humility

yesterday i was hanging out in the beautiful weather with a group of my closest friends and we were talking about humility. this is an interesting concept to discuss for people have various opinions of what humility. as we talked this is what was said: 

humility is....

- honesty, quoted from Mother Theresa 

- banana cream pie, in comparison with million-dollar pie or cheesecake, that it looks simple and  a mess but it carries with it the wonderful experience of being the best (by a pie lover)

- openness and vulnerability 

- submission to another's will and way

- to prefer others more than yourself 

the awesome thing about this discussion is that the shades of meaning in each of these definitions really reveals the person. for instance the quote was by the leadership expert in our group who has that ability to be the pastor of the group. the banana creme pie was by our comedic genius who revels in his ability to bring humor to the most serious situations (this is aided by his thick southern accent). this guy has never ceased to make me laugh, i'm pretty sure he's going to be a youth pastor. the openness answer came from one of the most transparent individuals i have ever met. he seems like he is just a great guy, but this guy is so practical and so constantly walking out his life in an open way. i know that God has called him into the ministry, and he is going to rock at it.  the preference for others answer was our group's intellectual and Bible teacher. he totally epitomizes the professor as his quoting of scripture alludes to his prowess biblically and the "technical" right answer. i came up with submission to another. i guess more than anything, i am finding that when i love someone that i find myself submitting myself to them by realizing how much i need them, which for me is humility. it was an experience that i will remember for a long time. i wonder what you think humility is...and how it explains you as a person. 

-peaks out.

fyi, i love each of these guys incredible and i did not mean to present any of them negatively, so take everything that i said about their differences as being a strength to the group and not as one person is better than the other. each one of these guys is unbelievably amazing. 

chicken, eagles, and shovels...

so the last few days have been ridiculous. not good by any means. frustrating, angering, etc. but in the midst of me being grouchy, i found that God was teaching me some things using chickens and eagles and shovels to show me what was up. let me explain before you believe that i eat chickens and eagles for dinner after i "dwayne carson" them with a shovel (hit them over the head). 

i was in the library enjoying my day of self loathing studying intensely for hebrew, which is currently the love/hate relationship i am involved with, when my good friend darren came in. at some point, i vented partially about my current situations, and he just looked at me like i was a lunatic. i understand that i am a bit dramatic and more times than naught i am absurd in my use of verbiage to describe my life. he then says, you wanna read something? i assure you that the last thing i wanted to do was to read something from dboy (as i dubbed him), who is the biggest stud on the campus. nonetheless, after a few more admonishments, i took the bait. I began this story about an eagle living with chickens due to a lost parent. in this story, the farmer told his son that an eagle will not learn to fly like chickens, because they were different. the chickenesque eagle had totally bought into what he believed he was instead of the truth. of course this was directly relating to me being a grouch, when that is not my tendency. the story ended with the farmer throwing the chickenesque eagle off a cliff and watching that eagle realize what he was by soaring. darren was smirking about this story, and since i had already taken the bait, i stated quite boldly, i am a big chicken huh? he laughed very hard which is awesome, cause he laughs in such a way that all the blood runs to his face and he turns a little red. its that same kind of red when i tell him that every girl at the university has him on their radar. nonetheless, i appreciate darren's willingness to not let me remain in that state. immediately after that story, i got a phone call. 

phone calls are normally exciting, but as i looked down into my chicken communication device, my best friend Kevin was calling. he always says what i need to be doing so i was a little fearful in answering. simultaneously, i think that even in the toughest times, his loving but tough words have always helped me. i told him the situation of me being a chicken instead of an eagle followed by his laughter and a quick reference to my favorite moment from Scrubs, in which eagle is declared loudly. love that moment. after we discussed both my life and his, we closed our awesome conversation, which was so full of life that i was soaring before the first sentence began. the closure was a picture about shovels. have you ever seen two people use a shovel at the same time, it doesn't work. much like my life when i am using the shovel and not letting God have control. so we talked about emptying our hands to receive what God was digging for so that we could receive what he has instead of what we labor for. i'm now an empty handed, soaring eagle. the life i live is not me, but Christ in me. woo. peaks out. 

a reattempt...

it's been numerous months since i have blogged. i was definitely encouraged by a recent encounter with a dear friend while hanging with him last weekend. so i am going to attempt to try it again. there is a lot going on for sure, but i guess i'll sum up life as a start:

i am working at my dad's church as the creative arts director. 

i am a full time student at Regent University in old testament studies. 

i am learning a lot about selfishness vs. love right now. 

i am starting to love getting up at 5am. 

i am a huge fan of the tv show pushing daisies. 

i love hanging out with zie element and the gazebros (2 amazing small groups i am in). 

life is grand. 

acts 2&3...and the personal aspect of life.

so i have been having some rough days. there is a lot going on, i never slow down, and a crash seems immanent. i know that sounds rough, and i am sure many have it rougher, but i was really hoping that everything would not be so darn complex. there is so much that i could say about this... however, i will digress to acts 2 and 3, only to return to the personal deal that i am referring to.

Acts 2 & 3 

Let me just begin with saying this, i am not a huge fan of the book of acts, it seems to be a big place of contention with christians as to how to do "church." the crazy thing is that as i read these chapters, i didn't think about "church," i thought about life. it seems that our lives pattern the situations that are going on in this picture. the ability to reconcile these things seems uncanny. i live in a state of cognitive dissonance. 

well the first thing that i note that supports this picture i am constructing of life and not church is the concept that things happen when people come together. whether it was in the upper room waiting in prayer for the Spirit to come, or if it was breaking bread daily with one another. there was always a connection to the people that surround your life. without it, you don't live. you merely exist for your own selfish ways and patterns. however, there is another way to experience life and that is with one another. i am a huge proponent of this, however, i rarely feel people get it. 

life together, way better. i don't know what we think we can accomplish solo, but inevitably we cannot overwhelm the power of others. the church started like this. together. they ate together, stayed together, talked together, prayed together, etc. together, etc. together. why is it that in our Christian lives that we believe that we can experience life in Christ by ourselves. this is not what i see in acts in the slightest. shoot in acts 1, they had to find another to take the fallen brothers place. why do we ostracize ourselves from the fullness of life that we could have. 

funny that "fullness" in greek is pleroma. this word basically connotes something overwhelming to the nth degree. we want to have life, but we don't want the overwhelming part. just the life. that is one of the reasons why American Christianity ceases to live the abundant life. in the midst of this amazing life, full life, i am drawn to the next part of acts 2 & 3. 

everywhere in the passages i keep finding the concept of wonder or amazement. some of the words that riddled my heart as i read the pages were: bewildered, amazed, astonished, in awe, perplexed, wonder, signs, mighty acts. everything that these people were living and breathing was full of something that overwhelmed them because they didn't understand everything that was happening. 

i love that they were definitely willing to enjoy their amazement and accepted it as part of the life and experience that they repented to. it is a great thing to not understand your God, for if you understand him, how can he be God and you not he. there is a power in contemplation of these things, and i watched these people become enthralled with the journey to learn more. Whether it was through prayer, fasting, meal-sharing, discussing Scripture, they completely acknowledged that they were able to come to a great understanding through the things God has given us, whether that means the Word, his Spirit, or his people. 

Thus fullness of life comes when amazement meets togetherness leading them to understanding. 

This concept is the next thing I would lend to learn. If you watch anytime these things occurred, whether it was amazement of tongues being spoken, or lame men healed, that there was always some understanding that would be bequeathed to them. this mostly occurred through the preaching of the Word, however the Spirit moved in like fashion to bring them to a place of learning aptly what was occurring. 

I guess to sum all of these things up, i lend towards Acts 3:19-21, 26 (peaks paraphrase) - Change the way you have been living for your entire life, acknowledge it as less than the best, decide that God's original way of life was perfect, and come back into alignment to that purpose. When you are able to remove your old ways of living, you will be refreshed by the very experience of living life God's way only to find that God's means to this occurrence was the most redemptive process ever, to sacrifice the greatest thing he ever had, his Son Jesus, and utilize his Son's perfect walk as a way to reconnect us to the life that we always have longed for, through his death which was spoken by the Word since the beginning. If it wasn't through Jesus, we would never come to know the fullness of life that God intended for us, and we would be stuck in our own way of living on a far less fulfilling course of life.

back to the personal stuff: i take a lot of stuff personally. it isn't because i don't know that doing it is hard to deal with in ministry, but i take it personally because i recall that if people are treating me rough, then i wonder what their relationship with God is like. whether you like it our not, your relationships with God and people are indicative of each other. they are like a scale of you ability to relate. if you are failing in your relationship with people, you are probably failing in your relationship with the Lord. and vice versa. so every time people treat me poorly or say harsh things or neglect my friendship, i realize that there is a lot more going on with them spiritually and it breaks my heart to see people not where God wants them to be. that state of fullness, amazement, and togetherness. 

- peaks out 

i'm back....in acts

so it's been a very long while since i have blogged. i apologize for keeping you wonderful people at bay. i am sure that you hoped for more glimpses of the peaks, and well, i am back by popular demand. please know that i am laughingly jokingly writing this. popular demand and i do not coexist, except maybe in my head. but nonetheless, i am back for a while. as many of you know i have just undergone a crazy ridiculous amount of insanity in my life. it's over now, the calm is here and i am writing about it. 

instead of filling this page with the glories of the battles gone and pressing, i have decided to blog about my delving into the book of Acts. i'll probably just make some observations and will be able to extract what God wants for my life right now. 

As for Acts: 

instead of reading chapter one right away, i started in Luke 24, not the entirety of the chapter, but just enough to be able to pick up where everyone is coming from in Acts 1. here's some thoughts on Luke 24 .44-53

vs. 44 ~ Jesus reveals that everything that was in the Bible must come to pass, whether it was the prophets or it was Law of Moses. there is something here about the concept of God fulfilling every promise to us in our lives that he has spoken in the Word and in our hearts. there is great encouragement and consolation in that God is sure to bring forth what has been planted. 

vs. 45 ~ after Jesus brought out this principle of fulfilling the Word, it says that he then opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. I think that we can see what God has written and given to us, when we begin to operate in a level of faith. in such, that we begin to believe the promises of God and that they will come to fruition if I will be willing to come into agreement and alignment with them. as we begin to act in our faith, it will be evident what God desires, instead of experiencing the opaqueness of trying to understand God without his active spirit. 

vs. 46-47 ~ this passage then begins to reveal the understanding of what God has been trying to since time began. He revealed his plan of Jesus coming and changing everything. my favorite part comes in vs. 47, where it says that we should preach repentance and forgiveness of sins.  alot of churches are preaching love superfluously. however, they are failing to realize that sin is a problem and that repentance means to completely acknowledge that your way of living life is wrong and that you need to accept to do and live life. 

vs. 49 ~ Jesus calls the Spirit "the promise." it is so strange because i never recall reading that before. my brain immediately begins to think about how the Spirit has always held the promise of God and initiated it's fruition in the earth. the promise of God was penultimately that Jesus would come, and now the promise is transferred to Jesus' spirit, so that the promises are all connected, intermingled, and inseparable. the promises continues today and forevermore. how awesome is it to see God begin to release his Spirit in the earth so that all things will be changed to what they were originally purposed for. 

vs. 52-53 ~ when one begins to see the promise of God and hope for it to come near, then we see that there is a response that is required, that is worship. the passage speaks about how when Jesus revealed into heaven, that they had to acknowledge him fully. in this same manner, they begin to long for the Lord as their departure would have left them with grief and sadness in their lives. however, it is in that sadness and barrenness (thank you Pastor Cappuccio), that God begins to minister and come to those places and bring life. so from the beginning of life we are set up to watch the power of the Spirit come into broken people, with broken hearts and watch them be restored to their state which God intended for them. the last thing in the book is that it reveals that when a person is longing for the Spirit of God that they will continually bless and seek God so that he may be found. 

Acts 1

vs. 1-5 ~ From the very beginning of this book, we are able to see that this book is going to verify the lives of those who seek the Lord and love him wholly. There is an understanding of the kingdom of God that begins to occur through the church, powered by the Spirit of God. 

* the promise of the Father is mentioned here again, which is so awesome because the book starts right away at reminding us it's connection with the entire gospel of Luke. 

vs. 6-7 ~ impatience in the kingdom of God is like an oxymoron. we will never be able to know what is going on except if we know the Father. i love that we are not to concern ourselves with the who, whats, hows, but instead we should be focused on the Him. he will come and express power into our lives so that we will be able to testify who he is and what he has begun in us. 

although the rest of acts 1 was really cool, these are the resonances. be blessed. 

- peaks out.