So I decided to journal on my blackberry at Lake Morton. I love it out here! It is like 2 blocks from the apt, and I just happen to see a shooting star on the way down. Amazing! So I've been dealing with trust lately. I started sharing some of my ideas with some buddies about trust. I talked to them about how people don't trust others with being the realistic, broken, and incomplete people they really are. I looked at him and told him we need to be the instruments of change. We need to be the folks who seek out the big issues in our own lives and become worthy of peoples trust. We need to allow God to unearth the madness within our hearts so we come closer to having the capacity of love we were originally intended. 

After dealing with those issues we need to take the time to allow others to warm up to us. People have barriers protecting their hearts for a reason. It is not my place to storm their temple, but it is my place to go through all the proper cleansing ceremonies to enter into their lives and hearts when the doors open. This is especially difficult for me. I am learning trust takes time. Most of the quick friendships I have made over the past few months were right and well intended, but they did not have the foundations of time and trust. Those tend to fall away as quickly as they were built. Granted, people are going to let you down, and I have let down people. With more time and deeper trust, however, any issue can be worked out in time and right intention. Right intention. That is part of this cleansing process. Without right intention things fail. I've seen myself make this mistake. I will become friends with somebody to obtain some item or feeling of accomplishment. Those fail. I am not making myself a trustworthy person in this case. If I make it into their circle of trust I will be defiling it. After I'm done doing whatever it was I tried to accomplish they build up more and stronger resistance to trust in their hearts.

There is so much more to talk about this issue, but I need to walk back to the apt; it is getting far too cold for my pullover to keep me and my fingers warm.

Grace and Peace,
Josh

Life has a hellish tendency. Whoever believes in the idea that good things happen to those who do good things must have been high when they arrived at this conclusion. Good things happen to bad people; bad things happen to good people. That’s just the way things work. My question is what is our response to these bad things? Why does all this crap happen to good people or well intended folks? Where does God fit into this picture?

It was funny how I never intended on dealing with this issue. This issue found itself in my life. I was pondering what to read on a particular day, and for some reason I thought of the book of Job. I had no idea what I was looking for in this story so I decided to read it just to read it (if that makes any sense whatsoever). It goes through this process where this great guy goes through life doing only good things and became very successful in every which way. Suddenly everything in his life falls to pieces through a series of uncontrollable events. We then find Job trying to understand all that was going on and Job’s buddies trying to help him justify why this great loss took place. Job’s buddies continue to accuse Job of doing wrong and this is a repercussion for the wrong he has done; Job has done no wrong! He sits here in mourning having to defend his innocence to his closest friends (sounds like great friends). Job says nothing but honest insight into God and reveals the raw anguish and thoughts going through his head. He indeed misses those things he was emotionally connected to (granted I would feel the same way if I had lost my entire family). Then a stranger shows up and sets these guys straight, and he throws down raw and uncensored. The boy has nobody to impress. He tells these guys that they can’t fit God and His ways into a regular man’s way of thinking. He said this is not a reaction to Job’s sin as a man would do to another man if he was done wrong. He then shoots down the whole idea of Job being punished for doing wrong and calls Job ignorant to his own lack of innocence. Then Job is approached by God with these thoughts and questions. God goes through this long dramatic poem of the creation of the sea and the heavens and the animals of the earth. Job asks for forgiveness of his pride, and God responds with a demand, not of Job, of Job’s friends. He tells them to bring sacrifices to bring to Job so Job could present forgiveness for them at the altar because they have not spoken accurately of God. They were attempting to speak on God’s behalf and totally confusing Job. Granted Job shot down everything they had to say, but they said some pretty whack stuff in attempting to comfort him. Take a few things away from this story. Think about how you respond to difficult times, and remember there is always a time where you can set aside the craziness in your mind once things settle down like what God offered Job at the end of this story. Also be careful the advice you give to friends going through these difficult times. Try to be more like the mysterious man than the friends of Job who were just trying to fill in space with their words.

Regardless, my thoughts are starting to escape me. I need to get some sleep. I have a full day’s work in the morning! I totally forgot. Tell me what you guys think of this story and share your reflections of Job and his friends. Check the story out and read it for yourself. There is a ton going on here.

Grace and Peace,
Josh

Today is going to be a busy day. I feel like, however, everything is going on around me, and I am just sitting here thinking about the past. I think about all the stories of the people around me. I think about all their struggles and all their failures. I also think about their small and silent victories.

There are very few constants in this life. I have moved from place to place, school to school, and friend to friend, but one thing has been around for a majority of my life: The kitchen table. My family didn’t get nice things back in the day, but one evening I remember my parents excitement when the table had been delivered. We were in Virginia Beach at the time, and some of the neighbors helped us piece the thing together. It was a heavy (to a young boy it was) light wood with blue painted borders and a heavy coat of lacquer all over the top. It came with four chairs and a bench. We have broken bread with many a person around that table. Many conversations were held around that very table. I have even cried many a tear there, but I wonder how it has lasted this long. I remember the thing almost breaking. We moved from Virginia to California to Florida with the thing, and it is still in decent shape. I really do feel like it stands as a symbol of stability to a life that would otherwise be pure and total chaos.

Today I look at the table and remember those years. My sister is getting married; it is hard not to reminisce. She was such a young girl back when we first got the thing, and now she is gettin’ hitched. I only wish her the best. I also look forward to the many memories we have yet to fulfill at the table we have spent so much of our lives living around.

Grace and Peace,
Josh

It is so funny how I tend to use the high times in my life to evaluate where I am and where I’m going in life. It is also funny how I use these times to test my character. I see when times are hard, it is easy for me to be the good Christian guy who battles on in faith, but something happens when times aren’t so tough in my heart. I think I like the resistance. It makes me feel human, and it makes me feel stronger after the fact. I’ve spent the past couple days (and will continue on this path) of evaluating who I am as a person. I like who I am and who God has blessed me to be, but where have I gone wrong from that vision he has for my life. Where am I lacking balance? So I’ve isolated myself a small bit to pray on these things and let the answers come by the prompting of God. Today while driving, I finally heard a voice of clarity! It was telling me to embrace the heart of Jesus; that almost seemed to “simple” for me. I’ve been spending the past few months delving into Christ’s life, death, and resurrection (I have yet to journal on the resurrection yet, not the right time I guess), so all this made sense to me now. The more I focus on love and loving people the more my faults and shortcomings disappear. It is through the divine influence of God to break my bad habits and replace them with good ones. I have also noticed that God doesn’t want me to live some boring life where I lose my personality in the mix. He wants me to be me! I have started to notice, however, some topics I bring up far too often in conversation. It is almost like that same guitar lick that I resort to whenever I can’t quite hear my amp well enough when playing in a loud room. I know this conversation is safe because I’ve walked through it so many times before. I know this joke works because I have told it so many times before. I’m not abolishing humor or retiring from comedy (Office joke!), but I am trying to live in right balance so I have a greater capacity to love people. Just like that song in the prior blog stated, I want to love without conditions and apprehensions. I want to be the brother to mankind that God has called “me” to be (on a side note “that God has called ‘me’ to be” was very much intentional). I am willing to risk many things I hold dear in order to obtain this, and God will show me those things in the time to come. Kinda scary to think about, but I think I’m ready. Let me end this:

Father let me dedicate all this life to Thee
In whatever worldly state Thou would have me be
Not from sorrow, pain or care freedom dare I claim
This alone shall be my prayer, “Glorify Your Name”
Can a child presume to choose where or how to live
Can a father’s love refuse all the best to give
Let my glad heart while it sings Thee in all proclaim
And whatever the world may bring glorify Your name!

Grace and Peace,
Josh