“When we are in an unhealthy condition either physically or emotionally, we always look for thrills in life. In our physical life this leads to our efforts to counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit; in our emotional life it leads to obsessions and to the destruction of our morality; and in our spiritual life, if we insist on pursuing only thrills, on mounting up “with wings like eagles” ( Isaiah 40:31 ), it will result in the destruction of our spirituality.

Having the reality of God’s presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually. Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence. The experience the psalmist speaks of— “We will not fear, even though . . .” ( Psalm 46:2 )— will be ours once we are grounded on the truth of the reality of God’s presence, not just a simple awareness of it, but an understanding of the reality of it. Then we will exclaim, “He has been here all the time!” At critical moments in our lives it is necessary to ask God for guidance, but it should be unnecessary to be constantly saying, “Oh, Lord, direct me in this, and in that.” Of course He will, and in fact, He is doing it already! If our everyday decisions are not according to His will, He will press through them, bringing restraint to our spirit. Then we must be quiet and wait for the direction of His presence.” – From My Utmost for His Highest

Nice.

And It’s name shall be called… well really I have no idea, but Jim and I are Finally in the studio for some much anticipated (at least on our part) Recording of our first ever full length album… I guess we might put out an EP before the whole Shabang lets loose, but for now we’re working on album numero uno. I spent pretty much every day last semester writing which was good and bad, and since he’s been home, Jim and I have been writing almost as much as we’ve been recording… but on to the important things.

ONE. We want to have a band name (not Jim and Dave) that will give the music an identity beyond us/allow us to add and subtract people from the creation of our music so that we won’t feel lying by saying this is THE JIMMY AND DAVID CONCERT. We’ve got some ideas, but WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD CALL OUR LITTLE PROJECT???

TWO. – I forgot number two. Wait. No. Yeah. Uhmm…. We also don’t know what to call our CD, but I think that depends on which songs get on there.

THREE. The first song we started recording (The Architect) ended up having some parallels to Death Cab which was crazy ’cause both of us had only heard the acoustic demo I made. We are very excited about having a full band vibe in our recordings. Way new territory for us, me especially. Today we’re starting a new version of Just the Way.

Any Name Ideas? – Dave

I have the same birthday as Helen Hunt and, I believe, Dean Martin. This is not what I actually want to talk about.

I want to make a film where I’m writing all my questions and crying all my tears into this one piece of paper that I let dry out and make an airplane out of.

I fold it carefully, carefully, ever so carefully
I make that one that always won
the contests back when we were little
I give it a toss up to the sky
The winds take the wings and lift it high
Till it hits the roof of the Universe and a hand reaches through, pulling it out of sight.

I wait for an hour or even a day, but after not too long I look up and see the face of God. He’s crying and his tears fall into the bowl, a cloud. It fills and it spills out in one large tear and falls down, splash on the tired earth. The chapped and dry desert has flowers again and all wandering people including myself hear a voice in our souls saying “Here I am… Right here. Come to me.”

I just can’t hear anymore.

God. God. God. God! I only want to hear.

There’s something about the combination of a lack of sleep, low blood sugar, being put in your place, and an unusual amount of summer sun in the month of February that just tends to bring out the best in people, or so it happened to me today. There’s something aboout music that doesn’t claim to be anything great that just causes me to listen to it more intently. Thank you, Niagra Falls (Sufjan, Michigan). I might expand on this later, but I’ve been up for *this many* hours. I love you. goodnight. – Dave

Night before last, I dreamt that I was supposed to pick up Sushi Zushi for the fam, but got there as they were closing. They weant ahead and took my order but as they were making it I left and couldn’t find my way back.

After this dream I awoke

I dressed

I deodorized

I went to Sushi Zushi

I enjoyed myself

I made my way to Eastgate

I couldn’t be happier.

A lot of times I hear people say that their life consists of the same theme proving itself again and again. I think I’m finding for the first time that that’s true for me too. I go through cycles of pride. I like the times when I remember my place. I am a child of God. A child. A kid. a dependent.

The ups and downs of one single day (or a few days) amaze me.

But still, my mom is really nice… She bought little debbie nutty bars.

And also I’m allowed to live in grace… This brings me comfort.

    It’s been a while since I’ve had anything worth saying, but tonight I listened to this sermon from Francis Chan that’s on this Passion EP on iTunes (It’s 99 cents if you want to check it out) and I was inspired in a way that I haven’t been in a really long time. If you’re reading this, we’re probably close friends, because nobody really does the xanga thing any more, and there’s one or two of you who when we talk it’s generally a pretty contemplative time and in the last year or so it has digressed from conversations of passion and hope and life to something else, something very smart, a genius thesis, and a general consensus of confusion about life. Whenever we have these conversations I walk away feeling very smart and I think you do too, but has it been a while since I sparked life inside of you, since you in me? If some thing does not work toward life (and I mean life in the soul), what is it worth?

    This sermon was about whether or not I care what the will of God is. It was about Colossians 1 and Revelation 3. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, meaning Paul was an apostle because of the desire of God for him to be so. Paul goes on to say he never stops praying for the Colossians, and what he prays (because he says he is always praying for them) is that the church would know the will, the desires, the wants of God for them. His dominating prayer is that they would know God’s will. He implies that he is ALWAYS praying for this!

    Francis says after this, if you really knew the WHOLE will of God for your life would you want it? He goes on to talk about the fact that he was leading this church and it was doing really really well and he got scared because god says there is this narrow road to Him. Narrow.

    I wonder then if I have gone through this progression in my faith, from (1) prideful and arrogant because “I’m living right,” to (2) a discovery of this glorious grace and mercy God has “lavished upon us” and accordingly, a reverence and appreciation for that love, to (3) a taking for granted that grace that has led rather than to hope and life, to something else. It didn’t lead to more grace on my part, but more nothing, more everything of anything. I found freedom, so I took freedom and became a slave, back to being prideful, arrogant, and selfish with all the guise of humility and goodness.

    There was a time when I wanted the will of God above anything else and it’s time to come home. I’ve been searching for relevance rather than truth. I am so foolish, because we all starve for truth, so truth is relevant. There is no making Christ relevant. He is.

    Also I wish you would also listen to Corinne Bailey Rae, especially her song, Put Your Records On. It might just make your day.

With love, Dave.

My Dad and I started watching the second season of 24 at 7:30 last night. we stopped five minutes ago. We watched 16 episodes. This was fun. 12 hours of fun actually.