wake up

please wake up, Church...

the vision

never lose sight of the vision you God gave you.
Nehemiah 6:3

So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this…
The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers

choose to loose
that they might one day win
the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them ?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays

like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mold them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,

they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centers.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

this week

hope your week was as great as mine!

i ate a red pickle
turns out that's a pickled plum

went swing dancing last night
by the end i was doing a decent job i think
even made up a thing or two of my own :)

today i went to Cody's
first we played a war game that i sucked at :)
then we played some cheap yet incredible awesome arcade-type game where you basically flew around in space above a planet and shot asteroids and aliens. A simple, old school game. Turns out those are still some of the best.

took some nice pictures

and got a job as a Peer Leader for next year. :)
(if you don't go to Tech, that's an RA for freshmen basically)
i'm quite excited about this.
i'll be somewhere in Freeman/Fitten/Montag. i'd originally hoped to be on east campus... but i've decided i'm quite okay with this now.
and I think my hall director is a Christian. which... will make it even better in many ways i think.


pray that I figure out what to do this summer in the next week...


I'm Not Running- Cool Hand Luke

For the message
Of the cross is
Foolishness
To those who are perishing
But to us
Being saved
It’s the power
Of God (I Corinthians 1:18)

There’s no turning back
Unless we’re turning back to you

I’m not running away from this
I’m not falling asleep
I’m not taking a bribe from anyone for anything
I’m not running away from this
I’m not falling asleep
I’m not turning back on the one thing that I know

We’re the foolish
We’re the weak ones
We’re the lowly
And despised things that are not
God will take us
He will shape us
He will make us
Nullify the things that are (I Corinthians 1:27-28)
There’s no turning back
Unless we’re turning back to you

I have given up on breathing and all I need is You
I am never going down for air again

a healthy diet

(I wrote this a while back and have decided to share it.)

If only
we could get it in our heads...
In our hearts!
In the very core of our understanding...
That we need you.
With a need that is more vital even than food & water.
Often it seems
we are only ever thankful for such
simple
Necessities
when we realize how much they are needed.
And when they are scarce.
So it is with you.
If I need your Spirit I'll just
turn the handle
and out it pours.
Or open the door to find a shelf full of the Bread of Life.
So then why do I barely scrounge together one
decent meal each day? (if that)
The same cereal. The same sandwich.
Trading meat for snacks.
Because I'm too lazy?
Because I don't understand?
Because, ultimately, I don't think I need you.

The effects of
starvation and dehydration
are evident.
And, try as I might,
one meal won't solve the problem.

cooking and kids

i cooked last night

i made fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, biscuits, and gravy for 11 people

i had some help...
though even there i was still pretty much directing it.
i'd never made fried chicken before so most of my attention was focused on hitting the mark between black and salmonella.
i think i could do it all on my own now that i know what i'm doing

and more than that...
it actually turned out to be good.

i'm proud and feel like telling of my conquests :)

in other news

today i was playing with two little kids and bags of gooey stuff.
water and flour... or maybe just generic manufactured slime?
well
between themselves they couldn't decide if it was grease or something from a bear's stomach.
i love them

my wife

i pray that i find a wife who is in many ways like Mae in Cinderella Man.

holy sonnet 15

by John Donne

Wilt thou love God as he thee? then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by angels waited on
In heaven, doth make His temple in thy breast.
The Father having begot a Son most blest,
And still begetting—for he ne'er begun—
Hath deign'd to choose thee by adoption,
Co-heir to His glory, and Sabbath' endless rest.
And as a robb'd man, which by search doth find
His stolen stuff sold, must lose or buy it again,
The Sun of glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom He had made, and Satan stole, to unbind.
'Twas much, that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more.