The Big Picture

I think one of the best things someone can do for themselves is to take a step back and look at the big picture. Too often we get caught up in little insignificant situations that can ultimately alter our character or perspective in an unhealthy way. Of course, it's not just as simple as 'taking a step back'. There's a lot to it. But it seems like the journey we walk through in life has a few spots that arise in which we're granted the chance to easily look at things from a big picture. I like to think that the New Year is a good place to look at things from a big picture. It helps us think of the year ahead of us and the year behind us and count our blessings and look at what needs to be fixed. 

So at this point, a question may become relevant. What's the point in looking big picture? Well I think there are a couple reasons. First of all, the big picture is not the little picture. Although life is complicated and is filled with little things that add up to a lot, sometimes people begin to think that those little things are everything... Literally. This doesn't just happen as a child or a teenager, but is something that is written over all stages of life. Adults get caught up in the way their lawns or houses looks. Teenagers get caught up with probably the dumbest stuff. Trust me, I know from being one. I constantly get caught up with little drama within relationships or arguments that stem from school or something of the sort. For children, they are constantly thinking of things little picture because mostly everything is little picture for them. They're too young to see things from a bigger perspective. But the point of all of this is that if we constantly get stuck in the little things, we'll never get to the big things. Our impact becomes bigger if we can think bigger. There are countless examples of people who grow up after high school and don't make lives for themselves because they were too caught up in the little insignificant things of their past experiences. Sometimes we just need to move on. And looking at the big picture can help with that. 

The view just posed is a very antagonistic view with probably many flaws in it, but I wanted to bring it to attention because noticing what is big picture and what is small picture is, in my opinion, important. But to raise a point that I think is more relevant is this: God thinks big picture. I'm not talking a year big or even a decade big, I'm saying He thinks your whole life big. He thinks the whole story of humanity big. If we are to believe that we as humans need to understand God and know Him, then it would make sense to be able to gain a small- very small at that- portion of the way he thinks within perspective to a time frame. Sometimes our decisions need to be based on what's good for something that will happen ten years down the road, or maybe it will never be good for us but it will be good for someone else. Also, when we ask God for something, it may not come for an extremely long time. Waiting and patience is virtue because God thinks big picture. He can see the whole map and we only see a small province. To capture this is to be okay with the way things are. After all, godliness with contentedness is great gain (1 Timothy 6:6). Gaining God's perspective is monumental. But it could take a lifetime. I wouldn't know, because I just started. 

To condense this thought, I challenge you to take advantage of this new year and count your blessings. Be thankful for all that you have. It's your time to be retrospective. Continue to appreciate the little things and realize they're all for the bigger plan that is for the greater good. Don't forget to realize that your life isn't perfect and that there's things that need to be changed, but it's also extremely important to keep positive perspective. This whole post has been about perspective with regard to a time frame. But perspective with regard to positivity versus negativity is a whole other story. That's for another time. For now, realize that God has gifted all of us. We all have something to be thankful for. In the big scheme of things, we're just another person that has a role in the Creator's story of humanity. You have the choice to play a good part. And taking a step back and looking at your part can help you determine the outcome of your role. 

Ordinary

It's been wayyy too long since I've blogged. But sometimes my complete lack of inspiration prohibits me for fear I have nothing worth saying. However, today I feel the need to say something. So here I go.

On the way to Springfield, Ohio today, I was listening to a sermon by a preacher from Mars Hill Bible Church. Mars Hill is a church in Michigan which was lead by Rob Bell until he recently announced he was leaving. This message wasn't given by Rob, though. It was one of his teaching pastors. The man was preaching on 1 John 5:11. The hour long message was extremely detailed and explored the ideas of water and blood used in the Bible and how they relate to God. The conclusion was that blood represented suffering and hardships and even death and water represented life and rebirth. For instance, Jesus' ministry began with his being baptized in water and ended with being tortured and bloodily crucified on the cross. This trend shows up all over the Bible.

Of course, the guy didn't just talk the whole time about these trends. He had to make a point somewhere about how it pertains to humanity today in any way. Besides, what's history without a present purpose today? The guy's point was that life and death, happiness and suffering are all part of our lives and the life of Jesus. Suffering. Pain. Confusion... Reality. All of these are incorporated in a humans life. Every human. Even Jesus. The guy talked about how at one point, Mary and Joseph had to teach Jesus, the Son of God, what 2+2 equaled. He didn't just have that figured out.

You see, as humans today, we're always looking for the super-real. We hate reality. Who can blame us when bombs are falling, consumerism is buzzing all through the world, and the only thing we know how to talk about anymore is the presidential election? We don't like embracing the fact that Jesus was fully human. This influence began with the heresy of Gnosticism in the early church that believed Jesus was not actually a man but a spirit that looked to be a man. Of course, Christians today don't really go that far, but they seem to desire it.

So to get to the point. The reality of suffering and pain and all that bad stuff needs to be embraced by God's people, because it can bring us closer to Him. We need to realize that it's going to happen but embrace it and trust that God is looking after us. Most of this pops up in the every day, ordinary life where we stub our toes, get bad grades, get laid off. All of this is sad, but it isn't the point of life. Those things shouldn't define who we are. If we embrace the everyday life and realize Who we're following and why we're following Him, I'm sure we'll be more understanding when crap hits the fan.

Life happens. And we decide how we perceive it. After all, the way we look at life is the way our life is determined. Sometimes we may not choose for bad things to happen, but we do choose how to react. Next time something frustrating happens, question whether it's worth freaking out about and realize that there's a God who cares about you and wants the best for you. You live and you learn. Jesus did.

Life As I Never Thought I'd Know It.

Music defines a lot of things, right? Moods, expressions, and messages. I always listen to music whenever I write a new blog. I listen to a lot, play a lot, analyze a lot. It's a big part of me.

This past weekend Caleb, my brother, and I's band, Prima Luce, played our first show as a band. We had our best friends from Georgia fly in to play with us. Our lifelong friend opened the show with his band, Land&Sea. We played it at the place that's changed me more than anywhere else, The Avenue at Ginghamsburg Church. Doesn't get much better than that. The whole thing went perfectly.

While I was playing I was thinking about what I thought about the audience. It was different because I am usually the audience. I gained a new perspective that night though. I think more of the people listening as just being a part of the experience. No matter if you're playing or listening, you're taking part in the art that's being displayed at the time. That's why band's appreciate their fans so much. Experiencing art is always better with people who understand. Fan's usually understand part of the music; it's why they listen to it.

To put it simply, I'm ready to play more, write more, and listen more.

While all of that was going on, I was deciding who to write a speech on for competition this year. Sure enough, it ended up being a musician. Potentially one of the best of last century. John Lennon. I've always loved The Beatles but was never obsessed with one in particular. Caleb, on the other, has always loved John Lennon. This was my chance to get to know The Beatles and John Lennon more.

I'm getting somewhere, I promise. But before I make my point- another example. I'm taking a Western Cultural History class in school these days. We're studying fine arts, and how to define "good" art and "bad" art. One of the books we're reading is State of The Arts by Veith. I'll admit, I don't agree with most of what he has to say. But there's a lot of good that's come out of me reading it. It challenges me to not only know why I disagree, but create firm opinions of what I do agree with.

Now, to the point. All of this adds up to ideas about art. It changes people. It changes beliefs and opinions. I'm learning things most people don't know about the artists themselves. John Lennon's really interesting, you should go look up some Bio's of him and get to know his personality more. I guess if someone asked me right now what I was learning I'd have to say that it's the idea that art is everywhere, art is in all of us, and we should use it. We can use it for so much good. I want my music to change people. If it's so bad that people realize what good music is because they contrast it, then so be it (but I really hope that doesn't happen).

I'll close with a quick idea about art: Art is an expression. Because of this, it's always portraying a message. So the point of art is the message being portrayed. It's a way to connect with the message. Look for the message, if it's portrayed well to you, then it's good art. If not, it's probably bad. But only to you. Remember, you have a different perspective than other people. Be open. Be cool.

Thoughts On Faith

Faith is one of those things that's so simple, yet so hard for the human mind to fully understand. Or maybe that's just me.

I'm reading a book right now called Untamed By Alan Hirsch. He's a pastor at a church with his wife and they wrote this book to bring about the idea of Untamed Discipleship. A lot of the talk throughout the book discusses how Jesus lead a life that was extremely unorthodox and, in ways, crazy. For us to be true disciples (which translates to a student or apprentice), we need to work toward following a life after our Teacher. This is key, because when you're listening to a teacher, you're supposed to do what they say because they know what's right. Even when you have no idea what's going on.

One year in school I took a Logic class. One of our assignments over Winter Break was to memorize all of these logical processes. At the time, I had no idea what i was memorizing. It was a bunch of p's and q's and signs that I didn't even recognize. But since it was an assignment, I memorized them. Later on in the year, I started applying the logical processes to my work and it helped so much that I had taken the time to memorize the logical processes earlier in the year.

I'll take this back now to the idea of faith. I guess the best way to describe faith is following something when you don't understand. In school, you may follow a teacher, even if you don't understand, because you have faith that the teacher is educated. The question is, why is it so easy to have faith in your teacher? Usually we believe everything they say. Unless, of course, they're dealing with scientific or political content. But to answer the question, I'd say it's usually because having faith in a teacher usually doesn't cost us much, or sometimes anything. Teacher's have to go to school to teach, so we know they're educated. And we've all grown up believing that listening to a teacher in school is just what you do until you're 18. Because of this we rarely question the way that it is run. But when we read the Bible and listen to Jesus say things like, "Love your enemy" (Matthew 5:44) or to go to the ends of the earth to tell people of Jesus (Matthew 28:19) we get scared because of the price we'd have to pay to actually live that out. In Hebrews 11 we read that faith was clearly what pulled Abraham, Enoch, Noah, Moses, Jacob, Esau, and Rahab all were blessed. It was because they had faith and followed what God commanded them to do.

All of this makes me think about what would happen if we just did things more often. Even stuff that isn't plainly commanded in the Bible. What if instead of denying someone to hang out because you just didn't want to, you accepted. We're lazy sometimes, and apathetic and because of that the world isn't the place it should be. If we really want to be disciples, we have to be untamed, we have to live outside of the box that the world has created for us. It seems like we almost have to convince ourselves that we have to be crazier than really needed in order to pull us out of the hole we're in. Overshoot to hit the target because it's so far away. Go crazy. Be crazy. And do what you preach.

School Year Resolution

So I've decided that this school year I'm going to do my best to blog at least once a week. A "School Year Resolution" if you will. I'm excited. Lately I spend probably too much time on the addicting stumbleupon.com. I think a few blogs may be surrounded by ideas that grow from things I find on the website. Also, I'll just talk about life and what I'm learning. I'm stoked.
Peace

Getting it together as a humanity

I listen to a lot of music. I've seen a lot of music live. And a common thing that comes up between musicians, and artists in general is that we should put aside our differences with other people and just get it together. Interesting thought. A lot of people would say, "That's ridiculous, they believe something else than what I do. How could we possibly get it together?" That's what we call resistance. I feel like the point that these musicians or artists or people make is an extremely valid point and one that should be thought out. Unfortunately, humanity is a self-righteous, power seeking group of people, so the thought doesn't always run well with us. I feel like there are a couple things that people could do better on though, to get closer to the idea of getting it all together.

First of all, humanity loves categorizing each other. There are religions, styles, castes, etc. that we put people in. Because of this we begin to decide who is better and who is worse depending on what categories they fall under. For instance, if you're Tom Brady, you have it all. He's rich and famous because he's the star quarter back of the New England Patriots, most girls would say he's fairly attractive (or more), and he wears trendy clothes. The sad part about all of this is that some of those people really believe they're better because they're more "successful". It's really sad when I see this because I don't see it that God created people to act that way. Just because you have more money doesn't mean you're a better person. The point I'm trying to make is that the lack of humility, especially when categorizing, is holding humanity back from loving on each other. If we just put aside our differences and looked a little more big-picture sometimes, I feel we'd be a lot better off.

There was a man named Henry Nouwen who was an extremely smart Catholic scholar. To make a long story short, Nouwen ended his life living with retarded people because he felt called to do so, and it changed him in a way most people are never changed. One key thing that Nouwen had to do was set aside the major difference that he wasn't retarded, and the retarded people were. That's a pretty big difference! Too often I see groups of people not loving on other groups of people because they're "different". This is a sad excuse when you think about it. Jesus, the most holy person to ever live, hung out with the poor and sinful. Once again, big differences. We have to realize that life isn't about finding the people that are like you and then secluding yourself for forever with those people.

The Bible uses absolutes sometimes, and I feel like it really means something when it uses them. In the famous 1 Corinthians 13 chapter about love that's used at weddings, we read that, "Love never fails". I find that kind of extremely powerful. If everything else in the world fails, love won't. I feel like that means that we shouldn't ever give up on love. Too often we decide that our opinions are more important than loving others, and that what's right for us is more important than love. But the number one commandment the Bible commands is to love everyone as myself. And, if love never fails, that commandment seems to be pretty great. As a Christian, I find love to be the essence of the "religion" itself. I love God and grow to know Him so that I can be like Him and love others the way He loves. So it's crucial that I focus on love a lot.

Now that last paragraph is a very much Christian based thought process. So, I guess if I'm going to write a blog about humanity and how we should put our differences aside, I'll put a practical 'every-human-can-use' idea out there. I'm sure that if you asked people if they would appreciate others treating them well, they'd say yes. Doing unto others as they would have them do unto you is a very two way idea. You have to be kind to get people to be kind, and people have to be kind to get you to be kind. So the general idea is that, 1. people put aside their differences because differences are stumbling blocks for love sometimes and 2. once you put differences aside you can love each other.

There's one last point to be made. As selfish beings, we like to have the idea that if we don't get love back when we give it, it's unfair and we stop. But it's important that we realize that love is caring more about the well being of someone else than us. They may not realize the action you're doing is for their well being, so you may not always get "mushy-gushy" love back. So don't expect it. But there's a God who loves us more than we can imagine, and we're called to lose our lives so that we can find it. I feel as though all authentic love comes from God. So the authentic love we give is from God. When it comes down to it, all we have is love. If we lose all we have then we lose love. So going back, we're supposed to lose our life so that we can find it. What that essentially means to me is give all the love we have to be refilled with love from God. It's a continuous cycle.

Giving love with no boundaries. Once we all start doing that, things will change.

Is it real?

"One word, ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of pain. "one word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we HAVE only dreamed, or made up, all those things-treesand grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours IS the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as i can even if there isn't a Narnia. So, thank you kindly for your supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for overland. not that our lives will be very long, i should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."- The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis

It says it all. Is God real? Can we be certain of it? Quite frankly, no. But to me, it's an idea worth living and dying for. Keep it real.

Church: More than You Think

I hear a lot of talk from Christians about how, "The Church is more than just a building," and how, "The Church is a group of people." Also known as, the Body of Christ. Just by reading these two statements we can learn two things. 1) The church can be outside of the building you go to on Sunday mornings. 2) Godly things can happen outside of a church or church organization.

Let's start with the first point I made by saying the church can be outside of your typical Sunday morning building. I feel like this statement is pretty self-explanatory, and I'm sure a lot of you agree with this statement as well. But sometimes I feel like we don't actually live that way. I'm definitely not going to lecture about how you should do good things outside of the church, because we've all heard that, but I do think we need to realize that God is bigger than a building. The Body of Christ can definitely be seen outside of the buildings we enter on the weekend. I was watching the rain today and thinking about God's creation. News flash- God didn't create the world with little buildings where a bunch of people went to talk about Him. He created the world for us to worship Him wherever, and whenever.

In Acts 2 it talks about community and how the people shared everything they had. They were all happy. It seemed perfect the way it was described in the book. Funny thing is, the people weren't in a church.

The other day, Bryan Kemper, the leader of standtrue ministries, posted on his blog that he was converting from Christianity back to Catholicism where he began. It was interesting because I was reading comments on the post and somebody said, "The greatest difference between the Catholic and Christian Church is that the Christian church was created by men, the Catholic Church was created by Jesus." Uhm, excuse me, what?! Jesus created the Catholic Church? Jesus created a church? Hmmm... I definitely don't remember reading "and Jesus built a church." Jesus didn't create the Christian Church. Jesus didn't create the Catholic Church. Jesus actually spent His time with the losers that weren't cool enough to be important in a church. He spoke out against the Pharisees, who were the leaders of the Jewish Church. I'm not saying Jesus doesn't like church, I'm just pointing out that there's more to it than the Church. The Church does not save us. Jesus does.


Enough babble about that, how bout we move one to the second point? My second point was that Godly things can happen outside of a church or church organization. I think I'll start with a few personal examples before I hit the Bible.

I went on a missions trip to Chicago, Illinois this January. The trip was life-changing. One of my favorite experiences was when we went to a soup kitchen and served with a Buddhist group. It was crazy! Christians and Buddhists working together to feed homeless, broken people. They kept telling us about their religion, and it was really interesting. I didn't agree with most of it, but there has to be something Godly about what they were doing, right? I mean, Jesus says in Mark 14 to give a banquet to the poor and the needy. I feel like they did exactly what this verse said to do. They were doing the right thing for the wrong reason. This seems to happen all the time. The Bible says we were created in the image of God. We always seem to know whats right, kindness, goodness, love, compassion, everybody knows that. Sometimes I like to think if we're working towards those things, we're working towards being more like God, even if we don't believe in Him. I'm not saying we're saved by works, I'm just saying we're giving Him a hand we may not even know it. Bottom line, there are people who do Godly things and aren't Christians. It may seem a little off track from Christianity, but I thought it important to bring up.

Another Godly experience I had once was at a Jonsi concert I went to in Columbus. Let me preface with this, Jonsi is a homosexual and he's a naturalist. A naturalist is a person who worships the earth and nature. Obviously those two things don't really line up with the Bible. But his music is so so good. I remember at the concert just thinking, "God did good with this one!" In a joking tone of course ;) Point is, his music gets to me. Especially his song "Grow Til Tall" which is quite possibly my favorite song of all time. In concert, he repeats this vocal line and the music progressively gets louder for probably 5 or 6 minutes. It's crazy. He wears an Native-American headdress and walks around the stage shaking his body in a really weird, dance-y way. While this was happening, I started to think of God. That sounds dumb, but it's true. When I started thinking of God I started to feel the Spirit in me in an unusual way. What I'm trying to point out is that although Jonsi doesn't love Jesus and isn't really in the right place, his music still makes me want to worship. It's like the preference of contemporary worship music or Hymns, some people prefer one or the other. Sometimes we aren't looking hard enough in the broken places for God. We think the only place we can find Him is in the clean churches and the clean Christians. One of the beatitudes in Matthew 5 is, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." The word meek means humble. Trust me, I looked it up on dictionary.com ;) So Jesus says that if we're humble, we will inherit the earth. Wow. That sounds nice. What I personally take this to mean is that if we are humble, God will show us things that we wouldn't regularly see on the earth. An example of not being humble is thinking that because you're a Christian you're better than everybody and you can't have a spiritual moment around them. It seems like if we do things and are open to seeing God anywhere, no matter how screwed up the place is, we'll find Him.

I feel like this post is getting to be too long! So I'll close with this. Look for God everywhere. Be open to seeing God in places you wouldn't expect. And don't forget, God loves everyone.

Does God Like Rollercoasters?

So the other night I was thinking about how to glorify God in everything that we do. What does that look like? More importantly, how do we glorify God everyWHERE we are? For instance, an amusement park. Everybody loves a good amusement park. Everybody's happy, people are screaming, people are with their families and friends, you get the picture. People want to be there basically.

Obviously people like amusement parks. The reason why they go there is to make themselves happy, to get a rush, to get a break from life. Now, most people would be like, "stop right there! That's self-fulfillment! It's wrong! We need to devote our lives to God and that will bring us more happiness in the long run other than this stupid 'living in the moment' thing!" and that makes sense. I've struggled with this for a while. It says in the Bible that we need to lose ourselves and God will give us new life. So we should devote our lives to Him. Sometimes I felt like this meant I had to be always in the right place at the right time in order to do His will. And then I started to change my mind about things...

Well, God does have a will for us. He wants us to fulfill it and in some areas we have to place ourselves in the right place and let Him work through us when we get to the right spot. But Jesus, if you think about it, experienced a ton of different atmospheres of His time, and He carried out God's will everywhere He went. What I'm trying to say is that we don't always have to put ourselves in the right position. Sometimes we just have to trust that God will do with us what He wants wherever we are.

This is important to note because we're human (duh). Why I bring this up is because even God had a day off. We, obviously, don't even come close to God so we clearly need a day off as well. This doesn't mean we break our morals, or screw our lives up, it just means we can blindly be led in faith by God sometimes.

One last thing, who are we to say where God's going to work in us? Some days we spend a whole day in our house. Some days we spend with a bunch of Christian people. On those days sometimes I'll ask myself, "How can God work through me today? I'm not in a place to show God's light on somebody." But the reality is... if we believe God is all powerful and can work through anyone at anytime in any place, then He can work through us at an amusement park.

Don't think I'm saying you should spend your life at an amusement park though, there's many other places where God's will needs to be carried out.