Category: Signs Of Life

What is the point of writing a blog if nobody reads it? What is it about written discourse that people just aren’t interested in any more? No matter how I cut it, there’s no denying that blogs aren’t drawing in traffic like they used to. But written word is still my favorite way to communicate!

So what’s the point? Why am I still posting here? It’s mostly because I just like writing. Is it pointless? I don’t think so- not completely pointless to me. By me writing things out, it helps me to think through difficult problems, scriptures, and whatever else. Couldn’t I just do that in a written journal? Well, I suppose I could.

My Shifting Influences

There’s a lot that has been going on in my life lately. My wife has been ill. We’re still dealing with the consequences of that. We’re still dealing with after effects of Coronavirus lockdowns. Our family is struggling to find stability and peace, and somehow, I have to make sense of it all.

I’ve been watching a lot of new Youtube channels. Mostly music and guitar stuff, but there’s a few I follow that speak about current events and self-improvement. Some of them are Christians, some of them aren’t. But the main idea is that I’m trying to figure out what to do with my life at this point.

“What, you don’t have your life figured out yet?”

Well, sort of. I’ve spent the last 25 years building my family, and doing challenges when I get the chance- writing a book, learning a new language, studying martial arts. That has served me well up to now. But I am moving into a place where I am thinking about the future, and I don’t have a specific course laid out for myself. I’m being pulled in many directions.

“But don’t you write about purpose all the time?”

Yes, I do. But there’s more than one way to carry out purpose. I need to spend some time thinking about the best way to do it. If I’m a worship musician at heart, what are different ways I can fulfil that? If my goal is to creatively present the gospel, what are some ways I could do that? Music? Videos? Stories?

Each one of those pursuits has its own requirements for time, money, and energy spent. In some cases they may overlap (like making music for videos). But for the most part, they don’t. So I have to decide which way to go. I clearly don’t have the time to do all of them, as much as I’d like to.

Et Tu, Brute’

So, my choices are:

1. write books (least money, most time required)
2. music production (medium money, medium time)
3. minecraft theology videos (most money for new PC)

I’m sure there are other things I could add to the list, but these are what I’m currently evaluating.

A new baseline computer (just the parts) would run me around $700. Top shelf would be closer to $2000.

Music production would cost me a few hundred bucks in equipment, but easily less than $500. I already have most of what I need.

Video camera: I will probably need to get a nice camera if I go any of these routes. Everything is distributed through youtube now. Music? Needs video. Gaming? Needs video. Writers? Needs video. I don’t think I can get around this.

What’s the Point?

What I’m getting at is this: sometimes you need to evaluate not just your purpose, but also how you carry out your purpose. Not just the why, but also the how. And sometimes that means making compromises to keep moving towards the end goal.

In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Paul reminds the church in Corinth:

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to take the prize. Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable. Therefore I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight like I am beating the air. No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”

In our spiritual walk, there are stages we go through. Much like when we train for a race, we have to do things in the right order and meet the requirements, or risk being disqualified.

Step 1: decide you want to enter the race (salvation)
Step 2: learn what rules require (study)
Step 3: learn who your opponents are
Step 4: Run

Can I Be Disqualified?

According to Paul, yes. Does that mean you can lose salvation? I don’t think that’s what he’s referring to. Paul says “After I have preached to others, I myself would not be disqualified.” Before this, in verses 16-23, he is talking about preaching the gospel as his primary mission. “I have become all things to all men, so that I might save some.”

So can you be disqualified from preaching the gospel? Yes. I think this is what Paul is addressing. You can contradict the gospel with your lifestyle, and thereby nullify anyone believing it.

“I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified” means he kept his fleshly lusts in control so that he would not become a hypocrite, and thus diminish the gospel being preached- his very reason for living.

Does this mean I can’t lose my salvation?

Whoah there, friend. I didn’t say that. Just because I think Paul’s addressing being disqualified from preaching the Gospel, doesn’t automatically mean you can’t lose salvation. But this question is a lot more complicated, and we might not do it justice with just a few hundred (or thousand) words.

But let’s assume, for the moment, that the act of preaching the Gospel is a crucial indicator for being saved. You wouldn’t want to be disqualified from either one, would you? That’s not to say you have to preach the gospel to be saved, or that lost people can’t preach the gospel. But the idea of being disqualified looks very similar in both cases, doesn’t it?

What then?

We run in such a way as to win the prize. Not aimlessly or lazily. It requires focus and dedication- not to secure salvation, but to solidify our walk.

Once again, I was alerted to the fact that my WordPress site has been hacked once more… I don’t think I’m really surprised at it any more. There’s so much going on, and between PHP, MySQL, and WordPress, there’s tons of exploits that allow people to take over a website.

Thankfully they didn’t delete everything. Which reminds me… time to make backups again.

As I posted about previously, I’ve decided in my feeble attempts to remain modern, hip, and “relevent” I’m diving into trying WordPress’ new Gutenberg editor. There will be some things you might notice, like drop caps and such. You may see some spacing or paragraph types that look weird.

On my end, things look much different. There aren’t any controls to modify blocks, other than adding colors or external CSS classes… which means I would have to learn CSS to be able to make any use of these blocks.

There’s no “more” bar to insert, there’s no font options, no settings to modify. In essence, the editor has changed from a word processor to a graphic layout editor. And as I said, I’m a writer… not a coder. But I discover when you click the magic “+” button between blocks… holy cow, there’s everything!