I have a CS Lewis quote taped to my computer monitor at work. It reads - “Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels he’s finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him”. A while back, one of my co-workers was standing at my desk, talking to me about a project, and this person read that quote, and said that they liked it. When I asked them what they thought it meant, the answer went something to the effect of - when a person is prosperous, the world is coming to them, instead of the other way around. They looked at it as a hopeful quote, which, from a secular view, I can see where this person is coming from. But the quote is not about how prosperity might have the ability to transform a person into something the world admires and comes to. The quote is about how prosperity often times leads a person to let the fallen world that we are surrounded by into their heart, where it tries to cement itself and create a distance between us and the God we are supposed to have a relationship with. 

I write this simply because it is amazing to me how a quote can have such a different meaning when it’s taken and given an alternate context. Whereas I might look at this quote as a warning to be wary of the effects that wordily success might bring, another person looks at it as a positive statement about success and its potential effects (power and fame, I suppose, being the primary two).

Everyone reaches points in their life when there is something in the world that you want, and you want it more than anything else. It’s the only thing that makes a difference. Everything else seems so small in comparison to this one thing.

Is that dangerous? Is wanting something so bad that you would be willing to do anything (within reason, of course) to get it wrong? And what if that thing isn’t God? Should you feel guilty for that? Has that thing, then, become a God, even if your relationship with God is solid?

There’s something that I want right now. It takes up a lot of my “thinking” time. There’s not a whole lot I can do under my own power to get it, so a lot of this “thinking” time that I put towards it has become praying time. I’m sure God is glad to hear from me more often. Instead of once a day, sometimes its two or three times a day. Sometimes, if its one of those days, its more than that.

I know that God wants us to pray for things. It say’s in the Bible that He wants to give us the desires of our heart. The biggest thing I have had to recognize in this whole experience is discovering where the line is between passion and something becoming a god. Like I said, I spend a lot of time thinking about this one particular thing. I spend a lot of time praying about it, BUT, I’m trying to bring myself to a position where I’m surrendering my want for this thing daily, and trying to not let my want of it get in the way with my want/need for God.

It’s hard. It’s hard when you have something like that on your shoulders, but I believe that evolving in God is to discover how to balance wants and passions for the one passion that God wants us to have in our lives, above all others - Him.

It has been told to me so many times, and maybe I wanted to ignore it or it was that part of me that I couldn’t give up… I don’t know. But I can’t fight against myself anymore. I can’t fight against God anymore by trying to be the person I want to be. It has led me down a path that has seen ups and downs, but has left me in a wilderness, away from Him. Still able to hear his voice, just on occasion and in my deepest and darkest moments, but silent in other times when I need decisions to be made and help making them. He knows that I won’t listen. He knows I’ve already made my choice, and that asking His opinion is more a matter of courtesy. But in every job, there comes a time to step down. Like a small business built into a corporation, sometimes your management style no longer jives with what your company needs, and you have to hand over the reigns to someone new. I have taken myself as far as I can go. It is time to step down and to let someone who knows better than I do run the show. 

This is not a retirement, but only stepping aside. I leave my life in His hands, not because I want to, but because I need to. I can’t grow on my own anymore. The small way of doing things no longer works. I’m interested to see how the new management will lead this entity into tomorrow.

Let me start by saying that this is not a rant against our capitalist, consumer based economy. Although I have my problems with it, it is what we have, and the modern world has come up with very little that is any better.

As I am getting older, I am coming to the realization that I don’t really want anything for Christmas. I mean, money is always a good present, as it seems like there is always some bill to be paid, but when it comes to material things, there isn’t really anything that I want. To clarify, when I say that, i mean that there are a handful of things, but not a lot (and most of those things are beyond the price range of anyone who would be buying me a present). For instance, I would love an Aaton A-Minima, but I don’t think any of my family or friends are going to pony up the, roughly, 15k it costs to purchase said item. So, we’re left with what’s affordable and attainable, which means we aren’t really left with anything.

When I was in school, I had this really stupid notion that I was going to build a DVD library for myself. It would be extensive and vast, and I would accumulate hundreds, maybe even thousands of titles over the years (this was before Blu-Ray and digital download were on the horizon, and everyone thought that DVD’s would be around forever). I spent thousands of dollars a year on DVD’s, eventually, in the course of four years, collecting some three hundred DVD’s. Looking back, that is completely ridiculous. Over the last couple of years, I’ve managed to sell off some of these, but at a ridiculously minuscule price, considering the initial purchase price.

These days, you couldn’t pay me to buy a DVD. Mind you, I do have a few, a handful that I’ve accumulated because of various circumstances, but a few none the less. It takes a lot for me to buy something like that now, mainly because, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more realistic about wants and needs. Owning a library of DVD’s is not only ridiculously expensive, it’s also ridiculously stupid. When are you ever going to come back to most of them, and why do you have the need to be your own Blockbuster?

With a lot of things like this falling to the way side, I find myself in a quandary about a holiday like Christmas. While most people recognize that the true meaning of Christmas is the birth of Christ, there has come to be a secular tradition that has become so bound with this holiday, I hardly think it possible for any culture to move past it without creating a whole new holiday. That tradition, of course, is giving gifts. You spend almost the whole month of December deciphering what those closest to you want or need, and try to track those things down in a frenzy of other shoppers, many of which are just a desperate as you to live up to the need to fulfill this tradition. The whole situation becomes a massive amount of effort, with very little REAL pay off (unless you all give cash or gift cards, or the person you’re getting the gift for told you in advance what they wanted).

So, what’s the point? That’s what I’m really wondering. And, it’s not because I’m being pessimistic, or because I’ve lost faith in a system or a people, but because, as I’ve gotten older, the draw of things has become less and less. To be honest with you, I don’t really want any presents this year, and those that I do want are not material goods and can’t be bought. I would like my Dad to be able to retire, and my Mom as well. I would love to donate large amounts of cash to charities. I would like to start putting together another film without worrying about where the money is going to come from. There’s a girl I would like to ask out, but can’t, and one of the greatest Christmas presents I could get would be for those barriers that are out of my control to be lifted so that I could ask her out.

So what does all of this mean? Because, honestly, it sounds a little depressing, doesn’t it? Not really. It means Christmas is about Christ again. It means I can use the holiday to think about what I want to give over the next year, as opposed to what I want to receive. It means that any gift I do get will be a surprise (and, maybe, even a pleasure). It means that the Christmas holiday has a chance to be more significant than it ever did in the past. 

Last year, my church did a fundraiser to build a Habitat For Humanity house. We managed to raise the entire balance to build the house, and I was a part of that. Though my gift was small (250 dollars as compared to the almost two hundred thousand to buy the property and build the house), I was a part of something that made someone else’s life better, and that was the greatest gift I have received in a long time.

My goal for 2011? To do more things like this, and to ask (and expect) less. Because these days, I am truly beginning to understand the reality that giving IS much better than receiving (although I would be glad to receive any of the things listed above).

There’s an age old question - what would you do if you had one wish?

Most people will answer with world peace, or a billion dollars, or something of this nature. I find myself realizing that if I had one wish in the entire world, I would spend it in the most selfish and grand way possible. Sure, I would love to see world peace, or have a billion dollars, but what I really want? More than anything else in the world? I want to see God. I want to see God face to face, to have Him directly in front of me, to speak to him, to talk as though we were old buddies, just hanging out. I would like to go to a hockey game with God, or grab some great hot wings, and just shoot the bull, discuss the universe and what’s going on in it.

There was a show on, back in the day, called Joan of Arcadia. God would inhabit the bodies of people around the lead character, Joan, and speak to her. I only saw it a few times, but the premise of the show fascinated me to no end. What would it be like to have God right there in front of you? Sure, His form was different every time - Man, Woman, senior citizen, teenager, punk rocker, skater, mom, whatever. Now, the God in the show, as I remember, tended to be a little coy and really only fed Joan as much information as she needed to accomplish whatever task was at hand.

But, can you imagine what kind of a life you could lead if God were there, right there, in front of you? Can you imagine what it would be like to have the one individual who would never let you down, never steer you wrong, never hurt, and always be on your side sitting next to you? It would have to be amazing, I would think…

There are some people who would argue that to see God would eliminate the whole faith thing. You would no longer have to simply believe in His presence to get you through. I get that, to a certain extent, but how could faith even be an issue if God was right there? Adam and Eve may have sinned, but I guarantee you they never questioned the existence of a God that interacted with them. As well, I don’t think that anyone could argue against the fact that, in human relationships, face time is always a much better thing. For the most part, I feel like I’m a lot closer to the friends who live here in town with me, than the one’s who live far away. Now, there are exceptions to that rule, some people I fight very hard to keep a good relationship going with (this includes my parents), since we don’t get to see each other often, and talking on the phone is all we really have. Those relationships are harder to keep up, and therefore, more special, because both sides are doing their best to make it happen, but think about what it’s like when you get to see those people in person, how amazing it is to interact with them.

So, if I had one wish, it would be for God and I to have face time. Even if it was just every once in a while. I’ll even go out on a limb and get an iPhone 4 for it.

Dear Lord,

You are not the desire of my heart. You are not the light of my life, nor are You the thing I crave the most. I want this to be different, but I don’t know how to make that happen. I want to experience that oneness that everyone else seems to be experiencing through a good relationship with You. I don’t know whether it’s my interest in worldly things… I’ve tried to shake it, and I even understand in my heart that a lot of the things I want are empty and hollow victories, yet I still long for them. I still long for the money, the women, the power. I still long for the things that bring only temporary satisfaction, and, yet, in my heart of hearts, stop just short of these things because I know they will never fulfill me (or, at least that is what I’m told), and what I’m left with is a certain amount of bitterness at You for the wall I’ve had to build around myself for You, and a loneliness in feeling that, somehow, You too are outside the wall.

I know You’re real, and I can’t shake that. I want to disassemble You from my life. I want to extract You from my soul, scrape You off my skin, but I can’t… Your existence, to me, is as solid and natural as air, as invisible as gravity, and as awe inspiring as a sunset. Yet, in my darkest moments, I often times wish you would just disappear, because it would make it so much easier to lose myself, to numb myself, even kill myself. Every time the hammer comes down hard, it’s all I want to do, and in my worst moments, I would like nothing more than to end it all, but still I find You there. Still I’m afraid to let You down in that place. Still I’m afraid of Your punishment there. And like any son, I hurt so much inside at the idea of committing this ultimate betrayal, to take my life into my own hands, that I can’t bring myself to do it.

I don’t know what’s left to do. They say that You are writing a story with everyone’s life, but, I feel like my chapter was cut short, and then excised from the book. I feel like I’m floating around in a limbo, waiting for You to tell me who I am, and what I need to do for You, but there is just static from Your end. I could ask the question “Where are You tonight?”. Most would answer “He is right next to you”, but I would only partially agree with that. For me, it’s like You’re in the room, but You’re sitting on the floor, against the opposite wall, knees up against Your chest, hands wrapped around them, chin buried, and just staring at me. You’ve got this blank look on your face, and You’re just waiting. The only problem is, I’m waiting too.

Desire is an easy thing, for the most part. We all have desires, passions, and things that provoke the best in us as we strive (and often struggle) to make those dreams become a reality.

One thing that I realized, recently, is that desire is something that comes WAY to easy for me when it comes to normal things - a family, a house, a piece of furniture, a book or movie, a trip. We grow up with the concept that these desires are natural, and for Americans, that they are deserved. For anyone who works hard enough, any of these desires can be achieved, and so much more.

But what about the things that you can’t really see. The things that are not just material, but that connect with you on a deep spiritual level, that you can’t touch, taste or feel?

One thing that I want to desire more is God. Seems kind of weird, right? I mean, don’t we all desire God? But the other day, I made a list. I tried to think of the top 5 things I desired most. It went a little something like this -

1. Family
2. Friends
3. Being a successful director
4. Traveling
5.

Look closely, and you’ll notice two things - A) that number 5 is empty. I just couldn’t figure out what to put in number 5, because I don’t think I desire anything THAT much, beyond what is listed. B) God is not on that list. Even with one spot open, I didn’t feel right putting God on the list. I don’t have the sort of daily relationship that most people have with God. I don’t pray on a daily basis (though I am trying to change that). I don’t meditate, or “listen” to God (at least not purposefully). I, often times, only seek out His direction on major, life changing decisions, not on everyday (but often times still important) decisions. I try to control my life, work out plans, make goals, and I do all of this without Him. Why? Because I don’t desire His presence in my life (at least not the way I should).

I was talking to a friend the other morning, and he gave me this piece of advice - Ask God to give you the desire to desire Him more. It seemed kind of hokey, but, at the same time, made perfect sense. I can’t produce desire myself. I can’t fake my way through it. Desire is something that comes from your heart, and if it’s not there, it’s not there.

So, thinking about it more and more, I realized that asking for the desire to desire was, in fact, the most reasonable thing to do. It takes small steps to build a house. A foundation is the first part of that. But a foundation doesn’t just appear because you want it to. A group of people come together, all of whom do individual jobs to build this very first, and most important, piece of the puzzle. In this case, though, there’s only one person necessary to build this foundation - God. When we get to the frame, the walls, the plumbing, then God will bring me on as an apprentice to help him build the house he has planned for me, but for right now, he’s building the foundation, and he’s building it because I’m asking him to.