Currently Listening Friendly Fire see related

The Lord...Most High

This Easter certainly was one for reflection. I don't know why but I think that I just realized how close sin really is. I know the things I struggle with, but I guess its just something that lately I've run into different people who tell stories of some pretty nasty stuff and really its coming from acquaintances. The degrees of association (like the 6 degrees of Bacon) is getting smaller. Maybe its just because I know a lot of people and the odds of hearing stories are increasing.

It's not that I am naive and don't know that nasty sins are occuring around me, but I think the reflection this Easter made me realize that the purity God calls me to needs to shine brighter. My humility needs to go deeper, my service needs to extend to more people. My hospitality needs to be more geniuine and my generousity needs to be extended.

There's a lot of people that are hurting out there and I know that there are people that are searching for Christ. "Be Christ to these people." That's the echoing truth that is coming forth loud and clear.

I think about people that were in my past. I miss some of them. Some of them I don't know exactly how we parted ways and some people I can see the divine intervention to divide us. But regardless, I think about them over Easter and hope that each of them come to the loving Grace that was fully on display during this passion weekend.

Currently Listening Chaotic Resolve By Plumb see related

Life in Fast Forward

It's all a blur....Life...Wow, I went to see Damascus Christian Varsity Basketball tonight. They were #2 in the state until tonight when they defeated the #1 team in the state. The kids that I coached years ago as 8th graders are now Seniors. Whew...Life in Fast Forward...

I think I have been uneasy lately, but I am working hard these days. I go to work during the week, and have the TESL class on the weekend. I think I am going to need a day of vacation!!!! Just to sit at home for a day.

I am inspired by my friends a lot more lately. I think its just great to see my friends doing such wonderful work for the Lord. I don't know if I have ever been so mindful about praying for everyone. Bek, I read your prayer letter and it's just great that you're making an impact. James in Corvallis working with YoungLife, Chris at St. Anthony's, Kyle and his youth groups, all my classmates from Seminary have real places they are going and completing the ethnography work with.

With going to school I sometimes miss being a part of a major ministry. I love being with the basketball players fromt the high school, college students teaching bible, but I know that God is using this time in my life to continue to prepare me for what he has in store. I've realized that my choices are so numerous rather than narrow or one particular will the Lord has for me. Now I guess I just need to commit to something and go with it.

Currently Listening Mute Math By Mute Math see related

Plans

I don't know...but I think there is something to listening to your heart. Getting it out on the table to others you see as wise folks and having them chew on it for a while. In the past week or so I had the opportunity to talk pretty deeply about my thoughts of trying something new. Like just simply becoming fluent in another language and immersing myself in a new culture.

The answers I got from Godly people are..."You're young, single, without kids...you have no better time to do it than now." I also know that I can't just do it now. But I think that I can make plans to. That's why I decided to enroll in a certification class for Teaching English as a Second Language. It could help make ends meet in another culture, while I become fluent in another language.

Well, here is my life. I am certainly at a crossroads. But the fog is lifting and I can start to see my choices.

Break the Bank

It's okay to lose your life, when you finally see your birth.

It's okay to say "I love you", I figure sometimes its gonna hurt.

Don't forget to bring kindness, Don't forget to say thanks.

Don't forget to spend your love, no you will not break the bank.

Don't forget to bring some empathy, for the saints and for the sinners.

Don't forget to bring encouragement, for we're all just beginners.

---Bill Mallonee from the song "Bank" on his new CD Permafrost

Listening to Bill again presses me to ponder. His words are down to earth, faithful to me and hit you deeply in a way that is sometimes difficult to express. But when you look at the depth of a person's life, the love God has for us, sympathizes with our situation of being in a broken world, and yet a glimmer of hope shines through and we see that bridge of likeness Jesus has with the Father and the likeness he has with us as he suffered and was tempted like us...It is okay for me to lose my life, when I finally see my birth in Christ.

Saying "I love you" has at times been full of pain, yet when I say it I mean it. The author and perfector of our faith has become as a brother to us and he is our perfect priest. For that I am thankful. And I am thankful for Bill Mallonee's music to remind me of who I have faith in and that there are glimmers of hope in this broken world.

Philippians 2:1 - 2 says:

If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, and compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.

Yes, it is Christ who encourages me in love and I love because it is my participation in the Spirit in humility and I treat others better than I do myself. For He emptied himself for me. And although was in the form of God did not regard equality with God. There is a new human in Christ who shows us how to be human as God had fully intended. And he is not using his God-like abilities to be the perfect human, but being human as God created and intended before sin. Yet even greater since there is a presence of sin in the world, as opposed to the time when Adam first ate of the tree of knowledge.

It is in the fullest of humility I intend to live my life. I know that I fail at this. But sometimes I feel like I should treated better than I am and perhaps it's my thirst for justice and righteousness. But in all humility I must learn to live as a human and as God intended.