adventure minus the wilderness

For a reason I can’t really explain I feel adventure calling my name. Or maybe it’s just the wilderness. Of course, slap those together and you have a wilderness adventure, but that just sounds too cheesy. I’m not in the mood for a wilderness adventure, I’m in search for adventure in life. Maybe it requires me to be out in the wilderness, alone, not to be confused with lonely, but solitude. Just me alone with my thoughts and a paper and pen to write them down. It’s something quite incredible to be outdoors and experience nature first hand, wherever that may be, snow, mountains, forest, lakes, etc. I wasn’t born or raised in a place to be considered the wilderness; unlike many of my friends who tell stories of their upbringing in the backwoods. I, simply never had that opportunity. At times though, I wish I was born in those places. I’d be nice, maybe. But like I said, I may not be looking for wilderness adventures but the adventure: yes. Perhaps it’s the idea of adventure that enthralls me. The idea of being on an adventure and not the ordinarily mundane that at times life’s temporary routine can suggest and impose on us. Perhaps, I am on adventure, it just so happens that I’m not in the wilderness, sitting on a fallen tree, writing in a leather bound unruled-paged notebook, with a forest around me. Where I am, there are no sounds of rivers or waterfalls, no wild animals, no smells of pine or oak. It just so happens that my adventure takes place in a different setting with slightly different surroundings. And perhaps, I’ve swapped that leather bound unruled-paged notebook for a laptop. Maybe it’s time to take a more analog approach to writing. I think I might take a trip into the wilderness and think about it. 

it makes sense

It only makes sense that we would find the greatest sense of purpose and fulfillment in the hands of the person who made us. 

I look back at everything that I’ve ever done in my entire life and the instances where I found the most delight is in serving God. I mean really, I can go around trying to find purpose and fulfillment in an activity or something fun, if you will. But nothing will ever suffice. All things were made for a purpose, certain chargers for certain phones, certain clothes were made to fit certain people and so on. Yes, sometimes things can be used in multiple ways to satisfy a need but it is the most effective when it is used for the very thing it was designed for. 

I was made for my maker, as is everyone. It isn’t some religious cliche. Or some religious statement. It is logic. It is fact. It is truth. To say otherwise would be to ignore the fact that all things were made with a purpose. If all things were made with purpose, could one really think that a maker would make such a complex being such as ourselves and not find purpose for it? That makes no sense. No one creates anything without a specific purpose. And nothing or no one is in a better place than when it is functioning in its designed purpose. 

Im here because im ready

A prevailing idea passes through my mind in these last few days. Sometimes I find myself in a specific thought process that according to myself I know all about and have mastered. But for some reason when you are reminded, it can be the exact thing you need to keep going ahead.

I’m only here because I’m ready.

Every choice that I have made, maybe unintentionally, maybe even accidentally have brought me to the position that I find myself in now. I believe in purpose even in times where you can’t find any. Therefore, everything that I do is leading to something. If I have purpose then my life is leading to something or someone. Its impossible to have purpose without direction. This leads to believe that every season that I arrive at in life, I was meant to pass. This comes from the general thought that I was made to progress. If ever I stop this way of thinking then my life has begun to decay. The moment I stop getting better, the person of Asaph begins to die. In other words, the second I decide to stay in the place that I am, without the decision to improve myself is the moment I abandon purpose.

With this conviction I say “I’m only here because I’m ready.” Why? because whenever I find myself in a place of difficulty, where it seems as though I can’t prevail, I remind myself that I was designed to move forward and progress. 

"preach the gospel wherever you go and when you have to, use words."

St. Francis di Asisi

a response to the terribles of beautiful people

All people are beautiful. No matter how big, how small, how young, how old. People that smell terrible. People that act terrible. People that do terrible things. There are reasons why people act and do the things that they do. No one wakes up and says to themselves, “I’m going to make people mad/annoyed with me by the way I treat them. Be a stranger or a someone familiar.” No one. People act the way they do because of experiences in their past. It could have been something as horrible as abuse as a child, or verbal abuse two minutes ago, there could have just been a minimal amount of displeasing events in their day. The range of terribles is endless. If you find yourself in a position to make a choice to respond to an individual that I may have described within this text, then I beg you to chose love. People won’t change by your possibly just response (which many times could be anger, or equal disrespect). Love is the transforming ingredient to any situation, and to all people. People change with love. To change people is to change the world. That is if changing the world is something you fancy. 

Truth pt.1

2 things at bay in my mind: 

When I step into truth, I can’t help but notice all the things that are not. Truth illuminates deception. Truth is a lamp that not only illumines what is real but simultaneously what is not. You can’t be in the same setting as truth and not come face to face with what is unreal, untrue, distorted, and deceitful. The nature of deception is that you don’t know you are being deceived. 

There’s also this: “know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”When hearing this, I can’t stop from asking, “sets you free” from what exactly? Or possibly better yet said, what is the entity or idea that enslaves you? This passage implies that slavery inhabits a person when not enlightened by truth. The opposite of freedom, is slavery is it not? Is it possible that everything that isn’t truth in life, enslaves?

My Heart Burns

This is my first entry. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to introduce yourself or something of the sort, since it’s the first. But it would seem as though, you (the reader), will get to know me much better by the things that I write instead of a valiant effort to describe my attributes in this post. With that settled, let’s move on. Right up to this point theres been a re-occurring thought in my life, which has constantly bombarded my mind. Like a virus, it’s spread and made it’s way through into the core of who I am; my thoughts, emotions, feelings, and conscious have had no choice but to succumb to it. It’s made itself too evident. It is far too complex to fully understand but very simple to label, it’s just raw and genuine love. There is a burning in my heart, and it only continues to grow as fuel to a fire. I cannot begin to describe how I feel a literal substance begin to consume me. This process has not completed it’s work in me, it’s far from over, but I know for certain it’s increasing and progressing. A conclusion, that I have come to in this time is that I live my life to love, to show no restrictions or restraints but be excessive in love. I’m over not stepping out of my box that has kept me in comfort but restricted others of love. I can only give away what I have. Perhaps the reason I want to encounter people with raw/genuine love is because I have encountered raw/genuine love. One thing I have acquired in both knowledge and experience is that love gives. It cares not about itself and cannot stop from giving, thats where love finds pleasure, it is eager to give. In that same way, the driving force that is love, I fail in the effort to interrupt or restrict it’s natural expression in me. In other words, this has so taken over every part of me that I cannot stop myself from thinking, feeling, expressing love. I cannot tell of all the ramifications of encountering love, but I can say that it is transforming me internally. Who knew that love was more than a sentiment/emotion but rather a revolutionary ingredient that leads to a revival of an individual and redesigns how he sees the world with all its factors and most importantly, lives. My heart burns.

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that i was made for another world."

C.S. Lewis