That Hideous Strength

2 Chronicles 13:15 is in the middle of a battle between Israel and Judah.  Abijah, the fearless leader of Judah was at war with Jeroboam, the leader of Israel.  13:15 shows evidence that if we call on our Lord--our Helper and Strength--that He will pull through for us.  He will fight for us.  Verse 16 goes on to say that the Israelites fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hands.  In verse 18 it sums up the story with this, "The men of Israel were subdued on that occasion, and the men of Judah were victorious because they relied on the Lord, the God of their fathers."  How often do we rely on our own strength and don't raise the battle cry that we need to against the attacks of our enemies?  God will fight for us.  He will come through if we have the faith to believe it.
Directly from that I began reading Romans 8:26, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."  A lot of times, especially when I pray, I find myself at a loss for words.  What do I pray for specifically?  It seems that I pray for the same things over and over again no matter what the situation:  God's will be done, strength, peace, endurance, and wisdom.  They seem to be the staple things that we pray for.  But what if we stopped merely spewing words--what we thought the sitution needs--and instead listen to what God lays on our hearts.  Like Francis Chan says in the opening chapter of "Crazy Love", "What if we stop talking at God?"  Going off of that, what if we actually believe that God will give us strength and come through?  "The Spirit helps us in our weakness."  2 Corinthians 12:10 also plays a part here.  And then we get to the end of Romans 8.  Boom goes the dynamite. 
It's amazing how the Bible works together.  We just read what happens in the Old Testament when people call on the name of the Lord.  We just read in Romans 8:26 how God intercedes for us.  Now, we read that God is for us.  God is on the sideline of heaven cheering us on.  8:34 says that Jesus is at the right hand of God (which, in case you don't know, was--in that time period--the hand of honor as opposed to the left hand) interceding and cheering us on.  Nothing can stop us when we have God on our side.  Then finally in 37 we read, "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us."  The chapter ends with the affirmation that nothing can seperate us from the love of Christ.  To quote the spin that the band My Heart To Fear put on these last two verses, "No demon, no man, no power that be will ever have the strength to keep you from Me."  Isn't that truth incredible?  Doesn't that make you want to fight your hardest and do everything you can to serve God wholly? 
Lastly, the Daily Bible led me to Psalms 18:37-50.  This is the second time that I'm reading through Psalms this year.  The Bible took me through it the first half of the year, now it's taking me through it again.  Time and time again I've turned back and looked to the Psalms for the strength that God will give me that day.  It's a long passage, and I won't quote the whole thing, but David is finding his strength in God.  His strength comes from God and he goes back to battle against them and wins.  Verse 39 says, "You [God] armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet." 
See, all this is great.  We've looked at several different passages today and all point towards God giving us the strength when we need it.  God gives us the willpower to fight against not only the attacks of Satan, but the multiple ways the world will try to put us down as well.  But that's not the end.  The end is summed up in Psalms 18:46-50.  David doesn't just end the Psalms by saying that God will gives us strength, he ends the Psalms with praise and thanksgiving to God for the strengtht that He provided.  "The Lord lives!  Praise be to my Rock!  Exalted be God my Savior!"  Verse 49, "Therefore, I will praise you among the nations, O Lord; I will sing praises to Your name."
The past few weeks I've been in a battle to the death with my flesh.  My body screams and pulls one way, but the Spirit leads me another.  To be honest, I haven't been seeking for strength from God.  I have to admit, I've been seeking my own strength.  The problem with that is that I'm never strong enough.  I always have my downfalls and I am a very weak person.  This post is more for me than anyone else.  I need to focus more on the strength of God than the failing strength of me. 

My Heart To Fear - "The Witching Hour"

Two Weeks!

Here I sit on my favorite chair, still at my home in the armpit of Pennsylvania.  Milton.  The place that I spent the last 18 years of my life growing up, maturing, working, playing sports, making friends, going to church and school, and occasionally paying visits to the hospital.  Can I just say how crazy of a feeling it is to know that the time has come for me to move on.  In 336 hours I will be turning the next page in the book of my life (Which I have appropriately titled, "Freudian Slips:  The Brain-Mouth Filter Conundrum") and starting to let God write Chapter 2, which has yet to be titled.  In 336 hours, I will be starting to make new friends, taking in new sites and sounds, setting foot on soil that has never moved under my feet, and preparing to spend the next four years of my life dedicating it to not only the study and memorization of Scripture, but the application of it.  I'll be learning from some of the most respected theological leaders in my known world as the breathe the words that have been placed on their hearts that God will use to change mine.  336 hours.  Tomorrow, I will embark on my first visit to the Big Apple.  I felt if I was leaving the l(East) Coast I should at least be able to say that I was to NYC.  After a few days there, I will come back home only to be whisked away again by a few other friends as I spend a day or two at one of my friend's lake house.  Coming home late that night, I'll grab a few hours of sleep before packing up the car once more for a week of service and volunteer at Camp Hebron--where I previously spent three summers on staff.  The week there will fly rapidly by, and I'll soon find myself journeying home only to find my brother inhabiting the home I'm writing this blog from, and the next day and a half are going to be spent packing, storing, and worshiping as I try to square away last minute details while also trying to feverishly say goodbye to every person I've ever known in my entire existence.  The next day (if you've been following, it's now August 5th) will be spent going to my church of the past 9 years for the last time, saying goodbye to the people that have helped me grow in my walk of faith the most, grabbing lunch, locking doors and windows, and packing up the car before heading down to stop in at a family reunion in Lancaster for a few minutes and finally making my last stop at a friend's house in Philly for the night.  The final day starts with a flight at 8:35 in the morning, and by 3 in the afternoon I'll be setting foot in LAX.  The beginning.  Let me tell you, I'm a PSYCHED! 

Now that you have an update on my life, let me share a few thoughts with you that God has been pouring into me recently.

Identity is such a loaded word.  One of my favorite movie trilogies focuses on a trained assassin losing his and forming an opposite second identity to combat the consequences of the first.  When someone says, "Identify yourself", or, "Tell me a little bit about yourself", we can literally mention anything in the entire world that we identify with and be seen as who we want to be seen as.  Depending on your identity, people will look at you differently.  If you identify as a Steelers fan (yes, I am, deal with it), people already form preconceived ideas on who you are.  Maybe they think you are a bandwagon fan and like them because they're one of the most valuable sport franchises in history.  Maybe it's their Bowl rings.  Then they may associate that to you being arrogant and stuck up.  What about music?  If you say you like country music, people form a picture in their head of cowboy boots, voices that croon along with the wolves, pickup trucks, beer, horses, and horrible relationship choices.  Heavier music paints a completely different stigma.  Skinny jeans, tank tops, chains, bracelets, long hair, and tattoos.  If you see someone dressed like that on the street don't you paint an imaginative identity on top of them?  Don't you have your own expectations on how they treat people?  How they act?  Words they say?  Maybe your identity is school.  If you go to a school like Penn State University or even Bloomsburg University (thankyouverymuch) people may associate you with different feelings.  Both are party schools, and without even getting to know the person, we paint our own phrases, identities, and stereotypes on top of people attending them.  Whether we like to admit it or not, we each have our own identity.  We have things we're passionate about.  We having things that we identify with, things that get our blood boiling, tears flowing, or emotions rising.  We have adjectives we identify with.  Things we use to describe ourselves.  This is life.  We are our own unique individual, and we are all created differently.  We all have a different identity. 
Identity has been something that has caused me much grief over the past five or so years.  When I was younger, I put my identity in relationships.  But when they were taken away, my identity was shattered.  I found out quickly how easy it was to jump from crowd to crowd.  It was simple to be part of one group and take on their characteristics and interests, but then turn around and be part of another group with completely different personalities and interests.  Frankly, in the early to mid stages of high school, I had no idea who I was.  I was whoever you wanted me to be.  Whoever got me the most friends.  Whoever made me more popular.  I was that.  If only I knew then what I know now: 

"Identity needs to be permanent for us to have a true sense of who we are."

My identity wasn't permanent.  It jumped around and changed a lot.  Towards the latter two years of high school it really started to catch up with me.  My friends all had their identities and their own hobbies.  They had things they were interested in and they pursued them.  They had ideas of where they wanted to go to school and they researched them.  They were thinking about what they wanted to be after they graduated because they had a sense of self-identity.  Me?  I was clueless.  I didn't have any consistent hobbies and I was very impulsive.  I had many ideas of what would be fun to do after high school, but none were practical or even permanent.  My college choices were dependent on where all my friends were going.  I was lost.  I didn't know who I was.  Because of that, I struggled with social anxiety.  I would occasionally have problems in public eating.  I couldn't do it.  I would be too worried about how I looked when I eat and who was looking at me.  Were they judging me by what I was eating?  Were my manners okay?  One too many times I found myself hiding the gagging that was going on in the back of my throat.  I wasn't anorexic.  I wasn't bulimic.  I was simply very insecure.
After high school, things got worse.  I entered out of my Christian school shell that I had been in the past 18 years of my life and entered into the real world working two jobs back to back.  Right out of high school I was also hit hard by C. Diff--a virus that destroys your digestive system--and was put on a vegetable and meat diet for three months.  It was embarrassing which further pushed me deeper into my insecurity.  On top of that, I was entering two worlds I had never experienced before:  1.  Workforce, 2.  The non-Christian world.  Not only was I learning how to adapt to working two jobs, but I was also shoved straight into the face of the real world.  My Christian bubble had popped and it was time for me to stand...on my own.  I couldn't do it.  Because my identity was wrapped up in making sure I looked good, money, and friends--and all those are temporary--my identity was once again shattered.
There is good at the end of my story.  Over the past two years, God has been teaching me about how irrelevant who I think I am is, and ultimately who He thinks I am.  I have learned that my identity can't be in earthly, temporary things or I will fail.  Hard. 

"My identity needs to be in a gracious Savior who looks down in incomprehensible and incomparable love at what He sees in me."

So much love, in fact, that He gave his one and only son.  For me.  (John 3:16)  He gave His life as a ransom for mine because he loved me so much that He wants to spend the rest of my life and all of eternity with me.  On that cross was where the incredible love of God was poured out on mankind through Jesus, the Son.  On that cross was where the fearsome and holy wrath of God was removed from our heads and placed on his own son.  (Ephesians 2:3) On that cross was where the nails were driven in that created the scars of my redemption on the hands of my Redeemer.  Those scars bear my name.  (Isaiah 49:16)
My identity is not only a son of God that's been redeemed by grace, but a worshiper.  My entire life now needs to be one whole act of worship and devotion in appreciation of the salvation that has been extended to me.  My life needs to be a living sacrifice, holy, and pleasing to God (Romans 12:1).  Because of that, the way of life that I am now called and devoted to live, I have been set apart, from birth, and called by grace so that I might be a witness to others.(Galatians 1:11-17)  I have been therefore set on this race of endlessly giving devotion and honor to Him.  That's my identity; that's my life.  I am by no means perfect, and I still have a lot of ground to cover, but unreachable perfection is the--I believe--standard, not requirement, that Christ has set for each of us.  So I will press on to take hold of that and strive to be all that He is calling me to be.  (Phillipians 3:12)  I will still have my days where I mess up.  I will still have my days where I blatantly choose to dishonor God and bring glory to myself.  Occasionally I will choose to satisfy my sinful nature instead of glorifying His heavenly nature, but I have been eternally purchased through blood; a transaction that cannot be undone while I am still in service to Him.  Because of this love, those mistakes I make will not be eternally held against me.  They will not be my damnation.  No, for those in Christ--for those redeemed--there is no condemnation.  (Romans 8:1)
Therefore, my identity is no longer in what I look like, how I dress, or how much hair I have on my face.  My identity is not in my popularity, how many friends I have, words I say, the figures in my bank account, or the music on my iPod.  My identity is not in the movies I watch, the facade of Hollywood stars, or the human skills of athletics or academics.  My identity is in continually submitting to God's will in my life, dying to myself (Matthew 16:24), and living to bring Him glory even when it isn't convenient or doesn't make sense. 

"My identity is in Jesus Christ.  He is the rock on which I stand.  What can mortal man do to me? (Psalms 56:4)"

 --DyingAnOriginal

Also, as an after thought.  This song just came to mind while naming this blog.  Uhh...yeah...

 All That Remains - Two Weeks

 

Blast From the Past

Started packing/cleaning to move to California and I came across a stash of old journals.  Some date back to 2006.  I found this song that I wrote in 2006 called, "The Crows Are Getting Hungry".  If I remember correctly, I wrote it out of frustration deep in the midst of a struggle with lust.  Pretty dark for a 15 year old me, but here it is:

Cut open my heart to stop the bleeding.
This black infection runs deeper than my soul.
Break the glass that keeps me from You.
Watch the blood flow; cleansing renewed.
The perfection of everything I see is a knife in my throat.
Tear these hands away from you.  Dismember if you have to
All these lies have led me down.
Now I have nowhere to go, but to drown, drown...

Drown this sickness.
Kill this perfect imperfection.
Kill my weakness.
Install my detection.
Because the blackness pulls me away from you.

Gouge out my eyes.
Dig through my brain.
Break my fingers, my demise.
Cut open my heart, let this ooze drain.
All the imperfect perfection I saw has only filled me with shards of glass.
Now I'm begging, Lord, take away cleanse me of my past!
Left with nowhere to run to, no path to be found.
I'll feel my neck break, but first I have to drown, drown...

Drown this sickness.
Kill this perfect imperfection.
Kill my weakness.
Install my detection.
Because the blackness tears my soul from you.

Let my blood run new.
Cleanse me for you.
Rewind the past, maybe I'll last.
Then I'll find, you clear my mind.

Drown this weakness.
Kill this perfect imperfection.
Kill my weakness.
Install my detection.
Because this blackness pulls me away from you.