Summer Summer Summer Summer Summer Summer

Woooooooo-ee this summer has been crazy! Emotionally, it has been a bit of an up and down type of living, but its all good. Below is a blogpost that I began to write about 2 weeks ago, but i got so frustrated by the situation that I never finished it...

The mind numbing purposelessness that I am enjoying this summer is starting to get to me. Today I wrestled with my dog for a long time. That was probably the most exciting thing that happened.

I'm thinking about what gives a routine purpose and meaning. Why is it that going out into the community and doing something (even shopping!) is more fulfilling than watching movies all day?

I know that lazy people are called fools in wisdom, but what happens when the hard working person doesn't have anything to do other than read and exist?

All butterflies and sunflowers, right? Hah! Hardly. Since then a lot has happened and a lot of different things have begun to challenge me in ways that I didn't expect.

For one, I think God was pulling me to a place of extreme comfort (and therefore, discomfort) for a reason. I'm a people oriented person who basically interacts only with my parents, or no one for long periods of time. Tomorrow my parents are getting on a plane and flying to Australia to see their first grandchild born, leaving me behind to watch our house. I don't have any idea what I'm going to do for THREE WEEKS. I'm becoming more and more oriented toward social justice and the gospel, but I find myself in a wealthy white suburban neighborhood. Ironic? I'm almost always one of the people that "gets in" with something that i work toward (this is applying to a job- I had an internship lined up), but i have found myself unemployed without any real source of income.

All of this has been fleshed out to show one main thing- when God wants to get your attention, he can completely move around the things in your life that are comforting to you so that he will become numero uno once again. whether it was my relationships, my pride, my ideas, or my future, God moved them all so that I would be broken for him once again. Since i've realized all of this, I've appreciated things about God once again.

1. His never-ending, always abundant grace. Sitting in a communion service I was struck in my heart about my sinfulness and how much I had turned from God. It was ever so gradual, but deviation from God's way is the wrong way. Thanks for reminding me big guy.
2. With hard work comes fulfillment. I can't just sit on my hands and wait until the last minute to finish something. I could have healthy relationships with the people in the area, but my mentality of "this isn't my home- Taylor is" gets in the way of community with the church. Looks like I'm the knuckle-head that missed out on all of the life happening around me. Stupid me!
3. When God is center, my life's orbits are correct. Trying to make Bethany the center or my employment or my future will always leave me feeling let down and cheated. Only Christ can re-calibrate my motives so that I become the man i'm supposed to be. With Christ as the sun, my life's planets are in alignment. (SUCH GOOD PLAY ON WORDS OMGOMGOMG)

So, here's to tough times when we don't have any idea what God has in store for us. While I don't get everything right all the time (most of the time, really) I know i'm a work in progress and that what i'll be for the rest of my earthly life.

Summer 2009: Act One

WOW. That is all i can say for the past 5 months of my life. I've traveled to Africa, become the Student Body President for Taylor University, finished my 2nd year as a PA in my dorm, and Bethany and I have started seriously discussing what the rest of our lives look like together. Needless to say, life has been FULL. 

And now i'm in Alabama for the summer. I had an internship lined up with a local church, but that fell through, so i'm now on the prowl for jobs and sources of income. I don't really have any significant plans, any big goals, or any huge aspirations. 

All i want to do is be here in the present as much as possible. The end of this past school year about killed me, and i would love a summer to recover from that. I'll be updating this quite a bit to inform everyone that cares about what is happening, what I'm thinking, and what is changing in my life. 

So!

Summer 2009, you and I are going to have a good relationship, i can tell. 

-JB

1 Kings 11- My own personal punch in the face

Yesterday I was reading in 1 Kings 11, where Solomon turns from God. At this point in Solomon's life God has blessed him in unbelievable ways, and Solomon had followed God. In 1 Kings 11, Solomon is nearing the end of his life, and in his old age and in all of his wealth and poor decisions he had made, he began to worship other gods. Actually, it was because of the women that Solomon had married that he was convinced to worship other gods. 

When i read this, i was very disappointed in Solomon and the way that he ended his relationship with God. I actually thought that he was a really stupid person for acting this way. If God had blessed him so richly throughout his entire life, then why would he stumble right at the end? I dwelt on this for a little while by myself, then I began to talk with Bethany, my girlfriend about what I had read. 

She brought up the point that Solomon was the wisest person to have ever lived apart from Jesus. I realized that, but i still wasn't turned from my negative view of Solomon. Then, in her wonderfully scathing and forcefully introspective way, Bethany said made me see the story in a different light. The easiest way to show this is through dialogue...

Jordan- "I just don't understand how he could fail right at the end of his life after being the apple of God's eye for his entire life. I mean God had given him everything that he could have ever wanted and more, but he still was turned away from God. He's so dumb! If i was in his position, i wouldn't turn away from God"

Bethany- "Jordan. Stop and think for a minute. You are in his position. You have been blessed beyond most everyone else in the world, but you still turn from God every single day. How can you say that you wouldn't do what he would do, when it is impossible for us to live perfect lives? Just because God blesses you doesn't give you immunity to failing and sinning."

Jordan- "Oh crap. I'm the stupid one, aren't I?"

Bethany- "Now you're just being ridiculous Mister Bolte."

Bethany had it right on. I am just as blessed as Solomon was, but i still sin. The amount of blessing that God bestows upon someone doesn't correlate with the individual's ability to stand strong against sin. The wisest man that has ever lived was still suspect to his sinful nature.

I'm so glad that we believe in a God that knows that we are crappy, but still loves us. He blesses us in ways that we can't even begin to understand, yet we still rebel. I hope that Solomon and his actions help us see that material wealth, God's blessing, and beautiful women don't protect us from sin.

-JB

If allergic to Cheese and Sap, DO NOT READ!

Hey everyone!

Here are some lyrics to a song I wrote to Bethany last year. I felt that I should show everyone else how much she has my heart on our year and a half anniversary.

Together

When I look into your eyes girl

I find comfort in those eyes girl

I look into those eyes and I see

Who I really wanna be

When I see that pretty smile girl

There's true joy in that smile girl

When I see that pretty smile I know

That I Never wanna go

How can I know? How can I

Show you everything you make me feel

How will our love grow together?

Somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming

Its just too good to be true

Me and you, on this afternoon

Together, Forever

My Heart is thirsty for you in my life

Just a thought of you blows my mind

I just need you to know that you are the one for me girl

You are the one for me

How can I know? How can I 

show you everything that I feel? 

Because with you I know

We need to be together

Though the miles may separate us

My love for you gets brighter everyday

That why from my full heart

I must say

How can I know? How can I

show you everything you make me feel?

How will our love grow together?

Happy year and a half love. I'm looking forward to many more. 

The Music of Life

Ahhh, Monday. You can't really disagree that you feel the least alive on monday mornings. :-)

This past week was a good week for me. I got a lot of homework done, got to hang out with a lot of different people, and i got to experience one of the best concerts that i've ever been to in my whole entire life: Ben Folds backed by the fort wayne philharmonic.

I was told about this wonderful concert by one of my friends on another floor who had an extra pair of tickets. I already was interested in it because i needed to go see a concert for one of my classes, i was sad that the Eagles had lost and i was looking for a way to appease my sorrow, and the tickets were just $23.00! Needless to say, i jumped upon the opportunity to obtain these tickets for my girlfriend and I. 

The concert was part of the Pops series that the fort wayne philharmonic has been recently engaged in. Ben fold came out, chipper and awkward as he seems through his music, but he blew everyone in the audience away with his level of musicianship and skill as a pianist. It is always a good thing when you have a quirky jewish piano player cussing out his ex wives on stage with a philharmonic orchestra. :-)

In a completely different and unrelated topic, I was surprised with an epic choice this past week! I went to breakfast with my girlfriend Bethany this past tuesday, and after we had finished our meal i was surprised with an envelope containing some paper on the inside. After i opened it, the paper read something like this. "You get the choice of a fleet foxes concert next weekend or a kings of leon concert in november. Happy late (long story) anniversary!" 

Now this is a huge descison to be made! Fleet foxes are my favorite find of the summer, as the style of music they play could be called baroque folk. They rock indefinitely, and i would highly recommend everyone to listen to them. The Kings of leon are a southern rock band from Tennessee that have become rock royalty in Europe. The band hasn't rally blown up here in the states the way they have in England. For example, this band was the headlining band at the glastonbury music festival this year, whereas they are playing at a small theater this november. It would be a very intimate show with a wildly popular band. 

Which should I choose?

Have a good week!

A Little Self-Realization

Hey Blog,

So I'm feeling a little bit down currently. To make a long, complicated story short, Bethany (my girlfriend) and I broke up this past week. It has been very interesting to see all the different ways that I've reacted to this new situation that God has put me into. 

First off, I still love Bethany. I love her very deeply. This in no way has weakened that. Yet i feel like it should! Usually when people break up, the relationship dwindles. Usually when people break up, you try and get over the person. I haven't really found that to be true. 

I know that sounds quite creepy, but i promise that I'm not stalking anyone or anything. :-) My love for her has had the cushy exterior taken off of it, and now its time for the rubber to meet the road. Will I try and become a better man for Bethany, or will I stay exactly where I'm at right now.

But through that train of thought comes and even bigger struggle: Should I be improving in my life for her and my love for her, or for God and my love for Him? 

This thought has been running through my head recently, and i've been tossing it back and forth. Through good conversations and a lot of self searching, I realize that my relationship with God is the most important thing in my life. Its not that it should be, it is. Even if i don't want it to be, the way that I view my God is what I base everything else in the world upon. 

Ok, lets just say for a minute that Bethany and I hadn't broken up. Our relationship would've continued and it would have been fine. But what if she died? What if she was taken out of my life in a completely unexpected way? If my world-view is based upon my relationship with her, I will view God as unfair and unjust. Everything that i think in my brain comes back to God, which in turn brings me to Jesus Christ. 

I've been reading through the old testament from front to back, and I am about to finish up with Joshua. In Joshua 3:5 Joshua tells the people to purify themselves because in the next day God was going to do wonders. I feel like i've been called to be purified. Purified in my thoughts and Purified in my actions. God is a jealous God that is so jealous, he constantly draws all my thoughts back to Him. 

Through this lens, I have been so stupid! I apologize to every relationship that I've not been god focused in, to Bethany, and first and foremost to God. 

Hah. This was embarrassingly introspective. I hope that if you bring this to me sometime, I blush. :-)

it feels good to blog.

:-)

What TU needs? Part 2

Sorry that it has been such a long time since i have blogged at all. It has been an wonderful weekend and i was very busy throughout the past couple days. My girlfriend Bethany came down to Indy and hung out with me for the weekend, so blogging wasn't really on the forefront of my mind. :-)

To recap, the idea of a church at taylor is what is being discussed. This church would be student run and student lead in almost all leadership positions and roles of responsibilities. The driving thought behind this is that we want Taylor to become more impassioned. We want taylor to be a true community of believers that is open and actively working toward the goals of the kingdom in both spirit and truth. The best way that I've seen that happen in every single community is when it clicks with people inside the community and when those people then influence others positively. I would rather listen to the guy down my hall who has struggled with pornography and gotten out of it than listen to someone that i don't know. When it is personal, it is stronger and more applicable. 

Hence the idea of a student lead church. When i think about the churches around the area of taylor, i think of taylor students as injections into those churches. We almost are like a cortazone shot. I don't really think that many of the TU students consider themselves members of a church at school. for me personally, I wake up, go to church, listen to the sermon, sit with my taylor friends, then i get up and go eat lunch back at taylor. At no point am i involved in the church the only time that we meet corporately. I know that this sounds bad or heretical or whatever, but i don't consider them my church family. I consider my church family the other christians that i'm living life with. This idea comes a little bit from Acts 2:42, but also it comes from some articles that I've read by Gabe Lyons. If anyone of you who reads this blog is interested in reading some of the stuff that has really reshaped the way that i have looked at church, check out this website. 

As I drove up to Michigan to pick up Bethany, i was given the time to sit down and call people about the idea for the church. All the people that i talked to helped me shape a little bit more of what the idea of a church at school could look like. Thank you to everyone that i talked to! Your input was very beneficial. One of the main points that i realized was that in order for the church to ever be operational was to be really organized and well thought out. This meant we would have to have some sort of a checks and balances system set up so that one person in the whole idea of a church couldn't "take control" of everything. As a community, we are going to be all working together, which will obviously cause conflict and strife at some point. Being organized helps avoid that. 

I would love to continue to have people become excited about the idea of a church, but i can't be the only person who is informing others about it. If you read this blog and you go to Taylor, please tell as many people about the idea for a church that you can. The more people that jump on board now and actively work toward developing it as a program, the better chance it has for actually happening. That means:

• Questions
• Comments
• Concerns
• Ideas
• Networking
• Resources
• Complaints

All of these things are going to be essential for the idea to work! Also and most importantly, we need to be praying about it! Toss this up to God and see what he says about it. I know that everyone that wants this to happen will be excited and passionate about it, so lets spread the passion and cause change!

A good mix of songs for the summer.

Hey Blog! I hope you are doing wonderfully tonight. I'm feelin' great, now that i have something to blog about! I have been racking my brain over the past couple days as to what i wanted to say, but just today i felt a new wave of imaginative juices permeating themselves all inside of me. HAH. funny sentence. 

The following list of songs are not my love child, but the brilliant mind of Hayley Robb's. She was an intern with me last summer at the Madison County Commission, which is where she is working again this summer. I wish her the best of luck with all those old southern women, and i couldn't be happier that I'm in Indianapolis! :-) Even though Indy is sweet, it won't make a Colts fan out of me yet. 

I was talking to The Phubbbbbbbs tonight (long story about the name. If you really want to know, comment and ask for it.) about our internships that we are in this summer when i started feeling really good about summer. The weather outside today was really weird, but flippin' awesome. I went and got a milkshake from Cold Stone Creamery and sat in a parking lot to watch the magnificent storm clouds float by menacingly. As i was talking to Phubbly i was standing on the back porch of Jose and Nicole's townhouse looking at the beautiful clouds. I was so taken aback by their beauty that i had to tell The Phubbbbbbbs about them. 

To my right was a dusky sky framed about dark grey clouds of fluff. It was whimsical, gentle, and the perfect backdrop to a warm summer night. Alternatively to my left were colossal storm clouds, constantly throwing lightning about. Every five seconds or so another lightning bolt would light up the clouds. It wasn't violent lightning, but more like a giant firefly buzzing about in the storm. It rocked so freakin' hard. I stood in awe of God's amazing beauty, even beauty in opposition of each other, making each more dynamically beautiful. So Phubbbbbbbs, so sorry my phone died, but i really was liking talking to you because i was able to look at the sky longer. :-)

Woah... I just thought their was a mirror directly to my right, when it actually was a dry erase board. Weird...

Today as i was looking at the storms, i was thinking... How many birds get struck by lightning? I mean, there are so many birds on the planet i'm sure there are a few really unlucky ones that are either in trees that get struck, or are in the misfortunate lot of direct strike victims. Does anyone know if birds are commonly struck? I asked this question to my girlfriend Bethany, and sadly she wasn't sure. As the question frustrated us both, a more important and obscure question was raised: How many birds are there on the planet? Are there more birds than people? I'm sure that as you read this, you ponder the same thing, so if anyone has the answer, please inform us! 

Here are some other questions i thought about today:

-Is the blue that i see the same blue that you see?

-If you could have different color hair, what color would you choose?

-What kind of music is popular now? What do you listen to?

-How is Coldplay going to perform the extremely complex musical arrangements of their songs on the new album well? (A.K.A. viva la vida. Does anyone play strings?)

-Can you hear God's voice in Lightning?

-How early can children start to learn how to read?

-What would people think of you if you survived a lightning strike, only to then have a distinct physical feature because of it? (i thought of split irises...)

Tristan Prettyman- Love, Love, Love

Corey Smith- Something to Lose

Donavon- Catch the Wind

The Feeling- Sewn

Joe Purdy- Wash Away

The Decemberists- On The Bus Mall

Josh Rouse- Sad Eyes

Ben lee- We're All in This Together

Scatteredtrees- Summer Sparrow

Jason Mraz- I'm Yours

Eric Bibb- Shine On

Matt Costa- Astair

Melissa Ferrick- Everything I Need

Eisley- Trolley Wood

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club- Promise

Indigo Girls- I Believe in Love

Old Crow Medicine Show- Wagon Wheel

Elliot Smith- Say Yes

Jonah Smith- My Morning Scene

Josh Ritter- Girl in The War

My favorites are Summer Sparrow, Girl in The War, Sewn, and I'm Yours. Check it out. Comment back. 

Love the Feed.

hah. so lame. 

:-)