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Michael Jordan made the number 23 famous. 23 was coined as a token of his greatness.

I'm thinking about my life now that I'm no longer 22. I'm passing by continual landmarks on the tick-tock of my wrist watch. 

And with eternity in view, it becomes difficult to maintain an appearance of cool. Though I've learned how to dress, I'm still a mess.   

Eternity is difficult to disbelieve. It seems as though everything that is, simply has been. History was before and history is being formed-indifferent with or without me. 

I have a longing for a future where there is joy which never ends. This life is only the culmination of my present errands. Drag on. Understand fun. Marry one. Be done. This spells dumb.

 If I'm having my best life now, then I'm worshiping a golden cow. 

Perspective, such a relative term, yet sought after as though it lasted forever. Subjective perspectives end. Living only in the now is as finished as it starts. If I'm having my best life now, then I'm worshiping a golden cow. 

I do not think that time is my friend.  The cosmos and the ethnos, that make up us and keep us in touch, point to something more than stardust. 

Who is to guide me to eternity? Will it be a company of fools? Will it be the council of the wise? I wonder if M.J. wanted someone to empathize.

I wish the generation before me would retire from retirement. My generation needs their wisdom and insight. I wish my generation would turn from their pride and ask those salt-and-peppered heads to guide them again.
 
For when eternity is in view, I again see the tricks of this age; it's tools which trade everlasting for the quick that fades. Fleet feet always running away. There is a  fleeting desire, I feel, to become something new. To taste, touch, and indulge in this moment's Rolex wrist watch. 

Alas, the tick-tock of the Rolex is a facade of a rock.
A blimp. 
A speck.
It is all bull-Sheol as the end of time draws more near. 
 
I'm 23, but when I ball, it's time that decides the final call.

10/13/16

Eternity As A 23 Year Old

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Everything that is accomplished is done by the sovereign hand of God. I am just a player living in God's favor. It is not my will that brought the Savior, but God the Father's namesake, loving behavior. 

No man can control God through demands or anything else. God does whatever he pleases. My God is in the heavens being praised by angels. "Boom" go the angelic speakers. My God is not controlled, much less tricked, by man's attempts to pray "in faith" for a Buick. 

Get that right: What is crooked, no man can make straight. 

Get this truth: What is heavy, does not always sink. 
Heaviness is only relative to finite creatures and creations. To God, his heaviness has been truth before heaven's foundations. Beyond time, matter, and space, God's heavy truth invades and persuades participants in life's race.

Yet, his heavy truth does not always sink. It does not always sink into the hearts of those who are sustained by his common grace.  Those who suppress the truth are pushing against the ultimate weight. God alone is worthy of all praise. Not every worker will receive a raise.
How foolish then is the one who continues to use blasphemous "kingdom keys" as a way to unlock the King of kings? How sickening is it that God's namesake is trampled upon by those who claim to be aligned with his Son?

Let it never be. God's kingdom is greater than thee. God's kingdom is unfathomable and independent of your "positive confession" agenda. 

I am sitting in the third row watching the theatrical show.

They are a people so desperate for the touch of healing that they will "sow a seed" to any Jesus-name-abusing dealings. They seek to encounter more than a feeling, but are left alone in their bleeding. Reaching for Jesus' garment hem, they are stopped by "the lord's anointed" singing a Good-Ol'-Boys hymn. Then the overhead lights up and says, "You gotta pay the piper here to get to him." An "apostle" asks, "What did you think this was, open gym?"

So a call is made to approach the altar to alter their needs. Singers lead the plea, "Dear Jesus, please. In your name, I have won. Now give me a sign of what you've done." They come with an expectation of miraculous change. Down the velvet aisle into the "glory cloud" they lose control and cave. One-by-one, they pile through while, "In the name of Jesus," was repeated with hypnotic, strobe light craze. Hands raised, eyes closed, heads bowed; this group is more trusting than Subway was to Jared.
What's this now?

I see a familiar face. A face of my race: Another person created in grace. Was this a last reach for hope? Was this a misunderstanding of struggle and pain? Should I be hopeful or concerned? Is this heard mentality or are the strife stricken hearts coming forward with individual certainty? Alas, I am not certain. Most of what I observe are loose ends. 

To what end do we receive God's heavy truth? Do we let it touch us and tell us how to live or do we keep the theocentric parts of text under a lid?

Oh Christians . . .dear  Christians,

Turn away from man serving services. Return to God and be a servant of his. Let the heaviness of God's truth sink into your hearts and please, please, please never depart. 

Heavy Truth

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Through and through, you must learn to base your value in what Jesus has done for you.

When you think that your value is determined by the immediate feedback you receive, then you will never look past the empty seats during your speech. Leave your selfishness behind. Go past the manufactured mental mold that immobilizes you from being bold. You try to impress people with your talk, thinking "If only that person was proud of me, then I would be happy" will never set you free. 

I believe that everyone knows what they want to do. Finding that thing is incredibly difficult when value hangs in the balance between what people think of you and say is cool. I believe that that thing will continue to drive you crazy until you embrace it or until you die because you have spent a lifetime trying to find acceptance in another's eyes. 

Do you want pity? No, no one shows their true envy. 

Do you want to be revered? Yes, everyone desires respect from their peers.

Do you want safety? Yes, everyone is paranoid for a lack of safety and that is why you are busy.  

You cannot please everyone, sometimes not even one. A spouse in a beautiful blouse will not always seem as though they love you if you continue to base that love on immediate feedback. 

It is not easy knowing you are loved unconditionally. That idea is frustrating for many. After all, freedom is not free. There is a cost to pay for all our fancy penalties. For the Christian who thinks they have it all together because their porn habit stays hidden behind a Twitter handle, you are loved and valued past your lust. You are not measured in worth by how little you cuss.

Stop placing your worth in things that do not last like all that hard fought for success that breaks like glass. Currently, humans seem to have a turn in their value emphasis; finding worth in relationships, chasing their dreams, or helping others like the weak, homeless, elderly, and mentally obscene. This is not new. This is hippy love: Enlightenment thugs.

Even if you do all those things, your value does not change. If you spent the rest of your life writing beautiful hymns or creating medicine to save all of "them," your value would not change. You would still be trapped by what others think of you and say is cool.  

God came down to humanity. He came down fully God and fully man. Oh, the insanity. What was he thinking? What prompted him to do such a thing? Dwell among the peasants as the righteous King? He came for his namesake. His value had been dishonored for too long. He is full of mercy, but his justice is still strong. God came to save those trapped in addiction, trapped in affliction, and kept at distance because of their spiritually dead condition. He knew their value, created in his image. He looked past the horror show and instead saw their chosen future-glorified glow. 

It does not matter what channel of value you have mistakenly picked to watch and model your life after. Who are you proving yourself to? How many takes does it take for you to feel like you got it made? It does not matter.

Through and through, you must learn to base your value in what Jesus has done for you. 

God picked you first. He grabbed you out of despair when you could not send a flare. As the Potter forms his clay, for his namesake, he will not betray. He revitalized your wicked heart when you were still lusting and murdering. This was all you contributed on your part. He placed you on solid ground when all you had known and built your life on crumbled to pieces. Your value is in him alone. The Christ, Jesus: Lord.

Value

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There is a tree in front of you. Can you see it?

It is towering overhead. The trunk reaches over 20 feet. It’s branches lurch and stretch high and wide spanning a good length. The leaves are a vibrant yellow, red, orange, brown, and green.  A comfortable shadow is cast; providing shade all around it’s trunk and beyond its leaves.


The ground is sturdy. The roots go deep. It has been there for years and when you cry it weeps. The leaves fall below to offer a compassionate touch. Some of them land on you while all of them are orchestrated together like a well organized landing crew. They make a beautiful leafy fall covered scene around you. 

I hope you can see the colors. I hope you can see their journey down from their homestead limbs. I hope you can see how they flutter and flop and hear how some drop with a plop, while others mozy to the ground making a sound like the shuffle of puppies circling to lay their heads down. 

There is a symphony around you. I hope you hear it. I hope you hear the leaves rustle loudly in the wind and quietly at days end. Or how the birds collaborate with the tree, singing wonderful songs. Birds who mock and birds who rap a constant chat. Birds who solo and birds who sing deep like a cello. With the leaves they join together like a choir. Some songs are slow and some songs are fast, but most songs portray a joyful trumpets blast. I hope you can hear the restful tree symphony. 

I hope you can see its complexity made simple. I hope you can hear its wonderful sound.

The tree offers protection in the form of a canopy. The canopy keeps you dry when it rains. When it is overly sunny the canopy gives you a shady place.  And thus it is with God’s common grace. The rain falls and the sun shines on the field of both the wicked and righteous. In light of this, I hope you do not dismiss this gift like Judas did with a kiss. Common grace sustains us and through it we experience God’s bliss.

Common Grace: A Tree

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Think of the last conversation you thought was boring: the last person you quickly found conversationally deploring. What made you come to that conclusion? Take these next statements as a warning. 

The self serving thoughts of "This person is strange" and "These conversations are lame" are an indicator of your self confirming loss: Loss of friendship and growth in the message of the cross. The same cross that makes sinners worth the cost. The cost that was paid by Christ so that we may not be lost; may not be found wanting, but so that we may love without condition. And from this point we find our greatest commision. But we do not take orders well. So with blue blood in our veins we resort to vanity calamity. We call others boring and lame. 

Confirmation bias becomes your 6th sense. Thinking of yourself in relation to others seems reasonable so long as you keep them in a well generalized fence. Parameters of socio-economic class like "They don't have cash" and so you live past them because you are faster than them.

If you find yourself bored every time you are in a room of people you do not know, perhaps they are not the cause. Look for the least common denominator. When you realize it is you do not expect applause. Your generalizations are not new. 

You could continue to blame that boredom on others, but there is a better way to kick that conundrum. It is astoundingly better to take in simple joy, than to use judgemental fire as a time killing toy. The awful excuse that "you are either extremely excited or terribly uninterested" merely points to the fact that you are selfish. Do not blame who you are on your circumstantial inheritance. 

Look to make each person feel the love and interest you feel you so righteously deserve. Look to do a good turn daily. Look past your pride, wants, and even needs. You do not have to be a Boy Scout to do good. That action of doing good requires you to make others heard. That action of making others heard requires you to leave the burden of proof to them and not you. Do not make yourself the judge and ruler of who is cool. 

Boredom is selfish. We choose to learn and know as much as we want. Do not stop learning about people and who they are for shallow reasons like,  "Are they driving a specific car?" Letting people be heard by listening to them is not the end goal though. It is from this point that we recognize the inherit value each person has being formed by the Potters hand. His mold is perfect and has been eternally planned. 

You Are Not Bored. You Are wicked.

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No weight class
Bed is time
Ref is Dad
Feet on line

Two foot four
Giant grin
Ear-to-ear
Now begin

Small blessing
Impactful
Son-Father
Play tackle

Assorted Virtues