What would you die for?

“Life is not worth living until you have found something worth dying for”

These words echoed around my head when I first heard them… I spent the proceeding minutes allowing them to sink in, and my thought process reached critical mass, do I believe in God or don’t I? if the answer is “No” I have been living a lie, if the answer is “Yes” the way I live my life needs to change.

After some thought I reached the inescapable conclusion, there is indeed a God… a God who loved me enough to sacrifice his own Son that I could have life, in view of these facts, I realized this was something worth dying for, and if it is worth dying for, then it is certainly worth living for.

If we agree there is a Great Controversy going on between good and evil / Christ and satan it is obvious that a side must be chosen. In this struggle there is sadly no room for mediocrity, apathy or “fence sitters” there rarely is in wars…

Ok, God is real, worth dying for and we have a war on our hands how does this impact my life, well, step one is to get to know my Boss better, as one draws closer to God his voice becomes clearer, but just like if you are at a noisy party or on the tarmac next to a jet that is taking off, it won’t matter how close your friend is to you, it is always going to be hard to hear them because of the noise going on around you. It is the same with God you can get closer to him but until you clear the static out of your life you won’t be able to hear what he is saying…

Now I am not telling you to run out and burn all your worldly possessions, I am saying in my life, anything that separates me from God has to go, whatever makes the voice of the Holy Spirit less audible has to go, for a man of my interests that means most of my music must go, (this one was a long and tough struggle to decide) music was designed to worship God so I choose to only fill my mind with heavenly music.

It means most of what I watched on TV had to go, most movies too, in many cases it is not that they are “Bad Things” in and of themselves, but they are things that take many hours out of my life and give me nothing in return, in turn taking time I could be spending with God, same with much of what I did on the internet, it was just to while away time where now I am in the process or regulating myself down to the things I perceive to be of value, using it to communicate with friends, Design and necessary research.

Like it says in Phillippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

Well that was phase one, reconstructing my personal life, as it has been some time since making the above changes I am happy to report, that while is is not the magic bullet to a trouble-free life or anything like that, it has certainly done amazing things for me spiritually, my study of scripture has become more meaningful, generally my attention span is much better, as is my relationship with my family (as they adopted similar changes soon after)

Now back to my main point, if you are really willing to die for something you must be willing to sacrifice things in your life the amazing thing is, once you give up those things it is amazing, not only do I not think of them, but I now actually have a distaste for them… that shows you what the Holy spirit can do in your life…

Before you label me some kooky legalist, please understand… you live a righteous life and are obedient because you Love the Savior, never in order to BE saved, works cannot save you, for by GRACE are you saved THROUGH FAITH in Jesus.

If you don’t see things the same way I am not here to bash you with it,
but I am more than happy to discuss this with anyone.

God Bless.

“The person you are calling is on the phone, Please try again later”

Fear not my friends, I have not disappeared, I am merely busybusybusy,  rest assured there are half a dozen, half written posts in my drafts folder i will try to get to them soon honest…people just may need to kick me a little.    {;-)

Luke.

COMMENT

Just evaluating the usage of my time… and wondering if i should Blog more regularly, So i though i should put it to my faithful, and not-so-faithful readers, should  I prolong my time as a denizen of the blogosphere or should i just leave it be… forget about blogging and take up something more life changing… like whittling… or playing the spoons please don’t be scared, comment away!

NB: I reserve the right to totally disregard your advice and blog anyway… or not

Cairns Trip: Day4

Well, thanks to all the walking of yesterday I didn’t surface until the rediculous time of 9am

At which time a performed my morning rituals and went in search of internet, the most cost-effective location was indeed the “lounge room” I had sat in the day before in the Pier Center.

So after doing battle with the note feeder and the caretaker re-booting the system, I was away, (setup was a string of dell thin-clients from what i can tell) I buzzed through messages from my fine readers (this means you) and posted the first 3 days of the trip on this very blog.

After I had my fill of the internet, i scooted off in search of food, a kebab was what I felt like and indeed, a kebab was what i found, but not just any kebab… THE greatest kebab known to this connoisseur of kebabs… it was enough to fill me up, it was moist yet did not fall apart at the end, did not leave a greasy residue in my mouth, and to top it all off, it tasted fantastic.

After that, I did retire to my room, as my feet were less than impressed about the caining I had given them the day before, I watched a bit of TV then hooked into some serious reading of the books I brought with me, the Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel (required reading for ANYONE in my humble opinion) Satisfied by Mark Finlay, my Bible and Identity Wars by Adrian Ebens, this was followed by a healthy dose of music. At this time (8:00pm) Mum and Dad arrived, after settling them in, we went to “La Pizza” for dinner,a nice Italian woodfired Pizza place a couple of blocks further along the esplanade.

All up it was a great evening and we ended up getting home and crashing by about midnight.

Cairns trip: Day 3

I surfaced sometime around 7am, Had my morning devotions, then switched from recouperate mode to explore mode, I first found my way to the esplanade (which was a nice stroll) then I decided to hang a right and head back into town where the main shopping center is, on the way I saw a massive sign, “GUITARS AND UKE’S” so I couldnt help myself, I went in, had a look, took some photos and talked to the owner, “Brent” played the bongo’s and an electric Uke, which was an interesting experience

As I moved on, there was another music store, less than 50 metres down the street, but this one was different, more DJ gear etc, but not a cool as the first one, I did hang around long enough to play all the different kinds of Bass guitar they had, and answer a call from a very good friend, after that, I did eventually find Cairns Central shopping center, monsterous place that it is, when I had been one end to the other I decided to return to the food court for lunch, there were many choices, subway, KFC, curry, carvery, maccas, JB-hifi, keba- huh?… yeah, thats what I thought, why is there a JB-HiFi in the middle of the food court? but I knew something about this JB… it was not just any JB, it is the JB of my fellow denizen of the online community: Speedlabs … some say his forehead was erected for the sole purpose of art, others say he is a luminary of tech culture, and can only be contained by an egg of the spotted newt, all we know, is he is called The Morris. [For those of you not familiar with “Top Gear” “The Stig” “AtomicMPC” or “Speedlabs” I don't expect any of the above to make sense to you]

I eventually spotted the man and called to him “Morris!” I was met with “Yes…” and a blank stare, which I expected “I’m Glitch” ah! that made sense to him, we had a bit of a chat which was cool, I finally got to meet the guy etc. after that I ended up having lunch and continuing on my way, I took a more direct route back and found another cooler area of town, an huge plaza, terminating near the large pier shopping/dining/office/lifestyle center which is where I am sitting at the moment in some very convenient lounges, typing this post.

After retiring to my room I received a message from Morris, so, as per volley of messages, I returned to the esplanade to meet Morris at a cafe, it was great, we had a chance to catch up,etc we then wandered the esplanade for quite a while, he is actually a pretty awesome guy, now I know him better I have much respect for the man. however, before parting ways a photo must be taken…

Again I returned to my room, after a little relaxing I decided I should eat something, so I made the 20minute round trip to maccas and then crashed.

Cairns Trip: Day 2

‘KA-THUD’ my eyes flew open… it was… around 2:30am and we had just pulled into Rockhampton station the thud was the train pulling the handbrake on I guess, but it was just enough to dislodge my head from the head rest… I checked the movies but they were replaying the same ones I had watched a few hours earlier. after a while, sleep returned and I was out until around 5:30 when the people started to stir to life around me.

It was daylight now, so I decided to do some exploring, I returned to where I left my big bag on the rack to inspect that murky corridor in the light of day, it turns out it was the restrooms/cleaning closet etc which was so interesting, I was compelled to try the other direction which was more my scene… ‘The Dining Car’ where I talked to a couple of people, one guy has moved out Biggenden way, and has caught the Tilt Train to Bowen to bring a car down, poor guy wasn’t real well either, but seemed appreciative of the conversation.

After that I retuned to my seat and took in some tunes via my iPod, what a difference it made, I went from being comfortable to being totally chilled out. however, in perfect syncro, the rest of the train burst out laughing… this was indeed an odd occurrence, as I could not see anything I found to be a real rib-tickler, then I realized, the source of these jollies was a movie that was playing, so I hooked up and joined them in sporadic but syncronized laughter… I dont know what the movie was but it is worth finding and buying, it was about this guy who competes in a marathon to win his girl back from some high flying pain in the neck… if anyone can ID this movie please let me know what it’s called.

After a little more music, my lunch arrived: oriental chicken and noodles in blackbean sauce (YUM) it was chased down by a wildberry crumble and a small pot of vanilla ice-cream.

As the afternoon wore on, I started chatting to the lady sitting across the aisle from me, turns out her name is Donna (seemed to be in her early 40’s) and she was traveling home with her daughter, she works in admin at their local hospital and had been in Mackay to see her Dad for the first time in about 5 years.

Thanks to some segway I have since forgotten, she asked me what I believed and why, so I shared my story with her, spelt out my reasoning and the research I had undertaken, by the time I was done, I had erected quite a monument, a verbal monolith if you will, of my belief structure.

I then returned the question, she seemed a little unsure and told me that she was a ‘jehovah’s witness’ I found this an odd experience because most JW’s I have come across are quite sure of their beliefs, and vocal about it, but she was happy to have some open discussion about it which was excellent, when we arrived at her station she told me she would be going to do some research on some of the points I made. oh how I love the free exchange of ideas…

After her departure, my one legged friend(i later discovered his first dame is “Burn”) took her seat and struck up a conversation, we covered just about everything, when he was young he wanted to be a carpenter, but had an aptitude for electronics so his parents pushed him in that direction, he got his degree in electronics at RMIT, became an Instrument calibration expert, he worked on a project during the Vietnam war which would analyze the Parabolic trajectory of a missile to be able to target where it came from, for return fire, accurate to 12metres.

However, just before he was actually sent over to Vietnam, he lost his leg in basic training, he then cut From that story and told me about the youth work he did in Ryde (Sydney) helping them get their lives back on track.

In the end he told me why he was on the train, many years ago, he had broken his forearm in 2 places, after 6 months of it not healing right, they eventually pinned it, during this time he could not work or care for himself that well, so he moved back in with his parents and went to Church as that was about all he could do, because he could not drive either, one of the girls from church was playing taxi for him to get to-and-from church, he ended up marrying that girl and they were on their way to cairns to celebrate their coral wedding annaversary.

He was a real character, the hostess was walking down the aisle asking “Any rubbish?” he piped up and said “yeah but she just went to the dining car” the hostess made the obvious threat “oh well, i’ll be sure to tell her that when I see her” but his reply really cracked me up… “Go for it, thats why i’ve got a wooden leg, it’s easier to put my foot in my mouth”

Anyway, we finally made it to Cairns just on dark, I hailed a Taxi and FINALLY made it to my accommodation, there was however, a slight hitch, as I did not have the credit card which ‘booked’ the room on me, I had to throw myself on the manager’s mercy (along with a few hundred dollars of my cash as collateral) before they would give me my room… in any case, I made it, showered, watched a bit of tellie and crashed around mid-night.

Cairns Trip: Day 1

Mum and Dad brought me to the station after choir practice on monday night, of course, while waiting to board we started singing “This train is bound for glory” (for those of you who know that Praise chorus) as I got onto the train I was partially lost, as I was in a corridor with seemingly locked compartments and one luggage rack, when I found my way to the end I was in no better condition as there was just a locked glass door, which I could not see through or open.

However! there was a talkative guy who appeared behind me and had played this game before, as he put his bag on the luggage rack he asked me “So… this train is bound for glory is it?” I replied “Sure is.” with a chuckle he then asked “are you bound for glory?” I gave a grin “Most definately.” he continued to chuckle as he turned and pressed the huge, bright Yellow button that said “Press to open Door” (thats me, Mr. Observant) and we both walked through into the cabin where he was kind enough to point out my seat.

It turns out he was a serious athlete back in his hayday… so fit, his heart-rate was about 40bpm, somehow he lost his leg which put an end to that, but I kid you not, he walks so well on his artificial one he gets around this jostling train better than I do…

Anyway I stayed awake watching the movie until after midnight and playing with the in-seat screen, churning out the first of my many Twitter status updates. until I finally dozed off…

My Baptism

Yes it has been a long time coming but i am finally here to record the greatest day of my life…

I will start by giving you a brief prelude in saying, the path to my baptism has been a long and at times difficult one, but the wheels only started turning at full speed this year…

For those of you who don’t know Pastor Larry, please read this blog entry to provide some background on him…  “Walk the Walk” . When Larry Called and suggested Baptism to me, I felt impressed to take the opportunity as for years I have left the timing of this event in God’s hands, and now it seemed to be his will, I was happy to take that step and it was quickly picked up By My Local Pastor, Frank Williams…

While I have always read my Bible, it was always in a somewhat intermittent fashion, but leading upto my baptism i knew that if i wanted God to be truly in control of my life it was going to take more than cursory reading of my Bible and Church attendance. So about a month before I was to be baptized I started driving down to the beach and spending an hour with God every morning, studying the Bible,and praying.

At first, it was a bit of a hassle, but soon the benefits started to show themselves, no longer was my faith blind, I had proof, references, information, and much more understanding than I had previously enjoyed or indeed expected.

This set me in a great place for my baptism, I was, on that day (and to now) totally sure of my Creator, what he did for me, and what i wanted to do for him, all my doubts were cast into the depths of the deepest sea… but those doubts were not alone, with them went my sins, My Saviour, Jesus Christ paid my debt many years ago on an old rugged cross. I accepted that free gift, and it gave me peace.

My Baptism turned into quite an event people came from far and near, many from Hervey Bay of course, the Samoan wing of my “family” came up from Brisbane and even interstate friends, Naomi and Collin Flew in from Sydney for the occasion…

Sabbath morning came, and I arrived at church amongst many well-wishes and smiles the day began, after a bit of running about, getting microphones sorted, the service started with the dedication of a new baby in the church, after which, Larry began his sermon on the rivers found in the bible, the rivers of life, discouragement, healing, restoration and living water, it was an amazing message made all the more amazing by Larry’s health, after over a year fighting a very aggressive Cancer, Larry was, to the glory of God, Finally in remission, although still a shadow of his former self, when he preached, it was with such power and joy, there was no question left in my mind that he was working in the power of the Holy spirit…

At the end of his sermon, the whole church was amazed by this Physically small, Spiritual Giant, at this point there was a special item by Steve who, as I mentioned earlier is part of my “family” on the Samoan side, he sang a song he had written for his own baptism only a couple of weeks beforehand called “In my Father’s presence” and it was Great, when God’s people commit themselves to his service he really does bestow amazing talents.

Frank, Larry and myself then went into the baptismal font, after Larry briefly recounted my story they Baptized me… getting Baptized is a very individual thing, people react to it differently, some experience euphoria, others weep, some feel absolutely nothing, in my case it was none of the above, it was a realization, for want of a better term, it felt like I was Commissioned into his service, like up until that point, it was a wrestle for my personal salvation and now I just want to work for him, helping guide people into a saving relationship with him.

Definitely the most powerful thing that has ever happened to me…

However, the day did not stop there it continued with about 50 friends/family coming back to my place for Lunch/fellowship etc. that Day had a profound impact on me, and I just want to share that joy with all who would listen.

A relationship with God means living With Joy as your constant companion, that does not mean you will be happy all the time (in fact quite the contrary), there is a chasm of difference between joy and happiness, happiness is an emotion based on your circumstances, but True joy, is an attitude to life knowing that regardless of how bad the situation becomes you are under the care of the Creator and nobody can take that Joy from you.

I think Paul Said it best in Philippians 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” That is to say (if you read the context of that passage) while I live, I will joyfully work for Christ and if I die in that pursuit, that is ok too, because the next concious thought I have will be The Second Coming of Jesus and I will be Going to Heaven with him. Not only does that allow you to live a life of purpose and victory, it conquors the biggest fear of all, Death.

May God Bless anyone reading this Post, I hope it has encouraged you, and if not, I hope it has provided a window for you to see the changes in my life.

|G|Luke|

>Next Post>

Morning all… for those of you, dedicated enough to sub to my RSS feed or check my blog regularly, just letting you know that my next blog post (coming to you hopefully early next week) will be about my Baptism which will be taking place this weekend, so stay tuned, and if you are inclined to do so, say a prayer… even if you are not, it couldn’t hurt right? {;-)

see you all on the other side.

|Luke|G|

Tech History – Chronicles of Glitch

Well it all started on that fateful day… the 29th of April 1996 when I awoke on the morning of my 8th birthday, to find a shiny, very cool, AMD 486DX based, Windows 3.1 rig, (the CPU of which can still be found on my shelf for posterity) this was a true shock to me, a computer was the pinnacle of ‘awesome’ as far as I was concerned, and I had one at my command, granted, all I used it for was Dangerous Dave Warcraft1 and Llamaxtron, but it was the first taste, the gateway, if you will, to the Tech Odyssey my life soon became…

A few short years later, there was the purchase of a family computer, an IBM Aptiva no less, with it’s snazzy Heart, bearing the inscription “AMD K6 200Mhz” this Machine of legend was the conduit of my first internet experience, my first CD burning exercise, not to mention my first foray into the worlds of SimCity and Age of EmpiresII… I was never the same…

All of a sudden, information was at my fingertips it was like the Raw data was coursing through my veins, and coolness was oozing from my every pore… I had an email address, and not just any email address… a Hotmail address, I signed up for this under the tuition of a certain Friend by the name of Megan (AKA:Megie, Spot, Venus, and many more) and if i have any luck at all, she will not be able to recall and post what the address was…

My next problem was a familiar one to most of us… an economic problem… I lacked the ‘economy’ to purchase a Laptop which was truly the desire of my heart, so i dreamed about it and talked about it, until it was an all-consuming hunger for portable computing, at which time I began washing cars to earn enough of the folding stuff to accomplish my goal.

I became a master of suds for about 2 years at which point I became the master (and commander) of my Duron Powered Compaq Presario 735, my first Windows XP based rig, it was more than excellent until it failed, failed and … yep… you guesed it… failed again, at this point HP conceded that there was a major problem and gave me a newer Athlon Based Compaq which served me well through my highschooling.

By another twist of fate, after years of faithful service it broke down although, this time, it was lost by the repair agent and to make a long story a medium length one, i was awarded an Intel Centrino based Presario V4004 for my trouble, and this was the machine upon which i discovered the Performance enhancing Drug they call ‘Broadband’ and what an addictive substance it was, as a matter of fact, 4 years on and i STILL have not been able to get off it…

Presario V4004

With the advent of this ‘Broadband’ i found the wonderful online world of Forums, my first brush with these Knowledge infested playgrounds, was over at Atomic (the forum attached to a niche Tech Magazine i was fond of at the time) thankfully this was in the golden days of atomic when it was actually a cool place to be, back in the days of legend when Ashton Mills was still the editor, there was no such thing as advertorials and they were still owned by AJB Publishing. It was there in those dank caverns i learned the dark arts of IT, and in time Built my own Rig which became affectionately known as Beast Box 1.0, it had the power of an AMD 3800+ X2 coursing through its circuits and 2 Gig of RAM feeding the fire it was here, on this Rig that i truly developed a love of Linux i traversed many different distros until i arrived at Debian… and thus i lived in the Raw, beautiful, frustrating and dangerous lands of Linux for the next 2 years, all the while shunning the evil rolling fields of Windows.

Beast Box 1.0

It was During the Tenant of Beastbox 1.0 that i discovered my next forum, a better, smarter, more potent forum, there were fewer people,but the attitude and knowledge displayed by the denizens of this Utopian forum was unlike any online culture i have seen before or since, this Valhalla of the internet was speedlabs.org.

It was there, in that backwater corner of the internet, I discovered my love for Graphic Design, at the beginning i was using the Free linux graphics application, called ‘GIMP’ little did i know, this was merely a stepping stone on my journey…

At this time i was working for Leading Edge Electronics , my Manager, a devoted macolyte, Taught me how to sell the range of Mac computers… over the coming months I would sell many of these peculiar white computers, and eventually after convincing so many customers of their benefits, indeed, i convinced myself…

Today my Workstation is adorned with the lofty, regal figure of a Dual CPU, Dual Core Xeon powered, Mac Pro, 2 LCD screens for the Graphic Design work i now do, thanks to the skills Speedlabs inspired me to find, no longer do i use GIMP but the Adobe Creative Suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash etc.

My Current Workstation

However, not being ready to Let go of my Linux Heritage, I now also possess a 7″ Asus eeepc, their ulltra-portable laptop, which runs linux, right out of the box, this is what i use for most of my blogging and chatting.

Thus you now have the whole story, my Tech life is forever recorded in the blogosphere of history.

feel free to make comments