Single Thread

FYI, I cleaned out the entire user/subscriber list from Word Press.  Majority, if not all, looked like it was from spambots.  If you were a legitimate reader and subscriber to the site, sorry!  Go ahead and register again.  This time around I’m using reCAPTCHA for the registration page.  I’m hoping that curbs the bots that are out there.  I can also tell that  you’re a legitimate subscriber if you have any comments to the site.  Registration isn’t required for commenting anyway, so my guess is that all users registered are from spambots

That said, if you do register and like to lurk, please at least modify your profile to include your first name so that I know that you’re legitimate

I’m trying to get reCAPTCHA working on the comments as well, but my current anti-spam filters seem to be working properly for now.  Oh, and in case you’re wondering why reCAPTCHA is different than normal CAPTCHA: http://www.google.com/recaptcha

I have this problem.  It might have occurred when I was younger.  Maybe I didn’t get enough hugs or something when I was a kid.  Growing up, I always had this yearning to “be with somebody”—to be loved (using the term loosely).  I just had to have a girlfriend of some sort going through school.  Of course, me being as dorky as I am, I wasn’t very popular with the ladies.  Not surprisingly, I wasn’t on any girl’s radar.  I did my best to be noticed, but my personality never allowed me to stand out.  I was shy and a daydreamer.  I planned my approach and hoped for the opportune time to execute said strategy.  Rarely did I ever go with my master plan.  Even when I did, it never panned out after its approach.  But still, I insisted to keep daydreaming about how everything ought to happen.

The problem with the whole daydreaming thing is that you have to make assumptions on how the other person would react to what you are doing.  This would generally work if you knew who the person well enough to predetermine her reaction, but I never knew who she was.  I daydreamed how she would react openly and accepting of my approach.  I’m essentially putting words I want to hear in her mouth.  Eventually one thing leads to another, and I win the girl, right?  No, not really.  But I kept reiterating this daydreaming process for the girl in elementary school, junior high, the girls in high school, local college, the one girl I followed to a university, the one I went to church with, and finally the girl that shares the same hobby.

When I reiterate this process for the new girl, I don’t really ever get to know her.  I’m essentially taking the girl—her features and mannerisms that attracts me—but wrapping the personality and character I expect and want of her.  That eventually leads to this infatuation where I become heartbroken when she doesn’t match to what I dreamed.  Pathetic, right?  I mean, this kind of emotional distress should be kept on the elementary playground.  Seriously, dude, grow up.

With that bit of background out of the way, I wanted to write about the approach on the newest girl that caught my attention.  Of course, like all girls of interest, she’s pretty (obviously).  She’s a gamer.  The fact that she’s really pretty and a gamer is what really caught my attention.  When I saw pictures with her and her (then) boyfriend, I had to step back and ask myself, “People looking this good really shouldn’t be playing World of Warcraft—they’re usually going out and doing cool things with other good looking people.”  Yeah… like that.  I’m keeping further details about her sparse for obvious reasons.

Despite the fact I am attractive to her and that we share a similar hobby, I honestly don’t think it would be wise of me to pressure on with a pursuit.  Maybe I finally grew up and recognize the mistakes of the past.  Maybe I’m supposed to discern a higher purpose that is in alignment with God’s will.  I honestly don’t know.  I do, believe, I received affirmation about what my approach ought to be after spending some time at the driving range with a friend of mine.

I haven’t seen Mark in awhile.  We occasionally run into each other at the same church service, but for the most part I wouldn’t see him because he’s busy with work.  One Sunday morning , we went out to the Glen Oaks golf course in Glendora.  I haven’t picked up a club since my golf class more than 5 years ago.  I brought Mark up to speed with the whole I-think-I’m-done-with-life-in-SoCal-and-I-want-to-move-back-to-Hawaii story.  He also felt that my next move is probably going to be away from California.  Even he thought Hawaii sounded like an advancing move.  By thew way, since Mark was a former World of Warcraft addict, I gave him our guild’s progression status and whatnot.  At that point I had to tell him about her.

I told Mark pretty much every personality trait that attracted me so much to her.  And in the end, he came out to remind me, “As great and fun as she may be, do you really see her as being your helper for God’s will in your life?”  (See Gen 2:20b ff)  No, I cannot.  Mark didn’t need to go into further detail because at that moment I remembered what Paul wrote in his second letter to the people of Corinth:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.  For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?  Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?  What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?  What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?  What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?  For we are the temple of the living God.  As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (2 Corinthians 6:14-16, NIV)

Paul finishes by writing,

“Therefore come out from them and be separate, [...] touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.  I will be a Father to you and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinithians, 6:17-18, NIV)

I associate that piece of scripture with marriage.  It’s pretty tough for me to associate it with all relationships just because I believe we’re called to make believers of all nations, and my method to sharing the gospel is by creating authentic relationships so that my friends (hopefully) will see the glory of God through me.  Anyway, if someone could give some insight what Paul meant by “yoked together” that would be awesome.  (Who knows, I might be completely off the mark on this one.)

With that in mind, that’s the reason I see her differently.  I’m not sure exactly what it is.

I need to remind myself so that I won’t repeat these bad daydreaming habits.   In the event I do fall into the same cycle, I must not forget that she can never be mine.  She belongs to God.

A buddy of mine and I started doing daily devotions a couple of months ago.  We have a pretty good system to hold each other accountable: if you fail to do your daily devotion, you buy the other guy dinner for that day.  I believe we probably failed a total of 3 to 4 times in the past two and a half months or so.  For myself, I believe that’s a pretty good devotion streak since I have never attempted anything like this as a Christian for 10 years.

There’s really only two things I try to get done first thing in the morning:

1. Get in the Word (The Bible)
2. Listen and speak in solitude (Prayer)

As a Christian, getting into the Word should be easy.  The Bible is supposed to be our go-to documentation on life.  It is divine Scripture passed to man from God.  It is the living Word of God. It not only teaches lessons from the past, but I strongly believe its teachings have complete validity in the present and future.  But as I mentioned above, I’ve considered myself a Christian for over 10 years and I haven’t really read the Bible.  Sure, I’ll jump around between books and chapters to get some kind of insightful verse to shoehorn why things are happening to me now, but I haven’t been using the Scripture to aid what I’m really struggling with: prayer.

Up until a few months ago, I mostly treated prayer as a one way communication to God.  Sure, I tried to listen… I really tried.  I believed after a few years of being content on Christianity, I forgot what God’s voice sounded like.  And now, I struggle to recognize His voice.  That’s a problem.  I chose to follow Jesus Christ, and now I fail to recognize Him.  Has He abandoned me?  Never!  But I feel there are times it feels like I’ve given up on Him—my lack of devotion.

This is how my motivation for my daily devotions come from.  I’m living in stagnation.  I know there’s more to life than this.   Instead of living daily through drudgery, it’s time to discover how I will remove this life of discontentment.  And I will do it through these two things: absorbing the Word and prayer.

Well, here I am again restarting Single Thread for the 3rd time in ten years.  The site itself was never really activate from the get go.  I wrote a bit more of Single Thread’s background in the About page.  The last scribing blogging experiment I conducted was with j2.  There isn’t much to read there.  The entire site has always been locked down with a login whom myself and a couple of others only had access to.  j2 was a failed experiment in approaching the whole “blogging” and social networking thing that Facebook, et al are already doing so well at.

This time around I’m no longer spending all of my time developing a proper social networking/blogging site, but instead I get to use it.  Yeah, for those who do know me, it is odd that I’m actually “creating” a website without actually doing any development on it.  As I get older, I’m slowly realizing it’s way easier to just use the tool to get the job done versus creating the tool to do said job.  Novel idea, right?  Yes, I’m a bit slow to the party.

With all that said, this site is going to be about my daily walk with my Lord Jesus Christ.  I’ve been a Christian for over ten years, and only now I’m slowly “getting it”.  I’m a stubborn kind of guy.  Whether or not this site would find any value outside of reflecting my own thoughts, it’s something I feel I need to do… even it’s only entertaining all one of you out there.