Tim Ree and Best Wok

So Tim Lee (Ree in Chinese) and I are chilling tonight. I found out I did absolutely horrible on my math test this morning, and so I’m going to drop the class most likely and take it again next semester. So as a result, I decided I don’t need to worry about my math homework due on thursday until I talk with my teacher about whether or not I’m dropping the class. Thus, Timmy and I are hanging out tonight and playing Call of Duty while eating some delivery Best Wok (Chinese FOOD). By the way, for those of you that care, Peace Tea iS AMAZING with Chinese food.

On a slightly different note… I’M DONE PLEDGING! I’m now an official brother of Beta Upsilon Chi! BYX! BUCS! Brothers Under Christ, etc. etc. These are the coolest group of guys I know, among whom Timmy here is one of…. (Insert Asian eyed emoticon smile.) Brothers rock! Haha. I love it, but in Math… well… I’ve fallen too far behind to catch back up in there.

However, I’ve decided that I will most likely be coming home for Easter! Keep it a secret from my mom though, I don’t want her to know. And since I’m coming home that weekend… You know what that means? Hudson, Leo, Andrew, rest of you who read this and ignore what I say…. YOU MUST COME VISIT ME! I get kinda lonely of all you guys way up here. But its no further than Auburn! And I have free food for you! And a cool city…..

Anyways, so while we’re on the topic, E-training (Evangelism training) ended tonight. I don’t know if any of you guys get the opportunity to participate in anything like it down there in Alabama, but if you EVER get the opportunity, TAKE IT! Its probably one of the most spiritually growing things you can do, and it will prepare you for continuing in your walk with God.

On that topic of growth I have something for you gentlemen out there. There are Godly men in the Bible, whom we are called to emulate. Men that exemplify qualities that strive to lead us to God. We can see men like Stephen in the New Testament who exemplifies being bold in your faith, David for being meek in his control of his power, and various others who carry qualities that we should have as men of God. But why don’t we pursue them as actively? “They are men of God! How could we possibly be anything like them?”

The answer is that they were men just like we are. They messed up and turned away from God, but they came back. They pursued God. They made the choice that defined them as choosing to follow God and thus, they chose to become Men of God. We need to make that choice everyday.

---- The Running Man.

Go Dores.

Sooo tonight was Sanctuary and it was totally awesome. I got to walk to Lipscomb and see my two good friends Ashley and Emily before walking over to Sanctuary and praising God with 300ish? other people. It was awesome. Plus I got some Chick-Fil-A for the first time in… A long time. Great meal.

Anyways, I was reminded of something today that I hadn’t really thought of before in depth. Bluntly put, its that we become leaders by following an example set for us. We are Christian leaders because we follow the role set up by Christian men in the Bible. These men were not super-human, they were man, just like you and me. Any one of us is just as capable of walking on water or praying like David or even being persecuted in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. We are called to follow their example and to lead.

But how do we lead? The trait that we can find in every single character in the Bible that is used as a leadership figure is the trait of servitude. BYG does a great job of emphasizing this and reminding students that their job is to serve, serve one another and serve God.

But how do we serve? This is what I was reminded most of tonight thanks to my pal Jackson Reimers. He’s my… bowling… chaplain. Pretty cool guy. Anyways what he said to me was something echoed by someone else in authority over us, “In order to learn how to serve, sometimes we have to be served.” How true is that? I’m not saying tell everyone to serve you so that you can be reliant on them and “learn a lot.” But What I’m saying is that sometimes, its easier to allow someone to serve you, so that they can lead, and so that you can learn how to lead. Make sense?

In short, we are called to lead, and thereby to serve, but in order to learn how to do those things, we have to have an example and that comes from characters in the Bible, and the people around us, that people around us are the ones that we can see in everyday situations serving us and showing us how to lead one another in a manner that reflects that which Christ showed here on earth.

This is my last thought I promise. When Jesus was washing the feet of the disciples, Peter said something along the lines of, “ Lord I am not fit to have you wash my feet.” and Jesus responded, “Unless you are washed then you will not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven with me.” Peter then says, “Lord wash my feet and my head and my hands also.” Peter realizes that in order to spread the Gospel, he must be one of the people who has it, (cause who can share what one doesn’t have?)  Peter needs the Gospel (or salvation) and the only way for him to get it is through allowing Jesus to serve him in His death. Jesus’s death was the ultimate act of service, and if we refused that, well, we wouldn’t have much to look forward to. So Peter saw that the service Jesus was doing was something that served him and ENABLED him to share the Gospel in the name of Jesus Christ.

I love you guys, talk to you soon!

 

----The Running Man

Well… Welcome to College

Well guys, its official, I’m in college. I’m pulling my first all-nighter. I’m really proud I was able to wait this long to do it. I’m also disappointed that I got so far behind that I have to do it. Falling behind is definitely hard to catch up with in college. Relative to high school anyways, and so I’m gonna keep this brief so I can get back to studying. We can’t always put off our studies and obligations in life. Sooner or later slacking off catches up to you and you pay for it. Some pay almost immediately, others, further down the road.

The same can be said for your spiritual walk with God. If you slack off and say hey, I’ll catch up sometime soon, you begin to realize that you can’t. You get confronted by people who think (and probably do) they know better than you when it comes to your God. This in turn causes you to either delve further into the Word, or quickly abandon the “rock” to which you were holding. Its as if the river has a rock in it right before the waterfall. You grab it, but never get out, never actively move towards getting to safety, you just hold onto it cause you know it can help you when you need it to. But you get caught off guard by some random wave or current and bam. You’re gone and your faith has left with you. And that’s somewhere I never want to see any of you. I want each and every one of you to be actively pursuing God in every aspect of your life. Thanks! Love ya’ll!

 

----The Running Man

What if my faith and beliefs dictated how I lived my life?

Yeah pretty crazy right? The idea of believing something and deciding that what you think is actually more correct. But wait, doesn’t that mean that you don’t believe in it? Doesn’t that mean that you think that your own views are better than what you “believe”? Doesn’t that just mean that you believe in yourself? You are supporting your own beliefs.

This was something that the Provost of our very own Vanderbilt University said tonight at the Town Hall meeting. A “meeting” that was designed to tell all the religious organizations that basically they have the opportunity to comply with the university’s “non-discrimination” policy, or they have the opportunity to leave campus. I cannot describe to ya’ll accurately the number of times that they stated stupid reasons and continuously made cyclical arguments that really had no bearing on what was going on and did little to answer our questions. One other statement made by the Provost was this, “Faculty rules and regulations trump what you want.” Everything we say, do, and think, doesn’t really matter to the school. What does matter? Basically the rules that they decide to selectively enforce, taking bits of the government and bits of their own private constitution and combining them to make them what makes them happiest.

But you know… thinking about that, I kinda realized that we do that a lot in our faith like Israel did in the old testament, many times over. We takes pits and pieces of the views that we enjoy, and we merge them all together to give us a hodgepodge of happy-go-lucky gospel of health and wealth story. How many times do we ignore those parts of the Bible that we just don’t want to confront? How many times do we do something and try and justify it by saying its not as bad as what the world says, and the world thinks that this is actually ok… I just wanted to let you know. That that’s wrong. Plain and simple. Vanderbilt may have the ability to combine their laws however they like, but we submit to an authority higher than Vanderbilt, higher than the US Government. We submit to God almighty, and when those other institutions are placed over us, God has done that for a reason, but not when it conflicts with His law. That is the point at which I will stand up and say I will not have this. Your prayers are appreciated and I will be praying for you as well.

 

Some cool pictures taken from the past few weeks.

----The Running Man.