Piensa

So tonight was a special night. We had a worship night for the kids that involved singing, guitars, and me speaking words. It just so happened that the Lord had given me some words to speak and it just so happened that those words had to be in Spanish. The idea was to have a night where the kids could chill and worship a little bit and then a fellow intern, Jessica, spoke on how to worship and I gave a bit of my testimony. For whatever reason I felt the need write it and translate it myself in Spanish. I thought it would be more meaningful and I could use my expert voice inflections to transcend my linguistic inadequacies. The testimony itself turned out to be two and a half pages typed which I then translated with the sweat and blood from my own hands. It turned out to be quite an endeavor. I had our fearless leaders Kendon and Lee help me with refining it. It wasn’t translated badly. But it wasn’t good. Feo was the word I used to describe it in Spanish.

Nonetheless, I delivered it tonight. Read the whole thing in Spanish, expert voice inflections and all. I used my testimony as a spring board of growing up in a Christian home as a segue into the need for the ability to translate what you know in your mind to become real in your life. And this, I argued, was life’s purpose: The translation of thought to experience and in so doing enhancing perception of reality which allows for more vibrant thought and the pattern to recycle. Life allows what you think about to become what you experience which in turn makes the about more like the experience. Then, thinks I, if we can find the greatest possible thing to think about it should follow that the greatest possible use of time would be to experience the about and so enhance it. What greater thing is there than God? How easy is it to stop at thinking about God? We read our Bibles, pray, go to church, answer questions, use words that only fellow thinker-abouters understand. Its when the things we know of God are translated into real life that we can make progress. Obedience. Turning what we say into what we do. And in doing we are experiencing, and in experiencing we are refining our perception. New perception repaints who we are to add layer upon layer of coloring to the picture of our world that we thought we understood long ago. This is where true growth comes from and this is what I would call the Christian walk. Pretty soon we take a step back and find that, in the picture of Jesus we are showing to the world, the coloring of our life matches the shade of His hair or the hue of His eye or the texture of His cheek. And we find that we are one perfectly placed brush stroke in the masterpiece of our Lord.

Yeh, so I didn’t quite say it like that. In Spanish it more sounded like, “Jesus love me and I like God. We need obey. Want it purpose of God.” But that was mas o menos it (athought I’d say more menos than mas).

I ask that you pray for how this message fell with the kids. I have a tendency to think really big when I speak and so pray that they understood what they needed to. Pray that God would show them how to live life.

Revelation: I realized what my love language was today. Acts of valor. Killing dragons or orcs, flying, being able to wield a hammer really well and rights of passage into manhood fall under this category. This explains why I like Lord of the Rings. This also explains my lack of girlfriend.