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.

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…

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.

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.

Defining dissapointment and catching up...

The following takes place between 11:00pm and 12:00am. Tonight has brought a new defintion of disapointment in my life. Though very childish and quite whinny, it is all the same newly defined disapointment. Went to dothan this afternoon looking for a dart board, go figure its hard to find a dart board in dothan: but that's not the problem. While on this semi-quest for a dart board at Sam's Club I do indeed find a dart board, but, sadly i'd have to buy the pool table that comes with it: don't think so. So no dart board, oh well, no big deal. But what else did I happen to find, none other than "24" season four at quite a reasonble Sam's Club price! You see during this past summer, some how I managed (in the month of July, maybe first couple days of August) to watch "24" seaons one, two, and three. Watched seasons two and three with my Mom in Iowa; now she's hooked on Jack Bauer. So season four at last; it seems a reasonable buy, I mean about the same price as a month of cable and hey I'll ebay it when i'm done. No down side to this venture so I bought it. Then a few hours of intermission during which Danny nearly burned his house to the ground and some flag football. So I get home and finally set up the surround sound in the apartment; "24" demands surround sound. Finally, the time has come. I go retrieve the unopened box containing the chronicles of Jack Bauer's fourth day and with the percision of a druken surgeon dismember the warper from the, pull out the sleve holding the treasured DVDS, open each of the panels to get to Disc 1, and then............silence and utter disapointment; where disc 1 was to be nestled snugly with the little plastic middle holder thingy there is...nothing. Frantically, I thought out loud, "maybe it fell out, disc 2 did happen to fall as I open it." So I searched and search and out to my car to get my trusty mag light and searched some more. But it was all to no avail. Jack Bauer's "24" season four, disc 1, was MIA: missing in action... Of course it had to be the first disc to be missing because if disc five were gone, I'd be watching Jack torture some chinesse guy to find out information pertienent to saving the United States from utter chaos and mass causilties. What are the odds of buying a DVD set and it's missing the DVD... Aparently, I'm driving to dothan tommorow, but sleeping tonight. Anyways, somehow it has become the middle of September. My life has been rather stagnant, despite drowning in blessings; I am in need of revival. I spent the last part of my summer in Houston, Texas at my cousin's catholic wedding. I've come away with two major observations from that. First, Catholisim in general is no less than a cult on the level of mormons and jehova witnesses (The no lie prayed to a statue of mary.) Second, my summer reading project was Dan Brown's Davinci Code, really not that great of a peice of literature with the foucs being mainly on feminism and sex, but if from a catholic perspective only I can not fault Dan Brown with his thoughts on the "church" and "Catholic Christ." The wedding was intresting though, I was really tempted to tell the priest that he had a lovely statue of Jesus' wife... and then I went to Iowa, not to be mistaken with heaven. Spent time with my mom mainly watching "24" which was cool, but spent alot of time at the hosptial because my step dads mom was seeminly near death; she has gotten a bit better. But God let me minister to my Mom when she was in great need of me being there. Then back to Georgia to play electrician for a day, then 2 day vaction with dad, stepmom and lil sis kelsy in sky valley, Gerogia, then taking a nice drive over to northern south carolina (Green Sea) to visit old youth pastor for a few days with friends, and finally, capping the summer off with a pit stop in atlanta to catch a braves game (caught bp hr, got on big screen, and was on the espn,tbs highlight reels.) 1 summer, 3 continents, 11 states... bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep (24 ticking clock)......

Forcing God

On occasion I dream dreams, some I remember some I forget for a time. Months ago I had a dream that when I awoke I thought it was reality, but I quickly realized that those events had not yet come to pass. A week ago I boarded a chartered bus packed with excited teenagers and headed for Centrifuge at Ridgecrest, NC: The Southern Baptist Mecca. I was not looking forward to the week, not necessaraly because of the dream, but rather because of some of the other chaperones. The first few days of camp did not suprise me; they felt ever so empty, but it was wednesday evening worship that wore down on my spirit. I have never before been surrouned and so overwhelmed by such a spirit of vanity. All the while I heard God speak with clairity, "be patient, everything will be alright friday night." I had a great peace about it, but I was also afraid; I was to lead devotion friday night. After the vanity of wednesday I understood why my spirit was not at peace with the other adults I was serving with. Never before have I seen man try to persuade, coax, rather, force the Spirit of God to move in any time or place. Man's efforts to force God to do anything leads to nothing more than wounded and confused people. Praise be to God, He is bigger and can over come any false teaching and vainity filled efforts for God to preform on command at the whims of man. Despite every attempt of satan to prevent God from saving, changing, and restoring the lives a many students in our group, God moved in such power that I had never seen before. God used me in a way I had never been used before; He gave me the words to say and annointed them as they left my mouth and were recived by the forty or so present in the room. God's Spirit leaped out from me and engulfed the room and we prayed. Tears flowed like streams down hardened faces and I heard prayers of repentance of healing I so longed to hear in the kids I know and love so much. I wept in joy over the brokenness and satanic stronghold that was broken down in so many of their lives. God even suprised me with the salvation of one who had always been such a handful. The changes that occured where evident immediatley revealing God's power and glory, and may God be exhalted for His great grace... God works in His own time and is not the by product of camp, rather God can work when, where, however, and through whoever He so desires.

Merhaba and Stuff

Time goes by faster and faster it seems. Such is life I suppose, but a vapor here and then gone. My ten day adventure in Istanbul, Turkey has come in gone; a memory etched into my own mind and stills taken on a digital camera. It was an awsome experience both in the places I went and saw and the power and workings of the Lord God. For there is but one God and Muhammed is not his prophet, rather His name is Yahweh and His son is Jesus. I picked up a little bit of the turkish language in my stuides prior to leaving the country and even more so on the field which proved to be quite helpful, to the point that with an abudance of facial hair, a longer than usual head of hair, and a good tan many of the turkish people thought I was a Turk, anIranian, or even an Iraqi. The Turkish people are for the most kind extermely kind, giving, and receptive. Very few hold strickly to the teachings of Muhammed and the Quran comparable at best to back slidden Baptists or Christmas Easter christians. A city with 20,000,000 people spawns views of appartments in every direction; so many people but only an estimated 5,000 Christ followers. But God is in Istnabul and His Spirit is broody over the sea of aparments and traffic. Revival is comming to Turkey, but cease not in prayer and supplication but in all patience and ferverence praise the God of heaven. I will never be able to express everything I saw and felt in Istanbul but it was beyond my wildest dreams. A city that seems to never sleep, so big it reaches two two continents, Eurpoe and Asia, and as I see it safer than Graceville at town of maybe 5,000 where my apartment was borken into and robbed while I was six thousand miles away. So great is our God and so great is His love for Istanbul as well as my own. There will always be a piece of myself in Istanbul, how I miss it so already. By the way, merhaba means "hello" in turkish...