The Power of Faith

I'm sure we (those who are familiar with scripture) have heard that faith is more important than deeds, however on top of that i must say that when two combine its a powerful thing. We know that Abraham was one who did good deeds through good faith, and he was very blessed by God for his obedience and his faith in him.

with the recent activities I have been partaking in God has slowly been revealing some small things of big importance, i feel the lord nudging me towards a season of prayer in my life, prayer for me personally has always been a hard thing, i often feel uncomfortable and inferior whilst praying knowing that he knows my thoughts, my heart and where I'm at, it almost feels unnecessary for me. However things have been unravelling for me and it seems that i have missed an important piece of knowledge, as humans we have senses and we all know that some of us have better smelling than others and so on. however god has also designed us with the same spiritual senses and once again they are unique to us as his children, there is a story of a person that i came across who could literally smell the sense of the holy spirit in the room of which he was in. consequently we all have spiritual ears, and we use these when we pray - our prayer is like out communication centre with the lord and it is this part of our life that the devil wants to attack, why?. because the he knows that once our communication centre is out our spiritual ears will not get any more orders from God, and on that it is important for us to acknowledge the importance of what the military like to call 'Last Standing Order' (LSO) which means that we need not hesitate if we haven't heard from God in a while, simply continue living how you have been since his last communication with you and he will use that growth to speak to you again.

I have come to quick realisation of this importance in prayer, during last weeks church service there was an alter call for healing, two people came up to the front and the first had three people praying for him so there wasn't much room for me to act there, i noticed another woman coming up the front and walked over to meet her.
I cannot remember what i prayed for her yet i KNOW that it was a prayer of complete faith in god to heal her of whatever the problem was for her, she approached me today and thanked me for the prayer, she had been suffering from major back pain the weeks prior to that service and it was affecting her sleep, work and pretty much all aspects of her life. The very next day after i prayed for her, she slept completely, her pain had completely gone away. She told me this today and i stumbled for a second, its like she was acknowledging me for her healing?!?! like wow. As the day went on i focused on the fact that it was gods healing and not mine however i did make the connection that if it had not been for my prayer, my faith combined with my deeds, she would still be in pain today. It was certainly a wake up call to me, and I'm beginning to make an effort for sorting out my prayer life and making it feel more comfortable for me to do so.

A while ago, i was talking to a man who was telling me his beliefs and his experiences with god, its important to note that this man was not christian although he did have complete faith that god was real and that he could move in his life. He was at a party (not drinking) for a Friends sake and he was watching the drunks try to balance a stick on their fingers - whoever held it the longest won, he was speaking to a woman about his beliefs and was touching on the fact that it was all a a matter of faith, 'for instance' he said 'i could make the stick stay still' as he pointed at the stick on the drunks finger which was completely vertical and rock solid, it was apparent to everyone in the room that it was a defiance of gravity (due to the intoxication of the player of that game) and he was explaining to me how, with the faith, we can all act god in one sense or another. It seemed blasphemous at first but with my constant intention to stay open minded i though about it and realised the connection between this statement and Christianity itself. The meaning of christian is literally to be 'Christ like' i think, honestly, none of us can attain this and there is the statement that i came across which says 'there was only ever one true christian, and he died on the cross for us', in being Christ like we are agreeing that we are to some extent living as god himself, due to the deity of the trinity we can twist it to say that being christian is to be 'god like'. is it so hard to believe that you could deify gravity, that you could provide miraculous healing for someone, that your prayer could completely change a town or even an entire nation?

in fact if you search youtube for 'chriss angel' you will eventually find a video of him walking water, i do not know the spiritual orientation of this man but i know he has faith, and it seems apparent that that is all that matters, however I do not believe this to be the case (not because i would sound blasphemous if i didn't believe this) as it seems to me that as the majority, the most miraculous of healing have occured through churches, i know of a town in africa where it was normal for your kid to say 'oh dads in prison for the night' the town was absolutely ridden with crime and hate. three women continued to pray over the years and miracles took place, God told them to crack open a rock that was on the main hill in their town and after they managed to get a miner in from OUT OF THE COUNTRY they cracked it open and water gushed out of the hill. Here was a town that was in complete famine and poverty with a small church with a few people who prayed with FAITH and served their God with their DEEDS and now the town only has 3 police members, no prominent jails and they are so nourished that they are sharing their food and water with outlying towns.

I do not wish to claim that i am god, not in the literal sense, however i do wish to make you all acknowledge that "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." and that when we have deeds with faith we "can do all through christ who strenthens us" our very faith tells us that nothing is impossible, the man with faith will move mountains.

I hope you can gain something out of my long rant tonight.

Peace.

Daniel

Loves Desires?

'Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires'

I suppose this post will be more personal but hopefully still literate for the readers sake. The scripture above is in song of songs, twice. Its such a short book which emphasises on songs which focus on love and the male and female body however this is said twice, its probably the biggest repetition in the bible in context of the small amount of space the repetition occurs.

I think, personally, i have always struggled with love and always questioned what it is exactly and from this comes relationship questions, when is the right time? is she the one for me? is this merely physical attraction (again)? how do i know when god is calling me to a relationship.

'the joy of intimacy is the reward of commitment'

I have seen this above quote in two books, neither referencing each other, i can only assume that they are oblivious to the fact or that its a clear signal from god to me.
what is joy? joy is seen to be above happiness, near the feeling of love and Ecstasy, in fact we see that true moments of joy are not recognised till after the actual event, we do not and can not directly say 'I am experiencing joy' on the contrary joy to me is like 'good times' we have as memories in our minds. During the joy and the good times we are completely unaware of it however it takes a quick reminisce into the situation to be able to acknowledge that it was a good time and it was joy. Furthermore what is it to be intimate? I do not think it is specifically for relationships as we often talk of having intimate time with a friend or intimate time with god, however I can relate being intimate to the issue of love, when we truly love a person (be it as a friend or as something more) we have a desire to be intimate with them, conclusively being intimate is something more common than we think, being intimate could simply mean asking questions to someone to get to know them, however it could also mean enjoying a time of 'sexual' intimacy with a lover.

The quote makes complete sense to me now as it has been set on my heart and mind for meditation over the past month or so. When we make a commitment we seem to expect something, however I think many of us fail to realise that that something is so simple, the reward of our commitment is merely having n intimate understanding of whom you are committing to. we see this is friendships, in relationship, in work places, in sports teams and in fact pretty much everywhere there is human socialisation we are able to ever so slightly observe this.

Let us return to the scripture this post will be based on, this scripture tells us to not 'arouse or awaken love until it so desires'. I think its safe to assume that in this sense 'arouse' means to play with love, to tease it in the sense that we play with the idea of love and try to enter into the commitments of love without comprehending or even understanding the concepts of responsibility that is involved, we try to awaken love before we are ready for it. Of course our human ignorance tells us that we are ready for it, our human senses know nothing of the dangers involved for us as humans in the idea of love, we want to take all the love we can get and reap in the rewards without and consequences of course this follows the logic of trying to eat the icing of the cake without the cake, it tastes great at the time but shortly after we realise our indulgence was short lived and we begin to feel sick with ourselves. A latter problem with this scripture is 'until it so desires' it would be logical enough for us all to think, 'well how will we know when it desires?'
we cannot wait around in dismay for love to take ahold of us, a fools thoughts derive from letting things play as they may and that he has no control over these events. conjointly we have the power to make loves desire to enter our life a quick or a slow process. If we all waited for love to capture us I think its safe to say that we would all be sitting ducks. So what are the signs? being a victim and a straggler with the idea of love itself and with relationships I cannot say that my advise will get you anywhere however I can only try through a story of my own.

My first and last relationship came to me not too long ago however I think its important for me to include the advice given to me by a close friend that was consulting me in my struggle with love she said something along the lines of 'trust me, when you stop looking for someone they will find you' as I look into her current situation I cannot say this speaks true to her, however it had a significant effect on me, since the sprouting of my armpit hair I had always been trying to chase love, to catch it and be 'cool' like the other kids who had girlfriends, funnily enough it only led me into the solitary singleness that i am in now and that would've made me beg the lord for a new life at one point. Love was it as far as I'm concerned, our only point to life (biologically) is to reproduce, this starts with a relationship and as far as i was concerned back then if i didn't have that i didn't have anything.
I struggled with this advise at first but one day just gave up on searching, gave up on love itself, and surely soon enough a relationship came to me first and foremost in a friendship. conclusively this didn't last too long however its a lesson of patience for me, sometimes we think we are so useless because we try so hard at something and continue to let it fall apart. So often have I seen this in relationships and its hard to intervene as people cannot get past their human biology of sex. I do not know what the signs of love are however I think one thing to do is to confess, if you find yourself thinking about a person constantly, and you really do think they may be 'the one' for you, take it seriously and consult your close friends and family.

Often we try to tackle life all on our own and this consequently leads to us failing and thinking because of our failure that we are useless, this is not the case. I often say that no-one knows you better than you (other than god himself obviously) however I think its important to note that in times of dismay and trouble our very own perspective on ourselves is realigned to fit with the thing we currently want, consulting with others is helpful in these times as it reminds us that people do know you well, people are there to help you, some people may even be as close as family themselves, its these people that can define the unchanging qualities of our personality and when they see us in that light it helps to think with a clear mind and analyse a situation to our true desires.

so once again i restate these quotes

from scripture : 'do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires'
from literature : 'the joy of intimacy is the reward of commitment'

To sum this up I would advise us all to ask these questions about love.

1. Is this me chasing love or is this the love that has been waiting for me to look from where I was running?
2. Am I trying to awaken love before I'm ready?
3. Am I ready to committ myself fully to this love and if so does the person I love desire me also?

the advice I also gave to someone whilst in their struggle was that love is a two way street, if only one of you is ready to committ your life to the other then it needs to be reconsidered, if only one wants sex (for their pleasure) then it needs to be reconsidered.

The general message here is obvious to myself, and I pray that it will be obvious to you now as you read, Love is without a doubt one of the most written, recorded and thought about idea in our world today, that is alongside the controversy of the bible, which funnily enough coincides with the idea of love itself as we can see.

Live life without complaint, and Love till the point exhaustion.

(please note in this post i am talking about love in the sense of marriage and life commitments, i have addressed in a previous post the different aspects that love has)

Peace, Daniel

Love is a Doing Word

in being half way through a book that talks about love and relationships, and having just finished one talking about love and lust, and having based my life around it, i begin to think. what is love? truly and honestly, what is it?

the dictionary defines love as the following.

"An intense feeling of affection and care towards another person."

would you think this to be a fair interpretation of the one thing that this world is moulded around (or should be, lord knows its certainly a missing factor in todays world), the one thing that can cause so much pain to someone because they supposedly 'fell in love' why do we say we 'fell' as if we couldn't control the feeling, this terminology seems quite ludacris to myself. we excuse things for the sake of love, 'why did you leave her?' 'because i was in love with her and it was the only way to protect her', every religion talks about it, whether from the positive spectrum or not, all beliefs are based around it and all deeds are done through it.

it has become conclusive to me that love is more than meets the eye, more than our minds can comprehend, more than our world could ever offer. Massive Attack describe love as a 'doing word' in their song, teardrop more lyrics from this describe love as the 'teardrop on the fire' of the world, what damage would a drop of water have to a blazing fire? none, why is it this way today?
C.S lewis wrote a book on it called "The Four Loves" i have yet to read it but its based on the four loves of our world which are as follows

* 1 Affection
* 2 Friendship
* 3 Eros
* 4 Caritas

the former two are obvious and self explanatry but the latter two are probably rare words to us so let me elaborate,

Eros (έρως) is love in the sense of 'being in love'. This is distinct from sexuality, which Lewis calls Venus. so in this character of love it is defined as being in love, which relates to 'falling in love' which implies a marriage or long term partnership to us

Caritas (agapē, αγαπη) is an unconditional love directed towards one's neighbor which is not dependent on any lovable qualities that the object of love possesses. from wikipedia that is a complex sentence so let us break that down to laymans terms. A loves B but independantly of the lovable qualities of B, so essentially we get to the religious side of things for the only one we know to love like this would be god.

so here we have three basic loves that are earthly and the last being supernatural. it would appear logically to me that the former three are striving and attaining to be like the 4th, but failing incomaprably to do so. shakespeare himself has written the vast majority of his works around the idea of love, i once read a poem of his (very long i may add) that describes the love between a turtle and a phoenix, as odd as this sounds shakespeare puts it well in this poem

"Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either-neither,
Simple were so well compounded

That it cried how true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none
If what parts can so remain"

there is no reason in love, love knows no standards and it strikes wherever the connection occurs. its brings the divided together, its puts together the broken piece and it is full of twisted truths, yet at the end of it, when we find it. it appears so simple "Simple were so well compounded" to us that love may occur, how did we miss it beforehand, it was right in front of us how did we not grasp it?

let me back this up with some scripture, a piece that i love (funny that)

"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

5does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

6does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. "

love, to us is something we characterise, something we try to put into perspective, a concept that has blown our minds until we learned to define and refine. yet here god tells us that love has no characteristics, it's simply love. it does not fear, does not hold grudges and does not have fovourites, its simple love. no one can take love away and no-one has more right to it than any other person, it simply loves. we cannot justify love and we cannot refuse to recieve it, it simply loves.

Switchfoot wrote 'look what a mess we've made of love' what is he comparing todays love to? being a christian himself does he mean god's love? how can we mess up love? it simply loves.

i think the only power we have over love is the choice to use it or not, we can withhold it from people, from this decision the love in the air is shortened, its choked and starved, we need love to survive. its been proven that without human contact babie's die within 5 weeks of birth, it is wired into us to interact, to hurt, to speak, to care and to love.

Black Eyed Peas in their first and very succesful single 'where is the love' said this

"And if you hatin you're bound to get irate
Yeah madness is what you demonstrate
And that's exactly how anger works and operates
You gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love y'all"

here we see that if 'you hatin' then you are bound to go mad, hate only produces negativity, bitterness, anger and a selfish attitude, we need to love to stabilize this, 'you gotta have love to set it straight' how can we properly function in life with all this hate and anger around us, here it tells us to take control of our mind, do not let it slip and become angry at the small things, control yourself after all we do brag about it being 'our life' so how can you give in so easily to the bitterness and aggression of life, when we can put oursleves higher than that and 'let your soul gravitate to the love' two wrongs don't make a right, its so commonly said but do we mean it, do we see the philosophy behind such a statement?

Bob marley was due to perform one day on a public stage but was shot in the shoulder the day before it, we walked out of the hospital that day and went straight to the stage, someone stopped him and asked 'Bob, you shouldn't do this mon, you need rest' he replied with 'the bad people in this world won't rest till they see us collapse so how can we rest today and let them get what they want', i love Bob's music it demonstrates such love and passion in music that we ought to be striving for these days. then of course there is the famour 'god is love' statement, we have all heard it and i have put my own twist to it in an earlier post last year, but do we really know the signifigance of such a statement, essentially it works both ways, love is god and god in himself is love.

love is such a privelage, such a godly desire, we all yearn to be loved, really its all we truly want in life, love is the basis of our existence, the basis of all religion and the basis of our lives for if our parents didn't love us chances are you wouldn't be alive to read this here and now. how will you show love in your life? will you research it and have a humble understanding of it? or will you be like the multiple person's i have known and fall in love with the concept of love itself.

Limp Bizkut wrote in their song 'Lonely World'

"It's like love, some people get it
For some it's just a glove that just never fitted
For me it's just a pain in the ass
But i'm addicted to the taste of hopin' it could last"

for some love is fortunate nad in their favour, they have a good life and find thier soulmate first pop, no worries, they are set, for others its the glove that never fitted, that math's equation that was always too hard or that DIY job they simply couldn't be bothered with, for most it is that 'pain in the ass' but we are all addicted to it, all addicted to the vast reward it gives us when we finally conquer it. the day we find true love we find in ourselves something we have never seen before suddenly and finally we see ourselves giving all for the one we love, we find ourselves constantly think of the person, we become paranoid when they are five minutes late home from work, we fear for their safety and want to do all we can to protect them in life.

may we all find this love one day, and may we all live a life of love, love that shows who we are, love that will brighten someones day, love that could put a smile to the face of someone who might be planning suicide. love that builds character and inspires us to follow our dreams.

Dan

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

Advent Revelation.

in the Latin advent directly translates to 'coming' or 'the coming', henceforth my post means the coming revelation. be it the jolly season of the big fat man in red, pavlova and the generosity of kiwis spending over 1 billion dollars over the past month on presents i thought it necessary to do a little background research. whilst browsing the trade me threads i came across the term 'saturnalia' and a person saying that anyone who celebrates Christmas is deceiving themselves and actually celebrating this event. Saturnalia is the feast at which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn, which took place on 17 December. Over the years, it expanded to a whole week, up to 23 December. this struck me and made me want to go deeper into the origins of Christmas. Christmas is effectively the conjoined term for Christ's mass, hence the reason we give and love in this season because we are massing for Christ and therefore it 'should' be our most humble and holy time of the year for us, however thanks to the hefty and reliable commercialism and consumerist ways of our society, this is not the case. The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day in 800. Around the 12Th century, the remnants of the former Saturnalia traditions of the Romans were transferred to the Twelve Days of Christmas. so its safe to assume that Christmas is today's most updated and accurate version of saturnalia, however in the same sense it is not celebrating the same thing as saturnalia is. so what is Christmas actually celebrating? firstly it asks us to remember the birth of Immanuel (Jesus of Nazareth) albeit not the actual date (according to the roman and Jewish calendars back then the 'actual' date found by many researchers is august 15) the idea is that Jesus was beyond the worth of a birthday and that everyday was a day of glory for him, hence at the end of the year we take time to look back and thank Jesus for all he is done. in the more practical and simple terms Christmas (to those that don't consider themselves spiritual) is about giving, not for the sake of being acknowledged or for the sake of wanting something in return but simply giving from our hearts, giving from love to those that need to know that we care, those less fortunate. all over New Zealand cities have mission dinners (or lunches) on Christmas day and they only way these events are possible is through the generosity of the city itself (in the form of donations to the food bank and tithes to the ministry (tithe being the donation of money for a cause.) however in saying this we must relise that the idea of giving directly relates to the basis of Easter. Jesus gave his all, gave his life and took all our suffering and pain that we rightly deserve, in taking to much abuse and humbly giving his life to those that wanted it he gave it to all of us, saint Nicholas (more commonly recognised as Santa Claus in today's society) was a bishop of turkey. He was born during the third century in the village of Patara. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving so this is where the idea of giving came from, it came from a christian, therefore in being known for his gift giving the one thing that remained in saint Nicholas' mind was Jesus. so i ask you, and with all discernment.
do you really know what you are celebrating? what is the real reason of happiness within this season?

its a season full of generosity and loving, who are we doing it for? obviously the first answer that comes to mind is each other, but if that be the answer why don't we all sit back and just expect it to be handed to us with a silver lining, nobody asks for presents yet we all conform and think we must satisfy one another with our gifts, we obviously don't do it for ourselves otherwise we would halt presents altogether and dwell in our greed and selfishness, we're not doing it for the other person as they don't ask for anything, so deep down. what is the purpose to it all? why do we continue this ritual known to us as Christmas. effectively it is Christ's mass, regardless of your beliefs and your background, if you partake in the gift giving and the indulgence of lights and festival then we are all really coming together for Christ's cause in life which was to give and to love.

It is the advent of our society.


many blessings and best of wishes for all your holidays to come.

much love

Dan

Love is God

quite recently i have been getting a bit too slack on my spiritual side of life, on the other hand i have really been enjoying the holidays, then on the other hand my love life is a bit confusing (my feelings for someone mainly) don't get me wrong a relationship is the last of my worries but i suppose (seeing as i live in the moment) we will just have to wait to see whats happening on that side of things..

wow, Christmas is here... time just fly's these days and it seems like yesterday that i was doing my round of shopping and feeling blessed to be giving out of my heart (not for the sake of Christmas, and its materialised ways) and out of the simple love i have for my friends and family, i feel i have really grown this year, and most of all it has been a year of recovery and regeneration. As i walked around the hutt thinking about what to buy for certain people, i felt a sense of divinity, a sense of pure generosity and love, surely if i had enough money i would have been there all day and forgotten completely about work that night, but hey that's life. once again words fall terribly short of describing what i felt, but without a doubt it was a spiritual time for me.

i feel big parts of my life continuing to grow and improve and i am certain it is due to my closeness to the lord, there is no doubt in my mind now that link hutt city church is my home (spiritually) and i intend to sow seeds there and dedicate myself to bringing more people into this wonderful community within this church. i certainly feel that ever since i first when to this church god has been softening my heart and humbling my mind, i always liked to be the 'glass half full' kind of person but only recently have i found that it has become a way of living for me.

This morning in Church Paul talked about knowing god, and it struck me that all though i know god to some extent, my focus lately has been in having knowledge about him rather than knowledge for him.I feel constantly challenged by god and the impartation of his word into my life and its truly an enlightening thing to know that no matter how much i improve my relationship with him, there will always be something more i can do to make it better.Paul also mentioned that once we know god, that is what we will be doing for eternity and that truly knowing god is our key to heaven rather than the declaration of our acceptance of Jesus being our saviour. (well that second part is my conclusion anyway)

OK now for the depth of my post, Love is God- that is my adaptation of the all too famous 'god is love' i find that when we say it this way it explains a lot of the queries raised such as 'no love is a universal reasoning and feeling and therefore if you are concluding that if you don't know god you don't know love' i have heard this argument being fought at so many times and i think saying "love is God' links into the idea that god is within every one of us and that when we love, we are being godly in the sense that that love in itself is god and that when we love we feel an inner sense of divinity and grace throughout us, for to love is to be like god and therefore to be like god is to love.

(my thoughts are very scrambled this evening as i have been meaning to post for a while but had net problems so therefore am trying to put to many thoughts into one post)

another observation recently is that we as humans are finely tuned to impressing one another, whether it be on a humble level of impressing someone with your athletic skills or your academic skills, right through to the almost pornographic sense of impressing someone at a party to try and 'get lucky', to some degree we are all looking for some satisfaction, i myself get this satisfaction when someone acknowledges how caring i am or anything really to do with my persona. this idea of being impressed or impressing someone is not one to be taken lightly, because like with other things, it can be a godly attribute to us or it can be used by the devil to send us into the ground and destroy what little self esteem we may have. for example; by acknowledging that someone has impressed you and telling them, they may either A. take it to heart and continue to strive to do well at what it was they were doing, thus being the godly side, or B. take it to their mind and get arrogant about it and begin to think 'oh why should i listen to you, you're not as good as me' and that type of attitude, thus being the evil (not sure about that use of word) side to things. the essential thing, in my opinion, is to live in the moment, striving at where you passion lies and take everything said comprehensively to the heart, for it is there that you will find a true meaning to what is being said and it is important to use your mind for your thoughts but at the same time get a healthy balance between your minds thoughts and what your heart is pulling you to do.

i think i have addressed the majority of the thoughts that have been roaming my mind the last week or so and if its really important, I'll add it later.

Blessings and much love


Dan

Refreshing Warmth

i certainly have a habit of titling my posts with 'R' words huh? hehe

well this weekend has once again been a beneficial one in making my vital decision as to which church I'm going to stick to, once again i went to hopes church in the morning (hope is the friend i mentioned in my previous post, in case you didn't catch it) and i felt it quite warming. all though I'm one for big concerts and jump around to music i feel as though arise emphasises the music rather than a focus on god and i think link hutt city offers this better focal point on the lord, whilst waiting for time to pass before going to arise me and my wonderful mother decided to bring out ye ole photo albums.. now most teenagers get blush and all embarrassed with this but thanks to many awakenings this year i have managed to over come it and appreciate the aesthetic value to it, in fact it bought countless smiles to my face. i also must mention that in youth meeting (at link) we talked about Philippians 3:12 which i quite liked, now this post is mainly emphasising the point of approaches to preaching from a passage because all though we didn't preach on it at link, we addressed the passage and got a good understanding of it. now funnily enough our guest pastor at arise spoke on exactly the same passage, however sadly he didn't do a very good job on it (from my point of view) in fact he was quite a pessimist in some of the things he was talking about and only referred to the pas

sage a few times. the beauty of the bible is that it can be perceived in so many ways by so many different people and this certainly opened my heart to that point..

(i hate losing my train of thought) hmmmmm..

now on a semi related note i must mention that i have been getting some compliments from a few very genuine people as of lately, two people said that my writing (as presented to you on this page) is wonderful,fluent,easy to read and very interesting- this made me smile. later on Sunday after arise i went to a group called prayer's and pudding's this group is organised by my lovely friend Mava and was it was a pleasure to be there, the atmosphere was very open minded and genuine, and during this group meeting a good friend of mine said to me "y'know the more i get to know you the more i get to have a very deep respect for you" it took me by shock that he said as it was quite out of the blue, however it was a pleasant shock and i really was taken a back from words and only managed to say 'why thank you very much'. Later that very same night i was on the trade me message boards (taken quite a liking to them recently), of which i have met some interesting character's on here, one of which gave me my most humbling comment yet 'you have a very good eye for the disposition of truth within the bible and with this the holy ghost will work through you', before i go any further let me modestly mention that I'm not one to take compliments to the head and let it build my ego, i take them in with appreciation and reflect on what was said and how it is relevant to myself.

almost every day since the service last week at hopes church i have been having awakenings and the lord has been softening my heart to the reality of this world and what my part will play in it. I'm not expecting prophesies to unfold in front of me or for me to begin a preaching course at anytime, that is for the lord to decide, however i have been truly humbled in letting god take such a huge part in my life (hopefully one day i will be able to say that he is my life)

in total reflection of these past two weeks i am glad to say that my distance from the Lord has in total reality become a great distance less.

may he bless and nurture you all, thank you for reading.

Relaxing Awakening

this past sunday has yet been one of my best, i particiapated in two church services. the morning service i went to was of the old church of christ which i have many memories in, tis now called link hutt city church and is owned and operated by my friend hope's family, they invited me to their home for lunch and i took pleasure in accepting. they have a lovely house and lovely family. the night service (at arise) was wonderful and i really put all my energy into the worship which was quite refreshing in a way. it has now been a month since my baptism and i can certainly say that the devil has worked very hard to tempt me and at times suceeded, however i feel that this previous weekend has caused an awakening in me of which i need to follow through in. i ripped through 'the pursuit of god' within a few days of lapsed readings, at only 10 chapters and 120 pages i can safely say that it should be renamed as 'the christians handbook to living a righteous life' with small prayers following every chapter it has certainly helped to shape my way of living and my attitude into one that will be all for god. followed up with some research online of my own i have been quite enlightened these past few days and have a great joy in saying that i love everyday that i am on this earth for our universe is within the lord himself and every creation i see is one of god. this is a common concept for christians to apply but i think that rarely is it ever understood in full context. i think this would have to be the first time in my life that i have felt so.. honestly words can't describe it but i think in all honesty that i feel at ease with myself as a person, i feel so much more loving to everyone i encounter and i just feel so content with life and anything it wants to throw at me next.
this is more of a milestone post rather than providing insight to recent discoveries, i acknowledge i have had these sort of milestones before but when this one lasts 5 day's i am 99% assured this is going to last. i have written the preface today to what will someday be my autobiography, my goal is to a chapter every year which will ironically enough be based on that previous year, firstly i need to get the past 16 years done, this is a sure thing and it feels assuring to set myself such a goal and i tend to tackle it with all my soul.
only ten more days to go before the devil will stop trying so hard to tempt me away from the lord. i honestly don't know when i wil publish my first book however that is something to consider in th future, right now im living for the moment and in the moment for today is all we really have when it comes down to it, tommorow is the promise that was never made.
i finished 'the life of pi' a few days and i must take time here to recommend it to all. it is truely a masterpiece, it grips you and leaves you at the end thinking 'how simply beautiful'
i think that will be it for now.

god bless

Religionism

obviously not a word but after this post you will see how it relates.

in being only 78 pages into the book "the life of Pi" it already has my mind stricken with many questions and intriguing thoughts, the book is about a little Indian boy who takes on three religions, growing up as a Muslim taking on Christianity secondly and Hinduism thirdly, we are told in quite good detail in this book the spiritual experiences of this young boy which has led up to him being 15 years old and occupying three religions, he confidently quotes Gandhi (i wish i could at that age) 'all religions are true' in my knowledge Gandhi was a very knowledgeable man and one of the known few to reach 'enlightenment' spiritually so it is in our interest to not disregard this statement, Pi(full name being Piscine) then goes on to say to his father in reference to Hinduism and Christianity. "They both claim Abraham as theirs, Muslims say the God of the Hebrews and Christians is the same as the God of Muslims. They recognise David, Moses and Jesus as prophets" with this said i looked from my bench chair and observed the birds feeding on my freshly cut lawn and thought "as i commonly think and like to research on the fact that all living things are part of the same world and the same universe, can we also be a part of the same religion?, is Christianity, Muslim, Hinduism and Judaism all a derivation of some ultimate truth, just as Catholicism,anglicism and every denomination is in effect part of the same truth which is Christianity.
certainly without doubt the more i study these things the more i can connect and the more refreshing my mind feels as it comes to new enlightenment's, i have no doubt in the existence of God but what of religion? you will hear many Christians say 'I'm not in a religion I'm in a relationship" and personally that's the way i see it too, but we have as a society classified it as a religion, so what is the definition of religion? (here's where i tab browse wictionary!)
The original Latin term is religio which means a moral obligation or worship. Today in English we define it as
'Any system or institution which one engages with in order to foster a sense of meaning or relevance in relation to something greater than oneself.'
so here we are referring to it as a system or institution, both in effect the same thing and both imply that there are certain operations and styles to it, like for example rehabilitation; on top of this it is saying that the sole purpose of it is too find 'meaning or relevance' and furthermore it mentions a higher power something 'greater than oneself'
taking this into note i do indefinitely class myself as a christian but the point I'm raising here is whether god intended or not for different religions which in the whole hold faith through him but in turn they clash in some of their beliefs, obviously as genesis mentions to us god intended for a peaceful world with him ultimately acknowledged as the greater good and the alpha omega.
it is here where i might like to point out that religion is a man made wonder, however it holds the same attribute as gravity; it was always there, modern man simply gave it a name and put in context.
i myself believe in some sort of energy chakras and that our 'greater consciousness' has some divine connection with the planet and with God alone, in reading the above you may think i am questioning the beliefs of Christianity. This is not the case, quite stubbornly i have complete faith in the fact that Jesus walked the earth, was crucified, rose again and is ultimately our true saviour (along with the contributing 'must have' beliefs for Christianity) i am merely raising that point that religion is a man made object and ironically is subjective to ones opinion on the matter, therefore i think it is quite possibly completely call religion in itself a religion, a modern paradox yes however along the very lines that i find myself on at the moment it seems to make perfect sense, it may be appropriate to add here that every spiritual experience i have had has indeed been very intimate with my inner self and majoratively intimate with God. you may now be thinking about the minority that weren't with god so let me try to word this.
i have had many moments (mostly while indulging in nature) that have been ecstatically (see the definition of Ecstasy in wiktionary) enlightening and thought provoking, during which i was purely thinking of the wonder of nature in itself and how much we are missing out in everyday life because we are so hectic and self obsessed with our work, mans ability to spend so long studying, working and generally doing indoor activities will be the abomination of his sensitivity to natures wonders.

therefore i pledge to you, spend minimal time working and studying for every second you are indoors you miss out on the wonders of gods world that he intended for us to enjoy not neglect.
challenge yourself to open new doors every month or so, research on something you have no slightest clue on, whether it be on religion, the history of a country or even the life of someone you thought to be great (be it philosophers or even sports persons, who cares?)
be it the most struggling year of my life it has without a doubt been the most insightful and learning year of my life thus far.

*no doubt i will be looking into Hinduism and what not about the basis of their beliefs*

God be with you all

*may as well leave you with a long sentence from the book that got me thinking*

'Words of divine consciousness: moral exaltation;lasting feelings of elevation, elation, joy; a quickening of the moral sense, which strikes one as more important than an intellectual understanding of things; an alignment of the universe along moral lines, not intellectual ones; a realisation that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably. An intellect confounded yet a trusting sense of presence and of ultimate purpose'

Overflow

Well this weekend has been great for me, saturday night was the night of my first proper ball and i must say i throughly enjoyed myself, not because i was dancing and eating (especially) and enjoying the company of my friends being all dressed up and snazzy. more thoroughly it was because it was my first social event that the temptations of alcohol and sexual urges were practically gone, its an... enlightening feeling to know that i can have a good time without any of that and just resting on god to keep my concoiusness clear and focused on him.
today, while lying in waitangi park soaking up the sun and enjoying the company of some new christian friends, i heard one of them say "apparently the devil tries hardest to tempt you during the 40 days after you baptism" and in hearing that i automatically linked it to the bible for when jesus was baptised and then tempted and tried in the desert by satan himself for 40 day's.
on top of this i believe i am finding a lot more ease to pray DURING everyday life not at night or in the morning but while things are happening and this has been a significant step in my faith i think as it allows me to acknowledge my sin and repent and ask for forgiveness right away rather than passing it off as "another thing to pray about for tonight" because let's be honest we can never remember all the things we put in that list can we?

then there was the greg laurie crusade tonight; Harvest.
to know that so many people came that there was not enough room in the TSB bank arena (events centre) and that they needed an OVERFLOW room for people who came late, to know this alone is quite overwhelming and had my heart overflowing with thanks and praise to God. of course i got involved in the moshing to the few songs by the couple of bands but as usual was keen to hear the preaching. my 'analysis' of greg's preaching is that it is very direct in terms of reaching to the lost and in terms of preaching from the bible, quotes left right and centre from the bible and c.s lewis and celibrities about what they thought if heaven were to exist.
all in all my heart was once again overflowing with thanks when i saw the dancefloor completely fill up with people ready to give their lives to christ i had to try not make a scene in my seating area by crying out (literally) and shout "praise the lord".
from my guess i would say 3 or 400 people came to christ this evening, in the past two nights the total was 1000, and in the past 2-3 weeks i would say we now have a total of over 1600, from church services, street preaching and harvest. words will never be able to express my joy of this moment, and on top of this i might have to go deeper into the subject.

i think that regardless of what kind of church people are in or are coming to christ through we are all inexplicably part of a concregation and henceforth one that is ever growing, i believe that yes denonimations have their differences but as long as people are pushed to read the bible then all is fair and well, for in reading the bible i have known many catholics to come out of their, undermining denonimation (in the sense that catholicism purposely ignores a lot of what jesus say's and what jesus stood for) god has been granting my prayers to soften my heart and through that i have heard phenomenal stories of hundred's, thousands and even millions making a commitment for god at the same venue. in the respect of that million figure, pastor levi (my baptist :D) in life group was speaking of taking action and spoke of a man who got called from god to travel america and share the gospel and in one of his conventions more than two million attended and around one million committed right then and there, the message behind this story was that when he was interviewed he was asked "do you feel privelaged?" he answered no because the lord had told him that before him god asked 5 other people, as far as he was concerned he was just doing his bidding in his faith.

(gargh there was so many thoughts running in my mind while i was at harvest that i wanted to blog about, lost hlaf of them.) yes well this has been half of my original thought train this weekend.
i guess sometimes there is just too much to talk about with me, infact thats generally the case.
yes i indeed love ranting :D mainly about god :D.

I think i shall leave it at that for tonight.

Please give me your thoughts on this.

God bless.

Daniel

A New Beginning

Those of you who know I got baptised on Sunday will not know yet how it was, I remember my brothers word when I asked him how he felt when he got baptised, being a man of very few words but words of which are well thought out he only said 'it felt right' and I think I will have to follow this trait and explain it with the same words. Ever since Sunday I feel completely changed, not neccesarily in a radical way but in a way that tells me imp on my way to being who god want's me to be, since Sunday the only way I can describe it is that it was a new awakening within me.

I feel like if anyone were to ask me about my beliefs I would be a lot more open then I have been, one significant step in my life this year was that I started to not be afraid of talking about my faith, before Sunday I still would have slightly hesitated and thought a bit about my wording to not come off as one of those typical 'bible bashing preachers' as some may call us however right now I feel as though I would actually be proud in a way to talk about it, keen or hyped to talk.

I know these are all steps in my relationship with god but as my brother wisely pointed out it is persevering in these moments which is the real test, making sure our determination continues throughout our life sometimes in moments like on Sunday I can feel the.... ambition and inspiration in my eye's I can sense that I am determined thoroughly to spread the gospel. my spectrum of Christian friends continues to grow and I am continually challenged with which of my current friends I should possibly let go of but then it hit me, Jesus dwelled with sinners and tax payers and Pharisee’s for one purpose alone, to spread the gospel and share enlightenment, why should we not do the same? I understand the danger of getting too acquainted with aggressive and bitter person's and I now know that I need to keep a healthy tab on that balance between my Christian friends and my un-believing friends, in saying this I can assure you all that that balance is only ever improving.

in a sense I do feel different since Sunday but one thing I need to focus on most of all is not being a 'Sunday Christian' because that will create doubt in my faith as well as sloth (laziness).

there really isn't much else to say really apart from feeling like my heart is getting closer and closer to him everyday/week.

god be with you all and guide you towards him.

Societal Problems.

found an article on someones blog on bebo, i think its amazing how much god is moving through our realm of internet into the metting places of millions of young people all around the world, i myself have been struggling with keeping close to god's word and reminding myself that life is so much more than fun and games.

anyway here is the article/blog, i really liked i

----

I am currently sitting on my Queen-size bed ,typing on my state of the art laptop. One glance around my room and you see an expensive stereo, a digital camera and a cellphone. My family is defined in the top 6% of income earners in New Zealand. I hate being rich. I hate wealth. Well, I don't hate wealth, I hate the fact that others are struggling well everything in my life is handed to me on a plate. A few months ago, I was almost oblivious to this fact. I mean, I saw the African kids on T.V., but I kept saying to myself
"Don't worry, they've got people taking care of that, just sit here and enjoy your life, most people are well off in the world anyway." . Over the past few months though, God has been softening my heart and creating awareness of how much the world needs us, as Christians, to stand up and show his love.

THE PROBLEM:


The world is a lost place. A place where inequalities between continents, countries, races and genders are extreme. No matter how much we've tried, how many people we've appointed, how many organisations (United Nations, Its time for some accountablilty) we have created, the world is not getting anywhere. "How can I make such a cynical judgment?" , you may ask. Well I can, because I've heard people's experiences of the world and I have the facts- Facts that will shock you:

1)The average Japanese woman can expect to live to be 84. The average Botswanan will reach just 39.

2)China has 44 million missing women.

3)Every cow in the European Union is subsidised by $2.50 a day. That's more than what 75 per cent of Africans have to live on.

4)More than 12,000 women are killed in Russia each year as a result of domestic violence.

5)One in five people lives on less than $1 a day

6)Landmines kill or maim at least one person every hour

7)A third of the world's population is at war.

8)There are 27 million slaves in the world today

9)Some 120,000 women and girls are trafficked into western europe
each year.

10)More people can identify the golden arches of McDonalds than the Christian cross.


These are only just a small fraction of the many horrible (some are even too much to put on bebo!) statistics there are on the world. This proves it: The world is lost. We have no hope, or do we? There is still hope. There is still time to make the world a better place..

The Challenge:

A Challenge to the Church:

”American churches have spent $8.1 billion on audio and projection equipment in the last year”

The church needs to start obeying God by having its focus on the lost, instead of trying to please its congregation by placing big screens, lights and other fancy technology in church. Granted, a lot of churches have lots of technology to increase its ministry, to draw more people in etc. but the fact the American churches have spent $8.1 billion on audio and projection is extreme. Imagine if they took that $8 billion, and used it to feed the hungry, give the homeless a home, and “tell the world that Jesus lives”, as the famous Hilsong song goes. What a ministry that would be!! God has commanded us in the bible to help the needy again and again, to find the lost, to tell others about god:

Deut. 15:7. If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.
Deut. 26:12. When you have finished paying the complete tithe of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan and the widow, that they may eat in your towns, and be satisfied.
Lev. 19:19. Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the LORD your God.
Prov. 31:8. [Commandment to kings.] Open your mouth for the dumb, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.
Is. 58:66. Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Jer. 22:3. Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow; and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
Luke 12:33. "Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves purses which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys."
Luke 3:11. And [John the Baptist] would answer and say to them, "Let the man with two tunics share with him who has none, and let him who has food do likewise."
Mt. 5:42. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.
The church sometimes neglects this fact, even though Jesus himself spent his life with the poor, needy and lost. If the churches of the World combine together, and focus on changing the stats mentioned above, then God will truly move in this planet. We sing the song “Solution” by Hillsong United, which talks about us being God’s hands and feet, but do we really mean it? Do we really want to be his hands and feet, or do we just want to sit in our isolated Christian lives and do nothing.

At the moment, the leaders from my youth group are currently building houses in the slums of Mexico. After seeing the absolute poverty and the lost people, one of our leaders offered us challenge on the youth group blog:

“OK, so imagine this scene:
Jesus walks into Rojo Gomez* and sees the poverty, his heart melts and cries out in pain as he sees the conditions they live in, the sheet for a roof, the bare refrigerators, the dodgy wiring, the lack of running water, no sewage, beds without mattresses, clothes that have gone rotten because they have had to be stored outside…
So in seeing this need, he acts.
Would he stand on the roadside and say “I am the Son of God, build this family a house!” or would he gather people around him and quietly, without fanfare pick up a hammer and start building?
So, what will you do?
* Rojo Gomez is the name of the valley where the slum city we’re working is.”
That’s my question to the church.

WHAT WILL YOU DO? Will you preach to millions about giving and not give yourself? Or will you set the benchmark and give and give until you have given all you have?

A Challenge to us:

As Christians, we have a huge responsibility to help the needy, as the verses above tell us.

Sometimes though, we have no idea of how we can possibly help, or make any sort of change.

There are three ways you can make change:

1.) Through self-denial:
Giving up time, skills or money is the best way to affect change. Ways you can do this is vast. Volunteer at a local ministry or charity. Don’t have takeaways for six months, and instead give it to a charity etc.

If you need specific ideas of how you can help, bebo-mail/comment me.

2.) Through encouraging/pushing your government and church leaders to act.
Each and every person has a voice. If Christians stand up and make their voice heard, then change will happen. Simple as that.

3.) Through Prayer to God.
Nothing can happen without God. We need to pray, if we want the lost to be found.

So my challenge to you is to GET INVOLVED. I know its hard to know where to start, we have to try. I have to try. Because if we don’t try, our world is doomed.

----

just on another note, would appreciate some prayers as im really struggling with my faith at the moment.

am getting baptised come the 21st.

just hoping that i won't lose sight of god and his purpose for me by then as i don't want this baptism to be meaningless.

thanks all..

isn't it beautiful?

going to attempt to write a poem, will just be thoughts however.

eternal cosmos.

your love for us is never ending and limitless,
like the earths orbit it is a never ending cycle.
we go on with our lives only taking what we need,
yet you offer so much more.

on and on life goes,
like the constant flow of the ocean.
we live our lives is despair,
desperate for the big picture.

there is so much more to life than politics and our economy,
so much more, yet we are all so seemingly blind.
to be blind is not a curse,
having sight without a vision is.

days, months, years pass us by yet we make no effort,
no effort to explore beyond the limitation's of our mind.
the stars are everlasting,
burning on and on, giving us hope and inspiration.

the stars are all part of a network, an eternal cosmos,
we fail to comprehend that we are part of this network.
the big picture is that we have given in to our 'insignificant other'
we are not living lives that are healthy let alone wholesome.

generations come and go, but it all stays the same,
we fathom venturing out of our normal train of thought.
finding something that is there yet so little of us can grasp it,
we feel its effect yet we fail to chase after it.

consumerism has consumed our world into damnation,
it has given us false hope and allowed us to abandon our Morales.
the inventions of our mind all have limitations,
yet we have lost so much vision that we cant separate the inventions from the conventions.

hundreds have come and go giving us messages,
messages of hope, inspiration, intelligence, morality, self worth.
we are all hearing these messages,
but are we listening?

the eternal cosmos is everlasting and its a cycle,
cycle between life and death.
in between we can find true joy and ecstasy,
we all know this yet fail to take action.

love inspires life, love is the essence of our existence,
but what of supernatural love?
we all feel a sense of supernatural or spiritual love,
and it enquires and inspires within us something that is real and everlasting.

life inspires purpose, purpose is an easy idea to grasp,
yet we all don't even reach out for it.
we live life with love but without purpose,
will you be just a statistic?

psychedelic placebos of consumerism is what we are living off,
we accessorise and glamorise out lives.
we have lost touch with our eternal purpose,
soul's are undeniable yet we reject them to cater to our bodies.

the cosmos is a cycle, one which we need to break,
for it has become corrupt, it is lacking the love of our souls.
yet the world will still be spinning, round and round,
as we consume our lives in meaningless task's of temptation.

how long? how long will it take for our generation to wake up?
to be stop rejecting our soul's and spirituality.
we need a crusade, of righteousness and love,
a movement away from the sloth we are living in.

there will always be a 20/20 view, from evil to divine,
we know it yet we continue to give into the evil.
still the earth spins in the eternal abyss of darkness,
never closer to the light and ever falling into the darkness.

energy fields are everywhere, from the fish in the sea,
the gods give us positive energy sensations, we feel them.
still we fall into the graves we dig ourselves,
still we fail to seek, for something more.

the fall of man is imminent, our hope burns bright
within the heart of our soul's, something deep inside is stirring.
will you answer its call?
or will you hear this message yet not listen to it?

the things unseen to us inspire wisdom, love, fear and righteousness,
tangible subjects offer temporary highs, for life is temporary.
souls are eternal, and permanent,
our lives are like a whisper in the wind, quick and quiet.

lets make some noise, lets make out voices heard,
love is eternal and disruptive, fear is temporary and subtle.
the cosmos goes on, ever changing; for the worse,
let our lives be that of a dying mans screams.

loud, painful and memorable.



give me your thoughts on it please!

god bless.

Unhappy Birthday

well as you can see that title is rather grimm, tis a title that no-one should have to begin their blog post with. so let me explain.

firstly thank you to those few that did remember (mostly family) you made the beggining of my day very swell. i appreciate the presents they all have a lot of thought in them i can tell.
this year i didn't really want anyone to dance around and sing happy birthday, to me i just wanted it to be another day, you must be thinking "why? its the day fro celebrating your life!" yes i relise that but the paradox of the matter is that that is the very reason i didn't want you to make a fuss over celebrating it this year, last year i was let down with my expectations of the day, and that ebded quite horribly. this year i almost eradicated my expectations, yet was still let down quite badly yet again.

first spell of school i got my geo exams back and failed two out of three papers (i feel hatred for nz's education system and the way it functions) and due to the bracketed reason i was not too upset, i let it blow over, only one of my "friends" remembered that it was today and that was because her cell phone reminded her, at the end of the day barely half a dozen people gave me their condolences.

while book shopping and just killing time in the mall, i got some texts from a mate, i wont go into what the text's were about as that is a personal matter, but basically ended with her saying "yea fuck you!" and not replying after that, now apparently its my fault for having a bad day that i ended up hurting her, im sorry but am i not allowed to feel compelled to at least a little praise on my BIRTHDAY!. obviously i was mistaken when i awoke with that expectation. i don't ecpect much from my friends let alone on my birthday, but what i do expect is decency which is why i get so torn apart when those expectations are not fulfilled. birthdays are no longer about the presentts to me, nor about my own selfish pride but the least i expect is some gratification for the effort i put in for every friendship i have ever built. is that too much too ask? am i really that self centred?

the only solutions i see to this problem is one of the following.
either you all do me a favour and let me have my wish of not celebrating my brithday.
or i ditch the friendships that i have worked so hard to build over the years and find a whole new group who will give a damn about my feelings and who i am as a person, i generally am very tolerant and can take a lot of stuff before i crack, but this is all too much, i simply can't go on like this.

im sure this is all just a rant of the moment, but i am never deleting this post, i want my friends to know that their actions can seriously hurt a person, their ignorance is not bliss and their arrogance is certainly not a thing to joke about.

i have one last visit from a friend tonight, maybe she can redeem me from my slumber of sadness.

i did all i could to stay close to god today and not let the little things get to me, i was the most tolerant i have ever been today but its all too much, i felt a little better at bible study tonight as they went to greater lengths than my supposed friends were able to go to, to make my day something worthwhile. i didn't feel any different when i woke up but my eyes are certainly opened to a lot as i go to bed tonight.

thanks, god bless...

Judah

well tonight we had worldwide evangelist Chris hill with us all the way from Texas.
I'm resenting that i did not get a personal word with him, as he was without a doubt the most brilliant preacher i have yet come across, however as one well knows it is not the preacher that is important it is god's word, the preacher is merely god's puppet for giving us his message (and oh lord what a beautiful puppet show it is.)

tonight was without a doubt the most amazing experience in my life, in terms of praising god i have never felt such satisfaction, such a sense of elation, joy and ecstasy. as my previous post pointed out i only wish that word's could describe my experience to you all however the fact that they can't is what makes these moments so precious to us. after tonight i fell as if god has touched me, we really did connect and he has certainly sowed a seed in my heart that i will nurture and harvest for the rest of my life. my brother Sam ( and a few others) asked me to find out what denomination this church classed itself as, i was going to but i now see that irrelevant, i feel at home in this church god is without a doubt calling me to work with this church. my official next steps are to arrange my baptism and get as involved in the church life that i possibly can. it's funny that i now find myself not wanting to go to school next year again but this time for a completely different reason, i don't want to waste time i want to get straight out there with god's message of salvation for other's ( i will however go next year as its an opportunity best taken a hold of.)

Chris hill preached in the lunch service on the book of Joshua and the crossing of the Jordan river and the laying of the stones in the river, in the night service he preached on genesis 38 (yes the whole chapter) Judah directly translates to praise, this chapter in genesis is a very deep and controversial chapter, i see it as a metaphorical analogy of the very ethics of Christianity itself.

i will not try to repeat everything that was said tonight as i do not have the capacity to do so, but the main message was that it's time for us as a nation, as a generation to grow up, to let go of the cheap pleasures that this world can offer us and to reach out to god, we need not to wait around anymore for thing's to happen (a building doesn't build itself) we need to act.

i always had a bit of a mind block on my faith for god, and i can now assure you that it is eradicated, so many times i have said "god I'm surrendering all to you, the glory will all be yours, i want you to use me for your own purpose, my pain my suffering doesn't matter, it is nothing to what wonder's your love can inspire" so many times have i also wanted so badly to believe in that very speech, yet there was always a block on my mind which would ask "really?"
that's all it needed to ask to present doubt in my mind, that voice is gone now, i need not worry about my suffering anymore, about what other's think of me, i am no longer ashamed of the bible and the salvation it offers.

an example of how much time i am now devoting to god's purpose, i just delayed the wiriting of this post for two reason,s. to have a theological?philisophical conversation with a friend about the existence of god and the differences about christianity to any other religion, and to help a friend in need. my only purpose i see fit for myself is to help other's, as i have pointed out a few times now, i feel as thoguh that is my purpose in life, my very name means "god be my judge" and i shall live by that in every aspect for now on.

i really don't know what else to say, i just feel so great today, i don't want to let this feeling stop and i don't intend to. i intend now to use my time wisely and my resources even wiser.

Reflections

well, as few might know i certainly was a bit of a killjoy last year and bit of this year as yes i was depressed.

but screw it let's not focus on that, that's dirt and ash now.
i sit here at 2:48 am, a bit tired but just too attentive to give a damn.
some thoughts often go into my head at night, i have always been a night kid i remember staying up as late as i could watching the star's out my window, i never made it past midnight or 1 am. damn sleep deprivation would always win the battle. it feels good to be up so early because its a good feeling to know that apart from street bound drunkards and maybe the odd person or two in their house, i am isolated. i feel like i have the world at my fingertips and everyone is busy dozing. its the same as being a ship alone in the vast ocean, you feel a certain authority to walk around naked or just yell stuff, you feel free in a sense because the fact is everyone is not one this world anymore there all happily dreaming in their sleep (sleeps over rated =)

now to get to the basis of my post this morning,
i feel as if i have just come out of a tropical storm (no nots because I'm in welly) it feels as if i have been thrown around, tossed about, toyed with, abused and hurt by the storn yet i walk out a new man. its funny when you go to look back on things you just think, what on earth was i doing? how did i manage to get there? it gives me a great sense of achievement to know that despite everything i have endured for the past tow years (maybe longer, apply the boiling frog theory) it was getting worse ever since when i started high school. i didn't know it my excuse was always "I'm just a teenager" but like the frog i had no clue what was wrong till it was too late, the thing is when i was in there, freaking out, giving up over and over again realising that there was nowhere i could go after i did give up anyway, i felt something tugging at me inside. it was something that was almost saying "come on Daniel you're not like this snap out of it" did i listen to it?

nope at that point and time i was too self obsessed to care, my only thoughts would be why me? or why isn't she texting back? does anyone care? etc etc. as i look back on it i realise just how dumb i was, even typing this down helps me put into focus just how much i have changed, it feels like i have literally gone from a kid to an adult (well that generally is the purpose of adolescence huh?) but i really need to put emphasis on this point, the appropriate analogy would be like seeing a seed turn into a tree, you look at the seed and think how on earth is that going to turn into a tree, you come back to years later and think, wow THAT came out of the seed? the seed being no bigger than any of your nails has turned into a towering (or not) tree that is now taller than you.
most of us accept these things and just say "well what happens, happens" but i think this i an abuse of the changes that take place. (if you're a thinker i think you will see where I'm coming from)

i feel, well I'm firstly glad that it's all over, i always told myself "this is part of life, get through it and you will come out for the better" and knowing now that i don't retaliate when someone insults me (unless as a harmless joke), i don't feel anger in myself (only annoyance from time to time), i don't feel an ounce of jealousy, i don't feel worthless, i don't feel as if i have to prove myself to anyone, i don't feel as if I'm compelled by what others think of me, i barely feel anything now ( in the good sense) except love, whether it be love towards my mates, my really close friends, that special someone (I'll get back to you on that), love for family or even love towards a stranger who text's me and i find out they are feeling down but don't bother asking their name, as names to me are unimportant, its the person who touches you, words can never equate to the feelings of love from one human to another (too true)

the bible (without going to deeply religious on those that aren't) Tell's us that good trees will bear good fruit and bad trees, bad fruit. i think we can all take a lesson in this as it Tell's us that to produce great feelings for ourselves or for other's we first need to look into our own soil and ask "what do i not want in my life?" and for me personally god has allowed me to answer that question and helped with the disposal of those thing's, im not going to stay on this topic of religion as i know personally the last thing you non-religious people want is someone ranting about how god saved them, but i feel it is definitely worth a mention.

words will never be able to explain the senses of man, they have always failed to do so as well (well with complete accuracy that it) why do you think we are so akin to quotes? we love the idea that word's will describe what's inside we love the idea of communicating with other's what we are feeling ( it what we were made to do) however od you notice that we always either have a big list of quotes or go from one to another? i feel obliged to call some of these experiences, experiences of joy and ecstasy.

i also feel compelled to let any of you know that if you ever want to talk in more detail about my experiences or have any questions about what,why,how etc than i am more than happy to do my best ot answer, don't get me wrong i don't think i am better than any of you for my experiences, that is another thing i got rid of. pride.
and i sure as heck know now that my reason for being here is to do just as i have, sharing my experiences, helping anyone out anytime (literally 24/7), not for self glory, not to say that im a good person (although i do acknowledge my efforts at times and do occasionally wish others would acknowledge it) but all that doesn't matter.
a friend in need is a friend indeed, i don't care if your black, white, fat, thin, mental, weak, or whatever, what matters to me is what is on the inside for what lies on the inside is not only your inner child, but the truth, the truth about yourself and all the answers to all your questions, what lies on the inside is the seed, we are the soil harvesting our tree and just like the tree diagram we have many routes and paths that we can choose and ultimately the eyes are the gate way to the soul (one of my firm beliefs, hence they are my favourite body part) there is a reason our head is closer to our mouth than our heart.
thinking is good, never stop questioning everything. use your word's despite the weakness of them i have just pointed out they still hold power and words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning.

Father's Day Thoughts.

ok well as a sentimental post to fathers day, not only am i going to talk about father's and just how truly great they are but about parenting in general and how it is overlooked, as i can imagine that it is indeed a full time job.

ok now let me just note to all of you that when i was younger (well only a year or so ago) i used to say on fathers and/or mothers day "what about kid's day? why do you get a birthday and a fathers/mothers day?" i think both of them at one time or another responded with "everyday is kid's day" i realise now that this statement is absolutley true, we as kid's do what every generation of kid's do, we rebel. personally i think this is a good thing as it allow's the child to challenge himself and explore his or her options while learning from the mistakes he or she makes, however i think (as most parents would too) that limits do need to be set.

the love from a parent to a child is relentless, the only thing more graceful and unconditional than it would be god's love for every living thing on this planet. it's hard for us (us being teenagers mostly) to see this as adolescense is a place where we are allowed to feel comfortable to get away with almost anything, its a dangerous spot indeed as it allows us to assume the actions and experiences of adulthood without acquiring the responsiblity that comes along with it. we (as a youth population) fail to see the effort's that our parents put into the upholding of our live's they buy our clothes, buy our groceries, cook our food (the majority of time, im working on it) wash our clothes, maintain the household (often with minimal help) clean our dishes etc etc (as im not a parent i can't exaclty go forth on every detail) and most importantly i think possibly the hardest part for our parent's is to cater to our every need, whether it be putting a smile on our face when our day hasn't gone too well to organising every detail of our birthday party to ensure we have a good time, i think the common arguement of our generation being the "lazy generation" could never be more true, we are well aquainted with, emails, car's, computers, air travelling and many other things of the sort's, every task that was once considered streneous and would have given one a sense of achievement "back in the day" has been catered for us nowaday's no longer do we have to make any effort at all to complete a task, no longer do we feel a sense of achievement once we do something, we really do have it easy (probably the easiest) as children and i think it's important that we take note of this so that we can thank them for their efforts, we truly cannot comprehend how easy we have it, whether it be as kid's or simply as a generation.

so here is a oath to our forefather's and the ones that are the reason we are here today, the reason that we have such a great, easy and careless life.
thanks mum and dad for everything you have ever done for me and all the great oppotunities that you have given me, i am changing all the time and am making extra efforts to help you guys out, i am your child, you have dedicated 16+ years of your life to ensuring im safe and well educated and fed and healthy so i will do all i can to pay you back.
im forever in your debt, thanks

The Indefintion Of Justice

so this is another paper to screen translation (hopefully with improvement on the original thoughts)

last year my English teacher was undoubtedly the best teacher i have ever had, she had such an enthusiasm for teaching us which in turn made us enthusiastic to learn (little tip for ya dad).
the play that we studied on that year was the famous "12 Angry Men"
which talks of a jury that thinks the defendant is guilty, except that is for one juror who thinks that he has reasonable doubt to believe otherwise. Eventually (after two 3 hours sessions over two days) this one juror convinced everyone to sway in their thoughts because concordingly everything didn't fit the picture, our teacher got us to write on what we think justice, at first i thought "oh crap im going to be here until lunch time" but i found it an interesting task which i would recommend to all when you have some spare time and a lot of thought about how society sucks in your mind. here is what i wrote

What is Justice?
over generations and century's of debate out society has redefined justice over and over, so what is it that makes it so adaptable to us, that let's us decide how we punish suspects of crime? justice certainly is an interesting word, the oxford dictionary defines it as;
"the exercise of authority & the maintenance of righteousness" out of this we have to ask ourselves two questions, the first and foremost being, who has authority over who and how do we monitor this to ensure that the authority itself is just? and secondly;
are we entitled to tell someone that they are right and wrong and concordingly how do we define right from wrong?

to deal with the first question i would almost be certain to say that to have authority over someone we must not only have superiority morally but also in power, through strength, mental status or even money (sadly). one of the many curious aspects to us humans is that we are very secluded (some more than others) and in general we like to keep to ourselves who we know the we really are. humans are literally wired to show compassion, from being concerned about a stranger who has fainted on the street to calling an ambulance for a car crash victim or even going to lengths of travelling worldwide to see each other. the interesting aspect on top of this is that we like to keep to ourselves (once again some of us more than others) the good deed's we do to one another and in turn we have many many secrets, even if we say we have nothing to hide. the fact is we have everything to hide. i think we can safely say that to judge one person's authority over another person then we must be able to balance and compare each of their; good deeds, bad deeds, economical status, physical condition and mental stability. anyone with half a brain could tell you that that is simply not possible to balance and compare every aspect that i just listed hence the reason can never rightfully determine whether one person has authority over another.

to deal with the second issue, i think we can safely say that there are many different views on right and wrong throughout our religion's, races, countries and governmental systems. for example if you are a female reading this and you are wearing a tee-shirt and/or showing more than 1 inch of skin from your wrist upwards then in Sudan (unsure on the particular country) you would be considered a prostitute and would the authorities would then commence to stone you to death. do you see this is right? they obviously do otherwise there would have been a law change over the year's. in other countries they hold cults and beliefs that monthly there has to be a burning sacrifice to their god's of which the victim is chosen at random within their tribe. do you see that as fair? then there is the undeniable truth that what is right is not always true and what is true is not always right (the vice versa is necessary when you think about it in context). the simple fact is that it is human nature to lie to get out of trouble (which often leads to more trouble). in a court of law there are no lie detector's, no therapist or psychologist's (unless by coincidence) just you, an oath (which could mean nothing to you or that you do not believe in), a judge and 12 juror's of whom you have never met before in your life (once again, unless by coincidence) and who will most likely believe anything you say unless the evidence provided defies it. when it comes down to it the court is a battle of intellect and word's which is why being a lawyer is one of the hardest and most demanding job's out there, (effectively 4 year course i think, followed by many years or pre-trials etc.)
therefore to tell someone that they are wrong or right in not only wrong and unjust but morally wrong because of the simple fact that only they (and the victim if he/she survived) can recall with their memory what happened (will do a small post on the inaccuracy of memory later.)

we cannot access someones mind (firstly we would need to get past the phenomenon of "what is the mind?") and record what they have experienced, it is simply impossible in this day and age, so to conclude i do not see this definition to be one that fits the puzzle so to speak. we will never find a definition that everyone can agree with because every ones view on the topic is unique (the thing i love the most about it.) i think my personal definition for it would be;
"a legal correction by the authorities for something we (society) perceive to be wrong, the maintenance of consequence in order to maintain order within our society"

thanks you, would love to hear your view on it.