Stupid Facebook

Made this cause this keeps happening to me. Ever since Facebook chat was invented, there have been nothing but glitches for me. Disappointing ones.  

God's invincible help

After having forsaken God earlier this afternoon in one of the many ways in which I do, I woke from my nap a few minutes ago, sat up and realized that God is laughing at me. God is laughing that I would ever think I can shake him or do something so bad that it would discourage him from his loving mission for me. What I felt was that he was smiling at me and he told me I have every hope in the world because my righteousness was never actually mine... it was his. And that nothing I do could lessen his hold on me, and that it's really quite a joke I think I have any power to change that. My loved and privileged status in his eyes is only because of his selfless nature to put up with such ignorant fools as myself. But anyway, what it felt like was God's boisterous laughing amusement that if I am now any less sure of his love for me, then I've lost my brain.

I then got to thinking about this whole Protector thing that's going on. He laughed at me for thinking I could shake him, lose him with my sin. It really seems quite plain right now, to be honest with you... and may God humble me severely if there is any pride in my words. I do tend to love the thrill of sounding smart, after all.

The specific Protection I'm referring to, that cannot be lost, that exists beyond my choice, is nothing more than the Holy Spirit. It's not strange, it's not spooky, it's not some stupid ghost based in physical matter like the orbs and shadowy shapes they claim to show you on TV. But there is Something quite beyond me that is amused I think I could ever shake myself out of his arms.

The Bible says we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. A lot of people hear "indwelt" and immediately fit it with the schemas of what they know: exorcisms, demons, unwholesome things inhabiting, indwelling people. That there's a sort of a powerful and dark connotation here, with a sense that it is very strange and unwelcome.

But the application of the Holy Spirit to our souls is not weird; it is nothing more than something Real unwaveringly protecting and transforming something irreparably fake. Something so fake, it doesn't even know it is. Humanity continues in its course not understanding just how futile it is without God's loving help. And we could never know what is actually real until it became visible for us.

It's an eye-opening moment. And it's probably not something I can "cause" anyone to have by reading this. It's just that the longer I've known God, the more I think that to sweat my past mistakes is silly... he's already past it. I confess why it was wrong to my Friend and I move on. Do I always have the sense to do that? No. But sometimes God helps me see that. 

Love is limited only by choice... not time.

Love is a choice... there's the feeling, but you also have to deliberately choose to make it that person and that person only that you chase. You have to want her, not just it. If you want the feeling, just keep chasing the wind, but don't delude yourself. Do we really know anyone else, who they really are? Or do we just love the thought of them? One of the most satisfying things in life is to know exactly who someone is and love them for it. That's my thinking anyway.

It's a deep pursuit, a profound choice. It's no secret life is scary and complex. How naive to expect love to be any different! If you want to get to know somebody, you're going to need to have lots of love, patience, and deliberately know why you're doing it. Don't do it if your only motive is it's fun. Do it if you see a glimpse of who she is, who he is, and you feel drawn to them.

Perhaps we've let that one line in Song of Solomon take over our Christian understanding of love to an unhealthy degree: "I implore you, women of Jerusalem, not to awake love before its time." We've made love a time bomb. A watched pot never boils. We assume it's all about right timing and clockwork. We've put math to the mystery. It doesn't work that way. If you want to fall in love with somebody in a sensible, godly way, I know for me that what I said in the first two paragraphs is a good start. It's what I've learned. It's not always ONLY about patience and timing and waiting and waiting and waiting. It's about a deliberate choice in whatever you do. If you're single, then for God's sake, KNOW WHY you're single and BE single. If you're falling for someone, then ask yourself WHY do I feel drawn to them; do you love the person you know, or the person you think they are? Has the girl "let you in" yet? If not, why do you think she's the one for you? Has the guy demonstrated the character of which he is actually willing to deny his own desires out of humility in favor of pleasing God and respecting you?

You see, the second we use the words "patience" and "waiting" we immediately use something I'd call "time metaphor". Love was never about time. Love exists outside of time, Scripture says it lasts past that. So why would we use time metaphors to try to teach people about how to fall in love, how not to fall in love? God has patience, he can endure a million years no problem. You and I? We're creatures of flesh and pain. We can't handle it because we weren't meant to. All we can do with our limited time here is make DELIBERATE DECISIONS to love others. It's about practical actions, intentional efforts. It's about knowing why you're doing something... not how long it takes to get there. Don't contextualize with time. Don't worry about how long it's been or going to be before you find that person who will love you like crazy. Think only about the people in your life now and make deliberate decisions in light of who they are... and what you can give them. 

If they need Jesus, give them Him. If you know who a person really is underneath and you love him, then please be honest with yourself and just love him. And if you get a glimpse of a young woman who loves Jesus so much she sacrifices other areas of life to be closer to him, by all means, chase that girl to the other end of the world. Please. The world needs you to do that. We need you to do that. We all need everybody else to come alive and know why we're doing what we're doing, and then act on it. -George

Hello again!

Hi! I haven't blogged since February and I see that others are getting back into it; I thought I would just get on here and say some quick things. I have been enjoying my job at Overton's and have become more responsible thanks to that hefty commitment. I haven't picked up painting this summer like I wanted to... and haven't done anything with photography. I mostly work and play music. My cousin Drew, Allen, and I want to start making some alternative music and play downtown, maybe at that new coffee shop The Scullery. It has to be hands down my favorite coffee shop in town. I'm trying not to freak out that I don't have any school lined up for this fall and that I don't know what to do with myself. I'm thinking of throwing myself into a business degree but that could be a really stupid idea, but maybe not. 

I used to feel more philosophical, deep, in-the-know. After I stopped blogging I have started to realize that most of what I talked about was mostly to establish some sort of hip self-image. Truth is, what I say really doesn't amount to anything. I could die tomorrow and nothing about me would matter 10 years from now. So I don't want to have the kind of "Christianity" that rears its head in the fashion of an intellectual hipster blogging and being wrapped up in himself. I'd rather have the kind now that comes from being in pain, seeing that I owe God my loyalty, and seeing what he has for me. It's a decision made out of devotion rather than "this is gonna be cool." I have learned more about myself this year than ever... as in, how selfish I am. Issues I thought were dead, are really things that I still fight with mightily. Let's take my dependence on women. God is slowly making me realize that no woman can be counted on the way I can count on him. I love girls, I really do. But I just can't do this anymore. God won't let me have anything I want. At least not until I learn to love him like a freaking magnet, the way I am with any girl I'm head over heels for. And I have no idea if that's possible, they say it is, but I haven't gotten there myself. We will see. 

In any case I asked God last year to make 2011 a year that I grow. That, of course, was actually the best way to invite discipline and a certain measure of "ruin" into my life so that God could do that very "growing" in me. And I knew that... but I still knew I couldn't keep from growing up. I just want to get where God wants me so I can get my heart right, understand how to enjoy my Dad in Heaven right here right now, etc etc. I've been ignoring him for days. He keeps wanting to spend time with me and I keep saying I'll read the Word but I don't. My prayers are weak and distracted. I keep reminding myself that it's not about what I do for him but what he does for me that matters... that makes any difference at all. 

And when it comes to women...

I hope that one day I can be the kind of young man who has a heart worth saying yes to.

 

bad language

So I know around Valentine's Day I think I put up one of those FML statements (**** my life). It's a cultural trend, mostly among teenagers and younger people, to say negative statements about their life and end it with FML. I was doing it as a joke, as a sort of dark humor. But a friend showed me it was wrong, and I agree. I think doing things as a joke can be funny, but there are other ways to be funny besides using obscenities. And because FML and the words it stands for are the same thing, I shouldn't say them. Nor do I really want to anyway... it's really negative and doesn't get me anywhere. I guess that's another change I'm making this year. As it is, I hardly ever cuss, but that could be even better. I'd be a lot happier with myself if I wasn't saying things that my family would hate if they were here. And since I say I believe that God is more my Father than my earthly father is, then I ought to behave like my Dad is around all the time. Because He is.

Women are different... right?

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  • In response to Chiao's post saying "After cru talk i thought, man... Women is another organism!"

    
    
  • 
    

    George W. Davis IV

  We should talk about that sometime man. I think it's noble for ministry leaders to discuss it, but I think that sometimes it can be a little destructive. For instance, setting boundaries without actually doing anything else beneath the surface is pointless. You must have a different attitude regarding women to keep yourself from making bad decisions. Making external rules does nothing but make us frustrated. That make sense? Sometimes all the purity talk does is make us very tired, frustrated, uptight people who don't trust each other when it comes to sex.
  
  Openly talking about it is good. Thinking to yourself about appropriate boundaries is good too. But as for manufacturing a set of "this is what women and men should and shouldn't do" and enforcing it on many people robs those people of their ability to think for themselves. We all need to ask ourselves if we really want to guard our hearts or not, and then go with whatever we decide, without fooling ourselves.

  3 minutes ago · 
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  George W. Davis IV I think the whole "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" idea is really sexist towards both genders and is also very outdated. We have a lot of differences, duh, but I think that in reality it's not that hard to understand most of a woman's mind if you really try and listen to them.

Is the Golden Rule really a rule?

In a sense, yes. It is a required ingredient in becoming more like Christ.

But the great thing about the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12) is that it's really more than a rule. It's a way of life, something your heart loves to do. No rule by itself could really be so life-giving as this. That's another reason why in giving us the "Law of Love", God has actually set us free from the law. Because it's not just a rule, a boundary. It's loving loyalty.

And that's really more than any rule could ever produce.

A day with George sounds like this

Woke up at 6:50... Couldn't get back to sleep... MONDAY WHY YOU NO LIKE ME :_(


Krusty Krab pizza song in the shower... You know you love it


I'm glad I didn't see the halftime show. Black eyed peas belong in my stomach, not in my music please. thanks


I still don't know what a ugoogalizer is


I'm basically an iron chef, except... without the iron. Although I did just iron my shirt. I guess that makes me a... dangit. Guess I am.


No texts or emails all day! What is going on? Has EVERYBODY DIED?!


Warming up leftovers, because that's what smart, efficient, prudent, and very poor people do.


I have decided that BAKED ALASKA shall be my new family-appropriate curseword for the month. Thoughts?


Top 3 fears of 90's parents: inappropriate cartoons, bullies, bike accidents. Top 3 fears of 2K parents: how to pay for your children's ipods and still afford food, how to keep your 12 year old daughter chaste, and wondering where the TV remote got to. Yeah, I miss my childhood, I'm not gonna lie.


LADIES AND GENTLEMEN I HAVE AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. Joshua Pake has just informed me that his new family-appropriate curseword is now SMOKED RUSSIA. I believe my dear BAKED ALASKA has started a trend. Adopt your own!


The wonderful thing about FB is that I can log out of it whenever I want. I can log out of life too. It's called sleep!


Let's face it, all Japanese names sound like the noise of a katana cutting through a rhino's body.


I think my brain is subconsciously reacting to Valentine's Day by working up a good sense of humor so I know how to laugh at myself when I'm all alone.


If I eat any more Swedish fish, I just might turn into a fish. I've given up hope of actually becoming Kevin Bacon though.

Sympathy from Starfish

"Hey Spongebob, maybe if I tell you a story, it'll make you feel better."

"Ok."

"Once there was an ugly barnacle. He was so ugly that everyone died."

"That didn't help at all!"

Watch here.

A sun and its flower.

People are like flowers. We're small, inconsequential... Still, what can we do? What can a flower do that is consequential and significant? When all is said and done, we're just dust and water gracefully arranged into bodies. Therefore, we must somehow relate to Something that lasts forever... God. A flower can only stand up tall, in all 3 inches of its glory, and point to Him. Not even Solomon in all his splendor was arrayed as one of these! 

Tonight many things rest on the hinge of a moment, just as every day. Crises are not rare. They happen every day. People die, they face that trauma and hopelessness. People wreck, get shot. Life is spilled so gracelessly on the merciless rocks of the earth. Yet, flowers grow in the cracks. Flowers like you and me. We must persist, despite the death and destruction, despite the sin and decay, despite the pollution and noise, and despite the temptation for greener grasses in which to root. 

You and I, we are the same. I sin, you sin, we all sin. We're equal. Turning to the mess around us, let us race for Christ, and run like athletes, though our enemies tear us to pieces. You know this goal is all that matters. Your life is not your own. You were seeded by God, a seedling that points to how wonderful He is. Look! He made billions of blossoms just like you! They are the body of Christ. Each one is the same, yet different and valuable. Each blossom needs the same things you do. The firm, warm, dark soil of Christ calls gently... do not deny your roots. Here is the cradle of all life, who can deny it? For from God comes every being, and their healing. 

Stretch your stalk to the sky. Try to reach that Sun, claim it for yourself. Grasp it with your petals, for your very own. Can you reach it? No. None can reach up to the Glory that is the Sustenance of all life. For life falls short of His glory, hopelessly, miserably, even ignorantly. For a flower that turns its back on the sun will perish and wither, another hopeless cause lost among the flowering beds of blossoms beside the stream of Time. 

Yes, on its own, a flower is just a flower. But when it knows its place, a humble mote of carbon and chlorophyll blessed and provided with a handful of soil and water (for us, Christ and the Word), it knows one thing: the Meaning of Life. And that is this: loving Christ is all we need. And so a flower and its Sun unite, perfectly completing each other in union. Yet a flower can never hope to lend anything to the Sun; the Sun needs nothing from the flower.  But it smiles on it anyway. And so the flower lives no more for its own glory. It belongs to the Sun now.

Winter comes. Petals begin to fall. Old and new... they are the same. The flower is bathed lovingly in its Lover's arms as it passes, just one more beautiful word in the story of Time. 

Oh Stubborn Heart, poem

Oh stubborn heart inside of me

The strength of which will always fail

The Lord on High abides in thee

Though oft for Him your love grows stale.

You’ve gone thus far and reached the heights

To which you never dreamt you’d climb

Yet each new mountain in your sights

Convinces you you’ve lost this time.

And in each pit of dark and gloom

You think you’ve lost it all, and yet

Your God reminds you every time

To seek him more than old regrets.

You always make it through the pain

And stand amazed with newfound joy

When God comes through still once again

And saves you from things that destroy.

There’s nothing you can do or say

To steel yourself for scars to come

Let God be God, and though cliché

Without that truth you will succumb.

Your gift from God is frailty

To make you see sooner than most

That without God, you can’t be free

Or have a strength of which to boast.

So let me fight, says God, your fights

And let me stand beside you here

Courageously we’ll hew the knights

Of darkness in your heart that sneer.

And joyfully you’ll understand

Your strength is not your own, but mine

And as your tormentors disband

You’ll love me past the end of Time.

To love myself, poem

To love myself is like to fight
The tow and tide of oceans deep
I'm not unlike a lonely kite
Locked fast inside a dark storm's keep.

To be a child is to love,
Impulsively without refrain
A man's heart, though, must rise above
The past and hurt that there remain.

So bruised and tired I must try
To keep myself afloat amid
The waves that crush. Alone I cry
In darkness from all help I'm hid.

And yet, somehow, a hope lies here
Inside this heart that's inside out
I see it plain, though quite austere
My life will soon be straightened out.

I know my heart's a treasure chest
Of selfless love and innocence
I just forget that I am blessed,
A prince with an inheritance.

To see what you have seen in me
And love myself the way you can
I want so much. How can I reach
What you've said I already am?

Dark and long has been my night
And faded has my flower been
But you have told me deep inside
Me lies the daytime that will win.

For so can blossoms never fail
And blooms will ever rise to meet
Love's sunshine that will yet avail
Me in my heart so dark and deep.

Lavender tea from Fresh Market

I'm sitting down, just got done doing some cardio and stretching at the gym to keep my back loose and strong, and I'm enjoying a mug of lavender tea. It's pretty much Heaven to my body. 

De lavender, she is so fine

She go down sweet like summa wine

And when you take anudda sip

It just get betta as it... passes your lips

I don't know what inspired an awkward cajun poem but... yeah

My self-criticism

I'm writing about this because it's a sick habit of mine that I want to dissect and maybe work through mentally as I'm typing. It's much faster than handwriting in a journal and I hope that maybe someone gets something out of it. Who knows.


I was talking with a friend tonight online and I said something about how I suck in this one area of my spiritual life, and I did it in such a way that was self-deprecating. There was something really pathetic about it... I was making a joke out of myself basically sucking at listening to God. She pointed it out to me and I realized that I really am hurting myself without need and cause. I already tend to beat myself up... if you've known me long enough you know that I don't give myself enough credit or let myself off. I tend to feel sick over the same sins of mine, and put myself down in self-pitying ways to try to get attention...


It's a sickening habit because it's something that hurts, yet I want to do it. It's not unlike cutting oneself. Some people self-harm to find a release, but they're actually just scarring themselves, in more ways than one. I'm doing the very same thing in my mind. Cutting myself with comments (yeah cause I just SUCK at this and that) instead of stopping and just loving myself because Jesus told me He loves me and... man. It's so hard. Proverbs: a dog returns to its vomit. God offers me this love and I just turn around and bash my head on walls by not forgiving and loving myself. I really have to stop this. No one's going to be able to love me like I need if I keep destroying myself slowly.


Even now I'm hating myself for being so weak and self-destructive. See how much of a habit it is, the beating-myself-up? It sucks! Pray for me!

Bam it's 2011 now what

You can spend years in a campus ministry and find your identity in a group, but once you leave that, you're a WHOLE NUTHA person baby. 2010 was unreal in how much I had to adapt to a different life... and I'm still trying to figure it out. 


I went from playing in two bands and having a job my spring semester to playing in one band with no job by August... a much-craved relief. I really don't miss my days of being in Crusade; I'm not saying that out of spite, although there was certainly drama and politics that I don't remember fondly (let me be clear, that happens everywhere, and Crusade is excellent for presenting the cut-and-dry truth of the Gospel). I'm saying it more out of acceptance for the me I am now. I don't want to be who I was a year ago... I've learned things, I've moved on. I'm definitely not wise and in some areas I've regressed. But thankfully, I'm different from who I was then and I'm glad about that.


I don't know who I'm gonna be by the end of this year, but I know that I won't be content to close 2011 out without some big changes in myself. 


Church culture is so blind; we say that 99 of what happens to us is our attitude, but as soon as someone writes a self-focused book that actually has some good stuff for examining our attitudes, we freak out like it's just another therapeutic self-help piece of crap. Which is kind of an awkward segway into this but I want to mention a book I'm reading: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. The psychology community embraces this book. I had it for two years and never opened it. I got over it and started it the other day and my mind has been blown. Why? Because I'm not delving into deep mysteries and using stupid camping metaphors like Wild at Heart (just joking but you know what I mean), but instead this book isn't a self-help book. It's literally all about other people and how you react to them. I see Jesus in this book. It explains the value of learning to pay attention to, listen to, and appreciate other people and shower positive affirmation on them instead of punishment, thereby improving the home, workplace, you name it. It turns the world upside down. There's much more than just that in it, but the real-life examples in it and the plain, quaint language of Dale Carnegie just blows my mind. It's been such a relief to read a book that actually helps me and yet doesn't shove a whole bunch of GOD GOD GOD down my ear canals. 


Speaking of whom, I have been thanking Him quite a lot the past three days even though I haven't necessarily felt like it, as burdened as I am psychologically from everything that's going on. It's a weird thing. I really can't take credit because He's very much the one who's causing it. I'm mainly writing this because I left my journal at home and I'm in Greenville and I'm not gonna wait to write all this down any more. 


The truth is, I'm reaching some conclusions about myself, and I know they're only beginning to form. I am: 


a musical person
a poetic person
a self-focused person
an open-minded person
a peace-loving person
a gentle person
a burdened person
a touchy person
a self-isolating person
a needy person
a lonely person
a grudging person
a caring person


I think I probably mentioned music first because that's been the biggest growth this past year. I began going to Town Commons to sit in the grass, play guitar, try to write songs, and get away from my life and all the crap that was going on. Getting music into an organized, written form was a debut experience for me. Also, playing in two bands has something to do with it, but Discovery was really the group that made me step up my game. Now that I've been in the game a while and I see that music is something I want to do for life, my eyes are opened and I want to get better. I want to know my music when I'm up there, better than before. 


I chose poetic because of the thought process that went into writing the earlier posts "Beauty in Being Unique". This was not an Oprah, self-obsessed make-your-own-heaven idea, but rather a move God made in my heart to get away from stiff, robotic thoughts I had about life and God, instead moving me more into a way of thinking based out of contentment in who I am. I'm not perfect and I won't ever be, and I'm fine with that, but thanks to the Holy Spirit, I am not fine with my sin. That's the crucial difference between me and Oprah. Plus, I'm far too poor to give random people a pet killer whale or a sexy car. 


I chose self-focused because I am. It's said that we spend 95% of our time thinking about ourselves, and the person who said that said it before 1920. When I'm not thinking all about my own confusion and fog, I'm able to see past it and it doesn't steal my stage. I can actually accomplish something. Like Habitat for Humanity or brightening someone's day or just random stuff like that. But when I do focus on myself it gets nasty and I start falling victim to a bunch of sins.


I chose open-minded because I can't sit and watch one news channel, because I hate political debates that are polar because it's all been said before, and because I squirm trying to fit myself into a political box. My beliefs and desires for where I would like my country to go don't fit in a box. They WOULD if the Republican party wasn't historically made up of a bunch of fat cats who don't do anything about the environment or oil dependency, and if it didn't make its decisions out of a churchy, Bible-belt influenced air of superiority and snobbery. But anyway. I grew up conservative, and I am, but I am very critical of my party and why we do what we do. And I think that Democrats are quite capable of having some good ideas as well. 


Skipping ahead to "burdened person", I realized in September that a good friend of mine always has the most positive facebook statuses, and that he goes through a lot of the stuff I do, but he reacts to it differently. I don't want to be known as the downer forever, so I decided to change how I react. I haven't made a spotless record of this (I certainly have my dark side), but I do handle it better. How? I spew my ugly details to good friends who actually care. 


A touchy person? Only if you catch me during my time of the month, or I happen to be focusing on myself too much. There's always a time each month I'm just not feeling like the world's sunshine. 


Self-isolating. This is a big one. I often shut myself in my apartment instead of getting out and doing stuff, partly because I don't know what to do, I don't often get invited to anything, and because I have been struggling with depression and anxiety for a long time. People like me who just graduated but don't have a job are kind of screwed in this culture. We don't have any established network for growing up, getting friends... it's something you have to fight for.


A needy/lonely person? I need a woman. Don't debate it, just accept it. You've heard about that. See previous blog post. Haha. 


A grudging person? I realized that there are things, situations I replay in my head so I can feel mad at somebody. Old ex-girlfriends, arguments with my family, you name it. It's all pride. I just try to catch myself whenever it happens... thank you Holy Spirit.


A caring person: I have been told by people after listening to them that I actually looked interested in what they had to say. I'm gonna go ahead and thank God for that and just say that I would rather be this kind of person than any other kind because it's a beautiful thing I want to see more in the world. There have been plenty of situations in which I wasn't interested or listening  to someone else, and for those I apologize, but otherwise, I just enjoy being real and I am glad to have been a real listener for you. 


In case you can't tell, I get off a lot to the idea that I'm not like everyone else, and that can be a good thing as long as I remember it's God's doing, not mine. I didn't knock on the uterine wall and say "hey yo make me a good listener and very artsy, sensitive like the ladies like" or whatever. I can't take credit for God's good handiwork. And I'm aware I'm messed up. But I'm glad I'm me because I'm content with who I am. Not that I'm a good person by my works, but I turned out alright, I mean come on, I love God, I don't want my old sinful life, and I'm musical, which is fun, and I am (thanks to my friends) very witty when I want to be. And I care about people. I can bring myself to tears very quickly when thinking about profound things that are true, which makes me a sensitive young man and therefore somewhat of a rebel. So this is kind of a pat on the back, but take it to be nothing more than that, because the truth is, God is to credit for ANYTHING I DO RIGHT because the Spirit's doing that through me and I am NOT the Spirit, haha. 


The truth is, I am a very self-critical person. To write the previous paragraph did not come easy, because I don't give myself credit for lots of things. Pride isn't necessarily a bad thing, but what you're proud of. I'm proud of the things that make me more like my Father. Not that I could EVER be Him.