Wednesday, December 03, 2003
I was going to go to bed, but I decided to stay up to update my journal.
I turned on my laptop and flicked on my white Christmas lights and came here to elaborate on my theme; God's amazing blessings in my life. Today was no exception. But before I talk about today's big news, I want to paint a picture; a big picture. The one that is my entire life. Without describing the countless brushstrokes, textures, hues, and tones, I will do my best keep this breif and give you a general image for your mind. Three years ago my fiance left me. I was devestated, sunk into a deep darkness, became bitter and hopeless, and lost trust to ever love again. However, my only remaining dreams for the future were of a wife and a child. When I graduated college it was impossible to find a job. The minimum wage jobs I did manage to find drove me into a darker depression (night-shift) and desire for suicide. Two years of virtual unemployment were enough that I felt ashamed to breath the air and share the earth among my fellow man. Here's how I felt: I am 25, bound to the home in which I grew up. I want to flee and make a life for myself, yet it feels I'm pushed away every turn I take to mature and gain life experience. On the other side of my life I am a strong and disiplined athlete. I am also very strong in my morals and practices. I am a very mature Christian and I've gone through life existing to glorify God and do His work on earth through my talents and sacrifices. It sounds impressive, but I wasn't giving that much, though I wouldn't admit it. I kept many things to myself. I held on to pride. I became very vain in my athletics and self-righteous in my faith. I expected blessings for my sacrifices. Three years of this childish behavior, I became exhausted; for my efforts only drove me further from my dreams, the ones God had planned for me. I had an unrealistic idea of what my wife should be like instead of the one God had picked out for me. I unrealistically felt I deserved a job because I took credit for my creativity and wouldn't humble myself in my talents. A few weeks ago this over-exersion of my spirit and mind was too much and I quickly forced myself to evaluate my sins and to seek out the truth. The truth was that I am nobody... nothing. My happiness is nothing. God is everything. Our purpose here on earth isn't to indulge in flashy electronics, cars, sexual promiscuity, junk-food... the list goes on. We aren't here to get drunk and sick over our bad behaviour, feel regretful at how it ruins our lives over time, then clean up our act, then repeat our mistakes yet again until we are waisted and wounded and tired wondering why do we behave the way we do and how in the world can we become fixed. It's an endless cycle which will wear us out and leave us dead in the end. I'm not here to go to church to learn "how to overcome depression", or "ways to abstain from sexual imorality". These lessons are fine for people that are desperately lost and need direction, but I'm a believer and it's time I believe, once and for all, in God's unmeasurable and unfathomable grace and mercy and impowerment. I felt it was time to stop dwelling on my SELF-FABRICATED and delussioned "problems" and streaks of "bad luck" and hopelessness. It's a cycle that would never end until I decided to open my seemingly impossible eyes and see the actual truth rather than keep hold of my foolish ideas. Everywhere there are lies, and we adopt these for our own because we have nowhere else to look at which we might call our own. We don't have the trust in the unseen because we are distracted by what's presented before us, by our parents, our peers, and the media. In the darkness, by ourselves, we dwell on our problems and cry at how impossible it is to fix those areas of our lives that never get any better. We don't have the faith it requires to hand our problems to God. We don't turn the TV off and listen to God's voice. We don't take our strongholds and free them for God to handle. We hold on to our worldly things and indulgences because they give us a quick rush of pleasure, and we think that we'd starve if we were to become naked from our pleasurable sins.
While we all live this way repeatedly throughout most of our life, it took three years of being completely deprived by God for me to finally see this. He took away my fiance (a week after I gave God permission, during a very REAL prayer, to either keep us together, or break us apart, all depending on His ultimate will), he took away job opportunities, all of the girls I desired to be with rejected me. Friends disappeared out of my life. He would deny me all my worldy wishes because I was unable to quit my immoral behariour. I've lived exactly this way all of my adult life (which isn't really that long) but I am utterly exhausted of repeating the same pointless, unfulfilling and life-draining crap over, and over, and over, and over again. This past fall, I was getting so tired. I was getting so hopeless. Aging was finally becoming felt in the way my body was changing... slowing down.... I was, for the first time ever, hearing the ticking of my life's clock, making me aware that my life is indeed counting down, and my chances in life were fewer and fewer every passing day. It was now that I decided to re-evaluate my life, to stop EVERYTHING, almost as if to stop time and look at everything around me; my friends, my family, my city, the work industry, and the directions in which all of these seemed to be headed. I saw then that I had options. I had loving people in my life. I had parents that cared for me and were doing an amazing job at sheltering me still. I had talents which I wasn't optimizing in my job search. I have a church family that prays for me and wants the best for me. So many things which I hadn't seen suddenly came sharply into perspective. Things were happening around me, people told me things I did not expect, events took place in my life which I did not expect... it was like God's voice was booming in my ears like a long, rumble of thunder. I'm speaking metaphorically of course, but coincidence just wasn't a logical explanation for everything that was changing in my life and my family's. With a humble heart and a quiet mind, my eyes were no longer seeing the physical world, but instead, I was seeing the world moving by the flow of the spiritual winds.
Now that I've filled you with curiosity, I'll finally divulge what exactly God has been doing for me using the "big picture view." Well, as I mentioned earlier, I've recently started to date my best friend, Tonya. It's hard to believe it's happing, but so far it just seems right. I would have felt improper getting into this before... well.. just because.. for little petty reasons. But I'm in this now for reasons that God would see as valuable and honourable. Today's world dates with very superficial and meaningless expectations and standards in mind. I'm guilty of adopting such thinking. When I threw away this thinking, it was then that God revealed to me that courting Tonya was a path I should take. None of this is coincidence; I've known her for a year. I didn't think of her romantically although she was a best friend. A week before I asked Tonya out I went on a blind date with a terrific, Christian girl my age > a girl which fit the mold according to my idealized wife. Nothing I was doing was leading me up to this change. But my ideals were worldy based and my heart, God's connection to me, made me feel that my ideals were completely wrong and made me realize that my happiness came from being in Tonya's presence. This is but one unexpected blessing that's appeared in my life.
A month ago my father was falsly accused for sexual harrassment on the job. He was fired, and for the first time in over 20 years of honourable service to our city's health district, we were without a dependable income. Life has been the same for all of us in this span of time. All my father knows is his job. All I know is my life as a student. In terms of relationships, all I ever I experienced intimately came from one person. Life has become mundane, predictable, uneventful and uninspiring. We are now going to move into our basement and turn the main house into an appartment. My room, as I've always known, will be someone else's. Should I be shocked? Normally, I'd feel naustalgic over this sort of departure of comfort and familiarity. However, now I see this as a growing opporunity. This new living situation will give my parents a fresh perspective on life. We will sacrifice what we're leaving behind, but we'll grow and appreciate what we do have. We will learn to appreciate the small things and give less attention to material possession and collecting. I know, know; these sorts of life issues aren't all that dramatic. But if they didn't happen then we'd all still be doing the same thing; running the same mouse-wheel. When God takes away, it seems worrisome in the short-run, but in the long-run its so completely obvious how its God-sent. God is so Good!
Other major events are happening in my life too. All are happening just in this week alone. It's crazy. I got called today by a major Graphic Design firm because I am a selected finalist for their job opening. I go in next week for a full day (fully payed) of testing/assessment. While I don't have the job yet, it's still a blessing and it shows that there is professional interest in my skills after all, and it's reason to persist more-so and not give up hope. Perhaps with this move, and with a job, I can make the step of moving out and becoming closer to my wish to be responsible and be accountable for my own living situation.
I was on my computer earlier today, and I have to admit this, but I was downloading what are known as "game ISOz". I'll explain: PC games hit the market, pirates then make clone copies of the CDs then distrute them fully on the internet for anyone to obtain freely. In my past I have struggled terribly with this impulssive habit. It's eaten away months of my life, literally. I've gone through phases of stopping the habit, destroying my CDs, then starting up over again with the same, if not worse, appetite for stolen, digital property. Last spring, I saw myself starting my habit again, this time with DVD copies and music. I saw that it became uncontrollable as I gobled up hundreds of stolen movies. I saw that it was stealing my relationship with God, and taking away from it's integrity. I could no longer consider myself as a true example as a Christian believer. I was such a hypocrit. I was terribly guilt-riden as well. Although not everybody saw my sin, I knew that God saw my entire act wide-open. I was being so foolish to think I could hide it from even myself. I stopped my habit and stayed away from it for about 8 months.......
........Currently I am in the process of building a truly top-of-the-line, SPEEDY computer. This will be perfect for my Graphic Design career. But I wanted to test out its raw performance by pushing it with today's most demanding video graphics test: PC Video Games. So, seeing my budget had been sucked dry, I thought it would be fine to download a few game CDs off the internet so that I could push my processor's power. Seeing that Christmas is just around the corner, the variety and quality of today's newest, available games are plentiful. Sooner than I realized, I had amassed nearly 40 CDs of games ready to be copied come my next purchase of a blank discs. Somehow I had no guilt over this plan I devised. My agenda for the week: to buy then burn a whole lotta CDs, and, to prepare for my job testing next week. Part of this preperation meant getting serious about prayer. Then, finally, the dim light that was my concious flashed: "how do I expect God to bless me while the whole time I am rebeling against his rules, indulging in non-productive theft and video-game play, when my future of having a job and living out a job is so crutially at stake!?" It's amazing at how obvious that fact was, but it's also amazing at how dumb we can sometimes be when we simply follow our impulses and avoid making decisions that actually make REAL sense. So, even though I had spent a week (totalling around 10 hours) downloading this new, massive collection of hot-selling video games, I highlighted ALL of these computer files with my mouse, then clicked DELETE. Wow! Sweet repentence at last!
My blog has taken slightly over an hour to type out. I need to rest up for an early work-out at the gym. I'm gone....
I turned on my laptop and flicked on my white Christmas lights and came here to elaborate on my theme; God's amazing blessings in my life. Today was no exception. But before I talk about today's big news, I want to paint a picture; a big picture. The one that is my entire life. Without describing the countless brushstrokes, textures, hues, and tones, I will do my best keep this breif and give you a general image for your mind. Three years ago my fiance left me. I was devestated, sunk into a deep darkness, became bitter and hopeless, and lost trust to ever love again. However, my only remaining dreams for the future were of a wife and a child. When I graduated college it was impossible to find a job. The minimum wage jobs I did manage to find drove me into a darker depression (night-shift) and desire for suicide. Two years of virtual unemployment were enough that I felt ashamed to breath the air and share the earth among my fellow man. Here's how I felt: I am 25, bound to the home in which I grew up. I want to flee and make a life for myself, yet it feels I'm pushed away every turn I take to mature and gain life experience. On the other side of my life I am a strong and disiplined athlete. I am also very strong in my morals and practices. I am a very mature Christian and I've gone through life existing to glorify God and do His work on earth through my talents and sacrifices. It sounds impressive, but I wasn't giving that much, though I wouldn't admit it. I kept many things to myself. I held on to pride. I became very vain in my athletics and self-righteous in my faith. I expected blessings for my sacrifices. Three years of this childish behavior, I became exhausted; for my efforts only drove me further from my dreams, the ones God had planned for me. I had an unrealistic idea of what my wife should be like instead of the one God had picked out for me. I unrealistically felt I deserved a job because I took credit for my creativity and wouldn't humble myself in my talents. A few weeks ago this over-exersion of my spirit and mind was too much and I quickly forced myself to evaluate my sins and to seek out the truth. The truth was that I am nobody... nothing. My happiness is nothing. God is everything. Our purpose here on earth isn't to indulge in flashy electronics, cars, sexual promiscuity, junk-food... the list goes on. We aren't here to get drunk and sick over our bad behaviour, feel regretful at how it ruins our lives over time, then clean up our act, then repeat our mistakes yet again until we are waisted and wounded and tired wondering why do we behave the way we do and how in the world can we become fixed. It's an endless cycle which will wear us out and leave us dead in the end. I'm not here to go to church to learn "how to overcome depression", or "ways to abstain from sexual imorality". These lessons are fine for people that are desperately lost and need direction, but I'm a believer and it's time I believe, once and for all, in God's unmeasurable and unfathomable grace and mercy and impowerment. I felt it was time to stop dwelling on my SELF-FABRICATED and delussioned "problems" and streaks of "bad luck" and hopelessness. It's a cycle that would never end until I decided to open my seemingly impossible eyes and see the actual truth rather than keep hold of my foolish ideas. Everywhere there are lies, and we adopt these for our own because we have nowhere else to look at which we might call our own. We don't have the trust in the unseen because we are distracted by what's presented before us, by our parents, our peers, and the media. In the darkness, by ourselves, we dwell on our problems and cry at how impossible it is to fix those areas of our lives that never get any better. We don't have the faith it requires to hand our problems to God. We don't turn the TV off and listen to God's voice. We don't take our strongholds and free them for God to handle. We hold on to our worldly things and indulgences because they give us a quick rush of pleasure, and we think that we'd starve if we were to become naked from our pleasurable sins.
While we all live this way repeatedly throughout most of our life, it took three years of being completely deprived by God for me to finally see this. He took away my fiance (a week after I gave God permission, during a very REAL prayer, to either keep us together, or break us apart, all depending on His ultimate will), he took away job opportunities, all of the girls I desired to be with rejected me. Friends disappeared out of my life. He would deny me all my worldy wishes because I was unable to quit my immoral behariour. I've lived exactly this way all of my adult life (which isn't really that long) but I am utterly exhausted of repeating the same pointless, unfulfilling and life-draining crap over, and over, and over, and over again. This past fall, I was getting so tired. I was getting so hopeless. Aging was finally becoming felt in the way my body was changing... slowing down.... I was, for the first time ever, hearing the ticking of my life's clock, making me aware that my life is indeed counting down, and my chances in life were fewer and fewer every passing day. It was now that I decided to re-evaluate my life, to stop EVERYTHING, almost as if to stop time and look at everything around me; my friends, my family, my city, the work industry, and the directions in which all of these seemed to be headed. I saw then that I had options. I had loving people in my life. I had parents that cared for me and were doing an amazing job at sheltering me still. I had talents which I wasn't optimizing in my job search. I have a church family that prays for me and wants the best for me. So many things which I hadn't seen suddenly came sharply into perspective. Things were happening around me, people told me things I did not expect, events took place in my life which I did not expect... it was like God's voice was booming in my ears like a long, rumble of thunder. I'm speaking metaphorically of course, but coincidence just wasn't a logical explanation for everything that was changing in my life and my family's. With a humble heart and a quiet mind, my eyes were no longer seeing the physical world, but instead, I was seeing the world moving by the flow of the spiritual winds.
Now that I've filled you with curiosity, I'll finally divulge what exactly God has been doing for me using the "big picture view." Well, as I mentioned earlier, I've recently started to date my best friend, Tonya. It's hard to believe it's happing, but so far it just seems right. I would have felt improper getting into this before... well.. just because.. for little petty reasons. But I'm in this now for reasons that God would see as valuable and honourable. Today's world dates with very superficial and meaningless expectations and standards in mind. I'm guilty of adopting such thinking. When I threw away this thinking, it was then that God revealed to me that courting Tonya was a path I should take. None of this is coincidence; I've known her for a year. I didn't think of her romantically although she was a best friend. A week before I asked Tonya out I went on a blind date with a terrific, Christian girl my age > a girl which fit the mold according to my idealized wife. Nothing I was doing was leading me up to this change. But my ideals were worldy based and my heart, God's connection to me, made me feel that my ideals were completely wrong and made me realize that my happiness came from being in Tonya's presence. This is but one unexpected blessing that's appeared in my life.
A month ago my father was falsly accused for sexual harrassment on the job. He was fired, and for the first time in over 20 years of honourable service to our city's health district, we were without a dependable income. Life has been the same for all of us in this span of time. All my father knows is his job. All I know is my life as a student. In terms of relationships, all I ever I experienced intimately came from one person. Life has become mundane, predictable, uneventful and uninspiring. We are now going to move into our basement and turn the main house into an appartment. My room, as I've always known, will be someone else's. Should I be shocked? Normally, I'd feel naustalgic over this sort of departure of comfort and familiarity. However, now I see this as a growing opporunity. This new living situation will give my parents a fresh perspective on life. We will sacrifice what we're leaving behind, but we'll grow and appreciate what we do have. We will learn to appreciate the small things and give less attention to material possession and collecting. I know, know; these sorts of life issues aren't all that dramatic. But if they didn't happen then we'd all still be doing the same thing; running the same mouse-wheel. When God takes away, it seems worrisome in the short-run, but in the long-run its so completely obvious how its God-sent. God is so Good!
Other major events are happening in my life too. All are happening just in this week alone. It's crazy. I got called today by a major Graphic Design firm because I am a selected finalist for their job opening. I go in next week for a full day (fully payed) of testing/assessment. While I don't have the job yet, it's still a blessing and it shows that there is professional interest in my skills after all, and it's reason to persist more-so and not give up hope. Perhaps with this move, and with a job, I can make the step of moving out and becoming closer to my wish to be responsible and be accountable for my own living situation.
I was on my computer earlier today, and I have to admit this, but I was downloading what are known as "game ISOz". I'll explain: PC games hit the market, pirates then make clone copies of the CDs then distrute them fully on the internet for anyone to obtain freely. In my past I have struggled terribly with this impulssive habit. It's eaten away months of my life, literally. I've gone through phases of stopping the habit, destroying my CDs, then starting up over again with the same, if not worse, appetite for stolen, digital property. Last spring, I saw myself starting my habit again, this time with DVD copies and music. I saw that it became uncontrollable as I gobled up hundreds of stolen movies. I saw that it was stealing my relationship with God, and taking away from it's integrity. I could no longer consider myself as a true example as a Christian believer. I was such a hypocrit. I was terribly guilt-riden as well. Although not everybody saw my sin, I knew that God saw my entire act wide-open. I was being so foolish to think I could hide it from even myself. I stopped my habit and stayed away from it for about 8 months.......
........Currently I am in the process of building a truly top-of-the-line, SPEEDY computer. This will be perfect for my Graphic Design career. But I wanted to test out its raw performance by pushing it with today's most demanding video graphics test: PC Video Games. So, seeing my budget had been sucked dry, I thought it would be fine to download a few game CDs off the internet so that I could push my processor's power. Seeing that Christmas is just around the corner, the variety and quality of today's newest, available games are plentiful. Sooner than I realized, I had amassed nearly 40 CDs of games ready to be copied come my next purchase of a blank discs. Somehow I had no guilt over this plan I devised. My agenda for the week: to buy then burn a whole lotta CDs, and, to prepare for my job testing next week. Part of this preperation meant getting serious about prayer. Then, finally, the dim light that was my concious flashed: "how do I expect God to bless me while the whole time I am rebeling against his rules, indulging in non-productive theft and video-game play, when my future of having a job and living out a job is so crutially at stake!?" It's amazing at how obvious that fact was, but it's also amazing at how dumb we can sometimes be when we simply follow our impulses and avoid making decisions that actually make REAL sense. So, even though I had spent a week (totalling around 10 hours) downloading this new, massive collection of hot-selling video games, I highlighted ALL of these computer files with my mouse, then clicked DELETE. Wow! Sweet repentence at last!
My blog has taken slightly over an hour to type out. I need to rest up for an early work-out at the gym. I'm gone....
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Well, I've been wanting to write in my blogger journal for some time now, but I've been busy and I've been tired. It's almost Monday, lunch time, but I'm going to try and talk about my weekend as fast as I can because I have to use the washroom and I want to get a start on the day finally!
So, my weekend went pretty darn interesting. Saturday night, Tonya came over. We watched the Beach. Crappy movie. I liked the pictures of the beach and the lagoon, but everything else was just demented. :-/ So, after the movie, while the menu music just repeated itself over and over again, I said to Tonya, "have you ever had a really tough time saying something you really want to say?". She said yes, so I then felt comfortable to pop out what it is that's been on my mind. Everything I mentioned in my previous blog is basically what I told her. I'm a very honest person. I didn't hold back anything. I believe in honesty completely even if sometimes its not always good. I think if you're sincere and true about yourself and the other person, then you create trust which bonds. So she listened, and I think she was taken off guard. I don't think she thought I'd ever come to such feelings, but she said her thoughts were mutual and she wanted to go ahead and explore a relationship. Cool!
So we went to church together that night.. we held hands. It was comfortable. Her father was preaching and apparantly while speaking he noticed this tie. I'm just glad he didn't flip right then and there! LoL!
We pulled an all-nighter that night (during The Two Towers extended edition, and bonus DVDs) and we were very close. Too close though, too fast. We went for a walk last night, locked arms, struggling to keep warm amidst the blowing, iced air. Despite the shivering, it was romantic, and we took in the Christmas lights displays the neighborhood had. We talked about setting boundaries and working at safeguarding ourselves; ways to maintain purity; basic measures so that we don't set ourselves up for heat-of-the-moment indulgences. Yes, the average non-Christian, I know for a fact, would mock any such efforts.. and for what purpose? Well, I'd defend my beliefs against such critics; using points that might seem impossible to understand in view of today's brainwashing of sex and pleasure. But that would require lots of typing and I really want to turn this monitor off.
So.. that's exactly what I'm gonna do!
So, my weekend went pretty darn interesting. Saturday night, Tonya came over. We watched the Beach. Crappy movie. I liked the pictures of the beach and the lagoon, but everything else was just demented. :-/ So, after the movie, while the menu music just repeated itself over and over again, I said to Tonya, "have you ever had a really tough time saying something you really want to say?". She said yes, so I then felt comfortable to pop out what it is that's been on my mind. Everything I mentioned in my previous blog is basically what I told her. I'm a very honest person. I didn't hold back anything. I believe in honesty completely even if sometimes its not always good. I think if you're sincere and true about yourself and the other person, then you create trust which bonds. So she listened, and I think she was taken off guard. I don't think she thought I'd ever come to such feelings, but she said her thoughts were mutual and she wanted to go ahead and explore a relationship. Cool!
So we went to church together that night.. we held hands. It was comfortable. Her father was preaching and apparantly while speaking he noticed this tie. I'm just glad he didn't flip right then and there! LoL!
We pulled an all-nighter that night (during The Two Towers extended edition, and bonus DVDs) and we were very close. Too close though, too fast. We went for a walk last night, locked arms, struggling to keep warm amidst the blowing, iced air. Despite the shivering, it was romantic, and we took in the Christmas lights displays the neighborhood had. We talked about setting boundaries and working at safeguarding ourselves; ways to maintain purity; basic measures so that we don't set ourselves up for heat-of-the-moment indulgences. Yes, the average non-Christian, I know for a fact, would mock any such efforts.. and for what purpose? Well, I'd defend my beliefs against such critics; using points that might seem impossible to understand in view of today's brainwashing of sex and pleasure. But that would require lots of typing and I really want to turn this monitor off.
So.. that's exactly what I'm gonna do!
