+his is all.

Teach me to pray.

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:30:00 -0600

May I seek first thy kingdom and its righteousness.
May I value things in relation to eternity.
May my spiritual welfare be my chief solicitude.
May I be poor, afflicted, despised and have thy blessing, rather than be successful in enterprise, or have more than my heart can wish, or be admired by my fellow-men, if thereby these things make me forget thee.
May I regard the world as dreams, lies, vanities, vexation of spirit, and desire to depart from it.
And may I seek my happiness in thy favor, image, presence, service.
Desires, The Valley of Vision

Why do I think I know what’s best when my father knows what I need before I even ask? This is what will bring him the most glory and this is what’s best.

I need nothing more.

Bloomberg: Harvard, Princeton in Discrimination Probe

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:03:00 -0600

Bloomberg: Harvard, Princeton in Discrimination Probe:

Or, here’s an idea: stop practicing the (worthless) SAT and spend some time investing in things that you care about. People seem to like people that are passionate about something.

And quit idolizing the Ivy League. How many people have gone on to contribute to society without a BS degree (Double entendre! We learn those at public university, too!) from Harvard, MIT or Princeton?

I seem to have lost count. Hmm, maybe I should’ve gone to an Ivy.

There’s a reason you don’t spell success as s-t-a-t-u-s.

That kind of thinking creates the current educational crisis we have on our hands today.

A little chat about swing dancing tonight with my work mentor.

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:10:41 -0600

B: What time are you gonna be thurr?
VanWyk: prolly ate
VanWyk: talk to some fly honies
B: word
B: lol
B: I read "honies" like "ponies"
VanWyk: i like my honies like i like my ponies
VanWyk: little and mine

"It’s hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving..."

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:39:00 -0600

““It’s hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving women’s lives could have bowed to this kind of bullying,””

- Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood after learning they had lost Komen Grants for breast cancer exams.

Wrong. Planned Parenthood ends the lives of women. In 2010, they were responsible for the deaths of 160,000 girls. (Source: Planned Parenthood Annual Report 2009-2010, pg. 4-5.)

Praying for women to not abort, for the church to act in adoption for their unborn children and to be a safe and graceful harbor for women no matter their circumstance and most of all, for God to bring his Kingdom and win a people for himself in a broken world.

My mentor just made my day.

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:35:26 -0600

My mentor just made my day.

"Oh my warriors, whither would you flee? Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy. You have left..."

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:25:48 -0600

“

Oh my warriors, whither would you flee? Behind you is the sea, before you, the enemy. You have left now only the hope of your courage and your constancy.

Remember that in this country you are more unfortunate than the orphan seated at the table of the avaricious master. Your enemy is before you, protected by an innumerable army; he has men in abundance, but you, as your only aid, have your own swords, and, as your only chance for life, such chance as you can snatch from the hands of your enemy. If the absolute want to which you are reduced is prolonged ever so little, if you delay to seize immediate success, your good fortune will vanish, and your enemies, whom your very presence has filled with fear, will take courage. Put far from you the disgrace from which you flee in dreams, and attack this monarch who has left his strongly fortified city to meet you. Here is a splendid opportunity to defeat him, if you will consent to expose yourselves freely to death. Do not believe that I desire to incite you to face dangers which I shall refuse to share with you. In the attack I myself will be in the fore, where the chance of life is always least.

Remember that if you suffer a few moments in patience, you will afterward enjoy supreme delight. Do not imagine that your fate can be separated from mine, and rest assured that if you fall, I shall perish with you, or avenge you.

”

- طارق بن زياد‎, after burning his ships when he and his men landed on Gibralter.

"Following soccer is like being in love with someone who’s (a) gorgeous, (b) fascinating, (c)..."

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:39:00 -0600

“Following soccer is like being in love with someone who’s (a) gorgeous, (b) fascinating, (c) possibly quite evil, and (d) only occasionally aware of your existence. There’s a continuous low-grade suffering that becomes a sort of addiction in its own right. You spend all your time hoping they’ll notice you, and they never do, and that unfulfilled hope feels like your only connection to them. And then one day they look your way, and it’s just, pow. And probably they just want help moving, and maybe they call you Josie instead of Julie, but still. It keeps you going. And as irrational as it sounds, you wouldn’t trade this state of being for a life of quiet contentment with someone else.”

- Brian Phillips, Grantland

Everyone: please do this!

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:54:04 -0600

Everyone: please do this!:

I’ll keep spamming you all until this gets done. LET’S DO THIS.

"The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it." — John Steinbeck

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:32:25 -0600

"The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it." — John Steinbeck:

He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.
Psalm 40:3

I hope these two line up. No matter what.

You think you're soooooo funny.

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:05:00 -0600

Me: chatting with you is weird - i never get to google talk with you
CM: haha fine
CM: GOODBYE
CM: just pretend i'm ***** and maybe it'll be more natural
Me: wait a second...
Me: i don't talk to her THAT much
CM: lol i didn't say you talk to her that much!
CM: must be your inner guilt

The shortest distance Between two points Is the line ...

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:48:29 -0600

The shortest distance
Between two points
Is the line
From me to you

Addicted to The Glitch Mob right now.

Oh, I have no idea what I was thinking.

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 17:27:00 -0600

I love the manual for Gratuitous Space Battles:

Although it is legal to leave empty sockets [on your ship] (maybe to save weight or cost), it’s generally a good idea to pack your ship full of hardware. You are paying for the hull, and after all this isn’t ‘Proportional-Response Battles’, what were you thinking.

My mistake, Jacobim.

The mission selection screen also shows you three boxes that indicate if you were previously successful in battle on medium, hard or expert difficulty. There is no ‘easy’ option. If you wanted easy, you should not have signed up for the space navy and you are not fit to take command of a fleet of Andromedan space mites.

Forgive my lack of courage.

STRENGTH AND HONOR.

I hope my kid turns out like this.

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:12:00 -0600

E: Daddy, daddy! Come here, I can read a word from this book!
Dave: Okay, coming!

: (Dave comes back.)

Ryan: So, what book was it?
Dave: I don't know, something by John Owen?
All of Us: ...

To battle and more.

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:44:51 -0600

But God’s love is no flickering flame! It does not flare up for a little while, like the crackling of thorns under a pot, and then die out in darkness. It is not to be set forth by the image of a fool’s mirth which lasts but for a little season. It begins, it waxes vehement, it diminishes not, but it grows from strength to strength till what seemed at first to be but a single spark, becomes a mighty flame—and what was a flame becomes like the beacon lights of war, and what was but as a beacon becomes as the sun itself, in the fierceness of its heat and in the majesty of its goings!
C.H. Spurgeon

For so bright a hope, I will war. I will bleed, I will lose, I will die and more, but for his glory I will not fail because Jesus, my King, leads the way and he knows Victory well!

Bless this messWe tried our best, That’s all that we...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:30:00 -0600

Bless this mess
We tried our best,
That’s all that we can do.

While the angels walk
With the lonely ones
In the cold rain to rescue you.

And this fable world’s comin’ down hard,
The wall’s comin’ down hard,
On all our homes.

So,
Hold a hand for cover
Hold a hand for cover
Hold a hand for cover from harm.

A little somethin’ somethin’ to keep your head up and heart rockin’ out.

Thanks, Google Adwords!

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:05:16 -0600

Thanks, Google Adwords!

You see, sin had come into God’s perfect world. And it...

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 12:46:00 -0600

You see, sin had come into God’s perfect world. And it would never leave. God’s children would be always running away from him and hiding in the dark. Their hearts would break now, and never work properly again. God couldn’t let his children live forever, not in such pain, not without him. There was only one way to protect them.

“You will have to leave the garden now,” God told his children, his eyes filling with tears. “This is no longer your true home, it’s not the place for you anymore.”

But before they left the garden, God made clothes for his children, to cover them. He gently clothed them and then he sent them away on a long, long journey — out of the garden, out of their home.

Well, in another story, it would all be over and that would have been…

The End.

But not in this story.

God loved his children too much to let the story end there. Even though he knew he would suffer, God had a plan — a magnificent dream. One day, he would get his children back. One day, he would make the world their perfect home again. And one day, he would wipe away every tear from their eyes.

You see, no matter what, in spite of everything, God would love his children — with a

Never Stopping,
Never Giving up,
Unbreaking,
Always and Forever Love.

And though they would forget him, and run from him, deep in their hearts, God’s children would miss him always, and long for him — lost children yearning for their home.

Before they left the garden, God whispered a promise to Adam and Eve: “It will not always be so! I will come to rescue you! And when I do, I’m going to do battle against the snake. I’ll get rid of the sin and the dark and the sadness you let in here. I’m coming back for you!”

And he would.

One day, God himself would come.

Stamped

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:25:16 -0600

Stamped:

parislemon:

I’ve written a number of times about my hatred of the 1-to-5 star rating system. It’s too arbitrary. What constitutes a 2-star rating? What about a 4-star rating? If you like something, it’s 5-stars. If you hate it, it’s 1-star. And maybe if it’s okay, it’s 3-stars. The love/like/meh/dislike that something like Oink uses is much better because at least it gives meaning to the ratings. But what if ratings could be even easier? Easier than even thumbs up/thumbs down?

That’s Stamped. There is only one way to vote with the app: if you like something, give it a stamp (your stamp of approval, as it were). If you don’t like something, ignore it. Don’t rate it. It couldn’t be easier.

I first wrote about Stamped for TechCrunch in September. I’ve been testing the app since then and have kept using it. I love both the simplicity and the design of the app. Today it finally launched to the public and that promises to make it even more useful. The key, as with all these apps, is data.

TechCrunch has more about today’s launch, as do the Stamped guys on their own blog. This is one of those services I’m not an investor in, just a fan of.

So they waited for him.

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:00:00 -0600

So they waited for him.:

And when I say that he died, what I mean is that HE DIED.

But when I say that he was raised, what I mean is that HE WAS RAISED.

By his mercy we are called his own! By his grace we will never be left alone! By his love he is preparing our home! And by his blood we can sing before his throne!

Emmanuel — GOD WITH US.

Excelsior!

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:06:00 -0500

I love to imagine the future, but I’ve yet to come close to accurate in any of those predictions.

Six years ago, it was Oxford and a life of computational neuroscience research! Five years ago, it was off to UPenn and the investment banking world! Then came four years ago and UT Business Honors and then the investment banking world! Three, I’ll marry this girl. Two, I’ll really marry this girl. One, I’m going to change myself. Zero, I’ll never imagine a single future again.

That last one’s partially true; I’ve imagined two.

One of them sets me sail soon. The other brings someone with me.

Given my track record, both of those could dissolve like rust in the way of every future I’ve imagined so far.

The fault in all these dreams I can think of exists in the lie that my future is forged by my own hands and then used to show off who God is, but the truth is that God has ironed out my way and he knows every step I will take and has caused it to be so and he’ll show off who he is and take all the credit for it.

God’s got all of it under control, but I’ve still got to fight across every single pebble along the way. His sovereignty does not diminish my responsibility.

Even so, he’ll give me what I need: shoes to walk on, water to drink, food to give me energy and his promises to remind me where I’m goin’. Maybe he’ll give me what others need: shoes to give away, water to cool, food to share and his promises to show that he is true. Wherever he tells me to go, if I don’t have something it is because it was unnecessary to begin with. To this end, my responsibility does not diminish his sovereignty.

Because this is true, I don’t need my future. I want this one, and I want that one, but for these prayers that I don’t know how to pray, I know the Spirit is praying for me according to the will of God and God always answers yes to those prayers lifted by the Spirit.

So, I know that God’s will is going to be done in my life and it will lift his name higher and ever higher.

That’s my future. I need know no more.