The Facebook Girl

Girls seem to think they own insecurity. Like it's something that they have exclusive access to, so therefore, all guys, except for the few "weak" ones, are all super-confident and secure in their worth. Their macho behavior certainly indicates that, right?

ACK!

I'm sick of it.

I'm sick of girls posting pictures of themselves on facebook with the caption: "I hate this picture! I look so ugly here!"

I'm sick of girls saying, "I wish I could be as beautiful as her!"

I'm sick of girls changing their profile pictures every day in the never-ending quest to find the one that makes them look perfect.

I'm sick of girls dressing like street-walkers to fill the man-void created in them by their fathers, or lack thereof.

The truth is, everyone's insecure. Scratch that, everyone's broken. To quote Brandt + Skinner, we've all had a "bad start in life." This means guys, girls, adults, celebrities, homeless men, supermodels, blue-collars, Mark Zuckerberg, and billionaires. I have a theory:

Most of who we are, as individuals, has been determined by the pain we've experienced in the past.

What girls have done in the area of dressing crazy, men have mirrored in trying to be accepted as manly by being quiet, having lots of muscles, and banging lots of women. The reality is that we all try to find a way to make human acceptance and attention fit the empty space between our hearts and our souls, and when that doesn't work, we try to get more of it, 'cuz that definitely will, right?

My point? I heard this once and it was like lightning was electrifying the couch I was sitting on:

Most of us believe that God loves us, but we have a hard time believing that God loves me. We have an even harder time believing that God likes me.

And when I say me, I mean you. As an individual. I'm not referring to some large group or something. I'm saying that God loves you and likes you, as your own person. And if He's the fulfillment of our brokenness and insecurity, who gives a flying crap about what anyone else thinks?

He certainly doesn't.

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RMP: YOLO!

I will admit. I have used YOLO as a joke a few times. It was funny! And I think that's ok, but the reality is that people live their lives like the YOLO lifestyle is actually a valid one.

The guy who's talking about this mentions something at the end. He talks about the other lies hip hop has told  him. We gotta start recognizing the deeper truths of what these artists are actually saying. Because, even though we might not actually actively think about this stuff, the culture has so influenced our thought and behavior that this stuff has become our belief system.

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The Safety Net

The Golden Gate Bridge was one of the most mechanically and technologically significant advancements of its time. It daunted the "reasonable" minds of the day with its then-ridiculous price tag of $35 million. To give that a bit of perspective, that would be about $1.2 billion in more current estimates. No one had ever built a suspension bridge with one of the towers in the water. No one had ever built a suspension bridge that long. It was unheard of.

Well, along with all of this, there came new challenges. How do you even get workers to go 700+ feet into the air for their day job? Well, they did. Apparently, people were lining up for the work. I guess they realized that this was gonna be a big piece of history. And that it would slap some meat on the table.

There was one little caveat: it was a pretty common understanding among the construction laborers of that day that, in large projects such as this, it was fairly understood and accepted that one man died for every million dollars sunk into the work. In fact, it was expected. I can imagine getting up for work every day with the fairly expected belief that today might be my last day alive.

In any case, imagine what your work output would be like if you knew that every moment held the very real possibility of your imminent death. Let's just say you'd probably be taking your time. A lot of it. And if you're like me, you'd probably have to take a breather once every few... seconds. Joseph Strauss, the lead engineer on the Golden Gate project, thought he'd do something about this. He instituted the safety net.

Once workers saw that they had assurance of safety, everything changed. Work picked up as the men saw that they could traverse the bridge with a new ease and confidence, even despite seeing the water hundreds of feet below. In fact, many of the workers got yelled at for jumping into the net for kicks.

Ladies and gents, I'd like you to meet your safety net. It's called God's Love. It's been around a while longer than the Golden Gate's net, but don't worry - time hasn't worn it out. It does, however, seem to have the same effect as that of the net in San Fran: it takes the fear of man away.

It's for this reason that we've seen men dive into the deep darkness of sharing the gospel to hostile tribes. God's Love is the net that has allowed men to stay true to their Savior when guns are pointed at their family. This is the net that has given men the audacity to speak loudly, love furiously, live unconventionally, stand firmly, trust completely, live nobly, believe against all odds and fight against all tides.

Instituted since the beginning of creation, this net has saved too many to count, and the men who dive into it find that the death they had feared was insignificant compared to life after the fall.

So, there's this project that's going on. It's called "Redemption." I hear it's been instituted with an unlimited budget. The boss need workers, but don't worry.

He's got a safety net for you.

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RMP: A Post about Dunking?

The answer is yes. This is a post about dunking. And not the kind that has to do with coffee and donuts. I'm talking one of the most ridiculous dunks into a basketball hoop I've ever seen.

"Yep, Kingdom Eyes is officially getting secular."

I beg to differ. I'm a firm believer that once you start living your life in a conscious effort to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you see everything as an opportunity to show the glory of God. In this situation? I saw this guy's vertical hop coming out of cartwheel and I had my mind blown. It was like someone flipped on the "amazement" receptors in my brain. The guy FLOATED. How do you even respond to that!?

Anyways, here's my thought: if this is what we can train our bodies to do now, what about on the other side of eternity? I'm not gonna say too much more - I'd rather let your imagination run wild.

That is all. You may go.

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The Name

My family's always done some pretty different things. After two years of sending me to school as a child, my mom decided to homeschool me. Now, when I say, "I was homeschooled," people usually conjure up an image of a mom sitting with her children for 8 hours a day and teaching them as if it were a classroom. They come up with blindingly ingenious jokes like, "So, going to the store musta been like a field trip for you!" If I had a penny for every time I heard that, I could make a statue of myself out of all the copper.

No, my mom decided that I would learn to teach myself. She purchased my learning materials and expected me to go through them and have the knowledge down. Granted, she had to step in a lot when I was younger, but as I grew, I learned how to do things on my own.

Another thing? My parents were always big believers in the family unit. That's where everything started. This means that we did not live as individuals who simply lived under the same roof and ate at the same table. We did everything together. Especially vacations. My parents refused to go on these long "getaways" without me and my brother. If they "got away," it was with us. As a result of this ideology, we've been one of the most tight-knit families I've ever seen.

However, one of the more interesting things we did differently is that, in the past few years, we've repeatedly turned down movies that use the name Jesus Christ in a flippant, or derogatory manner.

"Oh, come on now, you're being legalistic."

Really? So you're telling me that I should watch movies that throw around the name of the Savior who bled and suffered for the glory of His name? You're telling me that it's OK to sit back and be "entertained" by people who think blaspheming the sacred name of Christ is a good way to get laughs? You're telling me that, for the sake of a "good story," it's all right to let some Godless actors pervert and abuse the name of the person who bought my freedom?

I'm sorry, but that's crap.

I've been reading through some Old Testament stuff lately, especially Leviticus, and I've noticed that every time God issues out a command, it follows this basic structure:

"In the land of Israel, My people shall ____________. I Am the Lord."

And you see this a lot. The Law was God's special, intimate gift to His people, and He chose to sign His name to almost every part of it. It was as if part of the gift was simply His name in and of itself. It is for this reason that the Jews would never say God's most precious name, "YHWH" out loud. When reading the Law, they would use the name, "Adonai," instead, for "YHWH" was too sacred to be said out loud. Granted, that's not what I'm suggesting, but simply get this one thing I'm trying to say:

If believers bear the name of God, it becomes their responsibility to make sure it is never perverted.

When telling Israel not to offer their children as sacrifices to the false god Molech, the warning for the man that does so is this, "I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name."

Hear me out. We, as a Christian culture, need to regain this idea of the weight carried in the name of God. Intrinsic in His Name is the vastness of the universe, the breath of life, the richness of creation, and the mass of absolute, unrelenting, infinitely self-sustaining glory.

And it is this name we bear, engraved in the very muscular fibers of our heart, animated with every beat and colored with every surge of blood.

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RMP: I Need Ham

Jimmy Needham, that is. See what I did there? Eh? Eh? All righty... well, anyway.

Jimmy is pretty much one of my favorite musicians. Not only is his music on point, but his lyrics blow me away every time. He has a real skill for articulating on the matters that everyone thinks about, but never puts into words. And this is the song that made me discover this.

I have two bookmarks in my Bible. One is a New York Metro card. (It looks cool, trust me on this one, chief.) The other is just a piece of paper folded into thirds with some stuff written on it. One of the things are the words from this song:

And so I sit here and stare at this page and wonder
At what age it will become clear to me
So for now I am clueless to how You do this
And how You move this Spirit in me.

 It's always a reminder to me that God works how He wants, and that, in due time, He will be the Revealer of all truth.

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The Smell of Your Own Brand

As far as clothes go, I've had some some pretty weird tastes. As outlined in Charlie Chaplin and Conformity, my cane-hat-pocketwatch days lasted for a good amount of time. Then, something weird happened where if it wasn't a polo, I wasn't wearing it. Yeah. Not sure where that came from, but it is what it is. Sure, I had a short fling with Aeropostale and American Eagle, but doesn't every teenage white male? Anyways, then came the glorious years.


"What constitutes the glory years? High-priced fashion?"


Nope. Walmart. It was around this time that I discovered the white walmart v-neck. I couldn't get enough of them. I believe I had 10-15 of them - some for work, some for home, and some for hangin' out. However, my tastes slightly matured and I changed the solid whites up for some bright colors.


In all the years of going through these tastes, there's one thing I can say for sure. I was never huge on high-fallutin big brand names. Sure, I had a desire to dress well as I got older, but I would base what I wore off of how it looked, not the name that was stitched across the front. (Or the butt, you Hollister freaks.)


There is however, one brand that I associate myself with.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13)

Sure the name isn't super complicated or fancy-foreign. It's short, and many feel it's probably too cliche to be a solid brand name. But there it is. Love.

Somehow, it is this deeply intense love that is supposed to be as visible as a Louis Vuitton bag or Vera Wang heels. However, this brand stands out from the others. Instead of saying, "Hey, I'm rich and better than you," or "Hey, I dress better than you," it screams, "I would die for my brother, and I'd do the same for you."

It's impossible to miss. Just like you can't just walk by a Ferrari without taking note, this family-style love between believers grabs your eyeballs and demands your attention, because it's beautiful. Because it's moving. Because it's supernatural.


So, I have one question:

Do you like the smell of your own brand?

If something doesn't smell right to you, go fix it. Go fix the odor of gossip and rumors. Go fix the stench of broken trust. Go fix the rot of hatred between you and your father.


Let's start smelling clean and lookin' good, people.

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