My life right now

So much has been and will be happening for me. I can say that about alot of my friends it seems. This is a season of growth and expansion, and being intentional about getting out there and doing what's necessary to get things done. I'm looking as hard as I can to find a job and have so far had two duds. One was a sales job that starts out paying ONLY commission, and the other was going to require me to use my gas-guzzling truck for work - neither are gonna happen! I need a job, but not by trying to hold up my world to do it. I'm feeling stressed about the uncertainty of the situation, not knowing for sure what I'm supposed to do, but I know that I can't get a job by sitting on my butt! You can't grow crops if you don't till the fields and plant the seeds, that's just how things work. I have a peace about the uncertainty though, and what I'm really liking is that God has been very adament on me this season to do difficult things even when I don't feel like it because that's the only way you grow. He's teaching me to both rest and labor. I've conciously made decisions that meant dying to self and sacrificing temporary comfort and gratification, which is an area that I usually give in to. I'm learning how important it is to set my face like flint with an inner resolve to live with intention, purpose, depth, and most of all connection to God.
This weekend I graduate from college! My father is coming down from Washington and we are going to be having a crazy time in Cowtown! lol. I'm having a party this Sunday at my house for my friends. I'm fighting feeling a little disappointed because I'm finding out that alot of my friends can't go to it. Not all, but some. Alot will try to at least make an appearance, but alot of the people that I've sent messages to I haven't even heard from. Most of the excuses I've gotten are good, so I'm not trying to whine because people's worlds don't revolve around me. I'm just somewhat disappointed that not as many people are going to be able to be there as I thought. Otherwise, I think it will be fun and I'm going to be optimistic and appreciate those that can make it.
I hope to get a position at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. There is a possibility this fall, but I'll just have to wait and see.
I really want to get fully connected into what God wants for my life, I just get hasty and antzy about it and have a hard time waiting on the Lord to bring Life. Survival vs. Life. All of our choices can be broken down into the goal being one of those. Survival is the fleshes desire to arrange for it's own counterfeit Eden here and now. It wants to be in control. Life means that you have to die to that - which is what repentance is. Let go, let God. It doesn't mean that you be a sluggard or leach and expect God to drop everything in your lap. We were meant to have an active role in our lives, we just have to choose which path to take - World-control(or our feeble attempts at making life work our own way) or self-control.
Anyway, God has been with me this whole time, and He is ever-gracious to gently correct me or just give me His reassuring peace that the worlds not going to fall apart if I make a mistake. I have a feeling that there's going to come an explosion in my life and things will really start to click, but I don't think it's just yet. And I'm fine with it.
Anyway, I'm not going to deny that I need prayer support and just encouragment and up-lifting in this shifting season. God's calling me to rise up and become the man that I was born to be, leaving behind the image I have of myself through my father and the messages that the Enemy has constantly bombarded my heart through other often well-meaning people in the past. Satan is so heartless, because he uses the ones that we love the best to inflict the deepest wounds(and like I said, often having good meaning), but apparently it works pretty well, because I don't see alot of people out there who are willing to let go and just be real with God. I have a hard time explaining and expressing what I want to say to people(except on paper), and it gets frustrating because I have to turn the other cheek rather than react out of pride when I feel like I'm not understood. It's like trying to get something out that you know is so important to life, but when it comes down to it, you can't put it into words. I feel sometimes like people are never going to understand or even care what is most important to me, so saying anything is just a waste of time. Alot of my problem used to be pride and frustration in the flesh, a control issue that expects the world to be perfect and for nothing to ever be tipped off balance or upset. Another part of the problem is that I never was taught how to stand up for myself. I learned passivity from my father, and the only time that I do anything is when I've had enough but then it's just an explosion. Either way, it's the flesh. I can't blame my father for it, and I don't feel any resentment towards him, but it is a fact that that is what I have picked up both generationally and through observance. It's something I'm going to have to overcome with the Lord's direction. It is so important that men start being men soulfully as well as physically! Being able to bench press 200 pounds means nothing if you can't at least stand up during varying circumstances. Family's, churches, businesses, governments need men who know who they are and are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and take a hit for the sake of others. Alot of young men in my generation are angry and without direction because their fathers either were never there are were only physically there. This leaves them being either lazy, passive men who only do what's easy because anything difficult will expose how incomplete they are, or wrecklessly ambitious men who are always vainly looking for that next badge to attain or fight to win or girl's phone number to get. The only solution to that is obviously God, but He intended for fathers as well as mothers to have an active role in the home. How a father values and gives meaning to his children(both sons and daughters) will affect the way they view God, any other authority figures that they come underneath, and themselves. Our nation's sense of identity has been torn in two mainly because people are growing up with split families, which gets passed down the line, and what's left now is a society that is putting instant-gratification and functionality before values. It's becoming all quantity without any quality. Anyways, that is about all that I have for tonight. Every time I get on here I start thinking of so much to talk about, but alot is too much.

So I'm going to Michigan in two days to be the best man in my best friend Jake's wedding! It's gonna be awesome. I've never been to that part of the country, so this is a chance to add to the places that I've been to in America. This season is a big transition. I'm finished with college officially and I graduate August 15! I'm thinking about looking into the Museum field because it utilizes so much History. I'm looking to move out of the house soon and to start taking care of myself. It's kinda scary because I've never done this before, but it's exciting! It's going to open wide a door for me to draw closer into the heart of my Father and depend solely on Him as my Daddy and Provider. I'm thinking that there's probably going to be some things I'm going to be doing that make absolutely no sense to human intuition, but that's part of walking with God. He says that if you don't work, you don't eat, but He also says that it's useless to worry about food, shelter, and clothing when he provides meager birds with this! It's a totally new arena that I've never fully felt and it's going to be uncomfortable and probably feel shaky, but it's going to allow me to walk more in His Spirit and less in reasoning my way through everything. It's going to be an adventure of the first order, and I believe that there are probably going to be times where I feel like everything that is me is crumbling and falling apart, but that's just when God comes in a rebuilds and shows me who I truly am! I have a hard time believing what God says about me, it's part of a lens that I've looked at myself through of almost self-loathing that started when I was in grade school. It's ridiculous how much stuff that we accept as a normal part of life, but it's not! It's seeds of wrong thinking about God, ourselves, the condition of the world around us, and the meaning of life that have been constantly planted by the Deceiver to attempt to separate us from Who we were made for and the Life that we were intended for. Survival of the fittest is a picture of this world after the Fall, it was never meant to be that way! That's why it's so crucial to get God's perspective on things, otherwise you're either going to lean towards being a leach on God and not being the person He calls you to be and doing what He calls you to do, or you're going to be like the people at the Tower of Babel and think it's all up to you and vainly try to make things happen. Neither is good. We were meant to play a part in God's plan - just because we are imperfect and erronous does not mean that He has removed that mandate that He gave Adam and Eve. However, we were meant to do things out of resting in Him - that is the whole point of Sabbath-resting in Him(which I believe is a spiritual posture in the New Covenant and has nothing to do with Sunday or Saturday, although resting 1 in 7 days is a good principal to follow). So, there are huge things in store for me! I'm still feeling that I'm going to be writing more and I really want to publish my stuff - not so much for fame and fortune(although that would be really cool), but because I want to show a perspective of the Gospel that shows God's intention redeem our past and restore our identity and draw us into the Adventure and Purpose that He created us for. I always seem to write stories about young men and their typical struggles, and I think that it is so crucial for young men in this time of rampant fatherlessness and masculine identity that is increasingly narrowing into macho-tough guy and sexual conquest, that they begin to understand themselves and the Story they were meant for. Regurgitating a bunch of Bible verses and memorizing stories out of the Bible is not going to cut it - that's trying to each Salvation through works! It's not selfish to want to know who you are and want to be caught up in the life that you were meant for, what's selfish is when people follow after their flesh by putting that as an idol by which they find redemption. The flesh wants to redeem itself it's own way, it wants to be the savior! Well, anyway, I could go on and on about this subject. It's deep and broad and too much to just write a short post about.
This is what is going on in my life right now. I'm connecting more and more with my friends, both old and new, and I've met some new friends who I hope to grow closer to.

Robin Hood

If there was ever a TV show/series that I would recommend people to watch, it would be BBC's Robin Hood. It is in the third season, and the last episode is next week. I am stoked about the final episode, but after this I don't know where the series can go on. It currently is not showing on BBC America(punks) so you have to find in on the net(i found it on Youtube). The series has sort of a flashy modern dialogue that I like very much, and although it's accuracy to the legend may be a little off, the story is awesome. I don't want to spoil the series to those interested in joining my interest in the show, but the third series started out looking like the screenwriters were trying to figure something out to keep the series moving. This is because they killed off a key person at the end of Series 2(I will go no further in those details), and most fans that I know of have doubted how there could be a series after that. Anyway, I just wanted to say that this is one of the hidden gems of television(except maybe in Britain itself), and I hope that the BBC America will get its act together and start airing season 3. That's enough for this time.
Shalom

Introduction to my blogging

Well, this is just my first blog, so I'm not going to do anything fancy or share my heart's deepest secrets or vent on some frustration I've had. You can probably expect random, ridiculous stuff starting out, because I'm going to be sporadic on taking time to write stuff. I like to write short stories with an allegorical twang on the characters' struggles and brokenness before the shock of their life comes riding in(I wonder Who that may be). I may also share some of the things that are going on in my life and even in my heart, but there are just some things that belong to my own personal journal that I actually write in, and they are between God and I. This is probably going to be a little messy at first as are all things starting out, but I'm looking forward to diving into blogging!