Archive for category Love
The Pillars are Falling
Posted by Jonathan Kinney in Family, God, Life, Love, Relationships on April 26, 2018
I have been here for a long long time. My world was held up by the characters and the living forms around me. I felt safe with my environment always there for me when I needed something solid to lean on. Its crumbling away. There is no one to support me, there is no one to talk to anymore. I have to become that which is crumbling around me, the pillar. Many lights have fizzled out, it feels so dark. But I realize that the light was not them, it was not the people, but it was God at work in them showing through. That is what I loved, that is what caught my eyes, that is what attracted me to value them. The light is not gone, it is kept, and it is time to be lit up, to have God in me filling me so much, that others can look at me and find something worth something. Something beautiful, even if they don’t know what it is until I am gone some day hopefully at its rightful time long into the future.
Its time to change, perhaps mourning is part of it. I can’t live without the light, but the Light needs to fill me. I say that “God didn’t make us to be puppets”, but today I stand as one who is little to nothing without God filling me. Its Ironic, or is it. Not puppets but nothing without my maker, my God, like a person and his heart, one is nothing without the other.
I don’t get to tell my dad about things anymore, he won’t get to see Serena grow up. Serena won’t know him. It was part of the plan that he would be here when we moved here. Plans change. Now I get to work out what life will look like without him. Pick up the pieces, and make something of it, not what I expected, but something good, it has to be something good.
I no longer get to talk to my closest human friend about spiritual things, bowels and poop, movies, music, or life. Larry I miss you. I wish I could share life with you even now. I wish. Who could ever fill that hole, I can’t imagine. The last unicorn, is there anyone left on this earth like you? Truly unimaginably darker now that light is gone. You shown through him Lord, there has got to be more. I need there to be more like him.
Ed, the last of 2 lights that shown like the sun in College Place. Old and precious. You righted many wrongs in more ways than you know. Murial, you died laughing, how wonderful, but how sad for all who knew you. Ed, a giant in a small frail old man’s body, sharp as a sword, beautiful, and shining with love! Truly you both have met Christ, how else could you be so much like Him. I had hoped to introduce my daughter to you, to show you the life that you were an important part of.
Grandma, holy hell, what can I say. Your prayers kept Jesus on His toes, to jump at any chance, any opening I gave. And not just me, so so many prayers for family, and who did you not consider family. I am who I am today by your prayers. A shell of a person, finally left an opening, and I am a new man, 10 years later, nearly back where it all started, but with a wife, daughter, job, and a relationship with God, because of your constant prayers. There is no replacing that! How does the world even turn anymore! Surly when you finally closed your eyes, we all should have been snuffed out, but by God’s graces we remain.
My friend, my neighbor, you were there from when I was in high school. Always so kind and loving. I know of no other neighbor like you. God gives us a window, and sometimes we don’t take it, and the opportunity passes. I hope you know how much we loved you, even though we missed the window. Your children and their friends remain as a testament to who you were and your character.
Why Be A Bible Thumper When God Is Active Today
Posted by Jonathan Kinney in Bible, Family, God, Life, Love, Philosophy, Relationships, Values on November 28, 2016
I was thinking the other night about my daughter, and how I could reflect that God is relevant today in everyday life. When I was growing up, hell, into my 20s, I didn’t read the bible and most of the described events in there, that I have heard from various sources surrounding me, were very hard to relate to today, to the struggles we deal with just trying to survive in this society, bent on rich people getting richer on the backs of the poor most of all, and then the middle class. Today I can see some major similarities, some relevancy that I have never seen before, but that was only due to the insightful people I have been exposed to, and the research I have done. I will do my best not to get off on a rant about legal tender, and the hording of it, using government as a tool so that those with it get to keep more of it than those without. Regardless of what I see today that I didn’t when I was younger, how can I relate to my daughter how God fits into:
- Being different than everyone around you.
- How to make friends.
- Where to find the right people to surround yourself with.
- How to get a job in a tough market with an inadequate skill set and education.
- How to find the right person to spend your life with.
- Then, how to actually spend your life with a person you live with for the rest of your life.
- How to tell when it is time to leave, a job, an abusive situation, a community.
- How to find a way to stay when things are tough, and why.
- What kind of car to buy and why.
- A reason to live.
- How to deal with debt, and what it really is.
- How people work, their motivations, and how it makes everything in society predictable and sad.
- How to keep on going when you know how broken society is.
- How to deal with difficult people.
- How to actually forgive someone.
- Why to forgive someone.
- What is love.
LOL, as if I could list all the things. But the list goes on and on, and every human needs to learn how to live, and every one of these elements fits in, and God fits into every one of these elements. I have heard from people this sad misunderstanding where they say “God doesn’t really fit in to taking care of my family, making ends meet” extremely paraphrased of course, but the idea is clear, they could not fathom how God fit into everything it takes to live today. Like finances, you can bible thump a lot of verses out about that, and not that they are worthless, but the societal gap, the lack of understanding of how things were then and how things are now, and how they were very similar, really kills the application of the bible to today. Subject after subject, you will fail to relate, so much lost in translation, and not just in translation of language, but translation of the situations that were in play then, and the same damn thing happening in one form or another today. David was right, there is truly nothing new under the sun, but starting out in your understanding and if you are lucky, study, none of it hits home.
As a father, I can’t help but revisit how it was when I was young. I still don’t know how I can help a young person see and believe that it is real. As a young boy, I was a hard case, one even today I would not know how to crack. Sometimes I wonder if the best thing we can do is raise them as close to how you want them to be, and pray. However, I worry about being just another “Christian” family that makes a little atheist because we paint and live such a hypocritical life, oh Lord, let us not live a hypocritical life. I believe that all atheists are in one form or another the fault of God believing people being terrible in the name of God, or while living under His name as “Christians”, okay I am getting off topic.
So, to summarize, I have come to the conclusion that the bible is good, but only after seeking God with all your heart and having Him guide you through it, otherwise it can be used as a tool of evil, just remember, even Satan used it for evil, and still does. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. I think something that may help relate to a young person who God is, and what He wants for us, is to write down the statistically anomalous events in our lives where God clearly pulled some strings. Not to discourage described events from the bible, but without described events from a little more recent time, it will be very hard to relate. One day I want my little girl to recall a story of where we had no food and no money, and the very day we prayed, out of nowhere people were cleaning out their pantries, and started to show up with boxes of food, and I want her to pray, and see what happens. I know my Friend, He will not disappoint a humble prayer, from a pure honest heart, who seeks Him, with all of their strength. Or I want her to look back, when she finds herself in a hard place with work, to recall daddy telling about how he just could not make it, there was no way to get out of debt, and prayed, and within a month was being paid nearly 3 times as much in a new job.
Heh, “doesn’t really fit into life”, that is really missing the mark. The wife I have, the home I have, the car I have, the child I have, the health I have, the fact that I am alive here today, only because of God. I have experienced how He really does fit into life, in every way. Its not simple, its not easy, it takes work in prayer, study, choice, belief, and action. You can’t con God, He is a *person, and I wouldn’t expect Him to respond to someone being a shit saying “prove you exist” (I did that once, didn’t work), but He will respond to someone who humbly believes in Him and calls on Him, asking some of the simplest of life’s questions. Many would say to that “how convenient”, and I would say “yup, deal with it, it is His choice, what would you do if for thousands of years you have interacted with your creation, and then a generation decides to discount a portion of written history for all kinds of reasons, and someone who still believes asked for help, and one who doesn’t believe asks for you to prove yourself again, who would you rather respond to?”. I can’t presume to speak for God, but I can say it seems fair at this point in history to let people believe what they want to believe, and respond to those who believe and call on Him. From my perspective, God has nothing to prove, at least not to me or mankind, He has done so quite enough in history.
I am so glad God is in charge of all that. I am not equipped for His job. The story is never quite as simple as I put it, I classically, at least part of me, wishes it were. Frankly I took the long way around, as I put it, I had to hit some walls before I even thought to ask God about any of those line items. Terrible relationships, before I finally asked Him to take care of that, but I was fine being single, ether way was ok at that point. I ended up going to bars to find friends and such, and I found that doesn’t always end well, and dare I say, from my experience, it has a high statistical probability that it is not going to end well. So I asked where I can find a good woman.
My next blogs will tell those stories, and how God responded.
I Don’t Like It Here Sometimes
Posted by Jonathan Kinney in Business Ethics, God, Life, Love, Values on September 3, 2015
Some days this world bothers me more than others. Who can stop by a grocery store, gas station, bank, or anything along those lines on a regular basis and not run into someone with a sob story, and illogically they think the best place to get help is at these common areas. I have been a liar, a con artist, and I was wonderful at it. I could convince anyone of anything to get what ever I wanted, and oddly enough, it usually centered around money. I know the game, I can get into it and probably turn on the tears if I needed to. How can I believe any of these people? Like some kids in an Audi saying their wallets were stolen, while one of them is texting on their phone in the car… “We need gas, or money for gas” they say. Each one has a different story, all of them sound so sad. They paint such a heart breaking story about how there is some medical issue they have, or the classic, they are trying to get to the hospital to see their daughter in a different state. Now if that were true, it would be sad.
Now think about this logically, what would you do if you had your wallet stolen? Or what would you do if your daughter was in the hospital? What if you didn’t have a bank account or enough money for a trip? Well, if I didn’t have the money, I would not go. It is that simple. If I had my wallet stolen, I would report it to the police, and call friends and family for help, and start arranging to have what was in my wallet replaced. I can not relate to any other situation, they are all illogical! The places that these people are popping up and playing their sad story is not the place that people should go for help.
I believe there are real issues happening in the world, and some people have no support system, but more often than not, it is due to burning bridges, as sad as that is. It does not mean they should not be helped. But in this world, how can a person discern truth from untruth, when so much is a scam, and any scammer can come up with a better story than the true stories?
On another note, why does this bother me so much? Why do I have it swirling around in my head while I try and sleep? Am I afraid that it was true and they needed help and were just really stupid and illogical about how they handled the situation? Maybe it is the nagging thought that it could be true, despite how illogical.
Lies hurt the world! Never is a single lie resulted in more good than harm! If you think otherwise, then you have not thought hard enough, and far enough! If no one lied (did anything to hide the truth, or anything with an intent to keep truth from being known), then the world would be something that people have not seen before. It is probably unimaginable what a world would look like without lies. Every bad thing in this world comes from a lie, from illness, birth defects, debt, divorce, job loss, no support system, the income gap, injustice, sadly most of the government and its dysfunction, crime, everything.
I don’t belong in this world. I am not sure who or what does, but it feels like a bad joke, and I really don’t like it. I see life, I don’t think it belongs here either, I think it is also prey to this bad joke.
I Finally Understand Why Jesus Had to Die!
Today I was reading through Hebrews, and God showed me something I had been missing. It seemed so simple, but somehow I have been missing this the entire time.
Let me start by explaining how I see the God and Satan thing. I will not get into the big questions that I can not answer such as, why did God allow Satan on earth in any form, ever. Or the question of how can a being created good by God turn evil in the first place. I leave those for God to answer, and I always hold dear the reality, that just because I have a question that I can not answer, it does not mean anything, other than there is a question I have that I do not have an answer for. Some people take that lack of a good explanation, and believe what they want to believe, and say, well I don’t have an answer, so God must be evil for things to be like this. To think that way would be arrogant to the greatest extreme. I believe that I know a little, and in the vast domain of knowledge and understanding that I do not have, in it could exist a perfectly reasonable and moral explanation to these questions.
With that out of the way, I see this earth as a court room, where someone is trying to hold a charge against God’s ways. Satan is the one making the accusation, and at least one of these accusations is against mankind for betraying God, and going against His ways. Satan claims that because they believed him over God in the garden, and time and time again throughout history, that mankind belongs to him and he has dominion over them, like God. Much of this perspective is pulled from the setting laid out in Job, and it seems to fit in such a larger scale, that I suspect that much of the goings on here and in heaven with regard to humans, earth, and Satan, are just like what was revealed in Job. You can find other hints of how God recognizes authorities set up by mankind in Daniel 10. It seems clear that God has set up rules, such as free will (required for the existence of love), and authority, which He will not break or ignore. Mankind, who He originally setup to have dominion over the earth, also has the ability to stet up over them rulers, and by taking Stan’s word over God’s word, we believed God was a liar and what Satan said was true, and thus set him up as our “god”. Satan has since then perpetuated these lies, that God is bad, His ways suck, and that Satan’s ways are the only ways that work, or something like that. It is hard to follow what Satan’s point is, when you know God, because all of his arguments against God just fall apart, especially after Jesus.
On to my point, I understand that by God extending Himself into the human flesh, Jesus, and then giving Himself up, showing what sin does, and at the same time showing His love and forgiveness, that He also fulfilled something powerful in the heavenly court case going on since the beginning. I understood that humans sinning is an offense against God, and that the offended legally can forgive the offense. That made sense. It also made perfect sense that by dieing on the cross, Jesus proved the point that in the garden, the first lie by Satan, that God is selfish, holding back things from mankind, was false. That alone is enough to throw out the entire case, because all of the accusations of Satan are based on a deception now proven wrong. Think of it this way, if a piece of property is obtained by a false pretense, in court, it would go back to the previous owner. In this situation, we are the “property” obtained by false pretense, and now with Jesus and His selfless giving up of His life on the cross, and continual forgiveness and love, that false pretense was fully demonstrated as false. God is not selfish, He is the opposite, He is love. I got that, but what I didn’t get was the rest of the story. This is so totally God, when He does something, it means far more than just one thing, it ripples and echos truth and goodness in all different directions. The wrong that was done was not a simple theft, the wrong that was done in this court scenario is sin, and the wages of sin is death. If it were just theft, the wronged person could forgive the theft, and he himself would simply suffer the loss of what was stolen. In this situation, with the wrong being sin, and the wages of sin is death, the wronged Person can forgive that wrong, but only by suffering the wages of the wrong, which is death. The wages of theft forgiven is loss of the stolen item. The wages of sin forgiven is the loss of the life of the one who is forgiving.
I don’t know if you can follow that, but it was a very neat piece that I had been missing. Now it all makes logical sense, that is why He had to die, at least one of the reasons. The other reason was to show the most pure expression of love, which is being willing to lay your life down for someone. When I was a little kid, maybe kindergarten to 4th grade, somewhere around there, I called out to God, what is this love thing, how can I know if I love someone. His answer was clear, if you are willing to lay your life down for someone, then you love them.
Talking To People
Posted by Jonathan Kinney in God, Life, Love, Relationships on March 29, 2014
Meet with them where they are at, walk with them, or ask if they would like to walk with you. If they don’t want to walk, ask if it would be ok if you were to sit with them, etc. The worst that could happen is they say no, or say yes and not mean it, or resent it. Be open and honest. Have a goal, but don’t think you can convince or coerce them into thinking or believing anything. Be willing to share perspectives, but meet them where they are at in their minds and hearts. Do your best to not override their perspectives, but search them out, find out why they think that way or believe what they do, and ask if you can present a different perspective, but not too aggressively. Harmless or innocent as doves, but wise as serpents, which I believe also includes patience.
Beautiful Day, Beautiful Wife!
Posted by Jonathan Kinney in God, Life, Love, Photography, Relationships on June 21, 2011
This is the view from my office on a sunny day.
Yesterday was a wonderful day (2011-06-20)! Kathy and I have been going through some hard transitions, hard choices, a lot of work, and a lot of stress, so we needed a day to play. It started out being one of those rare sunny days, blue sky, warm wind, just beautiful. Anyone who knows Seattle knows how rare those are. Right now we live in Shoreline, a beautiful neighborhood with trees, near a beach, in the view of the sound, and lots of well kept yards. From our living room area we see a full flower bed, in full bloom. God had really blessed us with a beautiful place to live! I do hope we can stick around for a while.
When Kathy made it home, we decided it would be best for us to get the hell out of the house! We decided to head down to the Edmonds waterfront, the first place we started to really get to know each other, and also the place I proposed to her, well also I believe we went down there for a while on our wedding day, after our wedding if I remember correctly. So we have some history there.
Kathy at Edmonds Waterfront
I brought my camera, the trusty little Cannon PowerShort SD600, which has served me well these many years. It still surprises me how good of a camera it is, with very clear shots, minimal grain, and a decent resolution. Eventually I do want to upgrade my camera, to something more than a point and shoot. A full on digital SLR (maybe a Nikon D3100) is what I am looking forward to getting, and we are slowly saving money so I can pick one out eventually. It will have a dual purpose. Since Kathy is going to be starting to do freelance soon, she will need a good photography source, and I can be that source, as long as I have a high enough quality camera. I have also wanted a chance to take some more professional shots, and many of the features I am needing for that are not possible with this point and shoot camera. I would like to be able to even sell some photos if possible.
My beautiful wife, Kathy.
We picked a perfect time to head down, the lighting was wonderful and it was warm enough I could run around in just a t-shirt and sweats. We ended up roaming from the ferry dock all the way up to the dog park at the other end. I was stuck on the idea of checking out all the beautiful plants that were in bloom and I wanted to hang around until sunset. Eventually we got tired of wandering around, and it was getting close to when the sun would duck behind the clouds above the mountains, so we just sat down near the water, talking, and watching the fish jump. I was having a lot of fun with the lighting from the sunset, and pulled a few really neat shots off with my beautiful wife as my subject.
A nice reflection shot off of Kathy's glasses.
Today is not quite as nice, but nice enough to leave the windows open, which is a very nice change. Baby (our cat) is going insane wanting out every door and window she sees, and constantly whining while I am trying to work. I am looking forward to more fun in the sun this summer, maybe even some vacation time. With the future so unknown, and unpredictable right now, it is not really something we can plan for like many people do, but God will provide, yes, even for our enjoyment. We will see what happens, life is good, and God is great!
Jonathan Can’t Come Out To Play
Posted by Jonathan Kinney in God, Life, Love, MySpace Blog, Relationships on June 17, 2008
Current mood:busy
Ok, it has been forever since I have last blogged, but I need to write something. Life has been continuing day after day. I am still heading my small group at the church, and attending another. I knew I needed the weekends so I moved my small group meeting to Tuesdays. I have realized that without structure or any sort of plan for the small group, I loose my confidence. I need to have a general direction and spend some time working in that direction myself before I feel comfortable asking people to come to the group, that should be a given, but somehow after the material Larry provided ran out, I have become lost. I have fleeting moments of inspiration, but only fleeting. I am recognizing that I do not put time with God high enough on my priority list. Part of me knows that spending time with God is a major blessing, He will help me find my center, my inspiration, my direction, and guide me through anything I go through, but there is another part of me that seems to be pulling in the other direction, the resistance, that same feeling one might get when approached with vacuuming or doing the dishes. I will call that resistance the flesh, the worldly part of me that tries to hold me back from doing what is best, from doing things the way they were designed to be done. I am slowly having my mind and heart changed, as I realize that I really want to spend that time with God. But it is so different than the way the rest of the world works, everything else seems to have very clear and direct results, so I find myself doing all of these other things before I finally get around to spending time with God. Day by day I feel the void growing as I let that time slip away. The verse “Abide in me and I will abide in you” keeps echoing through my head, and I know it is true, why is there any resistance? Maybe my motivation is wrong. My mind is cloudy, I can’t seem to figure this out. Maybe spending time with him will give me what I need to figure this out…. Sounds like a good idea to me, He has always helped me in the past.
Part of my problem these days is that I do not give myself enough down time, or alone time. Back in the day, I had not even recognized the need for down time or alone time, because other than work, that is all I had, sitting around watching TV, or reading once every few years. I had nothing going on. It is taking me a long time to recognize and admit that these are valid needs, now I need to find a way to bring a little bit of it back. This is a scary proposition though, something has to be cut back, and then your mind equates that to devaluing that thing, or person, or situation. For example, maybe less time with Kathy, or cut a group meeting out, or maybe some of my responsibilities at the church… I suppose I just need to evaluate where I am spending the most time.
Jonathan’s Thoughts on Ephesians
Posted by Jonathan Kinney in God, Life, Love, MySpace Blog, Relationships on January 23, 2008
Current mood:refreshed
I am slowly working my way from the beginning of the bible to the end of the bible, and I just finished Ephesians today. Here are some thoughts that came to mind when reading Ephesians 5 this morning:
Come to understand these ideas of your own heart guided by the Holy Spirit to see that they are good, and so that you do them out of love for God, not simply out of obedience of the rules for the rule’s sake. Rules and guides passed on from one person to another are but empty without the understanding that the Holy Spirit gives, and just as children grow to become adults, and realize the wisdom behind the rules they were taught, we too must grow in Christ, and gain the understanding, to build our foundation on Him, with his guidance. Each one of us, if seeking God with all our heart, mind, body, soul, and strength, will find God, and his good will, and we will be guided to do what is good and right in His eyes. We need but ask, and we shall receive.
I must say I liked Ephesians, it was well written. There is a lot to be said for being given time alone to think and spend time with God, even if it is in prison.
Life is Simply Complex
Posted by Jonathan Kinney in God, Life, Love, MySpace Blog, Relationships on January 13, 2008
Current mood:anxious
First I would like to say, love is so much more than just a choice, so so much more! It is a feeling, it is an action, it is loyalty, it is based in truth, it is working through problems with a life long determination, never giving up. Love is so many things, and for me it is a way of life. Though I am not perfect, and in some ways, I am a hypocrite because I am not perfect. But I do love, and I will spend my entire life growing in love, working toward showing agape love. I pray that God strip me of my selfishness, my arrogance, my comparisons, and my feelings of superiority, because those have no place in a life of love. I am not perfect, nor will I ever be. I do however plan to always learn and grow, so that I might gain footing every day. As the world and its values push back, with God, I have faith that I can grow.
Now that I got that out of the way, which was something that has been bothering me ever since I posted my first blog touching on what love is, I feel much better. As I move forward in my relationship with Kathy, I am learning many new things, seeing myself in many new lights, and seeing how truly human I am. I am weak at times, I am an empty shell of a man at other times. As I move forward in love, my flaws seem to have bright spotlight on them, and now I can see so many things that I need to work through in order to grow. Day after day, I am reminded of how Kathy will love me no matter what I approach her with. I am filled with confidence in who God made her to be, and how through God, nothing is impossible to resolve. It is not always easy, but what truly good things in life are easy.
I feel like I have finally woken up after 7 years of… I don’t know what, and for the last year or 2 I have been back and growing. Not to say my 7 years in Walla Walla were a waste, they were not, I have made many friends, and seen how the world values things. I have lived on my own, and I have lived with people. I have been through so many different situations, I have seen the worst in people, and then I have been able to understand it. I have been given the gift of forgiveness and have been able to let go of so many hurts in my past, not forgetting them, but they no longer have power over me and my actions and feelings today. Enough of this tangent, I am here now, so now what?
Now what? It is a little late for me to be asking myself that now isn’t it… I am moving forward. But still I feel the need to ask myself that question on a day to day basis. In this life there are so many things to do, so many choices, which one do I make, and what steps do I want to take to get there. What do I want? I want a life of love, life foundation in God, and to make people laugh. I also want to develop the talents God has gifted me with, like art, and to explore my love for music by actually learning a musical skill. I want to build strong friendships with the people around me, and to treat everyone with a love that resembles the love God has for us.
My to do list is growing, and time is passing by, but not without me jumping on and doing as much as I can in the time I am given, and with the ability I have been gifted with. Maybe I should start by doing the paperwork on my desk, and clearing all of that off.
Jonathan’s Time off and Christmas Ramblings
Posted by Jonathan Kinney in God, Life, Love, MySpace Blog, Relationships on December 17, 2007
Current mood:happy
Today I am sitting here, on the first day of the week I am taking off work, and I am thinking. I am thinking about all kinds of things, so many things. One of them is the upcoming trip I am taking with Kathy over to meet her parents in Idaho. I wonder what her parents will think of me. Well, what ever the case, I will love them, thats just who I am. I am looking forward to spending this time with Kathy and her family, seeing the dynamics of her with her family. This is going to be fun. I should probably start to pack and get ready for the trip.
Oh yeah, I suppose this is blog worthy, I am no longer single. Kathy has been my best friend this year for some time, and I excited to have been given the chance to get to know her. She is a wonderful woman, and I am blessed to be able to spend time with her. While I was new and still getting to know people in the church (Edmonds Adventist Church), I was starting to work in the back on the computer during the services, and Kathy was there helping me every step of the way. She has a strong and growing relationship with God, which is so wonderful to see and be a part of. I have been looking for someone who puts God as number one in their lives because I believe that with God being the center of your life, everything else just seems to fall into place. Being that no one is perfect, I believe it is so very important that we have God in our lives, and seek to continue to grow and mature with Him, and He will continually work with us to overcome our shortcomings and help us learn the hard lessons in life that we need to learn. I can not put into words how much God has made a difference in my life, so now I recognize how cool it is to see that in the life of someone else.
Another thing that has been on my mind this morning is my computer. It is more and more sounding like a Hoover vacuum cleaner. There are some fans that are showing their age by making all kinds of strange whining noises. I opened the computer this morning to check things out and I pulled the graphics card out and the CPU fan, hoping I could find some replacements at a local computer store, but no luck. While I was in there, I noticed something that no one really wants to see, I have 2 capacitors that have pushed fluid out the top. I have seen this on servers before, and they still worked for years after that, but it is disconcerting to see that on my prized motherboard. So now I am faced with a possible forced upgrade soon. I have mixed feelings about that. I mean, “YAY” for a faster newer computer, but darn the fact that it costs money. God will provide what ever I need, he always has, and always will.
I have started actually trying to give gifts this Christmas. I would love to get gifts for everyone I knew, but I am doing what I can, and keeping my eyes and ears open for some real needs, and giving where I can. Even if it is just for a few select people, where I have seen a need, that is cool. But one thing that I have found out is that, wrapping presents is hell! By the time I get done with a box, I stand back and see just a mass of paper and tape. It took me something like an hour for just 2 boxes. I am forced to grapple with the idea that I just blow at wrapping gifts. Yet somehow it was fun… strange.
There are so many other things for me mull over today, so I can figure out what I can fit in. Like changing the oil in the Jeep, installing the subwoofer in the Jeep, working on the Christmas letter, working on the cruse control buttons, finish up with church computer and lights notes, play with Ableton Live, setup a business website on grendeltech.com, work on resume, finish some books, and a letter to my grandmother. Now I can add another task of keeping my eyes out for a good new computer to replace my old Hoover. Oh, and I need to send a note to my bible study group to let them know I will be gone this weekend, that’s fairly important. I know there are plenty of other things that I need to do, but one thing at a time, no worries here. It is so nice to know and be able to rest in the fact that God has all of the truly important issues worked out already, and he is working in my life so that it may be used for good.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas time! Travel safe, and have fun! You are all in my prayers. God bless.
Jonathan’s Guided Direction
Posted by Jonathan Kinney in God, Life, Love, MySpace Blog, Relationships on November 16, 2007
Current mood:contemplative
Is love a choice? If its not, should it be?.. Shouldn’t it be? If love is something that you just “fall into”, like a hole, something hidden that if you run across it, you will fall into it, then what does that mean? Doesn’t that mean that you are letting your subconscious make your choices for you, some values or beliefs that have been ingrained in you as you were growing up. And what does that mean for your relationships? Say you keep on finding yourself attracted to people who abuse you, or use you, or any number of other things that are not good or right for your life. Doesn’t that mean you damn well better take a hold of yourself, and figure that stuff out before you wake up one day, look back on your life and see failed relationship after relationship in your past, and realize that they were all the same person. Maybe it is time to sit down and evaluate my inner beliefs, or what ever is inside directing me to the people I “fall for”, and make sure that everything is sound, make sure that my beliefs are based upon truth, and not some BS that I picked up somewhere when I was growing up. If love is something that you just stumble and fall into, wouldn’t that mean you could just as simply fall out of love? How scary is that for someone who is looking at marriage?
We are humans, we make choices. We are not, or should not be, just debris being tossed about in a sea of other people or circumstances in this world. We need to take the time to figure things out, so that we learn and grow, especially our core beliefs. I don’t plan on being just a ball getting tossed about by what ever waves come my way, what would that make me? Screw that, I am going to strive to grow, to find the direction I want to go, and with God’s help, I am going to plow through the waves of this life, like a ship with its sails set high. With God as my guide and teacher, I will not be lost in the sea of this world or its values.
These days, I choose to love, but it is never a bad idea to take a moment and examine yourself from time to time, just to make sure you have not unknowingly fallen into some rut. Living a life with your eyes wide open takes constant effort.