Here's a little update about me, O reader, before I nerd out about these songs.
I used to be able to go a whole week without shaving, so that I would clean up on Saturday night (since I didn't want to cut myself Sunday morning and bleed over the communion wine-- which would be sacrilegious and only a little bit funny and embarrassing) as an extra way of sanctifying the Sabbath day. Nowadays I can't go a single day without Calvin complaining that I need a shave. I suppose our families know us best and notice these things more frequently than others.
One of the first-grade girls started crying during the latter part of P.E. class yesterday. At first I didn't take it too seriously, since she's a little bit too sensitive about failure, lacks confidence, and bruises easily. She's the type to default to tears when something bad happens, before she realizes that she's not actually hurt or endangered. But yesterday she was scream-crying. It was awful and terrifying, really. So I ran over from helping some of the other boys learn to jump rope and I noticed that she was clawing at her shirt, screaming that something was inside it. I shook her shirt and saw her scratching at her neck. Two small red welts confirmed my suspicions: bee sting. We walked back to the lunch benches and I used a credit card to remove it from her neck. One of the mothers was early for picking up her son and she rapidly attended to the poor girl's crying. When they returned from the bathroom, she was clutching a small pack of ice cubes and she felt much better. Hallelujah!
My last year of undergraduate studies has begun! It started much too late, to be honest. My brain was turning to mush for the month and a half after serving the Lord in Prague, though I was able to visit Chaplain Chuck McIlhenny at the Gardena Hospital my father's house for about a week up in Tehachapi. Calvin feels uncomfortable going there by himself, especially when our stepmother and half-sister are around. I also feel the same way, but I'm learning to bear all things in order to reach but a few people for Jesus. If Mary and Charisa can don a clown costume for the Czechs, I can act like a son, learning obedience through suffering just like my Savior.
My classes are a mixed bag. There's a psych class about language development, which is similar to my linguistics class last year, there's a logic class that hasn't taught me anything new yet (nor will it, since it deals with hypothetical truths using simple rules of operation), and there's an upper-division philosophy course on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. This class seems promising, but Kant does not: his thesis is that faith is not predicated by empirical knowledge. This may be true of all besides the Christian, for we serve the God of the living Who raised up our expert witness, the Lord Jesus Himself, to testify throughout history of the veracity of the gospel.
-----------
I recently purchased Imagine Dragons' album Night Visions during iTunes' discounted sale. It's a good album, and I especially like the progression from "Demons" to "On Top Of The World" because it reminds me of the Beatles' Abbey Road and their progression from "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" to "Here Comes The Sun." Here's a link to the latter progression.
Imagine Dragons (unintentionally?) mimicked this progression masterfully in that the first song brings me to tears with the sad truths the singer speaks and the second song raises my head with hope.
Similarly, my demons may bury me, but Jesus doesn't leave me to rot on top of the world. The law points out my shortcomings and my demons, and I can only agree. "This is my kingdom come," and the hour of my visitation is upon me; who can save me from this body of death? With the knowledge of God comes the knowledge of my sin and unworth, my demeritorious nature, which causes me to recoil at the sight of grace. Truth and grace are repulsive at first; for what do light and darkness have in common? My blood's run stale, I'm hell-bound, I can't escape this now; but thanks be to God who gives us the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ!
Our Jesus never leaves us and never forsakes us. He bore the disgrace of desolation on the cross, and conquered the temptations of the demons who offered Him the whole world if He would abandon us. Jesus doesn't cut corners, and like one of the bad guys of Breaking Bad once said, "[good fathers] don't skimp on family." He takes it in but doesn't look down or backwards like Lot's wife, and he truly can take us with Him.
I used to be able to go a whole week without shaving, so that I would clean up on Saturday night (since I didn't want to cut myself Sunday morning and bleed over the communion wine-- which would be sacrilegious and only a little bit funny and embarrassing) as an extra way of sanctifying the Sabbath day. Nowadays I can't go a single day without Calvin complaining that I need a shave. I suppose our families know us best and notice these things more frequently than others.
One of the first-grade girls started crying during the latter part of P.E. class yesterday. At first I didn't take it too seriously, since she's a little bit too sensitive about failure, lacks confidence, and bruises easily. She's the type to default to tears when something bad happens, before she realizes that she's not actually hurt or endangered. But yesterday she was scream-crying. It was awful and terrifying, really. So I ran over from helping some of the other boys learn to jump rope and I noticed that she was clawing at her shirt, screaming that something was inside it. I shook her shirt and saw her scratching at her neck. Two small red welts confirmed my suspicions: bee sting. We walked back to the lunch benches and I used a credit card to remove it from her neck. One of the mothers was early for picking up her son and she rapidly attended to the poor girl's crying. When they returned from the bathroom, she was clutching a small pack of ice cubes and she felt much better. Hallelujah!
My last year of undergraduate studies has begun! It started much too late, to be honest. My brain was turning to mush for the month and a half after serving the Lord in Prague, though I was able to visit Chaplain Chuck McIlhenny at the Gardena Hospital my father's house for about a week up in Tehachapi. Calvin feels uncomfortable going there by himself, especially when our stepmother and half-sister are around. I also feel the same way, but I'm learning to bear all things in order to reach but a few people for Jesus. If Mary and Charisa can don a clown costume for the Czechs, I can act like a son, learning obedience through suffering just like my Savior.
My classes are a mixed bag. There's a psych class about language development, which is similar to my linguistics class last year, there's a logic class that hasn't taught me anything new yet (nor will it, since it deals with hypothetical truths using simple rules of operation), and there's an upper-division philosophy course on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. This class seems promising, but Kant does not: his thesis is that faith is not predicated by empirical knowledge. This may be true of all besides the Christian, for we serve the God of the living Who raised up our expert witness, the Lord Jesus Himself, to testify throughout history of the veracity of the gospel.
-----------
I recently purchased Imagine Dragons' album Night Visions during iTunes' discounted sale. It's a good album, and I especially like the progression from "Demons" to "On Top Of The World" because it reminds me of the Beatles' Abbey Road and their progression from "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" to "Here Comes The Sun." Here's a link to the latter progression.
Imagine Dragons (unintentionally?) mimicked this progression masterfully in that the first song brings me to tears with the sad truths the singer speaks and the second song raises my head with hope.
Similarly, my demons may bury me, but Jesus doesn't leave me to rot on top of the world. The law points out my shortcomings and my demons, and I can only agree. "This is my kingdom come," and the hour of my visitation is upon me; who can save me from this body of death? With the knowledge of God comes the knowledge of my sin and unworth, my demeritorious nature, which causes me to recoil at the sight of grace. Truth and grace are repulsive at first; for what do light and darkness have in common? My blood's run stale, I'm hell-bound, I can't escape this now; but thanks be to God who gives us the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ!
Our Jesus never leaves us and never forsakes us. He bore the disgrace of desolation on the cross, and conquered the temptations of the demons who offered Him the whole world if He would abandon us. Jesus doesn't cut corners, and like one of the bad guys of Breaking Bad once said, "[good fathers] don't skimp on family." He takes it in but doesn't look down or backwards like Lot's wife, and he truly can take us with Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment