God meets us in our sin...

Life

Are lives are crazy, aren’t they? I mean, between the monotonous tasks of daily living, mixed with a hint of Gods surprises, we end up with one more day lived. For better or for worse. One of my buddy’s recently said, "I wish there where more hours in the day." I think that is the inner desire of our hearts at sometime or another. Yet, in the middle of each day, of each year, we grow. We grow for better or for worse. We can’t live life and still be the same. It forces us to move, react, and make decisions. Each day we do live is another day that we have impacted the world. Whether you sat at home watching your beautiful child today or went out and watched the people storm your establishment, we affect someone. We change the world through these lives we live. For better or worse.
My question is simply, what do you do to relax and focus on the leader and follower of your days? What do you do to relax in Gods presence, in the midst of the tornado we call life?

A New Season!!!!

So if you guys haven’t heard, I have a girl friend. (as Wendy Riddle would say, “so exciting")Its ok, if it freaks you out to see me holding a beautiful Hispanic girls hand, Brad and TJ are still freaking out. (its so fun to watch) Her name is Adriana Cervantes and she has been an absolute blessing in my life. I love the fact that our God is a God of opportunity and isn’t a God of control. After spending a season or two as a single man seeking after the whispers of God, I have now entered a season of seeking God while pursuing a woman. God has given me an amazing opportunity with an absolutely amazing woman. I don’t deserve this opportunity, but I’ am blessed through it. It may come or go (I most defiantly hope it wont go), but I have the freedom to grab it or let go of it. I have chosen to grab this opportunity loosely as to hear God in this midst of this new season. I want to honor God through this relationship and glorify him in it. (Oh, and the pic above is us in front of R.E.I. the best outdoors store ever!!!)

The pain below

This is something I wrote last night in an attempt to recover from the emotional flood that tried to make its way out. Like all of us, I am definitely not immune to past hurts and pains, but I learned from an early age that repressing and forgetting my feelings was the "best way" to deal with life. Over the last couple years God has provided safe outlets for my current feelings and problems to be shared, it’s the past feelings that need to start emerging, in time. The effects of growing up while not feeling and becoming "numb" to my pains and hurts, are that I still don’t feel much of either. God has been breaking down these walls that I had become a loyal slave to. Even though I didn’t break down into an all out, pull over the car and ball session, I did shed tears. For me, this gives me hope. Hope that I can cry and feel the pain that I ran from. More so, it gives me hope that I can feel others pain and share their pain with them.

“I cried tonight. In the midst of my past, in the middle of my hurt, in the brief moments of feeling, I cried. It wasn’t a wale or even a voice quivering, tear-repressing cry. It was a tear-by-tear, stone cold voice, cry. The kind that you have when you can’t believe your crying and don’t want to feel the pain behind the tears. The kind where the tears flow, but you are shut off to the abysmal pool of hurt. The kind that begins just as it ends. I realized something, that I am not as free as I thought I was. I realized that there is an ocean of pain and hurt that lies beneath my 22 years of existence. Of feelings too painful to even begin to feel. Of feelings that are like the dark secrets of past generations failures. The ones that no one admits to, no one talks about, and no one brings to the surface. My feelings. Tonight I told a snippet of the pain I try to forget. The pain that bares no weight, for it has never been felt. From the hurts of family, to not being there in others moments of suffering, to not feeling my own. I have become the kind of person who nods and feels nothing. I have opened myself up to numbness in order to cope with the intensity of all things hurt. I have decided to lock out, forget, and suppress the emotions that show weakness or induce pain. I have learned not to cry.”

The Man who was...

 I once knew of a man who was the star in most peoples eyes. He was attractive, athletic, and successful. He was funny, but didn’t cross the line in his humor. He fit the mold for most people’s definition of a respectable gentleman. He knew God. He went to church on Sunday, let the message sink in, went to Bible study’s, even listened to sermon or two on trips. If anything, aside from his humanness where to altered his golden boy image, it was his lack of depth with God. He enjoyed Gods ideas on life, lived them out best he could, he even talked about God to people in his life (once in a while). There were even moments within the week that he set aside to read and write about God. He prayed… for people, for friend, for himself. In those moments he allowed God to shift into the center of his life, but only briefly. He was scared of Gods fullness and was aware of the surrender in perfect love. He was unwilling to surrender, not just yet. He enjoyed who he was, the way he was, the star. Change was the mist that started to float around him. He couldn’t shake the uncomfortable uneasiness that had begun to consume him. He became aware… of the hole, that pit, the longing. In those slow, quite, eerie moments of self reflection he knew. He needed more. “But what can fill this hole” he thought. And then the voice. It was the moment that would change him. Set his journey in a direction. Give him hope. The voice. “In the midst of your surrender, I will consume you. I will be your God. I will be the first, the last, the center. If you surrender… I will fill you. Will you surrender to me alone?” As if a breeze had just blown a pleasant summer aroma into his dark and gloomy room, he smiled, he became refreshed, he breathed. It made sense. He now understood that each breath mattered. That he had a purpose. That in the midst of his surrender he would find fulfillment. He now knew that the one who surrendered all was now calling him to surrender all of himself. At that moment he knew. Knew what he had to do. Knew that life mattered only till the next breath. Knew his decision ended in surrender.  
 So like a like a prince who circled the castle for years content in his wonderings, he know walked through the front gate, unsatisfied, looking for more. He walked to the thrown of the King and knelt. He surrendered. 
 In the months to come, he rebuilt. He moved as fast as he could towards the author of redemption. He not only knew of God, he now lived in Jesus. His decisions where now found in pray and directed by the leadings of the Kings Spirit. He began to make decisions from the Kings mindset. He know understood that when he finally decided to surrender all of his life, he would gain all that mattered. A face to face, moment by moment, relationship with God.  


 

God- Reflective Nature

I have been a lot of things to a lot of different people. Some call me friend, brother, son, crazy, confident, that "to Christian for me" person, that "doesn’t live his life for God" person, that annoying guy, and that Man of God. None of these names have a hold on me when I listen to God calls me his. When I was younger, I was debilitated by what I felt others thought of me. Elements of this mindset still seep into who I am today, but it is Gods reflective nature that shows me who I am.

Have you experienced Gods reflective nature in your life? Maybe it’s in those moments of self-doubt that God shows you who he see's you as? Maybe it’s in those moments of sin that our Father shows you who you have become and who He calls you to be. Where else in this world can we get that amazing reflection and hope?

For some of us, it may look like God showing us who we really are when lies are what we have believed. This has been Gods more recent reflection into who I am. Awhile back I was in prayer and I felt God ask me "Why do you see yourself as an immature 18 year old?" My answer was typical, "I don’t God", and it hit me, why would God ask a question He already knew the answer to?

So I searched inside and found a shocker, God was right! In many areas of my life I had been feeling like an immature 18 year old, instead of a mature 21 year old disciple.

The hold of the lie started to lift as I started to believe what God was reveling to me. It was Gods reflective nature that brought me out of lie and into the light.

How does God break through the lies of your life with the His reflective nature? Do you reject His insight or open up to it? Are you obedient in putting the lie to death or complacent in Gods recent revelation to you?