How do we embrace suffering and be obedient?

We cling to God's promises.

It all depends on whether or not we believe in the faithfulness of God.

We have to believe God's promises and believe in his faithfulness.

He is always with me.

God is better than anything that I could ever lose and bigger than anything that I could ever face.

God is with me and He keeps his promises. God's promises must be united by the faith of my heart.

-Heb 4

I have no idea where this came from, but I found it somewhere on my computer. I might've written it, but...I'm not sure. Que?

from a movie

Grace doesn't try to please itself;

It accepts being rejected and slighted.

tunes

my top albums of the past year are as follows:

sufjan stevens, age of adz

-sample song, "vesuvius": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTsDcjHj54M

iron & wine, kiss each other clean

-sample song, "tree by the river" (funny): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUBQvq9w4vE

-sample song, "tree by the river" (tres chic): http://vimeo.com/19116573

bon iver, bon iver

-sample song, "holocene": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mshjUSG88DU

hope you enjoy!

a passing aft

To go along with a previous post:

"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang the best."

-William Blake

"Work while you have light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you."

-Henri Frederick Amiel

"Toil to make yourself remarkable by one talent or other."

-Seneca

bedtime story

personal remedy against fear and anxiety:

1. take slow, deep breaths

2. remind yourself it's not about you

3. "grace"

with that being said, I'm very grateful to have spent the week with the following guys:

-brady davis

-will scott

-casey needham

-trey glaspie

this is not that

to know who you are and who you are not is a valuable quality.

to know what you are responsible for and what you are not responsible for is a valuable quality.

I seek to be excellent at a few things instead of mediocre at many things. If I'm honest, I have a tendency to not excel at any singular task or skill because I fear rejection and get caught up in a loss of identity.

So, I'm learning to be great at a few things that I highly value and be okay with sucking at everything else. If I can work on being a great writer, or at least pursue it with diligence, excellence, and responsibility, then I shouldn't care if I'm horrible at volleyball.

Figure out who you are, then be that person. If you accept who you are for the great person that you are, then it's a lot easier to be encouraging and loving towards others instead of constantly comparing yourself to others. Usually when you compare yourself to those around you for the qualities or skills that you don't have (and because you don't accept the qualities and skills you DO have), you just end up criticizing, judging, and tearing others down out of fear.

God made you with a specific skill set to complete a specific purpose. Sure, admire godly traits you see in others that you can strive to attain through prayer and the Holy Spirit, but admire out of gratitude instead of envy.

Accept with thankfulness the qualities that you have that make you distinct. If you wish you were more patient, thank God for His grace to work out patience in you and see what happens. If you wish you played the violin better, then just practice and thank God that you can hear it being played.

Accept. Thank. Peace.

strong guys

I recently wrote a short post about one of my favorite songwriters, Sam Beam (Iron & Wine). He performed a solo show at The Paramount in Austin, TX (which is my favorite venue) last weekend and proved himself to be at the top of my list for many reasons. Besides being a great writer and adept player, he's always seemed to be someone very sure of himself, confident, intelligent, directed, funny, and just a pleasure to watch perform. Now his beliefs are uncertain to me, and I'm not really interested in them for the most part. What I'm mostly concerned with (and the reason I'm writing this post) is his confidence. This tangential introduction via Sam Beam points towards a more concise issue for me--being a man. To be more apt, a Man.

Again, what strikes me about Sam Beam is simply his confidence, and that is without question a godly characteristic for a Man. He's sure of himself, his songs, and his ability, and it's inspiring and joyful to watch from a crowded concert hall. Sure his wit and humor that have a hint of self-deprecation, but even that is laced with confidence. He is himself, nothing more, nothing less. And for that, I applaud him. Considering he is only Sam Beam, he cannot be anything else.

I've struggled with wanting to be everyone else and not myself. The fact that Sam Beam is not "the crazy artist" full of self-destruction and self-loathing, or "egotistical narcissist" hell-bent on making sure the masses love his work at the sake of spreading himself to thin (which is the former, as well), or the "fearful hermit" who is too self-conscious to ever produce consistent work are all reasons to appreciate this guy. He is a husband who fathers his children with his wife and has a steady job. That's that. I love it. I love the confident simplicity and satisfaction he exhibits (or at least, seems to).

I want the wife, the family, the job, the bedtime, the routine, the structure, the laundry, the less-than-romantic reality, the real.

I'm tired of thinking life is some giant romantic, expectation-filled movie, with immaculate conversation that eradicates awkwardness or mistaken jokes.

I want the selfless moments of seeing the bigger picture, of seeing reality for what it is, and not getting caught up in a scripted flow of interaction.

I want to be driven, complete tasks, and reach goals. I want to be more concerned with those things than freaking out about whether or not something "feels weird" or "awkward". Screw "feeling anxious and scared". And my gosh, not everything means something. Grow a pair and get on with it.

Screw the random pairs of eyes, just go dance with the one you love. Forget about being cool, just have fun with who's around. Who cares if your song sucks, just write a better one.

Thank God for crappy weather, a bad haircut, and a hole in your sock. Stop grumbling, quit complaining, cease to criticize. Be grateful for what you do have before you screw it up. Be thankful for a random butterfly.

And finally, we reach the spiritual implications of how Sam Beam plays into my walk with the Lord. Donald Miller just yesterday and today posted blogs for women and men, respectively, on how to live a great love story. But, the words are much more of a lesson plan on how to lead the lives we're supposed to live; how we were designed to live. I've pasted the URLs at the bottom and hope you take the time to reach your respective post, or both. There's great insight into reading each, I believe.

My days are revolving around trusting what it is God designed me to do. Now, I gather that I have desires and passions for a reason and know I've been endowed with some type of ability. So if that's understood, then why have I done nothing about it? Do I expect God to understand the world's a scary place and coddle me for never risking it? There must be risk. And, when you trust God, the world really isn't that scary. God despises our fear getting in the way of our purpose. I do not want to be this man:

"He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant!" -Matthew 25: 24-26

So with that being said, onward and out! Get a move on! Get going! What have you got to lose?

So this post seems to have concluded as a championing of 1. confidence in God's gifts and design, and 2. growing as a Man (or Woman).

for the gals:

http://donmilleris.com/2011/08/02/how-to-live-a-great-love-story/

for the guys:

http://donmilleris.com/2011/08/03/how-to-live-a-great-love-story-vol-ii-for-the-guys/

stamped

I am at a loss. I am simply at a loss.

Through God's mercy and grace will I reach the dawn on the steady wings of gratefulness. This gratefulness becomes my joy.

I recognize my circumstances as less than pleasant but dare not give way to grumbling. I thank God for breath. I thank God for tears. I thank God for all the random alley cats over the years that I keep befriending. I thank God for melody. I thank God for a clean glass of water. I thank God for the smell of Christmas. I thank God for the way my face feels after I shave.

I am down and out but still moving. I fall and get up and fall and get up. I tell fear to go to hell where it came from. I trust in God's goodness and sovereignty and not my own knowledge of things.

"To be grateful for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness." -Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust