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ConservativeBalla
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Birthday: 1/3/1988
Gender: Male
Interests: Pursuing my relationship with Jesus Christ, family, friends, basketball, politics, current events, Christian theology, running, working out, laughing, website developement, eating, making good grades, some fishing, some hunting, some tech, some video games, some music.
Expertise: Nothin'--I got NOTHIN'!
Occupation: Student
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
2/24/2005
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| So
I started typing this as if it was going to be some sort of "treatise
to edify and maybe teach"--but uh, yeah, I wasn't feeling that at all.
Maybe it'll be more interesting the way I ended up typing it, who
knows? It's like, human nature loves to hear gossip, and loves to know
everyone else's stuff, and what's going on in another person's mind.
That's what this message is soaked with--stuff from my head and my
life. I don't generally like to talk about myself--my friends around
here get mad at me and call me "closed up", and that I need to "let
them in" and know what I am thinking and feeling more often. My life's
an open book, I'm not ashamed of it; and when it comes down to it, I do
like to relay my thoughts and feelings at times. I just don't generally
like to talk about myself because it seems to me there are more
productive things people could be doing to me than to listen to the
adventures and highlights of Travis J--just saying.
HOWEVER, today I just do want to release some things. Hopefully they
won't bore you too much. As I'm now half-way finished with my
undergraduate career here at ETBU, maybe this will justify my being
here ~_^
I don't know if you have ever thought about what drives you, but I
have. Why you get out of bed and go through the motions of it all?
Maybe surfing to ESPN to get the highlights, or the next big game is what you find yourself constantly waiting for.
Perhaps that's not you--maybe instead, you just kind of wait around the
whole week for the week-END, then just do whatever. And hey when that
time comes, maybe some things you do ARE considered "questionable" and
"not something I'd want shows on the screen in Chapel" (lawl, don't you
love it when people in authority say that phrase??).
Or maybe not, maybe you just kinda let go and act a fool but not do anything quote unquote "bad".
I don't know--whatever the case, it's not important, I'm just throwing
stuff out there. Maybe neither one of those are you--you're all about
something else. Perhaps you're CLUELESS about your talents, and just
kind of sliding through life/ or college or whatever, without much
thought. OR, you've found something, "Hey, I'm kinda good at that", so
you're doing it and going after it with your whole heart--but...what's
gonna happen AFTER college..?
You may not believe me when I write these things about myself, and
maybe you will. They're all accurate about me, so I'd encourage you to
believe, but whatever, I can't make you.
As I said before, I've given some thought to my ultimate goals for the
time I'll end up being here on earth. Ever since I've grown up, I've
seen the commercials on TV about how the kids in such-and-such country
are starving, have AIDS, need Christmas gifts and all this stuff. Then
you also get the e-mails and see the commercials about charities, or
Christian organizations or whatever taking up collections of gifts,
money, food, first aid and sending them to people of bleeding nations.
And hey, there's also the tons of people that are hurting and in need
of things in AMERICA, too, it's not just other nations. My second-grade
Sunday school teacher noted that I was a compassionate little kid, and
it's true--I mean, of course my heart went out, and still DOES go out,
to people like that. When I was younger, I'd feel guilty because I had
so much and these people have so little, and I have so much. As I've
grown up, I see how illogical that is to feel bad ONLY for that REASON.
The way I ~FEEL~ isn't going to change such situations.
However, from that "feeling of guilt" follow 2 MORE conclusions:
1. I am to feel guilty if I'm not helping them out with what I have
2. Maybe just "givin' 'em stuff" isn't the best solution
First of all with that first point, the guilt on our part as the
"have's" in relation to the "have-not's" (as some people term this
situation) is deserved if we that are "wealthy" or "blessed" are not
doing what we know we can do, and what we are able to do, in order
change the situation. It's easy to sit back and glide through
life--forgive me--it's easy for human nature to WANT to do that.
However, I've changed myself to the point where I simply cannot sit
back when hurting is going on, or when injustice occurs. I feel like I
have a duty to commit everything I have to fixing what is broken, in
this regard.
Second with that second point, since I have come to know the Lord, I've
become more and more convinced that the freedom He brings both
internally inside of the individual, and then reaching out externally
to the individual's surroundings and circumstances are relevant. They
are real. Simply throwing money at things doesn't fix them.
Proselytizing by throwing out spiritual truth-ONLY by itself doesn't
always suffice, either.
Short-term mission trips are great (heck, I've been on them and still
LIKE to go on them), but are there any long-term plans to teach and
edify a specific target group of people to teach them how to depend on
God, and then support themselves (become self-sufficient) with the
minds God has given them, for THEMSELVES? This ain't out of the Bible
directly, but it happens to be true: "Give a man a fish you feed 'em
for a day, TEACH a man to fish, you feed 'em for life." That is, you
must appeal to people's minds and TEACH them a spiritual dependence on God and an individuality dependence on themselves and their own God-given abilities.
Education is the key. If you ONLY give away things, what incentive do
others have to try to learn it for themselves? And also, taking what
the "have's" have earned, and giving it to the "have-not's" without the
have's' permission is unjust; dare I say it's equal to, or more unjust
than the poverty that the poor are going through.
(oooooooooooooooooh, Travis J just said we should feel sorry for rich
people sometimes, too) Nah not really, it's just that injustice is by
definition "unfair", and I hate that.
Now, going way back to what I was talking about earlier--"Life goals"
and "Life purposes"--mine is that every single individual human being
on this planet comes to know the love of Christ.
*sigh* ok, now I may have lost some of you. "Well, Travis went and
played the oMg I LoVE JEsUS mISsIONaRy CArd~ Now he's lots all
credibility.." I am sorry you feel that way. I'm not going to spend the
rest of this note defending my faith to you.
"Ha!" you say, "You can't defend your faith, can you? So you're just as
Bible-thumping and illogical as the rest of the Christians who claim to
know that 'God/Goddess'-Idea just because their immediate surrounding
society and influences have convinced them, and brainwashed them enough
to."
No, sorry, you can't get off that easily--'cuz that's not it ^_^ . As I
said, I don't want to defend my faith here. If you actually care
enough, you can hit up my xanga here, and my MySpace blog at http://blog.myspace.com/conservativeballa
. If you go back in those pages' histories, you can see the track of my
life how I came to know God in an intimate way over the past few years
as I read through His Word (the Bible) twice, logging everything. I
mean look at this analogy:
Spending my whole time in every note defending my faith before I type
anything that BUILDS FROM IT would be like a professor spending every
day in a college-level math course PROVING, "Ok students now, before we
begin, we need to go back and prove how 1 plus 1 is 2 (or other
foundations), then we can continue, ONLY after we have proved that can
we do so." There comes a point where you've established, "Yeah, I'm a
believer in certain foundation(s), I've proven it, so I'm going to go
after it with my whole heart and build on it now." You waste time,
otherwise.
So for those of you who see me as a Christian not always spouting off
the foundational proofs of WHY I believe all the time, that's the stage
I am at in college. I have proven, and I know Him. My college career is
dedicated to Him and to the mission I feel that I have. And as I said,
mine is that every single individual human being on this planet comes
to know the love of Christ*. So if you ever find yourself thinking of
me as "that other 'Christian' that hasn't given much thought to his
beliefs." Don't. It's not that I do not care enough to defend my faith.
It's not that I don't think there's enough mixture of logic, faith, and
evidence to make my faith valid--I'm just convinced to the point where
I'm now building on it, now. You may not see me at a church every time
a door's open, or at a D-Now every time there's an opportunity, but
does that mean I'm not convinced of my beliefs? Does that mean I don't
care? As Paul says, "God forbid".
(And by the way, just another side-note fyi, that mini-movement of
*real* Christians who are moving away from the "Christian" label
because of people who are artificial with/don't understand their faith
tends to attract me. "oMFg MoVEmENtS oF i LoVE JeSUS~~~" tend to annoy
me, but this one kind of hits home)
Why am I not a religion major/or currently studying for "full time-ministry/missionary-work"?
Well, I almost WAS. Philosophy, Religion, Psychology--I love it...I
would have loved to get degrees in those fields. And you know how I
said up there that education is the key? Well, yeah, I've thought about
teaching, too. But I'm not after an Education degree, either. I love to
read, write, think, and imagine, but neither English nor Theater my are
my focus of study here at ETBU, either. These are much more my passion
than what my majors are--Business and Computer Science. (That's not to
say I hate the business world and computers, 'cuz that's not true,
either--I like them, too) So why did I choose the majors I'm in? That's
simple. Something that's a foundational truth about this world that,
while true, sort of--well--sucks. "Money makes the world go 'round." So
I guess I'm a money-grubbing capitalist pig, yeah
 I suppose I'm a bit pragmatic as well, because I consider the
wealth I intend to accumulate justified because the end which I hope to
accomplish with it is dedicated to spreading the Gospel around the
world--here at home and otherwise ^_^ .
(btw, please don't take it that I am criticizing those majors--scroll
down and read the last paragraph, if you think I am trying to do that)
But for the love of God, my money's not going to be siphoned off ONLY
to missions that I don't know myself, and they're probably not ONLY
going to ministries like "Lottie Moon" which already gets tons and tons
of money ANYWAY. My money is going to go towards missions that set up
SCHOOLS and does EDUCATION, in nations around the world. The success of
a nation depends on the character of the people under it. A nation
needs to give its people education about what TRUE freedom is--about
how freedom begins with a spiritual freedom from within the individual,
then spreads to the outside. The fundamental love and respect that
Christ taught us to have for ourselves and for all of the people around
us (love for our enemies and love for our friends) is the foundation of
that freedom. Once people are convinced of, have, and are free to
exercise and practice it withing a nation, external, physical freedom
flourishes. People will rise up in their governments as JUST and CIVIL
and PRINCIPLED leaders, and lead their nations--and more importantly,
the PEOPLE of their nations--into prosperity. They will also have
incentive to defend freedom and their nation and protect it from being
overthrown. Because you know how I said that one of the truths of the
world is, "Money makes the world go 'round"? Well, unfortunately,
another one is "The world is governed by the use of force." The
phrase, "The pen is mightier than the sword" is valid in many a case,
but when it comes down to it, you've got to be strong in order to
defend something, here on earth. Which btw, sorta sucks for me because
I've always been short but I love basketball..but anyways, I digress..
When I speak with this international language, am I talking about
colonization, or imperialism, here? NO. What the crap--like, I have
interest in the success of oil companies worldwide?? I don't care about
them--"those people" are too rich (hahaha), so no, I'm not trying to
help them out. I want love to flourish in this world. But the love I
speak of is not a "no-boundaries, existentialist, everything-is-relevant-and-true-by-nature-of-its-being suggested, just so we can all be equal-for-equal's-sake"-type
of love. I speak of a genuine love for your fellow man. You're nice to
everyone and care about how everyone's welfare. You are HONEST with
people. When someone's different than you, ya don't hate 'em. When
they're rude to you, you don't return it, but instead love them and
pray/care/meditate for them more. You are RESPONSIBLE, with what you
have been given. These are all aspects of LOVE. I want political
leaders that do not have corrupt secret police TERRORIZING their
citizens. I want dictators and tyrannies to fall so that every single
individual of every nation in this world--civilized or not--has a
chance to know Christ, and to have a chance for an internal (spiritual)
and external ("life more abundant") freedom that is available through
Him.
You say, "Ok Travis, the religion stuff is all well and good, but uh, we're talking about real-life, here."
You just aren't understanding my point. The whole purpose of quote
unquote "religion" and the rules and stuff God gave is for our own
good. It's not as if there's a giant scorecard in the sky that God
marks, and there's a certain balance of wrong's and right's that "Get
you into Heaven" when you die. The Bible says the kingdom of God is
here--NOW. The ultimate end of our faith is NOt "OmFg WhEN i DIe WIlL i
GO tO HeAVEn eR HELL?!"
It's like the analogy of the Baptists that go to lunch after church
every Sunday morning, and instead of leaving a tip of money, they leave
a freaking "~SaLvATiON TrACT~" How idiotic: "Yeah, we'll proselytise
you into Heaven with this tract and it'll all be good, but we're not
gonna give you any money that YOU HAVE EARNED, and that might make your
life better here on earth at all."
No no no--all wrong. Our physical lives are not invalid or
unimportant--if that were the case, God wouldn't have given them to us.
If you believe otherwise, to the point where "anything that feels good
is a sin and I can't know God 'cuz of it", you fall into the extremist
"asceticism" category. Anyway, that's already too much theology that I
said I wasn't gonna do..
Those're my thoughts, folks. If they offended you, I am sorry that you
feel that way, but I won't apologize for my beliefs. And the whole
thing where I was talking about what majors I've chosen--my intention wasn't to downplay people that HAVE chosen a different major than I have. You are totally misunderstanding me if you take it that way.
I think those majors are all valid, they're just not the path that I
have chosen for myself. Please understand that and don't take it the
wrong way.
*(Regarding the theology of what I marked with an asterisk up
there, I've got some verses and truths that I hold near and dear to my
heart that I'll let you know, if you ever want to know--just ask me.)
Love in Christ,
Travis J
T-Rave
..whatever
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| Who are some of your heroes, in life? For what reason? If you're a Christian, the churchy-answer is to proclaim stuff like, "uh...my pastor...my Sunday School teacher...a friend of mine that's really 'strong in the faith'....this one missionary I heard speak.." yada yada yada. That's all well and good, but got any more depth, than that? Maybe you've never given any thought to who your "Heroes" are. I think we all have heroes, we just may not think of them in that way. Take a step back and think about it for a minute: doesn't everyone have a person or group of people they look up to, admire, and act like--even if you don't ADMIT that you do, you still do? If you've never given some thought to who your heroes are, I challenge you to. - Identify who they are
- Identify why they are your heroes
- Decide what actions, beliefs, and mindsets of theirs are valid and which are not
- Keep your behavior, or change your behavior, according to what you decided is valid
Socrates said, "Know thyself", and "The unexamined life is a life not worth living." What does this mean, go commit suicide if you've never thunk a deep thought? Of course not, don't be stupid (or a smart-aleck, whatever you were trying to be). Just give it some thought--you may even improve your actions and attitudes, and then maybe even the peoples' around you, as a result of your demeanor changing. In my own life, my father is my hero. When you see him and meet him, you'll note he's not the, "OmGsH, I LOve JesUS aND i'm ToTALlY SOLd oUT fER Him!!!" perky, evangelical, uber-spiritual guy. A lot of people, when they see me think, "Travis; young man of God." Some pastors and people in positions of authority over me have claimed to "see a call" of missions over me, or whatever. Ok, all that's well and good--when God lets me know for sure, I'll let you people know. But anyway, I've lived with my dad all my life. Same house. Same family. Grown up under his same authority. Lived with him day after day after day. Yes he loves Jesus Christ. Yes he is saved. Yes he goes to church regularly. But you know what I admire about my dad? He didn't raise up my brother and me proclaiming rich, feel-good, Christian cliches; he didn't always have to say the right Christian-buzz-words at the right time. You know why? Because he was consistent. How he lived, how he acted, what he believed. No, he is not perfect. No, his understanding and opinions are not so refined as to be perfect. No, he is not a brilliant theologian, or psychiatrist, by any means--heck I don't think he's read a book in years. But you know what? He's reasonable. He knows what he believes. He raised us up in a consistent manner, convinced and assured that what he belives and the ways he raised us, and what he taught us are good and right. I've heard it said that being a smart person doesn't simply mean being able to reason out some jargon, then recite that same jargon again. Rather, being smart means being able to hear some fancy jargon and language, reason through them, and then communicate it back out to others IN VARIOUS WAYS, HOWEVER THEY CAN UNDERSTAND IT BEST--not just the standard, complicated way in which it was taught in the first place, with fancy terms and such. I think being a good Christian leader is the same way. Being a good Christian leader doesn't mean going to seminars, listening to sermons, memorizin' "bIBlE VeRSes~~" getting theology degrees, reading all the right books, then spitting out those terms we perceived from those various sources, whenever parallel scenarios come up. Instead of all that, I think being a quote unquote "good Christian leader" means being able to wrap your mind around various Biblical truths you learn--in whatever way--and live them out and teach them with your words and actions, but not necessarily quoting "Bible-words", cliches, or spurts of theological jargon. I've observed prayer sessions where people are "moved by the spirit", a.k.a., "Whoever can recite the best-sounding analogy (whether it even APPLIES to what they're saying to God or not) gets the Holy Spirit livened up, and ThAt GetS mE LiVEned uP~~" As I said before, I know some great men of God, and am aware of their wealth of knowledge about Scripture, and all that. Some of my heroes after him include Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Isaac Newton, James Kilkenny, David Ahn, Billy Graham, Jeff Holloway--So you see, I hold my dad up in that vein. Despite all of what all of these people have done, taught, proclaimed, reasoned--my father is the one I look up to the most. Although he is not my primary hero, my grandfather (dad's dad) is someone I look up to in a similar regard. See, both of those generations in my family were apparently "wild child"-types when they were my age, and a bit younger and older. You could prolly think of some stuff they were involved in a long time ago--most everything's still around today, it ain't like you gotta use your imagination too much. Anyway, when they were younger, they didn't have much of a walk with the Lord; y'know, church occasionally, maybe, when someone made 'em do it. But in my grandaddy's case, whenever it came time to start a family, during an invitation at a church service, he was already saved, so he went up and re-dedicated his life to the Lord and "got things right", and set out on a new path with Jesus. To my knowledge, he has never done that, since, and that was probably almost 50 years ago. Maybe he didn't know *Exactly* what he was doing--but that's ok, God lead him from then on. That's the way God wants it, anyway, for us to act as children stepping out in faith due to a lack of understanding which He takes care of, FOR us. Why is it my grandfather can do an altar call once, get things right with God, and move on with God, while so many other people constantly feel like they have to, over and over again, "lAy It ALL doWN fOr YoU, GoD" every single time there's an altar call? To me, it simply cheapens the action that person is taking by doing that, and makes it mean less to others in case they ever feel like they need to do it. Could it be that in some cases, it isn't genuine when someone does this? Could it be they don't really understand what it is they're doing? When one does that, he is taking a step for himself to turn from past ways to new ways, by God's guidance. He is showing to his church family that he is making an attempt to get away from old ways and get to new ways, and he wants some support from fellow man as he does it. My thoughts may've run together a bit tonight, sorry about that. I'm trying to get back in the hang of this journaling thing again. More's on my mind, but the thoughts of a Chemistry class taking place, here in a few hours are overpowering the "more" that's on my mind, soI'm off to bed. 'Night, folks. Lata.. | | |
| "Back den dey didn't want me--now I'm hot, dey all on me..." Kinda makes me mad. Keep me humble, Lord; I say it too much, but I need You. (P.S. I've never actually even HEARD that song) Lata.. | | |
| "Never let your learning get so high that you can't let God reach you." That's what the lady in chapel said a mere few months ago. I wonder if, at the time, she knew how much of a "chord that was going to reverberate" (to borrow from Mr. Lewis) in my heart, months later. One thing about life is, whenever you learn from a new experience, acquire new skills whenever you do something new, withstand something, learn something, train and excel at something, get new insight--you then take that experience and newfound knowledge, stick it in your back pocket, and pull it out whenever you need it again. But you can't do that with God. He's getting me ready for a mission trip I'm going on next month, and He's already broken some rough ground and soil in my life that I casually figured was cement, by now: "I've heard that lesson. I've read that verse. I know that passage. I understand those princioples. I've seen them at work."
..........................."I, I, I, I, I...."
It's not about me. "Rough ground/Cement", ridiculous metaphor? Perhaps. All's I know is, God's given me a lesson in humility through something, lately. Let us be confident in our faith, but let us not forget nothing we do can measure up to Him. Let us neither consciously nor unconcsiously put ourselves up on a pedestal, even when we've "done good". People may give you props, they may tell you how well you're doing, how much they expect from you, and how great you are. But don't allow that to take the place of serving God for the right reason(s), and do not let those words hinder you from remembering how much we need the Lord. He is good. It is comforting to know that--and then paramount to exist in it. None of us are mavericks. We can't do it alone. We are all subject to falling. Thank you for this humility, God. I can't do things on my own, but it's ok, I don't need to, because you're there. Help me not think less of myself, nor more of myself, than what is due. Breathe new life and new appreciation into me every day. Help me to be thoughtful, but not over-analytical; proud but not prideful; looking forward, yet not looking backward. I love you Jesus. Lata.. | | |
| Dad-frigging-gum it's been forever since I wrote on xanga...I said I was still going to write on it, so I intend to--in fact, that's what I'm doing now ^_^ . I just needed a little boot in the butt from a friend. Anyway, I hope you all actually take the time to read this message, and not skim through it. And please, for pete's sake, have a Bible handy--the verses I quote in here are pretty much as short as they come. Even if you're saved/you've heard a salvation message a million times, maybe even taught it/preached it to someone else yourself, take a look anyway, this may have some new thoughts you haven't thought of. Then, of course, if you have any response, I'd love to hear that, as well. Señora Racquel helped me write this when we were in Mexico~ We got to preach it and our testimonies to a church congregation in Mexico, which was, honestly one of the funnest things I've ever done--IT'S FUN TELLIN' PEOPLE ABOUT JESUS!!
1 John 4:8b--God is love; this is His identity and personality. It is the very essence of His Being (As Pastor Rick Warren puts it), and God made people in order to share this love. But then, it's not simply love from Him, to us and that's it--no no, there's more. He wants us to then love all people around us, according to John 13:34-35.
Though God made us people in order to share His love, Romans 5:12 tells us that one of these people that God made, the first man (Adam) went against God. That is, this man consciously made the decision to act against the love of God which is the commandment of God. Now because of this, sin entered the world. Since people sin all the time, we as people can not know God or God's love; people are separated from God, because everyone who has sin does not and can not know God for himself, nor know God's true love. Romans 3:23 says that every single person who has ever lived, or will ever live, has sinned against God, and rejected His perfect love.
But like we said before, "God is love", so He still loves us even though we sin, and 2 Peter 3:9 says God doesn't want anyone to go to hell, or be separated from Him, or not know His love. Because God loves us, and wants us to go to Heaven, and wants us to know Him personally/individually, He sent a perfect Sacrifice to die on the cross for us so that we can know God while we are here on earth and in the future when we are in Heaven, so that we can know His love, and so that we can fellowship with Him in Heaven someday; this Sacrifice was His Son, Jesus Christ, according to John 3:16.
So, Romans 10:9, in order to be clean from sin, to know God on a personal/individual level, to experience His love, and go to Heaven when we die, we must believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, we must believe that He came to the earth and died for our sins, we must pray and ask Him to wash away our sins and live in our heart and be the Lord of ourl lives, and we must always work to pursue a relationship with Him. When you make this commitment, congratulations, you are a "Christian". "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"  It's not as bad as what you see portrayed on TV and churches sometimes, don't worry. True Christianity is simply being Christ-like. It's knowing God personally, and holding a true love and admiration for Him and all people around you--it's really a wonderful thing, and the best thing you can do. What reason is there not to?
(Keep Amos 3:3 in mind as well: All Christians are part of the body of Christ, so we must always agree and work together to live better and more fulfilling/abundantly as Jesus mentioned in John 10:10b)
I hope you like the message and you learned something--it had some nice reminders for me personally, as I typed it. If you wanna discuss something in this post, or something NOT in this post--just whatever--hit me up via e-mail, real life, phone, xanga comment, MySpace comment, or however else, I'd be glad to talk with you.
http://www.myspace.com/conservativeballa
Lata.. | | |
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