You were a million years of work.

The devil doesn’t know what a marvelous creation you are.  The world can’t see how beautiful your life is, they only see what you look like and observe some of your actions.  Ever imagined what people would think of you if they saw all the way into your life?  What if they heard the songs you sing in your head all day?  What if they could feel the way you do when you see someone you really love?  Can you imagine if they knew the depth and the character you have!

I think everyone has character and I think every person is a marvelous creation.  That’s really what I believe.  I wish I would prove that by being better to people.  If you see me, tell me to be better to people.

If you think you’re a bad person, what perspective are you viewing yourself from?  Remember the people who say bad things about you don’t actually know you.  Remember that the world treats you wrong, the world is hard on you, but the world only sees your outside and only watches you live, not knowing why you do what you do, or at what cost.  Don’t let the world, the media, the other people, or anything else tell you who you are.  Good or bad, skinny, whatever.  I tell you, look at yourself as God looks at you.  He says He’s in love with you. (Romans 5:8)  He says he made you in his image. (Genesis 1:26)(Ps. 139)  What does that mean?  If He’s crazy about you, what are you?  A failure, a disaster, a mistake?  No, He is too good to see you that way.  God the just is satisfied to look on Jesus and pardon anything you’ve done.  Now He can see you they way he made you to be. You’re different, you’re sensational.  You’re a person of brilliant and unexplainable character, that’s what I think.  That’s what He says.

 

 

(If our God made us, us little people, with such unspeakable character, imagine what HIS character is like.  That’s why I want to get to know Him.)

I forget to thank God for my eyes.

There’s a girl that comes into my work a lot, she started at CSU this year, but she’s always lived in Fort Collins.  Over the summer we had pancakes at IHOP and talked for and hour or two about life and everything else.  I loved getting to know her, she’s a cool person.  It’s fun taking the opportunity to just get to know someone with no guilt and no strings attached, as a single amongst happy couples without that ability.  Not that they would be jealous.  Not that I have no jealousy for them!  Her and I talked about a lot of things, but the one thing that made her different from anyone  else I’ve ever known is that she’s the daughter of two blind parents.  They both play organ at the Baptist church they all go to.  They’ve been blind all their lives, but have two or three children with fully functional vision.  I forget to thank God for my eyes.  I bet these children don’t forget to thank God for their eyes.  The oldest, whom I had pancakes with, has taken care of her parents her whole life.  This makes her interesting in a number of ways as a caregiver of sorts to them and as the only one in the family who drives, and the only one who uses a computer or reads the newspaper or watches TV.

This isn’t about her though, although I’d love to write about her more.  Her parents are the ones that fascinate me.  I can’t imagine what a story they have, not understanding the concept of color or light or geometry.  Do they see pictures in their minds?  How do they visualize objects when they’re brought up in conversation?  Do you think they connect the idea of a car instead with the noise it makes as it starts up, or passes on the street?  Is a toaster the sound it makes when bread pops out?  I mean lots of objects feel square, what distinguishes a toaster from other square things?  Here’s another crazy thought, how do you visualize your kids?  Each other?  We imagine what people look like when we think of them.  If you’ve never seen a person, what do you think when you think of them?

How did these people meet?  I bet it wasn’t anything like the way we like to meet people.  If you only know the sound of a person’s voice, and your first impressions of them are the way they talk to you first when they meet you, especially as a blind person, you look right away into their hearts instead of just at their skin.  What a healthy way to see people, what a tragically foreign concept.  If you’re blind and in love, you don’t grow fond of a face, a body.  You grow fond of the way they speak to you, the way a caring hand guides you through a world of shapes instead of colors.  The way a person looks doesn’t really exemplify the character or heart they have anyway, words do that.  You grow close to what your other senses gather about the person.  What a strange situation it must have been when they met!  Certainly they had one very specific thing in common, I’m sure they went from there.  I don’t know anything about these, people, so really I’m just speculating.  I’ve helped the woman order her food at my restaurant, and I’ve never met the husband either, but I’m about to infer something about them.

Here’s a thought.  If two blind people fall in love, having never seen each other, what is their relationship based on?  Certainly not that they both though each other was attractive, it must have been each other’s inner beauty, if I may use such a cliche.  They fall in love with, and are motivated by, each other’s heart.  Two blind people would be unaware, or at least unconcerned with each other’s fading beauty, so as they grow old, they only grow more beautiful to each other because the thing they love, the heart, gets more beautiful and more lovely with age.  I think that makes sense, or ideally it does.  Imagine, if put into our situation as people blessed with eyes, that we saw the person we loved get more and more beautiful physically as they grew old, and they saw us the same.  How wonderful, we only become more attractive to each other!  We need to care more, obviously, about the heart than the outward appearance.  A lot of people do care more about that.  I need to care more about that.  Not that it’s bad that we find each other beautiful.  In fact, I wish these parents could see what a lovely daughter they have!  He took a great deal of time fashioning our faces and frames, and we do no wrong appreciating his work.  But oh how we objectify the person for their form and face!

It is precious here to note that God is nothing like us.  ”Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart,” says 1 Samuel 16:7.  This means that God sees us sort of like blind couples might see each other.  He is less concerned with our hair and our eyes and our fitness, because the person He loves is the person He put inside our soul, to one day be released from this prison of a body that we hang clothes on, adorn with makeup, and for some strange reason, worship.  Instead of this confused, materialistic “love” that only deteriorates, we are seen instead to be more and more beautiful to Him because as we grow, God sees us more and more lovely all the time.  THAT is the God we serve!  That is a little glimpse of His character.  Our God is concerned with our hearts, not the body He placed us in to provide what ever set of challenges and trials we needed to grow through.  Moreover, that thing He does see, our spirit, He sees as PERFECT when we claim the precious blood of Jesus as payment for the sin we’ve separated ourselves from him by.  We are seen as perfect and spotless.  Because of the complete, redeeming work of Jesus, nothing can separate us now from the love of God.  BECAUSE God looks at the heart instead of outward appearances.

Why don’t I look at people that way?  I’m jealous for the love of these two blind people, although I thank God now for my eyes.  I’m jealous for their perspective and I hope I can learn from it.  I pray that family is doing well and that God lives among them.  Thank you God for your character that I don’t understand.

She’s gonna teach me how to swim.

I was inspired by Sean’s latest blog, utilizing a neat list format.  I haven’t written in a while, so hopefully this will help me formulate my thoughts?

 

Halfway through SB ‘09 in La Jolla, CA.

• Yogurtland/Yogi Topi/Golden Spoon = Fantastic  Frozen yogurt parlors are the next big thing.  Move over Cold Stone.
• Renting Bianchi hybrid bikes and riding all over town was a hoot today.
• I saw two Bugatti Veyron’s and #3 of 20 Lamborghini Reventons in the world.  Good car day with Marcus Lutz and Bucky Johns.
• Being sunburned isn’t fun.  Being overwhelmingly sandy isn’t fun.  Being sore and tired isn’t fun.  Being all of them at the same time after a whole day on the beach is fantastic.
• I really like As Tall As Lions.  That band is great.
• Also really enjoying Thievery Corporation. Good electronica.
• The most notable band lately, however is Faultline.  Holy cow this band is so good. “Where is my Boy?” featuring Chris Martin is the saddest most sensational song I’ve heard in some time.
• Nightclubs are a great place to have a church.  Great sound systems, Lots of good lighting and projectors, creative seating arrangements, etc…  Rock Harbor church at the Shark Club was a great experience.  Plus they have real sharks in giant tanks.  Cool.
• California is a great place to visit, but I couldn’t ever really live here.
• I miss Fort Collins.
• I miss Phil. (Awwww)
• I love my fantastic friends here in Cali.  Go spring break.

I don’t want to talk about You like You’re not in the room.

When a loudspeaker vibrates, it pushes the air around it in a specific way so as to give it frequency and amplitude.  When you “hear” music, it’s because the air in the room is moving and oscillating around you.  Your ears pick up the movement in the air and your brain tells you about it through some cryptic electronic pulses, right?  That’s not what it feels like, though.  Something in your spirit moves and churns as the music moves through you and inside you, giving you a feeling.  If this were not true there would be no “music”, only noise.

 

I wonder sometimes if our worship is like this to God.  If it’s noise and not music. We spend a lot of time on our tone and our technique to make a sound that pleases our ears.  We then put a catchy melody over it and sing it to our friends at church.  We call this our “worship”.  At the end of the service, after the message, you’ll hear the speaker commonly say  something like “I’d like to invite the band up to lead us in worship as I close in prayer.”  What does that even mean?  

 

Apparently I lead worship now for a college church of 250-300 kids.  This is a recent development in my life and I’m pumped about it, but I don’t know if what I bring to the table as far as a “worship leader” is what these people need.  To me music is still a sound.  I still give music an absolute value based on how much my spirit likes it when it comes into my brain through my ear canals.  I guess everyone does that.  

 

Singing is still new to me.  I have this fakey push-the-high-end style of singing that shows I’ve never had training.  My pitch is unstable and I think I’m probably hard to sing with.  I get nice compliment after nice compliment on my singing every week after service, and I just want to look at these gracious people and say “You’re really nice, thank you.  But seriously I have no idea what I’m doing.  I play drums.”  I cannot wait to get to a place where I sing from my heart to God like I’m looking right at him.  Like it’s something that will make my insides collapse if I don’t do it.  I want people to read that desperation on my face and in my voice and I want them to follow me and belt it out like they mean it, to a God who really meant it when he gave his life.  That’s what I think a “worship leader” does.

 

I don’t want the sound I push into the diaphragm of a microphone, though a maze of cables, and into the air through some muddy JBL’s to be a noise to people.  I don’t even want it to be a “good”sound.  I want it to pierce into hearts and move minds out of complacency.  I want it go right through my friends and into their spirits, causing them to cry out to the God who is mighty to save.  I want it to be a wonderful listening experience, yes, but I am more concerned about it reaching that soft place in them that is full of gratitude and compassion, causing them to worship right into God’s own ears.

 

Singing along mindlessly to a worship song is noise, don’t do that anymore

 

Crying out from your heart in desperation and thankfulness is worshiping God.  

 

I pray all the time that I, as some new worship leader, will cause the second to happen inside my friends.  I want anthems of praise to our God to ring in our heads for days and days, mechanically bringing up feelings of adoration and thankfulness even long after the set is over.  For my inheritance Lord, help me lead your people into a beautiful romance with you through a clever, creative soundtrack of praise.

Why Are You Looking Grave?

Today was wonderful.  Light and easy.  I woke up the first time at eleven and noticed that it had snowed.  The sky was grey and gloomy so I went back to sleep.  When I woke up again at one, the sky was blue, the sun was warm, and most of the snow had already melted on the roof outside my window. I put on some Paul Baloche and began my day on a very good note.

Everyone comes home from winter break tomorrow.  Phil’s been playing shows with his sister, recording with random people, and hitting up bars with Bon Iver.  He’ll be back home in the middle of the day I suppose.  We would usually go play raquetball, but my stupid knee is unreasonably messed up right now.  My mom thinks it just needs a loot of Advil, but I think there’s something else wrong with it.  Here’s hoping I’m wrong.  Alyssa comes home tomrrow too, along with Amanda and Reandra.  I love those girls.  Barry will be back from a missions trip on Thursday, Kyle and John on Friday (I think?).  Classes start next Tuesday, and I’ll be back into the swing of things.  

As much as I adore break for the chance it gives me to relax and catch up on sleep, I’m pumped to have my days occupied again.  School and work are good things to spend your day doing.  When I hate them, like everyone does sometimes, I try to remember to be thankful to be working and thankful to be learning.  That’s a blessing.

This post was rather meaningless and sort of stream-of-consciousness.  That’s okay.  Listening to Mew at 1:30 in the morning can make you write that way.  I adore that band, by the way.  Way to be creative guys.  Way to be from Denmark.

 

That’s all.

Praise Him All Creatures Here Below.

Let me just take this moment to say how much I love my generation as it is right now.

 

There are times when I wonder if we’ll ever grow up, but sometimes, I find myself hoping we never do.  I love facebooking through picture albums where frame after frame we pose and smile and laugh.  Under the smiles are wounds and scars, but we’ve found joy enough inside to muster up affection for each other.

 

We don’t understand God, even those of us who claim to.  Our righteousness is like filthy rags, but our hope is unstoppable and gives us a fierce ambition.  At our age we don’t slow down.  Late nights melt into early mornings.  All the while we contemplate things we don’t understand, and come up with ideas and plans to navigate the years.

 

We are beautiful people.  I’ve noticed that about Fort Collins and about my group of friends.  If we don’t glow with joy and exude confidence, we’re alluring in sincerity and charming in our depth.  My people amaze me.  They are inside and out, masterpieces.  They are CONFUSING, but they are compelling.  

 

I don’t want to see us melt into the business world, with our activism and our incredulous dreaming put on an indefinite hold.  I hate to think of these passionate followers of Jesus becoming standard, run-of-the-mill churchgoers instead of the insatiable God-chasing missionaries they are today.  I hate to imagine us forgetting the way we swore we’d change the world someday.

 

I know God’s will is good and life has it’s seasons.  In all honesty, I can’t wait to be settled into a home and into a church, with tithing and playing in the band being my biggest visible acts of service to the Kingdom of God.  But for now, I cherish the young luster life has.  The music I indulge in these days is a literal soundtrack to the days I live out as I pursue God and live to become the bride of Christ.  Just driving across town with the right music can feel like a scene from a well-produced movie, as I lift my voice to God from the security of my quiet car.  I could ramble about life’s beauty for pages and pages, but I think I’ll let Thomas Kin’s words from 1674 take it from here.

 

Praise God from who all blessings flow,

Praise Him all creatures here below,

Praise Him all of ye heavenly hosts,

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Amen

The boys are moving in.

This is an exciting time.  All summer I’ve enjoyed a slowlazy Fort Collins where the pace is easy and the homework is light.  This is not the city at its best.  Over the next two weeks, the masses will return for school.  Approximately 26,000 students attend my university, and over the summer the majority of that group goes elsewhere to work and play in between spring and fall classes.  The third week of August sees the grand homecoming.  Traffic will worsen, jobs will get gobbled up, classes will be held, and my house will be filled with guys.  Eleven total live in my house (Ten the landlord knows about), and every one of them is a God-fearing outdoorsman or musician.  I’m so excited to live with these people.  Our house is big, old, and classy, and will soon be full of laughter, mischief, and body odor.  I can’t wait.

 

Kyle’s been up here over the weekend, and now Dustin’s permanently moved in (He’s the one the landlord doesn’t know about…).  Phil’s back for good on the 23rd, and John’s summer class just ended, so soon they become real residents.  These are my people.  While I love and miss my real family ever so much, these kids are my family right now.  We lift each other up, beat each other up, eat each other’s food, and use each other’s stuff.  Our cars are parked diagonally out front, and our music library’s are shared through our Apple base station network.  Responsible parties are planned well in advance for the year, and playlists have been made for the events.  Class schedules are set in stone, and the train is making it’s predictable journey earlier each morning.  I love this city, I love these people.

I want to wake up as this man.

Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead is a pretty big idol of mine I guess.  Not in an Old Testament kind of idol way, but more like a, how can I be that great at guitar someday way.  I love his ideas, I love his aggression.  I love that he uses an old Mac, with a program called Max/MSP, and does solos like this one.  Definitely watch this.

 

 

So let me know what you think about that.

Viva La Vida or JD and His New Friend Debbie

Skeptics say what you will, the new Coldplay is GREAT. So many of the songs just make me feel awesome. They may not make me cry like “Amsterdam”, and they may not pleasantly haunt me like “Sparks” or “We Never Change”, but they have a whole new feel that really makes happy. “Lost!” is seriously so great, as is “Lovers in Japan”. Every song continues to grow on me. X & Y was a lot harder for me to come to love!  I only wish the album was a bit longer because it will probably be a couple years before the next one.

Now that the friendly review is over, let me tell you a bit about my new excitement and tragedy. Anyone who ever was a part of Jubilee probably knows Debbie Camp.  She’s GREAT. I remember being in High School thinking she was way cute, but I knew she was older and out of my league, so we were always just friends, right? I was probably closer with her brother Donny, actually.  Donny is great.  Now he has gauged ears which is a little weird, but doesn’t actually surprise me at all.  Anyway, I was playing drums for Jubilee’s summer camp like I did last year, and just before one of the services I was standing behind the soundboard for some reason when Gina Wood (youth pastor Johnathan Wood’s way cool wife) came up to me and said in an oh-so-middle schoolish way “Hey you know who you should like?”  I laughed, half expecting that some high school girl had talked her into saying something to me because she couldn’t get up the guts to go talk to that nerdy drummer (I’m dreaming).  But instead when I asked her who I should like she said Debbie Camp.  My response was something along the lines of “Well YEA. But isn’t she way older than me?”  Turns out Debbie just turned 20, as I just turned 19.  The age distance is negligible anyway.  Sean will proudly agree.

So I boldly went over and sat by her during service, and it was fun.  Later we started texting.  Then talking on the phone a lot, which is better than texting and someone should tell my sisters that before they forget how to talk.  Turns out…SHE LIKES ME.  Who woulda known?  So last night I drove down to Denver to hang out with her.  We rode the light rail to downtown and adventured through the Hyatt, riding the insanely fast elevator to floor 37 to be rewarded with the view at the top.  Then we walked around through the city some more, got Icees, and watched a guy do spray paint art (which was sick, but Debbie tells me they are way better at it in Mexico where she’s basically from). We also infiltrated the conference center at the Sheraton Hotel, dodging security and stealing Jolly Ranchers from presentation rooms where we wrote about Jesus on the little pads of paper in the dark.  We also sat in a giant couch in the lobby for about 45 minutes and talked about everything.  She taught me some Spanish.  We became Vatos Locos and laughed the whole night.  It was more fun than I’ve had with a girl ever before!  She’s never had a boyfriend.  My last girlfriend was two and a half years ago in High School and I’ve waited for someone this good ever since.  The scenario is golden.

But in classic JD love-life style, it come with complication seemingly insurmountable.  She moves to Las Vegas in the beginning of July to plant a church with Johnathan and Gina Wood of Jubilee.  She’s had dreams about it.  She’s been praying about it for months.  She’s definitely doing it.  JD on the other hand, just moved into Fort Collins permanently, signed a year-long lease, and registered for too many Summer and Fall classes to back out of.  So at least for now, we are very separate.  I’m praying a lot about it, and so is she.

The amazing part is that this all still happened, regardless (lift and separate) of its characteristically awful timing.  So I’m still way excited.  I’m gonna let this be whatever it is (Sean said that earlier about his new love adventure).  I don’t wanna stop this new exciting thing for the sake of a 13 hour drive between us.  But I don’t want to be something that gets in the way of her mission work in Sin City either.  The relationship is young, wherever it stands, and the time is short for making some big decisions.  Any wisdom in the form of comments is very welcomed, as always.