12.31.2008

Here is Love

Over one hundred years ago, in the country of Wales in the British Isles, God did something incredible. One of the greatest revivals in history swept the tiny nation in 1904. One hymn, known as the love song of the revival, became incredibly popular during that time. Today, "Here is Love" has been translated into English.

I love the words. They capture the love of God like no other song does.


Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten,
Throughout Heav’n’s eternal days.

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

Let me all Thy love accepting,
Love Thee, ever all my days;
Let me seek Thy kingdom only
And my life be to Thy praise;
Thou alone shalt be my glory,
Nothing in the world I see.
Thou hast cleansed and sanctified me,
Thou Thyself hast set me free.

In Thy truth Thou dost direct me
By Thy Spirit through Thy Word;
And Thy grace my need is meeting,
As I trust in Thee, my Lord.
Of Thy fullness Thou art pouring
Thy great love and power on me,
Without measure, full and boundless,
Drawing out my heart to Thee.



Go, spread the good news of the love of God.

12.06.2008

On Feasts, Feasability, Festivities, and Fire Alarms

What a day. I sit writing this at 12:41, the end of my most interesting
and eventful day ever at Bob Jones University.

It started with breakfast. Just breakfast with three friends, which
isn't that unusual, except I never go to breakfast, ever. Allow me
to quote Whatever Happened to MacDonald Hall by Gordon Korman.
"Breakfast!? You!?!" I woke up at 6:40, went back to bed at 8:15,
and woke up again at 10:20.

Then there is the fact that Friday is my easy day. I have Preacher-boys
class, which is essentially a chapel, Speech in the afternoon, and every
other week I have History. Speech and Preacher-boys don't count as
classes, cause all I do is listen to people speak, and History is really
easy.

Me and a friend went off campus this afternoon to a Christian bookstore
and hung out. When we came back we had an amazing dinner, complete with
festive decorations and complimentary candy canes. The lighting
ceremony was right after that, and BJU actually gave us real food. I
was impressed.

The lighting ceremony was sweet. There is a general rule in life.
Whatever you do, do it with friends, guys and girls. We had a blast.
Once I get access to Facebook, pictures will be posted. I sat on
Santa's lap, which was interesting in a weird sorta way, cause I know
it was really a guy my age. A guy's quartet attempted "O Holy Night."
It was bad and hilarious all at the same time.

In addition to all this, I got back from work tonight and sat in the
Johnson dorm's unusually festive lobby. Then the fire alarm went off.
At 12:10 in the morning. Apparently there had been some decorating going
on and the smoke detectors thought the fog machine was on fire. It was
wrong.

That was my wild and crazy day. One week til classes are done, baby!!

9.22.2008

On Long Trips and Subspecies

At the illustrious learning institution that is Bob Jones University, great distances frequently must be covered by a great deal of people.  Every Monday and Wednesday, I have a class in the Alumni building the hour right before chapel.  When class gets out at 10:50, a thousand people have to evacuate the building (which process takes about five minutes).  Due to construction, said thousand people have to go across one narrow bridge to get to the FMA for chapel. 

When one gets into the building, I have to navigate long, narrowish hallways inhabited by couples; depressed, good looking girls; groups of guys in Omega (to be covered later), and acads.  Acads are an interesting subspecies of Homo sapiens.  Usually the offspring of the yuppie (beings in pantsuits and using Bluetooth), the acad is a being about tenth grade, with braces (they always have braces), and some sort of track jacket from a retail outlet such as Aeropostale or American Eagle.  The young acad (ages 6-12) can frequently be found on the soccer field displaying mad soccer skills expected of them by the yuppie.  When an acad grows up into full maturity (some scholars doubt that maturity actually happens), it frequently becomes a member of Omega, the acad cult.

After one has tripped over several acad dating couples, he finally winds up sitting in his seat just about the time that a man in a moustache starts leading the singing of a 16th century version of a popular hymn, and the service begins.

7.10.2008

Why I had Four Cops After Me

I have only had my driver's license for about six months, but through those months have never been pulled over. I got pulled over Sunday.

My brother works for a lawn care company, and one of the lots that they mow had two year old construction signs sitting there rotting away. My brother asked his boss, a security guard at our local hospital and knows a lot of cops, if it would be fine if we took the sandbags. His boss said fine.

After church my brother, a white friend, a Mexican friend, and I stopped by, picked up the sandbags and went on our merry way. A couple minutes later we passed two cop cars that promptly turned around. At that point I knew I was screwed, I didn't know for what. I pulled up to a red light; they pulled up right behind me and flicked on their lights, so I pulled into the gas station right there.

One of the cops came up to my window and told me that they had received a call about four Caucasians in a green van who were stealing traffic signs, which is really funny because we had a Mexican in the back seat. We thought about saying, "That can't be us, thats a Mexican back there," but we exercised better judgment.

There were two cop cars that pulled us over; then two more cops stopped to see what was going on. So at one point there were four police cars in the parking lot surrounding me. Yay, I'm famous.

One of the policemen called my brother's boss, and we got everything straightened out, so we didn't get arrested or fined or anything. We thought it would have been really funny if they pulled the Mexican guy out of the back seat and searched him, but that never happened.