Suffering Succotash!

It's easy to lose sight of the reasons why we do things. Just last week an old friend of mine from school told me that he reads my blog. He went on to say that every week I say the same thing "This maths test was hard." Granted maths at UWI is not easy, I thought about it for a moment. Is my life the sum of it's trials? Is it possible to have a life of synergy? You know, my life means more than the sum of it's individual events. To throw in a little maths, if every event was either a negative one or a positive one then it would be possible to have a life that amounts to nothing just because I had one really negative experience (5+4+1-10 = 0). That sounds really bad but I don't think that is true. I'm not going to go on and present some deep philosophical idea but simply put life has meaning.

This meaning is found in God. I just finished reading a book I got for Christmas called "Can Man Live Without God" by Ravi Zacharias. It's a really interesting book. It looks at Atheism and Anti-theism and Theism and the implications of these beliefs and then it looks at the meaning of life and then who Christ is and if he really mattered. I thought about it for a while. If man could live without God, then man would be God (the supreme being) and therefore man could live without himself lololol!!! But most people don't see that. If man could live apart from God, then he could do whatever he wants to, no rules! In a few words, all you see is what matters therefore do what makes you happy. I've realised that this is the mind set of a lot of people today. This is the easiest way to live because you do it and it makes you happy, do it again - like smoking weed. But what if doing what makes you happy turns around and makes you really sad? Like jumping off a cliff with no parachute makes you really happy then you die (hopefully)? What do I do?

I ask myself a lot, "What is the place of suffering in this world?" We can't escape it, people suffer - you suffer. The question is not, therefore, who suffers but one more of why we suffer. I think that if we answered this question then we would have a better understanding on the meaning of life. This is where the two schools of thought - Atheism and Theism differ greatly. This is where Monotheism and Polytheism differ. This is where Christianity differs in monotheism. We have seen and heard a lot about the Haiti situation among other events that are occurring or have occurred and each of us has our views on it. If we translated this down to our own situation would we have the same views on the issue?

Christians are not masochists (we shouldn't be) but we do have a belief about suffering. There are two types of suffering: Godly suffering (eg Matthew 5:11, Hebrews 2:10, James 5:10 ) which makes perfects us and there is the type that is the result of sin in the world (Romans 8:22, Genesis 3: 14-19). Sometimes it's hard to figure out which one is going on in your life. James 1: 3 says "Consider it pure joy, my brothers when you face trials of many kinds because the testing of your faith brings perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." Looking over my week, and well my life, those long nights of work, inability to sleep well sometimes, days of frustration when things don't go my way and basically waiting on God to come through on his promises, I could say I forgot that last week. When everything is good it's easy to throw these verses at others when things are bad for them - to be their support - but as some may say, you can only take so much.

I always wondered what people found in me, that they kept coming to me and telling me things I would rather not know. It was good listening and empathizing with everyone up until the point where they got their results. Life threw something at them and they bounced it off of me. Life threw something at me and I took it (real smart, I know). There are many reasons for that, which I choose not to disclose, especially on a blog. We are all made for a purpose; each of us (to use ecclesiastical terms) has a "cup to drink from". Some may be bitter cups (like mauby) and others may be sweet cups (like mauby lol). But really now, as easy as it may seem, is it worth throwing away your cup (or drink)? We all could do the easy thing that feels good and destroy the world further or we could actually care enough to find out what this life is all about and be ourselves, as we were meant to be (like Switchfoot said).

You've been reading for a while so let me end. Jesus said "Be on your guard against all types of greed, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Luke 12:15). Life's not the sum of its discrete events. Considering my maths example at the beginning, what on earth am I here for? What on earth are you here for? Is this life all that matters? Should our choices be self-driven while our consequences impact others?

It rained on my parade last week but that didn't stop the band from playing.

When The Stalker Stalks....

I finally managed to sneak in a little half hour to an hour slot in my busy schedule. Many of you must be wondering how I get this done; it's like if I have no work to do. The secret lies in my ability to evade work and procrastinate and still do well. What then shall I say? Shall I go on shirking so that grace may increase? NO! The work comes as surely and as quickly as Geico can save you 15% or more on car insurance but somehow I keep avoiding my close calls. I'll stop being delinquent, exchange the fitted caps and marijuana for some suspenders and stripes lol...pretty soon.

I haven't even gotten accustomed to school as yet and mid-terms are coming up. Already I have 8 weeks left in the semester! It's like if time is getting shorter. So much to do, so little time! (and I'm here blogging, but of course!).

It may occur that I have nothing to write about this week. That is correct. Last week was just an abnormal, adventureless, backwash of  7 days. I got totally lost in Ordinary Differential Equations and I was generally tired. Valentine's Day started well. I took my friend's advice and just played and had fun. Some stuff worked others didn't work as well as I hoped.

That's pretty much my week. Calm seas, cool breeze. So as I leave I'll post this question: What is the difference between "Fathering" and "Parenting"?

Lata

Oh yeah...you may have been wondering what that title is all about. On Monday, I went to do my usual lime in the lab. I saw my friend (for protective purposes let's call her "Alicia") online. The conversation went as follows:

-Hi Alicia...sup?
-...I can see you...

I frantically searched the lab. The lights began to flicker to a dim and the dramatic music began. I searched, like a deer sensing the hunter. I smelt the air. Nothing. I licked the ground. Cheese. Chills began to run down my spine. Goosebumps across my arms. As my heart thundered inside my frail and failing chest I began to quake in my seat. Finally relief came. Sitting behind me, doing research on Wikipedia, the stalker sat. Even though the threat of my life was gone it took me a while to get back to normal.

"In the eyes of a stalker, 

The unsuspecting talker, Had better know the truth of wrong from right. 

'Cause the eyes of a stalker are upon you, 

Any wrong you do, he's gonna see, 

When you're in UWI, look behind you,

'Cause that's where the stalker's gonna be."

The Beauty Of Serving God

If ever there was a time when I thought I would not have had a good story that was a short lived thought. Week after week something happens that leaves a mark in my soul. Life may be a vapour but mine must be one of many colours. It's not my story I'm living, it's history, his story told through me; not an alter ego who is tall and has super powers but God, who decided outside of creating time to tell his story through people (random people? I don't think so). Whatever reason you have for reading these posts always remember it's God's story with me as the main character. What's yours?

We had our Nazarene Youth International (NYI) District Convention last weekend in January. It was good. They were the usual citizens who love the sound of their voices and there were those who actually had something to say. As the weekend went on I said this was going to be a good week. On Sunday, church was awesome. We lick down tunes so old there was cobweb flying from the mics. The old folk were singing loudly, well pretty much everyone. Those songs like "At Calvary" and "We Are Marching To Zion" struck that ancient chord in the old rugged organ of our hearts. It was beautiful. Of course, I remembered the sermon. Two people gave their testimonies about God's goodness, focussing on the beauty of serving God. "The beauty of serving God is...he knows". I'll leave that to linger.

God knows. I went to school that week fully hyped and happy and all things bubbly. On Tuesday, before we left, mummy noticed that the tire was soft. We went to the gas station and pumped the tire and then I went to get it repaired. I drove to the tire place and reversed into the garage, popped the trunk and took out the tire. Sitting in his chair, drinking a beer, the "Tyre Man" as he is so called, got out and asked what the problem was. I told him the tyre had a nail in it but I took it out. Laughing at me, he told me that I shouldn't have done it and not to do it next time. I learned that my tyres are tubeless. We go on talking about random stuff when a guy drove past us playing old dub (music). He asked me, "That's your kind of music?" I said well not really. And he replied, "Oh so you're a christian." I thought that didn't have much to do with dub music, but moreover, I wondered how he came to that conclusion. I didn't linger on that but I just told him I don't like the lyrics so I don't listen to it, which lead to a conversation about the church up the road. Long story short, the tyres got fixed and the guy had company. Funny thing, he didn't offer me a beer.

The week went on getting better and better until Wednesday came lol. Wednesdays are usually my horror days, when I face a rediculous timetable. I'm not much to complain about timetabling because I think I still have one of the best timetables in my year - no night classes, no Saturday classes. Wednesday I got cursed to touching a girl's jacket because I thought she had a stain. It was horrific and I don't want to talk about it. If I had pride I would have been a lot more shamed than I was.

The beauty of God is...God knows.

What else happened...oh I began building a sheep pen (with help of course). It's not as easy as Discovery Kids makes it seem. It's hard work that I would not recommend to everyone. It is a good way to stop delinquency in your children though. Even though it's not finished, I feel like I've done something special, something bigger than I am (I guess you could realise the colossal nature of this structure then.).

That's it for me. Enjoy your week and look both ways before you cross the street.