Limitations

‎Limitless You put limits on me… By Your grace, help us see, this is Your design

– “Limitations” by Trip Lee (one of my favorite songs)

All my life I’ve struggled against my limitations, trying to accomplish more than I was able. This song has helped me to really internalize that these hated limitations — perhaps what I’ve fought more than anything else — have been placed on me by my Lord. It forces me to choose between the ambitions so close to my heart and Him. Will I continue vainly struggling to accomplish everything my heart runs after? Or will I raise my hands in surrender and humbly accept the limitations He has placed on me?

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

– 2 Cor. 12, NIV

“If I raise my hands will you grab me by the wrists
And will you try to pull me from the fray?
And even if my fingers join together into fists
Will you hold me firmly anyway?
‘Cause I would try to escape you but for every day I’m sure
That You’re on the huge side of big and the holy side of pure

“Ok, hear what I say
As I raise my hands and surrender today
Ok, here I will stay
Hands in the air, singing have Thine own way”

– “Hands in the Air” by The Waiting (another of my favorites)

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Boston’s 6 million people exist because of God’s love and mercy

Looking out my hotel window overlooking Boston this morning and listening to Trip Lee’s song Twisted:

Everything is under Him: planets, countries, cities, ‘hoods. Don’t get it twisted: God did it, done it, got it? Good.

The Boston metro area is home to 6 million people; the city: home to 600,000 — and all in less than 90 square miles (Seattle has the same number of people, but they’re spread over 142 miles).

The city is a mixed bag, but one thing is for certain: this mass of humanity is not united in worship to the One who sustains them. Even believers don’t give Him the respect and honor He’s entitled to. And yet:

Somebody keeps them breathing, keeps their blood flowing and keeps their hearts beating. God keeps them eating and it ain’t no secret — don’t get it twisted — God gave them what they needed.

Consider in how many ways they are dependent on Him and yet most are totally unaware. Some puff their chests in pride as though they sustained themselves; others raise the voices He has lent in defiance. Yet He continues to exercise such mercy toward them — every breath, every heartbeat. Where would we be without such a patient, merciful God?

    

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Our Homes: A Preview of the Pervasive Knowledge of God’s Glory

I’ve always loved this promise from Isaiah 11:

They [the cobra/viper] will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

But it wasn’t until recently that it was linked to God’s directive for fathers (Ephesians 6) by a visiting friend from Germany:

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

He was saying (if I remember correctly) that in the original language this has a flavor of helping them to see the glory of the Lord in everything around them. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but it helped me make a link between my directive as a father and the coming pervasive knowledge of the Lord in Isaiah 11. Actually, I prefer the wording in Habakkuk 2:

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

This clarification (“knowledge of the glory of the LORD”) reminds me that the goal is not a dry intellectual or academic knowledge, but a knowledge of His glory — the kind that inspires worship. Like when I help my kids see God’s glory in how a collapsing star goes supernova and forms a neutron star or, if it’s very heavy, forms a supermassive black hole — the kind found in the center of most galaxies. Or to see God’s glory in the gospel: the unthinkable condescension of the creator towards our rebel human race in killing His beloved Son for our crimes.

May our homes (and the Lord knows how far I have to go in this) be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as a faint preview of what we will soon witness: the submersion of the entire earth — every city, every inhabitant — in the full knowledge of His glory.

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Fiction Fridays, Take 2

Two years ago (Sept, 2009), I stepped down as Director of Teens For Christ, reduced my work hours to less-than-full-time and devoted Fridays to writing my first novel. Three weeks later, I reported:

In a way, it seems like things have been going painfully slow, yet there have been some very crucial changes.

Today, two years later, I am doing roughly the same thing. I recently stepped down from leading the youth group at Grace Church Bellingham and switched to working four ten-hour-days so that I can devote Fridays to the novel.

Two years ago, I put a lot of hours into the novel… on and off. Throughout the first year, I did work on it on Fridays, but I also worked on leading a local writers’ group, pouring into a youth group, and creating signs and a website for Grace Church. A year ago, I made an agreement with my employer to work full-time at computer programming for 3 years, saving money so I could take 1 year off to focus on the novel.

This summer, Jessica & I realized that a third of those 3 years were over and I hadn’t made the progress I had hoped for on the novel. So I decided to make some significant changes, cutting back in church leadership and disciplining myself to write in the mornings. But writing a little bit each morning is hard and not as productive as consolidated chunks of time, so I changed my work schedule this week to four-tens so that I could once again focus on fiction on Fridays.

It is difficult when people ask me how the novel is progressing. In a nutshell, the answer is the same as two years ago: “things have been going painfully slow, yet there have been some very crucial changes.” I did create an initial 40-60 scene outline, but I ended up making “crucial changes” that left much of it obsolete.

However, there is (I think) hope. I committed to Jessica to have a “final” 40-60 scene outline finished by the end of the year, at which point I will transition and begin working on full treatments and the actual writing. By “final”, I mean no more “crucial changes” that require the whole thing to be scrapped. I fully expect additional changes as I get into the guts of the full treatments and the writing itself.

I don’t expect to have the entire novel complete in the next two years, but I do hope to have it complete enough to send to literary agents and, through an agent, to publishers. Once I have landed a contract, Lord willing, I will be able to step down from computer programming and focus exclusively on finishing the novel.

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Earthquake Remix

I’ve recently discovered Little Boots, one of the few (or only?!) synthpop artists with clean lyrics – plus she’s a little more “synth” and less “pop” :-) .  She’s from the UK, so it’s very difficult to get her full album (yet), but you can get her earlier EP and watch the videos Earthquake and Remedy online.

For the past few months, I had considered creating a soundtrack for the book I’m writing, so when I heard she was doing a remix competition with a deadline in 1 month, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to take a month off of writing and try my hand at making music.

Now, a month later, the remix is complete. Huge thanks to my wife, Jessica, for being gracious while I threw countless morning, evening and weekend hours into this project – the first half of the month just learning the software (indescribably frustrating) – and the second half trying to teach myself the requisite music theory (I will read some music composition/theory before attempting this again) and actually write the music.

So without further ado, here is my remix: Earthquake – Unashamed Studios Mix (and of course I wouldn’t mind if you voted for it or commented on it :-) )

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Acts 1a Translated

Wohoo! I’ve been working hard on translating Acts 1 recently, which I’m co-teaching tonight at Grace Church Bellingham’s youth group and have just finished the layout and first draft of the sidebar for the first section.

For the translation itself, I was miraculously able to get free assistance from an expert in Greek (thanks, Dax!), who graciously went through my translation and the original Greek text with a fine-toothed comb and proposed several key changes, which brought the translation up to his considerably high standards. And so, without further ado, I am extremely pleased and proud to bring you the latest revision of the Millennial Translation of Acts 1a, edited by Dax Swanson.

Stay tuned for detailed translation notes, coming soon!

Let me know what you think!

Here’s a screenshot:

Acts1a

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Three Weeks of Fiction Writing

I’ve been working in earnest on the book for 3 weeks now and have tried three locations — 2 libraries and Whatcom Community College. I definitely like Whatcom best, there are a bunch of friends there, plus I can hole up in a library nook when I really need to focus (but I’m an extrovert, so it’s tough for me to write in a library). I hope to rope in some collaborators (let me know if you’re interested) once I’ve got the first rough step-outline (a scene list of 40-60 scenes).

In a way, it seems like things have been going painfully slow, yet there have been some very crucial changes. For one, I decided to shift the focus of the story from Bjorn to his 16-year-old daughter. Also, I have a really cool plot twist about mid-way through the book. I can’t go into a ton of detail, but I can give you the (current) one-sentence summary:

A 16-year-old girl discovers an oppressed workforce and works with her divorced father and a team from an advanced civilization to free them.

Of course, the different characters on the team are all stinking awesome. I love them already. But I read the first third of the Twilight script yesterday (incredibly well written) and was awed by how high the bar is and how far I have to go. Thankfully, I’ll (Lord willing) have lots of help brainstorming high-caliber ideas and cutting anything that’s cliché, but before I draw other people into the project I’ve got to have a basic architecture that can support such artistic heights.

One more positive note: I’ve gotten some good inspiration lately for how to work the spiritual/theological side of things, which is the part I’m most worried about. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a Christian movie or book where the message isn’t either weak or cliché and I know it will be very difficult to keep from falling into either pitfall. Christian music has the same two problems, but one label — Reach Records — has done an outstanding job keeping clear from both, so they’re my best inspiration at the moment.

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Fiction Fridays

Today, September 1, 2009, marks the first day of a new chapter of my life. It’s very sad to move on from TFC, but I’m very excited for things to come. I’m working Mon-Thur programming and am able to devote all day Friday to working on fiction. It’s gonna be awesome. Expect great things!

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Skillet’s Awake

This blog is devoted to Unashamed Studios — and there are exciting things happening in that realm — but I can’t help but inject my take on the beautiful Skillet Awake t-shirt and CD that were patiently waiting for me to get back from vacation:

First, I’m no fan of the CD cover-art (sorry, John – you have a nice face, but the mummy thing looks a bit cheesy), but the t-shirt sports some dark and edgy art instead.

By far, my favorite two songs are Monster and Sometimes, which are brutally honest. Monster: “stay away from me / the beast is ugly / i feel the rage and i just can’t hold it / it’s scratching on the walls / in the closet, in the halls / it comes awake and i can’t control it”. Sometimes: “Sometimes I find it hard to believe / there’s someone else who could be / just as messed up as me”.

Lucy comes in just under those two, a slow ballad which I’m guessing is about an aborted baby: “I left a dozen roses on your grave today … I’ve gotta live with the choices I made / and I can’t live with myself today … I’ll see you in another life / in heaven where we never say goodbye / Here we are, now you’re in my arms / here we are for a brand new start”.

On the next tier are Hero, Awake & Alive and Forgiven. All solid songs with good themes, cool strings and guitars, standard Skillet fare – but now we’ve got Jen Ledger doing some female vocals which add an awesome, piercing dimension. Lyrically, there is a definite leaning towards our ability and responsibility to change the world and make a difference (which would make sense, given that I’ve heard Skillet is Amillennial/”let’s-usher-in-the-kingdom”). I had too much “you can change the world” kool-aid in high school, but I actually find it refreshing now – a much-needed balance of perspective, since I now run in circles that often over-emphasize the Sovereignty of God.

The six songs above are definitely worth the price of the album.

Never Surrender (Make Me Feel Better) and One Day Too Late are ok I guess, but Never Surrender feels a bit overly emotion-driven and content-less – and One Day Too Late is a great message, but it seems like it’s been said on almost every CD I own and I wish Skillet had worked harder on saying it differently or more creatively…

It’s Not Me It’s You is musically good and heavy, but lyrically… the only one I feel comfortable singing this song to is the devil – and it’s appropriate for him, as our accuser – but the verses make it clear it’s directed to a person: “So here we go again / the same fight we’re always in / i don’t care so why pretend / wake me when your lecture ends / you tried to make me small / make me fall and it’s all your fault / with the pain you put me through / and now I know that it’s not me it’s you”. The heavy dose of blame is very similar to Collide’s Open Wounds; I’m sure it strikes a chord with hurting and abused teens, but doesn’t seem exemplary. I much prefer the way Plumb relates to the same audience, but turns it in an exemplary direction with the song Damaged (Redemption extended version).

Don’t Wake Me, Should’ve When You Could’ve and Believe are my least favorite songs on the album. John Cooper mentioned in an interview that the sentiment in Don’t Wake Me is juvenile/high school. I feel that way about all three songs. I realize that Skillet’s working to reach secular high school students and that I’m definitely not in that target audience. These songs authentically explore the various sides of immature high-school relationships. My hope is that high school students – even immature ones – appreciate older people shedding some mature light on their experiences, helping them understand, interpret and react to them — unfortunately, Skillet doesn’t seem to go beyond the experiences themselves in these three songs.

Don’t get me wrong — Skillet is still one of my favorite bands and some of these songs are incredible. I can’t imagine the pressures of success, working with Howard Benson and trying to reach a secular audience. It is admittedly a bit of a bummer for a single Skillet CD to have three songs I don’t like. Now for a bit of a pipe-dream: what if Skillet pulled away from nu-metal a bit and tried blending in a little gothic metal (Lacuna Coil) or new-wave electronic (The Faint)? What if Skillet mixed in richer theology (Lecrae’s Rebel) or poetic cosmic truth (Project 86′s Picket Fence Cartel)? One can always dream… :-)

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Stepping Down from Teens For Christ NW

Stepping down

On August 1st, 2009, I resigned as Executive Director. I will continue through August 31st, training the new Executive Director, Adam Borries.

Why?! Isn’t this rather sudden?

I decided to resign in mid-May, but the factors motivating the change started last fall. In October, I came to the conclusion that it was healthier and more Biblically sound to disciple teens in a church body, instead of a non-profit organization. I planned to discontinue our youth group and instead support local youth groups by doing youth conferences and magazines.

However, as I began to develop a clearer vision of what I wanted to do, I realized that in the long term it wouldn’t be compatible with Teens For Christ NW. TFC has an broad doctrinal statement and a Board of Directors with a variety of theological viewpoints. In contrast, my vision was very theologically specific. While it’s possible to launch a ministry with a different doctrinal statement and philosophy of ministry under TFC’s banner, it’s wiser and safer to launch it independently.

So… what’s next for TFC?

Thankfully, we’ve got this awesome guy ready to take over. Two years ago I asked Adam Borries to direct our Bible Quizzing program. He’s done very well with it and is still passionate about promoting & growing it. He is also an alumni of the youth group and is passionate about reviving it and training new student leaders.

One big challenge for Adam will be balancing his ambitions for TFC with the priorities and needs of his new marriage. Please ask God to give him wisdom and self-control in this.

What’s next for you?

I am on the leadership team of a new downtown church-plant, Grace Church Bellingham and am super-excited to lead & shepherd in a church. I’m also continuing to develop a magazine and Christ-glorifying fiction.

Won’t you miss us?

Yes. Most emphatically, definitely, yes. You have been a huge part of my life for four years. You’ve been extremely gracious, even when I was angry, proud or frustrating. I know I’ll miss you, but if God doesn’t allow us to keep in touch, we’ll catch up with each other when the Son rises on a new Day.

– your brother, Peter Rust

Executive Director, Teens For Christ

Sept. 2005 – Aug. 2009

For more details, read the longer version: http://www.tfcnw.org/youth-group/PetersGoodbyeLetter.pdf

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