Never was there greater potential than that in mystery.

Imagine a young boy, enjoying his time of adolescence to the fullest without a care in the world, not wanting to waste a single moment that could be utilized for relaxation and/or playtime. This boy has become absolutely smitten with a hip, new bike after seeing it on a television commercial, we'll call it the Lightning Speedster X500. A couple of his friends have come to own this pricey, shiny bike in recent months: some as a gift on their birthdays, some as a "just because" gift from their parents, and others have purchased it themselves because they receive enough allowance to do so. The parents of this fun-loving young boy love him with all of their hearts and would lay down their lives for him in a heartbeat, yet they do not want him to become spoiled, lest he become too self-absorbed and materialistic and come to see other people as a means to his end of obtaining these things for himself.

For eleven consecutive months this boy has quietly prodded his parents and dropped subtle hints to them that he wants the Speedster X500 for Christmas and nothing else. He begins counting down the days, week after week, month after month, sure in his mind with no hair of doubt that he will receive the bike for Christmas, telling himself such things as "I deserve it" and "Dad and Mom love me, so there's no way they'd refrain from buying me the bike!" As Christmas draws closer and closer, he becomes more and more elated and his smile grows wider and wider, though he does not realize that this happiness of his is grounded and dependent on him receiving the bike. Without this condition being satisfied, he has no joy. He daydreams every day—during classes at school and when he's lying in bed at night—about him proudly riding the bike around his neighborhood on a sunny day with the beams of sun glistening off its frame in every direction. He can hardly stand the wait. He simply grits his teeth and bears each remaining day that stands between him and the bike, knowing that his life will soon be complete and it will have all been worth it. However, what he also does not realize is that it is no longer that he just would like to have the bike, he has to have it. He has jumped the canyon between innocent, harmless desires and idolatrous, life-controlling ones.

Just one month before Christmas, he is wandering past his parents' room one day and hears his mother talking to his father on the phone, and the topic of the bike rears its head. The boy's heart stops as he presses his ear firmly against the door, making sure that he does not create the slightest sound to alert his mother of his presence. This is grave, grave stuff. His very world revolves around the outcome of the words about to be spoken, and he is shaking in anxiety and breathing only when he has to. Finally, it comes...much to his horror. His mother tells his father that she doesn't want to get him the bike because she came across something else that she believes he will enjoy even more. The boy turns his heels and runs to his room as fast as he can, tears streaming down his face, not caring one iota to find out what the new, mysterious gift is. Whatever it is, it is not what he wanted, and there is no way imaginable it could be better than the Lightning Speedster X500.

The joy he once had dissolves instantaneously. He begins to harbor bitterness in his heart toward his parents and tells himself constantly what a living torment his life is. He compares himself to his friends who own the bike, and soon he becomes bitter at them too. He convinces himself that his parents are only good and loving if they buy him the bike, even if it is for his birthday next year, as long as it happens sometime. What he does not realize is that even in this so-called confession of "patience" he is still idolizing the bike: he still has to have it, it just doesn't have to be now. He begins to lament his existence to everyone at school about how miserable and unfair life is, and he soon becomes an anathema to everyone to be around. He is never thankful for the toys he does own, for the money his parents do spend on him, or that his parents are even able to afford to get him presents for Christmas. The roots of his unhappiness grows deeper and deeper, which he justifies as being the unavoidable response to this curse that has been placed on him. It does not matter what the present sitting under the tree on Christmas day is. Though he has not seen every toy in the world and there are some toys he has not even conceived of, he knows in absolute certainty that there isn't even the slightest chance that it is better than the Speedster. When Christmas finally rolls around, he hardly says a word and is deeply absorbed in his own self-pity. What should be a joyous holiday soon becomes an opportunity for him to display to the world how miserable he is.

---

How often do we limit God to a list of options that WE have contrived? "Okay, God. A, B, or C. Take your pick." How often do we become overly hostile to anything that does not fall under that list? "No, God! No D, E, or F! Those can't be good! I don't even know what they are, but I'm asking you for A, B, or C! Do you hear me, God? I remember a Scripture verse in Matthew in which You said that You would give people whatever they pray for. Hold true to that promise! Give me what I want!" Sometimes there is no B or C. Sometimes there is only the ultimatum of A or nothing. But whatever the case, we have written the script and held God to it. If He deviates from it even just a smidge, we believe we have reason to be unhappy and filled with sorrow.

This sin infiltrates our lives if we are not constantly on guard to put it to death. Even in our relationships with other people does it creep in. Many of us have close friends that we cherish being with and seeing on a regular basis. Nothing wrong with that. But how often do we slip from a Biblical love to an idolatrous one, an "I enjoy" attitude to "I must have" attitude, in one swift motion? We want to be around these friends forever, and anything that would compromise how things stand now is a threat to our current happiness, the "peak" of the mountain of blessings apart from which no greater good may exist. The word "can't" begins to creep into our thoughts. "You can't leave me! You can't move!" With a death grip around these friends, we stare God in the face as if to say, "Go on. I dare You to make a move." Instead of focusing on what would be gained, such as how other people in a new place could enjoy the blessings and fellowship of those friends and how God could use them for His purposes in places other than where they currently are now, we force ourselves to focus only on what would be lost: OUR communication with them, OUR proximity to them, OUR time with them. It becomes all about us, and God is shoved into the closet where He is forgotten.

This is a miserable way to live, because your joy is always balanced on a knife's edge, ready to topple with the slightest breeze. And not only does it make us miserable, but it masks itself as actually being good to us. "They're godly friends!" "I love them so much!" Godly friends can become idols. Selfless love can become godless infatuation. Holding God to our agenda is not a life that is glorifying to Him. Instead, we should be in the position of submitting everything to Him, holding the things He has given us with concern and care but nonetheless an open hand, ready for Him to do His work elsewhere in new, unseen ways. We have ruled out anything that we have not conceived in our minds, pridefully implying that we know everything. But God has blessed His people in a plethora of different ways, so how do they find joy in such contrasting circumstances? Why will a family in Texas and a family in Colorado both say that they live in the best place on earth? Why will two families who attend different churches say that they have grown more in their faith in their current church than any prior to it?

What are even more thought-provoking questions are the questions "Has the family in Texas or the family in Colorado seen every place on earth?" and "Have those families attended every church in the world?" It slips our mind that while we love what we know, it is only the little sliver that God has chosen to show us. The family that lives in Texas could've said the same thing had they instead been led to California. Or Florida. Or Virginia. Or Honduras! Why then, do we believe that the little we have seen is the best that is out there? Why do we trust our own intuition when we are limited (extremely limited) in insight when our Heavenly Father is all-knowing in His comprehension? Why draw borders for God in our minds which He "can't" work around, in, or through? Why not believe that God could have just as good of a plan for us if we didn't get a single thing that we wanted?

So why do the family in Texas and the family in Colorado both believe they live in the best place on earth? Who is right? The answer is surprising: both. What makes things the best in our lives are not the things themselves, but God manifesting Himself to us through those things. God can bless us in Texas, in Colorado, or across the globe in China. And those blessings should point our eyes ever upward to the Giver of those blessings, not to themselves. They should be a telescope focused on God, not a mirror in which we see ourselves. That is their purpose: to instill greater adoration and praise and love for our Lord, who paid the greatest price to set us free from our captivity to sin and will now lovingly give us all good things (according to His will, not ours).

---

I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.

Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.
-C. S. Lewis

---

It has been a long and grueling lesson for me, for I am stubborn and unyielding, but God has slowly been teaching me to let go of everything, inch by inch. This means even loved ones. That doesn't mean to stop loving, stop making friends because of the risk of losing them. No. The pain that comes with relationships changing is a natural one that cannot be avoided (and no I am not advocating casual dating in any way, just the distance that is sometimes created in our friendships), but it can be carried out in a godly manner. We should love our friends, holding nothing back, but at the same time always be ready for God to call them elsewhere, because life changes like the seasons. Only He remains; only He is unchangeable. Everything else is volatile, subject to going up in flames at any instant. All other ground is sinking sand.

In 6 months I will be done with college, setting out on a new journey of life as God unfolds it before my very eyes. I know not what people will surround me every Sunday morning and what job I will spend many mundane (but nevertheless blessed) weeks at. I don't know in what city, state, or even country I will lay my head down on a pillow each night. I don't know, and I can't pretend to know. It could be Colorado, it could be New Zealand. But I pray for the Holy Spirit to remove my fear of the unknown, my obstinate bent towards change, and my lack of faith of what He can do beyond the bounds of my mind. God has lifted the burden of me having to be in control of everything that happens in my life. I don't know where I will be in a year, but I know it will be good. I know it will be good because God will be with me as my Guide and Shepherd. He will make the grass greener at times, while other times making it less green but still enough to satisfy all of my needs. It is such a freeing feeling. I no longer have to fear things changing. I no longer have to waste my strength tightening my grip on things so that I can't possibly lose them. The page set before me is blank, but I do not fear its vast, open space. I know that the final words written will be of God's faithfulness, and what paragraphs stand between the beginning and that section, I can only wait and see what they turn out to be.

Cast your burden on the LORD, and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be moved.
Psalm 55:22

Hello world.

Gee, where to start, the good or the bad? Let’s start with the good. I have been thriving spiritually the last 6 months, and the Lord has opened my eyes to my sin and more of Him, which are the exact two things He must open our eyes to for growth! I am finally at the point where I can look back on the events of last year in retrospect and say, “God used that for good in so-and-so way.” It was C. S. Lewis who said that “Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” If things had to transpire the way they did only so that my deafness was shaken, then it was well worth it. I needed to be broken, it was the only way I could be woken from my hideous slumber (to steal a title of my friend and writer Bryce).

He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.
Job 36:15

The cure for pain is in the pain so it's there that you'll find me
Until again I forget and again he reminds me,
"Hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly."
-mewithoutYou

Now I must continue to the bad, as much as I don’t want to. This is the part where I confess my sins, the very ones I justified and disguised as virtues for months on end. If you knew me well before the courtship, you’d have known that I’m a hopeless romantic. I was eager and willing to get married and lay down my life for my wife as much as I could to the end of my days. That in itself is not a bad thing. However, a friend of mine recently rightly pointed out that I have narcissistic tendencies, and that makes me a hope-dependent romantic. I had build my hope on romance and had the expectation that it would fill me. When it failed me, I wanted to collapse, mentally and spiritually. This does not hint at but points directly to and shouts loudly of idolatry.

I don’t feel like I hear God speak directly to me often, but several months ago I really heard Him tell me something profound and penetrating: “My son, it is not the worst things that will make the best idols, but the best things.” How true. I had sinfully turned the most glorious thing in life after salvation, God’s sanctity of marriage, into an idol. When we do drugs we’re making pleasure an idol, which is a good thing. When we lust we’re making sex an idol, which is a good thing. When we covet we’re making the object of our coveting an idol, which is itself a good thing. All sins are perversions of good things. I highly, highly recommend chapter 10 of Timothy Keller’s book The Reason for God. The chapter is called "The Problem of Sin," and in it he defines sin as I’ve never seen it defined before, at least with such Biblical clarity. Keller remarks, “So, according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things. It is seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and happiness than your relationship to God.” I already knew this in my heart, but Keller said it concisely and authoritatively. The problem with my deeds after the courtship and on this blog was not that marriage was a bad thing, but that I was deriving my true happiness from it.

For months on end through this blog I justified my actions under the banner of falling in love, defending my position that I could not move my heart and therefore what I was doing was not of my own free will and therefore I held no responsibility for it. What an outright lie. Sin is always, always, always, always, always a choice. It is the scapegoat of humanity to victimize ourselves in our sin and claim that there is something that is too powerful for us to overcome, such as a set of circumstances. That way we alleviate ourselves of our responsibility in the matter and we don’t have to change. That is what I did on this blog, down to the last crossed t and dotted i. The story I stuck to was that my heart, a distinct mind from my own and not under my control, had fallen in love, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was being forced beyond my will to be smitten with a girl. I do believe that we don’t control who we fall for, but we can and do control how much of our heart that person holds, i.e. we control if that person becomes an idol or not. The problem is not that we fall in love with other people, it’s that we need to fall even more deeply in love with God.

I picture love to be like a seed of a plant, which we neither place in the ground nor remove from it. We can water the seed regularly and make sure it has enough sunlight and give it good fertilizer so that it will thrive and grow, or we can refrain from watering it and perhaps even purposefully block its sunlight with a bucket so that its growth will be ceased and the obsessive gardener in us will forget about it. If God has made it known to us loud and clear that a certain relationship is not to be, the second option is the only right response. We don’t have to disdain the person, in fact we shouldn’t, even though that is one of the most common strategies of the world (“I’m too good for him/her”). Rather we should not feed our heart, because it will only lead to sin from that point. Love is like cigarettes (I’d imagine), in that each puff begs for another. It is meant to perpetuate itself endlessly; there is never “too much” in love. What we have to do is do everything in our power to starve the plant. Do not water it, obscure its sunlight, utterly forget about it. But that is not enough! It’s not just about the negatives, what we don’t do. We also have to replace it with something. Our hearts abhor a vacuum, and something must always be on the throne. Simone Weil put it that “One has only the choice between God and idolatry. If one denies God . . . one is worshipping some things of this world in the belief that one sees them only as such, but in fact, though unknown to oneself imagining the attributes of Divinity in them.” We must turn to God with fervent reverence, otherwise we will replace one idol with another, guaranteed. We will “plant another plant.”

Sometimes when you’re reading a book, God painfully exposes a sin in your life with the use of the author’s words. This happened to me. Keller states, “As in all addiction, we are in denial about the degree to which we are controlled by our god-substitutes.” Is this not exactly what I did on this blog? I was in constant denial that my every emotion was hinged on my idolatrous, broken heart. I spoke of God only when it was convenient, so that I could reassure myself that I was still trying to please Him. I had deceived myself. Sometimes when we’re in sin, we continue to speak all the right words, in a hope that our heart will hear those words and believe that our actions must reflect our words. This is not always so. My actions did not reflect my words. From my words it sounded like I was simply a boy foolishly in love with a girl who was pining for God, but really I was narcissistically pining for love with my every cell and pasting the right godly words on top. Sound familiar? That’s what my father has done for the past 20 years, doing as he pleased as long as he uttered the right words. Oh, how I hope I do not become my father! It is a burning desire of mine that I do not hypocritically bring shame to the holy name of God with every day of my life as he does. Lord, lead me away from that path of wickedness, I plead with You.

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
Proverbs 28:13

I want to repent to anyone reading of the poor example of Christ I set on this blog. I did not put God first, and yet I did it all under the proud umbrella of saintliness. Please forgive me. I now see through the Holy Spirit my grievous sins of narcissism, which is only a synonym for idolatry of self. I pray that I did not mislead anyone in thinking that what I was doing was right, that one would test and scrutinize every one of my words against the holy Word of God before listening to a single one of them. Praise God that there is never a “too late” in life. We can always be renewed, we can always be redeemed. Nothing is too far gone. Lord, restore to me what the swarming locusts have eaten, as words of the prophet I’m named after say. That which I have torn down, help me to build up as a monument of Your grace. Give me the faith to walk onward from this point, this fresh start, in a way that deviates from that which is behind me, the sins of days gone by, and help my thoughts and ways to be correspondingly more like Your Son. Give me the grace I need to keep walking this road, empowered by the death of Your Son.

Joel