Night has found its way here
And all I can hear are memories shrill and clear
Like today man had his way
And stole and what I made
He saw that I was sincere

So use me up, then throw me away
Build your careers and friendships
Quote on Quote and frankly I’m ashamed
That I left my name on her lips
Cause when it ends they’ll swear it is

So I’ll fall asleep and try not to think twice
About all the things that forever
Will kick me down the steps
For being too nice
Cause everyone’s searching for treasure

And they’ll just dig, dig, dig
Until they cant get out
And die in dirty digging for treasure
But as for me I’m giving up and ill take my bow
And focus on my treasure forever
Yes, I know that my treasure is heaven

- bryce avary , rocket summer

to love and love again
to forgive 70 times seven
is a work of Love .
an action taken by one
who knows their treasure is in
a City made by Divine hands
"where moth and rust do not destroy,
and where thieves do not break in and steal".

As the Ruin Falls

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

C S Lewis

my simple song

all i want to see
is what your eyes delight in
all i want to hear
is the symphony that moves your heart
all i want to know
is the rhythm of your heart beat
cause you are everything to me
and i could spend my days
chasing the wind
and i will find in the end
that all that remains
is what i first started with
and that is your love
so dont let me move away from you
dont let me turn my eyes from you
i want to be overwhelmed
completely compelled
with the sight of your beautiful face.

let me know that you see me
help me believe you've never looked away
cause the knowledge of your love
is all that im needing
and the beauty of your grace
is what I am breathing
and to know that I am yours
will be more than enough today.

11/13/2008

"God treated Christ as if He were a sinner...
as though He had committed every sin that every person would ever commit ...
[ even though He wasn't a sinner ]
in order that He might treat believers [ even though we're sinful ]
as though we lived the perfect life of the Lord Jesus Christ. "

-Shai Linne .

this is our 100th post since we started this blog and so i thought i would take this line
TO THANK YOU
for reading our blogs .
and sticking with me
even though my writing
is at best:
GOOFY .
i hope and pray that our writing has in some way shape or form provoked you to love Christ and your neighbor more .

you have heard it said:

"We are the ones who are right, they are the ones who are wrong. We are the good guys, they are the bad guys. We are honest, they are crooks."

but i tell you this : " no man is good "

we're all sheep .

free falling

Here I am once again
Mercy is what I know best
They told me we are all prone to fall
So here I am once again
But this time when I fall
I'm going to free fall in love with You

Ecclesiastes 3:11
Yet God has made everything beautiful for
its own time. He has planted eternity in the human
heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope
of God’s work from beginning to end.

wheat & tare

i love how jesus leaves the tares with the wheat...
how he left the cursing psalms
& the patriarchs screw ups
& the sex in the song of songs.
& the story of when He beat the crap out of the moneychangers in the temple.
& paul and peter's argument behind closed doors.
& " jesus wept " .
& the wedding at cana, and how he kept the party going by providing the wine.
& the emo poetry in ecclesiastics.
...
because at the end He makes it all beautiful .
...

leave it all in. the beauty and the beast . the wheat and the tare .
humanity is beautiful.
be human.

"Life in community is no less than a necessity for us,
an inescapable 'must'...
all life created by God
exists in communal order
and works toward community."

-- Eberhard Arnold

being with the same people over and over again,
every day,
amplifies the need for forgiveness
again and again
and that i must learn to love
again and again.
i need to get over my insecurities.
asap.

give me eyes to see

Habakkuk 2:3
For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.

Though it tarries, wait for it. Because it will surely come. It will not tarry.

Though it tarries, it will not tarry…..?

I prayed this morning and asked God to remove the veil of time from my eyes. Perhaps instead of me not seeing something that He sees, this time it’s that I am seeing something He doesn’t. I see time. I see waiting. I see questions and I see my own plans. But He doesn’t. He’s not subject to time. He’s not dependant of a clock or a calendar. And my own impatience demands explanations for his tarrying… when all along he’s saying “it will not tarry”. It’s not delayed. So I want His eyes. I want to see not just what He sees, but how He sees. I want to wake up and not worry about tomorrow. I want to “sleep” like Jesus did through the winds and the waves and know in my heart that it will be okay. I want to be okay with the fact that maybe God has a bigger plan for me than I have for myself and that maybe He wants to surprise me. And I want to let him take me there.

Half of our lives are spent trying to find something to do with the time we rushed through life trying to save. – [I don’t know who wrote this…. But its good.]

I flip my pillow to get to the cold side.
the same thing over and over again gets boring.
i read the book of Ruth today. don't know why she got her own book .
couldn't they have stuck her cute story in the middle of Judges or something ?
i now feel cool about her calling me her 'Boaz' . I thought it was a french curse word prior to my excursion into Ruth today during the old guy's lecture today in class.
i bought 5 dollar coffee tonight. actually two of them, one for a friend.
it just tastes better that way .
oh, and sorry.
for calling the church a whore.
i shouldn't have .

"the church is a whore and she is my mother"
-St. Augustine.

the church is indeed a whore but she is not my mother. She is me [ ? } and you
[ possibly ]
and yes, we are very sinful. we judge others when we ourselves are worthy of judgment. and this makes me angry.
but i won't run away. i won't give up on us .
i will pray for change.
and go back to the shack.

"were in repair" - John Mayer .

"loneliness is the first thing which God's eye named 'not good' " .
- Milton.

Naked.

"and the man and his wife were both naked and unashamed" - Genesis 2:25

Has anyone wondered why we wear clothes?
Adam and Eve didn't wear clothes before the Fall, right?
they didn't. (just in case you were searching)
They were naked, and unashamed.
I've never been naked, and unashamed.
why is that?
The Fall.
We lost relationship with Love.
and so were on this search for someone, something, to love us.
to tell us we are valuable.
when all along, Abba is asking:
"Where are you Adam?"
But i run, toiling and spinning, when will I learn from the Lilies?
that i can't add value to myself. That i'm at best in my sleep.
when i'm not going a hundred MPH looking for someone to say
"Good Job" .
buying 5 dollar coffee cups at Caribou when all along there's free coffee downstairs.
searching for leaves to cover my nakedness.

JOURNAL ENTRY : 10/5/08
I feel like I'm missing something. Jesus says that He loves me, a lot, actually unconditionally. That means that i can toil and spin, or I can sleep, and His love for me remains. But if that's true, then why do I long so much for someone to love me? Why do i toil and strut my stuff in the crowds searching for leaves to cover my nakedness? If I am really loved by Jesus, then that means that I don't have to strive to be loved. It means I can be myself, i can laugh at my own jokes, listen to folk. (?) It means that i can stop looking to her to fill that hole that we all have, the hole the size of an apple? If I trust that He loves me, since He does whether I do trust or not, then it releases me to run through the garden of this life without tripping over the approval of man every time i go to my closet or to the mall? Does this mean that I don't have to buy 5$ coffee cups because it makes me look cool?
It means a lot more than we think .
We are loved by Jesus, The Man
What does that mean to you?

"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on."
- Galatians 5:19-21 ( The Message )

nothing else will satisfy.

Johns lonely voice crying out in the wilderness prepared the way for Emmanuel, God is with us.
A cry from self abandonment in our own wilderness has to usher in communion with Him... right?

Seduction of the Secondary

" It is often a "seduction of the secondary" that keeps us from our primary love for Christ and for those He has given us to love. The "secondary" can consist of a commitment to a leader, our denomination, or the nonessential ( but familiar ) customs of our brand of religion. Unity is difficult when those secondary considerations become the basis for judging or staying away from others. Added to these can be racial, cultural, or social differences. Sometimes, education, position, financial status, or political beliefs can stand between Christians, keeping them from loving one another and experiencing the unity that Christ wills for them. When we "major in the minors," we end up separated from people who do not look, act, or talk like we do. The only way to overcome this is to be sure Christ is first and foremost in our lives and to set aside the secondary things that have little ultimate value. "
- Lloyd John Ogilvue

debating theology and politics is very exciting to me, so this cuts me to the heart. But I'm beginning to understand that debating and arguing is sort of an offspring of the our Adamic nature. since the fall, we have competing with one another so see who's better at this and that, but Jesus comes and says "this child is the greatest". So, although it is a strong temptation in me to argue and debate, or even compete, I'm trying to lay it down and focus on the things that ultimately matter, mainly Jesus and His Cross. So whether you believe in Calvin's ideas of election or not, and if you wear an Obama T-Shirt or you have a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker, it matters not to me. i love you anyways. let's go eat pizza and love on Jesus, lets go preach the cross and feed the hungry... lets move on.

john piper.

would you be satisfied to go to heaven, have everyone there in your family that you want there, have all the health and restoration of your prime, and everything in this life about yourself fixed, have every recreation you've ever dreamed of available to you, and have infinite resources of money to spend, would you be satisfied?
If God weren't there?

" i have too much of the world in me to enjoy the Lord, and too much of the Lord in me to enjoy the world. " - Shai Linne

dizzy.

the human heart is the most confusing vessel in the human makeup. who knows where it leads or why it leads, or at what speed it can be led. why is it when everything seems so right it has the capability to be so very wrong. if life had a road map it would be so easy, but yet so boring. if we knew the future what is there for risk, for adventure, in fear, in love, in destiny and fate. but at points i would trade it all in so that i could never hurt anyone again. so that i didn't question, i just knew.
Stephen Christian .

journal:
am i alone in that i am easily ensnared into the trap of my emotions ? One good laugh shared with someone immediately puts the feeling in my stomach that , " this could be right " . and i don't like it. i want to know her. i'm tired of the circles of yes and no, and maybe so. there are some that know the one, and it's straight running from there, but me on the other hand, no, i have not run straight ever. with my good friend, i am left in awe, but i have forgotten what that feels like. but that's part of life, especially in love. there's no telling what will happen tomorrow, or after this post. and maybe that's why marriage has come into question in the hearts of so many. they suspect boredom in running straight. they remember the times (of which i currently run) of wavering in and out of desire. i, on the other hand, am tired of the "in's and out's". i want consistency. i want to be lovesick. i want to be captured. I've tasted it with Jesus, and it's so sweet. Now, will it ever happen again? i sure hope so, because I'm dizzy.

Paul's farewell letter to Ephesus

"You know that from day one of my arrival in Asia I was with you totally—laying my life on the line, serving the Master no matter what, putting up with no end of scheming by Jews who wanted to do me in. I didn't skimp or trim in any way. Every truth and encouragement that could have made a difference to you, you got. I taught you out in public and I taught you in your homes, urging Jews and Greeks alike to a radical life-change before God and an equally radical trust in our Master Jesus.

22-24"But there is another urgency before me now. I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem. I'm completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there. I do know that it won't be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead. But that matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.

25-27"And so this is good-bye. You're not going to see me again, nor I you, you whom I have gone among for so long proclaiming the news of God's inaugurated kingdom. I've done my best for you, given you my all, held back nothing of God's will for you.

28"Now it's up to you. Be on your toes—both for yourselves and your congregation of sheep. The Holy Spirit has put you in charge of these people—God's people they are—to guard and protect them. God himself thought they were worth dying for.

29-31"I know that as soon as I'm gone, vicious wolves are going to show up and rip into this flock, men from your very own ranks twisting words so as to seduce disciples into following them instead of Jesus. So stay awake and keep up your guard. Remember those three years I kept at it with you, never letting up, pouring my heart out with you, one after another.

32"Now I'm turning you over to God, our marvelous God whose gracious Word can make you into what he wants you to be and give you everything you could possibly need in this community of holy friends.

33-35"I've never, as you so well know, had any taste for wealth or fashion. With these bare hands I took care of my own basic needs and those who worked with me. In everything I've done, I have demonstrated to you how necessary it is to work on behalf of the weak and not exploit them. You'll not likely go wrong here if you keep remembering that our Master said, 'You're far happier giving than getting.'"

36-38Then Paul went down on his knees, all of them kneeling with him, and prayed. And then a river of tears. Much clinging to Paul, not wanting to let him go. They knew they would never see him again—he had told them quite plainly. The pain cut deep. Then, bravely, they walked him down to the ship.

Oh, how he loved them. i hear story after story of missionaries who went to Cambodia or China or somewhere, and them saying that it was the hardest thing to leave them. their hearts were knit together. His heart is knit to ours, and He feels the feelings of our heart. I'm wanting to feel His.

don't reject His plea.

How I wish you could see the potential,
the potential of you and me
It's like a book elegantly bound,
but in a language that you can't read just yet

You gotta spend some time love, you gotta spend some time with me
And I know that you'll find love, I will possess your heart
You gotta spend some time love, you gotta spend some time with me
And I know that you'll find love, I will possess your heart

There are days when outside your window,
I see my reflection as I slowly pass
And I long for this mirrored perspective,
when we'll be lovers, lovers at last

You reject my advances and desperate pleas
I won't let you, let me down so easily, so easily

I will possess your heart
(death cab for cutie, narrow stairs)

...

inside of the redeemed, deep on the inside, lies this longing.
which, due to our depravity, does not come from us.
this knocking, in the middle of the night, with persistence.
the desperate plea of the Father longing for His child.
i see this Jesus that ignores the locked doors of our lives,
walks through walls, and whispers : " peace to you " .
He has come through the walls of my heart, and swept me away.
He has possessed my heart. and the more time i give to Him,
the more wood i put in the fire, burning inside of me.
its the burning desire of the Father, the lover of my soul .
the Lover of your soul. don't reject His plea. read the lyrics.