Busy Brick

     I think recently God has been trying to teach me the importance of some alone time. Recently I have been working a decent amount of hours, along with the internship and various other fun opportunities that pop up here and there. Just tonight I decided I would go on a walk after work and a fun opportunity. I think all the stuff has just compounded all together into one large "busy brick," which then formed my week. As I look back to examine my brick, I notice that there really wasn’t too much alone time in there. I personally think that just being able to sit and think about something other than what needs to be done or will be done is quite soothing, but truth is if you don’t make the time to do that then what soothing will actually get done?  I’m going to challenge myself to make an honest effort to try and put that soothing time into my day before I run myself into complete insanity.

Goodness and A. C. Grayling

This morning I happened to be reading Ravi Zacharias’s, “Slice of Infinity.” The article was commenting on A. C. Grayling’s, “Good Book,” but something stood out to me while reading the article. It was the topic of Goodness. When thinking about goodness, there has to be a standard to measure from. Without a standard, God, to measure from, I’m not sure if anything can really actually be good in the fullest, purest form of the word. While this is short, I’m going to leave it at this, “Without God, what is goodness?”

Jealousy: Needed and Necessary

     Yesterday I went up to DC with my fellow Sub30 Interns (Katelyn Smith, Michael Adams, Elizabeth Everett, and Cheyenne Self) to go to National Community Church. The site we went to was their Ebenezer location. Basically the site there is a Coffee Shop with a church downstairs. The idea is absolutely awesome and it’s done very well.

     The message at NCC was absolutely amazing and Mark Batterson was the man to bring it. It was aimed toward love, but in the sense of jealousy. Mark pointed out that God is jealous FOR us, and not jealous Of us.  He then went on to describe his own jealousy for him Wife’s love and his children’s love. Last night it hit me that God is extremely Jealous FOR our love and I realized it in a deeper sense. I had always heard the standard, “ohhh yeah man, God loves you so much he died for you,” but I never really internalized that he is absolutely Jealous for our love. His love for us is the kind of love that when you wake up, you begin thinking of that person, the kind of love that turns your stomach inside out just thinking about them, the kind of love that is between a husband and wife, the kind of love that is Jealous for their full love.  

     Because God has jealous love, He wants all of us which sometimes means we have to get rid of those things in our life that take His rightful place, a.k.a. our idols. Last night Batterson talked about Ezekiel 8:12 where God reveals that each of the seventy elders from the house of Israel had shrines to their Idols. Today while we do not carve out little things of wood or gold and worship them, we have become “sophisticated sinners” and worship the sins in our lives and leave out the “graven images,” but are nonetheless Idols. If we claim we truly love God, we need to cut out these idols that sometimes fill the place of God. ‘Nuff said.

The End of Childhood, Harry Potter, and The Beginning of the Future

     Today marked a largely felt end to my childhood. Today, I saw the last part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The movie was really good and the picture looked amazing, but towards  the end of the movie I began thinking to myself, “poop man…I’ve been growing up waiting for the next movie to come out and it’s pretty much over. =T” As I’ve been away at Liberty the feeling of growing up seems pretty awesome. I’ve gained more responsibility, more freedom, and more choices, but there has been a feeling of surprise and realization that in just a few short years I will hopefully be out on my own with a wife by my side, and will likely have to worry about finances and all of the other mess that will occur. The future seems scary, but also potentially exciting, and I know God will teach me through the storms and comfort me when comfort is needed. Scary future is getting a reality check…or maybe just a kick in the face.

Alex Mitchell and Electric violin

This guy is absolutely amazing. Every time I listen to his stuff it makes me want to figure out how to do stuff like this with my Electric Violin. Definitely takes some thinking about how the music works and everything. I wish more people played the electric violin so it could maybe one day get as popular as an electric guitar. These days seem to be a little far into the future tho. =\

Centrifuge

     This next week I will be at Centrifuge with a lot of Middle school students. We actually have close to 80 kids going. 80 kids going! That's absolutely huge. To put it into size, there is about 600 or so kids going in all, so we make up more than 10%. Fairview at Riverclub will definitely be reppin’ big time this week. :D

     This trip reminds me of when I to Centrifuge with my youth pastor Matt Paxson who is actually still the youth pastor for this next month or so. I remember that week was a phenomenal week to say the absolute least. This event combined with other events to get me where I am currently at today and it’s really none of my directing but God’s hands guiding and directing me along. I'm hoping and praying that God will impact these kids as much as I was impacted and see some truly God-changed lives. Hopefully this will be a moment that they remember when God showed up, showed off and gave Satan a well deserved punch in the throat.

In the Worst of Circumstances...

     The past couple of weeks, I have been reading Mark Batterson’s “In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.” The book has been absolutely amazing so far, but recently I read something that was particularly revealing. In the book Batterson talks about when Paul and Silas were in a Roman prison, a place that could be placed on the top 10 worst places you could ever want to be. While they were there they were wholeheartedly worshiping God. For many, this seems kind of ridiculous but when thinking about it, it’s the best option. Sure you could just sit there in silence, or think about how bad your circumstances are, but worshiping God is the best thing to do.  

     Batterson frames it like this: “When you worship, it produces shock waves that register on the Richter scale. The prison doors fly open. The chains fall off. But the prisoners don’t leave. In one of the most amazing conversion stories recorded in Scripture, the jailer who is about to kill himself puts his faith in Christ, and his entire family is baptized in the middle of the night. You can’t script these kinds of stories! But when you worship God in the worst of circumstances, you ever know what is going to happen next.”

     When we feel discouraged by our circumstances, or focus in on something we don’t like about ourselves, we must focus on God, or we will just fall into a slump and be less effective to those around us. Although our problems are huge, God is much bigger and greater.