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After almost ten years of searching, Osama Bin Laden was killed last night.

I remember that day vividly. I remember, as a fourth grade child, watching the coverage on tv and thinking “Why?”. Why did this have to happen? Why would anyone do this? I didn’t understand why it came to pass, except that when I saw the footage, heard the horror stories, and knew that countless people had lost husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, and friends, I knew one thing: that I was seeing evil, done by evil men with evil in their hearts.

I remember standing there at ground zero on a cool summer night just a few years ago. Even then, over half a decade removed from the tragedy, you could almost feel in the air the sadness, the mourning, and the devastation that resulted from that September morning. I remember all those feelings of “Why?” rushing back to the forefront of my mind. If asked at that moment if I would be happy to find out that we had killed the one responsible for those unspeakable acts, I would have probably said yes.

I woke up this morning to be greeted by the news.

All day, I have seen great rejoicing over Bin Laden’s death. I don’t know what to think about this except that people are trying to find closure, and I believe this desire to be normal.

After all, I believe that every human being is able to identify evil by its abnormality. We see it an we know that it doesn’t belong. We know that it must be accounted for. After all, this world was not created to accommodate evil, but we allowed it to enter in the Garden of Eden. We allowed the complete antithesis to our Creator to enter, and the world that God designed us for was no more. Ever since, evil has sought to ravage humankind.

But it can NEVER win.

One of the aspects of God that I find most beautiful, and most comforting, is that He is forever just. The evil in this world, the evil I can see everyday, will not go unaccounted for.

We are barely a week removed from Holy Week, in which we celebrate our Savior Jesus Christ’s gift of redemption through His death on the Cross. It is true that God is Love, and you can find many that will tell you that, but He is also just. Despite His great love for us, something had to be done in order that we might be saved. We are sinful creatures, and evil is inherent to our race. Jesus was sent like a lamb before the slaughter to pay our debt, the debt that we owe because with sin unaccounted in our lives, we could never be with the Father. As a Christian, the debt that I owe has been forever paid. On Calvary’s hill, the sinless Savior paid it all.

The day is coming when all evil will be accounted for. Either Christ’s blood will cover it, or Hell’s eternity will see it paid.

So today, I don’t take my joy in the fact that a bullet took the life of Osama Bin Laden. I take my joy in the fact I serve a God that will without a doubt triumph over Evil and it’s devices. I take heart that every rape, every murder, every hurt, every hatred, and every injustice will not go unpunished and unaccounted for.

Today, as I look back and mourn the events of a decade past, I still don’t understand, but this I know: that there WILL be victory in the end.

“God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you”   – 2 Thessalonians 1:6 (NIV)

“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the LORD see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him.”  - Proverbs 24:17-18

“Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” – Isaiah 30:18

 

I have been fascinated as of late with the story of the disciples, stemming from a thought that hit me as I read Mark 1 a couple of months ago.

At the beginning of Mark’s gospel, we see John the Baptist set up as the one to prepare the way for Jesus. Then, we see John the Baptist baptize Jesus, the one for whom he prepared the way. Immediately after, Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days, maybe in preparation for what was to come.

There we have it.

Jesus’s ministry is ready to roll.

In my Bible, the heading before the start of Mark 1:14 reads, Jesus Preaches in Galilee. Now, while this heading has nothing divinely inspired behind it, it draws a curious question when the next few verses are read. With just that heading, I would assume to read on and find Jesus going to some public place with hundreds of people, standing on a pedestal, and delivering a sermon fit for the one delivering it.

No semblance of that presupposition follows. Instead we see Jesus going into Galilee, preaching to those who would become his closest friends, followers, and disciples.

Did Jesus need these people around Him before He could start His ministry? I don’t believe He did. Here we have one of the more beautiful aspects of the Christian walk: that Jesus not only wants to use us, but He makes it a priority, even though He doesn’t ever need us.

In Mark 1, Jesus goes and gathers His disciples first. Again, Jesus wants to use you and me, and He wants us with Him from the very start.

Don’t let the world tell you that He doesn’t want you. We live in a world where the individual is lumped with the masses, telling them that they contain nothing special or noteworthy.

Here comes the glorious contrast of the Gospel. In a world where we are repeatedly shown that we are expendable, the Savior is reminding us that He made Himself expendable so that He would never lose us.

“And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)

 

This short video contains so much truth for Single, Christ-seeking guys that I had to post

A small group that I am apart of was challenged to translate parts of Psalm 139 into how they would be written from God’s perspective. This is such a powerful and comforting passage so I thought I would share my translation:

 

My Child,

I have searched you and know you. I know when you sit down and when you get up. I discern your thoughts from afar. I know when you leave and when you return, and I know all of your ways. Even before you speak a word, I know what it will be. I envelope you, and my hand is ever upon you. Where can you go where you will be outside My presence? Where can you escape My Spirit? If you ascend to Heaven, I am there. If you make your bed in Sheol, I am there also. If you take the wings of the morning, or dwell in the deepest part of the deepest ocean, even there My hand will lead you, My right hand shall hold onto you. If you say, “Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light about me be night.” Child, even the darkness is not dark to Me! The night is bright as day, for darkness is light with Me. I formed your innermost parts, I knitted you together in your mother’s womb. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Your frame is not hidden from Me, when you were being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. My eyes saw your unformed substance. In My Word was written every one of the days I have formed for you, even before you were born.

Love,

Your Heavenly Father

*adapted from Psalm 139

With college about to start in two weeks, I’ve found myself thinking of my goals for the coming year quite often.

I have always been goal oriented, and this has brought me success on many levels. This practice, I believe, has taught me two things:

1. Meeting a goal that I have set for myself, no matter how small, produces not only joy, but boosted confidence and drive that push me to set even loftier goals and expectations for myself.

2. Coming short of a goal that I set for myself produces heightened resolve and determination to tackle similar goals and produce very different results.

The bottom line here is that I have decided that setting  goals for myself is a win-win situation.

Here’s an example: Yesterday, in order to quench my ever growing thirst for football season, I watched a documentary of the 1985 Chicago Bears, the NFL World Champions for that year. The documentary was narrated by the three key leaders of the team that year: the coach, Mike Ditka; the quarterback, Jim McMahon; and the defensive captain, Mike Singletary.

Mike Ditka was hired as coach in 1982, taking over a football franchise that hadn’t seen success in almost two decades (almost reminds me of the 2010 Bears…). Although he was an unpopular choice amongst Chicago fans, he wasn’t afraid to make tough and unpopular decisions right from the start.

Singletary remembers Ditka walking into the locker room for his first team meeting as coach, and announcing that he was not impressed with some of the effort the team had put forth in the previous season, and a good number of the roster would be cut and replaced. I imagine myself sitting there, frantically wondering if I had given enough of myself to stay on the team, thinking of all the times I could have gone the extra mile, but chose not to out of complacency and lack of drive.  Singletary then remembers his coach standing before his new team, who had losing season after losing season as long as they could remember, and promising them that they would make it to the championship game in three years.

It seems the rest was history. Three seasons later, McMahon remembers standing on the biggest stage in American sports, realizing that a promise that an entire team thought unlikely when given to them, had  been fulfilled.

It’s amazing what can happen when one has the will to set a seemingly overwhelming goal, and see it to the end. The Bears were not an untalented football team, they just lacked the drive to set a goal and then fight for it, no matter the cost.

So, as I am preparing to open this new chapter of my life, a chapter that holds extreme ramifications for my future, I am prepared to set overwhelming goals and work to see them achieved. I don’t want to sit here, four years from now, and wonder how things would be different if I went the extra mile and set a standard of excellence for myself in all aspects of my life.

I have a music box that sits on my dresser. It has been there as long as I can remember, and when i wind it, it plays a simple, yet beautiful melody that soothes my heart and mind. I rarely wind it though, so it usually just sits there and takes up space.

My music box has so much potential, but it’s beautiful song is rarely heard, frankly, because it is rarely wound up.

I promise not to share the same fate as the music box. The success of the 1985 Bears was not based on a one man operation. Instead, it came from the different teammates and coaches constantly pushing, encouraging, and “winding each other up” so that their goal could be met.

In the same way, the success of my goals heavily relies on the friends I surround myself with, my family, and most importantly my relationship with my “Coach,” Jesus Christ.

In closing, I understand the power of a set goal, and as I embark into this new phase of my life, I will develop a drive that will allow me to bring to fruition the goals that I set before me. And on the day that I make it to the Super Bowl (figuratively speaking of course, but you never know…), I will look back and know that my labors were worth it, now that my goals are achieved.

“1Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated on the right hand of the throne of God.”

- Hebrews 12:1-2 (ESV)

Sure, the ’85 Bears was a cool example to work on, but the previous Biblical text gives us the ultimate example of achieving a goal no matter the cost. How blessed I am to know that my savior and the leader of my life has already conquered death itself, and the best part is that He is own my side and will run the race of life step for step alongside me, and will never leave. WOW!

Wow! What a busy couple of months. When I started this blog, I had every intention of keeping this puppy updated and fresh.

I logged on today, however, and saw a couple of things: first, my last post was was in 2009. Second, the blog was in the possession of a Christmas theme. And third, I had to re-read my last post because i forgot what it was about (I totally agreed with it though, and decided i’m a level-headed young man).

Needless to say, I failed with my afore-mentioned blog resolve. So, it is now time to clear the cob-webs out and get the waters flowing again. Obviously, I’m still immensely busy, but my goal is to keep the blog running and to use it to substantiate my ideas and thoughts into written feasibility.

So, I’m gonna start by describing the unprecedented whirlwind in which I have taken part the last few months. This year is extremely odd in that previously, I could look into my future and have a reasonable grasp of what I would be doing the following year. However, these past few months I have been looking to the future and found nothing but a wall of fog and mystery. It is, to say the least, unnerving. I say unnerving not meaning in a scary way, more like an exciting way. Regardless, its intense. I don’t know how many times i’ve been sitting around with some of my close friends and realized that I am more than likely not going to be able to chat with them over a cup of coffee in a year from now; Or i’ve been walking down the hall in my school and suddenly realize that the infrastructure that I have been under the umbrella of for so long is about to lose its power over me. The word weird cannot begin to describe these feelings. I mean, I’ve always looked forward to leaving home and going out into the world (notice I didn’t say the “real” world. Doing so would offend my good buddy, Christopher, as he assures me college is the farthest thing from the real world). However, as I’ve always imagined leaving, it is only now becoming a reality.

Apart from the weird perspective on my impending life change, my life is being just completely bogged down by all the “stuff” anyone could imagine. The whole college application process and its stress was somewhat expected, but all of these random things seem to be happening constantly that way on my bearings and emotions. I mean, I understand that this is a time of transition and change, but this much change? Really?

Well, I think that I have “vented” enough of myself to kick this blog back into action. Now I can work on sustaining it until it becomes one of the best blogs in the world……nay, the UNIVERSE!!!!