This is Insight

I was going to write an introduction to this, but I can't think of what to say about it. Just read it.

J. W. Dahms - Flame in the Grain

This is Beauty Abandoned

The other day I was at work. I work at Pal's, a quick-service, drive-through, better-than-McDonald's restaurant. I was on sandwiches, which is, in my perspective, the most . . . big station. There's just so much to be done at the sandwich station, so when it gets busy there are often two people on the station: one to drop buns into the toaster and help keep things stocked, and the other to make the sandwiches themselves. I started the shift dropping buns for a nice girl named Misha. Everything was going well: we were working excellently as a team and I was getting slightly better at the actual making of the sandwiches.

Break time for Misha.

In the thirty minutes that followed, I struggled to get through each burger, dropping buns when I could, and dwindling the stock down to nothing. By the time Misha returned, lettuce was lying all over the place, there were onions in the tomatoes, and there was no cheese, buns, chicken, or pickles. I gave Misha my best puppy dog eyes, but to no avail. "Man this place was beautiful when I left it. I worked so hard to get it clean."

Beauty cannot endure without its creator.

Beauty may be able to survive, hanging on by a thread, but never will it flourish. The creator is the one who knows what's best for the beauty. The creator cares, and knows how to care better than anyone else in the world. The creator knows the beauty's inner workings.

Take for example . . . a work of art. The creator will cherish it, take care of it, love it. Like no one else, the artist will treat its creation like a king (figuratively of course), until that creation "expires" or a new, better, more efficient creation overtakes the old.

We are God's creation.

Here's the special part though: God never gets tired of us, He never leaves us for something better. The only problem is that God is love, thus He does not desire to force us to love Him. It's not in His nature, it's not who He is. True love cannot be forced. So God gave us a choice. When we remain in God's hands he will treat us right. He knows; He created us. Although life may not be easier, God will care for us, love us, make us better. And that process sometimes is hard.

So the choice. We can remain in God's eternal care, or we can abandon His love. We can turn our back on Him. We can take the wide, easy road. The "cool" path. There are so many ways we can be tempted toward this road. So many ways we can get tripped up, and fall down the cliff onto the wide path. And certainly, it seems easier.

We are beauty. We are beauty that will never be the victim of our Creator's abandonment. But we can abandon Him if we're not careful.

Are you beauty abandoned?

This is . . . Life?

My friend died this morning.

How do you go on from there? I didn't know her well, even when I was living in Canada, sitting across the aisle from her on the bus. Holly Baycroft always seemed quiet, kinda tucked inside herself, but cool. I don't think it has hit me yet. I'm just sort of sitting here pretending to be stunned. I am sorry, but I think part of me just doesn't believe it. Almost a mixture of hearing about some distant person dying, and trying to decipher when the sarcasm is ending in a conversation. I know I should be a lot more emotional than this. I'm just not. I am however trying to be contemplative. Death has never hit so close before. Death has always dwelled in far off places like Africa and my friend's cousin's dog's mother's roommate. Death just hit across the aisle from me.

What if my mom, sister, and brother got in a car accident. Only my brother survived, in critical condition. Worse yet, what if I thought that there was any chance that they might not spend eternity in God's love. New scenario. What if I helplessly watched from the sidelines as my dad turned down a chance to spare his own life by killing my mom, only to be chopped inch by inch from the legs up with machetes. My mom is killed similarly minutes later. My sister is sold as a sex-slave and my brothers are beaten to death.

These are not what-ifs. May God bless the people who have experienced this.

I just want to go hug everyone I know. Love is so . . . underrated. How have I interacted with my siblings today? I sat and had pictures with them, and played around on the hay bales a little bit. I pushed Gabe away when he was looking for attention. I gave Val one of those "oh that's cool" kinda answers when she tried to show me something today. Told a couple of them to get serious a few times. Stood by when Gabe cried over his recently dead mouse. Scolded Val for carrying the puppies wrong. Absentmindedly nodded at Gabe when he announced dinnertime. And Nate . . . I pretty much just didn't talk to him.

My parents took me to church and then met me at a local camp a few hours later. Then I grumbled at my mom when she took away from my "friend time" trying to get our family together for pictures at the camp. My last words to her as she rushed off to work from the picture session were probably something like, "Hey mom can I go now?"

And here I sit, facebooking, myspacing, blogging, and trying to make myself look like I'm good at guitar by playing all the easy songs I know. There must be more than this. That is the beginning of a song yearning for more of life. This is the beginning of a life yearning for more of God, more of love, more of life.

Fill us anew we pray, fill us anew we pray.

This is a New Blog

Due to the magnitude of words in my Catalyst 2008 notebook, I have decided to begin a completely new blog with the sole purpose of sharing my catalyst perspectives and experiences. I'm doing this because I don't want to bog you or this blog down with entries upon entries about Catalyst. I don't want to brag that I got to go, just to share the things I learned while I was there. It was incredible. In the realm of personal experiences, I connected with God in a way that I haven't for years. I've just started becoming "too cool" and God broke that down inside me through a fresh yearning for "it." Anyways, it's much past time for bed, and I don't mean to rant, but I do mean to rave. To quote Steve Fee's song Broadcast, "all over the world, let it be heard, our God is good!" Today is a new day. So you should read the new blog.

www.couperspective-catalyst.blogspot.com

This is Catalyst

I am struggling to repress the urge to write down everything I've written down in the past day and a half. I have over 15 pages of notes and we're only just over halfway through, and I just don't have the time between sessions right now. This conference has been incredible. I have felt God in a way that I haven't felt Him since . . . a long time. From Jim Collins' talk about buses and hedgepigs, to Craig Groeshel's message about the need for "it" (the presence of God, the Holy Spirit), to Dave Ramsey's 5 enemies of unity, I have learned much, and gained a deeper understanding of God. I must leave you now with that suspense. The next session is starting. There will be more.

You wish you were here.

This is Nothing New

I've been thinking.

What do I bring to the blog world? I think the answer is nothing. Nothing new at least. I hope the answer is nothing. If I were bringing anything new, then it certainly would not be from the Bible, and thus not be according to God's law. Like I mentioned in my previous post, God's got it all covered. He doesn't need people like me to bring new revelations to the world. So why do I blog?

I blog for me. I blog to sort things out in my own head, to drive things home. I don't expect to bring anything new to the table. I'm just reinforcing Biblical methods. I hope. My purpose is to look at old things in a new way, not to find new things altogether. With this in mind, while reading this or any other blog, learn from perspective, not new ideas.

This is the Essence of Prayer

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Matthew 6:9-13

There have been times when I read this passage and, just for curiosity's sake, tried to pray something that is not included in this prayer. I couldn't. There are all kinds of workshops and outlines which attempt to "teach" you to pray. But I'm pretty sure Jesus covered all the bases about two thousand years ago.

The crazy-awesomeness of God never ceases to amaze me. Two thousand years ago, God knew that Christians would try to overanalyze everything about the Bible (which, I firmly believe, was not meant to be overanalyzed), that He laid prayer out for us. . . plain and simple. Just like that.

Wow.

This is Accidentally On Purpose

The other day I was driving to the Waffle House (a much recommended eating venue if you ever are around one) with my buddy and bassist Neal Brantner. Good guy. Kinda crazy and off the wall sometimes--well, most of the time--but a good guy none the less. About a minute into the drive, we pass this guy on the road and Neal says, "See that? I didn't even hit him." This brought us to the discussion of driving games such as Grand Theft Auto and Driver, in which one of the main goals of the game is to run over people. "It's a good thing I don't play those too much," says Neal, "Or else I might accidentally start running over people on purpose."

I wonder. . . do I "accidentally on purpose"? Well, that depends. What is accidentally on purpose? I think accidentally on purpose occurs when something has been done on purpose so many times that it feels somewhat accidental. In essence, accidentally on purpose is equal to a habit.

According the "Unofficial Place of Awesome Knowledge and Such," otherwise known as Wikipedia, habits are "habituated routines of behavior that are repeated regularly, tend to occur subconsciously, and tend to occur without directly thinking consciously about those behaviors." The grammar student in me cringes at that sentence (structure, redundancy, use of the word itself in the definition. . .), but it gets the point across. The main word in there, I believe, is subconscious. These subconscious efforts (aka habits, aka on-purpose accidentals) take varying amounts of time to pass from "on purpose" into "accidental."

This is my prayer: God, in this time of forming habits and learning how to live, help me to live on purpose for You, and to have the discipline to live my life to the fullest, so that later in life my accidentals would be for Your glory. . . on purpose. Help my life to be driven by love and discipline, not facebook and laziness, and give me a passion unconquerable.