What Happens When I Get Bored

Throwing responsibility to the wind as far as homework is concerned, I've managed to get my mind off of the current state of affairs by putting up a WordPress blog on my friend Cal's server. I love WordPress so far, it's fun to play with.

Update your links and bookmarks if you feel the need to do so:

http://www.seiryuu.org/~joanfart/

All future updates and orders of business will be conducted at the new blog. Word.

Daniel 7:13-14

I've posted this before in the context of another discussion, but this passage always gives me the greatest of hope, even when I'm in despair.

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed."

It's very easy to completely freak out when painful things happen to you. I've been through that in the past few days, and I know firsthand what kind of twist it can put on the soul. How it can make you want to do things you would never want to do otherwise. It's a painful and terrible experience, both for the one going through the suffering, and for his friends. I'm sorry for anyone I've pained with my plight.

But even in the middle of this confusion and sadness, I know to whom I bend my knee. The One who was given power and glory reigns over me now, and His dominion in my life will not pass away. Pain dissipates in the sheer presence of the Son of Man, "for the Son of Man came to save that which was lost."

I hope that all of you can find the great truth in this passage from Daniel as well.

Fumble

Whoops. I dropped my life.

iTunes, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)

Every once in awhile, I like to take all of my MP3s out of iTunes and slowly place them back in, album by album, deleting the music I no longer listen to and making a better effort of organizing the stuff I do enjoy. It's probably a colossal waste of time, but for some reason it's entertaining to me, and also gives me a chance to sit back and relax with some songs I haven't heard in awhile. iTunes 7, unsurprisingly, tends to take even longer to load up than its predecessors on my trusty PC, and is chock-full of extra features that I never intend on using. How about an iTunes Lite, Apple? Pretty-please?

Anyway, in addition to this cleaning, I've been looking for some new stuff to listen to lately. If anybody has anything that they think I'd enjoy, send some recommendations my way. I'll be sure to check them out.

I found a website with basically every album of Final Fantasy music that's ever been released in Japan on it. It's intensely awesome to me, the king of all Final Fantasy dorks. I now have everything from symphonic suites to officially sanctioned Japanese-hair-metal covers of battle themes to an entire CD of Celtic Final Fantasy IV music. Yeah. Celtic. Final Fantasy IV. Music. Only about three or four people that I know will understand the joy I receive from such things as these. The rest of you will wonder why I don't do anything useful with my time.

I've been reading a lot more lately now that there's been a lull in my schoolwork. I tore through rereading The Problem of Pain and The Four Loves last week, and now I'm absorbing a Walker Percy book that Mike loaned me called Lost in the Cosmos. It's a mock self-help book that manages to be simultaneously entertaining and thought-provoking. It also includes a forty-page crash course on semiotics. Can't get much better than that.

Well, back to frittering away my time.

Isaiah

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

- Isaiah 53:4-5

Man, as a whole, has turned away from God. I think we all know that. But the real kicker is that I myself turn away from God, every day. Each hour I fail to do the things He demands of me, and again and again I find myself up to my neck in sin, clawing for a way into the light. Isaiah predicted my behavior well. It's a destructive, looping process, and I know in my heart that there will be no permanent end to my temptations until I am with my Lord in glory.

The sins of pride, lust, gluttony... These things can be all-consuming to me at times. But when I have my wits about me again, I descend into a kind of chaos. What have I done? Was it not enough for the Lamb of God to be "crushed for our iniquities" on that lonely hill outside Jerusalem? Must I continue to crucify Him daily? Must I, weeping, drive the nails into Him again and again, hoping in the back of my mind that someday He will save me from myself?

"We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). God recognized, even in Isaiah's day, that man had become all but a lost hope, a flock that had lost its shepherd. And even then, He made a promise to us. "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel—which means, 'God with us'" (Isaiah 7:14). The Lord had always intended to give us the greatest gift that could ever be mustered... the gift of Himself. In a more personal way, He recognized that I would fail to follow Him, and there would be many times that I would turn my back on His love and try to forge my own path in the desert. And knowing these things to be true, He still came down and suffered to the death so that I too could "see the light of life and be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:11). Though I falter every day, His call never ceases: "make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God" (Isaiah 40:3). In the dreary wilderness of my mind, I am demanded to turn my back on sin and forge a straight road through any obstacles that may be in the way, a demand made by the God who has loved me enough to always ask more of me.

As always, my thoughts change from despair to hope. Hallelujah! The Lord has come! I have the strength that I need, always emanating from Him, to turn from the job of executioner of Christ. Instead, I can carry my own cross and be crucified with Him. I, one of the many hopeless causes, have the ability to throw off worries and sins, and die to myself. The great sadness of my shortcomings is being transformed into an even greater glory just by meditating on these things. What better joy can there be than realizing that I have been rescued from the sinking ship of the world?

Slowly but surely, the ever-patient God is molding me into the "new man," the man He knows I can be, the man that He made me to be. "We are the clay, You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand" (Isaiah 64:8).

A Random Assortment

A colorful array of the many thoughts going through my head at the current moment in time:

• Schoolwork is increasingly difficult for me to do. I need to get some focus.
• God is also hard to focus on when I'm too busy focusing on not doing schoolwork. Oh, the twisted webs we weave for ourselves... I need to always be searching for new ways to see Him in my life, even when I'm ridiculously busy.
  
• The UFO 48-Hour Film Festival screenings went really well. It was awesome to see so many people show up this time around.
• Recording music with Mike is officially one of the best things ever.
• I need to buy a wireless router so my Internet connection doesn't crap out every fifteen minutes.
• The Wikipedia entry for "prayer" starts out like this: "This article is about religious communication with a superior being. For the 2002 rock song by Disturbed, see Prayer (song)."
• I'm really hungry.
• Corey Close is kind of an amazing guy to hang out with.
  
• It'd be sweet to find a church I enjoy in this town, if at all possible. However, Gents' Club is always a blast, and manages to teach me something at the same time. Who would have thought?
• Panera serves absolutely gigantic cups of coffee.
• Speaking of Panera, Joel Manahan is a hilarious person.
• Velociraptor + Kirk Cameron = Velocirapture.
• Lots of tough decisions to make this week. Here's hoping and praying that I'll be able to do my best to "always do what pleases Him."