Summit: Donald Miller & Exodus & Donald Miller

This week at ACU we have had a conference going on with classes and different speakers. There were many good ministers and preachers who presented, but all week I have been looking forward to Donald Miller and he did not disappoint.

The theme of the week was On the Mountain a journey through Exodus. I am not gonna lie I was not intrigued by the title. I am kind of a new testament junkie, but I think I may have fallin love with the Exodus narrative.

On more than one occasion, I was very convicted. And since I am so cynical, this seems to rarely happen and rarely does this happen from "Church of Christ" preacher. It can be summed as don't "your" people cause there is crap in the attic... every tradition has crap, you just gotta choose whose to get rid of.

I have often heard the church referred to as the bride and the allegory of the church's wedding with the bridegroom(Christ). But never have I or at least remembered ever hearing the exodus story as a love/wedding story. I feel as if I need to read Exodus about ten time and maybe try a couple of different translations.

Oh, and by the way, God changed his mind. Sometimes I struggle with the notions that God is a perfect God. And when God changes his mind, it throws everything a spinning for me. Here is the bottom line for me... The fact that God wanted to turn his back on his people(for being freaking retarded), and then was convinced otherwise, makes me consider how much more his love is for us. If he had an unwavering love that was never shaken no matter what our actions, it seems cheap. But if he loves us inspite of our actions, and those offenses are felt and grieved, and then chooses to still love us..... wow.

Donald Miller

I was very excited to hear Miller speak. Blue Like Jazz was one of the first books I read on my own. It really started a very costly habit of me reading and building what has become a very impressive library(if I do say so myself). I will not lie to you. I set the bar low for Miller. I told myself, "he is an author, not a speaker." He had so many great things to say that I was blown away. Miller is much more than an author, he is a conversationalist, which makes for great books and it really draws in the listener.

There was a bat flying inside of the colessium where he was speaking. Now this bat had the tendency to dive bomb the crowd and cause a commotion. Now Miller made an interesting choice here, he decided that he would tell us that he was a vampire and that this bat was his girlfriend. And he referred to her(I assume the bat was a female) numerous times as she caught his attention.

Greatness, Glory, or humility

Every summer there are many movies that just seem to get my blood pumping. They always seem to have the perfect hero and they always seem to obtain some kind of greatness that just seems so perfect.

Recently I read back through the last two Harry Potter books because apparently I am 12 again. In my defense they really are good books and J.K. Rowling did a phenomenal job with the entire series. I have always been a sucker for the epic strories of good versus evil like Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings to name a few. Often times it seems that I read/watch such material to vicariously fulfill some kind of greatness missing in my own life.

With this in mind, I have been pondering the definition and qualities of greatness. And the only thing that is for certain is greatness is definitely decided on a case by case basis. Obviously you and I will never have a chance to defeat You Know Who, because unfortunately we are not a part of the wizarding community. Most likely any professional sports greatness is dead since I am 22 and no teams have come a calling yet. So if the obvious war hero, sports hero, and wizarding great are all ruled out... what does that leave a 5 foot 7, 190 pound 22 year old to work with.

Here is my second delimna. Say we haven't considered the other problems I am up against yet and we just consider this one issue. Can one obtain greatness while actually trying to obtain greatness or does it just happen. And if it just happens am I able to put myslef in a situation that allows me to be great, or even if I do is will it automatically overwrite any chance I had at greatness anyways.

After I considered these two monumentals obstacles I began to just think about what I would consider great. Is the man who cares for his family any less great than any epic hero. The epic hero may be remembered, but is that greatness. And does greatness even have to be above and beyond what the average person would do or could even be. Does everyone have the chance at greatness or are we born into the role.

I love what J.K Rowling did with Harry Potter. She didn't give Harry the choice, he had to be the one, and yet Harry felt that anyone in his situation would have made the same decision. So does this make Harry Potter more or less great.

I am aware that the Harry Potter ramblings make little sense except to me but that's ok.

This is the only thing that I think I have come up with so far. Greatness is a life choice to be good. Public greatness happens when we are presented with a situation where we allow the good in us to shine. When this happens it becomes something epic, but what about the greatness that is overshadowed everyday with all the noise and selfishness. Is it any less great?

I'll continue this in the next couple days after I am able to put things down better and probably no at 3 in the morning.

Done... for now.

I took my last exam this afternoon. I'm taking one class in June, but other than that I've got nothing for almost four months. I got home today and I sat in my chair not having any idea what to do next. Wanting to get my summer off in the right direction I cleaned the dishes and cleaned my room. I am apparently the lamest person on the face of the planet.

Like I said before I am taking a class in June so I've been thinking of how I am going to be productive this summer. I've come up with several things. Blair and I are going to visit her Dad in Arizona the third weekend in May. Work. Currently I work at the grocery store, but I hate it with all of my being. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't do twice as much work as my incompetent superiors and get payed chump change. So needless to say I will be looking for a new place of employment where I get payed much better.

My roommate has Rosetta Stone for French. I don't really have any great passion to learn French, but I don't want to be the classic ethnocentric American so I will try to learn a new language since every other citizen of the world seems to know numerous languages. Since I am already discussing languages I plan to keep up my Biblical Greek work. It has not come easy to me, but it is really a skill I want to have and utilize.

Also I want to ride the bike some more and work out. This semester was not kind to my waste line.

The one thing I want to really do is read my books and actually be able to think about them and hopefully spend some time here getting some of my thoughts down.

Well here's to a productive summer!

Blair

My last post kind of touched on motivation, so I thought I might explain a little bit of my motivation. This is Blair Elizabeth Hamilton. We have been together for just about forever. We were high school sweet hearts, but I think I've loved her since the first time I met her.

I was in eighth grade and it was sunday morning. I was standing down the center aisle in the sanctuary at church. Walking down the aisle was a girl I had never seen before, she was tall and gorgeous, and I remember a girl next to me making some snide remark and I laughed because I knew every girl in the sanctuary was jealous. I also knew that this girl was going to be a part of my life.

Fast forward nine years and Blair is my best friend. We have been dating five years next month, and I can't imagine spending my life with anyone else. As you can see she is pretty much the most gorgeous thing on the face of the planet, and I am still not sure why God has blessed me with her. I am a bit of an adrenaline junky: I love to drive way to fast and make poor decisions while mountain biking, but I never feel as alive then when I am in her arms. She is my motivation, she makes me better, she is my love.

Remembering the Past- Looking to the Future

Recently, some of my friends have been writing down all the humorous stories of our past. I must admit that it had been years since I had thought about the stories. I scrolled down the list that had to of been more than 150 long I found myself laughing hysterically in my room as I replayed the stories one by one in my head.

I could not help but feel blessed for the good times in my life. As a college student who is preparing to graduate in the next year, the future is something that I have been thinking about and yearning for.

The problem I am having is that the present seems to get left out of my life right now. And when you are not concerned with the present it is hard to trully appreciate the past and prepare for the future.

I am supposed to marry my longtime girlfriend immediately after graduation, but my lack of motivation has put my graduation time line in jeopardy. My mom used to tell me that I was always looking ahead. I looked ahead to getting a driver's license, then I was looking forward to college, and I am looking forward to graduation. It pains me to say it, but I think my mom was right.

The next few weeks I am going to be looking for satisfaction in the now. I have found that if you want to feel depressed, a good way is to come to the conclusion that whatever is over the bridge is far and away better than what the now has to offer. While this may be true, I think I have really discredited God's plan for my life. I have made his plan small and only about the big picture, while I hope it is precise and big.