Quote of the Day

Those who know and can should write.
The rest should read or listen.

Gettin' Jittery Widdit / Identity in Christ

Back at Jittery's. Been here since 1:45 p.m. and haven't gotten done nearly what I needed to. Evidence: I'm blogging now. I finally remembered to pack my earplugs so I can block out the music they play here. I know I'm not cool enough, or "in" enough, to appreciate it. I'm just a professional musician with a few decades of training and study, but what do I know?

And they've turned up the heat, so I'll be nodding off in a bit. WHOA. As soon as I typed that, the employee went to the thermostat and turned it down. He said it had been set on 85. The three tables around me just let out a collective sigh of appreciation.

Our identity is in Christ. This is a sex-blind truth. Elect men and women have the same core identity: being in Christ. It's expression is different, in part because of our sex, in part because of our gender (they are not the same thing, by the way, and I'd be happy to explain that later), and in part because of the personality traits we were born with and developed by living.

Perhaps the ubiquitous teenage identity search is a singular teachable moment: that we are built to want an identity, and we will only be satisfied if we are found in Christ.

So I have come to conceptualize my identity in two parts: one changeable, one not. My unchangeable identity is in Christ: it is what it is, and not only can I not change it, I wouldn't want to. This identity is founded on the Rock, and I can go back to it to find peace and comfort and guidance regarding how I am to be in this world.

The changeable part is the one that causes me to sin because the enemy and my old nature conspire to make me search for my identity in anything but God. Who am I? Am I a musician? Am I a Reformed Evangelical? Am I an intellectual? Am I a Southerner? Am I a frat boy? Am I a lawyer? Am I a sinner? Am I a recovering homosexual? Am I a recovering addict? Am I a practicing addict? Am I a latent tattoo townie? Am I controversial? Am I boring? Am I outgoing? Am I introverted?

Who am I?

Every answer to that question leads me to sin because it leads me to an identity in something not-Christ. It is self-referential. Even the answer "I am a Christian" is not-Christ. Hell is full of people who thought themselves a Christian, but not Christ's.

So the question that matters is this (and you all know this): "Whose am I?" If my identity is in Christ, then I am His. Everything holy proceeds out of that.

Question of the Day

Have you ever felt like you were just wiping a crayon?

Fighting Lust

I'm going to post here a section of a short passage I recently read regarding how to fight lust in our minds. It's powerful. (See the comment for the source.)

"I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell."
Matthew 5:28-29

When you are enticed sexually, do you fight with your mind to say no to the image and then mightily labor to fill your mind with counter-images that kill off the seductive image? “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).

Too many people think they have struggled with temptation when they have prayed for deliverance and hoped the desire would go away. That is too passive. Yes, God works in us to will and to do His good pleasure! But the effect is that we “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12-13). Gouging out your eye may be a metaphor, but it means something very violent. The brain is a “muscle” to be flexed for purity, and in the Christian it is supercharged with the Spirit of Christ.

What this means is that we must not give a sexual image or impulse more than five seconds before we mount a violent counterattack with the mind. I mean that! Five seconds. In the first two seconds we shout, “NO! Get out of my head!” In the next two seconds we cry out: “O God, in the name of Jesus, help me. Save me now. I am Yours.”

Good beginning. But then the real battle begins. This is a mind war. The absolute necessity is to get the image and the impulse out of our mind. How? Get a Christ-exalting, soul-captivating counter-image that is so powerful that the other image cannot survive. There are lust-destroying images and thoughts.

For example, have you ever in the first five seconds of temptation demanded of your mind that it look steadfastly at the crucified form of Jesus Christ? Picture this. You have just seen a peek-a-boo blouse inviting further fantasy. You have five seconds. “No! Get out of my mind! God help me!” Now, immediately, demand of your mind—you can do this by the Spirit (Romans 8:13)—demand of your mind that it fix its gaze on Christ on the cross. Use all your fantasizing power to see His lacerated back. Thirty-nine lashes left little flesh intact. He heaves with His breath up and down against the rough vertical beam of the cross. Each breath puts splinters into the lacerations. The Lord gasps. From time to time He screams out with intolerable pain. He tries to pull away from the wood and the massive spokes through His wrists rip into the nerve endings and He screams again with agony and pushes up with His feet to give some relief to His wrists. But the bones and nerves in His pierced feet crush against each other with anguish and He screams again. There is no relief. His throat is raw from screaming and thirst. He loses His breath and thinks He is suffocating, and suddenly His body involuntarily gasps for air and all the injuries unite in pain. In torment, He forgets about the crown of two-inch thorns and throws His Head back in desperation, only to hit one of the thorns perpendicular against the cross beam and drive it half an inch into His skull. His voice reaches a soprano pitch of pain and sobs break over His pain-wracked body as every cry brings more and more pain.

Now, I am not thinking about the blouse anymore. I am at Calvary. These two images are not compatible.

Money can't buy happiness...

...but it can buy 1000-count, Egyptian cotton sheet sets. Sweet.

Possibly Against My Better Judgment...

If this post turns out to be what I think it will be (loneliness, pornography, and introspection), you may want to just skip it. For some reason, I think writing about it will help me, but you will probably just roll your eyes.

To the point: I'm lonely. Not I-couldn't-find-anyone-to-go-to-lunch-with-me-today lonely, but O-my-God-I'm-32-and-don't-have-anyone-who-loves-me, desperately lonely.

In spite of my hyper-analytical, oft-paralytical introspection, sometimes I just don't get what's going on in my heart or my head. So I stay busy, or at least stay around busy-ness, and sometimes my subconscious works things out in time. But something has been pushing itself to the surface, demanding attention, and I've been as imperceptive as a first-year sorority girl talking on a cell phone in a Range Rover.

One recent symptom: internet porn. Why do I look? Because the illusion of an intimate connection is sometimes preferable to no connection at all. This isn't a rationalization for looking: I know that it is rebellion against God, and I know that I am willfully participating. The Devil did not "make me do it", as if my natural inclination is not to look.

The fantasy isn't about having sex: for over 15 years I've been able to articulate that for me, as with many people who have a homosexual orientation, it's not about the sex itself. It's about other things, like being wanted. Like being valued. Like being accepted. Like being chosen. And in more extreme expressions, like being worshipped. In short: being loved.

And even though sex is a false substitute for love, the lie is an attractive one. And that's something that has begun to alarm me: that I am more desperate than I realize, and that leaves me vulnerable to doing more than just looking at pornography. I pray with my whole heart that God protects me from the enemy, and from my own brokenness. But if I do not take seriously, and look honestly at, the things that are going on my heart, I am a fool, and Proverbs is clear about what happens to fools.

Be careful when you ask God to help you deal, because He will. I had a revelation in the shower this morning (which is, oddly, typical for me), as I was brooding over many hurts I've experienced at the hands of my father and various friends in my life. It was really out of nowhere, at least that's how it seemed, and I just stood there for minutes remembering a lot of very hurtful experiences, crushing rejections that I've received over the years.

And then God plugged Wire B into Slot C and a light bulb came on: this is the foundation that I'm living from. These experiences still affect me, and they still govern my initial self-image. I have yet to fully acknowledge what my perception of my father's rejection has done to me, especially when accumulated without correction or wise counsel for so many decades. This realization does not excuse my looking at internet pornography, but it clearly and definitively explains it.

My pastor has asked me several times if I have a best friend, and each time I have said, "No." It's true. I have friends, people I see periodically and with whom I'll share a meal, but I do not have any friend(s) whom I feel regard me as their best friend. And for a "best friend" to exist, the feeling must be mutual. There must be an equality of feeling, of regard, and some of the friends whom I consider close often relate to me as if I am their older brother: connected but tolerated.

My pastor's response has been to tell me that this is typical of those "in the ministry", and maybe that's true. Maybe God will always keep me from having a David-Jonathan relationship because He wants me to learn to accept that intimacy only from Him. Not to be crass, but God doesn't call me to grab a movie on a random day just because He wants my company.

Not to have anyone seek me out like that seems to be evidence of how I am regarded, and that is discouraging. Am I that much of a wet blanket? And if so, why? Is my sense of humor unwelcome? Am I too outgoing, e.g., do I make myself the center of attention? Am I uninteresting, or just a one-note Nate? And if so, what is that one note that is so repellant?

I think this perception is founded on the various rejections I've had from nearly all my male friends, from kindergarten on. I've certainly never been regarded as anyone's best friend, so I've accepted that I'm just not that kind of person.

And when I've played the active role in seeking out friends, in making the calls or coordinating the hangout stuff, it's not usually reciprocated. After so many experiments of ceasing the calls just to see if anyone would do the same for me and finding that they don't, I have pretty much given up making the calls.

AAARRRGGH! I get in this mode--and then I have a moment of "My GOD, Jason, get a grip! Stop being so morose and get over yourself!" That just happened.

But the reality is that these things still affect me, and the point is that I am still learning how deeply they are seated in me.

SO WHAT IS MY HOPE FOUND IN CHRIST? Don't y'all ever let me throw this stuff out without making sure I'm looking to Christ. Reality is: Christ is my best friend, and I am His. He regards me in exactly the way I am desperate to be regarded: He seeks me out, He is ever eager to hear even my most trivial thoughts, He is willing to spend hours listening, and He is my advocate in the world and in heaven, always telling others the best about me and about how He loves me.

I mean, how many of us have friends who are our advocates in the community? How many people love us so much that they are eager to share the best about us with others?

But even more importantly, is this best-friendship mutual? Am I His advocate? Am I seeking Him with my whole heart? Am I always ready to listen to His thoughts and ideas? Am I championing His worth in my community? Am I proud of Him, and that we are friends?

So I need to learn to be content when I am lacking, even in human relationship. Please, God, comfort me and give me Your peace.

Cross-post

I also post on a group blog with friends in a Bible study, and I want to re-post something I put there, just to share with y'all, a different group of readers...

I was reading a passage in the NT where Jesus was telling parable after parable, but He was only explaining it to the disciples. He told them that it was given to them to know the secrets of the kingdom.

What struck me for the first time was that God had no problem disclosing the secrets of the kingdom to Judas, enemy of the kingdom. God invited His betrayer into the inner circle and disclosed the plan for the kingdom to him in plain words. I don't think a single world leader would do the same.

My fear of God increased as I considered God's confidence in Himself, His confidence in His plan. What He has decreed will happen, and not even an invitation to His inner court and full disclosure of the secrets of His plan can affect What Will Be.

I (we) have no reason not to put complete, childlike faith in One Who is like this. There is no one else like Him, so there is no alternative.

Anyway, just a thought I had the other day.

P.S.

Yes, I know Brokeback is playing at Beechwood. I still say, "Don't go".

The Update 10.4.4

Anyone who knows me knows I'm an Applefanatic. I have been ever since I owned my first IIci back in high school.

One of the neat features of a Mac is it's "software update" feature, so I checked to see if there were any updates for the software on my computer. With one click, it said there were 5 updates, totaling about 100 MB of data--the largest "update" package since I got my laptop. I installed the updates, which promptly reset the settings on my web browser. It doesn't remember any of my login/password combinations for all the websites I visit.

This is inconvenient b/c I have forgotten most of them. I'm mildly annoyed, but mostly because I haven't written them all down. At least I remember the combo for Facebook, right?

Having attended both of my classes, I am now less anxious about the workload. I still find it funny that my professor in the Bach musicology course insisted that this class was going to be "fun" and "not like any other music history class we've ever had". The funny part was how she defined "fun", and in doing so revealed that our "essay" (her word) for the course will be at a minimum 15 pages because, "you really can't say anything in just 15 pages". Try me.

So this course is apparently designed to give me yet another writing sample, something that will be frightfully useful as I interview 8 year olds for spaces in my piano studio.

It seems many of my friends have stopped blogging altogether: Sarah, Kristin, Carrie, Rob, Kelli, and Chris. Helen posts one every week or two, and DEG will get back on track once his comps are over. Brian is the only one I can count on for regular posting. I need new blog buddies. I mean, some of these people are the reason I started blogging in the first place. Perhaps they have hit Step 5 or Step 12 in the Blogging Cycle. Or maybe they're hiding behind new blogs. Blog intrigue...interesting, but only just.

In other news, I will be moving my blog in about a week. I will post the new address on here, so check back to see where I'm heading. I like Blogger OK, but I am going to start using a new Mac program called iWeb that makes it incredibly easy to have a website, a blog, and post photos and video. I think I'm going to go multimedia, but we'll see.

Oh, and for more nerd news, I bought a camera thing that I can hook to my computer and scan in all my books, CDs, anything with a bar code. There's this great program that will take the barcode, pull relevant info from various web sources (like Amazon), and put it on a "bookshelf" on my computer. I can print lists of my book and CD libraries, and it includes album covers and dust jackets. Given my collections, this is a no-brainer.

It's now past my bedtime, so good night.

Day 1: Anxiety Builds

Have you ever gone to the first day of class and realized that the load they are asking of you will be way more than average for a 3-hour course? We have to have topics picked and much of the preliminary research done for a 10-12 page paper within two weeks. I have to turn in an annotated bibliography in two weeks, but how will I know how a particular resource is relevant to my topic if I don't have a really firm understanding of the resource itself, my topic, it's breadth/scope, and what I need to look for in resources? That stuff evolves with the research.

Writing 10-12 pages isn't the issue: if you have something to say, 10-12 pages is often not enough space. What is daunting is being required to have most of the conceptual stuff, including having something to say, completed and written down within the first three weeks of the course.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll "work it out" in my head and figure out how to give them what they want, but for now, it seems like a big challenge.

And that's just one of the two major papers I have this semester. I'm going to go blind doing the required reading for these courses, much less the "optional" reading that would really help me to get a grasp on what's being taught.

Day 1. ::sigh::

We Are All Retarded

Yes, Mary, I'll explain that title.

Because I had to leave my car at the detailer's shop for four hours this morning, I was without transportation to get to lunch. But as you could probably guess, I just walked to my home away from home: Loco's. When I walked in, I saw that there were four full tables of children with special needs, including Down's Syndrome, wheelchairs, and various other physical and mental impairments. There were only five adults to assist about eighteen children. It was loud, but I started thinking.

I imagined myself as one of these children, clinging tightly to my Elder Brother out of simple, childlike, total love and in utter dependence on His care and assistance. In truth, I am as handicapped as any one of those beautiful children. I am no less dependent on Him for physical protection, emotional stability, and feeding me, physically and spiritually.

I was also struck at the tangible, physical effects of sin in the world. These children are not incomplete physically as a result of their personal sin, or even the particular sins of their parents, but their physical and mental deformities are in fact a direct result of someone's personal sin, namely Adam's. And they are a direct result of the fall of man and of creation as a consequence.

What glory Christ will receive when all physical and mental incapacities are made whole! What glory is His that He can and will do it! And I believe that His grace will fall specially on those who have suffered the physical consequences of sin in this life.

Oh, I have so much to be thankful for, to lie prostrate in admiration and awe for what He has given me.

Happy Belated New Year

Sitting in Hot Corner, piddling until I eat dinner. I've been reading God Is The Gospel by John Piper over the break: great read, and short. I'm also working on Bach: The Learned Musician in preparation for the musicology course I'm taking this semester.

UGa begins next week, and I start back with my piano and music theory students. It will be hectic, again, and I'm not looking forward to the hecticity. But I have a few more students this semester, which will help me make the payments on my new (used) car (2004 Acura TL 3.2 with navi). The process of purchasing a car is something I have been dreading, but God provided some "free time" over the break so that I would have time to get it all done.

I still haven't seen Narnia, but if anyone wants to catch a matinee soon, let me know. I haven't changed my mind about The Producers: it's tragic.

I finally joined a gym in time for New Years, but I'm not just going to go for January and then slack off like so many people do. It's pretty much now my routine to get up early and get to the gym for an hour of cardio (elliptical)--a great way to start a day. I had paid the fee for fall semester 2005 to go to the student health center, The Ramsey Center, and I did not go even one time. That was truly a waste of money.