Ooo, I'll take 9 of those please

Honestly, this is the epitome of crappy, psuedo-inspirational gifts.

I think this would make a good 3 year anniversary gift... I mean, really... what do you do for those odd year anniversaries? Anything not multiple of five is getting Chicken Soup and Bath and Body Works :) lol

I'm joking.. really.

conflict and resolution

Today was an interesting day of highs and lows. I got to screw up by trying to do a good thing but in a really bad way. Yet, I also witnessed the beauty of God's faithfulness through long time friends. 

For starters, my day was rather normal... did some errands, some studying, and just getting ready for my summer (and of course facebook procrastination). In the middle of that day, I ended up harshly confronting a good friend of mine about some things. Barring whether I felt right or wrong about the content of my confronting, I learned some things... that I already knew, but they are just so tough to live by when you're upset.

First, if you're hungry and tired, not a good time to confront somebody. I was so tired I could've fallen over, so I didn't confront my friend in love, I lashed out at them in anger.

Second, if you're going to confront somebody about something, I don't think that it's always the best policy to just keep waiting for the "right opportunity." That's what I've been trying to do for a while and instead of an opportunity ever presenting itself, more and more things kept piling up, until I was unable to confront well. Instead, it turned into a passive aggressive attack. I think it might be better to identify one thing at a time and create the opportunity to deal with it as soon as possible rather than waiting for that "perfect moment."

Lastly, I learned from my discussion with my friend, that it's better to ask questions than to throw accusations.

Maybe I learned more, but those are so highlights. In general though, what a harsh lesson to learn, but good. I can easily see how a married couple could have a massive blow outs if they failed to deal with things as they come. It's just so hard to find the balance between being a nag and being passive-agressive. Holding it in isn't helpful, but neither is unrestrained, unrelenting criticism. What's the balance between being patient and just plain avoidance of dealing with the problem?

So, that was the beginning of my evening. Then I got to have an awesome time with the remnant of the 4th year Regent students from when I first came out to school here in 2004. Lots of fun conversation and whatnot, but what I always love about my Regent friends whenever we get together like that is that there is a purposeful incorporation of the Lord into the evening.

After we had had dinner and spent time catching up, we came together to worship God and a tangible sense of God's presence was there with us. As we worshipped, I was just so struck by how special these times were. How blessed we all were to have such a close community of believers that were empowered by the Spirit and there to support each other. I was reminded how many of us may leave Regent and struggle to find a community that was this good. We did all that to remember God's faithfulness to us and that it's ultimately His love that is sustaining us. Awesome!

I came home and spent some time thinking and working through some things. Still feeling guilty for my treatment of my friend. I grabbed my guitar and went to some place private to worship and sing. There's this one song from Ben Paisley of 100 Portraits that is by far my most favorite worship song in the world from my favorite worship band. The lyrics...

[Verse 1]

Oh mercy fall on me, like a warm blanket, on my cold cold heart.

Clean me with your blood that turns me white on the inside.

I'm on my knees again, cause I'm breaking your heart.

[Chorus]

Put in me... what I cannot buy with gold

Put in me, oh God... come restore my broken soul

Put in me... what I cannot give myself

Put in me... a clean heart.

[Verse 2]

I know all my broken places, like the back of my hand, 

That slapped your face again

Wash me with your love and hold me tight like a baby

Till I have no memory of ever breaking your heart

[Chorus]

[Bridge]

And in the joy when you restore me, I will stand and walk again

I will run into this world, I will call them to come in

But I will not point my finger or grow that wicked skin

That cannot remember what I will not forget

How I broke you... or how I'm broken.

Listen to a clip

Needless to say, it was a wonderful end to my day.

um.. it's april, right?

Yeah, there's an inch of snow on the ground... what the heck?

I feel fine thank you

I hate advertisers. Really, I'll just pull a conclusion out of my rear, butt (pun intended) I think modern advertising is responsible for about 3/4's of the psychological maladies and poor self-image of north americans.

On a less judgmental note though, if I were in the advertising industry, I'd have a daily ethical seizure trying to deal with it all. Some advertising I find simply despicable and unquestionably unethical. Others are not so easy to nail down... even in doing ads for church events that I've done in the past... anytime you attach a human face, it's very tempting to place the "pretty face" to the ad. How helpful is this? How hurtful?

I've seen a great many churches ads that made me feel squeamish... Anywho... just pondering

Faithfulness...

Real quick post. I just want to tell of how awesome God is. I can't share the details of the story, but basically I was studying down in Koerner Library on Saturday night and around 8:45-9pm, I felt the urge to pray for a friend of mine. Didn't know why just felt like I needed to pray and but I just did anyway. 

I prayed general things for this friend that were based on my own knowledge of them. Within a few minutes, Ephesians 1:3-10 popped into my head. It's not even a scripture that I read a lot or anything, but felt drawn to it. So, I began drafting an email because it seemed obvious to me that God was saying something here.

As I prayed through Ephesians, I had a few meditations and specific things that I felt like God wanted to encourage this friend of mine with. They weren't special knowledge things (i.e. things that I didn't already know about this friend or what not), but the timeliness of the words seemed apparent to me. What I mean by "timeliness" is the need that they should be said now. So, I wrote. I wrote about God's "silence" and the fact that we've been blessed with "every spiritual blessing in Christ." I wrote to encourage them to believe that God did speak to them and other things to that effect.

After I was finished writing, I went over the email like four or five times because I was actually doubting myself. Was this me? Was this God? I finally decided that whether it was God or not, they were encouraging words and I just prayed that they would be timely. That my friend would be in a place where those words would be well received and helpful, rather than pithy.

The next day, I found out that they were very well received and that there was a "story" to tell now. Today, I got an email from my friend telling me that they had been with a friend that evening and got into a conversation about God. My friend went home discouraged and feeling as if God was silent and confused about the "silence" of God in their life. I sent the email right about that same time and when they got home, they received it.

Wow! Isn't God cool? I was talking with my roomie Steven Hettler and we joked around about how even in this high-tech society of texting and wireless, blah blah blah, God is still better at networking events of life and ultimately of the heart. Exciting stuff. Not only now are they encouraged because of God's faithfulness to them, but I'm encouraged that I'm not just a dude full of hot air pithy religious things to say :).

"I'm from Taiwan"

I kind of feel like a stupid American right now. For the past few years of working up in Alaska, a large amount of Taiwanese come on cruises and visit the beautiful fjords of the Inside Passage. Also, a large amount of other nationalities. When us bus drivers are loading our passengers in the mornings, we have to check passports since we go into Canada for our trips typically. No big deal.

Here's why I feel like a stupid American. On more than one occasion, I would look at somebody's passport and it would say "Republic of China" on the passport. Politely, I would acknowledge that they were "Chinese" and mark it down on my paper. To which, many times I would here the retort (once forcefully), "I'm from Taiwan." In my ignorance, I really didn't understand and all I cared about was that the passport said China.

As I've been studying Chinese history in-depth for the past month, I feel like a complete dolt now. China has a rocky enough history as it is, full of death, revolution, and tragedy. I, being an American, who barely even knew what the Taiping Rebellion (20 million deaths), Boxer Rebellion (22 million deaths), or Great Leap Forward (20-43 million deaths, guess they lost count) was before this month, had no clue the severity of the difference between Taiwan and China. By the way, the mass deaths in china that I just mentioned: 1) Occurred within the last 150 years and 2) isn't even all of the deaths. Let's talk about WWI, the Sino-Japanese War, WWII, the Cultural Revolution, etc. Jeez...

To put it simply, ever read about Mao Zedong and the Communist Revolution of China, circa 1949. Yeah, not a pretty thing and before that happened, China was: the Republic of China. Now, it is the People's Republic of China, this occurring after the Chinese Civil War (hello!). And the losers of that war, now known as the "Republic of China" are all living in what we know as Taiwan. So, um... yeah... I have to wonder what those poor Taiwanese people must of thought of me on my bus. "Stupid American."

this is what a master's degree does to you

I'm sitting and chatting with a friend on the "interwebs" and they basically talk about one thing that deals with Christianity, Scripture, or Bible interpretation and I just go off on whatever their topic is...  dumping info on them. Great... seminary has turned me into a boring old man... :-p Pretty soon, there will be hair growing from my nose and ears profusely. I'll keep telling the same stories over and over again just hoping that somebody will listen to me.... ahhh

Moving Back

I'm moving my blog back to here for the time being.

As much as I like graphical appeal of iWeb, it is extremely inconvenient as a blogging software, because it takes so much time to update the darn thing. I really want to revamp my site and make it look nice, but I don't have time to do that. I'll just go back to my blogspot account for easily being able to update until I can revamp my site. So, redirect your RSS feeders and I'll move back to www.alexfritz.com after I can get up to Alaska.