Roadmaps And Revelations.

This post may be long, tis named after the 'parachute band' album as i think it is appropriate for the very long road trip i have been on.

consisting of 13 days, hundreds of photos, meeting many new faces and jumping like crazy to many many different bands this road trip is going to be one i will remember for a long time to come.

to begin with, big day out. what an experience as a newcomer to this event, to see people passionate about playing and listening to music and getting an insight into their lives through music is in short what this trip has been focused on. to see the NZ band Shihad live in concert was simply amazing, the passion and energy they put into their performances makes you think its their first time playing, Jon Toogood (the lead singer/guitarist) is closing in on 40 and yet he looks and plays like a passionate 20 year old it gave me inspiration and motivation in life, the lyrics from Shihad and Rage Against The Machine are so liberating to know that I'm not the only one who realises how screwed up this world is, in fact the numbers only continue to grow for that area.

its an awe inspiring thing to see many non-christian bands talk about that 'something more' in their lyrics and it gives me confidence to go on spreading the loving news of Jesus. Jon Toogood puts it wonderfully in his song "Boat Song"

"All of us, connected
All of us on the same road home
And if one should fall or falter
Then we all reach down together as one
And we lift them up again"

we are all one through Christ and even as non-believers we feel some connection to everyone in our world, we feel responsible for the well-being of others, we feel obliged to love. love is the universal language of which we all understand and correlate to one another, we cannot deny or reject for we all love to be loved and to give love, love can be the most devastating emotion known to us and i have seen it do that to too many people, but at the same time nothing can compare to it when it goes right and i have seen that in many people also.

Jon knows How important individuality is and how easy it is to sometimes just go with the crowd and disappear into the depths of society, he expresses this so well in his song 'the brightest star'

"When you go against the grain
do you know just how beautiful you are
when there's nothing left to say
you're the brightest star

We're like the water at the edge of a wave
that gets left upon the shore
disappears into the sand
and was seen no more."

that needs to explanation, the lyrics themselves are beautiful enough.

"now for every boy and every girl
with all the pain and joy in the world
we don't mean nothing without love"

"And there's a fire in my heart that will not die"

"Sunset, sunrise
See the world changing right before you eyes
Go with it. It's a ride
You gotta live for everyday until you die"

i could go on more, but the point is that we all feel to some degree a sense on unity, connectedness and most importantly a feeling of love all around us, its hard in these dark times to give in to the deceptiveness of the media, to fall into the mindless back chat of gossip and popularity, we all want things but there is something that is universal, call it being human, call it god, call it money, call it whatever you may but it all roots from love, without it we are nothing and from it we can gain everything.

whilst travelling the roads of new zealand i get inside me even more a sense of such worth, we have such a wonderful life and we take it all for granted, we make no effort to give this kind of life to others, we indulge in our own selfish wants, we have such a wonderful life handed to us on a silver platter and all we can think of is how goog we look, what others think of us, how 'manly' we are we don't take one second to think about those that have nothing and have to rummage in the trash can's for one small meal a day, we don't stop to think about the 60,000 kids that die every year due to HIV and AIDS, are we blind to our own devastation, our ignorance is going to be the demise of our freedom, the cause of our destruction. meanwhile in more than 40 countries around the world we are not allowed to express our christian faith and doing so leads to imprisonment and persecution and more likely execution, consider the story of the young boy who's village was invaded by guerrilla warfare, they were shooting people waiting to speak up this 13 year old boy stood up and said 'I am frank (not actual name, should have taken notes on this story) and i am a soldier of Christ' the men walked towards him, cut his arm off and asked him to repeat himself, "I am frank and i am a soldier of Christ" he said again just before they cut his other arm off, "what did you say?" they asked. he spluttered "i am frank and i am a soldier of Christ" they sliced his chest and stomach open and demanded he stopped speaking, he fell to the ground and whilst coughing blood he said "I am frank and i am a soldier of Christ" they then be-headed him.

there are so many more stories like this that i could give you all but the message is clear, regardless of your beliefs, regardless of your background i believe we all need to be aware of the persecution in our world. it is so easy to slip back into our daily routine and forget all about it, but our world is calling for some great people to sort out this mess, Will you be one of them? or will you become as i say 'just another statistic' will you step up to the mark? or will you simple disappear into the sand like the tip of a wave.

Parachutes motto is
'God and music is a powerful thing, but it takes an army to keep the music going'
in the midst of worship with 'parachute band' i looked back beyond me to see thousands of people filling this field and stands, all with their arms raised in praise to our father in heaven, it may have been the atmosphere or it may have been just a feeling but i felt something saying to me right then that something is happening in our country, a revelation is unfolding to the undeniable and heart breaking truth of Jesus Crucifixion and sacrifice on the cross that day. in the middle of my moshing to the band 'all left out' in the song switch over i got a tap on the shoulder, thinking it was one of my friends i turned around to see a young woman wanting to respond to me T-shirt, so whilst their new song came on i was explaining to this woman why Jesus died on the cross, it was one of the most memorable moments of my life and i can remember it so vividly.
i feel god wanting to work in my life and i feel him doing so but i cannot express my regretfulness as i don't put in all the effort i could on my behalf, i feel guilty for it, i feel so unworthy of my god's love and its so easy for everyone to feel this but the bible tells us in Romans 3:23

'for all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of god and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came through Christ Jesus'

we are all sinners and god knows it, he sent his son to take the punishment that we all deserve rightfully, the keyword in this passage is 'freely' it is our choice completely to accept or deny this fact of redemption and grace that god gives us, Romans 6:23 then says

'for the wages of sin is death but the gift of god is eternal life in Christ Jesus our lord'

we all deserve punishment and that punishment is death, we cannot make it right, we cannot let it go because what wrong we do always bugs us later on in life, threes a reason for this. god works in our life through our shame and it is his right to for our shame will bring us back to him, it will make us question our existence and our meaning in our meaningless life.

everything on this world has been given to us for a reason for a purpose, for our enjoyment and pleasure, but why are we worthy of this pleasure and joy, everything happens for a reason and you are not reading this by coincidence or by luck, you have been out on this page by god, he is my rock and my passion, i cannot give up on this world, i know there is more to it than what meets the eye i know that we are all winners, the great example of this is that we we're all sperm once upon a time racing with millions others towards that egg, the others didn't make it but you did, your own life is a living witness of how special you are, we all endure hard times that is the simple fact of life and i know of too many people that have gone through so much, but very few of us give up, we know that life is worthwhile for some reason and we all feel like there is a reason to living life, and i tell with all my heart and soul right now that there is a reason, we do have a purpose and you can take away my computer, my microphone, my rights, my freedom and I'm going to say it anyway, our meaning, our purpose is Jesus.

'i hope you finally find what you have been searching to find, i hope that you realise that it was there all along'

God i waiting for us to live out the wonderful life he has for us, once again, will you be a statistic or will you step up and make a difference.

'he took it all on the cross and got my sin's erased and now I'm free as can be I'm just free to be me'

god has filled a hole is my life, he took me when i was at the end of my demise and since then he has been unfolding wonders in my life, i have never been happier and i pray with all my heart that everyone i encounter will know of this happiness one day, my mind has been set on the way to love life and this motto is for the sake of god completely.

expect nothing.
love everyone.

The beginning of meaning

Meaning, what is it? We judge things on it, every word holds a meaning and every plant holds a meaning to serve nature, everything we see in front of us in our PC holds a meaning and a purpose, we deny and accept peoples arguments based on the meaning of their existence and logic. As humans we are wired to find purpose and meaning in life, and the first week of 2008 has revealed to me what has meaning in my life, after being the ‘sober driver’ till 1:20 am last night I can conclude that the meaning of my participation in drunkenness is to show my love and humility through my acceptance and patience for the situation at hand. I no longer feel the need to fill my life with meaningless drinking and sexual temptation, instead I feel myself ready and able to show Jesus’ love through my actions and by being an ambassador for my faith to others. This first week of 2008 could not have gone any better, I now have joint ownership over a new car (a real steal for the price paid) which is followed by my yielding of a restricted license, I am about to embark on a spiritual metaphorical road trip in which I am going to discover new places in our beautiful country and live every moment with the grace of God and love of Jesus. Henceforth this shall be my new year’s resolution, to live in and about Christ allowing him to speak in my actions and show himself through my love and acceptance. In addition to this I begin my manager training at work from when I get back from this journey, things appear to be getting off to a brilliant start and I plan to keep it this way.

My acceptance of others beliefs has opened more in the last two months than ever in my life, I have had the privilege of god softening my heart over the past couple of months to the devastation in our world, the sadness and poverty in which Jesus’ message has vanished, I feel resentful to some extent sitting here on my mothers flash laptop, roof over head, sitting on a comfy couch with slightly more weight than desired due to my over indulgence and sloth like behaviour since school has finished. I feel disgusted every time I see how Americans live their lives, catching a glimpse of their wealthy lifestyle through the show ‘my super sweet sixteen’ where a 16 y/o girl received $300,000 worth of jewellery, a brand new convertible $48,000 BMW and in conclusion more than a million dollars worth of spoilt royalty and presents. It makes me feel anguish and depression in knowing how the rich in our world continue to resent and deny the existence of poverty while they live in their multimillion dollar homes eating daily meals that cost more than what you and I would spend weekly on groceries.

It makes me sad yet enlightens my life in knowing all this, thus allowing me to begin the massive work of improving my life, asking for god to break my heart for what breaks his and teach me to love like he has loved me, this I see to by my meaning in life. I do not see fit for me to continue in doubt and low self esteem for my life, I am going to commence with my satisfying other’s expecting nothing in return and quite literally serving others with my hands and feet, I do feel content with my life, my beliefs and my meaning in life I cannot see myself living any other way than that of which I have been living in this past week, I find my tolerance for anger and bitterness increasing as my temptation equally decreases for violence, cursing and judgmental behaviour.

In conclusion (in hope of not boring you all with the length of my post’s) I can confidently say that my life is back, because I have given it up to god, not fully but in saying that its not a short easy task. I am calm, peaceful and content in all situations and I constantly see myself being with the ability to share my beliefs openly and with an open mind with other’s opinions on my beliefs. I am continuing being challenged by god and it’s a reviving feeling to know that there is always something to improve on.

Peace be with you all.

Dan / Chips