Priorities

     I met two people today, they were probably in their mid to late 50's, they owned a barber shop together, and they were so interested in what was going on in my life.

     Their names are Jedd and Bill, and they own a local barber shop here in Manhattan, Kansas. I went in to get my haircut and then leave afterwards. As I walked in, Jedd told me that he would gladly cut my hair for me after he cut the hair of the kid he wasn't currently cutting. After his current appointment left, I saw that he paid Jedd with cash, and no card. I didn't see a register anywhere, so I asked if they take credit and debit as well. I was informed that they only accept cash and checks, so I told Jedd that I would walk across the street to the ATM real fast to take out some cash. He looked at me with a soothing look and said, "None of that, sit down right here and let me give you a hair cut first. You can worry about that payment thing later." So I did just that and afterwards, Jedd trusted me to walk across the street and wait as the slow ATM gave me my money to pay Jedd for his service.

     Now, the only thing that really made meant to write this blog was what Jedd said to me before he gave me a haircut. He could have easily just told me to go get my obey before he cut my hair, but that wasn't his priority; Jedd's priority was to give me the haircut that I wanted, not getting paid for it. And even then, when he let me leave the shop to take out some cash, he trusted that I would come back. I didn't have to, we both knew that, but he let it happen anyway, and we both went on with our days after that.

     I feel like our priorities always need straightening. When we work somewhere, I'm sure that our priorities aren't to serve the people there, at least that isn't the top one, but our priority at the end of the day is to make the money that we earned and go on with our days. Jedd showed me that he had a heart that wanted to offer service to others, whether or not he was guaranteed payment. I really admired that about my new friend Jedd.

Dead. Wrong.

     I play for the worship band at my home church in Arizona whenever I get the chance to, and because I am a slight cynic and critical musician with my worship music, I tend to "dislike" many songs that we play, but I cast my displeasures aside for the sake of creating genuine worship for everyone to enjoy and to glorify God with. As I proceeded to look at the song list that the band was going to play tonight, I was very "displeased" when I saw that the last song that we were playing was "Open Up Our Eyes." For those of you who don't know the song or don't remember how it goes, the reason I don't like this song is because of the bridge line that goes like this, "Our God is fighting for us always, our God is fighting for us all." I just feel like there is no way that at all times God would be fighting for us, or would even bother to dedicate the power that He has to fight for us, His creation that fails Him daily and casts Him aside for our own pleasures away from Him. I practiced the song and have successfully learned it, despite my feelings for the song, and after that I decided to go through my Bible and pick a passage to read.

     My girlfriend told me about a little study that she is doing where she goes through a Psalm everyday and in it picks out a promise that God has for her. I really liked that idea, and have started that study myself. I haven't been incredibly consistent with it, but I am thoroughly enjoying it. Today, I read through Psalm 18, and it was this Psalm that God used to take my beliefs about the song "Open Up Our Eyes" and throw them away. It was Psalm 18 that God used to smack my hand and tell me that I was wrong, that I was dead wrong.

     Go ahead and read Psalm 18 right now if you want to. If you don't want to dig it out and read it, I'll post it down below for you to read. To be honest it is a little longer than most Psalms, but it will not be a waste of your time I can assure you. 

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
    my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
    and I am saved from my enemies.

 The cords of death encompassed me;
    the torrents of destruction assailed me;
 the cords of Sheol entangled me;
    the snares of death confronted me.

 In my distress I called upon the Lord;
    to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
    and my cry to him reached his ears.

 Then the earth reeled and rocked;
    the foundations also of the mountains trembled
    and quaked, because he was angry.
 Smoke went up from his nostrils,
    and devouring fire from his mouth;
    glowing coals flamed forth from him.
 He bowed the heavens and came down;
    thick darkness was under his feet.
 He rode on a cherub and flew;
    he came swiftly on the wings of the wind.
 He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him,
    thick clouds dark with water.
 Out of the brightness before him
    hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds.

 The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
    and the Most High uttered his voice,
    hailstones and coals of fire.
 And he sent out his arrows and scattered them;
    he flashed forth lightnings and routed them.
 Then the channels of the sea were seen,
    and the foundations of the world were laid bare
at your rebuke, O Lord,
    at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.

 He sent from on high, he took me;
    he drew me out of many waters.
 He rescued me from my strong enemy
    and from those who hated me,
    for they were too mighty for me.
 They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
    but the Lord was my support.
 He brought me out into a broad place;
    he rescued me, because he delighted in me.

 The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness;
    according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.
 For I have kept the ways of the Lord,
    and have not wickedly departed from my God.
 For all his rules were before me,
    and his statutes I did not put away from me.
 I was blameless before him,
    and I kept myself from my guilt.
 So the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
    according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.

 With the merciful you show yourself merciful;
    with the blameless man you show yourself blameless;
 with the purified you show yourself pure;
    and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.
 For you save a humble people,
    but the haughty eyes you bring down.
 For it is you who light my lamp;
    the Lord my God lightens my darkness.
 For by you I can run against a troop,
    and by my God I can leap over a wall.
 This God—his way is perfect;
    the word of the Lord proves true;
    he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

 For who is God, but the Lord?
    And who is a rock, except our God?—
 the God who equipped me with strength
    and made my way blameless.
 He made my feet like the feet of a deer
    and set me secure on the heights.
 He trains my hands for war,
    so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
 You have given me the shield of your salvation,
    and your right hand supported me,
    and your gentleness made me great.
 You gave a wide place for my steps under me,
    and my feet did not slip.
 I pursued my enemies and overtook them,
    and did not turn back till they were consumed.
 I thrust them through, so that they were not able to rise;
    they fell under my feet.
 For you equipped me with strength for the battle;
    you made those who rise against me sink under me.
 You made my enemies turn their backs to me,
    and those who hated me I destroyed.
 They cried for help, but there was none to save;
    they cried to the Lord, but he did not answer them.
 I beat them fine as dust before the wind;
    I cast them out like the mire of the streets.

 You delivered me from strife with the people;
    you made me the head of the nations;
    people whom I had not known served me.
 As soon as they heard of me they obeyed me;
    foreigners came cringing to me.
 Foreigners lost heart
    and came trembling out of their fortresses.

 The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock,
    and exalted be the God of my salvation—
 the God who gave me vengeance
    and subdued peoples under me,
 who delivered me from my enemies;
    yes, you exalted me above those who rose against me;
    you rescued me from the man of violence.

 For this I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations,
    and sing to your name.
 Great salvation he brings to his king,
    and shows steadfast love to his anointed,
    to David and his offspring forever.

     Psalm 18 was a Psalm that King David wrote before he became king of Israel, after God delivered him from the current king of Israel, Saul. Psalm 18 is a giant description of God's never ending fight for David's life because of David's trust, faith, and refuge that he took in the Lord in his time of need. All this time I told myself not that God wouldn't fight for me, but that God was not always fighting for us when we betray Him all of the time. I was taught differently by God Himself who directly spoke to me through this Psalm today.

     When we work hard to be righteous in God's eyes and when we work hard to be blameless before Him and when we seek refuge in no one else but Him, God will fight for us. He will fight for His people. He will fight to the ends of the earth if He has to. For all of us, always. "Open Up Our Eyes" has now become one of the most influential and most meaningful worship songs I will ever play now. Thank you God, for opening up my eyes.

Fighting for Change

     I never gave the A&E television show "Duck Dynasty' a chance. I generalized it along with all other "country-like" television shows that are becoming all the rage. I just thought that the show was a reality television show of some sort that followed this family who got rich off of duck calls and now have their own show to talk about it. I'm sure that many of you are in the same boat as me, and I'm also sure that many of you are no where near being in the same boat as me. Now, I'm not writing this blog to bash Duck Dynasty, the Robertson family, or the faithful viewers and lovers of the show. I'm just sharing how I feel about the current situation that has gotten everybody up in arms: Phil Robertson's comment. I figured with all of the fuss going on on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Tumblr, I might as well educate myself about who Phil is and what he stands for and why everyone is either hating him or loving him right now.

     I watched a couple of episodes of Duck Dynasty and thought that it was a good show. I have nothing bad to say about it, and I did enjoy most of it while I watched it. I wanted to have a good mindset about the show when I decided to do some research on the current issue at hand. I began to watch multiple videos online of the comment that Phil made that got everyone's panties in a bunch, and I proceeded to watch and read more articles about his response to A&E's "suspending" of him on their television show. I can't say that I am surprised at the outcome of what happened, it's something that we can't be overwhelmingly distraught or upset about, but I found that I really appreciated how Phil responded to the never-ending attack of media-dogs hungering for his "plans to take back what was his" or "fight A&E's control of his show".

     I found myself watching a documentary video, about 37 minutes long, all about Phil and his wife's history before the show and before the company. Phil talks all about his college life: alcohol, neglect, poor decisions everywhere on his part, as well as his wife's unconditional love for him and his children that she was taking care of at the time. Phil talked about his conversion to giving his life to Christ and how that changed his life completely, as we all see now. I just now finished watching another video that was taken at a conference that Phil spoke at in California; the title of this video was "Phil Robertson Talks About Why His Country Needs More Jesus". Now, if I had seen this title before I did all of my research, I would have moved on, thinking that it was another dumb Duck Dynasty fanatic's video. But now that I have gotten to know who Phil is and what he stands for, I decided to watch it, at least the beginning.

     Phil tells a story about how he had the opportunity to convert and baptize a man that he had shared a conversation with over the telephone when the man had called to buy a duck call. He had called the buyer out on his excessive use of the Lord's name in vain and had challenged the caller to come over to his home to hear the Gospel of Jesus. Weeks later, there was a knock on the door and behold, the man who had called Phil was at Phil's doorstep along with one of his friends, waiting to hear what Phil had to say. After bringing tears out of the two men, Phil baptized them in a river by his home and sent them off. At the end of telling that story at the conference, Phil said this quote, "It doesn't matter to me what you say about me. It doesn't matter if you tell me that you hate me, that you don't like me, or that you can't stand the sight of me, I will love you, just as I had loved that man who wanted to buy a simple duck call and received salvation instead."

     No matter what I think or what anyone else thinks, Phil Robertson is a man that is fighting to spread Christ's love on this earth. If you or I think that his television show is stupid, it doesn't change the fact that is heart is where all other believer's hearts should be, and that is fighting to change the world for Christ.

Pondering My Future

     I absolutely love writing. I love pouring out my thoughts and what I think about on this blog, but I feel like I've been limiting myself with this blog due to what I originally wanted it to be. I told myself when I created this blog that it was going to be a place for me to store my notes strictly for spiritual studies and the like, but because I told myself that, I feel like it has limited what I've been willing to post on this blog. I look at it now and how far I have come as a blogger and a writer and a follower, and I am utterly satisfied to say the least; now I want to open myself up a little more, in this blog and in my mind. There is so much that I think about and that I would love to write about, but I feel like this blog isn't the place for that. Now, however, I am going to dedicate this blog to everything that flows through my mind that I want to share, ranging from anything that I see is classified as "good enough" to be written about. I hope for those of you have read my blog in the past or are continuous readers can find this blog as a place to see what's going on in my mind that may go on in your mind, or just something to kill time with. I'll write a little something down below that has been going through my mind as an initiate "blog post".

     As I get older and my future becomes more serious to me, I start thinking about careers, as any normal college student does. I don't sit here and meditate on the one that I feel like God has called me to, but I start to think about everything. Aside from going to Bible College to earn a pastoral ministry degree, I ponder of other careers that I feel like would be so interesting and exciting to journey on that I have never thought of before. I'm not saying that what I feel like God has called me to do is wrong at all, I'm just letting my mind explore the many options that there are. One thing that has been sticking in my mind is being a freelance writer. I never would have thought myself as someone who would consider this, but the more I look into it and see the people who have succeeded from doing it, I feel like it would be such a fun job. I can imagine myself writing for a popular blog that I love reading, like Gizmodo for example, and just enjoying every minute of seeing what's out there in the world for me to write about and share with my audience. Who knows, but the more I think about my skills and what I could use them for that would bring glory as well as enjoyment, the more I find myself wanting to see what the future holds.

All I can do is wait.

World Views

     I am currently enrolled in a Biblical Leadership class in Bible College. We've been going over a lot of personal reflection assignments and have been taking assessments that give us a more open view of who we are and what our strengths and weaknesses are. Today in class, we went over different world views on different theological and philosophical topics. God, life, history, and humanity. 

     One of the world views my group went over was Nihilism. For those of you that don't know, Nihilism is the Negative Nancy of world views. They believe that life is meaningless, there is no god, history has no importance, life is absurd and ultimately, death is absurd. As my group and I went over this view and its beliefs, I got to thinking about myself and my own personal views.

     What are my own views? What would others classify me as? What system of beliefs do I follow that categorize me?

     I've concluded that I don't belong to a view or theology. I don't want to limit myself. I feel like if I label myself as a "pre millennialist" or "post millennialist" or something of that sort, then I immediately am allowing myself to be subject to that theology's system of beliefs, which I don't want.

     I firmly believe in having your own faith, your own beliefs, and your own theology. You can pull beliefs out of different theologies, but ultimately you learn what you believe by studying the Word and drawing conclusions from interpretation. Don't devote yourself to an author, or a theology, or a church father, or a doctrine. Open your mind and create for yourself your own belief system; after all, beliefs are beliefs, not facts. Our beliefs won't matter in the end. We're more than likely all wrong, and I'm okay with that.

Timing

     Tonight I was having a conversation with one my band members in my RA's room. We were talking about our girlfriends and how we both need to be working on patience. We conversed about how we need to use the fruits of the Spirit to show love in areas that we need to work on that we have a hard time showing love through. We both share patience as a common ground with something that we have a hard time showing love through. As we sat on the bed talking about all of this, we both asked the other to pray for his need of patience. He then asked me if I wanted to pray right now. The room was full of other dudes playing mario and was no peaceful place to share a prayer. But, pushing aside the current setting we were in, we decided to pray about it. He prayed first and then I closed the prayer after him.

     In his portion of the prayer, he asked God to present both of us with opportunities to show patience and to learn to have patience through these opportunities. Literally tonight, no longer than an hour after that prayer, I was given an opportunity when listening to a friend reconcile with me. This was the first time in a very long time that The Lord answered one of my prayers almost immediately after it was asked. I was expecting something to come up in the next day or sometime this week or even next week, but no, I was given an opportunity tonight. I am so thankful for the God that I love and serve.

The Downward Path

I find myself getting jealous easily.

     I don't know what it is. It's not over items. I don't see something I want that someone else has and get these emotions of jealousy and covet. I don't want items or toys or gadgets or any fancy things. It doesn't bother me if people have things that I don't.

     It's not jealousy over items or physical goods. It's like an emotional jealousy. People spending time with one another that I wish I had. I get jealous of the quality time that people share. I want that. I don't care what shoes you're wearing or what car you're driving or the newest game that you have. I want to spend time with that person that you're spending time with and it gets me jealous, and I let it take over my emotions and it gets out of hand. It can ruin my day. It can ruin my night. It can ruin my weekend. It can ruin a conversation or a text message. It can ruin my attitude and how I feel, for however long I let it. I try to stop it, I try to get it out of my head, but it sits there, making itself home and I can't do a thing about it.

     I realize that it isn't good and that it's something that I need to work on. I don't know how to work on it though. Whenever it comes I have no preparation and I don't know how to handle it. Instead of combatting it I let it stay there and take over my entire emotional state. I don't tell anyone about it because I like to say that I'm fine and that nothing is wrong, that things are okay. But I don't feel okay.

     There is no happy ending or resolution that I have for this blog like I do normally for the rest, just venting and trying to figure myself out.

     P.S. Sometimes you just need to sit in peace and receive assurance from a loved one to make things better.