Lost in the Present Age

Hello blog,
It's been a while, but I have thoughts to write down that my Facebook friends don't need to read. I am not looking for comments, whether they be encouraging or condemning ones. I simply want to write some today. Will you let me do that? Oh, good!  Let's begin.

I feel lost lately. The career I imagined for myself ever since I was 6 years old seems a distant dream now thanks to missed opportunities and ever-increasing obstacles (like the economy). Without a job, everyday feels like the day before. It is not special. Same old thing. I have plans to go back to school in the summer, but what to do between now and then? I help with the housework, the housework that never ends. I feel or at least perceive disdain from my wife on how I placed us in another difficult financial situation. This may not be real disdain, but it feels real. It may be more of the frustration of the situation than with me. But still, I feel that some of that frustration is unfairly projected at me. I didn't get fired. I got let go. There is a difference between the two, even though they sound the same, and the result is the same: unemployment. But this time, there was nothing I could have done in that job to save it. So unlike other periods of unemployment, I don't have the guilt to work through. Still, it's very different to be unemployed alone than to be unemployed with a mortgage and family relying on that paycheck. After job searching for a few weeks, we've come to the conclusion that I need to go back to school for something more stable and a little better-paying. So this will put both spouses in school for a while. This frightens me to no end. Economically, it seems unwise to do this, but with the job market how it is for my current skill set and experience, there's not another option. Still, I wrestle with how we will pay for this house, my car, insurance, utilities, and all the other expenses. In the current situation, selling this house will mean owing more on it than we have equity. Only had this house for a year. I am lost on what to do and how to make that work. I cannot find myself in myself, and therefore I turn to the only person I can find myself in. No, not my wife. No, not my kids. No, not my parents. No, not my sister. No, not another woman. I must turn to Christ for He is the only person I am found in. I have to lean on His strength and rely on His wisdom because I have none.

Remembering Not to Forget

I forget a variety of things weekly, if not more often:

Where I parked the car at Walmart, where I put my keys, who said what, where I met someone, names of countless people, what I was going to do during my free time, details at work, individual statistics, the laundry, song lyrics, and well, you get the picture. And I know I'm not alone in this.

Why do I forget so much? Is it because I'm getting older? Is it because I try to remember too much? Is it because our generation is immersed in so much more information overload than any before us? The debate on this will continue until the cows from Chick-Fil-A let us eat beef again (oh, that isn't the clique? Hmm...) , but the fact is that I forget little things constantly.

This wouldn't bother me so much except that it spills over into, for lack of a better term, my Christian life. I forget to pray, I forget to say grace before eating, I forget to pick up my Bible and read it, I forget what a loving, forgiving God I serve, I forget the power and freedom I have in Jesus, I forget how serious and harmful sin really is, and unfortunately, this list goes on and on like the one above.

I mean, what is wrong with me? I have been in church ever since I can remember, and have read my Bible on my own time, so I've seen and heard these truths a million times. It should be easy to remember these life principles, right?

This was no surprise to God. It seems like you read through the Old Testament stories, and in every one, God is reminding the Israelites who He is and what He's done in the past for them.

I'm pulling one example out to unpack that I found by a quick online Bible keyword search. (Hey, I believe in being honest with my readers. I didn't even remember this story without help.)

In Exodus 17, we find the Israelites in the midst of their 40 year desert wandering. God has already provided water in the desert from a rock. But now, the Amalekites are attacking them at Rephidim (which I'm going to call Reno for the rest of this post). Moses tells his protege, Joshua, to go get some men to fight the Amalekites while he stands on top of a hill with the staff in his hands. Even though this sounds odd, Joshua did as he was ordered. As long as Moses kept his hands up, the Israelites were winning the battle. (Is this the origin of hand raising in the church worship service? Who knows?) Moses had to have people hold his hands up because his arms got tired. Mine get tired after two or three songs, so I don't hate. Anyway, the Israelites win the Battle of Reno, and the Lord tells Moses to write this down: the Amalekites will be wiped out.

The significance here is that God wanted them to have proof that God is all-knowing, and predicted it, and when it happened, they could look back and read the scroll that said something like, "Battle of Reno won by Moses holding a staff above his head the whole day. God promises to eliminate the entire Amalekite army,". And do you know of an Amalekite country or have an Amalekite Facebook friend? Yeah, I didn't think so. God provided for the Israelites and eliminated many of its enemies, including the Amalekites.

Back then, places were named, altars were built, and things were written down to remember what God had done for generations. Perhaps we should do the same in some way or fashion, but to end this thought on the practical would be missing the point: this is another wonderful way that God meets us where we are. We remember what Christ did for world and for us every time we take communion/Lord's Supper, we sing songs about God's character in part to stir our brains to remember specific ways that God has shown Himself in our own lives, we have a written Word so that we don't necessarily have to remember it all, and we pray as a reminder that we are completely dependent on God. God knows all, and with that, knows that we can't possibly remember everything He has taught us. So he lovingly reminds us as only He can. The Israelites couldn't remember the past, and neither can we without His help.

"Do this in remembrance of me"...lest we forget.

How has God reminded you of who He is and what He's done recently?

Confession

I'm a Christian male, but I get horny. Am I alone in this? Is this wrong? Is there a way to make it stop?

No Place for a Generalist

World, I'm thrilled that we live in a culture of endless discovery and constant expansion of thought. I really am. It's an exciting time. But it's time to stop...

Or at least pause. A year, or two would do the trick. Music, sports, books, television, movies, and list goes on...the podcasts, blogs (yes, the irony dawns on me too), message boards, YouTube clips, Twitter feeds, Facebook statuses, video games, TV shows, webcomics, news updates: it's all getting to be too much. I only have so much time, and I don't know how my friends follow so many things and still manage to live outside of their computer, for a few hours at least. But dear humorous and handsome writer, you say, you cannot possibly follow everything. You couldn't even do that before the Internet. True, I certainly cannot keep up with it all, and I'm okay with that. It's a little difficult because I want to know all I can. I eat knowledge up like a quesadilla. It can be a curse, like the quesadilla can also be in your stomach a few hours later, but I've come to grips that I won't ever be an expert in everything. Well, you reply, the solution is to figure out what you're interested in and stick with those things. You should be able to keep up with the subjects you like, right?

Wrong. I can't even do that. You know why? I'm a generalist, and there's no place in this modern world for us. I wouldn't consider myself an expert in anything, but I know a little about a lot, and am at least a little interested in a plethora of subjects. I've already referenced my appetite for learning, which compounds the problem. You may look at me, if you got the chance anyway, and think that I like these bands, and watch these TV shows/movies, and read these blogs (Because who reads paper books anymore? Oh...you do? Sorry.), and you might be right, but that's not all I like. I don't like getting pigeonholed into a category for anything. I don't think anyone does, but my real point is that because I like a variety of things, that makes it near impossible to keep up with all of them. There's only so much time, and if I sit in front of my computer all my life, am I really living? I submit not.

Prologue

I'm starting over with this blog. I'll still write about college football, hopefully more frequently (sorry about that), but I feel this blog needs a fresh start, and the reason is selfish. I need a place to voice opinions and thoughts that I don't want anyone I actually know to realize I have. It's not that I'm fake or superficial with my friends. I am actually pretty open about things. But there are thoughts that emerge that scare me, and they would scare my friends to know I have these thoughts. In short, I need this space to express these things. Readers will either sympathize or condemn me for them and that's fine, but they need to be written so I can either see how true or false it is.