overproportioNATE

27. That's not old, right? What I want in the next year: Write a complete short story. Write a lot during the summertime, maybe down at camp. Play Tennis, Croquet, and Ride Bike with friends. Spend more time doing, and less time talking. I want to use fewer words to say more. I want to have more, deeper conversations. I want to have a clearer picture for my 28th year. I want to get a different vehicle. I need to be a better friend. I need to love my wife more and more.

Hurting someone else. I've seen it, even today. It is the worst that this world has to offer.

The world you want. It's my favorite song Switchfoot's new album, simply asking if this is the world we want. The bridge goes on to say that whatever we do is our religion. Every breath. It puts a lot of weight on the everyday. I like that a lot. Because I feel like a common belief is in "someday". Someday I will do more, someday when I have the money to do it, when I have the time, when I have someone to do it with. How we say things matters, but also how we say it. Jon writes that we "have to look like what we believe". We also believe that so long as we aren't doing something terrible, we are therefor good. And while it is good, obviously, to keep from doing wrong. To be content with that is a huge problem.

"I don't care what you do, so long as you have a reason for doing it." I can see the positive, and negative side of a statement like that. When looking at another person's life, it is just that, their life. We must each be allowed to make decisions, a heavily influenced decision isn't nearly as much of a decision. Heavily influenced decisions are much more likely to be reversed later, cause tension, and may not be in line with the person "making the decision" at all. But on the other hand, to say "I don't care" about almost anything is a troublesome prospect. It should almost always be phrased differently. Indifference is a disaster of a mindset.

Who do you work for? That's the question that He asked me last summer. And when God asks you a question, it is challenging, and engaging, but it is also reassuring and incredibly beneficial. I am such a doormat style guy. I will do my best to please people, and in that may, image matters way too much to me. But I don't work for people, I don't work to satisfy their wants. I work to satisfy the One that created them. I get so caught up in this, and God was so clearly calling me out of it. I think that it's only a difficult issue because there is some overlap. We love God by loving others. And serve God by serving others. But our intent comes in to play, and stands as the difference. Are we serving others for the purpose of serving God, or are we serving others to gain something for ourselves? Also, I've really gotten into the habit of using one word titles for my posts, sorry about that.

On self-governance It's really the best that man has to offer. A government lead by the already-powerful. My main beef with it, honestly, isn't going to be over how bad it is. Where I take offense is not as much on rogue judged, attorneys that do what they can to keep themselves in business, unregulated rulers and kings. I take offense at the people that put their trust in it. We act like we could have a government that would be in line with the God that we serve. That has simply never happened, and never will. Why would the government support traditional marriage? Explain to me the secular horse in the race? When has a government ever put the lives of the voiceless before the wants of the powerfully vocal? Why does your faith rest on it? And why does it need to? And why are you bothered right now by it at all? The powerful can only reign well when they are perfect, lacking selfishness, without self-serving. So, yeah, not going to happen here. We need to get over it.

I've had doubts about anything and everything. My whole life I've defended the idea of being able to live a "normal" American life, while still being a follower of Christ. Can I hold onto everything "mine", while still giving all that is required. I think Paul would scoff at me. He would see my life as a waste of time. I've got "my" bank account, and all these things that God can't touch. So am I saying I need to give it all away? Am I saying that I need to capsize my own boat? Maybe. But will one man doing that really change anything? Maybe. I read an article about a man from Canada that won $40 million in the lottery, and gave it all to cancer research, as his wife had died of cancer 2 years prior. He was so affected that he wanted to help save others, to keep them from the suffering that he was going through. So. Maybe.

What is with our love of music? Someone will have to fill me in on that evolutionary advantage. And why do long gray winters actually affect our health? What is it that makes us long for sunshine? Why do I get so excited about a good story. It's almost like I'm built to hear them, made to want to create them myself.

I'll be happy then. Anytime anyone utters that line, they should be required by law to also say: "Maybe". It's unknown. You may reach a goal, you might have one less thing in life to accomplish, but to promise happiness, I mean, what does that even mean? What level of happiness with you have when you get that job? Or get that degree? Or have more freetime? Or even, marry that girl? Conditional happiness, in my eyes, isn't just something to be unsure of, it is almost a scourge. It is a promise of something that is so unsure. Yes, you might be happy when you get that job, but it may be more difficult than you expected, it may limit you in ways that you didn't expect. For goodness sake, you might lose a parent between now and then. We can plan for the future, but we are dust in the wind. The only moment we ever have any control over, especially pertaining to happiness, is the passing moment.

I had such high hopes for Justin Timberlake's song "Only When I Walk Away". I thought it was saying something at least a little deeper than your average pop song. Sadly, no, it is just another pop song concerned with being loved or not. And while that is raw emotion, and I could see how you see some importance in it. It fails to offer any solution, any guess even, as to the problem or how to live. There's a lot of Christian rhetoric that accomplishes essentially the same thing. They tap into the emotion, into God's love. But offer little in the way of solutions to our every day. It offers even fewer reasons as to "why?" Why change? Why go for more than enough? Why is He enough in the face of, you know, death. The mistakes we've made through history. We are taught the history of how wonderful it was when Christianity became the official religion, thanks to Constantine. But we skip right over the killing of Native Americans, right over women's

I like meat. It is good. It gives me what I need. It's never treated me wrong. I think it's tasty. But for the month of March I'm going vegetarian. Why? Well, there's a few reasons. I do very few things in life for only one reason. I have been critical of vegetarianism. I doubt it, I think meat is important, that's why God called us to have dominion over the land. It isn't by coincidence that cows taste good, and that they are good for us. Without meat you need to take vitamin supplements, which, you know, grow on trees and stuff. Just kidding. But anyway, I have been critical, and skeptical as you know. And so for one month I want to dive into it. I want to give it a fair shake. I'd rather be rightfully (and knowledgeably) critical than skeptical without the knowledge. I want to see how it affects me. What does do to my health? To my mood? To my energy level? Is it really difficult to make the transition? And is it difficult to come back to meat?

I believe. That's a tough thing to argue with. The world can fight us on facts and bring charges against many other things. They can take away rights, and books, and our chances to meet together. But our beliefs... well, we have control over them. So I want to start a new series, writing about some at least somewhat controversial topics. Today I want to start with where I stand on the Open Theism/Calvinism topic. Spoiler Alert, I'm somewhere in the middle. I believe that God knows everything. I believe that the Bible makes it clear that there are some incredibly important things that God knwos about the future. He knows who is written in the book of life, and He knows who is going to be living in eternity, that's why He's gone to prepare a place for us. And the many prophecies we read in the Bible are evidence of God's knowledge of the future. And while it isn't expressly laid out in the Bible, I mean, there is no verse that says: "God knows the future&

I like it when grown men cry. And maybe you think that's just because I'm kind of a sensitive guy, and maybe that is part of it. But I need it for more than that. Men can get upset and angry about something that they care about. But when a man sheds a tear, that says more than any word could. Emily Dickinson wrote about how she liked a look of agony, because a man can't feign agony. Agony, and choking back tears, it's not necessarily this terrible thing. We feel agony when we absolutely feel for someone else. I heard a story yesterday of a missionary in Ukraine, that was asked what he would do if he was shut off from funding in the case of his country being absorbed or controlled more by Russia. he said it didn't matter. The man sharing the story choked back tears. He experienced a little slice of agony, and it was the healthiest possible thing. I wish we weren't so quick as a society to shove that away. It makes us feel uncomfortable, so we move on, we sto