Melody She Wrote

You're not responsible for acquiring your own joy. I've been struggling with...joylessness this summer. I guess most people would say I've been struggling with depression. But I don't like giving it the benefit of a name. satan is a filthy, lying, conniving bastard who brings darkness whenever and wherever he gets a chance, and he doesn't deserve for even one of his actions to merit a title. I've been struggling with joylessness. Yesterday, I moved to Austin. I walked around the campus that I called home for three years, only to return and call it home yet again. It felt right. I felt peace. I felt like I was where I was supposed to be. This morning, I woke up and thought, "I left my family and my safety net...for what? Why am I here again? What have I done?" And the joy meter began to fall. Then I heard someone talk about joy. How we like to blame things when we don't have it. We blame the things we got but that didn't satisfy. We bl

I screamed bloody murder about going to college. Always weekly, sometimes daily, God heard about how upset I was to have been uprooted from both family and career to attend university. Upon graduation, I tried every excuse I knew of to stay home. I used conservative philosophies to support my aversion to bills. I clung to minimalist ideals to shrink from owning my own silverware. Part of my abhorrence of moving out and getting a job--like a normal person--was the fact that it was  like a normal person . I didn't want to be normal. I never wanted to look like the culture. I wanted to be counter-cultural! But what if life in the Kingdom isn't counter-cultural? Before all my charismatic friends burn me at the stake, let me explain: Before and after encountering Holy Spirit, I was taught that Christianity was about being counter-cultural. Maybe it wasn't said explicitly, but it was made abundantly clear that being a Christian meant going against the cultural norm. Ev

I ran into an old friend today at the grocery store. We can both legally buy a beer; that's how old we are now. As we parted, she congratulated me on moving out and into an apartment. I cringed. "I know. I guess I'm a grown-up now." She laughed. "I'm doing my best not to be." I smiled back as I walked away and agreed, "Yeah, I'm resisting." I've been resisting for several years now, ever since high school graduation crept around the corner and left me graduated. For that long, I've been digging in my heels. Quick images of my prior and ongoing aversions to adulthood swept through my head as I walked away. So I asked God, "What is up with our generation? Why are we so opposed to growing up?" {Article after article has expressed frustration with our generation. "The millennial generation just can’t quit mom and dad," wrote Joe Belfiglio for Yahoo! Finance ( link ).} I paraphrase what I feel like His rep

Christians have this thing about early morning quiet time. Not a bad thing, just a thing. I'm not really a fan. But I try, because I acknowledge that there's something special about starting out the day hanging out with Jesus. But mornings are hard. I started this semester with really great intentions. However, even with getting seven hours of sleep a night, I'm still hitting snooze all the way through the hour that I said I would worship. I recently heard the following  verse from Psalm 9 quoted from the Passion translation: "When God shows up, I worship. And as I worship, the enemies flee." I'm a worship leader. I've been taught this concept time and time again. I believe this concept. It's not new . But today, I heard that verse, and God asked me the following question: "When will you do battle?" And I was reminded of all the battles I fought last week, battles I fought throughout the day and into the evenings. It was a