Hello Sozo!

Recently my father started his own company. After about 20 years of working in real estate for West Shell (when it was just West Shell), ReMax, and other smaller companies, he is finally his own master. He got his broker's license this past summer after much laborious work and is finally on the small business owner path. Its not too big of a transition as far as mentality, because he has technically been self employed for a long time, but now he gets to reap the benefits of the adventure that is total personal control.

All this goes to say, I am excited and proud, and ready to try my hand at helping him optimize his business capabilities through self marketing and all the intricacies the Internet provides for doing so. I think its awesome when people like my dad can start a small business with a real purpose in mind. Sozo Realty is a company that is truly there to help people, and that is the owner and founders heart. I know it from a lot of personal experience. Its cool to get to try your hand at helping those kind of people!

Its amazing the ways in which the Lord can teach us to know Him.

As I learn to love Lisa in a reflection of His love, I learn more about who He is to me, how He wants me to know Him. One of the biggest things He is teaching me is how He wants to relate to me in life. I'll steal an analogy a friend and I have been using lately to grasp this. My friend and his family recently moved into a new, awesome house. His son helped him in the moving process. In a move of sheer genius parenting, he decided that connecting with his son was more important than efficient moving time, so he allowed his young son to take up some of the decision making process and do as much of the moving as he was able to at his age. He could see that his son came away with a sense of accomplishment, he learned and worked and found fulfillment and confidence. He knew his father trusted him and wanted to help him take on a big task.

I have always been afraid in the position of the son who is moving. God knows what He is doing, and I always want Him to tell me to sit on the porch while He moves all our boxes, then we can just go get another load when He is finished. But He doesn't do things that way. I want Him to take control, because He knows what He is doing, where to put things, how to carry them. But His goal is not to get the boxes into the right rooms. His goal is to relate to me. His goal is that I know who He is, who He wants to be, that I know who I am to Him, and that I grow in relation to Him. He wants me to take steps in the move, and I can ask questions, but He won't ever just give me all the answers, and He won't just do it Himself. I am always asked to learn to know Him more in every situation.
That's what the Lord is teaching me. It is one of the strongest confirmations I have ever had that I am moving in the right direction, which is ironic since a lot of it is learning how to move in the right direction.

Its seems foreign that I am learning to know Christ better so much so because I am called to be an image of Him in many ways to another. I'm learning to trust that He is full of truth and that's where my confidence should be founded. I am something new because He asks me to fill roles I am not personally qualified for, but He's showing me the ropes.

THANK YOU JESUS!!

(Epiphany + Video) = {Epipheo}

Some good friends of mine have recently become pretty heavily involved in a new wave of internet phenomona termed "epipheos". An epipheo is basically an instructional video falling somewhere between a short documentary and a commercial. They are designed to be viral, with an intention of creating paradigm shifts in enough viewers to influence e-culture. As a result of these friends involvement I've become modestly interested personally, so I will post those which interest me from time to time.

Think youtube video on documentary steroids.

Their site is http://www.epipheostudios.com/.
You can check out the new "youtube" of epipheos at http://www.epipheo.com/.

This first one is definitely one of the most straightforward examples, and the first I've seen without any text necessity.

dove evolution

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Lordship is on my mind.
In studying Lordship as of late, I come to realize how important it is that Christians get this concept. Its something I have recognized (at least for its effects if not for what it is) for many years. This doesn't mean I've lived by it.
Lordship is something which is defined by a moment. There must come a point where a man surrenders all and comes under a new master. This is left out of the modern American gospel in the majority case. It is required of a man's self to die, and any who is unwilling is not ready for Christ.
But at the same time, one is never able to consistently remain in this role. Fallen men are always trying to fix, control, and design their lives, and one is required to continue to return to this principle, to maintain a heart of brokenness. One has to continue to come back to believing the truth of God's promises and the nature of the lies coursing through his own veins.
The paradox here brings strange emotions. To come to a place of sheer brokenness and willingness to surrender is one hard found, most are not often ready to accept. It is not too basic to mention that its just simply hard. However, when you find yourself available to this perfectly intervening grace, your filled with relief, peace, and joy. It is the only solution in a world which inevitably demands one. To know the truth intimately is to experience true love and know what hope means for the first time.
The truly cognizant heart cannot continue on long in this world without finding ache in recognizing the continuation of his rejection of this surrender. Eventually a heart will always believe the lie over the truth again, and at some point a betrayal reoccurs. This is perhaps the most agonizing experience a human should be able to know, if he truly could understand the gravity.
This week, I have been studying Lordship. And in this time, I have recognized how wonderful and beautiful a life can be when lived from this place. I have known this truth in a far less definitive form for many years. At the same time, I have even this week known the pain of betraying this truth, of accepting lies as the proof that slavery to self is worthwhile, and I have known the after effect of fear which comes in trusting such broken systems.

Lordship, Lordship, Lordship, when will Your way in me be complete?!?

Boot camp has finally come to an end, and what an adventure it has been!

For three months we three lived in a new way, building practical steps into our lives to incorporate the truth He has been giving us. And I am confident that these new aspects will for the most part become permanent staple characteristics of our lives. God is teaching us to live in Rhythm and with purpose toward Him in daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and life spanning commitments. This has taken its effect upon every aspect of life, from financing and work ethics to household maintenance and relationship building to the most inner depths of personal communion with God.

So last night we had a party, with which I think all of us were surprised by the large outcome. We had a great time of seeing familiar church faces as well as some we see less frequently. The fellowship I experienced was only rivaled by the fellowship I saw surrounding me. The evening of fun and snacking was highlighted by a time of prayer over each of us as we move forward into some different directions. Dave McMurray is getting married next month of course, and Dave Hansen and I will be continuing on living together, with the aim of creating and maintaining a similar atmosphere for other single guys to come into, ready to grow together in discipline and live actively as the church to one another and with whomever we may have opportunity.

Chuch Caine had an awesome word for us as he was given an image of Christ greeting each of us in a reception line at the end of this journey we have been on, and slipping each of us a handful of seeds with a hug. He also saw that we have 3 options of what to do with the seeds we have been given. We could seal them in a bag and put them away for safekeeping. We could immediately devour them ourselves. Or we could distribute them among those around us, and cast the remainder out upon the earth. It is the third which I hope each of us has, and which is one of the factors in the mentality which brought me into the boot camp in the first place.

God didn't waste any time last night giving practical circumstance in which to spread seed. Everyone left by about 11 pm, and I went out for a walk with a couple people while my roommates went right to bed. A was sitting at a park with a couple friends when a man, Todd, walked up to us. Todd is 33 and has been homeless for a little less than 2 weeks. He definitely drinks, but was definitely sober-minded as he spoke of his plight and we responded with Christ's infinite love for all us co-hellions who fight Him. He ended up coming home with us, as my friends departed he got to take a much needed shower and find some more comfortable clothes. It broke my heart to see him brought to tears for a love he does not understand and desperately desires but can't or won't comprehend. We prayed many times, and when I went to bed I read from Psalm 4

"In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

As I went to bed he desired to stay up and read, and apparently did so all night long. In the morning my roommates both had opportunity to talk with him, and when I got up later he told me that he hadn't slept all night, because of visions and nightmares that plagued him. I got to spend more time in prayer with him this morning, and put on soft worship music so he could rest while I took a shower. While I was in the shower he got up, took all his belongings, and disappeared. I hope he returns some day.

I am so confused such an intense situation of such gravity as this one. I suddenly feel completely helpless, and all I can do is utter secret prayers for miracles. Perhaps this is the best solution, and I need to simply grow in that role. I get so confused to see those who need so much, seem to see it and the solution, but don't really get it. All I can do is live in prayer and hope that he does, and seek your prayers as well. I do know one thing though. My life should be lived focused on these opportunities. Constantly through those 10 hours of friendship, I kept thinking, "I need to be prepared for this, I should be living with this in mind." Why does anything else become a focus point in my life? I don't know, but I don't like it.

1 Corinthians 12 &13

I would like to turn now to 1 Corinthians 12-13 for a clarification of this love. In chapter 12 we learn much about how a body relation. We are designed to all exist differently; there is no ideal image of a follower of Christ. There is to be beautiful differentiation between members, for different purposefulness. None should consider himself higher or lower based on his difference from another. All have need for one another, and should never take on an attitude which prefers any gifting or personality. He even says that just as the body has parts which should be treated with modesty, so also certain roles should be performed behind the scenes. So we realize that a principle stands in that all men are designed to relate within the body differently, fill different roles, know God differently on a personal level, and do this so “that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.” (verse 25)
Chapter 13 is one all too familiar to Christians and others alike. This chapter is one devoted to love, which is most often heard at weddings. It is used to give an example of the intensity of the vows of marriage, and to remind a couple of the commitment and hard work upon which they will embark for the rest of their lives. A marriage is a relationship founded upon love as an action which often goes against all desire, a relationship which mirrors Christ and the church, one defined by sacrifice and submission. It is interesting to see that this passage which we gain so much insight toward this relationship is written after 1 Cor. 12. In fact, after they begin to understand this idea of differing roles in the body and unity through chapter 12, it ends by saying, “And I will show you a still more excellent way.”
This chapter on love which is so readily used to state the intensity of marital love is in fact written to explain the love every Christian should exhibit toward one another. This type of love which we so greatly value and idealize toward marriage is actually one which should fuel our relation toward one another. While marriage is far more intensive in requirement of this love, it is identical to the attitude I should have toward body members. Whatever love attitude I would take on toward my wife should be equally exhibited toward all fellow Christians.