Church Notes | Gathering

This weeks study was titled, "Why we gather..." It was a study on Community and the importance of being in fellowship with one another. The pastor presented a really interesting point. Today we can be fed the Word of God in many different venues, all of which are isolated affairs. Books, PodCasts, and a myriad of different options that the internet can provide. There is even a MMO that provides virtual churches to go to, I think that game is still around. There is nothing wrong with these convenience in and of themselves. These convinces become dangerous when we allow them to take a higher seat in our hearts than they were designed for. What I mean to say is that when we allow a PodCast to replace church, or allow a book to replace The Book. When we allow them to stop being supplement that they should be and become the soul source of our Spiritual food. Much like fast food, it should be a treat or occasional indulgence but like for many people when it becomes the soul source of our food our health reflects that. One of the biggest dangers of not gathering together in fellowship with the intent on seeking God, is missing out on each-other. We can not allow a tool for communication to become a weapon of isolation. We can operate under the lie that each week at church is the same as the previous week. We must remember that each gathering is unique and different. It's alive! We are all gifted differently! We all need to guard our hearts and not allow the enemy to take something good out of context and pervert it into a distraction. He tends to use these little lies twisted with a half-truth the most.

Church Notes | Contentment

I have been wanting to color this for almost 2 weeks now, but I wasn't able to. I had some freelance that ate up all my time. This service was on contentment. The imagery was influenced from the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when they meet the star named Ramandu. I wrote a whole post about him earlier this month, he just really inspired me.

She is a star content with hanging in the night sky. Not needing to burn any brighter than her sisters. Content at playing her part in the symphony of lights in the sky. Resting in the balance of unity and uniqueness. We all need to strive to find our special place in the sky to burn brightly for the Lord.

I am just so cheesy aren't i? ;) But I mean every syllable of it.

DW Life Drawing Session Five

More life drawing from work. I did these in my sketchbook, Photoshop helped me put them on the cool old paper. :)

The Joy Bringers

Okay, as I stand on a third floor balcony overlooking the beautiful grounds of the studio that I am blessed to work at I am about to out myself. I hope you orbiters, slices, circlers, etc appreciate this...



I know I mentioned in a previous blog that I love cats, and well its super true (not that there are degrees to truth, I am just being dramatic with a bit of whimsy for effect). This week I wasn't sure what to blog about. I even had another life drawing session at work and thought, "Maybe the Lord shall speaketh again!" No dice. Then my mind wondered back this video, my good friend Nick posted this on my Facebook wall earlier in the week. It made a good day even better! I don't know what it is about cats that bring me such unbridled joy, but they do. I am sure it's joy, not just happiness. Even on a bad day cats can claw their way right through that negative circumstance and bad mood and bring me a smile. Nothing changed other than the fact that I had a smile.

I could make some lame attempt to make this video more relevant by saying that I posted this as an illustration on how we need to slowdown and really look at things. While that is true, that isn't the reason this kitten is on my blog this week. I posted it b/c for some reason the Lord has put a deep appreciation for cats in me. Why? I don't know, and I am not even sure I care to know. But what I do know is that this is a path the Lord has used in the past to get me to smile when I didn't want to, and comfort when I didn't have any peace.

Long story short Cat's are one of my Joy Bringers. What is your Joy Bringer?

Chasing Cars

The other night at work they offered a life painting session form 6:00pm-9:00pm. Since I usually linger in Glendale anyways to miss traffic on my 47 mile commute I was all in! I was excited and nervous, I hadn't done thins kind of painting in ages! I was also excited for the quiet time this would provide. In a room filled with other people painting it is you are all alone together.

As I was painting I was praying that the Lord would speak to me. An hour or so goes by and nothing, so I rummage through my bag and get out my ear buds and plug them into my iPhone. I didn't know what to listen to, so I go to a playlist I made in the summer of 2009 called, "Songs I Like Right Now". Now for some back story on this particular playlist, this playlist in it's day was the "ish"! I was on tour that summer and had a LOT of down time driving from state to state to work on this sucker. All that to say that these were not just random songs. Back to painting! So I hit shuffle on that play list, "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol comes on. While listening to this I realized I liked this song a lot more back then. It was actually kind of annoying. I ask myself and God why is that? I used to love this song! Then the Lord spoke to me, He said, "You used to like this song because you had a similar wound as the men and women who created it. It spoke to you on an intimate level. Between now and then you have trusted me with that wound and I have healed it. Our intimacy eclipses shallow nature of what that song meant to you."

I was blessed and humbled by this revelation. Humbled in the since that I can now choose to be a little more patient when people tend to like songs, books, or movies that I find stupid.

I hope that made sense.

Ramandu

I am sitting here at corner bakery trying to read, but I cant. So I guess I'll blog. As I said in my last blog I love listening to books on tape, or I guess they are called audio books now. Last month the Narnia series was on sale on iTunes for only $9.99! All 7 books unabridged!! I am sad to say that I haven't ever read the entire series. A few years ago I read, "Magicians Nephew"and "The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe". I have been meaning to read the rest but haven't made the time for it. So now I am listening to the Chronicles of Narnia on my iPhone while I drive. I am up to, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”, and after leaving circles yesterday I was driving out to the Long Beach area to meet some friends for dinner. I got to the part in the story where they meet Ramandu, the fallen star, and his daughter. When Ramandu tells them that he is a star Eustace says that in his world starts are balls of burning gas. The star responds to this by saying...

“that is what they are made of, not what they are.”

-C. S. Lewis “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”

I don't know why that struck such a deep cord with me but it did! It stirs something very deep in my heart and mind.It's both thought provoking and beautiful. I guess it made me think of God's intent and purpose for things. How His intentional He is. I suppose that this is the best type of beauty, something that isn't just nice to look at. Something that needs you to dwell on it, something that stirs and challenges you. So I guess you could say that that is the prettiest pretty there is.