One can't relive the past!

ON THE LAST POST:
I really should stop fixating on what could be because it distracts me from where God may be leading me to go (or perhaps stay). This is all a mute point until I have the meeting with the pastor and until I feel as if God is actually leading me to start over at this church — something that would be quite hard for me as I have about a year to a year and a half before I graduate and potentially move away.

I can't relive the years that I lost when I left my former church. If I'd remember things at least a year ago, I loved my current church and life was really good. Perhaps things go up and down but we must persevere in spite of such disruptions because God will help us through trials. This phase in my life is nothing more or less than a large trial in my life — even if it encompasses the fact that I have to interface with an imperfect church. Yes, even this is a trial that one would need to overcome with the help of God rather than to simply just pick-up and move every time something bad happens. At 24, I should know this.

Though I can't relive the past, this new phase in my life (regardless of what community I am a part of) will require that I really learn how to trust God, live my life by His leading, and rely on him to provide my peace and joy. It's time to take my hands off the wheel and allow God to steer my life in the direction he wants to lead me. If that doesn't involve leading a group or switching churches, praise be to the Father for such details are insignificant compared to the greatness of the one we follow.

Certainly if I can trust such a God with my past and present, I can trust him with my future! I have a whole lifetime to lead groups and start churches — why rush what God has planned in his good timing?

Can I tell you that I am excited?

As much as I can be excited at this point in time, I am.

Tonight, into the night, I'm working on a new t-shirt design — this time on a hoodie. The design, "hope is rooted in faith" should be ready by early next week. More exciting than this, are my friends at New Life Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For those who don't know, they're sending a church plant to Ohio State in June to start a service in September to reach out to students.

I listen to messages and the more and more I listen, the more and more they sound like they have been Vineyard-ized! I'm a excited because I've never heard of or seen a GCM church that has embraced charismaticism or Kingdom theology like these people have and I am excited about this!

Why? Because I believe that with the Power of the Spirit, God will lead them to start a revival at Ohio State and I want to be a part of it. I pray that it would be available to all but I'm most excited because I really hope and want to be part of what they're going to do here!

This is nothing against my church, a Vineyard with many people who are feverishly praying for revival and trying to work to make it happen. My church is a good church but in this time I don't necessarily feel needed or wanted as someone trying to help bring about what's going on here. They've got their people and they will be used by God to do something awesome as well... but my hope and prayer is that I will be able to co-labor with my best friend Dan and we'll be able to see a multitude come to the Lord and be empowered by God!

I know that I have reasons for searching for something other than what seems to be the dead grass on my side of the fence but there is something romantic about this, something good about this and I think I want to be a part of it. I don't know if they want me to be a part of them but I think I want to be apart of it.

Why? Because I get to serve with my friend, under leaders who want to support me and see me grow. Because I'll get to get my hands dirty again, trying to help make things happen and blessing others lives. Because I'll have plenty of people to get to know and be friends with, people who I pray will want to be my friend. Because I'll be in contact with people who will help push me on toward the higher goal. In my lethargy, I want a challenge, I want people who will help me see God in my life, I need to experience the real God in a real way — I pray that this can be!

Who am I?

I don't really know who I am. I don't.

I don't know what I need, what I want, who I am friends with, what I like, what I hate.... Things are messed up and like a guy in a snow globe, how do you tell what way is up? I read the things I write and they either don't make sense or don't seem to really apply. I think "how could I think that," "how could I say that," etc. Crazy....

A friend says I need to read a book — "A testament of devotion" by Thomas Kelly and after he read some of it to me, I agree. At this point, I question whether I've really tasted the fruit of the faith and personal relationship and connection with Jesus. Certainly there have been moments but the kinds of lifestyle explained in this book and by friends, pastors and others I know - the more they talk, the less I feel like I have a close and tight relationship with Jesus.

People tell me to pray and listen for an answer, listen for the voice of God. I've heard it before but I've never lived my life by its direction and I'm not sure that I know how one does this to be honest. I need to be humble here - I need God.

There's a temptation to say that I need mentoring and teaching and community and other things but the truth is that I need God. This seems simple but how often do we (I) get bogged down and complain about how this isn't right or that isn't right or that it's just not good enough.... For me, it's all the time..... There's nothing more valuable than God and yet every way I live my (as I can tell) seems to reflect that I really don't understand this and that I haven't achieved this. A close, tight and personal relationship with Jesus appears to be an illusive thing that I chase because I want it to be true. I have hope and faith that it is all true but at the same time, I clinch things that are not of Jesus - idols everywhere!

At this time in my life, I need to stop worrying about where I'm going and what I'm doing and who I'm talking to, etc.... I need to start spending more time with God, with Jesus and discover what it means to live a life directed and empowered by God. This is what I'll really need if I'm going to overcome the things I have trouble with, overcome lust and depression, overcome co-dependency and loneliness, overcome the worship of idols and the addictions that entraps me. What I need is Jesus - pure and simple.

Planning or Pastoring?

Is planning for me?

I find it interesting but in the midst of studying for my planning law midterm, I have to stop and think for a few minutes. This is all very interesting, very important and I could go into great detail but the issue is the same as it is with most every job, career, etc. Even if we manage to do great things in the name of this world, the result will still be the same - at the end of the ages it will all burn. Everything in this world is meaningless!

In contrast, the things that matter are the concerns of God - helping the suffering, the lost, the least, the lonely, the maimed, the widows and orphans, etc. Their plight is a foreshadowing of the end of the time. This world will eventually die, we will die. There is one way out of this and it is the thing of most significance. It is the miracle of salvation, accessible to all through faith in Jesus Christ! knowing this truth, shouldn't I do everything I can to advance the Gospel? Maybe planning is how God will use me to do this but I long for more... (below)

Of course, if I placed all of my stock into my study or my career, certainly people could be helped and certainly plight could be improved all things working out to the best. The more I study planning, the more seldom this seems to happen but who knows, maybe something I will do will really help people. Think of the impact of one of the earliest planners - Joseph. After prophetically hearing from God of a coming famine, he planned to have the country increase production and store it so that the country (and region) would survive seven years of drought and famine! Certainly this was important!

In today's capitalistic society with occupational specialization of the workforce, (training us to be machines and experts, etc.) there is seemingly little room for people like me with a variety of interests, let alone a dualism. The problem (if it really is a problem) is that I think it's safe to say that I'd rather be a pastor than a planner if the following things could be true:

1. I'd be certain that I could pay off my debt and make a living being a pastor... or otherwise being a pastor and have a career on the side (if this is possible in our society). This boils down to a fear of a lack of God's provision.

2. I'd be able to trust that if I got education in this field, I'd be able to use it. This is a fear that I'd be wasting time if I wasn't to use the education I'd be paying for and spending time on.

3. That I would be permanently rejected as a pastor (or believer) because of something I'd do, say, think, etc. This is a fear of rejection.


Does this lead me to drop out of school? No, but it's hard to consider the effect of being in school forever because I feel like I should live each day as if it's my last and that Jesus is coming.... If I really believed this, I'd live my life very differently but just because I don't live my life differently doesn't mean that I shouldn't. The point being that I have to keep Jesus central in my life - no career, education, person, relationship, wife, parent, friend, government, or anything else should come between me and God. Additionally and most importantly, no idol, no demon, no power on heaven or on earth can or should separate me from God! Regardless of my career - planner or pastor or anything else, I am a follower of my savior Jesus Christ first and foremost! I can never forget this (or to live like this)!

The laborers are always going to be few and there are always going to be planning problems to solve - the micro-econ phrases come back to me... "we live in an environment of scarcity." The question becomes do I become a laborer to help advance solid planning and help people for the time being or do I work to be a laborer for the Gospel, become a fisher of men and work to help people seek and find their Father and worship him for Eternity! Certainly I can help share Jesus with people where ever I work but there is something going on in the church these days that requires God to move and requires people who want to be used by God to help make it all happen.

This is the age of broken city walls, an age where God is calling Nehemiahs to rebuild the temple, rebuild the church and help stymie the rise of a Godless Western Civilization. If America become post-Christian, many will suffer, many will die. If there's any greater cause to help end the reign of tyranny and evil that is materialism and secular humanism as it enslaves people to a hopeless existence, I don't know it yet. Someone must carry the banner high, someone must persevere, we need pastors and men of God and I want to be one of those people - with or without the call to explicitly be a pastor.

I've had dreams about being persecuted and going to prison for my faith and my role in actively spreading it - in being a paul. There's a peace about this because I know that in whatever suffering I experience, Christ will be with me, even in prison God forbid. Certainly if I would be willing to go to prison, I'd be willing to live in poverty? in debt? in the realization that God loves me for who I am - my life is an open book to him and he will help me in my current and future plight. Any rejection will be met by a Father with his arms open to me — I've got to believe all of these truths and be comfortable in the nature of the God I love and follow. We believe in a Good God! He will provide provision for those who he has called, we must have faith!

Danger, Will Robinson!

I write this, not because I've learned the lesson but because I need to learn it myself.

I think I see that my desire is always to satiate myself. Whether it's food, pain or church - the desire is to make myself feel full and satisfied. This is dangerous because we know, there is only one thing that will satisfy — Jesus Christ.

And I look at the problems in my life and I think, at least in part, if only X, Y, and Z were different perhaps then I wouldn't be mad at God or at least seek out sin in an attempt to satisfy my foolish and depraved desires. Even if things were perfect on the outside, they probably wouldn't change my hearts desire to chase after things that are not of God. This is the problem!

No system or program will save me, make me happy, or help me follow a path of righteousness.... No, the thirst of God is only quenched from the source! Period.

How I get to the point where God is quenching my thirst — not on rare occasions but everyday, in every hour of need? To be honest, I'm not sure. I assume it comes from placing all of my faith in Jesus, especially when I desire to satisfy myself, to trust him with my lust and greed and choose to turn toward righteousness. Certainly we offer our petitions to God through prayer and we (should) try earnestly to help bring about the transformation we need but ultimately it's God who does the transformation.

This is such a lengthy and difficult thing to do, especially when there are large portions of my inner self and flesh that don't want to be transformed and are trying as hard as possible to reject God and his reign and rule in my life. I feel like I live in a state of duality where part of me wants to seek out God and the freedom that comes from placing my faith in and following Jesus, becoming a child of God with a destiny hid with Christ (all that good stuff!). The other part of me feels entrapped by such freedom and seeks to find a comfortable parasite to stymie the freedom Christ wants to give us for temporary pleasure and the "attractive," delusional perception of my ability control of my life (by pursuing desires, addictions, and more).

My response must be to keep praying and try, harder, to live a life dependent on God. Yes, God changes us but we must also be willing partners in pursuing life change and in my life, I feel like my heart does not always wish to cooperate. I need to pursue Christ so that he can change my heart to seek the things of God over the things of this world, that will all burn in the end.

Similar to the man inside me who pursues things that are not of God, there's a man that desires to be a part of a perfect church and to be a great small group leader who is the center of attention with dozens of great relationships. This man is an idol that distracts me from following and worshiping God as well as whatever it is that God wants to use me for. This man needs to be taken outback and spiritually shot in the head.

Father, though I don't say it enough — I need you to survive! I need you to change me, I need you to make me more dependent on you. You are the way, the truth and the light and I want to follow you home God! Lord God, help me change, have your way with my life and all my soul! Amen