MMX Resolutions

2010 Resolutions

- Take every opportunity I can to serve God and the people around me

-Actually get to know people. Talk to them and learn where they came from and have more faith in them. Become a dream initiator and help them become who they were created to be. Be more Christ-like

- I want to always be reading at least one book of my choice even though I may be required to read others. I also want to always have something that I am in the process of writing at a time.

- Stay in running shape regardless of where I am in the world and run more than the occasional race.

- Never forget that God is my destination not my means of transportation

- Start asking for advice instead of trying to figure it out myself. Have faith that other people can speak into my life too

- Continue learning languages and put them to use

- Learn how to tie a tie

- Perfect my public speaking

- Leave Stockbridge High different than when I arrived

- Thank everyone who has gotten me to where I am going

What it has taken me 17 years to learn

So tomorrow is my 18th birthday and I have been thinking a lot about what my childhood has taught me, since as of midnight tonight I will be entering the world of legal adulthood. Wow that is a scary thought- I feel too young to be this old. Nevertheless here is some wisdom that has taken me 17 years to acquire.

☺ Life should never be spent in preparation for something else; eventually you will forget what you were preparing for and realize you haven’t ever done anything.
☺ People will believe anything you say if you believe it first.
☺ Snorting a Jumbo Pixie Stick isn’t worth the thrill of sneezing in different colors.
☺ If a guy’s happiness depends solely on a girl then his emotions will hitch a ride with her on the crazy roller coaster that she has always been on. Every sensible guy knows that’s not a good idea.
☺ Winning an argument doesn’t provide as much satisfaction as you might think.
☺ Living like there is no tomorrow is great until tomorrow keeps coming and bums you out. Instead live because you are guaranteed a tomorrow (whether on Earth or in Heaven) and it will be better than today.
☺ Music doesn’t have an expiration date.
☺ Always trying to figure out the best possible way to live life is no way to actually live it. Knowing the temperature and depth of the pool is nothing like jumping in and experiencing it.
☺ Don’t let life actually be like a box of chocolates; expensive and only worth it for the couple pieces you like.
☺ Lice shampoo can kill you. Seriously.
☺ Bad handwriting means your teachers don’t know how bad of a speller you are.
☺ If you start making fun of yourself to get other people to laugh eventually you will believe you own jokes and they won’t be so funny anymore.
☺ Every time someone says that it is impossible to lick your own elbow not only does everyone in the room try but at least one of them can actually do it.
☺ Hurt people hurt people continually.
☺ Too much is sacrificed for the sake of humor. The pain it can cause to someone long outlives the happiness it may bring to someone else.
☺ Knowing everything is cool if you aren’t a know-it-all.
☺ God is not a revelation or an emotional experience. He is there when you are up all night writing that thing you can’t get out of your head and He is there when you couldn’t think of anything worthwhile if you tried. He is there when you feel nothing.
☺ Don’t ever care what people think of you unless they think you are an obnoxious jerk. If people think that then you probably are one and should fix it.
☺ The place that provides me with the most discomfort is probably the place where I am supposed to be.
☺ The amount of friends you have has nothing to do with how lonely you can be.
☺ You are never the smartest person you know.
☺ Even Jesus needed friends.
☺ I don’t have to have figured God out to do what He says. If all of creation is simply a chess game between good and evil then I am ok knowing I am just a pawn.
☺ Everyone is socially awkward and insecure about something. Those better at hiding it are usually the ones hurting the most.
☺ Effectiveness is gained more by what you don’t do as oppose to what you do but this should never be an excuse to not do anything. No one has ever gotten saved because I didn’t cheat off their test.
☺ Once we understand that we are all products of our own generation we can move past all those silly fads and nuances in people and start seeing the big picture.
☺ Nothing in the whole world is as satisfying as a relationship with God.
☺ Let God be your destination and not simply your means of transportation.
☺ God is bigger than anything I could ever imagine and so is His plan for me.

The Energizer bunny on a carousel

Sometimes I feel like the Energizer Bunny on a carousel.
I just keep going and going around in a circle until I stop and throw up with motion sickness.
Somewhere along the line I got this idea in my head that a full life means I can’t stop. There is so much that needs to be done in this world that if I stop I obviously am not fulfilling my task. Something is left undone.
Recently God has been dealing with me on this subject and here is what I have learned.
First of all, when God came down to Mt. Sinai and gave Moses the top ten rules for his people, the top ten things that He thought were most important in the upbringing of His people, remembering the Sabbath day was number 5. In a list that condemns murderers, liars, and adulterers we find that we also are condemned for not taking a break.

God himself created everything and then paused.

In Exodus 23:10-12 we find that the Israelites were instructed to plow and harvest their fields for six years and in the seventh year they were instructed to, get this, STOP.

Leave you field un-plowed; go ahead and sleep in because you don’t have to work in the morning. Go take a year off.

For some of us the idea of taking a year off from work or school may sound appealing until you think it through. What is connected to your job?- DING DING DING we have a winner- your paycheck. The Israelites had to worry about their food.

They had to say “Well God we trust that you have provided enough for us from the past 6 years that we are just going to take a whole year off and know that if we don’t have enough food in store by the end of the year you will provide because by then it will be too late.”

Wow.

What I have found is that when I don’t take a break, I take a hit. When I am exhausted and over worked by life I loose efficiency. Things tick me off that a week a go would have had no affect on me. I jump at fewer opportunities to do what God says and jump at more opportunities to sleep or think about something absolutely mindless.

Why do I do this to myself? Why do you?

One of the strangest things I have found in being a long distance runner is that the pain and fatigue of a run attack worse when you stop running then when you are actually running. Your body can go forever until you have to bend over and retie you shoes and find you can’t get back up.

I think this is why I am afraid of stopping- that I will loose some hidden momentum and have to start from scratch. What I fail to realize is that by not stopping, I am loosing that momentum. If I never stop, I will never know if I am heading the wrong direction until I get where I am going and realize I need to turn around and by then I will be too tired to care.

“Remembering the Sabbath,” in my opinion, does not mean that every Sunday must be lazy, as for most ministers Sunday has to be the busiest day of the week. It means that sometimes it is required to just stop. To be still and know that He is God. Even the Energizer Bunny has to stop eventually.
I’m going to go take a nap now.

3-2-1 Blast off, Crash down

Last week NASA made headlines once again. Instead of blasting humans into the lifeless vault of space or sending a robot that in ten years would send us some confusing pictures of E.T.’s backyard, we just decided to crash.
3-2-1 blast-off, crash down.
This was all according to plan, and not some malfunction or terrorist plot. We meant to crash straight into the moon. Apparently a crash of that magnitude would blow many tons of moon dust into the air thus revealing an inner layer of the infamous ball of cheese we have never seen.
Sleepy-eyed children and eccentric science goers arose early to peer through their dusty telescopes waiting to see the promised mushroom cloud of tax payer dollars erupt on the surface of that orbiting unknown. We watched live with anticipation through telescopic cameras recording from all sides this momentous event as the rocket got closer to its target the news stations were on hold waiting for the explosion; with anchors more than ready to mark this as one of the significant events they had the privilege of covering.
“It has almost landed, we are actually going to see history happen, just watch the screen and you will see-wait what’s that? There must be some sort of problem, we are getting reports from NASA that the rocket has already landed- play back the tape see if we missed it. I got nothing.”
Like Geraldo and Al Capone’s safe; all the hype and nothing worth watching.
What was expected to make an impact showed no signs of it at all.
I don’t want to be that rocket but I might be already. I am setting out to make an impact, to make a difference, to do something worth watching, but have I done it? Am I all hype?
After it is all said and done will anybody have seen anything?
NASA still holds that the mission was a complete success, and by all accounts my time in high school will be too. I will graduate in the top 10 percent of my class with a decent GPA and an impressive student involvement resume. I will have teachers who remember me when I come back for homecoming games and peers who expect me to be successful at the time of our reunion. It will just be a success. That’s it.
Not to say that these things aren’t all good, but is that it?
“All that money, all that planning, all that anticipation… and we didn’t even see the explosion?”
Anyone can have success, I want an impact. It has to be more. God use me to stir up the dust around us, and let them see Your explosion.

Early Aged Crisis

Saints and sinners, lend me your ears 1
And I will spill out to you all of my greatest fears.
We chose knowledge in the garden, and do I regret it,
Have we the boldness to actually beget it?

We could spend a whole day discussing the world
I could impress you with anything (or so I think)
But would it matter much?
We could talk Haggai, Whitman, McJagger or Polluck 2
Biblically, linguistically, musically, artistically and your jaw just might drop
Te omni credant quod linguam mortuum dictas 3
You would say “oh but you are so young
But you speak as though your walk has long begun”
But what do I gain by your accolades?
Nothing, I think, yet these I pursue.
I feel I am so well rounded I cannot walk a straight line.

The world, for sure, thinks I have it all together
If this is true I would hate to see the mess they’ve got.
For everyone knows the mannequin on display is always the best dressed.

“I am young in years
And you are old
That is why I was fearful,
Not daring to tell you what I know.
I thought ‘Age should speak;
Advanced years should teach wisdom,’
But it is the Spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty that gives him understanding” 4
Sometimes it is easier to simply not understand

I thought the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge the noblest
But it is just like the rest
All pursuits will leave one fulfilled then lacking instead,
And all pursuits but one fail to end well,
For the pursuit of God is the only worth its salt
And see here, my predicament? If I relate to Solomon now
What more is there to learn? 5

Today I am feeling a little poetic
Tomorrow perhaps a little athletic but if I can help it, never pathetic.
The bottom line is I am not happy looking down at the world through my microscope
“Wisdom beyond my years” is not as fortunate as you would presume

For some time I have been fixated on legacy
Screaming out to the world “Remember Me Remember Me”
But footprints are made by people who go places
Not by those stomping their feet in frustration
I do not believe I have ever gone anywhere as matter of fact,
Screaming out to the world “Remember Me Remember Me”
Why, I am so full of direction I do not know where I am going.
Always desiring greatness, of course
Thinking it equated happiness, of course.
Oh but the great are not great until they are dead and I cannot wait that long

“This apple tastes so good; I do think I will take another bite”
Is it wrong that happiness is my only motive?
What then should be my motive for finding the right motive?
Is compassion still itself when my happiness depends on it?

In our talk, your mind I’d be forever psychoanalyzing
And as for me I am never realizing what it is I myself am actually thinking.
I am Tiresias, 6 seer of the worlds’ problems yet unable to see himself

Thoreau taught us to live deliberately 7
But the best things I have ever done have happened accidentally.
(Though to no credit of my own)
“And would it have been worth it all”
Says Eliot
“To have squeezed the universe into a ball?” 8
Can a philosophy solve it at all?
Surely man you do not think that poking and prodding at the best possible way to live life is the best way to actually live it
Eat and Drink and be all the Merrier 5

“But the second bite does not taste so sweet
Am I lazy, unfaithful or disillusioned if I find something else to eat?”
Does passion have to be the force behind every action?
Is it ok that sometimes the mundane, ordinary, routine, everyday
Is the first to wipe the sleep from my eyes?

Heart stings on my guitar strings; do I want what the truth brings?
Yes, yes with all that I am, yes
Veritas! Veritas! Vivere volunto! 9
Whoever said ignorance is bliss surely must not have been happy with truth
He did not know; he does not know
He must not have heard that the truth will set him free,
But is a bird unknowing of its cage actually free?
Maybe, maybe

Dum spiro, spero;10 but the way is so so narrow
And how I fear the un-extraordinary
And don’t you?
Is that why you refuse to think, to believe, to love?
The chance that the world were as miserable as you believe haunts me
And so, I fear the un-extraordinary, the un-great, the ordinary

And now, how can I close?
Have I said in poem what I could not in prose?
Dilapidated, frustrated, the solution: me prostrated
The more I learn, the more I yearn
For more for me to learn.
Knowledge stings like wasp when; at times it has an ugly head
But alas! Rejoice, for after sting, it’s dead, it’s dead!
Knowledge and wisdom have torn me apart
But I remain that I would not have chose a different path
Because they are what make me unlike Lewis’ toy soldiers 11
Thinking, breathing, hurting, loving
And now what?





Footnotes:
1-taken from Marc Antony’s speech at Caesar’s funeral in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
2- Haggai was a minor prophet of the Old Testament who proclaimed the rebuilding of the Temple to the Jews, Walt Whitman was a 20th century American poet famous for the series of poems “Song of Myself,” McJagger is the lead singer of the Rolling Stones and famous for singing “I Can’t get no satisfaction,” Jackson Polluck was an American pop artist famous for his technique of “Splatter Paint,” making beautiful paintings from the mere pouring of paint in a seemingly chaotic way.
3-Latin for: They all believe you because you speak a dead language
4- taken from Job 32 (NIV) spoken by Elihu, a young man displeased with the way Job was blaming God and refusing to consider that he was not the most righteous thing on the planet. After this God gives a very lengthy rebuke against Job, confirming Elihu’s speech
5- The whole book of Ecclesiastes
6- Blind prophet in the Greek tragedies of Sophocles regarding Oedipus (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colossus and Antigone)
7- Taken from Walden by Henry David Thoreau
8- “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot
9- Latin for: Truth! Truth! I wish to live!
10- Latin for: While I breathe, I hope taken from a quote by Seneca
11- C.S. Lewis discusses the realities of Free Will in his book Mere Christianity using the illustration of toy soldiers

Familiar Carpet

This summer I got to spend 3 weeks at one of my favorite places in the world, it is a place where I have spent a portion of my summer every year since I was about 9. Camp Timberlake in Forsyth, Georgia.
Camp is such an amazing place where the expectancy for God to show up and dramatically change lives is higher than any place I have ever been.
Every summer I get super-charged from the nightly altar calls and I come home excited for school to start.
Returning to camp this year I began thinking.


Our “sanctuary” is a huge metal building clearly divided into 2 halves by a really ugly curtain that spans the width of the building. The first, being a basketball court, has been the site of more dodge-ball casualties than anyone cares to count though it seems that the threat of a ball sized scar to the face has yet to prevent any eager camper from jumping on the court in a frenzy.
The other half is the place of all the real excitement.
There is a stage up front, usually covered with instruments or puppet stages, and to the left and right of it are giant makeshift screens for use with the projector. About 10 feet from the edge of the stage is the shore of the sea of dying metal chairs which hold our butts in discomfort as our hearts are in metamorphoses.
The entire floor is clothed with what you could vaguely call carpet. Really it is a thin brown sheet that used to be carpet and only serves to further the distinction between the halves of the building. I know this carpet better than any spot on the entire camp.
The reason for this is simple. Every summer I spend every night of the week on my face, on that carpet.
It is the place where lives are changed, it is the place that all the good ole Pentecostal worship that everyone expects takes place.
As I was sitting in one of the services this summer I began to reflect on that old beaten carpet.
How many times had I myself had such encounters with God on that very spot?
How many of my sins were forgiven, promises were made and reassurances received on that very carpet?
Then I began thinking what that does to carpet. Thousands upon thousands of people, from almost birth to senior status, have wept for joy or sorrow on that carpet. I have seen people in such attitudes of worship that they would never want to be seen in public because a combination of tears, snot ad sweat have flowed off of them. And onto the carpet.
Despite the gross salt content of this carpet, I love it.
I love that carpet because it is where I continue to find who I am.

In a week I begin my senior year of high school.
A couple of years ago I would have laughed at anybody who said that I would be scared at the up-coming year because back then I had it all figured out. I really thought I knew everything.
Right now I have no idea where my feet will take me when they lead me off the graduation stage.
It seems as though my whole life has been crescendo-ing to this year and I really am excited at the amazing things God has planned for this year and for my life. I have always seen the big picture and now I just don’t know how to get there.
I am learning that I need to take the feeling of that familiar carpet in to unfamiliar territory.

I have learned a lot this summer, and am still learning.
I may not have the emotional encounters with God every day but He will never be too far away. I trust Him, wherever He leads me.

Thoughts on 2 Peter: pt 1

Lately I have been reading 2 Peter and it seems that every line is filled with amazing bits of knowledge that I really don't want to forget and the best way I think through things is to write about them so that is what I am going to do in the next couple blogs.

1:1 Peter describes himself as a slave or servant in some translations. This is usually a term we Christians like to avoid because it really doesn't sound good to us or the outside world.No one wants to be a slave. I can't think of any good connotations of the word slave. This is interesting to me because Peter spends the rest of the letter talking about how awesome the grace and peace of God are. He uses the word slave to emphasize complete surrender of his own desires, it isn't that God is a slave driver but that we should be willing to do whatever a slave would be required to do.

Next Peter reminds the audience that he was one of the original 12. He uses the word apostle which should be noted. Apostle comes the Greek word apostolos and is used numerous times throughout New Testament by Paul. He referred to himself as an apostle even though he wasn't one of those hand-picked by Jesus. In fact he used to kill Christians before he became one himself. Paul used this word in regard to a specific calling to a position in the body of Christ in the same breath of prophets, teachers and evangelists. There has been a lot of debate as to what the actual definition of this term means but we see here that Paul and Peter disagree (once again) in their interpretations.
When Peter says apostle, he is talking about THE apostles. Himself and eleven other men who followed so closely to Jesus they were covered in the dust His sandals kicked up behind Him. They actually saw and experienced the things Paul could only preach about. The 12. They were better than the Justice League, which says a lot. You would think that there would be some sort of arrogance attached to this but check out the next verse.
Peter is writing "to those who have obtained a faith of equal privelage with ours." Peter is saying to these people that even though they never met Jesus or maybe haven't even seen Jesus are on the same level as the guys who were best friends with Him. That is huge. Peter is pulling everybody up to his level, a slave.

Where are you valuable?

Very little of my childhood could be described as normal. I spent the first 6 years of my life at the Florida United Methodist Childrens Home where my parents worked and lived 6 out of every 9 days; growing up around teenage girls, most of which had been sexually and physically abused. Don't get me wrong I have nothing to complain about regarding my childhood, I am so grateful for how I have been raised- I'm just saying it isn't normal. Because in my eyes I was different than my peers, I didn't feel valuable. The problem with a pursuit of normalcy is it is impossible, which I realized very quickly. When I would fail drastically at being normal I would feel worthless. Then I made a discovery. I found that being the weird one in the group was just as good as being like everyone else. I found my worth in my weirdness.
As I got older I discovered I was really good at being a Christian. I could quote more scripture than anybody and I impressed a lot of adults with my "spiritual maturity." I found my worth in that I could be super-Christian, always ready with some profound nugget of wisdom.
Then God showed me the story of Job in a way I have never seen before.
It seems to be a rule that you cannot speak about Job without giving a message on perseverance or faithfulness. I am going to break that rule.
The first thing I notice is that Job 1:3 says that Job was the greatest man in the area, not the richest as one would expect after reading the list of all his possessions in the prior verses. His claim to fame was not in his wealth.
He was righteous.
Everyone knew Job as the righteous one, always ready with some profound nugget of Jewish law.
Everyone knew he was righteous, except for Satan. I don't really understand this famous confrontation between God and Satan but what I got out of it was that Satan didn't know Job. That, to me is the first clue that Job's righteousness was reputation only and not authentic because if Satan doesn't know your name then you aren't a threat to him which means you are doing nothing for the kingdom of God-that is just a side note.
When all Job had was taken away, Job instantly went in to martyr-mode gathering the city to come have pity on me. No he didn't sin, sinning would have discredited his reputation. Instead he held onto his "righteousness" to the point of almost accusing God of injustice because Job could not face the fact that he wasn't as holy as God.
Job and I relied solely on our reputation as Godly people for our worth. We were doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons.
It has been only up until very recently that I have discovered my true worth- how valuable I am to God. It doesn't matter how good of a Christian I am because He loves me the same. He loves me the same if I leave the Church and turn my back on Him. There is nothing I can do to earn His love, because I already have all of it.
So what now? If God loves us regardless why bother living any certain way? Why bother changing what we do?
There is a story I have heard that probably isn't true about a village that probably doesn't exist.
In this village lived a man with 2 daughters, one of which was the most beautiful woman in the the land and lets just say the other was definitely not. Every man in the village tried their hand at being her suitor, and the father was offered many expensive dowries for her hand in marriage. One man offered to pay the father 5 of his fattest cows in exchange for betrothal to the sought after woman.
Now a wise man was walking through the village looking for a wife when he came to the father and said "I will give you ten of my fattest cows for your daughter." The father thought to himself "What a blessing! I get double the dowry for the same daughter" and immediately agreed to the exchange. The wise man, however, was referring to the other daughter. Everyone in the village thought the man was a fool- paying so much for such an ugly wife that her father would have given away had he had the chance.
Fast forward a couple years.
We see the same wise man, happy at home married to a beautiful and faithful woman.
The same woman rejected by the village had started taking care of and beautifying herself. What changed?
She knew she was valuable to her husband.
She knew the price he paid for her.
People want to be everything they can for the one who shows them their value.
She was worth 10 cows to this man, if I remember correctly we are promised the cattle on a thousand hills.
So what's the problem?
If we know what the price paid for us was why aren't we who we were created to be?


I don't think we believe it.


We sing about how much He loves us, and the price He paid for us but do we believe it?
Every person who has ever walked this planet has lived and died for what they believe in. You live life to the level you believe in it. Great people don't die for what they believe in, great people believe in something great to begin with. If you believe you are valuable, you will know that God absolutely wants the best for you and that He has the power to do so.

I am beginning to think the search for worth is the root of all of our problems.
If you don't believe Jesus loves you, you will try to find that love elsewhere.
Relationships.
Social status.
Masculinity.

The reason we keep slipping back into the same old stuff is because we feel the same old stuff is where our value is.
We find value in being the bad kid, or being the one who can't commit, or the one who won't accomplish anything or the one who annoys everyone around them.

This is a real hard lesson to learn. As I was giving this message I saw in the audience heads nodding and mouths yawning and I immediately started measuring my worth by how well I could give a sermon. God doesn't care, He just loves me.

Crickets

One of the best parts of camping is the night. Stars that went unnoticed are now blinding reflections of the Creator, covering the entire vastness of sky like a Jackson Polluck gone exactly right. There is always this unexplainable stillness that just saturates the air. And there are crickets.
These crickets that deafen indoors-mens’ ears with their noises and serenade outdoors-mens’ ears with their song.
It is impossible to distinguish between their cheeps. One cricket a hundred feet away sounds pretty much the same as the one underneath your tent. It is impossible to even pick out one specific cricket over a group of crickets. They are unified. One continuous and resounding song erupting from all sides.
The chirp of a cricket is just simply a mating call. It is the only thing a cricket knows how to do to get the only thing it desires. The cricket is wanting and in need so it cries out every night desperate for someone to hear him and fill his desperation.
Every night the air is filled with the chirps of those who are wanting.
One curious thing about these crickets is that it is so easy to block them out of mind no matter how loud they get. I was sitting last night talking about absolutely nothing with some guys before we headed to our tent exhausted to go to sleep when I heard them. I had heard them so many times before but this time I really heard them. I was in one of those moments that apparently happen quite frequently where I zone out the world around me and get all philosophical in my head. I started thinking about the mating calls of these insects.
The sun had been down for a couple hours already so the crickets had been at it for awhile and I didn’t hear them. I am so used to hearing this racket that I blocked it out completely. How many other cries for help have I blocked out because I was used to them?
Everyone around me is doing all they can to get my attention and they are all chirping individually so loud and unified that they have become this easily ignored annoyance. When I finally stopped to hear them I realized they were really, really loud –so loud that we were raising our voices just to be heard over them. We are doing everything we can to ignore them.
They were the first thing I heard on my first camping trip, and they kept me awake all night. I was 8 and I couldn’t fathom how loud they could be. When I went on my first trip with the Holy Spirit I was amazed at how loud the world was screaming and the thought of these hurting people kept me awake all night. I really need to hear those crickets again.
I was laying in my sleeping bag last night with the sound of these crickets resonating in my ears. I have to hear them. I thank God I get to.

Destination

My whole life I have had goals. For a good part of my childhood I wanted to be a professional basketball player. This goal was abandoned when I found out how white I really was. In fourth grade, my goal was to set the school record the most veggie fries (think of every vegetable you know of, puree them together and then stick them in a deep fryer and you have a veggie fry) eaten in one lunch period without throwing up. As to the best of my knowledge, no student of Smith-Barnes elementary school has been able to brave beating my record of 47. I am sure, though, that I am the only who even cares about this record.
When I was 9 years old I was baptized in the Holy Spirit for the first time and received my "call to the ministry." My goals hence have changed dramatically.
It was shortly after this experience that I read David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade which completely altered my view of my purpose. I wanted what David Wilkerson had, not so that I was so envious I wished to mimic his every move in ministry, but I wanted God to reach hurting people through me like He was doing through him Hurting teenagers specifically. If you haven’t read this book stop what you are doing and go find it, the movie doesn’t do it justice, and then read the sequel called 12 Angels from Hell.
Since then, a day has not gone by that I forget what God is calling me to.
Youth.
The hurting.
The world.
I have spent every day dreaming of what God will do in me. The sermons that will be preached to audiences of thousands, then nationally syndicated then quoted and misquoted in the years to come. I dream of the testimonies of lives changed, people having real authentic and thriving relationships with their Creator.
The bigger your dreams are for tomorrow, the more boring today becomes.
I have been really frustrated lately at how slowly all the things I have been promised are coming into fruition. And then the revelation came. Again.
I was running this morning like I do every morning. I have learned that when you are on mile 4 and only halfway through you will try to think of anything other than your cramping stomach and the sweat that constantly gets into your eyes.
It was here that I heard that infamous inaudible voice.
"Am I your destination, or just your method of obtaining it?"
Ouch! Not only were my legs hurting but now also was my conscience. I had learned a long time ago that I can’t do anything on my own, I fail miserably. I knew that God had to be more than completely involved if I were to be who I was created to be. This is basic stuff.
But it all revolved around me. Me getting what I was promised. Me being the best I could be. Me reaching that potential instilled in me by God.
I am realizing that my quest to be "all God wanted me to be" was the only way I measured my worth. If I didn’t fulfill my dreams, am I a failure?
Come on Kyle, those childish insecurities have been gone for years. Nope.
I see this in everything I do. I want to run the fastest, know the most, quote the most, live the best. What I thought was fulfilling the verse in Ecclesiastes that says "whatever your hands find to do, so it with all you might,"* was really just me trying to feel good about myself. The veggie fries were consumed at such disgusting quantity to get attention. The ministry goals were set because the only thing I thought I was able to do was ministry.
I still believe the promises will absolutely come to pass, and everything in me longs for that day but they should not be my goals. My goals should be to simply pursue. Run. Chase. Be fulfilled.
I want to spend everyday growing closer to God and learning all of His minute intricacies instead of wishing I were in a pulpit. This should keep me busy for an eternity or so.
I haven’t completely figured it out but I’m working on it. God does want my best, He wants everything I have to give because it’s all His anyway. My best should be given because it is His best, not mine. I am valuable to Him no matter what I accomplish. This is going to take awhile for it to really stick with me.

*Ecclesiastes 9:10

Motion

So I’ve had a rough week. Maybe a rough couple of weeks. I’m going through something that people everywhere go through, that is rejection and confusion. So I wondered where these people find their hope. Psalms. That’s a good idea. I’ll read Psalms.
Being the sensible person that I am I started with the first chapter, with every intention of skipping around its’ 150 chapters until I found a temporarily satisfying one-liner which would remind me of a song which might lift my spirits for the moment. I had high expectations this morning. What I found, in the very first chapter no less, was this:
Blessed is the man
Who does not walk in the council of the wicked
Or stand in the way of sinners
Or sit in the seat of mockers
But his delight is in the law of the Lord
And on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water
Which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not whither
Whatever he does prospers
What has stood out in these verses to me is the concept of a tree planted by streams of water. The image is stuck in my head. I did not at first get the intention of this image and I misunderstood how this tree would be compared to a blessed man.
A tree is a plant and plants come from seeds. A seed recently fallen onto soft ground has the company of other seeds that are going through the same experience and has the safety of the nearby mother tree.
Then the rain comes and the streams form and carry this seed off from safety and into a world of confusion and unrest. The seed is beaten down and washed away until if it is lucky it finds a soft in the sand where it can bury itself.
The problems don’t end there.
If it is fortunate to plant itself, it will spend the rest of it’s’ life struggling to grow while everything rushes around it. Alone and caught in every piece of debris that floats by. Alone.
And the psalmist compares this sad little tree to a man blessed?
Then the revelation occurred. The light bulb which occupies my brain suddenly was now illuminating my senses.
What I realized is that nothing in this entire universe is standing still. The wind is blowing; the sea is turning and the tectonic plates are shifting. The planet is rotating while it spins itself around a sun that, along with everything else in the universe, is propelling further away from each other and while this is all happening I am getting older. Time just keeps going and going and going. I realized that God is the very motion at the center of it all.
He is the stream, constantly moving forward, around, into, out of, underneath and above all of me and all of everything. The problem then, lies in me.
I see that real reality is motion and I do everything I can to keep up. A tree does not move like a stream.
If God had intended on me keeping up He would have made me a stream. He made me a seed. When I find it is impossible for me to keep up- to reach that impossible standard, to be at all times in tune and willing to follow- I give up. When I say I give up, I really mean that I devote myself to a greater, far more challenging task; that is to make everything else stop. I want today to be just like yesterday when I was comfortable with the other seeds under the shade of the mother tree. I want to be able to control my surroundings and their effect on me. I want some predictability.
Nothing in the universe is standing still, who am I to tell it otherwise?
I can’t keep up so I give up and try to force my surroundings into something I can control. Something consistent, something safe, something stagnant. Of course I fail miserably.
But wait! If God didn’t create me to keep up with Him, He therefore can’t expect me to. His command to me is simply to be still. He says "Be still and know that I am God"*. The beauty lies in the motion and I miss that motion when I kill myself with unreal expectations to move as swiftly as He or to keep everything from moving at all. Be still.
Stop trying to understand where I am going and just stand in awe of the fact that I am going. Let My wind rustle through your leaves and My water over your roots. Look around and be amazed at My motion. Be still and know that I am God.
It makes perfect sense. God created us with full knowledge that we could never be who He is so He uprooted us and planted us right where we could be, in the middle of His glorious motion. He planted us in the exact spot where His motion could benefit us the most. We are perpetually nourished because He has channeled all of His motion into our very roots. It’s only when we sit still that suddenly we start moving, but by no means of our own, upward and outward and every way a healthy tree can grow, reaching our highest potential that was instilled in us by our Creator. Our fruit yields in season and our leaves don’t whither. Whatever we do prospers.
We get to be apart of this motion simply by being planted beside it. The beauty is in the motion. Everything around me may look different tomorrow. Everything in me may feel different tomorrow. I might not like it. I may feel like God has moved me to the wilderness. I might be right. I may feel like God has stopped moving all together but it will be ok. God will move somewhere else the next day and I will be with Him because the beauty is in the motion. My emotions may take a downward spiral to depths unseen, or they may traverse the grey line between despair and contentment but it will be ok. The beauty is in the motion, because the motion is from God and I get to be apart of it.
This still life is no doubt a painful one. It is far easier to get hit by debris when you are standing still, but the chaos of His glory makes it worthwhile to suffer the beating of anything which may float your way. Most assuredly it will be uncomfortable, and you will be scarred by the things you are hit with but you will know that God is at work.
This stream doesn’t end in a ditch. It ends in life, real abundant mouth watering life that can never be quenched by stagnancy. Please note there is a difference between stillness and stagnancy. Stagnancy is refusing to be moved, and stillness is subjecting yourself to a flow other than you own, thus allowing God to move through you.
Stillness also is not spectatorship. Spectators merely watch but we get to be apart of it all. We get to be apart of this motion by moving our roots in the direction the stream is flowing so that this stream flows and picks up more wandering seeds and plants them as it did to us.
Stillness is flexible. It has to be as there will be times when God uproots your fully grown trunk and replants you further down stream in a place where His motion is faster, more powerful and covers all places so that your can receive all the nourishment you have grown to need. It also has to be content knowing that absolutely nothing in it’s power can be done to further along the stream or hinder it from moving a certain way.
The stream is wild and untamable, reckless and powerful. The best thing to be is to be beside it. Still. Watching in awe.
I will finish with an excerpt from T.S. Eliot’s "Ash Wednesday."
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto thee



*Psalm 46:10

The Falling City

This city we've built will crush us all
Lest our backs be against it, it's bound to fall
And I am he with the cardboard sign
Whose doomsday warnings have all been denied

Have we forgotten what we are are protecting?
The in looks like the out and its lost its purpose for erecting

Am I alone among the blind who see
This city is not what we built it to be
We call it denomination, He calls it division
When will we see God has made His decision?

To the outskirts of town outsiders are thrown
While the darkness in our alleyways steadily groans

Thoughts on a Rough Day

It never ceases to amaze me that God takes my requests seriously. I prayed last week that I could know the pain that the people God has put on my heart, for future reference, that's the prayer God will always take you up on. Paul said once that anyone who wants to follow God will be persecuted. I utterly despise this verse. This means that I can do everything right and still wake up and not know anything. I can spend my life giving advice, and wake up and not know what to tell myself. I know nothing today. I don't know what tomorrow will hold or even later tonight but I'm ok. Here is what I learned today: I would rather spend a thousand years in the confusion and pain of following God's will then a day in the confusion and pain of never knowing God's will. I cannot imagine my life without the illogical peace I have from simply knowing that I don't have to deal with my problems because I have a God who died so He could relieve me. I've learned the difference between happiness the mood and happiness the lifestyle. Needless to say I have a lot I can now share with some people I come in contact with.

The Cafeteria Church

I have eaten that stuff everyday for 12 years. Everyday I take a little foam tray piled with as much stuff as the lunch ladies will allow me and then sit in the same seat at the same table. All this monotony of lunch has got me thinking.
The first thing I notice when I think about cafeteria food is that it’s not great. That’s easy. Now contrary to popular belief, there are laws and regulations governing what a school can or cannot serve, meaning that even though it is said that the mystery meat is made of student remains, it probably isn’t true. Sure I daily complain about the food but if I’m honest, it’s decent. It’s not Red Lobster but it will at least keep my stomach from making those funny noises of hunger that sound like I’m smuggling guinea pigs under my shirt; which by the way the technical term for a growling stomach is "warbling" (just thought you should know). The lunch isn’t great but it also isn’t completely sickening. Sometimes I think we view the Church the same way.
Our services aren’t great, our offerings aren’t great and our missions and outreaches aren’t great, but they keep our stomach of conscience satisfied for a little while longer. We go for the minimum because all we want is just satisfaction. We do good to please the masses and not great to please our God. We justify this by comparing ourselves to the junk food also available to us, also called "luberwart" (more useless vocabulary knowledge in action). The vending machines being only a few feet away, are filled with food that could instantly clog your arteries with sweet deliciousness (though I am not sure that death by Jumbo Honeybun would necessarily be a bad thing). The Church looks at all the things we have available to us that cause so much harm and we pat ourselves on the back for being an alternative which won’t kill those who partake in it. That my friend, is not why the Church was established. If we are not a great meal, we have no business serving ourselves to the world. Great does not mean big, loaded (or as church people would say "financially blessed") or extravagant but it simply means letting every bite be succulent with the flavor of the Savior.
The second thing I noticed is that many times, I have no idea what the heck I am eating. Is that chewy meatloaf or burnt cornbread? Why does this taco taste have a rasberry after-taste? I have all these questions about the food they serve, but believe me I don't want an answer. I am content not knowing what makes up what I eat at Stockbridge High. We are content not knowing the uncomfortable truths about the God we serve. I don't want to know what part of the cow this chicken came from (that wasn't a typo), and we don't want to know what are our responsibilities as members of the Body of Christ. I am fairly certain we don't completely understand ourselves what it is that we scream at unbelievers and we may not want to know. Is this justification or sanctification? Why do I have to do good things when they tell me it's not about things I do?
No wonder the world is so confused when the people who should be the ones explaining don’t understand themselves. What are we feeding the world?

Just sayin...

Why I love failure

I have failed at things all my life. I have always missed the mark in something or not been perfect in another. I am human. When one who is seeking not to fail fails, they stop and see where they went wrong. They look at their mistakes and see what they could have done differently and then do it. They start over again and learn, growing ever closer to perfection. I am perfectly comfortable with this.
When I am not happy, when things don't go well or when I just don't feel the presence of God that I have always felt it's usually because I am not doing something right. I am messing up. So I sincerely say "OK God, I messed up again like I always do. Please forgive me one more time and teach me how I can do this your way, because my way didn't work. Show me what I am doing wrong and help me fix it." He shows me, then helps me fix it. That is the way I have lived my life. I have learned it is easier for me to admit defeat and correct myself than to keep going pretending I'm doing everything right. When I was a little kid, I discovered I could skip the guilt speech I would receive from my parents after doing something wrong by simply sitting myself in time-out before they had a chance to give it to me. I missed the entire guilt trip by only going to what was the unevitable punishment.
Now here is the problem. Sometimes I am not happy because of something God is doing. I just want Him to tell me I'm wrong and start fixing it but instead He says "Keep doing what you are doing, be patient, I'm coming." What!? You mean I have done everything I can do in my own power and I still have to wait on God? That means I have to bear through this unhappiness until God decides to come through. That my friend, is a heck of a lot harder than failure.

Today a fifth grade student committed suicide because of the torment he received from a bully. Ten years ago today two hurting kids shot up their own Columbine high school and killed the people they walked the hallways with. God don't let me ever forget that my life isn't about me. It's not my life the ends when I let insecurity keep me from yelling the truth to the world, it's theirs. I cannot back down.

Words from Judas

He always knew. I fooled everyone, even myself but He saw straight through me every time. I did everything I could to convince myself that I was like the other disciples, but I could never understand them or Him. They never seemed to care about everything that drove me. These massive crowds followed Jesus everywhere He went, and I got to be with Him at all times. He personally chose me ( and 11 other men) to be His escort through the world. I was one of The Twelve, the Elite, I got the fame because of His teaching. Life was where it should be.
I saw things you wouldn’t believe; the blind see, the dead walk, and with every miracle our glory got bigger. Oh but everyone else was so stupid! All they seemed to care about was being humble and a "servant" like Jesus told us to. They had know idea they were celebrities among their people, but I did, and I enjoyed it. I had gotten good too. I knew when to act inspired, when to marvel at His presence and when to say the right things. I had to if I wanted to keep my ticket to glory. But He knew. He always knew.
But the others, they always seemed so happy. I really wanted what they had, something real, worth holding on to, and I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed both fame and peace. Why was it all or nothing? I didn’t understand then, but now I do.
For three years this Jesus had led me to greater heights than I could have ever imagined, but then things started going backwards. Everything I had built was collapsing. Once we were at a house in Bethany, where we had spent many an evening fellowshipping. It was here that that disgusting woman anointed Jesus with her expensive perfume. That perfume could have been sold and the money given as sacrifice, not that I cared about God’s due gift but I (always looking out for myself) had access to that money to use at my will. This woman had no idea what she was doing to this man, for He was just a man; He had to eat and sleep just like the rest of us, and Jesus just accepted it! He really believed He was God! Every day the world and 11 other men grew closer to Him, and He never ceased to amaze them with wisdom and power. Every day my hate for all of them grew. Needless to say I took the opportunity I was given.
I will forever remember the night I condemned myself. I knew where Jesus and the others where heading after the Passover meal, as we had gone there often to escape the crowds, and I left early from the feast to turn Him in. Jesus told me that what I must do, I must do quickly and God as my witness it was the first time I really listened to Him.
He was more deeply in prayer than I had ever seen Him. He knew all along what was going to happen to Him, and He did nothing. I kissed him on the cheek, like I had told the guards I would do, and they shackled him. He put up no fight, though I had seen with my own eyes this man turning over the huge wooden tables in the temple only days before. Arms of such force could have at least attempted to retaliate. And Peter, perfect little Peter, pulled out his sword and attacked one of the servants that was with the guards. It was at this point something changed in me. Jesus, with full knowledge these men would eventually kill him, healed that servant. He picked up his ear and He healed him! I had seen far greater miracles done by this man, but none like this. The final realization that this man was exactly who He said he was, that He was real, hit me along with the remembrance of the horrible thing I had just done. The night only grew worse.
"Say something Jesus, defend yourself from these fools! Call down heaven upon their heads" I remember thinking as His accusers beat Him and defiled everything He stood for. I as well was being tormented in ways I can not describe. The mind is a terrible place to dwell in when you have just killed God. They condemned him to death and I ran as far as I could until my legs gave way. I could not take any more of this, it had only been a couple hours and already my very being was torn apart. I decided I had to end it all, and so I hung.

Misery of life only concluded in misery of the after life. When Jesus spoke of weeping and gnashing of teeth I imagined what Hell would be, but it never even remotely compared to the reality of it. I wallowed in the filth of the enemy for what seemed forever, until suddenly there was light. There is never light in Hell, for it was crafted out of darkness itself. Loud footsteps echoed through the hall and the light grew closer and closer until I heard a familiar voice call my name, the voice of Jesus. I remember thinking how horrible that this ghost of Christ would forever haunt me because of what I’d done to Him. The light and the vision of the man inside it kept coming closer until I cried out in fear. His eyes were soft and gentle though, as they had always been, and in His hand He held a very large key ring with thousands of keys on it.
When He finally spoke He said this. "Judas, you have right to be afraid, as you have made your decision and must pay this horrible price, but do not fear me. I have only just breathed my last breathe up there on that cross and I have come down here because I have a price to collect. You see, I love you, and I love the world around you and every one who is to come. I died so that they can live. I died for those who remained faithful to the end, and also for those who betrayed me like you have done. You are not alone, generations upon generations of people will betray me just as you have. They will go through all the motions and follow me everywhere but they will not know me. Their kiss of betrayal will be their mere church attendance and offering in place of real relationship with me. The nails that have been hammered into my wrists will continue to be hammered into my heart until that one day when I return in full glory, because many will choose to betray Me, deny Me, accuse Me, reject Me but if one will love Me, it will make my death worth it. But now they can have life; real, meaningful, purposeful life by simply choosing Me. I love you that much."

Comfortabiltiy

Yesterday was April fool’s day and I had nothing planned. I didn’t fake a debilitating disease that has left only 6 months for me to live or tell everyone I was moving to Missouri, not that I have ever done either (elementary school was fun). In fact, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t even have known it was April fools day had it not been for my insane schedule which requires I know the current date. I got to wondering how this day passed without me taking advantage of it.
It is most certainly not because I have grown out of it, I shudder at the thought of such maturity to have crept upon me as to not find amusement in a prank. It was simply that I was so distracted I didn’t care. How did I get here? So busy doing what God wanted me to do that I didn’t pay attention when He moved on. I got comfortable.
As a long distance runner, I have trained myself to be able to go for miles and call it comfortable, not comfortable as in laying bed asleep but as in I could keep that pace for a long time without much strain. This is great when doing a nice long run through a park on my time but is not when you’re are in a race and your team needs you. Getting comfortable means sacrificing time and that means sacrificing points. I have realized that in a race when the thought crosses my mind that I could keep the current pace for awhile, it’s time for me to pick it up and go if I want any improvement. Apparently I hadn’t realized this is more applicable in life than in a track race.
God had me going at a pretty decent pace, at first I thought there was no way I could keep it up but of course God gave me the strength. Then I got comfortable. I assumed that I was still following God’s will and forgot all about race strategy. The way you run the first lap is never the way you run the last lap. Whether in life or in running, a race ran comfortably finishes disappointingly. God wants us to hit our personal record time.
Looking over my life I have found that I seem to go in circles with my relationship with God. The period of zeal turns to a period of apathy. I just figured out that these periods of apathy come when God, instead of holding our hand and walking with us, takes a step forward in hopes that we would follow. When we don’t pay enough attention to realize we are no longer walking with God but behind Him, we don’t follow. We get caught in our rut of doing what we were told to do before we were given additional instructions. We get comfortable.
God I want to pick up the pace. Take me where you need me and forgive this April Fool for getting so busy I forgot to report back to the Coach.

People say I'm strange, does that make me a stranger?

There are many days when I come to the horrible realization that I am utterly alone. I see, speak to, and interact with hundreds of people daily and yet by somewhat as result of my own choice I find myself alone. I do not merely mean that I don't feel loved, as someone who is really alone might say, but simply that I have yet to find anyone like me. I say this not to boast, nor present myself as super-human, as I am nothing without the grace, or should we say wrath, of God. After relentless and constant cogitation and petition to the Almighty as to where my place in society lies, I now know that my place is quite simply non-existent. Not that I am purposeless and thus useless, but quite the contrary I am so bursting with purpose that seclusion from that of the people is absolutely necessary. Since birth God as worked in me in ways that I still do not understand, He has given me a wisdom far beyond that of my peers, of which I am sure He intends on using for His purpose. Therefore I feel alone. I have never been like those around me and I have never met anyone with this blessing of a burden as which I carry. I can analyze people to death yet still find it nearly impossible to be me with them. I think it extremely strange that I myself am the strangest of strangers. I am certain that the celebration of my 100th birthday will most likely come before I and myself have completely introduced. I have never found anyone like me because I don't know what I am like. Therefore it is now my purpose to seek out those called, not merely to the work of God but to the life thus resulting, or to light the flame in them who have the fuse of burning passion and pursuit as I have. I want them to know God like I know Him, and there lies my motive for arising in the morning. It is my hope that this wisdom so imparted to me will not be wasted solely on myself but on he who it would make impact.
Oh God that I could awake the slumbering behemoth of unchained, relentless, effective teenage action that blossoms only as side-effects of your Love and Life flowing through them as you have so called me to accomplish.

Florida trees

While on the way to Florida to visit family, we drove the the Ocala National Forrest. If you don't know, the Ocala National Forrest is quite possibly the most boring place in the world. It was because of this boredom that I had time to make some observations. Whereas most forests stand primarily erect like soldiers ready for battle, all the trees in a Florida forest lean dramatically to one side. It took me a moment before I remembered how hurricane prone the state of the newly wed and the nearly dead was. These trees had been hit so hard every season that they held the shape of their past storms. How many of us have been with the storms of life so frequently we have forgotten to stand up again. We stand braced for pain and therefore can't receive the sunshine and blessings we could have had. It won't be long until those trees lean to far. They will fall someday.
The trees all lean together. We has a planet have been hurt. We as followers of Christ need to be the first to rise and stand tall again.

Florida Has So Many Old People....

The late show starts at 7:30

Resturaunts give you two cups, one for your drink and one for your dentures

Every mall has an AARP booth and a Hoveround store

The cable companies have to broadcast three channel of Animal Planet

They give the discount to everyone who isnt a senior

You cant park anywhere without a handicapped sticker

The kids dye their hair grey to fit in

The state's chief import is plastic, because of all the fake hips

Liscense plates are the size of billboards, no one can see those tiny letters

The police have never pulled someone over for speeding

The antique store bought out the wal-mart

There is a cloud of Bengay that hovers over large portions of the state

Who Is this God Fellow And Why Does He Want my Soul So Bad?

That doesn't seem like it would be the hardest question to answer right? After all we are Christians, we go to his house every time the doors are open (many times its us who opens the doors), we read the Bible more than the average Joe end can tell you any story in the book. We know exactly what's going to happen at the end of the world since we've read every Left Behind book from rapture to Armageddon, and we can tell you every cheesy line of faith expression we have ever heard because they are printed on a large majority of our T-shirts. That being said who is God? Morgan Freeman? Is He some cosmic, bearded mastermind who sits in heaven surrounded by chubby, naked angels who look like Gerber babies throwing lightning bolts at his "children"? I am fairly certain that anyone raised in church could respond to this question with a well rehearsed answer that no one really understands but has been spoken in churches everywhere such as "The Father of the Universe," or "The Creator of heaven and Earth." It literally astounds me that so many of us claim to follow a God whom we never take the time to meet. Of course I don't think we can ever fully figure God out, seeing as how a God who can be comprehended is no God at all, but I believe it well worth the effort.
Perhaps you have been wondering who God is. You may have chosen to embark on this lifelong quest for the pursuit of the life-fulfilling God you have heard about. You possibly could have known that you are called, by an unknown someone, to a greatness beyond that of anything you have ever seen or heard from the world around you, you would of course be right. Upon reading this, one in this situation would most likely wish that I would just make absolute haste in getting to the point, here being the answer to the above stated question. Don't bother, you won't be satisfied and more likely than not you will reach the conclusion with more thought provoking questions than thought fulfilling answers. Here my purpose is to let you know what it is you need to learn.
The reason for this is simple, being that my perfect explanation for this God I claim to follow would fail miserably in the achievement of your full comprehension of God. I could compose an endless piece of literature that accurately presents to you the God I have personally come to know and yet fall very short of a complete definition of who God is. I can only proclaim the God I have so gradually been introduced to that currently resides in me. I am sure the God in you is quite different. Do not think that I am speaking as one who claims there is no singular God, but only the spirit of people manifesting itself how ever it pleases or some other crap like that. Those who say there is no absolute truth are merely denying the existence of truth, thus enabling the belief in whatever one fancies considering nothing is true anyway. God is, always has been, and will always be God despite whatever I choose to believe him as. My personal preference of who I believe God is does not in any way affect who God actually is. I only mean that different people know different aspects of God according to how he has revealed himself, which of course is our only reliable source of His identity. Search, Find. God is only a complete mystery to those who dont want to know Him.

Life on Empty

I spent the week running on empty. I had to much to do and the innability of my body to keep up. It is times like those that I wonder why it is that I am filling my plate so much and then I realize that everything I do is because God told me to. I was praying that God would empty my plate but then I realized I want God to give me a bigger apetite with a faster metabolism. I want to pig out on the buffet of life.

The Next Hippies

The 1960's saw more drugs, sex and overall abandoning of God than any generation this country has ever seen. The emotional scars are just as evident today as they were 50 years ago, and they manifest themselves in the children of those hurt. However there is a seemly overlooked aspect of Hippie culture which we never realized. The days of the hippies were days of pure united rebellion, led solely by teenagers. Some people disagreed with US aid in Vietnam so an international brotherhood of teenagers decided to band together and revolt. Revolt against what they thought was wrong, against what society had told them was right, against everything they had ever known. No one told them to, in fact the world discouraged it, they just did it. Instead of letting the issues of the world overtake them they took action, effective action, relentless, unconquerable action. And on top of that, they didn't serve the powerful God which we serve.
I find it incredibly sad that the only example I can think of teenagers, may I say it again for emphasis but teenagers, who simply decided to change the world and take all means necessary to do so are hippies. Ironically hippies tended to stand for everything the church stood against, and yet we as a church find ourselves failing drastically in global reformation in comparison.
I often get the sense that we as youth feel that the "Church" is the group of adults that have no problem answering God's call and living effectively, as that must get easier with age. We know God has big plans for our lives so we eagerly await adulthood when we can fully understand what God has for us and thus put it into action. We have everything backwards. Paul told the young aspiring Timmy in 1 Timothy 4: 12 that we are to "set an example for the believers...." What!? God made us to be the inspiration, the influence, the motivation and so much more to the people who have been "in the faith" for longer than we have been in existence. Good ol Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 4 "I saw that everyone who lived and walked under the sun followed the youth."
At first this seams entirely preposterous yet it does not take a very long journey through history to see this is absolutely true. Think of any musician who could be named among the "greats," when this artist or band was at the peak of stardom how old was the audience which they played in front of? Of the horrendous clothing choices that have been made fashionable in this century alone how many of which rose to popularity in the high schools far before they hit the workplace?
We as teenagers have subconsciously been ruling the world since the term adolescence was coined.
Where are we leading our society?
It is solely our responsibility to change what we see. Do not think that it can not be done because it has been done before. It's time for the next hippie generation. A generation in undaunted pursuit of what God has entitled this word. Love. Not the love of the hippies whose boundary between that and lust was obscure or non-existent. The love I am speaking of is the kind only able to express itself through death. Death on a cross, death to ourselves and death to the chains which bind us. Life CANNOT live where death has not been. Our revolt will fail if we are after global denomination into churchdom, but has to be for eternal life, eternal life that starts not in heaven but right here, right now.
One also may take note that the hippies were absolutely out of their mind. Nothing they did made sense, long hair with tye-dye shirts and moccasins? I think we have spent too much time in our right mind and not His right mind.

2/1/09
I was asked today to give the lesson in kids church, 5 minutes before I was supposed to deliver it. It was about sin and salvation. I pulled out everything I had and it still appeared to fall on deaf ears. So is the everlasting burden of children’s ministry I guess. I hope that a seed was planted but I may never know. It was very uncomfortable and not very fun at all-which most likely means its what I am supposed to work on. I will conquer this by the Grace of God I will not be defeated by prepubescent beings. I owe it to the next generation to give them the experience that kids church gave me. I want to be someone’s Pastor Hugh, someone’s Randy Jones. I want to be the one that inspired and spoke into their life before the world had time to. I surely would not be who I am had it not been for the Godly children’s workers I was surrounded with.

1/28/09
Everything I’ve ever accomplished has been achieved first by me simply deciding to accomplish it. The only thing I have ever really wanted to achieve was to be a direct impact on the lives of those around me. I want to see lives changed, turned around into disciples- not Christians- but disciples who actually have a productive relationship with God. I am therefore deciding to be an impact to the world.
We all like to quote “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words,” well it’s about to time to start using some words.

1/27/09
Last Wednesday, God told me to tell my friend Michael that He loved him and has as plan for him and not to give up. Both Thursday and Friday I dragged my heels as best I as I could when at the very last minute before being swept away into the mass of class changing I spitted out the words I was supposed to say. Of course, I masked them with comments like “I know this is weird but…” and did not have any heart behind what I was saying. Afterwards I felt nothing. I thought I should feel gratitude that God was able to use my obedience, or that I should feel remorse that I did not say it as well as I should have. Nothing. I realized that I had just been a part in a rare occurrence. God needed what He told me to say so much that despite He overrode my fear to say it anyway. He intended on using it as an opportunity to bless me, but since I was unwilling I don’t get the reward. This reminds me of Jonah when after finally coming to terms with his mission delivered the most pitiful sermon to date with hopes the his audience would ignore him yet an entire city repented because of what was said. God will not loose. He doesn’t NEED me, He WANTS me. He can do just fine without me but He wants to see me grow and to see me blessed by accomplishing something.

1/15/09
I am here again. I'm at that place I have grown so miserably accustomed to that is the low after the high. I refuse to stay. I have lived my life in a circle, never going anywhere. Maybe it is better to say that I am in a tightly wound coil, it feels like I'm going in circles but after looking back on the years it appears as though I've gone somewhere. I am going to find God. I will not be overcome and defeated so that in a month or two I can have a personal revival and start all back over. I am rewriting what I've always known of living life. I am choosing to move steadily upward instead of looping around again.
I realize that I loose the zest not because it fades away, but because it is taken away so I I'll look for the bigger blessing in store.

1/13/08
What is greatness? What is it that makes a man Great? When the poets of old penned the words that brought their fame, did they know they would be revered, quoted, misquoted and misunderstood for centuries to come? Or were they merely writing down what their heart was screaming to them? Where the speakers of the quotes that stir our soul and shake us to the core every time we hear them intentionally attempting to utter timeless words, or was it just what seemed most logical to say at the time? Do great people know they are great? The dreamers, visionaries, those who accomplished what the world could not live without, are they the great ones? What if greatness was measured by how well a man knew himself? Surely this is a feat few have ever really achieved. How can we know if have fully achieved this?
I have so many questions, most came from answers to other questions. The more I know, the more I know how much I don't know. I have very little experience in this field but I would imagine that the questions which are asked by those who do not know who they are far more agonizing. My questions, after the frustration of confusion dissipates, bring the promise of joy. I have found the Truth, and it has set me free.