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Poor Boy Hat
May. 20, 2008
Interlude
My last post kind of burned me out so I took a little time off. Thanks for the comments and the positive thoughts!
On Friday, I will be on my way to summer camp where I will be leading some Middle Schoolers. It's the first time for me and I'm definitely looking forward to it.
The worship leader at my church gave me a copy of Do Hard Things by the Harris twins in return for the volunteer video work I've done in the past. It's really an excellent book and I strongly recommend it (so far).
Incidentally, I promised Tanner back in March that I would put up a picture of him beating me arm-wrestling. Well, Tyler gave us a CD of pics from that event but unfortunately none of them seem to be of me and Tanner arm-wrestling. I know somebody has pictures, but it isn't me! So sorry about that, Tanner. :)
That's it for now. I'm going to go leave some comments. :) |
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May. 1, 2008
Embracing Immaturity
Interesting title, I know. Hopefully you'll understand what I mean by that by the time I'm done. I must say, this is one of the few posts I've written that I'm actually excited about.
Incidentally, I've found that I write better while listening to music. The set music for this article is Dead Poetic, and I'm currently on "Self-Destruct & Die".
Now, to begin.
First, what do I mean when I say immaturity? Well, generally when we use that term to describe a fellow human we mean that they are behaving in some way younger than their actual age. That isn't what I mean when I use it here. I am referring more to what a birdwatcher would say when he sees a young eagle. He would say that it is an "immature golden eagle", meaning that it has not yet acquired all the adult characteristics. So, in that sense immaturity simply means being young.
Now, what immaturity am I referring to specifically? I am explicitly talking about spiritual immaturity. Or rather, Christian immaturity.
I personally think that we homeschoolers have a problem. And that problem is this: we have heard our whole lives that homeschooling will produce better, stronger Christians than public or private schooling. We have been told that homeschoolers are more knowledgeable than the average kids. Now, you probably aren't seeing why this is a problem. Well, it isn't a problem in itself, and is in fact true to an extent. The problem is this:
We as homeschoolers and Christians have been taught so much and we have so much knowledge about God, the Bible, etc (which is all a good thing, mind you), that we feel the need to use it. So we do things like start blogs and we talk about theology and we debate the Bible and Christianity. But all along something isn't right.
What isn't right? Here's the simple truth, you cannot be born mature. Your parents cannot make you mature. So, if we really have had a "second birth" as Christians, than clearly there is a maturing that needs to take place that has to go on inside of us personally. Nobody can make me mature or do anything but give me the food I need to grow. What I do with that is my choice.
To be perfectly honest, knowledge isn't maturity. Right behavior isn't maturity. Proper theology is not maturity.
What I'm talking about is maturity as a follower of Christ. Maturity in your relationship with Christ. I'm talking about the kind of maturity that turns knowledge into passion and turns what you've been taught into a personally significant walk with Christ. That is maturity.
I have a lot of Bible knowledge. I can write about the Bible, I can be convincing, I can be complemented. I am a spiritually immature person.
I have only just started down the deeper paths of Christianity. I have only just started making my faith something completely independent of those around me. I have just begun getting deeper and more intimate with God himself.
This is not a bad thing. That is why this is titled "Embracing Immaturity". We should be immature at some point, because you cannot become mature without first being immature. We should acknowledge that everything we have been taught is useless without God's Holy Spirit working inside us personally. We should accept that we have only just begun to stop loving the facts and start loving the God that they point to.
So don't be afraid to admit immaturity. Jump into your immaturity and watch it become more and more the true maturity of a follower of Christ. And don't let external expectations stop you from being honest about who you are in Christ. |
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Apr. 29, 2008
Filler
It has been twenty-two days since my last entry. In fact, it has been so long that I almost missed my three-posts-per-month habit.
I actually have a post in my head that I really want to get up, but I haven't taken the time to write it all out. I also got some pics from Jaime and JM's birthday, and I'm going to put at least one of those up.
In the meanwhile, here's a couple of reading assignments:
First, if you have the latest issue of The Old Schoolhouse, check out the article by my dad all about nuclear energy. Pretty fascinating stuff.
Second, go to your library, get a collection of O. Henry stories, and read A Municipal Report. Why? Because it's one of my favorite short stories and I like to share the fun.
Third, read all of Les Miserables before my next post.
Okay, that might be asking a little much . . . |
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Apr. 7, 2008
A Sword
I'm sitting here feeling completely exhausted, and the reason is . . .
I got back from a weekend retreat yesterday. This retreat was called Days of Knight and was planned and organized by my good friend Chris Ashley, who is one of the student ministries interns at church. The gist of this was to give guys who are Juniors and Seniors in High School a chance to get away and think about what it means to be a Biblical man.
We left at roughly 5:00 on Friday and headed for the church retreat center, which is hidden away in the woods somewhere near Rockwood. The first night was mostly just hanging out. Chris talked for a bit to introduce us to the event, then we watched Kingdom Heaven. Why? Because it's the Days of KNIGHT, of course. :P
Anyway, I thought the movie was excellent. Saturday was filled with stuff that would take too long to describe. One of the highlights was making armor and weaponry out of cardboard and having a massive capture the flag/battle. I'm sure we looked like complete idiots. :P
That said, some of us, myself included, felt like we weren't getting much out of the event so we went off alone to try to focus more on God. I have to say, it's hard and frustrating. My friends David and Caleb and I ended up staying up quite late sitting around the fire and just being honest with each other. It was very very refreshing.
Meanwhile, Chris was telling everyone to sleep in on Sunday, the last day, because breakfast wasn't until 9:30. I was looking forward to enjoying that, and was more than a little annoyed when Chris showed up next morning at 7:30 telling us we needed to be up in five minutes.
We all gathered quite blearily and Chris marched us off for a short hike, in which we were told to be completely quiet. I was really starting to wonder what was going on. Finally, he stopped us and told us that the retreat was intended to be primarily a way of recruiting us into Biblical manhood and into Christ's service. But he said that he didn't feel like he was qualified to to do that, so . . .
We trudged around a final corner of the woods and discovered, much to our great surprise, all our dads assembled there! They each came forward, talked to us individually, and presented us with a sword with our name engraved on the blade. I have to say, it was pretty cool. Turns out, they had been staying in their own cabin since the previous night and we had had no clue about it.
Well, this has been somewhat of a ramble. Nothing else greatly important happened, but I felt like the retreat was a good time for me. Sometimes it's good to just get away from all the distractions. But even then it takes effort.
Oh, before I'm done. I haven't really had the time or energy to respond to most of the comments I've gotten lately. But I have most definitely seen them. I'll try in the future to be more diligent as far as responses go. :) |
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