Feels Good

It feels good to be alive right now. I feel dumb for saying that, but after you go crazy, you feel good being back.
I just…don’t want to talk about The Holy Spirit or demons anymore. Bradley and Marvin tell me all the time that they either don’t want to hear it or don’t know what to say; it’s ruining friendships, my fears and obessions, so I’m just done with being afraid of them.

He has not given us a spirit of fear

I hope so. I am not pentacostal, but I would consider myself a recovering charismatic. I’ve been afraid of everything my whole life, always freaking out and backing down from things. Guess what? That doesn’t work when you take responsibility for your actions. For a while I just tried to justify my actions with, “My fears take presedence” type philosophies, but those thoughts don’t cover the subsequent heartaches and broken things. So, I am re-learning joy.

You know, joy. Not happiness, but that bubbling deep down inside of you (christians) that exists even when you’re angry at life or God, that bubbling within that overflows when you accept it and trust it and open yourself to it. That’s the Holy Spirit, and more than joy, he’s our guide and protector. I am re-learning all of this…all of this, and trying not to be afraid.

Please pray for a certain friend of mine. He’s struggling hard with drugs and being caught in that lifestyle, but he is a Christian and feels the emptiness of it, and is on the cusp of many different life decisions. Please pray that God would guide, direct, discipline and LOVE him, and that he would feel it and love it and know it. Please pray for that.

Thanks for reading;
there’s more to come. I will write more, later.

Will

Good Morning…

…because this dream has lasted WAY too long.

I am disgusted by how much I’ve let fear run my life. If you’re a cessationist stop reading now because I’m about to

prove you wrong by experience,

and I’m not going to debate you – the gifts are still around.

Long ago, before high school ended, I was confronted by a false prophet, whom spoke demons into my life under the guise of scripture and truth. Now, before I even saw him, I knew there were demons, and that scared the hell out of me. One I saw him, I knew that he was whom they were working through – and God wanted me to confront him. I didn’t know how to do that; Now, none of us ever really do – that’s why we work in faith, trusting God one call at a time – and I didn’t want to either. I sat in fear in that room, feeling the most intense oppression and attack; spiritual assault, that I’ve ever felt in my life…and I let it own me.

That is, until recently. The reason I dropped out of school is that I felt strongly that God still had me to deal with this; that it wasn’t something I could simply write off, like some things are that God calls us to. No, this calling is much more like Jonah’s, and the stress and breaking of my mind is, simply put, not that far from that of Jonah’s while in the whale. I can’t get this guy out of my head, I can’t stop thinking about conviction and that moment that I chose not to listen to God – knowing full well that God wasn’t going to let me out of it.

Now, it’s two years later and I’ve run and hidden and had panic attacks and even had vision trouble come, and I still must confront this man. Now, I do confess that when I’m near this man I still feel something evil, something heinous that only wants to twist and distort truth, especially that which I speak to him, and I don’t want to go up against a useless case. The frustrating part is that, simply put, God knows how this is going to turn out, whether he listens to me or not, and God has set it up that way for that purpose, for His Glory and my good.

I just don’t like it, and it’s killing me.

Let it be a testament to the great Glory of God that is His wisdom and knowledge, will and power, mercy, grace and justice – that my story speaks highly of Him. Pray for me, if you would and please, for me to love this man, for Christ even loves His greatest enemies; either that or he hypocritically asks of it of us (which, by nature and essence, He cannot do) and I must be like Him. Pray for my love of him, and through that love the clear, powerful words of rebuke and the humility required/necessitated for such a calling. I must overcome this point in life, and I know that I will, for God’s calling is irresistable. I can’t get away from Him.

On quite a happier note, I would like to leave you with a video that began playing out of nowhere while I was praying for help, humility and sanity last night. I do believe it’s an encouragement of God, no matter how cheesy it may seem:

Today Sucked

Waking up today was one of the hardest things I’ve done in a while.

1) Last night, after the Art Show at Northpointe, I had to follow libby back to her host house for the time that she was up here. Not so bad until she took off in front of me (I was following the speed limit) and left me in the dust. You gotta understand: at this point in my life I’m convicted about driving past the speed limit. It’s a law of the land, and w’re to obey it under God’s authority, not to mention it’s not going to harm us to drive slower than we’d like to. So, Alex texts me and lets me know that she feels that I drive like an old man. Thanks, Alex, I feel great now; totally respected.

2) Once we get to Libby’s host house, she gets her things and we move them over to Chris’ house. Not bad, but then I have to drive Libby’s car to Daniel’s house. This is weird when the girl’s car that you’re driving either used to like you a lot or still does, and you don’t feel the same way in return. Frustrating.

3) I totally hurt Alex’s feelings on the way to Daniel’s house, but I felt like I needed to say what I said. Most of the time that’s what happens – I don’t mean to cut someone down, but I’ve spent enough time in my life beating around the bush waiting for someone to understand something that no one with tell them. Frustrating, and really hard on the conscience.

4) We stay at Daniel’s until 3 a.m. Horrible choice, especially being that half the company at Daniel’s house is half the praise band at Northpointe. I’m still not used to these people; I’ve “known” them for over 2-3 years now. Frustrating, hard on the conscience, awkward.

5) On the drive to Alex’s house from Daniel’s Libby asked me if I’m mad at her for the “old man” comment and lets me know that it was her that said it, not Alex. I lied to her, telling her that I was fine, just tired. Got Alex home and took a really quiet ride back to Chris’ house to drop off Libby – where she asks me to text her when I get home. I can’t do that, people. I don’t want to to explain it, it just frustrates me when people ask me to do that. Frustrating, hard on the conscience, awkward, frustrated.

6) I get home at 4 a.m., ready to go to sleep – and so I do. I wake up at 9 a.m. for the alarm, but dysfunctional, and go back to sleep. I wake up again at 1 p.m. This time I’m already stressed out because I slept through band this morning (though, it could have been worse – Michael was playing guitar this week, so they didn’t need me.) and through church. I totally forgot that I was supposed to bring my iPod and play a Derek Webb song for church. Frustrating, hard on the conscience, awkward, frustrated, stressed bad.

7) I just lay around in bed, now depressed and stressed for another hour. My mom comes in and sits down beside the bed (I’m half hanging off and half on the the bed, looking strung out) and tells me that I’m scaring her. This hasn’t happened since middle school… I also decided against going on vacation with my parents, simply because I didn’t want to go – and it hurt my mom’s feelings, really bad. Guilt, dude. Shame and guilt like you don’t even know – when making a decision that isn’t that big to you hurts someone else like that, you begin to think that you’re just plain screwed up. Also, my mom let me know that my dad thinks I’m avoiding him…(we didn’t say a word to each other today.) I don’t know what to say to my dad…I don’t feel like I have anything that he wants to hear; I never have. Frustrating, hard on the conscience, awkward, frustrated, stressed bad, guilted and shamed.

My parents stopped by my nephew’s birthday party on their way to the beach. I think he’s 4…I’m not even sure.

I intentionally dodged more conversations today than I have in a while, as well, and refused money from my mom. When she feels like there’s nothing else to do for me, she resorts to wanting to give me money: buying me clothes, buying me shoes, buying gas, or just giving money, etc. This is really killing me; I’m beginning to think that I was made just to hurt these people.

Final Outcome = Way closer to suicidally depressed than you might have ever guessed.

It’s Been A While

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt human. As far as I can remember, I’ve always worried about getting the most out of life, in regards to following God and getting things done – perhaps playing in the best band in the world or writing the greatest theological books ever – but I don’t see that happening anymore. The more I pay whatever little attention I can muster to the dragging on of the days and the changing of the times, the little meaning I really find in anything. Songs that once meant so much mean nothing anymore, people that moved away – bringing us to tears – just don’t really matter anymore, and squeezing the juice out of games or people just seems to let me down a little more each time I try.

Enter this thought – none of it really matters. If Christianity is true, then it’s all worth giving up; it doesn’t really matter anyway. Material things, passions of the heart and whatnot simply fall away – even passionate love falls to the wayside. People let you down, people build you up, but they can’t do anything to you if you won’t allow them to, unless harm you in some unintended way. Politics – they really just suck to think about a lot. Election…election…healthcare…race…gender…bleh. It’ll all be over some day.

I really hope that Heaven has something to offer that this world doesn’t, because this world sucks. I tried being that kid that thought the world was great for most of my life…now, I’d rather not. It’s simply not worth it.

Excuse me, you presbyterian artist, Mr. Webb,

BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

I nothing short of totally confused in regards to Derek Webb’s choice of “marketing logistics” of his new album ‘Stockholm Syndrome.’

I’ve decided to step out in faith – and take life SLOW. I have been pushing too hard for too long to try and figure out the deep complexities of God, life, and love without bringing prayer and patience into the mix. Today I woke up and took my bike for a ride around Furman, a campus I’ve grown up loving and cherishing. So, in all honesty, I loved it – what I don’t love is how much fear I’ve let let rattle and rule my love for it, and for everything else (my faith, my family, my friends, and my passions). I’m enjoying Skype and iChat with my newest friends, and hoping that the rest of the summer turns out as well as today did.

By for now,

Wrapped in the Love of Christ Jesus,

-Will

Will; On The Gospel being OFFensive

Sitting in Starbucks tonight, I was having a discussion with friends from church about homosexual marriage and how I have heard that conservatives/christians who speak out against it are being labeled “zealots” and come under the umbrella of terrorism.

Unbeknownst to me for only a moment, (whom I believe to have been) a homosexual couple sat only tables away, and took what seems to have been offense at our moral discourse. One of the couple’s members attempted to speak their position of the Miss America contestant who said that marriage “is between a man and a woman”, telling us that that’s what news reported and that votes either way would have not had her win(implying that he believed we were either ignorant or offending his stance by standing behind the contestant’s convictions).

I cannot pretend that even though he spoke for a second and left that I was not afraid – I have such a weak conscience to use with such serious convictions. I have been through nothing worse in regards to persecution, and am afraid that one day I may be persecuted to death.

Also, friends keep speaking of the end time being near; this terrifies me. I don’t want to die for my faith; I want life to be easy and to drift through sleep to Heaven on some opportune night. God be with us, please.

Thank you, College. (It’s all my fault)

(Insert curse of frustration here, then repent.)

Today was supposed to be the day I turned in my Music Appre paper. I was thinking and worrying all day, under my breath and thought, that that was the purpose of the day. I waltz my little self in to the library at 12:40(ish), and sit adjacent to a few friends at the spit table. Yes, I said spit table. It’s an inside joke, just ask me, I’ll tell you.

Sitting there, I open my iCal calendar (it’s a calendar program for mac) and realize this little fact: the paper is due next week. So, I think, that’s not so bad – until I read what’s actually due today.

The test is today. Test either #2 or #3, which I have not studied for at all. I have procrastinated the almost month we’ve had with the study guide, so being unaware of the material is my fault. But, forgetting the test date? I’m insane!

Anywho, God is very gracious, and I believe that even in my failure of academic excellence He loves me; I also believe he wants the best of me. Man, I need to step up to the plate.

The Morning After

Well, today is tomorrow. Time to wake up, start over, and begin again. I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on in my life, but to be completely honest, the only thing that helps anything is when I suck it up and pray. When I pray I acknowledge the fact that God is greater than I am, and that I need Him. It sounds simple, but it takes all the humbleness one can grasp for a few moments of reverence, honesty, and truth. I woke up feeling better than I do on the many nights that I don’t pray, but I didn’t want to go to church, so I didn’t.

I also deactivated my Facebook account – every so often I recognize the idolatrous addiction it becomes in my life, and I take rash actions to remove it (if I didn’t, it would take another few years or months to come to the realization). It feels good not to have all of the online pressures on my back, save this WordPress and two youtube accounts.

I’ve also begun listening to MAE’s “The Everglow” album again. It is beautiful in all areas: musicality, aesthetics, spirituality, technicality, relevance, etc. It also meant a lot to me at the time I first bought it, so I’m also being quite nostalgic.

Here’s to prayer: I say before Caeser (or perhaps the world) – it works, and they are heard.

Alright, this is what appears to be my first ever WordPress blogging session-

and I have no idea what to write. I spend most of my time worrying about whether I’m going to fail my classes, upset a teacher, get caught up in a confrontation that scares the heck out of me, debate theology until my faith is severed from my heart, or just say something dumb. I also worry about how I’m going to spend my life, and doing what kind of work, and if I’ll ever get married, and if true love comes twice, and if I’m not really saved, and if I really believe Jesus, and if Evangelists are as dumb as they seem, and if the Pentacostals are right, and if they are, am I wrong?

These are the things that I spend my time worrying about. I do not wish to stay this way, it is just who I am as of now.

Alright – more to come, later, if I can stop worrying long enough to update.

For now, God bless you, go in peace, and dwell upon the words of Jesus:

“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”