Weekend to end all

This has been one of the best weekends I have had in a long time. Not only did one of my good friends publicly profess his faith in Christ, but God threw us a loop and blessed us with a place to stay! This has opened a new chapter in my life and I am nothing but optimistic about the direction my life is going right now. There is a lot of work and personal growth ahead of me but it is encouraging to know that through my trust in God he has got me in the right direction and has blessed me the way he has! Instead of feeling lost and directionless I feel that God is creating a foundation for me to expand his kingdom. I still have an inate urge to go out and do good works outside of Washington, but for now I feel content to do what I can and reach the people that I can while I am here. It is amazing how a slight glimmer in the dark tunnel can give you hope and assurance for the future. Life can only get more interesting and spontanious from here!

Exctiting

So today was one of the most exciting days I have had in a long time. Me and my friend Bob got a place to rent. You can consider us young and stupid possibly because it is a definite fixer upper, but we see the potential in it and want to make it work. Story of my life. I seem to engross all of this potential to become this great spirit led Christian even though I am stricken with all of these deficiencies and distractions, I strive to tie up all of the loose ends and make it work. This process always seems to stress me out and I seem to get overburdened with underachievement. As I open up the next chapter of my life, with added independence. I just pray that God creates growth within my life and that I am able through his strength to develop as a leader in my new household (fixer upper rental house if I must be specific) and make the best of any situation or setting that God has blessed me with. For on the journey of life, when God changes your direction it is all ways exciting!

Plans

I had this post completely finished and for some reason It did not post for me or save. I think I could have been spiritual warfare. I think the enemy doesn’t want me to write because I try to speak the truth as much as I can and he dwells and feeds off of constant lies. Anyway I am pondering what kind of plan God has in store for me and my future. Where am I going to be? Who am I going to be with? what am I going to be doing? At the same time I do feel I am where I am, doing what I am doing right now for a reason. Even if sometimes I don’t see it but I know God I believe is brewing something great and in some weird way I am involved. I have friends here and some family here (who I don’t see enough) and I know that while in someways I should be out on the mission field somewhere instead of working a desk job 5 days a week and spending the weekend with the people that I love. Sometimes I get frustrated from feeling that I am just wasting my time here doing what i am doing but recently God has given me that new perspective on things. I take it as wherever I am and whatever I am doing I can be an outlet to share God’s love. While I stumble sometimes I do think that if I keep my focus on that I am on mission wherever I am. I have gone through some hard times in my life and I know God has pulled me through those things through the important people that he has placed in my life. I want to be that for others! I want to share the determination, resisting and persevering that God is developing in my life more and more. And who knows If I am being a lighthouse for God’s truth I might be able to guide some lost ships to the shore.

Prayer

Underneath it all prayer is what it is all about. There was 2 instances today where I said a prayer for 2 things today and God answered both. Praise God! Underestimated is a word that I can connect with what I have thought about the power of prayer. For this I need to repent of because underestimating anything that is directly connected with God is shaming of his glory. I have not been feeling a call or pull from God when I pray. To tell you the truth I struggle most of the time to feel anything at all. I guess the misconception I have had about prayer started out as a young Christian. I would pray for something or someone and then get disappointed because I felt God didn’t hear me, or did not answer my prayers. I guess I was your typical doubting kid, but the sad thing is, as an adult in my prayer life I have felt part of what I have felt as a kid. As a still searching adult, The overwhelming lack of prayer has affected me in many ways. But my eyes have been opened to the truth and power that is prayer. I can see God working in the lives of the people that I pray for and plan to not quit lifting those people up. My prayer life is still a work in progress but I know God is breaking me down enough to know I need to be doing it even if I don’t feel anything. And who knows maybe someday I will.

Priorities

So I was just going to crash tonight and think of something to write about in the morning but since the red bull I drank a little bit ago had other plans, I decided to crack open a Max Lucado 3 book volume I got for Christmas. The book I started to read is called “it’s not about me” which is uniquely ironic because that Is what I have been struggling trying to condition myself to think. Now I have read a few Max Lucado books in the past for instance “No wonder they call him the savior” being one (highly recommended) and have always enjoyed his writing style. I have heard people question some of his theology but have yet to question it in what I have read. Anyway I read through 3 chapters (no big feat they are pretty short) and what stuck out the most to me was when he spoke about God’s priorities. He stated in reference when Moses was praying in Exodus 15:11 which says: “who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you-majestic in holiness, Awesome in glory, working wonders?” This verse struck me as he went on to talk about how God’s “preeminence” (can be defined as “priority”) which is to bring glory to his name! I am laying here thinking, wow how true is this! Here I have been trying to discipline “myself” to make “myself” the follower of Christ “I” want to be, when it is so laid out for me in his word. I should live to glorify HIS name. Not to better my self or others or do great things. Do helping others and doing great things glorify his name? Yes but I have had it all wrong. I have been trying to find things in my life to better myself as a Christian and to follow God when all that is commanded and what I should be doing is Glorifying his name! Life was given to me by God and instead of treating it like I am on some quest to be the best “me” I can be, I should daily be recognizing the gift that was given and Praising the name of the all worthy Giver!

“Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory because of your loving kindness, because of your truth” Psalms 115:1

Praise God!

Procrastination

So why do the simple tasks in life seem to take the most effort? I don’t know if everyone deals with this but it seems to be an epidemic in my life. First off I am a horrible procrastinator. I will usually get things done but I end up waiting until it is convenient to do them or I am getting pressure from time constraints other people. Or I am holding up another person if we are working on something together. It’s like I know I need to get these things done but I end up playing a little game in my head where I weigh the effort I would need to put forth to complete the task with the benefits mixed with the repercussions I would have if I didn’t finish the task in a timely manner. This is quite a detriment when it comes to achieving my goals and and reaching my aspirations. I know that all it takes is discipline but sometimes my will doesn’t get my body to move… Anyway I think that what i need is a little structure in my life. Now I don’t want to plan out every minute or hour of my day but I think maybe If I plan the start of my day at the least maybe the rest of the day will follow suit and i won’t feel like I am working from behind. Maybe I can discipline myself to truly get up early and start my day reading the bible and praying. Now this is no easy task for me for i am not a morning person. I have done this sporadically but I lack any consistency. I think God will bless me if I do this. I think he will know that I am trying and unlock insight and wisdom from this. I think starting my work week with fellow brothers in Christ praying and reading the good word will propel me through the week. Could have been there today but I wouldn’t be writing this if I wasn’t struggling with it.

Disheveled

Disheveled is the word that comes to mind when I think of my current spiritual life and my physical life as well. Unorthodox and directionless can describe my past and I am yearning for purpose to define my future. I feel close yet far from the one constant in this world of unknowns and variables. But sold on the fact that I have that constant to rely upon and come to. While I sometimes feel that I have fallen from worldly grace, it is eternal grace that pulls me through. Loved, hated,respected,shamed, how I am percieved is immaterial to the one who’s grace is uncapped. His love for me is like a never ending stream, flowing and proving relief when I thirst. But why do leave it untapped? Why do I stray? Why do I get tangled in the thicket of false realities and shortcomings? Do I not want to find relief for the pain I constently feel? I do but I won’t, one step forward on my path determined to make it to the stream and reality pulls me back 2. What excuse do I have? none. What promises do I have? many What do I need to do? Simple.

Spiritual Phenomenon

So what the heck! Sometimes there are some things in life that make you think wow what was that about? Things that are so out there that they.seem to defy logic. Im not going to lie I do enjoy my fair share of the paranormal. I find it mostly intriguing more than anything else. I don’t know maybe that’s why people are so interested in sci fi or some people that lived in the seventies were so enamered with the unique story and deep charectors that they felt Star Wars “ruled the world”. I watched a movie tonight that fit that bill. While it is not nearly as deep as Star Wars it was still very much intriguing and thought provoking. It was called Cloverfield. It was set in modern day New York at a going away party. The whole movie was shot from the perspective of a personal video camera. It followed this group of people as they were trying to survive from this thing that decided to wreak havoc on manhatten. Anyways I don’t plan on ruining the movie because I think you should see it but what I took from it is that the people in this movie did what it took to survive and did not ever take what was happening to them lightly. I don’t know when I see movies like this that represent humans against some supernateral force and it always makes me think of how I deal with these kind of things every day and most of the time don’t even realize it. We have an enemy out there that is Always quick to pray on any weakness or set any trap to ilicit sin so that he can to steer us away from truth of Jesus Christ. I kind of pull off of my previous post when I think of the importance of banding together as Christians but also on top of that I think that prayer is imperitive! There is many verses in the bible that speak to the importance of it and as our most powerful weapon. Just seems like I am not prepared enough for the constant bombardment of lust, pride and overall distractions that this world inhibits. I think a lack of a survivalist mentality is one reason for the failure. I mean people that are being persecuted for their faith have to be prepared to survive. There is almost none of that I have seen here. Though I think that there is many more subtle things that can bring us down. The moral of the story is I need to fully develop a survivalist mentality when it comes to my faith. I need to start using the weapons that are provided (prayer, bible) more to withsand and spiritual warfare that comes in my way. After all if God is with me , Who can be against me?

The Best team of all

I think I underestimate the amount of fun a little competitve recreation can be. I have missed it. I miss being a part of a team and all that comes with it. Tonight I played soccer for the first time in a long time and while I was quite rusty and repeatedly got smoked by much higher skilled girls most of the game I had a great time just being on the field. I also realized that I am not in soccer shape. Too much fast food at work I think is the culprit. Chicken salads for me this week! But anyway playing tonight made me think about how important it is to have a team like mentality as a christian. Being banded together and accountable, helping each other when we fail, and celebrate when we do great things! People need people and christians especially. When we fall we lift each other up. The bible says there is nothing stronger in this world than prayer filled God loving Christians. And I think there is no greater team to be on.

Bio of a blogger

I consider what I write as a form of therapy I don’t mean to come off any certain way but writing I have found is a way I deal with what I am having trouble with. I am not just going to curse the heavens all the time, I want to learn from the way I have acted and the feelings that I have and be able to go to the bible for an answer. Now if I end up being wrong so be it, the important part I think is that I am continually searching and seeking Gods face because I want to be a vessel for the holy spirit to use to impact others. I pray for everyone I know regularly after I write and continually all day because I want them to get out of any rut they are in because God has a plan for our lives and I know we are destined to do great things. I write what I feel but all of my intentions are true and pure and I want the best for all and will continually pray over everyone I know continually. I am flawed just as anybody else and I might have written a few things out of anger or frustration but I haven’t found a better way to deal with those. My dad got drunk to deal with his problems and I don’t want to follow in his footsteps. I write because I care and instead of saying screw it and not caring I get it out. I don’t wanna come off as anyone but a young lost christian who is looking for true happiness of the eternal variety. There comes a time where I can’t get away from that big glaring burden called guilt and sometimes I feel the need to get some scripture out there or an important topic because what is spoken by the holy one needs to be heard. love is contagious and I yearn to be infected. And I plan to spread as far as my the east is to my west as it is written even if that happens to be where I am. No excuses no regret thy yoke is heavy but thy burden is light. Simple as that. Jesus doesn’t weigh my sins over my head as a burden He took them upon his worldly body so I can live! praise God!