Chad Rathge

My friend Chad is pretty cool. 

In light of recent events.

Okay I'm just going to get this out of the way now so I can talk about things I'm much more interested in talking about.

Supreme Court Ruling: So gay couples can get married nationwide. If you're gay, I will pray for you and your future. If you're a Christian, you better love and care for gay people just like Jesus would. It's not your job to judge or condemn. It's your job to educate and tell the good news of Christ.

Confederate Flag: At this point there is no defending that flag. Come on people, you can argue all you want that it's "heritage" but the south fought to keep slavery a thing. You can't get around that and that being the case, it should be illegal to fly.

So this past week I had the opportunity of playing drums for the worship band at church camp. This is my second year playing and once again it was an awesome experience. I guess I can use the excuse that I haven't posted in awhile because of camp, but to be completely honest I was totally capable of posting....
Anyways the one thing I was going to tell you about camp this week was that on Thursday night, one of my friends from church (who is still old enough to be a camper) was brought on stage and healed of his eye problems.
I've known Matthew for probably 10 years at least. He's 2 years younger than I am but I've been his friend for a long time. When he was a young child he was given medication that he had an allergic reaction to and it damaged his eyes permanently. Now that he's old enough he's discovered that he will never be able to drive. So on Thursday night the pastor called him up on stage. He then said, "Tonight we are going to heal Matthew's eyes," I was stunned.
I have been going to church camp for 14 years. 12 of those years I was a camper. Never have I seen anything like what I witnessed Thursday night. The saddest part of all this is that Blurryface was convincing me that it wouldn't work. My skepticism was ruling me. Whenever I hear about modern healings I can't help but think it's set up or fake. That's really screwed up. I'm a follower of Christ gosh dang it. I know that he can heal and when I doubt the legitimacy of things like healing, I'm limiting God to what I think he is capable of."
That night when I saw Matthew be healed I decided that my feelings of skepticism would never happen again. Even if I saw a healing, believed it was real, but it turned out to be fake...
WHO CARES? Not all of them are fake. God is so capable of healing in today's world and he does. I am convinced of that. 

My Cat

Dusty. The best cat. The #1 Cat. No one that reads my blog will understand that reference. Mostly because I'm pretty sure the readers are exclusively Josh Bellis and Nate Roth. Maybe a couple others but hey, Josh and Nate are the only one's who truly understand my way of thinking on a personal level, so I'm okay with my limited amount of readers.

Anyways Dusty. That's my cat. She's extremely lazy and frankly lives a very pampered life. If she could talk though, she would probably tell you that her life is hard, because she doesn't know what human lives are like. 

See Dusty has no responsibility. She has no job. Has no schooling. Has nothing to clean (except herself), gets free food, free housing, free snacks, gets pet all the time for no reason and frankly gets treated like a queen. But that cat would probably tell you that life is hard if she could talk. Because Dusty only knows what she sees. And she sees not being allowed to go outside as a major infraction on her life. She sees not getting treats as the worst thing that can happen in a day. 

But let's personify Dusty for a moment. If Dusty was a human, would she truly be much different than the cat I just described? What do we, as people, worry about in any given day.

The weather?

Our outfit?

Whether people will like us or not?

What we are going to eat for the day?

But aren't we also blinded by what we see? We can look at a cat and say "Dusty has it so nice. She has no responsibility, and gets everything handed to her!" But if we look at ourselves we can find we aren't much different. 

Think about it. 

You probably have a car. 

A place to live. 

A computer or phone that you're reading this post on. 

Immediate access to food.
Your life is really really freakin good. There are people who wake up and hope and pray that they will get something to eat. We worry about option, some worry about access.
Maybe we have become like unappreciative animals. Constantly wanting everything handed to us because we some how "deserve it."

I'm not saying our problems aren't legitimate. They are simply different but much less urgent that others' and we should never lose sight of that.
I would like to thank my cat Dusty for giving me this realization and helping me to see life a little differently.

Interesting Circumstances

Last night was a rough night. Some times I'll have these random bursts of insomnia in which I cannot fall asleep. I just cannot get myself to be tired and most of the time I feel like I'm going to go insane by 4:00am. But at the same time, some good managed to come from this sleepless state.

During my restless night, I began thinking about a lot of aspects of my life that weren't what they should be. My Bible reading is suffering. My prayer time is suffering. I don't even have a job. Gosh this dumb job situation. Being a guy, I begin to feel completely useless in society and ultimately a complete failure since I don't have a job. A couple days ago I wanted to quit life. I wanted to quit every single responsibility I had because I felt like it would be better without my presence. Even college. Last night while considering my jobless state, I began to feel as though I would never amount to anything. Then I began to think that most of my friends at HU who are film majors seem to exceed in some area of Film. Except me. I have nothing. I have no idea why God put me in the Film program at Huntington because right now I see no outstanding ability in film that will put me ahead of some average Joe off the street. Maybe that's my fault. Maybe I haven't put enough time into my craft in order to perfect my skills and be something good. It's hard to see what I have to offer the film industry. Right now, it doesn't seem like I have anything to offer.

Anyways I sort have digressed. Back to last night.

I couldn't stop thinking about getting a job and what I was going to do about that. I applied to SO MANY places. I'm sure I've exhausted all the possibilities. Finally after fighting with God about the situation, I came to a realization. 

No one is going to do wait on me hand and foot.

No one is going to hand me a job.

No one is going to feel sorry for me.

No one is going to give me opportunities for no reason.

Because that's life. And I have to man up and deal with it.

So instead of telling God why I am a failure and telling him that I'm a wreck, I said, "God, forgive me for the attitude I have infringed upon myself that has effected the people around me. Forgive me for the negative energy I have continued to feed myself. Help me to be the man you created me to be and work hard even in bad circumstance. Forgive me for all I have done this summer that has separated me from you." (That's the shortened version the real thing was like probably half an hour)
I suddenly felt quite tired after that prayer. Finally, I fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning tired, but also feeling refreshed. I came to the realization that I was working for money at the moment. I was in the middle of painting my father's office and my parents were paying me for that. Then I was going to paint my mom's in-home classroom for more money. I thought some more and realized that next Friday I'm doing my brother's engagement photos. After some quick calculation I realized that I was going to make $1000 in less than 2 weeks...

Why had I been so complacent with God? He was giving me every opportunity to make money and I didn't see it at all.

While finishing up painting my dad's office, I got an email from one of the places I applied to. In fact, it was from the place I wanted most to get the position. Sweetwater Sound asked me to take some tests so I would be ready for the interview next week.

I sat down after reading the email and said, "Why God? Why are you blessing me? I do not deserve this job. I blamed you for everything. I blamed you for my failure of a life. Why?"

I still don't have an answer to that. I seriously don't. I have no idea why I have an interview. The guy who will be interviewing me happens to the be the guy who was the manager of my band that I was in for 2 years. I've worked with him before. This opportunity trumps all other jobs I could've received.

Why?

God blesses us even though we suck. I am a pretty big asshole sometimes. To my friends, to my parents and even directly to God. His love is beyond my comprehension and his forgiveness is beyond my understanding. 

- Not Blurryface

And for my first post! ... Some explanation

I suppose this being the first time I've posted on my blog, I should explain the title of the blog in case you have no idea what it's from or what it means.

twentyone pilots has truly changed my life. I discovered them during my first semester of my freshman year at college. The song "Guns For Hands" was the first song I had ever heard by them and I fell in love with it immediately. Being the person I am, I couldn't stay away from their other music so of course I listened to the rest of the album Vessel. Needless to say, I was in love with this band. I listened to the self-titled album and the rest of their music from then on. 

Late the next semester, my friend Josh and I found out that they were releasing a new album within the next few months. So we waited anxiously in excitement for the album to drop. As they released singles from the album leading up to the drop, the songs seemed to get better and better when finally the album released. We were more than happy.

Blurryface. What is it? Well it's the sinful side of Tyler Joseph, the leader singer in twentyone pilots. It is his evil nature. It's the man his human-natured self wants to be. Blurryface is all the sin that he wants to commit and the selfish desires of his heart. It represents the devil inside him. 

This is something I relate to directly. Being a Christian is hard. One of the most difficult parts of being a Christian is hypocrisy and not acting in it. 

See, it's easy to sin. It's easy to give in to selfish desires. We are born with a desire to fulfill what we want in any way. But God commands us to do the opposite of what we desire so badly. God's plan for us to not be Blurryface. He commands for us to be set apart from our sinful selves and to drink from the cup of his truth instead of the cup of the world. And the cup of the world is made of gold and laced with diamonds and boy does the liquid inside taste good.

I've got two faces. Blurry's the one I'm not. 

Those lines are taken from Goner, the last song on twentyone pilots newest album. Frankly, I have to face it. Blurry really is not the person I am. I am a child of the one true God. I am a follower of the most high, and the desires of this world aren't meant for me. The sin that I continue to be moved by is NOT what God wants for me, and not what I want for myself. God's plan for my life does not include my Blurryface.

Everyone has their Blurryface. Your soul knows good and evil, your soul knows both sides. Which path will you choose? Because Blurryface wants you dead.