beard crisis

There are times when my beard is uncertain...

some hair is like dry bones,

other hair grows like weeds in the yard.

...you know, because of the moles?

and there are those spots of drought

those desert expanses all about... blast them!

...it's then that I take control.

Reverberations still remain where uncertainty once abided.

Fear is the enemy.

Love is the victory.

I think everyone wants to win, but we don't know how.

message to a mentor

While seeking out where it originated, I found some pretty interesting thoughts on Lent from various sources

(the Restored Church of God's views gave me a bit of a laugh...

"Abomination Masked as Christianity

God is not the author of confusion (I Cor. 14:33). He never instituted Lent, a pagan observance connecting debauchery to the supposed resurrection of a false Messiah."

So angry and confusing in itself! It continued, but I think you get the point.)

But from what I got out of the other sources...
Lent's purpose is to help Christians return to living Christ centered lives through prayer, repentance, giving, and self-denial. The idea being, that as humans, we need the reminder to keep Christ first. And in self-denial, if we take the time each day to spend with God and reflect on our own suffering, we might better understand the suffering and temptation Christ went through.

While this did lead me to want to honor God in this way, I'm not participating in the exact same way. My conviction is now to spend the next 40 days examining where I am lacking submission to God. To seek out where Andrew is being glorified and not God, and reverse it. I'm not sure what I will deny myself at the moment, but I'm sure there will be things I discover which are hindering my walk with Christ and I shall deny myself these things.

Where it all started is still a little fuzzy for me though. The internet isn't all to clear on some things. From what I'm gathering it wasn't a first century Christian tradition... but started some time later (5th century maybe?).

...I'm sure you have some knowledge on the matter ;)

I am still frustrated with what peoples offerings have become and how uninvolved the 40 days are. But I suppose that's a passion that God can use to build something more of the time in the years to come.

-Andrew Nycum

lent

Andrew

Well, as I see it. Lent has become a Christian pop culture phenomenon. People asking openly, "what are you giving up?" and bragging about what they are giving up. Most of what is given up is no great sacrifice. No humbling thing that brings a greater understanding of the suffering of Christ's offering. The religious tradition of lent is now a Christian op-out. A luke-warm submission to Christ... Granted, there are, I'm sure, a few out there who actually choose to suffer greatly, but the general market does not. And marti gras? Are you serious world? Let's be like the Jews when Moses left to Mt. Sinai and build a golden calf, get drunk and have sex! Then we'll have something fun to remember when we're 'suffering'.

all of this observation led me to look at it's history

which i'm still looking into

7:51pmHenry

okay

i feel the same way you do

7:51pmAndrew

and i'm sure that like the word 'christian' itself... the religious tradition of lent was once something God honoring and the true Christians of the world need to take it back

there are a couple others who do as well

7:52pmHenry

for some reason i am disturbed by people saying i am giving pop for lent

or i am giving facebook up for lent

7:53pmAndrew

absolutely

7:54pmAndrew

that's like offering a spotted lamb to God in the old testament

7:54pmHenry

exactly

7:55pmAndrew

i wasn't thinking much on it until the chapel today. it frustrated me

Mastery of wit and logic.

"For example, one man said to me, 'Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?' But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did - if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather - surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about the matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house."

-C.S. Lewis

If I were only so eloquent...

We were strangers, regret and I, our encounter is going to be difficult to get over.

Never knew it'd be so bad.

How great are you to still love me, God?

makes one think.

And, indeed, if we consider how much of our lives is taken up by the needs of nature; how many years are wholly spent, before we come to any use of reason; how many years more, before that reason is useful to us in any great purposes; how imperfect our discourse is made by our evil education, false principles, ill company, bad examples, and want of experience; how many parts of our wisest and best years are spent in eating and sleeping, in necessary businesses and unnecessary vanities, in worldly civilities and less useful circumstances, in the learning arts and sciences, languages, or trades; that little portion of hours that is left for practices of piety and religious walking with God, is so short and trifling, that, were not the goodness of God infinitely great, it might seem unreasonable or impossible for us to expect of him eternal joys in heaven, even after the well spending those few minutes which are left for God and God's service, after we have served ourselves and our own occasions.
And yet it is considerable, that the fruit of which comes from the many days of recreation and vanity is very little; and although we scatter much, yet we gather but little profit: but from the few hours we spend in prayer and the exercises of a pious life, the return is great and profitable; and what we sow in the minutes and spare portions of a few years, grows up to crowns and scepters in a happy and glorious eternity.