Author: Jesse

    Contentedness

    One of the things I have often noticed, and often been frustrated with, is my natural discontent in almost every situation. You may have noticed it yourself in your life, whatever you seem to be doing, you think it could be better somehow. Strange, but we’re discontented creatures, never quite happy with the situation we’re in.

    I notice it especially when I’m traveling. When I’m away from home I wish I could just rest at home and enjoy some down-time. Then, when I finally get home, I get bored quickly and wish I was out doing something fun. How ridiculous is that? Shouldn’t I just be able to enjoy the situation I’m in and not always wish it were something else?

    Yes… I should.

    I was thinking about what Paul says in Philippians 4:12, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation…”

    Then I read Proverbs 19:23 the other day: ” The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.”

    Finally, 1 Timothy 6:6 says “But godliness with contentment is great gain.”

    And I’m only quoting a few verses… Obviously, the Bible has a lot to say about being content. Oftentimes it relates to money and posessions, but I think the issue goes much deeper. We feel like we deserve more, like there’s always something better out there that we deserve. Why is that?

    Truthfully, I don’t know how to solve this dilemma of the human condition, and I’m trying to learn from the verses above how to experience “godliness with contentment.” But its not always easy.

    This weekend, I noticed a discontented attitude settling in, which was rediculous because I was up at a cabin with my family and friends enjoying the beautiful outdoors! So I worked hard to ask God to help me be content, and enjoy the situation that I was in, right there, right then. And you know what? He answered my prayer. It was an amazing weekend. Thanks Lord.

      New Ideas

      Working in the advertising and design industry makes me try and think up new ideas all of the time. The creative process is challenging and oftentimes hard to come up with ideas that are unique and relevant to the audience.

      I noticed something this weekend as I was playing a Scrabble-type game with my family. As I tried to form my individual letters into words I would try to come up with long words at the beginning of the game. (You know, like “antidisestablishmentarianism”, just kidding) but I found that I sat there trying to think of long, complex words to no avail. When I would finally give up on that and focus on getting 3-4 letter words that I could put together quickly, I had much more success getting rid of my letters. My Scrabble board would spiral in complexity and often I could form shorter words into longer ones.

      I think this is a good example of things I’ve found to be true about coming up with good ideas:

      Just get started. I find that I rarely think of anything decent when I wait until I have a “good idea”. Instead, just get started, brainstorm everything: Even the silly, impossible, already-been-done ideas. Put time into your decision process, but don’t wait for the “perfect idea” to get started creating.

      Ideas start as simple, and become complex. I am never able to come up with good complex ideas right off the bat. No one sat down and thought “I’m going to design a car, here’s how the carburetor is going to work…” Start with a simple idea and complex systems will evolve from it. Don’t jump to the specifics quite so soon.

      Just some thoughts for you today the next time you have to brainstorm some new idea. I’m sure I’m not the first to come up with these things, but I decided to just post instead of overthinking. (That was the point, wasn’t it?)

        Duty vs. Passion

        Jonny, Ross and I started a new book this week named “The Sacred Romance” by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge. I actually read it a long time ago, but don’t remember much. We’ll be reading a couple of chapters every two weeks and talking about them. Should be a good time. Our discussion last night centered around Duty vs. Passion. In the first chapter they say:

        “Frustrated by our heart’s continuing sabatage of a dutiful Christian life, some of us silence the voice by locking our heart away in the attic, feeding it only the bread and water of duty and obligation until it is almost dead…”

        Now, I think all of us would agree that living a life passionate for Christ is always going to be better than living a life only of Christian duty and obligation. No arguments there. But my question is whether there is a place for duty and obligation, and unfriendly as those words sound?

        As much as I would like to wake up every day feeling refreshed, renewed, and passionate to live my life glorifying God, the truth is that I don’t. I often wake up foggy-headed, cranky, and worried about the day ahead of me. It is often only duty that gets me into the Word and praying.

        Frequentyly I find that once I have taken the time to sit down, focus on God, and read His Word, then my life comes into clearer focus and I can live more passionately for God.

        I think the intentions of the authors are good, we should be striving to live for God passionately, but I wonder if it is accurate to be telling people that their whole life should be lived as one blazing ball of passionate energy for God? Is that even possible? Could we wear ourselves out?

        Obviously, we’re only one chapter into the book, so I cannot say what exactly the authors are envisioning. What do you guys think, is duty as important as passion in the Christian life? Leave a comment if you’ve got something to say.

          Sideline Christianity

          I know that I’m not supposed to feel this way, but I often feel like as a regular working man, I am a sideline Christian. Do you know what I mean? Pretty much my role is to sit on the bench most of the game, maybe fill some water cups or something. Pastors, missionaries, christian authors, professors, etc. are all doing the brunt work of the Kingdom, and I’m just the guy on the sidelines.

          Now, like I said, I know that its not supposed to look like what I’m picturing here. Everyone has always told me that we need working men and women in their fields representing Christianity, to volunteer at local churches and organizations, and to support pastors and missionaries through their funding.

          But let’s be realistic about time for a minute here. I spent 40-45 hours at work every week. During that time, I’m primarily thinking about my job. My goal there is to do my work, and to do it well. By the time I get home, eat some dinner, spend some time with my wife, and take care of my house a bit, there’s not a lot of extra time in the day to do the extra volunteering at the church, or spend long hours talking about Christianity with friends.

          Contrast that with a pastor or a missionary, where they spend their work hours doing work for the kingdom. Think about what they can accomplish in a 40 hour work week! Their primary goals are to develop their relationship with God, and to share that with the people around them. (Though I’m sure there are many distractions that easily get in the way.)

          I guess that just leaves me with a lot of questions… How can I not be a sideline Christian? What should my faith look like in the working world? Where is it most important that my time go?

          I’d love to hear some thoughts from some of you. Do I have my ideas backwards? Have you had the same frustrations? Am I being clear? I’ll try to post again on this topic in the near future.

            Spiritual Clarity

            One thing I have noticed in my Christian life is how rarely I see my life with the kind of clarity that I wish for, and how short of a time it lasts. I often find that I am reading a book, or listening to a sermon, or talking to a good friend during the evening and all of a sudden this big-picture, large scale view of my life, God, and the people around me comes into focus. It’s like realizing that you’ve forgotten to put on your glasses in the morning and you hadn’t noticed it up to this point.

            I feel like this tonight after finishing Velvet Elvis, a book by Rob Bell. In his last chapter he paints a big-picture view of Christianity, and of the Gospel message. You know what? It’s really attractive! I want to be the kind of person that is humble, serves others earnestly, gives generously, lives vigorously, and deals with people honestly. I want to be real with people, stop being scared of what they think of me and just love them for who they are. Really the Gospel isn’t as much about telling people about Jesus, as it is showing his love to them. How much more attractive is that? If you could do that really well, people would be banging down your door asking about Jesus.

            Yet my challenge is always remembering that clarity that I had the next morning, when all is foggy again and I stumble into my everyday routines. How can I change? How can I stop living selfishly and start living for others? What steps can I take in that direction? What is God calling me to?

            If no one else, maybe I can inspire myself with this post tomorrow…

              I Have 284 Friends

              …at least according to my Facebook profile. I looked through all of them the other day as I wanted to send out a message about this website. You know what? There are people in there I can’t even remember, I have no idea how I know them! And there are a lot of people who I haven’t talked to in years. We were acquaintances at best.

              Social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook came about so that you could connect with people. I certainly see some amount of value in keeping up with people from far away; it’s not a bad thing. But it’s interesting to me that as we’re able to connect with people easier and easier, it gets harder to maintain all of those friendships that we now have the ability to keep up. Could I realistically keep up friendships with 284 people? Yeah right.

              Sometimes I wonder (and I’m sure I’m not the first) if all of these friends, if all of this “easy contact” I have with people all over the world enabled by the Internet, email, instant messaging, and social networking sites has actually made it harder to maintain a real friendship with anyone?

              Instead of telling people about an important event in our lives, we post it on Facebook. Instead of calling someone to see what they’re up to, we just Facebook them. Instead of stopping by someone’s place, it’s much easier to send out a Facebook invite.

              It’s all about convenience and making communication easier. After all, how often do you have a meaningful conversation through these sites? Even our face-to-face conversations may change; we are so used to having these little snippets of friendship that we are not used to conversing about the deeper and more important things in life.

              Friendship is a two-way street, giving and taking. These sites are all about the taking, we post only what we want to post, and we read only what we care to read. When all we do is take, we find that no one wants to give back. I’m not sure I believe that you can maintain a friendship through a social networking site, at least, not fully.

              Why am I dissin’ these sites? I have no idea, truthfully, I have nothing against them. I’ll continue to use my accounts and talk to people through them. I guess my challenge is to continue to build real friendships with those around me and to not let the “bad habits” of online contact seep into my everyday life.

                I Haxored WordPress

                One of the things I’m proud of in this new website is the technology behind it. It represents a couple of steps into new grounds that I haven’t made before. First off, the website is based on a simple XHTML skeleton, and then is styled using CSS. This method has been around for a while now, I’ve waited for a while for technology to catch up, and then I also got lazy and just didn’t want to learn it. It was a good challenge and I certainly see the flexibility and the wisdom in separating the design and the content.

                Second of all, this website is completely based on the WordPress blogging platform. Now, running a blog off of WordPress is easy, and doesn’t take much. But after trying out a billion CMS’s out there I finally settled on simply using this system. It took a bit of haxoring, and a little PHP programming on the way (scary!) but it was actually relatively simple and I’d consider recommending it for clients and friends. Each item in the Portfolio is actually a post with some custom features, this makes adding new stuff really easy. (The idea being that I update this website more often!) Plus, those designs can be sorted any number of ways, by discipline, campaign, or any other way I want.

                  The Professional World

                  I haven’t updated this site for awhile, so it’s about time. I’ve graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. I’ve got my double major in Graphic Design and Advertising and it only took me five years.

                  I’ve started in the professional world of design and advertising at Morsekode a Twin Cities advertising agency. I love the people and the atmosphere there. I hope to be able to post some of my new work from there on here soon, but it may take me awhile.

                  In other news, the logo that Seth Koslowski, Dave Bromeland and myself designed for the McIntyre Library back in Eau Claire has been chosen as the official logo. I’m proud of the work we did, and it was a nice culmination of my school career for design. You can see their website which makes use of the logo, although we did not design the website itself.

                    Activism or Evangelism?

                    My roommate has been reading “God’s Politics” by Jim Wallis, I can’t say I’ve read the book, but our discussions have been really interesting over the last few days as we’ve been talking about it. As Christians in America it seems we are always trying to defend our way of life, and our right to practice our beliefs. Christians tend to stand against things like abortion and homosexual marriage. We’ll go to rallies, we’ll write letters, and pastors will devote their sermons to these things.

                    Now, don’t get me wrong right away. I understand the purpose that Politics plays in everyday life and why it is important. I understand and what the Bible says about those issues, and truthfully, I even agree with most of the church folks about them. But I disagree with the pedestal that we put those issues on.

                    Here’s the deal, why do we spend so much time fighting and worrying about these things when there are much more important things we could be doing? Why activism instead of evangelism? Is it simply because the enemy is clearer and the objective is straightforward? Are we actually being selfish as we march? Looking out only for our comfort and our rights, wanting the world to act in the way that we want it to?

                    We have to play an interesting balance as Americans. According to our Bill of Rights we have certain rights that we can claim for ourselves. We deserve them as Americans. Yet, in Philippians we find Paul talking about Christ’s humility in spite of his right to equality with God:

                    “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
                    Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
                    Who, being in very nature God,
                    did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
                    but made himself nothing,
                    taking the very nature of a servant,
                    being made in human likeness.
                    And being found in appearance as a man,
                    he humbled himself
                    and became obedient to death-
                    even death on a cross!”
                    Philippians 2:5-8

                    It seems like we would be much more representative of God if we spent more time telling the people that we disagree with that God loves them and wants to invite them into a personal relationship with himself. Why are we trying to make everyone act like Christians before they even know Christ? I know it’s simplistic, and I know that life is more complicated than the easy answers. But I feel like as Christians we need to have our priorities straight and focus on what brings the most glory to our Father. Spending time at a rally, waving protest signs doesn’t have that same effect. Put aside activism, start evangelism.

                      It Ain’t Easy

                      Several people I’ve run into lately that seem to think following Christianity should be easy. They want desperately to believe that all paths lead to heaven, and that any kind of faith is faith enough. I don’t believe this is true, but it makes it frustrating to talk to them. There’s certainly a part of me which yearns to accept everyone simply because they have faith; I hate being exclusionary. I think the tendency is to want Christianity to be easier. Religion without the conviction.

                      In the gospel of John we see a particularly disheartening day when many disciples are confused about Jesus’ teaching and desert him. John 6:60 “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’ ” Many when they are confused and cannot understand God, desert him. ” ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’ ” Some people walk away when they hear a hard teaching, the rest of us admit we are confused but know that Jesus is truth.

                      What these people are hoping for is not Christianity. True Christianity cannot be mixed, the result is watered down religion without substance. While appealing, it is utterly false. People expect that they should be able to sit on the dividing line of faith and simply “lean” in one direction or another, hoping that the fact that they are on the fence will save them. Jesus has no time for this, as we read in Revelation 3:15-16. If you are neither hot nor cold then he will spit you out of his mouth.

                      Christianity is based on making a decision. It is an all-or-nothing (Romans 2:5-10). Many would say that this is exclusionary, but I think if you truly look into Christianity you will find that it is inclusionary. In the sense that we are all rejected God from the beginning, but an all-loving God is reaching out to save as many as will accept and follow Him. God is seeking to include, not exclude, it was our own decision which leads to separation from God.

                      In our modern day world of “acceptance” and “tolerance” people view Christianity as judgmental and exclusionary. Yet we cannot waver on what we know is true simply because it is a hard teaching, or because people may look badly upon us. No, not everyone will go to heaven, but everyone has the chance to. We cannot waver on this teaching on this as a Christian because it is the crux of Christianity. It is essential to understand and be able to explain clearly and lovingly.