the root

when i think about all the art in the world. paintings, sculptures, poetry, fiction, film, music, i'm struck by how many people appreciate these things in a supernatural way. i can't explain what about a painting makes me think. i can't explain why i am moved by certain music. i can't explain my love for film in any myriad of words. but i can tell you the obvious. art is beautiful and it is crafted with passion, and the world is better because of it.

but when i ponder at the root of it all. the purpose in the pencil, the brush, the camera, the guitar, or the chisel, i realize that without a root, it's all meaningless. beauty for beauty's sake means nothing, unless it points to something greater. just as art means something, the beauty in art means something as well. the sights that have taken your breath away, the tears you cried from laughing at a scene, the woman that commands your love, your loyalty. these are all a shadow of what is real, of the spiritual. c.s. lewis said it best, "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."

we are creators just like the Creator, who has given us that ability, but unless we use the creativity he has given us for His Kingdom and glory, it is all meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

i don't mean to take away the beauty of art in this world. it's beautiful and will always be beautiful, but it will ultimately be in vain.

let us humbly surrender ourselves to Him, who is able to do much with the little we have.

we have tried our best to shape ourselves. we have tried in order to obtain joy or what we would hope give us joy, but to no avail. let go.

let Him mold you and shape you. it will be hard and painful at times, but we will come out joyful and happier than we could have ever dreamed of. in order to truly create, to truly be an artist, we must surrender the artist within us to Him.

as He takes what we give Him, we will find that now we are truly free to create. and for the right reasons. in order to point to the great glory of Jesus Christ. His Spirit will be Your muse, but much more than that. we will find that He is our God. as we write, paint, shoot, play we find that He is the One who has given us this ability in the first place and that when we created without purpose, we were not creating at all.

by His grace, He becomes the reason for your craft. He becomes the reason why you continue to challenge yourself and excel in your craft. soon His hands become the guide, the root to all of your creation and that brings you joy. no longer will you accept glory for your work because you are not your own. you were bought at a price. your sole desire is to know Him and to make Him known.

this is our end. the Creator creating us to create for Him. He is the artist that has painted many other painters into existence, who would continue the creation of colorful, splotchy, expressive portraits that He so mercifully started in us.

ambitions

i used to want to be a car designer.

didn't know anything about cars except the names of a select few sports cars that i stored in my mind, just in case if someone asked me what my favorite cars were. i learned that lesson the hard way when my friend asked me what my favorite car was and i blurted out the durango, which was the most recent car commercial i had seen. my friend proceeded to question my taste in cars and i started doing some research from then on.

i don't know what made me want to be a car designer. i couldn't even draw. my mom made me take art classes twice a week back in elementary school because she was concerned about my ability to only draw stick figures. even after the art classes my skills went from horrible to average, probably near the bottom average right above where i used to be.

it never occurred to me to pursue a job where my talents lied. i grew up with little money and that led me to desire a lucrative job. bruce wayne was my hero. tony stark was my back up hero. my mother told me to pray to be like king david, but i wanted to be like solomon, the richest and smartest dude ever. i quickly lost my desire to become a car designer. i really didn't know what to become. high school came and went, but at least i discovered what i enjoyed. film and writing about it. there was one small thing about it that made me hesitant to pursue a major in communications: the money. of lack thereof.

4/16 happened. made me question my purpose. juggled biology, human nutrition, and came back to my senses by switching to english, but now i'm as lost as ever.

4 college years have come and gone. but at least i've got ambitions. i want to write a movie or a book, maybe both. but the question remains in my heart. do i want to this for Christ or for me. these past years have shaped me spiritually as well and i'm torn between wanting to pursue my passions, which are very secular, or to pursue what i think God would rather have me do, which of course i can't know for sure.

i've lived most of my life with a legalistic scale in my hands, making sure that the bad things i do don't weigh more than the good ones, even though i know that the bad far outweighs the good by tons.

what am i doing.

i'm scared of falling into the world and losing faith.

i'm scared of losing my dreams by following the "holier" path.

there is no compromise between the world and God, so i must choose one. is there no way that i can point to Jesus through film? books would come easier, but i still have this desire to be recognized by the world and to be paid handsomely for it.

oh, God, save me from myself. change me and lead me. open up doors of opportunity for me for Your kingdom.

in the end, my ambitions will be burned up in the flame and nothing will remain.

but if i persevere through trial and temptation and forsake all, what will remain? life. and that to the fullest. forgive me, Lord Jesus, help me to seek You with all my heart.

struggle

what happens after the struggle. everyone has a struggle that they've overcome or are overcoming or are losing to.

the most obvious one is money. people work because no one has all the money they could desire. a lot of people spend their entire lives working for money. forget your boss, your parents, your God. you work for money. enough to retire on. enough to buy that car. enough to send your kids to college. enough to eat. what happens after all that.

you used to have a purpose. money gave that to you, now you've got enough to die on.

i'm like that guy from Office Space. i just want to do nothing. i'd probably be the guy version of Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian if i had a wealthy family. i'd probably want the attention and fame, too because i need to have some kind of goal, however vain it may be. but if i got rich right now, i'd do nothing. buy a cabin up in the mountains, eat out all the time, write sometimes if i felt like being productive, play video games, watch movies, exercise, read, and do it all over again.

God had a good reason for giving us a ultimatum between Him and money. with money, i'd have no struggle and no desire to grow. i'd be the same person getting older and finding hobbies to spend money on. maybe the greatest sin of having money is what it does to you. it makes you lazy. it makes us content in the wrong thing and it takes away from what God wants to do with us. we don't want ultimatums, we don't want struggles, we just want to have what we want when we want it.

the more i think about it, the more i realize that there's no true joy here. we spend hours watching internet videos, films, shows wishing that we could have the same attention that we give them.

our wires are screwed up. we don't see the big picture. we don't imagine Heaven and the joy that it contains. we even use God as a slot machine to get our way and when we don't, we move on to the next one hoping that we'll hit the jackpot.

we need the struggle. we've just chosen the wrong one.

i don't think i have writer's block, but i've lost the will to really write or wonder about things. i mean i still do, sometimes. but, i don't have that zone that i would get into to write. the world seemed so complicated and i was so eager to figure everything out. now, the world seems so plain to me. i don't want to figure it out because i can't.

from this time last year, i think i've lost a lot of faith. or maybe i've cut away the fat from the meat and it turns out that there wasn't much meat to start out with. starting from that, i feel that i'm starting from scratch. all of my deep issues have risen to the surface. i've tried my best to ignore them. my issues with love, acceptance, forgiveness, faith have all bubbled up and i've filled my time doing work, playing games, watching tv, anything to escape the reality of dealing with these things.

the truth is that i never truly believed that God loves me, i never could accept myself therefore i believed God rejected me, Jesus died for me but i couldn't believe that He was enough for my forgiveness, and faith, i had faith in myself, not Him.

Lord Jesus, i let go.

pick your poison

each decade has a drug of choice.

the 1970's had marijuana, which is still prevalent today.
the 1980's had a big crack problem, which is still felt in some areas of the country.
the 1990's was a mix of things. marijuana, being the gateway drug, opened up people to cocaine and maybe heroine.

the thing about these drugs is that they came in and out, even though the remnants remain with us. kids still smoke pot. adults do cocaine occasionally. if you're doing heroine then you're most likely to die of an overdose, but it's not an epidemic. a lot of these drugs are experimental, hopefully non-habit forming, although it doesn't justify the use of them. with the internet, and the technology to make the internet readily available in all circumstances, the past decade has been culminating the new drug of choice: information.

you can call it the internet, but it entails so much more: social networking, chatting, googling, gaming, cyber sexing, blogging, commenting, youtubing, multi-tasking, and the list will continue to increase. because unlike the other physical drugs before it, this drug is far more mental and spiritual than we will choose to believe.

marijuana was done mostly in groups of friends. cocaine could be shared. heroine was individualistic, but you could have a friend to share the high with. the point is that people did these drugs with other people. the severely addicted would do these drugs by themselves because of their craving, but usually people were not alone in the deed. the age of information is different.

everyone has a laptop, iPhone, netbook, blackberry, anything that has internet access and no one shares these items. we may take turns using them, but we don't surf the web together. when we're at our friend's house and there's nothing to do, we use their computer. and we're fine. we can be fine for hours looking at videos, reading the latest blogs or reviews, checking the scores, chatting with other people, doing things that you didn't need to leave the house for. but that's the transition we're making. we can leave our house and do these things. all we need is 4G. all we need is our laptop and we can go to a bookstore or starbucks or anywhere with free wi-fi. pastor Mark Driscoll pointed out the irony in one of his sermons, people go to these public places, so they can be by themselves. you go to where other people are because you know that they're not going to bother you. they're not going to approach you unless you're near an outlet.

people will point to eHarmony, w.o.w., facebook, myspace, aim, and other social networking or gaming or dating sites to show how the internet brings people closer together. but do they? do you really know a person after chatting with him or her for a few hours as opposed to meeting them and seeing their physical mannerisms or details in person? does gaming for days on end make you best friends with someone? does catching up with an old friend mean "friending" someone on facebook? when we want to know more, we use wikipedia or google. we want to know everything about anything. and it's readily available to us. who directed that film? when did it come out? does she have pictures? is this restaurant good? how hot is it today?

we haven't cut out the middleman, we've added one. we've eliminated experience. we don't go outside to feel the weather. we've degraded our smiles and tears into emoticons. we talk about everything via aim and when we meet in person we have nothing to say. we've replaced it all with information and we can't stop. one thing leads to another and hours will pass. you have filled your mind with trivial matters that you will regurgitate in a rare "conversation," that may last a few sentences before you take out your phone.

i don't believe the internet is evil. it's made things easier. paying bills, writing mail, applying for jobs, buying things, staying in touch with people. it's not an absolute evil, but doesn't our excess turn it into some kind of monster?

this generation is going to be raised on the iPhone and the apps it comes with. kids already have facebooks, even though they are in elementary schools. the internet has good, but it opens up potential for bad things to happen. "to catch a predator" was aired on tv for a reason. cyber stalkers, sexting, cyber abuse, cyber sex are all terms along with lol, gg, btw, :P, brb because we've allowed them to be. the next generation will be raised by information alone. what kind of people will they be if their parents are stuck on the internet googling how to be a good parent?

am i going too far? maybe. but something from this post, i hope, will resonate with you. job applications are almost, all, online. email is the preferred way of communication. videochats and instant messaging/texting are eliminating face to face contact. will interviews become a multiple choice test? some parts of it are, testing your personality. will match.com become the way to meet your spouse? for some, it has. will you live your "life" online? or will you experience joy and pain, suffering and hope in a tangible way that you can't translate onto the internet? real or unreal? the thing is that whatever you choose there will always be a mixture of unreal with the real and vice versa. we live to see the dawn and use nightlights to ward off the darkness. we love cooking over an open flame as long as it is propane fueled. we love walking around in an air conditioned atmosphere. but what will be overshadowing the other? whether you do anything about it immediately or let it simmer in your mind for a long time, the day will come when there's no choice left, but to pick your poison.

pornea

i'm not sure what most people's first experience with sex is. i know it starts very early, 12 is the average age of kids who see their first pornographic material. with the world going in the direction it is, i'm sure that the age will decrease in the future. the cliche is that some kids are channel surfing and come across shows like "Baywatch" or certain music videos that have scantily clad pop "princesses" or maybe even stumbling upon the Discovery channel and seeing animals mating. all very likely, all have happened to me except the latter. watching animals doing it is more of deterrent.

the common theme is that most boys' switch the gear into puberty earlier because of images. we see body parts, it starts getting hot, and you feel desires that you've never felt before. next you feel is some guilt, like you've broken some kind of law or code, but it feels good and you want to keep feeling it. no matter what. you keep looking at the images. progresses deeper into pornography. that progresses into fetishes. some people may have a tighter rein on this than others. maybe you think you have a tighter rein on it than others. my question is, are we even supposed to be looking at it?

do animals watch other animals. are we the only species that watch people have sex? is it natural to watch it? it's natural to be stimulated by it. we can't help that. but is it natural to watch it as a form of entertainment or pleasure? is it natural for actors and actresses to simulate sex in films? is it natural for adult actors and actresses to perform in front of a camera for millions of viewers?

there are many things that aren't natural, i know. the laptop i'm typing on. am i supposed to be spending hours on the internet surfing the web reading about sports, movies, and whatnot? is it natural that i'm typing as a form of communication. well, we've taken language and communicated it into a different form. perhaps the same concept can translate with porn. but i don't believe that is a viable opinion.

sex is personal. it's an expression of love. of commitment. of marriage. of loyalty. Pope John Paul II said it best, "The problem with pornography isn't that it shows too much, it's that it shows too little." Pornography shows just what it promises. Two people having sex. But it's sex that's ripped out of the natural body of love. Sex isn't love or vice versa, it's a vital organ needed to keep the flesh and blood healthy and sane. when taken out of context it becomes disgusting, disturbing, and fake.

porn is a substitute for relationships. it adds to our isolation and we wonder why we are so lonely. we're afraid to take chances. to get rejected. we want acceptance in any way possible. and porn never turns us down, but it always lets us down. we're not meant to watch or look at these things. i pray that i have the faith to step out and take chances instead of settling for one part of a body. i want to experience it all and i hope you do, too.

it'd be easier

i think it'd be easier if karma was real.

maybe not karma in a what comes around goes around. maybe more of a you reap what you sow. maybe they're similar to each other in a lot of ways like people say that Buddha and Jesus are. maybe i'm being blasphemous right now. forgive me, Lord, if i am. now that brings me to my point, which is what if God worked on a rewards based "relationship." kind of like an employer/employee thing.

you clock in. you put in your "good" work and you clock out hoping that the "bad" won't be enough to outweigh the hard work you put in earlier. i used to live like this. maybe i still do.

i live like i can do enough to good to tip the scales in my favor of salvation, blessing, love, grace, etc. when i sin, i feel lower than low. i feel like there's no hope. i ask for forgiveness, but i just write a mental i.o.u. to God hoping that i can pay Him back for his forgiveness. but by now, the i.o.u.'s have piled up like late bills and i have no idea how to pay them off.

it'd be easier to ask for mercy and to be forgiven of all this debt, but then again i think wouldn't it be easier to just keep the reward/punishment program to continue. i can always file for bankruptcy later when i'm at my end, but for now i can grind it out. a couple of big payments and i'll be out of the hole... for a little while.

it's difficult because with grace i take advantage of it and i use it as an excuse to sin, but with works i'm trying and trying to save myself like i'm trying to keep from drowning on dry land.

it'd be easier if i gave up. it'd be easier if i kept fighting. it'd be easier if i did both. it'd be easier if i wasn't making it so hard.

God, please help.