An Excerpt from Louie Giglio’s book, “Wired: For a Life of Worship.”

"Drop in on a concert at the local arena or go to a sporting event at a nearby stadium and you will see amazing worship. People are going for it, lifting their hands, shouting like crazy, staking their claim, standing in awe, declaring their allegiance. Interestingly, these venues are filled with the same forms of worship mentioned in God’s Word - the same expressions of worship that God desires and deserves.

A while back, watching an interview Oprah was doing with Michael Jackson in the prime of his career, I was stunned with the reality of this truth. What I witnessed as she showed a video clip of people responding to him in concert settings around the world absolutely floored me. Talk about amazing worship!

In multiple cultures, mobs of people numbering into the hundreds of thousands were glued as one to his every move. On every continent they gathered like an army, waving their hands in the air. Some fell to their knees. Others strained with out-stretched hands, hoping for a brief touch from his. Seared in my mind is the image of one young girl with a look on her face of total awe.
I couldn’t believe it. What I was watching was some of the most intense worship I’d ever seen…anywhere. Far more “full-on” than much of what I’d experienced inside the church.

And for what? Granted, Michael Jackson was a living legend when it came to entertainment, but he’s not a great god. Not even close. Yet the worship was phenomenal, demonstrating the God-given capacity for adoration that is rooted in the soul of every man.”

The question comes up, why does every person pour out their adoration onto anything but the God who gave them that passion? My thoughts are simple…I feel there are two reasons. We seek tangibility…something to place high that we can see, comprehend, feel, etc. Also, by putting such adoration into something earthly we don’t really have to work. Say a celebrity…to worship them, you don’t have to give them anything other than your praise and they will return the favor by perhaps releasing more songs or movies. When it comes to God, man often feels guilty when “worshiping” without having put in the work He requests of us.

Remember, Adoration is rooted in the soul of every man, so ask yourself…Where are you placing yours?

B & E

My friend from the States emailed me a story he wrote to cheer me on for my exams. It was called the tale of Bellezza and Enkle (silly made-up names that he thought of). Here's an excerpt:

"In an attempt to ruin the friendship Google used a powerful curse to control the head of Bellezza's school. Google made Bellezza's school do exams, and made all of these exams extremly difficult so the Bellezza had to spend all day, 14 hours or more, inside of the school. Seeing as Enkle lived in the US and it was the height of their heat filled summer Google was sure that he would be out of school and on the edge of devastating complete boredom, Google hoped that Enkle would resort to finding a real life and forgetting all about Princess Bellezza. But the almighty Google didn't count on the power of friendship, one which Bellezza and Enkle had formed. "

Will is the sweetest, really.

State of The Life, Now

Right now, I miss MFP,
and I wish I can fly to Arizona and/or Georgia to see my fabulous friends. (That's almost 15000km away!)
I have bad stomach pains. Feels as though there's an alien with a knife in my abdomen haplessly cutting up my insides.
I don't really like blogging anymore.
I'm going home to rest, then study.

I miss MegaLife.

Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in a beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.
- Rich Mullins

numbers

From a friend's blog..

Numbers.

this world seems particularly fond of them.

and sometimes i fall into the trap of arithmetic. and think that i am a series of numbers, ratings, percentages.

that value is just a fancy word for number.

it would be so easy to look at my weight and feel my value grow as the scale shrinks

look at my exam marks and feel the weight of my future resting on my percentages.

look at my class rankings and feel like i am above or below people.

feel grown up because of the candles i blow out on my birthday cake.

feel disabled because of the fleeting figure in my bank account.

feel broken because of the number of scars i have.

feel like a failure because my blood test told me my readings are too high.

feel unique because of the number of songs i have on my ipod.

feel popular because of the number of facebook friends i have.

my phone number my student number my account number

7225214311.2112499831231201251878850476.

i am not a number

Thoughts..

This is from my friend Will. I thought it made a lot of sense.

"FUCK.

Did you flinch when you read that? Cringe? Worry about getting in trouble at all? Double take the word and think it isn’t very nice?

No? I thought so…

Remember when you used to flinch, cringe, worry, and double take?

I was listening to “Photograph” by Nickelback the other day… The lyrics are: “And what the hell is on Joey’s head?” The CD I was listening to, I got from my aunt when I went to DC for a week over Spring Break when I was 13. A certain nostaglia came over me from the CD itself, and the song… As the song played, I remembered that it used to kinda bug me that the word “Hell” was there.

It occurred to me… That it doesn’t bug me anymore… and that bugs me. I can say/write and hear/read curse words and not flinch… Not even think about it.

What is it about this numbness that has overcome us? It’s with everything too… Curse words, sex, crimes, deaths… Everything. It makes me so sad. We just sit back, and don’t care. We’ll say: “Oh how said for those poor people” But it doesn’t really affect us…

Why not? What is it that creates this numbness in us…? Hmm… I’d like to see it end. -nods-

It isn’t right, world. Just so you know. I want my numbness to end, I want to cringe and flinch and double take what was said when something bad is said… I don’t want it to fly past me as if it’s just another word….."

For the record, I don't use this word. I never have :) I sound so goody-two-shoes. But I wish people stopped flinging words like these around as and when they like.