Back To The Future

My sister has gotten me to start liking the movie "Back to the Future" a lot. I'll just say it's a weird idea for a movie, but once you get through it it catches on and is also pretty funny. I'll admit that I like it very much and never seems to get boring. The first and second are the best, the third is good but not great. And remember "Nobody calls me chicken!"

Working With Clay

I remember an art class that I once took a while ago where I had to make sculptures and pots out of clay. For those of you who are hoping that this is one of my “tips on art” I’m sorry that it’s not, I was never really great at art and don’t have much advice (other than only draw on the paper) but working with clay reminded me of a post I wrote. I know there have been countless writings about how God works with us and again I apologize that this is one of them. One thing I remember about working with clay is that is was boring and cold, basically lifeless. I remember having to warm it with my hands so I could work with it and that it would dry out and crack often, and I would have to constantly roll and re-roll it to get it to a point where it could be used. Then I’d cut it into a few pieces that I would need, put some together, and cut extraneous bits off to give it the shape I wanted. When I was finally done I’d smooth out the imperfections and put it in the kiln. It would come out white and fragile and then I’d carefully paint it adding color and life to my creation and glaze it to make it strong and give it a shine. That is an image of how God works through us. He takes us in the beginning of our faith; out of our sin He welcomes us. And just like the clay He works through our faults to get us to the place that we are to be. He then takes His tools to our life, taking the old life out and putting the new life in. We are then taken to the “kiln” to be cleansed of our sin and then when we are cleansed He takes us and adds His spirit in our lives to give us strength. I know the imagery is somewhat over used but it still rings true. God loves us and in His loving hands we are transformed from hard lifeless clay to a new lively creation. He is never done working with us, throughout our lives He is constantly taking away and adding to our souls before we are back to His original creation. Inside every block of clay is an artist’s sculpture and inside every person’s soul is God’s original masterpiece.

Colds and Storms

I remember once that I had a very bad cold (don’t worry the story gets better). Have you ever had one of those colds that just get to you and then you’re out of it for the day? Well that happened to me, (one time I went to the wrong class and stayed there for half an hour!) But the bad thing about this cold was I had a baseball game the next day. Ordinarily I would have skipped the game but this was a five game season so I wanted to get maximum playing time. I started the game in right field and then it got dark, the lights went on and I was going to play catcher. I put my gear on and squatted for a long inning, with a cold, on a cool autumn night. Just to put it this way, it wasn’t the most fun I had catching. When sin enters our life we can end up like that, we can be off. We may not hear God’s voice or the Bible my just not make sense to us, or we may not know the right decision to make. And to those who feel this way I’ll say this, it happens we fall off we get lost they don’t call it a spiritual journey for nothing. But I also have to say this; it’s our job to get back on track. When I played that game everything was off, my bat speed, my arm strength, my reaction time, and when sin enters our life it can be the same (well not exactly). Just like the cold hindered my ability to play sin hinders our relationship with God, He seems silent to us we feel alone. We all feel this way at some point in our life, and God is there to help us. Whether something bad has happened or you’re stuck in a rut God is there to give us strength. “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” Psalm 46: 11.

Never Forget

“The men of Israel sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord.” Joshua 9:14. This verse is found in chapter 9 (obviously), and takes place while the Gibeonites are deceiving Israel. I wrote a post yesterday about how Joshua was to lead the Israelites and be strong and courageous, well good news is that he was so much that the Gibeonites who were neighbors were so afraid that they played a trick and pretended to come from far away so that they wouldn’t be taken over. Now, all of this is interesting but what does it have to do with us? Well sometimes we can be like the men of Israel, sometimes we can go ahead and make decisions, make a game plan for our life without considering what God has to say. Sometimes when things are going our way we can lose sight of God, we can let pride in our hearts. I’ll admit it, when things have been going my way I have forgotten who is responsible for that. The Israelites got lost in their own success, they thought they were “all that” but they didn’t realize that their success came from God, that because of God’s love and guidance they were winning all of these battles. Sometimes we get caught in our last success, whether you hit a homerun into the parking lot, passed an exam, or got a promotion sometimes we can think we’re “all that” and there is where we can get lost and like the Israelites lose sight of God. God does amazing things through us and blesses us in amazing amounts, with His strength we can be like Joshua, and ordinary person who did the extraordinary through God’s grace and love, but we must never forget the source of our strength or lose sight of our savior.

Be Strong and Courageous

“Be strong and courageous… Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1: 6, 9. That was a part of God’s speech to Joshua before he entered the Promised Land. I had just finished Joshua and have started reading Judges but that passage stuck out to me, imagine how Joshua feels, he has spent his whole life in the desert and has done whatever Moses told him to do, but now Moses has died and it is his job to lead the Israelites into the Promised land. Not only that but he must be successful in his military campaigns and is in charge and has to make sure the Israelites obey God’s law. What a job! Sometimes we have a lot on our to-do lists, whether it is work, school, sports, whatever it is stuff can pile up in our lives. And also sometimes that can get in the way of our relationship with God, but God tell us something here, we are to be strong and courageous. We are to face our trials and not be discouraged for God is with us. No matter what comes our way, no matter how hard the wind tries to blow us down God is there giving us strength, as Psalm 46:1 says “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”

They're Back

I took the comments off my blog for a while but now they're back on so feel free to write a comment on a post that you like.

Get Up You've Got More To Do

I have been debating on how to write this post, but I guess to begin I should start off with this: I was wrong. I am sorry but on a post I wrote a while back I used the term “bad” to describe us and I am wrong to use that description. We are not bad, we may be sinful but never bad, God made us and everything else and said it was good. I have realized over time that we may sin, we may do things God doesn’t like but that never lessons God’s love for us. I used to think that God was done with me, that He couldn’t use me; I thought I was too much of a failure, a screw-up for Him. I was wrong. I’m borrowing an analogy here, but imagine Lance Armstrong is in a bike race, he rides 200 miles and is half way done and hits a rock and falls off his bike. No one is going to say “Lance, well you fell down so now you have to go back to the starting point and do it all over,” No, they’d say “Come on Lance get up you’ve got farther to go.” It’s the same in our lives, when we sin God doesn’t say “Well now look at this you’ve sinned, well now we’ve got to start all over with you,” He says “Well you’ve sinned but get back up on your feet and finish the race.” We are not pieces of junk, we are not failures when we sin God doesn’t bury His face in His hands and grieve “where did I go wrong?” He doesn’t like what we’ve done we can be certain that God isn’t pleased by our sinning but we can also be certain that He still loves us and desires us. To use the example of Peter in John 21: 15-19 Jesus reinstates him. Peter had denied Jesus, he denied his Lord to stay safe and Jesus took him back. God always has plans for us, it doesn’t matter what we’ve done or who we are all we need to do is say yes to God and repent.

Baseball Tips

With the baseball season coming up I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how I play the game and here is a list of my tips on hitting.

Go up to each at bat and make your goal to make contact, not to get a hit but make solid contact.
Don’t look at the strike zone as an indicator of what to swing at but what to hold back on.
Have a plan.
Protect the plate with two strikes.
Keep your load and stride short.
Keep your eyes on the ball, don’t look out to see where your hit goes focus on the pitch and after you hit the ball then you can look.
Decide to swing at every pitch and if it is a ball hold back, don’t go up to bat and think about whether to swing but when to stop.
Keep your shoulder in, don’t pull the ball ever, try to hit it up the middle or opposite field.
Use your hips for power not your arms.
Keep your hands in.
When you strike out forget about it.

Well that's my advice on hitting I hope it helps anyone who uses it.

Random Event Of The Day

I have just realized that though this is a random blog few of my posts are random, here I am claiming to have a random blog and I stay on two subjects, theology and baseball so here’s a random post. My dog has a peculiar habit; yesterday I posted a picture of him on the chair and even have a similar photo as my profile picture. The weird thing is that he did it again today. I was alone today doing work and I go down to get some water and there he is on the chair. It’s like he does it every time he thinks he’s alone. He also jumps on beds and pretty much anything we sit on. I guess that’s the random event of the day.

Here's a funny picture of my dog

What I Learned Today

An interesting thing happened today, I was asking God how I can grow closer to Him and a book that was on my night table fell off and landed by my feet. It was my copy of “Mere Christianity” written by C.S. Lewis that I have been reading this past week. I proceeded to read and there was my answer. On page 59 Lewis wrote about how when we become Christians we develop a “Christ-life”, or a new life that God gives us to replace the old and I came across an interesting line. Lewis wrote “But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from Christ-life inside of him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” A thing that has mystified me is how to “crucify my old self” as Paul writes it; I understood the believing and accepting part but it was the changing that eluded me. Then I came across that passage and realized this, He wants to be with us. The amazing thing about Jesus’ death was that as Lewis puts it, it makes us right with God. There is no doubt that we are inherently bad, we are so to speak born bad (whether to the bone or not I don’t know), but because of Jesus God gives us a chance to be with Him. Being a Christian is more than believing all the “stuff,” it’s a life with God. We must give up our old self and when we do God does a really cool thing He actually works in us through the Holy Spirit and the closer we are to Him the louder His voice is and the more evident He is in our lives. God desires us to do good works, not to earn His love or to just please Him (we should do good works to please God but that’s not the main point), but we are to do good works out of worship and so that we can be with Him.

What Time Is It?

One of the gifts I received for Christmas was a new watch, I generally do not wear a watch considering there always seems to be a clock nearby, but I set it to the correct time and wore it often. One problem I encountered is that the clocks in my school are five minutes slower than my watch so I never have the correct time. I have the time that I desire to have but not the actual time I need to follow in order to have the correct schedule. Our lives can be like that, in a way we all can be on the incorrect time. I have often had the problem of living in the future instead of the present. I plan out my days, and even life putting me five minutes ahead in a way. Well God’s time doesn’t work that way, He doesn’t work in our schedule for example four years ago I wanted to go on a mission trip to Mississippi to help rebuild houses and I ended up going last August, a three year delay. A delay to me, but according to plan for God, He heard my request but He chose not to answer it right away. Sometimes our biggest problem is blinds that we put in front of our eyes, our shortsightedness of God’s plan. James 4:13-16 deals with boasting about tomorrow, and how if we can’t say what will happen the next day how can we plan our lives? The only way I can be on time for my classes is to set my watch to the correct time, the only way we can fully live our lives for God and the way He intended is to set our lives to His time.

Red Sox News

Well Jim Rice got into the Hall of Fame today, he waited 14 years for this moment, I was also thinking it’s weird he waited 14 years and he was number 14. I remember one baseball season I was number 14, but I guess I didn’t get his talent at the plate from that. I also heard a rumor that the Red Sox are delaying on Jason Bay’s resigning. I think the Sox should definitely keep Jason Bay and hold on to him for as long as they can, for the past few years Jason Bay has been a 30 homerun guy, and he’s also fast which gives him a good amount of triples and doubles. Who homered in the ALDS game against the Angels? Jason Bay, if the Red Sox don’t resign him they are giving up a good player. Also I will predict that J.D. Drew, Dustin Pedroia, and Jon Lester are going to be the players that really come through in 2009. Well spring training starts soon and then the home opener against the Rays in April.

Can You Hear Him Now? Good.

If I could give only one piece of advice on how to grow spiritually it would be to read your Bible. The Bible is God’s word and by reading it we are spending time with Him, we are hearing His voice. In the business of life we can sometimes lose track of things. One of the main problems with daily devotions is just that, they are daily. They become routine it’s like in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray knows exactly when everything is going to happen, we start to expect them. The daily devotions themselves are not wrong they are actually a good thing it is our approach to them that is wrong. A problem I have had and seems widespread is to read the Bible to just get through it, to finish it. As I’ve seen when you do that it gets boring, you start skimming through the non-action parts and not understand it fully. What does this have to do with what I started out with? I have often marveled at the ability to hear God’s voice, it is an ability that has eluded me. I don’t mean that I can’t hear at all, just not all the time it’s like a radio it can be clear one minute and full of static the next. With the business of life combined with sin we can get lost and lose that connection. So why is my one piece of advice to read the Bible? When we spend time in God’s word we understand Him we recognize His voice. We end up growing closer to Him and then the static starts to fade and we hear just His voice. Jesus stated to the Pharisees in John that He is the good shepherd and that His sheep recognize His voice. This year if we are to grow spiritually if we are to recognize His voice we must first spend time in His word, if I could add one thing to mu piece of advice it would be this: read the Bible, and read it as it is, God’s voice speaking to you.

There's the bubble boy!

Have you ever seen the Seinfeld episode with the “bubble boy”? I got a good laugh out of it but also thought, in a way we can be “bubble people”. We all sin; there is no denying it but what happens when we live in our sin? Of course we’re all in a way living in sin but I mean living in the way of accepting. There is a popular “why bother” belief going on that says that it is okay to sin and that we will be forgiven and it is all okay. Well I say that is wrong and it makes bubble people. We are forgiven but it is not okay to sin. When we live in our sin we cut ourselves off from God, sure we still go to church and read our Bibles but we are separated. This separation is much worse than the brick wall I wrote about before because it is a transparent barrier unnoticeable (sounds like some kind of medical diagnosis). We end up walking in bubbles, separated from God, but not really. Something I’ve been doing this year is memorizing Bible verses, (I cannot stress the importance of this enough) and a verse that stuck out to me is Galatians 5: 16 “So I say live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of sinful nature.” We are not to live our lives accepting our sin, we will sin there isn’t much avoiding it but we are not to accept it into our lives we can’t let it be a part of us. When we let sin in our lives we cut ourselves off from God, I say that this year we pop our bubbles and experience the life that Jesus offers.

What is with the Sox?

So what is with the Red Sox? Everyone is getting all these new young players, all the big hitters and the Sox have just been working on their bullpen! I know the Red Sox had a pretty bad bullpen to start the 08 season but Masterson came through for us and Okajima pitched well towards the end of the season. And what’s with the catcher situation is Varitek going to sign or not, he’s a great catcher but offensively he is basically an automatic out. The Red Sox should keep him for a few more years so he can train someone to be a replacement. I don’t want to get any hopes up, but I’ve heard that the Red Sox are interested in acquiring Hanley Ramirez who is the hitter the Red Sox need; he’s a big homerun guy who can guarantee about 30 homeruns a year and can also steal bases once he gets on. Well the season is only four months away so I guess we’ll see then. Also the opening game is going to be a big one as the Red Sox face their postseason rivals the Rays (I still call them the devil rays) in Fenway.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, may God be an ever present factor in our lives and may He watch over us and protect us as we grow in faith. May 2009 be a year of spiritual growth, may it be a year of closeness to our Lord. Also may 2009 be a good year for the Red Sox. Once again happy New Year.