Watch Me.

We last left the scene with the human giving God permission to tear down a wall that he had let stand for years. The wall was broken and wouldn’t let light into the center of the human’s heart. It was a wall of protection, but it not only held out the bad things, it wouldn’t let in the good. God told the human that it was time for the wall to come down, although nervous and unsure about what was going to happen, the human gave God permission to tear down the stone wall, allowing God to transform the human’s stony heart.

We now re-enter the scene. The wall is shattered into pieces, and shards lie at the human’s feet. The human stands in the center of what the wall had surrounded. He is examining what has just occurred. God stands close by, watching his child with gentle eyes.
The human steps over the debris, and storms over to God, “I don’t like it!!” The human stomps his foot indignantly and crosses his arms in defiance.

God waits for the human to continue, “NO! This isn’t right! This is NOT what we agreed on.”
“It’s not my child?” God asks, watching his loved one closely.
“No, it’s not. I don’t like it at all. This doesn’t feel good.” The human rushes over to the ruins and quickly tries to put one stone back on top of another.
“Child….” God takes his loved one’s hand away from the debris, picks him up, carries him away from the construction site, and sets him down on a wall that he has created. “I know you are frustrated, but you must talk to me.”
“I… I don’t want to, that wall needs to be fixed---NOW.” He squirms on top of the wall, trying to reach the construction site, but God stops him with a steady hand.

“No, my child, you said that this could be done.”
“But I didn’t know THAT,” pointing to the fallen wall, “is what you meant!!”

God takes the child off of the wall and holds him closely, speaking softly into his ear, God says, “It’ll be alright my child.” He then pulls His child away from Himself and looks at him in the eye, “I love you.”
“If you loved me you wouldn’t let me go through such pain!” He avoids God’s gentle eyes, refusing to accept what He has said.

“My child, did you not say I could tear down the wall?”

“Well… Yeah, but you said you were going to protect me!! This is not protection! I am bare, I have nothing! This is an open wound and it needs to be healed! This hurts!”
The human has hot tears flowing down his cheeks. He has never felt such emptiness before. The wall has always stood strong and never let anything in. But the human had forgotten what lay behind it. What was behind was now open for all to see, and he wasn’t sure he liked being watched.
“My child, I am not done yet,” God gently reminds him. “This is but the beginning of what I am doing.”
“But can’t you go faster???”
“No my child, this is right for you. You asked me to change you, and this is one of the things needing change the most. You have allowed me to go this far, will you not let me complete the work I have begun?”
“But it hurts so badly!” The human cringes in pain.
“My child, I understand your pain. I know what it feels like to lose something close to you. But you have forgotten the ending; it won’t always be like this.”

“But what can I do in the meantime? This hurts, I don’t know if I can keep going.” The human shivers and wraps his arms around himself.
“You are not alone. You have forgotten that I am here with you. Do you need anything else?” God’s inquisitive eyes bore into the human’s soul.
Looking at the debris and then at God, the human says reticently, “As much as I don’t like this… I know you can be trusted, but to do what? I’m not sure anymore…”
“You can trust me to never leave you, and trust that what I’m doing is best for you.” God waits for that statement to sink in, then He begins again, love wrapping its way around His words, “Now, I have some instructions for you. Will you listen?”
“Yes.”

“I want you to watch me.”
“That’s it?” cried the human, with a look of confusion crossing his face. “Don’t you want help building or something??”

God smiles warmly, and replies, “No, I just want you to watch me. You have been focusing on what has been going on around you, watching this wall fall… I don’t want you to watch that anymore. I want YOU, to watch ME.”
Glancing quickly at the fallen wall, the human says, “But what about the wall?”
“I’ll take care of that… Do you trust me?”
The human thought about it, considering the pain he was experiencing, and the truth of God’s words. Finally the human answers with conviction, “Yes Lord, I trust you.”

“Then watch me, and wait.”
We leave the scene with those instructions reverberating around the human’s heart.

Attalus

Hey all!! :)
So, I have a huge favor to ask of you guys!!!
There's this really awesome band that is from my church, and they're about to start on their first real album. They need help though, they're college kids...and poor. :) Please go check them out!!


If you wish to pledge then please click here

If you wish to hear more of them before you pledge, please contact me. Here's some of their stuff:
Obviously the recording is not fantastic, that's what they're going for with this new project :)

Completely Crazy

God's spirit dwells inside of us.

Yeah, I know. Something we already know as Christians. But sit back and think on that again. Just because it's good to meditate on:

God's spirit dwells inside of us.

I didn't realize how important of a concept this was until just the other day as I was reading in

1Corinthians 2:11-16

No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. For,

“Who can know the Lord’s thoughts?
Who knows enough to teach him?”

But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

I still don't completely get the impact of all of this, it's kind of mind blowing. When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior he seals his promise to keep us with his Spirit. (It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives IN me Gal 2:20)

When Christ is in us we have a whole new perspective on things.

"Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won't need to compare yourself to anyone else. For we are each responsible for our own conduct." (Galatians 6:4 &5)

When Christ is in us, suddenly the world thinks we're mental. Completely Crazy.
I have a perfect example for this.

This morning I took a walk around the neighborhood and sat down at the little pond that we have there. I took my Bible and started reading out-loud ( I have an issue with reading... Long story short, I understand better when I can hear myself.) So I'm sitting there reading out loud, praying, singing. Just you know... Being with God. Then the ducks waddle up, and I start talking to them. Suddenly the trash guy pulls up. It occurred to me..

"I look completely nuts."

Which of course, made me laugh out loud.

Poor trash guy.

Anyways, I thought I would share this verse that's been hitting me in the stomach lately
"As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world's interest in me has also died." Gal 6:14

People may not always think your sitting completely on your rocker. But God dwells inside of you, loves you, and will never leave you. What people think doesn't matter anymore. We have a Savior who loves us dearly... and that's all that matters :)

Hebrews... The perspective of an ill lighting tech

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. -Aesop
I thought this was an excellent quote, especially considering what happens when we look at Hebrews 10:1-18:

The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God,

“You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings.

But you have given me a body to offer.You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin. Then I said, ‘Look, I have come to do your will, O God—as is written about me in the Scriptures.’”

First, Christ said, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt offerings or other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them” (though they are required by the law of Moses). Then he said, “Look, I have come to do your will.” He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect. For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.

Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.

And the Holy Spirit also testifies that this is so. For he says,“This is the new covenant I will make with my people on that day, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts,and I will write them on their minds.”Then he says,“I will never again remembertheir sins and lawless deeds.”And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.

Too many times we are looking at the shadow's and are so mesmerized by them. As a lighting technician, I completely understand this. One of the main things you're doing is trying to make shadows so that it will enhance the look of things, but you also want to diminish them, so that they're not distracting.
Think about it, if you were to go to a concert and someone didn't turn the lights on, it'd be like being blind. You could only enjoy part of the concert, the music side. Which is one of the main reasons you're going... But if there's no light, there's no way to see the person who's singing, it's kind of pointless. You want to see what you're looking at.

Okay, now think of a movie that drives you completely mental. Honestly one of my biggest pet peeves would be terribly made movies. One of the biggest one's for me is when someone lights the movie terribly. If you can't see the actor's face, what's the point??? Shadows are awesome, and you can do some cool things to enhance things with them.

One of my favorite movies is "Arsenic and Old Lace." There's a scene in the movie where the bad guy is supposed to look creepy. So what they did was just showed his shadow on the wall, standing really tall over top of this really short guy. It was beautiful because it showed how he was really this terrfying unknowable person. You wouldn't want to get to know him for fear of dying...
My point is this, if you only saw that scene in the movie it'd be pointless, you wouldn't understand the rest of it. You wouldn't know what the bad guy looked like. I don't know if I'm making any sense here... the doctor put me on a ton of medication for my asthma, so I could just be rambling...

But we need to stop just looking at shadows and we need to see the point. God has given us such beautiful things, and we're called to be lights in a dark world. The shadow's? They just prove how cool the light is. :)

Yep that's the perspective from a really sick lighting techie :P

Have an awesome night.