For the Faithful Four

This is for those four faithful readers of my blog. I appologize that I have not posted in quite sometime. Most of you know that I am the proud father of a baby girl. She is A-mazing! What an incredible charge to be given.

In other news that again most of you know is that Kristal, Natalie, and I are moving to Mesa, Arizona on Friday. I have accepted a worship position for the Student Ministries Dept. at Central Christian Church of the East Valley. I know that's a mouthful, so people just call it Central. Please checkout the church's website at www.cccev.com. The student ministries department goes by the Lindsay Project www.lindsayproject.com. I will be leading student musicians, and pastoring an area of Mesa. There is more to it but I will give you all more details soon.

Needless to say life has been crazy, but God is good and He truly has provided as He has promised. Times will be tough for a while but we feel and have faith that we are exactly where God wants us to be.

Until Next Time...

Peace Out Two Fingers

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start

Now I know that some of you (if there are any of you that still read my blog) probably have no idea what I am talking about if I say "up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start." You are probably thinking that my absence from the blogging world has made me mad and I am talking some kind of crazy code. Well I am--not crazy, but talking some kind of code. In fact, I am talking about the greatest video game code the gaming industry has ever known.

For those of you who were with me from the beginning, you definitely know what I am talking about. I speak of the 99 lives code for Contra. Contra was video game about... well I don't really know except that you were a military operative with an unbelievable arsenal-- my favorite was the spread canon (gamers out there come on, raise the fist, that's what I'm talking about!)and a mission to take out the bad guy and everyone who stood in your way.

I am not here to talk about the game as much as I am here to talk about the code. This code, although great, took some skill to input. It wasn't like you could just put it in whenever you wanted, you had to input it at exactly the right time or you would have to try again. This perfect moment was right after the game was turned on, more over right after the Konami logo (the game manufacturer) would appear. So picture me a little kid sitting in front of this game hastily trying to input the controls on a 5" by 1 1/2" piece of plastic with sweaty, chubby thumbs all before the Konami logo disappeared. After about the tenth time through this horrific cycle I heard a "ching" come from the screen. That "ching" meant that I had completed the code in the proper sequence in time and I was now rewarded with 99 lives to use as I pleased.

For those of you who are still thinking that this is way over your head, those 99 lives allowed me to be rather careless in my game playing. That was because there was no real consequence for death after the code was entered correctly. I could run my character headlong into a battalion of troops with nothing but a spoon for a weapon. I would die, but my hero would appear right where he fell ready to do battle again.

Some might think that playing Contra with the gift of the code is great and perfectly OK, and some might think that it is cheating. The thing of it is that I am not here to say yes or no to either. The code was given to scrupulous gamers as gift. Some gamers decided to use this gift and others didn't. The criminal thing about the code was the difference in the way I played the game after I had input the code.

This I feel is the same way that I go about my life under the saving gift of God's grace. I have more than "99 lives"--I have eternal life but I still go recklessly through life just expecting to reappear like my Contra counterpart. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:24

"Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one
receives the prize. Run in such a way that you may win."

He is saying that we have to play, run, and live with intent. It is not an attitude of anything I do is OK because I have the code. We are to understand, using the game analogy, that even though we have the lives to spare we are to play as to win with the four that we were originally given. Paul continues in verse 26

"Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a
way, as not beating the air."

God has given us the greatest code, in the saving grace of His son Jesus Christ. This unlike the classic Contra code, is very real, and we should not live as if we were playing Contra.

God Bless, as usual comments are welcome

Peace Out Two Fingers

Shaun

Does This Belt Match My Shoes?

OK, is there anyone out there that remembers the old BATMAN TV series or BATMAN in general? Bruce Wayne, Batman's alter ego, spent the majority of his life studying the martial arts, science, literature, etc... so that he could exact revenge on the man who murdered his parents. He also took on the mantle of fighting to stop these atrocities from happening to anyone else. His "bat suit" was made of state-of-the-art armor which was all held together by a utility belt. This utility belt was his crowning achievement. It held all of the armament and gadgets he needed to fight crime. In other words he was more or less worthless with out it. How many times (on the TV show) did we find batman dangling from a wire, bound at the ankles, with his belt just out of reach? Every time you would faithfully hear him say, "If I could only reach my utility belt..."

I find this part of the show perplexing. Why would the villain place the one thing that Batman could use to free himself from his impending doom just out of his reach?

So often I feel like Batman in this very situation. I am fighting for my life and the things that I rely on are just out of my reach. I equate my accomplishments (which I have worked so hard to attain and rely on for my very survival) to Batman's utility belt as the mark of my worth. So often I find that, like in Batman’s case, my accomplishments are held just out of reach. Almost as if they are put there by my villain in hopes that I would see them and place my focus on them instead of getting free.

Jesus did not revel in the things he did. In fact, He tried to do his best to hide them from most people. He did not rely on them to get him out of trouble. He relied on His Father’s will to guide Him. His accomplishments did not save him from what He was meant to do. His faith, trust, and love led him to His biggest accomplishment, the intersession of those who believe in Him and death. He bore the mantle of not only saving Gotham City, but the souls of His Father’s most cherished creation.

Why is so important for me, for us, to make our accomplishments known? Are they, like Batman's utility belt, going to save us from the doom we face? What if we tried for just one day to be unlike this storied Super Hero and look at our accomplishments as simple blessings and not the things that give us our name?

All thoughts are welcome.

peace out, two fingers

The Million Dollar Question...

Alright, I know that this is a big thing to be talking about on my first entrance into the blogging world, but why not. The question I have is not "what is the purpose of life?", but "how do we start to find what our purpose is?" For instance, I am starting to believe that it is not the realization of our "dreams" that give us our purpose, but the things we do and the ideals we hold important as we pursue them.

OK, here comes another example. For the last 8 years I have pursuing a dream of "making it" in the music industry, as every Christian musician does-- wanting to turn the music industry around. That is all well and good, and I am still pursuing that, but what if our purpose has little or nothing to do with that individual dream? We all know or have heard that our purpose is to glorify God in everything we do. What if your dream takes precedence or you (like I have for so long) believe that realizing the dream will be the way you glorify God? What do we do with all of that? We certainly don't quit, but I think that we need to, in a way, forget about our dream as being paramount and focus on the lives that we are living. I would love to hear your comments about this.

Peace Out, Two Fingers