Cold dark street.... dark to light

I'm sitting in Tucson at a coffee shop on Grant and Campbell. It's 3 AM and its finally quiet. I mean, really quiet. There isn't even that hum inside your head that you get after you listen to loud music. It's silent. And that is why I have headphones in with music going. I don't like the quiet. It scares me. It forces me to think, and I am prone to having an all too familiar episode of an "over analytical conversation with myself." But why give my mind the chance to rob me of hearing God's whispers in this wind.

I don't want to get bogged down with too much thought right now. I just want to point out the beauty of looking out into a city that is completely asleep. Knowing that in a couple of hours, life will begin its cycle once again. But for now, I sit in silence with my coffee and it is almost as if I have found the "Pause" button. While everything rests, I reel in my day, my thoughts, my prayers... myself. Who am I? I am a child of God. And right now... right this second... for the first time all day... I sit in peace together with God on my mind and in my heart. We are tuly blessed. Thank-you God for giving me the time to recognize your peace one more time. It is all that keeps me.

prayer?

I have found that its a hard thing to pray. It's an odd concept because I look at my day and realize that I am in communication with God all day long. But I think that is a different kind of communication. Not the kind of prayer that I am having a hard time doing. I'm talking about finding the time to actively seek out a one on one talk with God. Just you and God. Me and God. God and me? Hmm, my grammar sometimes lacks when I am writing thoughts. Anyways. The other day I had an extremely stressful day and I was just dealing with a lot of garbage. And the more and more I got bogged down, the less and less I had a desire to seek after God in prayer. As the day progressed and the stress piled up, it was almost as if I had put up a barrier between me and God. And there was. And there is. This wall. This unspoken, almost un-recognizable disconnect that was cutting off the one thing that I needed to survive... God's love. God's peace. His patience. God.

One of the hardest things to do while living in America is to feel like I need God. I almost have to place myself in situations where I am cut off from the amenities of life so that I become aware of my basic need for God. There are days where I feel like I want to cut myself off from the world in hopes that I might somehow get desperate for God by default. It is truly painful to know that I need something and will be empty without it, but be so numb to it all to do anything about it. Some people say that there are some emotions that are just too powerful for human's to endure. I personally feel that the absense of emotion is the worst "feeling" of all. It's almost like I want to say "give me something. I don't care if its pain... I just want to feel again." Numbness. Dang I hate that. We weren't designed for that. There are many things that we weren't designed for.

God?

You know, I hate that being human means that it is my basic nature to move away from God. That with every day and every move, if not in some motion towards God, is away from God. I have an extreme dislike to this painful truth. And I know that the only way that we can truly overcome our own fatal humanistic qualities is to Reach out and grasp God. Everything that He is and Everything that He wants us to be in Him. I know that it can be pretty self-defeating to dwell on our own short comings, but how else do you learn from it and move yourself away from it if you don't address it. And how on earth can you address your faults without feeling the pain you brought on yourself. I guess everything in moderation, even pain.

I just want to live a life that is thriving in God. A life that is worthy of Christ's sacrifice. Remove all those things that take away from my Joy in Christ. I want that Joy, and all of it that God has given me. Why short change ourselves from one of the most amazing windows into what our eternity with Christ has to offer, Complete Joy.

Today was a great article from My Utmost for His Highest....

"The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus’ words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God’s Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed out certain personal qualities, desires, and interests, or possibly relationships of your heart and mind. If so, then you have often been speechless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, and He will not plead with you. But every time He meets you at the place where He has pointed, He will simply repeat His words, saying, "If you really mean what you say, these are the conditions."

"Sell all that you have . . ." ( Luke 18:22 ). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought— in the realm of your will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Jesus Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His harsh and unyielding statements that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is difficult— it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His nature in them. Beware of allowing anything to soften the hard words of Jesus Christ.

I can be so rich in my own poverty, or in the awareness of the fact that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus. Or I can be so rich in the awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus— not love for Jesus Himself."

Pretty Sweet, Huh.

So Im just sitting here doing a little work. I just wanted to point out that sometimes when you are tired you should not drink so much coffee. This is due to the fact that it will definately wake your entire body up.... except your mind. I need to free my mind. Free your mind. free it. free it all deep like.

This
is a
picture
of
where
my
office
is at...







Im at work sitting next to alex ly and he is taking a nap while I write on my blog.





lotion.

Yeah! Crazy Times!! Just got back from Denver Colorado with the Fam. We went up to Montana also to do a little fly fishing in the river. It was great, we had this crazy guide named Griz that lived in a shack alongside of the mountain top without any electricity. Im pretty much convinced that he was the dude from silence of the lambs screaming for someone to put the lotion on their skin.... haha, just kidding, but seriously you know. :-D. Once down the river, I was reminiscing wih the guide, explaining to him how sweet it would be to throw dynomite into the water and catch the fish that way. So we keep floating down the river and after lunchtime, he comes out with these highly illegal seal bombs that are equivalent in size to a half stick of dynomite. I Freaked out, know that it was definately God's will for me to have this amazing controban in the riverside of Montana. Later on that day, after convincing the guide to show us what it meant to "shotgun" a beer, we decided to throw the dynomite in to the river... I picked up the stick.... lit it.... and.... and... Booooooooooooooooooooooooom!!!

oh, not in my hand, I forgot to mention that I actually threw the lethal weapon in to the river. No fish though... bummer. Is there spell check on this thing, because I forgot how to correctly form words on a computer. :-P. Well, now I am back in phoenix. I actually working right now, at one of the job sights that my company is working at. Alex is working with me too, we are hanging out in the theater room. I should go back to work. It's been fun. Real fun.

i have had an epiphany.... i work too much and I do not like to work too much.

Good times this weekend at Daves beach house in Newport Beach.

ben and tim and jonathan being a little too helpful with each other...

Isaac playing the guitar

Ben is Smokin A Little Too Much hookah

nathan is sitting behind me.... and it scares me...