Finished Product

As some of you may know, I've been messing around with graphic design for a while and have been attempting to get t-shirts printed at threadless

You may remember my entry, "Experimenting with Graphic Design", where I showed the process of sketching, inking, scanning and vectorizing. The following is the result of that work and is up for vote for 5 more days.

Tim Keller Defends Belief in God

Tim Keller is a wonderful speaker and thinker, you'll not regret watching this.

Expect Evil?

Our existence is subordinate or imperfect in comparison to God's existence. If all that we see is inferior and flawed, evil and suffering should not be so alarming. Yes, it should still upset us, since that is no doubt part of its purpose. But it, as they say, "comes with the territory". If we acknowledge that our existence is imperfect and corrupted then we should come to expect horrific things to happen. We should also look forward with hope to a time when nothing is tainted and all is made new.

3 Simple Questions

Is it wrong to tell someone something you believe to be false? Is it also wrong to withhold something you believe to be true? How then, can you charge a person of faith with hatred for merely what is good according to the way you answered the first two questions?

We Long For Wrongs Righted?

Why, when someone acts in a way we deem, "wrong", do we feel they must be judged and punished accordingly? Some might say that it is an effort made to help safe survival of man to progress. But at its core, judgment and punishment are wanted and bring some satisfaction to the person longing for them. Seeing a criminal judged and punished does bring some feeling of safety, but primarily we feel better because order has been restored; a wrong has been exposed and condemned by what we judge to be a proper and right response. This commonality exists because it is stamped on all of us. A great wrong was committed and a great response has been offered. We all need Christ, and to pacify our sense that a wrong needs righted in ourselves we look to others to find satisfaction in their wrongs exposed, judged, and punished.

Actions vs. Words

Men see meaning in your actions as much as they hear meaning in your words. We should strive to make sure both meanings match and compliment each other rather than one destroying the other. How often do we empty the Gospel almost as soon as we've finished proclaiming it?

Idolatry = Hatred Part 2

I was asked if hatred toward God in the realm of idolatry and disbelief is witting or unwitting, the following was my answer:

I think in a general sense, it is unwitting; general disbelief or other religions that someone might be raised to believe. But I think there are specific actions that are wittingly hateful toward God and His law, repetition of sin that deep down we know is wrong or intentional rebellion against things we naturally perceive to be wrong (ie: lying, stealing, etc.)

Ultimately it is all hateful because it is the opposite of love. When a child disobeys their parents because they get caught up in the excitement of eating a cookie because it is their favorite, they aren’t actively hating their parents, it is more passive, but hate is still present. In that moment their love for their parents isn’t as strong as their longing for the cookie. But when a child intentionally does something because they want to disobey and the cookie is just a means to disobey, that is active hatred. In other words, something can entice you to disobey, but a lot of the time the act of disobedience itself is what’s enticing. The two are different in the realm of passive vs active, but they are both carried out in the absence of love. If someone is enticed by disobedience, they are being tempted to stand in opposition to the law maker. What could be more hateful?

Why I Hate Religion

Mark Driscoll says it better than I could...

Sketching Tips

I was having trouble sketching for my lastest WIP, King Pong, and a simple sketching trick helped me out. I was struggling with the size of each part of the sketch maintaining what I was sketching from.

First, get a ruler and create a grid of squares over what you are sketching from. Then make a grid, larger if necessary, on the paper you will be sketching on. This allows you to have smaller frames of reference for each piece of the sketch and makes increasing the size of the object a lot easier. Note the difference in size in the following sketch:
(you can click the images for larger versions)



Second, once your sketch is satisfactory, go over just the sketch not the grid with ink.



Third, get yourself a nice eraser, and once the ink is dry, erase your sketched grid.



Fourth, scan your image, make it black and white, up the contrast once or twice, and if you have Illustrator, do a live trace. I did a live trace, and then printed it out because sometimes on certain spots the ink is too weak and it needs to be re-inked so you can re-scan the image and get a better live trace.



Finally, add color.

Sleeping with Snakes

If sin be evil and should be fled from, why would you embrace it as an old friend so often? Would you slumber with venomous snakes? Or dance on thin ice above awaiting doom? Such actions would be the behavior or someone out of their mind or someone longing to be hurt. Do you long to be hurt? Are you out of your mind? If no, then forksake your old friend with whom you've enjoyed so many hours of destruction to your own soul. Pluck out the needle of death from your arm! Rise from this bed of ashes you seem content to lie in and let Christ be your portion, day and night.

Incomparable Grace

The nearer I stand to God the greater dishonor I can bring him. If He pulls us close and blesses us with even a whisper of grace, let us honor Him as our king through obedience and faith. Would you work less and show less loyalty to your job after being promoted? We honor those that bless us in ways that seem like favors from an ant in comparison to the grace of God in our lives. A drop of grace from God would drown a lifetime of favors and blessings from men.

Lukewarm Gospel

Men would sooner believe the Gospel we preach if they saw it deeply seated and burning within our chests. Are you cold? Lukewarm? What Gospel are they seeing compared to the one we are proclaiming? Often our own actions and choices contradict the very Gospel we say we believe.

So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.
Revelation 3:16

Busyness Doesn't = Godliness

Busyness is often a mask we hide behind, feigning Godliness on the surface while creating a dust cloud of distraction and unavailability. We think if we have a list of things we have done or are doing that we are somehow safe from rebuke. Let us remember the words of the Psalmist:

Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!

God is to be exalted, not us. This verse should humble even the busiest man.

They Are Dead

John Piper, as usual, gets to the heart of the matter with passion, love, and unwavering boldness.

A Curious Case Indeed

No spoilers are contained in this entry. In the movie, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", Brad Pitt plays the role of a man who was born old and is getting younger. The movie starts off with a clock maker who wishes he could bring back his dead son, so he makes a clock that runs backward in honor of the fallen sons of war. I enjoyed that the movie, in a very creative and epic way, dealt with the common bond between all men: human life moves in an irreversible direction toward death. Instead of growing old and having regrets like the old people around Benjamin, he grows younger, and as he does he forgets where he has been and what he has done. Growing old and remembering our past actions and having regrets is a picture of what is to come. All will give an account for their actions, and growing old is a whisper of that reality. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", is a curious case indeed. I highly recommend this movie.

Collision Movie

I am very excited to see this. The trailer is like something from a Bond movie or something. Very well done.

7 of Diamonds Means What?

Without universals or absolutes, particulars have no meaning. I can take a random card from a deck and place it face up on a table. Apart from the foundational framework within the whole deck, an individual card lacks any meaning. Color on paper is all you are left with. What meaning is held within a 7 of Diamonds without the whole? It means nothing. But when placed within the context of the whole or viewed in relation to the whole, meaning springs forth.

Experimenting with graphic design

I've been experimenting with sketching, inking, scanning, and vectorizing. The following is a WIP I started on yesterday.

Sketch













Ink













Add Color













The WIP can be found on Threadless.com under "Shuttle-Cock"

I no longer live in solitude

I trust in you for life to live, and air to breath.
Purity fills my lungs.
I no longer live in solitude.
No longer bound.
My heart beats with great devotion.
This is the start to a new beginning.

-August Burns Red
-Redemption

Gospel Coalition - Mark Driscoll

Mark Driscoll will make you laugh and then punch you in the gut a second later. That does not have to be a metaphor, but that is how I meant it. The following sermon is very practical and helpful to pastors dealing with troublemakers in the congregation. Driscoll did an excellent job handling the text while offering practical advice on possible negative types of people to watch out for, and how to handle them.


4.21.09
Mark Driscoll
Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
2 Timothy 2:14-26
Formats: Audio/Video

Spiritual ability?

Much like our ability to think and reason, what if we have a spiritual ability along the same lines? We trust our ability to think and reason and have no empirical evidence to prove the ability exists. One might say, "I can prove I have the ability to reason empirically because you can observe me doing it right now." Which of course is as empirical as observing someone acting on their spiritual ability (ie: praying). We are also unaware of our ability to reason until it is acted upon by an outside source; parents teach children to speak, read, and learn. What if a spiritual ability does exist, but we are unaware of it until acted upon by an outside source?

Idolatry = hatred?

God gave of Himself in creation; His creativity (I say this with reverence), and most importantly His image. Then, to restore what was damaged He gave of Himself in His son. He continues this by grace through salvation and forgiveness. Selfishness and idolatry should be seen in deep shades of repulsiveness in light of this reality. Imagine cursing and spitting in the face of someone who loved you and continually gave of themselves for you. This is a dim glimmer of the hatred within idolatry and disbelief. They are truly the actions of children of wrath.

Confession vs Repentance

Confession and repentance are no doubt related, but they are in fact, very different. Confession is the acknowledgment of a wrong while repentance is the sorrowful turning away from the admitted wrong. Too often in Christian circles we accept/offer confession without repentance. This leads to pattern behavior and passive justification of the wrongs repeated. One starts to think, "Well I continue to confess how cruel I am, so I need not make any adjustments. At least I'm confessing to being a cruel person." Without repentance we are merely self loathing parrots who repeat practiced lines that get us crackers in the form of pity while never changing the dirty newspaper in our tiny cage.

Intellectual Lethargy

"Intellectual lethargy is undoubtedly the greatest sin of many Christians today. They never grow in knowledge, they end where they began. They are always talking about first experiences, but they never entered into the riches to which Paul refers; they have never climbed the mountain tops and breathed the pure air of God's holy truth. They are content with the ordinary level; they are ignorant of the more advanced teaching because it demands an intellectual effort."

-D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
-The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

Wired for belief?

To say that people believe in God because over time we evolved with a, "God center", and that those who believe tend to survive better is no stronger an argument than saying we survive better while believing because we are made for belief. What if widespread belief is whispering of a deep need in man? And since arguing for a, "God center", can not be proven and is ultimately just another belief, it is undercut by its own claim.

Is your life a tragedy?

Don't let your life be dictated by, "The American Dream", let it be dictated by something greater. Don't let your life be a tragedy. Do not store up treasures where moth and rust destroy. How big is your shell collection?