I felt guilty after posting a lengthy entry on temptation and my thoughts about it. I dunno..... felt arrogant. So if you wanna know, just email me or talk to me.

I am an idiot. Really. And I'm ruining my education.

Ok that last entry was rather stupid. I won't write anymore spontaneous poetry. Sorry.

Less and less can I hide from myself.
Less and less do I hide from others.
Scared am I? Not I but my brothers.
Annoyed with myself
Deranged in my stealth
Why do I choose not to be
Why do I choose not to breathe

There's a way that you flow on through me
It moves me
It moves me
Release me

Intuition is my guide
And people can't see my third eye
So they pride
And won't come along for the ride

It's just you and me
In this world for three
Where the hell are we?
Where the hell are we?

Jesus said to go and be reconciled to your brother even if you are about to present an offering.

That is TOTALLY true.

As far as it is depend upon us, I think we have to live in harmony with one another. If you got things you need to resolve with people......resolve it. I was beginning to feel quite depressed and oppressed because I hadn't resolved something with someone, and it nearly caused me to start sinning because of how crappy it made me feel. So I put my Bible away and called the person up and resolved it.

I was told a huge ass piece of advice the other night.....

"If this were your last day on earth... would you have time to be angry at anybody?"

That is wisdom. And that's how we're supposed to live each day.... as if it were our last.

Now there is a practical matter: What if the other person does not want to talk about it, or does not think he/she has done anything wrong, or would not take confrontation well at all?

Here we come upon the fellowship of sufferings in Christ again. Christ was hurt, rejected, despised.... but unable to confront anyone because no one thought they were wrong.... but he forgave even though it hurt, and he loved even though he was slapped in the face. When someone wrongs you, or you have problems with someone, and the conflict is unresolvable because you have tried but the other will not resolve it, we share with Christ this pain. The pain of having a broken relationship and being able to do nothing about it.

Christ just wept. He looked at Jerusalem and wept, because he wanted so much for them and yet could do so little. He knew the time had not come.

And sometimes the time has not come for our relationships. But if you can..... it could be the last day on earth. There is no time to be angry. Only to get things straight.

By the way, the following entry is for everyone, but I think you need some background of Christianity to understand it....

In the light of current situations... I am rethinking what it means to be happy. So here are some random thoughts. I dunno if holds together logically, but I'm just granting that people agree to certain things, like..... the need to care for others.

I mean, everyone seeks happiness, in one form or another. And in our society it is thought of us as a comfortable, pain-free, luxurious life. One without worries, and lots and lots of money.

Money is power. Power is used to shape the reality about you to fit your own will and desire.

But you never have enough money, because you never have enough power. Certain things will never change, will they? And so people go crazy.

When you begin to actually be responsible and lift up your head out of sheltered existence and begin to look around, you cannot possibly believe it is ok for you to find your own secure life while people go about suffering. And to see people suffer begins to bother you, because you know you also suffer internally. Everyone is suffering.

The reaction might be defensive, and toward anger. "Why should I have to care about them? I have enough trouble taking care of myself?"

But it gnaws at your brain. Kids without parents, needing adoption. People dying without food, working for 5 dollars a month in China. And in America, if you can afford it, you use everything within your power to deny these things.

But they still get to us.... we notice everyone is sad... lonely... depressed... we notice everyone is trying so hard to feel ok. Everyone is desperately trying to secure their own.

Even Christians.... they love to immerse themselves in suburban/sheltered Christianity, with small group meetings and nice songs and fancy equipment.... even short-term mission trips and soup kitchen visits.... but any call to do something real with our lives causes us to reel.....we recoil at the thought of actually adopting a kid instead of having our own. We refuse to perhaps live in an impoverished neighborhood, or go to long-term missions.

Heck, we refuse to even just be there for people around us. We set up the walls. The only thing which makes this difficult is the fact that our own personal sufferings increase, and we don't know what to do.

All conversations we have revolve around this "entertainment" or this coping with our own miserable existence.

Jesus calls the mourning, the miserable, the meek, the humble.......He calls them blessed. Why? Maybe because they are facing the truth. Maybe because they will look life in the face and look around them and in themselves and actually let themselves cry.

Then God can finally meet us. When we admit we are poor. Naked. Miserable. Inconsiderate and unloving, and feeling unloved. When we admit we have nothing, and all the power in the world is only to try to chase away our own guilt.

So what is it to be happy?

Perhaps in this life, it is not the path of power.... the power of trying to chase away guilt.

Perhaps happiness is entirely different in this life. Perhaps it is just admitting the pain of this existence. Embracing this pain.

Maybe this is the "fellowship of sufferings" that Christians are supposed to long and search after. Sharing in Christ's sufferings. Carrying around the life and death of Christ within us.

Perhaps these longings for "something else" are not to be fulfilled in this life....and therefore we have no need to try to fufill them in this life, but place our hope in heaven.

So deep down our longing for heaven will never cease, and we must remember it is not to be fulfilled here. Then this life becomes different. It's no longer a desperate struggle to create heaven on earth. It is the embracing of what it means to be like Christ. It is accepting suffering and learning to love God. And somehow God redeems all of this to become a joy...... joy that is nothing like our previous notion of happiness. Peace the world does not understand because it cannot understand why we do not follow the way of power. The world does not understand why we do not choose the easier path....the comfortable one....They think we beat ourselves needlessly.

And sometimes we do. But those who discover the easy yoke and the light burden know that the real path is not needless self-beating, but an acceptance of the beating life gives us. A turning of the cheek. A strange redemption of suffering.... accepting hurt that is dealt us because we know that it is everyone's fault, including our own.

When we learn to live with ourselves, we find others more tolerable. We learn to love again.

Having true love, God's love, hurts immensely. Because you become vulnerable to God and begin to understand your own suffering....and then you must be vulnerable to the entire world. You must no longer see others as people who are "taking care of their business just like me." Everyone is suffering just as much as you are, whether they know it or not. You begin to understand that no one will ever deal with their business alone, and that such a road leads to eternal misery. We must either share the suffering together or ignore it and perish.

So it is a strange hope we have. And Jesus makes it into a joy.....someone all of reality bursts forth from black & white to color...... we begin to embrace reality, and hence the joys become just as intense as the pains. We admit our own faults and hurts, and these difficult realities come side by side with a realization of God's love for us.... there becomes a greater reality than we previously expected....all the joys and pains together begin to pile on us.

It becomes overwhelming, but beautiful. We become floored by it. We cry, we laugh, we feel. We become ourselves. We let others be themselves.

The numbness ceases. And we finally wake up. We feel the pain, but with God will feel the love. It is like when numb limbs have the feeling restored as the body pumps blood back into them. This life is that process....when Christ redeems us, the blood starts flowing back into us. We become alive again, but it hurts like hell. Some people want to plunge back into numbness because it hurts too much. But we cannot. We must not give up.

No more anaesthetic. No more using power to ignore our pain. We want it full blast. We wanna know the pain of broken limbs so that we can also know the pleasure of a kiss.

This is happiness in this life. No more pain or tears? That is for later. So we do not search for it here, but hope for it later. For now, we wait as the feelign returns to our bodies and hope.

ok I have a test soon.....I have no idea why I wrote this.....I really should be reading.

Life is amazing. Great. Yet, there is a fight for hope... to remember that every moment is the best possible one that God could've planned for me.

I know that evil wants me to lose hope...to despair and break down... I will not let it. Today, like every other day, is for worshipping God.

I am a bit worried about the concert tomorrow...I worry about a million things... how I am going to play, whether I will be able to sing my parts....I wonder if I'm good enough sometimes.

I must have the most amazing woman in the world in my life. I declare it now to all of you who read this. You all have missed out if you have not met Sharon Lee.

It is funny how all things in life point us toward God... yet the temptation is for us to turn away and start looking toward these things which are created for that purpose. We worship people, talents, platonic archetypes, imaginary custom-tailored gods, money, sex......

C'mon now. Almost everyone has worshipped sex in some form or another. It's the crap that runs through our minds all the time...male or female. For males it is more directly sex, straight up, but for females it can be more like sex symbolizing security, safety, fufillment.

Hell who are we kidding...for females it is just sex too sometimes.

I have noticed that God has taught me something very important about pleasure. If you've heard this from me before, ignore me. If not...check it out....

So there are pleasures which are based upon a need or a pain, like hunger. You NEED the food, and so you eat it and appeal the desire. Then you cease to want it.

Then there are plasures which are appreciative, like a good smell. Like the smell of a rose, or of the car air freshner, or a woman's hair.

Now, whereas all needs in this life always involve some pleasure and pain, ultimately the only thing we need is God. Which is why the discipline of fasting is so important... it teaches us that nothing else is necessary, not even food.

When the desires of the heart are ordered correctly.... we will basically need nothing, except God. And the more we learn to just need God, the happier our life becomes.... God becomes the eternal source of joy that never fades or fails us... and hence everything else in this life gets thrown in as a bonus to be enjoyed.

A small inaccurate example of this....the difference for eating between guys and girls....

Now, everyone enjoys good food... but you notice.... guys like to find a good food, get really really hungry, and then pig out and feel like crap afterwards. They don't usually eat desert, and don't even want to see food afterwards. They are gluttonous. Same with drinking for guys. Alot of guys drink really strong drinks or lots of beer... some times for the taste, but also often to "feel" a certain way and to fufill a sort of need they have.... whether it be lonliness, social awkwardness, to get away, etc....

Women, on the other hand, sometimes display a contrary nature of apprecation. A lot of women will not eat too much....they will eat, but there will ALWAYS be room for desert. It is also found that "girlie" drinks at bars are the ones that taste good. Why? Because they appreciate their food and drink.

See, the fundamental difference here is that the women I have described are enjoying their food and drink.... of course they get hungry, but that need and the want to fufill it comes secondary to the pure pleasure of a damn good desert or a tasty alcoholic beverage.

Now, I know this is not a rule.... there are exceptions all over the place and it is a really inaccurate generalization. But you know what I'm saying, right? I have found this to be mostly true among people I know, and it is a great example of how this life is to be lived, I think.

When things of this life become pleasurable, and not primarily need-fulfilling, then we can really enjoy life, because nothing owns us anymore, except God.

You can look good and dress well for God, not out of fear or want of acceptance or love from others.
You can exercise for God, because it is pleasurable to be in physical health, and the aesthetic benefits to your appearance are nice.
You can enjoy all the little things again, like beautiful skies and stars at night. Appreciation for the little things will return to you, because you are no longer endlessly groping and desperately seeking fufillment in this world.

You can have a romantic relationship to someone else and not be looking to them to fulfill your needs. You can love someone else, not just need love from them like a desperate animal. You can enjoy holding them, not just find a need for closeness because you feel lonely.

How do we know that we are someone in this area of appreciation, and not desperate need? If we can give it up.

God calls us every moment to examine all the things we have, and really ask if He would be enough. If we lost everything, would it be ok?

Hence we are called to deny ourselves and the world..... because when we do that, we get God....and we get everything in this world back in a new, redeemed way. EVERYTHING becomes good and amazing......Suffering? Who the hell cares... b/c God is our portion. If we just get God, that is enough. If we get more and He decides to bless us, hey! That's great. And we love God.

Now this sounds good and fun, but the road to God refining us to this point is narrow, difficult, and very painful. B/c it means giving up everything to Him.

Everything.

Everything we want in this life must be given up. Even if they are what we perceive to be good things that God wants to give us. We gotta just give 'em up and know that it is ok if we do not have them.

How is this possible? God must be worth that much to us. And as we pray and ask the Spirit for revelation into the secret things of God.... He becomes more and more worth it as we go through things and He refines us.

Ok, so that has been the theme of my life the past few months. Fun time.