Thoughts On Repentance

In church today, we talked about repentance a little bit and I think that God put some thoughts into my head to share with ya'll...

Our pastor at one time said that he was always confused because a lot of the time pastors would invite a congregation to a time of confession silently to themselves but would then interupt about 5 seconds later. He remarked "I wasn't NEARLY finished asking forgiveness for all of my sins". Ironically, I felt like my pastor then went on to only give us a small few moments to dig into our repentance. If our sins hold back the Lord from blessing us and using us if we don't repent, then why is it not given much more time to? Anyways...I was reminded of some things in a book that I'm reading...

I'm [trying to at least] reading this book called "The Normal Christian Life" by a man named Watchman Nee. This actually is a book that I got my dad for Christmas but it looked pretty good so I thought I'd read some while I am home on Christmas break from school. In this book he talks about the first eight chapters of Romans, and I'll VERY briefly describe what Nee says.
Nee says that in studying the first eight chapters there is a distinctive divide in how the Word talks of sin(s). In the first about five chapters our "SINS" are addressed. Whereas, it is referred to as just our "SIN" in the other chapters leading up to eight. "Sins" refer to the vast aray of sins that we commit each day and need ask forgiveness for. On the other hand, "Sin" is in reference to that which is within us. This is the sin nature inside of us that can hold us captive often. Nee then goes on to talk about the salvation from each. Christ's blood covers our "sins". Since Jesus really died for us, our sins are looked at by God (not overlooked, says Nee) as covered in His Son's blood (which God is satisfied with). "Sin" needs to be dealt with by "the cross". The blood is for forgiveness of sins, and the cross delivers us from sin.

I don't know if any of this strikes a chord with any of you, but it certainly did for me especially this morning. Sin is THE THING that creates a gap between us and God. We sin so often, too, don't we? I realized this morning my stance on repentance: our sins simply CANNOT just be dealt with by saying "I'm sorry, God, I'll try to never do that again". Don't get me wrong, there IS truth in that! There DEFINITELY is truth in that. Jesus died so that if we just confess our sins and believe in Him, that we will have eternal life. but consider this...what about that awful feeling that you can have some mornings when you wake up? You ask forgiveness but still feel consumed with guilt and just live on, because we KNOW that the Lord has forgiven us but just settle by thinking that this feeling is normal and how it is supposed to be. This is how it is supposed to be: WE ARE SUPPOSED TO EXPERIENCE VICTORY OVER THINGS LIKE THAT! We are supposed to have rest, and peace, and joy, and power! I honestly think that in repenting of our sins, we should (1) take the time and cry out to God in asking for forgiveness, and (2) get some prayer and pray for deliverance from the hold that sin has on you (and I)...what if this begins to break down "sin" and its power and hold on us. What if we begin to truly feel forgiven and feel joyous? What if repentance is more than just apologizing and moving on without asking for help with what is happening inside?

God is real.
real good, too.


sfk

speaking of sick...

Other things that I am sick of:

-being sick
-church that is so focused on bringing people in (seeker-sensitivity in a way) that it neglects to be what it was called to be, the body of Christ that edifies each other and teaches and fellowship's in the power of the Holy Spirit, but instead brings in and focuses on "new worship songs" and experiential highs...church is not, nor has it ever been intended to be, solely a social club...
-the pattern of captivity that sin holds us in sometimes
-women that tell me that I'm great, I've treated them wonderfully, everything was good, but then all of the sudden get scared and run away (ironically, three ran away to another guy within a very very short time)
-people not being honest with me
-being lonely and even though I'm told otherwise, feeling like I now offer almost nothing positive to a woman
-drama
-people who don't consider others, and block sensitivity in every way possible out of their lives
-women who dress like skanks
-sex-appeal driven consumerism
-expensive gas
-money (let's go back to the bartering system, ey?)
-Satan's hold on so many people's self-confidence
-the fact that every school, including college, does not enforce a 2-3 hour naptime during the day sometime
-hardcore bands that are not musically gifted in any way
-unhealthy food that makes me want to eat it all of the time
-people that shave their face (just kidding, but come on, beards are amazing)
-unfaithful significant other's
-constant distraction from [at least] occasional silence and solitude
-body hair
-beard's that doesn't grow fast enough
-jealousy
-IHOP's pancakes that just aren't quite big enough


That's not quite all...but almost :)

sfk

Sick of it...

Last night, even though thoughts of loneliness, anger, and insecurity were very prominent in my thoughts, I went to bed fine. There were no pre-Christmas day jitters. Since when did I stop being excited about Christmas? Was it when I stopped caring so much about gifts? Or is it completely at my fault for somehow, in some way, intentionally losing excitement?

The same applies [and trust me, I hate cheesy analogies, but this really fits well...] to my faith right now...I am holding myself back so much! I have brought myself to a place where I am becoming critical of everything that doesn't speak directly to my heart, when the reality is that God speaks through whatever means he chooses. I need to, right now, start and kill my will. (not my awesome friend Will Rowland though, I meant my desires...my personal, selfish agenda). When I let the Lord take over, excitement will come back. It will.

Two reasons that I feel dull and numb:

[1] I am not being open and not letting anyone in to my heart or thoughts, nor am I allowing anything to captivate me emotionally. WHY? I don't know! But I'm going to try and stop...

[2] I am spiritually being held captive. I feel that fact stronger each day. The chains have been broken many times in my past; however, the damn "enemy" has me bound still, or again. I say this not as an excuse to my human flaws and inability to conquer struggles. I say this because I know that there is something going on that needs to be taken care of. I am help captive, and am trying to escape through prayer, by loneliness, sadness, lust, confusion, insecurity, laziness, and a lack of self-confidence. It's time for these to leave. It's time to see some victory...

MAI KNEE SIS

My nieces are such a blessing. Period. Even though the desired decibel level in a room with them is sometimes exceeded, they bring so much joy into my life when they're around. Especially when they want to be with me. Today, everyone came over. Justin & Beth w/Sarah, Lauryn, Lainey, and Audrey...and Chris & Laura with Maddie.

Today was one of those days that was just good with my nieces. They wanted to play. They wanted to jump around on me. And most of all they all actually wanted to hug me and kiss me on the cheek both randomly throughout the day and when they had to leave. It was great...that part of the day at least. SO that's all I'll talk about in this post ...
Sarah and I go way back. I didn't hold her at first. This is mostly because she was my first niece, and I was waaaaay too scared to have control of such a fragile lil' girl (though we at least try learn these days that no matter how fragile the person, they always need someone to hold them and take care of them...some people are just too resistant to that though, ey) in my arms...I love Sarah so much. She's one of those princess girls and in my opinion loves the fact that her younger sister (Lauryn) follows her around and mimicks all of her moves. Sarah is such a great niece :)


Lauryn is SOO precious. For some reason, with this girl I break when she is hurt or crying. I can't stand to see it...it's very weird because I'm fine when the other 4 girls cry...but not her. I think its because she is so cute. She is so dang innocent looking that she'll one day be able to get away with anything. But not while I'm around. I hope to fend off some hormone-ragin, teenaged, boys when the time comes. I'm hoping that some day we can all stage me to be the drunk uncle with a baseball bat (of course I wouldn't really be drunk) that opens the door to greet Lauryn's first date...:)




This is me and Lainey. and quite simply, I don't know another little girl who smiles as much as she does and has. She is really just recently getting to know me because most of her years thus far in life I've been at college...But man am I glad that she likes me at least a little bit because she brings me so much smiling...!




Audrey must mean "little ball of wonder". This beautiful little girl smiles almost as much as Lainey, but still has that fury of crying sometimes:) We don't know each other as well as I do the rest of the girls. But I gave her some potato chips today and we played alittle and she sat on my lap a few times. SO I think we're cool. I can't wait for her to get to know me more!




This is Madelyn! She is Chris and Laura's only daughter and she is some character. Awhile ago, I would have said that she is scary! when she doesn't get her way. But in all honesty she seems to be just as full of joy as anyone else I know. She kept wanting me to be "monster" today and chase her...I scared her so much that she fell down at least twice! And she pounds on me. Actually, today she latched on to my left ear with her teeth and i was scared she wasn't going to let go. OUCH. haha...I can't wait for this girl to grow up. She's so beautiful and is such a sweet little girl..

I obviously am blessed to have these girls as my nieces and can't tell you how much I love them!!! Just thought I'd share :)

sfk

hopefully this will be the last post i ever use the word "cute" or anything like that, haha!


but seriously...

The Bagette and the Adorable Old Woman next to me...

So I'm sitting in Panera today for my weekly "go-to-Panerabread-and-journal-slash-ponder-slash-eat a chipotle chicken sandwich" visit and I decided once and for all that I absolutely am amused by the elderly.
As I sat there, to be quite honest a bit confused as to why old people bring me so much joy, I decided to try and nail down some of the reasons why...and what I ended up with was about 4 abstract ideas that hardly describe why I feel drawn to "old" people :)

WHY do they bring me so much joy? Is it because the Holy Spirit puts them specially on my heart? I have always felt specifically drawn to, in my hopeful future career of physical therapy and rehab., geriatric rehabilitation, so maybe that's it.

Here are some of the things I wrote down:

(1.) They are quiet. But not just quiet. Almost as if they are peaceful. Tranquility is perhaps the best word, I believe.

(2.) They are slow. But not just slow--graceful and careful and cautious...and okay with not speeding around at the pace of our conformed culture.

(3.) The look of SORROW is always something I pick up on in a lot of the elderly's facial expression. It is, however, only "seemingly" present, because of course not all of them are down and depressed. That look of something...loneliness, sorrow, even quiet joy, just draws me in so much...

(4.) They are fragile. How could you not want to just love and care for something that is fragile?


Aren't I a character? Ha...Eating a Chipotle chicken sandwich (which I probably couldn't afford), analyzing my thoughts about the elderly, and all the while keeping a keen eye for the opportunity that maybe...just maybe...Some gorgeous woman will walk in, sit near me, get to know me, and someday let me just take care of her and be her strong man.

Or maybe that's too close a look into my thoughts, ey? For now...On Sunday night, Christmas Eve squared, I will just stop typing ;) Love ya'll and remember that you never know what type of day someone is having. you NEVER know what is going on in his or her life...so LOVE and express KINDNESS and GENEROSITY to everyone. You never know how much it may mean to some old woman staring around at the busyness of two younger generations, or to someone your age that seems just completely normal.

ya'll...I love that word.
till tomorrow'

sfk

IT'S SATURDAY AND I FINALLY GOT TO SLEEP IN!!!

Below are a couple of our songs lyrically. They are our two oldest songs and lyrically stuff has gotten a ton better even than this over the past couple of months. If you want to check out the music (its hardcore music mind you, but maybe indeed you are daring enough) go to www.myspace.com/comeoncomehere

Our new stuff, we think, is going to hopefully be pretty incredible! I will be sure to keep ya'll posted on that though :)

So today is the first day of actually free time. After I finish this I will dig into the Word and have some of the well-needed silence and prayer that I've promised. Four of my nieces are over right now: Sarah, Lauryn, Lainey, and Audrey. I love them to death and always count it a blessing when they come visit the house. I can't even believe some of the things that they can do these days and say (for example, like put icing on a Christmas cookie in a pretty decent fashion...and saying things like "Uncle Seth...you blew it AGAAAIN with a girl? Aren't you ever going to keep one of them?"...One thing I know for sure: when my parents leave, there is no way......HOLY COW THEY ARE SCREAMING RIGHT NOW (:)) pardon the interuption....there is no way that I can afford to lose touch with them or especially my two brothers [as i've written about before, they mean so much to me its ridiculous]

Anyways...I haven't had any awesome pictures for awhile to post up here...But soon, very soon I shall...

I'll try to take some pics of my guys down around Dalton so ya'll can see them.

Also, I just realized that I say ya'll a lot now. Thanks Danny and Aunt Sally and Joy & Melissa. Thanks a whole lot! haha..but in all seriousness, I've always secretly thought that Southern Accents=AWESOME

that's all fo' rite now...

love yall
sfk

The Cry of a Lonely Scoffer- Of Grace and Glory

We’ll stand alone!
[This Is, A Cry!]
Of lonely scoffer
[This Is, A Cry!]
Of sweet hypocrisy
Still glistening on their lips
Now his back has turned
Friendships weighing down the truth of others
[This Is, A Cry!]
Of insecurity
[This Is, A Cry!]
Of a caring heart

Too scared to give themselves, Too scared to give themselves,
But unable to stand alone
So walk, we’ll walk, just walk away

Truth that I'm right here,
And the truth is…
Truth that I'm right here,
And the truth is…
Truth that I'm right here

So stand strong as this storm rages on
Their demise is only an earshot away

[I'll give and stand!]
[We'll give and stand!]
[I'll give and stand!]
[We'll give and stand!]

Eaten By Vultures- Of Grace and Glory

O, Father help, Wont you come?
He's cutting her through and through
A mother scorned again and again,
Left with nothing but a Mocker for a son,
and an unsatisfied barren womb.

O, Cursing boy! O, Disdainful glancer!
Well, the leech has two daughters,
"Give! Give!" they cry!
(Wont... You... Come... Through...)
It's time you feed them the needy,
From among mankind.

Though your teeth may be swords,
That wont hold back the Vultures!
Though your teeth may be swords,
That wont hold us back!
Can't you ever get enough? The fire never says, "Enough!"
The fire never says, "Enough!"

So Run, Mocker! Run!
For out come the ravens.
So look, Mocker! Look!
For they are coming for your eyes!

of GRACE and GLORY

In other news...recording has been going awesome. We actually got to sleep in today!

Our vocalist and drummer decided to finish all of the vocals just themselves including harmonies and everything besides one part. Was {am} I pissed about that? Yep, pretty much.

The band has practically replaced me as a vocalist without my consent or even telling me that they wanted to. I won't vent on this too much because it's not to be made a huge deal. But since when are people not man enough to tell me what they really think? That is one of our generations biggest faults, not being able to be honest with each other (of course me and many others). I will try not to be overly angry, but come on!

Overall our trip has been great! We saw two movies for the price of one yesterday because the movie theatre...um...were running.....um......Christmas specials! yea, that's it! :) I know that I am ready to be home and spend some time with my parents and brothers and friends. Not quite ready for the 13 hour drive, but ehhh...Oh well

love ya'll
sfk

check us out @ myspace.com/comeoncomehere

we're throwing around the idea of changing our name to "Of Grace and Glory"

what do you think?

Da Holy Ghost

Oh the tragedy of a life of mediocrity

such a tragedy is a life of continual forgetfulness of our blessings

our potential

our source of strength

our everpresent
unconditional saviour

The very reason for titling this blog "Absconding Mediocrity" is something I have failed to live up to in the past couple of weeks.

Main Entry: ab·scond
Pronunciation: ab-'skänd, &b-
Function: intransitive verb
: to depart secretly : withdraw and hide oneself; specifically : to evade the legal process of a court by hiding within or secretly leaving its jurisdiction

God is real. God has called everyone. God has NOT called us to be mediocre!

The entire semester at Spring Arbor this past fall has been pretty horrible emotionally, with stress, with motivation to do anything, with motivation to be a follower of God...The funny thing is, as I've discussed before, he always brings me back. Whether it's with little things, or miraculous things, He manages to captivate me once more and bring me back to a place of change where I can grow and move on with my faith.
Also, this entire semester, I have learned in a class offered called COR300 (spiritual formation) to look at my life a little better and realized the busyness and distraction that consumes my life. All that I have learned flows towards the same ocean--> (stop settling for this unfulfilling life that I know that I'm living and move on to find MORE, whether in doing that you practice some solitude, some silence, some life-changing...)

I have failed...and now I hope to start over. I will proclaim how God has blessed me, I will spend some quality time with him, and then from there we will figure out how and where to go from there...

I have been wrestling with the idea of whether or not I should post this on the internet or not because of the sheer fact that it frightens me and I don't understand it. However, its' blessing overweighs my fear by SO MUCH! and I fear that I'm too much of a pansy to share it with those who are interested in my life and that love me. So here goes.... :)



There is more to Christianity than what I have learned in the past. Much more. I'm not saying that by meaning "we need to follow Jesus better and then our faith with be much MORE"...I'm saying that by meaning that there is SIGNIFICANTLY and almost (or maybe) UNLIMITEDLY more to this walk with a being who has created us.
I once heard a pastor say "the New Testament didn't just STOP. We aren't in the Old Testament II or anything. The power of God is still alive and working everywhere and why do we ignore it?"
A couple of wonderful people that I know who are going to be missionaries soon said this to me in pondering actually going to their country of missionwork, "Seth, I felt like how in the world can I go into another foreign country and do the works of Jesus without power? I knew then that there had to be something that we were missing and [that's a reason why] we sought it.
One night at a certain church in Michigan, the pastor was talking about something that I had previously understood to be incredibly weird, and probably not real. The power of the Holy Spirit and the reality of a larger portion of the Holy Spirit being poured out. I kid you not, to this point I thought this stuff was the wackiest, most fraudulent part of some Christian denominations...Nevertheless, this pastor seemed to be speaking directly to me. Before he had even finished his talking, I was already running up to the front of the church. And I was shaking. No joke. Involuntarily shaking. My legs, my chest, my arms and my shoulders...they were shaking uncontrollably about every 5 seconds. I knew this: IF there is actually a power that God can fill us with, something that is actually real, something that will act as a running stream within me to fuel my desires for intimacy with my creator and my drive to obey Him. THEN I WANT THAT! If God has more for us, then how could I not want that? I felt like my faith was bland. Dying.
This man prayed for me, and if you are still with me, reading this, he just prayed for a new life to begin. He prayed for the Holy Spirit to fill me and baptize me like never before and for my will to just die with this new beginning (death to my desires). I could not feel my face anymore. My entire upper extremity (yeah, I know, I said upper extremity. Live with it, I'm a fitness and physical therapy guy!) was numb and all at once I kind of just felt like I could finally let go and give in to something new.

To be simple now, the Power of God umm...well, took me over and pushed me to the groung. I was lying there. On my back. and physically feeling that a pair of hands were holding my head. I even reached up with my own two hands to touch the hands that were holding me but there were none. If you want to know more please ask me :) I'll leave you with this: I now feel excited to pray, to sit in silence, to live out aspects of my faith that I haven't before. One specific thing that has changed is the fact that the last couple of times that I have worshipped and prayed, I have barely been able to contain myself! So excited!

If you're still with me up to this point, thanks for being genuinely interested :) I can only say that this is completely real and that if you know me I hope you would trust what I'm saying to be true and genuine.

I love you all (well...at least most of you i think;) ) and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

i hear there is snow in Ohio? AMAZING!

-sfk

Wow

Honestly I can't even begin to describe what the past couple weeks (OR semester) has been like for me. Thank God that the semester is over though. I do know a few things:

I'm in Geogya! (Georgia). The band, I'll call it that for now because we're going to change our name very soon, plus Ryan P took a trip after our last final straight to Roswell-ish, Georgia from Spring Arbor. We drove down thanks to some generosity from Ryan in actually driving four of us down in his van. That van had 5 crazy people and every piece of our music gear that we needed for the weekend.

As soon as we arrived at Jono's house, a huge empty house (because they've recently moved) in a nice community, we unloaded all of our gear and got started. It was 3:55a.m...

We've had a great time so far. All of my bass tracks are laid down; and though it's taking us a really long time to get stuff at least somewhere close to perfect, I think we're going to have a sweet, full album available sometime early next year. We've written a lot of new stuff that is MUCH more technical than previous songs and let me just say humbly that my bass playing has evolved because of learning all of the crazy-hard segments that fit into our songs.

We start vocals sometime tomorrow and will be driving back to Spring Arbor starting Wednesday night.

To anyone who cares: hang in there. I'll write a little more deeply about what's happening in the near future. Time has been consumed at a nasty rate over the past few weeks and I hope to have plenty of rest and reflection over my Christmas break.

-sfk

oh...and if Uncle Danny, Aunt Sally, or Joy or Melissa is reading, I'm sorry, but this time I don't even think there will be any time to visit any of you :( If there is an open afternoon between now and Wednesday I will DEFINITELY get your numbers from my mom and see if we can work something out. I haven't seen [ya'll] in such a long time!


and if none of you read my blog...well, then I guess that last paragraph was pointless, ey?

and so was that one

and that one...

More To Come...Don't Worry, Ey?

I have had a TON of stuff happen in the past week or so that I am eager to write about...

But DANG! have I been busy lately. Tomorrow morning I'll have time finally and will try to put up another blog and let ya'll know what's going on in my life
...not that anyone is reading this to learn that or anything ;)

Until then, take care

and always remember what the Lord has done for us
sfk

On campus today there was a beeping in the quad [yea...that's what we need to call all of the grass and sidewalk within the library, science building, clocktower, and DC here at good ol' Spring Arbor University]

At first I ignored this beeping sound because I was on my way to finish some last minute studying for Biomechanics (my kinesiology course here at SAU).

Later I took some time to walk over to the easel-ish stand in the quad and read what this week's demonstration is.
It was a poster designed by LINK that had information about the statistics of the death's caused by AIDS in one country in Africa (I forget which county. but I'll go find out what it was as soon as I'm done writing this blog)

In this aforementioned country...

one person dies every 13 seconds due to AIDS...

For some reason, today, I was filled with compassion and very broken by this. Even more so was I deeply disturbed at the reality and ignorance of us towards this reality. The was a CD playing that was looping a --beep-- every 13 seconds. How can we ignore that? I walked away cringing because from what I understand, every single one of those beeps actually represents one of our brothers or sisters dying over there.

When did I lose compassion and become numb to things like this? It is such an injustice to not consider lifting a prayer or thought even in the direction of those who are suffering. Should we feel guilty? Maybe not...but this is all I know. God has been working in me a lot over the past couple of days and opening my eyes to truths that he wants me to grasp. God spoke to me through this poster today...I suppose what He has been saying is this:

"Seth (and please...insert your name here if you so desire a challenge), I'm going to break your heart if you let me. Because this is the reality: there is such an enormous amount of broken people. Different degrees of brokenness exist...but remember this: each one....EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE...of these people, broken or not, is my child. I love them so much and am fighting for them. I desire them, each one. That is a fact and, Seth, since you are seeking to follow me you need to grasp this and realize this. Love is not always easy; however, I love them so much and want them so bad. So get working for me. Now..."
-God


I'll end with that,
sfk

TORNADO(in my head)

I cannot even explain to you the way I feel right now
SO...I will just make a list of the different things going on in my mind:

• My discipline in my faith sucks...I desire the Lord so much but neglect to pay attention at an alarming frequency...more on my growth in that area later...because I need to fix that


• As lonely as I feel sometimes...I genuinely do trust that God is holding me and will provide, well...as much as He holds for my future


• I really can't wait to be able to grow my beard back again.

What conditions this can happen under:

1. I need a job that will tolerate it or (of course) a job on campus that doesn't really care


2. No requirements from any class to shave my face


3. that's it i guess

• I may or may not pass away due to final projects overwhelming me!


• I've recently realized that I don't know that much at all about aspects of my faith like the Holy Spirit and [his, its?] power; and waiting in silence for God to speak to me


• Why do people anonymously leave me comments? Not cool. Because then I don't know who it is and that kills me...


• I don't know whether or not I should take the Advanced Athletic Training course next semester, or the Introduction to Pharmacology (Medical Terminology) course...? Help me out, will ya?


• I can't even believe how much I love hardcore music. Especially that of my band, Come On Come Here (check it out, www.myspace.com/comeoncomehere).


• I can't wait for so many things in the future...

hmm...that's about it...HA. not really...but that's a lot of the things on my mind... For today (or at least right now) I think I'm done. until next post

-sfk-