The Irony in Lifes Poetry

I knelt to pray but not for long
I had to much to do
Must hurry off and get to work
For bills would soon be due
And as I said a hurried prayer
Jumped up from off my knee
My Christian duty now was done
My soul could be at ease
All through the day I had not time
To speak a word of cheer
No time to speak of Christ to friends
They'd laugh at me I feared
No Time-No Time too much to do
That was my constant cry
No time to give to those in need
At last it was time to die
And when before the the Lord I came
I stood with downcast eyes
Within His hand He held a book
It was the Book of Life
He looked in the book and said
Your name I cannot find
I once was going to write it down
But never found the time.

I'll get to that in a little bit...

Right now I am sitting in my bed exhausted. All these thoughts are running around in circles and not getting anywhere. I feel like I'm at a Track Meet. So I am writing them down in hopes to allow my brain to turn off easier so I can have a good nights sleep...which hasn't happened in a while. Therefore BEWARE, if you don't want to listen to some random 21 year old, ADD, middle class white boy rant about his life living and working in a low income, permanent supportive housing apartment building in Downtown Dallas, you should read no further.

Good no ones listening now...So I can go on...

So I started this job on November 3rd, 2010 after returning from a 5 month trip to Haiti. I absolutely fell in love with my job. I was put in charge of basically planning and implementing events, classes, and activities for the the low-income individuals who lived in the apartment building in which I worked and lived so that these individuals could become more self-sufficient in there lifestyles. I mean...it can't get any better than that...I knew God had put this opportunity in front of me for a reason. "Who knows...Maybe one day I'll run this place," I thought to myself going into the job.

Today, I woke up at 7:00 am this morning having to be at our monthly all-Staff Meeting at 8:30. It went pretty well. I was still waking up, I purposefully sat in the front row out of the 130 chairs or so so I would be forced to stay awake. Which I did successfully achieve. Unfortunately, the information presented at the meeting was not really pertinent to me at all so I blew it off and therefore I couldn't tell you right now what the meeting was about. I then proceeded back to my office at the apartment building. (about a 8 minute drive from where the meeting was held) I had to then go to a training over a software that we use to track progress in the resident's lives. I had been to 2 of these trainings so far. After the training I then worked on getting the weekly schedule created and posted, planned my week out for a little while, and started to become pretty stressed after realizing how much work I had to do and the fact that there is no way that I will be able to complete everything in 40 hours.

You see, the non-profit I work for has been having a hard time finding enough people to donate money so that we can afford more employees and thus, we are pretty short-staffed. This shouldn't come to a surprise to most employees in the non-profit world. When recession hits a country people tend to start trying to cut back on there expenses, and when that happens people feel it easiest to cut their donations first. Which leaves all the non-profits suffering. Which in turn, more people are staying on the streets, and more families are not eating, and addicts aren't capable of finding a place that offers enough love to help them out of there addiction. I feel like this is somewhat Ironic. Anyways...back to today.

Well, from that point forward I went through my day feeling a mixture of anger, stress, exhaustion, and frustration pretty much ruining my day. I would go into detail about what happened throughout the rest of my day but I feel like I'm whining too much already so I'm going skip all that.

I clocked out, and proceeded to the elevator, pressed the 11 button, got off the elevator, went to apt. 1109, unlocked the door, walked in and sat down on my couch. I think I sat there for about 15 minutes...I wasn't hungry. I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to go anywhere. I just wanted everything to stop. I then remembered that I still had some really nice Bourbon left that I got a few weeks back. As I reached for the cabinet above my fridge I saw the piece of paper hanging by itself on the front of the freezer. It was the poem that started this blog. I stood there with my hand on the cabinet handle reading that poem.

About 5 months ago I was doing really well. I loved my job. I loved my life. I thanked the Lord everyday for the blessings he had given me. I had all the time in the world to talk to my neighbors, whom I worked for. I knew everybody and everybody knew me. People came to me with there problems and I tried my best to allow God to speak through me and act through me so that I could help these people with whatever they needed help with. I planned movie nights and game nights where we all got together and watched movies and watched the whole maverick playoffs, laughing, rooting for teams, and having a ton of fun. Yeah it was hard. Yeah I got played a few times. Yeah I got burned a few times. Yeah there was drama. But at the end of each day I thanked the Lord. I genuinely loved it all. I mean, all the stuff I loved about my job far outweighed the things I didn't love so much.

One night around that time, I get a call from one of my neighbors. It was Andrew, a white man probably around 50 years old. He was a short guy with white hair that was in a pony tail that reached down to his lower back. Sort of hippie lookin. I had spent a descent amount of time hanging out and talking to Andrew prior to this phone call. Often times he was drunk, or tipsie. He always spoke in a positive enthusiastic manor. He seemed happy to be alive. He had a lot of old stories that he would tell. There was never much of me talking when we hung out. He was always just going along talking about his day, or one day in his past, or what he was going to do tomorrow. He would always thank me in the middle of our conversations for listening to him babble. I always said it was my pleasure, and I can say it honestly was. I loved listening to him. He could get to be annoyingly enthusiastic and positive about certain things. But over all I thoroughly enjoyed talking to him. So I answered the phone. It didn't even sound like him. It sort of sounded like a dieing horse or something. I couldn't make out anything he was saying. I could definitely tell that he was upset, and he was crying. So I told him to come up to my apartment to talk. About 20 minutes later I opened my door to his knock and the smell of booze and body odor hit me like a ton of bricks. He shrugged his shoulders looking down as he entered my apartment and sat down at my kitchen table. We started talking. It was clear that he had just gotten done crying for a while. So he went on to explain how his dog was dieing. I was like...wait a second...your telling me that a 50 year old man is sloppy drunk and crying about his dog dieing. I don't even like dogs. Why is this man crying. Better yet, why in the world did he call me about this. I was quite perplexed. Anyways, I started to ask him questions about the dog, why was it dieing, what kind of dog was it, how long had he had this dog. So we get to talking. Turns out that his mom died about 3 months earlier, his best friend had been in and out of the hospital for the past 2 years with lung cancer from smoking his whole life, his ex-girlfriend who he was still friends with had been in the hospital the last week due to some other illness, and he had just found out about 4 hours earlier that his dog was dieing and that he was going to have to put her down the next day. I don't remember much of what I said or how I said it, but we ended up talking about top fuel drag racing and how awesome it was to go to the track in Ennis to watch all the races and eating that amazing kettle corn and meeting the racers in the pits. Of course that was the end of our 3 hour long conversation. Like I said, I don't remember much of the middle of the conversation. Andrew left my apartment slightly more sober than he arrived, and a whole lot happier. He had forgotten what it was like spending all the time in his past having fun with the loved ones that he was starting to lose. Somehow he started thinking about all the positives, all the blessings he had. He even said it, that he needed to thank God for blessing him with so much and stop getting pissed off at the world for beating him up. I never said anything of that nature to him. I just asked a bunch of questions. He came up with it. He changed his attitude.

About 3 days later Andrew came to my office all excited and happy as usual. He handed me a magazine about Ford Mustangs and the history of all the Mustangs that had been made. It was a pretty sweet magazine, I'm not even gonna lie. He then handed me a piece of paper that folded in half. He thanked me for the other night, and he said that the piece of paper had helped him out in his past a lot and that he felt like it might help me in the future. So I took the piece of paper, read what was on it, and hung it on my freezer that night when I went home. It was that poem.

So tonight, when I walked into my apartment, and reached for that bottle of bourbon, and saw that poem, I had this long playback of that night in my apartment and that day in my office. I thought to myself, could it be? How the crap did Andrew know. Why did I hang it on my freezer. Why did I happen to look at it tonight and had totally forgotten it was there for the last 5 months. I quickly chuckled to myself and said thanks God. And I went on to grab my bourbon. Don't worry, I pored a very small glass for myself to enjoy after deciding that I was going to sit down and write all this down so I could get everything out there. So I could get all this crap out of my head and put it somewhere else. So then I could focus on the good stuff again. So that I could Focus on God. I didn't quite know what I was going to write down when I started. I really didn't know where it was going to end up. Or what I was going to feel like.

I am now realizing how little I've talked to God lately. I am realizing how far apart I've grown from Him. How little I knew Him in the first place. How much more I have to learn about Him. How much simpler my life would be if I could just focus on Him all the time.

Life sucks sometimes, doesn't it. I mean, you try over and over again to get it right. And you suck at it over and over again. You can never get it right. You go to bed at night feeling like a complete failure. You play it off during the day like it's all fine and your doing alright, or your just a little tired, or a little worn out. But then God hits you over the head with a ton of bricks and you turn around pissed off cause it hurt like hell and He is staring at you saying I'm right here, I gotcha, I love you. So you feel like an idiot for trying to do everything by yourself when you clearly can recall the times when you used to focus on the positives, when you used to focus on God, and how much better it was then. And then feeling that warm embrace of God's love and that sweet smell of Christ and that tingly feeling you get when you feel the holy spirit moving again. Then at the end of all that you finally realize that God never wanted you to feel crappy about yourself or guilty for your stupid decisions. Because, at the the end of the day, God loves us. Better yet, God is love. And if God is love than God is is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, God does not boast, He is not proud. He is not rude, He is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, and most of all, God never fails.

I guess I'm about done now. I don't have much else to say. I think it's all out there now. I know I will be praying hard tonight. Come tomorrow....well, we'll see if I can find the time.

Yesturday, Today, And Tomorrow

Sorry in advance, this is going to be a bit of a rant.

So I know I haven't posted in forever. This is Sorry # 2. And I never really let whoever reads this know how the whole Haiti trip ended up going. And I will say that it ended about a month short and all in all it was hard at times, fun at times, but most of all I learned a freaking ton about a lot of different things.

I just updated my profile on here so if you want to know or you don't know where I am at now please read my profile first because the rest of this post probably won't make sense otherwise.

Anyways,

So I can't really nail down one reason that motivated me to write this post but I will say it was probably a series of events that have happened over the last month or so .

Recently it has been extremely hard to figure out why I feel like crap all the time.
I have this problem with feeling like I am not good enough or like I am too young and inexperienced to do the things that I am doing successfully. Every day I run into situations where I can not figure out the best possible solution to the problem. In the past more often than not I was pretty good at coming up with the best thing to say or do. That doesn't mean that I always did say or do these things but at least I sort of knew in the back of my mind what the best possible way through any particular situation was. Nowadays I run into problems all the time that I don't have a clue how to handle. I get all my emotions mixed up in things, and when that happens I decide to say or do something that later I regret. In the past, there have been very few things that I regret doing. In the past month, I think I've probably doubled the number of regrets that I've had over the time that I've been alive. For instance, buying a truck that now I've invested in more than double what it's worth. AND ITS STILL NOT WORKING PROPERLY...or some of the things that I have done for some of the residents in my apartment building where I work that has gotten me into crappy financial situations and/or awkward conversations with my boss; both of which I walk away feeling like a complete idiot. Or the fact that I haven't communicated with some people that have played a big part in my past and that I no longer live in close proximity to when I fully know that I probably should reach out to them but I don't due to some fear of feeling guilty or saddened or regret or simply because I don't allow myself any time to focus on anything but what I am doing right now. These things just scratch the surface of my regret. There are a lot more that I'd rather not put on here due to the fact that I don't have a clue who reads this.

So the more and more I feel regret the more and more I realize that humans aren't designed for regret. I really don't think that any man/women/child is designed to have to deal with the emotion called regret. Some of you might think that I'm crazy so I guess I'll have to explain myself.

So if you haven't read any of my other posts or looked at my profile let me first say that I love my God and I consider myself to be a Christian. As of right now I am not really part of any church denomination or anything like that simply because I don't think God intended for there to be any denominations in the first place.

The idea of Christianity is a simple one, but It's extremely (let me say it again) EXTREMELY hard to actually live out.

I am not talking about doing everything right or wrong, or partying or going to church, or becoming a hypocrite, or having to abide by all these rules and regulations that some might read the Bible to be.

I am actually talking about somewhat of the opposite. You see, the hard thing about being a Christian in my mind is not buying into the Ideas that the devil has out into this world. These worldly ideas that if you are a Christian that you automatically have to act better and be better than someone who is not a christian. Some people that go to church and such buy into that idea, which leads them to attempt to be perfect, which then leads them to the inner-idea that I can't do this, so whats the point? and the outer-idea that I am better than everyone else because I am a christian.

I see around me so many different interpretations of what the Bible says. I also see around me so many different actions based on what the Bible says.

But deep inside of me I get this feeling inside my gut that is screaming at me. It says "THIS IS ALL WRONG". For the longest time I wasn't sure where this feeling came from therefore I ignored it. Now, I am quite sure that this message is from my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

You see, Jesus said a bunch of things when he was here on earth, and when you go through and read all these things you see that Jesus came to this earth to totally reverse the ideas created through human logic. For instance, the idea that if you do a bunch of good things in your life you'll go to heaven. Or like the idea that the more money I have the more happy or successful I will be. Or like the idea that if I go to church and spend a few hours thinking about God once a week than my relationship with God is where it needs to be. Or the idea that I am not good enough to be around God or talk to God and therefore I have to fix myself before I go to God So I can then say "hey look, I fixed myself...aren't you proud." You see there was this plethora of mentalities that people had in their minds when Jesus came to this earth, and people still have these ideas in their minds today. I must admit that I have bought into these ideas produced by my own logic time and time again. I am as guilty as everyone else in this matter.

Here comes the cool part.

So Jesus came to this earth teaching things that have never been taught before. For Instance, the first thing Jesus starts out saying when he preached the "Sermon on the Mount" was that the people that are spiritually poor are the ones who are going to receive the Kingdom of God. WOW...That alone doesn't make any sense if you are thinking through human logic. You would actually end up saying the people who are spiritually rich are the ones who are going to get the Kingdom of God.

So the point I am trying to make is this:

1. God is merciful enough and loves us enough to allow us to be with him even though the list of all of our good deeds and our bad deeds will never ever ever compare to Himself.

2. When you become a Christian you will still continue to screw up. Actually, you will never stop screwing up.

3. The difference is that when you are a christian you don't have to worry about screwing up or not screwing up or doing the right thing or the wrong thing or going above and beyond or ending up on the streets, or regretting the decisions you've made or worrying about messing up again, or worrying about how you are going to fix the problem that you are in.

( I know that sounds crazy )

4. There is one verse in the Bible that explains this point of mine.

Matthew 6:33-34
"But seek first His kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Ok that was 2 versus, sorry.

But what does this actually mean. Well how do we seek His kingdom and His righteousness? This is the hard part I was talking about.

So let me sum it up like this.

We, as Christians, tend to make our lives a whole more difficult than it should be because we misinterpret the verse that says seek His Kingdom and Righteousness. We often think that this means we have to make sure that we are righteous and that we are perfect and that we aren't screwing up all the time or as much as we used to.

Well I think this is wrong. This is simply my opinion. I think that God never intended for us to worry about all this crap that we always worry about.

I dont think God wants us to worry about what everybody is thinking when they talk to us or what person you are going to date next or what person you are going to marry or if your kid is going to be a boy or girl or what you are going to have to do when you have a kid or how much its gonna cost to get your vehicle working again.

I think that God loves us a ton, a whole more than we can comprehend, and I also think God is a powerful God, a whole lot more powerful than we give Him credit for.

So if you can get to a point where you can absolutely believe that God made you, that God loves you, that God wants the best for you, and that God has the power to do all these things, why on earth would you be so freaking worried about all this small worldly crap that we face on a day to day basis.

Please know that I am saying this to myself more than anyone else...this is something I am trying to figure out...I suck at this life, and God knows it...Just like a baby sucks at walking...and when that baby falls down his/her parents aren't gonna get pissed off cause the baby fell down, they were stoked in the first place when the baby took the first step...

So the question shouldn't be "Why can't I stop falling down". The question should be "How can I look up at God after I fell down and say please help me back up"

That, in my opinion, is one of the hardest mentality shifts there is. And if I were to be totally honest, I don't think I'm completely there yet...And I really don't know if Ill ever get to a place where I can seek God in all aspects of my life all the time...

Anyways, I think that I've illustrated my point of view. I hope you enjoyed this rant, and if you didn't, please know that you were warned at the beginning that this was going to be a rant.

God Bless you all and as always, I am going to try to post more in the near future but obviously I am not very good at that. So again I will TRY and we will see what happens.

- Daniel