3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. Ecclesiastes 4:3

People on the top of the financial world say the issue with society is people on the bottom being lazy, people on the bottom say the issue is with greedy people on the top keeping the little man down. I am realizing, both are absolutely true. The minimum wage world is incapable of supporting a family. Minimum wage isn't meant to support a family and the only way you can actually get a job above minimum wage is to either do internships or know someone in a business. You can break out of that with an incredible amount of work, but it is near impossible unless you're a drive person who is slightly crazy. On the top, the cost of living is going up so much every year because of people looking for ways to earn more money. Replaceable parts in cars, appliances, and most everything are becoming virtually non-existence. in the 70's the deconstruction of appliances began with several manufacture made their goods too fixable and durable so people started buying less, since everyone fixed what they had. There were engineers hired to basically make expiration dates on machines so people would have to buy more later, this expanded the market, but made living more expensive.

Cars are progressively made to where it is near impossible to work on with every year they're intentionally made more complicated and more expensive to replace parts. The issue with this is that it is unsustainable. The amount of imported products that almost immediately go to the dump is impossible to keep up. There are two sides of the financial spectrum heading towards each other that eventually will hit head on causing a massive, essentially, explosion. Both sides are completely true, people who control the cost of manufacturing are greedy and milking people for profit and a lot of people on the bottom really are lazy and not seeking a way to break out of the sad cycle they are in. There is a spiritual crisis on both ends causing this. On the top there is a rampant greed looking out how to benefit themselves and on the bottom they are looking for a way to benefit themselves without actually working. Neither end is more to blame than the other.

In politics, they look at gas prices, cost of living, and the welfare state and blame all of it as the issue. They say, " once we fix these issues, it will be fine." the problem is we don't need good laws to restrain us from evil people, we need good people to restrain us from bad laws, since once you loose god, government becomes the messiah we look towards, since it is the next most tangible power you can see. You begin to place your hope, you life, your salvation in this massive legislative system that is never going to actually be able to produce a salvation on this earth. We are pointing everywhere saying this or that is the issue, when in reality the finger points straight at us, since we are allowing a madness to brew in our hearts increasing our greed. Government policies are created by men, created by you, by me, by the culture we perpetuate. Salvation and change in this earth comes when our hearts are changed, transplanted, by Jesus and for once, we can point the finger at ourselves and genuinely begin to change what we love, what we pursue. For the first time life will not be about us, but about giving a sacrificial love we are filled with.

In our hearts is a madness that is going to grow, we are going to seek how we can benefit ourselves before our hearts are changed. We will never be satisfied with it, since it is all a game of gaining more money, sex, and status. You are either dealing with reality or numbing yourself to stay out of reality and your heart. The game will numb you until it all shatters and you have all of reality sitting on you and you're suffocating and loosing your sanity.

14 There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. 15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.

16 When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night— 17 then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it. Ecclesiastes 8:14-15

Basically, i would go insane, kind of like solomon did, since he saw all these things going on around him and he resolved that it was all absurd and you just sit through it until death. The thing i don't really think he understood, since he asked for wisdom, not relationship with god, was how everything we do has weight in eternity. I see all of this, but am mostly powerless to change it all, but my portion is enjoy what God has given me, do what i know is right and try to change what i can, but this is all in God's hands and i am willing to do whatever he sees fit for me to do, but that is all i can do. God is sovereign and i am willing to play whatever part he wants me to, that is my lot, that is my portion. my salvation is in him and that is enough.

God seems to love irony and seems to work his peculiar plan of redemption in my life through a helluva lot of irony. I am at a point where it is healthy to start to try and figure out a general direction of where you are going in life. Marriage and family counseling, bam, right? basically i realized, since i am graduating so young, i am going to need to take a little time off inbetween masters and college, since by the time i got my masters i would be 23 and who wants to see a marriage and family counselor who is 23? not me. I started praying a few months back that God would start guiding me in what i needed to do and where to go. basically, the only place in my heart i was not willing to go was explicit ministry. I couldn't bring myself to, since of my past, growing up in a pastors home who was abusive, growing up in a church that you were shunned for honesty and excommunicated when you came for help, i couldn't. i have always stayed in the church and tried to change myself so the church would change and figured that would always be my place, since that was all my heart was willing to be, i thought that was all i could be.

Well, God answered a lot of prayer and kept on hammering me with, " yo, you gonna be in the ministry. you also going to be working in the church, foo!" aside from being weirded out that Mr.T was talking, i kept praying wondering if this is actually where god wanted me. well, hell, it is. i never wanted to possibly put my family, my kids, in a situation even remotely similar to mine. I worried for my family, since i do believe if you are working in a visible branch of the kingdom, you are putting yourself out there for a stronger spiritual attack. But, as a guy pointed out, that is a selfish reason and not trusting god's sovereignty. if God is going to put me in something, he is going to provide for me as well. money, i couldn't careless about, i have always been poor, but the idea of possibly putting my family in harms way spiritually horrifies me. however, God is in control, and if this is where he wants me, he will provide just like he always has and always will, since that is what he does.

redemption comes in so many weird ways, for me, the one place i said i would never go, explicit ministry by name, is where god is wanting to continue my story of redemption apparently. my RUF minister pointed out, basically, ministry is the process of shepherding and loving people, essentially building community. I have been praying for almost those exact things to be given to me, for god to use me in those ways, and i think this is part of God answering those prayers, since being in the ministry, i would basically be doing the exact thing i am doing now, but on a larger scale. loving people with a love i have been given and shown. redemption is a weird story for us all, for me, it is basically being given the heart to pursue what i swore i would never pursue. At this point in my life, where he has taken me, nothing else really makes sense for me to pursue, nothing else fits my desires for life at all. i want to glorify God, enjoy what he has given me, i want so badly to redeem the name of the church and the name of jesus. i dunno how else to really do that than to literally wear the names on my life. God uses so much irony to show his redemption.

This is the end of my show, this is the end I know

I can't perform no more (eh eh)
Can't fight this war no more (eh eh)
I can't endure no more, all ashamed and pain
I'm feelin strained and can't go on this tour no more
I'm so tired of this tight rope walk
Homie I might go psycho my life's strung off
Eh it's the rest for my soul can this mic go off
I ain't steppin on the stage tonight, shows off

This is the end of my show, this is the end I know
I know these chains had me trapped for a while
Don't know when I last relaxed with a smile
I need a Saviour ta crack through the clouds
Shows over gotta turn my back to the crowd
I know these chains had me trapped for a while
Don't know when I last relaxed with a smile
I need a Saviour ta crack through the clouds
Shows over gotta turn my back to the crowd

I can't perform no more (eh eh)
Can't run this course no more (eh eh)
I been tryna keep up this image to let em see that I'm different
I'm slippin and this is stuff that I can't ignore no more (they trippin)
Can't let these tears hit the floor no more (they trippin)
Because of fear I can't (afford?) no more
Is it a lie what I've been, tryna hide all my sin 'n
Imprisoned and can't no one open the door no more
Tired of tryna be righteous, got my world dark
Like somebody hit the light switch, I don't know where to start
Cause I really don't like this, it's heavy on my heart (nah)
Somebody get me out this crisis, my pain is off the chart (please)

This is the end of my show, this is the end I know
I know these chains had me trapped for a while
Don't know when I last relaxed with a smile
I need a Saviour ta crack through the clouds
Shows over gotta turn my back to the crowd
I know these chains had me trapped for a while
Don't know when I last relaxed with a smile
I need a Saviour ta crack through the clouds
Shows over gotta turn my back to the crowd

I can't perform no more (eh eh)
Can't do these chores no more (eh eh)
I'm feelin like I'm sick, it's silly so I quit
That's it, I just can't try to please the Lord no more
Cause really I'm sick of tryna make Him like me more (you feel me)
Cause every day I got a fight in store
I'm guilty so when I play I never like to score
No good in me n I'm sick of my plight I'm poor
They told me homie (whaa) the Christian life is better (word)
But they said to be holy n perform for His pleasure
But now I'm feelin torn cause the Lord is my treasure
But I fall and feel scorned when I can't get it together
But then something clicked, it's crazy I ignored this
But even when I slip, this ain't based on my performance
Christ was equipped, ran a race with endurance
When His flesh was hit, His righteousness was my assurance (yea!)

I know dem chains had me trapped for a while
That's in my past, I relaxed in Him now
Christ my Saviour He cracked through the clouds
Did it perfect, listen to the claps from the crowd
I know dem chains had me trapped for a while
That's in my past, I relaxed in Him now
Christ my Saviour He cracked through the clouds
Did it perfect, listen to the claps from the crowd

This is the end of my show, this is the end I know

pray for your heart to melt and it will.

Isaiah 63
The LORD’s Day of Vengeance
1Who is this who comes from Edom,
in crimsoned garments from Bozrah,
he who is splendid in his apparel,
marching in the greatness of his strength?
"It is I, speaking in righteousness,
mighty to save."

2Why is your apparel red,
and your garments like his who treads in the winepress?

3 "I have trodden the winepress alone,
and from the peoples no one was with me;
I trod them in my anger
and trampled them in my wrath;
their lifeblood spattered on my garments,
and stained all my apparel.
4 For the day of vengeance was in my heart,
and my year of redemption had come.
5I looked, but there was no one to help;
I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold;
so my own arm brought me salvation,
and my wrath upheld me.
6I trampled down the peoples in my anger;
I made them drunk in my wrath,
and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth."
The LORD’s Mercy Remembered
7I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD,
the praises of the LORD,
according to all that the LORD has granted us,
and the great goodness to the house of Israel
that he has granted them according to his compassion,
according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
8For he said, "Surely they are my people,
children who will not deal falsely."
And he became their Savior.
9 In all their affliction he was afflicted
and the angel of his presence saved them;
in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

there are some of those days where you just aren't sure what is going on. you ask where is god, what is going on, does god really know what he is doing? all the struggles of people you're close to and helpless to help. my heart is confused, no idea what is going on inside of me, my brother has major health issues, dad has cancer, family is torn, school, money, jobs. bleh.

then i remember that jesus said not to worry about tomorrow, since today has it's own worries. so, yes. today, i need to eat, sleep, study some, pay the electric bill late, pray a lot about tomorrow and sleep. tomorrow, it is about the same. i don't know what tomorrows holds, but i can pray about that. other than that, God said to manage what we have well and to glorify and enjoy him. so, i go bridge jumping and have a smoke with some close friends.

sin is rampant, there's a lot of death and pain, but i have to be reminded over and over again of my place. I'm not in control of life and not responsible for saving people, it is my place to try to be a vessel of love. If God uses me or not is up to him, but i am supposed to be willing.

In the end, a few things i know, God loves me and has a plan that i can't see the in's and out's of and i pray to see them and he usually shows me in hindsight. I am still learning to trust, since i am a person who naturally doesn't trust, but i am learning that my plans usually aren't that great in comparison to what he has in mind for me. my life isn't where i planned, it is much better than i could have imagined since i never knew what i really wanted. I am loved and god has a plan. that is enough for me to hold to, that is enough for my portion.

" but you are out father,
though abraham does not know us
or israel acknowledge us;
our redeemer from of old is your name"
isaiah 63:16