Into the Storm

There's a lot of talk in the media today about the coming hurricane.  Is it weird that part of me really wants to just jump in the car and head to the east coast?  (Almost) everyone who lives there has enough sense to evacuate and I'm wanting to head right into it all.  Maybe it's because I have a strong sense of adventure and my everyday life is pretty mundane.  I get excited when I hear "earthquake" and "hurricane".  Don't get me wrong, I don't want anyone to die or suffer loss, and I know with nature disasters that's pretty much unavoidable, but the idea still excites me.

I think everyone can relate.  We all want adventure and excitement in our lives.  We all want to be the hero in the story.  It starts when we're young and we fight imaginary monsters with sticks, and it lessens some as we grow older but it never really goes away.  We watch movies and read books and put ourselves into it.  We all want to be William Wallace in Braveheart, or Tom Cruise in the Last Samurai, or...I don't know, Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.  But in the story of our own lives, and in the grand story that God is writing, we're not the main character.  In the story that God writes, we don't have the leading roll, He does.  If all of history were the movie Braveheart, we're not William Wallace, we're the villager who gets axed 5 minutes in.

When we try to make ourselves the main character and pretend the whole movie is about us, we end up missing the real point of everything.  If you want a more in-depth discussion on this point, I recommend a book by Louie Giglio called I Am Not But I Know I AM.  It helps put everything in perspective.  It reveals that if we really want true adventure we will abandon the idea that the story of life is all about us and see Jesus as the true hero.

When we finally do that, we can join in the greatest adventure of all, and not drive and drive for hours towards a hurricane.  Even though I still think it would be pretty cool...

I'll end with a quote from Louie's book that I mentioned.  "You are a galactic nobody--in fact 99.9999999999 percent of the people on earth have never heard of you.  But God knows everything about you and calls you His own.  What more could we possibly achieve on earth that is greater than what we already have?  We are friends of God.  What greater prize or position could we hope to gain?  What praise of men could eclipse the voice of I AM speaking to us by name?"

Surprised by Grace

I've been reading a book by Tullian Tchividjian (yeah I can't pronounce it either) called Surprised by Grace.  In it, he details the Biblical story of Jonah and takes it to depths that I had never noticed before.  He connects the story of Jonah to the story of Christ quite nicely and has really made me look at the book in a different light. 

Jonah is interesting because, unlike most other prophets, he didn't fear failure, he feared success.  He didn't run from God because he thought the task that was asked of him was too difficult, but rather because he feared it was,  in a sense, too easy.  Nineveh was a drastically wicked place.  It was filled with all kinds of evil and idolatry, but God being full of love and mercy wanted to save them, despite them.  But Jonah wanted something else; he wanted their destruction.  After being spit out of the fish, he reluctantly travels to Nineveh to warn them of God's coming judgement, and the whole nation responds by repenting and turning to God for mercy, though they knew they didn't deserve it.  What was Jonah's reaction to all this?  Happiness?  Joy?  Heartfelt gladness that those who were lost were found?  That's what we would expect to see out of a prophet of God whose message a wicked and perverse nation had listened to.  Instead, Jonah is ticked.  Jonah 4:1 says that it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.  In fact, he prays in 4:3 and asks God to just go ahead and take his life, for "it is better for me to die than to live".  Tullian says Jonah may as well be shouting in God's face: "If I could do all this over again, I'd still run away from you--faster and farther!"

I guess it's fair to say he wasn't surprised by God's grace. He even says he knew God would forgive them if he delivered the message, and that's the very reason he ran.  Well I haven't finished the book yet, but I had to stop at this point.  Maybe the Ninevites had done something horrible to Jonah or his family in the past.  Maybe they had committed some great evil against his people that he just couldn't get over.  We aren't told.  We don't know why he reacted the way he did.  But I do know that I react the same way sometimes.  It's easy to judge from a distance, but what happens when people in your life who have wronged you go unpunished?  Or worse yet, what happens when they succeed?  I know for me, it's a bitter pill to swallow.

When you allow yourself to slip into that mindset, you're committing the same sin as Jonah.  You're refusing to grant others the same grace and mercy that has been extended to you.  What Jonah fails to acknowledge is that without the grace of God, he is in the same wicked, sinking boat as everyone else in Nineveh.  He assumes some kind of entitlement, that God owes him salvation, when the truth is, if God treated him fairly he would get Hell.  The same with you.  The same with me.

That's where I am surprised by grace.  I heard a preacher say once that it's easy to believe God loves us, we just don't think he likes us all that much.  I think that's true.  I know what holds me back a lot of times is I know I'm guilty and I know if I was treated fairly I wouldn't get grace, I would get hell.  I have a hard time believing that when God looks at me He doesn't see me but the righteousness of Christ.  On this subject, Tullian says "Through the gospel God counts your sins against Christ, not against you".  I would add that through the cross God counts Christ's righteousness against me, not Christ.  He didn't just die the death I should have died, but He lived the life I couldn't live.  And that's hard for me to get my head around.

So that's where I am in my spiritual journey as of late.  There's a lot of other stuff going on too, but I'll save that for later.

Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness.”

From Man to Philosopher

"The fact is, the moment a man takes to a pipe, he becomes a philosopher. It's the poor man's friend; it calms the mind, soothes the temper, and makes a man patient under difficulties."
-Sam Slick, the clockmaker

I took up pipe smoking about a year ago.  A friend of mine from Indiana came down last August to do some fishing on the Ohio River and we decided to stop at a little tobacco store in West Virginia to pick up some cigars first.  We noticed some cheap corncob pipes for sale behind the counter and decided to forgo the cigars and try the pipes.  We were both immediately hooked.  During the past year I've upgraded my collection from the cheap corncob to the more expensive Peterson and Savinelli; just this past weekend I spent the most I've ever spent on a pipe for a larger Hardcastle.

I think the above quote is true.  There's something about holding a pipe and drawing in the smoke that turns a regular man into a philosopher.  You can't just sit and do nothing while smoking a pipe.  You must think, and you must think deeply.  The pipe demands it, and a dedicated smoker cannot defy his pipe. 

I will admit, I never pictured myself taking up pipe smoking.  It is, after all, a hobby generally associated with old bearded men.  But that's simply not true.  It is a great hobby to be enjoyed by men, or women, of any reasonable age. 

Well that's enough for now I suppose.  I should go out and fire up my pipe.  This is the first week of my philosophy class after all.  I need all the help I can get!

There and Back Again...

Well I've been wanting to blog again.  It's been years since I've taken up the pen, so to speak, and spilled my thoughts onto the canvas of the internet.  I'll have to check my old Xanga site, if it's still even up, to see just exactly how long it has been.  But anyways...

I guess my desire to journal or blog, or whatever you want to call it, again comes from a desire to get in touch with myself.  For whatever reason I've found that putting my thoughts down on paper or screen helps me to think through things and really dig into what I'm feeling.  I need to get back to the basics and try to rediscover those things I've done in my past that really helped to form who I am today, or at least who I was back when I seemed to have a better grasp on things.  Maybe then I can start to resurrect the old me, the better me, and get things back on track.  It also helps to read back on my life years later to see how I've pulled through, or been pulled through, those tough times.

I guess I'm rambling and not really  making sense, but that's what this venue is for.  I doubt anyone who knows me will read this anyway.

So there it is, my first "blog" in years.  It's not very good, but it's a start.  Maybe I'll get better soon.  As I recall, my old blog was pretty darn good.  I even had some followers!