Category: Outside the Box

Non-mainstream thoughts and musings

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Pray All The Things!

If you’ve been paying attention over the last few years, you may have noticed a disturbing trend in the Church. It’s sort of what happens when the culture you live in is overrun by people who value relativism and hate the truth. It’s where you believe that positive thinking literally makes things happen, and that everybody has “a little bit of God in them.”

This really scares me. People like T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyers, Kenneth Copeland, and Joel Osteen are telling people “God will bless you financially/physically if you’re truly faithful” but let me tell you, people… this is not what Jesus said.

Kenneth Copeland says:

The fact is, you really haven’t prayed in faith if you pray about something, but don’t take it. If you get up from prayer saying, “I don’t have it. I’m still sick, I still feel bad,” then you didn’t take it…and you certainly don’t have it.

Joel Osteen says:

God has already done everything He’s going to do. The ball is now in your court. If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you’re going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family.

And we could go on and on. How much emotional crippling damage has this done to people’s faith? It totally takes God’s will out of the equation. Can you imagine telling the Apostle Paul “I’m sorry, but God’s not going to heal the thorn in your flesh because you haven’t prayed in faith.“ Or maybe telling Peter “Sorry, if you had declared words of faith and victory, you’d be rich and comfortable right now instead of being martyred upside-down on a cross.”

What if God doesn’t want you to be rich in this life?

What if God doesn’t want you to be comfortable in this life?

What if God doesn’t want you to be healed in this life?

The truth is, God doesn’t need us to be healthy or rich for us to serve Him, for us to worship Him, for us to glorify Him.

And we aren’t called to do anything else. Continue reading “Pray All The Things!”

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The World Needs Solutions, Not Answers

One of the things I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with in my life is where we derive our self-worth as human beings. On what basis do we judge ourselves as “successful?” Where do we look for validation, and how do we achieve it? Is it even worth trying?

The World® has all kinds of answers. Vapid and pointless answers, but they do have answers. Plenty of people who are looking for the answers to life really believe these answers, too. This is the tragedy of our modern church. We have failed to provide answers for a populace that is desperately seeking them. And in typical human fashion, they found their answers elsewhere, even if they’re wrong.

When I tell people “God loves you” I’m assuming they know certain things that I know. I assume they know that Jesus Christ was God in human form. I assume they know about Sin and Atonement. I assume they know they need a savior.

But what if they want an answer, when they don’t even know the question?

[Insert joke about the number “42” here]

In reality, people don’t know what they want answers for. They’re looking for solutions, not answers. Someone might ask me “Why won’t my car run?” I can tell them “Your car won’t run because it broke the timing belt,” but if they don’t know what a timing belt is, it won’t help. It’s the correct answer to their question, and it’s helpful to someone like myself who knows what to do with that information. But if they have no clue, it doesn’t help… the problem is still unsolved in their minds. I haven’t offered any solution. Continue reading “The World Needs Solutions, Not Answers”

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Villain Is The New Hero

I recently ran across an article on John C. Wright’s blog (written by his wife) called “Redeeming Villains: How Not To Do It.” It excellently makes the connection between the current trend of “victimizing” traditional villains, and “demonizing” traditional heroes. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what to think, but the more I looked at it, the more I think she’s on to something.

The gist of Wright’s point is not that the villains can’t be redeemed. It’s that to do so, the writers have resorted to demonizing something else that would traditionally be wholesome, or was wholesome in the original story. Of course, nobody is really evil, because they’re just victims, too! Poor villain. Nobody understands their struggle, when all they want is to be loved. And destroy all that is good.

The danger underlying this thinking is that it insinuates everybody who does something wrong has good motives, deep down… if you dig deep enough or spin a back story long enough, that “there is good in all of us.” The problem is, that’s just not the case. This is the “not-my-fault” mentality, the rationalization of evil. The lie of “with enough love, anything can be justified.” Wright even goes so far as to say it’s a case of blaming the victim.

Let’s look at some examples: Continue reading “Villain Is The New Hero”

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Culture War Pacifist

I’ll be honest, I follow quite a few outspoken bloggers and writers in my day-to-day reading. I’m always interested in their takes on culture, current events, and whatnot. And yes, most of them lean towards my thoughts in several areas. I enjoy the challenge of thinking about difficult problems of life and faith.

But so far I’ve resisted the urge to post my own thoughts on “left” and “right” and right and wrong in the never-ending Culture War. Is this because I don’t know what I believe? Is it because I don’t want to offend anybody?

No. It’s because I don’t feel I need to proactively defend what I think, or try to convince others what I think is right or wrong. I know from personal experience that it’s very difficult to change someone’s mind unless they are willing to consider alternatives. And frankly, in today’s internet environment, it’s just easier to find a group of people that thinks like you instead of actually trying to defend your beliefs.

Should I be actively throwing my beliefs on social issues out there? Should I be overwhelmingly vocal about things that other people feel passionately about? I guess that depends on my reason for having a blog in the first place. Some things I am vocal about; some I’m not. Some things I just am not interested in discussing, and some things I need to learn more about before I would even consider it. Ultimately, I get to decide what I want to discuss because I feel it’s relevant. Is that selfish of me? Continue reading “Culture War Pacifist”

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Sleep Deprivation And You

I have always struggled with getting enough rest, for as long as I can remember. Through my college years, I would stay awake for days (usually playing ping-pong and video games) and then binge sleep on the weekends (and some Mondays). I never really thought anything of it.

A few years back, I took a job working at a hospital in New Orleans. I had the joy of working the weekend night shift, which meant I worked 7pm to 7am, Saturday and Sunday night, every week. I would get off of work Monday morning when the day crew would come in at 7am. I was alone the whole time. Sometimes late at night I would walk up to the ICU ward and listen to the breathing machines and monitors, just to stay awake. Sometimes I would go up to the NeoNatal unit to watch preemies in incubators. Sometimes I was so tired, I would hallucinate, and fall asleep sitting at my desk, perched on a tall chair. Sometimes between 4am and 5am I would pass out on the floor, with my backpack as a pillow, and sleep for 30 minutes because I couldn’t hold my eyes open.

To make things worse, I had to come in for two 8-hour day shifts on Wednesdays and Thursdays, every week. After six months, my body still hadn’t adjusted. I was either working, sleeping, or staring into space like a zombie. For six straight months.

Somewhere during that time, I realized that I couldn’t function without sleep. That’s also when I started drinking coffee to be able to function (and it’s been ten years, I still haven’t broken that addiction! LOL). Eventually, I quit that job because I couldn’t function. Things went back to normal- for a while.

Fast forward a few years. Now I’m working a job I love. I’m eating right, exercising, doing everything right. And yet, I don’t get enough sleep. How much is considered enough? How much does a normal person need to function properly? Would you even know what functioning properly would feel like?? Continue reading “Sleep Deprivation And You”

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Approaching Ground Zero

In a few days, my “day job” (here’s a hint: it isn’t blogging) will ramp up for a month or so of crazy production. It will involve copious amounts of overtime, probably some extra days, and lots of overtime pay.

Yes I get paid overtime, because I’m an hourly worker, and I refuse to work another salary job. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I will never do it again. I generally have issues with large mega-corporations (even though the one I work for is one of the better ones) and I also don’t like corporate politics, stupidity, wastefulness, attitude, and greed. Pretty much all things I’m sworn to destroy.

Ah, but for the lack of a paycheck…

Anyway, if I don’t post a lot over the next month or so, that’s why. Hopefully I’ll get time to breathe.

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The Myth Of “Abundant Life”

“Abundant Life” as we’ve been taught it, by the modern Church, is a myth.

If you’ve ever heard someone say “God has blessed me with a new _____! He’s given me life more abundantly!” then you’ve been exposed to the lie. In today’s climate of soft theology and relativism, this kind of thinking is rampant, it’s destructive, and it’s wrong.

I debated on whether to even write this, as it’s a hard topic to swallow. Take, for instance, my article on Technology In the Church. I knew as I was writing it that it would ruffle some feathers, because it clearly calls out believers to put their money where they claim their faith is. That makes people uncomfortable. But I’m okay with making people uncomfortable.

The Christian life is not about human comfort. If it were, we could discard the entire book of Job. Or Acts. Or the Gospels. Or pretty much the whole Bible. In the book of Job, the Bible says Job was righteous in every way, and yet God allowed him to be afflicted. All throughout the Bible, there are stories of righteous people suffering and enduring hardship. The thorn in Paul’s side. Lazarus’ death. Job. King David. The disciples. Even Jesus himself.

If God were in fact trying to make everyone comfortable, then what would the point of that be? We know God doesn’t change. We know God allows suffering in righteous people. Therefore, it is wrong for us to assume God wants us to be comfortable. Comfort does not honor God. He allows us to be comfortable, in the same way he allows us to endure suffering. To God, it’s just a part of life, not the goal in and of itself. It’s not a reward for being “good enough.”

“But doesn’t God want me to be happy?” Continue reading “The Myth Of “Abundant Life””

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Tasker And Flowcharts

In my quest to simplify, I’ve ventured into the territory of Information Automation. Since I discovered the app  Tasker, I’ve challenged myself to find new ways to exploit it to automate tasks that I really shouldn’t be wasting time on.

Tasker basically is an automation programming language for your Android device. It allows you to take any number of trigger inputs (GPS position, battery state, apps, network status, emails, RSS feeds, etc.) and then perform any series of tasks you program it to. It has the capability to be a full-fledged programming language, with conditional logic, variables, and so on, which lets you make some incredibly complex “tasks” for it to run.

It also has the capability of using almost anything your device can do as an “action” or output, which means you can automate just about anything your phone/tablet can do. Take pictures, play audio, send texts, run programs, share to social media, control the device’s functions, or even speak and listen to voice commands.

So, sometimes I geek out on stuff like flowcharts and such, and programming is the perfect place for it. Flowcharts! Graphs! Logic! Here’s how it works. Continue reading “Tasker And Flowcharts”

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The Way-Back Machine

Fortunately, I’ve been able to find a bunch of my articles from before The Great Server Wipe of December August 2011. This is good in a lot of ways. You can see just how much my writing and thought process has changed over the last 6 years. And honestly, you don’t want to see my writing before that. That’s pre-Wordpress…. hardcoded HTML… (shudder)

It’s pretty entertaining to go back and see what I used to write about, and what I thought was important. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be back-posting these articles into the blog’s history, and adding redirects to the new posts.

Thanks to The Way-Back Machine for the help!

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My Thoughts On Self-Publishing

My thoughts on self-publishing

Some of you out there in Internetlandia® enjoy reading books, and a few of you have even gone so far as to say “Hey, since I love books so much, and writing one doesn’t look too hard (I mean, look at romance novels, right?) I should self-publish one!”

Well, far be it for me to proclaim myself an expert in self-publishing books, but I have done it, so I figured I’d share my thoughts surrounding the process, instead of talking about the mechanics of the process itself. If you’re looking for helpful advice in formatting and/or figuring out the publishing process, there’s already plenty of information on that.

We’re going to focus for a minute on the why of self-publishing, which is something not many people think about. If you’re serious about writing, this is going to be a litmus test. Either a) you’re going to get upset, or b) you’re going to recognize what you need to be doing. Hopefully I don’t upset anybody.

These are the questions you need to be asking yourself if you’re seriously considering self-publishing: Continue reading “My Thoughts On Self-Publishing”