Getting Challenged by God

This weekend was spent with my church at a retreat (by a lake) designed to join us together in community and hear God's voice for our lives. It was all that I could have hoped for.

For background on this, I believe that God has called me to make money and give it away in support of his kingdom in radical ways. If I'm going to do that I can't be tied up with materialism otherwise I'll just make the money and use it myself. So God likes to send tests my way every so often to test my obedience and insure that he is still first in my life. Here is an example from this weekend.

So a game of soccer breaks out on the basketball court and despite wearing rolled up jeans and my brand new boat shoes I can't resist and I play anyway. In minutes I tear an ugly snag in my shoes. Not going to lie. I was a bit bothered by that. I bought them a week ago roughly. The next day, I'm still annoyed by it and God's like "HEY RYAN, they're shoes. You know they're really not at all important. You shouldn't let your day be affected by that! oh... and btw (that's how God speaks to me) remember those awesome khaki's you wanted to grab from H&M? you don't really need those. Don't get them." So that was it. God had taken his place again in front of the material again. I put the shoes aside as unimportant. It's a pity though, because I was going to get the pants on the drive up to Rochester but mom suggested I wait till next weekend. Now it's too late...

So the early theme was, don't hold on to the material too tightly. That was accented when the speaker said, "if a plan fits into your timeline, skill set, and resources, then it's probably not God. He requires us to step out in faith." Not a hard and fast rule but a good thing to consider.

So then later I'm talking with Pastor Don and some folks and he mentions that he's going to Peru to teach at a DTS with YWAM in Peru with Brent (the same school I did in Argentina but a different location). "Ryan, you want to come?"

Well from a resources/timeline perspective the answer is no. The trip is right when I get back from Germany. Not the greatest time to buy a plane ticket. I have class coming up and I'm supposed to go boating through the jungle to preach to tribes...

I'm thinking it might be one of those God things. There are still some details to look into, but at this point it's getting pretty well considered. I'm excited for what God will do if that trip happens. It'll be a challenge. I've not really ever stepped out into something that didn't sound like a good idea. There will be lot's of praying this month. God's challenges are always the scariest but most peaceful and satisfying. I love living this adventure with God!

Also for some sweet scenery from the trip see the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=222726&id=597026300&ref=mf

A Delightful Morn.

So I don't really like it when the raindrops on the mirror render it useless for anything but a blinding machine, but it's a side effect of the beauty below that so it's ok. The second picture I caught walking across my yard to my car to go to work. Fog is such a weird thing.

Bad Shoes II

Joel saw my previous blog entry and made me buy the shoes... the ones in the last picture were 9.5... here is Joel's size 15 next to my size 9.5 boat shoes. Joel, I anticipate you wearing these with a kind of fascinated dread.

Grandma's Looking out for Me

So my grandma was out sitting on the porch for a while in her wheel chair. My mom went out to check on her, "How are you doing?"

"-How to get Ryan cereal..." Grandma replied (yes that seemed rather random but mom knows her mom pretty well and after a pause caught on).

"While he's in Germany?" mom asked.

"Yes, while he's in Germany" she confirmed.

Grandma is great. I'm glad she's thinking of these things ahead of time =)

Bad Shoes I

So I've been doing a good bit of shoe shopping and having quite the time at it. I need brown dress shoes to match my suit... anyways, obviously name brand quality stuff is expensive, but you would think that off brands would be able to produce lower quality but good looking shoes. Unfortunately that's not the case. Cheap shoes are cheap because the people designing them have no idea what their doing. These shoes were on sale for $15 because they are black and white fake crocodile skin! Who would actually buy that wanting to look good/dressed up? Knowing what I know now about how long and tedious the design process is from experience this summer, how did these make it to the shelf without 1 person stopping and pointing out the hideousness?

- ok I'm done -

¿What's Your Favorite Kind of Music?

So I'm not usually good at questions about favorites with very few exceptions (favorite color? - Green). Anyways, for how much I like music, I realized how poorly I can categorize what I like.

For a while I thought I liked music that I would love to be able to play (I like a lot of acoustic guitar music), but then I realized it's the other way around. I love to learn to play music that I appreciate, so I'm back to starts on what I like.

So I realized as to style it's this. I love when music could be played by one person in a field, or a group of friends sitting around a fire. Maybe the album adds more but the essence of the song can be fully captured in that simple arrangement and setting, because that perfect screaming guitar solo, or that blazing kick drum doesn't really make a song good, they are just signs of gifted musicians, not gifted artists. The appreciation of the simple is in large because what I appreciate in content.

In the content there has to be something about the song that catches my attention. The words should have a real connection to the ponderings of the artist. Ideally it's either something I've been thinking about, or it challenges me to think about.

Secondly, I like when songs paint a picture and use the music and the lyrics together to make you feel just what it's showing you.

Look at these lyrics in Cannons by Phil Wickham:

The chorus goes like this:

Singing you are holy, great and mighty,

the moon and the starts declare who you are.

I'm so unworthy, but still you love me,

Forever my heart will sing of how great you are.

Definitely true and good, but also very cliché. Ordinarily this would bore me (unless God had just been speaking to me about my unworthiness or something of the like, suddenly making the song personal). What Phil does though that makes me appreciate the song is he paints a picture through the verse that leads into the chorus and makes it many times more powerful. Here it is:

(verse 2, though verse 1 is good too)

Beautiful and free, the song of galaxies,

Reaching far beyond the Milky Way.

Let's join in with the sound,

Come on, Let's sing it out,

As the music of the universe plays

and then continue up to the chorus.

...Find the song here.

That's cool, thats what I like. It's so much bigger. I can visualize a symphonic roar filling the galaxy, all excited about God. The illustration is verse 1 is beautiful as well. There are so many songs especially on Christian radio in particular that speak vague truth in a vague impersonal way. It's like they thought of a tune they liked and had to fill it with some words. Art shouldn't be about being catchy, it's about expressing.

Now I just need to find more music that fits. Feel free to recommend. I'm bad at searching out music. (and these posts are getting long)

Amazing Worship -::- Amazing Music

What's the difference?

The first is clearly more "spiritual" than the latter, but what does that genuine spiritual experience look like in our lives, especially when everything we experience gets filtered through our physical bodies. Also, to clarify I'm using a very narrow definition of worship here, referring to praising God through song whether it be as a church or individually. Worship entails significantly more than that but that was the aspect of worship providing the confusion for me.

There have been plenty of times I can point to in the past 10 years where as worship concluded I had this feeling that worship was awesome, but then I realized that that "awesome worship" feeling came at times when I just heard music I loved and the mix was perfect and the mood was set just right. Not that worship can't happen in those places, but I began to wonder if my worship experience was really just manipulating my mind and emotions through music, a beautiful tool that ties so closely into our hearts that it carries a lot of power, regardless of "spiritual" content.

The last few months have been a battle to get to the bottom of this. How do I know when I'm enjoying God's presence or deep and worship versus just enjoying an awesome groove??? As soon as a that uncertainty in my worship surfaced my worship dried up, and I could hardly participate in worship or music at all.

Frustrating to not know the difference between God and music. Were all those times just resting in the presence of God, really just times of being massaged by a rhythm that hit the spot?

So here's what I'm thinking. Worship can manifest in any time, any place, and can be expressed through so many mediums. One of the most awesome settings is in a community of people who have devoted all they are to Jesus Christ. So we gather and use music, as a powerful mode of expression to worship our Lord. A great idea in principle but here's where I started messing it up.

I roll in Sunday morning and I "arrive at worship," or I pull out my guitar to do a worship song. As I waltz into that worship setting I enjoy some music and then it's done and I wonder if I really encountered God or not. Now here's what needs to change.

I need to go through my days recognizing God everywhere. There are times when I see him inspire people to awesome things. There are times when he opens up opportunities for me to represent him clearly. He gives revelations of how good he is, and how he's blessed me. I need to think on those things, to dwell on those things, and to let those things build up. When the goodness of God begins to overwhelm me (which should really happen on a much more regular basis), I can use music, in my room or corporately, to express that joy, and that passion, and that thanksgiving. The music just becomes the best medium for expressing the emotions within, and not a medium for attempting to manipulate them into feeling like God is good. God makes himself good. The music doesn't do that. Music just happens because God IS Good.