live love.

it has been 35 days since i last posted a blog.

i am a horrible person, i know. my webmaster keeps reminding me just how horrible i am. 

what? webmaster you say?

yes, i have a webmaster to manage the massive influx of hits and other such web statistic terms and phrases that this site takes in on a second by second basis. along with the ever increasing frequency with which i have been posting…

all joking and satire aside i would like to thank james from unlinked media for acting as the webmaster for this site and keeping it up to date with code and cyphers and other such things as well as making sure the site is operating on an ample supply of pixie dust.

currently he is working on tweaking the code of this theme to make it easier to use from the back end which who knows may cause me to be more consistent in my blogging. like anything, i need to plan time to blog just as i would plan time to do other things. but perhaps that is for another blog all together.

until next time…which will be in either more than, less than or exactly 35 days…

–

live love.

breathe surrender.

with reckless abandon.

hold nothing back.

God. my Creator. my Maker. all powerful.
me. human. created. not powerful at all.
it only makes sense to worship the Creator. the Maker.
but i find myself worshipping myself more than i do the One who even granted me the privilege and ability to worship or breathe at all.
but i find myself worshipping things, stuff, other relationships and food more.
Jesus says in the book of matthew that no one can serve two masters. He says that you will love one of them and hate the other.
there is no middle ground.
there is no in between.
it is either one or the other.
but i try anyway.
i try to serve my Master and Savior, the Creator of all things.
but i try to love myself and anything and everything just as much.
it doesn’t work.
it is wrong.
it makes no sense.
i can’t truly love God when i love me more.
i can’t truly say i love my Maker when i choose some thing or someone over His way.
can i say i love God and His truth if i check facebook more often than i read His Word? His very Word. His way and choice of communication with his creation and yet i’d rather twitter what i am doing at the moment.
my perspective. my priorities are out whack. out of sync.
i’m out of rhythm.
i’m not in the right flow.

Lord, i try to do exactly what You say is not possible.
i try to have it both ways. and that means i have chosen my way over Your way.
break me. again. and again. and again.
God do not let me wander from You.
i beg You to hold me close and to draw me near to You.
grab me and move me and do with me whatever You deem necessary.
don’t let me be so consumed with stuff.
don’t let me fall into the trap of thinking i deserve anything good i have.
don’t let me think this computer is mine.
God. Lord. empty me of me.
and when i start let me back i, and when i start fill back up with things other than You, empty me again.
God i can’t do it. i am too weak. i am too human.
i need You to take complete and total control.
Lord, Master, i am in awe and complete amazement of Your grace and mercy and love.
i am prone to wander, Lord i feel it.
wrap my soul and heart and being in Your chains.
may i live as doulos to You.
may i live love.
may i breathe surrender.
may i do so with reckless abandon.
may i hold nothing back.
may You have access to all that i am.

so let’s start from the beginning.
january 5, 1991 is the day that i left my mothers womb and joined you all on this spinning sphere we call the earth.
fast forward 7 years.
christian family. went to church every sunday. listened to billy graham on the way to church every sunday morning. one of those mornings i was actually paying attention to what he had to say. i had the story of how to be saved a number of times. a sunday school teacher about a year before had even tried to make me pray a prayer of salvation. i somehow recall not particularly being fond of this lady and wanted nothing to do with here…i think i started crying and ran away but i could be wrong…anyways that morning what i head on the radio struck a chord. i knew i did bad things, we call it sin. i knew it and had no problem admitting that and the rest of the story sounded good to me, believe Jesus died for you, tell Him you are a sinner and want his free gift and you get to go to heaven and not hell. at the end of every billy graham radio program a song would be sung and the song “every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” whether you believe that or not it is the truth one day we will each bow and confess Him as Lord. the story of Jesus and the cross and this idea of a free gift ran through my mind the rest of the morning. and then that morning the pastor talked about salvation as well. somewhere in the middle of his message i remember clearly thinking i need to be saved, i need to be forgiven, i need Jesus to save me. i heavily contemplated praying right then and there with my eyes open in the middle of his sermon but i thought that would be rude and disrespectful, so i didn’t at that time…being the little kid that i was as soon as the service was over i got lost in playing with my friends and food and what have you…but that evening i couldn’t fall asleep and couldn’t stop thinking about being in hell forever so in my bed i cried, literally and cried out to be rescued. i told Jesus i was a sinner that i wanted him to be my Savior and that i believed He died for me. i prayed almost the same thing at least 5 times in a row i just kept saying it over and over again, Jesus i know i’m bad i want You to save me. the memory is fresh in my mind as if it were yesterday. fast forward to 5th and 6th grade. i was quite the bad little boy, but played a very good boy for most to see. i hung out with the wrong friends no doubt and was influenced heavily by them. from cussing, to dirty jokes, to just being mean and disrespectful i lived a life in complete contrast to that of truth. i was convicted of my actions on a daily basis, after every word, thought, or joke i often remember thinking why tim why. you know its wrong why are you doing it anyway. but i chose my “friends” over God and His way 6 days of the week. it wasn’t until one day one of my friends told me you have changed alot, i remember when you were all good and now you are just like us …i couldn’t deny it..it was true..i had no response. that statement haunted me.
it wasn’t until my friends left the school that i started to see some real growth in the right direction.
now the rest of my life up until this point seems like a whole different chapter in the respect that i can’t really break it down into a year by year experience, but rather i feel it almost as the beginning of my current stage in this journey of life. and much of this current stage began when i first starting blogging and can be seen over time through my posts.

i typed all that 2 days ago, and have been struggling to figure out how to conclude my story. but my story isn’t over yet. it feels more like it i just beginning. entering the “real” world soon after high school seems like starting all over from scratch.
and every day seems like a whole new start.
every day when i go to sleep at night and think of how much i have wasted.
of how little i was interested in God that day. or how today i seemed more in love with God than before and wonder why.
every message i hear screams the same thing to me.
He’s trying to teach me and so i often i acknowledge His truth but am either too lazy or too selfish to do anything about it.
be consumed with Me.
be drenched in my words i have given to you.
pray to Me. talk with Me.
follow Me intensely. with passion and desire.
be filled with Me.
enjoy Me.
be satisfied in Me.
yet here i am allowing myself to be consumed with basketball.
to be satisfied with television.
to not be intense and passionate about anything to the extent Christ is demanding.
instead i live a life of inconsistency.
one moment i am determined. i am sold out on being all about my Maker.
but apparently i really am not since moments later i will choose something meaningless over the God that made me and saved me.
its frustrating to know that i can somehow not be in awe of Him at all times.
i mean let’s think about this.
He made everything. every single thing. from nothing.
as if that were not enough, He bothered to love us and buy us back after we left Him.
i don’t know. it makes no sense to me. how i can not just follow His instructions.
let’s take this a step further. He not only wants to redeem us, He wants life to be enjoyed in Him. He wants what is best for us. He didn’t just die for us and say well there you go good luck with the rest of your life i gave you a ticket to heaven see ya when you die.
no, He wants to be involved and have a relationship with me.
my mind is blown.
my heart is bleeding guilt.
my soul is confused.
everything about me wonders why i can’t just do what makes sense.
why don’t i just live drenched and addicted to my Savior.
why i don’t live what i type at the end of every post.
–
live love.
breathe surrender.
with reckless abandon.
hold nothing back.

i haven’t blogged since last year. and i say that quite literally.
cheesy i know. bear with me here.
i haven’t blogged not because lack of content but lack of time and discipline to make myself do it.

tonight at church we had a testimony time and as one by one people stood and told their stories of being redeemed and their stories of how God has miraculously taken care of them i noticed the striking similarities yet vast contrast between each story.
so many stories of coming to the same realization.
so many stories of the same truth.
yet different stories all the same.
i realized i have never really typed my story out.
i have typed out portions, yes, and through my post over the years one could piece together parts of my story.
but seeing as just about a month ago i turned 18 i think i will attempt to tell my story in my next blog. but for now a brief update on my current life’s happenings.

a couple weeks ago i got my permit…again…it had expired…
my license test is scheduled for february 23rd bright and early at 8:20 in the am.
we made the playoffs finally!!!
this year our basketball team has clinched a playoff spot for the first time in my high school career. this is also the best record we’ve had since i have been on the team.
i’m stoked beyond words.
as of now i am leaning heavily towards attending cal state fullerton after highschool but i am still yet to here back from the uc’s i applied at.
now back to working on my story. should be up within the next day i am hoping, i’m doing too many other things while trying to write it. the one downside to dual screens is being able to try and view too many things at once.
–
live love.
breathe surrender.
with reckless abandon.
hold nothing back.

well.
the year of 2008 is about over.
i haven’t posted in a while.
partially due to basketball season having started, partially due to me being lazy, and partially due to me having a hard time to put things into words.
i feel like i have learned and grown alot this past yr.
but at the same time i feel like i have just continued to be inconsistent.
i still waste too much of my life.
i still treat my God like feces way too often, then turn around and say i love Him.
i know these struggles will never go away. and i know its a constant process of growing and becoming holy, but still i hate how i so often live.
i really don’t know how else to say it other than quoting paul when he says the things i want to do i don’t do and the things i don’t want to do those are the things i do.
and not to put paul on a pedestal or anything but he was pretty good at this christianity thing.
as discouraged as i get and as often as it seems like i will never live one moment correctly for my Maker it’s nice to know paul wasn’t perfect and still had flaws. it’s nice to know that david, who is described as a man after God’s own heart committed some of the most atrocious sins possible.
i’m not making excuses.
i’m not trying to create a cop out.
i’m attempting to view things realistically.
i’m trying to look at life through the lens of absolute truth.
so 2008 is gone.
it amazes me how people make such a big deal about the new year.
what makes today, tonight, and tomorrow morning so special.
woo hoo it’s a new year?
nothing feels different.
feels like any other day to me at least.
and i still have to continue my current year of school even though it is a new calendar year. maybe that is what bothers me the most about it.
maybe i’m just being a pessimist.
i have no problem with celebrating the new upcoming year, i just think we go a bit overboard sometimes. but at the exact same time i would love to be in new york city, standing in time square when the ball drops tonight. to experience all the energy and excitement.
call me a hypocrite. cause i am.
i don’t want to be. but i’m not going to lie to myself and say i’m not either.
i still will end up staying up till midnight.
i will still tell people happy new year im sure.
but i just gotta wonder in the grand scheme of things is it really that big of a deal.
why don’t we celebrate each new day as we do each new year?
we are not even promised the next second let alone the next day.
but hey let’s celebrate the possibility of a new 365 days, and the 365 we just finished up and will never get back.
i suppose the whole idea of celebrating a new year, or blogging about it as i am now does serve some purpose.
if it causes one to evaluate the life and year they have already lived.
i can see good in that.
if it causes one to wonder about how much time and how much life he has already wasted and thrown away.
i can see good in that.
i’ve wasted far too much already.
but i should be evaluating that every moment not once a year.
i’ve rambled enough.
i don’t always make sense.
this will be my last post for the year 2008.
but hey have a happy new year.
try not to waste the time you are given. it is not easy in the least.
i wish i could say its easy look at me i’ve done it. but that is far from the truth.
i’m the biggest waster of life and time there is.
and yet God redeems.
–
live love.
breathe surrender.
with reckless abandon.
hold nothing back.

i cleaned my room today.
it was not necessarily overly messy per se.
but it was quite cluttered.
i had papers everywhere.
its funny how things start off clean and gradually become a huge mess.
i found an invitation to my friends graduation from june…just as an example of time compounding the problem.
at the moment everything has a place. and everything is in that place.
(now i’m sure it could yet be much cleaner but hey it’s pretty decent right now.)
but i am almost sure that i a week or two it will be on the border of disaster again.
papers from school or colleges.
sweatshirts and jerseys.
ipod and phone.
water and gatorade bottles.
you name it, it will be spread somewhere within my already crowded room.
i hate to sound or go all over spiritualizing a clean room.
but its easy to let our life get cluttered.
i let other things take priority and before you know it i haven’t read my bible in a week. or i haven’t had the same consistent deep prayer life i know i need and so often crave.
just a thought.
i have pics up on facebook.
working on getting them up here but technical difficulties are intervening at the moment.
–
live love.
breathe surrender.
with reckless abandon.
hold nothing back.