Fatherhood

I'm scared today.

I want to be right. I so desperately want to be right...and here's why.

The battle is already won. Jesus is victorious and has already triumphed over evil and as we await this truth that was and is and will take place shortly, what do we do with the meantime? I must rejoice in that, but there is a real and scary finality to knowing that the war of good vs. evil has already been decided. That fact is not going to change, it's just a matter of whether we match up with the right side.

I'll give a terrible sports analogy. Your playing for a team, that team is DOMINATING the other team and it has become fairly obvious to all involved that the game is pretty much over with no chance of a comeback. However, there is still some time left on the clock, so what do you do with the time allotted? Pull back? Take it easy? Let the other team run up a few scores to make it look like a game? Give the fans what they want? Do you want to look back at the end, although happy that your team ultimately won, but knowing that you didn't necessarily do what you could have to make the victory that much sweeter?

I don't. I want to be right. But here's what's really scary.

I want to be a servant. I want to plant mustard seeds and let them grow and bare even more. I want to give my life, possessions, livelihood, talents, and very essence back to where it came from. I want to be like Christ.

But there's something else I want. I want to be a Dad. It scares me that Jesus didn't have a son or a wife. It scares me that the very example of the perfect human being, the desired frame of character coveted by all of his followers is in some ways the very opposite of what I want.

I struggle with the fact that while the very greatest thing God has ever done was be a father to a son and in that, the father of grace itself, the father of salvation. I struggle with the fact that the lineage ends there. That the very thing I am looking forward to the most in this life isn't a part of the example I believe I am called to follow.

At this moment, in accordance to who my father is and what type of man he has become and also the man that I am becoming, I have great faith that my son would be my very greatest contribution to the kingdom of God and the furtherance of the Gospel. However, that Gospel, which I believe is truth and the answer to all anxiety, question, and indifference, doesn't necessarily ask me to become that which I desire so greatly. It asks me to suffer, to rejoice in my sufferings and to humble myself and sit in thankfulness.

I want to be right. I want a better understanding of who God is and pray for that daily, as did Paul. A guy who got the stuffing beat out of him multiple times, survived and told the story while becoming a father to many modern churches and leaders within the furtherance of the Gospel.

So, in understanding that I serve an impractical God, is it bizarre for me to think that God is perhaps calling me away from what would be deemed normalcy by the world and myself? To follow a certain path that looks a lot like high-school, college, job, marriage, kids, mortgage, retirement, grand-children, casket? It's not a bad path. But is it right? Is it aligned with the Gospel that I know is truth and have seen in action?

Recepie For Discernment

Ingredients:

-1 grain of salt (add more if necessary)
-1 mustard seed (goes a long way)

Directions:

- Take a grain of salt with each page read, word heard and deed done.
- Take the mustard seed and move mountains, realize dreams and have hope.
- Enjoy.

Carpe Tomorrow: "I'll seize it later..."

I just finished the first floor layout of my new dance club/restaurant that should be opening in the next 3 to 5 years. There are many working titles, all of which I'm in love with. There is a D.J. in an octagonal slowly rotating interactive booth in the middle of the dance floor. I'm fairly excited about that...only God knows why I think about these things at this time of night.

My mind works hard...but it works harder right now. Morning people waste the most interesting and exciting part of the 24 hour cycle. This time of night brings adventure, chaos, conversation, reality, mischief, and renewal...renewal. How many of the stories that we remember the best have come after midnight has struck. Some (well educated) parents may say that nothing good happens after midnight...and though I understand the notion, I think the very best and brightest things happen in the dark hours and newness of the morning.

Walk with me...today is a brand new day, it begins at 12:01am and with the greater population asleep for what is truly a triumphant movement in space and time. A time in which we have just lived comes back around and with that, the opportunity to live it out again. A brand new adventure that can rival the last has just begun- a new story to tell, new relationships...newness has come upon us and we, whether in literal of metaphorical terms - are sound asleep as the clock resets.

We've been watching Dick Clark drop that ball in Times Square for at least 230 years now. We love to celebrate the newness. People make promises to themselves and each other about what will be different in this newness, how they will be different, how they will seize opportunity and make the best of the days to come. But what about today? Today is new, by 12:01 we have already circled the sun again and after such a long journey, let us celebrate what is new, what is available to us to take hold of and make whatever we choose of it.

Snooze buttons are getting bigger and bigger and easier and easier to find even with a groggy, sleep filled eye. But today...today is different, and so will today, tomorrow.


Remember...

It is never just another day.

The Perfect Stranger

I have really been diving into the idea of ask, seek, knock.

And because of that...I have really been buying into the idea of receive, find, open.

And as I continue to explore what I truly want to ask, seek, and knock on God's door to do in and with my life, I think back to my previous conversations with Him and how I closed, lost, and masked the potential of mine and His working relationship by a simple unwillingness to recognize his desire for me to be his child, to come to him and let him have it.

I think it's interesting that for a portion of our adolescent and adult lives that we often fall into heyhowareya passerby conversations with God. With a few exceptions... it may look something like this...

"Dear God, thank you for this day, thank you for my family, please keep them safe. Please let your will be done in all things, thank you for Your Son. Amen"

There is nothing wrong with that prayer, nothing at all. But when I think about the conversations I have with the people I hold closest, the people who mean the very most to me and whose relationships I cherish, those conversations go a little bit differently. With those people, I don't just meander around and give the general overview of my situation and why its so terrible or great - I go into detail about importance of what I want - what I need. I speak on specific things.

Check it...

And yet here I have this almighty Creator who breathed his very own life into me to create the pleasant obnoxiousness that is documented on this very page and apparently I have the spikes to speak to him with the same beige vagueness that I reserve for that super sweaty guy at the gym who is SO interested in spotting me? What a knuckle-head. God is not an acquaintance - He is our Father.

Jesus would literally go off for hours upon hours just to talk to Daddy dearest! And in that quality time, I can't imagine him looking at the dirt, kicking stones and sharing with poppa-bear something like...

"Dear Dad, thanks a lot for this day, thanks for the apostles and please keep them safe. I hope everything works out for You, thanks for...well....um....me. Amen."

I highly doubt it. What I don't doubt is the ever present need to be intentional and specific with my conversations with God.

So here is my recipe for success/my self-help book/ my manifesto if you will...


Be specific...ask, seek, knock...mustard seeds.


Steven D. Arnold

Blackbarely and iPhony...The Demons of Distraction

Technology officially scares me. Today I watched a Youtube video of Microsoft's new gaming technology "Fluid", which allows a human being to literally be the game controller. I watched two(I'm guessing 35 year old) grown men jump around in a taped off box on the ground, giggling like little princesses and was all but mortified. The machine is a souped up version of the Wii remote with a sensor that detects things like motion, heat, height, weight, sexual orientation, blood type, deepest fears, insecurities, ingrown hairs, and the ultimate destination of your soul. Keep in mind that this is just the beta version and that the finished product, which should be available next year, will allow you to go online and actually take another human life. Thanks Mr. Gates! You've ruined yet another child's innocence with your abnormal genius! I know the numbers of your rising geek army are growing every single minute...

This generation will always be known as the real technological boom. The internet/iphone/Xbox era has been the most rapid advancement in technology since the late 1800's. With the internet and it's stream of interactive and accessible media rivaling the motorized vehicle as quite possibly the single most influential invention in our communication based world...it's getting a little scary. Now, the future isn't necessarily scary because of my hyperbolic comments about the future of gaming as much as the safety and future of our worlds focus on what is real, what is truth.

I pray for my generation, for the 90% of us who begged for the iPhone, got it, dropped it, cracked it, got another one, put a case on it, dropped it, barely cracked it, told we have to keep it this time because you can't afford our lifestyle anymore. I pray for my generation who affectionately but perhaps not all together misguidedly call their phones Crackberries to allude to the unhealthiest, however still highly addictive form of cocaine. Very cute.

Yes, perhaps it could be argued that in an age of communication that these tools help us keep in touch with the world and people around us. I get that. Trust me, I'm thrilled to know what Sally last tweeted about, really I am, and I hope she gets a better haircut next time, but I'm under the thick impression that God created us to be a bit more interpersonal than our ialones and lackberries allow us to be. I'm not saying we have to go Adam and Eve or anything, I don't need to see all of that. Honestly, I am much less likely to talk to a naked person than a clothed one electronically...but I think you know where I'm going.

I am concerned about the distractions we face and will continue to endure do to our continual progression into a virtual world. Think of the distractions the first century Christians faced. Perhaps their wily goats escaped from the pen and the round up cut into their quiet time. Maybe they were focusing so heavily on giving their 13th son a terrible name that they simply lost track of time and...oops...late worship is already over. Check it, I don't mean to belittle antiquity, every generation is different and has served it's purpose in God's plan. The reality is that people were dying everyday for a reason. And the reason was obvious, they lived according to their faith and because of that were chastised and many of them murdered. But what about in a time when things aren't so obvious? What about in a time of reality celebrities, twitters, and facebooks? What about a time when were are lulled fast awake by the distractions and speed of this world that we no longer remember the reason we suffer, or how to suffer at all?

So am I saying that the Xbox, Facebook, and Cell Phones are from the devil? Yes...100%


No, no, no... you knucklehead...you're cute though.

What I am saying is this... I don't find it hard to believe that in this specific space and time that some of the powers that be in this unique spiritual battle might be using these luxuries to his benefit as the "great deceiver" to distract and deny our fervor and energy from being placed on the almighty God.

Is any one inanimate object evil? No.
Can evil be done with an inanimate object? You bet your blackberry.
Can we control it? Maybe.
Will we? Actually, I think Steve Jobs is coming out with the new iPhone this week....oooooooooo I want that...

See how they get you? It's just that easy...

Be weary and wise friends-there's not an app for discernment-

Yet.

-Steven D. Arnold