Who's following who?

Ideeeaaaassss..... one in particular. One I've been having this week. I wonder at the fact that many a day have been started with the prayer "Lord, come and be with me" or "Lord walk with me throughout this day." So many times the Christian looks to his God and asks God to join him throughout his day, at his tasks, in his life. And I don't think that this is wrong, necessarily. But it is reflective of us and who we are, I think. Without even thinking about it, and with the best intentions, we ask God to join us. 

But when I see Jesus. When I look at his life and see him interacting with people, I never see someone look at Jesus and say "come and follow me wherever I go today." instead you always see Jesus say "Come and follow me." period. And I love that sentence. It's so open ended and final at the same time. There's no time stamp attached. It's a forever kinda thing. Like "hey, i know you've got stuff going on, and i know you had plans and dreams for the future, but instead of that... just come and follow me... forever. never stop. Just keep following me wherever I go. Do whatever I'm doing. Listen to whatever I'm saying. See whatever I'm seeing." That in and of itself is a way better story than, "Jesus can go with you wherever you go." I mean sure, that's true. He's always with us. never leaves us. never forsakes us. But God didn't come to the earth so he could follow everyone around right? 

Look at the Israelites in the Old Testament, God didn't say "Ok you're free, go wherever you want, have fun, let me know if you need me and stuff." he became a massive pillar of fire, and smoldering cloud that they could follow to the promised land.

I propose this. Just as God had plans for the Israelites, ( like the promised land ) and Jesus had plans for the Disciples, ( like a life full of adventure and power ) maybe God has plans for all of us. "Old news" you say. "i already know God has a plan for me". and yet... and yet we continue on, unchanging, unphased. We sometimes feel tugs this way, or that. We see an open parking space in front of the store and say "God must have wanted me to be here". but are we really following Him? Do we wake up everyday and go looking for where he is? 

What if everyday is an incredible game of hide and seek where we go and seek him. Figure out where he is and what he's doing. Like when you were a kid and your dad got up before you did on saturday and you walked around the house trying to find him. And he was gardening in the back yard, and of course, 'cause your 5, all you want to do is help. Everyday God gets up before we do and he asks us to follow him, seek after him, and do whatever it is He's doing today. Tomorrow morning when you wake up, instead of saying "God, come join me today and help me do my stuff." say, "God, where you at? Lead me and let me follow you all day long."

Sounds good, lets get some verses in our heads. 

Matthew 4:19 "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and i will send you out to fish for people."

Matthew 8:22 "But jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

Mark 1:17 "Come, Follow me" Jesus said, "and i will send you out to fish for people"

Luke 18:22 "When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "you still lack on thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure i heaven. Then come, follow me."

Other examples - Mat 9:9, 10:38, 16:24, 19:21

Mark 2:14, 8:34, 10:21

Luke 5:27, 9:23, 9:59, 14:27, 18:22, 

John 1:43, 10:27, 12:26, 21:19, 21:22

Jesus says this a lot. 

Down Time

   So, for those of you who didn't know. I actually started another blog for my photography business, which you can get to by clicking here. I've been updating that on a fairly weekly basis so go check it out, it's got some neat stuff.

   That being said, since i've started my own business i've had a lot of... let's say, down time. At first i had multiple shoots every week, i was doing alright in the cash department, and I really felt like I was sitting pretty. Then senior portraits season ended and I pretty much didn't have anything else to fill my time. I got a job subcontracting with a company and helping them with their shoots, but even that has teetered out quite a bit. So i find myself at home, doing whatever I can to fill my time.
   At first I was super gung ho about getting my name out there and building business. But after multiple failed attempts at getting new clients I have to say I kinda gave up. Nothing seemed to be working. On top of that, my initial motivation began to drain away. I hit, it seemed, a slump that i could not get out of. There seemed to be an endless loop of negative things that continued to put more gas on the fire of motivationless laze with which my life was living. I must confess that my spiritual life took a beating. I stopped praying, reading my Bible, or even trying. I was upset that all my success had been ripped away (or so it seemed).
   This has gone on for a few weeks now, with only a couple of days here and there that have been life giving. And now i've finally started to apply for jobs. I was really hoping that my business would sustain me since I have way more joy when i've got photography work. Now I'm facing a reality of putting food on the table and keeping the rent coming. All the while I have been, sometimes purposefully it seems, separating my self from God. It's amazing to me how i can "know" the Bible and "know" truths about God and who He is and the way he does things, but as soon as hardship comes, all that goes out the window and I pout like a spoiled child.
   So why write this post? Well because I'm still in the middle of it all. It's still hard to wake up in the morning. It's hard to do anything except watch youtube videos and eat food and sleep. A dark cloud has settled over my mind and I can't seem to shake it. And honeslty i don't know why i'm writing this in my blog, it's not exactly something I want everyone to know. But I process well when I write, and I'm social so I guess it makes sense. Also, I'm hoping that this is the first step to getting out of this funk. I want to be a man who provides for his family and is spiritually stable and stands firm through the storm. Not some mamby pamby who gets tossed about by a summer breeze. So I'll keep you posted on what happens. My goals are to 1) read Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald, a book which so far has been excellent, 2) get my time budgeted out on a calendar so i can reference it, 3) Have daily time with the Lord, 4) Work out 3-4 times a week.

Ok Justin out.

A Long Time Ago....

     A long time ago, (and what seems to have been a galaxy far far away) i boldly said that i was going to try and update this blog weekly. That was literally 3 years ago, and it's been two years since my last post. To those of you faithful few that have decided to "follow" this blog, i apologize. I have not been a man of my word.  As it turns out, however, I process rather well when I write, and speak, and process... 'nough said. As such i've decided to (tentatively) re-take up my challenge, and attempt blogging once more.

To start, lets get to know me a bit. Even those of you who've known me for a while are probably out of date with my life. Firstly I'm 25 years old now. I've been married four years. I've accomplished the unthinkable and graduated college (with a B.A. in Youth Ministry). CCU is now a fond memory, rather than an infrastructure of life. Currently I "pastor" a small college group in lakewood, i'm starting a photography business, and yes, i still make the best coffee that will ever touch your lips. I live in Denver, CO. I love friendships, photography, video games, philosophy, theology, music, LIFE (not the magazine, those caps are for emphasis).


I'm an avid Whovian. I own all seasons of Psych on DVD. I keep up with Once Upon a Time, Castle, and a few others... all without owning a TV.

I am a nerd. I can tell you the history of Zelda, Halo, The Prince of Persia, Professor Layton, Kingdom Hearts, and a plethora of other nerdy, awesome things.

And though I am older, though I have accomplished much since my last post, i still struggle. There are things in my life which plague me, and have since I was a child. I would still rather play than work. I would rather talk, than do. I would rather laze, than respond. I still have a bit of the popsicle man in me (see older post). More than a bit at times.

I write this post not to say anything. Not yet. Just to inform you that I'm ready.

I'm ready to grow up now.

I'm ready to be a man.

I'm ready to know Him as I am fully known.

I'm ready for maturity, and responsibilities, and steadfastness, and wisdom, and depth, and peace that passes all understanding.

These things have all been promised to me, and i have said "not yet". I have been selfish. Childish. Scared. I have been held back by no one, save myself. All the times in my life which I have suffered the greatest, I can now turn around see myself with the whip. It's time to move on, to give up the things of this world which cling to me so heartily... and to which i cling to so desperately. "Everything that hinders", as the good St. Paul would say, must be thrown off. Not carefully put aside, ready to pick back up at a moments notice; but cast away, out the 13th story window, to crash to the ground, that I may move on. This post, this blog, is a first step toward accepting the things that I have put aside for so long, and must now, with weak arms and fatigued muscles, take up. It's time to burn the popsicle man.

I'm ready.

Justin T. Suits

Fabric

I wrote this as a response paper for my class and it so affected me that I decided to share it with you all. Let me know what you think.

Throughout the lives of people, it is physically impossible to not have relationships with other people. Even in the womb, a child has a dependent relationship with his mother, and begins to know her voice. There has only been one human in the history of the planet that was without other humans for any length of time, and that was Adam, and God didn’t let things stay that way for very long. “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” (Genesis 2:18 NASB) Even God said that there people were not meant to be alone. We exist to help one another, and to give each other, for lack of a better term, a support system. Dallas Willard calls it a Circle of Sufficiency in his book Renovation of the Heart. In his theory everyone has a circle of sufficiency that is made up of one’s immediate relationships. We often find ourselves struggling desperately to maintain these circles because they are literally what we rely on to continue our existence. Human life, when it is stripped down to it’s utmost base form, is a relationship. To take an ancient metaphor, all of the lives of people and all their relationships make up a “fabric” of which the people are the "threads". Their relationships weave these threads together to make the tapestry that has been the human existence. Now even though close up, one can see the individual threads, and indeed if one was small enough (or the fabric large enough) only a few threads intertwining would be visible. But the farther out we zoom, more and more of the picture becomes visible, and we can see that this fabric is of a complex weave indeed. Not a single thread is detached from the fabric. And that fabric connects every thread with every other thread from the present point in time all the way back to Adam.

Sufficiency Circles are based off of the fact that we are all connected, and that there is no circle that is removed or separated from any other circle. We like to think that we are self sufficient though. That our circle could go on unaffected by the circles around us but Willard points out that even the most basic of circles, a mother and child, can be vastly affected “The togetherness of the mother and child may be drastically affected by economic conditions on the other side of the earth.” (Willard p. 180) He goes on to point out the truth of the fragility of our little circles. That even though we struggle and try and strive to make our circles stable and safe, the fact is that a ripple in the cloth will start somewhere and travel to the far tips of the cloth. We feel the affect of an earthquake in Haiti. People in Alaska are touched by a Hurricane that wipes out New Orleans. The sad thing is that we’ve so tried to separate ourselves from the pain, (because who wants pain?) that we sometimes don’t even acknowledge the affects of the ripples in the ever expanding cloth. We fool ourselves in doing so. We are, essentially, lying to ourselves. Willard uses the phrase “Everything is okay now”. So often a mother will comfort her child with these words, usually at times when they are least true. Only once we realize our total and complete submersion in the cloth do we realize the tumultuous situation that we find ourselves.


There is only one way that one can overcome the chaos of the ever-expanding, ever-rippling cloth, and that is to “anchor” oneself onto the only one that is truly self sufficient. The One that could, would He chose to, completely separate Himself from the cloth, and be perfectly fine. I talk, of course, of YWHW, Creator of the universe. But through some stroke of genius, His Son, and oddly enough Himself, confined Himself to a single thread, and allowed Himself to be woven directly into the fabric of the cloth that He created. Jesus Christ “came” to earth (whatever that means) in human form. Born as a babe of the virgin Mary, and effectively, as a string in the cloth, rippled that sucker so hard that we’re still feeling the effects today. And He’s managed to do something that no one else has ever done before, or since. He defeated death. Completely shut it down. Death has absolutely no hold on him. Not even Methuselah, longest living of all humans, can touch Jesus record. (Genesis 5:27 NASB)
Though Jesus ascended into heaven, his thread still runs strong, straight through the middle of the fabric, sending vibrations throughout. Those that weave themselves in with His thread can find a place of steadfastness. As the psalmist writes “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2 NASB).

Rob Bell, in his NOOMA video “Rhythm” talks about our relationship with God as “getting in tune” with the “music” that God is playing. Those that weave themselves in with Jesus thread begin to vibrate and pulse on the same wavelength as Him and are in harmony with Him. This ensures security; however, it also means that those that are in sync with Jesus' thread, are out of sync with the rest of the fabric. This causes stress in the weave, conflicting wavelengths, and dissidence. It is known amongst the Christ followers, as persecution. There will always be a dissidence and conflict unless every thread is woven in with the straight and narrow thread of Jesus Christ, only then can every thread ripple in sync with every other thread in a beautiful harmony. The Bible says that in the end, God will take the threads of the fabric that have refused to join the harmonious and intricate designs of Jesus, and pull them out of the fabric itself, throwing them away to be burned forever in a fire, completely separated, for all eternity, from the only sure “sufficiency circle” that exists, which is Christ. Is that not the most hellish thing that one can imagine? The others, however, who have dedicated their life to being in sync, and intertwined with the Christ-thread will be woven anew into a glorious new cloth, that ripples and flows in perfect synchronization with the central strand of Christ. All dissidence, all conflict, and all unrest will cease forever. Only the beautiful dance of the synchronized threads will exist for the rest of eternity. Is that not the most heavenly thing that one can imagine? Therefore, I suggest, that we strive for the heavenly, rather than the hellish, and endure the dissidence of today, for the perfection that is to come.

Avatar

Hey! so long time no see hey? So the other day I went to go see Avatar in 3D because I wanted to have my face melted off. My wife and I get there, fork over 30 bucks for the tickets, plastic glasses, and some food. We proceed to be bombarded by probably the most liberal "Go Green" message that I've ever seen. Really James Cameron? Really? way to throw away you soul to get on the Green Train. No offense to the movie, the story was really well presented, the acting was wonderful, I really did feel like I was 1000 feet above the ground when they were flying, but it's hard to enjoy something that's so blatantly has a political agenda. I mean there's this part (spoiler alert) where the main guy sits down and talks to a tree and says "If you could see where I'm from, there's no more green, they killed their mother" He's talking about earth here. Really? REALLY? Okay people, the earth ain't goin' nowheres. Okay? read the Bible, it's in there.
The second main beef that I had with the film branches off the first, and in fact may be the root of the problem here. Earth Worship. Really blatant earth worship. The Navi who live on this planet called Pandora literally worship the earth, there's a very Native American feel to the way they treat the animals that they kill, calling them brother, and sending them back to "mother." Which is fine, I've endured worse just watching a documentary in history class. But then later (spoiler alert) they all gather around this sacred tree that the Mother is supposed to be connected to, attach their little brain stem things to the roots (they have external brain stems with which they can connect to other plants and animals, kinda neat) and their Shaman leads them in a trance ritual. The Shaman's eyes roll back into her head and everything. Now I know some of you reading this aren't really into spiritual warfare and what not but if you've ever seen someone manifest a demon, that's kinda what it looks like.
Here's the deal folks. We are living in a time when earth worship is becoming a guiding spiritual force on the planet once again, no it may not look like it did 3000 years ago, but it's still there. Putting anything above God on your priority list is worshiping that thing as an Idol. And in a spiritually starved community, people are grabbing hold of anything that looks good. And of course it looks good, Satan is the best at what he does.
Let me say this in parting, taking care of the planet IS a good thing. God gave it to Adam to take care of AND use, therefore putting us above the planet on importance; however, we need to seek God's kingdom first. Trying to fix the planet is a Noble cause, but doing anything without God is all for naught. Keep that in mind when you feel yourself getting carried away by the Green Train.

God's Barrista signing out

Where are you gamers?

So! here we are my faithful followers, nearly a month after my last blog which boldly stated that I was going to start posting every week!  So much for that. Not that I'm not going to continue to try and post weekly, but it's turning out to be harder than I originally thought.  Although this week I've got a couple things on my mind, neither of which are slightly related to one another.  

The first thing on my mind is this, aren't there any decent Christian video game reviewers out there? Now I have to give props where props are due, www.pluggedinonline.com is a christian website put on by focus on the family that reviews all kinds of media including video games.  And where I do appreciate this I often find that their reviews are lacking.... a lot.  The main source that I go to for video game information is ign.com.  Now as great as IGN is, they have almost no moral compass and there's plenty of things on the website to make a young christian guy.... or any christian guy for that matter.... to be tempted to look at things he ought not.  So my question is where's all my christian gamers at and what are they doing for solid reviews?  I had a flash of lightning inspiration this morning.... i've got a video camera and i like to play video games so why don't I do reviews?!? And then reality took a two by four to my face and reminded me that I have no money and that as cool as it would be to review all the games for all of my friends and fellow Christian gamers around the world, I still wouldn't get paid for it and it would eat up all of my time to do it all by myself.  I will continue to ponder this great dilemma and get back to you if i do have any strokes of genius on the subject.  

Now for part two of this exciting two parter blog! I recently found out some information about Obama's new health care plan.  Now just like everything our new president says, it sounds amazing!  Great health care for everyone, everyone pitches in to help everyone else, one big happy family etc.  But I heard some incredibly disturbing things from people who actually read the bill titled "Health Care Reform."  The things that are actually posted in this bill are down right scary, and not to be harsh, but down right evil too.  We're talking socialist, Nazi, Satan evil.  The rumor is that anyone can accept this new health care or reject it if they so desire to keep their own healthcare plane, but the truth is that if the bill is passed, everyone will have to use it regardless of if they want to or not.  I'm not sure what all the health care companies are going to do if this gets passed, but I can't see a flourishing economy on their end.  Also, and this is scary, there will be a committee that reviews individual claims to decide who does and does not get health care.... oh yes, there will be people who get denied further health care and now amount of money or pleading will help.  How do they determine?  Lets take a look.  Lets say a 20 year old guy falls off a ladder and breaks his leg.  He goes to the hospital to get it fixed and the committee says yes and he gets a cast yay! Now lets say a perfectly healthy 99 year old man does the same thing, he goes to the hospital, but the committee looks at him and says, "you've already lived a full life, we're reserving the health care for younger people who can better serve society"  and the hospital, whether the doctors like it or not, has to turn the old man with the broken leg away.  That's right, a committee will determine your worth to society, and decide if you get health care.  Now I don't know about you, but if my grandmother got sick and was denied just because she's old, I'd be downright foaming at the mouth.  The ugly truth is that this whole thing is based on Neogenisist views on life.  Not familiar with the term? It's what the Nazi's thought about civilizations, superior race and stuff.  This will force hospitals to give abortions and euthenasia.  It will also encourage people to not live as long, that's right, not live as long.  There's a bit in there that makes people have to visit a counselor every 5 years, who will instruct them on how to shorten their life so that they won't be a "burden" on society any longer.   Now I don't want you to just take my word for it so i'm going to put a few links here for you to look at/listen to etc.  The point here is that we need to take action FAST.  Obama is forcing this through congress like a chuck norris forces his foot through a bad guys face: Fast and Furious.  He's trying to get it passed before the general public even gets a chance to look at it, and not only that the bill is, get this, 1500+ pages long, who wants to read that?  But on behalf of the American public I'm begging you, the american public, to DO SOMETHING.  Not just sit there and say, man that's terrible.  Please write your congressman and voice your opinion, pray heartily, and beg God to have mercy on this country for it's mess ups, because if this gets passed,  it will be the first step to a socialist America, and I'd rather fight this at the polls than at the stake, know what I mean?

Well, sorry to end on such a sober note, but these are serious times and we need to be vigilant, because the enemy is one sneaky filthy... well you get the idea.  

Here are the links

CPPR Press Conference

An Overview of the Plan

The Full Fledged Plan for the brave and fast readers.

Hate the Devil

Kill the Devil

Pwn the Devil

God's Barista

To my Followers!

So apparently when someone decides to get updates about my blog they become my follower.... muahahaha!  On other news, I've decided that the only way that I'm going to keep a steady blog going, is if I have a specific goal and stick to that goal.  My computer networking teacher has a blog and he says that the only blogs that stick around are ones that have goal, so here we go.  My first goal is linked to my first blog.  I want to give my thoughts on things and have an outlet for what goes on in my head.  So from now on I plan on doing a weekly blog update!  We'll see how that goes.  

Yesterday I went to go see Transformers with my wife and, sadly enough, i was sorely disappointed.  Do not go see this movie! It was terrible and will add nothing good.   It's kinda like when you're fixing a meal and you have your meat and your potatoes and your vegetables but you need some kind of filler, so you put peas in there too.  Why? Because you needed.... something.... right? Not that they taste good or anyone likes them or you come away thinking... I'm really glad i ate those... but just because it was necessary.  This movie was kinda like that.   I can give you a brief summary of the film

1) Megan Fox

2) action

3)Megan Fox

4)bad sex jokes

5)Megan Fox

6)repeat.

Now there was more to it than that but not much... actually you know what? No that's all there was.  The humor in the film was mostly distasteful and the action wasn't linked together with any sort of a good story.   There were absolutely no good moral values in the film either.   In the end Megan Fox ends up saying "I love you" to Shia LaBeouf and then he comes back to life.... like we haven't seen that a million times.... and he says "I love you" back and it's all warm and fuzzy, but the point was that it was fairly obvious that they'd had sex already and the movie was basically trying to say that the words "I love you" are the end all.... I just want to get something straight. 

First you date

Then you say i love you

Then you get engaged

Then you get married

Then you have sex.... Any questions?

That's the way things go, not the other way around, doing it out of order will line you up for a world of hurt, pain, misery, destitution, shame and otherwise all manor of spiteful things.  

So instead of going to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, go eat a can full of peas, because it's better. 

God's Barista