Superheroes

I believe superheroes are a very good allegory for the relationship between man and God. Let’s start with Spiderman, but only because I probably know his story the best. Think of the radioactive spider has the hand of God and Peter Parker being us—humans. Think about it for a second.

Do you have an idea? Okay, let’s work backwards.

Peter Parker is a big time nerd in the Spiderman series. He studies hard, does his thing in school, and lives a relatively humble life with his aunt and uncle. He gets picked on in school often but he doesn’t retaliate. It can be argued whether or not IF he would have fought back, but that’s not the important point. So one day, Parker is doing his usual nerdy stuff—attending a science convention of sorts involving spiders (boring!). I’m sure he didn’t expect much from the shin-dig, but unbeknownst to him, he would proceed to get bitten by a radioactive spider and gains some sweet powers. Peter Parker didn’t expect to gain super powers, nor either did he want to. He was in no way a power-thirsting teenager. Parker was just doing his thing, and bam! Out of nowhere the god of the marvel universe decides to make Peter Parker a superhero better known as Spiderman.

How does that relate to God’s teachings? How about Psalm 147:6 “The LORD lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.” Peter Parker was pretty meek I’d say. And the bible teaches us to be meek, and be humble in life as well. Look at 1 Peter 5:5 “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” When Peter Parker became Spiderman didn’t he in a sense became “subject” to New York City? Didn’t he make himself unto the form of a servant? He battles the wicked and evil and all the while he has to hide his identity and still take crap from everybody around him (him and Spiderman, actually). I guess you can think of his superpowers as the Holy Spirit that dwells in us, in a sense.

Parker was given his superpowers, but he still had free will. He didn’t have to do anything with his powers. Or worse, he could have done evil with it. But he didn’t. We’re given the choice to become Christians, and some people chose to. Some people instead choose with their free will to do bad things. Speaking for those people who did choose to become Christians, it’s a big responsibility, isn’t it? We aren’t just defending New York City against evil. That would be too easy. Instead we’re called to proclaim the kingdom of God and live a life that would be glorifying to our Creator. That’s a lot harder than Spiderman’s job.


P.S.-Just because a good allegory can be drawn from the story of Spiderman, by no means does that mean Marvel Comics is justified in biblical terms. Sure, I do WISH Stan Lee was purposely and secretly trying to draw Christian analogies with his comics, but deep down…nah. I deem it unlikely.

Don't Disappoint Your Father

Disclaimer: I’m sorry if anyone reads this that happens to not have a father. May you allow God to your one and only father if that’s the case. He’s the ultimate Dad, and He’ll be a better dad than anyone on this earth.



I often neglect the fact that God is the Father of all fathers. He treats us as how all fathers should treat their children. We may not always agree with our fathers or listen to them, and I must say I do the same with God.

Even though we go through trials and punishments, it’s because God wants the best for us, just like our dads. I never knew my dad well because I didn’t live with him much when I was growing up. Whenever I did see him though (which was about once or twice a year), he would lecture the crap out of me. Whenever he’s around I hide in my room. When he tries to lecture me I would zone out and not pay attention to him. I moan and complain when he makes me do something. Earlier in my life I refused to acknowledge the fact that he did all the things he did out of love. I did not like him at all. As I grew older though, I begin to understand and accept where my dad was coming from. He truly cares about me, or else he wouldn’t bother lecturing me.

Can you see the parallel of my life compared to the relationship we have with God? At least that’s how it’s like for me. God speaks to people, and I’m sure He’d speak to me. But this cannot happen if I’m not paying attention, when I don’t care about what He says. This is what praying for God to “open our eyes” and “soften our hearts” mean! Ah, it’s all because He cares about us. He loves us in a way that no other being can. That’s why He does the things that He does to us. We may not be able to comprehend it at the moment, but some point later we’ll realize that what God did was not bad. It is actually for our ultimate good.

Anyways, the point of this post is to tell you that you shouldn’t sin. Duh, you knew that right? Yeah we all know that. But! Think about it this way—

Would you share with your biological father all the dirty and shameful things that you did? All the sins you committed in your life, ever? Probably not. And if it were our decision, we’d probably prefer our heavenly Father to not know these things, either. But He does. He knows all that we did. Yeah He forgives us, but imagine the pain that He feels when we sin. Imagine how shocked and disappointed your dad would be when he finds out about a certain bad deed that you did. Just one. Multiply that by ALL that sins you’ve ever committed in your life. God knows about all of them. Just try and imagine what grief and disappointment we are to Him. Yet He forgives us. Not only does He forgive us, He forgives us in a way by sending His OWN son to pay for our iniquities. Wow. That is how much He loves us.

Ch-Check It Out

Rap is awesome.
It is hard to find good Christian rap.
Lecrae is a good Christian rappper.
Listen to his song and begin to like rap.

Another and Another

I felt down in the dumps tonight. The spiritual dumps. On top of that I'm sick. I had a quick, but good talk with my friend Mike online, and he pretty much told me what's up. It wasn't exactly about the stuff he told me, but it was more about what I came to realize as he talked.

I told him that I've been praying a lot more, and reading a lot more often than I had before, but I felt more of a spiritual deprivation than ever. As Mike and I talked I realized that I've been reading and praying for all the wrong reasons. I prayed daily for God to help me get through the day. Now that's not a bad prayer, but it definitely wasn't setting me up for anything. So I get through the day. Now what? I pray for another day. We should live day by day because God could take us at any moment. The problem was I wasn't setting any goals in life. I had no hope in my life. This is coming from a neutral point of view (neither religious or secular I suppose). Living without hope is living in despair. That is going to get you nowhere. No wonder I felt like crap!

So I guess I gotta pray less about the daily stuff, and more about the grand scheme of things, and pray more for God to work in my life to glorify Him than to just help me to "get thru the day". It's selfish stuff. We need to constantly set up goals. But not "personal" goals. A good way is to think constantly about more ways to help His kindgom to grow. If that involves fixing yourself, do it. So you can become a better servant of Christ. This "personal" goal is for the His greater glory and not for our worldly desires. It is personal yet very impersonal at the same time.

Finished with one goal? Go on to another. Never stop, never stop. Keep working hard in this life until God wants you to stop. At that point He'll take us and we'll be happy.

Enjoying Free Stuff

The other day I went to the bank. Upon the counter I requested to deposit a couple of checks. As I handed my signed paychecks over, the banker on the other side of the counter said to me: "Here! Have a free t-shirt!" Wow. Just like that, totally unexpected. I received a free gift without clear reasoning or former knowledge. That totally made my day.

On my way back from the bank I pondered. The best things in life are the things we get for free, isn't it? Waking up one day and a hundred-dollar bill just falls on your head is definitely better than, say cleaning bathrooms all day to earn that one hundred dollars. But of course, earning something definitely gives us a better sense of personal accomplishment than say, just getting for no reason. But say there are two choices. You can either a) get it for free or b) work for it, and the condition states there are no negative consequences either way. It is unlikely in this situation anyone would pick "b".

Keep in mind though, the best things in life aren't always the most appreciated things. The most appreciated things are the things people themselves "earned". Probably not many people thank God everyday for giving them the breath of life and their mother for labor. But likely many people show off their knowledge every day or brag about their affluence. Think about it. Birth was free to us, but it's seldom thought of. Having a good job that makes a lot of money probably costs years of education and precious hours every day, but we won't forget to talk about it any time soon.

So, "earned" stuff are good, but "free" stuff are the best. What else is free in life? How about God's grace and salvation? How about Jesus's death on the cross to free us from sin? All the things we've earned ourselves is crap in God's eyes (Isiah 64:6). Let's enjoy and rejoice in what's free, shall we?

Down with the Sickness

No...I'm not talking about the song by Disturbed, even though that is a pretty sweet song. I am titling this post as such because I am literally sick. Some kind of viral infection and strep throat. I've been sick for three days now, and usually when people are sick they get pretty down, but to my surprise, the last few days I had were actually pretty awesome.

I speculate the reason as to why the sickness didn't bother me was because I began to pray more often. I kept myself in God and the negatives of this world didn't bother me.

I came to the conclusion that sickness is part of the physical body, and if you think about it, so is hunger, thirst, and health in general. If you fully give yourself up to Jesus Christ, the aforementioned worldly things shouldn't bother you anymore. Don't get me wrong though, after your leap of faith you're technically still living in this world, so if you stop eating you're gonna die! My point is--stop worrying about hunger, wealth, sickness, and other worldly stuff like that because God WILL provide, as long as we are living and believing in Him and glorifying Him.

The Election Post

My apologies for doing things so out of time. I should have made this post two days ago, but WAY too many things were going through my mind and I had to do a great deal of "sorting." So, to the election.

Barack Obama is the president of the United States now. Some people are ecstatic about it and some people are probably angry/frustrated/sad/flabbergasted, maybe. I'm sure there are people out there that wouldn't have cared either way. I'm one of those people. Partially because I didn't vote. You could call me an unruly citizen who failed to fulfill his civic duty, but allow me to explain myself.

The reason I didn't vote was because I couldn't decide. I couldn't make a decision as to which candidate was "better." Know that I DO care about the welfare of this country and where Obama is going to lead us in the furture. But I also know that God will provide. Obviously Obama has won because it is part of God's plan. I could justify myself by saying: "I just let God chose the right person," but as true as it is, it still comes back as somewhat of an excuse because I really was not able to decide on who to vote for.

I'm sure there are fellow Christians out there who has done their research, and fully endorses one candidate over the other. I want to let you know that I did my research as well, but I still couldn't decide. How can that be so? Well, because during the process of which I looked each candidate up, I realized that I was simply seeing who's point of view I agreed the most with. Notice it is who "I" agree the most with. As a noobie Christian and a fresh believer, I couldn't trust myself to make a decision while fully knowing that I could go against God's will. Think about this. People pray for "their" candidate to win. Isn't "their" candidate a personal choice as to who they want to win? At times our selfish desire overcome God's.

At that time I thought of the phrase "WWJD". My reasoning was that Jesus is the king of all kings and president of all presidents. In the unlikely event of an election, Jesus would win without a shadow of a doubt. Well, so I thought, "Jesus is not on the ballot, how can I vote for him? I guess I'll just not vote and just believe in Him because I know this election doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things."

Looking back at my situation now, I think I failed. I failed to put my faith in God to know that He'll lead me to the right decision. Maybe the right decision WAS for me to not vote, but I guess in reality I could have voted, and it would have been okay. Because as I said, all is part of God's plan.