One lonely phonograph

Since terse, disjoint blog entries seem to be in style, I thought I’d give it a whorl. Context will cost you extra.

Opera keeps eating my blog entries. I don’t like it. But now I get to reword it.

My battle with cooking is ancient history. Even I barely remember it. I saved a draft, but I probably won’t finish it because I no longer remember the incident with the same energy I did when I originally sat down to write it.

They’ve got me going on a new project now. Seems I’ve done all I can for the other one so it just faded away like the co-workers who used to sit around me. They got their clearances so now they’ve gone to secure places to do secure work. I’m still insecure, but not for long. I was interested, if a little dismayed, to hear that sometimes senior engineers like to cut corners then obstinately claim their “design” meets spec because of “heritage,” even when it’s bloody obvious it doesn’t. I hope I never get that lackadaisical about my job.

My interest in Japanese has been re-awoken. Now I just have to have my family bring down my textbooks so I can unforget what’s hiding just out of reach. まだ日本会話パートナーを見つけたいだけど。

God’s been doing some housecleaning recently. Overturning furniture, sweeping out dusty corners, taking out piles of garbage that were hidden under the rug, emptying skeleton closets. I’m glad to see most of that stuff go. I just wish I had noticed the smell before someone else had to alert me and then cancel their reservation. Turns out there’s a little structural damage, even. Best put on the hard hat of salvation and the safety vest of righteousness, Jesus is raising the hammer of his Spirit, which is his Word.

Thus, we’re on a temporary sabbatical while we hold respective focus groups with the Spirit to determine the situation and what to do about it. On the surface it seems quite complicated and confusing. And the uncertainty is so thick you could cut it with a knife. But I have a question to pose that cuts through a lot of things:

Why would you give up just because there’s a possibility that you might fail?

Everything we do has the possibility of failure. And quite often we meet failure nose to nose. But that doesn’t stop us from doing things. It didn’t stop our Lord from going forth, though he sweat blood over it. You could die tomorrow, does that keep you from going outside?

Why cut off God’s present blessing because you fear what you think might happen?

Fear cripples. To quote Switchfoot, “My fears have worn me out.” My fears about this have worn me out, too. But I refuse to climb inside an insulated box, thinking it might save me from future trouble. I’ve walked that road before and it leads to desolation.

I suppose I’ve already made up my mind about the attitude I’m going to carry with me: This is an exceedingly important matter to me. Therefore I will continue on, wait even beyond hope, and ask for God’s guidance in administering myself. I still have an obligation to protect and uphold my family in Christ. And I still have an obligation to keep Christ at the center of my life.

But as major an event as this is, it is still periphery in the end. My primary goal is to obey God and worship him. Whatever else happens is ultimately of little importance. If things change, let them change! If the whole world caves in on me, what is it to me but a temporary crisis? My God is gracious and will pick up the pieces of his shattered servant and rebuild me to his Glory. I would rather live knowing this, than to die fearing change.

And we have total freedom in Christ. Through his Grace and Salvation, and his Spirit within us, he creates a framework in which we are to live our lives. He sovereignly directs the structure of that framework, but within it, he grants us free will to lead our lives as we please. This is an amazing thing! It means that God really does let me live as I please so long as I remain within the framework of his Will. I can do God’s will by working here or somewhere else. I can do God’s will by marrying one girl or another. I can do God’s will by ministering to the elderly, the impoverished, the crippled, or a foreign people. The Lord ultimately knows what path I will take, for he has ordained it, but to me the choice is mine as far as what he chooses not to command me Himself.

But don’t get me wrong. Our choices, even within God’s framework, are not ultimately our own since it is his Spirit that guides us in all things. This seems to set up a contradiction, but in fact it’s more of a duality: both are true without negating the other. We do not even exist except by His Word, nor do we come to Christ but by his Spirit, nor are we capable of pleasing Him in this flesh but by his Spirit, so our actions are not our own. But to us he gives free will, even knowing the final outcome, because he desires that we choose him with our hearts. That still sounds contradictory, but God is a great mystery, who can know his thoughts or understand the way he does things? I’m content to leave it at that—it’s quite possible I don’t have the capacity to understand. But given that duality, I as yet see no conviction against choosing to remain steadfast, and I can be confident in that choice because of my freedom in Christ. Nothing, even “the worst possible thing” can separate me from Him, so while my emotions may fly all over the map, at least I can trust in His constancy and move without fear in this world.

That was the longest diversion. We now return you to your regularly scheduled discontinuities.

Katie is a punk rocker and Sarah is a sweetheart. And I wish I were back at UCU, looks like everyone’s having such a great time there this year. Praise God for the way he has transformed that place before my very eyes!

…oscillating high-frequency super-radiating electro-techno-hypno…

My word, it's almost 2am. I'm getting to old for this. That's sad...I'm 23 and I can't stay up till the wee hours anymore. Such is life. But at least (for now) I don't have homework. Yeah, that's gonna change soonish. But hey, can't argue with a free masters from Stanford (If the Lord wills).

"So I'll cling to the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown."