Epiphany

Last night I attended my friend's grad recital. He is a music student majoring in composition and has been busy writing music like a fiend for the past year. Not going to lie, I was a little skeptical when I showed up because I'm not a huge fan of 20th Century style composition and I knew that the musicians had not had a whole lot of time to practice the pieces, as they had only been finished only weeks before. However, I was in for an amazing treat, there were some comical parts, some beautiful parts, and just some overall good times. The real treat however, came at the end of the concert when his thesis piece was played.

My friend had a lot of difficulty writing this piece, it caused him a ton of stress and frustration. It started playing, and I thought somebody was sitting there describing my friend to me. This piece was a perfect auditory portrait of my friend. It switched between two major themes; one theme was pretty chaotic and discordant and the other part was beautiful and soothing, the violin carried the melody above the clouds of confusion and pain and made my spirits soar like an eagle.

All of a sudden I had an epiphany, a sort of revelation if you will. A chill ran down my spine, and I felt as though the Holy Spirit was almost speaking audible words to me through this song. The song was called "Prone to Wander" and it told the classic tale of humankind. At times we go along in our lives trying to do it all on our own and descending further and further into madness and discord. Finally when we realize we cannot continue on our own we return to the Father and he lifts us above the mess of our sinful human nature and frees us to become Children of the Promise. All of a sudden my eyes were re-opened to the fact that we are all God's children, that he loves all of us, and yes, we are all messed up, ugly and hideous of ourselves, but He takes us and makes us so much more. We are reborn in Christ and made pure. Instantly I realized once again, how much worth each and every one of us has. The most beautiful thing is that our worth is not an intrinsic quality, not one of us can claim to be more worthy than another based on certain attributes. No, our worth comes from God and the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, and the work of the Spirit in our lives.

This song gave me a new hope for humanity, and that hope is realized in Jesus Christ, my Lord.

In the Beginning

Life is a series of beginnings and endings. At the end of every stage, I find myself at the beginning of another journey. I find it ironic that I am beginning this blog at the end of my freshman year, but, such is life. 

What to say, what to say... This blog may or may not be used often but what I do type I hope and pray that it will be both edifying to the reader and glorifying to God. 

I have entitled this blog, "And These Three Remain" in reference to 1 Corinthians 13:13, "And these three remain, faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love." There is much truth in that verse, for both religious and non-religious people. We all hope, we all place our faith in something, and we all desire to love and be loved, in fact I would argue that love is one of the most powerful forces in this world, a powerful force for good or evil, but a powerful force none the less.

As a Christian I have chosen to put my faith in Christ, my hope is in salvation through Him and it is all held together by His wonderful love for me. 

I am by no means perfect, I fully expect to make mistakes on here, I desire to learn and grow and mature, always seeking what is True. Pilate asked of Jesus, "What is truth?" and I think it is a question well worth asking. I tend to be rather cynical, a bit skeptical, and I am often plagued by doubt, but these things allow me to process my thoughts and come to clearer conclusions, allowing me to better understand and be stronger in what I believe. I am inspired by the message of 1 Corinthians 13:13, we need to have faith and hope and love in this world, love is the greatest of these three things, and love does not disappoint. 

Well that's all for now...