I remember when someone was eager to learn the next kata in karate my sensei would ask him/her to perform the one that he/she had been working on. After studying the person, he would usually get up and go through it with them and correct them. Afterward they would usually ask, "so, I can learn the next one?" to which he would reply "you have to work on what you’ve already learned." When someone would ask me to teach them something new, I’d appreciate their eagerness but I also knew if I taught them something new at the wrong time that they wouldn’t appreciate what they knew. I almost never taught someone something new when they asked me to. I looked for the students who loved what they were already doing, the few that took joy in diligence, not novelty. We always think that when we get something new, we’ll be satisfied it doesn’t matter if it’s something material or from God. We come to the teacher, asking for revelations, to be "taken higher." Jesus said to learn of Him because He was "meek and lowly of heart" He didn’t say, "learn of me, because I know everything." I am learning the lesson to find God in the smallest things (or, small in my prideful eyes) and suddenly every day becomes huge. To me, this is one of the keys of obtaining an eternal perspective. I felt God repeating the thing about being meek and lowly in heart and I became elated and I thought "that’s it!" If you want to go higher, you have to make yourself lower. I wonder at my own motives sometimes when I think of doing "great things" for God. I have asked God to give me the drive and desire to disappear, to be meek, to serve and love others whether they see it or not with the faith that God delights in it. I think that can only start to happen when I can really be assured that God loves me for all that I am, for all my mess ups, that He created me down to the last detail for a specific purpose for His glory and delight. I hear so many pep talks where people say "we gotta start serving Him! Get off your butt, church!!!" I’m not saying there isn’t a discipline here, or that we don’t need a kick in the butt every once in a while, we’re told not to resent our Father’s discipline. However, I also think people need another kind of motivation, we need to be motivated by grace, not peer pressure. God blesses us every day, we have to put ourselves in the position to receive it, which is on our faces.

People who grow spiritually are people who are taking Jesus up on His offer in Revelations 3:18, "I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see." But to be in the position to receive one must realize that they’re "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" (3:17). We buy riches from God, not by giving Him something great, He rebuked David when he wanted to build God a cedar palace (2 Samue7:5-7). God isn’t asking us to push away our sin, problems, and anxieties aside and give Him something "great." Buy His riches, cast off the anxieties, trade the burden of your sin and worry for His lighter burden. Allow God to enrich you by trading in the sin that He convicts you of. God never just takes, only Satan does that, Satan is the destroyer, he takes and takes until you’re consumed. God replaces with His love until you’re perfect. If Christ is in you, if you’ve accepted Him and His sacrifice then He is at your center, in your heart and He wants to grow and push ignoble things out. Jesus’ prayer for believers would be that they would know that the Father loves us just as much as He loves Christ (John 17:23) and that we would show that to the world. How can we show it if we’re not assured? Jesus endured the cross for "the joy set before Him" (Hebrews 11). We have to endure times of trial, looking to the "author and perfecter" of our faith and trust that though the giving of ourselves is painful, we will be all the more enriched for it. Focus not on what you give but what God gives and when that trust in His love and generosity abides in you you will endure. You’re feelings might not change, neither will your circumstances immediately (maybe not for a while). To be a conqueror in Christ is, I think, to have times when you feel stressed, angry, or even sinful but to stand on the promise that nothing will separate you from God’s love. I felt guilty for feeling angry and impatient for feeling beaten and weak in some of my present situations but I realize that the feelings will come and go, circumstances might kick me around but I really don’t care because my strength isn’t reliant on how strong I feel, it isn’t reliant on me at all. God is my strength, don’t ask for God to give you strength, thank Him that He IS your strength. Paul was a broken man but he was boastful in God, "if God be for us, who can stand against us?" (Romans 8). If you’re asking God to be your rock, then you’re implying that at some point He wasn’t or that He needed an extra reminder. You need to be reminded that He is your rock, your refuge, your strength. Automatically, the enemy will suggest your selfish for standing on these things, but you’re standing on promises that God already made. Temptation isn’t a matter of tempting with pleasure, that’s a foolish, religious idea. Temptation is Satan trying to use any means to look to yourself instead of God. Peter always blabbered on about how much he gave for God but when it got put to the test he denied Jesus. He relied on his own promises to God and didn’t stand on God’s promises. None of us can say ‘I’ll do anything for God’ but we can say "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me" (Phil 4:13). Try and motivate yourself to be Godly and that goes nowhere, come before God acknowledging that you’re blind, naked, sinful, poor and He gives you sight, clothes you with Himself, forgives you and enriches you. The closer you get to God the more sinfulness you see but you have to stand on the promise that there is "no condemnation for us in Christ" and that you are wholly accepted and pleasing to God because of Christ.

Paul always seemed to talk about two things in his letters: false discipline or no discipline. Either people were subjecting themselves to religious laws that "indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack ANY VALUE in restraining sensual indulgence" (Colossians 2:22). Or people were sinning like crazy because of a misinterpretation of what grace is. Either way you go, it’s a lack of Godly discipline. Either way, it’s self-centered, resisting God and laying down for the devil. In my view, Godly discipline is standing on His promises when you go through trials, or times of inner breaking and pruning, and straining to go on whether you see results or not in the moment. It’s laying down on the operating table and saying "just do it, God."

Everything in karate is built on the kihon, or, the basics. Stances, block, strikes, and kicks. Every complex form, sparring tactic, or self-defense maneuver is comprised of the basics. Every revelation is comprised of one or more simple principles that we’re ready to see in a new light. I think about not judging people by our own measures and the way people are tested in karate. C.S. Lewis said that it’s more virtuous for a naturally mean person to be nice than a person who is naturally given to more kindness to be kind. As it is more virtuous for that kind person to be more assertive for a good purpose than it would be for the more naturally aggressive person. We all start at different points and, realistically, most will only grow to a certain extent given their circumstances. I tend to look at people like my father when he gets gruff but I fail to look at the whole picture. His dad died when he was nine and his mother was an alcoholic, yet by the grace of God he is here today with a family for which he provides greatly for, gives generously of his money and time to his church, above all, he strives to love God with all his heart, mind, and soul. I am trying to learn to see everyone that way. Indeed, we should be bearing fruit but I know I have to be patient with where I came from and learn to see the fruit in my life and learn to see people the way Christ does. When we test people in karate, we look to see how often the person showed up, how diligent and respectful they were. Ultimately that will show in their technique, with the right attitude they will stay determined and get better. However, not everyone is going to be Bruce Lee and that’s not any fault of their own, they might have every bit of heart that he did. Turns out, it's your heart that God really cares about. I spar everyone differently, it isn’t about going as hard as possible with everyone. If I’m more experienced I work to help them, going just hard enough to keep them moving. If someone doesn’t want to be touched, if they just want to play then I play and respect the kind of person they are. Of course, there those of us that love to push each other, to really go at it and I can honestly say there has never been any maliciousness or anger. The sparring always stopped at a moments notice if someone had to stop, when someone hit you you acknowledged the hit with a smile and a nod. It’s not about how hard you go, it’s about pushing yourself. Sparring is an exchange, it should really be mutually beneficial for both people. Whenever someone wanted to spar to see who was the better, truth be told there were times when I wanted nothing more than to give them what they were asking for, usually my conscience weighed on me and I’d kindly decline. Then there were those who just wanted to spar because they just enjoyed it and I’d have some of the toughest, but most enjoyable, matches in which me and the other person would have a weird kinship afterward. How a person trained and fought usually spoke volumes about their character, martial arts is very expressive, you learn to read people on a deeper level through their movements.

Everything except sin points to the truth of God and the way He works. We were always told to keep a beginner’s mind in karate, always be willing to learn from those who were higher and lower in rank. When someone came in we would have to teach them movements that were contrary to the way they were used to moving. You had to unlearn old habits and replace them with new reflexes through hours of arduous training. Just like Christianity we must come as children always willing to be taught, always willing to unlearn old ways and have them be replaced by Christ likeness in our constant seeking of Him through reading the word, prayer, and worship.

an enchanted moment 

all kinds of tough in this picture 

gangsta...kinda... 

you're the man, jon. 

if jen was any happier, she'd explode 

what? 

usually you kiss the cook, but in this case the cook was giving 'em out. don't hate paul because he's pretty, karen. 

lord of the grill 

alicia and brian (he spells his name wrong) saw God but everyone else was distracted. 

what a man, what a man... 

me.