Lucifer: Bunny-Throwing-Extraordinaire

I was doing my normal four-mile run around the base again right at dusk tonight. And in the middle of the haze, a huge something jumped out of the bushes in the middle of a lengthy stretch that I normally sprint through... it messed up my pace, took my focus off the goal, basically completely threw me off track and knocked precious seconds off my time. That huge something happened to be a native Iraqi jackrabbit that was nearly the size of me.

So... how many bunnies has the devil thrown into your spiritual walk recently?

Anyway, one of the most difficult things that I must deal with here is the homesickness... and the constant reminder, in the form of not-so-friendly explosive projectiles falling from the sky, that I might not make it home. I’ve been reminded over the past few days that no matter where I am or what I’m going through, God is always here with me... and no matter how far I get from that physical location that I call home, the one who cares about me the most is here with me now.

Is this the whole picture?
Or is it just the start?
Is this the way You love me?
You're capturing my heart

I used to try and walk alone
But I've begun to grow
And when You tell me just to rest
I'm finally letting go

I'm seeing so much clearer
Looking through Your eyes
I could never find a safer place
Even if I tried

All the times I've needed You
You've never left my side
I'm clinging to Your every word
Don't ever let me go

I'm here to stay, nothing can separate us
You cradle me gently, wrapped in Your arms
I'm home
-Fireflight-

Three Times Denied

As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.”
-Romans 9:33-

Is this one for the people?
Is this one for the Lord?
Or do I simply serenade
The things I must afford?

You can jumble them together
My conflict still remains
Holiness is calling
In the midst of courting fame

I see the trust in their eyes
Though the sky is falling
They need Your love in their lives
Compromise is calling

Father, please forgive me
For I cannot compose
The fear that lives within me
Or the rate at which it grows

If struggle has a purpose
On the narrow road You've carved
Why do I dread my trespasses
Will leave a deadly scar?

Do they see the fear in my eyes?
Are they so revealing?
This time I cannot disguise
All the doubt I'm feeling

What if I stumble?
What if I fall?
What if I lose my step
And I make fools of us all?

Will the love continue
When my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble
And what if I fall?

I hear You whispering my name
You say "My love for you will never change"

What if I stumble, what if I fall?
You never turn in the heat of it all
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
You are my comfort and my God
-dcTalk-

Well, I started writing this a couple of weeks ago in the middle of a night on a cot in Baghdad. At the time, I found myself digging through Luke, back to a passage I’d heard a few weeks ago back in Oklahoma. It was a message on being committed... and the cost of that commitment for those who were truly dedicated.

Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.”

And Jesus said to Him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

Then he said to another, “Follow me.”

But he said to another, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”

Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”

And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.”

But Jesus also said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
-Luke 9:57-62-

Three men approach Jesus wishing to follow Him and become His disciples... yet all three are denied. Why, and what can I learn from that?

Each of the men wanted to maintain a hold on specific parts of their life and were not willing to commit wholeheartedly to Him. God desires ALL of us or none of us.

The first man boldly proclaims that he wants to follow Jesus wherever they are going. Jesus responds by pointing out that neither He or any of His disciples had homes of their own, and that any who desired to follow Him must give up such things that many consider necessary. The first man says that he’ll follow Christ to the ends of the earth, but he turns away when he hears that the cost of following Christ is denying himself. Many people during this period of time believed that Christ had come to earth to establish a physical (though temporary) kingdom there. This man likely imagined that he would do well to be with Jesus as he established this kingdom. I don’t think many of us pursue Christ solely for material gain... but when the cost of total commitment is the physical (temporary!) objects and belongings that we hold onto in this world, it becomes a sacrifice that many of us are not willing to make.

The second man is actually called by Jesus to follow Him, but instead lets his love for his family delay his desire to follow Christ. In my brief amount of studying, this man’s reply has several different interpretations. I’m no scholar and I should probably enlist my sister’s knowledge of Greek here but... I’ll give it a go. From what I have read, it makes the most sense during this period of time... if his father had already died, he would have already been involved in the burial procedure. It appears more likely to me that his father was near death and this man wanted to wait until his father passed away, before he left to follow Jesus.

Our love and desire for Him should be so much that our love for our family looks like hatred in comparison. Jesus tells the man to let the (spiritually) dead bury the (physically) dead, but instead he allows his love for his family to weaken his love for Christ; and puts off pursuit of the eternal kingdom of God for a temporary relationship with his father.

The third man, much like the second, also let family ties interfere, “Lord, I will follow Thee; but...” Anybody seeing anything wrong with this statement? When a loving farewell gets in the way of obeying Christ, it becomes sin. The third man would be looking back instead of ahead, his heart never wholly with Christ; hence Jesus’ comment on plowing and never looking back.

At the time that these men attempted to join Jesus, He was on His way to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, He would be flogged, mocked, crucified, and finally take on the sins of the world and be separated from God the Father, ultimately conquering the grave and resurrecting three days later. This is the one most crucial point of time that defines all of history, and God would have used any of these three men during this period... if only they had been willing to totally commit themselves. Instead, they chose to hold onto temporary relationships and objects.

None of us know what God has in store for each and every one of us when we dedicate our lives, possessions, relationships, everything completely to Him and for Him.

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.”

Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
-Luke 14:25-35-

The Vices of a Sinless City

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in men.
-Psalm 118:8-

Feeling cold, feeling empty, set the stage where you want me
And this crowd right before me, doesn't care that I'm dying

And the audience stands with their eyes fixed
On this preconceived notion of me
I'm so betrayed by your hopes
But I will not hide myself for your peace of mind

Raise a boy to be a cynic
Take his love and then let it
Turn into something passionate
Something sick, something rabid

And I want to keep myself from caving
I don't hate you, I just hate where I'm heading
I'm left here asking, when did I trade in
My bleeding heart for a selfish win?

Oh but mother, I've got vices like any other man
Vices that you're not used to
Vices that'll make you think less of me

Leave me numb, leave me jaded
She's a dream, I just play dead
I've been blessed, I've been hated
She's the constant and I'm her addict

She's the only peace in my world
I'm uneasy while I bite my tongue
To keep from breaking the heart
That I've spent my whole life seeking
The only heart I've ever needed

Oh but lover, I've got vices like any other man
Vices that you're not used to
Vices that'll make you think less of me

Feeling cold, feeling empty, I am low and unworthy
Bleed the God, bleed the blessing, like a vulture feasting
I'll exist as if I don't feel conviction
Of my ignorance to my perfect prison
But I feel the stabs on my wrists and ankles
Every time I try to forget You

Oh but Jesus, I've got vices like any other man
Vices that You're so used to
Vices that won't make You think less of me
-Dead Poetic-

I arrived back in Iraq after brief travels through Hungary and Kuwait, despite being stranded in Baghdad for five days because of rain. In the desert. See, you quote Isaiah about streams in the desert and look what happens.

As with any Christian, I have spiritual speaks and valleys in my life, and I can already feel the next downhill tug. The isolation out here after experiencing Passion in Dallas feels more like a train wreck or crash, so perhaps ‘tug’ is no the correct choice of words.

I have been working on a few more substantial entries from my Bible studies and quiet time to put on here later. I have felt horribly conflicted as I am writing one entry on being totally committed to Christ. While writing that entry, I keep allowing myself to be pulled away by other distractions, other things to be done, games to play, movies to watch. Convenient, eh? When you read this entry later, please, please, please know that I write this entry for myself more than anybody else. I wish I was completely devoted to Christ above and beyond any other person or thing in my life... but though I strive for that goal, I constantly slip, fall and fail.

Please be in prayer for me as I work on finishing the above mentioned entry; and as I go about resuming my day-to-day routine in Kut that I’ll set aside time for God to move in and through me, and that all these distractions I face will fall by the wayside as I turn and trust in Him and only Him.

Anyway, back home from leave. With the guys. This is normally a joyous, back-slapping adventure into machoism as each soldier returning from R&R takes turns swapping stories of how they spent their entire time on leave high, drunk, and hung over. Did I miss something somewhere?

“Man, I was so wasted, I don’t remember anything about my leave since I got off the plane!” Yes, that’s great... and I should be excited for you, because... A few guys notice my blank stares at the madness unveiling itself before my eyes.

Ah, here it comes. “Well, Dawkins, what about you?” Yes, this; a part of me had been dreading this since I stepped on that plane en route over the Atlantic once more.

The average soldier has a rather funny perception of a religious person in the Army, particularly those who have been obviously born and raised in a church environment. They seem to believe that as soon as these religious few step out into the world with “Pandora’s Box” before them, that they’ll go diving in and never look back.

This degrading insult of my faith and character has followed me through every step of the Army. In Basic and AIT, it was ‘guaranteed’ that before graduation that I would be sleeping around, drinking the bars dry, and cursing like a sailor - like everyone else. When I first arrived in Korea, my roommate merely looked at me in disbelief when I told him that I did not drink. “We’ll see how long that lasts...”

But above any other event in a soldier’s military career, here is the pinnacle of the hurdle. If ever there was a time to go out and just be stupid, this was it. Two weeks of leave in the middle of a fifteen month deployment to a combat zone. I suppose it is easier to live without regrets when you know when you’re one unlucky mortar round impact from leaving this world.

Oh yes, my story is glamorous. I went home on leave from Iraq on my 21st birthday. I watched the Super Bowl on a 92-inch screen, interrupted only by a brief game of foosball with my dad at halftime. I opened the door for my mom at a half-dozen restaurants as I was treated to all of my favorites. I drove four hours to Marshall and sat through a two-hour choir concert just to see my sister for a few more minutes before flying back. I probably spent an hour on the phone (a miracle in itself- you all know how I feel about talking on the phone) watching new episodes of The Office with my best friend in Mississippi. After skipping through half the CD, I finally got a Demon Hunter song stuck in yet another friend’s head, lol. I had joyous and exuberant moments, I felt broken and lonely at others. I was plagued with anxious thoughts, awkward times, embarrassing pauses. Through all of the peaks and all of the valleys, for better or worse, I truly relished in every moment... I really lived!

I didn’t consume a drop of alcohol, I didn’t run out and have gratuitous sex. I remember every second that I was awake for those few weeks. I never woke up dry heaving on the side of some foreign toilet, never caved into the thoughts of the jabs and peer pressure awaiting my overseas return... and I wouldn’t change a thing.

But how do you explain this to a group of young men bloodthirsty for tales of lust and debauchery? Well, you start by just trying. Some returned the same clueless blank stare that I gave them earlier, they don’t get it. I sense admiration in some of my closer friends. I see a nod here and there from a couple of the guys that I’ve had a few theological debates with and they don’t seem to be surprised at what I’m sharing. I wonder how many of them are calling me a fruitcake right now... (Inside joke from Passion, sorry)

For better or worse, I seem to be viewed in a different light around the unit. Suddenly, I’m a target for our devoted atheist/agnostic/anti-anything-worth-arguing-against group. Perhaps wore, I’m held on a pedestal by the believers around me. This isn’t what I wanted, I never would have wished for this. I’m getting to that entry about being completely devoted to Christ, so I want to at least clarify this for those reading one last time before you get to it - I’m not perfect! I’m just as human as you, I make mistakes just like everybody else.

It’s one thing to set an example for others, but suddenly I feel like people look to me as though I’m infallible. Nobody could possibly live up to expectations like those except Jesus. I worry that I’ll let down others and hurt the few believers that I have surrounded myself with. I pray they’ll understand that hope and faith should be placed in Christ and Christ alone, who will never fail you. Putting your faith in people only leads to disappointment... and those people shouldn’t have to deal with the pressure, weight, and scars that come when others look to them as this world’s sinless answer.

In this sinless city, wear callouses on our hands
Empty, vain and shaking, we see the guilt has left again
And all will fall, with or without arguing
So we'll fool them all, we'll pray for those that never will

Never been much for pity
Never been much for wishing them well
Though I cannot help but sever
The ties they tied so tight, so well

And on one side, they're holding on to what we were
And here we are, holding the hands that we severed
And we both let go, over and over again

Don't say this isn't what you're used to
I've seen followers like you
I've let down far worse than you

The fire burns like cancer, the scarring lasts forever
We all play tricks on fools who see us as their sinless answer
-Dead Poetic-

Safe Haven

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
-Isaiah 43:18-19-

I'm just a stranger here, despite your everything
I'm not attached to your world of disease
Like Father always said, and I can only agree
They will hate you because they always hated me

And even though I feel alone
I know that we could never be

If it's a choice between this veil of ecstasy
And all the lonely suffering of seeing so clearly
If I've said it once, I'll say it twice, say it eternally
I'll find all the comfort that I need inside this bleeding
-Project 86

I have been in the Army for three years now, having enlisted during my senior year of high school (a story in itself right there). I have been deployed to Iraq since April 2007 and I am currently on leave from there. After seventeen days of being back home and driving across Texas visiting family and friends, I am flying back on Friday morning. I will remain in Iraq through this summer.

One of the things I was able to do on leave was to go to the Passion ’08 Regional Conference in Dallas, Texas. I had been planning on this for a while and brought three friends from Oklahoma with me, as well as met my sister and her boyfriend there. I came away with a lot from the conference, but I wanted to highlight the biggest things here.

I experienced something very similar to culture shock this past weekend. You have to understand that for 22 of the past 27 months I have lived overseas in Korea and Iraq. My experience with Army chaplains has been horrible... I have seen both chaplains and their aides lying in the middle of the street drunk, and cussing out fellow soldiers, and making lewd remarks and jokes, and cheating on their wives, amongst a number of other activities that most would simply find unbelievable. I have a tremendous amount of respect for those who have been called into ministry and decided to do so as a chaplain in the Army... unfortunately, most seem to only take the job because they see it as an easy way to make a living.

For the majority of the past couple of years now, I have gotten by with DVD’s of messages from churches here in the states, CD’s from my grandfather (retired nearly a decade ago, but still works as an interim Baptist preacher in Alabama) and some of his sermons. I have allowed myself to become spiritually stagnant and yet, I have put it all off on hypocritical Christians, chaplains, and the dismal company that I have found myself keeping over the past two years. However, I am now convinced that this condescending view that I have had of my surroundings has done more damage to me than perhaps anything else. Somewhere in all these negative thoughts of the atmosphere that I find myself in, I lost sight of the prize I was running for and settled for just coasting towards the finish. But, more on my complacency later.

Imagine not going to church, not having fellowship with other Christians, only praying on occasion, and opening your Bible once or twice a week when you feel like it. This pattern continues for the better part of two years. Then you come home and attend a Passion conference of all things... there’s that culture shock that I was talking about. I went from an environment where I have no close friends (much less Christian friends) to a place where I am suddenly worshipping and praising my Savior with 6,000 other people.

It all started the Wednesday before though. Back home in Lawton for a few days, I made it to my former church home for the Wednesday night college Bible study. I honestly cannot tell you what the message was about now, but I left with the verse Matthew 26:40 impressed upon me.

Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.
-Matthew 26:40-

After reading this, I stumbled upon Psalm 51. For those not familiar with it, it was written by David after he was convicted by Nathan for committing adultery with Bathsheba.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.
-Psalms 51:10-12-

And so going into this Passion conference weekend, my prayer had been that God would renew a steadfast spirit within me. I had allowed my desire for Him to be overcome by the things of this world, and I was ready to turn around and never look back. Saturday morning, Francis gave a message on the Holy Spirit that was right in line with what God had already been showing me for a few days.

So many of us (myself included) belittle the Spirit... we just do not get it. I feel like dancing around the stage like Francis did while he was trying to get his message across to us. The Almighty God of the entire universe lives inside of you! But no... I don’t drink, I don’t cuss, I’m just an all around nice guy. I can’t witness to my boss, he might make fun of me. Daily prayer and quiet time? I worked for fourteen hours today, I don’t have time for that. Maybe tomorrow, Lord. Relationships? Well, tell you what, let me handle this one God, thanks though. Hello? Has anybody out there been as clueless and tuned out as I have over the past couple years? The Almighty God of the universe lives inside of me!

So, there’s my wake up call. I truly feel as though something inside of me has been renewed. Naturally, following Passion, the first thing I did was to start digging through the Passion website. I had never listened to a Passion podcast before, but I now have 25 of them sitting on my iPod waiting to be played for the twenty some-odd number of hours I have to sit on a plane on Friday. After the conference and returning to Lawton, I was driving from Lawton back down to Houston; and I could not help but go ahead and listen to one of the podcasts. For whatever reason, I picked the Boston podcast.

In the podcast, Louie mentions on multiple occasions that the Boston people were ‘spiritually leaning forward’, painting the picture of a crowd on the edge of their seats the entire conference. It truly is a beautiful image, and one that I associate very closely with. You see, I have been sitting in Iraq eased back carelessly in my seat; and suddenly, I’m in Dallas on Saturday knowing that a week from that day, I would be on a plane to Kuwait where I will not attend a formal church service until I’m back in the states in July. I knew how those Boston people felt. They could not believe that they were there, that this conference was happening for them, and they have no idea when or if another opportunity like this will occur.

As I listened to the podcast in my car, I began to grow excited. Louie addresses the Boston crowd on several occasions, and I find myself closely identifying with almost everything he says to them. Finally, he prays for them and closes with a verse.

So, it is with a heavy heart today that I return to my military regulation haircut and start gathering my stuff to pack... but something is different this time as I prepare to fly out in a couple days. Hah, it feels like I am going to war. Well, duh... but there’s a spiritual war much closer to the surface that I can sense now. I sense a new hunger that can only be quenched by feeding this growing flame inside of me, I have the Holy Spirit, and I have a promise from the God of all creation that He will provide water in the desert and He will provide streams in the wasteland and He will do so for His people.

Just crawl across this desert heat
And become tragic with me
And now that we are not alone
You know that we could never be

Nobody knows, nobody cares
Nobody sees outside our safe haven
We will live again
Alone and so content
-Project 86-

A Broken Upper Hand

Even though the devil may have an upper hand on our thoughts and action from time to time, we, with the power of God, have the ability to resist these temptations and remind the devil of his brokenness in contrast to the power of God.
-Ryan Clark-

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear.
-I Corinthians 10:13-

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a Passion conference. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and a large reason for the inspiration of this website... definitely a spiritual high along a journey of peaks and valleys. But, I ran into a bit of a Passion conference killjoy very quickly after last weekend. One thing after another went wrong on my way home. My sister was in the emergency room and I was not sure what type of condition she was in. I visited my grandmother in Austin who is suffering from lung cancer and she’s not doing well... you could tell from her actions and some things she said that she does not expect to see me again before she dies. I desperately needed somebody, anybody to talk to... I called a few numbers. Nobody picked up here, a busy signal there. As I became frustrated, depression slowly started sinking in. I am not even back in Iraq yet and everybody has already moved on. Here I am, isolated and by myself all over again.

So much for completely depending on God to get me through everything. Am I really that feeble minded that I forget everything I have learned over the weekend and fall into a slump like that?

I do not know who will read this, I do not even know if anybody will read this. Maybe months down the road, somebody will stumble upon it and read some of my experiences and that’ll help them somehow. I am not sure, but some sort of outlet where I can ramble on a little about whatever is happening seems like it’d help these feelings of loneliness and isolation that constantly overwhelm me.

So, here goes nothing. I have only one close relative who has served in the Army, and that is my grandfather. He served as a Lieutenant in the Korean War and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. He is the one family member that I would love most to share stories of my military experiences with and ask him questions about different things that I go through. However, he passed away in October 2001, long before I developed any ambitions to join the military and travel the world.

His wife (and obviously my grandmother) is dealing with lung cancer right now and not doing well. When I was discussing joining the military with my family, she supported me above and beyond any other family member, save perhaps my parents. Maybe she felt some sort of obligation because of my grandfather and maybe she felt that is what he would have wanted. Maybe she, like my parents, saw it as God’s will with the way everything fell into place at the last moment. Whatever the reason, she will always have my gratitude for that support when not a lot of others did.

As I said goodbye, perhaps for the last time, I had to thank her one last time for that support. With a content smile and tears running down her face, she said that she wished my grandfather was still around to tell me how proud he was of me, and said buttons would be busting off his shirt from his chest swelling with pride. As an afterthought she added, “Well, I guess he has actually got the best seat in the house watching you now.”

As I walked away, I began wondering what that would be like, just being able to have a fly-on-the-wall sort of perspective over somebody’s life... just watch as they do whatever it is that they do. That is sort of the perspective that I want to present for whoever reads this. The ins-and-outs of a normal and flawed person’s mind whose faith rests completely in Christ Jesus. I hope you all learn something from the struggles and experiences to come. Please forgive me ahead of time for my failures... I’m not perfect, only forgiven.

Words can't kill the light inside of me
Words that tear me from the hate that binds me
Your face brings out the hate that rots me
The face of every day that haunts me

I can't pull away my blank stare
A thousand times should prove I don't care
But hands can't steal the light that makes me
Or bring me to the fate that breaks me

You'll never fade me out, you'll never turn me off
You'll never reach the end, never hear enough
Your half-grasp can't exterminate my stand
You can't rule with a broken upper hand
-Demon Hunter-