?" I, as should any Christian, might just cry tears of joy for the simple fact that this would be the ultimate opportunity that God could give us to proclaim Christ's victorious, transforming and healing power in that person's life.
Now, I am again realizing/ admitting that I am broken. Now you are asking yourself, "where is he going with this and what is his ultimate revelation?" Last night I realized the reason behind my decisions for the past 6 years and maybe even earlier. I have been trying to figure out who I am, who God wants me to be and how do I make those two one in the same. My personality, my passions and my decisions combined over the last 6 years, if closely studied, would point to the fact that I have been living and am living searching for the ultimate HOW? How do I become who God wants me to be? How do I become the man I was created to become? How do I get to the point where I can undoubtedly say that I KNOW God and not just know of or about him? It has been a journey that I have taken not always being aware of it, but i realize it now. And I also realize that the answer is no that there is a point where I will have arrived. I will never "arrive". There will never be a point where I will say, "I have arrived!" unless it is when I am with God after my life on earth is done.
The answer to all my searching is that becoming who God wants me to be is found in the attitude that says, "Lord, I am willing. Not my will but your will be done"
Now the question is How do I live that? I will not be able to wake up every day and say confess that! That is impossible!
STOP! That is the point! The fact that it is impossible is the point. Because it is impossible on our own. You may have heard this before, but it can never become cliche or old or over used because it is the simple truth, and truth is always good and new and freeing. "The sinners prayer" is as simple as " I cannot but Lord you can. Lead me on."
The reason I have been feeling like everyone else knows what is going on and I don't is because I have been living in the balance of not fulfilling my roles of Christian, student, son. I simply have been lazy. I do just enough so I can act my way through life, instead of giving so much of myself that I almost kill myself trying to become the most amazing me there can be. I cannot expect good fruit to come out of my life if I o not put any effort to produce that fruit. One of my teachers in high school had a quote on her wall that said, "If you want something different than you 've had, then you must do something different than you've done." The band Audioslave wrote a song "Show Me How to Live" that says, "Live in my head, oh my creator. You gave me a life now show me how to live." Well when God shows you how to live the key is that you actually have to go do it, and God will speak to you through the Bible and through other Christians. So if you are not reading your Bible how do you expect God to speak to you? How can you expect to hear if you are not listening?
The key is to be willing. Lord I am willing. Not my will but your will be done.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Day to day.
Today is Sunday, and I thought I would post for a few reasons...Super Bowl, This mornings amazing sermon and some sweet music. First of all I am going to congratulate Payton Manning on his first Super Bowl ring. In my opinion he and his team deserved it .
This morning I had some roommate troubles...I set my alarm for 8:45 so that I could get up and quickly go get some breakfast before 9 and then come back to get ready for church at 10. Well first of all I wake up and see that it is 9am and breakfast is closed and my alarm has been on for 15 minutes. My alarm sound is nothing annoying it is just the local Christian radio station. SO, I get up and go to the bathroom and on my way back I see my roommate in the hall making his way to the shower and he gives me one of those if looks could kill you would be dead looks and I asked him, "what's with the dirty look?" which he replies "you woke me up". I found this odd because about 30 seconds after I woke up and turned my alarm off his alarm sounds(which is one of the annoying buzzers)So when he came back from the showers I was waiting for him so we could discuss the little beef that was developing. I said, "Hey Matt, you know now that we are in college we don't give each other dirty looks when something is bothering us like we did in Junior High... I would appreciate it if you would come and talk to me instead if you have a problem." Timeout, now I know that this is not the most sensitive thing I could have said at the time, but this guy is getting on my nerves for the simple reason that if he has a problem with me he just lets it build up and we never address it. SO in return I have been trying to "poke at him" to get him to talk to me about what's on his mind. So he responds with, "Well it seems that you just ignored me the last time we talked about this and have not fixed anything." Basically he has a problem with the fact that I do not wake up right away to my alarm and I feel kinda stuck cause I can't do much about it cause the volume on my radio is all the way up and I wake up when I wake up. So the conversation really never resolved anything accept him being peeved at me and me and I know that we didn't solved anything. So that is what's up with the roomy.
So on to this morning. The pastor at the church I attend here, Aaron Bart, is spoke on the story in Mark about the Leper who encounters Jesus and says to him, "If you are willing you can heal me." Aaron pointed out that before this encounter no person, only a demon, has addressed Jesus to be God, and around that time Leprosy was seen as a punishment by God and could only be healed by God. So the interesting point is that the leper does not say CAN you heal me, but rather that Jesus has the power and asking if he is willing to heal him. I thought that what he said was pretty sweet. He then went on to talk about how we as Christians need to have the attitude of willingness and that we won't be perfect and do thing right, but we need to continue saying to God, "I am still willing to follow and do my best for you."
Some good music I have been listening to lately is John Mayer's new CD Continuum, and Shawn McDonald's Cd Ripen. Anyway thanks for reading, and comment if you want. Also I would appreciate your prayers about he being able to go to Australia next spring. You can also pray about housing for next year, that I can find a group of guys that I want to live with. And...one more thing that I can get along with my roommate. Talk to you soon.
-Joel
This morning I had some roommate troubles...I set my alarm for 8:45 so that I could get up and quickly go get some breakfast before 9 and then come back to get ready for church at 10. Well first of all I wake up and see that it is 9am and breakfast is closed and my alarm has been on for 15 minutes. My alarm sound is nothing annoying it is just the local Christian radio station. SO, I get up and go to the bathroom and on my way back I see my roommate in the hall making his way to the shower and he gives me one of those if looks could kill you would be dead looks and I asked him, "what's with the dirty look?" which he replies "you woke me up". I found this odd because about 30 seconds after I woke up and turned my alarm off his alarm sounds(which is one of the annoying buzzers)So when he came back from the showers I was waiting for him so we could discuss the little beef that was developing. I said, "Hey Matt, you know now that we are in college we don't give each other dirty looks when something is bothering us like we did in Junior High... I would appreciate it if you would come and talk to me instead if you have a problem." Timeout, now I know that this is not the most sensitive thing I could have said at the time, but this guy is getting on my nerves for the simple reason that if he has a problem with me he just lets it build up and we never address it. SO in return I have been trying to "poke at him" to get him to talk to me about what's on his mind. So he responds with, "Well it seems that you just ignored me the last time we talked about this and have not fixed anything." Basically he has a problem with the fact that I do not wake up right away to my alarm and I feel kinda stuck cause I can't do much about it cause the volume on my radio is all the way up and I wake up when I wake up. So the conversation really never resolved anything accept him being peeved at me and me and I know that we didn't solved anything. So that is what's up with the roomy.
So on to this morning. The pastor at the church I attend here, Aaron Bart, is spoke on the story in Mark about the Leper who encounters Jesus and says to him, "If you are willing you can heal me." Aaron pointed out that before this encounter no person, only a demon, has addressed Jesus to be God, and around that time Leprosy was seen as a punishment by God and could only be healed by God. So the interesting point is that the leper does not say CAN you heal me, but rather that Jesus has the power and asking if he is willing to heal him. I thought that what he said was pretty sweet. He then went on to talk about how we as Christians need to have the attitude of willingness and that we won't be perfect and do thing right, but we need to continue saying to God, "I am still willing to follow and do my best for you."
Some good music I have been listening to lately is John Mayer's new CD Continuum, and Shawn McDonald's Cd Ripen. Anyway thanks for reading, and comment if you want. Also I would appreciate your prayers about he being able to go to Australia next spring. You can also pray about housing for next year, that I can find a group of guys that I want to live with. And...one more thing that I can get along with my roommate. Talk to you soon.
-Joel
Friday, February 2, 2007
Destination 2008
So as of right now I am headed to studying abroad in Sydney, Australia next year. Here are some pictures. I just wanted to post something because I'm really excited with idea of getting outside of the continental US and oportunities I will have if I go. I'll get to do things like live in Sydney for 5 months, spend a week in New Zealand, spend a week with an Aborigional Tribe and still take about 16 credits in music and theology courses.
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