The Year of Traveling

This time last year, I found myself writing a brief summary of the year 2009 in my journal. I had failed to keep a consistent practice of updating it, and I took the free time over the Christmas holidays to write down some things to help me remember the year. It was fun, it was interesting, it was neat seeing how things had changed over the span of 360 so days. Long before it was December, I think, I decided this year would be the Year of Traveling. Oddly enough, this past year has taken me to some places my eyes have seen and feet have trod while also revealing new territories I have never seen at all. Over the year, I have seen so many things and places, beaches and mountains, and it has been a tremendous year. I had the pleasure of walking the beaches of Destin and Pensacola, Florida, even though the wind blew hard enough to cause the sand to cut. I watched fireworks under the sky of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for the Fourth of July on one of the most restful trips of my life. I visited New Albany, Mississippi (twice) to celebrate the marriage of two friends (actually, four, really), plus an unforgettable late-night escapade to Holly Springs... I sat (literally) in three different cities, Jackson, MS, Memphis, TN, and Springfield, MO, for all four sections of the CPA Exam while also getting to enjoy the company of friends and family while doing so. Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina played a part in a 12 day solo trip to visit multiple friends and one mom. I also got to see Nashville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta again later on with other friends, who I had the honor to grow closer to (and share the awesomeness of my mustache. And my JP-ness). I slept in a new warm sleeping bag in a new big tent in a new beautiful place with my old wise brother in the Sipsey Wilderness, only to return home to hop back in the car to play "Fellowship of the Ring" for a night. I also spent time in GTR, ATL, SFO, YVR, and YXY, seeing the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge while laid over in San Francisco for 6 hours, waiting for my flight to Vancouver at 6:00 A.M. before getting to spend several days driving the length of British Columbia...

It's truly been an amazing year, yet none of these travels are of any real significance. This past year I have also seen God traversing through my life, picking up burdens I did not have to carry, cutting chains that were holding me back, while placing new thoughts in my mind and revealing light to the paths He wants me to travel next. He has shown me a need for me, for my abilities, my services; He has shown me the truth about the Body of Christ: "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!" (1st Corinthians 12:21). We each have a part to play! How awesome is that? It's not that we are needed, but we are wanted! God wants us to have a part in His body. Yet another truth comes with this as well: there are billions of people in the world who do not know the love of the Father. People who wake up every day fearing men, famine, death, maybe even life, yet if they would only know to fear the Lord, the only one who can, after death, send a man to hell. What is death when you have already crossed over to life? Praise the Lord for Life indeed! (Oddly, this statement can be taken in two different ways, both of which I find applicable)

There is so much more I have learned over the past year (even more like the past five months), and I do not have the time for it now. But I do like to look at Romans 8:23-25:

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

It is so refreshing to know that Christ's work is not yet complete in us. May we all be patient in this New Year, the dear 2011, on waiting for the work God has for us.

Will You Lie With Me?

Yesterday I made a trip to the grocery store to purchase some food for myself since my parents are out of town visiting my brother and his newly born son. While I was checking out, a 20-something girl walked up, and I looked at her, smiled, and asked, "How's it going?" She replied, "It's going pretty good." I returned my attention to the cashier and while confirming that I heard her by saying, "That's good." Normal everyday life continued as I paid and moved down to collect my purchases until I heard her say, "Will you lie with me?" I dismissed the comment, thinking it was not spoken towards me except it was repeated with emphasis by adding, "Hey, will you lie with me?" I looked up and saw she was looking me directly in the face, and I was going to be forced to reply. Taken aback by the comment and trying to figure out how to respond correctly, I paused for a moment. She helped me out with a little prompting: "Well, I just lied with you, so I feel it is only polite for you to return the favor. So... will you?" Feeling the awkward pressure coming from the presence of the cashier, I only could reply "Sure," hoping I would be able to come up with a better answer before doing anything I did not really want to do. But I was stopped right there. "How are you doing," she questioned. My immediate response, "Good." She grabbed her bags and said, "Good. Hope you have a good rest of the day," and walked away without the expectation of me following or looking back.

Now, this is a very bizarre story, and funny enough, not all of it is true. In fact, there are a lot of lies in this story. First, I did not go to the grocery store; my dad buys food as if we will need to survive two weeks. Second, the cashier was not really a cashier, but the manager; they were short staffed. Third, the girl I spoke to was not good. In fact, judging by the redness in her face, the ice cream in her buggy, and the copy of "When Harry Met Sally" in her hand, she had either just had a fight with her boyfriend and/or they had terminated their relationship. And fourth, the nervous tension in my body and the hidden pregnancy test in my jacket pocket would tell you I was not all that hot myself.

DISCLAIMER: this is NOT some subliminal cry for help, nor have I gotten a girl pregnant. That comment was purely for effect.

However, I would say this is a very common situation. Look at the question she asked again: "Will you lie with me?" The word lie has two meanings: 1) to rest or recline upon an object, and 2) to speak falsely (these are loose definitions). Which do you think she was using? I have had several conversations with friend about how we hate the question "How are you doing" because we ask it or get asked it, and lies are the responses. It is a knee-jerk reflex to say "Good". In most cases, you would probably find that if someone knew the reply would be different than that, they would not ask the question. It locks us into caring about something we do not truly care about. Of course there is a need for us to care for sure, but that is not what I am writing about today.

Think of how often not telling the truth complicates our lives. It hurts relationships, destroys friendships, breaks marriages. And how often is our motivation "to protect someone"? How often does that work? What about when it is to protect ourselves? Fails just as much. But how good is the truth! In Ephesians 4 and 5, Paul writes to us about being Children of Light. Verses 4:20-24 spell out how the Ephesians came into being with Christ, by putting off the old self, being made new in the attitude of your minds, and putting on the new self, and following directly after: "Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are members of one body."(v.25) For the rest of the 4th chapter and the beginning of the 5th, we see the calling of the children of light, to be imitators of God, to be without the fruit of sin, culminating in 5:8-14:

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful to even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:

'Wake up, O sleeper,

rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.'"

I'll be honest, I have not quite figured out exactly what verse 12 means in relation within this passage, but I have discovered for myself the goodness of being truthful and confessing my sins to others, allowing them to see inside my my heart. And when this happens, I see a body of believers who DO care for each other and long to help one another. And I do not see, but feel the presence of my fellow soldiers on my left and on my right as we follow our savior into battle, in our war against sin and the flesh. We have died with Christ, and we have risen with Christ; sin is no longer to be a part of us. But when we separate ourselves from the body, when we push away from it with our lies and half-truths, Satan sweeps in and destroys us.

In the movie "Gladiator", the recreation of Battle of Carthage shows the men staying together as a unit while those standing alone were struck down. Let us praise God for the forgiveness he has for those who venture out, and may we learn to stand together against the forces of evil.

Moonshine and Christmas Songs

So there is no doubt one would say I am a hopeless romantic. I don't know when it really started, but at some point in my life, I discovered I had a very sentimental way of viewing things, of thinking of ways to please and surprise a non-existent girlfriend that I always wanted, and at times when I did have a girlfriend, I would put some of those things in practice, probably usually seeming stalker-ish or strange, never being told so because the girl probably enjoyed being doted upon and liked the attention (seriously, who doesn't like attention from someone, especially the opposite sex). So every night when I look at the moon, be it full or just a sliver, I find myself immediately longing for someone to share the moment with, even if the moment is just walking back to my car from a friend's.

But tonight in particular, I discovered something about myself I maybe have known for a time, brief or extended, yet never really examined. I am in love with the idea of being in love. Crazy, right? But it's NOT! Oh how I long to have someone to hold, someone who cares about me, someone to write (I constantly say I hope to avoid using the phone in my next relationship, but we'll see), someone to love... But is that what God wants? Does he want us to love love or to love another person not as we love ourselves, no, even more than we love ourselves. Man, that is difficult to think about.

I don't always feel lonely, I'd even say rarely, and to keep me from doing so I try to remember these words from a friend of mine: "Saying you are lonely is like saying, 'God is not enough.'" Something like that. I try to remember that so often because God IS enough! He is so much more than enough. I do not want to date God or anything silly like that; no, I long to know my God, to seek Him out, to obey His commands, to follow His will, all of which I struggle at, and I continuously need Him to help me with. But I know that if I pursue Him, and He has it in His will for me, He will give me a wife to glorify and praise Him with, and if he doesn't, He will give me a heart to glorify and praise Him with all the same. I just know that knowing Him is so, so, so much more than loving the idea of being in love and chasing someone who MIGHT fit into the mold I have created for myself.

As for Christmas Songs, they sometimes have the same effect on me. I really wanted to say more on them, but I don't feel like talking about them now. You'd even think I might remove them from the title, but "Moonshine and Christmas Songs just rolls off the tongue too well. Except I imagine no one has actually said them out loud while reading this. I sure didn't while I was writing. What stupid logic...

Time Value of Money

"The most powerful force in the world is compound interest." - Albert Einstein

I have also heard that Einstein also called the Time Value of Money the 8th wonder of the world. And it is pretty amazing. Let's say I invested $1000 right now, and it earned 8% annually (which is unreal today), compounding. I'm 23, so I'll let it sit until I'm 53, a good 30 years. When I pull it out, it will be $10000. Just for letting money sit there. Let's say 10%: ~$17500. 20%: ~$237400! Crazy, huh?

So for those of you who are like, "JP, what are you talking about," this is where I'm going. I heard a man speak this past Saturday on discipleship and disciple-making. He kind of used an illustration like this. What started by taking the world's population today of 6.857 billion (rounded for ease) and said, "If we were able to bring 10000 people to the Lord everyday, it would take approximately 1877 years to save them all." That's a long time. But, he proposed, "what if every year I discipled 5 guys, then those guys discipled 5 more, and those 5 more, all the while continuing to disciple another 5 guys each year myself?" So one man makes 5 disciples like himself, what kind of return is that? 500%! It would be absolutely preposterous to see return like that in the financial world!!! So if we apply the concept of Time Value of Money, changing the terms to 1 disciple puts himself into a process which returns 500%. For 1 year: 6 disciples; 2 yrs.: 36 disciples; 5 yrs.: (catch this) 7776. Wait, what? 1 guy, 5 years of discipling 5 guys, results in 7776 disciples? No way! Well, it gets better. 6 yrs.: 46656; 7: 279936; 8: 1679616; 9: 10077696. So at some point between 8 and 9 years, the entire world would be a disciple. Even the population growth rates cannot over come this kind of return!

While this is a ideal model of discipleship, not accounting for death of disciples or others not going on to discipling 5 each time, seeing the possible effect of 1 man is staggering... One man... In 2nd Timothy 2:2, Paul tells Timothy: "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others." It's amazing to see how far one man's life can make a difference...

Here's to you, Josh

I hope this makes you HAPPY!!!!

Control

When it seems like you have no control over your life and everything is going crazy, more than likely it is the fact that you ARE in control when you shouldn't be causing the problem. Suck on that, self...

State of Nature

So this past spring, I took a class called Sales Management. It was not a difficult class, taking it as a MBA elective, and it did not require too much: four tests, four case problem write-ups, and multiple class participation grades. At the end of the semester, when I went to ask my professor a question about the last case write-up, he informed me it was not necessary for me to even complete the case, for I had an A without the 25 points. It was a good feeling.
Yet these case write-ups played an important role in my education. See, these write-ups included three components: a problem, alternatives, and a recommended solution. The first case I did for the class I made a 20 out of 25 because my problem was not a state of nature. While I was "upset" about my 20, I learned something very important when I met with my professor. He told me, "All of these things you have said are issues, symptoms of the problem, something stemming from the problem. But a true state of nature can be determined by asking, 'If I solve this, will it solve all of these symptoms?'"
Of course, my first thought is, "How can any solution fix every issue or problem? That's about impossible." But altogether, the statement makes a great deal of sense. Now, I might not have been the best at choosing states of nature in my Sales Management class, but I did learn something very important: a problem must be corrected at the root. Unless the state of nature is changed, symptoms will only continue to arise. Once the problem is fixed, the other issues will dissipate.

Oh the things we'll do...

...For the women in our lives. Yet do not be deceived by this statement, for I do not speak of a new love in my life, or a new chase, or whatever. Actually, I speak of my job and the women I work with; this past year I have been working at The Learning Center as the Graduate Assistant, doing all kinds of work, from grading tests, making copies, tutoring students, moving boxes, cleaning, and many other things, mainly doing whatever my boss asks me to do. But honestly, I would gladly do almost anything she asked of me (anything is a strong word), and it makes me happy to serve her and the center. It also pleases me to serve our secretary and the other individuals I work with, instructors of the learning skills courses that the TLC offers. It has truly been a blessing to have the chance to work with these people for the last nine months, and I will truly miss them when I leave.

Dear Xanga

I can't believe I am doing this. I don't much know why I am doing this for that matter. Yet I think it is safe to say the Xanga Era has ended. Course I think Google Reader is a big enabler in this happening as well. Poor Snickers...

As for me, this has been an interesting year for me. A lot has happened that I would never have expected, and a lot has failed to happen. Today, I received the first of four grades for the semester, and I am three A's away from a 4.00 GPA for my last semester of graduate school. How quickly it has gone by. A year ago, oh how I wanted school to be over. I was exhausted with school, but as May 1st approaches, I realize I have enjoyed this past year immensely. Creating new friendships, continuing old ones, rekindling even older ones, and learning how to say goodbye for now.

The time has also exposed me to things I believe I probably would not have experienced until I entered the world. That has been one of the most important factors to this period of time, and learning how to cope with that has been a trying thing.

For now, I do not know what the future has in store for me, or more importantly, what God has in store for me. I have yet to start worrying, but the time will come soon enough.

I do not know if it will work or not, but I have included the link for my dear Snickers below. I hope to click "Publish" and see him dancing across my screen. Otherwise, I will be very sad. Farewell, my dear Xanga. You served diligently.

adopt your own virtual pet!