 Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Another great movie, and a memorable Christmas. Full of food and movie, and friends. Which have become family to me.
The movie has me thinking alot. Which is good. I have seen some very good flicks this past week. Tomorrow is the last day of it. I wished it were longer. But it is not. But 06 is coming to a close, what will 07 bring? 2006 was the year of relationships, will 2007 be the year of coming to the cross? Loosing myself? "The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-bye to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing, it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep onb good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more." A.W. Tozer, the Best of.
posted by Tom at 1:21 AM
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Friday, December 22, 2006
I thoguht I would write alot of my holiday vacation, but I cannot. So many thigns have happenened and thoughts are just as much. Too many thoughts. Basically I am hours away from celebrating a family christmas for the first time in nearly 15 years. With all the family, well the immediate family. There are new additions of my step-mother and sister-in-law and my neice.
It will be different but hopefully the start of a new era. My heart has had some downtime in thinking. I have written alot the old way and sorted out some thoughts. I do need to seek some counsel on these thoughts though. I will seek a few that are close to me first, then I may get more of an elderly opinion on them. When I left a friend of mine said things have got to change. Even though he was speaking of one area of my life, I feel it is more grand than that. And it is not a big change. It is only letting the change occur and stop acting a dam to it. Dam as in what you find in a river. Not the cuss word. 2006 was the year of relationships and intimacy for me. What will 2007 bring as 2006 ends its run? What is the new direction?
posted by Tom at 11:47 PM
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Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Some days it sucks gettingout of bed. First news of the day is an actor from one of my favorite Tv shows just died. But that is life. It just sucks to hear it. Now I will have a new purpose in watching the dvd's.
Onto the post or column as it has been referred to here lately. Is "The world vs. Christmas" It seems that everywhere that the word "Christmas" is offensive and being taken down everywehre. I ti s being replaced with Hapy Holidays. But the heart of it all is to please everyone and becoem anti-christian attitudes for the holidays. So as a christian should I be upset? That the word christmas is being replaced? At first I would have and have said yes I should be angry. I don;t go around and tell other religions that they must rename their holidays? Tell a jew no more Hanuakauh or a muslim no more Ramadahn. See how far you walk away with your life. But that is not what this is about. I feel something deeper than this and beyond worrying that the holiday is being replaced with a generic term. Just seeing the traffic and want lists of ewveryone is scaring me. Even more who do we worship at Christmas? As christians it should be CHrist right? But it is a fat guy in a red suit. Not convinced? This season teh hot item is a new SOny Playstation 3. People are getting shot and hurt over this. Greed has taken us all in the name of the almighty dollar for the corporations. We worship idols during this season. If Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Christ then why do we say Merry Christmas? How much of this holiday is holy? Holy, holi....sounds like a hidden theme there doesn't it? Now if we truely celebrate this, what does it look like? And if this is a religions not a sinful holiday then we have room to be very upset that we cannot proclaim christmas in the streets. Yet this seems to be in the public. The war on christianaity is heating up. Even amongst other christians. The world is rising against us. My heart has been growing a heavy weight upon it to see that this war is no longer on the battle field. In fact we may want to shift it to the homes, to our neighbors, towards one another. This is the time to build one another up on an intimate level. Grow deep with one another and prepare for the upcoming troubles. Even in this holiday season, I hope that we all not get caught up in shopping and wanting that we forget to love and share CHRIST. Am I upset they are replacing Christmas with happy holidays? Not right now, no. I cannot be angry at this. I don't know exactly how biblical this is. But in my heart I see this season lately away from God. Society in general that is. We are being shown intolerance for one another and more about our own rights above others. For the world this is the giving season, the only time of year you have to do this. This is the greed and want season. For Christians it should be a time to reflect upon Christ's birth. (I will spellcehck this later)
posted by Tom at 2:13 PM
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Sunday, December 10, 2006
looks like one of the random silences have hit this blog again. I post alot then it dies. ALl is well, I am still alive and all that fun stuff.
I have really been in some battles physicallty and spiritually. I have been sick with one thing or another and I can't see a Dr. until next year so I have to bear with being ill until then. Spiritually I was working though the How People Change book and did one of the excersizes and it hit me hard. Seeing what were idols in my life and such. My faith was on hold. My idols, well they had fun. I was in a low place. I did not see anyway out. But the next section is about bringing it to the cross. And now I am lookinging into what that looks like? So far it is coming broke. And that is nearly impossible to do. But I know that IU have to if I am ever going to heal from them, if I am ever going to give myself unto God I need to give up self first. And honestly I do not want to. See the dilema? Its everything, kinda like being called into a 180 in life. When faced with the reality of things, it seems larger than life. Oh somuch larger than I would have ever imagined. Yet I lost focus of joy, I lost what I was seeking. And thus I lost battles in my faith in my just living. But I am slowly gaining it back. In fact I see and feel change in me. For one I shaved my beard and an keeping it trimmed, makes me look nicer n stuff. But tongiht I had alot of fun playing with some kids to get some photos. In community group a few weeks ago one of the couples had thier kids there. SO I was playing with them having fun. Oe of them, I think not even two said "mommy I like him he's cool!" I almost cried right there. That was teh sweetest thing I have ever heard anyone say about me. Talk about an innocent heart, man that was great. Then watchign the Nativity Story, I got emotional several times in the movie, I was watering up really bad. But something kcked in and I wasable to not break down. I should have. But I commented Iwould bootleg it and watch it alone in my room and bal my eyes out. Just the birth scene was very over the top. Seeing these relationships like this is taking me over. Even beyond mushy. My heart has been changed. This is why my struggles of late have been very difficult. I want to seek others, find a wife, grow deeper and intimate with Christ and God, yet Isee that when I give in or let my desires or even emotions overwelm me, that I am only serving myself and no one else. I want to grow into that intimacy with others, yet I block it. The cross calls for death to self, to carry ones cross cannot be done alone, and this is at war in mty heart on several aspects. Yet this is a war I want to lose. In fact tongiht in sermon there was one thing that scared me. Sacres me. Me very friggin scared. According to C.S. Lewis one day it will come down to two kinds of people. Those who say "Lord thy will be done" and those who the Lord says "Thy will be done" Please I do not want to be on the latter. I do not want my will to be done. So in this corner is the cross and the challenger is me. The cross before me and my sins surrounding me, yet one small force is already inside working changes. Just a few small tweaks can change the entire outcome of a program. As it is doing in me and it is not me changing but being changed.
posted by Tom at 9:56 PM
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Saturday, December 02, 2006
I have been sick this week. It keeps getting better and then worse. Then again so has everything else for me lately. Especially my faith and my walk. I worked through a very hard chapter and saw how many idols and god replacements I have in my life. They all hit hard and all at once. They overwhelmed me. And for this week I have been giving up that life in which I was seeking, to return to many old ways and wallow in it. It's just too much for me I feel. That and being sick sucks.
How can I go onward if these idols and replacements are in my life? Doesn't that make me a double agent? Playing both sides? But the dreams I have had lately tells me otherwise. It seems that I still desire that life with a godly path. The next part of the book deals with the cross. This is where things start to turn around I guess. This is the hard part of it all. How?
posted by Tom at 11:43 AM
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links.tom links.other sojourn.blogs blogs.other blogroll.christian Thy way, not mine, O lord Thy way, not mine, O Lord, However dark it be; Lead me by Thine own hand, Choose out the path for me.
Smooth let it be or rough,
I dare not choose my lot;
Take Thou my cup, and it
Choose Thou for me my friends,
The kingdom that I seek
Not mine, not mine the choice ~Horatius Bonar |
