This is an excerpt from the story I am writing. This characters role is like that of Jezebel or Herodias, kniving and manipulative. Hope you enjoy :)
God Bless
Greg
P.S. Vivian helped me a bit on this section, so you can give her some credit too.
"The horse was black in colour, even it's eyes were dark and empty. It was fitted with a golden bit and harness. All the fastenings and hoops were golden and the reins were laced with tiny silver threads that seemed to shimmer in the light of the lanterns. The horn on the saddle was a massive diamond and precious stones of all types ran along the edges. The saddle itself was laced with tiny platinum threads and it too seemed to glimmer in the light, but it was a much more mystifying and dark shimmer, as if the saddle had something to hide. The horses hooves were shoed with silver and gold intertwined with each other and they seemed to be the only feature that you could see clearly in the darkness. Maeve herself wore storm-blue culottes which loosely hugged her hips and thighs. They had dark green threads woven through them and ran right to her ankles. Gradually becoming transparent as they went down her leg, the culottes started to appear translucent at about the mid-thigh and were almost completely see-through as they reached her ankles. The fabric, even at her ankles, was much stronger and much more durable than cotton and yet, softer than silk. She wore a long sleeved cardigan that was knotted just below her breasts, revealing a very smooth, bare midriff. Flaunting a rather stunning bust, the cardigan was also storm-blue in colour, with dark green threads running through the fabric. Encircling her waist was an elaborate platinum-gold cincture of dragons joined at the front by a small silver buckle of the serpent-torch symbol. Most of her long blonde hair was put up in a bun while the rest hung down to her shoulder blades in an elegant fashion. The bun was held in place by a platinum clasp that bore the same serpent-torch symbol as her cincture. Her brow was gently dusted with a fine golden powder that accented the glimmer in her emerald green eyes. Dark honey-toned skin gave her an exotic quality that allured all who beheld her. Her narrow face was accented with finely shaped cheek bones and a perfectly regal chin. Only the slightest bit of scarlet decorated her lips while the blush of her cheeks delicately heightened her natural beauty. Her quaint ears were adorned with half-moon platinum earrings that danced and twirled with her every movement. She sat very tall on her horse despite standing just over 5 feet tall, and was of a slender build. A silver necklace with the half-moon pendant hung around her neck, dancing softly amidst her slightly exposed chest. On her right hand, her middle and ring fingers were adorned with elegant white-gold rings: one bore the symbol of a dragon clutching a dark red ruby in it's talons, while the other had the serpent swallowing the torch from the bottom, it's eyes fixed with tiny amber stones. Her beauty caused all who saw her as they entered the gates to stop what they were doing and stare."
11.08.2007
10.22.2007
The sum of what I have learned
Hey there,
So, if you've been reading my blogs lately, you'd know that I've been writing about something I have been learning lately. You'd also know that it is a little confusing and unclear as I was still trying to understand what I was indeed learning. I believe the Lord has given me that understanding to put it all together and make sense of what I had come to realize.
So, the path to understanding started by asking myself "Why? Why do we as humans always want to understand things? Why do we always want to understand what to do, what not to do, what God allows, and what God doesn't allow? Why do we always want to understand 'how' to live out a life that is 'for' God? Why do we want to understand what His standards are?" The reason I had begun asking these questions was because something deep inside of me was tired of simply understanding what I should and shouldn't do. That kind of understanding has proven to be useless to me for becoming the man I truly want to be. This you know from my posts, I was tired of simply understanding things, I wanted my faith go so far beyond simply understanding and simply being obedient to the standards that I have come to understood are set by God. In answering this question "Why do we always want to understand things?" the Lord revealed something that I had completely missed.
You see, all throughout the New Testament, the Lord tells us that the Law He gave to the Israelites was meant to prove a point to us, that we couldn't fulfill the law, that no matter how 'perfect' we were, we'd never be perfect enough because we'd always be lacking in one small area somewhere. I take my example from those very complex verses found in Romans 1:18 through to 8:17. For simplicity sake, I will only quote those verses that speak the most about what I am going to say, as I can't really quote 5 whole chapters. Case in point, Romans 3:19-20 "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." Through the commandment we only become conscious of our sin, in itself it holds no power for us to conquer sin. Romans 7:18 "...For I have the desire to do what is good, but not the power." I then began to ask another question "Where does sin come from then if God only introduced the Law to make me aware of my sinfulness?" And the answer to this took me back further, right to the beginning, to the very cause of our disobedience to Him. God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden. He also created every living tree and animal and placed them in the garden as well. Two of those trees were in the centre. One was called "The Tree of Life" and the other "The Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil" God told Adam that he was not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but mentioned nothing about the Tree of Life. Genesis 2:16-17 "And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." In this statement, I have always asked God why he only commnded them not to eat from the one tree but not the Tree of Life and the answer that came to me was this. Before Adam and Eve ate from the tree, I believe they spent many hours and days walking through the gardens talking with God and communicating with Him. They spent time in communion with God, in HIs presence BEFORE they understood His nature and His holiness. However, God knew that if they ate from the tree of the good and evil, they would come to understand who He was and what His holiness required of them for them to stand in His presence. Genesis 3:6 " When the woman saw that the fruit was pleasing to the eye and also desireable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it." What wisdom could that be other than the 'wisdom' of the standards that God has for us to be in His presence? It was not necessary for Adam and Eve to understand these things, for in understanding, our natural tendancy is to then try and fulfill those standards ourselves. I might add here that it is only God who can live up to His 'standards'. Indeed, it is not something He meets by trying Himself, it is simply in His nature. "God does not conform Himself to those standards, He is the standard." That is a quote from A.W.Tozer I think, I cannot remember what it is called. Why could adam and Eve be in His presence before they ate the fruit? well, I can only guess it is because they met those standards not because they tried, but because it was simply in their nature as well. This will be more clear as I go on, bbut they met those standards by default, because they were spending time with God and had His life in their hearts. From Adam to Moses, man was not aware of their sinfulness. Indeed, they may have known deep in their heart what God's standards were, but they did not know how they broke those standards, so He sent Moses and the Law to show us how utterly sinful we are, to show us where and how we break those standards. Romans 5:12-14 "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come."
Just to clear something up, let me ask a few more questions. Why, if there was no written 'law', was Adam's sin and the sin of all those to follow him, counted against them? If the verse above is correct, "But sin is not taken into account when there is no law." why were the patriarchs and the people before Moses judged as being sinful in the eyes of God? You can look it up yourself, but there is a verse where Paul discusses the gentiles and how some of them are more righteous than the Jews because they obey the Law without knowing what the written law is, simply because 'it is written on their hearts.' So, I think the case is the same with the rest of mankind, even though we might not have the written law like the Jews, we do know in our hearts what is right and what is wrong.
So all this being said, you might be wondering how then we can be obedient to these standards, if the Law that was meant to show us clearly what they were and how we broke them, didn't bring the power necessary to be obedient. Well, therein lies why Christ came for us and how the rest of Romans falls into place and begins to make sense.
As I said, I cannot quote all of Romans, you will have to read it yourself and pick out most of things I refer to. For the sake of arguing why Christ is the key to all this, take a look at Romans 5:6 "...when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." You see, what I have come to know and understand includes so much more than just the Ten Commandments and the O.T. law. Even today, I see Christians entering into a religion where they say they are free from the Law but decieve themselves into simply changing the context of those commandments into a N.T. light. Things like "What would Jesus do" still imply me trying to fit myself and do for myself what I think Christ would have done in the same situation. It's still a standard we live by. We say to ourselves "To be a christian means we have to do this and this and this and this." We have masked them and instead of calling them 'commandments' we call them 'ideals and morals'. Christ came to set us free from having to perform, from having to meet a set of standards. Romans 3:27 "...For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law." If I begin to sound like Paul, it is because I finally understand what he meant. So we are justified by faith apart from observing the law, there is nothing we can do oursleves that can justify us more. To me, that has come to mean that I no longer have to try and comform myself to "WWJD?" I am not justified by trying to do that. I am set free from having to conform myself to any set of standards and I am justified by faith. You might ask then, as Paul brings up a couple times elsewhere "Well does that mean then that I can ignore the law and do what I please? Does that mean the Christ came to abolish the law?" By no means whatsoever! This may sound contradictng, but we still have to meet those standards; God is still God, He did not change Himself so that He can accept sin in His presence. And Christ most certainly did not come to abolish the law, he rather came to uphold the law. Take a look at Romans 3:31 "Do we then nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the Law." And in Romans 2:13 it says "For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the Law who will be declared righteous." Now, this is where I began to ask myself, and I ams ure you have too, that if I am justified by faith apart from observing the law, why is it that Paul says it is only those who obey the law that will be declared righteous? Why does he say that by being justified by faith, we uphold the Law? How can the two exist together? It seems impossible doesn't it? But that's because i was thinking of this purely in human terms. The key's to this mainly lie in Romans 6-8. I already quoted text from Romans 7, that very confusing capter that can e summed up to this. "I have the will, the desire to do what is right because the Law made me aware of my sinfulness, but the power to do what is right is not there. The power to do what is right does not reside in the Law because the sinful nature caused the law to rise up in us all kinds of sinful passions." Of course, that is paraphrased. Now the answer of this for me was to remeber the role of Christ. This is where all of this, everything that I have said, all comes together and makes me boil over with excitement. You see, in what the law was powerless to do, Christ came in power and set us free. It is through His power that we can meet the standards of God. Hear me out, I know you've heard all this before and are probably thinking "so what?". It took a radical and dramatic shift into how I see all this playing out to make me realize what that power actually is. You see, it is recorded all over the N.T. especially Romans, that Christ came to give us a new nature, that we live by the Spirit and not the sinful nature etc. What is that new nature? Was it not God's desire to have us restored as we were before the fall of Adam? Why are we Justified by faith and not by works? This nature that is described in the N.T. is the nature that Adam and Eve had before the fall, it is God's desires, God's heart implanted in our own heart. Why does this matter, how do we fulfill His standards? It becomes not something we do on our own strength, indeed, Adam and Eve did not even know they were fulfilling His standards the whole time they were walking with Him. You see, as we spend time with Christ, we should, through His power, be conformed to those standards WITHOUT US EVEN KNOWING IT. Instead of something we TRY to do, it becomes something we do by DEFAULT. Because we're in His PRESENCE. When I understood that, I began to understand why it is not necessary to know right from wrong but because of Adam, we now know the difference. You see, by having faith in Christ we are justified. We uphold the law and agree that it is good not because we try, but because it becomes something we do by nature. It doesn't nullify the Law or God's standards in any way shape or form. THAT is true faith, that is why I want to never stop pushing into Christ and getting to know Him. You see, when we push into Him, our desires change. We stop wanting to do those things of the sinful nature because we know more and more what those do to us and how much it hurts God to see us in them.
Some would ask, "Then does this not take away from our freedom of choice? If we obey God's commandments by default, by nature, then why does that not eliminate our free will?" It doesn't. I will use the pizza example again. I used to love Pizza, I ate it a lot when i was growing up. However, I developed an intolerance to lactose 2 years ago and now, whenever i eat pizza, i get incredibly sick. As a result, I choose not to eat pizza because I simply have no desire to. My choice to eat or not eat is there but I choose not to because I know it will make me sick and I have no desire. In fact, I don't even consider eating cheese topped pizza an option anymore, simply because I want nothing to do with it. That is the same with this, we can still choose to be disobedient, but as we press into Christ, that urge and desire becomes less and less and we begin to consider, like me with the pizza, that sin just isn't even an option anymore. So we obey by nature, by default not because we desire to meet a standard but because God has so impacted our hearts that we don't even consider that separating ourselvs from Him is a viable option anymore. Not anything we do, but what God has done in us. I hope that is much clearer than all my other posts. I must get to bed soon.
Just do this for me, pray and ask the Lord to show you what is truth and what is not. And then, take what I have said here, about how we're justified by faith and yet still uphold the law and read Romans 1 through to 8:17 and maybe you will come to understand as I have.
God Bless
Gregory
So, if you've been reading my blogs lately, you'd know that I've been writing about something I have been learning lately. You'd also know that it is a little confusing and unclear as I was still trying to understand what I was indeed learning. I believe the Lord has given me that understanding to put it all together and make sense of what I had come to realize.
So, the path to understanding started by asking myself "Why? Why do we as humans always want to understand things? Why do we always want to understand what to do, what not to do, what God allows, and what God doesn't allow? Why do we always want to understand 'how' to live out a life that is 'for' God? Why do we want to understand what His standards are?" The reason I had begun asking these questions was because something deep inside of me was tired of simply understanding what I should and shouldn't do. That kind of understanding has proven to be useless to me for becoming the man I truly want to be. This you know from my posts, I was tired of simply understanding things, I wanted my faith go so far beyond simply understanding and simply being obedient to the standards that I have come to understood are set by God. In answering this question "Why do we always want to understand things?" the Lord revealed something that I had completely missed.
You see, all throughout the New Testament, the Lord tells us that the Law He gave to the Israelites was meant to prove a point to us, that we couldn't fulfill the law, that no matter how 'perfect' we were, we'd never be perfect enough because we'd always be lacking in one small area somewhere. I take my example from those very complex verses found in Romans 1:18 through to 8:17. For simplicity sake, I will only quote those verses that speak the most about what I am going to say, as I can't really quote 5 whole chapters. Case in point, Romans 3:19-20 "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." Through the commandment we only become conscious of our sin, in itself it holds no power for us to conquer sin. Romans 7:18 "...For I have the desire to do what is good, but not the power." I then began to ask another question "Where does sin come from then if God only introduced the Law to make me aware of my sinfulness?" And the answer to this took me back further, right to the beginning, to the very cause of our disobedience to Him. God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden. He also created every living tree and animal and placed them in the garden as well. Two of those trees were in the centre. One was called "The Tree of Life" and the other "The Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil" God told Adam that he was not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but mentioned nothing about the Tree of Life. Genesis 2:16-17 "And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." In this statement, I have always asked God why he only commnded them not to eat from the one tree but not the Tree of Life and the answer that came to me was this. Before Adam and Eve ate from the tree, I believe they spent many hours and days walking through the gardens talking with God and communicating with Him. They spent time in communion with God, in HIs presence BEFORE they understood His nature and His holiness. However, God knew that if they ate from the tree of the good and evil, they would come to understand who He was and what His holiness required of them for them to stand in His presence. Genesis 3:6 " When the woman saw that the fruit was pleasing to the eye and also desireable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it." What wisdom could that be other than the 'wisdom' of the standards that God has for us to be in His presence? It was not necessary for Adam and Eve to understand these things, for in understanding, our natural tendancy is to then try and fulfill those standards ourselves. I might add here that it is only God who can live up to His 'standards'. Indeed, it is not something He meets by trying Himself, it is simply in His nature. "God does not conform Himself to those standards, He is the standard." That is a quote from A.W.Tozer I think, I cannot remember what it is called. Why could adam and Eve be in His presence before they ate the fruit? well, I can only guess it is because they met those standards not because they tried, but because it was simply in their nature as well. This will be more clear as I go on, bbut they met those standards by default, because they were spending time with God and had His life in their hearts. From Adam to Moses, man was not aware of their sinfulness. Indeed, they may have known deep in their heart what God's standards were, but they did not know how they broke those standards, so He sent Moses and the Law to show us how utterly sinful we are, to show us where and how we break those standards. Romans 5:12-14 "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come."
Just to clear something up, let me ask a few more questions. Why, if there was no written 'law', was Adam's sin and the sin of all those to follow him, counted against them? If the verse above is correct, "But sin is not taken into account when there is no law." why were the patriarchs and the people before Moses judged as being sinful in the eyes of God? You can look it up yourself, but there is a verse where Paul discusses the gentiles and how some of them are more righteous than the Jews because they obey the Law without knowing what the written law is, simply because 'it is written on their hearts.' So, I think the case is the same with the rest of mankind, even though we might not have the written law like the Jews, we do know in our hearts what is right and what is wrong.
So all this being said, you might be wondering how then we can be obedient to these standards, if the Law that was meant to show us clearly what they were and how we broke them, didn't bring the power necessary to be obedient. Well, therein lies why Christ came for us and how the rest of Romans falls into place and begins to make sense.
As I said, I cannot quote all of Romans, you will have to read it yourself and pick out most of things I refer to. For the sake of arguing why Christ is the key to all this, take a look at Romans 5:6 "...when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." You see, what I have come to know and understand includes so much more than just the Ten Commandments and the O.T. law. Even today, I see Christians entering into a religion where they say they are free from the Law but decieve themselves into simply changing the context of those commandments into a N.T. light. Things like "What would Jesus do" still imply me trying to fit myself and do for myself what I think Christ would have done in the same situation. It's still a standard we live by. We say to ourselves "To be a christian means we have to do this and this and this and this." We have masked them and instead of calling them 'commandments' we call them 'ideals and morals'. Christ came to set us free from having to perform, from having to meet a set of standards. Romans 3:27 "...For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law." If I begin to sound like Paul, it is because I finally understand what he meant. So we are justified by faith apart from observing the law, there is nothing we can do oursleves that can justify us more. To me, that has come to mean that I no longer have to try and comform myself to "WWJD?" I am not justified by trying to do that. I am set free from having to conform myself to any set of standards and I am justified by faith. You might ask then, as Paul brings up a couple times elsewhere "Well does that mean then that I can ignore the law and do what I please? Does that mean the Christ came to abolish the law?" By no means whatsoever! This may sound contradictng, but we still have to meet those standards; God is still God, He did not change Himself so that He can accept sin in His presence. And Christ most certainly did not come to abolish the law, he rather came to uphold the law. Take a look at Romans 3:31 "Do we then nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the Law." And in Romans 2:13 it says "For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the Law who will be declared righteous." Now, this is where I began to ask myself, and I ams ure you have too, that if I am justified by faith apart from observing the law, why is it that Paul says it is only those who obey the law that will be declared righteous? Why does he say that by being justified by faith, we uphold the Law? How can the two exist together? It seems impossible doesn't it? But that's because i was thinking of this purely in human terms. The key's to this mainly lie in Romans 6-8. I already quoted text from Romans 7, that very confusing capter that can e summed up to this. "I have the will, the desire to do what is right because the Law made me aware of my sinfulness, but the power to do what is right is not there. The power to do what is right does not reside in the Law because the sinful nature caused the law to rise up in us all kinds of sinful passions." Of course, that is paraphrased. Now the answer of this for me was to remeber the role of Christ. This is where all of this, everything that I have said, all comes together and makes me boil over with excitement. You see, in what the law was powerless to do, Christ came in power and set us free. It is through His power that we can meet the standards of God. Hear me out, I know you've heard all this before and are probably thinking "so what?". It took a radical and dramatic shift into how I see all this playing out to make me realize what that power actually is. You see, it is recorded all over the N.T. especially Romans, that Christ came to give us a new nature, that we live by the Spirit and not the sinful nature etc. What is that new nature? Was it not God's desire to have us restored as we were before the fall of Adam? Why are we Justified by faith and not by works? This nature that is described in the N.T. is the nature that Adam and Eve had before the fall, it is God's desires, God's heart implanted in our own heart. Why does this matter, how do we fulfill His standards? It becomes not something we do on our own strength, indeed, Adam and Eve did not even know they were fulfilling His standards the whole time they were walking with Him. You see, as we spend time with Christ, we should, through His power, be conformed to those standards WITHOUT US EVEN KNOWING IT. Instead of something we TRY to do, it becomes something we do by DEFAULT. Because we're in His PRESENCE. When I understood that, I began to understand why it is not necessary to know right from wrong but because of Adam, we now know the difference. You see, by having faith in Christ we are justified. We uphold the law and agree that it is good not because we try, but because it becomes something we do by nature. It doesn't nullify the Law or God's standards in any way shape or form. THAT is true faith, that is why I want to never stop pushing into Christ and getting to know Him. You see, when we push into Him, our desires change. We stop wanting to do those things of the sinful nature because we know more and more what those do to us and how much it hurts God to see us in them.
Some would ask, "Then does this not take away from our freedom of choice? If we obey God's commandments by default, by nature, then why does that not eliminate our free will?" It doesn't. I will use the pizza example again. I used to love Pizza, I ate it a lot when i was growing up. However, I developed an intolerance to lactose 2 years ago and now, whenever i eat pizza, i get incredibly sick. As a result, I choose not to eat pizza because I simply have no desire to. My choice to eat or not eat is there but I choose not to because I know it will make me sick and I have no desire. In fact, I don't even consider eating cheese topped pizza an option anymore, simply because I want nothing to do with it. That is the same with this, we can still choose to be disobedient, but as we press into Christ, that urge and desire becomes less and less and we begin to consider, like me with the pizza, that sin just isn't even an option anymore. So we obey by nature, by default not because we desire to meet a standard but because God has so impacted our hearts that we don't even consider that separating ourselvs from Him is a viable option anymore. Not anything we do, but what God has done in us. I hope that is much clearer than all my other posts. I must get to bed soon.
Just do this for me, pray and ask the Lord to show you what is truth and what is not. And then, take what I have said here, about how we're justified by faith and yet still uphold the law and read Romans 1 through to 8:17 and maybe you will come to understand as I have.
God Bless
Gregory
10.17.2007
I remembered how to dream
Hey there,
So many memories are flooding back right now. I have bee plagued by a shadow for so long, I had forgotten who I was and who I am meant to be and it took the dreams of a beautiful young woman to wake me up from my stupor. I remember what it's like to dream again, only this time I am beginning to act on those dreams, they are no longer stale. I've written in many journal entries before that I've wanted my life to mean something, that I have wanted to write something totally amazing, something that will shock the world and make it stand in awe of God and begin to ask questions about faith. Such a thing would be so incredible indeed. I've even began to dream about that girl again. If you don't know which girl I am referring to (and you probably don't) she is someone that I used to dream about all the time. I've never met her in person or through MSN, Myspace, Blogspot, or CCNet, and yet I still dreamt about her on a number of occasions. She's white with long, dark black, wavy hair and deep blue eyes. You see, when I dreamt about her all those years ago, I was in a place where I longed to just learn as much as I could about God, about life, about people. It was during a time when my sole desire was to get to know God in an incredible way. I wanted to be His friend like Adam was His friend in the garden of Eden. And everything about this world fascinated me to no end. I wanted to know every culture, wanted to learn every language, wanted to help people in a real way, in a way that mattered. It took Vivian's dreams, her dreams to go to Belfast and her reasons for going, to wake me up. I had been so lost, I had lost the person I was and it affected me so. It's not as if I am going back to the way I was, no this time it is different. This time, I am armed with an understanding of the faith that the Lord wants me to have. That this life is not about rules, what to do and what not to do, but it's aboout relationship; to be close with Him. My only prayer is that the Lord would be with me, that HIs Spirit would rest upon me to empower and enable me to make an impact on this world like I have always wanted to. It's a different world that I step into today, it's a world of opportunity and possibility, one of hope and not despair. May I bring light and hope to those places that need it the most, may Christ's light shine all the brighter and may His presence be seen on me by others. May my words be sweet to the ears and light tot he soul, that men may come to know Him through them. That i my prayer, and I humbly ask that they be fulfilled. Forgiv me for the wrongs I have done and still do Lord, please, let your Spirit come upon me and give me the strength and desire not to do them anymore. I kneel at your throne, awaiting your command and your blessing.
Yours always,
Gregory Benedict Murray
So many memories are flooding back right now. I have bee plagued by a shadow for so long, I had forgotten who I was and who I am meant to be and it took the dreams of a beautiful young woman to wake me up from my stupor. I remember what it's like to dream again, only this time I am beginning to act on those dreams, they are no longer stale. I've written in many journal entries before that I've wanted my life to mean something, that I have wanted to write something totally amazing, something that will shock the world and make it stand in awe of God and begin to ask questions about faith. Such a thing would be so incredible indeed. I've even began to dream about that girl again. If you don't know which girl I am referring to (and you probably don't) she is someone that I used to dream about all the time. I've never met her in person or through MSN, Myspace, Blogspot, or CCNet, and yet I still dreamt about her on a number of occasions. She's white with long, dark black, wavy hair and deep blue eyes. You see, when I dreamt about her all those years ago, I was in a place where I longed to just learn as much as I could about God, about life, about people. It was during a time when my sole desire was to get to know God in an incredible way. I wanted to be His friend like Adam was His friend in the garden of Eden. And everything about this world fascinated me to no end. I wanted to know every culture, wanted to learn every language, wanted to help people in a real way, in a way that mattered. It took Vivian's dreams, her dreams to go to Belfast and her reasons for going, to wake me up. I had been so lost, I had lost the person I was and it affected me so. It's not as if I am going back to the way I was, no this time it is different. This time, I am armed with an understanding of the faith that the Lord wants me to have. That this life is not about rules, what to do and what not to do, but it's aboout relationship; to be close with Him. My only prayer is that the Lord would be with me, that HIs Spirit would rest upon me to empower and enable me to make an impact on this world like I have always wanted to. It's a different world that I step into today, it's a world of opportunity and possibility, one of hope and not despair. May I bring light and hope to those places that need it the most, may Christ's light shine all the brighter and may His presence be seen on me by others. May my words be sweet to the ears and light tot he soul, that men may come to know Him through them. That i my prayer, and I humbly ask that they be fulfilled. Forgiv me for the wrongs I have done and still do Lord, please, let your Spirit come upon me and give me the strength and desire not to do them anymore. I kneel at your throne, awaiting your command and your blessing.
Yours always,
Gregory Benedict Murray
10.15.2007
A dream
I had had a very weird dream last night. It's not often that my dreams disturb me or make me uncomfortable, but this one did. I don't remember all of the exact details (they were gone from my memory when I woke up) but I remember the gist of it. I was a doctor in some very remote village in the jungle. There was this man and a few people who followed him that placed themselves in charge of the village. He wasn't from the village, like myself, he was from a sophisticated society and he controlled this village for some odd reason. I guess as the doctor, I had suspicions about the way in which some people fell ill or were dying. I can't remember the exact circumstances, but I ended up treating someone and discovered something. I could cure the disease but this guy didn't want me to and I guess on my way to look for the cure, this guy brought his friends and these tracking dogs and big machine guns and were trying to catch and either imprison or kill me. I ended up sliding down this steep embankment, covered with large fern-like plants, big trees, moss and all the jungle stuff you'd see. Anyways, it ended at this cliff and at the bottom was a river that passed through my home town. So I jumped into the river and floated away. I guess I hadn't seen my family (I was married) in years and when I got to my town, i got out of the river and ran to my house. I was being chased by a supposed friend of mine who wanted to take me back to the village and who was saying that I wasn't allowed to see my family. Our house was like a trailer and had a small yard/entrance way with a white picket fence. As this friend of mine was trying to catch me, my son came running home from school and saw me and ran towards me. My friend caught up to me, as I had stopped and was yelling out for my son to come to me. My son reached me and I embraced him, crying. Seeing as my son had saw me, my friend allowed me to go inside the house, where my wife was. I guess it had been years since we had seen eachother, she (like the girl i always dream about) had long black hair, was caucasian, and very beautiful. Only, this time her hair had a hint of grey, as we were both older. I embraced her, crying. She was so happy to see me and to see that I was back but it was short lived because I was being forced to go back to this village in the jungle. I had two children, a son and a daughter, who surprisingly weren't that old, and I so desperately wanted to stay with my family. My wife didn't want me to go either so I had said that I would cooperate only if they could come with me. My friend said that the guy in the village didn't need my wife for anything, he needed a doctor, but I guess my wife was currently in the process of learning to be a doctor. She didn't have much more time left before she was finished and I remeber saying goodbye but not like before, I knew I'd see her again. And then my friend took me up to the marina on the river, where we'd take a boat back up to the village. I really did not want to go back there, I knew my wife and children needed me at home and felt robbed and helpless that I was being taken away from them again. I also didn't want them in that vilalge with me either, but my desire to be with them to protect them was greater. I was a prisoner in every sense of the word; even though i was free to go anywhere and do anything in the village i had come from, I was still a prisoner.
I should have mentioned this in church, but I was so tired I couldn't think clearly at all. I slept while I waited for the ferry, slept on the ferry, got home, had a little something for lunch, and then slept from 3-7. I don't know why I was so tired, I've had less sleep than that before and been more awake, but yeah. I'm not saying I think there is a meaning to this one (it is no more strange than all my other dreams that I have, like the one i had between 3 and 7) but for some reason, when i woke up I felt a heaviness and i rarely ever get that from my dreams... a heaviness.
Anyways, if you're the praying type, say a little prayer for me
TTYL
Greg
I should have mentioned this in church, but I was so tired I couldn't think clearly at all. I slept while I waited for the ferry, slept on the ferry, got home, had a little something for lunch, and then slept from 3-7. I don't know why I was so tired, I've had less sleep than that before and been more awake, but yeah. I'm not saying I think there is a meaning to this one (it is no more strange than all my other dreams that I have, like the one i had between 3 and 7) but for some reason, when i woke up I felt a heaviness and i rarely ever get that from my dreams... a heaviness.
Anyways, if you're the praying type, say a little prayer for me
TTYL
Greg
9.24.2007
A very New Me Continued
Here's another post of mine from Human Heaven. It still goes into further detail of what I have been coming to learn. Let me know what you think! In other words, if you think I am totally cracked up or not.
YFTCF
Greg
"I'm not judging myself or anyone else, but I do not believe I am obeying God if I continually look at and lust over women. Was it not you filth-man who said that Christ came and set a standard far beyond what anyone else ever even considered? That is "If you even look at a women lustfully, you have commited adultry in your heart with her." What about that? I am not being obedient to God if I continually lust. And you still don't seem to understand what I mean. I will resist, but that resistance has to bring about a complete change of heart one day. Resitance, if it does not bring about a change one day, means nothing to me. The goal that I press on for and pray for is a completely changed heart. It is not a religion where I have to say "I can't do this" "I can't do that" "These are the standards Christ laid out and I have to meet them" it's a faith that says "Thank you God for changing my heart, giving me your heart, that I may be forever in communion with you, as a friend." To simply obey is not the faith I want, the faith I want is a faith where I am walking with God in the garden of Eden being in communion with Him, Having His heart and His desires planted in me, figuratively speaking. Why do we have to settle for less?
Your dad was quoting Romans 7:13-25. However, you cannot forget or leave out the chapters before or after those. Paul talks about living life in the Spirit, that obedience doesn't flow from "I have to do this, I have to do that" but from friendship and communion with God. A relationship where He doesn't tell us what we're not supposed to do, but one where He changes our heart so we don't even consider doing those things in the first place. Does this mean it takes away our choice? Not at all, we still choose not to lust, not to hate etc. but those choices are strengthened by a heart that doesn't desire those things anymore. It's like me and pizza; I am lactose intolerent now (i developed it in 2005) and pizza happens to be the worst for me. I liked pizza, but because of what it does to me I don't even desire to eat it anymore and therefore, I choose not to. The choice for me to eat is still there, but I don't desire to. There is a verse here that I absolutely love. Romans 7:16-19 "When I act against my own will, by that very fact I agree that the law is good. This indicates that it is not I who do it, but sin which resides in me. I know that no good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; the desire to do right is there, but not the power. What happens is that I do, not the good i will to do, but the evil I do not intend." Since chirst set that rather large standard (i agree, to show us we can't even attain it on our own)that even the desire to sleep with someone is sin, why then should I have to go through life always having to 'avert my eyes' to keep those desires from rising up in myself? I understand that Paul says Christ came to set us free from that law, of knowing what i want to do but not being able to do it. This was just one of many things I am pressing for, but the reason being is because I want to be free to look at my sisters in christ without having my mind going immediately to how good looking they are and how much i want to just sleep with them. I don't struggle with this so much with my female friends who are spoken for, like Elina, it's the ones that are single or the ones I simply don't know personally and don't know if they're single that I struggle with.
Anyways, I'm leaving it at that. I am pressing for a change of heart in this area, and many others, because I know I don't have to live with it the rest of my life. No longer simple obedience, but a change of heart, no longer simple "good feelings" but a change of heart."
YFTCF
Greg
"I'm not judging myself or anyone else, but I do not believe I am obeying God if I continually look at and lust over women. Was it not you filth-man who said that Christ came and set a standard far beyond what anyone else ever even considered? That is "If you even look at a women lustfully, you have commited adultry in your heart with her." What about that? I am not being obedient to God if I continually lust. And you still don't seem to understand what I mean. I will resist, but that resistance has to bring about a complete change of heart one day. Resitance, if it does not bring about a change one day, means nothing to me. The goal that I press on for and pray for is a completely changed heart. It is not a religion where I have to say "I can't do this" "I can't do that" "These are the standards Christ laid out and I have to meet them" it's a faith that says "Thank you God for changing my heart, giving me your heart, that I may be forever in communion with you, as a friend." To simply obey is not the faith I want, the faith I want is a faith where I am walking with God in the garden of Eden being in communion with Him, Having His heart and His desires planted in me, figuratively speaking. Why do we have to settle for less?
Your dad was quoting Romans 7:13-25. However, you cannot forget or leave out the chapters before or after those. Paul talks about living life in the Spirit, that obedience doesn't flow from "I have to do this, I have to do that" but from friendship and communion with God. A relationship where He doesn't tell us what we're not supposed to do, but one where He changes our heart so we don't even consider doing those things in the first place. Does this mean it takes away our choice? Not at all, we still choose not to lust, not to hate etc. but those choices are strengthened by a heart that doesn't desire those things anymore. It's like me and pizza; I am lactose intolerent now (i developed it in 2005) and pizza happens to be the worst for me. I liked pizza, but because of what it does to me I don't even desire to eat it anymore and therefore, I choose not to. The choice for me to eat is still there, but I don't desire to. There is a verse here that I absolutely love. Romans 7:16-19 "When I act against my own will, by that very fact I agree that the law is good. This indicates that it is not I who do it, but sin which resides in me. I know that no good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; the desire to do right is there, but not the power. What happens is that I do, not the good i will to do, but the evil I do not intend." Since chirst set that rather large standard (i agree, to show us we can't even attain it on our own)that even the desire to sleep with someone is sin, why then should I have to go through life always having to 'avert my eyes' to keep those desires from rising up in myself? I understand that Paul says Christ came to set us free from that law, of knowing what i want to do but not being able to do it. This was just one of many things I am pressing for, but the reason being is because I want to be free to look at my sisters in christ without having my mind going immediately to how good looking they are and how much i want to just sleep with them. I don't struggle with this so much with my female friends who are spoken for, like Elina, it's the ones that are single or the ones I simply don't know personally and don't know if they're single that I struggle with.
Anyways, I'm leaving it at that. I am pressing for a change of heart in this area, and many others, because I know I don't have to live with it the rest of my life. No longer simple obedience, but a change of heart, no longer simple "good feelings" but a change of heart."
9.23.2007
A Very New Me
So It's been a while. Some friends and family of mine are complaining that they can't view my myspace because it takes too long to load on their slower connections so I decided to start posting on here again. The following paragraphs are what God has been showing me and telling me lately.
First a few updates, Colorado didn't work out. Lea is a non-issue now, I had, and broke up with another girlfriend because she is moving to Belfast, for good, and I was forest fire fighting for the summer. Oh yeah.... I forgot to mention that I am producing a promotional DVD for my area. I start filming this week!!! Oh yeah, another thing. I am also in the process of writing a story.
God Bless all!
Greg
Here are those posts.
"I just finished reading the novel, "The Shack". It is an incredibly delicious and powerful story that every human being on the planet should read one day. I have been praying for a very long time about what friends and friendship truly mean. As things happen to me I've come to formulate a very high perception of what it means to be friends, this you know already from some of my previous posts. I had ended up talking to a very good freind of mine a couple months ago about this very matter. He had mentioned that maybe, the way I see friendship was the way God wanted us to be friends with Him. You know the standard, that there is ultimate trust between friends, that truth and honesty rule and that to be called a 'friend' means so much more than mere acquaintences, as this world so lovingly embraces; that to be called a freind means you embark on something that is immeasurably deep and profound. When we were talking about it, we could sense that we didn't come to a full understanding of how God sees friendship. That, yes, He sees it as something that is deep and goes beyond the simple mundane, but we felt there was something more, or at least I did, I cannot speak for Jay, I can only trust, through understanding the character that he is, that he felt the same as I did. The last couple months have been spent in utter prayer, I have been desiring to know what God's view was on the matter. And then I read "The Shack" and although it confirmed (and yes this statement will shatter the boundaries of reason for you) in me that God's view of friendship was the same as I have been thinking the past few months, it also entirely contradicted the view I had set up as to what friendship with Him and everyone else should look like. Why you ask? How could the book confirm, yet also contradict what I have come to believe? Because the novel opened a whole new door on what God's Character truly is. without quoting the book (which would take a while) it is impossible for me to explain fully the realization that I have come to. There is a point, near the end of the book where God, as all three entities each sitting at the table as if they were 3 spereate people (and yet still one) is talking to Mack, the main character. God the Spirit takes the task of explaining an incredible truth to Mack and the other 2 of the three interject now and then with samll comments to re-inforce what the Spirit is saying. The Spirit is talking to Mack about God being a Verb "I am" and how that verb brings life and dynamic to the world and to their very being of who God is. It's explaining (forgive me for the non-gender noun) to Mack how humans have taken verbs and 'nouns with movement and experience buried inside of them; the ability to respond to expectancy' (pg. 205) to nouns that take all life, all the expectancy, out and rather replace them with responsibility and expectation. The Spirit goes on to give the eample of friendship. When i first read it my reaction was quite similar to that of Macks throughout the whole book. I wanted to rise up and defend myself and say "But...!!!!" here's what the Spirit says in the novel,
"Mack, if you and I are friends, there is an expectancy that exists within our relationship. When we see each other or are apart, there is expectancy of being together, of laughing and talking (of being deep friends, i will add for myself). That expectancy has no concrete definition; it is alive and dynamic and everything that emerges from our being together is a unique gift shared by no one else. But what happens if I change that 'expectancy' to an 'expectation' - spoken or unspoken? Suddenly, law has entered into our relationship. You are now expected to perform in a way that meets my expectations. Our living friendship rapidly deteriorates into a dead thing with rules and requirements. It is no longer about you and me, but about what friends are supposed to do, or the responsibilities of a good friend." Those statements shook me to my very core and everything that I was wanted to rise up in defense of the stance that I had. And then, totally sperate from the book but still connected, God spoke to me. You see, His character, as I have come to now understand, is not one of rules and regulations, it is not one of me having to perform to meet a set of standards He has set out for me. His character, although He loves me dearly, is one where He will desire and long for me to have a deep and meaningful relationship with Him, but will never force it upon me. My relationship with Him will go as deep as I allow it to go. And it was then, when i realized all this, that He really rocked my world. He told me -not through the book as the book didn't mention this- that, yes, He desires us humans to have deep and meaningful relationships with others, that to be friends would mean to expereince something so deep, mysterious and incredible and amazing. However, because He will not force us, or more importantly me, to have that kind of relationship with Him, I, even though I strongly desire and long for those types of relationships with people, cannot force anyone to live in those kinds of expectations. Indeed, to be truly immeresed in His Character and to truly be someone who follows His example, even though I do desire to have those kinds of relationships, it is my duty to let go of the expectation and allow my friends to choose to enter into a relationship like that. To choose to be honest, to trust, and to enjoy that. It is not wrong if they don't choose, what is wrong is if I never gave them the chance to choose. That is God's Love, that is what it means. You have no idea how big this revelation is to me, I feel as if I fully understand now why God died on a cross for me, why God allowed me, allowed us to choose Him or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Without choice, there can be no Love; without Choice, there can be no friendship, or rather, no joy within that 'friendship' or 'relationship'. And if there is noy joy, is there really a friendship? It has completely rocked my world and turned it so upside down from what i concieved it to be. The novel managed to do something that hasn't occoured since i first became a Christian, and that is truly convict me, not condemn, for something I had believed and held onto that was so twisted. It revealed my true and utter selfishness and yet I am overjoyed. I feel no guilt, but I am utterly and truly sorry for it. Yes, I saw God's desire for how He wants us to live and be friends, but like everyone else and like satan himself, I took what was good and twisted it to serve my own ends. I am so overjoyed that God has forgiven me, I am so overjoyed.
I pray everyone I have ever hurt before in the past can forgive me. I pray i can be a model of this kind of relationship, of this kind of love, to the world I live in and that God would give me the strength and grace to let go of my selfishness. This is the true treasure He wants me to let go, the treasure of my control over the world in which I live and just trust Him, and I do, Trust Him.
I love you all
Your sincere friend and brother in Christ
Gregory"
"Hey there,
So the following paragraphs are from a couple posts I put up at www.humanheaven.com
They touch on what I leanred about freindship, but it's carried over into a whole bunch of different areas. Please, read them and let me know what you think.
Before I post them both, there is a quote from one of them I want you to read first:
"It's healthy to disucss and understand things, they're both a means to an end; the end being that we can truly grow in our faith. But if we are not careful, discussion and understanding can suffocate and dry out the very end that we wish to come to."
Here's the rest of it, that quote above was just to get you thinking on the same track as I am on:
"I've been kind of at a fork in the road. I've been constantly asking the question of why humans like to discuss things so much. All this stuff I've posted so far is all just knowledge. I can get so caught up with trying to understand things with my head that I forget to stop and understand them with my heart. It's good to discuss things, but is that all we're supposed to do? Sit in our rooms or wherever and formulate theories? Study the Bible for the sake of gleaning some unknown truth hidden amongst it's pages? I've been feeling that it's just all so lifeless and dry. I've felt so lifeless and dry, like my faith was reduced (and it's not because of this website) to cramming knowledge into my head. And of late, I've been praying for God to show me, not how to think and form theories of faith, but to learn to walk in faith. I have a saying that goes "You can poke and prod something from the outside all you want and only come to a simple understanding of it. But it's not until you step inside it, until you enter it, that you will come to understand it fully, as it was meant to be understood." Basically, I'm tired of my words and I just want to expereince real love, real relationship, and real fellowship with God. That is why I am so frustrated right now. Yes, all these things I've said are what I have come to believe but I could really care less, I just want a relationship with Him and that's all that matters to me right now. Everything else melts away, because all that matters is that relationship with Him. So yeah, I'm not trying to understand things anymore, I'm just trying to have a real faith and a real trust in God. The Bible being complete, prophecies being true or false, big churches verses small churches, slavery vs. freedom, all of that means very little when you stop, focus on and live out God's Love. Maybe that's what paul meant by His verse that you brought up Elina, I don't know. But it's where I am at and truly, all this stuff seems to pale in comparison. It's quite a weird palce to be in. It's like my whole world has been turned on end. All this is why I've been so frustrated with churches, with denominations, with dry knowledge, with religion... It doesn't matter to me if so and so is a great speaker, or if such and such denomination has more of it right than the others... It just doesn't matter to me anymore... There's so much more to this Life of following Jesus than all these other things combined. I dunno. So Filth-man. I m sorry if i seem frustrated at you. I'm not, I am frustrated at myself because I see what I have limited myself to. You may not limit yourselves by all this, but I have been. It's... quite hard to explain where I am at really... It's like I've limited my faith by saying many things like "This is how you determine a false prophet." or "This is what it means to be a friend." or "Following God means you do this and this and this." and I've come to see that by setting those types of definite values of what this and that mean, I've stifled and suffocated the relationship God wants me to have with Him and others. Anyways, I will leave it at that. I might be posting a recent testimony of mine," (for you blog readers, that's the "A New Understanding" post) "but I havn't decided if i wanted to yet or not. However, it will explain more of this and probably in a better way."
"Oh no, don't get me wrong. I think understanding things is good, but, what does that understanding lead us to? I mean, to debate and talk about things is awesome, but... let me put it this way. It's healthy to disucss and understand things, they're both a means to an end; the end being that we can truly grow in our faith. But if we are not careful, discussion and understanding can suffocate and dry out the very end that we wish to come to. Which isn't knowledge, but relationship with God. And no, it wasn't you who brought this frustration on me, I've always sought knowledge. I studied revelations for 6 months straight once. I was reading my Bible sure, but I wasn't getting anything from it for my heart. I did a lot of research, comparing every passage of scripture that talked about the end times, focusing mostly on Daniel, Matthew and Revelations. I brought some good things out of that for sure, but did it help me grow closer to God or did it just fill my head with knowledge? Do you see what I am getting at? I find it more useful to me now to grow closer in my relationship with God than it is to constantly fill my head with knowledge. If I serve God with my head, but not my heart, what good will it do me? If i worship God with my head, and not my heart, what good will it do me? Knowledge without love is a resounding gong. It is empty, it means nothing.
I don't know enough about thiestic evolution, I just know what it teaches. I like it, i think it is cool, but what is it to me? Why do I need to understand it? To me, it's like discussing how old the earth is. Is there any proof on how old the earth is? I mean, solid proof? I heard one theory once that was based more on logic than any evidence and that was that God created the earth with an age, like he created everything else; Man wasn't created a baby, he was created a full grown man. But... why does this matter? Really, please don't get me wrong, I love to understand things, if you knew my nature you'd know that when i see something happen, I immediately want to know why it happens. I pay attention to small details. But like i said, don't let the means to the end, suffocate the end.
And yeah, new research could be new revelation, but should it be added to the Bible? Scienctific revelation, that is, revelations about the world we live in, are in a totally seperate category from spiritual revelations, revelations about hell, God, Christ, The Holy Spirit, Satan, the angels. I believe God showed us all we need to know about His character and how we are to live our lives spiritually in the Bible. He designed us to be curious, so what a perfect fit science and new discoveries are for us. So yeah, I wasn't arguing that there are no new revelations, just that things like scientific revelations shouldn't be added to the Bible and other things like totally brand new spiritual revelations can't be added to the Bible, they can only point out and connect the dots that we can't see ourselves that lie in the Bible's pages. That's my stance on that...
Anyways, i hope i havn't confused anyone, I was just a little frustrated with myself. I think that one line sums up all of how I feel, and if you've lost sight of it, here it is again. 'Don't let the means to the end, suffocate the end.'"
God Bless!
YFTCF
Gregory P.S. Let me know what you think! And don't just agree with me, pray about it and come back and tell me how wrong I am or something."
First a few updates, Colorado didn't work out. Lea is a non-issue now, I had, and broke up with another girlfriend because she is moving to Belfast, for good, and I was forest fire fighting for the summer. Oh yeah.... I forgot to mention that I am producing a promotional DVD for my area. I start filming this week!!! Oh yeah, another thing. I am also in the process of writing a story.
God Bless all!
Greg
Here are those posts.
"I just finished reading the novel, "The Shack". It is an incredibly delicious and powerful story that every human being on the planet should read one day. I have been praying for a very long time about what friends and friendship truly mean. As things happen to me I've come to formulate a very high perception of what it means to be friends, this you know already from some of my previous posts. I had ended up talking to a very good freind of mine a couple months ago about this very matter. He had mentioned that maybe, the way I see friendship was the way God wanted us to be friends with Him. You know the standard, that there is ultimate trust between friends, that truth and honesty rule and that to be called a 'friend' means so much more than mere acquaintences, as this world so lovingly embraces; that to be called a freind means you embark on something that is immeasurably deep and profound. When we were talking about it, we could sense that we didn't come to a full understanding of how God sees friendship. That, yes, He sees it as something that is deep and goes beyond the simple mundane, but we felt there was something more, or at least I did, I cannot speak for Jay, I can only trust, through understanding the character that he is, that he felt the same as I did. The last couple months have been spent in utter prayer, I have been desiring to know what God's view was on the matter. And then I read "The Shack" and although it confirmed (and yes this statement will shatter the boundaries of reason for you) in me that God's view of friendship was the same as I have been thinking the past few months, it also entirely contradicted the view I had set up as to what friendship with Him and everyone else should look like. Why you ask? How could the book confirm, yet also contradict what I have come to believe? Because the novel opened a whole new door on what God's Character truly is. without quoting the book (which would take a while) it is impossible for me to explain fully the realization that I have come to. There is a point, near the end of the book where God, as all three entities each sitting at the table as if they were 3 spereate people (and yet still one) is talking to Mack, the main character. God the Spirit takes the task of explaining an incredible truth to Mack and the other 2 of the three interject now and then with samll comments to re-inforce what the Spirit is saying. The Spirit is talking to Mack about God being a Verb "I am" and how that verb brings life and dynamic to the world and to their very being of who God is. It's explaining (forgive me for the non-gender noun) to Mack how humans have taken verbs and 'nouns with movement and experience buried inside of them; the ability to respond to expectancy' (pg. 205) to nouns that take all life, all the expectancy, out and rather replace them with responsibility and expectation. The Spirit goes on to give the eample of friendship. When i first read it my reaction was quite similar to that of Macks throughout the whole book. I wanted to rise up and defend myself and say "But...!!!!" here's what the Spirit says in the novel,
"Mack, if you and I are friends, there is an expectancy that exists within our relationship. When we see each other or are apart, there is expectancy of being together, of laughing and talking (of being deep friends, i will add for myself). That expectancy has no concrete definition; it is alive and dynamic and everything that emerges from our being together is a unique gift shared by no one else. But what happens if I change that 'expectancy' to an 'expectation' - spoken or unspoken? Suddenly, law has entered into our relationship. You are now expected to perform in a way that meets my expectations. Our living friendship rapidly deteriorates into a dead thing with rules and requirements. It is no longer about you and me, but about what friends are supposed to do, or the responsibilities of a good friend." Those statements shook me to my very core and everything that I was wanted to rise up in defense of the stance that I had. And then, totally sperate from the book but still connected, God spoke to me. You see, His character, as I have come to now understand, is not one of rules and regulations, it is not one of me having to perform to meet a set of standards He has set out for me. His character, although He loves me dearly, is one where He will desire and long for me to have a deep and meaningful relationship with Him, but will never force it upon me. My relationship with Him will go as deep as I allow it to go. And it was then, when i realized all this, that He really rocked my world. He told me -not through the book as the book didn't mention this- that, yes, He desires us humans to have deep and meaningful relationships with others, that to be friends would mean to expereince something so deep, mysterious and incredible and amazing. However, because He will not force us, or more importantly me, to have that kind of relationship with Him, I, even though I strongly desire and long for those types of relationships with people, cannot force anyone to live in those kinds of expectations. Indeed, to be truly immeresed in His Character and to truly be someone who follows His example, even though I do desire to have those kinds of relationships, it is my duty to let go of the expectation and allow my friends to choose to enter into a relationship like that. To choose to be honest, to trust, and to enjoy that. It is not wrong if they don't choose, what is wrong is if I never gave them the chance to choose. That is God's Love, that is what it means. You have no idea how big this revelation is to me, I feel as if I fully understand now why God died on a cross for me, why God allowed me, allowed us to choose Him or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Without choice, there can be no Love; without Choice, there can be no friendship, or rather, no joy within that 'friendship' or 'relationship'. And if there is noy joy, is there really a friendship? It has completely rocked my world and turned it so upside down from what i concieved it to be. The novel managed to do something that hasn't occoured since i first became a Christian, and that is truly convict me, not condemn, for something I had believed and held onto that was so twisted. It revealed my true and utter selfishness and yet I am overjoyed. I feel no guilt, but I am utterly and truly sorry for it. Yes, I saw God's desire for how He wants us to live and be friends, but like everyone else and like satan himself, I took what was good and twisted it to serve my own ends. I am so overjoyed that God has forgiven me, I am so overjoyed.
I pray everyone I have ever hurt before in the past can forgive me. I pray i can be a model of this kind of relationship, of this kind of love, to the world I live in and that God would give me the strength and grace to let go of my selfishness. This is the true treasure He wants me to let go, the treasure of my control over the world in which I live and just trust Him, and I do, Trust Him.
I love you all
Your sincere friend and brother in Christ
Gregory"
"Hey there,
So the following paragraphs are from a couple posts I put up at www.humanheaven.com
They touch on what I leanred about freindship, but it's carried over into a whole bunch of different areas. Please, read them and let me know what you think.
Before I post them both, there is a quote from one of them I want you to read first:
"It's healthy to disucss and understand things, they're both a means to an end; the end being that we can truly grow in our faith. But if we are not careful, discussion and understanding can suffocate and dry out the very end that we wish to come to."
Here's the rest of it, that quote above was just to get you thinking on the same track as I am on:
"I've been kind of at a fork in the road. I've been constantly asking the question of why humans like to discuss things so much. All this stuff I've posted so far is all just knowledge. I can get so caught up with trying to understand things with my head that I forget to stop and understand them with my heart. It's good to discuss things, but is that all we're supposed to do? Sit in our rooms or wherever and formulate theories? Study the Bible for the sake of gleaning some unknown truth hidden amongst it's pages? I've been feeling that it's just all so lifeless and dry. I've felt so lifeless and dry, like my faith was reduced (and it's not because of this website) to cramming knowledge into my head. And of late, I've been praying for God to show me, not how to think and form theories of faith, but to learn to walk in faith. I have a saying that goes "You can poke and prod something from the outside all you want and only come to a simple understanding of it. But it's not until you step inside it, until you enter it, that you will come to understand it fully, as it was meant to be understood." Basically, I'm tired of my words and I just want to expereince real love, real relationship, and real fellowship with God. That is why I am so frustrated right now. Yes, all these things I've said are what I have come to believe but I could really care less, I just want a relationship with Him and that's all that matters to me right now. Everything else melts away, because all that matters is that relationship with Him. So yeah, I'm not trying to understand things anymore, I'm just trying to have a real faith and a real trust in God. The Bible being complete, prophecies being true or false, big churches verses small churches, slavery vs. freedom, all of that means very little when you stop, focus on and live out God's Love. Maybe that's what paul meant by His verse that you brought up Elina, I don't know. But it's where I am at and truly, all this stuff seems to pale in comparison. It's quite a weird palce to be in. It's like my whole world has been turned on end. All this is why I've been so frustrated with churches, with denominations, with dry knowledge, with religion... It doesn't matter to me if so and so is a great speaker, or if such and such denomination has more of it right than the others... It just doesn't matter to me anymore... There's so much more to this Life of following Jesus than all these other things combined. I dunno. So Filth-man. I m sorry if i seem frustrated at you. I'm not, I am frustrated at myself because I see what I have limited myself to. You may not limit yourselves by all this, but I have been. It's... quite hard to explain where I am at really... It's like I've limited my faith by saying many things like "This is how you determine a false prophet." or "This is what it means to be a friend." or "Following God means you do this and this and this." and I've come to see that by setting those types of definite values of what this and that mean, I've stifled and suffocated the relationship God wants me to have with Him and others. Anyways, I will leave it at that. I might be posting a recent testimony of mine," (for you blog readers, that's the "A New Understanding" post) "but I havn't decided if i wanted to yet or not. However, it will explain more of this and probably in a better way."
"Oh no, don't get me wrong. I think understanding things is good, but, what does that understanding lead us to? I mean, to debate and talk about things is awesome, but... let me put it this way. It's healthy to disucss and understand things, they're both a means to an end; the end being that we can truly grow in our faith. But if we are not careful, discussion and understanding can suffocate and dry out the very end that we wish to come to. Which isn't knowledge, but relationship with God. And no, it wasn't you who brought this frustration on me, I've always sought knowledge. I studied revelations for 6 months straight once. I was reading my Bible sure, but I wasn't getting anything from it for my heart. I did a lot of research, comparing every passage of scripture that talked about the end times, focusing mostly on Daniel, Matthew and Revelations. I brought some good things out of that for sure, but did it help me grow closer to God or did it just fill my head with knowledge? Do you see what I am getting at? I find it more useful to me now to grow closer in my relationship with God than it is to constantly fill my head with knowledge. If I serve God with my head, but not my heart, what good will it do me? If i worship God with my head, and not my heart, what good will it do me? Knowledge without love is a resounding gong. It is empty, it means nothing.
I don't know enough about thiestic evolution, I just know what it teaches. I like it, i think it is cool, but what is it to me? Why do I need to understand it? To me, it's like discussing how old the earth is. Is there any proof on how old the earth is? I mean, solid proof? I heard one theory once that was based more on logic than any evidence and that was that God created the earth with an age, like he created everything else; Man wasn't created a baby, he was created a full grown man. But... why does this matter? Really, please don't get me wrong, I love to understand things, if you knew my nature you'd know that when i see something happen, I immediately want to know why it happens. I pay attention to small details. But like i said, don't let the means to the end, suffocate the end.
And yeah, new research could be new revelation, but should it be added to the Bible? Scienctific revelation, that is, revelations about the world we live in, are in a totally seperate category from spiritual revelations, revelations about hell, God, Christ, The Holy Spirit, Satan, the angels. I believe God showed us all we need to know about His character and how we are to live our lives spiritually in the Bible. He designed us to be curious, so what a perfect fit science and new discoveries are for us. So yeah, I wasn't arguing that there are no new revelations, just that things like scientific revelations shouldn't be added to the Bible and other things like totally brand new spiritual revelations can't be added to the Bible, they can only point out and connect the dots that we can't see ourselves that lie in the Bible's pages. That's my stance on that...
Anyways, i hope i havn't confused anyone, I was just a little frustrated with myself. I think that one line sums up all of how I feel, and if you've lost sight of it, here it is again. 'Don't let the means to the end, suffocate the end.'"
God Bless!
YFTCF
Gregory P.S. Let me know what you think! And don't just agree with me, pray about it and come back and tell me how wrong I am or something."
2.25.2007
Hey
So some of you are probably wondering why i decided to approve the new comment. I approved it to disban anything i might have said to confuse matters. She didn't cheat on me and i definitely do not think she is a b****. I don't hate her and I don't wish her ill fortune of any kind. We went our seperate ways and tat's fine by me, I just wish it could have been different and i wish she would have been honest with me in the first place in saying that she didn't think we could stay friends. That's all I care about, a bit of honesty. When you tell me one thing and then a little while later change your mind, well nothing could be worse in my books.
Anyways, that's what i have to say about it, and the situation is over... I've moved on :)
Anyways, that's what i have to say about it, and the situation is over... I've moved on :)
1.05.2007
12.29.2006
Decisions
Hey,
So my boss is selling his business and I am not sure what exactly i am supposed to do with that. To continue with this job I now have feels very very wrong now that he is selling. Something about it makes me very uncomfortable and uneasy; it just feels very very wrong for me and I can't really explain why. With all this comes a new wave of, desparity, because I really want to know what I SHOULD be doing, if this current job is wrong. It's like Colorado can't happen fast enough. Yes, this new position with my boss selling his business has really upset the equilibrium I have in my life.
To top things off, you all remember Lea right? Well she sent me a message today saying she was getting married. That's something I really didn't want to know at all. I'm in a catch 22 because I would like to see our friendship restored but at the same time, I really don't want anything more to do with her. I hate myself for that. But water off the duck right? What's done is done, what's said is said and it's better if she dosn't ever talk to me again and vice-versa. I don't care if she reads my blogs or not and I am thankful that she is praying for me (I am praying for her) but yeah. Anyways...
I hope everything is going well for everyone else!
God Bless
Gregory
P.S. Lissy, if you read this my friend, then SMILE! :D
So my boss is selling his business and I am not sure what exactly i am supposed to do with that. To continue with this job I now have feels very very wrong now that he is selling. Something about it makes me very uncomfortable and uneasy; it just feels very very wrong for me and I can't really explain why. With all this comes a new wave of, desparity, because I really want to know what I SHOULD be doing, if this current job is wrong. It's like Colorado can't happen fast enough. Yes, this new position with my boss selling his business has really upset the equilibrium I have in my life.
To top things off, you all remember Lea right? Well she sent me a message today saying she was getting married. That's something I really didn't want to know at all. I'm in a catch 22 because I would like to see our friendship restored but at the same time, I really don't want anything more to do with her. I hate myself for that. But water off the duck right? What's done is done, what's said is said and it's better if she dosn't ever talk to me again and vice-versa. I don't care if she reads my blogs or not and I am thankful that she is praying for me (I am praying for her) but yeah. Anyways...
I hope everything is going well for everyone else!
God Bless
Gregory
P.S. Lissy, if you read this my friend, then SMILE! :D
12.26.2006
Soon to be in Sync
Hey there,
So if you don't know what the title means, you may want to stp reading now. If you're curious but realize you might not understand it, continue reading.
I am now one step closer to locking my audio recording gear to Video Blackburst! It will be a momentous occasion! Basically, it means the things I record will be going the same speed as video. I've been waiting for this day for a very long time because my system is becoming more and more 'elite' as time goes on; it's getting more complex and I like that! Complex means my mind gets to work some more and I actually have to think about things. Like making sure projects are running with the right timecode and sync reference, routing the sync and timecode through all the gear, making sure devices are slaved to the external source and aren't referencing their speed internally and yeah. Good times. I may sound crazy, but i actually MISS working with timecode and sync. The last time i did it, I spent all day trying to capture on-set dialogue into Pro-tools HD with the TC stamp we gave it while on-set. You wouldn't think audio engineering would fry your brain but by the end of the day i couldn't function at all; The only thing I could do was sit and veg. in front of a movie.
Yes, I'm looking forward to the day i face those challenges again! Woohooo!
TTYL
Greg
So if you don't know what the title means, you may want to stp reading now. If you're curious but realize you might not understand it, continue reading.
I am now one step closer to locking my audio recording gear to Video Blackburst! It will be a momentous occasion! Basically, it means the things I record will be going the same speed as video. I've been waiting for this day for a very long time because my system is becoming more and more 'elite' as time goes on; it's getting more complex and I like that! Complex means my mind gets to work some more and I actually have to think about things. Like making sure projects are running with the right timecode and sync reference, routing the sync and timecode through all the gear, making sure devices are slaved to the external source and aren't referencing their speed internally and yeah. Good times. I may sound crazy, but i actually MISS working with timecode and sync. The last time i did it, I spent all day trying to capture on-set dialogue into Pro-tools HD with the TC stamp we gave it while on-set. You wouldn't think audio engineering would fry your brain but by the end of the day i couldn't function at all; The only thing I could do was sit and veg. in front of a movie.
Yes, I'm looking forward to the day i face those challenges again! Woohooo!
TTYL
Greg
12.13.2006
An Answer to a popular question
So Hi there,
I see a few people do actually read this. They both asked me similar questions about this school in Colorado. It's the University of Colorado in Denver that I am trying to get into and the number of years I am there will depend on whether or not I can apply straight to the masters program or not. If not, I'll probably have to only take 2-3 classes to get my bachelors equivalent. So, I could be there for no more than 2 and a half years. We shall see what happens though; I finally got them my syllabi so i should have an answer from them soon enough.
Anyways, I should get going.
TTYL
Greg
I see a few people do actually read this. They both asked me similar questions about this school in Colorado. It's the University of Colorado in Denver that I am trying to get into and the number of years I am there will depend on whether or not I can apply straight to the masters program or not. If not, I'll probably have to only take 2-3 classes to get my bachelors equivalent. So, I could be there for no more than 2 and a half years. We shall see what happens though; I finally got them my syllabi so i should have an answer from them soon enough.
Anyways, I should get going.
TTYL
Greg
9.30.2006
1 year
Hey there folks,
So these past few days have been the 1 year anniverasry of the start of the Danielle situation. Hard to believe that that has already been a year ago. Sadly, the effects of what happened still have a mark on my life and I don't know if i can ever truly ever heal fully. Too much happened, too many mistakes were made, too many words were said, too many promises were broken, on both sides. I am not proud by the way i handled that at all, and I am not proud i broke the promises I made to Danielle. I think one of the images hat will stay with me for the rest of my life is one of the two of us passing eachother in the hallway. We were both alone and I just glared at her. I remember seeing the look in her eyes, they were so broken, so sad, and so burdened; i felt so bad. I had promised her that I wouldn't hurt her and that I would never leave her alone. Some friend I turned out to be. I abandoned the one person who seemed to actually care about me at school. Sure, I have a couple others i havn't stopped talking to, but she was different, our friendship went so much deeper than any other friendship I had there. Anyways, that's enough reminiscingfor tonight i think.
Greg
So these past few days have been the 1 year anniverasry of the start of the Danielle situation. Hard to believe that that has already been a year ago. Sadly, the effects of what happened still have a mark on my life and I don't know if i can ever truly ever heal fully. Too much happened, too many mistakes were made, too many words were said, too many promises were broken, on both sides. I am not proud by the way i handled that at all, and I am not proud i broke the promises I made to Danielle. I think one of the images hat will stay with me for the rest of my life is one of the two of us passing eachother in the hallway. We were both alone and I just glared at her. I remember seeing the look in her eyes, they were so broken, so sad, and so burdened; i felt so bad. I had promised her that I wouldn't hurt her and that I would never leave her alone. Some friend I turned out to be. I abandoned the one person who seemed to actually care about me at school. Sure, I have a couple others i havn't stopped talking to, but she was different, our friendship went so much deeper than any other friendship I had there. Anyways, that's enough reminiscingfor tonight i think.
Greg
9.13.2006
The Sea of Lonliness
Hey there,
So this story and poem were written by myself a couple years ago. You'll get the gist of the post once you read them I think.
The Sea of Lonliness
I row through the silent waters, the only sound being that of the oars as they cut through the bitter cold surface below. This sound was once a sound filled with hope, hope that I was moving in the right direction, but through the silence it has become something quite different; it reverberates within my skull with the revelation that I am not rowing towards a peace filled land at all. I realize with all certainty that this sound, which reverberates within my head, which is created by my motion forward, is really only bringing me closer and closer to a still and silent oblivion; the very sea that was once my friend has now betrayed me. “Come Greg,” it said to me, “see how people reject you? See how they hurt you? See how they betray your trust? Silent loneliness will never betray you; will never hurt you! Come now! Isolate yourself! Isolation will never demand that you fit in, and in being alone, you will never be hurt again!” Unfortunately, I had not realized that in being isolated, in being alone, I would never be able to experience the joys that deep friends go through. So without understanding I stepped into a boat of Silence and Isolation and ventured out onto the vast sea of loneliness. It is this vast sea that has betrayed me! Yes, a deep fog has overcome me and I am now unable to distinguish how to get back; back into the world of deep meaningful friendships. It is almost impossible for me to remember what it looks like, and therefore I am even more lost and isolated than I ever was before. The mist of confusion and the stillness surround me like an iron curtain and the boat, in which once was my abode, has become to me a one-man prison. There is one, though, who can lift the iron curtain and remove me from my silent penitentiary. One whose word is always true and who sincerely wants to be my friend. This friend is found in Jesus Christ my Lord and there is this one and only query left to answer; will I choose to follow Him and the path of healing that He sets before me, or will I continue to row? Both paths ensue me with fear; for the former, I am afraid of being let down, rejected and hurt again, and the latter? Because I know that if I continue down it, if I continue to drift on this Sea of Loneliness, I will be forever condemned to an empty silence and will one day slip into dark oblivion...
I row
I sit quietly for a moment but then I continue to forge ahead
Ceaselessly moving onward over a calm and silent sea.
Alone in this boat, my wounded heart and seclusion are eternally wed
Ceaselessly floating onward over a calm and lonely sea.
I remember the promise I was given if I would just sit here and row
Endlessly staring at the chance that hangs above my boats edge
Recalling the assurance I was handed if I would just sit here and row
Endlessly screaming as my hope does fade on this broken pledge.
I ponder my hearts paradigm of a still, quiet, and forlorn detachment
Ceaselessly praying for the strength to stand and put down my oars.
Alone no more, I realize that my time in prayer was not utterly spent,
And that I can now come to rest on those distant, far-off shores...
I'm having a hard time with some stuff right now; pulling away from everyone I love yet again. Being consumed by the same fear, the same pain, and the same bitterness that I once was lost in and I'm unable to stop the process. The more time that goes by, the more I am slipping away and I lose myself to the winter within. And yet, I still cling on to hope, there's a part of me that won't give up. Just say a prayer for me, I don't want to give up. I feel spiritually how i felt all those years ago when I woke up being strangled by a demon. Please don't think i am strange, I woke up that morning and could not breathe, I couldn't even move. Not an inch. I couldn't move my legs, my arms, my head, I couldn't roll over; i was stuck half on my stomach and half on my side being held up by something. The more I struggled the tighter everything became and it wasn't until i said in my head "In the name of Jesus I command you to release me" that I was able to shake my shoulders and the sensation was instantly gone; I was free to get up out of bed where before I couldn't. That physical feeling that morning is how i now feel spiritually; strangled, alone and afraid.
TTYL
Greg
So this story and poem were written by myself a couple years ago. You'll get the gist of the post once you read them I think.
The Sea of Lonliness
I row through the silent waters, the only sound being that of the oars as they cut through the bitter cold surface below. This sound was once a sound filled with hope, hope that I was moving in the right direction, but through the silence it has become something quite different; it reverberates within my skull with the revelation that I am not rowing towards a peace filled land at all. I realize with all certainty that this sound, which reverberates within my head, which is created by my motion forward, is really only bringing me closer and closer to a still and silent oblivion; the very sea that was once my friend has now betrayed me. “Come Greg,” it said to me, “see how people reject you? See how they hurt you? See how they betray your trust? Silent loneliness will never betray you; will never hurt you! Come now! Isolate yourself! Isolation will never demand that you fit in, and in being alone, you will never be hurt again!” Unfortunately, I had not realized that in being isolated, in being alone, I would never be able to experience the joys that deep friends go through. So without understanding I stepped into a boat of Silence and Isolation and ventured out onto the vast sea of loneliness. It is this vast sea that has betrayed me! Yes, a deep fog has overcome me and I am now unable to distinguish how to get back; back into the world of deep meaningful friendships. It is almost impossible for me to remember what it looks like, and therefore I am even more lost and isolated than I ever was before. The mist of confusion and the stillness surround me like an iron curtain and the boat, in which once was my abode, has become to me a one-man prison. There is one, though, who can lift the iron curtain and remove me from my silent penitentiary. One whose word is always true and who sincerely wants to be my friend. This friend is found in Jesus Christ my Lord and there is this one and only query left to answer; will I choose to follow Him and the path of healing that He sets before me, or will I continue to row? Both paths ensue me with fear; for the former, I am afraid of being let down, rejected and hurt again, and the latter? Because I know that if I continue down it, if I continue to drift on this Sea of Loneliness, I will be forever condemned to an empty silence and will one day slip into dark oblivion...
I row
I sit quietly for a moment but then I continue to forge ahead
Ceaselessly moving onward over a calm and silent sea.
Alone in this boat, my wounded heart and seclusion are eternally wed
Ceaselessly floating onward over a calm and lonely sea.
I remember the promise I was given if I would just sit here and row
Endlessly staring at the chance that hangs above my boats edge
Recalling the assurance I was handed if I would just sit here and row
Endlessly screaming as my hope does fade on this broken pledge.
I ponder my hearts paradigm of a still, quiet, and forlorn detachment
Ceaselessly praying for the strength to stand and put down my oars.
Alone no more, I realize that my time in prayer was not utterly spent,
And that I can now come to rest on those distant, far-off shores...
I'm having a hard time with some stuff right now; pulling away from everyone I love yet again. Being consumed by the same fear, the same pain, and the same bitterness that I once was lost in and I'm unable to stop the process. The more time that goes by, the more I am slipping away and I lose myself to the winter within. And yet, I still cling on to hope, there's a part of me that won't give up. Just say a prayer for me, I don't want to give up. I feel spiritually how i felt all those years ago when I woke up being strangled by a demon. Please don't think i am strange, I woke up that morning and could not breathe, I couldn't even move. Not an inch. I couldn't move my legs, my arms, my head, I couldn't roll over; i was stuck half on my stomach and half on my side being held up by something. The more I struggled the tighter everything became and it wasn't until i said in my head "In the name of Jesus I command you to release me" that I was able to shake my shoulders and the sensation was instantly gone; I was free to get up out of bed where before I couldn't. That physical feeling that morning is how i now feel spiritually; strangled, alone and afraid.
TTYL
Greg
9.05.2006
A scare?
Hey Peeps,
So I coughed up a bit of blood yesterday. Been feeling kind of sick of late and yesterday was the straw that broke my back and i went to the doc. Told him about what happened and how i was feeling and he said "Looks like you have a bit of the flu and your tonsils are a little swollen, but aren't bad." I wonder. I should trust him but yeah, I don't feel too many flu-like symptoms and my throat is more sore than anything, but yeah he seemed to think there was nothing really abnormal about me. It's always disconceriting when you cough up a bit of blood.
Yeah, still no word on any other jobs. I found a school in Colorado that i may go to next fall and if that's the case, I'll be workign here to save up enough money. Am seriously thinking about applying for Initial Attack next summer and do fire fighting, but only if i go to Colorado. Otherwise, I'll continue looking for work in my field. We'll see where things go. My brother thinks I should apply for IA.
Anyways, I should go to bed
TTYL
Greg
P.S. I'm doing much better witht eh whole Lea situation now; I've basically let my feelings for her go, but I am still upset about what happened.
So I coughed up a bit of blood yesterday. Been feeling kind of sick of late and yesterday was the straw that broke my back and i went to the doc. Told him about what happened and how i was feeling and he said "Looks like you have a bit of the flu and your tonsils are a little swollen, but aren't bad." I wonder. I should trust him but yeah, I don't feel too many flu-like symptoms and my throat is more sore than anything, but yeah he seemed to think there was nothing really abnormal about me. It's always disconceriting when you cough up a bit of blood.
Yeah, still no word on any other jobs. I found a school in Colorado that i may go to next fall and if that's the case, I'll be workign here to save up enough money. Am seriously thinking about applying for Initial Attack next summer and do fire fighting, but only if i go to Colorado. Otherwise, I'll continue looking for work in my field. We'll see where things go. My brother thinks I should apply for IA.
Anyways, I should go to bed
TTYL
Greg
P.S. I'm doing much better witht eh whole Lea situation now; I've basically let my feelings for her go, but I am still upset about what happened.
8.29.2006
Hey
Hi there,
I deleted a couple posts because people were just going to mis-interpret why i had them up in the first place. I had a really really bad dream last night. It felt kind of like a judgement almost, where everything i have ever done was shown to me, everyone in the dream kept calling me selfish, and yeah. All it did was point at all my faults and basically mock me for them. I was ripped apart and torn down, and then it was all thrown in my face. You see a lot of the dream had to do with what happened in Toronto, I felt the stinging judging words from Danielle again and then, when it was all said and done and i felt like the most horrible person in the world, I was mocked by someone showing me pictures of her taking her top off for the guy she said she wasn't dating. It burned. Basically the whole dream was a mockery and everyone i ever cared for was taking a turn. Why is it that I can't write about my struggles and what I am trying to deal with without feeling so selfish? Without people telling me I am being selfish? Why can't people realize that anything and everything they might consider in the situation, I have already considered myself? I don't have the time to write down every thought I have had on a matter, that would take forever. I'm an analytical person and I consider every single little sidechain there is. If I miss one, it's not for lack of trying or caring or being selfish. If i write about something on the internet, it's not to stab out at people, it's more to get my frustrations out and help me come to a decision, because it means i usually havn't decided yet.
what is the song? "I was sure by now, God you would have reached down and wiped our tears away, stepped in and saved the day but once agian I say amen and it's still raining. But as the thunder rolls I barely hear your whisper through the rain 'I'm with you' and as your mercy falls I raise my hands and praise the God who gives and takes away. I'll praise You in this storm and I will lift my hands, for You are who You are, no matter where I am and every tear i've cried you hold in your hand, you never left my side and though my heart is torn I will praise you in this storm. I remeber when i stumbleded in the wind, you heard my cry to you and raised me up again. My strength is almost gone, how can i carry on, if i can't find You. But as the thunder rolls I barely hear your whisper through the rain 'I'm with you' And as your mercy falls, I raise my hands and praise the God who gives and takes away."
This time in my life is a true storm, clouded with pain, the loss of freindship, and my own selfishness and I can barely hear His voice, if I even can; if i am even worthy to hear His voice...
Greg
I deleted a couple posts because people were just going to mis-interpret why i had them up in the first place. I had a really really bad dream last night. It felt kind of like a judgement almost, where everything i have ever done was shown to me, everyone in the dream kept calling me selfish, and yeah. All it did was point at all my faults and basically mock me for them. I was ripped apart and torn down, and then it was all thrown in my face. You see a lot of the dream had to do with what happened in Toronto, I felt the stinging judging words from Danielle again and then, when it was all said and done and i felt like the most horrible person in the world, I was mocked by someone showing me pictures of her taking her top off for the guy she said she wasn't dating. It burned. Basically the whole dream was a mockery and everyone i ever cared for was taking a turn. Why is it that I can't write about my struggles and what I am trying to deal with without feeling so selfish? Without people telling me I am being selfish? Why can't people realize that anything and everything they might consider in the situation, I have already considered myself? I don't have the time to write down every thought I have had on a matter, that would take forever. I'm an analytical person and I consider every single little sidechain there is. If I miss one, it's not for lack of trying or caring or being selfish. If i write about something on the internet, it's not to stab out at people, it's more to get my frustrations out and help me come to a decision, because it means i usually havn't decided yet.
what is the song? "I was sure by now, God you would have reached down and wiped our tears away, stepped in and saved the day but once agian I say amen and it's still raining. But as the thunder rolls I barely hear your whisper through the rain 'I'm with you' and as your mercy falls I raise my hands and praise the God who gives and takes away. I'll praise You in this storm and I will lift my hands, for You are who You are, no matter where I am and every tear i've cried you hold in your hand, you never left my side and though my heart is torn I will praise you in this storm. I remeber when i stumbleded in the wind, you heard my cry to you and raised me up again. My strength is almost gone, how can i carry on, if i can't find You. But as the thunder rolls I barely hear your whisper through the rain 'I'm with you' And as your mercy falls, I raise my hands and praise the God who gives and takes away."
This time in my life is a true storm, clouded with pain, the loss of freindship, and my own selfishness and I can barely hear His voice, if I even can; if i am even worthy to hear His voice...
Greg
8.22.2006
Hiya
Hey,
So I went to Lea's Myspace page again to check for updates and she has pictures of the guy she's now dating up. Thye look really happy together. She is still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen but I'm happy for her. A part of me cries because when I look at that, I see something that I would love to have, I would love to be with someone and be that happy with them, but my heart tells me that that is impossible. I don't know what it is but all my life I've believed I would end up alone and it really scares me, to a degree. People tell me it's not true, I hear the Lord telling me it's not true, but despite all of that, my heart can feel nothing else; I can't seem to believe. A part of me thinks that if it wasn't Lea, then it would be no one. I'm sorry for this, I am just really frustrated righ tnow. I see all these good things happening to all of my friends and yet these past 2 years I've felt like God has completely ignored me. All my freinds in school got opportunity after opportunity thrown into their laps to build contacts and do things involving audio, and yet I got nothing despite the fact that I was one of the top students. the contacts i did get said they'd keep in touch but that has proven untrue. I see other friends getting jobs in their fields, getting their dreams of going to law school fulfilled, finding someone to be with, and having a good time with life. And what do i get? A job I absolutely can't stand, living in a town I absolutely can't stand anymore, no prospects of a job in my field and each door that is seemingly opened, is slammed shut again. It's hard for me not to beome bitter again and despite all the progess I've made these past few weeks, I'm almost ready to throw my faith down and start doing things on my own. I'm an extremist and right now I could either go extreme faith or drop my faith completely. In either case, it's taking more strength than I have to pull through. I don't have the strength anymore to have faith and I don't have the strength to continue on my own without faith.
So as I said, time will tell if my blog title proved to be true or not. I view blogs as 'Inherent Contradictions of Reason' because if you truly use it as a journal and have difficulties -or anything like that- with friends who know about the blog and can go and read it whenever they want, then really, either you can't write what you truly want to write or you're flying in the face of all reason and writing about struggles they should maybe not hear about.
The reason I write this is because I want your opinions, your prayers, your ideas, any help or words you may have oand yeah. That's why I write this, it's not just to vent.
YFTCF
Gregory
So I went to Lea's Myspace page again to check for updates and she has pictures of the guy she's now dating up. Thye look really happy together. She is still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen but I'm happy for her. A part of me cries because when I look at that, I see something that I would love to have, I would love to be with someone and be that happy with them, but my heart tells me that that is impossible. I don't know what it is but all my life I've believed I would end up alone and it really scares me, to a degree. People tell me it's not true, I hear the Lord telling me it's not true, but despite all of that, my heart can feel nothing else; I can't seem to believe. A part of me thinks that if it wasn't Lea, then it would be no one. I'm sorry for this, I am just really frustrated righ tnow. I see all these good things happening to all of my friends and yet these past 2 years I've felt like God has completely ignored me. All my freinds in school got opportunity after opportunity thrown into their laps to build contacts and do things involving audio, and yet I got nothing despite the fact that I was one of the top students. the contacts i did get said they'd keep in touch but that has proven untrue. I see other friends getting jobs in their fields, getting their dreams of going to law school fulfilled, finding someone to be with, and having a good time with life. And what do i get? A job I absolutely can't stand, living in a town I absolutely can't stand anymore, no prospects of a job in my field and each door that is seemingly opened, is slammed shut again. It's hard for me not to beome bitter again and despite all the progess I've made these past few weeks, I'm almost ready to throw my faith down and start doing things on my own. I'm an extremist and right now I could either go extreme faith or drop my faith completely. In either case, it's taking more strength than I have to pull through. I don't have the strength anymore to have faith and I don't have the strength to continue on my own without faith.
So as I said, time will tell if my blog title proved to be true or not. I view blogs as 'Inherent Contradictions of Reason' because if you truly use it as a journal and have difficulties -or anything like that- with friends who know about the blog and can go and read it whenever they want, then really, either you can't write what you truly want to write or you're flying in the face of all reason and writing about struggles they should maybe not hear about.
The reason I write this is because I want your opinions, your prayers, your ideas, any help or words you may have oand yeah. That's why I write this, it's not just to vent.
YFTCF
Gregory
8.21.2006
A Beautiful Warrior: Explained
Hey friends,
So this is an explanation of the poem below. I wrote thi poem about someone i met back in January and she was and is still the most amazing person I've met in my life. Only now she has a boyfriend. When i let her first read the poem, she didn't have a boyfriend but I still think the meaning was lost on her and everyone else. Besides the obvious, where I realized that I'm not perfect, she's not perfect (in the literal sense, being her, but also in the sense that all women aren't perfect) and we will never be perfect, there's a line i would like to draw attention to. "But I am seperated from her in both time and space." The 'her' here is literal, being the person i wrote the poem about, not women in general. Here's the rub, despite everything I've come to feel, there are certain things that I just know, and i knew when i wrote this poem that my path and her path were going 2 very different ways and to have her companionship would be impossible. Some would call me foolish to let my feelings grow so much if i knew it were impossible, but if you knew me, I don't regard such things as foolishness and I give love a chance no matter what happens. So yeah, as happens with a lot of things, I think the full meaning of this poem was lost on everyone who read it.
TTYL
Gregory
So this is an explanation of the poem below. I wrote thi poem about someone i met back in January and she was and is still the most amazing person I've met in my life. Only now she has a boyfriend. When i let her first read the poem, she didn't have a boyfriend but I still think the meaning was lost on her and everyone else. Besides the obvious, where I realized that I'm not perfect, she's not perfect (in the literal sense, being her, but also in the sense that all women aren't perfect) and we will never be perfect, there's a line i would like to draw attention to. "But I am seperated from her in both time and space." The 'her' here is literal, being the person i wrote the poem about, not women in general. Here's the rub, despite everything I've come to feel, there are certain things that I just know, and i knew when i wrote this poem that my path and her path were going 2 very different ways and to have her companionship would be impossible. Some would call me foolish to let my feelings grow so much if i knew it were impossible, but if you knew me, I don't regard such things as foolishness and I give love a chance no matter what happens. So yeah, as happens with a lot of things, I think the full meaning of this poem was lost on everyone who read it.
TTYL
Gregory
8.14.2006
Poem: A Beautiful Soldier
A Beautiful Soldier
We are surrounded by a valley
Its trees are dispersed in a random pattern and
The waterfall shines like a cascade of mirrors.
In the silver moonlit night, its rumble only adds
To the beauty that now encircles our encampment.
And then I see her, a warrior.
I see her by the fire; her dark hair hangs loosely down her back
And the flickering light is cast upon her face.
The orange glow accenting her fair complexion
Also provides a reprieve from the night's bitter chill.
I cry, because my desire is to have her companionship
But I am separated from her in both time and space
And with greatest reluctance, I turn away and approach the waterfall,
The rumbling cascade drowning out the din of everything else.
I saw, etched deep into her face, a mighty dedication,
A strong devotion to the Christ Messiah
And I begin to wonder where my own heart lies.
Peering into the silver cascade of mirrors
I catch a glimpse of my broken reflection...
Then the sound of light footsteps breaks my concentration
And I turn, startled to find her smiling at my side.
My breath is still as our attention shifts back to the waterfall
And my eyes see a mystifying thing;
There, within the silver moonlit cascade
Lay the mirrored images of two broken reflections.
8.12.2006
You are not alone
The steep mountain slope stood before him, nothing but rock surrounded him. He was unable to see the horizon and the mountains about him were indeed impenetrable. Fear gripped his heart as he stood alone on the side of this mountain, it haunted him it followed him. He could not escape the feeling, could not escape the moments of overwhelming doubt. They followed him as if they were the very essence of the black clouds that lay below him. There was so much pain, so much confusion within those clouds and despite all his strength he could not keep in front of them. His situation was bleak, a wall of rock stood before him with only pain, confusion and loneliness behind him. Where could he find his peace, where could he put his trust...
Dressed in his dull, beat up armor the soldier stood in a bleak and wasted landscape. The army behind him was ceaselessly cursing, yelling and taunting him. The hatred they had towards him, the pure unchecked bloodlust they had for his demise haunted the soldier; he was weak and could not stand anymore. Falling to his knees in bitter frustration he cried aloud; he knew his demise would soon become a reality. His enemy had won and they had been able to knock down his defenses. As if to re-iterate this, his helmet slipped off his head and fell to the dusty ground. His hope was gone. Where could he find his peace, his strength, and, in whom could he put his trust...
...The lone man looked at the dark churning clouds behind him and the impenetrable wall of solid rock in front of him and then something overcame him. He was aware of a presence so holy, so divine standing right beside him. He turned to look but could see no one, and yet, he knew there was someone beside him holding his hand and carrying him along. It spoke of a hope, of someone so trustworthy and faithful, and now he knew that this rock face was not as impenetrable as he once had thought. He turned his back on the prison of clouds below him and took one step forward into the future. Yes, there would be trying times but the one beside him would be there to show him the path.
...As the soldier sat there sobbing he felt someone approach him. Thinking it was finally the end he collapsed to the ground, his face pressed hard into the soil. But he felt someone reach down and touch him, a touch not of hate, but of love and he was raised from off his face. Still unable to stand, the soldier stayed on his knees looking up trying to see his helpers face, but the brilliance behind this strange person kept him from seeing much detail. He watched as his helper bent down to pick up the fallen helmet. Dusting it off the stranger placed the helmet back onto the soldiers head. Standing him up, the stranger said one sentence, “Go. I go with you and my strength is yours.” With that the soldier turned to face the army before him and raising his sword, he leveled it at the creatures that so wanted to destroy him. He knew now that this would be a different battle and he was indeed not alone in it.
This is a story I wrote not too long ago. Sometimes I begin to wonder if I write these stories for a reason that I cannot comprehend at the time the last key is struck. You see, every time i go back to read them, I seem to be facing some kind of trial, some kind of struggle; when all hope seems to be lost, the things I've written seem to reach into my very heart and calm the waters. They seem to bolster my strength and my resolve to not give in and not be conquered by the troubles of this life.
Random Bush Stories
So this is a picture of a river near my place. Absolutely gorgeous isn't it? I'm someone who loves nature and when I see pictures like this, it makes me just want to be there.
For those of you who don't know, and I am sure that is almost everyone who reads this blog. I am a sound engineer currently working in the bush unti I can find something in my own field of expertise. I love the outdoors a lot. I complain about work sometimes only because when I am working, I have no time to appreciate the wilderness I am in, I don't have any time to explore, and I can't choose when I want to go out or where. So I end up just not liking my job at all and can get really frustrated sometimes. However, I've hadsome of the most amazing experiences while working in the bush. Like just a few weeks ago I had a squirrel use my head as a platform for escape. You see, my partners dog had been digging at this root wad for some time and I was sitting down on a log nearby. We were doing a re-sweep of a cruise that had failed so i didn't really have much to do at the time. As i was sitting there thinking, I kind of felt something brush my arm and then, I was hit in the head. I thought it was my partner and i truned to him but he was too far away. But then he said something that clued me in, he said "Oh, looks like it got away from you Hudson!". I knew immediately what had happened. The squirrel he had been digging for got real panicked and decided to take a gamble by running right for a human and using it's head as a platform to jump to a nearby tree. I couldn't believe it when I first realized what had happened to me. The poor thing must have been absolutley terrified to pull a stunt like that. What makes it even more funny is that I had almost decided to stand up a split second before all this occoured. If i had, the quirrel would have been airborne and unable to change it's trajectory. In which case, I would have been wearing that thing in my shoulder, rather than my head and Yeah, things would have gotten interesting from there; it would have been a true 'Goofey' moment to behold, everything going wrong at once.
A few days later I had a deer come within 10 feet of trampling me. My partners dog (same dog) decided it would be fun to chase them around a block we were GPS'ing at the time and this stupid thing came bounding over a small bump/hill of which i was standing at the base. I yelled 'Whoa deer!' and it took an immediate right hand turn and bounded off. I thought for a second it was a bear and panicked because i had left my bear spray in the truck.
Anyways, those are just a few of my bush stories; I've had many over the years!
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