God in the IT department

When I was a freshman I landed a pretty sweet job fixing computers. The job was and is great because I get to do something that I love, something that is familiar to me, something that makes people happy. When you tell people you saved their 50+ page paper for grad school, they're really excited. I was really thrilled when I got the job. For anyone who doesn't know I have been working on computers for a long time. I have even built computers from scratch. Which means that I know all the details about them. I know how they should sound, how they should function, what temperature they should be etc. This makes them easy to fix, since I know as soon as something is wrong. Oddly enough God decided to teach me a lesson, which I decided to share with all my readers while I was at work tonight. 

There was these two computers that I was trying to fix. They were very broken. They had all sort of problems, and as soon as I fixed one of the problems another one seemed to surface. I decided to dedicate 90% of my attention to these computers. I would wheel my chair to a few other "easy" ones, and I could wheel away from them, because I was confident that they didn't need my direct attention at all times. I just gave the easy computers the resources they needed to almost fix themselves. This allowed me to sit at these two machines and make them my highest priority.

Strangely enough God does the exact same thing. God is like a IT employee. He's doing something that he loves. He's been doing it a long time! He likes making us happy. He designed us, and is able to repair us so easily because he designed all the parts that compose us. He can also dedicate 90% of his attention to the "problem" computers. Now don't get me wrong here, God is a little better than me at managing his attention and can realistically give 100% attention to everyone, but for the sake of this metaphor just bear with me.

God sits and focuses on these computers that have a lot of problems. He takes em one step at a time, fixing one area of our lives until we are back in working condition. He can dedicate his attention carefully working through the problems that the person has. He also gives these "easier" computers the resources to fix themselves. He gives his followers community, scripture, and lots of other tools so that we can fix ourselves and continue to help others.

The best part is that God wants us, as his followers, to do the same thing. God wants us to focus our energy on relationships that need fixing the most. Its easy to just want to give up, to always just want to work on easy machines, but its the harder ones that require the most dedication. Sometimes we are involved in relationships where there is a lot of fixing to be done. Well let this be a lesson to keep going. Keep investing time in these relationships, because even the most difficult problems are eventually fixed.

So if you are a follower, invest in these relationships. God is working in their life. Hes working hard. Ask him for the resources to help your friends. Ask him how you can help your friends since he designed them and knows exactly how to fix them. If you are not a follower, then know that right now God is investing himself in you. He trying to fix you. Hes dedicating himself to you. He sitting there, not distracted by anything else that is happening. To him you are his number 1 priority right now. So help him help you. Take a risk and hand your life over to God to be fixed.

Yes I do!

On Thursday a few campus-mates and I did a quick 20 minute training teaser to our Intervarsity Chapter. The training consisted of a few elements. One of which was Sharing the Gospel in the Context of Injustice. I practiced this training several times before and felt really good about giving it. But while I was standing up there Listening to the training something really jumped out at me. Emily, my partner that I was doing this presentation with said, God knows suffering. God is the only God who has taken on human form, to know pain and suffering. Even dying the worst possible type of death, to know first hand how we felt. God has even felt the pain of losing a child.

Wow, even though I'd heard her say that in practice many times, and even though deep down I knew it in my heart she said it with such a passion that it just stuck out in my mind. Times I had felt pain rushed to my head. All the times I had cried out to God in my "suffering" saying, "God you don't know what this is like!" How wrong I was. God was right there with me, knowing exactly what it feels like. He has felt physical pain, the pain of betrayal, the pain of loss, even the sting of death. Since I was still giving the training I had to focus on the moment and I ignored the questions and the analysis my brain desperately wanted to do about this little few sentences she said.When I got home though I started to let me brain wrap about this subject.

Thoughts about all this went spinning around. The idea of Jesus somehow being 100% God and 100% man were confusing me. The idea of Jesus having a physical body in Heaven seemed to be confusing me. So many questions were just racing around my head. But I managed to narrow down my question to one that I needed to answer. "Why?" "Why would God experience pain, loss, death?" I thought about it, I mean don't get me wrong, I love Jesus. I love that God in supreme wisdom created a plan to keep his law perfect and flawless but also let us be "clean" and spend eternity with him. But I mean, God could easily just done things differently. Even if he sent his Son, why did he have to die? Why did he have to suffer? Why did a close friend have to betray him? As I thought about it all a rather simple answer seemed to present itself. "Why Not!"

This way God in is supreme wisdom did not only save his Children that he cares about, he did so much more. God as the maker is now able to relate to us as his creation in a way that no one else can imagine. God designed our hearts to love. He designed our hearts to experience pain when we are betrayed. He designed us to experience pain with loss. He did this because he feels the pain too. And he sent Jesus to experience this pain first hand. To see how we felt. So that all the times we cry out to him "You don't understand" he can wrap his arms around us and respond, "Yes I do."

God save the Queen?

Being that I'm a nerd the game of Chess has always been exciting to me. It combines the elements of offense, defense, strategy, and sacrifice. The problem is that I'm not very good at the game of Chess. Recently I decided that, especially if I want to be a business personal someday, learning chess would be a good idea. It's a great way to pass the time and allows for good conversation while playing. I decided to learn how to play, and play well.

I played against my wife, friends, and even online. As most things in life you really have to practice to get better. I could easily see improvement in my game play. I started winning more and more games. I got brave enough to take on my computer in the game. Needless to say the computer even on a medium difficulty wiped the floor with me. I couldn't figure out why I was losing, and believe me I was losing badly. I decided to carefully analyze my style of game play and identify where my errors were. It was through this strange turn of events that God decided to teach me a very important lesson.

The lesson was about what's important. God who is creative enough to teach me something through a game I enjoy knows a lot about importance. Fitting that a lesson of importance would be taught to me through Chess, because there is clearly a importance hierarchy in that game, in terms of the pieces. Pawns are worth one point, knights are worth 3 points etc. It was based on this value structure that I learned my lesson. I started playing a game of chess against a very aggressive opponent on the computer. There were trades left and right, and finally I had a situation where my Queen was in danger. For anyone who doesn't understand how the game is played, the Queen is the most valuable piece. You only get one queen and it's worth nine points both on offense and defense. Being that my queen was in danger I moved her away quickly.

"Checkmate" pops up on my screen. I had just lost the game. "Why did I lose?" I thought to myself. I scrolled through the play history to figure out where my strategy failed. I was able to trace it back to a single move. It was where I moved my queen away from danger. I studied the board for a second, I was tricked. My queen was in danger and I moved her to save her, but in doing that I left what is truly important unguarded, my King. My King was left defenseless and I lost in the next move. I hit the "undo" button and replayed the game from this bad move I made, and guess what, I won! I was shocked. I sacrificed my queen and was able to walk away with a win. In that moment something clicked.

I had just learned at Intervarsity Large Group on Thursday about the dangers of being prideful, and losing sight of who's really the most important in a relationship with God. It now made a lot of sense. The queen in chess is certainly an important piece, but is it really the most important? Not at all, the King is. Without the King the game is lost, and if the game is lost the queen essentially has no value. It made me realize that In my life, I like to think I'm the most important in my relationship with God. I like to think that I'm the piece that's playing offense and defense. I'm the piece that's worth 9 points. But the fact is that my King is the most important. Without my King, this game is over. With this new perspective of focusing on the King as the most important piece I been able to improve my Chess gameplay, and now I seek to improve my life by humbling myself before my King, and acknowledging who's really important in the relationship.

Welcome to the Real World

When I was a freshman in college everything about me was fake. I had fake friends, fake ambitions, fake goals. I blame some of this on the fact that I was in college. College is an easy place to be fake. You chase after things you don't really care about. You study subjects that you don't really care about. You work a job that you don't really care about. Get the picture? It's easy to be fake in college. Things didn't become real to me until later in my college career. Half way through my freshman year I decided to follow Jesus Christ to wherever he would lead me. For the first time things were real! I began to study something that I cared about. I developed relationships that I cared about. I got involved with a community that I cared about.  Things became "real" to me.

The Lord has a interesting way of speaking to your heart in ways that you can easily relate to. For me he spoke to me through The Matrix. Fitting based on the title of this blog as well as this post. After I had decided to take on this insane pledge to follow Jesus "wherever he would lead me" I remembered Morpheus peeking over the "young" Neo, and whispering, "Welcome to the Real World." I felt as if my mentor has said the same thing to me. That sentence implies that your finally free of the bondage of the slave world. It means the start of something new. The blinders have been removed and its time to unlock your true potential in this new "real world."

So now two years later, I am still following Jesus wherever he leads me, and right now he has lead me here. Here is my College Campus at Northern Arizona University. This place that I call home, and my school, is also my "Matrix" where I'm called to be a missionary. I started this blog to share stories about my life before and after my acknowledgment of my Savior. To help students relate to the character of God in ways that are unexpected like through The Matrix. To be "real" with people. To not be fake like the community I served for so long. That being said, "Welcome to the Real World."