Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Just a few thoughts...

If my relationship with God becomes a daily routine then I'll be able to think I'm doing alright as long as I'm able to check everything off my list. This includes praying and reading my Bible every morning and having a quiet time at night. I've gotten to where I feel guilty if I don't do the things on my list. I don't want to go to God out of guilt. I want to run to God out of a complete hunger and need for Him.

So I'm going to start shaking things up a little bit. I'm going to try to change the way I pray, change the way I read my Bible and try to change what I consider to be a quiet time.

If there's one thing I've learned about God this year, it's that He's a lot bigger than I could have ever dreamed and I haven't even hit the tip of His greatness. What I have isn't enough. I want more and I will be restless until I get more.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Someone I'm thankful for

I'm taking Steven Furtick's advice and taking the time to single out my buddy John Flowers. He has, by far, been the most influential person in my life this past year and I just want to take a minute to brag about him.

He has encouraged me when I needed encouragement, been a ball buster when I needed to get called out on my crap, and been an all around fun friend when I needed that too.

Earlier this year he challenged me and gave me the advice that led to my ending a relationship that I knew God didn't want me in. And if he hadn't had the guts to be a challenging friend I might still be disobediently in that relationship now.

We had a talk in the parking lot at NewSpring a couple of months ago and I was vocalizing my frustration about my job situation and overall station in life and he took time to specifically encourage me and reminded me that if I'm where I'm am then God has a reason for it and He's preparing me for something. Those words still get me through some of the rougher days.

He's been the guy who has been able to specifically point out how God has been working in my life and show me changes that He's doing in me that I might not be able to see otherwise. He's also reminded me of how far God's brought me from where I was.

He's an amazingly Godly man. Anyone can recite theology, but a person's true beliefs are communicated through actions and I can safely say that I know what John believes because I see him live it. He's so in love with Jesus and he challenges me to pursue Jesus even more. He demonstrates what a man of God is.

I'm a stronger Christian and a better man for having him as a friend. And if you end up reading this buddy, I just want to tell you thanks for being such an awesome friend and a great encouragement in my life. God's doing and will continue to do absolutely ridiculous things through you!

Take the time to tell someone that you're thankful for them in some way in the next 24 hours.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

We're Evil

It's been a while, I know. The internet has been scarce at my house lately. And by scarce, I mean nonexistent.

I want to start by saying that I believe that God has a specific way that He communicates with His children that is specifically designed for how He made each of us. He talks to us in other ways too, but there are ways that are unique to each of us. Mine is reading. Specifically, secular fiction.

I've been reading Watchmen for the past couple of weeks and I just finished it yesterday. In a few words, it was awesome! God showed me so much through this book, and I'm going to concentrate on one specific thing that's had me thinking a lot these past couple of days.

The premise for Watchmen is essentially a world that differs from our current one because it has people who decide that they want to put on masks and fight crime. They don't have any super powers, but, for their own motives, the try to help their city by stopping criminals, murderers and rapists. The book doesn't necessarily have a "villain" like you might think, but there's definitely an antagonist and it's his motives that I want to discuss.

After trying to stop evil one person at a time, he comes to the conclusion that none of it will make a difference in the long run. Evil and good aren't as cut and dry as we make it out to be. There isn't a group of bad guys that are evil, and the rest of us are good. He comes to the conclusion that the problem with people is people. We're all evil and trying to end evil by stopping criminals is simply treating the symptom, but ignoring the illness. To solve the problem, he decides that he has to go to the heart of it, and that's the heart of humanity.

While he goes to dark places to make this happen, I think that his observations are correct. And the average Christian in this country seems to be more in the business of treating the symptoms rather than curing the disease. I can see this in the how many people are upset that Obama won because he is pro-choice and how much we celebrated when proposition 8 passed in California. And while I do pray that God changes our future presidents heart and I am glad that one of the most influential states in our country voted to defend marriage between a man and a woman, thinking that that's doing anything for the Kingdom is like treating a cancer patient with a band aid and thinking you've done a good job.

In the same way that Roe v. Wade didn't make pro-lifers decide that maybe abortion was okay, I doubt that proposition 8 passing will change the heart of any on the other side of that argument. And that's the point: the heart is the only battleground that we should be concentrating on. How can we be upset at the idea of a pro-choice president when we've done nothing in our own life to help pregnant teens who feel like they don't have a choice but to abort their child? Are we showing them the love of God when we look upon them with judgment and think of them as sluts who should have known better?

Have we who disagree with gay marriage ever had a conversation with a gay person who wants to get married? Do we talk to those dating couples who live with each other? Do we get involved in the lives of guys who think of women as little more than objects they use to fulfill their own needs? Or does everyone we have in our lives look and think just like we do?

It's safe to want laws to pass. We can do that without getting our hands dirty. And if they don't pass, we can go the self-righteous route and talk about how bad this country is getting. It's dangerous to be like Jesus. It's dangerous to talk to those whom we consider to be worse sinners. And the reason is that the people who look just like us will view us the way they view those "sinners," and our pride can't handle that. But to be like Jesus requires us to die to ourselves and to not care about what others think more than what God thinks.

The problem isn't "sinners," it's all of us. We're not good people who do bad things. We're evil people who do evil things. The only difference between me and those that I all too often look down upon is Jesus. And I had nothing to do with Him coming to me. Mark Driscol said in his latest book, "You are more evil than you have ever feared, and more loved than you have ever hoped." And it's true! That's the Gospel message in the simplest form I've ever heard it and that's the message we have to share!

It's so hard to give up comfort in favor of being a Christian. But God hasn't called us to comfort. He's called us to love others and bring those far from Him to Himself, and no amount of picketing and protesting will get that job done. We are supposed to be like Jesus. And He didn't expect us to come to Him, He came to us. In the same way, we shouldn't expect the people who are far from God to come to our churches and into our lives. We have to go to them!

Friday, October 31, 2008

Worth checking out...

I found this whilst browsing blogs this morning. Take a look at it, especially if you're in youth ministry. It kind of broke my heart in some parts and gave me some decent insight into the students we're wanting to reach.

I found the link here. It's a good site with lots of updates and tons of useful information for youth workers.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

God is bigger than me

How much do you believe God is in control? That's a question I've been asking myself a lot lately. The answer I want to give is "completely." But if I look at my feelings and actions in situations, the answer ends up being "not much."

My behavior tends to indicate that everything depends on me. If I have someone in my life who isn't a Christian, it's my job to lead them in the "sinner's prayer" and move on to my next assignment. But what if God's plan for me in that person's life isn't to get them "saved?" What if God merely wants me to soften their heart to His love by demonstrating it in my own life, and then put the perfect person in their life to completely lead them to accepting Christ?

This whole idea that we're in control is prevalent in Christian culture. I've been working in youth ministry for around three and a half years, and I can't tell you the number of times that I've seen a student "get saved" 3 or 4 times only to finally meet Jesus years later. And I think this happens because well meaning people in that student's life believed that they had to do whatever it took to get that student to say a prayer to keep them from going to hell. And I should know, I was both one of those students and one of those well meaning people too up until pretty recently. I felt like if that person left church without saying that prayer, it was game over.

But here's what I'm learning: Salvation is about more than just the final result. Like everything God teaches us, it's a process. And it's a process that requires many people in many different roles. As much as I might feel like I failed if I'm not the one who leads someone to Christ, that role isn't always the most important one in the process. There's a lot of grunt work that has to be done in a person's life to show them the love of God before they meet Him; whether it's people He wants them to meet or events that need to unfold. Sometimes this process takes minutes, but, I think, most of the time it takes years. And it takes faith when your purpose is done to step back and trust that God wants that person to meet Him more than you do.

I had a roommate my junior year at Clemson that I had known since I was a junior in high school. He was a pretty fun guy; really laid back and easy going. But he was a typical southern christian who didn't know Jesus. So I'd talk to him about God whenever I could and I'd always invite him to church. I invited him to church for two years and he said he'd go a bunch of times but never actually did. This had worn me down a lot, so I had pretty much given up on the guy. But I got a call from him on Tuesday. He had heard the my grandpa passed away last week and wanted to check up on me and we talked for a little while. He told me about this girl he's engaged to and how her family goes to church all the time. Then he told me that he'd been going with them a lot lately. Then he told me that I'd be proud of him, he'd gotten right with God. And the more he went on to explain all of the differences in his life and what Jesus had done for him, it hit me: this guy had accepted Christ!

God had a purpose for me in his life. But it was just one step in the process of leading my friend to Him. God knows His children, and He knows exactly what it takes to get them to trust in Him. He knows what we need to go through to find Him. And He knows the exact right people for each part of the process that leads to Him.

Everyone has a story! And none of them begins at an invitation in a church service. And for the Christians, we all have a redemption story. One that starts in the hopeless despair of our own sin and ends in being gloriously redeemed and God calling us son or daughter. And all of our stories are interconnected. For some we play very minor parts, and for others we take the lead. But every part if absolutely vital. But for the times that we play the minor role, we have to trust that God is in control and His plan is much bigger than we can possibly conceive. We have to stick to our part in the story, even if we're not the lead. Besides the true star in every story is Jesus. He's the reason for every story anyway. We should never get over how huge an honor it is to be allowed in the same story as Him.

Also check out Josh's post here. It goes along with the idea of trusting God. His comment on Jesus coming to bring life to the dead that he made to some Europeans requires more faith and letting go of control that I think I have in me.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Unplugged

You know you're a sucky blogger when every blog seems to start with the phrase, "I'm sorry I haven't written anything in a while." But I am sorry I haven't written anything in a while. But hey, I know some people who haven't updated their blogs in months, so at least I'm doing better than some.

Just thought I'd talk a little about some stuff going through my head. This isn't meant for me to list off what's going on and conclude with a moral to the story. If there's a moral to this story, I've yet to see it. I'm kind of just full of questions right now. This is more of a way for me to put out there what my thoughts are currently, so if you're not into that kind of thing you might want to skip this one. I'll try to put up some more coherent stuff together this week.

I'm in a state of disconnectedness and confusion right now and I really don't like it. I do know that one thing God has taught me in the past week is that I've been finding my identity in all of the wrong things, which would be anything that's not Him. And I feel that He's been confronting me with the question of, "If this were taken away, who would you be?" And more and more I'm finding the answer to be, "I don't know."

God always seems to have a reason for the stuff He starts pointing out to me. So I'm thinking maybe the reason I'm starting to see all of this now is because of how finite these things that I've defined myself with are in my life.

I'm at a job that I could quit at a moment's notice. I live in a house that's a very temporary situation without a lease to hold me here. I'm disconnected from an area that so many of my friends are at and almost secluded to a place without too many real friends to keep me around. But one thing that's kept me here was the fact that I knew how poor my grandpa's health was and I wanted to be able to be here for my family when something happened to him. Well he passed away this weekend (and I'll have a whole other post dedicated to that later this week, hopefully).

I have absolutely nothing connecting me to my place in life right now. My heart's being pulled out of so many things that I've identified myself with for so long, almost, it seems, against its will. It's like my heart is just floating around, waiting for that one thing to be able to pour itself into. The problem seems to be that I don't know what.

I think I have what the puritans called a "holy frustration." I know that there's something more I could be doing for God than what I'm doing here. My main confusion is whether I need a big change, or I just need a new approach to what I'm already involved in.

Needless to say, there's a lot of stuff going through my head right now. Like I said earlier, there's no real resolution to what's going on, though I'd like for there to be. So for now I need a bunch of prayers from anyone who happens to stumble upon this. As for what you need to pray for? I have no idea. Maybe clarity or discernment? I definitely want to know what my heart needs to be in because right now it's just floating there with nothing to commit to.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Check this out yo!

Just stopping in for a bit today. This made me laugh a lot at work today. My coworker stared and asked me what was wrong. I hope it makes your day too.

I love God more!

Ha! Priceless.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

My Worst Sin

God has been pointing out a lot of sins in my life lately. It's easy to get a little down when this happens, but I keep remembering that "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Jesus isn't pointing out these sins to me to condemn me. He is showing me all of these things because He has a plan for me and I can't do it if I have all of these sins bogging me down.

But, as the title suggests, I think I have one sin that far outweighs the others. And it's not my sin of pride, my anger, my inclination towards bitterness, my need to be noticed, my ability to worship anything in my life that's not Jesus...(you see how I could go on and on here?) My chief sin comes into effect when I move my mouth but not my arms.

I have a problem of being all talk. I guess after four years and two different English degree programs, I've become pretty good at having a pretty eloquent sound coming out of my mouth. I can talk about ministry all day and inspire some pretty cool thoughts, but then go and do a completely half-assed job with my own ministry. I can talk about how much purpose I want in my life and how I'm done waiting and am going to start pursuing God's purpose. Then I'll pray a little harder the next day and eventually let it fizzle out until I'm back in my rut. I've even poured out beautiful words meant to inspire love from a girl and then go off and not even put the effort into trying to lead a godly relationship with her.

(Funny side note, there's one girl in particular that every time I even try to think about blowing romantic smoke up her butt to make myself look better, God steps on my tongue and makes me sound like a comic book collector in his thirties the first time he meets his girlfriend offline.)

But why is it that I'm like this. Probably for a lot of reasons. Primarily it's laziness. But also, talk is easy, actions are hard. Actions are risky. I can't fail at talking; typically because I'm talking about something I feel someone else should be doing. If I take action there's a chance it could all blow up in my face and my pride would take a huge hit.

Here's the kicker, I've realized I've had this sin before. I would get sick of it, SAY I was going to change, then guess what happened? Nothing! The very sin that I was sick of kept control over me. So rather than just saying I'm going to change, I'll tell you one specific way I'm going to change. Then, if you're reading this, I expect you to ask me how I'm doing at it. If I'm slacking off, you can smack me in the back of the head (once per questioning!).

I'm in a leadership position with Fuse in Greenville now. I'm over a whole house of leaders. It's my job to actually lead them which I really haven't been doing. So tomorrow night I'm going to ask them the best way to encourage them and the best times to regularly meet with them one and one to see how they're doing in life and in their relationship with Jesus. Then I'm going to start regularly following up with that.

Also, I'm going to find a person to mentor. God's told me to do that for some time, so it's about time I do it! And I think I know who it will be, but we'll find out. So shoot me a text or ask me when you see me. Hit if necessary.

P.S. Sorry mom for cussing, but there's really no Christian way to say half-assed. And there never should be a reason for there to be.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

The Attempt Was All

I think that God likes to use non-christian authors to speak to me more than Christian authors. And I'm glad because they are typically much better writers. I got to thinking about this book by a guy named Ian McEwan I read a few years ago today called Atonement. It's incredibly highly regarded and considered by many to be one of the best books ever written. It was made into a movie recently, which I've yet to see, so this is all based off of my reading. I'm going to give away some plot details, so if you don't want to know any of that, maybe just skip to the last two paragraphs.

Anyway, I was thinking about this book this morning during my quiet time. The topic of atonement has been on my mind for the past couple of days and I got to thinking about how this book represented it. I've come to the conclusion that McEwan was dead on.

The book tells the story of Briony Tallis. A 13 year old writer in a wealthy family. Her 23 year old sister Cecilia and the housekeeper's son Robbie, who have always been tense around one another, realize that they are completely in love. While they "consummate" this finding, Briony walks in on them. This sight plus a rather explicit love letter from Robbie she has already read leads her to believe him to be a "sex maniac".

She later that same night walks in on her cousin being raped. Without seeing who was doing it, she testifies to the police that it was Robbie. This sets into motion events that leads to Cecelia becoming estranged from her whole family because no one believes in Robbie's innocence, and her never talking to Briony again. Also to Robbie going to prison for three years, then to the army in World War 2 where he dies; forever separating himself from Cecelia. This one act destroys an entire family.

Briony spends the rest of her life trying to make up for what she's done. She serves as a war nurse under a cruel boss. She stays because she believes she deserves the punishment. Her whole life is consumed with atoning for her sin. Finally we see that she has been the author of the book we've been reading. She plans to release it as soon as all of those who were involved are dead become the actual rapist is very powerful and could sue her for libel. But she knows that even releasing the truth will not atone for what she's done. But she never intended it to. On her own, she could not find atonement. She explains, "the attempt was all." Her whole point wasn't to make things right, but to try to make things right.

This is such a beautiful allegory of life without Christ. My sin is egregious. It maligns the name of my Father and destroys His perfect family. On my own, I could try to suffer enough to try to make up for my sin but that wouldn't accomplish it. I could try do enough good things to win my way back onto His good side. But God doesn't hold a set of scales for me to throw my deeds onto, hoping the good will outweigh the bad. I could even just keep the weight of my sin and hope that my Father will see how it hurts to carry the load. But none of this would remove what I've done.

Simply put, God has been wronged and He deserves blood. That's the only way to atone for what's been done against Him. And this is where we see the full beauty and depth of God's love. In Jesus, He gets His blood. There's no taking away what's been done, so God takes the wrath required to right the wrong and puts it on His son to save we who are so undeserving of such an act. No attempt at atonement will ever be more than just an attempt. Only through the blood of Christ are we truly atoned. And this is incredibly beautiful.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Building the Kingdom

In 2 Corinthians 2:14 it says, "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere."

Now upon first reading of this, I thought, "Cool, whatever God has in store for me, there's already someone there who's spreading the fragrance of God and preparing for me to get there." Which I think is true, and absolutely amazing. But here's an even better thought. Right now, I'm spreading the fragrance of God for someone else. God is using me to prepare the way for someone else's purpose.

I love how interconnected God has created us to be. I might never see the fruits of some of the things God is doing through me right now, and that's okay because I'm not supposed to. That's for someone else to reap.

This also creates a real conviction for me. I know that I don't want anyone who's preparing the way for me to do it half-heartedly. So I need to do others the same courtesy. I can't afford to be lazy with my life. The Kingdom depends on its citizens to build for one another.

Monday, October 6, 2008

In my winter He still pursues me

In my winter He still pursues me.
When all is barren and death surrounds me
Still He fights for my soul.

When heavy snow freezes the soil
He draws my roots deep.
When the ground thaws
Powerfully they will hold me up.

Though cold and darkness clothe me
He blankets me in His truth.
Like a warm shower
His love pours over me.

Beneath my winter awaits spring
Cocooned.

From the coldness of death, life will break free.
Forgotten strength will be restored.
Warmth will erupt from the sun.

And in my spring, still He will pursue me.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Christmas Preparations

I'm ridiculously excited about Christmas this year for some reason.  I was talking to a lady at church tonight about how the cold weather got me excited about Christmas time.  And she told me she was never really into Christmas too much.  But then again, this will be her first year as a believer.  She said, "I'll actually be able to celebrate Christmas for the first time."

Way too often I forget that there's a world out there that doesn't know Christ.  I take for granted that I get to celebrate Christmas, not just go through Christmas rituals.  It's so incredibly humbling to know that.  And there's a world of people around me who could be just like this lady who got an invite to church and God used an awesome guy in an elf suit to get her attention and set her up to receive Christ last Christmas eve.

I hope that God puts me in the right place over the next couple of months so that people in my life who don't know Christ can celebrate Christmas this year for the first time.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

God's doing something!

Last Wednesday Greenville NewSpring had our first Fuse service and right at 100 students showed up. Here's my problem; I forget where God's brought me from and only see the present. I look at the fact that NewSpring runs close to 10,000 people every Sunday between two campuses now and look at the fact that Anderson Fuse have over 500 students every week. When I look at it that way, 100 doesn't seem to impressive. Then God does what He always does and reminds me.

I started working with youth at NewSpring a little over 2 years ago. We were still broken up into separate ministries; high school and middle school. I worked with Ignite which was the middle school ministry.

I remember my first night pretty well. I remember that John Allgood was the first person I talked to because I only knew one other person there. I remember having my mask of confidence up even though I was extremely uncomfortable with where I was. I remember playing four square with students (which we should bring back because I could beat the students at that a lot better than I can anything on XBox). And above all, I remember being overwhelmed by the fact that there were 100 middle schoolers in what used to be a store at the Anderson mall.

In fact, we averaged 100 students a week for most of my first year occasionally going higher or lower. And I'm pretty sure that with the high school ministry, we had about 200-250 students come through the Fusebox on a weekly basis.

Here's the thing that blows me away, though. When we were running 100 at the Fusebox, that ministry had been around in some form for a few years. NewSpring as a church has been in Greenville for 12 weeks. Only around half of the people who are attending had actually heard of the us before then. And Fuse is only 4 weeks old. We had 100 students on our fourth meeting!

And in case you're not keeping up, that's 100 students on our fourth meeting at a youth group for a church that didn't exist 13 weeks ago. It's not NewSpring's name that's drawing these students in. In fact, many of those 100 had never walked into the building before Wednesday.

Before every meeting each week I've worried about whether anybody will actually show. I'm worried about it now for tomorrow. But there's no need for it. We're not putting on a show every week, no one even knows what NewSpring is, and none of us really have a clue what we're doing. The only reason these students keep coming is because Jesus wants them there! He wants them! I hope that excites you as much as it excites me.

I can't even imagine what this ministry will look like this time next year. I can't imagine what it'll look like next month. But God is doing ridiculous things and I'm so amazed that I get to be a part of it. I don't deserve this in any way, but I am thankful for it.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Zap



I don't know why, but I can't look away!
I found this thanks to Crummy Church Signs. You should probably check them out.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

David Update

So, on top of the fact that I don't write on here nearly as much as I wish I did, I also very rarely give "David updates" on what's going on in my life. I typically learn something really cool about God, write about it, try to sound deeper than I really am, and move on with my time. So here's a (seemingly) fun, "where I'm at" post. This is definitely a post for those who know me and want some details about what's going on in my life. I'm not sure it'll be very entertaining, so feel free to skip it if you find that kind of stuff very trite.

I'm a pretty happy kid right now. I'm working in more of a leadership role in starting up the youth group at Greenville NewSpring which is taking up a little more of my time, and I'm sure will take up even more time in the near future. I'd love a new job, but I'm getting along great with the people there. And, the thing is, because I'm doing more with the youth group, it's really helpful having set hours that allow me to do all of the evening stuff I need to do. Not to mention, there's about three days in the week where I have very little to do at work, so that's going to come in handy more and more as I start contacting more people for church stuff. So, as much as it might suck, my job is actually pretty ideal for my situation.

God's blessed me with some amazing "new" friends lately. I say "new" but in reality I've known these people for a while. But in the past few months we've all sort of started hanging out and getting closer. It's pretty awesome. There are two married couples in the bunch, but thankfully John is there to be my date every time. I'm not sure what I'll do when he starts dating someone. I don't really like to think about it. So could we just move on?

My family's awesome, though we are going through some rough times. Dad's having a harder time with his treatments for his leukemia this time around. (And I spelled leukemia right on the first try!) And there's been some other illness throughout, but God's getting so much glory out of the whole situation. However, prayers are always welcome and appreciated.

When I get to see my roommates we have a blast. But that seems to be happening less and less lately. Brandon has officially picked Megan over me, and it's a little heartbreaking. But, I can't blame him, I'd have done the same. She's much prettier than me, after all.

My relationship with God has been a little weird lately. He's definitely been a lot more silent with me, which is rough because of how vocal He's been in the past few months. It's hard to adjust to and I've been wondering what I'm doing wrong, but I know that's not the case at all. This is just a time to be faithful to what He's told me in the past and be patient until He speaks again.

Favorite color: Blue

Most annoying thing: Getting crap in the little speaker holes of my computer. You just can't clean in there.

Currently reading: 1 Samuel and Harry Potter. (Saul and Snape sure are misunderstood fellas.)

Wish I had: An iPhone.

Girlfriend: No time. I'm dating Jesus. (How disturbing of a sentiment is that for a guy to say?)

Missing: Theresa. (She just doesn't love me enough to call.) And Josh. (I hope Europe doesn't turn your sense of humour too dry. (I threw in that extra u just for you buddy.))

Google Reader subscribers: 2 (And that's more than I expected. I'm not sure who the second person is and that bothers me a little.)

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Dagon

Around October of last year, I read the short story "Dagon" by H.P. Lovecraft. As far as I remember, it was a story about a suicidal sailor whose ship washed up on some uncharted island. While there, he looks upon a huge monster. This monster was unimaginable. It was powerful, hideous and the main character went insane just by being in its presence. That's the kind of power that I can't even imagine. I've even read that some critics believe that it's possible that, since this monster wasn't given a name in the story, it wasn't even the god Dagon, but a worshiper of Dagon. So, if one considers the power of the worshiper, it's hard to even conceive of the power of Dagon himself.

So it was with this in mind that I read 1 Samuel 5 today. Do yourself a favor and read the first five verses before you read the rest of this. Now I realize that there's a whole mythos surrounding Dagon historically that has nothing to do with Lovecraft, but this is just me reading from my own experience, and I think God's cool with that.

Imagining how powerful I view the Dagon of that story to be, it just puts me in awe of the power of my God! When the Dagon idol was placed in the presence of God, he fell on his face. Whenever he was stood up again, not only did God knock him down again, but He completely mutilated him. This is true power; that God is so good and holy that nothing unholy can stand near Him.

I've face a few things in my short time on earth so far, but I in no way believe that I've scratched the surface of all that's ugly, powerful and monstrous here. And the rulers of this world could be described in exactly that way. They do have power and on our own, we don't stand a chance against any evil in this world. But in the presence of a Holy God, evil is forced on its face.

It gives me hope that I can completely fail. That on my own, I'm really not much of a threat to any evil in this world. But I serve a God who is sovereign over everything, both good and evil. Nothing evil can prevail in His timing.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

My opinion doesn't matter

I'm a bit of a worrier. It's an issue, I know. But I might as well put it out there. I'm a worrier.

God is very much using situations and key people in my life to break this, though. Which is awesome. But what I'm learning so much about worry is that the only reason worry comes is that I don't trust God. He has control over everything, and if I believed that, I wouldn't have a problem with worry.

So here are a few things I'm worrying about and what God has very clearly communicated to me thanks to a very dear friend of mine.

I don't feel like I'm far enough along in my relationship with God at this point. I'm doing everything I can to grow closer to Him but I just don't think I'm doing enough.

God's answer: Your opinion of our relationship doesn't matter. You're not getting any closer to Me than I allow you to no matter how much more you pray or read your Bible. It's not about your works it's about My grace.

I desperately want God to be proud of me but I just don' t think He is.

God's answer: Your opinion of how I feel about you doesn't matter. There's nothing you can do to change the fact that you belong to Me. You're My son and I designed you to do great things for Me.

I'm entering into a leadership position with the Greenville campus' youth group. I'm in way over my head and experience. I have no idea what I'm doing and I don't see how I can do a good job with this.

God's answer: Your opinion on how good of a leader you are doesn't matter. That's for Me to decide. That's for those you lead to decide. I put you there and I wouldn't have if I didn't have a plan for you.

Needless to say, I left these encounters very humbled. My opinion really doesn't matter. After all, who am I anyway? If I continue to seek after and trust God, He'll tell me how I'm doing. His is the only opinion that counts anyway.

Fun times to be had...elsewhere

So, you might have noticed that lately this blog has been more like "The Ballad of Deep and Pensive." And I'm planning on putting some lighter things up to even it out.

In the mean time, however, I've started twittering and there's lots of light stuff on there. You'll get anything from stupid things customers do at the bank, to fun quotes that fill my day, or even extreme excitement over food of some sort. Check it out, it'll be good times for everyone.

And some changes are coming soon to "The Ballad." Hold tight my brothas!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

God's Face

We have to pursue God's face, not His hand.  It's when we pursue His face that we're even able to see His hand.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Hunger

Last week God led me to fast for three days and it was quite possibly the most challenging thing God's ever asked me to do. It required a lot of self restraint and I think for the first time in my life, I finally have a grasp on what true hunger is.

Basically, not eating for a long amount of time sucks. When you don't have food, it's pretty much all you think about because that's all your body is telling you. But what really kept me going was one thought in my mind:

Food's coming. I'm starving right now, but food is coming.

The hunger I had inside of me was there because there was something I needed but hadn't received. If I didn't need it, there wouldn't have been the hunger for it. And that's the point; God gives us a hunger for many things, and He wouldn't do that if there wasn't something to satisfy that hunger with.

By day three of my fast, the hunger pangs had stopped. My stomach wasn't growling. The headaches were less. I wasn't overly irritable. But I still had a hunger. I knew that there was something inside of me that needed food. If I wanted to live, I had to have it. And to be honest, when I first had food after the three days were up, it wasn't really the amazing moment I had imagined it would be. My tongue didn't explode in flavor and my soul didn't sing the praises of the chicken noodle soup pouring down my throat. I hadn't used my digestive system in days, so it actually kind of hurt to receive what I needed so badly. I couldn't even have the good stuff that I wanted so much because my body couldn't take it.

And I don't think I'm the only one who can say that lately, I've been having a dire hunger for God. I've been receiving a lot of Him, but I just know that it's not enough and I need more. He's doing more apparent things right now than I've ever seen Him do and my first prayer when I see all of this is, "More, God!" And, much like my first bite of food last week, what I've seen God do in these past couple of months is more than I can handle. I don't know what to do with any of it. But I know I want more.

And I know that many other people in my life right now are experiencing this same hunger. Well here's what God very clearly spoke to me last week,

"I know you're hungry now, but food's coming!"

We're on the verge and even in the midst of a great move of God. And if you haven't seen it yet, I promise you that you will. It's so much more than just one church. It's God bringing the Church together to bring people closer to Him. I'm not sure what any of it is going to look like.

But here's what I do know. God doesn't give us any hunger that He's unable to satisfy. And I know I have a hunger for what's coming and so do so many others. So rest easy. Food's coming and it's going to be a feast.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

God Speaks

I've never hung up on a customer before at work. Honestly, I've never really wanted to. I've definitely had awkward and angry conversations that I've wanted to end, but I never thought about actually hanging up on any of them. But today all of that was thrown out the window.  I came within seconds of hanging up on this guy.

He was having a few issues with his account most of which could have been solved if he would manage his finances rather than hope they'd manage themselves.  But tons of our customers are like that and as far as his problems went, I had no issue with helping him. The problem was that he wouldn't shut up.

He would ask a question and then spend the next five minutes talking. Even when I knew what was wrong I couldn't tell him because he wouldn't be quiet long enough for me to get a word in and eventually I just gave up and went into, "uh huh" mode where I just agreed with whatever he was talking about, showing just enough interest to keep him from thinking I was just being sarcastic. It was pretty annoying. On my end, I actually did have other stuff I could have been doing. And on his end, he had problems, and he was talking to the guy who could solve them but he wouldn't shut up long enough to let me answer him.

My prayer life is a lot like this I think. Too often I have a lot of questions for God and I'll ask them and never wait on an answer. I think I've just adopted this belief that God doesn't answer questions directly. I feel like the only way He answers questions is through some mysterious method that I'll never figure out. But God isn't that complicated. And I think if I just shut up a little more often after I ask Him things, He'll answer me.

Why do I think that? Because it happened that way today. I had some good times talking to God this morning. I was pleading with God about changing my heart but I told Him that I didn't know how to do it. So I asked Him what I needed to do to make it happen. Then I went to work and about five minutes after I got there I got a text message from one of my favorite people telling me, "God told me to tell you to do this..." Freakin' blew me away because there's no way she should have known what I was praying about that morning.

God answers prayers. I hope that blows you away as much as it does me. It's humbling to know that when I talk to God, He listens.  The question is, am I going to listen when He speaks?

Monday, August 11, 2008

What I learned at the Gauntlet part 2

I realize that there was a pretty long gap between these, but I'm trying to teach you guys to not make my blog into an idol. I mean honestly, whether it's one day or three weeks, I'm constantly getting e-mails saying, "when's the next blog post coming David? I just can't get enough!" But just hang in there and I promise you'll always get more from me eventually. On to part 2.

I need to just shut up. For way too long I've just preached at my small group guys. I felt like I had to really nail down the point by repeating it and making sure they got it. But God showed me that I'm not the one that makes a lasting impact anyway. When I keep rambling on, not only do I end up boring my kids and losing all of their attention, but I'm telling the Holy Spirit that I don't trust Him to do what He does.

Two weeks ago was my last full small group with my guys in Anderson. I knew it was a big night, so all afternoon I was praying for what God wanted me to say to them tonight since this would be the last time I really got to talk to them all together and I wanted to make it count. But I never really heard anything. And then I continued to pray that night during the worship service about what God wanted me to say during small group and God very clearly told me, "You just need to shut up and listen." So I did just that.

Matt led the discussion and the kids wouldn't stop talking. Every time I had something I wanted to say, I'd start to say it and someone else would start talking and I'd never get the chance to say anything. Eventually I just relaxed and listened to my kids talk. I got to understand how far these guys had come since I got them about a year ago and how much God had used me and Matt to grow these guys into who they are now. And I never would have gotten to see that if I had tried to talk to them the whole time.

In Matthew 21:2-3 Jesus tells two of His disciples to go get Him a donkey and a colt to ride into Jerusalem on. He tells them what to do and he tells them what they need to say for it to happen. Now, the story doesn't have a ton of details to it, but here's what I think happened. I think that God had been working on the heart of the owner of these animals for a while now. He had been teaching Him about trust and generosity. God might have even sent an angel to him ahead of time to tell him that a couple of guys were going to come get a few animals without asking and he needed to let it happen. Regardless of how it went down, God did some behind the scenes work to make this thing go down.

But, the two disciples going to get these animals didn't know any of this. Jesus just told them what their part in it would be and exactly what they needed to say. And I love that they didn't argue with Jesus and say something like, "but what do you want us to do if he says no to that?" I probably would have. I mean, they didn't know what God was doing behind the scenes and Jesus didn't tell them. But in verse six it just says "they did as Jesus directed them."

When God gives me words to say, I need to say them but there's no need for me to add anything to them. If God is telling me to do something, He's really just telling me to do my part in it. It's not all on me. He's doing tons of work preparing the situation behind the scenes. I just need to trust the Spirit to do His job and not worry about the "what if's?" and know that I'm only one part of what He's wanting to do.

Monday, August 4, 2008

What I learned at the Gauntlet part 1

So, I meant to start writing about all of this stuff a while back. I mean, I got back from the Gauntlet weeks ago. But tons of stuff has been going on, so I've been on hiatus. But I'm back now, so no complaining. Here we go.

God's love is absolutely unconditional. I struggle with this fact so much. My view of God's love looks like I'm on this ladder and I'm climbing it to get closer to God. But as soon as I mess up I fall back to the bottom of that ladder and have to start all over again. But God totally showed me how unconditional His love is at the beach.

The first day there I was tired. Really tired. We had just driving through the night and the only sleep I'd gotten was bus sleep, which only came to me through exhaustion. If you know me at all, you know that when I'm tired I have two modes: drunk David, which can lead to some of the most interesting conversations I'll never remember and grumpy David who can easily shift into jerk David.

This particular day ended up leaning towards grumpy David. I was ill with my kids that day and yelled at them more than I should have. I had an all around bad attitude and totally didn't have my mind in the right spot.

Now, there's this kid named Garret that was on the trip. Garret has been in my small group for a few months now and comes off and on. I've been completely burdened to pray for this guy and his salvation since I met him. He's been through a lot of crap in his life and I've gotten to help him out a little but I've just knew he still needed Jesus.

At the end of the sermon on the first night, Perry asked anyone who wanted to accept Christ to stand up and Garret did! He was on one side of the room and I was on the other. So when Perry asked leaders to take the standing kids outside to talk to them about it, I sprinted across the room to get to him. I think I jumped over a few folks and almost had to push Willie away when he started to grab Garrett before I got there.

I talked to Garret for a while and got to lead him to Christ. I got to lead to Christ the very guy I had prayed would meet Him. This was such an amazing moment for me.

So that night, once the kids were in bed, I sat on the balcony and looked out at the ocean. God spoke very clearly to me. I had been a jerk all day, especially to my kids. There are moments in the day where I absolutely screwed up and didn't make God very proud. But that night, none of that stopped my Creator from allowing me to be used by Him. None of my screw ups made me less His child. I didn't get knocked to the ground and have to work my way back up to God's, "I'll use you" level. God had a plan and I wasn't big enough to mess it up.

It's so humbling and amazing that no matter how big of a screw up I can be, God still wants to use me. Nothing can separate me from His love.

Friday, July 25, 2008

I'll be back. I promise!!!

I promise I haven't forgotten about you.  I thought I'd just a take a couple of days to gather my thoughts and then write about what's happened, but stuff keeps happening!  But good stuff is coming, I promise!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

After the Gauntlet '08

Well, I'm back after a week in Panama city with hundreds of middle schoolers and I'm still wrapping my mind around all that happened there. I can't believe I got to be a part of all that God did this past week. It blows me away how mature our ministry is becoming. We're seeing high schoolers reach out to middle schoolers and teaching them and I'm seeing younger students grasp concepts that there's no reason they should be able to grasp. They're opening up about things that they wouldn't have a year ago and I contribute that greatly to the boldness of the staff to address the hard issues and give the students the platform for big confessions and complete honesty about their lives.

Overall, this year was much more spiritually heavy. The spiritual warfare was crazy. We definitely went beyond surface level Christianity and traveled to the depths of some of these kids' souls. I could see hardened hearts in these kids that were being kept shut. But I also saw these hearts start to be softened by the Spirit. Not every kid accepted Christ that I had prayed for, but I'm trusting God. He's bigger than the Gauntlet.

God taught me so much this past week and I think I'll dedicate some posts later in the week to talk about some of that, but overall, the main issue has been to just do what God wants me to do and trust Him to take care of the rest. Trusting God has definitely been my theme of the week.

In my quiet time this morning I read about the parable of the mustard seed and the leaven. And I want to talk about this for a second to encourage any youth leader that might be reading this. In this parable Jesus explains how the smallest of things can have the biggest results. So if you feel like you didn't accomplish anything with your kids this week, don't get discouraged. I know exactly how you feel. Far too often I feel like there's really no point in even working with them. But just remember that it might take a while to see it, or you might not ever see it, but some small thing you said or did this week stuck with those kids.

I got the privilege of getting to see this when I got to serve my kids on Tuesday in a way God showed me to, and then I saw it demonstrated in the lives of two of them on Thursday. And the things is, those kids didn't even realize that that's what happened. And I know that happened more than just that one time too. It has or will happen in the lives of your kids too. What you did mattered this week. And that'll be true outside of youth camp too. God uses the little things.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

The Gauntlet is coming!

I leave on Sunday night for the Gauntlet and I'm pretty psyched. In case you don't know, the Gauntlet is the youth camp we hold in Panama City, Florida for church. But here's the thing, last year I didn't do any prep work getting ready for it. I just showed up, left, and led a group of guys. God showed up that week, and He completely rocked me. But I can't help but wonder what it would have been like if I had prepared myself and expected God to do something.

So this year I feel burdened to take some extensive time to pray about what's going to happen and not just show up and be surprised. I'm going expecting great things. And if the crazy stuff God's been doing in my life is any indication, I doubt I can comprehend what He's going to do.

So if you're reading this, please take a couple of minutes and pray for this trip. I want every kid that comes on this trip to be changed in some way. If they don't know Jesus, I want they to meet Him. I want kids to confess sin in their life and ask God to help them conquer it. I don't want a kid to get "saved" for the fifth time, but instead to understand that actions can't break a covenant with God. And I want the Spirit to fill these kids up and have crazy Acts 2 stuff happen.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Purpose

I'd share a little snippet of wisdom I feel God zapped me with the other day. You see, lately I've been praying a lot about purpose and trying to figure out why God has put me here. It was very me focussed. In the Bible we see a lot of people with great purpose; be it Moses, Joshua, Nehemiah, Peter or Paul. But the thing is about all of these people is that their purpose was focussed all on others. These men lead lives that were apart of something much bigger than they ever could be. Their purpose wasn't about them.

Now, their job within their purpose was personal. It focussed on the gifts God had given them. But the purpose was public and a collaborative effort. I've seen that that's just how God made us. He wants us to work together. If I continue to seek a purpose that puts me on a lonely road that I hope leads to success, I'll never find any purpose. Instead I need to seek out people and do the little bit I can to incorporate myself into God's greater purpose. Purpose isn't found in me, it's found in what God can do through me with others.

I could probably expand upon this more, and I might someday, but I think I've written enough long posts for now.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Judging part 3

The Reason for the Process

Following God requires tons of patience. The whole time the point of this lesson Jesus teaches in Matthew 7:1-6 is, I think, how to approach those in sin. We know what the finished product is supposed to be, and that's repentance. We recognize the sin in our own lives, deal with it and then we're able to view people in sin the way God does. The whole purpose of this is to lead someone to Jesus and repentance.

So why do we have to go through this process? Verse six speaks to this. We can't throw pearls before pigs or holy things to dogs. This is pretty brutal imagery here, but it's true. The things that we're able to see as absolutely beautiful as Christians such as Christ's sacrifice on the cross are seen differently to those who don't know Him. In 1 Corinthians 1:18 Paul says that the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. We can't throw those who don't know Christ into the deep end of Christianity. We can't expect them to just come to us where we are. We have to be willing to wade over to them and teach them to swim.

The Apostles demonstrated this in their teachings. When Peter preached to Jews at Pentecost, he used the Old Testament scriptures to tell them about Jesus. He knew their background. The people had been learning the Old Testament their whole life. He knew they were close, they just needed to be shown by what they knew. But when Paul preached at Mars Hill, he knew that these people knew nothing about scripture, so he couldn't start there in teaching them about Christ. So Paul searched their culture for God's truth in their synagogues and poets to get them to Jesus.

This is why all you'll ever get at these stupid Christian protests are angry non-christians who want to trample those Christians. And who could blame them? Instead we need to be willing to approach these people with sight from God and be able to truly love them and come to them where they are to show them Christ.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Judging part 2

Seeing People the Way God Does

Matthew 7:5 is what showed me the second step in the process of showing others their sin. One phrase in particular stands out: Then you will see clearly.

When we keep our own junk in our lives, and remain unrepentant, we make it hard to see clearly. From the age of around 12, until in the last year, I've had a bad problem with porn. I had years of my life where it felt like this chronic sin completely destroyed my ability to be in communion with God. All I was getting was static. This brought about fruitless ministry, fake quiet times and a lot of aggression towards people I love on top of bringing tons of problems to an already struggling relationship. This was all my fault. That's years of my life where I could have been getting closer to my savior that I lost. Years of my life completely wasted. God had even given me amazing opportunities to minister to others. But I felt that my sin was more important and having a crappy relationship with God was a better price to pay than having to fess up to my problem and face my pride head on. There's no one to blame but myself for that loss.

It took years and a lot of hurt to get that log out of my eye. God took me through some really rough and lonely time. But now my relationship with God is better than I ever knew it could be. It's funny because I've actually been having pretty crappy quiet times lately. But I still know that even in this downtime I'm still closer to God than I was in those dark times in my life. So even at my worst now, I'm better than my best in the past.

Now that that log is gone, I'm able to see more clearly in that area of my life. I'm not desensitized to that sin anymore. I'm able to see even the inklings of it in the lives of people in my life. And I'm not looking at them in judgment. I'm looking at them with love. I'm able to see them as Christ does. And I think that Christ views people in sin as slaves that He desires to rescue, not bad children He longs to punish. When I see them as Christ does, I'm able to know how to approach them in love, not in judgment. And I'm able to approach them with a mindset of rescue, not reproach.

And on a side note this is my second draft of this post. I really vagued up my past sin the first time but I just felt convicted to go all in for some reason. So if any of you who read this are struggling with porn, I'd love to talk to you about what you're going through. You can contact me anyway you already have access to me or just e-mail me at dwfishe@gmail.com. I'd love to pray for you and share with you some of the tools I've used to help me get through this stuff.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Judging part 1

Paying Attention to Yourself

Matthew 7:1 is one of those verses that it seems almost every non-christian has memorized. But, it strikes me that maybe they wouldn't have to if we would apply what Jesus was trying to teach us about judging others here. I think the reason so many non-christians have this verse in their arsenal in the first place is because too often they feel more attacked by Christians who disagree with how they live their lives then loved.

Honestly, though, it's verse 6 that's thrown me off every time I've read it. I kind of always just ignore it. It just doesn't seem to fit. He's talking about judgment one minute, and suddenly He's talking about giving holy things to dogs and pearls to pigs the next. It seems like a jump that doesn't make sense.

But I think that this lesson presents an outline for approaching people who don't know Christ. And that last verse solidly gives us the answer to why, after He gives this hard teaching. So I'm going to try to tackle what I think is a three step process.

When I have a log in my eye I can probably make out the speck I see in someone else, but I can't very well see it that way God does. So the first step is to look at myself and see where my own sin is. God knows me very well. When I pay attention to others, I don't have to pay attention to myself. If I see someone doing something bad, it minimizes how I view my own sin and I'm not forced to deal with it.

Tonight while I was reading these verses, it was like God tapped me on the shoulder to show me where this applies in my life even today. A lady came through the drive-thru today and gave me an attitude when I asked her for her ID. Her view was essentially that she felt she was a lot more special than she really was. She felt far too important for someone as lowly as myself to not know her. I got mad. Really mad. And it took a little time but I while reading this stuff tonight God made me see that my problem was that I suffered from the same problem. Too often I feel too important to have to deal with the people I deal with daily. I feel like I'm too good to have to hear them complain about things. I think I'm a lot more important than I am.

And it wasn't until I was able to remove the log from my eye, even if it was just for a little bit that i was able to view her and her sin the way that God does. If I'm just as prideful as she is, there's no way I can love her like God wants me to. When pride meets pride, conflict is always the result. The problem seems to be that this log will continue to plop itself back into my eye if I'm not aware of this problem and praying about it.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Creation

I think one of my favorite aspects of creation is that we're made in God's image. I just find that awesome. No other creature on this planet can make the claim that God has imprinted the image of Himself on them.

Personally, I don't think I'm all that great of a person. The idea of having a kid made in my image terrifies me. I don't know if I like the idea of a little me running around. I can only hope that my wife is hot, smart, Godly and has a lot of dominant genes. But God is good. I would say He's the embodiment of love, but I'm not sure He has a body. By giving us His image He is giving us the ability to mimic Him and His goodness and love.

There are so many aspects to the image of God that show through in our actions; Christian or non-christian. But I think my favorite aspect of God's image we have is creativity. You see, God is creative. He has been at least since five days before our day one. And we have that in us. Look around at every other creature on this planet. None of them try to create anything. They survive, mate, and some even play, but none of them create. God has instilled this specifically in us. I've never seen a dog do so much as catch a frisbee and try to wear it as a hat. But humans do have that in us.

I see this in everyone. Look at the shape of the internet. It is full of places like Facebook, Myspace and countless blogs. The reason these things are so popular is because people have a desire to create something that is specifically their own. I've seen some blogs where the writing is absolutely horrible, if you're here now, you've seen that too. But that doesn't matter, what matters is that we have an innate desire within us to create, whether good or bad.

Most of the stuff we create is absolutely useless. When has a painting ever come in handy? Does a book ever provide some sort of primal survival need? Of course not, but we have them and I think the reason why is simple. They speak to our souls, which have God's image. They connect souls, which is a desire God has given us. We create so that we can connect and know that something we did matters. Whether it's fixing a house, building a car, or even something as private as keeping a journal. I'm not sure why, but when I write in my journal I always go into the mindset of writing for my daughter to read someday when I'm 70. I'm not sure why in that scenario I think I'll have a daughter, but I do. Is that a little weird?

I want to keep creating. I realize that I've never written a decent story, my drawings look like a Picasso if he had a seizure, my poems are laughable (as all amateur poetry should be) and not that many people really read my blog, but I do know that God put this desire inside of me. And I might have to create thousands of different things, but if just one thing I write speaks to just one person, I'll be okay with that. I'll know that I had to go through thousands of pieces of crap to get it right. And for some reason, I'm okay with that.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

I need the clap! ...WAIT!

I'm realizing more and more that my church is white. Really white. Maybe not Utah white, but white nonetheless. I realized this on Sunday when we had an amazing performer on stage. This was a guy who had toured with Little Richard for 20 years, so he knew his stuff and he was singing a Lenny Kravitz song. It was awesome. But during the performance, I look around and the best a few of us could muster was a small clap along to the beat and an occasional head nod. It was sad times.

And then there was youth tonight. I love this scene. The lights dim as the band comes on stage. A select few students rush the stage and as the guitar starts to flare up, they go crazy and...stand there. Some of them have their chins resting on their hands as if they're admiring the singer, which is weird because most of the kids doing this are guys.

I just couldn't help thinking tonight how much I need Josh back to join me in the Baptist clap. It's been too underdone since he left me and I feel that it's causing my soul to dim. We used to rock out the Baptist clap during a worship service.

In case you're wondering (and who wouldn't be?) the Baptist clap is a dance move. It is in fact, the only dance move allowed in a Baptist church; albeit a liberal Baptist church. It involve sclapping your hands with both elbows bent. The trick is this: you never actually move your elbows. You only clap using your shoulders for movement. And you must never, EVER move any other part of your body with the beat. The hands are the only things that can dance sin free. And that's only if there are no ladies present. I've included pictures to demonstrate below. Please enjoy!





I hope you've enjoyed the show. Bye!



Tuesday, June 24, 2008

My request

I'd like to get more serious about this blog and really make it an enjoyable part of my life. I find that the more I write, the more comfortable I feel with it. And since my fiction has been known to get the much feared "awkward slow clap of pity," and I no longer have an authority figure assigning me to make up an opinion on a piece of literature (or in the case of Dr. Jacobe, reiterate his opinion back to him), this is my only outlet for prose. My most treasured form of writing.

So my request, nay, my plea for those of you who read this blog, if there is such a person, is to give me a little feedback. Leave me a comment telling me what you like and don't like about my blog. What could I do to make coming here a more enjoyable experience? If your name isn't Theresa or Mom, this would even help by letting me know that there are more than just those two coming here. And if there is no feedback, I'll just have to resort to randomly throwing the word porn into every entry just to get a little traffic from Google searches.


You have twenty-four hours!

Monday, June 23, 2008

Yay! Funtivities!!!

I go to work a little early some Mondays and sit down for our weekly staff meeting. This week I found we were being lead by a woman from operational losses. She felt it would be a great idea for us to "get woken up" with a great activity. So, before we got there she had strategically hidden pieces of paper within a four foot radius of where we were sitting with questions on them. What do we get if we win? Why we get to answer more questions than anyone else!

What followed were 30 seconds of awkwardly stumbling around and grabbing the highly noticeable papers and showing even more chagrin towards the activity than was probably necessary just to get across the point that we didn't want to do this ever again.

The sad part is, this could have been done so much better. I don't see Michael Scott sending his employees on a scavenger hunt without giving them a reward, even if it's just an ice cream sandwich. Did I say "just" an ice cream sandwich? I mean, AN ICE CREAM MOTHER FLIPPIN' SANDWICH! BOOYAH!!!

So what other wake up activities could we have done that might have even transcended into the highly sought after realm of funtivities?

Musical Chairs: We all remember this childhood anxiety attack. Only now, the winner gets the loser's salary for three months! I feel this will inspire promptness to the meeting and quite frankly, a trip to the hospital. So if you win injured, extra money and half-day Monday!

Who's Epileptic? or Seizure Ball!: Okay, here's the scenario. All of the blinds are closed, there are two teams, two goals, one ball with lights all around it flashing brightly. All you see are blue, green, yellow, banker's elbow in your face! Whoever is epileptic is on the floor convulsing. You've just outed them. Now others can judge them accordingly. And best of all, whether someone seized, or the resident sexagenarian got tackled to the floor, they need someone to take them to the hospital so, again, half-day Monday!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

I've come a long way baby

I realize that if you read this blog you'll probably make the incorrect assumption that I only have one religion. To be exact, I have four. Of course Jesus is my first love. But my lesser three have always been of the utmost importance to me, sometimes even taking precedent over my own Christianity, sadly. The other religions include Apple, Coldplay, and Gomez worship.

These are quite possibly my three favorite things in the world. I sadly admit that in my lifetime I've converted more people to Apple and Gomez than to Christianity. Which is made even sadder if you consider the fact that it takes at least $1200 to convert to Apple. But I am narrowing the gap! And I don't feel like Coldplay needs too much evangelism anyway.

But, I feel like I'm making progress as a human being. In my eyes, these things are no longer the embodiment of perfection. Gomez is opening for Dave Matthews in July and I'm not going. In the past I would have paid the outrageous amount for the ticket, driven to Atlanta to see them (leaving before the actual concert of course, since no band is worth sitting through Dave Matthews for), and then zombied my way through the next day because of my lack of sleep.

Coldplay recently released a new album and, while I think it's amazing, I am able to point out obvious flaws in it. (Seriously, who puts six songs on three tracks? Make them six tracks. It makes the album look longer and more worth my money.) And they're coming in concert in November and I find myself unwilling to fork out $80 for a ticket.

And finally, and most amazingly, in the past few months, not only have I seen the MacBook Air and iPhone 3g, but I've understood exactly what they were and decided that despite their awesomeness, I don't need to spent my money on them.

Yay for personal growth!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Sin part 2

I've been going through a lot of changes lately and I've really been growing and learning a lot in my relationship with God. For a long time I had started to view God as a force, rather than a person. This made Him feel so distant and cold. I didn't put a lot of effort into pursuing Him because a relationship didn't seem possible. But when I made that shift from force to person, it became easier to get to know God and to really love Him. You can't deeply love and know an impersonal thing.

Now, I'm starting to view sin in the same way. My view of sin is becoming much more personal. In the same way I find it hard to hate a tree blown into a house, I couldn't hate sin when it was only a force. But when I view sin as the personality and purpose behind the results of sin, I'm able to truly hate it and, I believe, view it as God does.

As I said in my last post, I've been seeing the effects of sin in the lives of people I love a lot lately. In most cases it's not even that particular person's sin, but rather someone else's sin that's having an effect on them.

I'm seeing sin as my enemy because it hurts people I care about. I truly am starting to see sin with hatefulness and I'm wanting to stay as far away as possible. I have pictures in my head now of tears flooding from the face of people I care about. I've seen the helplessness they feel towards the circumstances that sin brings. That's burned into me and I can't get over it.

I don't think I can sit on the sidelines anymore. For too long I've lacked a sense of urgency. I've been all talk and no action but that has to stop. People's lives are being ruined out there and I have the answer. I know how to help. I know who they need!

What kind of pathetic person would I be if I saw someone being beaten by a person that I knew I could kick the crap out of but still did nothing? But that's what I do every time I see sin and it's effects, yet I do nothing and just sit on my knowledge. No, I might not be able to heal the problem, but I know the answer, and if I just bring Jesus into the equation, sin doesn't have a chance.

So basically, I'm getting fired up over this stuff and a real passion is starting to build inside of me. I can't waste time worrying about how much I don't like my job or wishing my dating life were going better. Those are all secondary to my calling. Jesus didn't call us to make disciples of all nation once we get our lives together the way we want them. Why should God trust me with the blessings I want if I can't follow the simplest of instructions?

There's a dying world out there and I can't keep doing nothing!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Sin part 1

I realize that lately most of my posts have been pretty heavy rather than reflecting my normal perky attitude that I have in real life, but I've just been really contemplative over things lately. I'm going through a lot of growing lately, so I'm trying to share the process whenever I get the chance to write on here. I promise I'll write more whenever I get a desk. If you'd like to contribute to my desk fund, I'll take any donations. But on to the point.

I've been thinking about sin a lot lately and how I view it. I feel like for so long I've thought of sin as an action. I never really hated it, but simply thought it was bad and tried to stay away...sometimes. But lately I've been exposed to sins real effects and my view of it has started to change.

I believe that the biggest lie people use as an excuse for their sin is that it's their sin and they'll deal with the consequences. I think that people can so easily give this excuse for their behavior because they're naive enough to believe that their actions have no bearing on those around them and only on themselves. People are all slightly masochistic, I think. We don't mind doing things that will hurt us in the end which is why we find it so easy to sin. We can deal with the eventual repercussions because of the immediate pleasures. But, I believe that if we truly believed our actions had effects on people we care about, we would be more likely to think before acting.

You see, sin isn't just a personal issue, it's very much a public issue because its effects leave the person's life that originally committed the sin and seeps into the lives of others.

Don't believe me? Then ask the children of a divorced couple. The dad might sit the kid down and tell him, "This is just between me and your mom. It has nothing to do with you." But the truth is, that sin is going to scar that kid for the rest of his or her life; effecting how they view relationships, how they trust, and their entire view of life. Or maybe ask the parents of a person who commits suicide if that sin had any effects on them. Or maybe the rape victim who committed absolutely no sin at all, but has to deal with the filth of another man's sin. Ask her husband if that sin has had any effect on him.

My point is simply this, when we start to view sin as more than a personal issue, we begin to take our first steps towards viewing sin with the hatred that God views it with. Sin is absolutely evil. It is the definition of death and nothing less. It disconnects us from our creator and Lord and curses us to hopelessness. We can't be followers of Christ and be apathetic towards sin.

If we, as the Church, could just grasp a hatred for sin, I feel that we would be much more effective. Rather than viewing those far from God with judgmental eyes, we could see them with compassion and see that they are trapped under a curse and in the grips of an evil that is keeping them from Jesus. We could approach them with thoughts of rescue rather than condemnation. And we might be able to remember that we too were once captives of death.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Unity, not conformity

I feel I need to preface this blog post. I'm not sure if what I'm saying is right, but it's something I'm working on and I'm hoping that I can get a little feedback in some way to wrestle out the kinks and see if there's any credence to my claims. It's a little long, so bear with me.

Lately I've very slowly been reading through Romans. Paul, in chapter 14, talks about the issue of personal conscience of believers. He gives the example of two people; one who eats meat and another who only eats vegetables. The command he gives is that the one who feels free to eat meat is not to look down on the one whose conscience forbids it and the one who eats only vegetables not to judge the ones who are comfortable eating meat. His point it that there's nothing wrong with meat or anything God has created but a man should follow his own conscience. If I'm okay with drinking beer, I shouldn't look down on someone who thinks it's wrong and think that they're not as spiritual as I am and they are commanded not to look on me as a drunken sinner and condemn me on an issue of personal conscience.

I think the whole point Paul is making in this chapter is that God wants unity among believers. But, so often we misconstrued this and begin thinking that we're all supposed to believe the same things. But God is so unique and creative. As His image bearers we also hold those qualities. God doesn't want us all to look, think and act the same. And, in this vein, I don't think He reveals who He is to us all in the same way. I'm thinking that maybe the reason so many people have a hard time seeing God working in their life is because they're looking for Him to do it the same way He's done it in their pastor's or their friends' lives. God speaks to everyone in different ways.

I'm sure that Paul knew this. He knew that He couldn't approach gentiles in the same way He approached Jews with Christ. When the Apostles preached Christ to the Jews they heavily used scripture and Old Testament prophecy to show that it was Christ that the Old Testament was talking about all along. But that wouldn't work with gentiles. God would speak to them in a different way. The Bible is still necessary, but Paul has to use different methods to bring them to it. Such as in Acts 17 when he uses their own pagan gods and literature to teach them about Jesus.

And even after they understood what he was teaching them about God, there's no way they saw God in the same way that the Jews saw Him; as their deliverer that they had followed for the entirety of their existence.

God speaks to people so differently. I've talked to my friend Brandon and he's told me that God really speaks to him while he's working out. I think that's awesome, but that just never happens to me. I usually have trouble enough remember what lap I'm on to really be able to have spiritual moments. All that usually goes through my head when I'm working out is, "She's seventy-five! How did she lap me again?"

But I've found that one of the major ways that God speaks to me is through reading. I can read practically anything and God will speak to me through it. I've even found that God likes to show off by speaking through atheist authors more so that Christian ones.

But my point is this. We, as believers, don't have to agree on everything. In fact, we really only have to agree on one thing, and that is our view of who Jesus is. God wants His followers to rally around Jesus and not make gods out of stupid issues that don't warrant more of our time than telling others about Jesus. If we just seek after the way that God speaks to us, then everything else just sort of comes with that. I think that He's blessed everyone with a unique way to hear Him. We need to use that blessing to lift up and encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ, not argue over pointless things while the world goes to hell. God demands unity, not conformity.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Grace

To be completely honest with you, I've been dealing with some pretty big inadequacy issues lately. There are a few things in my life right now that I don't feel like I'm good enough to handle. All of this is leading me to think that I just don't have a full handle on grace and what it actually means to me.

The thing is, I get it. If you were to ask me what grace is, I could give you a pretty good explanation of it. But I just don't feel like I have a firm grasp of it if you catch the difference.

I was reading Romans 6 the other day and some verses really popped out at me and it was like God was actually showing me how incredibly logical His grace actually is.

Paul explains later in this letter that the wages of sin are death. So if the payment I owe to sin is my own death, and I died with Christ upon His calling of me to Himself, then sin's payment has been met. It is a debt that is no longer owed. It's not that God wiped it away like I never owed anything. I completely owed it. The only difference is that He paid it for me. That's what grace is!

Yet for some reason, I'm having such a hard time feeling like I could actually be worth God's time. And when you actually look at grace, one of the things that God shows through having His Son die for me is that I'm not good enough. I can't earn anything other than hell.

But, looking at the gift God has given me, I'm reminded that there are two kinds of generosity that I've been able to partake in. There's the kind of generosity that you might show to an older lady when you hold the door for her or when you buy a homeless person a meal. When I do these kinds of things, it's because it's just a nice thing to do for someone.

But I remember a little while back, I had a friend who was having some issues in his life. He had and still has so much potential. I really believe in this guy and think that amazing things are coming and are going to come out of his life. But he had a major hindrance come his way that was impeding his ability to minister to others. I saw that need, was prompted by the Holy Spirit and met it. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because I believed in him. This wasn't something I would probably do for some random homeless person. I was willing to make a sacrifice and really invest in him.

I think that every person God calls to Him, He calls because He believes that they can be used to enlarge His Kingdom in some way. There is no mediocrity in the Kingdom. Everyone was made for greatness. Perhaps not greatness by this world's standards, but greatness nonetheless. So I think that God's gift falls under the later category. God called me because He has a use for me. And no, I'm not good enough on my own. I am inadequate. But God makes up for those inadequacies.

One more cool thing happened today. I randomly read through 2 Corinthians 12. Verses 9-10 popped out to me and I guess you can see why. I don't need strengths. I have grace. I just need to learn to let God take over and not to worry about my weaknesses. I need to learn how to believe that when I'm weak, that's when I'm really strong.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Where's the leak?

I have a feeling I might have more readers if I posted more regularly, so I'm really going to work on that. If I go a while, please leave comments yelling at me for not posting. Anyway, on to the show!

I've been growing an insanely large amount lately. It's like God just opened up a whole new level of His existence to me and whenever I open His Word, it speaks to me like it never has before. But, while God is showing me this new level, I'm becoming overwhelmed.

I feel the call to mentor a few of my kids this summer and this is just one of those things that really makes me feel like I've jumped in over my head. I really don't feel ready to do this stuff, and because of this, I've been trying to grow rapidly with God; like I'm playing catch up. I've found that this is, by far, the most frustrating part of being a Christ follower. Normally, God doesn't work like that. Changes take place over time, not all at once.

I fully believe Phillipians 1:6. Nothing in me would bring me to this new level, so I know it was God. And if God brought me here, then He has every intention of bringing me to the top of it and maybe even to another level that I can't even comprehend yet. But one thing in particular He's been showing me lately is how to better reach Him. And that is by removing things in my life that separate me from Him. In other words, sin.

When I was 17 I got my very first flat tire. I had no idea what to do in this situation. I didn't have a flat tire, so I just assumed we'd have to buy a new tire. This sucked because we didn't have the money to go out buying tires all willy nilly. But my dad came to my rescue. I moved my truck over to the air pump at the gas station across the street and my dad brought some stuff to plug the hole with. The one really cool thing I remember is that once the hole was filled, he poured water over the tire. If he saw any bubbles then that meant air would get out and there was a weak spot in the tire.

Lately, I've been praying for God to do that to me. Show me where in my life I'm bubbling up so I can see where my weak spots are and get them fixed. I say "get them fixed" because there's nothing in me that could fix this stuff apart from God. And, as I said before, there's nothing in me to want to get rid of my sin. So if I'm wanting to get rid of it, then it's God working in me. And if He started this work, He's going to finish it!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

BEST....THING....EVER!!!!

I can't imagine anything else topping this today as my favorite thing.

Please go here and enjoy this beautiful thing!


I think the fact that they're holding hands makes me mourn for them the most.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Been a while...

I've been without internet access for the past two weeks, so I apologize for my absence. Although, I do slightly like feel like I'm apologizing to the air, but I will persevere and blog anyway. I'll put up an official entry soon, but for now, I have to share this with everyone. I'm not sure anyone other than Theresa will enjoy this as much as I did, but let's hope others will as well.

I almost got in trouble at work because I laughed too hard at the Kevin Max stuff.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Stupid Christians

In my head right now I have a huge rant going on about this:


I'll give you a second to take in the ignorance.

...

Done? I didn't think so, I'll give you some more time.

...

After reading the full story here, I was decidedly even more angry. The "pastor" actually says, "It's just something to try to stir people's minds. It was never intended to hurt feelings or offend anybody." How does a "pastor" like this get people to follow him? Does he really think God is so small that the idea of a non-christian in the White House terrifies Him? Does this idiot think that God doesn't work through non-christian leaders? It's not as if we've had such wonderful examples of Christian presidents anyway.

Part of me hopes this guys thirty person church dies so that they can't hurt anybody else or ruin the already bad reputation Christianity already has with non-christians. But Jesus died for every person in that church that voted to keep the sign up. They are made in His image and are to be loved. But I do hope God smacks them around and shows them their wrongs. I'm going to be praying for this church, as much as my first instinct is not to. Hopefully God will turn them around.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Where I'm coming from...

Lately I've been doing a lot of working out my salvation and I've been thinking a little bit about how I first met Jesus.  I grew up in a great Christian family and in church, so I don't have any crazy drunken, crack dealing stories to tell.  But that doesn't make my salvation experience uninteresting.  Anytime God reaches down from Heaven to save a soul, its a huge deal.  So, on that note, I thought it might be kind of cool to share with whoever reads this how I met Jesus.  this could be a long one, so hang in there and I'll try to make it readable.

I said the sinner's prayer for the first time when I was five years old.  I knew absolutely nothing about Jesus and His grace, I'd just heard the man on stage talking about hell and heaven and I knew I didn't want to go to hell.  So I was told if I prayed this prayer, I'd get Jesus and not go to hell.  Why wouldn't I say this prayer?  I'd burned my hand on the stove before and I knew how much that hurt and couldn't imagine that happening all over!  Basically, Jesus was my oven mitt (this feels like it has t-shirt potential).

So when I was twelve and Jesus really did get a hold of me and I felt his irresistible grace tearing at my heart, I really didn't know what was going on.  I was "saved" already.  I'd even been baptized.  I just didn't know Jesus.  But I didn't want people to think I'd been lying  to them for years about being a Christian.  So I didn't know what to do.

Thankfully, irresistible grace is just that:  irresistible.  So I had very little choice but to grab my preacher after the service and tell Him I needed Jesus.  I remember Him putting his arm around me and moving me down the isle.  I very fondly recall, as we slid by people to a back Sunday school room, him saying in his most country preacher voice, "We've got to get this boy saved!"

He also grabbing my mom and sitting her and a twenty something guy in my church, who was my absolute hero, named Eric down with me in those way too small plastic yellow chairs in the children's Sunday school room.  My mom cried the entire time.  I repeated after the preacher and I just knew that it was right this time.  I had Jesus and I was never going to be the same again.

I was pumped up about Jesus and ready to tell the world, so I went home put on my favorite Christian bracelet and went to school the next day expecting tons of people to ask me what all the different colored beads meant.  That didn't happen, sadly, but I persevered nonetheless.  That is until my pastor started asking me about being baptized.

I had been baptized already and doing so again would make it very clearly known that I'd been lying about knowing Jesus.  I felt as if the whole church would have looked at me with the same disdain as that shop clerk looked at Kevin with when he stole that toothbrush.

So I did what I now absolutely hate to hear people say.  I told my preacher that "I really think that that was more of a rededication of my life."  It makes me sad that I'd already been trained to think that I could take my life back from Jesus after giving it to Him in the first place.

A lot of things happened between that time and now, but they equal way too many funny stories to even hint at in this already too long post.  But I do believe in baptism after conversion, and so does God.  So He finally grabbed me by the shirt and told me this is something I needed to do.  Of course, by this time I was 21 and becoming a member at NewSpring Church.  Better nine years late than never.  

It was an absolutely amazing experience finally following through on what God wanted me to do.  I was Baptized with around 400 other people but never felt like I was lost in the crowd, that was just more people for me to make my faith public in front of.  But, I am happy I was at the front of the line.  I can't imagine that water was too clean by around person 340.  

So many people came out to support me that night, even some of my former youth came which was amazing.  And I still remember Jake Beaty commenting to me about how loud my cheering section was, thanks to the energetic Ignite volunteers on the sidelines.

This is basically a snap shot of how I came to Christ.  There's so much more to tell and that's encouraging.  But one thing God's been hitting me with lately is how important it is to remember what He's done for me and where I've come from.  And just seeing how immature I was compared to how...well, I'm realizing I'm still pretty immature, but I'm getting better!  I promise!