March Forth

A couple years ago freshman in college me found an interesting pun in today's date. March 4th becomes March Forth (as in the command).

Imagine with me, if you will, you're decked out in military garb, a weapon in your hand. The rain is coming down hard. Your whole body is soaked from the rain and from sweat. The mud is sticking to your boots and slowing you down. You can't see between the rain and the darkness. Clouds cover the stars. Your fellow soldiers are on your left and your right, but you can only barely make them out in the dark. The sounds of war surround you. You're tired. No, you're exhausted. Your muscles all ache in their numbness. You want nothing more than to lie down and give up. The pools of water in the mud are beginning to look rather inviting. You hear people stumbling around you. Your grip falters. Suddenly you hear "March Forth; Keep Moving." And it's enough for one more reluctant push of energy as you continue to move.

Do you ever feel like that? That exhausted? That tired? That ready to give up? Because we all have - especially if you're living your life like you should be (see When S*** Hits the Fan). Sometimes the hardest thing to do when you feel like that is to keep going. That's why days like this are great, because even the day is telling you to march on. Whether it be your new years resolution, your recent commitment for Lent, a lifelong personal battle, a fight against injustice, or anything else, we must remember to keep going. Giving up gets us nowhere; it is only through perseverance that we get anywhere - that we prove anything.

Hmm... perseverance. What a fun word. Here's one of my favorite bible verses when it comes to perseverance:

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that sufferings produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:3-5

Whether in faith or in any fight worth the fight, there will be rough times. Whether it's because of persecution, self-doubt, life factors, growing stagnant, or a combination of all of these, rough times will come. But it's not getting knocked down that matters, it's getting back up. That perseverance builds character. And character builds hope. And as Jyn Erso once said "Rebellions are built on hope." So whatever it is you're rebelling against - whatever way you're going against the flow - do so with integrity and persistence. That's my encouragement to you today. Rejoice in your sufferings. Get back up. Keep going. March forth.

As always, God Bless and good luck!
~XTopher

Energy - the secret

"That is an absolutely terrible idea. You should see me on a pixie stick"
- Me responding to people trying to get me to drink coffee.

 If you don't know me, I have a LOT of energy, and when I say a lot, I really mean it. I've got this insane amount of energy that lets me just go, go, go all day and all night. I don't take naps, I don't drink coffee, I don't even exercise all that regularly, but for some crazy reason, I have so. Much. Energy. Not only am I super energetic, but it's like a joyful and playful energy, so I'm always in a good mood.

If you do know me, you know that all of those words are true.

So a question I get asked all the time is this:

"How the heck do you always have so much energy?"

It's been teased that if we hooked the world up to me, I could run it with just my natural energy. I have several friends that want to bottle up my energy and sell it (it's their get-rich-quick scheme). Well, for all of you that are blown away by my energy, want my energy, or are simply curious, I'm about to reveal my secrets.

That's right. For the first time in history, I'm revealing what gives me so much energy.

But first, a word from our sponsors.

Not really, but kinda. I wanna explain what doesn't give me energy. See, I've been searching for this answer for a long time, and I've done a lot of experimenting to see if I can get the energy to go away by changing my habits. I've tried the amount of sleep I get - not it. The amount of water I drink - not it. The amount of sugar I consume - not it. The people I talk to - not it. The weather - not it. The conversations I have - not it.

Now, I do owe some of it to my natural disposition, but there's more to it than simply genes, because I've experienced days and weeks without this energy.

I've searched for years for the answer to this question, and it was in front of me the whole time!

I ask for it.

Seriously. Part of my prayer every morning is for God to give me the energy I need to make it through the day - and boy does He provide. I could go in so many directions with how His awesome might and power is shown through this example, but here's what I want to stick.

God wants us to be successful. He wants us to be able to do the things that He has laid out for us. For me, that takes a lot of energy. For you, maybe it does - maybe it doesn't, but regardless of what He has for you to do, He already has and will continue to provide a way for you to accomplish that. Whether it be through natural talent, luck, miracles, friends, etc., He will provide.

But just because God has equipped me with a natural energy doesn't mean that He just gives it to me. He gives it to me when I consciously decide that I want to use that energy to further His will and to better the world around me. He gives it to me when I ask for it with those intentions.

So yeah, I'm naturally energetic, but God supernaturally blesses what He already gave me when my heart is in the right place - and He'll do the same for you, too.

So, good luck in the real world and God Bless,
-XTopher

When the S*** hits the fan

The Raw Truth

A Logicians Guide to the Uncomfortable Truth of Following Christ 

"In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,"
       - 2 Timothy 3:12

Let's talk about logic for a second. (If you absolutely cannot stand math: skip ahead to the big bold words that tell you to read here). I don't know if you're at all familiar with logical expressions, but for the sake of argument, the above verse can be expressed as:

"All people who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted."

Then, if we let

Christian(x) mean x is a person who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus

and

persecuted(x) mean that x will be persecuted,

then we end up with:

"x, Christian(x) ® persecuted(x).


This is now in the form of an implication - or an if/then statement. We'd read it as:

For all x, if x is a Christian (a person who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus), then x will be persecuted. Exciting right? Well, it gets better!

Now that we have it in implication form, we can take the contrapositive (a transformation that keeps the same true-false values). In other words, we can transform the sentence to look different, but still be true.

Check it: the contrapositive of "if p, then q" is "if not q, then not p". So, we'd have:

"x, ~persecuted(x) ® ~Christian(x).

The tilde (~) means "not". In English, this would read (brace yourself): 

"If you're not being persecuted, then you are not wanting to be a Christian (a person who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus)". 

Read that again. That's some challenging stuff.

Side note: I know that the Bible was written in a completely different language and that language had completely different contextual meanings and that this "proof" is no where near concrete enough to show any absolutely indisputable truth, but it still definitely opened my eyes to something.

Here's where you should pick up reading again:

Being persecuted is a part of Christianity - it's a part of life. In fact, truly living a life for Christ means we will be persecuted. So much so, that not being persecuted is a warning sign to reevaluate our life in Christ. Paul isn't even the only one who points it out when he writes to Timothy. Jesus himself said that

"If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you."
     - John 15:18-19

Here are some question that were posed to me around the end of my senior year in high school through a sermon at church: Am I really carrying a cross if there is no suffering and sacrifice? Can I really say that I'm carrying my cross if it hasn't cost me anything?
I want this information to do two things for you.

1) Encourage you:

If you're going through crap, I want you to know that it's completely normal. It's to be expected, but no one said that it was to be desired. We don't have to love the persecution and say things like "I'm so glad that I lost my job because I just know that Christ is doing awesome things!" Maybe He is, but we don't have to fake it for Christ. Hard times suck. We know they suck. God knows they suck, but He didn't make us go through them alone.

Christ is with us, and what's more is that just after He told the disciples to anticipate hatred, He said that He was sending another to guide them. That other - the Holy Spirit - is within us as well. We are not alone. We have the Holy Spirit, and we have each other.

2) Challenge you:

If you think about the last time that you lost something because of the cross, or were mocked because of your faith, or had to sacrifice something because of your beliefs, and you can't think of anything - you may need to reevaluate your relationship with Christ. Now, this isn't to say that we will always be in hardships - in fact I just came out of a low time and I'm feeling amazing! - but, if you can't think of a time that you had to sacrifice for Christ, maybe you need to ask yourself if you're really living for Him.

I can only say this because that's the exact question I had to ask myself earlier today. I hit a point where I was comfortable. Life was going along, things were fine, people were okay, but nothing was exceptional. Then I realized that my relationship with Christ had also grown stagnant. As with everything, it's a process, but I'm slowly getting back on my feet. I want to challenge you to do the same. I pray that God shakes your life in amazing ways!

As always, God Bless and good luck!
~XTopher