Sorry about my last two posts...

They were both cut short because the app on my phone decided it didn't want to stay open. It just closed and all the writing I did was gone.

Today I spoke in chapel at the school we have where I work. I talked to the youth about the most misused 4 letter word. L-O-V-E. I have talked, preached, read and written a lot about love in the past. Today I got to see some of the faces of people who had never considered that love wasn't about how someone else makes me feel.

First I asked all of them to come up with their own definition of love. What does love mean to each one of them. Then I let a few of them share their definition. The first one was really good. Actually all but one of the definitions that they gave were pretty good. The one that wasn't on the same level of the rest was that love is how you feel towards people you care about. Now remember that I am never saying that anyone has the wrong definition of love. What love is to you is up to you...I was just trying to show them that there is more involved than the fact that someone else makes me feel good when they're around so that is love.

We read 1 Cor. 13 and discussed it for a few minutes. Then I gave my definition of love. I told them that I think love is an act based on my character for the selfless promotion of someone else. It isn't based on what they say or do. It isn't based on what they can do for me. If I love you because you love me...that is easy. What about the person that doesn't love you? What about the person who isn't kind to you? The bigger question is can you walk in love towards someone who does something that is wrong to someone that you truly love. People all the time will talk about how you can say what you want about me, but as soon as you start talking about my family it is on! How is that love?

I believe in defending my family and friends. I will let you know you are not right if you start saying things that aren't true about the people I care about. But I am going to always do my best to walk in love with you just the same.

I know that walking in love is not easy. I also know that I am NOT the perfect example of love. All I am saying is that I am trying. I will continue to try. Today brought it all back up in front of my face. I hadn't studied love or anything really about love in a while. Walking in love is something that I want to be known for. I don't care what else I leave behind, I want people to see God's love in me. If that is all you know about me that is fine.

I'm wide awake...

I am laying here wide awake and I really shouldn't be. I know it is not even 10:00pm yet and I'm usually up for a couple more hours but...I worked out today and I haven't really been sleeping that well. I was tired so I layed down expecting to fall asleep...it didn't happen. So now you get the pleasure of reading another post written when I shouldn't even be awake.

I hate writing blogs on my phone. The paragraph above this one was the start to another post that got erased. I'm done with this app on my phone. I will write when I get a chance to sit down at a real computer.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wow...

I just lost a really long post. I was literally on the last line and my phone kicked me out. That is not cool...oh well. Life goes on. It was a post about making sure you tell your family and friends how much they mean to you, especially this time of year. Thank you to all my family and my amazing friends. I'm more blessed than anyone deserves and I appreciate each and every one of you, even if I don't always get a chance to tell you.

I'm now going to try to go to sleep. I will write again soon and next time I will save a few times during the post so I don't lose it all. :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Love...from my point of view...

(disclaimer: this post is coming from an application on my phone. Any words spelled wrong or the use of a word that doesn't make sense can be blamed on a combo of my own mistakes and the replacement of the word I was trying to spell by predictive text.)

Love from my perspective is what is on my mind. For those of you who follow my blog, you already know I have a girlfriend named Ashley. She is wonderful and today we have officially been together three months. I bring her up again because we recently told each other those three little words that change everything: I love you.

To some people saying I love you to your girlfriend/boyfriend is no big deal. To me it is a big deal. It is a big deal because of my definition of love.

I have a definition for love and I like my definition. I once asked 600 people (friends from myspace when myspace was my main social network) what love was to them. I got all kinds of different answers. Many seemed superficial, some seemed over spiritual, some seemed too simple and a few too complicated...in the end I did find some people who also shared my definition of love, or at least came close to agreeing with me.

What I see now is that I was looking at this whole thing all wrong. What do I mean by that?I'm glad you asked because I am going to tell you.

What I mean when I say I love you doesn't truly matter to you. What matters to you is what YOU think I mean when I say I love you. My definition of love is simply that, MY definition of love. When you say I love you to me I am expecting you to act in a way that lines up with my definition of love. When I say I love you to you then you expect me to act in a way that lines up with what love means to you.

I am currently reading the Five Love Languages Singles Edition. In this book it talks about speaking your significant other's love language. Well it is a really good book but I am not talking about people feeling loved through acts of service or quality time. I am talking about what we really mean when we say I love you and what we expect when someone says they love us.

What do you expect from someone when they say I love you? That depends on what you think love is.

I have people who I love that I don't have a close relationship with anymore. Does that mean I lied when I said I loved them? No. Does that mean I don't love them anymore? No. Not in my opinion, but it is just my opinion!

If I love you but you keep abusing my trust I will distance myself from you. That doesn't mean I don't love you. It doesn't mean we will always be distant but love is not a doormat.

Most people have someone in their family who has made a lot of mistakes. Someoe who can't be trusted or counted on. Does that mean that you stop loving them? Not in my definition of love, but maybe in your definition if you don't "feel" that you love them right now than you don't love them. Maybe you loved someone and you "fell out of love with them" or you "grew apart." I am not just talking about a spouse, it could be a friend or a relative...but either way in my opinion you can still love someone that you don't have the same "feelings" for that you once had.

Love to me is a choice. I love you no matter what you do. We may not always have the same relationship that we once had, but I will always love you.

What I found out is that not everyone sees love this way. The people who don't agree with me are not wrong, they simply have a different view of love. Love to them isn't forever. Love is based at least partially on feelings and love is not forever.

When I see people do and say things to people who they said they loved I am amazes and I used to want to correct them and then I realized something. They are showing their definition of love. They aren't wrong because they are different, they are just different.

We have all taken different roads and led different lives to get to where we are today. Who am I to tell you that what you think about love is wrong? I'm no expert. I'm not a scholar, I don't have a best seller, I don't even have a great track record when it comes to "love," at least not the romantic kind.

All I can do and all I will ever do is try to love people. I see no higher calling than that. I know God loves me. You don't have to agree with my views on God either, love is still going to be what I will always try to show you. If your defintion of love is not: "A decision based on your character for the selfless promotion of someone else" that is fine...but that is what I will try to show to you. Life is too short and people are too precious to live any other way.

I was told for years by a lot of people that either they couldn't see me as a "preacher" or that they didn't think I should be a "preacher." Now I get paid to be on staff at a church. It is my job to help people and to show them that God loves them.

I do my very best to do that and I have been able to help some people since I came to Arkansas...but the day I started this job is not when I started loving people and the day I stop this job will not be the last day that I do my best to love people. I truly believe that you will never lose when you just love people...whatever that means to you.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A review of the book, "The Faith of Barack Obama"

Some time ago (during the end of his campaign in fact) Thomas Nelson gave a chance for people to get a pre-release copy of the book "The Faith of Barack Obama" by Stephen Mansfield.

I read half of it within a week and the second half took me a lot longer. I know that this review is late in coming, but I need to fulfill my part of the agreement.

This book gave me a look into what Barack Obama actually believes and where is faith is truly based. I heard and continue to hear people say he is Muslim. This is not true. He did register with the Indonesian government as Muslim when he was a child but he is not Muslim and never truly was.

Barack (now President Obama) is what a lot of people would call a Christian. He believes in Jesus Christ and that is "his path" but he also feels that other people can choose whatever path is best for them. He is actually adopted universalism instead of Christianity. Whatever faith you choose is the faith that will work for you. That is the way he sees it.

There was a fairly large portion of this book devoted to Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and the doctrines that Rev. Wright preaches. I can't say I agree with the conclusions that Rev. Wright makes and he is very radical but it doesn't appear that President Obama has those kind of views. He seems to ride very much in the middle of the road and is very accepting of everyone.

When you are done with this book you will see that President Obama is not a radical black man trying to wipe out all white people as some would lead you to believe and at the same time he is not a full-gospel Christian either. He has chosen his path and he leaves your path up to you. He feels all the roads will lead to the same place. I don't agree with him, but at least now I have a better idea of where he stands.

I can't believe how long it has been...

I haven't posted anything on here in a long time! A big part of that is because I don't have a computer at home right now...but I could use my phone so it isn't a great excuse. Either way I haven't been updating my blog like I know I should.

Life has been really good to me lately. I have an amazing girlfriend, I love my job and I am (in theory) going to be able to take Ashley back to WA to meet my family for Thanksgiving.

All of those things go into making my life good as of late. I have been able to help some people through my job here at the church and that is also wonderful. I will write more later and I will be better about updating this but for now, if anyone reads this, know that life here in Bryant Arkansas is good.

Post number 56...

Sorry, that number makes me laugh and I'm not going to go into the story but it is funny to a few people...and I think only my brother reads this. Hopefully he will laugh or at least chuckle at the title to this post.

Life right now is going really good. I have been horrible at keeping up with this since I moved and for that I am sorry to...anyone who wants me to update this blog more! ;)

I have a lot of things that I would like to speak my mind about but at the moment I am not sure that I will be able to do that without making it personal and pointed at certain people. This being the case I will have to hold off on writing on any particular subject. I never want to write "at" anyone. If I can't look at a topic objectively and not be picturing a person in my mind when I am writing (at least when I am writing something that could be taken in a negative way) then I won't write about it.

At least not anymore...I used to write a lot when I got hurt and I find that I am not very objective about my topics when they come out of just emotion or they are in a response to something or someone.

I said all that to say that I will be writing about something soon. I am starting to get used to living in Arkansas and the more comfortable I am in my surroundings the easier it is to clear my thoughts enough to write.