Promised

It took me a long time to figure out the difference in being given something and having a promise. You have probably "pinky swore" a few times in your life or even given your "word" to someone. But really we have never had the capability of holding and fulfilling a true promise.
A human being has no grounds for promises. A person is fallible and can never make anything a sure thing. What we have in us is not consistent. A Mom cannot tell her son that she will always be there for him whenever he gets scared, because the truth of the matter is she won't always be there to protect him. A ten year old girl cannot promise that she will take good care of her new pet dog because we all understand she will forget to feed him every once in a while. What we have as humans is not a promise we can keep but only something we can give one moment at a time. A gift is given but it never provides you your purpose just a way to get there.
A promise is something beyond our limits. God is Promise, never changing and always sure. Sense the beginning we were never given anything by God, we were promised it. He didn't give us life and life more abundantly, He promised it. God never gave us healing, He promised it. Jesus never gave His life for us, He promised it. A Promise is always the direction your going, a gift helps you along the way.
We cannot offer what we never obtained to begin with. That's why God is God and we are man.  Hold onto the Promise, and give what you have in this moment.

Ten Thousand Lies

Ten thousand lies
Can misdirect thousands of thoughts
Thousands of misdirected thought
Can lead to a hundred of other directions
A hundred of other directions
Point to a ton of unopened doors
A ton of unopened doors
Sparks some curiosity
Some curiosity
Opens one door
And that one door
Opens to Ten thousand lies

I Can Still Hear My Heartbeat

I'm sitting here in the somewhat rare silence of my apartment. I close my eyes and the memories and chaos of the past seven months flood my mind. I have a lot to be angry about, and so many reasons to feel like a failure. But after it was all said and done, I sit in this rare silent moment, and I can still hear my heartbeat.
I question the motives and directions of those people that were supposed to be my leaders, but I intensely question my own. I have told a numerous amount of people that I don't think I was supposed to even be here, and I can almost agree with that. I have a lot of new bruises from people that were supposed to be "Christians", and I have some old wounds that were reopened. Maybe I have some new hurts that I could have avoided, but the fact that I'm alive means I'm going to get hurt every once and a while. Most importantly there are things that I have gained from this experience that I will never want to loose, and I believe it's why I was here.
Firstly my Dad, I got to pick up the years that were lost. I don't think I will fully understand the pain he must have gone through, caused by a crewel ex wife and the loss of his kids. It hurts my heart to know that he was damaged by it and still is. But even more so now I understand that his love was always there and is excited he can finally be the Dad he missed out being.
Next my closest friends, the people that really were with me through it all. When I left five years ago they were the only friends I cared about enough to hold on to. Being back for these few months made me realized how much I loved them and how much of the important parts of our young lives we shared together. It makes me tear up when I think of leaving them and not being able to be there when their children are born, or being parents together, or crazy old ladies in rocking chairs. I will miss them dearly.
Lastly, the people that cared about me as a kid when they didn't have to. You took me in, you let me be apart of your family, and you helped me to see that God cared. Without you I would not be where I am today.
I'm glad I came back. I'm glad I came back to love on the people I wasn't able to love on in a long time. I learned what only could have been taught in this atmosphere and God showed me some things I needed to see. No matter the noise and distractions of yesterday I am thankful for the silence of today. Because today I can see what really mattered, and today I can go back home knowing it was all worth it. Today, I recognize there is pain in life but I can still hear my heartbeat.

-Dedicated to my close friends and family in Seattle

Future Existence.

Who does man think that we are to overcome the definition of existence?
I just watched a documentary on the evolution of man and mechanics, rather the merging of man and mechanics. Transcendent Man is about the the thoughts, ideas, and predictions of the inventor Ray Kurzweil. This man has devoted his life to improving the existence of man kind, inventing reading machines for the blind, prosthetics that are plugged into your neurological system for the lame, the list goes on and on.
The claim that struck me the most was the idea that because of the technology that we have created thus far we, as humans, will be able to advance technology enough to overcome health issues. We will be able to run longer, hold our breath longer, live longer. We will be able to advance our human bodies to the degree of being able to plug ourselves into the intranet to obtain an infonaut amount of information. He even went as far as to claim that we will be able to bring the exact likeness of our dead ones from the grave or anyone and replicate them enough to be as actual human beings. And the most scary thing of all of those claims is that we have the technology to do it.
Have we put our trust in an intelligence that we have created? Have we gone as far as claiming we could be like a god?
Now more than ever I am convinced we are very much living in the last days. God will not be tampered with. And we are diving head first into an idea that will ultimately destroy us, and not in the least bit will it improve our existence.