No Bounds

I was sitting on the train that was traveling from London to Nottingham with a team of ten college students and one professor. The students around me got into the a conversation of some sorts about how we should interact with non Christians. Those who find their value and worth in the empty things of this world. I sat there and listened to some of the things that were said but I had Death Cab for Cutie ringing in my ears. Which if you know me well you know that I am spiritually stimulated when I listen to music of any kind. So I let the conversation that was surrounding me and the music intermix and started thinking about how I would respond if I entered into the conversation.

Love them. That’s it. That’s all I would say. Don’t try and convert them in that moment, and don’t judge them...just love them. This thought I would have backed up by using the illustration of Christ’s life.

And then God threw a theological and emotional brick in my face, which usually happens when I think I am right.

Jesus did illustrate love with his life. And time and time again I will speak of how Jesus suffered for me. But during that train ride I realized I was the one spitting on him. I was the one flogging the man that I so called loved. Now let me bring it back into our world because over and over I have heard that example used in sermons to drive the emotion. But in my life I continually put up walls and boundaries around people. I use the excuse of "Im just being wise" but in reality I just don’t want to get hurt.

Christ never put boundaries up. He never reacted to a Roman guard spitting on him. He only acted on the fact that he was and is God, and God is love. Psychologically we continue to put walls up because we again know that if we don’t we will get walked all over. We will become a door mat. Makes sense.

I walk all over Jesus. You know what he does. He doesn’t put psychological walls up in a justification that it’s normal and right. He loves me.

I decided to stretch my photo editing legs a little bit...its really simple but i just started.

Sleepless nights

So you know those nights where you just can't sleep?

That's tonight for me.

I don't really have a reason why...probably too much caffine...

but really, Im 18 years old and I have a life that is ahead of me yet i feel like Im missing something.

Im not content. And I always hear people say and talk about the God sized hole in your heart. Well I have God...and it's an Awesome thing. I am really connected to God, but I feel like there is still something missing.

I still have a hole. Maybe that's why I can't sleep....

Grad school

So I am going to Oxford for my Masters in Theology or Philosophy!

Just thought you might want to know.

The absence of Marriage

So I have recently discovered that I really don't have any desire to get married.

Here's why...

It will take far too much time. First you have to cultivate a friendship which in my mind takes at least 6 months to a year if not longer. Then you have to cultivate a relationship. Which again takes a long time. And Im more talking about the time that you put into the relationship e.g. the emotional time, physical time, and mental time.

Then you have to get engaged and plan the wedding, which takes more time.

Then you get married...and you have to put in all your time until your dead.

I have too many dreams and desires. I don't think I could fit marriage in.

Emotions

So I have discovered that emotions can evade the truth or they can proclaim it.

chapel sermon

Brian Mills speaks of the tragedy of Hurrican Katrina. He ended up going with a team down to New Orleans and in detail described the different aspects of tragedy of our fallen world through examples he collided with last week. Tragedy is always and easy sermon illustration because you can hit people hard with it, but what about the lack of joy?

Or just the lack of something, in reality being God. Stepping on the tube, or walking in the streets of London, knowing God is absent. To look into a student's eyes and encounter intellectually what happens when two religions/lifestyles collide. Sitting there and realizing God's grace and love is not a logical solution to the fall of humanity, but that is how God responded. Knowing that even though the actions of Christ are not logical still does not make me give up what I know is truth. Christ is truth, and deep down I know that I would not be able to walk away from that. I could walk away from the lifestyle of Christianity but in the end I would be denying myself life. We speak of tragedy and the philosophy of human suffereing, and those things seem to define who we are. Yet when you walk into a city that has evaded the light in such a decieving way you soon realize that human suffering can no longer define our identity. God continues to pull us out of our "security" in our human indentification and calls us to be wholly in Christ.

Im back....

Christian T-shirt

I am totally against Christian merchandise. It makes me sick sometimes.

So I was sitting in IDS (which if you have read my blog latltey you have noticed that I talk a lot about IDS. I really don't know why but its a class that gets me thinking), anyway I looked at a girl in front of me and the whole class I was trying to figure out what the back of her t-shirt said.

I finally got to read it and this is what it said.

Live your life so the preacher won't have to lie at your funeral.

That's a story of Christian love? Yet the message is kind of intriguing.

What do you think?

My brother

I love my brother, he makes me laugh.

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.