Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A Journal Excerpt. 03.22.11.

This morning I started studying Daniel. As I was reading, I was journaling some thoughts. I read back over them, and this section stuck out to me. I thought I would share it.

vs 17, 19. "God gave these four men an unusual aptitude for understanding... and no one impressed the king as much as them."

GOD IS INVOLVED IN OUR LIVES. These men had no desire to go to Babylon. They were taken captive by the king and forced into his service. They never wanted to go, they never wanted to work for the Babylonian king. How easy (and justifiable) it would have been for them to just be bitter about their situation, and to cry out for God to deliver them from it. How often I find myself doing that. Telling God where I need to be rather than paying attention to where He has already put me. But these men were determined to believe that God could and WOULD use them in the midst of a terrible situation. And because of that, their faith was rewarded. God knows every detail and event in our lives long before we do. If only I had the patience to let God work rather than just a motivation to see myself happy right now. Think about how much more for the kingdom could be accomplished! God can and will work through the difficult circumstances in our lives, and the work is so much greater (and more rewarding) when we let Him do His thing, rather than focus on our selfish desires.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

arise:

arise:

awake, dear friend.
feel the fires
burn
within you once
more.

let sleep remain
for the weary.
for those who
have no
bones of war.

this is not
your tragedy
to bestow.
nor is it yours
to live.

awaken.

find your
warriors
heart once
more!
remember the
dreams
we
shared.

shake this
facade of
fatigue from
your veins
and feel
them course
with
lifeblood
once more!!

no.

this is not the end.
your end.
demise.
response.
repose.

this is
antithesis.

you are
antithesis.

live it!!

the ground of
the thief ends
here.

this night.

tonight...
we take back
what is
rightfully
ours!!

and this is
what we
fight for...

simply...

to fight.

to feel alive.
a reason
to live.

for in that
moment when
we cease to strive
for that which
gives us life...

what do
we
become?

the answer,
dear friends,
is one i fear
we would do
well to
avoid.

this is
your night,
and you are
the
savage.

reclaim
what is
yours.

faithfully,
your king


Saturday, January 29, 2011

All Who Are Weary.

2011 has been interesting thus far. I know a lot of you haven't seen much of me, which has been somewhat by design and somewhat out of my control, but both of those are somehow connected. Since coming home from CO I've been laying pretty low. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I just feel like God has been telling me over this last month that I need to be spending some solid time at rest. Reconnecting with Him, reconnecting with my heart, and letting all of the stress and busyness of life fall by the wayside. I couldn't tell you why He's having me do this, but I know that as I move forward with this year, I really want to move forward in my connection with God. Move further into the idea of walking and talking with Him on a daily basis, and moving further into the idea of giving up everything in my life to Him.

It's been both difficult and refreshing to be taking a social break. Not because I don't love my friends. I do. I love all of you more than you can imagine. But life seems to be filled with so many distractions, things keeping me from charging head first after God. Not that those distractions are bad things in and of themselves, mind you. But distractions nonetheless. For the last month or so, I've just felt a season of change coming on. I feel specifically that God has been telling me that some big changes are heading my way, and I need to be completely rested and focused on Him in preparation for those changes. I couldn't tell you for the life of me what I think that means. Despite the shortness of my time on this planet, one lesson I've learned over and over again is not to try and put the pieces together prematurely when God tells me change is coming. I have a habit of imagining best case scenarios all the time and then being absolutely crushed when my life hits the wall. The biggest example of that being the second time I was in Afghanistan in 2008.

I was having my daily quiet time with God, and I heard Him tell me, "Marcus, some big changes are coming in your life, and I need you to hold on. That's all I need you to do, is hold on." At the time I had just started playing in a new band, I was auditioning for a couple tours, and I was dating a girl. And in my infinite selfishness all I could imagine was those bands working out really well and being financially successful and having that turn me from God. What proceeded to happen was everything I knew in my life crashing into a brick wall at 100mph over the next 2 years. Everything from family to music to jobs to friendships to churches all disappeared around me. I did not deal with it well. As I've stated before, it was a period of time that I spent walking a lot closer with Jack Daniels than I was with Jesus Christ. But somehow I held on. It wasn't even until a few months ago that I remembered that God had told me that. I completely forgot about it in the midst of everything that was going on. But as I look back on it now, I'm completely amazed by it. Amazed by the fact that I was even able to hold on during that time, and just amazed by how faithful God has been in my life. So all of that is to say, that with whatever God is preparing me for now, I'm trying to remain objective. Not getting my hopes up, not getting my hopes down, just being comfortable with what God is asking me in this moment, which is to rest and center my heart on Him.

Rest is such a funny concept. Especially living in the type of society we do here in the US. It's something that is completely foreign and 100% opposite of how we're told to operate societally. I mean true rest. I don't mean taking a night off every once in a while, I mean the idea of living in a state of rest. That's the kind of life Jesus has called us to take on.

"Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.'" - Matthew 11:28-30

This is a call that is put to us that comes before anything. Take on the yoke and teachings of Christ. Before work. Before school. Before life. Before anything. If we put ourselves under the burden of Christ, then our hearts will begin to take on an attitude of rest long before anything we actually do in our lives will have the chance to spoil it. I've been meditating on those verses as often as I can. I wrote them down and hung them above my desk so I'm looking at them all day as I work.

Recently as I was spending some time with God, I felt he was pushing me to ask Him about where I am in my walk with Him. I was immediately filled with dread. The same kind of dread I get right before I check my checking account balance. Like, "Oh no, I don't think I even want to know what's going on in here. What if it's not what I think it is? What if it's not what it should be? What am I going to do?" That's how I felt about checking in with God about my walk with Him. How ridiculous. He revealed a couple pretty big things to me throughout the course of that conversation. First I asked God to reveal to me how I thought I was doing with Him. The word that came into my heart was "terrible." How awful. At my base level, that's how I think I'm doing with God, terrible. That's how afraid I am of checking in to where I even am with Him, that the first thing I can think when confronted about it is "terrible." But God is better than that. Next I asked Him where He thinks my relationship with Him is. The word that came into my heart was "refresh." I felt him telling me that I was in a time of refreshment with Him. To remember where true satisfaction in this world comes from, and to drink in as much of it as I possibly can. That's what I felt Him say to me. I have to say that I felt like I didn't agree, but I do know that I've been trying to seek Him as much as possible and reconnect my heart with Him lately.

After this I simply asked God to point me to some scripture to read. I really felt God putting Psalms 42 on my heart. I couldn't tell you the last time I read Psalms, I rarely do, and I never really think about or remember any of the things that are said in them, as good as they are. So I opened up to Psalms 42.

"As the deer longs for streams of water,
so I long for you, O God.
I thirst for God, the living God.
When can I go and stand before him?"
-Psalms 42:1-2

I absolutely lost my mind. I haven't cried like that in some time. Even when I'm at my worst, spending as much time with God as I can and still feeling like I'm doing a terrible job, He's there to reassure me that I'm right where I'm supposed to be, learning and doing exactly what He wants me to be doing in this moment.

Rest. Refreshment. Living Water. Those are the things I'm meditating on lately. How about yourself?

Monday, January 10, 2011

The Fear is What Keeps Us Here.

Sorry for the title. It's definitely my least favorite Zao record, but I've always thought of Dan Weyandt as one of the greatest lyricists of this generation, and I love that title. It holds very true to what I want to talk about with this post: fear.

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." - 2 Timothy 1:7

God has really been hitting me with this verse lately. Hard. I think I tend to live so much of my life in fear. I think we all do. And I'm not talking about the big fears, like dying or that sort of thing. I'm talking about the little things. Just the little day to day fears. Don't talk to this person, don't tell your friends this or that, don't ask that girl out, don't talk about yourself too much, etc. Little fears that we all deal with. But I've started to realize that over time, all those little things that we never give much thought to start to add up. They start to add up a lot. And the sum is something I think we would all do well to avoid.

The way I see it, all those little things start to add up to a wasted life. And that's exactly what our enemy wants. Think about that. If God hasn't given us a spirit of fear and timidity, and those spirits aren't from God, where must they be from? If we are truly to believe that our enemy, the devil, is like a hungry lion, roaming around looking for someone to devour(1 Peter), then what would he rather see than the children of God, his enemies, wasting their lives away in a series of small, seemingly insignificant fears? Especially when the result is a nearly complete loss of everything that God desires for us. Closeness, companionship, etc.

Anyways, this is just something God has been pressing on my heart lately, so I thought I'd share it with all of you. The more conscious we are of the enemy's attacks on us, the more we will be able to recognize and resist them. We are called to a life greater than that of fear. Let's start living it.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Philippians 3: 12-14

Here's another set of verses I need tattoo'd on my corneas so I don't forget them. I think everyone who calls themselves a Christian would be wise to listen to Paul's words here. We aren't perfect, nor will we ever be in this life. All we can do is look forward.

"I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us."

Thursday, December 2, 2010

six months out.

hello all. i know i've been terrible at this blog as of late. and by as of late, i mean in the last year. not sure if anyone out there is still reading this thing. it doesn't really matter. time for an update.

as i post this, i have now officially lived in nashville for 6 months. that's crazy for me to think about. time has just flown off the calendar this year. now with the year coming to a close soon, i wanted to update everyone on my new life, and perhaps share a few thoughts. i have no real plan with this post, so if it turns into incoherent rambling, please forgive me.

nashville has been... amazing. that's really the only way i can describe it. it has been exactly the change i've been needing in my life. the spark, if you will. some of you may know, and some may not, but prior to my coming here in june, i had a rough few years in denver. just hard times piled upon hard times, all of which i dealt with very poorly. it started with a broken heart, i moved on to a slew of rebound relationships (which all left me even more broken in the end), a church i poured my life into threw me out, i lost a very well paying job, i gave up pursuing music, decided not to get another job and pursue opening a business in a very over-saturated market, and was preparing to move back in with my parents as i had nowhere else to go, and felt very abandoned because of that. and it just felt that with each progressive step, my heart and soul just crumbled more and more. it seemed as if everything in my life just kept caving in, even when i didn't know i had anything left that could come down. it all just buried me.

through this series of events, i just couldn't seem to find god. in any of it. especially after pouring my heart and soul into a church (about 30 hours a week of volunteering on top of working 50 hours a week) to try and find some answers, and then having them turn around and throw me to the curb over an incident that had absolutely nothing to do with them. that all came about in february of 2009, and after that it was every man for himself. i kept searching and searching for god and meaning and life, and felt nothing. absolutely nothing. and so rather than keep searching, i quit. i didn't attend church for an entire year. i didn't read my bible, i didn't pray, i didn't do anything. i never stopped believing, i just stopped caring. i couldn't find a way to care, as hard as i tried. so in the wake of that, i self-medicated. 2009 and the beginning of 2010 was a time in my life where i was walking a lot closer with jack daniels than i was with jesus christ. A LOT closer. binge drinking several nights a week, many times by myself, just so i wouldn't have to deal with the pain and confusion that was happening in my life.

now of course, all of this is not to say that i didn't have good times. i did. i have a lot of fond and happy memories from throughout that time period. but overall, it was not a healthy time in my life. by any means. and despite the fact that i always tried to put on a happy face, or i just drank and partied to make myself have a happy face, overall i was not happy. i was miserable. i just felt completely dead inside, and it felt like there was no one who cared enough to look under the surface and find that out. now, that's not to say that i don't have amazing friends in denver, i do, and i love them to death, and i understand that it's not other peoples responsibility to figure out that there's something wrong in my life. accountability and love are things that need to be sought out, not waited for.

so after all of this, with less than a week left on my lease, and no idea of where i was going to live afterwards, except at my parents house, i got a call from a friend in nashville that he had a room open to rent in the house he was living in. done. i told my parents and a select few friends, packed up my car and drove to nashville.

i could not be happier with that decision. while it's been hard being away from denver, away from my friends and family and everything i've ever known, i have found more happiness and genuine community here in nashville than i ever dreamed was possible, especially given the last few years i've been living in denver. i moved out here partially to pursue my business, which is photography in the entertainment industry, and partially just because i knew i needed a change. what i had going in denver was just not working for me. on any level. and i knew that i needed something major to break the rut i was in and put me in forward motion again. nashville has been just that. a chance to start over. a chance to experience life and vibrance and friendship and community again. i was fortunate enough to have a few friends when i moved out here, and i've been nothing but overwhelmed by the friendliness and hospitality of every single person i've met since i've been here.

as it turns out, no one that lives in nashville is actually from nashville, so in a city full of transplants, everyone understands what it's like to be the new person in town, and makes up for it beautifully by being so inviting and friendly. it's such an amazing environment. i've never felt so socially alive in my life. it's actually been exhausting in some ways (good ones, mind you). i have to have a night or two a week where i make myself stay in the house and not go out and hang out with people, simply because i need some time to recharge my social batteries. coming into that from an environment where i was at my house every single night, often alone, spending most of that time drinking my sorrows away, has been everything i could have asked for. i've made so many new and amazing friends, and even after only 6 months, i can't imagine where my life would be without them, or how i ever lived without them in the first place.

to put it plain and simple: i'm happy. for the first time in a very long time, i'm happy, and content, and completely in love with where i am, and the people i'm surrounded by. and beyond that, god and i have reconnected in a very big way. and i'm thankful to say that i'm in a place where i feel connected, and motivated, and alive in christ. i haven't felt that way in a long time. all in all, it's a beautiful thing. i couldn't be more grateful for this time in my life. it's been exactly what my heart has needed. and that's been reaffirmed to me by several close friends from denver who knew me before i moved here. without even seeing me, they can tell there is a huge difference in my attitude and my heart from when i was living in denver. and that's a great feeling. i'm slightly saddened by the fact that it took me leaving denver to find that in my life, but sometimes you just have to do things on faith. on faith that god will provide what you need when you need it, and that he's walking every step of the way with you. and that's what nashville has been for me.

so that's my short update on my last 6 months here in nashville and where my heart is at the moment. to all my friends back in denver, i love you and miss you dearly, and we will be reunited shortly. to all my new friends here in nashville, thank you. from the bottom of my heart, thank you. i would not be where or who i am without everyone in my life, past and present. so for now, i'm just thankful to be somewhere that i know god had planned out for me, even when i thought there was no way for me to recover. and i'm thankful for being able to live in a city that has become more of a home to me than anything i've ever experienced before in my life.

love you all.

marcus.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

New Photo Blog

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know that the duel platform this blog has been serving lately has come to an end. I now have a good blog set up through my website, so that's where all my photography related posts will be going from now on. If you're interested in following that blog, you can find it at marcusbaney.com/blog. Thanks!

Marcus

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Mike's Pawn Shop.

Tonight I did a few test shots for my friends in Mike's Pawn Shop. This is the only shot I've edited thus far, but I'm excited about how it turned out, so I decided to put it up tonight. More to come. Enjoy!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

New Orleans, LA

A few shots from my recent trip to the Gulf Coast. Prints will be available. Contact me at marcus@marcusbaney.com.







Moss Point, MS

A few shots from my recent trip to the Gulf Coast. Prints will be available. Contact me at marcus@marcusbaney.com.