Well, you never asked!

Ah, these ill-fated words, haha. As a dude with a girlfriend, whenever these words come out of my mouth i know two things; 1) i'm in trouble and shouldn't of said it at all, and 2) one of us has made a basic communicating error. I feel like people nowadays (including myself) make asking for stuff so difficult. Whether we're scared of the answer we're gonna get, to proud, or feel embarassed; we ask up, down, and around the question when it really just needed to be hit straight on. When we're asking for advice, it's always "hey, umm, well, my friend is having a problem with the boy she likes..." or "well, i, er...was like...maybe could you possibly do this kinda for me?" Gosh, how often do i make things way too difficult and awkward this way?

Right now, i'm reading the book "Crazy Love" with the family life interns at WEAG, and it's absolutely rocking my world. For maybe the past year, i've just been wondering if i'm really doing this Jesus thing right, ya know? And the answer was a resounding "NO!", haha. For all that the term "doing Christianity right" could mean, i believe that if our lives show an obvious love and daring chase after the things of Jesus, that is the difference between true Christianity and 'lukewarm Christianity".

But anyway, back to my main point. I'm reading this book feeling so convicted (for the first time in a long time), and saying "yeah, i really don't love God like i should. How do i fix it?" And like any good book, the answer came on the next page:
"The fact is, I need God to help me love God, something mysterious, even supernatural must happen in order for genuine love for God to grow in our hearts. The Holy Spirit has to move in our lives"
~Francis Chan, Crazy Love

I keep reading, and Chan basically tells us that if we want to love God, all that we have to do is ask. Just say, "God, i need your help, so help me to love you more, help me want to be closer to you." WHAT?!?!? It's that simple?!?!?! I often am occused of making things more complicated then they need to be, and i'm starting to believe it myself now. For the longest time, i've just been praying in repentence, and kinda saying to God, "Lord, i know you've asked so much more from me, and i'm going to try harder to do it". Which is totally the wrong approach, in His word he says that if we ask, and it is in His will, it will be given to us. And i can't think of anything else that would be more within God's will than for me to love him more, so that means God's gonna do it! It's like we're sitting here, struggling to get rid of our addictions by ourselves, our depressions by ourselves, or hard times by ourselves, and God has the answer and solutions. He's like, "geez yo, why hasn't he just asked me for help?!? why won't he just ask!"

I'm gonna try to wake up everyday, praying diligently for God to help me. To give me more of His love and His Holy Spirit. Not only will God bring me out of my funk, but He will then use me in ways i've never imagine, or thought were possible. He's gonna give me true joy, and true love. The life of passionately follow Christ is the only real way to live, am i right? I feel so realieved and excited, cause i think once and for all, the lesson that i can't ever do it without Him has finally sunk in, haha. I hope you guys do the same :)
~Jamal

My Thoughts on World Cup Futbol

I write this blog in haste and in a mix of sadness and excitement. I'm about to leave for a missions trip to Long Island, Bahamas to put on a vacation bible school for the youth group kids of a partner church to my home church WEAG. Which i'm sure is going to be fufilling, insightful, and Holy Spirit filled; but this very trip takes me away from viewing the World Cup 2010 final live. I've been dreaming of this game since 2006 when the last final ended. i feel really good right now since part of my dream has actually come true, the Netherlands is in the final! Anybody who has talked with me about soccer at all knows that i'm in love the the Dutch national team, and that's who i'm calling to win the Cup, therefore beating the highly favored Spain. So in my (kinda) extra time, i figured i'd lay out some of my other thoughts on "futbol".

1. Why i spell it "futbol"
I spell it (and say it) this way because that's what the rest of the world calls it, and most soccer fanatics also call it this. But when talking to the average viewer, they would confuse it wtih "american football" (i still don't know why it's called that, but that's for a whole nother blog). So to help with the confusion, i spell it as the hispanics do, and give it a foreign accent, so people don't get it twisted.

2.Diving is ALWAYS cheating, but not every time a player hits the ground writhing in pain is a dive
"Diving" or "simulation" is the practice of exaggerating or making up the pain of contact to recieve a favored call from the ref. Yes, some players do this, and EVERYONE in the futbol community sees it as cheating and disgraceful to the sport. It's something that the powers that be are working hard to get rid of, but cheating is always going to be a hard thing to get rid of. Diving isn't "just part of the game", it's a disgrace and at times have robbed people of the titles and results they deserve. For example, an Italian player took an obvious dive to get a penalty kick in the dying seconds of a semi-final game in the 2006 World Cup, they scored the penalty and won the game because of it. They robbed their opponents of the opportunity to fairly play onward, especially since they were playing better. Italy went on to win the World Cup that year, but i and the rest of the futbol world i believe should be very ashamed of how they did it.

And on the contrary, sometimes a player honestly is hurt! Haha. People (especially people who don't know futbol that well) watch the games and scream foul at ever player down. Well, the more i've researched each player, find out that players come into the World Cup with injuries, and when those players are hit in their healing body parts, they go down and down hard and don't get up for a while. If you just had knee surgery the month before, and get the slightest kick to the knee, won't it hurt a little more than normal? Also, the exhaustion the players are under lends them fall and take longer to get up as well. Other sports, players get periodic rests, but not in futbol. You've been running (and hard) up and down a 100+ yard field for almost 90 minutes straight, that foot tripping you up will send you flying, and your exhaustion alone will give your body a deeper shock. there are a bunch of different scenarios and exceptions like that, so the taunting of a diver is harder to judge. And the stereotype of professional futballers as wimps and actors is very untrue.

3. The team playing the most beautiful futbol, should ALWAYS win.
This is my most charished thought, haha. With Elliot and Ese, i have this saying: "in the perfect world..." and fill in the blank. Futbol is about pretty passing, strong tackling, effective defense, and putting it all together to score goals. Futbol is NOT about diving or acting to get a call. Futbol is NOT about playing a stratedgy of 99% defense to hopefully get a lucky goal before the clock runs out. Futbol is NOT about bullying your opponent off the ball and throwing weight around. Spain and the Netherlands both play what i would consider beautiful futbol, but i personally like the Netherlands style of beautiful futbol the best. It's faster, flashier, more dangerous, and consuming. Every player on the Dutch team is determined to go forward, each player is capable of goal scoring, and each has the ability to play any position on the pitch. I really hope the Dutch pull through, especially for their long history of being WC runners up, but if they lose, i really hope that Spain played the most beautiful futbol that day. Winning doesn't always equal beautiful futbol, but i wished that beautiful futbol always equaled winning.

Those are all the points i have time for. I can't stress enough how these are all in my very humble opinion, that i totally can understand if you disagree with. But it's from the words of Eric Cantona and Joga Bonito i got my futbol education and it's on those words that i have named my blog. So in that spirit, i hope the Netherlands and Total Futbol win the World Cup 2010 trophy. And if they do, remember me. And my large negro smile :D