Death and Legacy

I have heard that there comes a time in every man's life where he begins to think about legacy. A point in which he wonders about his offspring and looks back to where he has come from. That happened quite early for me and picked up speed when I reconnected with family that I had long been distant from. When I looked back I saw very little that was encouraging. The fear of history repeating itself was always present and this affected my perception of my future.

From as early as I could remember there had been a massive chasm between me and my father. I kept him at an arm's length and rarely spent time with him when I had the opportunity. My father had been sick all his life and was in and out of hospital. When he eventually passed I felt nothing, because to me there was nothing to begin with and I still have only speculation as to why that was; I will probably never know.
The loss of a father in a family can be felt years later. I've had a lot of men teach me and advise me through my life and they all have been enoucraging, empowering and loving. However, I've found no-one can replace a father. There is no-one who can change who and what you came from, and there is no-one that can counsel you better than your father.

I do miss him, or rather, I miss what we could have been. I missed out on a lot of father-son impartation. I wanted him to see me grow into a man, to see me marry and have a family.
Four months ago I dealt with a terrible anxiety daily. It was a feeling that would overwhelm and occupy my thoughts and cause my thinking to break down into a mess of neurotic paralysis. It was the single thought, almost a certainty, that either me or my spouse would not live to old age. That somehow, in some way one of us would not make it to the end and leave the other to raise the children alone. I couldn't out-think it. Logic wasn't enough; it was like trying to bring reason to insanity. So I prayed. Well, I prayed my way; I went out on a beach late at night and cried out to God and told Him my fear in the mess of my emotional state. And as He so loves to do he opened up my heart and showed me the root of my problem. God had dealt with so much in my life up to this point, I was unsure of what I would see.


After I had began talking to mum and discovering what my father was like, I began to see things come to the surface that I had no idea was there. Fears of abandonment, rejection and death would surface then God would deal with them. During a preach at a conference I was attending in Sydney I closed my eyes and had an image of a ghostly hand reaching into my chest and forcibly plucking something from my heart. I stayed awake all night crying in my bed, reliving the pain of every rejection I had encountered over and over until I could no longer cry and just stared at the ceiling. For the entirety of the conference I was a broken mess. Needless to say, my dignity was sacrificed for my healing. This was just the beginning however, of the undoing of a history of hurt.

On that beach it was revealed to me that my fear of death was coming out of the same wound. The loss and hardship that came with my father's death had marked me. I felt God's reassuring hand on my shoulder as He spoke. The words weren't disciplinary as I thought they would be, but edifying, encouraging and loving. My true Father, my Father in Heaven, has never left me and never will. He never neglects, mocks or berates us. He never sends us away from Him, is never too busy to listen and always ready to welcome us back should we run away. Why I hide from Him sometimes I don't understand and every time I come at his feet I find the punishment that was being afflicted was not from Him, but from myself. By this relationship I know that my future family is safe. It is so joyous to me to know such a thing that it brings tears to my eyes.

We may have lived lives plagued with hurt and regret, but I take heart because I know:

'...that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.' 

- Romans 8:28

I believe one of the most beautiful things God does it take the thing that put you in a prison and turn it into a key to release others from the same prison.

From not having a father, I know just how important a father is to a family. I have seen it taught how to lead a family by many examples, but there is one that stands above all others: the cross. To lay one's life down is the ultimate sacrifice. I don't know what trials I will face, but I know this, by the grace of God the pain, loss and suffering that has been my upbringing stops with me. I know my father is in heaven and that he is proud. What was lost will be redeemed.


If you have this kind of pain in your past I urge you, give your life over to God and see him turn your burden into a blessing.

I Dreamed Awoken

Last night I dreamed. I dreamed one of the most vivid and disturbing dreams I've had in a while. It provoked my thoughts and challenged my perceptions on issues that before I had ignored. It felt like a surreal glimpse of the future; though a disgusting and repulsive one.

It began, or at least, the earliest part I remember of it was on a beach. It was like a documentary, with a voice commenting on each part as I perceived what was around me. The sky was brown and dark, like smoke from an unhealthy fire. The commentary began by saying the island was Papa New Guinea, which it could've been, I have never been there. All I knew was what I could feel, the beach felt desperate, hopeless and sinister. A caucasian middle-aged woman in a bikini lay in the ankle deep water as the commentary said rich men came to the island for 'pursuits'. I then began to see dead fish, of every colourful variety washing up dead upon the shore next to the woman. I scooped a small one up in a net and looked at it. The woman seemed oblivious to the fact that there was dead fish floating all around her. Her stare remained vacant and soulless. I turned to my left and there was a large blue whale washed up on the sand wall of the erroded beach line. When I saw it a pungent and invading stench filled my nostrils. I attempted to get away from it by heading away from the beach, but the stench changed to one of rotting begetables and became even more intense.

I saw a wall of dirt with houses built out of rotting wood and plants off of it. The people in the houses were whaling so loud it was deafening. There were people, a few of them children, climbing up the wall using pieces of concrete protruding out of it. They were all holding pieces of rotten vegetables. In a moment, I was in a white sterile room with rows of computers. Children sat at the computers with booklets. The voice once again spoke saying that the kids were learning how to distinguish ingenuine refugees. I felt disgusted at the sight of the children's education. Then, in a moment I was back with the hopeless people climbing the wall where the feeling of despair had grown. I saw a boy high on the wall holding a rotted tomato in his hand. The voice spoke up once again saying, 'the only way to save this generation is to replant'. The boy seemed to look back at me then drove tomato into the dirt wall. As he did I became the tomato and was plunged into the wall. It went silent and black. The smell had dissipated, and I felt secure and safe, far from the whaling and despair of the outside world.

At that point I awoke, shaken and convicted. I'm no greeny; I don't feel the need to protest about anything, I don't become enraged at the suffering of animals and I don't pay attention to deforestation. However, this dream painted a picture so incredibly vivid that it has made me reconsider my sensetivity to these issues. I don't want to live in a world so polluted and sick that all that is beautiful about it is killed. I live in a beautiful part of the world and the image of all of that being desecrated felt wrong and sickening to look at. Until you see death of the world up close, it is so easy to ignore it. I believe God loves His creation, not just us, and it is up to us to steward it.

There was a deeper message amongst all of this I believe. It's hard to completely discern, but I am going to attempt to do so. There seemed to be a running theme of abuse and neglect. The woman on the beach, the children in the white room and the child on the wall all point to it. I'm not a politically aware person; I don't have my finger on the pulse of politics and I very rarely trust anyone trying to coerce me. However, I don't want to live in a country where the fear of losing money, property or a particular lifestyle is put in front of human compassion. I didn't have a say on refugees before, but I have had a change of heart. I don't want my children asking me why the people who have lost everything don't belong in this country. I don't want them seeing boats of people and exclaiming, 'We don't want them here!' People are people, deserving the same amount love, respect and humanity we all do. I was apathetic before, but now I see why people are so passionate about this.
The child driving that rotten tomato into the dirt also really resonated with me. I kept going over and over that image in my mind the following day trying to figure out what it was that had struck me. I came to the conclusion that why it resonated was because the tomato was rotten. It was long dead, but there was still hope. Even after it's potential had long past, if it was to be sown with the same belief that that child had, new life was possible. Perhaps, not for him, but for the next generation.

A Silence to a Scream

Torn asunder.
Pour us under.
Good lumber.
Burns quicker.
Pour your liquor.
Pour your soul.
Watch the fire consume your desires as you try to fill the hole.
I draw maps with no tracks just places I will never reach.
Talking smack with no tact to people I'll never meet.
I yell at my love then crumble at her feet.
The clubs and back alleys are mine to creep.
Impress us and we'll follow like sheep.
We are the lost. We are the weak.

Souls' sadness.
Becoming madness.
Bad habits.
Becoming magnets.
You can't attack it.
Only catch it.
And if we had a dollar for everytime we've been let down.
We'd buy a machine and burrow into the ground.
The darkness would numb us until we drowned.
Who dares to stare and make us found?
You have taste of our fates but you make no sound.
So please say our names and say them loud.
Become something above the crowd.

Nostalgia

I look back at blog posts I have written three years ago and see that I am dealing with the same stuff that I was dealing with back then. I'm not sure whether that's discouraging or encouraging...

I may say it's discouraging because I haven't overcome the issue, but I could say it's encouraging because it enforces my belief that this is a process. What I do realise is that words that I wrote back then that sounded good to me but were never a reality are now truer than true. As opposed to back then when life felt like a steady grind, I understand now that I am sharper because of it.

The final hurdle is approaching. Once I am over it, it becomes no longer an issue knowing when to jump, but pushing to finish well.

His Fury

The empowerment of a man by God is something truly special. It is the impartation of all the man has doubted he was. It is the word of God piercing his heart and saying, 'I trust you' and 'I believe in you' and convincing the man of the intention of God's creation. It is the Father of all telling him that enough is enough. A fury then erupts through the body of the man, he drops to his knees, he pounds his fist and he screams into the dirt. His breathing is heavy and his eyes wide as the truest words that have ever been spoken come into his soul: 'Through me you will conquer.'

If he regards God's words as holy and pure, then there will be nothing God cannot do through him. All principalities and powers should beware, this man is a son of God.

Perfector

'The Lord will perfect that which concerns me...'
- Psalm 138:8

'What if' and 'if only' are just future tense and past tense terms for the same insecurity.

There isn't one for the present, because in the present things are what you make them.

Once you let God take away your fear of what you have been and what you could be, God can really start working on who you are.

There is truth in the phrase: 'there is no better time than the present'.

Not Without

'Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ...'
- 2 Corinthians 2:14

God is leading me through in triumph. It's not going to be without embarassment, or blood, or sweat, or pain. Neither is it going to be without blessing, salvation, joy or revelation. Don't be distracted by the little scratches that we accumulate through circumstances, but behold with both eyes the glory of our magnificent God.

Dreams in Free-Fall

I love to dream.

In my dreams I can be anything.

I don't adhere to the rules of the world. The words in my mouth become arrows. The sentences I structure become forts. I am conqueror, a prince, a ruler of my own fate; not a victim of chaos, circumstance or coincidence. Everything is certain, and destiny awaits for me to take hold of it.

Why must the reality of the world attempt to crush that innocence?

You are here by chance.

If you have happiness the odds are against you, you will lose it.

Commitment is useless, love is a lie; take what you can get and keep it for yourself.


I have a lot of experience when it comes to hopelessness. It feels like I am constantly treading a thin line between hope and doubt, love and pain, strength and despair. This isn't because I am unstable, it's because I choose to believe. I have chosen to believe that romance isn't dead, that it is possible to be certain of something, of someone. I have people telling me that conservation is wise, that we should hold back on feelings of certainty. I understand their point of view.

I remember the feeling, when hope reaches its peak then all of a sudden you're in free-fall. Nobody likes the lows of love. It's up there with some of the worst feelings in the world; to have invested so much time, effort, emotion then have it rejected is... crushing.

And yet...

And yet I find myself gripping these dice, rolling them over and over in my hand contemplating whether or not I should gamble my heart once again. I have to know... so I roll.

As the years and experiences have taught me, my gambles become more calculated. But they're a gamble all the same.

For me it's all or nothing. You either dream big, or be content with little.

I dream of a beautiful bride of white, standing on an altar blessed by God and covered with tears of joy.

I dream of a hard cover book with my name on it.

I dream of my songs touching people's souls like only music can.

I dream of a steadfast faith.

I don't know when I will get to those places, but they exist, because I believe in the power of the dream God has put in me.

The free-fall is awful... but certain or uncertain, I'll leap everytime.

Art is Shared

The more I write, the more I am finding I don't like the idea that art is under the sole ownership of the person who wrote it. I'm not advocating that artist's not be paid for their work, or that record labels, publishers or art galleries should own exclusive rights to any artwork. I am saying the opposite. Artist's don't write, paint or play for themselves. Yes, there is a release from creating, but there is also a cry for relation. I cannot write a piece of work for myself, in the sense that I intend to find someone, anyone that will look at it and say, 'I feel like this was written for me.'
I don't think I am alone in thinking that if I were to write for myself I would feel terribly alone. In fact, I fear being alone more than death. Art is everyone. The audience, the writer, the collaborator, we all take ownership. If we can't relate to each other as humans, then we cannot relate at all.

Overwhelming Authority

We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God...

Yet in ALL THESE THINGS we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through Him who loved us...

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not to be compared with the GLORY which shall be revealed in us...

And the God of peace will CRUSH Satan under your feet shortly...

To him who overcomes I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it...

He who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God...

To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

Dichotomy

I'm a shipwreck barely seaworthy
Sailing into the deep and carried by the wind
With a crew of insecurities
And a bipolar captain
I am a broken vessel saved only by my momentum
The wind never ends unless I go against Him
If I anchor I may sink
But only self-pity can sink this ship
I have no port of call
I search for a waterfall falling upward
So I may slip into its stream
And find my dreams in His paradise

I'm a broken mirror
Trying desperately to reflect
The image that I see
And the light that gives me rest
Through these many cracks you'll see the black that fills my chest
You might call me cursed
I'd call it blessed
I fight through rooted word
Fighting demons of my past
Crying for the one
Who can help me fix this glass

I'm a soft stuffed toy
Coming apart at the seems
I'm undone, unhindered
And spilling out all my dreams
Like my insides flowing out of my wide open chest
I see some parts I love and some I detest
You'll look upon me both disturbed and in awe
Either way my friend
You'll look at me different than before

This is not a hopeless life
Nor a final cry
Through all hell I've fought
And in all ways I've died
And I know You'll mend me
You'll fill all my needs
I love how You've made me
But I hate how I bleed