This morning I went to SYATP (See You At The Pole) at Capital High. It was awesome. At the beginning there were about 15 or 20 of us students there. The prayer started at 7:00am sharp and continued on through about 7:45. By the end of it, nearly 50 Christian students surrounded the flag pole. Although I didn't get any pictures during the prayer, check out these of the fellowship after:
It was so awesome to see students come together both in the Love of Christ, and in free speech, and to see life spoken over the school and the nation.
During the prayer time a song popped into my head. I began singing it to myself through the prayer time, until eventually I was walking out to my car singing it. As I got in my car and started the engine and the stereo came to life, I was blown away. The song playing on the radio was the very song I had been singing. It goes like this:
I was so blown away by this "coincidence" and it so hit me how involved God really is in my life, our lives. He never ceases to show me His love. How can I even hope to try to display that to others? It's so awesome that He expects nothing, but rather just loves me. And so, I am free. I am free to pray in public, I am free to be a Christian no matter the circumstances, and I am free to love others by Christ's example.
Freedom is a beautiful thing.
Did you go to SYATP? What was your experience? Colin
Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.
And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
While we're on the subject of politics, check out this video my dad and I threw together on screenr.
Ahhhhh, the beauty of a Saturday. Yesterday, I was plagued by school, homework, and upcoming tests. But today, today is Saturday. The past is the past and the future is the future. Right now, however, it's Saturday. :D
Last night I hit up a Bless the Martyr show in Meridian. It was a fun show, and afterwords I went out with the band (they're all friends of mine) to Taco Bell. That's all fine and dandy, but by the time I got back it was close to 1:15am. That, combined with my having to get up every morning for either school or work at 5:45 left me absolutely and completely exhausted.
Which brings us to today. Saturday :) I slept in until noon, and woke with ideas in my head and a saying in my heart. "Carpe Diem." So, that's exactly what I decided to do. After meeting up with a couple of my friends, Austin and Collin, we headed off to the Downtown Edwards to catch an afternoon showing of Shane Acker / TimBurton's 9.
9 was a fine movie, not great, but not awful. I found myself appreciating the CGI and animation more then anything else (the plot included.) If your expecting to see some kind of cartoon action/adventure movie, think again. 9 showed exactly what can be done when writers, actors, and special effect wizards (mainly the latter) put their minds together. 9 was no Nightmare Before Christmas, nor was it any kind of animated Wanted. It was a very pretty fireworks show. Once the fireworks ended, I was glad I had seen it, but also glad I had only paid matinee prices combined with a student discount (BODO Edwards FTW).
And now, after returning from 9, I find myself on my living room couch listening to The Beatles Love album. If you haven't listened to it yet, go buy it.
Could this Saturday get any better? Oh yeah, I've got my sisters birthday party and I get to see my girlfriend tonight!
After some prodding from me, my co-philosopher and great friend Justin Gaupp recently started a blog. I think he describes it best:
So, I posted on facebook that I was in a thoughtful mood today. My good friend Colin Mansfield left a comment suggesting that I take advantage of my current disposition and start a blog. Therefore, I wrapped my opinions in a sheet, tied them to a walking stick, and hopped on the bandwagon that is blogging.
A few opening discaimers: These are my opinions, not some sort of thesis paper. I use big words. I do not think in neat little categorical boxes, so my posts may not be as organized as you'd like. I can be very cynical. I'm far too lazy to post blogs on any semblance of a regular basis. I tend to ramble. And most importantly, I believe the Christian Bible to be true and have a relationship with the God thereof. If any of that bothers you, reserve the right to close this browser window at any time. But if you have an open mind, please read on.
He goes on to tackle a rather deep topic, and one which has been thought on and disputed over probably since the idea's been around. "What's the point of avoiding sin in a sinful world?" And then something awesome happened. Right as I expected to get some kind of logical thinking, formulaic reasoning, or linear processing, something appeared which I really didn't expect. Justin opened his heart, and poured out the insides for all to see.
Trying to avoid sin in a sinful world is like walking on the beach and trying not to get sand on your shoes. If you're quite careful, you'll have less sand than if you were running like mad down the beach, but there's no way you'll have spotless shoes.
But if we're going to get dirty anyways, why bother trying to stay clean? As one song goes "If we're all going to hell, we may as well go out in style." Makes sense to me. Unless one considers a different approach. Instead of making the goal to avoid sin, what if our goal was to love God? I propose that instead of running from darkness, we should be running towards the light! God created us for the purpose of having relationship with him. So if we fulfill our original purpose then we wouldn't need to try to find meaning in life through sex, drugs, money, et cetera.
Isn't that a beautiful way to put it- a great metaphor to roll it together? And I couldn't agree more. Loving Jesus is really what it all comes down to. Good works and religion can never stand up to pure relationship- how much more the relationship with our Creator?
Head over to Justin's blog and check it out. Word is, he's even got a new post up.
I realize this is a little late, but here's a vlog I recorded a couple days back while at work. It's my musings about getting back to school. Just some thoughts over coffee, nothing too heavy, too deep.
I'll do another one about how school actually has been, but for now, enjoy!
