“At issue here is the question: ‘To whom do I belong? To God or to the world?’ Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me. 

As long as I keep running about asking: ‘Do you love me? Do you really love me?’ I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with ‘ifs.’ The world says: ‘Yes I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much.’ There are endless ‘ifs’ hidden in the world’s love. These ‘ifs’ enslave me, since it is impossible to respond adequately to all of them. The world’s  love is and always be conditional. As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain ‘hooked’ to the world–trying, failing, and trying again. It is a world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest cravings of my heart. 

I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found. Why do I keep ignoring the place of true love and persist in looking for it elsewhere? Why do I keep leaving home where I am called the child of God, the Beloved of my Father? I am constantly surprised at how I keep taking the gifts God has given me–my health, my intellectual and emotional gifts–and keep using them to impress people, receive affirmation and praise, and compete for rewards, instead of developing them for the glory of God. Yes, I often carry them off to a ‘distant coutnry’ and put them in the service of an exploiting world that does not know their true value. It’s almost as if I want to prove myself and to my world that I do not need God’s love, that I can make a life on my own, that I want to be fully independent. Beneath it all is the great rebellion, the radical ‘No’ to the Father’s love, the unspoken curse: ‘I wish you were dead.’ The prodigal son’s ‘No’ reflects Adam’s original rebellion: his rejection of God in whose lvoe we are created by and by whose love we are sustained. It is the rebellion that places me outside the garden, out of reach of the tree of life. It is the rebellion that makes me dissipate myself in a ‘distant country.’”

-Henri Nouwen

The Return of the Prodigal Son

The other day, while picking up some coffee at the local Bi-Lo grocery store, I spotted an eye-catching package from Ugly Mug Coffee. For their great packaging and solid mission I plan on supporting their coffee in the future. Check them out here.

“A conscience which is not fully enlightened both to the seriousness of its condition before God, and to the grandeur of God’s merciful provision of redemption, will inevitably fall prey to anxiety, pride, sensuality and all other expressions of that unconscious despair which Kierkegaard called “the sickness unto death.” Richard Lovelace

Every problem with sanctification is really just a problem with justification.

Check out Smashing Magazine’s post on 35 Beautiful Album Covers.

HT: Brent Thomas

Check out the cleanly designed new site for Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

I came across this interview in Time this morning. A link off of Colossians Three Sixteen’s Weekly Town Crier. 

It therefore comes as a something of a shock that Wright doesn’t believe in heaven — at least, not in the way that millions of Christians understand the term. In his new book, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne), Wright quotes a children’s book by California first lady Maria Shriver called What’s Heaven, which describes it as “a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk… If you’re good throughout your life, then you get to go [there]… When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you heaven to be with him.” That, says Wright is a good example of “what not to say.” The Biblical truth, he continues, “is very, very different.”  -Time 

Click here to read the full text. 

God has also shown great love to people through his plan of redemption. Following this good pattern, love should also be at the heart of all excellent art created by disciples of Jesus. This is the most excellent way. An artist filled with the Spirit, skill, and ability, asking what it means to love the Church and the watching world as one uniquely gifted, is likely an artist who is making the invisible kingdom visible. -Charlie Peacock

Back in May of 2006, I met with Derek Webb before a show at Jammin Java in Columbia, SC to talk about some new ideas he had for the future of his own music distribution. This was where I first heard about his plan to give away the album, Mockingbird, for free, in exchange for fans’ recommending the album to five more people. 

We discussed all sorts of ideas that day, from the changes in packaging formats, to live concert albums purchased directly at venues, to microsites promoting single albums. That meeting left me with a short list of books to read (The Future of Music as well as some books by Lawrence Lessig) and a lot of brainstorming to do. After the Free Derek Webb campaign launched later that year in September, we started discussing and developing the idea for NoiseTrade in a more focused way. Many, many iterations of the concept were presented—on both a functionality and business operational level. Sometimes the site’s production looked like it was going to go full steam ahead. At other points, however, it looked as though the idea had seen its day and would fade into the background as another brilliant concept that never quite made it. 

The initial discussions about NoiseTrade had happened while I was working in the day to day operations at Portland Studios, a design and illustration company I had founded with a few other people after we graduated from college. In December of 2007, I left my role there to pursue other projects. When Derek approached me about teaming together and kick-starting the NoiseTrade concept once again, it was just the right time. Having left my former position, I was now able to have the head space and a financial cushion needed in order to involve myself in the project more fully. 

Portland Studios was approached by NoiseTrade to take care of all the development for the site, while I would fill the role of designer. Derek, along with the other owners, has been carefully combing over the entire process looking for the most minor ways to improve the experience for both the music fan and the artist. 

After all the talk and work, the version of the site that has finally emerged is remarkably simple. Mark Johnson has worked tirelessly to implement the design and remove any remaining bugs in the system. The site is no complex online 

music store. Rather, it commits to doing one thing well: connecting artists and fans through music recommendations while giving both parties what they want—exposure for musicians and free music for fans. An extremely simple idea, when put that way. 

The first order of business is to launch a cleanly executed site that works intuitively, engagingly, and flawlessly. We’ll spend the next three weeks putting on the final touches and finally launch on July 4.

“The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to died for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.” 

- Timothy Keller, The Reason For God (New York, NY: Dutton, 2008), 181.

HT: Of First Importance