A Few Brilliant Ideas...

I ran from task to task, marrying myself to business in my decaying state of affairs. I watched. I knew. God slowly dropped into the background, even though I tried my best to keep Him involved. We both know it wasn't adequate. The weekend brought a lot of relaxation, and with it a lot of great effects. A lot of time spent focused on God... But we both knew it still wasn't adequate. Monday rolled around, life got busy. He didn't disappear, but He wasn't nearly as evident as either of us would have liked. It was the same old problem. The same old daze. How was I to fight something that ate all my time? I couldn't drop it, lock it down and crop it, and I certainly couldn't stop it.
So, I prayed for rain.
And then the rain came.
You'd think paralysis would be extremely disorienting for someone who spends all of his time in physical activity. It wasn't.

I reach down and try to grab my phone, but I can't hold on to it. My finger won't clench, and the sensation is numb. I should be concerned right? All I feel is peace though, despite my lack of control. I realize that I'm losing control of parts of my body, and I surrender that knowledge to God. "Take it God, you do all things for the good of those you love, according to your purpose."

Paralysis should be frightening. Perhaps my emotions were paralyzed. I don't think so. I kept everyone else's spirits up, they all seemed so frightened by the prospects. I can't let them worry, after all, I'm at peace, they should be too. I joke, laugh, and make bad puns. They still seem concerned. Why?
I've been praying for rain.
And then the rain came.

Paralysis is strange because you're so disabled and yet so able. My mind ran a mile a minute, working better than it often does when the rest of my body is functioning. Maybe because its load was lightened. My heart rate exploded, that was okay. After all, if I died, what then? Heaven right? Sure, that sucks for everyone else that knows me, but not really for me. Freedom, that's what I've always longed for. True, God-dependent freedom. And I was pretty close to having what I wanted, at least closer than I'd ever been before.

And then the rain came.

Losing sight of God in a world that is filled with distractions is easy. Solomon saw that, "All is vanity and a striving after the wind." I certainly read that phrase enough that I should have been able to recognize its application. I misunderstood my distraction, I thought I was distracted by one thing, when, in truth, I was distracted by a great many. Each one tugging at my heart, beckoning me away from Christ. Good gifts, some of God's best, but gifts not the giver. We both knew it wasn't adequate. I knew it. He knew it. It was merely a matter of time until something happened.

"STOP!"

The voice reverberated around the mental chamber of my imagination. I stopped. I had no choice after all, God had spoken. He pulled me to my knees, quite literally, and cried out Be still and know I am God. I looked up and saw him looking down, and understanding flooded my eyes. Pure, divine light filtered through the cracks of my heart, illuminating its dirty exposed core. I lay there and waited. And waited. "Can I get up now?" Be still and know I am God. "Can I get up now?" Be still and know I am God. I knelt, and waited, and looked up into the lantern of God's wisdom. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." and waited. Do you not know? Have you not heard? "Yes, Lord." Then he who has ears let him hear.

And then the rain came.

Retrospect. A word generally understood but not generally applied. What good is experience without the ability to learn from it? To forget the past is to relive a thousand agonies. God started to blend, against His nature and against my knowledge. And when He did, life became a thousand shades of grey. I can't fall into that trap again. I need the diligence of friendship that pulls me closer to God. If you're reading this, be that person. So I prayed, and then the rain came.

Don't forget, why you're here.
Don't forget, to keep standing.
Don't forget, what's he's done.
Don't forget, what you're meant to do, 
because you were made for so much more.
So don't forget.

[I'm postponing Music Friday to Music Monday.]

Maintain Consciousness-Relient K
"Our Concentration
It Contains A Deadly Flaw
Our Conversations
Change From Words To
Blah, Blah, Blah
We Took Prescription Drugs
But Look How Much Good That Did
Well I Think I Had A Point,
But I Just Got Distracted
Lately It Just Seems Like Me
Like We've Got The Letters A.d.d.
Branded Into Our Mentality
We Simply Can't Focus
On Anything
Because It's
17, 18, 19 Routine
And Here At 23 It's
The Same Old Me
And That One Thing
Of The Moment
That We All Happen To Like
Will Only Very Temporarily
Kinda Break The Cycle
Of The Double-edged Sword
Of Being Lazy And Being Bored
We Just Want More
And More And More
Until It's All We Can Afford"

Dear Nonbelievers,

I am afraid. So very, very afraid...

I'm afraid because judgement is coming.

I'm not afraid for me. I'm afraid for you.

I watch people walk by me all the time,

people that reject you time and time again.

And I'm afraid.

"We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ" (Romans 14:10).


You don't know his justification.


I'm Very Afraid.


~Stevie
Soli Deo Gloria

(Simeon has lost =(. That makes it six people that remain in the competition. When the going gets tough. Well. It gets tough. I'm sorry to see you go Sim, so I thought I'd send you out with a little ApologetiX.)


Captured pieces of times and places,
Ideas and efforts, each unfinished.
Each the beginning of a new story.
Waiting to be painted, waiting to be finished
but always unable. They are never complete,
no matter what you add, there's always
something
more.
Like a tree that grows, towards the heavens
always reaching,
never finding.
It cannot attain perfection.
It is too lofty an ideal.
It cannot reach the sky,
because
it is the limit.


One of my favorite artists released an album! I just found out as I wrote this! I'm so e-cited! It's called Heartbreak Yellow, an album by Andy Davis. =D (leaves to listen to music.)


Random chat quote of the day:
" "me:  I know how that is 

...Destroy by Worth Dying For... Please. PLEASE. Watch this.


We stand, we rise, we give our lives.
We stand, we rise, we give our lives.
The pledge of man giving his life to Jesus Christ in a debt of servitude.
[Spoken]
It began long ago, when darkness, through its deceit captured the hearts of the sons and daughters of light. 
Genesis tells us that in the beginning Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden, where the Serpent(Satan, darkness) tricked Adam into eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. We were once "sons and daughters of light" but we are fallen now.


We looked for light but we found only darkness. We searched for bright skies but walked in gloom. 
We cannot hope to achieve to know God, without the help of God. We searched for the light we had once had, but it was gone, and there was nothing we could do to re-achieve it.


We fumbled like the blind along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. We were destined to fall, even in the brightest days. 
It doesn't matter how smart we are, how good you are, how talented you are. The only way that we can hope to find salvation is through God's intervention, we fumbled along the "wall" that was our only hope for finding our way. No matter how hard we tried, no matter how well life seemed to be going, we were destined to fail and lose.


We stumbled as if it were dark. Among the living, we were like the dead. 
This is taken from Ephesians 2:1-2 "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—" We stumbled because it was dark because we were dead. Once you are dead, nothing can bring back, except for, as seen in the Bible, God. Christians were once "the living dead," once we hated God and scorned him. 


We looked for justice, but it never came. We looked for rescue but it was far from us. 
We look around in the world, and we see a country that attempts to uphold justice. But it can't. There's too much corruption within humanity for anyone to take of except an all-knowing, all-powerful being. We've tried to escape from injustice, people lay in bed and sometimes wonder about questions like: "Why am I here?" There was no rescue from this world. All the petty things were all that we had.


So He, Himself, stepped in to save us with his strong arm and justice to sustain Him. 
Jesus Christ, our savior, came and placed himself as the Champion of the human race. God sent his own son as a sacrifice. He who was perfect, with perfect justice, and miracles falling from his fingertips.


He put on righteousness as armor, salvation His helmet. He clothed Himself with the robe of vengeance and wrapped Himself in a cloak of divine passion. 
Ephesians 6:10-17 relates the Armor of God. It commands us to wear the "breastplate of righteousness," and "the helmet of salvation." The other two, the robe and the cloak are not biblical paraphrases, but are still beautiful illustrations of who he is. This robe is the vengeance of the Father, who demands that debts be payed, he cannot even come in contact with sin and therefore must have the debt payed. The cloak, God's divine passion for his people.








He slipped out of his royal garments, left eternity to enter time, divinity to wrap himself in humanity. 
Christ gave up divinity, all powerful, all knowing the entire universe to come as a human child in weakness and vulnerability. This is the ultimate act of humility. He left his royal garments, all his power and majesty, he let eternity and entered our finite "time."




The sea of glass, for the ocean of separation. He left peace, and for the first time felt pain. 
Christ left eternity, and entered into a simple human existence where he was no longer invulnerable to the cares of mankind. A comforting thought when we ask him for things. He understands.


Because the very hands that held the stars were now sentenced to wear my scars. 
The story of the Gospel is the greatest in the entirety of human existence. God came down in human form, took on our sin, and payed the debt that we could not pay. He who once held stars, was now going to take the pain in my place.


It was love that purchased this traitor’s heart. 
The only reason I would even begin to type this is because of God's love. He chose me, for whatever reason that may be. His love... His humility... and His grace...


It's what the prophets spoke about when they envisioned light living in men once again. 
For centuries and centuries mankind has been looking forward to the birth of the Messiah. The prophets made prophecies about who he would be and what he would do. Jesus fulfilled over 400 prophecies in his life on earth. 
Isaiah 61:1-2 [1] The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, [2] to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
Jesus fulfilled the promise of a redeemer, a savior, a person who could restore a broken light within each and every on one of us.




For this reason, I AM LEGEND, predestined for greatness, built for the final hour. 
Christians! Arise! We are legend! We are His church, His people! We are called to live like Him and to witness to the rest of the world! Ephesians also says that each and every one of us was predestined to be saved, to glorify God on high. We exist to give him glory and to share His Gospel.


I was born for this with weapons in hand, armor in place. I now march to the beat of a different drum. 
Once we have installed the armor of God we step away from all the corruption, the misleading culture, and everything that can prevent us from worshiping him. We must be in the world but not of it.


I will break through battle lines that have been drawn by discouragement and despair. What more is left to be said? 
So many people have suffered either because of their sin or because it was within God's plan to do so. We cannot quantify God's actions. All that they have experienced, all that they have lost... It is our mission to show them his love and his care in their sorrow. They must see the path of the Lord, they cannot be left to live their lives. What more is left to be said?


Time has met its end. It's now or never. Collision with me, myself, and I. 
We cannot wait any longer to share his name. Where were once living in shame, we must now live in righteousness and proclaim the grace of the Lord Almighty. We must fight ourselves in our discouragement, in our fear of man, and in our apathy. It's time to fight, starting with ourselves.


You see my mission today is clear: to wake the dead. So let freedom's song rage. 
I have only two missions in this life, to witness to non-Christians and to become more like Christ. Everything else is meaningless. God makes it clear in word that our God is to wake those who do not know his name, do not their personal savior, do not know the creator of the universe! So we share the good news, the song of freedom, and we do not withhold.


You’re not abandoned. You're not alone. Last day warriors arise from yesterday's ash and raise your fist with us.
God has not neglected you, he is aware of your struggles, he cares for you unbelievers. HE LOVES YOU. You are not alone in the sense of God's omnipresence, but neither are you alone in the fight to glorify God. All who have the word and received it will join you in the battle. Rise from the ashes, 
"Rise from the ashes, stand before the masses proclaim the victory is ours and so we never give
up, even though times get hard to understand, its never enough for us to sit back and hope he
has a plan. We gotta stand up and face the cold with a boldness that is focused on the fact we
have the keys so just believe there's nothing closed." Keys to the Kingdom-Group 1 Crew


 We are the army that is charging upon the land. Defeat is no longer and option! IT IS VICTORY.
The army of God is his church, and his church is his army. We have a mission to charge upon the land. We must charge, we must not forget. "Defeat is no longer an option." It's a matter of life or death, we must win. It is victory.


We stand, we rise, we give our lives.
We give ourselves to Christ. We give in to his love. We commit ourselves to God.