sanctificationinprogress

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Things I Wish I Knew (an ever-growing list)

"Marriage isn’t about happiness; it’s about holiness. It’s not about finding the perfect person, but about letting God perfect our love. A sacred journey where we learn to grow, forgive, and become who we are called to be." - Milton Louis Gonzalez

when people ask how i'm doing these day or if they get really specific bc they want to know the dirt on my marriage, all i have for them is something like: it's good. not much new. same ol. if that sounds boring, well, i have to admit that it is in fact boring in the sense that it doesn't feel like a rollercoaster ride of emotions.

i should back up and also mention that we are getting close to that two decade milestone. in the beginning, it was very exciting and everything was new and a lot to discover. i still discover new things here and there but it's a lot lot less frequent now. what was once as frequent and powerful as the tides is now as often as i see a meteor shower being in the city lights. and it was fun! those were like the days of being a kid again. but along with the excitement was a lot of drama.

during our first 3 years, our marriage was not boring but it's bc our marriage also wasn't good. we said our vows not knowing what we were really agreeing to. and at first it was fine, we could just sweep the early signs of trouble under the rug and overlook it. but what we didn't realize was we made our union bc our lives were in unison and our plans were on the same trajectory and pace, but it wouldn't always be so. i had a career and she had a career. she had plans for our family as did i. over the course of the first 3 years, it got bad. i came to realize that she was unintentionally but actively inhibiting my plans, and i was probably doing the same thing to hers.

we became short with each other and lost respect for each other. spending time with anyone else felt more natural and easier... making us wonder if we married the wrong person. all the cliche things like you've changed or i don't feel happy anymore were things we likely felt and maybe even said to each other. we came pretty close to calling it quits. neither of us ever threatened any ultimatums or got physically violent but there was a mood about our little home that just felt very cold when it was just the two of us. it was ironic bc we had watched the movie fireproof before we got married too, and here we were in a very similar situation. many people would think of us as wonderful individuals. we were other people's salt and light. but they didn't know that our home life was so dismal.

fortunately for us, well at least for me, there were timely events and key people in my life that came to help save our marriage. one, there was a couples bible study weekend intensive retreat that we signed up for and it was about marriage. and two, one older church member called me out about his concerns about me what he noticed about my interactions between my wife and i.

this resulted in me giving up on my plans completely. and i remember i had a feeling that i was going to do this by faith because it really was letting go of everything. and i have to admit i wasn't really happy doing it, but i was hopeful that God would bless this decision to let go. now many many years later, i can say that i stopped trying to be happy which was causing my unhappiness and now i truly am happy.

i admit i still daydream from time to time now about how cool it would have been if only, but at the same time, i look at how my life is now and i'm more than happy and i trust that i'm happier now than if i had remained stubborn about having my way. and i'm convinced this was the choice toward holiness. the other choice, despite being noble, was a counterfeit holiness because it would have torn the marriage apart.

i can't speak for my wife, but i'm sure she had to give up on her plans too. but i can say that based on how we look at each other and speak with each other, that she is happy too. it is a far cry from our first 3 years of marriage.

we both had to stop what we were doing do what God would want us to do, which was to walk through life together. I think this is when we actually got a better grasp of the vows we made 3 years prior. we had been two trains building our own tracks that happened to be parallel when we met and dated and got married but began to build towards different destinations after our wedding. we decided to tear everything down and go back to the station of our wedding day and start again with one track. and it was humbling... that was 3 years of work that had to go, but it was not good work. it was selfish work. even though we had worked hard on our own work, it had to go.

around that time when i came to this realization, i had a hot take on the good ol facebook when people used it to do what we do now on actual hot take platforms... i said that marriage is the most unselfish thing a person can do. man, the heat i got from people for saying that... but i still stand by my words. it's not to discount the sacrifice of someone like mother teresa who lived a very hard life by choice so that she could help others... but that's the thing that i came to realize: when a person is married, one has a very physical and present reminder that their life is not their own. a person can no longer just do things, plan, or build tracks toward a goal that many would deem as noble if the other half doesn't want to. maybe a self-proclaimed selfish person wouldn't ever get married... but the unsuspecting "unselfish" people who do get married can soon discover that they are in fact still selfish. i think a lot of couples comprised of two very "unselfish" individuals end up having their marriages fall apart bc they have very noble and generous hearts... but these hearts never really became one. they never became one new creation with one new noble and generous heart and one new plan of where their one set of train tracks would go and not two individuals building their own train tracks hoping that their tracks would remain parallel.

so now we don't have anymore drama in our marriage. each day is predictable... and to others maybe on the boring side. we're just building our tracks together, and it's great and i wish this life for everyone.

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@lydiataylordavis

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when i first watched this movie and this scene, i was into the second year of dating a girl who would become my wife of now 15 years.

i didn't realize then how this scene really did capture the essence of how our modern mindset makes us alone. at the time, i think our relationship might have also reached a point where we would get into more serious "fights" which would force us to decide if this is going to be one that goes the distance or not.

every relationship is transactional. you find someone that meets your specific needs, you meet their specific needs, so then you have that relationship so long as the transactions satisfy all parties involved.

not very romantic, but it is true.

it is only when a couple is enamored with each other that the transactional aspect of relationship is not a problem. which makes sense why short-term relationships are so full of passion and fun... until it's not.

to become a long-term relationship, it has to survive past the point were at least one of the participants of this relationship realizes that the transactions of the relationship are not "fair". at least one person will feel that they are not getting enough from the other person while they are giving their all. every relationship if it persists long enough will run into this because no relationship's transactions will be constantly 50/50- plus the value of what someone brings to the table in a relationship initially will likely change over time as well.

modern people have 2 issues that work against them in the pursuit of long-term relationship success: our upbringing and pride. pride has always been a problem for people but our modern upbringing makes it worse. there was a time when life made it clear to us that life wasn't about us. there wasn't a lot of toys, children/young adult books, or public resources meant for the cultivation of a child/young person's value of self. as soon as possible, a person had to realize that he or she had a role that their family's and probably their village's survival counted on. the age of this responsibility quite possibly started by the age of 4 for our ancestors. if they were given any formal education, it often just enough to allow them to perform that task everyone needed... which meant that besides the very basic reading, writing, and math, it would be likely more trade-specific. all this to say, a person realized earlier on that life was not about them in previous generations. as we modernized, this realization has been perpetually delayed with things like the Bible as the only herald to tell us that life is not about us. just about everything in modern life tells us that life is about us. everything... except love. of course, in modern times and in relationships, we've brought the idea into that arena that we should get what we deserve because we are worth it. but love is not so... at least not the biblical kind of love that is spoken of in famous excerpts such as 1 Corinthians 13. it turns out that love is sacrificial and all about putting another before oneself. the root of the problem is the sin of pride. pride insists on his/her own way, and someone that will accept nothing less than his/her own way will be alone because that is the only way to always have it your way. pride makes for cold company.

i was lucky when i came to our first major "fight". i didn't realize at that time that our relationship hung on such a balance. i did think to myself that i could do better. i did feel like i wasn't getting everything i wanted, and that the relationship was becoming more work than i had bargained for. i did feel wronged and had every justification and proof to provide as evidence. but for some reason, as we sat on that curb, despite the flaws that we pointed out in each other, we decided to continue with each other instead of parting and looking for better.

modern dating concepts would have said we were foolish... we sold ourselves short. and maybe we could have found better. but for how long? how long until we would want better again? how long until we held onto ourselves for too long and no longer can secure even a short-term relationship because of age?

i didn't know it then, but at day we chose to sell ourselves short turned out to be the beginning of us really loving each other.

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Coming to Terms

So lately my angst has gotten the better of me... yet again.

It's definitely the pride and drive to be great. There is definitely a certain kind of irritability and disagreeableness that comes along with the pursuit of and insistence on greatness.

What often gets forgotten during such journeys is the more preeminent need for me to be good. Good in the eyes of God- meaning justified at the moment of belief and the continual process of sanctification. Any greatness I could achieve could never make me good. I know that for me, being great probably makes it harder for me to want to continue on the path of goodness. The desire to be great often creates a second master that I know I cannot have. But it tempts me still, and I often falter.

Lord, please help me not falter while I pursue greatness. Please let me be good.

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dear christian never-trumpers,

i am voting for trump, and i am christian.

i won't go so far as to say that one cannot be truly a christian if they vote for harris, just as i hope people won't go so far as to say one can't be christian if they vote for trump.

i think either camp of christians must have their reasons, and they arrived at deciding who they would vote for with some form of logic.

however, i just wanted to explain why choosing trump is the better logical choice for christians.

to start off, i would have to concede that trump is a sinner. he is a public figure who has publicly fallen to all categories of sin that people can: pride of life, fear of man, and lust of the flesh. So he is an adulterer, unable to control is tongue, and (depending on who you talk to) a felon- among other flaws. And these things are not the type of christian qualities one would hope for in their country's leader. i understand that.

but let's consider this... if back in the early days of israel, and instead of having their kings appointed by God through prophets, people actually voted for their leaders. would the christians today have voted for david? after all, he too was an adulterer and even worse he was a murderer... 1st degree murder- where he had motive, planned it out, and executed his plan to have uriah killed.

trump wasn't as evil as this. but we name our kids after king david. we echo the sentiment that david was a man after God's own heart. really? a person as flawed as david? by the same standards the modern christian holds trump, maybe david wouldn't have been elected king.

you see, trump, while he is a sinner, he will enact policies and are less anti-God than our other option- harris. And while seeing or hearing about trump's outlandish tweets and soundbites might grieve one's soul, you can turn off all that noise. however, the policies of a harris administration cannot be turned off by avoiding social media or partisan news outlets.

what i mean is, if you vote for harris and she wins, then no matter where you go, your wife, your daughter, your girl friends, your mom, all the women you care about will have to share spaces with men claiming to be women. you can't turn that off.

you will be supporting the already prevalent sentiment that a baby in the womb is the woman's body... maybe it isn't a person at all, or is of less value... wasn't Jesus the champion of the powerless? wasn't Jesus the one who gave worth to the people thought of as worthless by the world?

your children, if you choose to use public school, will have teachers who are mandated to divide your family. everything regarding their questions about gender and sex, that will arise because the teachers are mandated to teach it in the health portions of instructional time, will not be shared with you. it is a state mandate, where the teachers will be criminalized and lose their license if they share this confidential information with a child's parents. so you don't know if your child is watching a video illustrating different forms of love which includes same-sex couples and transgender people and actually being encouraged to explore and normalize experimentation of gender fluidity. is this biblical? what did the Bible say about causing children to stumble again?

you can't turn any of that off if harris wins.

so what i'm getting at is your vote isn't just for the person, but for the ideology that is ushered in.

if the israelites didn't want david, they were surrounded by plenty of other powerful nations willing to take control and usher in their anti-God ideologies of the time- the philistines, the amalekites, the assyrians, the babylonians, etc. maybe one of those nation's rulers was more charming than david and didn't have a rap sheet that included adulterer and 1st degree murderer on it... would you have voted one of them in david's place then?

if you wouldn't have voted in an anti-God ideology back then, then why would you vote an anti-God ideology now?

moreoever, we know what happened to israel whenever they got a king that followed an anti-God ideology because he was seduced by the false promises of the gods of other nations. will you too be seduced by the false promises of the gods of the democratic party?

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Just noticing...

usually people think of men being the neglectful, selfish ones and women being the caring, selfless ones.

but if social media is a window into what a person values or the person they choose to show to the world this is what i've seen. idk if this is true outside of what i see but here it is...

if you look at the social media profiles and content for both men and women, they tend to fall under two types: 1) it's snapshots of important things/events their own life or 2) they have a certain niche or theme that they post about

in this case, i'm talking about the first type where the social media profile and content is the snapshots of important things/events in their own life.

what i've noticed about men's profiles is they are either not regularly updated or if they are regularly updated it's a pretty random mix of food, cool sightings, family milestones, accolades, etc. if they do have a woman in their life, the pictures men post are almost always with either the woman or both of them in the foreground. if they have a family, their posts will almost always be of the whole family or something to highlight something one of their kids did. they will rarely post a selfie and rarely post photos of just him with the kids without his woman.

and for women, it's almost always very step-by-step:

first, it's a lot of selfies during their single life especially if they feel pretty, the graduate, get promoted, or celebrate a birthday.

second step, when they aren't single it's a lot of posing pictures of them and their significant other or of them out on a date or a vacation somewhere. once in awhile, the post is a glamour shot of just her man. and every other day there's still a healthy dose of their usual selfie.

third step, they get married. of course there will be pics of this. and every year afterward, if they are still married, the world of social media will see the same few professional pics of their wedding day again. usually the pictures that she likes are of her as the focus looking glamorously at the camera while her man is in the background embracing her. (if they don't get married, you will see a constant repeat of step 2 except each time everything of the previous guy will get deleted and replaced by similar stuff with a next guy). and yes, they will will post their now weekly to bi-weekly selfie.

fourth step, she has kids. so now most pics are involving her kids. and interestingly enough, a lot of the time, the pics are of the kids and her or just the kids... but the man is often not in the pics anymore. i find that interesting. it seems almost like, well you served your purpose, so onto the next thing rather than a more holistic embrace of what life has given the woman. oh and of course, the selfie... most of time there is a drop off in frequency, but even though her social media self has forgotten about her man, she hasn't forgotten about herself.

maybe i'm judging... but i'm definitely noticing that women might not be as selfless as we think. and that men cherish their woman and kids more than we might think.

and if one is lucky enough to be with a woman that is active on social media that doesn't exhibit the typical step-by-step selfish progression... he's found himself a real gem.

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is being invisible an inherited curse?

dear God,

all my life i've noticed that despite my best efforts, i'm always the just meant to be forgotten or at best- the alternative option. the only exception was my wife choosing to say yes to me... but even then, a part of me wonders if i was her only option seeing that the dating pool for her wasn't exactly extensive and this was the era the b4 online dating was available...

i haven't exactly gotten over having a life like this... as you might be able to tell- seeing that i have to rant about it like this. but i'm wondering if in Your sovereignty and wisdom decided to have my children also inherit this misfortune? And if so, why?

you know she's shy and doing something completely out of her comfort zone... why after all the hours she spent rehearsing and slowly coming out of her shell, would you reward her with the distinction of being the only cast member to be left off the program? i mean it's not a huge deal- it's not like she's in the film of the year. but it's just that it seems so eerily close to my life... just randomly being forgotten in yearbooks. forgotten to be included in the staff directories... just living to be forgotten.

i know there are things that can be done to change that. but i don't want to be infamous, and i don't want that for my children either.

so please. please. please. please. please let my children be given credit for their work.

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a promise is a promise

so today, in my anger and frustration... i vented at God. It wasn't pretty.

actually it seems like it's happening more and more too, so it's becoming part of who i am, and i don't like it at all.

part of it is that i care a lot about succeeding. and when i care a lot about succeeding, i get angry when i fail. if i don't want to have such a short fuse, then i have to not care, be complacent, basically give up on actually trying. i've been that before, and it also very sad. i wish i could be ambitious, focused, passionate, etc without it coming with a short fuse.

so why the anger with God? well, depending on your theology, there's God's sovereignty and man's free will, effort, and ambition. for me, i believe God is in complete control and predestined all that would take place in the universe we know (and don't yet know of) from the beginning of time until the end.

what that means is that He knows that i would attempt the things that i would attempt and how at certain moments He knew that i would experience little glimmers of hope and a sniff of the sweet success, and he knew that in the next step, the rug would get pulled out from under me, and i would fail, and he knew how i would feel. He knew i would be using my free will, my effort, my problem solving skills, my ambition, my everything that i am capable of to make adjustments and try some way of succeeding. should i try a different approach and game plan? should i pull back? should i be more relaxed? should i be more aggressive? should i just forget about the failure and start over from scratch? should i try to salvage some of what i had done? should i take a break and refresh my mind? should i this or should i that? and He knew it would only take me so far as to just get a sniff of the success but not actually taste it much less grasp it. this is the God, when i think about it like that, makes it seem like he enjoys toying with me. and that's why i vented my anger at Him. (this isn't me saying it's right and that i'm justified btw... it's wrong period. i know there isn't any circumstance where man should be angry with God.)

and in the midst of the anger, i shouted in my mind, "you know what? i'm going to start a special diary. i used to count my blessings. but now, i'm going to count all the times you turned my dreams and goals to @#$%! and i'll start with this one today!"

well, as it turns out... i did actually succeed after that... not like immediately like some sudden miracle, but after some more effort, persistence, problem-solving, and endurance... it worked out. but the ability to revel in the moment and feel great wasn't as grand as i would expect. it felt very hollow. it was like those times you win but you don't feel like you deserved it because you felt lucky- like you got away with something and it wasn't really because of your efforts. on the flip side if it did turn out that i ended my day in failure- it would just validate my feeling that God just isn't for me in this task. but in the end He actually was.

so here i am, taking a record of this. it turns out, i'm still counting my blessings because it worked out. at the same time, i'm reminded of my sinful nature despite being victorious. i guess God got the last laugh as anyone should expect.

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This is what we do with our freedom

freedom. "fri-" with love. "-dom" judgement, decree.

So in modern context...

An unmarried girl in her second year of college decided to have sex with a charming guy she just had an amazing date with. About a month later, something wasn't right and she thinks that she might be pregnant even though she made sure they used protection. She took a few tests, and they all confirmed that she's pregnant. She was angry because her whole life, career, and dreams were just ahead and didn't have time to be pregnant or have a baby. But, she thought, luckily she has the "judgement/decree with love" to kill this baby (and any future hook-up culture babies as she so wishes) and go on with her life.

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all that glitters is not gold... just takes 10+ years to find out

interesting observation after watching hallmark channel-ish movies for 10+ years (courtesy of the wife's influence)... we used to see a lot of movies of young rural/suburb girls moving into the city for a dream career/college, finding romance, struggling, and then in the end she gets it all. now most of these movies have become about older women who have grinded away in cities like SF, LA, NYC, Chicago and they somehow end up in a place out in the middle of nowhere or off the beaten path, they run into a man that is rough around the edges and treats him with contempt only to find out that he's actually competent and is doing well enough for him and his community, and in the end she gives up on the rat-race back at the city and moves and finds herself complete being with this simple but competent guy supporting/joining him in his life. i'm thinking there's a lot of closet trad-wives trying to shed off those feminist scales they got while in hs/college but are afraid to be judged by their "friends."

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Hello 2023

I’m thankful for Tumblr, which is why I’m back for this and then probably gone again for awhile.  There’s been a lot of good and bad that has passed, and I wanted to have record of it somewhere... but not too public like most platforms out there.  

Ok, so here it goes...  

Since the last time I posted something like this, the family has grown.  Gained two kids, so now we have three.  After getting two miscarriages after our first, I never thought that we’d be able to have three.  Time is probably running out to have any more biological children, but I’m still open for adopting.  I just wonder if I have the energy, time, and money to do it.  I am so thankful that my heart was opened to parenting.  Despite the heartbreaks and the growing pains of the past, present, and future- I am thankful because I know it is part of the sanctification process.  

Work has been not so good.  It’s not that I do not appreciate that I have a steady job and one that pays well enough to support me and my family in a relatively expensive place to live.  It’s just that I’m a teacher, and when I embarked on this career, I never imagined how political and polarizing things could become.  I just wanted to help kids.  All I can say is, I see it from the inside, and public education is an inferior product.  If you are able to, I strongly recommend homeschooling- especially if you are Christian, but if you aren’t, I’d still recommend it.  It’s better for your children and your family.  

Needless to say, I’ve been trying to find a way out.  So there’s some side hustles that have become profitable, but not enough to retire.  It’s mainly the health/dental/life insurance stuff and having savings for the future like college tuition and such that prevents me from just calling it.  So, I’m hoping to find some way to pivot and finish off my working days in a more ideal situation.  I’m hoping to get my PhD soon and maybe if I’m lucky get either a faculty position or researcher position at some institute or think tank.  My options will be limited though because my parents don’t want me moving away.  Of course, I could just disregard that wish, but I feel like that isn’t very honorable.  They aren’t Christian, and I don’t want to dishonor them like that... even though I doubt that staying will lead to their salvation but who knows?  Also, I wouldn’t want my children to do that to me when I’m more advanced in my years too- if I am lucky enough to be advanced in years.  

Relationships and church life has been ok.  I’m thankful for Crosslife Community Church.  Even though it isn’t ideal that the pastor staff is shorthanded and can’t be more hands on in shepherding me and my family through life, the pastoral staff and the men that I’m around have been amazing in teaching me how to be a better man, husband, and father just by being around.  I wish I could develop closer relationships, but time is always in short supply and people get more and more guarded the older we get.  I feel like we are friends simply because we are a part of the same thing, but if life were to ever separate us, then the friendship would cease.  That’s why I’ve been thinking a lot of some of my childhood friends.  I was forced to move away from them when I wasn’t in control of my life.  We’re all grown up now with family of our own... I haven’t see a lot of them since we were 18.  I would like to think that I could be a better friend to them than I have been.  They wouldn’t be directly be helping me with my walk with God, but I do feel like God would want me to be a be a better friend and more influential for the Lord beyond my current circle.  

The last time I posted like this was years ago... feels like I was just a young kid tasting the joys the consequences of adulthood.  Youth seems like it’s angst or at least mind did.  Then life happens and if we survive, the angst doesn’t really go away, but it changes.  It’s more like weariness and apathy.  All the drama from those yesteryears, I look back with one of those tight-lipped smiles that come with a sigh and thoughts of “bless your heart...”  Maybe from the outside one might look at me and say I’ve gained wisdom.  Maybe.  But from the inside, I feel like a person that used to live life unfettered who now has put the fetters upon himself so as not to ever feel the pain of youth again but also never feeling that freshness of freedom either.  Maybe one day, I’ll master this dance.  

We’ll see what happens.  Cheers.  

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Cover of Andrew Peterson’s “Is He Worthy” 

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I don’t post much anymore.  Social media has been weaponized and often not to make us better people. However, I'd like to share an idea that can unite us for the greater good. If you are still burning from the recent events, then it might be too soon for you to watch this. If you can be calm, open-minded, and patient while you listen to this 30+ minute video, then I think we can move forward with a proper mindset and make progress. We are all responsible, but that means we can all be a part of the solution. The United States needs united people.

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The Covid-19 Lockdown got me recording Sunday praise songs from home.  I like CityAlight.  Hopefully you like them too, and love Christ most.  

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War Room (2015)

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