Where Does the Time Go?

          Well... it's been a while since my last post. I said I would set out to make this more regular. I don't want to be disconnected from you guys because you guys are such a central part of what we do.            

          Time management is SO IMPORTANT! And I seem to be a man of extremes. I used to throw myself into video games, now I throw myself into school work, or managing Nine Lashes. I even set out to learn web development, but had to let it fall temporarily by the wayside in lieu of all my other commitments in life. I hope to pick it back up, again, in the future.
          An "all or nothing" sort of personality is often viewed as a positive thing. They're seen as people who give their all to something and chase it with everything within them. I used to agree with this mainly because I only saw one half of the picture. Yes, people like that often chase their dreams with everything they have. But it's not uncommon for "all or nothing" people to be known to not finish things. I've seen it in my own life. I get this grand idea of something I can do or accomplish, and because the reality of my achievements almost never live up to the power of my imagination, I lose motivation. This is terrible! I can easily see thousands of the incredible dreams people everywhere carry failing to be realized for this very reason!
          This is starting to remind of a series preached at my church. I'm convinced that being consistent is way more effective than being powerful. The perfect example is the evil and dreadful LAUNDRY! It's much easier to be successful at laundry through consistency. lol
          In any case, this wasn't at all what I wanted to rant about. I really wanted to talk about how my "all or nothing" attitude takes away from my time with my family. Even when I'm with family, the quality of that time together is reduced because I've got my face in work. This is why consistency is better. Sixteen hour days might get more done, but they'll burn you out. And while you're successful at whatever you're doing, you won't succeed at home or with family. And what's more important? When this life is coming to an end, what's gonna be on my mind? My savior and best friend, Jesus, my family, and my closest friends will truly be all that's on my mind.

Genuine Faith and Works

        Many people struggle to bridge the gap between faith and works. In one service, they're told they're saved by faith alone, only to be confused when they're told they're not saved if they don't "live right." This gap isn't as vast as some think. Hopefully, since I'm going on less than 6 hours of sleep over the last two days, I can string some words together and form something resembling an understandable thought.
        I'll start with an illustration my wife had that I thought was brilliant: a tree. When the wind blows, the branches sway and move. This really vividly captures faith and works in my opinion. Good works just naturally follow genuine faith.
        I personally think that this is true even in non-spiritual things. When I visited the grand canyon, I avoided going too close to the edge. This was because I believed with all of my heart that if I fell, I would die or suffer severe injury. My faith in that fact manifested itself in my behavior. Some daringly approach the edge. They have great faith in their own ability to not slip or stumble. Belief breeds action, end of story.
        This is no different with our faith in Christ. In my wife's illustration, the wind causes the branches to move. This represents our belief causing action in our lives. It has incredible implications, I believe. For one, if the branches are not moving, it can only mean that there is no wind. In literal terms, if there is no behavioral evidence for faith in Christ, it can only mean that there is no faith to be evidenced. But realizing only this half of the illustration holds some danger.
        Once I gave my life to Christ, a struggle began. I wanted to change for My Lord. I wanted to be holy for Him. This is completely natural and wanted. If you love your wife, you want to get her a gift, or take her out to eat. When we live holy, we live our lives to The Lord. It's a beautiful romance. But in my journey, I hit a wall. In my mind, I could not be good enough. I couldn't read my bible enough, or pray enough, or minister enough, or be in church enough, and the list went on.
        It wasn't long before I began to grade my closeness to God by the amount of good works I could muster. Basically, I was shaking the tree and trying to claim there was wind, instead of trying to cultivate my relationship with the One from whom the wind comes.
        So I want to encourage you: Jesus Christ is your righteousness. Focus your energy on loving Christ, and having a real relationship with Him. If you love Him and get to know Him, you'll begin to care about the things He cares about. Light and darkness cannot coexist. More of one means less of the other. Instead of trying to vanquish the darkness in your life, draw near to God. He will fill you with the light of His love.

Song Writing

        On my last post, there were lots of you wanting insight into the writing process. I gotta tell you guys, I'm honored. There are literally thousands of other bands that could be occupying your listening time, and it really means a lot that you guys not only listen to us, but you wonder things about us. And honestly, sometimes I wonder things about you guys, too. I really want this whole thing to be interactive. More than you guys just reading stuff I write, you know?
        Anyway, I gotta get on topic, so I'll get right to it. Song writing in and of itself is extremely diverse. It varies to a very (get the wordplay?) great degree from one individual to another. That being said, I do believe some things are true:

1. Your approach will very heavily depend on what you want your song to accomplish.
2. The arts are all meant to be enjoyed. It's the way we express ourselves. This means that song writing can be very spiritual. I would encourage you to worship God with your writing. I don't mean that you have to write a worship song. Rather, enjoy the process and thank God for it.
3. While there is no wrong way to write a song, there are plenty of ways to write a song no one wants to listen to. lol

        If you're wondering why I'm coloring everything differently, the answer is I don't know. In fact, I'm gonna randomly color a word green. There I just did it. It's good to not be too rigid. Helps the blood pressure. You can trust me, I'm not a doctor.

        So... the writing process... I think I'll just share how I approach song writing. I'd like to have some sort of workshop on this, or maybe record a video on it. Like I said before, something interactive. What if we wrote a song together? Comment below if you'd love that. I'm not sure how we would do it, yet, but The Lord (and skype, Google Hangouts, etc.) is on our side. =]

        When I write a song, the number one thing on my mind is vocals, and not just because I'm a vocalist. Think about it. If someone hears your song, what are they going to walk away humming 90% of the time? The vocal melody. Obviously there are exceptions, and I'm often one of them. I'll hum guitar riffs and synth parts, sometimes, but this is usually more common in musicians and doesn't reflect the vast majority. 

        I would encourage you, song writers, to start with a melody or at least have a melody in the picture very early on, so that it can shift and mold along with the rest of the song. If you develop the music too much, it affects the melody that pours out of you. You might have sung it differently if this part or that part had not been in there, yet. When you have a melody very early on, you get music and vocals and mesh together way better than you would otherwise.

        As far as what you write, it's really hard to give solid advice because it so heavily depends on your goals for the song. Are you writing for yourself? Are you writing for a loved one? Are you writing for an audience? Are you wanting to earn a living with your music? All of these questions have to be answered on an individual basis and that leaves no room for a blanket statement. In fact, in most cases, more than one of these can be true, further complicating things. 

        That's why I would love to have a workshop of some sort sometime in the future. You guys could give feedback and I could answer questions. This blog just isn't the format for such a thing. I'll be brainstorming about how to pull it off. In the meantime, leave your thoughts.

Here's Where You Come In

        I've been thinking of what all I want this blog to be about. After bouncing some ideas around, it occurred to me: you guys are the ones reading them, so why not ask you? Well, that's exactly what I'm doing. I made a poll for you guys. Just take a second, follow the link, and tell me what you want to see!

What's Mine is Yours

        About a year ago, I set out to maintain this blog. I really wanted to document my thoughts and share the things I love with you guys. As you may already know, I failed miserably. I would love to make a list of all the things that are to blame, but only one would be the truth: lazy me. And so my next thought follows.
        It's a new year, and with that comes the usual self-examination. I have no idea what yours brought to your attention, but mine reminded of something that's been on my mind for the past few months: resource management. Seems I have a habit of letting important things fall to the back of my mind. Who knew?
        The thought started with a simple realization: everything, ever, belongs to The Lord. Before these last few months, I would have immediately admitted this fact, but there's a difference in "knowing" something and really truly knowing it. The simple things can often take the longest to sink in. This one did for me.
        Just think about it for a second. Every single thing you've ever own, wanted, eaten, given away, spent, used, thrown away, built, and so on, all belong to The Lord. All of it. If we have something, it's because God has allowed us to have it. I believe that with this comes two responsibilities.
        The first of these responsibilities is using the possessions and abilities we have to demonstrate the love of Christ and bring others into a relationship with Him. There are masses of people who don't understand their need for Christ, and we are the only soldiers in that war. When people think of ministry, they think of preaching and evangelizing. But those things are only a branch of the entire tree. Do you have money? Fill someone's tank up and tell them you did it because Christ loves them. Have time? Volunteer to help someone. It can be serving at a homeless shelter or making repairs at your neighbor's house. Have a home? Invite people in for dinner and share the love of our Lord.
         The second of these is as simple as this: enjoy it. If God has blessed you with a beautiful home, enjoy it for what it is: a gift from your Father in Heaven. If you are married, enjoy that and invest in it. If God has allowed you to be wealthy, enjoy it. I feel like there are two extremes to avoid, here. Don't enjoy your stuff so much that your happiness depends on it, or that you never make a difference in someone's life. But in all that you do, don't forget to be happy. Following Christ is a challenging, yet rewarding, experience. And He wants us to experience it to the full, from now until forever.

The Genius of God

          Since it's Valentine's Day, it seems only appropriate to start this thing off about the one who loves like no other. He's the Great Thesis of everything else that I write. And I think it's important to keep Him in his place: first. 

          When I was younger, I came across the scripture that said, "Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins." And I, being a reasoning and curious person felt a giant "why?" swelling up inside. When God finally put the full picture together for me, I was absolutely amazed at his genius. What he showed me is what I wanted to tell you guys about.

          

          The first thing that God pointed out to me was that He was both merciful AND just. When I stopped to think about it, I realized (or, rather, he let me realize), that these two qualities usually don't go together. I'll explain.

          Let's say you borrowed $3 from me. If I make you pay that $3 back then I'm just, but I'm not merciful. If I forgive the debt then I'm merciful, but I'm no longer just because the debt hasn't been paid. What's so amazing about this simple thought is that God found a way to fulfill BOTH justice AND mercy.

          

          After I understood that, God showed me my debt. Romans 6 says that the wages of sin is death. And death is the forfeiting of life. So when we sin, we have earned a debt. What we owe is our lives. We have to hand them back over. Then, God showed me in Leviticus where he was instructing Israel to not eat animals with their blood still in them. He said that we "… shall not eat animals with the blood still in it, for the LIFE IS IN THE BLOOD. Therefore, we shall not eat animals with LIFE still in them". (I tried to quote as closely as I could from memory, lol)

          This was the key. God had answered my question. When we sin, we owe our life. And the life is in the blood. That's why there is no remission of sins without the shedding of blood. And that's why there were temple sacrifices set in place. They were there to point straight to Jesus.

          That is why Jesus had to be a man. We sinned against God and our blood was owed because of it. Jesus came with no debt and paid ours for us with his own perfect blood. God is just and, therefore, has to make sure that every bit of the law he put in place is fulfilled. And in his genius, he found a way to do that AND forgive us of our debt. But He didn't just forgive us, He adopted us.

          

          So God had taught me why Jesus had to come as a man. Naturally, my next question was obvious. Why did Jesus have to also be God? The answer was also in Leviticus. 

          

          When God was saving Israel from slavery in Egypt, he used plagues as a great sign to Pharaoh. The final sign he used was the death of all the firstborn throughout the country. He instructed Israel to slay a sheep and paint the blood above their doors, and the angel would pass over their houses, sparing their firstborn. Down the road, when God was setting up the temple activities, He told Israel to give all their firstborns to Him for service in the temple. Then, as an illustration of Jesus, God told Israel that he wanted the tribe of Levi INSTEAD of their firstborns.

          When I kept reading, the answer to my question was evident. Each individual Levite took the place of ONE firstborn. This legally illustrated the obvious: that one man is equal to one man. So if Jesus had just been a man, and not also God, then he would have earned the forgiveness of ONE LUCKY DUDE! But God's life is of infinite worth, so he could, therefore, earn the forgiveness of ALL mankind.

          

          So Jesus, being both a man AND God, is the only one who can save us. I hope this excites you as much as it excites me. We were dead men and God didn't just leave us there. He put his genius to work and came up with the perfect plan to save us. Now, all we have to do is accept the offer.

So Here It Is

          Well, I asked you guys if I should take up this endeavor, and I received a resounding YES! So here I am, in front of a computer, blogging for the first time since the Myspace era. Make a person feel old!

          I feel that I should start this journey together with a thanks. I was humbled at the way you seem to value what I have to say. In reality, there's nothing that sets me apart from you, so it's truly an honor. You guys are the reason we do this. You're our family. So thank you for being such.

          Also, as we move forward, I want these things be free to evolve into discussion. I want to hear from you guys. Maybe I can figure out how to have a section for questions (other than just commenting on things).

          I hope you guys are looking forward to this the way that I am. One person mentioned that this would be a way for you guys to get to know me better and I agree. But in fact, I'm more excited about the inverse. This is an absolute great way to get to know you guys. I'm excited to see the relationship evolve. I hope, when we finally get our official website up and functioning, to have a blog there, as well as a forum for our friends (that's you) to discuss things and encourage each other. 

          In any case, we're in the here and now. And it's here that I must begin. So keep an eye out for new stuff. You can expect anything from poetry to my thoughts and opinions. I had better see yours here, as well.