more proverbs

"By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for"
-16:6a

whose steadfast love? Christ's!
whose faithfulness? Christ's!!


:o)

still single

still single. not really worrying. Praying that my heart would be at rest in the Lord and his provision.

There are times when i wonder if my standards are too high.

I've loosened the reigns on the "must be reformed" and "must be in a good church". But i'm still single.

I don't think my physical standard is too high. I'm not waiting for the proverbial "halle berry" to come along. In my fraternity in college, some dudes actually made fun of me for having a physical attractiveness bar that was set too low ("dude...you think SHE'S attractive?!?")...so that isn't the issue.

From a personality perspective - i'm just looking for chemistry. I think that will come from some degree of mutual understanding. Doesn't have to get all my jokes (i tell bad jokes - lots of them), but should be someone who would appreciate the effort, you know?

to be honest, i've had "chemistry" with girls i've met over the past 1.5yrs in school, but they all hit their heads on the "must be a christian" bar (and not just someone who goes to church twice a year).

Aside: that "hit their heads on the 'must be christian' bar" reversed the "bar" analogy. The "bar" was initially something that people would have to step/climb over, but in this case, the bar is something that would have to be walked under - hope this doesn't cause confusion.

idk, yo.

Quick Thought on Forgiveness

I was blessed with the opportunity to share this with a kid from my parents church that was in the middle of a fight with his cousin and i figured it couldn't hurt to share it over here.

nick, you've only got one family, so nothing good will come from keeping grudges over things that don't matter much (i'm only assuming that this is the case - if it is a big issue, then y'all should still try to work it out so that when you ask her to pass the stuffing on thanksgiving, she actually passes it LOL).

more importantly, as a believer, you should also aim for reconciliation. Simply put, God forgave us in spite of the sin that we've committed and his love will cover the sin that we will struggle with in the future - so then how can we *not* forgive someone else who may have wronged us?

One reason that we have been forgiven is so that we can forgive others. Our right response to Jesus' love for us is to try to love others in the same way (selflessly, sacrificially). Not because they deserve it, but because loving others in that way honors the Lord.

no matter how you feel, sometimes it is going to be on you to be the person that is going to take the first step towards reconciliation. And if the other person doesn't want it, you can always try again.

Prayer

Lord, help me not to be like the son who stayed home. Help me to rest in your grace and not my works. Help me to see that your love for me is just as strong when I'm actively nipping sin in the bud as it is when i'm at my worst.

Lord, help me to desire you above all that this world has to offer. Lord, help me to be content with your provision. Lord help my heart to say "your grace is sufficient" as easily as my mouth can.

Prenups

Chelsea and her hubby did a huge prenup thing going into the wedding.

“Chelsea’s world was shattered when she learned that her father had been unfaithful to her mom,” said a source. “She’s never forgotten that pain and disappointment. Her father has always been the person she most admired, and the fact that he cheated on her mom not once, but many times, made her very gun-shy about trusting the guys she dated.”

That distrust has led to her making some interesting demands before entering into holy matrimony.

“Under the terms of of the prenup, if Marc is unfaithful, he stands to lose $10 million, including his share of the couple’s $3.8 million apartment in New York City.”

- quote taken from here

There's so much to be said about this whole situation, but i will approach it from this angle:

While i understand the world's perspective on prenuptial agreements, I will never sign one. I don't care how much money i have going into a wedding. My prenuptial agreement will be to love my wife as Christ loved the church. And by God's grace, I will love my wife as I ought to.

I wont divorce my wife and try to get half from her because Christ didn't and WILL NOT divorce the church. If the Lord does not treat me according to my sin, how can I not, by the Lord's grace, forgive my wife for however she may sin against me.

This may sound idealistic, but there is a high calling on the husband - If the Lord blesses me with a wife, I will seek to honor the Lord in how I treat her. And that treatment will, by the Lord's grace, never include divorce.

I don't want to presumptuously say what I wont do, because i don't know the depths of my own depravity, but by the Lord's grace, I can obey him - and in my obedience to him, I can love my wife as I should.

This doesn't mean that i'm not looking for certain things from a prospective lady - here is my list:

She will be:

1. A woman that will be seeking to honor the Lord in all that she does.

2. Under sound biblical teaching (mos def not gonna try to go fishing in random churches)

3. Seeking and submitting to the godly wisdom of older women in the faith.

4. ...and she will have accountability in her life.

These things in and of themselves don't mean that she will not ever seek a divorce, but i believe that a mind that has been renewed by the word of God coupled with the accountability and prayer that comes from being in regular fellowship with other believers (both means of God's grace), can keep a marriage.

NYC Summer streets

I woke up early on saturday morning intent upon going for a quick bike ride across the brooklyn bridge before an evangelistic outreach at grand army plaza with my new church family in brooklyn (we passed out free water and cupcakes, we also passed out invites to church and fliers for "brew and the bible", our neighborhood open forum on christianity. We also engaged people in conversations about the faith) followed by rapfest 2009 (christian hip hop concert in the bronx).

After crossing the bridge, I saw a bunch of people in matching shirts, so i pulled over to ask them what they were about. One lady with an eastern-block accent informed me that park avenue was blocked off (for summer streets) from the brooklyn bridge (it isn't called park avenue by the brooklyn bridge, but the street evetually becomes park avenue) to 72nd street. I decided to go for a ride along the route. Good times. There were a few people out there to race with at spots along the route, but the lights at major intersections and families with small children out for the day made racing unsafe and impractical at times.

OH! in other news, i've decided to press on with my helmet wearing. When riding around my neighborhood in brooklyn, i noticed that i was the ONLY person wearing a helmet. Recently, two friends of mine that spotted me on my bike actually made fun of my helmet!! However, people without helmets at nyc summer streets were the EXCEPTION. AND yesterday, a bike store owner let me know that the more fashionable looking helmets have less vents and are REALLY hot.

Here are some pictures:

Farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza (THEY WERE ACCEPTING FOOD STAMPS!!! Hooray for low income people!!! :o)



NYC Summer Streets sign @ 72nd and Park:



Water station sign:
:o)




Traffic Control Volunteer:




Father and son. My dad and i used to go out for bike rides when i was a kid. :')



Grand Central:

realizations

The first thing that i've realized about myself is that i am a people pleaser. I like for people to like me. And this can sometimes result in me compromising my integrity. At times, it is very easy for me to justify sin that isn't "REALLY" bad - because i desire the approval of man more than i desire the approval of God.

That approval could be in the form of a joke, looking the other way...whatever.

The other thing that i've recently realized is that obedience to God is going to cost me more than I want it to. Big sins in check and partial obedience does not equate to obedience.


What's good about this is that i'm not self-deceived into thinking that some of the sin that surfaces in my life is pleasing to the Lord. I'm thankful to the Lord for that, for the Holy Spirit who will continue to work in me and for accountability partners that can help me see other areas of sin in my life.

Tminus 30 days

I've got less than one month left in the state of maryland. I'm going to be moving up to nyc on 7/23. Definitely a bittersweet transition. Happy to go back to nyc, sad to leave a lot of the relationships that i've built over the past 3 years.

I've had the opportunity to develop great friendships at work, friendships with lots of different groups of christians:

- Church (wednesday home fellowship, worship team, singles ministry, men's fellowship),
- Various Sovereign Grace People,
- My band and all the other christians that I've made lasting contact with on the music front,
- Baltimore believers (monday bible study, saturday evangelism, fourth friday fundamentals, trinity reformed baptist church, believer's chapel) and

Friendships with my fraternal brothers that live in the dc area (one of whom recently moved away)...and i'm certainly going to miss them. But on the flip side, I get to go back to the greatest city ever to go to business school and to also co-labor with other believers. I'll also be living with family.

In other news, my church recently moved friday bible study to thursdays.

This is both good and bad. Good because I'm now free to do things with everyone else that does things on friday. I've missed countless band rehearsals, dinners, first and fourth friday fundamentals (first in philly, fourth in baltimore) shows, concerts, special events etc etc etc because of friday night bible study The worship team is on duty on fridays, so taking off every other friday would have without a doubt been an abdication of responsibility. But now (for these last 30 days) i can do stuff.

The bad is that Friday bible study was probably a huge help to a lot of people that would find themselves tempted to go out and sin on friday nights. The best way to remedy this would be for members of all ages to plan fun things to do on friday night with other believers, or at the very least, to make themselves available to hold their siblings in the faith accountable. Either way, this is an opportunity for relationship building outside of church. Who knows, maybe folk will actively go out and do friday night evangelism in the community around the church...

sick/evangelism/reilly/lecrae

I'm currently sitting in my room - incubating a cold. I know exactly how i got sick. There's a coworker of mine that has been coughing all over the place and i've been spending a lot of time with her in meetings as of recent (new task, still trying to figure out what i'm doing - i'm no longer working from home. I've been in the office shirt/tie/jacket every day for the past 2 weeks!). I'm pretty sure that i got sick from her b/c my big boss is her big boss (and they too interact frequently) - and he's got the same symptoms that i've got (headache, fatigue, sore throat) - and she's the only sick person that i've been in regular contact with walking around the office (so much for hand washing).

Weekend stuff:

Everyone in my saturday evangelism group had something else to do, so i found myself alone up in baltimore (charles village farmer's market) this past saturday. I don't feel as comfortable sharing the gospel with people when i'm alone, but i figured that it would be a shame to waste the beautiful day (and to waste the 30mins that i spent driving to get to baltimore) so i stayed in the city.

I had a lot of interesting conversations. My conversation with the agnostic kid (about 17yrs old) was cool. He was a blank slate and really saw no need to believe in a God. I walked with him to buy asparagus and I actually had a chance to share on the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the sufficient grace of God as revealed through Jesus Christ with both him AND HIS MOTHER (who showed up midway through the conversation after her son broke down his worldview to me).

Both of the professing christians that I met were way off. One dude was a "holiness pentecostal" (aside: i've learned to stop coming to conclusions about what people believe based on the denominational title that they give me). He was really big into God speaking through all things: people, events, the q'ran...

The other professing christian that I met was a buff (he and his g/f were walking around in their workout clothes) and successful CEO. His g/f did not want to talk about spiritual things at all (but she stuck around a portion of the conversation). Before I could say much, the CEO dude asked me a bunch of questions about myself that led me to believe that he was a solid believer. I was wrong. He gave me his business card so that we could continue our conversation. I checked out his company's website (really cool company) and sent him an email. He seems to be more interested in my education and professional experience than hearing the truth of the word of God...but who knows?

After that I got started on writing my self assessment (annual review is taking place now) in a mexican place in federal hill (short drive from where the farmer's market was - also my former stomping grounds prior to moving out to the burbs) that had AWESOME service and food. I got congratulations from 3 other people in the restaurant when i finished the entire burrito. After i finished eating I decided to write the rest of my assessment out on the inner harbor.

Here's a picture of the view from where I sat:


I took shelter under the overpass so that I could get away from the sun and see my laptop. I finished writing after about 2 hours. The yankees were in town, so there were more people out than usual. There were yankee jerseys and steretypical non-black new yorkers as far as the eye could see (NY and the greater NY area always invade bmore when the yankees come to town)



I didn't talk to anyone while I was out. The sheer number of people was somewhat overwhelming and i didn't have anyone w/ me, so i didn't even make an attempt.

When i got home, my roommate reminded me that Lecrae was doing a show at UMD's main campus, so i made my way out there. The concert was awesome. He's a really gifted hip hop artist, but I was really looking forward to what he was going to say between the songs. His songs are really Christ-centered, so he set himself up really well to preach in between songs.

Pics from the concert:





Reilly (sovereign grace band) was there as well. I knew them b4 they got big!

saturday

Typical saturday...

After the men's shelter in DC, i went up to a farmer's market in baltimore to share the faith with some friends from my monday night bible study.

Most people that I attempted to engage in conversation didn't want to have anything to do with conversations about spiritual beliefs...especially with a christian. The typical person at this farmer's market usually falls into more than one of the following categories:

Politically Liberal
Environmentalist
Eastern Religion
Homosexual
African Nationalist
Atheist
Agnostic
Johns Hopkins Grad Student


To say the least, interesting people, interesting conversations.

I ran into a non-african nationalist black person who actually turned out to be an apostolic (oneness pentecostal, unbiblical emphasis on spiritual gifts). I initiated the conversation, but after she started talking, i regretted it. She pretty much told me to appeal to people's emotions and a whole bunch of other nonsense - and then she kept saying "In Jesus Name".

I didn't feel like talking about why oneness pentecostalism is an aberration of the trinity, the folly of emotionalism nor any of the other nonsense that she came at me with. The last thing that I needed to do was spend 30 minutes speaking with someone that is heavily indoctrinated in nonsense (not the time, not the place - especially with someone that was as aggressive as she was). All i did was affirm what I was out at the market to do and try passively try to end the conversation by not saying much in addition to that.

We went to an indian buffet after we left the market. The food was ok. The indian that I had at Yale last weekend (i went up for their preview weekend - i officially decided on NYU) was better. I had a lot of food to eat, so i decided that driving home to go to sleep (played a show last night, didn't get to bed until about 2am, got up at 6 - mad tired) would've been a bad look(too full to sleep), so I decided to drive downtown and walk around lexington market and the inner harbor by myself. I had a newspaper that had an aritcle on the drug kingpins that "The Wire" was based on, so all was good.