Breathing

As I sat there and listened to the music that Friday night I felt an ache in my heart because I was watching students worship. My heart swelled with a feeling of complete awe and misunderstanding and my eyes teared up. We continued into our weekend with good conversations, hard situations, and the collision of who God is.

Saturday morning came and I sat in the back and watched. Nick got on stage and started telling his story. When Nick speaks I always seem to step back and look at my life. He told some heart wrentching stories and made some funny jokes, but there was something incredible and beautiful that was happening. God was entering the room. He sat there and weighed on hearts and moved around and tugged on souls. Tears came from my eyes because I saw God. Nick's words and stories were spoken in complete unconditional love, and in that moment, God was made complete and love was made perfect. I sat there and breathed in God. Tears flowed down my face because there was beauty there that I have only encountered once before in my life.

I want to collide with God. It scares the life out of me but I want to so desparatley collide with God. Because there is beauty and love in collision.

Why have we stopped fighting for Jesus?

We get converted, equipped, we start "doing" ministry and then sit down. We ignore everything around us and we sit down in our waste because we some how forget that God cares about us. We have seemingly forgotten through the years of "living" the Christian life that Christ is our life. It's a scientific fact that an organism can't live in it's own waste.

It dies.

As Christ followers we tend to get tired and sit down and forget our mission and forget our life in Christ. We start dying in our own waste. We let ourselves sit down because our business overtakes us. We start "doing" ministry instead of living it. When tasks become our ministry we have struck out.

simplicity

Sometimes I feel like my education gets in the way of Jesus.

I have been immersed in the God talk but I have been torn away from the God walk. Sounds cliche but Bible college is dangerous grounds to walk on. I feel like Satan is more at work here than anywhere else but in a way where he's not seen.

Through bad attitudes, complaining, gossip, idol worship.

And through missing the point of Jesus.

Firsts

So a friend and I were eating dinner last night and we were going through the firsts...who would get married first out of the two of us, have kids,ect.

He asked me who would end up in jail first.

I said I would.

"Why?"

"Becuase of my mouth, and it would probably be on a short term mission trip too..."

So if you end going on a short term mission trip with me I'm sorry if I end up in jail.

fork

I stabbed Shawn Williams with a fork yesterday.

rib

I really think I broke a rib. I have done it before so I wouldn't be suprised if I did it again. oh well just got to wait it out. Ha. Just don't take any crazy spills while playing ping pong.

"Grey ARea"

So I got my second IDS paper today. I did pretty well however my section leader wrote something pretty interesting on my back page. I guesse I have to start with what the paper was about before I can get to the comment that got me riled up. I was assigned to read three chapters out of a book and interact with the authors ideas and theories according to what I believe ect. So that's what I did. I took some of the ideas that this author put out and I said...hey there's grey area in the bible somtimes. However mentioning grey area freaks my sec. leader out. He agrees that grey area is there but he wrote that we as Christians need to live in the light. Satan lives in the grey and he probably likes it better there becuase at times it seems ok. I do think he is right to some extent. But how do we live in the light and still realize that the grey needs to be engaged. Im actually frustrated that Christians are afraid of the grey because they are bearers of the light. The light resides in them and if they are connected to the light then they should be able to live in the grey. How are we supposed to love if we can't live or engage in the grey? The grey is the world. WE are called to be apart from it but still be in it to share the light. I probably could write for days on this but I decided to keep it short. Just food for thought.

Confused

Why does the world bring down the different and the unique? In Elementary school we are called to be "ourselves", but if we are we get made fun of by our peers and by the adults who still arn't following their dreams. It's interesting to look at adults who havn't truly followed their hearts and dreams because they have become miserable and bitter at those who try. Try and fail. If you don't make a lot of money, if you don't have a reputable job to talk about at your ten year reunion, even if people misunderstand you and what you are called to do. STOP FEARING PEOPLE> People can tear you down or build you up but each person is made up of blood, flesh, body, soul, mind, emotion, and fear. Follow what you are called to do. If you don't you will be miserable and there will be no life in your bones. Live in the moment for what you know should be lived for. And love recklessly.

good advice

Be careful with whose advice you buy or be patient with those who supply it. Advice the form of nostalgia , dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal wiping it off painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than its worth.

Best Concert Ever

So I was in the warehouse with my friend Jess, minding my own business when my friend Jeremy came up and asked us if we wanted to go to a Chris Tomlin/Matt Redman concert. It was amazing. We got free tickets and were fifth row center....Oh yea and Loui Giglio spoke. It was one of the best nights I have yet experienced in Licoln/surrounding areas. God is Big!

Coke-machine Christianity

I was sitting in my non-western religions class tonight and my prof started talking about animism. Which in laymans terms basically is a belief system of beings and spirits who we as humans try to munipulate to do our bidding. So As my prof was expaining this belief system he brought up a pretty interesting point about both Christianity and animism.

They both can involve magic.

Now before you start freaking out and calling me a heretic hear me out.

Let's take a coke machine into consideration. You can go up to a coke machine and put money in and recieve a coke. Anyone can do this no matter what you have done before hand. Whether you have killed six men or just got done at a retreat and are landing from a spiritual high. Coke machines don't care what you have done or where you have been you get the same result every time(unless it's broken, or out of coke).

All you have to do is put your money in press a button and get the coke. So lets go back to Christianity. We have a guy named Larry who has been a Christian for 15 years. He goes to church every Sunday, reads his Bible, prays everyday, and serves in his church weekly. Suddenley his wife gets sick with cancer. He prays and continues to devote himself to scripture and to his church. He belives that God will help him because of his dedication. However, his wife dies and Larry gets angry becuase he has spent so much time in prayer and in scripture. He has used his routine for God as magic. He believes that since he has done certain things, aka put the quarters in the machine. That he can just press the button and ask God to heal his wife. Once catch-God doesn't owe us anything and we can't manipulate him. Now don't get me wrong every Christian isn't like this, it's just an interesting connection.

The story of Christianity and Animism.

hey

So I'm writing a book about why Christians Don't love with my best friend. Now don't get angry right away, because I do think that there are Christians that love and those Christians understand what it means to live without fear.

We focus so much on love that we forget to love. Isn't that interesting? We as a culture put so much emphasis on romantic love and unforgetable love and rarley do we see this in real life. Rarely is there a man who is willing to give everything up for his love and vice versa. We have been so encompassed and consumed by this "love" that we have forgotten to do it in our own lives. We live day to day yearning for something, something real and something tangible.

So we look for it. We grasp and grab at things that will fill our lives with momentary pleasure. Sad. The most brillant minds, the most imaginative intellects, the most wealthy humans on the earth can relate, the darkest minds, the homeless lives, and the lost sousl can relate. They all are looking for something. Something greater, some story more important, that they can be a part of of. Unfortunatley we forget our yearning and distract ourselves with different things; jobs, families, drugs, movies, food, weight loss, popularity, the list goes on and on.

So does this have any thing to do with love? WE shall see.