Here I sit. Open hearted, Empty, yet Full.

First, the disclaimer:
My deep apologies to any English majors and to those who require structure in writing to find value. This post may or may not contain fluidity from start to finish; seeing that I'm not even sure where to start or how it is going to finish.

I never had a tough time communicating and socializing in groups or one on one conversation. And up till now filling time with conversation and interaction with people has never been a problem. I never thought that it would take the stripping away of close friends and acquaintances to cause me to realize as well as to remove the barriers that exist between me and Christ. The above sets the stage of this post - "open hearted and empty."

So, here I open myself and reveal my sinful nature. Up until a year ago I had managed to fill my whole life with people and things that filled a void that can only truly be filled with Christ . My entire high school life was filled with people, activities and business that drew me away from Christ and into in self-gratifying sin. At the time, I thought I was having the time of my life. We would go out "shit disturbing," which consisted of vandalizing random property, mailboxes, stealing, removing public road signs - anything to cause disturbance. We would go to concerts, movies, parties, camping - anything to fill time and distract ourselves from real life. During this time I felt like I knew who I was, were I was going in life and felt full and complete as a person. I had friends, a job and a family and never even realized, nor had time to realize, what was missing deep within.

One by one my high school "friends" dropped out from the group, myself included. In reality I was the first one to drift from the group, but it felt like everyone was leaving me behind. One joined the army and now helping maintain peace in Afghanistan, one joined the British Royal Marines, one went off to Mohawk for police training, and the last one, a co-worker, is now going to school for robotic electrical engineering. And to top things off, a three-year relationship with my (then) girlfriend did not work out.

Here I sit. Open hearted and empty.

The feeling of being lonely was not a new feeling by any means. Loneliness was present the entire time - only repressed and forced into the background of my life by my business. This is where Christ in His rich, rich mercy and grace flooded the scene. As sinful and entirely corrupted as I was, I can now see Christ's hand the entire time - not really leading in a sense that I was following - but more so blocking me from doing certain things to protect me. Or to use another analogy: Christ kept me on a leash in order to give me a jerk on the line every time I went too far in the wrong direction.

Through all my sin, Christ had His way of preserving me. He has blessed me with a conscience that would not die. It was almost as if He had to resuscitate my conscience numerous times, but He kept it alive. He first allowed me to see the glaring sins in my life, then eventually to see the finer, more disguised ones. And still, He continues to tune my conscience.

The next example of Christ's preservation still leaves me in awe. While I was in Australia trying to run away from everything: family, responsibility, time, job and God, I felt the most lonely in my entire life. Even though I spent two months with my "best friends," living exactly how I wanted to, I felt horribly alone! During this time God taught me how to pray. I don't even know how I prayed; words just came out of my mouth. I didn't even know if I meant the very words I spoke. But God taught me to pray; to speak freely with Him.

Shortly after my return from Australia I began to see Christ's face. It was interesting for me to note that: the more friends I lost, the more time I had for Christ and the more He revealed Himself to me. Ever since that trip, God has placed many people and things in my life in order to draw me back to Himself: brothers, parents, aunts, uncles, books, the Bible, a new girlfriend, and new friendships.

God is good. God is merciful. God is gracious. God is also righteous in His judgment. His judgment could not let me stay where I stood in my sin. He has convicted me, but He also gave me the strength and mercy to get up, 'repent, and sin no more.'

It is tough to wrap my mind around that fact that Christ loved me so much that first of all, He died for my sins in order that I have a chance to spend eternal life with HIM! And secondly, He loved me so much that He was willing to contintuously send diverse people into my life to draw me back to Himself.

Here I sit. Open-hearted and honest about my past, empty from close friends, yet being constantly filled with Christ. I hope and pray that my heart will be led and drawn to new friends that truly lift me up and encourage me in faith.

Praise God for His infinite love for His fallen people!

Thank you God for your gift of salvation in Christ! Thank you God for the people you have place in my life to draw me back to yourself! Thank you God for your gift of Amyann!

I've been thinking

Over the past few months God has taught me a few things. One thing He has taught me is that He answers prayers in unbelieveable ways. By "unbelieveable" I mean incredibly glorious in terms of my spiritual growth, and in the human sense where it feels like I've been "through the mill." As a feeble human I ask for things and sometimes don't even expect them to happen, or when I do ask for them I have set in my mind this perfect, ideal way of receiving what God has to offer. Well, I am beginning to understand that God has a much larger picture in mind for my personal faith development. God works in mysteriously awesome ways. I can see God's handi-work through the trials recently encountered in my life. And I thank God for allowing me to see through the stormy blasts! Praise God!

I say the above to three reasons:
First, to encourage you in your faith to hang in there and dialy submit yourselves to Christ even when there seems to be no end to your sturggle. There is an enormous light and reward at the end of the tunnel!

Second, to explain, not excuse my presence on my blogsite and in comments on other sites. My life is in a serious state transformation and my priority has been to absorb and soak up as much life as possible from the word of God.

And Lastly, I'm asking you to pray for me. I am weak. I am human. I am sinful. I need prayer. Pray for my spiritual growth, and that God will allow me to see His controling hand throughout all the trails that come my way.

Praise Him!

Neo-Calvinist insite required!

In a ongoing battle between a respected coworker and I, he stated the following which I am having a tough time digesting. How do you respond to a statement like this?

"Neo-Calvinism has many good qualities, but they have to understand that you don't have to rumage through the trash cans of society to find something worth redeeming."

I Wonder...?

I wonder
What kind of church would my church be,
if every member was just like me?
How many souls would be saved today,
if it all depended on what I Say?
I wonder
How many times have I said I'm a Christian,
but turned a deaf ear to a need?
How many time have I said I love Jesus,
but everyone saw what I lead?
I wonder
How many luxuries have I passed by
to have more to give to the Lord?
Jesus I promise as long as I live
from now on I'm going to do more.
I wonder
How many prayers would my Lord have to answer,
if all that he heard came from me?
What kind of church would my church be,
if every member was just like me?

This is a really good song found in the album What Kind of Church, by The Watchmen.

I think everyone that reads this blog will come to two conclusions; First, the impossibility of every member being exactly the same, and the second, thank God not everyone is just like me!

Christian Approach to Entertainment

First, A deep apology to all who have been continuing to visit this site during it's dormant stage. I am trying to organize my life a little more lately to spend more time in reading, reflection and prayer. Well, here is the opening paragraph and an attempt to keep what faithful readers I have, faithful.

Recently I found myself extremely upset and repulsed with the morals of many shows, the use of sexuality to sell almost every product, the lack of respect for God, the course and perverse language that has become socially acceptable and much, much more. In previous discussion in regards to this topic I leaned towards condemning television as a whole and not being involved with it at all. After reading Creation Regained by Al Wolters it has opened my eyes to see a better picture of our world in which we live and how to analyze certain and particular aspects of this world. It has shed a new light on the topic of entertainment the form of television. In this excellent book Wolters explains how to look at everything in the “corrective lenses” of the Reformation worldview. Through the scope of Creation, Fall and Redemption we can see exactly what God created as normative and good, how the fall into sin has corrupted and penetrated every aspect of creation, and then heavily sift through every part of life, finding the created good and embracing it. With this as a structure we can then begin chose our direction in which we travel. With the idea and assumption that Christ is permeated in every sphere of life, and that nothing on earth remains in a neutral category belonging to neither Christ or Satan, we must attempt redeem all normative goods for, and in the name of Christ.

Informed, Misinformed and Ignorant: Complete

Many analysts of our culture would describe this day and age "the age of information." With all the different types of media today there is no doubt that this is, indeed, the most well informed age in history - with information that Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death would better describe today's epistemology as Entertainment. Logically, information is essential to have an informed opinion or make a right decision, but equally important to the actual information is the context of which the information is found. Today, Information/Entertainment is thrown at us in an incredible rate. Technology has allowed access to fragments of information from the other side of this globe in split seconds, to both our advantage of global awareness and also to fuel our North American misconception of what it means to be well-informed.. Television has the ability to shape, change and distort our view of reality in a very dangerous way.

We must first acknowledge that everything on TV is packaged as entertainment. Everything from commercials, programs, and even the 10 o'clock news. I don't think that too many of those reading would be shocked to hear that commercials and television programs are entertaining, but I would like to suggest that the news programs also are delivered as a piece of entertainment.

Even the newscast that is viewed on the television set has to be packaged in a certain way to attract attention; from the cheerful music they play between newscasts, the physical appearance of the news anchors/actors, the stereotypical, easy-going sports and weather guy, to the flashing pictures and streaming three second audio-video clips that push ideas and morals "... into and out of consciousness that neither permit nor require evaluation."-Postman. By adding the cheerful music, humourous news story and/or cramming a nonsense commercial a split second after casting about the horrible AIDS situation in Africa does not convict me that their story is so terrible and a worthy cause of my attention. Therefore, becoming nothing more then entertainment.

What is the purpose for the newscast? Is it to bring to our attention the fact that AIDS is a huge crisis in Africa? or Do they seriously want us to consider the situation and see how we, the audience, can help? Not even the people in the newscast room have a purpose or message to take from the actual image that the viewer just saw. Without a purpose, how are the viewers supposed to interpret a meaning or message? Because we aren’t actually informed with the whole situation the story has no context, because this situation has been taken out of context it has no meaning, and because it has no meaning it becomes entertainment. If the situation is a fact it is useless and nothing more then another fragment of information irrelevant to our daily lives!

Because the news has no value to be drawn from it, it has very little if any weight in our daily lives and decisions. Because our knowledge on a certain topic derives from television, the information that we are given is extremely tainted and give us opinions about anything and everything based on NOTHING. Nothing consists of nothing. This is obvious and let me explain; “nothing” consists of no morals, no message, meaning, purpose, or context. How then, are we to derive our opinions on something that is not a true reflection of reality? This is obviously an extreme case where one only collects information from the television set. It would be ridiculous to think this as true, but with the extreme decrease in reading of print based material and the drastic increase in televised information in today’s youth, one’s view are fairly heavily weighted by the source most often sought after.

With this in mind, the North American definition of what it means to be “informed” must be revamped! Currently, western culture has define it as a wealth of information and “knowing about lots of things,”says Postman, not “knowing a lot about things”. The western culture believes that we live in the most informed era of history, to which I would much rather suggest that our culture is more ignorant than it is well informed. I would say that most reading this critique know of the AIDS crisis in Africa, but would venture to suggest that not very many reading would be able to tell me what language they speak in South Africa, or what religions are prevelent, what government they have in place, or what “tucka; mayuc’kala” means. Postman asks an awesome question when he asks: "Ignorance is correctable, but what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?" pg.109

Let us first look at some definitions. These definitions seem simple, but really look at what they mean.
Entertainment:
Something that amuses, pleases, or diverts.

-Amuse:
To cause to laugh or smile by giving pleasure.
Originally meant: To delude or deceive.

-Pleases:
To give enjoyment, pleasure, or satisfaction
To make glad or contented.

-Divert:
To turn aside from a course or direction
To distract
To entertain by distracting the attention from worrisome thoughts or cares
(courstesy of Dictionary.com)

By realizing that everything on Television is packaged as media we can then draw some conclusion to the effects that this form of media can have on us. The point that I find quite disconcerting is that everything points to distraction, deceptions, and pleasure and eludes any sort of assessment on life, critique and thinking. Other points I wish to discuss are that television gives us a misconception of reality, it takes the glory of God and places it upon our pleasure, and has the very real ability to divert us away from God by acting as a comfort, or an escape from reality.

First, an interesting fact that I wish to point out is, clearly in the definition of the word “amuse,” deception was its original meaning. Although it may not use in this way today, I think it very mush so applies to the description of entertainment. If our culture recognizes that what we see on the television set may not be reality, how are we to decipher what is real and what is not? We have all used or heard the line "its only TV." or "its only a movie." Let me clarify something: television is not a true reflection of reality, it is merely what the author thinks that you think would be ideal. Such is the outline of every commercial you see on TV. In many cases it comes very close to making us think that it is reality. I do not wish to leave you with the lasting impression that the news is not important nor that actual event is real, but what I want to stress the effect and ability that the television has to alter and form the way we think of certain topics to their advantage. Television is a dictator, a one way form of communication, it tells you how and what to feel. If communication is supposed to be a two ways, there is obviously something wrong.

In a sentence or two let me briefly touch on the topic of “reality” television shows. Reality television shows are nothing but a few select individuals with certain, very strong personality traits that are forcefully assembled together so that North America can be grossly entertained by their sinful nature unfolding in a “mere game” where biblical principles like that of honesty, integrity, patience and love are not embraced or seen as positive traits but more so as a hindrance to that of the earthly prize! Such as the phrase from Survivor goes, “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.” Need I say any more.

Secondly, our purpose on earth is the honor and glorify God, celebrate in Christ’s victory over death and in turn spread the gospel to those in need. My question is: where in the definition of entertainment does the glory point towards God when everything points to pleasing ourselves?

Finally, in the list of definitions we find “divert:” -To distracte the attention from worrisome thoughts or cares. Is this the biblical way of dealing with our thoughts and cares? In Psalm 55:22 the psalmist writes “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.” In Revolution in the World Missions by K.P. Yohannan, he asks an interesting question, “why is it that in America we feel the need to be constantly entertained and assaulted with media...? It is as if we are trying to disguise a guilt that we have not yet defined.” He goes on to suggest to possibilities of straying from out walk with the Lord, or the guilt of over-eating, big houses, or nice cars, meanwhile, we are letting thousands die to the name of Satan every day.


In conclusion, television is a powerful force of deception. It is easy to slide into a state of constant entertainment and media assault without even noticing. As Christians we must realize the dangers that exist and also fight them. Satan would love it if we were to turn to our television sets in order to temporarily escape this world, and for us to believe the lies that is displays. It is easy for one to defend television in the fact that it never openly lies, it only tells half the truth. But as K.P Yohannan says "the interesting thing about the half truth is that they in themselves contain an entire lie."pg 101 God is truth, let us focus on God and not constantly being entertained. To Him be the Glory, and may we fall on Him for our comfort. Amen.

Now it is your turn. What is your response?

Challenging Quote

"If you don't sincerely attempt to live out what you claim to believe, then don't claim to believe it." -Anonymous