Tuesday, October 24, 2006

For Love of the Game

What is the purpose of playing games? It seems rather likely that the first that will come to your mind in answering that question is the obvious: to win. Think about that though, do we play games with the sole purpose of winning? If that is the case then what is it about winning the we so desire? Is it the prideful feeling of victory? Is it relishing in the fact because your team won on Saturday you can rub it in your co-workers face on Monday? I mean there has to be a reason. What drives someone to use pine tar…err.. I mean have dirt on their pitching hand during the playoffs and World Series? Is it that winning is fun, prestigious, boastful, what? At times I’m sure I’ve fallen in to this mindset: why play if you’re not going to win? But that’s really not it at all. Playing a game is not and should not be about winning. We ought to play because we want to play because it’s fun! “Oh, but winning when you play is much more fun.” Well maybe, but then again maybe not for the team on the opposite side of the field. Playing the game is fun. Maybe I’m just a weird person but I like going into overtime because that is just more time to play the game. Even weirder, I don’t really like winning all the time; apparently I was dropped as a child a few too many times. Winning is good and all I mean don’t get me wrong I like to win, but if I’m playing against friends it’s cool when they win too. But I don’t necessarily play to win; I play to play. That’s probably why I like golf so much. In Golf one gets to play the entire round, whereas in team sports your either one the field or riding the pine or watching from the sidelines. I’d rather be on the field playing and lose a game than watch from the sidelines and win the game, but that’s just me.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Fear where hath thou gone?

Fear is a matter that I have found to be less and less of a focal point in my life. It seems to me almost a matter I should have some concern over, I mean, is it not usually good to have a wee bit of a healthy fear of things that may inflict severe to possibly decapilatory bodily harm? Maybe, but then again what do we really have to fear? Roosevelt said something to the effect of "all there is to fear is fear itself." What does that even mean; it is impossible and illogical to fear fear; why that’s circular fear reasoning. As Christians we should realize and remember that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but it is important to be a bit cautious in our decision making. If then God has not given us a spirit of fear, who has? Is fear demonic? We are to fear God though are we not? It seems that fearing God is a bit different than actual fear; fear comes with a negative connotation embedded within and that is not the God I serve. We never under any circumstance should huddle crouched in the fetal position with our thumb in our mouth hiding out of sheer terror of God, nor should we fear his chastisement when we falter. I think we are called instead not to understand fearing God as dreading his omnipotence in erasing us off the face of the earth, but to hold fast to our God, to cling to Him, to know who He is in that He is God. Not a god, not some cosmic bouncer like body guard, and not some title to go run and hide behind; He is God, the Alpha and Omega, beginning and End. God is in control and He has control over even the smallest of stuff. I love when during His conversation with Pontius Pilate Jesus responds to Pilate in this passage:

Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above... (John 19:10-11)

Do you think Pilate's mouth fell open speechless? I wouldn’t doubt it seeing as from that point on Pilate tried to Jesus off the hook. What then do we have to fear? Financial burdens? Family hardships? A loaded Colt 45 placed to our temple? None of those because my "fear" is not in the madman with his finger on the trigger, rather I submit my life to God and his protection and deliverance; the madman may hold the gun in his hand, but my God holds the inner workings of that pistol, let alone the anatomy of the madman's hand from becoming formless inoperable group. Should we then fear fear and put our focus on fear or should we put our focus on the omnipotent God. So now what shall we fear?

All this because I got a new bike, oh, and I’m still not too keen with heights…

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

God's humor...

So my birthday was last week and somehow I'm 22 now. It's funny how fast time goes by, I mean I can remember counting down the years till I could drive and now sometimes it feels like all I've done the past few years, not that I dislike driving. I once drove five hours Friday and five hours Sunday night every week for a year; I've driven about 45,000 miles over the last 3 years. But my birthday was very good though; my friends all got together and surprised me, well I knew something was up but still I was quite surprised, they took me out for dinner and then back to my apartment for cake and ice cream; it was really a great birthday. So the funny part about being 22 is still being single, epically seeing that all of my really close friends are married. But that's no big deal I've got a bit of patience, but God just has this sense of humor about Him, really it's quite funny. Take for example the ride to the restaurant on my 22nd birthday. My best friend is on the phone with a kid in the youth group from church checking up on him and he tells him it’s my birthday and hands me the phone. The conversation with this little 13 year old Venezuelan kid goes something like this:

kid - "happy birthday day, how old are you?"
me - "guess"
kid - "22"
me - "yep"
kid - "wow....22 and still single...."

How does one respond to that? With every ounce of wit in my body my best effort was dead silence. I mean what a birthday thought, but looking back it gives me a great story and something to laugh about. "Ha, ha God very funny," but God's humor doesn’t end there. The next night I'm in Tallahassee hanging out with my best friend and his wife at the Tallahassee mall sitting in the food court eating some mall Chinese. Then this older gentleman walks up; we had noticed him handing out tracts, he had noticed us pray over our food. He complimented us on our praying and then walked off. Two minutes later, He walked back over and said, "Which of you is called into the ministry?" My buddy and I both looked at each other, waiting for the other to say something since God has called us both, but seeing I'm in Bible College and all I replied, "I am." Never before had I had this happen to me so I waited in some form of shock and interest to what he said: "I don't do this often but I just felt the Lord leading me to come back here and tell you that your adversary the devil is going to come against your ministry and it will probably be through a woman." And then he walks away... For the second time in 24 hours all I have is silence. Here I am this 22 year old single guy waiting on the girl God has for my life and then I get a prophesy to be careful about a woman who could ruin my ministry, Praise God! I don't know, it's just all that funny to me, not that I would overlook a "word from God" for my life, but I won't let it imprison me in fear either.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

a call and passion to write...

There are sometimes when all I want to do is write; as if God were saying unto me. "Alex, write!" I love writing. Where as once I was this little boy who dreaded having to write anything for school now it has become an overwhelming passion in my life. I think one of the first times I remember writing was when I was in elementary school; I had to finish some story about having some dinosaur or something: My grandpa (GP) who was the greatest influence in my life helped me write that paper. I remember writing again in middle school. This time it was a group project; somehow even though I dreaded writing papers I chose to be the writer on the project. Then again as a freshman in high school I had to write a fictional story; I did so with my Dad's help and wrote a story which led to the teacher to believe I had written about an actual historical event. As a sophomore I found wit in writing anonymous pithy comments in my honors English class each week in what was called "The Thought Pot;" once to waste class time, cause of course the teacher read them aloud in class, I wrote the alphabet on a sheep of notebook paper and tore the letters into their own pieces and placed them in the "thought pot:" the teacher thought it was some kind of "code," so we spent the class trying to decipher it. My junior year of high school proved to be the toughest for me. My honors English teacher was no less than a psychotic lune, but somehow, though I hated his class with a passion I learned the art of writing, as well as a bunch of grammar garbage (oooo alliteration) such as: "pigs in zen if it's in its pin." Which means of course that any punctuation goes inside parenthesis or quotation marks. Then my senior year happened; I found my self in College English in which each week we wrote a certain type of paper and then read them to the class on Mondays. It was here that God branded upon my life the power of written words; this class allowed me to write and read to a public school class of lost kids genre after genre of my own literary works with the sole purpose of Glorifying God and communicating His love and mercy to this class. I treasured the moments I spent reading those papers in class. I did not really write again for over a year until my second semester at the Baptist College of Florida. My first paper at the college is to this day earned the worst grade I have gotten on any paper at BCF, but this paper also received the greatest comment I have ever received on any paper. It comment reads something to the effect of how my paper was a bit off topic and did cover what it was intended to cover, yet it was the best written paper this professor had ever seen at the college. I have never been so proud of any paper, with maybe the exception of a paper I wrote six months later for the same professor which earned the rare, if ever occurring, perfect score. I love writing, I love the use of words in new ways, I love humor and wit, and I love touching other people through words God has given me to put to paper. My desire in life is to honor God in all He has called me to be and to write as He has called me to write.