Hey God

Praying is one of the things that I love to do. Yet, at the same time, I am self-conscious about it at time when I pray out loud in front of others. Now, I know that I shouldn't feel self-conscious because after all, a prayer should be just a conversation between you and God. Yet I have always felt that at times, my prayers just aren't good enough.

An example of this happened just the other day. As I was about to pray over someone, one of my friends whispered in my ear, "don't start out with 'Hey God'. It's inappropriate." Now, at first I was thrown off course because if you have ever heard me pray before then you know I almost always start it out by saying 'Hey God'. That comment really got my mind racing through thoughts and questions that I had. It made me feel like I had been right about my prayers not being good enough. Not to worry, my friend later apologized and explained to me what he really meant. Yet, it had sparked that curiosity to know.

Yet, God works in awesome ways and when He wants to know something, He makes dang sure that you know what it is. I have never been one to make fanciful and wordy prayers just cause I feel like it's not necessary. After all, you're just having a conversation with your Dad. Not only that, but one of the things that annoys me the most is being legalistic. Jesus hated it and preached against it. I hate it when I catch myself being legalistic and I hate when Christianity being represented as a high form of legalism.

Legalism means an excessive adherence to law or rule. Christianity is not based on law. That's what sets it apart from any other religion. It's core concept is LOVE. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to LOVE God and LOVE people. If you do those two things, then everything else will fall into place. Now, I'm not saying that it is wrong to pray a certain way that is different than the way I pray. What I'm saying is that you shouldn't feel like you need to impress God by having these 'respectful' prayers and following all these random rules because the reality is that YOU CAN'T. No one can. We are pathetic, imperfect humans and He is an awesome, perfect God. We will always fall short of His glory.

God already knows what's on your heart, so there's no need to not say something out loud. Of course, there are times where saying certain things is inappropriate to maybe those around you but NEVER to God. He is the BEST friend you will ever have so why not treating Him like one? He knows everything about you already.

Rule-keeping like being 'modest' by saying "dear Heavenly Father" in a prayer because you think that being informal with Him is inappropriate is not necessary at all. You do not need to make yourself look good before Him. Be broken and on your knees. As Christ-followers, we have been crucified with Christ. Our ego no longer matters. We are no longer divinely driven to impress God because Christ lives in us. It's that LOVE that makes us righteous before God, not our own deeds.

As Galatians 2:20 puts it, if living a relationship with God could come by keeping rules, then Christ died unnecessarily.

Miracle Grow

This summer has been quite an interesting one. I say this mostly because God has shown Himself to me in the coolest ways possible. Think of this as an update on Ed's life.

Ever since the end of the school year, I have been attending Lifepoint Church. For those of you who may not know stuff about Lifepoint, it's an awesome place where God is moving CONSTANTLY. Never in my life have I seen such awesome love being shared with everyone, even with those that don't attend.

I quickly realized how friendly everyone was that I decided to try and see if I could get connected with serving there. I eventually got connected with their children's ministry and lifegroups (small groups) through Jesse McCarl, one of the best friends that I will ever have.

Just by helping out, I have been able to see how God works in the most random ways. I have been given the privilege of leading a small group of 7th grade guys during the week and let me tell you, those kids are on fire! They are talking about stuff that I didn't even think about talking to anyone about until recently. I am so honored that I get to pour into their lives.

Helping out at the children's ministry has also been a huge blessing. I can't even begin to explain how many opportunities God has put on my plate with this one. I have been able to become a small group leader for the 4th & 5th graders, help with production during the kids' service and even led worship!

God has given me such a passion for serving that I have seized every single opportunity and done work!

The reality is that God was placing all of this stuff in front of me for quite some time, I was just too blind to notice it. Being the human that I am, I had managed to bury myself in a bottomless pit. But God decided to send people into my life with some shovels and a little bit of Miracle Grow.

I am so thankful for these people who have become the kind of friends that last a lifetime. It just shows how awesomely in love God is with us.

And guess what? He's not done working in me yet...

there's a bigger story to this but that's for another day.

Love - pt. 1

What is love?

This is a question that many philosophers, scientists, psychologists and people in general throughout history have struggled to answer. The answers that have surfaced have only led us to even more questions. The truth is, defining love is an extremely hard thing to do.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg developed a theory, called the Triangular Theory of Love, in which love can be classified into three different types:

• Intimacy - the feeling of closeness, connectedness and bonding
• Passion - romance, physical attraction, and sexual consummation
• Commitment - pretty self-explanatory; the drive to stick together for an extended period of time (most of the time being the rest of your life)

Now, according to Sternberg, any combination (including each one of them by themselves) of these results in different types of 'love'; e.g. a combination of intimacy and commitment makes up the love that best friends have for each other, infatuated love comes from a love that is full of passion and a combination of all three make up a consummate love; the 'perfect' love.

Many theologians and pastors have also come up with a similar theory explaining love. This past weekend, the pastor of Lifepoint Church, Jeff Kapusta, talked about this. Coming from the terms that the ancient Greeks used to describe love, it is also composed of three different types:

• Eros - the passionate and intimate love; the erotic love.
• Phileo (or Philia) - the brotherly, companionate love; the BFF love.
• Agape - the unconditional and selfless love; the Crazy Love.

Eros and Phileo love tend to be the easiest to achieve and show. They are embedded into our human nature and are the most common in our lives, thus explaining why we can show these with such ease. Agape love is a whole 'nother story.

In short, Agape love is a love that lacks any condition or requirement and is completely altruistic; an unconditional and selfless love. The best everyday example of this can be seen in the love that a parent feels for their child; they will always love and be there for their child, no matter what their kid does. Yet, still, this is not true for everyone, since many people view their father or mother as someone who they would just rather forget.

The average person might view this love as nonsensical, irrational and crazy and they have a point; who in their right mind would care enough about someone else without there being the incentive of receiving something back in return. After all, we all have selfish desires and it would make sense to do something for someone expecting something in return (money, attention, recognition, fame, love, etc.). Yet this Love, this Crazy and nonsensical Love, is the very essence of what true Life is.

This Love tells the story of a Father. A Father who unconditionally loved his only Son. A Father who considered his Son the apple of His eye, the Light of His world, His everything. Yet this Father was able to enact the ultimate sacrifice. He selflessly gave up his beloved Son in order to save a people who were suffering due to their own harmful tendencies. He did what no parent in their right mind would ever do: let his Son die so that others would be spared. This irrational Love proved to be the most powerful form of love that humanity has ever seen. This was indeed a Crazy Love.

This Crazy Love comes from a Father that selflessly loves each and every single one of His children. A Love that reaches those who know Him and those who don't know him yet.

A Crazy Love that God pours out onto His people every second of every minute of every hour of every day. A Love that we can barely even begin to fathom. A Love that is Life itself.

So, how in the world, as mere humans, are we to handle this Crazy Love?

Is this what love is?

Paparazzi

Today was a great day.

For anyone who read my last blog entry, this one won't be as long so don't worry because I'm making it reader-friendly. Anyways, today was actually a bit cooler than other days (and not temperature wise, even though it was actually pleasurable weather for a cloudy day).

I ended up falling asleep at 3:30 am last night due to trying to get a cool-looking template up on here, in which I succeeded. I woke up at 9 and my eyes were killing me. Due to my allergies, my eyes discharge this yellowish snot-like things and when I don't get them off, they crust. I ended up having a very crusty left eye (my right eye was fine). I couldn't even open it so I went and hopped in the shower and stood with my face to the shower-head at full blast. It felt good. It felt so good that I actually fell asleep in the shower. I awoke and realized that I had spent way too much time just standing there so I did the typical shower stuff and quickly hopped out. When I came back to my room, I saw that I had taken a 35 minute shower. Oops. I saw that my phone had the weekly Hump Day text from Jesse but I was too busy to end up responding to the joke he had asked a question to. I ended up shoving a poptart into my mouth and washing it down with some OJ then quickly brushing my teeth and busting out of Cornerstone. Luckily I made it on time to my math class, which was the only class that I had to go to today due to one of my professors canceling class because he was celebrating the end of Passover and I simply didn't go to my social psych class.

The day went by as usual that is until I get a text from Dylan saying that Hilary Duff (aka Lizzie) was on campus shooting a movie. Come to think about it, I did see a ton of cables laying around on the grass in front of the building that my math class was in. I decided to ride my bike to Morton and take a look. I noticed that there was a film crew and a ton of equipment but I did not see any one famous, all I saw was that a ton of people were walking through the columns between Leutze and Morton and that a couple of people were shouting 'KEEP WALKING!!'.

I had to get off my bike and walk it through between the columns because I didn't know what was going on. I stumbled to get through until I walked past a blonde girl with a blue dress with flowers on it. It was Lizzie.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not some crazed Hilary Duff fan but I thought that was neat. I'm not one to drool over celebrities (after all, they are just people) but this was cool since I remember watching her show (yes I'll admit it, I watched Lizzie McGuire).

As I walked past her, the people that were screaming order told everyone to move away because they were done filming that scene with people walking around. I stuck around because I was curious to see how the filming of a movie was done. It was pretty cool but nothing too big. I saw that Daniel Cuthbertson was there, so I went to say hey to him. He was trying to figure out how to zoom in on his phone so that he could take a picture. I remembered that I still had my camera in my bookbag as he was saying that. I took it out and tried to zoom in but sadly this was all I ended up taking a picture of:

Daniel got the idea of walking through Leutze and stepping out the sidedoor to try to see if we could get closer. We went in and it worked haha. So, now there I was 30 feet away from this famous blonde girl who I really couldn't care much for (all I really wanted to do was shout "LIZZIE!!!"). I ended up whipping my camera out and snapping a couple of shots for the people who kept on texting me to take a picture for them. It was a bit cool because I felt like I was a paparazzi (even though those people are the scum of the earth in the entertainment world). I didn't really feel bad that I was one amongst the 30 other people taking pictures of the actors because I thought, 'hey, they are used to it, right?'. The filming came to an end after the little boy actor wouldn't act the scene right, and when the director said it's over, it was over. The stuff was torn down within five minutes but I did manage to get one more picture of Lizzie:

After the Lizzie event, I went back to my dorm to take a nice long nap. After waking up from my nap (with crusty eyes again) I went to eat dinner and it was pretty standard. It is always fun to go eat with my friends because they really do make my life much more enjoyable. After dinner, I chilled in my room for about an hour and a half. I sat in my desk chair for a bit and realized that today had been a pretty tight day (and it wasn't because Lizzie had come to visit). I realized that the weather today was not the best one in the world, yet God can make a clammy and cloudy day seem as beautiful as a sunny day with a high of 75. I thank Him for such hidden beauty that is indescribable at times.

After a while, Fletch picked me up and we went to David's apartment to watch Lost. The episode was interesting but I have seen better ones. It was one of those where you can get distracted half-way into it and still come back and know what's going on. This was the highlight of my day because I came to realize that the friend I have made here at UNCW are amazing. At the beginning of the school year, I prayed to find a close group of friends, like I have back at home, and I knew that it was going to take time and effort from my part but also I had to trust that God was going to put people in my path. It has taken a while but tonight I had an epiphany. I realized that the group of people whom I call my friends were truly capable of holding said title. I am specially grateful for the group of guys that I have met down here (this is not to say that I am trying to downplay the girlies, so don't take it that way, you girlies are the best and you know who you are!). I know that bonds of friendship and brotherhood take time and shared experiences but I know I can count on these guys. I praise God for finally opening my eyes to what He had placed in front of me for the longest time but I was just so blind to see it. I'm really going to miss these people over summer break. All in all, today was one of the better days that I have seen in a while.

Okay so maybe I lied about making this blog entry reader-friendly, but hey, I love writing. I really wanted to major in Journalism but Psychology just clicked better with me. I really miss the days of publishing the beloved Rampant Lines but I am truly happy with my psych powers. They allow me to do crazy stuff like telepathy, force powers and VIP access to Narnia.

Just ask this cat:

Today was a great day.