I think the biggest problem with “Christians” today is the fact that we can fully devote ourselves to the IDEA of a relationship with God and what that entails, but from time to time we’ve lost touch with the power of testimony and the power of being able to express what we believe. Not only for the sake of others, but also for our own sake. We can repeat again and again that we are “Christian”, and that we believe in Jesus and what he did… but do we know it? Do we know it in relation to our own lives?

This is my version of what my beliefs are shaping into. As of now I’m just 21 years old. I’m far less ignorant than I used to be, yet I’m also becoming aware of how ignorant I currently am.

The following declaration is what I believe. I’m sure that as I grow closer to God, and learn more about Him and His word that my beliefs will become more in line with Christ, as they should.  But I see great value in every believer being able to PERSONALLY describe their beliefs and why they have them.

I love Jesus Christ. I believe he is part of the trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I completely believe and acknowledge that he came to Earth in a very real, very tangible, very human form. I believe that he lived the perfect sinless life, and proceeded to take on the entirety of mankind’s shortcomings and wickedness by paying the ultimate price in the form of a living sacrifice of his life.

I believe he died.

I believe he didn’t stay dead.

I believe he didn’t stay dead because he IS the living God and he IS the only way to the Father because of the price he paid.

I believe that he loves me.

I believe that he loves you. and you. and you. etc.

I believe that we were created with the power of choice, and that our creator is on the edge of his seat waiting for us to simply ACCEPT his love.

We spend our entire lives putting ourselves through hell to better ourselves. To achieve. To earn. To grow. To learn. To do. To do. To do. etc.

Yet all that God is asking of us is that we ACCEPT him into our lives, and give him the ability to work in us and more importantly- through us.

I believe that he showed me himself, and how powerful he really is. He made it through all my twisted misconceptions and my focuses on flawed people. He taught me that I can’t define who He is through others, but ONLY through him. If we rely on people when it comes to our faith, then our faith is ill-focused and destined to be a disappointment.

It’s a relief really… if you actually grasp the concept of it all. All we have to do is trust God, and regardless of any troubles we have, any pain we have, any suffering we have, any downfall we have… we know that we are taken care of and we have a purpose through our God that loves us so much. All it takes on our part is a complete trust in God and a willingness to let him change us.

I don’t paint a perfect image of myself or what I believe.

I don’t have it all figured out, and I fall short every. single. day.

But what I do have figured out is the fact that I need my relationship with Jesus Christ.

Not because I’m scared of how hot hell is.

Not because I want to be a better person.

Not because I want to tithe my money so I can prosper.

Not because I want. want. want. want. want.

But because I NEED.

Over the past year I have grown to see my utter NEED for reliance on God.

As long as I can keep that in the forefront of my mind and heart, I know I don’t have to worry about the rest, because that’s silly stuff.

That’s my declaration.

That’s what I believe.

I beg God every day that he molds me and uses me.

I beg God that I might fulfill my purpose.

That I might be an impact on someone in an eternal sense.

People say that they think true love doesn’t exist, and they’re right as long as they’re defining love solely through other people.

But I see that true love does exist. True love is who God is.

apart from Him we will never have true love.

I love Jesus Christ and desire to love him with all of my heart.

These are my beliefs.

These are my focus.

These are the source of my passion.

The above is my declaration to you, God.

Is it time that you asked yourself,

“What do I believe?”

–Kyle

It’s a  rare occasion that sleep and I can’t meet up due to scheduling differences, but it’s also the one rare time that blog and I ever get to hang out.

I feel fortunate today.I feel fortunate for the simple fact that I’ve been driving for 5 years now and I’ve never had a flat tire. Now to me, that’s a pretty impressive feat.  Sure you could say I just have a well maintained car, but that’s not really true.

Small little observations like these are things we never seem to look at, mainly because we find it so much easier to look past something than to look at it. If only we could realize that these little insignificant things are like treasures.

A truth I’ve learned quite recently is that life is a treasure hunt. The only problem is, everyone is after the wrong kind of treasure! This treasure, a.k.a “The World”, has a price-tag no doubt, but we always end up spending more in the process of pursuing the wrong treasure than we’d ever hope to gain.

I was after the wrong kind of treasure for a portion of my life, fortunately my gracious God is truthful and perfect in his very nature and if you trust him as I’m learning to, he tends to show you more truth than you could ever truthfully handle.

So what treasures should we be after? I guess the most important thing to consider is what we’re using as our treasure map to track down our prizes. If we’re using our feelings, our treasures will always be short-lived and fickle. Feelings are rarely accurate to the reality of a situation, rather, they are our interpretation of a situation in that  particular moment. Living from moment to moment is fun, but those gaps between said moments are what life  eventually amounts to.

Another kind of treasure map that people like me tend to use is a map based off of logic. Logical maps are great, but logic must have a source. If logic is fundamentally based out of a flawed source, for instance, a logic that suggests the universe was formed from a massive explosion of particles that were then perfectly set in place to create the exact specifications for having a functional universe, yet having no way to even postulate where all that matter exploded from is flawed logic. Treasure maps with a flawed logical foundation will, logically, lead you to a flawed destination.

There are many more varieties of treasure maps in this world, but there’s only one more that I want to focus on — The Bible. Now, the Bible that I was raised around was a book that sat in a wooden pocket at a 70 degree angle facing me as I sat in a rigid, unsympathetic pew. But that’s not what the Bible is, is it? The problem was that I was looking at the Bible with my current emotions as a chubby confused little kid, and I saw it as nothing more than another piece of the decor in our sanctuary. What I’ve grown to see the Bible as now, however, is my guide to finding the treasures in life due to its endless truths and examples to help me become the person that I’m supposed to be.

When logic fails, God logically cannot. When emotions overwhelm, God brings peace. When the “randomness” of life is more thoughtfully examined, God is present. The truth that I’ve used long-handed metaphor to get to is this – The way we view life is dependent on the filter that we view it through. The filter that I long for in my current stage of life is the filter of God’s perfect love. God’s perfect love is laid out quite clearly in my choice treasure map, that’s right… the Bible.

So if we would only use our free treasure map, it would lead us to amazing things! If only we could see the beauty in every small happening in our lives. If only we could see the significance in having no flat tires, or in having a chance to talk to a stranger in a long line a Wal-Mart, or in finally having a flat tire and finding out that there are still people with an altruistic nature willing to bless you with their time.

God is big, and he gave us a map to guide us through this tiny life. I suggest we use it…

You feel me?

(that’s street talk for “Dearest friend, do you understand the ideas that I’ve postulated in the above statement?”)

kyle.lawrence.runner

Some might say that a war is being fought for your mind.

An argument that makes sense, but the perspective in that is all wrong.

The mind is merely the battlefield, for a war that started with the fall.
The war isn’t for your mind, but it’s been for your soul, after all.
The war will always have casualties, and the end never seems so near.
In a fight with no civilians, how can one believe anything they hear?
The war does not discriminate, and the enemy seems to be ever-growing.
The war is not on the tips of our tongues, but it’s effects are always showing.
The war makes us jaded, and we forget why we set out on our cause.
But what we’ve all forgotten… is that we didn’t have to carry that cross.
We think the war is our personal struggle, and it’s blotted out our sight.
Have we so soon forgotten we’re just foot-soldiers for this fight?
If we lose track of where we stand, and we lose the battle for our mind.
The first loss leads to second loss, and the soon we may fear to find,
The war for our soul isn’t decided by some dark or mysterious source…
The war for your soul is decided when you CHOOSE who you’re fighting for.

I’ve come up with a fun metaphor for any given individuals’ shortcomings.

We all have problems. We all have issues. We are all straight up, messed up.

But the fair majority of us would love to do nothing more than to tuck our own personal hey-it’s-really-not-that-bad type of problems into a nice safe place where no one can be privy to our weakness.

Because guys, let’s face it –  if someone knew that we had problems… well, my word; we’d almost seem human! (present day American/world standards are pretty clear on the fact that we are to no longer portray an air of humanity… because with humanity comes that pesky accountability)

So we take all our problems, and we stuff them into a nice cozy metaphorical cave, over on the side of the metaphorical mountain that no one ever metaphorically hikes on. That way we know that our problem is well out of the open, yet we’re always just a metaphorical ATV ride away from throwing even more junk into our cave.

Some of us simply use the cave because it was passed down through the generations… a metaphorical family heirloom, if you will. 

Some of us use the cave because we discovered it long before we figured out who we wanted to be, and it’s a safe place to keep our old metaphorical junk… kind of like a metaphorical pack-rat.

Some of us aren’t even sure when and where we acquired our metaphorical cave full of issues, but… there it is.

And some of us are still using our cave only because we’ve tried to get rid of it before, but no matter how strong the TNT that we rigged to it was, it simply would not collapse. Some of us are still to this day, positive that we will find a way to destroy our cave by our own strength… it’s just going to take time.

I’ve been reading alot more lately, and I stumbled across a book that was all about a famous demolitions expert. I’d never really read a biography before, but I really got sucked into this guys’ life story, and he was by far the most notable demolitions expert that I’ve ever heard of. 

Turns out, his speciality was cave demolitions. More specifically – metaphorical caves.

Anyway, I contacted him, and he demolished my metaphorical cave like it was no big deal. The guy is truly a miracle worker, and I highly recommend him.

Here’s an excerpt from his book – 

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” -Jn 16:33 

I’m just figuring that if you know someone that has conquered the world, let alone some puny metaphorical cave, that they’re probably worth staying in touch with.

I’m just sayin’

-klriiiesq

Maybe this is just a guy thing…but when I’m on the highway taking a long trip and I set a cruise speed of approximately eight miles over, if anyone dares to pass me at my perfect speed they must be some kind of moron.

The longer the trip is, the more idiotic all other drivers become to me.

Then the other day I started wondering – what if everyone on the road is thinking exactly like I am right now? Then I started thinking how sweet it would be to race a car just like mine…then I started thinking about how hungry I was.

Then I stopped at Wendys and got a frosty (vanilla).

 -klriiiesq

Some letters to old friends of mine…

Dear Free Time,

I hope you’re doing well, I know it’s been a while since we’ve had a chance to get together. I wanted to start off by thanking you for not minding when I’d take all those naps and totally skip out on you, but seriously, you had a bigger influence on me than you’d think!

Although I know we definitely had some great times watching television together and goofing off, I’ve now realized that you got me in more trouble than anything else. I know that hindsight is 20/20 and I think that looking back I can now see that we probably just had a little bit too much of each other.

But hey, that doesn’t mean we can’t still hang out! Let’s plan a day to chillax together! (maybe a Saturday??)

Dear Extra Money,

GOSH! It’s been so long! I hope you’re doing well, I really miss you man….

It’s been at least two, three years? Anyway, I know you’re probably super busy with your friends Don Trump and Billy Gates (especially Bill since he’s technically retired now!), so I’ll make this short.

I just wanted to thank you for the good times we had. I know we never really got to be together as much as we wished we could, but hey that’s life!

And although we never really had any really ‘deep’ moments or really got quality one-on-one time together, you always knew where to find classiest restaurants in town, and I truly appreciate that!

p.s. I know I only met your friend Ben that one time, but tell him I listened to the song that Puff Daddy wrote about him, and he was totally right – It’s off the chain!

Dear Funny Jokes I Used to Tell,

I’ll never understand why you ditched me in the first place. You’re a jerk.

I hope that you come crawling back to me one day, and then maybe, just MAYBE I’ll be glad to see you.

Dear Sinful Ways,

I saved you for last because you’re the one old friend of mine that I really wouldn’t ever want to see face to face again….so a letter seemed most practical.

You were always one of those mutual friends of mine that I never really liked, yet somehow, over time, you crept into my life. I don’t know how you did it…but that doesn’t really matter at this point, because you won’t ever do it again.

For all the false promises you ever made me and for all the rewards you promised me, you did nothing but spit in my face time and time again. Like an idiot, I would always end up coming back to you; I guess I just didn’t know any better.

Well, I know better now. I’ve made some new friends…all through another mutual friend of mine. You may have heard of him before, his name is Jesus.

I met him a long time ago when I was a kid, but through all the chaos of my life and due to all the time I spent with you, I lost touch with him over the years.

It turns out he’s been trying to get up with me ever since we lost touch; I just wasn’t paying enough attention…

Anyway, ever since we started hanging out again, things have been completely the opposite of how they were with you and me. He actually does do everything that he promises, and he actually does always have my back. He’s never once lied to me and I know that I can trust him with anything, especially my life.

I hope that after reading this letter you can understand why I never want to hear, see, or even think about you ever again. Don’t take this letter as my way of trying to get back up with you…

It’s over.

Sincerely,

Kyle Lawrence Runner III esq

Well….I love December.

-klriiiesq

Ah, the strange and unusual world of blogging! I’ve done everything in my power to avoid such a thing, yet the more I fought it, the more blogging fought back…thus I have proven yet again that I am a spineless wussy that will always give in after a small amount of time (generally 5-12 minutes depending on wind velocity and other factors that tend to vary).

I’m not sure how these things generally ‘go down’ but as far as I can assume…my first blog is supposed to be mind-numbingly-take-your-breath-away-while-simultaneously-

knocking-your-socks-off,-or-sandals-if-you’re-wearing-sandals,

-but-if-not-it’s-cool kind of good..

…So I’ll go ahead and apologize in advance for any form of disappointment you may feel while skimming this page!

Instead, I figured I’d take some of my precious and rare time to place within my very own blog, some of the finer things that I’ve found during my time spent scouring the web whilst avoiding homework and/or laundry/hygiene, Enjoy!

This is Handart.

Yes, that’s right. ART on HANDS. On the positive side, it gives the “Happy Hands Club” a fresh bit of hope to their somewhat outdated cause of…keeping hands…happy, I guess?

I mean, I know that my own personal set of hands would be way happier if they had the chance to be the freaking national bird. Even if it were only for a day.

This is a school in a small mountain town in China. Nothing really out of the ordinary…

OH WAIT> IT’S IN A FLIPPIN’ CAVE.

Game. Set. Match. This is officially the best place EVER to learn shapes and colors.

…If only Bruce Wayne had had such an early start in the world of caves, crime might actually be a thing of the past by now.

…If only.

Everyone loves optical illusions! (except me…usually I end up feeling below the average rate of intelligence because I can’t make out the boat within the image of the basket full of bread made up of a bunch of tiny little pictures. If you can show me this so-called ‘boat’ I’ll pat you on the back. If not, step off)

However, this’n is fun! Just stare directly at the big black + and watch what happens after a few seconds…

The first time I stared at this image, I saw an image of Britney Spears as a normal person without any of those pesky issues such as ‘being crazy’ and ‘bald’. It was completely surreal and shook me to the core.

And so, gentle reader, my first blog comes to a dramatic conclusion. I hope you’ve enjoyed some of my visual treasures in the form of ‘JPEG’s as much as I did.

Maybe next time I’ll actually write a blog that shares some of my innermost thoughts and feelings on the most pressing issues of my life and times.

…But don’t cross your fingers ;p

-kyle lawrence runner III esq