As time stands still (I pass it by)

This last month or so has been crazy and busy. It has gone by so fast. There's a lot that has happened. At the same time I feel as though there is nothing on consequence to talk about. I need to write on here though. Not for the sake of doing it, but because it can actually be beneficial and insightful. 

I suppose all I wanted to say now is that I will say other, actually interesting, things later.

And in that one moment...

God is good at making fools out of us and showing us how self-centered we are. I've been to preoccupied with my own agenda to slow down and see what God's purpose is for me. He had to stop me, sit me down, and spell it out for me. 

Hmmm...

God has really strange ways of getting your attention. I don't understand it. I don't understand what he's saying. Let alone why he's saying it.

But I know better as I collide face first with you

Last night was amazing. The show was amazing. We played very well, especially for practicing once in the last two and a half months. It was awesome meeting some new people there too. I absolutely love meeting new people at shows. Whenever we play, I always say "come hang out with us and talk to us." I really mean it. Haha.

This show felt a lot more like the shows I remember going to 3 and 4 years ago. I hope that shows in the future go in that general direction. It's what Butler needs.

We were magnetic fields when we came together long ago

So, tonight I worked with Sera. I wasn't sure what to expect. It started out a little awkward, but it really wasn't bad at all. It was actually nice and normal...

I want to let you know that I'm alright. I also want to let you know that I'm not alright. Further explanation would probably be ideal. What I mean is that I can pretty much live my life and not really have any issues. But at the same time I just have moments where I break down. I was fine the entire day when I was working with Sera but randomly about 25 minutes into my drive home I started crying etc, etc. It literally came out of nowhere. This is just one instance. The thought of the closeness of our relationship not being there is one of the things that hurts the most. I'll see her at work, and probably around butler and I'll talk to her online some. There will never be the closeness, the emotional intimacy that was there before. My problem is that I was in love, and I still am but I can't be.

I'm going to be real with you. I'm not holding anything back. The last few days I've really been fighting and struggling with the temptation of pornography and lust. The immediate response to the emptiness I feel is to fill it. That is the easiest and quickest fix. I know that it won't fill me. That doesn't change that the Liar is trying to convince me that it will.

Prayer would be appreciated.
For her as well.

Thank you.

yeah..

Looks like you'll be the first to know, Brian. Since you're always the first (and only?) person who ever really reads this.

Sera and I are no longer Sera and I...

That's all I want to say right now.

Realization #47: I am a weenie

Tonight I talked to someone and gained a whole lot of respect for them. It's one of those things where I didn't realize something, although I knew it, until it was placed plainly in front of me.

I feel like a huge weenie in comparison. I thought it was rough having all 8am classes last semester. I often had trouble getting out of bed. It felt like all I ever did during the day was nap, and homework and nap some more. Even this semester with 9 and 9:30 classes I didn't have any problems until recently and now it's getting hard to even get up then. The person that I talked to faced so much more diversity than only having 8am classes and that makes me feel like a turd for thinking I had it hard. I see this person from a different perspective now and it gives me so much more respect for them.

"me either"

It's amazing how one statement can be so cynical yet so hopeful at the same time.



Soli Deo Gloria

Something I've been thinking about

I feel like I've been distracted a lot lately. No, I don't mean that I'm having issues with my attention span. What I mean is that I feel distracted from the calling I believe God has for me and my own goals and visions that result from the calling I feel.

I've realized that when I align my heart with God's and seek to fulfill his will for my life above everything else that he blesses me far beyond anything I expect. For Example, Butler Project. So often my heart strays from God's heart and I become distracted from my purpose. It's very odd, I am fulfilling my desires and wants but it makes me feel more horrible than anything else. I can see how worshiping the gods in my life affects myself personally, as well as the relationships I have, especially the closest relationships in my life. It is scary how something that you think is so insignificant (although it is incredibly significant) can affect your life in as many ways as it does.

I want to seek and follow God's will in my life, as much as he reveals to me and as well as I can in these areas of my life:

• My relationship with Sera
• Purpose and direction of my schooling
• What I will do with my life (in college, and after)
• Financial crap

I'm sure I could at least double that list if I took a lot more time to think about it. But I suppose those are four of the more major areas.

Some other random goals:

• Start a band
• Start some sort of prayer group
• Be more bold and charismatic in my faith
• Don't underestimate the Holy Spirit

Although those seem random, at last in my mind, they are connected with what I talked about above. There more of a practical working out of those things, I suppose.

That's all for this installment.

Soli Deo Gloria

This needs to be said again...

Burn Your gods To The Ground

Your eyes (Proverbs 6:25)
Bring me to my knees (Your eyes! Your eyes!)
Asking more of me
I give my heart
Your lips drip with honey (Proverbs 5:3)
I can’t resist a taste
Your path leads to the grave (Proverbs 5:5)
And I’m chasing you
Your path leads to my death
And I’m chasing you
Your path leads to the grave
And I’m chasing you to my death

I’ll follow you down
If you’ll give what I desire

What makes a man a man?
Like a sheep led to the slaughter
What makes a man a man?
Butchered without a word
What makes a man a man?
Father, what have I done
What makes a man a man?
I am not a man

Confined within these walls I’ve made
I’ll paint myself into this picture
To become just like you—dead like you

This is the last time, I swear!
Don’t believe my lies
This is the last time, I swear!
Don’t believe my lies
This is the last time, I swear!
Lord, take this lust from me

Take this lust from me (2x)
Burn your gods to the ground (2x)
Take this lust from me (2x)

Represent

So, I just learned how to play a Seventh Star song on guitar. It's a hidden track from their older Dead End album. Good stuff. That's one of my goals for this year, to play guitar more and learn songs like that. So far so good.

I'll come up with something a little deeper and more thoughtful later. I'm just trying to get back into the habit of writing on here. It was kind of bad timing for starting this since I came back to school a few weeks after starting this. But I promise more posts and more content to make you scratch your head to.

I don't even like the taste of blood.

I really don't feel appreciated. This always seems to happen a few days before a show. All of my time, work, and energy seem to only matter to me. I feel like many of my efforts are overlooked or pushed to the side. I always feel like if I don't do something it won't get done, then when I do it it I don't feel like I'm really appreciated for it.



PS. Brian I responded to your comment on my "Burn Your gods To The Ground" post with a comment, which is more like a mini novel.

Burn Your gods To The Ground

This is our newest song. I'm not quite sure what to say about it. I think it really speaks for itself. My inspiration for it came from personal experiences (or course), some readings I did in Proverbs, as well as from reading Wild At Heart and Way of the Wild Heart by John Eldredge.

Burn Your gods To The Ground

Your eyes (Proverbs 6:25)
Bring me to my knees (Your eyes! Your eyes!)
Asking more of me
I give my heart
Your lips drip with honey (Proverbs 5:3)
I can’t resist a taste
Your path leads to the grave (Proverbs 5:5)
And I’m chasing you
Your path leads to my death
And I’m chasing you
Your path leads to the grave
And I’m chasing you to my death

I’ll follow you down
If you’ll give what I desire

What makes a man a man?
Like a sheep led to the slaughter
What makes a man a man?
Butchered without a word
What makes a man a man?
Father, what have I done
What makes a man a man?
I am not a man

Confined within these walls I’ve made
I’ll paint myself into this picture
To become just like you—dead like you

This is the last time, I swear!
Don’t believe my lies
This is the last time, I swear!
Don’t believe my lies
This is the last time, I swear!
Lord, take this lust from me

Take this lust from me (2x)
Burn your gods to the ground (2x)
Take this lust from me (2x)



It might never happen, but our hope is that this, along with 4 other songs, will be on an EP. Of course the EP would be titled Burn Your gods To The Ground. nox intempesta will be one of the songs as well as 3 others that we hope to write this fall/winter. One of those three we're already working on. I'm not going to give too much away, but it is going to be a worship song beginning to end. I'm feeling really good about taking this song in that direction. Once it's finished be expecting lyrics.

Broken

So, last night my laptop freaked out. It said there was an error and had to shut Windows down. Now it won't boot Windows. It says hat it can't find a bootable device (i.e. THE FREAKING HARD DRIVE!!!!!) This most likely means one of two things. 1) There is a boot sector virus. That is a virus that keeps your computer from booting and basically the only way to kill those mother ducks is by reformatting your hard drive...erasing everything! I doubt that it's a virus though. I hadn't downloaded anything or installed anything. 2) The other option is that there is a physical problem with the hard drive. i.e. it crapped out and I'll need a new one. There's also the possibility that it's something else and that it can be fixed easier than those two things. But from what it seems those two things are the most likely. Pray that this all works out. I had a lot of important stuff on there. Luckily I do have a external hard drive with a lot of stuff on it, but not everything.

Edit: Apparently my hard drive is dead. So, I ordered a new one. 160GB! That's the only good thing that came out of this, I needed more space and now I've got it...well, I will once I get my new HDD and reload Windows and install all of my programs and rip all of my music again.

Cornerstone Pictures

Cornerstone 2008

Enjoy!

Every Man

This is a little different from who I am. I don't listen to hip hop. I found this watching a Christian TV channel at 2am about two weeks ago.




He wrote this song after reading a book about a young girl who was raped by her father and was put into sex slavery.

For some reason it feels to me like this is something God has been putting on my heart a lot recently. Jeremy and I talked about this exact topic (sex slavery) at Cornerstone last week. And as I am writing this post I'm talking to Claire who mentioned that on a social networking site some guys "bid" on her and bought her for $92. Any website that has a fake bidding system that allows jerks to purchase innocent young girls is, in principle, the same as selling girls for sex. That just sickens me.

Interesiting note: MTV refuses to play this video. They wont tell the true story of a young girl that cuts right to the heart and suggests that we as Americians are both directly and indirectly responsible for such things, yet they play videos that encourage lust and objectivfy women.

Here we are again

Here I am, writing in another new blog. I desperately want to write what is on my heart, and yet I fear sharing what I so desperately what to express. (I pray that God would remove the walls fear has created and encourage me to become more transparent) As far as content, expect the basic stuff. Also, expect me to dig deeper into my topics. I wont waste my time or yours with a post that says, "I did this, this, and that today. The end." There will be more substance, more meat. My goal is to paint a picture of my heart with words.