Why, why, why?

Why am I the way I am?

Why do I love grandeur and majesty and epic storytelling so much?

Why is my singing voice so deformedly loud as to blot out all noise within a fifteen-foot radius of me?

Why did I not merely listen to, but enjoy Beethoven's Fourth Symphony in the car on Monday?

Why do I forget about my most important mail immediately after opening and reading it?

Why am I able to look an instructor in the eye with a frown of professed concentration, when my mind is far away?

Why do I step into the shower and immediately begin dreaming of the epic movies I hope to one day realize?

Why do I mess with my pens during class?

Why do I seemingly always lean toward my lover, whether we're sitting or standing?

Why can't I write a good poem?

Why do I always sling my backpack over my right shoulder?

Why do I tape memorable quotes to my bedroom ceiling?

Why do I have to make sure to rip every CD I have onto my computer, regardless of whether I ever plan on listening to it or not?

Why do I like to edit video?

There's a trite answer, of course, and you've probably guessed what it must be. I don't know, but He does, and He made me that way. OK, so it's true. Doesn't make it any less trite. And it still doesn't really answer: Why?

We humans want to know why. Most of us do, anyway. If you don't, you're either very privileged or very delusional. Why, why, why? The Psalmists asked it; Job asked it; Moses asked it.

It's okay to ask, I think. But we can't necessarily expect to get the answer. At least, not the answer we seek. God gave Job a pretty memorable answer, mostly using questions, but He never gave Job what he wanted.

His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts. That's scary, mindboggling, comforting. He is, after all, God, and I am, after all, little Homo sapien.

I look forward to finding out all the "why's" about me. 'Cause I think He'll reveal them, someday. He likes to reveal mysteries, in their proper time. He's going to show me how He tweaked and tinged me, formed and filled me, molded and marked me, and how vitally important every single tiny detail was in his True Myth, his Great Epic.

That's the kind of God He is. He revels in art, in craft, in beauty and glory in things made. He tells big stories, huge stories, so intricate and detailed that, even in heaven, we may never comprehend everything in them. I like that. He made me to love big stories like that.

And I still don't know why.

All right, so I'm doing it

OK, my sister tagged me (whatever that means), so I'm going to do the, er, tag thing. Mostly because she half-begged me to do it and put on her blogpost that she didn't think I would. So ha, provin' you wrong, my sis!

8 Things I'm Passionate About:
1. King Jesus, my Savior, my Lord, my divine Lover
2. The fairest maiden who has ever lived, my own dear Lana Marie
3. Pointing people to their Creator, whether or not they know Him already
4. My family - parents and sibs, in-laws, extended, church...thank God for them!
5. Leading people in singing the praises of their God
6. Writing - using words to create a work that honors God and ultimately draws people to Him
7. Preparing to be a godly husband and father
8. Reading good writing

8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die:
1. Wow, um, this'll be a shocker to you, but...MARRY LANA ON MAY 23!
2. Have kids with Lana and raise them to know and love God
3. See all of my kids enter into a passionate love relationship with Jesus
4. Become a published author
5. Complete my novel about Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection
6. Go to FtF 08 and see the fire fall (not literally this year, unfortunately)
7. Ride on the Fort Smith Transit with Lana
8. Get raptured, and thus, not die at all

8 Things I Say Often:
1. "I love you." (Hmm, who might I be saying that to?)
2. "Shut everything else out and focus on God." (My youth group can testify to that)
3. "Sing it out."
4. "Amazing stacey."
5. "You're so beautiful." (See #1)
6. "That's nice."
7. "You're nice."
8. "Whatcha thinkin'?" (See #5 for each of the last three)

8 Books I've Read Recently:
1. The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel
2. The End of the Third Age by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien
3. Chosen by Ted Dekker
4. Infidel by Ted Dekker
5. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
6. Me, Myself, and Bob by Phil Vischer
7. When Dreams Come True by Eric and Leslie Ludy
8. Oh, wait, does the Bible count? Well, then, yeah.

8 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over:
1. "Breathe in Me" by Michael W. Smith
2. "Lemonade" by Chris Rice
3. "No Ordinary Love" by TobyMac
4. "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by Steven Curtis Chapman
5. "Why Should the Devil (Have All the Good Music) by Geoff Moore and the Distance
6. "Audience of One" by Big Daddy Weave
7. "Already Over" by Red
8. "Can't Stop Praising" by Hillsong

8 Albums I Love (I added this one because there's just too much good music out there):
1. I'll Lead You Home by Michael W. Smith
2. End of Silence by Red
3. Jesus Freak by dc Talk
4. Lifesong by Casting Crowns
5. Song Cinema by Mark Schultz
6. Evolution by Geoff Moore and the Distance
7. The Jesus Record by Rich Mullins and the Ragamuffin Band
8. Jars of Clay by Jars of Clay (the one I'm listening to right now)

8 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friend (ooh, this'll be fun):
1. She loves God passionately, above everything else
2. She loves me more than anyone else (how can you not be attracted to someone like that?)
3. She is so beautiful that it distracts me when I'm trying to think
4. She has a gentle and kind spirit, and a warm personality
5. She's funny
6. She smells good
7. She knows me better than anyone else and has more wisdom about important things than I do
8. She's a woman (pretty important, dontcha think?), and the most amazing woman I've ever met at that

8 Things I've Learned This Past Year:
1. Everything truly is in His hands
2. His plans may fulfill my plans or wreck them, but they're always better than mine
3. Waiting to awaken love until it so desires really is worth it
4. Romance really does make you as insane as I've always heard - maybe even more so
5. When my faith is tested, it's tested at the roots - He always asks me, "Do you believe?"
6. I'm even more prideful and arrogant than I thought
7. My (future) wife really does have to be my #2 priority, after God
8. Don't ever film a full-length movie in your directorial debut

8 People I'm Tagging:
Nope, sorry, here's where I get off.

The Word from the Cave

Sitting here knowing I need to do some schoolwork, but my brain isn't very motivated to get up and start functioning like it's supposed to. The rest of the body isn't helping things. The eyes are going, "Can you like give us a break already?" The fingers are getting sick of having to move around and do my bidding on this keyboard. The legs are feeling rebellious; they want to do what they want to do; it seems like they're sick both of sitting still and of moving.

The eyes command the attention, because if they shut down, it gets very dark. So my fingers take a break from the board and become masseuses for a few seconds. The mouth obeys the command of the tired brain and opens for a nice yawn. The legs start bouncing up and down, tired and restless. Deep down somewhere in my chest cavity, the heart works as rhythmically and methodically as it ever has; good thing, because if it emerged and heard the complaints from the rest of the body, it might decide to just start taking breaks or something. That wouldn't be particularly conducive to my health.

More yawns. The arms stretch and flex, trying to get more comfortable. The fingers drag themselves over the keys, no longer caring to lift themselves up, no longer worried about my blasted typing accuracy.

The brain, perhaps startled into action by the Two Towers battle music emanating from my computer speakers, rouses itself and starts shouting out commands. "Sit up straight! Blink a few times! Type properly! You've got work to do!"

OK. It's right. I settle into the chair, position myself taller, force the fingers to hit the keys high and with pride. It's time to work.

It's Friday, the week before finals. Things are now set in motion that cannot be undone. The body shudders a restless breath and begins.

More Thoughts on Fan the Flame

Eleven days till Fan the Flame. I just sent information to one more church today, First Freewill Baptist in Charleston. It looks like they'll bring a group. Pretty cool to be able to get another commitment this late in the game.

Attendance-wise for FtF, we're looking for at least two hundred to show up, and I think that's definitely realistic. If we get that many, it's going to be a great crowd. If we get more than that, well, yeah baby, it will rock awesomely.

Even though it's a dream of ours to see the church packed out on August 25, I'm not too concerned about our attendance numbers. God will bring the ones who need to be there, and I believe His fire will fall on us. Of course, we still need to be doing everything we can in the meantime to get people there.

I know several people from outside our youth group have expressed interest in coming on this blog and others of my friends; and that's awesome. I would love to see a host of homeschoolers descend on FBC Branch for FtF; we actually have plenty in our youth group now, which rocks my face off.

Anyways, if any of you "outsiders" need any info about the event, just let me know; I think I'm in charge of information for FtF.

I do want to give a warning about the music, though. It's only fair that I let you know that it will be pretty loud. As the lead singer, however, I can assure you that there will NOT be a concert-type atmosphere, and all the songs will direct praise to God. We do several songs in kind of a rock-slash-worship style, but most of them are acoustic. We're even looking at featuring some piano this year, which I think will be fantastic.

Anyways, I wanted to shout that out because I know that homeschoolers sometimes have different convictions about music, and homeschoolers are currently most of my audience on this blog.

In the meantime, I would like to ask that my praying readers add another request to the list: rain. Each year we close Fan the Flame with a bonfire service; it's a special and unique time that has really made an impact on people in the past, and this year's bonfire service is planned to be the best one yet.

But it won't happen if we don't get some rain between now and then. After a rainy early summer, the floodgates have closed and it has become very dry. Our county, Franklin, is not yet under a burn ban, but it will be by FtF without rain. And we'll be unable to light our bonfire.

So please pray about that. I know God already has His perfect plan laid out regarding whether or not we're to have a bonfire this year. Pray that His will be done, for that and for everything regarding the event.

In my last post, I mentioned the class time on Sunday night with my youth group. They were such a blessing to me, sharing some of their concerns and heart's desires for the event. I believe that God is going to bless our group and use us to do a great work at Fan the Flame.

One thing I wanted to touch on in class, however, was that this event is really not anything special in a worldly sense. The band will lead worship. Chris and Dusty will preach the Gospel. We'll do some other fun stuff, eat a meal, have a bit of time to hang out. That's old hat for our youth group, if not necessarily for the visiting youth attending.

But I don't think it's what we do at Fan the Flame that matters so much. If we had Chris Tomlin there to lead worship, Billy Graham preaching, and a water park for afternoon fun, I certainly don't think our event would automatically become so much better. The key to FtF is not that the band rocks everyone's faces off in worship, or that Chris and Dusty mesmerize the crowd with dynamic messages, or that everybody has the maximum amount of possible fun in the afternoon. The key is that we surrender ourselves to God and allow Him to move in a mighty way in our hearts on Saturday, August 25. And if that happens, the event will be a smashing success.

So don't expect an all-star event a week from this Saturday. At the same time, expect God to do something amazing. It's what we're praying for.

Let the fire fall.