You never depart from us, yet it is hard for us to return to you.
Confessions, St. Augustine

Guilt. I'm laden with guilt. It's strange that sometimes you just can't figure out what's wrong with yourself, and then all of a sudden it's crystal clear what it exactly is you're suffering from. So I realize that I'm suffering from guilt. I've been sleeping late these days.. late enough where my doesn't feel like it's on right....

I've theorized that one reason why I sometimes can't get myself to sleep is because it's an acknowlegement that my day is done and it's time to clock out and call it a day. But I know, I know that I didn't live this day as I should have. I don't want to turn it in. (I just realized that this is the same way I am with school...) I don't want to say this is finished, so I'll drag on the day rather than getting down on my knees and confessing to God that I f-ed up the day. Even when I do, the heart doesn't break and tears don't flow as I know they should. I'm trying to be repentant, but the guilt, the knowledge that I've continually repeated my mistakes and doubting if I'll ever change, often get to me and I just repeat this monotonous cycle of dreary misery.

So it's 3:40am on pre-dawn Sunday. Pre-dawn Sunday. That's when Jesus resurrected... That's where life began again, and that's where I can get my hope.

How am I going to live my life? Slave to sin? Slave to fear? Burdened by guilt and shame? How am I going to live? I've got to turn back to Christ, though it's a hard thing to do... but he's never left me... so there must be a simple way back...

Our only hope, our only confidence, the only firm promise that we have is your mercy. Confessions, St. Augustine

I have become a problem to myself

An interesting concept.

Jesus didn't just help the materially poor, in fact it seems like he rarely did since he was poor himself. But what Christ had was an abundance of grace and love toward those who poor in spirit, who hungered and thirsted for righteousness, and for those who were humble before God.

It challenges and refines my perspective on many of our poor in America. Do they thirst for righteousness? Are they humble before God? Is it their faith that will heal them, or is it their insistence of their deserved right to grace and support?

I'm rebuking myself in the same way. Do I thirst for righteousness? Am I humble before God? Don't I demand for grace to merely maintain my diseased life instead of humbly repenting for true healing?

Of all people these are to be pitied. Dying from a illness they are unaware of, or even choosing to ignore. And I honestly don't need your prayers about school, or financial issues, or relational whatever--those are merely the outward sores that may be be painful and most visible--but I do need prayer for my heart and soul because they suffer from a fostered disease of fatal pride and a deadly appetite for unsatiated sin.

So what then do I deserve? I deserve my chosen fate. The only ones who deserve grace are those broken on their knees before God; those poor in spirit; those who mourn; those who are meek; those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; those who are merciful; those who are pure in heart; those who are peacemakers; those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. I am far too often none of these.

"This, then, is my present state. Let those of my readers whose hearts are filled with charity, from which good actions spring, weep with me and weep for me. Those who feel no charity in themselves will not be moved by my words. But I beg you, O Lord my God, to look upon me and listen to me. Have pity on me and heal me, for you see that I have become a problem to myself, and this is the ailment from which I suffer." Confessions, St. Augustine

Hitting bottom.

I've learned that the bottom is endless... the pride of a human heart is an endless pit, once you think you've hit rock bottom and when in pride you try to get up, the ground beneath you will crack and down down baby you fall again.

Humility is what God wants and humility is precisely what I lack.

What am I being molten down to? The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart. And my heart is found false and impure.. I'm molten down to what I really am. I'm hopeless. I'm broken. I'm faithless. I'm purposeless.

I'm Jacob. I'm Jonah. I'm Judas. I'm Peter. I'm Paul. I'm Timothy. I'm Abram. I'm Joseph. I'm Jeremiah. I'm Elijah. I'm Gomer. I'm David. I'm Saul. I'm Ruth... I'm all of them when they were without God. I'm all of them when they had no hope, no motivation, no understanding.

It's so simple isn't it? I'm nothing on my own. Even worse I'm nothing good on my own. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Take me up, take me high
when humbled and in silence I lie.
My feet will walk, my eyes will see
Take this so called life and let it be.

Currently Listening Black Star By Black Star, Mos Def, Talib Kweli

Dare to be a sinner

I'm at the Art Center library right now waiting for my brother to end class, and any ounce of artistic pride I once had has now evaporated. But I'm seeing that artistic expression is pleasing. I guess that's what it means to appreciate art.

I haven't been home since August, and though it hasn't been long, I'm glad to be back. A lot of it is just being able to hang out with my brother, who I just feel free around. We're complete fools at times, but I feel free to be whoever or whatever I am.

I'm thankful that I can get a good picture of what it means to have Christ love me in a similiar manner. I'm glad I have a brother who frees me to be who I am. It reminds me of a quote I read and somehow stuck with me:

In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother, I can dare to be a sinner.
Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I can dare to be a sinner. And that's how I feel in front of my brother, but it's an interesting thought that that's how I ought to be before Christ. It's about me coming before him as I am and just developing a relationship with him. And it don't matter if I'm a fool in front of him, because he knows that's who I am.

They say I'm a fool, they say I'm nothing!
But if I'm a fool for you, oh that's something.
Two Hearts Beat As One, U2

And let me be not just be a fool, but a fool for you. Like King David dancing around with the slave girls praising you. It don't matter what anyone else says, let me just live for you.

---

Currently Listening Black on Both Sides By Mos Def

Are we of any use?

Simplicity.

The best kinds of relationships are those that are simple. Simple. Why are we friends? Because we got through this hard time in our lives together. Why do you love me? Because I'm your mom. Just a couple undeniable, unchangable facts.

I remember having a conversation earlier this year about complicated faith and simple faith, how some people just have a simple faith while others have complicated intricate crazy faith with all these conditions and criteria.

I just want things to get simple again. And God loves me in that kind of way. Why do you love me? Because I saw you naked and miserable, and I chose to die for you so that you could know what it means to have real life.

But I go and make things so complicated and conditional and then collisional.

We have been silent witnesses to evil deeds; we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical.

Are we of any use?

What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straightforward men.

Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straight forwardness? After Ten Years, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I wonder, how is this relationship going to be simple again? I need to know Christ. I need to be near him and dine with him and sit at his feet. Open the eyes of my heart, expand my vision to behold you. Spirit move me.

We are not natural men...

We must not think of ourselves as ordinary people. We are not natural men; we are born again. God has given His Holy Spirit, and He is the spirit "of power and of love and of a sound mind". Therefore to those who are particularly prone to spiritual depression through timorous fear of the future, I saw in the name of God and in the words of the Apostle: "Stir up the gift", talk to yourself, remind yourself of that is true of you. Instead of allowing the future and thoughts of it to grip you, talk to yourself, remind yourself of who you are and what you are, and of what Spirit is within you; and having reminded yourself of the character of the Spirit, you will be able to go steadily forward, fearing nothing, living in the present, ready for the future, with one desire only, to gloirfy Him who gave His all for you. Spiritual Depression, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

I was going write up something about how unthankful I am these days, and have become somehow blind to all the good things around me but I'm not content in because they're not great things without flaw.

But I realized that I get this way when my life isn't focused on Beauty itself, where all other beauty gets its beauty from. There's that expression of seeing the world through rose colored glasses. I think it's the same with seeing life through Christ, but not getting a distorted view of the world, but a real view of it and still being able to see immense beauty despite all its ugliness and imperfections.

Depression sucks man. It's like seeing the world through fogged up windows.

I need to take him at his word.

Currently Listening Who We Are Instead By Jars of Clay

I'm not coming down...

Learning about God through the book of Esther for Bible study. I wasn't sure I'd enjoy it at first, but I'm finding that there's a lot I can learn from it.

One thing is how we're all interconnected. I've heard this already before, but it's making more and more sense. Esther had a role she had to play and a responsibility that she braved at the risk of death. And in similiar manner, Jesus also made that role his own and bore the responsiblity at the pain of death.

And I think about my own present situation.. being far behind with school and having so many papers to catchup with, a thesis that needs to find its feet, and falling further behind with reading. I've entertained the thought of running around naked in the streets of Berkeley and just letting myself go crazy. But I ain't crazy yet. And I'd just be one of many.

But when I realize that I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me, I can't be living for myself. I was never meant to. I've got to live for the kingdom of God... whether I eat or drink or whatever I do, I've got to do it for the glory of God. I've got to get through school not for my own sake, but for the sake of living the life that God's called me to.

And God calls us all to different things, but when one member doesn't do his or her part, the rest of the body suffers. One life but we're not the same, we get to carry each other. So when I'm not living my part, the church gets weaker, then gets less effective, then less people come to Christ. When others don't live as God is calling them to, the same happens. A perpetuating degenerative disease. What we need is a miracle, and the only one who can heal us is the Spirit.

Humility. You ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl, and I can't be holding on when all you've got is hurt... help me know all you offer is not hurt, but it's momentary pain in pursuit of eternal joy. Help to know that I can trust you. Help me know you're good. Help me know you're more than enough for me. LOVE.

I don't know how this is going to all work out. God moves in mysterious ways, and the mystery of how he moves is often what's so amazing about him. He doesn't reveal what he's doing because often we wouldn't understand and often even if we knew we wouldn't trust because it would be too unbelievable.

But the next month or so is a crucial test... reveal yourself to me, you are all I've ever needed.

---

The wind was fierce today. Leaves flying everywhere, branches breaking off... Beaten and blown by the wind, trembling in dust. The trees were being stripped naked by the wind. The old is past, the new has come. Blow around me, strip me naked of all I don't need. Let your wind blow fierce tear away the rags and rot Let your words then pierce Cutting away what I am not Once again naked I stand humbled as the day I was born You come and take my hand Clothe with what you've sworn.

---

Currently Listening Funeral By The Arcade Fire