Grace

And so, without a doubt, every decision comes down to a simple choice regarding the employment of our own character: Grace?

It is free, though it isn't deserved. The producer pays the consumer. And, because it is not "just" that one should receive what is not rightfully theirs, nor what should ever be theirs, we fail. We deny grace to such a degree that the undeserved act itself is deserved more than we are willing to reward it. 

It isn't a battle over Love v. Hate, but rather over Something v. Nothing. We don't breed evil, but neither do we breed good. We have a choice to be boiling hot or to be simply warm- a state of being which neither kills nor debilitates the bacteria of our lives; a state of being which allows the evil around us to feed on the flesh of those who allowed its very existence. No, the choice we make to deny grace is not evil or wrong, but it allows evil and wrong to coexist amongst goodness, and is therefore not by any means "right."

We choose to pay only whatever forced gratuity that comes at dinner. A bigger tip isn't necessary, they get exactly what they "should" get.  It's not about right or wrong, because it's not wrong to do the bare minimum, but we could do better. Maybe the waitress was bad, so the tip was the minimum. 

What if the waitress isn't a waitress, but instead a single mom, stressed because she's 20 dollars short for her rent today. Stressed that there's no way to buy her son new shoes as his wear into nothingness. Maybe on any other day or in any other life situation she would have been a wonderful waitress, but because so many have failed to show her grace she is in the situation she is in today. And so, the question is still: Grace? 

We do have a choice. Give more than we should give. Take less than we need take. Boil away the bacteria; suffocate it. 50% tips to undeserving waitresses. Money or food to the impoverished drunkard who's life is in ruin because of bad choices he himself has made. There is no place for doing what is "just" as a human being, we should never provide only what "should" be provided, because "just" is just "just."We can always go beyond what is necessary, give more than we have to, reward those who don't deserve or expect a reward, Love when hated, Love when ignored. More goes on that what we see, as the bad waitresses gets evicted, her child's feet contract diseases, the poor man takes his own life. We have a choice. Learn to Love-Grace the world.

Equally Skilled

This is a new song out by Jon Foreman (lead singer of Switchfoot).... It's straight outta Romans, straight Gospel. Just want to share the lyrics :-)

How miserable I am

I feel like a fruit-picker who arrives after the harvest

There's nothing here at all

Nothing at all here that could placate my hunger

The Godly people are all gone

There's not one honest soul left here on the planet

We're all murderers and thieves

Setting traps here for even our brothers

And both of our hands are equally skilled

At doing evil, equally skilled

At bribing the judges, equally skilled

At perverting Justice...

Both of our hands, both of our hands.

The day of justice comes

And is even now swiftly arriving

Don't trust anyone at all

Not your best friend or even your wife

For the son hates the father

The daughter despises even her mother

Look Your enemies are right

Right in the room of your very houshold

And both of their hands are equally skilled

At doing evil, equally skilled

At bribing the judges, equally skilled

At perverting justice

Both of their hands, both of their hands

No, don't gloat over me

For though I fall, though I fall, I will rise again

Though I sit here in darkness, the Lord, the Lord alone- He will be my light

I will be patient as the Lord punishes me for the wrongs I've done against Him

After that He'll take my case bringing me to light and to justice for all I have suffered

And both of His hands are equally skilled

At ruining evil, equally skilled

At judging the judges, equally skilled

Administering justice...

Both of His hands...

Both of His hands are equally skilled

At showing me mercy, equally skilled

At Loving the Loveless, equally skilled

Administering Justice....

Both of His hands, both of His hands.

Kenneth

Since this Loved & Loving project is in effect, at least to some degree, I'm trying to practice what I preach. I don't claim to be the most Loving person on the face of the planet or at APU, in fact I'm among the most closed off at times. So I've been making an effort to do what I say. Here's what the goal of all this is:

To Love our community that is APU by acknowledging and reaching out to each other.

To Love our community that is the world. To reach the broken and Love all people. 

The means are this:

Say hello to people you see and be willing to talk to them and care about them....


It seems like a modest goal, a small thing. I wanted to share with all of the possibilities of just saying "Hi" to a stranger. I hope this isn't scary:


I was walking to my apartment when I saw a man walking towards me. He was in his late 30's, hispanic, nicely dressed, holding a beer. I said "Hi!" and he said "Are you studying Christian Theology?"

I said Hi, and we ended up talking for an hour right outside of Bowles. I won't get into the details of the conversation now, but tonight I made a friend. I think he needed an outlet to talk, and I think he needed to hear what I had to say, and that I needed to hear what he had to say. After an hour I prayed with him, gave him a hug, a handshake, and my email address. We showed Love to each other and we talked about how we could show Love to others.

Kenneth is a broken man, just like anyone else. He's in his late 30's/early 40's and he's been divorced. He definitely wasn't sober (which at times made conversation difficult). He's angry at a lot of things in the world, but we agreed on at LEAST one thing: Jesus is God, Jesus is our Savior, Jesus is Love. We both felt like the two things went hand in hand. 

Tonight I met Kenneth, we had a wonderful conversation. He's my friend and I Love him. I know that tonight, God brought Kenneth and I together and I wanted to share that with all of you. 


Say "Hi", it really does mean more than you think.

We're all broken and we all need Love...