Unknown

God, here I am.  I want to faithfully pursue you today, tomorrow, the next day and forevermore.  I pray you will teach me about who I am and continue to give me courage and strength to dive into the unknown of what is my life.  I pray you will reveal the weaknesses as well as the strengths in me.  I want to know everything there is to know so that I can truly be the person you want me to be unlike anyone else.  I want to be developed emotionally, physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually.  Help me live in balance and to love greatly, to seek to understand more, and to give freely of myself.  Allow me to know how to do these things, and to understand how to truly offer what I am to others.  Help me be realistic yet filled with dreams and passion.  Help me live my life, my life.

As I reflect on my past I realize how far I really haven't come.  I mean I have learned and grown in a lot of areas, but so many things that I thought I had figured out, I realize I was only deceiving myself.  I know that I live in a dynamic relationship with You, and with others, but God I just really want to see complete 180 change.  I don't want to act in the foolish ways that I seem to get caught up in so often.  I want to be renewed and revitalized.  I want to not worry about others perceptions, to only care about how we are doing and honoring you with everything else.  Draw a picture of me that speaks to my soul and gives me understanding and wisdom.  Rid me of the things I don't understand about myself that cause me to be so dumb.  I want to discover who I really am.  Rango said it well, who am I?  Then he makes up all about who he is, and finds out it was never about him anyways.  Maybe that's my story too, that in serving others and living a life not for myself, I will understand who I really am.  God grant me that I may find places to thrive and to truly live.  That I will benefit others from my being there.  I want to be part of the new age that isn't here yet.  I want to bring the kingdom, to bring life, to bring love, to bring peace, to experience joy in all things, and to seek out how to make people around me live's suck just a little less.  God open my eyes, my heart, my mind, and body to know what I need to do when I need to.  Make me the man I long so desperately to be.  Send me a mate to push me as Pete's wife pushes him.  Give me patience and contentment.

I want to demonstrate Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.  Lord let me be affectionate, breathing life into others with my words and actions.  Let me be filled with a contentment and excitement about anything and everything that comes my way.  Exuberance about life! Let me truly understand how to live in a way that brings peace always.  Bring serenity.  Help me be faithful and persevere through all things.   To be glad to wait.  To be compassionate and understanding to others, and to share good things with them.  A sense that permeates all the actions I make. A sense that helps me understand how I affect others and myself and God.  Help me be loyal to the things I say, and not force my way in anything.  Help me direct the energy I have wisely.  I want to glorify your great name and I want to be just the right mix of what you have for me.

Build in me what I need.  Thank you God.  I believe you will take care of me in the midst of the unknown and confusion of what I see.  Allow me to not get caught up in wanting success.  Let my focus be to share my light with others.  Through green lockers, as an RA, in chapel band, as a friend, as a son, sibling, acquaintance.  Wherever it is that we go together, let me shine and give that cold cup of water to those around me.  Give me a spirit of humility and love.  No matter the outcomes, I want to trust you and be faithful.  Let me not concern myself with how others view me, positively and negatively.

I love you.  I trust you.  Make your way God.  I will follow you into the dark.

Lyrical Genius

Given what you lost, are you better off?
Given what you had, has it made you mad?
Celebrate the few, celebrate the new
It can only start with you


I read these lyrics and it pushes me to think about my life.  I wonder if I truly celebrate the things that are few and good and new. I feel like I spend a lot of time wasting around, waiting for something or another to happen.  I am in the midst of a process through faithfulness, and I wonder if this is just a step ahead of me.  Given everything I've faced, have I been faithful?  No matter what I've lost or gained, no matter how people act towards me or any circumstance, have I been faithful.  It's just such a great composition of words.  It only starts with me, am I willing to be faithful?  I have such a draw to sit around and let myself essentially sin.  I seem unwilling to commit to things and I wonder why.  Can't I just be a motivated individual who is willing to sacrifice everything for others.  I mean Schindler went through hell trying to save people, I mean he gave all he had.  Where is my zeal?  Where is the life that comes out of giving?  Why am I so deceived by thoughts of grandeur?  Where is my head?  Where is my trust?  My faith?  Why am I so stuck in easy life, and unwillingness to suffer through most things.  I don't understand me.  I wish I could just make myself read, work, and be productive all the time.  I feel like I just waste time all the time.  God what needs to change in my life?  What do I need to truly surrender?  How do I do that?  Why do I struggle with this?  

God....

Hey God, I don't know what just came over me, but I feel such a terrible feeling.  I feel like I am not being the man I need to be, that you've called me to be.  I am sorry for that, I pray that you will guide me and that you will help me not be standoffish.  That I will learn to be the kind of person who goes out of the way for others, especially for you.  I want to give all that I am to the people here at Bethel, and I hope that you use me often.  I am open to you, and I give you what I am and what I have.  Use my spirit to uplift others, and to be a piece of you here.  I don't know how to be good at this, and so I pray that I will just be excited to be with others, and Love with crazy love.  Thanks God, you always help me out.

Understanding...

I've been having some talks with my roommate about what it means to truly love someone.  We started talking about compassion and how that leads to love, but then we started asking how to develop compassion.  We believe that it is through understanding that we are able to gain compassion and that leads to the rest.  Jesus always sought to understand where people were coming from which allowed him to help them in the ways that were necessary.  It seems to me that we need to hang out with people, and get to know them and then as we gain more understanding about who they are, we can truly serve them.  When we love, it leads to action, when we have compassion it leads to love, and when we have understanding it leads to compassion.  It all starts with trying to get to know someone better.  I mean even if you look at 1 Corinthians 13, it is pretty much saying love is all those things, and it is through understanding that all those things become valuable.

Worship

So I'm reading a book called Life Together.  It's been an interesting take on a lot of things.  One thing I found really interesting about it was the section on how to worship.  He talked about how reading psalms is a part of singing songs, and how we should incorporate them into every session.  That we should spend time in the morning and at night to sing to God.  He also talked about how singing songs is just a way to unite.  It is the combination of all voices coming together to say the same things.  Words are so important, and they are the only thing that separates us from everything else.  It allows us to communicate to God, and it's amazing to think that singing is just a way to combine ourselves.  Unity can be a huge part with worship.

Make Art

So I went to the Willow Creek Leadership Summit and a man named Seth Godin talked a lot about creativity.  About how society has made us to be a "cookie-cutter" mold of people.  We are meant to be nobody so they can ignore us and move on.  God has created us all to be somebody and it is truly by embracing the things that make us different do we see how God is working in our lives.  We need to constantly strive to create new things, to find things that bother us and to change them.  To go hard and not look back.  Understanding that when we fail, it is just an opportunity to learn something no one else knows.  We should not fear failure, but embrase it and look forward to it.  It can teach us many things.

This coupled with another talk about the power of God have just truly motivated my heart.  He talked about Elisha and how he said that filling ditches without rain or anything would be an easy task for the Lord.  How often do we insult God with our prayers for such small things.  I want to be a man known for his reckless faith, who prays for crazy things and actually believes God will do something amazing.  He is just waiting for us to dig the ditches and to pray and earnestly seek him.  I know God is going to do amazing things here in Founders this year, and I can't wait to see how God unfolds his Vision for all the RD's, RA's and to the students.  I believe God will unify us, and if he doesn't we'll try again next year.  We cannot stop till God truly comes through and changes our lives and the lives' of everyone around us.  Redemption is one of God's favorite things; God redeem Bethel and founders.  We need you to move, and I believe you will.  Use me, use the other RA's to work together to get where we need to be.  Teach us and move in us.  Allow it to not be about me, nor about others, but about true glorification of God here.  We are waiting and praying God.  Do something amazing!

Both of these are working together to have a profound impact on me trying to be creative and working towards what God is doing.  To try new things and to strive to make art.  To make something beautiful for Christ.  Let's change the world!

Peace...

I'm dealing a lot with my view on "just war."  I wonder if there is such a thing.  I mean I see how the Old Testament is ridden with war, but I wonder how Jesus' teaching deals with that.  It seems that we have just lost some of our creativity, and that we need to redefine terms like Jesus always did.  The best way to disarm violence is to surprise it.  When sued for our coat, surprise them by giving them more than they asked.  Surprise them, and expose their greed.  It is amazing that when we get creative how different things really can be.  I pray that I can become a creative genius.  I've never thought myself to be very creative, but Lord knows that I what I want to become.  I pray God will continue to develop things in me to teach me how to come at situations differently than anyone has ever done.  I need God to open things up to my mind.  I pray that I will never settle for just reacting, but that my life would truly be seen as "namaste."  It means to see God in someone.  That my life would continually be seen as Jesus.  I want my love to surpass all things, and my grace to be unending.  God I need you to fill me, to guide and direct me, present yourself to me in new ways so that I can understand more, and share more.  I want to see you in all the areas of my life God, I'm so tired of wanting it and not finishing.  I am on my way, but I'm not even close.  I'm afraid to pray this prayer, but God I know I need to be humbled, and I need to feel desperation.  I pray that you would send me, take me, move in me in ways that make me understand you more fully, so that I can cope and understand others better.  I don't know what I need, but you do, and I pray that you would rain down on me.  To use your chisel, and to knock me off so hard that I never get back to it.  Make my life about your love, and who you are, not how I'll look, or who I am.  I want to give it all to you, I'm offering it all right now, don't let me take my word back.  Even when it's hard and I'm exhausted, I need to find you.  Build more character in me, refine me, mold me God.  I desire you, and only you.  Thank you God.

Economics

So, I've been reading a book called Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, and God is doing something in my heart.  I'm so amazed by the thinking process he is taking me through.  To challenge charity, generosity, economy, everything really.  Looking at how things are done, and how we maintain richness, and poverty.  Learning how to go beyond just teaching someone how to fish, how do we go take over the pond we fish from.  How can we defeat the grip of money on us?  He talks about how they trade and barter different things, like time, resources, giftings to help one another out.

I have lived my whole life trying to sustain myself, to not "need others."  I have been missing out on one of the most important functions of the church.  I am not meant to live in a way where I am sustaining myself, I need to live in a community that sustains me.  While I can learn different things to share, they will share with me what I need.  I want to live like that.  How can I move into a place where I live interdependently?  I want to give God everything I have, and I want to take what he has blessed me with to others.  I want to live in a way that honors God, and that allows me to experience life together.  I'm tired of the needless and pointlessness of our Christianity today.  I want something more, I want to follow the Way.

I don't want to just copy what Shane is doing either though.  I want to incorporate things he does into things I already know, and I want to continue learning about the subject of community and loving one another.  I am excited to see how God works all these things out in my life trying to unite the Church.  Go Jesus!

Waiting...

God is so interesting.  The way that he takes us places we never thought we'd go, and constantly pushes us to go past what we thought was our best.  I am so in awe of what God is doing in my heart that I can't even express myself.  It's amazing that when we change our perspective, things can almost always be positive.  I've been really sick this past week, and I'm still not doing great, but God is teaching my teammates how to work, challenging them to grow more, as well as teaching me how to be content just to rest.  There is so much to be done and I want to help, I feel like I let my team down, but God uses it all to make us the best people we can be.  Whether it is to learn to sympathize with others when they are sick and aren't working, or learning to handle a bunch of stuff all at once without someone else to help you manage.  I suppose I don't know anything for sure, but I know that God wants all of us to grow into Christians.  The term "little Christs" is a neat thing.  We have the name of God to call upon, and we are trusted with the message and purpose of Christ.  I know that I want to become as close to the creator as possible so that I can give to the fullest potential that I have.  I'm excited to see where God takes me next, and I can't wait to learn new things that will help glorify God as best as I can.

Coming to Terms

Hello everyone,

Here I am living my life, this is a glance at who I am, and who I'm trying to become.  I am in West Virginia doing mission trips and wow, I can't believe how good God is.  I see him working through things everyday.  I am seeing who He is, and I am excited to be a part of what he is trying to teach me as well as the marvelous work He is doing here.  The more I am here though, the more I think about who I am and why I'm here.  I question my own motivations for it all.  I believe that I am here because I want to serve God and gain tools that will help me further God's kingdom more and more in the future, but I just have the feeling of that not being the true reason.

It has been a struggle lately because I arrived here not really knowing much about my position or even how to do it.  I was scared and I didn't know how God could use me, the idiot who knows nothing about construction when my title is construction coordinator.  God came through over and over, not to say it's been easy because it is far beyond difficult, but it is wonderful at the same time.  I've been here a little over a month and I feel that my knowledge especially in construction has grown stupendously.  This brings me to my feelings of not knowing what I'm doing here.

Once I started getting the hang of things I started viewing everything as a job to be completed, not people that I'm here to serve alongside.  There was a man who needed some help finishing his kitchen and because we couldn't get a team in there to help, we decided he could finish it himself.  I have been torn ever since I realized what I was becoming.  Mission work became all about getting teams in, helping them have a good "high" and then sending them off while preparing for the next week to do it all again.  This is my job, but I feel like I am missing out on the whole idea of community and why I'm actually here.  It scares me that not even a month can change my way of thinking so drastically.

I'm now learning how I can make a difference in the community myself.  I still don't know what my true motivation is in being here, sometimes I really wonder why I am.  However, I know that  I want to be the guy who knows everyone when I walk into the  store.  I want this to be my home away from home, and I want to spend my weekends helping where I don't help during the week.  I am still far from perfect at my job, but I believe that as long as I don't lose site of building the Church everything will be better.  I want to take time with people who just want to talk, and not be so focused on trying to get things done.  My life needs to be a focus of relations rather than a to-do list. I wonder if some of it is just that I want to be a "radical" Christian more so than I want to love God.  I think it is a hard line to draw so I still want to live crazy, but I know that I need to challenge myself continually on who I am. If anyone who reads this would continually pray for my heart and spirit in these things, I would be greatly indebted.  God is still so good, and he is still working thankfully, but I want to see more.  I am not satisfied with how I am living, and I hope you all challenge yourselves to think about why you are who you are and why you do things really.  We all know the right answers, but is that really who we are?