I smile every time!

 

Skillet

If you haven’t used Grooveshark.com and there is a lot of music you want but don’t have, you should check it out.  You can easily listen to nearly any song you can think of with no interruptions.  I use it a lot for albums I don’t have.

Anyway, I’m on it right now to Skillet’s Comatose album.  Sometimes music just hits exactly what you’re feeling, ya know?  It feels like it so much that I had to get on here just to write about it.  That’s all.

 

God, Religion, and why those two things can be opposed to each other

Textual Inspiration:  John 9-10, Isaiah 1

—

Perhaps the most dangerous place spiritually is when you think you’re OK. And once you get unseated from your high place you realize it’s not about striving for a state of perfection, for that mindset is likely rooted in, and dependent on, self; but it is in humbling yourself daily and recognizing who is actually in control where you can reorder your thoughts and motives, and break your idols.

—

The religious leaders of Israel, those who the people looked up to for guidance, were content with their religious rituals (John 9).  Are we?  They were content with their understanding and theology.  Are we, too?  They were content with their power.  They had no room for a person to follow in their religion, even if he is God.  Especially if he challenged their notion of God and his kingdom.

Religion, I think, should be how we interact with the world, not what we put our hope in to save us.  Take care of the widows and orphans.  Seek justice.  These actions for our brothers and sisters should be our religion.  Our relationship with the Father should not be measured by these, I do not believe, nor should we take comfort in ourselves when we seem to be consistently reading our Bible, praying, and involved in Church.  I think these three things have potential to be our “meaningless offerings.”  In the first chapter of Isaiah, God is shown to have a very strong distaste for a people who cannot serve those around them with fairness or compassion.  He detests their prayers and offerings for they are empty to Him, holy and righteous as He is.

Here is a question:  is it fruitful to gauge one’s spiritual health?  Or is that in and of itself an attempt to justify one’s own actions and own goodness?

I just hope that we Christians, though we know the Messiah, do not allow our rituals to supplant the almighty God in our lives.  I hope that we always recognize God as in control – of our spiritual lives and our every good deed (Ephesians 2:10).

 

Marathon Man – Grandma’s Marathon, Duluth, Minnesota

This past weekend I ran my first marathon.  Wow.  My quads are still shot and it takes me three times as long to stand up or put on clothing.  I think it was worth it.

I ran the race in scenic Duluth, MN, which is right across the river from my birthplace of Superior, WI.  The weather was the hottest it has been all year there (70s and 80s) and we were expecting 50s and 60s.  Oh well, at least we trained in Texas!  About 580 runners were medically treated at the finish line for hyponatremia (low sodium) and/or hyperthermia (heat stroke).  Most of these people were heat-weak Minnesotans.  Approximately 6,400 people started the race and about 5,900 finished.  I placed 1,818 with a finish time of 4:13.  I still can’t believe I ran for four hours and 26.2 miles!

It was amazing though.  You and 6,000 other people, the forest on your right, the giant lake on your left, the spectators cheering you on every other mile.  But it was still me against me.  I wasn’t too concerned about competing with the other runners.  Especially in the last four miles where I hit the “wall” and my quads cramped.  At that point it all became about persevering, no worries about how the other runners were doing.  I’ve never felt more pain in those last two miles–but somehow it was worth it!  It was truly an experience to be on mile 24 coming into downtown Duluth in excruciating pain to then see thousands of people lining the street cheering you and everyone on!  And the finish, oh the finish–I came around the corner with 0.1 miles to go, the street lined with hundreds of people in stands.  I could see the finish line with its arch of red and white balloons and I knew somewhere in that crowd was my mom and my girl.  I was in tremendous pain but I knew I had made it and I sure wanted them to be proud, so I pushed ahead like 26.2 miles had never been easier.  The feeling I had when I crossed that line and I saw my girl, Karlie, the girl who trained with me for 4 months but couldn’t run because of a knee injury, the girl who was ecstatic to see me finish, the beautiful girl who was jumping up and down smiling so proudly and screaming my name…that just made everything worth it!  It made everything worth it.

I now have a clearer picture of what it means to run the race, the other race, Christ’s call.  It fits all too well.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ²Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart!

Hebrews 12:1-3

 

April 2009

Hey everyone!  It’s been a while, but here’s a quick update…

• Finish MBA classes in three weeks (then it’s on to one more year of engineering)
• Present to AT&T executives in two weeks
• Figure I can graduate by next May
• Will be doing research for the coconut guru Dr. Bradley this summer
• Have been dating the most incredible girl for the past 8 months
• Plans are to be in Houston after I graduate
• I take the state board of engineering exam in a week and a half
• I am very busy

I am about to go get a free massage in Karlie’s stress managment class though, so that’s not too bad!

 

Summary Thus Far?

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

I post this here because I’ve been vulnerable lately.  I’m just talking about feelings here, but it can be a little unnerving!  It’s scary to put your heart out there.  Especially for me, because I try to watch every word that comes out of my mouth.  To me, there is a lot within even our daily speech.  It has power.  I also just post it for the benefit of those who visit my blog.  It’s always been good to think about the truth in this statement, regardless of how many times I’ve read it.  Familiarity doesn’t take anything away.  But hopefully if you haven’t read this before, the newness of it will strike you.  C.S. Lewis does a great job of leading us to his conclusion with specific, vivid wording.

Other than the excitement of a relationship and the vulnerability it brings, I’ve just been trucking along in the MBA program.  I won’t bore you with the details of schoolwork, but it’s been an interesting semester.  I’ve enjoyed the experience of being around business students (and internationals).  They tend to think differently, and more rationally if they are MBA candidates.  I’m also becoming a better presenter and just a better communicator.  Not drastically I don’t think, but I do notice a difference, and that’s rewarding.

While I haven’t been the most disciplined in weightlifting (though still 2 or 3 times a week), I’ve become way more of a runner lately.  I ran 25 miles in about 4 runs last week.  Hopefully I can do a full marathon sometime next year?  We’ll see, my dad challenged me.  If I get up to that distance, he’ll pay for any trip in the U.S. to go run it.

I guess you don’t know all the details that makes it so, but I really do think this semester and summer has been the most exciting and rewarding time of my life, just so you know.  I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  Though junior year at the D-Z is a close second…

 

I totally have not had the time to update any of you on my life.  But I think that’s a good thing so far, even if it means lack of sleep.  The last five weeks have been a veritable blur for me as grad school has kicked into gear along with new organizations, activities, groups, and significant relationships.    Business school is way interesting and a totally different thought process compared with engineering, though there actually is some overlap.  I’m involved with organizations on campus such as Net Impact and American Scientific Affiliation, I advise a guy in prison on his business plan through Prison Entrepreunership Program (this organization is awesome!), and I also lead a small guys group and help teach 3rd grade Sunday school.  That along with school projects and class preparation keeps me kind of busy.

I’ll update later on what some of these organizations are about, because I think they are really cool.  But I need to go study!  Leave me a comment on here sometime, it might remind me to come back and post!

 

1 Corinthians 9:27a?

This week has been fun.  If you spell fun m-i-g-r-a-i-n-e-s.  And if you do, would you be a funomasochist?

If you’ve never had a migraine, let me describe my version of one.  First, you start noticing something in your vision.  A bright spot.  And you start wondering if you had been recently staring at a light bulb, or the sun, or that comedian, Carrot Top.  By process of elimination, you figure it was just the lamp by your desk causing you problems.  But then a few moments later you get a dark spot in the middle of your retina, and can only read things with your peripheral vision.  You remember the last time that happened in 12th grade and your stomach turns because that was the day you had football fitness tests that triggered the last migraine that incapacitated you for half the day and made you feel you were going to die.  Sure enough, 20-25 minutes later part of your head, or all of it, you don’t know, feels like it’s in the trash compactor with Chewbacca yortling his lungs out because in this scene R2-D2 didn’t override the Death Star’s controls in time and now you and pretty Princess Leia and Luke and Chewbacca are all smashed, yet somehow you still have conciousness and Chewbacca is still screaming.  And it feels like that for 3 hours.  And then you finally get slotted an appointment at the Baylor clinic to get a prescription that knocks you out for 3 more hours.  Yes, it is fun.

Besides that I’ve just been gearing up for finals next week and trying to keep in shape for running (I found some new muscles in my buttocks this week from doing deadlifts).  I guess I haven’t even mentioned it yet, but I plan to finally run a half-marathon this fall.  If all goes well, then a full marathon in the Spring.  Ben, you may be proud to know I’ve averaged 22 miles a week the past month or so, with 8+ mile runs on weekends.  Of course, that all came to a stall this week somewhat.  It was an early morning 7-miler that triggered the migraines methinks.

As a matter of fact, all the running lately has made me kind of nostalgic for those grueling track workouts in high school…

Maybe I AM a funomasochist.

 

School and Learning, Sometimes Two Different Things

Second summer session started up yesterday for me (hooray alliteration points!).  I’ll be taking 3 business classes (Junior level) in a rather weird schedule that I don’t have memorized yet; some are TR, some are MW, some days they’re 2 hours, sometimes not.  Anyway, it looks to be a fair amount of work (not too too much) and the classes look to be boring compared to last session because the professors are either a bit too serious or a bit too sweet, if you know what I mean.

This summer, as most have done in the past, has allowed me to meditate on and address some things in my life that need to be changed.  I’ve been reading a lot, which has catalyzed some of this (Bonhoeffer and McManus, along with a little Donald Miller, Joshua Harris, and Gary Chapman thrown in).  Basically, I’ve needed to learn forgiveness, give some things up to God (not all) (and, yes, that is self-conscious sarcasm), and learn to get on my knees because that is the only place that enables me to truly stand.

I’ve been wrapping my mind around my goals for the future these past few months and at this point in life I hope to, in 10 or so years, be working part-time with an organization such as the World Bank or Engineers Without Borders.  Re-reading Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus recently has aided in this determination of my dreams.  Isn’t it funny that we humans are the only creatures that dream of making the future better for others – in other words, progress?  And that when we don’t have one aspect of dreaming–hope–we often feel like dying?

 

G-ma on FB. Can she handle the abbrevs?

I was surprised just this afternoon to get a Facebook friend invite from…my grandma!

I think it’s so she can message the girls that write on my wall and tell them I need to get married and that I’m a good catch.