Wanted

who is it?
who is it that I want
to be with?

not him–who
witty though he be
does not even like me

not her–whose
beauty masks an
inward spite
whose popularity promises pleasure
to those who accompany her,
but such outward treasure
is betrayed by her eerie lack
of heart

not him–who
claims he wants to,
yet isn’t there.
he isn’t there
he doesn’t care
while reassuring words
accompany you,
deep down you know
that he doesn’t want to
he doesn’t want
to be there with you

not her–whose money,
well, let money give its
own account
we all know it’s worth
but what is it worth
to me?
for whether I own it or not,
is not true worth
defined by want?
and if those wanting me
want me not
whilst I am
wanting of it,
they do not want me
they want it.

who is it?
who is it that I want
to be with?

them–who
at any time, in any way
want me.

Death Doth Kill

This poem was written in loving memory of four friends. The first letter of each line is an acronym spelling out their names: Stephen (roommate), bud (grandpa), Larry, and Jack. I am fortunate to have known each of these wonderful men.

Since love is that which fills
The heart,
Every heart doth
Pry apart while
Holding on to
Every life, every life that dies.
Never, then, does life die alone.
But drags a piece of all behind
Under the sea. And in this way
Death doth kill.
Lonely lives,
Angry souls,
Rest as rare as
Rubies.
Yet there is love, there is hope.
Just as sure
As they are gone,
Comfort from our
King will come.

Mother and Child

Hidden. hidden

From her eyes

A little baby boy now lies

Unseen.

Inside. inside

Her loving womb

Not a tomb

Is life.

Her. her

Smile lingers

A boy with God’s own fingers

Made.

Heart. heart

Can stream with fickle tide

But not toward him inside

Of her.

Real Men Shed Tears

Often times men have a strong aversion to crying in front of other people. This emotional response is often perceived as unmanly, weak, helpless and quite frankly–pathetic. It's not that men are afraid of expressing emotions altogether. For example, a man rarely avoids expressing anger or frustration. This is because it doesn't make him look weak or insecure in the same way as crying does. On the contrary, anger gives off the impression of strength, will-power, and self-determination.

But weeping is not necessarily a sign of weakness or insecurity. In fact, one of the powerful things about crying is the strong character traits that it demonstrates. Passion. Love. Allegiance. Fervency. Devotion. Drive. Commitment. Investment. These are all manly characteristics which inevitably lead to weeping and sadness whenever the things that we care about are stripped away from us. For what demonstrates more strength? To care about all the things in your life–God, family, church, friends? Or to seek to remain emotionally detached for fear of being hurt, or for fear that someone will see that you are invested in–even dependent on–other people? A real man is one who is invested in the people around him and is willing to experience and express hurt when they are taken away.

So it is manly to be invested in the people around you, and crying because of their death testifies to the fact that you chose to love, to honor and to care for them. But what should that sorrow look like? Shouldn't a man be strong for his family in a time of crisis? Of course he should. But rather than trying to hide the effect that a loss is having on you, you should feel freedom to express your sorrow. You should point your family to your true foundation–the gospel of Jesus Christ. The fact that you are reconciled to God and there is nothing that can change that grounds you. Being strong for your family means showing them that it's a good thing to weep because it demonstrates love. It means leading your family to Christ for stability, asking the church for help, and praying to the Holy Spirit for guidance and peace. All this flows from the fact that the core of manliness is not independence, but dependence. We are strongest when we receive our strength from God rather than trusting in ourselves.

As humans we are designed to depend, and that is when we are free to truly live and lead as men.

Broken Hearts

Since love is that which fills
the heart,
every heart doth
pry apart while
holding onto
every life; every life that dies.
never, then, does life die alone.

But drags a part of all behind
under the sea. And in this way
doth death kill

Lonely lives,
angry souls,
rest as rare as
rubies.
yet there is love; there is hope.

Just as soon
as they are gone,
comfort from our
King doth come


An acronym, in loving memory of my friends Stephen, Bud (grandpa), Larry, and Jack. I miss you all and cannot wait to see you again.

Am I Humble?

Do I trust God for everything?

The heart of humility is acknowledging you utter dependence on God.

Am I grateful for what God has given me?

If you truly recognize God as your sole provider, who supplies you with every good thing that you have, you will be thankful to Him for all of His gifts.

How well do I receive help from others?

Whereas it’s easy to acknowledge your need for God, it’s another thing to acknowledge your need for another person. When God uses someone to pay your rent, buy you lunch, pray for you, babysit your kids, fix your car, or teach you a biblical lesson, how quick are you to receive these gifts with thanksgiving as from the Lord? Stiff-arming help can be a sign of pride.

Do I become envious quickly?

Your level of envy toward others is a practical gauge to see whether or not you are truly grateful for what God has given you. Gratitude and envy don’t really mix.

Am I easily offended?

If you are proud, you will become defensive when someone degrades you. Of course it's never fun when someone puts you down, but humility doesn't feel the need to defend its own reputation (e.g. Jesus on earth).

Am I able to acknowledge my strengths without boasting?

The key to humility is not pretending that you don’t have strengths or trying to diminish them. Rather, if God has truly gifted you in an area (and He does give Christians spiritual gifts) then you are allowed to be honest and as objective as possible about that. In fact, it is a sign of ingratitude when you try to ignore or diminish the gift that you have received from God as if it was not even given but self derived.

Would I care if no one ever recognized my gifts and strengths?

Humility is being able to wait for the recognition of one’s gifts and the exaltation that ensues. It is not seeking out how one’s strengths might be made visible here and now at every possible moment.

Can I ponder my weaknesses without becoming hopeless? 

If you come to the end of your strength and find that you have no hope whatsoever, then you are probably putting your hope in your own strength. Weakness is a constant and necessary reminder that we need God for everything. When we come to the end of ourselves, our hope in God and dependence on Him should only be strengthened. Weakness is the garden of humility. So how do you handle situations that draw out your weaknesses? 

Do I always need to make my opinion known? 
Social media has revealed that everyone has an opinion and wants it to be heard. The ability to remain silent when wisdom calls can be a sign that you don't feel the need to defend yourself. 

Love's Hinge

I recited this poem to Emily today as a sequel to the proposal poem. It seeks to express how our relationship/love changed after getting engaged and expressing love and lifelong commitment toward one another for the first time. 

Love’s Hinge

A question,

An answer.

Everything changes, 

Nothing changes. 

I fall in love, 

In love was I.

And on that starry night 

Did fall 

Into a river;

A coursing river

Course unchanged, 

Newly found

And yet the same. 

When did I fall? 

A question,

An answer.

Everything changes, 

Nothing changes. 

I fall in love, 

In love was I.

And on that sunny morning

Did something hatch; 

Soft, warm feathers

Betray a lifeless source, 

Newly born

And yet the same. 

When was it born?

A question,

An answer.

Everything changes, 

Nothing changes. 

I fall in love, 

In love was I.

And on that windy autumn day

An oyster’s mouth did open; 

A pearl of beauty

Grown unseen

Changes not,

Yet newly beams.

When did it shine?

To fall, to hatch, to shine;

To love. 

Within a moment

To change the changeless course

We trod. 

My love for you

Is not the same; 

My love for you 

Is not different.

I love you.

Proposal Poem

Here’s a Question

I love you, Emily

I love you. 

These three words I’ve longed to say, 

But did delay

That they might prove even sweeter. 

Like a pearl within an oyster, 

The beauty of this phrase 

Grows and thrives

Enclosed in words unspoken; 

Within my heart abides

Such love for you

It cannot be hidden

It should not be hidden

It will not be hidden

I love you. 

And if you find within your heart

A pearl of likened beauty

Which from the start 

Did grow unseen, 

I ask you, “Will you marry me?” 

Big Brother and Big Sister

Before I forget the unwritten poem. ;) Thank you Daniel and Christina for all that you have done in my life. I see you as my older siblings not only for age but also for maturity and godliness. Thank you for modelling Christ and pointing me to Him.


Big brother and big sister
Thank you for showing me
The wounds of our big Brother
Hanging on the tree

Big brother and big sister
What more is there to say?
You've helped me see the risen Christ
I say to you this day,
"Thank you."

Christ the God-Man

The Mediator between God and men must be both God and man. There is none other than God who can bring us up to Him. Yet God cannot bring us to Himself apart from living out our obedience, suffering, and dying as a man on our behalf. Jesus could not suffer and die without being man, yet he could not pay the infinite ransom required for our offense against the infinite God without being God himself. None but God can pay an infinite ransom, yet man must be the one to pay it. Blood must be slain, yet God cannot die. Turretin says that Jesus must be “Man to suffer, God to overcome; man to receive the punishment we deserved, God to endure and drink it to the dregs; man to acquire salvation for us by dying, God to apply it to us by overcoming . . . this neither a mere man nor God alone could do.” The hypostatic union makes Christ as Mediator possible. He represents man to God and God to man. He is Immanuel, God with us. 

A Brother's Love

My feet still trod this darkened path

In vines and chords entangled

Through thickened air the demons laugh

My plight, my pain, my sadness

These are my friends tonight 

In gloomy night I stand alone

Surrounded by my family

With trembling heart I see the bones

Of those who found no pardon

How could the stories long ago

Say this was once a garden? 

I touch a tree with sides still wet

Look at my hand now dripping red

These drops of blood are not my own

Yet I can find no flesh or bones

A bloody trail leads down a path

My heart drops to my stomach

Though fear excels, yet I press on

The wind blows gently forward

Into a cave it leads me down

Shows me the nails and thorny crown

Shows me a man with man’s blood stained

The marks of one who just was slain

Through pain-struck tears and smiling gaze

He proudly calls me brother

I look at him, “Can this be true?

We do not share a mother”

He holds my hand to lead me out

“I’ll take you to our Father's house

I made this world; I hold it up

This place was once a garden

The son of man became corrupt

His sons have found no pardon

I came into the world I made

To finish what I started

Now I am making all things new

The demons laughed, but if they knew

My plight, my pain, my sadness

Now comfort you tonight

Through tear-filled eyes I ask him “Why?”

He says “Because I love you.”

Mercy at the Fall

The Lord warned Adam & Eve that the day in which they ate the forbidden fruit, they would surely die. Despite all of the goodness and favor God had given to them in the garden, Adam & Eve reached out and snatched the forbidden fruit. In a moment of sheer panic, shame and guilt surged through their bodies. It must have felt as if they were standing in a crowded place and all at once their clothes were stripped off. Blameless innocence was now a blissful memory. In this moment, there was no peace; there was no bliss.

The presence of God, which yesterday brought comfort and peace, now brought the impending judgment from which they hid. 

But see here the patience and mercy of God. He did not approach in a pillar of fire and thunder to smite them for their sin; rather he came walking in the cool of the day. He did not (justly) pronounce accusations and condemnation on them; rather he asked them questions and allowed them to respond. However, they did not choose their words very wisely, but acted in line with their recently acquired sin-nature. Even God's curses were better than the death they deserved. And even the pronouncment of painful childbirth anticipated the children they would later receive. 

Behold the mercy of God in that before he uttered a single curse to Adam or Eve, He promised to crush the seed of the serpent through the seed of the woman. God spoke this promise knowing that it would cost him the life of his Son, Jesus Christ, in order to keep it. Yet the Lord gave mercy. But he did not overlook their sin or sweep it under a rug. From the first few pages of Scripture, it is clear that God is willing to pay the full price for our sin in order to be both merciful and holy. 

Thanks be to God. 

What I Want To Do After Graduating

What do you want to do when you move back to IL this summer? 

Ah! The graduation question! I'm stunned by your novelty.... I think questions like this are usually fishing for "What job will you look for? Will you go to seminary? Or other schooling? etc." Usually I want to answer with big items like these. But if I start answering honestly, it may look more like this . . .

I want to spend time with my family. I want to "meet" some of my younger siblings (maybe even influence their lives, and/or be influenced by them). I want to spend time hanging out with my recently widowed grandma. I want to get involved in a disabilities ministry with Amy (maybe even start one). I want to get plugged in as a regular member of a small-town church. I want to serve homeless people in St. Louis, build relationships, share the gospel. I want to get to know my best friend Emily a little better. I want to get to know my family's friends better, and Emily's family/friends. I want to rekindle old friendships, start new ones, mend damaged ones. I want to see small churches in southern IL strengthened individually, holding hands corporately, and serving Christ globally. I want to spend time with my twin before he moves to Minot, North Dakota. I want to learn how to lead a family by watching my parents who have like 25 years of experience. I want to be a better son, better brother, better boyfriend, and a better grandson. I want to read, write, study, teach, and learn about God and his wonderful-yet-broken-world. I want to glorify God in the little things, serve his church, love my family, and bless the world. 

Oh . . . and of course in order to do these things I'll also need to find a sustainable job. But that's not the answer to your question. That not what I want to do when I move back to IL, it's what I have to do. 

"Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to." –Cicero (Gladiator)

Sometimes our questions ask for what is objectively important in someone's life, but good questions pry for what someone actually values. 

Chesterton: "Do it Again"

“Do it Again”

The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning, but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun, and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

~ G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2009), 91-92

10 Teaching Principles

1. Pray before the lesson. If God doesn't work, nothing good will come of it. 
2. Always have a story or a picture or a picture to talk about. Humans are visual learners. God made Isaiah walk around naked for three years just to add a picture to the point (Is 20). 
3. Teach close enough to the passage that when they read it for themselves, they'll remember your lesson. 
4. Never open your mouth just to make the lesson longer. People appreciate a teacher who acknowledges when they've said what they came to say. 
5. Driving home one point is better than making 10 points that will be quickly forgotten. 
6. Sometimes Bible lessons aren't as much about clarifying or explaining a truth as they are about allowing people the time to ponder, love, and apply the truth they already affirm.
7. Learn to live with silence. If God is working, your hearers will be thinking about the lesson during those awkward blank spots.
8. When you don't know what more to say, read the next verse. 
9. Focus less of your attention on "how well you are teaching" and place most of your focus on the glories of the message. 
10. Teach your passion. If you're not excited, they won't be.

A Believer's Fellowship

Both sinners and saints

Look not past the sin

Nor turn a blind eye; 

It's only in vain 

To think sin will die 

Or clean be the stain

When love turns its eye

Both sinners and saints

Look now to the cross

God's love story paints

Your sin and your dross

Away

Faith Now Sight

Our grandpa lived his life in hope

Of seeing Jesus face to face;

Our grandpa lived his life in faith,

Believing Christ prepared a place

For him to dwell in glory

His hope now gone; as is his faith

For now our grandpa sees

The glory and the majesty, 

The splendor of his Lord and King

With joyous voice he'll ever sing

A song of great Thanksgiving

Though faith and hope are ever past

The flame of love burns brighter

Cast down that mirror, now at last! 

He sees above the mire

His eyes behold so brilliantly

The beauty of his risen King

With joyous voice he'll ever sing

A song of great Thanksgiving

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." --1 Corinthians 13:12-13

A Free and Heavy Cross

The cross of Christ
     A gift so free
That saved my life
     Eternally

But how can I
     So foolishly
Assume the blood
     Which set me free
     Has made the hard path easy?

The cross of Christ
     Though free indeed
Lays heavy on my back

The Fount is free
     But to receive
One must give up his life
     Deny himself,
     pick up the cross
A living sacrifice

Though none can buy this blood-bought gift
All saints must pay their lives
     Deny themselves,
     Pick up the cross
A living sacrifice

For faith is not just seeing
     It's more than just believing
This gift of faith,
     It follows Christ
Picks up the cross
     Lays down it's life

For though our entrance free
    And though the path is paved
The way unto the narrow gate
     Bids us to bare a heavy weight
Yet God will bid his Spirit come
     And give us strength to make it home.

Thrashing Words

They throw their words out to and fro
     Just like a thrashing sword
And in a woeful ignorance
     Blood from the wounds out-poured

For words are not as harmless
     As we care for them to be
When we throw off the harness
     of the tongue it's stabs will be
     so fierce they'll make a spirit bleed

The worst part is the heart;
     It sees not what it brings
For thoughtless chatter, empty words
     To thrust such deadly stings
          Seems odd...

The thoughtful will bring healing
     The wise a remedy
While careless lips destruction bring
     The choicest words like silver sing
          A song to mend their broken hearts


"There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts;
     but the tongue of the wise brings healing." -Proverbs 12:18

A Christless Christmas

A Christless Christmas,
     What would that be?
With stockings, trees, and Santa lists
     Could we see past the greatest gift?

Fine pieces on the tree we hang
     Would we forget our Savior slain
     To hang upon that bloody tree
     To give us life eternally?

Fine presents on that day we give
     Would we forget in whom we live
He died to purchase every gift
     To bless us with his presents

We make the food with family eat
     Would we forget the wedding feast
We wait upon the risen Lord
     To cleanse us with the blood he poured
     To wash our sins forevermore
     That as his bride we'll be adorned
To sit around his table

A Christless Christmas
     How could that be?
For Christ has purchased everything

To miss the Fount of every gift
You must have missed Thanksgiving.