"Action is the proper fruit of knowledge." That's it. That's all the chinese fortune cookie could cough up for me today. Actually, it could be worse. I could have gotten the cheesy Reading Rainbow one that said "Set your goals high, take flight." Are you kidding me? Lavar Burton's screen writers coulda finaggled a more thought provoking one than that.
However, this was indeed a strange fortune for me to behold. I guess because in a nutshell I taught this thought to a few hundred teens in the midst of a riverbed of rocks. It's true. The theme was "Pisteuo"... the multi-tasking greek word that is three-fold: Faith, Believe, and Trust. The motto was "walk the walk if you're going to talk to talk." No one likes a hypocrite, especially the one who does the hypocriting. It's not a glorious feeling walking home at the end of the day feeling like you are made of plastic and that no one knows whats really beneath. It's even worse when you know what you should do, but are afraid to do it because your afraid... or even worse, comfortable. Where's the passion to be better than what I am now? What happened to the desire to improve on what I already know?
Star Trek was my show, man! No lie. I use to sit down on saturdays and watch a video tape marathon of that show. On the surface, I loved the space age stuff: Ships, phasers, transporters, fighting, weird looking aliens. I even fantasized of being a captain of my own ship and sitting on my couch pretending to give orders as though I had the perfect solution for the problem scenarios I would make up in my head everyday. The underlying theme in each episode though was becoming a better person today than you were yesterday. I think I actually grew mentally stronger by thinking those thoughts everyday. I somehow found myself acting more confident with who I was and where I was going because I actually was encouraged to be stronger than before.
As I grew older and Star Trek faded away in TC history, but I still focused on acquiring and reaching every goal possible in life. I felt like there was nothing I couldn't do. My jobs loved me because I was more determined to be the best...whatever I was just because that was my core. I excelled through school because I stayed dedicated. I wanted to have fun and looked for every opportunity to take my friends out and find something adventurous to do. I moved to FHU in TN because I wanted to be more spiritual and make more spiritual friends. I wanted to know God more and know how to help others more.
After while, my mindset began to change subconsciously. I didn't see it coming. I use to blame it on Freed, but now I know a darker power may have been involved. No, no mystical forces beyond my control... just forces I gave control to. Before Freed, I remember thinking what amazing joy I had in life. I remember waking up in my warm waterbed, underneath the ceiling fan with the sun shining through my window and just... smiling. I woke up that way and started my day off content and stable. But somehow, between 2002 and now, the joy has escaped me. I don't know what to say about it. I know possible explanations, but I haven't nailed the nail on the head. Atleast, until I read that fortune today.
In 2002, I had direction. I knew who I was and what I was to other people. I had my interests, hobbies, routines, and lifestyles. I was well rooted in a tradition and environment I had know for years. I knew where I was going. I had a plan. I knew sacrifices that had to be made and new poles I would have to hurdle, but I remained committed to my convictions.
It seemed as though all that began to immediately change in August 2002. The night before I was to drive off to college, dad was pulled over and charge with DUI. The day I drove off to school Dad flew to Oklahoma to bury my grandfather and then four weeks later my mom would move out because of a marriage that had failed over the past few years without my knowing it. Making friends at FHU was harder than I imagined. The spiritual atmosphere and friendship I had hoped and longed for was just a fantasy I had engrained in my head. As I began to learn more about the Bible, I learned how egotistical and ignorant the churches I grew up in really were. I grew to love Jesus, but everything else seemed to be falling apart all around me. I took frequent trips to Houston to visit Mom, my cousins, and the church family there, and they provided a sense of strength and a temporary foundation for me, but it wasn't the same as I had before. The friends whom I had a foundational friendship began to slip away and were replaced by christian anquaintances that I was just in surface relationhips with. I no longer had a home to go home to. Churches of Christ had become too dull in their worship practices and I found myself more focused on what was missing rather being lead in spirit-lead worship service. One of the key churches that kept me going strong in my faith and energy while I was in school is now faltering into a place of dullness and routine also, as though the life is being sucked out with every breathe we take.
God... what's happening?
Today, I think about the knowledge I have, and the actions I take because of it. It makes sense, right? What I do is a direct or indirect result of what I currently know. I also think action is a result of what I believe. There's that greek word again, Pisteuo. To the greeks, believing something meant proving that belief with an action. A Christians belief in Christ left no doubt where their convictions lay. Friends at work know I am a Christian. It's because I talk about doing youth group events, not because of a deep spiritual talk I have with them. Shameful, isn't it? To most people, it's a fact of christian life to avoid talking about Christian beliefs in the work place because it's an HR no no. In fact, a co-worker of mine was told by her temp agency specifically not to bring up religious issues. It causes too much confrontation.
Confrontation. I'm fearful of it. I crumble under pressure because of it. I choose to avoid it. I have had my excuses and now my spiritual and mental health have changed because of it over time. I've become confortable. In my Star Trek years, I continually told myself to be better than I was. In the now years, I tell myself to be content with where I am. Somehow, I conditioned me to believe that. The philosophy was somehow reversed when religion became a bigger part of my life. I don't know if that's a direct link or not. I think it's challanged me more and I conditioned myself to take the backseat more often. i think that Satan is also using fear to break me down and create a desire to slide back to where I use to be spiritually because "it was a better era of my life." I actually think that. "What if I try to be the person I was 5 years ago?" What a ridiculous question. No, no, it's one I struggle with everyday, and it's one that's keeping me back.
Today I am a man who lives with his cousins and is working a mediocre job (with great med benefits I might add), attending a mediocre church, and leading a mediocre lifestyle. I discovered recently that I don't have any dreams. Every day, I feel like I am too drained of personality to engage in a simple conversation anymore. I look for funny things to say and do and all I can scrounge up is a blank stare and a brief response. I've become boring. I don't say that to get pity or encouraging comments, but I need to say it for myself and to lift it up to God. I don't want to be that way! I don't want to be comfortable any longer. I want the adventure back. I don't want to care about what will offend someone or not, I just want to do whats right because it's right and absolute.
My prayer tonight is that God knocks me from the stool I've sat on for the past year and a half. I pray that he ignites a flame that will last and bring me through the traffic jam of spirituality I am feeling. I want him to continue guiding me through the path he started for me 5 years ago. I want to shine in his presence and become a better person today than I was yesterday because I let Him change me.
Tomorrow, I want my actions to be the fruit of better knowledge.
However, this was indeed a strange fortune for me to behold. I guess because in a nutshell I taught this thought to a few hundred teens in the midst of a riverbed of rocks. It's true. The theme was "Pisteuo"... the multi-tasking greek word that is three-fold: Faith, Believe, and Trust. The motto was "walk the walk if you're going to talk to talk." No one likes a hypocrite, especially the one who does the hypocriting. It's not a glorious feeling walking home at the end of the day feeling like you are made of plastic and that no one knows whats really beneath. It's even worse when you know what you should do, but are afraid to do it because your afraid... or even worse, comfortable. Where's the passion to be better than what I am now? What happened to the desire to improve on what I already know?
Star Trek was my show, man! No lie. I use to sit down on saturdays and watch a video tape marathon of that show. On the surface, I loved the space age stuff: Ships, phasers, transporters, fighting, weird looking aliens. I even fantasized of being a captain of my own ship and sitting on my couch pretending to give orders as though I had the perfect solution for the problem scenarios I would make up in my head everyday. The underlying theme in each episode though was becoming a better person today than you were yesterday. I think I actually grew mentally stronger by thinking those thoughts everyday. I somehow found myself acting more confident with who I was and where I was going because I actually was encouraged to be stronger than before.
As I grew older and Star Trek faded away in TC history, but I still focused on acquiring and reaching every goal possible in life. I felt like there was nothing I couldn't do. My jobs loved me because I was more determined to be the best...whatever I was just because that was my core. I excelled through school because I stayed dedicated. I wanted to have fun and looked for every opportunity to take my friends out and find something adventurous to do. I moved to FHU in TN because I wanted to be more spiritual and make more spiritual friends. I wanted to know God more and know how to help others more.
After while, my mindset began to change subconsciously. I didn't see it coming. I use to blame it on Freed, but now I know a darker power may have been involved. No, no mystical forces beyond my control... just forces I gave control to. Before Freed, I remember thinking what amazing joy I had in life. I remember waking up in my warm waterbed, underneath the ceiling fan with the sun shining through my window and just... smiling. I woke up that way and started my day off content and stable. But somehow, between 2002 and now, the joy has escaped me. I don't know what to say about it. I know possible explanations, but I haven't nailed the nail on the head. Atleast, until I read that fortune today.
In 2002, I had direction. I knew who I was and what I was to other people. I had my interests, hobbies, routines, and lifestyles. I was well rooted in a tradition and environment I had know for years. I knew where I was going. I had a plan. I knew sacrifices that had to be made and new poles I would have to hurdle, but I remained committed to my convictions.
It seemed as though all that began to immediately change in August 2002. The night before I was to drive off to college, dad was pulled over and charge with DUI. The day I drove off to school Dad flew to Oklahoma to bury my grandfather and then four weeks later my mom would move out because of a marriage that had failed over the past few years without my knowing it. Making friends at FHU was harder than I imagined. The spiritual atmosphere and friendship I had hoped and longed for was just a fantasy I had engrained in my head. As I began to learn more about the Bible, I learned how egotistical and ignorant the churches I grew up in really were. I grew to love Jesus, but everything else seemed to be falling apart all around me. I took frequent trips to Houston to visit Mom, my cousins, and the church family there, and they provided a sense of strength and a temporary foundation for me, but it wasn't the same as I had before. The friends whom I had a foundational friendship began to slip away and were replaced by christian anquaintances that I was just in surface relationhips with. I no longer had a home to go home to. Churches of Christ had become too dull in their worship practices and I found myself more focused on what was missing rather being lead in spirit-lead worship service. One of the key churches that kept me going strong in my faith and energy while I was in school is now faltering into a place of dullness and routine also, as though the life is being sucked out with every breathe we take.
God... what's happening?
Today, I think about the knowledge I have, and the actions I take because of it. It makes sense, right? What I do is a direct or indirect result of what I currently know. I also think action is a result of what I believe. There's that greek word again, Pisteuo. To the greeks, believing something meant proving that belief with an action. A Christians belief in Christ left no doubt where their convictions lay. Friends at work know I am a Christian. It's because I talk about doing youth group events, not because of a deep spiritual talk I have with them. Shameful, isn't it? To most people, it's a fact of christian life to avoid talking about Christian beliefs in the work place because it's an HR no no. In fact, a co-worker of mine was told by her temp agency specifically not to bring up religious issues. It causes too much confrontation.
Confrontation. I'm fearful of it. I crumble under pressure because of it. I choose to avoid it. I have had my excuses and now my spiritual and mental health have changed because of it over time. I've become confortable. In my Star Trek years, I continually told myself to be better than I was. In the now years, I tell myself to be content with where I am. Somehow, I conditioned me to believe that. The philosophy was somehow reversed when religion became a bigger part of my life. I don't know if that's a direct link or not. I think it's challanged me more and I conditioned myself to take the backseat more often. i think that Satan is also using fear to break me down and create a desire to slide back to where I use to be spiritually because "it was a better era of my life." I actually think that. "What if I try to be the person I was 5 years ago?" What a ridiculous question. No, no, it's one I struggle with everyday, and it's one that's keeping me back.
Today I am a man who lives with his cousins and is working a mediocre job (with great med benefits I might add), attending a mediocre church, and leading a mediocre lifestyle. I discovered recently that I don't have any dreams. Every day, I feel like I am too drained of personality to engage in a simple conversation anymore. I look for funny things to say and do and all I can scrounge up is a blank stare and a brief response. I've become boring. I don't say that to get pity or encouraging comments, but I need to say it for myself and to lift it up to God. I don't want to be that way! I don't want to be comfortable any longer. I want the adventure back. I don't want to care about what will offend someone or not, I just want to do whats right because it's right and absolute.
My prayer tonight is that God knocks me from the stool I've sat on for the past year and a half. I pray that he ignites a flame that will last and bring me through the traffic jam of spirituality I am feeling. I want him to continue guiding me through the path he started for me 5 years ago. I want to shine in his presence and become a better person today than I was yesterday because I let Him change me.
Tomorrow, I want my actions to be the fruit of better knowledge.
1 Comments:
I pray that he will change you too... I pray that you find your dreams and make the most of your life. I pray that you stop taking the back seat and step into the boat of change and jump in with your whole heart. I pray that you find your passion again.
Thanks for the blog, you always seem to put into words what I cannot express for myself. Thanks for the eye opener again...
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