What is your Shield?

Ned produced Robert's letter. "Lord Varys, be so kind as to show this to my lady of Lannister."

The eunuch carried the letter to Cersei. The queen glanced at the words. "Protector of the Realm," she read. "Is this meant to be your shield, my lord? A piece of paper?" She ripped the letter in half, ripped the halves in quarters, and let the pieces flutter to the floor.

-excerpt from A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin

Ned ended getting the bad side of the deal. He banked on the words that King Robert wrote before his death and thought that words on paper was enough to become the Lord Protector of the Realm. Unfortunately, Queen Cersei had a greater hold on the throne, she had Joffrey, the Kings son, and rightful heir to the throne.

Cersei's question to Ned before she ripped Robert's last requests was the very inspiration of this blog. Is this meant to be your shield, my lord?


Being a Christian, it has always been a question of mine if I really am one. There are countless times where I see myself down on the ground limping because of my sin compared to the times wherein I'm comfortable standing and banking on the righteous deeds that I have just done. Where could I base my Christianity? Where could I firmly hold my belief, even through the life I live, that I am indeed a Christian? Do I have that piece of paper that would say that yes, I am in good standing and, figuratively speaking, rightfully able to claim that place? Or do I have that same assurance, like Queen Cersei had, that no matter what happens, through blood and the hierarchy of their family that Joffrey, and not Ned would rule? What is my shield?

I want to share my thoughts from my journal regarding this matter. I want to share with you the thoughts that I've wrestled with and what I've thought to be my shield and my conclusion.

On the Question of Innocents Suffering

9/22/2011 News has been buzzing about Troy Davis, a man convicted of man slaughter and was sentenced to death. The buzz about Troy Davis is that 7 of the 9 witnesses that testified against Davis already recanted their statements saying that they were pressured to place the blame on Davis.

None of it matters now as Troy Anthony Davis already served his sentence.

There were last ditch efforts to prove the mans innocence and they were all denied by their Supreme Court and his sentence was ordered to be served.

We'll never truly know if Troy Davis was really guilty of the charge that was slapped on him, but none of this stopped my grandma, who was with me while I was watching CNN, to ask the question, what happens to the judges and the people that served the sentence?

DJ Ponders: On Axiousness

Among all the feelings that I get to feel daily, this is one of the most constant ones. And being the person that usually over analyzes things and tend to look through the window of tomorrow, this feeling doesn't really help at all when reality slaps me silly and brings me back to the present time.

I get to do a lot of planning my future. And lately, I've been working on this certain step that I would want to happen soon. The most current one and the one that causes my fingers to run out of nails, is my wanting to move to a different country, and boy has it toyed with me for quite some time now.

To be honest, this particular desire of mine to move and find a job there drives me crazy. And what's more crazy is that it's just a month since I was there and finally decided to work on the move.

On Freedom and Constraints

This morning, on the way to work, I've been listening to Tim Keller's preaching about Absolutism.
Few of the things that I've picked up was regarding freedom and constraint. And here some of  my thoughts about it...

"Freedom to do the things that we like would be our own constraint to do the things that would honor God.
But being given the constraints to do the things that we would love to do would be the freedom to do the things that would honor God."

For a Christian, being barred and constrained to do the things that would mar us for eternity, is freedom.
For the reprobate, the freedom to do the things that they love to do is their own constraint for eternal salvation.

So when you actually think about it, there really is no such thing as "freedom". We're only free to do the things we love to do as the same as we being constrained from the things that we love to do.

So in conclusion to this thought, the true delight and satisfaction that we receive from the love of Jesus Christ that was portrayed on the cross and on the life that one Christian lives out is the freedom that a Christian would love and truly enjoy. Loving the cares of this world would never be seen as a constraint in a Christian's life but him being free to thinking that it's a constraint is the true freedom that he'll enjoy. That is part of the freedom that Christ gave through the cross.