The Death of A Child

So here's some lyrics I just wrote. Pretty off-the-cuff. Struggling a lot with temptation and feeling hopeless in struggling to rise above, so this one is pretty hopeless too. I'm so sick of giving in and so sick of lying to myself. This struggle is the one thing I hate most about myself. It's my biggest flaw, and my most embarrassing secret. God, consume me. All there is. Leave nothing.

Like a whore. That's how I treated your grace. With negligence, not fully taking notice of the price you paid to pave a road away from this hell of mine. If grace was a car, then I'm wrapped around a tree watching the life bleed from my veins, fading. If mercy was a gun, then Its cold steel has been against my head for far too long, holding me hostage to my own demise. You claim there's freedom, yet all I see are my own hands wrapped around my throat. I'm walking in a den of liars and thieves, feeding me their filth and stealing my innocence. Maggots. All of you. A maggot, I am. There's no way out.

100 Days of Discipline Day 4

Yeah, so I didn't do anything this past weekend as far as this goes.  I know working is no excuse, but I worked a lot Sunday and Saturday and just didn't feel like doing anything afterwards besides relaxing.  With that being said, here's day 4:

Scripture:  Matthew 4:3-4, "The tempter came to him and said, 'If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.'  Jesus answered, 'It is written:  Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Over the past week or so, I've been continually reminded by some circumstances in my own life how God needs to be the rock that we stand on and nothing else.  If we rely on something in our own life to give us comfort, joy, health, and peace, then when that thing fails (and believe me, it will fail) who will we turn to?  Who will provide that reassurance of security when everything else is gone?  It's at this place that this verse speaks to me the most.  In my mind, Jesus is saying, "Man does not live on human constructs alone, but on a heavenly way of thinking."  As the old hymn goes, "Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness."  People will fail.  Jobs will be fickle.  Relationships come and go.  Schooling may sometimes fall apart.  The government is corrupt.  Money is a false sense of security in today's economy.  Physical conditions can change for a lifetime in a fraction of a second.  Life can be taken away before we even live.  There is nothing, absolutely nothing in this world that will consistently fill you with hope, never let you down, always build you up, give you security in who you are, and bring unending joy into your life.  Yet how much stock do we put into this world?  How much work do we put into this world as compared to what we put into the next? 

So here's my chant.  This is my vow.  I'm sick of this life.  I'm sick of looking for fulfillment in this world.  I'm sick of falling to temptation for a brief moment of clarity when I could have eternal peace.  I'm sick of relying on others to tell me who I am.  I'm sick of the facade of comfort that relationships bring me.  I'm sick of money.  I'm sick of school.  I'm sick of politics.  I'm sick of wealth.  I'm sick of gluttony.  I'm sick of laziness.  I'm sick of the bigotry, the lying, the two-faced people that I see around me.  I'm sick of struggle and sick of pain.  Let's stop wasting our time on the "bread" of this world and let's start living on the very breath of God, because from that breath came mountains and skies and trees.  That breath of God created this world and spoke words that still whisper on over 2,000 years later.  I am not of this world.  This world is not my home.

100 Days of Discipline Day 3

Scripture:  Matthew 3:8-12, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.  And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.  The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.  "I baptize you with water for repentance.  But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry.l  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor, gathering His wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

For those of you who don't know me as well as most, I like to be honest and transparent.  The more transparent I can be about my own life, my struggles, insecurities, and doubts, the more other people will be able to open up about theirs and start to process and work through them.  I like being transparent, transparency is good.  It breaks down barriers and allows people to see in me, "Hey, this is what I'm struggling with, I'm just being honest."  With that said, 10 minutes ago I was really, truly being tempted to fall into sin.  There was just that one thing, one idea that kept be planted in my mind, and like a cancer it spread throughout my entire body.  I could literally feel my heart racing and my stomach turning as I fought with my entire being to withstand the assault my spirit was taking.  Throughout the next few minutes, I kept on repeating a song over and over in my head.  Actually, more specifically, one line of a song.  "We are calling out.  Let's get back to our first love...this is a call for discernment."  And with that anthem playing in my head, I found the temptation easier to withstand, and I'm happy to say that I did not fall into temptation this morning.  Yay me.  Score one for victory!  (The song is below)

After that whole ordeal, I come to read Matthew 3 and read John the Baptist speaking to the Pharisees and Saducees (the chief religious leaders at the time) about being hypocritical and the call to produce good fruit.  If you don't, at the time of Judgment, you'll be separated like chaff from wheat, and the chaff will be burned (hell).  God doesn't joke around.  When He says something, He means it.  So if He commands us to walk in love and think with a pure mind, that's a priority that we have to make.  If we continue to live in sin, how will we look different from the chaff that is thrown away? Part of being a Christian is to not look like the rest of the world.  To stand out.  Be different.  This morning when I struggled with temptation, I could have very well fallen into it and given in, but in the end I would have ended up looking like the rest of the world.  God calls each and every one of us to be different and to walk a different path, but how can we when we live almost the exact same lives and live in the same sins?  How can a tree produce good fruit is the roots are rotten?  In the same way, how can we produce good fruit (which He commands us to do) if our own lives are just as dark? 

"This is a call for discernment," in your own lives.  Seek out, root out, destroy everything that stands in the way of God working in You.  Reminds me of another song by For Today, "Break everything in Your path.  Take Your rightful place in our lives."  It's time to take sin off of the throne that we've placed it on and put Him on it. 

--DyingAnOriginal
 

100 Days Of Discipline Day 2

Man, almost forgot to journal today. I read the chapter, Matthew 2, early today, but then never sat down and blogged. I'm actually posting this from my phone in bed. Yay for technology!

Scripture: Matthew 2
Well, there wasn't any specific verses that stood out, but throughout the whole chapter, it's very clear that God ha been planning this moment (the birth of Jesus) for a very, very long time. Multiple times throughout the passage, Century-old prophecies are fulfilled. God has a plan in everything, that's for sure.

The Betrayer

So here's some lyrics I wrote the other night around midnight while I was awake.

Here I am. Like a Phoenix in the dusk I came to steal your breath. No feeling. Numb. Cold. Alone. My own hands are wrapped around my throat forcing the breathe from my lungs. I fall victim once again. You built me to stand but I continually fall. My legs are weak and they crumple beneath the weight of the burden I carry. You made my hands to build but all mine do is destroy. The blood drips from my fingertips as I rip out the hearts from those I love. You created my mind to think and reason, but I wasted away. Like a husk in the fall I hung, bleak and dry on this gallows I built out of your bones. You gave me a chance to walk away, but I stayed. You gave me a reason to let go, but I held on. You offered me the strength to stand, but I push aside your help. Will you save me from me? Who will save me from me? You created me a man, but I'm no man. I'm weak and hopeless. Purposeless. Failing. Why is it so difficult to take a chance for you? I need to let go, rewind, restart.

100 Days of Discipline / I Want To Write More

When I was in middle school and full of teenage angst, I used to write a lot.  By write, I mean like poetry, stories, and journaling.  Basically, in my free time, that's what I'd do.  Lately, I've been receiving more and more of a passion to do more of that (thus, for those who know me very well, I'm going to try to accomplish NaNoWriMo starting in a couple days) and to start to express myself more freely through writing poetry and lyrics.  I don't know, I've always enjoyed it and it's something that I want to expound upon and become more affluent in doing.

Let me also bring you up to date on my spiritual life as well.  Lately, I've really been struggling with reading my Bible.  By struggling I mean, "Oh, I haven't really had a personal quiet time with God in about 3 weeks."  I am beginning, well, not beginning but seeing, the lack of a personal time with God effect the rest of my life as well as my picture of the future isn't quite as clear, it's harder to fight temptation, I'm a lot more cynical and less loving, etc.  I have an app on my iPhone that lets me start Bible reading plans, and also reminds me on a daily basis about getting in The Word.  It's a tool that I've been wanting to effectively use for a while, but just never built up the self-ambition to do so. 

With all that being said, today's a new day.  I found a Bible reading plan this morning (on aforementioned app) called 100 Days of Discipline.  All it is, is going through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts reading one chapter a day, every day, for 100 days to build up the spiritual discipline of reading the Bible.  Once you read the chapter, you journal about it.  The journal entry can be as little as, "Hey, this verse really stood out to me," or as long as, "Woah, okay, so this is what God said to me this morning..."

And that's where blogging comes in.  In the marriage of the two ideas (creative writing, or writing in general, and spiritual discipline) I have decided to make my blog here my journal.  For the next 100 days, I will be posting every day my journal.  Not only is that for me to continue to build up my writing skills, but also to make my journal public for two reasons:  1. Maybe something I say hits somebody else and speaks to them, and 2. Keep me accountable.  If there is someone out there in the wide world of cyberspace who just happens to be reading this, keep me accountable.  If you stop by one day and see that I haven't blogged yet, send me a little reminder to do it.  It's going to be a struggle, going to be hard, but it's something that I want to do. 

So yeah, without further ado, here's the journal entry for today.

Verse:  Matthew 1:25, "But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son.  And he gave him the name Jesus."
This verse in context is talking about Joseph and Mary.  Once Joseph got the "okay" from God to continue his relationship with Mary, he took Mary home to be his wife.  But then this verse comes along and basically says, "They didn't have sex until Jesus was born."  What a man.  Seriously.  If you can be married  but not have sex, you are such a man in my opinion.  I don't know, that verse just shows a lot of integrity in Joseph and gives me a newfound respect for him because he had enough strength to say, "Hey, what I want isn't important."  Humility.

--DyingAnOriginal