Currently Watching Man vs. Wild - Season 1 (6 DVD set) see related

My Sweet Home

*This was inspired by Belinda Ramsay's blog on the Declaration of Arbroath

The other day I was watching a new series on HBO (the one's who brought you "Band of Brothers") called "John Adams". For those who don't know (or are British) John Adams is kind of the unsung hero of the American revolution. I love the show because it's historical and factual not trying to promote postive American legend but showing things as they probably happend. The first episode had to do with the Boston Massacre in 1770 and how John Adams defended the British officer, Capt. Preston, and his troops who fired on a crowd of angry Bostonians, killing 5. The episode showed how the Sons of Liberty (an early anti-British revolutionary group lead by Sam Adams, John's cousin) coaxed the soldiers into firing by throwing clubs, taunting the Brits and daring them to fire. I never knew it was out of confusion and not malice that the Brits fired on the crowd in Boston. The first episode had a dramatic trial at the end of which the British soldiers were all acquitted.

I also had no idea that it was the conflicts in Boston that lead to the revolution. The series showed how the actual history went leading into the Revolutionary War and the squabbling between the colonies at the First and Second Continental Congress. They only received solidarity when King George III declared that anyone who opposed him would be considered a rebel and hanged as a traitor. Up until this time the colonists where only upset about taxation without representation in British Parliament and marshall law being declared in Boston (it's courts and local government being suspended). Now, the King had proclaimed that anyone who was upset with him or his policies would be executed. I had learned about this American Revolution year after year in school, but this series made it really personal and clear. They showed how Thomas Jefferson was commissioned to write the Declaration of Independence because he was not a gifted speaker but was a talented writer and how the Continental Army was formed and placed under the command of George Washington. You have to understand, these people are on our coins and dollars and stamps and there are memorials for them, but this show made me realize that they were real people trying to do something impossible. I can relate to Belinda's blog in the sense of how proud I was of my Founding Fathers, if it were me taking on the largest Empire the world has ever known, I'd probably get stressed out and give up. But, though they bickered, they drafted the Declaration of Independence and seperated from Britain, though they thought it could mean death. The second episode ended with the reading of the Declaration of Independence by transitioning readers. Up until now the Declaration was a boring document we had to study in school. But, for the first time in my life, I was so full of pride for my country and its people that that I actually teared up at its reading.

I've been thinking a lot about freedom lately. When you're American it's part of the daily rhetoric and you kind of grow numb to it. Most people like to complain about how it could be instead on enjoying the freedoms they already have. It's a sobering thought that people still do actually die to protect our rights. Though my government and fellow countrymen do a lot of things I disapprove of, my nation's entire cause is to be free and let others enjoy freedom as well. This is something we take so seriously that, when it comes down to it, we would rather fight to the death than have our freedom be taken away. I think a lot of us are born in places which, though they are not perfect, are great places to be. It's sad that's it's cliche to say I'm proud to be born in a land that's free, but I can do so much here and that is a privelege God has gifted me with.

I think one of the reasons the US and the UK are such close allies is because we both strive to be the best cultures we can possibly be in every way we can be it. I can never expect an organization like a country, which is ran people, to be perfect. But I'm so proud that I'm an American and that I live in a place that enjoys so much opportunity. And, though they are our former enemies (twice; and burned down our capital) I'm also proud of the United Kingdom and all they do to help the world and fight the good fight. The Brits are so compassionate and personable and, though they are flawed just as we are, they seem to truly care about their own people as well as others around the world and freedom. GOD BLESS AMERICA AND GOD BLESS GREAT BRITAIN! 

Currently Gaming Assassin's Creed By Ubisoft see related

Brits in the Biz

Celebrities in American entertainment:

David Beckham - team captain LA Galaxy

Victoria Beckham - Spice Girls/David Beckham's wife

Gordon Ramsay - professional chef  "Hell's Kitchen"

Ricky Gervais - executive producer "The Office (US)"

Bear Grylls - presenter "Man VS Wild"

Brit shows made American:

The Office, Who Wants to Be a Millionare, Deal or No Deal, The Weakest Link, Kitchen Nightmares, Extras

My theory? The Brits are slowly taking their colonies back one celebrity at a time

Currently Gaming The Orange Box By Electronic Arts see related

The Blessings Scheme

We know so little about how blessings work. We know what we want and we ask God to get it for us, be we're completely in the dark as to how He decides who gets what and when. All we know, about anything, is from what He's told us. All good gifts are from the Father, He gives and takes away, He's making plans for our propsperity and not our destruction; these are the only ideas God gave as to why He gives.

Confusion sets in when people make the mistake of ascribing to God human behaviors. All we have is our perspectives; we see the world with human eyes and human reasoning. It's hard for us to not think that God's thought patterns are similar to our own. We are made in His image, but that means our identities are in Him, not His in our's. The reality is God is infinite and we are finite. We are very limited in ability and mental power and God's mind knows no boundary. We cannot begin to comprehend the ultimate knowledge and wisdom God has.

Think about it, the only things we know about God are what He's told us about Himself. The only areas of our universe we are aware of are what He's shed light on. He tells us what we need to know, not everything there is to know. If we can only understand a little of His personality, love and mind why do we act as though we are God's biographers? We do it because we're seeking comfort about Him, not from Him. People are scared of what they can't understand and manipulate, and nothing about God has ever been revealed by human effort nor has anyone been able to trick the Almighty, and that makes us nervous. 

We use misunderstanding to rationalize why God did or did not do something. It must be because of x that y happened and now God will/will not give me what I want. We find comfort in that kind of thinking because it's formulaic. Humans are notorious for their addiction to control, we need the security of security. We need to know what is happening when and why, even if it upsets us. We scurry around trying to conjure some sort of half-baked authoritative notion of the world. In the mean time, God is simply being God giving certain things and holding other things back because it ultimately knows what's best.

Some treat God's gifts as being partly given out of obligation. The attitude seems to be that God owes them or desperately needs to maintain His reputation as kind and loving. The truth is God owes us nothing and the sober reality is we deserve nothing. It's true that our actions can cause God to hold a blessing back or even take it away, but it is dangerous to concoct a theory blessing system where one believes they can predict God's behavior. Our classic set-back is that we think we can understand God and be experts on His movement.

People say "God is a mystery" because they don't understand most of the things He does. God is a mystery because we don't know most of what He's doing. We only see a slender fraction of God's activity, yet we take the fact that He loves us as a license to indulge our pride and act as though we have an insider's understanding of who God really is. When considering the vastness of the universe and the unlimited nature of God's self, humans really know nothing. God promises us things and holds Himself to His pledges. We cannot pretend we figured God out simply by acknowledging something He already told us He was going to do. Our only assurance is that God does not lie and that He's working for our situation. 

So count your blessings, but don't scrutinize them. We cannot conquer His thoughts nor fully understand His intents.

We know what He's told us; God gives because He's a good God.

Currently Gaming Halo 2 By Microsoft see related

Anti-Existence

God gave me this thought the other day while listening to Pastor Chilly Chilton's podcast in my car on the way back from jury duty in Compton...

There are so many people who have faith in God, a god or gods that the belief in the supernatural almost seems like an innate human characteristic.

The people at my work sometimes ask me questions or get my opinion on stuff that's happening in the news. Right about the time that Golden Compass movie came out, someone asked me what I though about atheism. I had no idea the film was a pseudo-Chronicles of Narnia with the Christians themes replaced with atheist ideals. My disgust for plagiarism aside, I have always believed that atheism was kind of a needless philosophy. It does not make sense for someone to promote an ideology, write books and hold seminars about something they believe does NOT exist. I mean, are there many anti-Leperchaun leagues or a-Unicorn meetings? If God doesn't exist, why do they care? Why all the rabble? Why not do something else with their time?

It was in my car the I realized that most of the people on earth believe in a deity. Between the Christians, Muslims and Jews (otherwise known as the "world religions") as well as Hindus, Buddhists and other spiriualities the vast majority of people on earth accept that there is some sort of higher being. Atheists scramble to undo this thinking, producing literature and holding conventions, but their efforts do little to stop the juggernaut that is humanity's tendencies towards the supernatural.

If there was no need for my worldview to exist and if nearly everyone else in the world believed in ideas that contradicted my philosophies, I would probably be defensive too. It seems the spiritual climate in the world is not that people are struggling to believe in a god, but facing difficulities in deciding which god or gods to believe in. Even those in secular lifestyles still worship material things like money and success.

For a Christian, the job seems to be half done. As God's creation, we are products of His imagation and ingenuity. It has been said that we all bare God's fingerprints and are products of His handy-work. There are various arguments to support the uniformity of nature in support of an intelligent desigin and a Deity. All that aside, Christians must realize that spirituality is familiar to all humans because it fits into our universe. God is not a fabricated safety-blanket or a ficticious cultural component, but the Producer of reality. We believe in the divine because it makes sense, and the more we found out about our universe, the more likely it is that a God made it. Some make the case that most religions are the result of people's attempt to reach out to God and understand His creation without knowing who He was or having His direct interaction. Other beliefs may be rooted in the truth but have deviations that render incapatible with God's intent.

So, it's not so much that we need to convince people that there is a God, but that we have to help those who accept the spiritual nature of life but haven't quite established God's true identity for themselves yet or have gotten sidetracked in their spritiual lifestyle.

Ecc. 3:11

Currently Gaming FIFA 08 By Electronic Arts see related

The Cycle of the Underserving

I realized something in my car the other day; the world is a nasty place. Though some may argue that there is beauty and love and happiness in the world, at its core this reality is a sad and ugly place. In fact, the only redeeming thing about our lives (happiness, etc.) comes from God and His influences in creation. I realized that the world is full of indulgence, bitterness, anger, lust, selfishness and betrayal. The world is a disgusting, distorted, cheap knock-off of God’s original intent. The cause of the decay is so obvious that many adult minds have trouble accepting it; sin. Put simply, sin is a created being existing in any facet that is contrary to God’s will. That definition may not sound very negative, but God is our Creator which means He owns us. For anyone to be in denial of that fact in thought and/or action in any way is sin. Because we are God’s property we cannot move our minds very far from His created order. It is impossible to impose an alternate reality; therefore the world simply distorts the creation they live in. They acknowledge how the world works but deny the almighty Point of the universe. They take the gifts of life and worship them instead of the One who provided. Good things are pushed out of their appropriate status and elevated above God. They are wasting their lives living in denial.

Then the Holy Spirit revealed something else; the world doesn’t deserve to have any good in it. All good gifts are from God, and for the first time, I knew that this world didn’t deserve to have godly people in it. Christians are meant to be a blessing to those outside of Christ’s family. Many try so hard to make others understand the universal quality of a relationship with God, yet people in the world continually overlook His outrageously kind acceptance. The things that can thrill for only a second are prioritized over the full, real life that fills eternity. Trash is loved over wealth, fakeness over life, filth over health. So addicted is the world to sin that it only has become its only source of comfort. The irony is that it is sin that depresses and ails and robs and kills. Yet, their spiritual senses are so far gone that they only know indulgence as the way to feel happy, so they sin again and again. They do the very things that ruin their lives in futile attempt to be content and have purpose, and when they feel the effects of it, they sin some more to try and feel better. Such creatures don’t deserve a loving God; they deserve nothing but the pain in their lives that they insist on re-generating.

Then God showed me that, while people don’t deserve to have the influence of Christians in the world, Christians likewise do not deserve to be in a relationship with God. I know who I am; I’m the man who chose garbage over treasure, artificial pleasures over God’s presence. I have betrayed God more times than I really can bear thinking about, and the crazy thing is so have you. Any man, woman or child that has sinned is a traitor to the order of the creation; a capitol crime against the King of the universe. We are not good, we do not have redeeming qualities, and we have betrayed the ultimate Love and we all deserve to die.

And yet, God is kind enough to reach out and be with us, and it’s that same kindness that causes Him to reach out and put His people in the world as His blessing. We are His gift to this realm, and just as He blessed those of us who don’t deserve to know Him, He has also blessed those in the world who live in ignorance and betray Him daily.

Our cause is not to know why we are sent, but to simply know that we are sent. Our drive is to be that blessing God intends for the undeserving world. Those people who inject themselves with sin in order to feel some petty satisfaction are the same people who desperately need to be meet their Father. As long as I’m on this planet and want to be the blessing God intended for the lost; I want His investment in my and their lives to pay off. None of us deserve God, the only difference between us and the world is that we know Him and they don’t. Let’s be God’s gift, let’s live out His intentions for us, and let’s introduce the world to their long lost Dad.