Stephen Anthony Ray

Perhaps the hardest thing you can do is watch someone you love make, against all loving admonition and intervention, bad decisions - decisions that you (and everyone else, it seems) know will result in a great amount of pain and negative consequence.

Perhaps the hardest thing God can do is to watch his children make, against all His loving provision and admonition, decisions against His intention for our lives - decisions that He (and all of Heaven, it seems) know will result in a great amount of pain and negative consequence.

Most people, both inside and outside of the Faith, seem to understand God only in terms of restriction. I think I’m still partly in this camp. Such an understanding, unfortunately, not only leads to an inaccurate portrait of God’s character, but it ignores the true nature of both sin and righteousness.

To live righteously is to live with freedom. To live sinfully is to live as a slave.

Concerning righteousness, one must move past the selfish understanding of seeing it as a merely works-based position: you act well, and you will be rewarded. Rather, righteousness is the natural, progressive outflow of the transformation that occurs once a person decides to live in a relationship with Jesus Christ. Anyone who has lived with the proper understanding of this relationship relishes in the freedom of living as a Christian. Only those who accept Christ only to subsequently ignore Him find the Faith to be burdensome and restrictive. And why not? To those who live sinfully and have not truly accepted the Truth, it is a slavery of sorts.

Sin, by contrast, no matter how “freeing” or “spontaneous” or good it feels, is, in essence, binding. When you sin and sin and sin and sin, it eventually becomes you, and you began to lose the ability to choose between right and wrong, good and bad.

But the same is not inversely true with righteousness. Anyone undergoing the transformation of Christianity will tell you that the choice between right and wrong is isn’t necessarily easier - but only that the fruit of living as a Christian is much sweeter than that of living in sin. Yet the choice itself is inherently untampered with - it is free. Not so with sin.

To live in Christ is to be free.

Is it not ludicrous that any should still choose sin?

“How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”
Romans 6:2b

God relates to his children corporately and personally. Thus, in defining sin, one must conclude that sin is a willful disruption (either corporately or personally) of God’s attempts to love and relate to his creation. Considering this twofold dynamic of sin, it is logical to conclude that whenever a person sins personally, the consequences that result can be felt corporately; likewise, when a group sins corporately, the results can still manifest personally.

Concerning this latter hypothetical, I bring this to mind because I’ve begun to realize that the consequences of my personal sin (that is, my sin against none but God) do not affect only me. Rather, because they affect me, they affect everyone around me.

Thus, the essential pride that stands as the center of my sin isn’t so merely because my eyes fix on myself rather than God (though that were reason enough). It is also thus because my eyes fix on myself rather than others.

SRay

Today was the best day I’ve experienced in a really long time. After getting up and doing a bit of singing through a couple of rehearsals, some friends from Ouachita (Austin and Tyler Samuelson) came up here from LA and picked me up.

We went to the Carpinteria State Beach and swam and hung out for a little while. By the way, let me mention that there was a small pod of dolphins swimming with us at the beach today. If that can’t bring a smile to your face, you should probably go jump off a cliff. OK, just kidding. It was so beautiful.

Then, we showered (separately) and changed (again, separately) and left for downtown Santa Barbara, where we dined at a wonderful little Hibachi called Something’s Fishy. It was incredible.

Really, I guess the day wasn’t made great by the stuff we did. It was made great by the fact that got to spend some good time with good friends from home - friends around whom I can be myself and friends who share some of the same interests as I do. I praise the Lord for today. It was good. It was funny. It was amazing.

SRay

Beloved Family and Friends

I’ve been here for exactly one week tonight. I have seven more to go. The experience thus far has been one that has provoked all kinds of emotions, not the least of which have been fear and a great sense of overwhelming. Let me clear it up.

Fear - New place, new faces, and a new culture in which I’m not used to living, much less being salt and light.

Overwhelmed - I have to memorize 30 pages of Don Giovanni (as Don Giovanni; and let me mention that this is mostly recitative…ask a music major, they’ll know), the entirety of La Boheme (as a cover, thank God! But I still have to know the whole opera), about three chorus numbers (not in English, mind you), and about six or seven brand new songs. Today, I just had to sit down and pray for a minute. Who knew that the real world was so stinking busy all the time?

Burdened - My heart bleeds for my music colleagues here at the academy. Most of them drink nearly every night - and not that that is a problem in and of itself. But isn’t there something that binds human fellowship and fun more than drinking? Are we really that shallow or insecure?

Confident - All of my voice lessons so far have been really encouraging. Spending time with other musicians older and younger than me who work their behinds off to accomplish their goals is really inspirational to me. It makes want to work harder and be my best.

Awe - Mountains on one side and an ocean on the other - nothing but sun in between with highs topping out at 83 or so. I can’t imagine how, with so much of His glory surrounding them, people can fail to see God in the beauty that lies right before their eyes.

Blessed - John Williams, Marilyn Horne, Warren Jones, John Churchwell, Thomas Hampson…just a few of the professionals with whom I will study or who I will get to see perform in the next few weeks. There are people who would pay with anything they have for this opportunity, and I get it for free (because of a talent that I did not earn). I am so blessed.

Challenged - Here, most people aren’t evangelical Christians. Most are either apathetic or atheist. I pray that I can live my life in such a way that the reality of God’s existence and plan for his children would be evidenced by my example.

Thanks for checking in. Know that Jesus loves you - and that love can change everything.

SRay

Today I had a first real voice lesson with Marilyn Horne (you should google and wikipedia her). It was pretty cool. I’m excited about the amount of stretching that I’m going to receive here. I should know a few more roles and I should really really have a lot more music under my belt. I’m excited about the amount of professional push that I’m getting out of this place.

Besides all that, God is good. He has always been - but often my heart has been too hard to notice it. I love the Lord and thank Him for being faithful to me even when I am unfaithful to him. To be secure in knowing that my mistakes don’t dictate the amount of love that God lavishes on me is incredible - and foreign to humanity. He spent these first few days softening my heart and renewing in me a passion for knowing and loving Him and His Word, as well as knowing and loving other people.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support.

SRay