1 KINGS 8:56-61

Praise be to the Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us. May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers. And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the LORD, be near to the LORD our God day and night, that he may uphold the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel according to each day’s need, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other. But your hearts must be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time.

Redemption

I have been in this daily battle long enough
to know its time to bring this to an end.
a call to be pure, to be so clean.
a call for action
I lift my prayers to you father,
bring us to our knees.
Let me hear your voice in this time of need,
and take this lust away from me!

this is your redemption.
this is our freedom!
our freedom, our right,
tonight i make this promise,
to never let lust take over my life.
i know there will be many trials,
and i will be tempted,
but by your grace and your love,
i will defeat this,
and taste the sweet sweet victory,
in you Jesus
By: For Today

Honesty Part 2

So if you have not noticed yet, I am trying to blog more.

I read other people’s blogs and can actually grasp an idea of what is going on their lives.  But I feel in my own blogs I have written with a sense of vagueness. 

I think I may have been trying to put up a face of perfection.  I admit my past mistakes, but shy away from the ones right in front of me. 

Yes, I am a new creation in Christ, the old has gone the new has come, but it is not over.

The renewing never stops.  The learning never ceases.  I could never handle seeing what God will do in my entire life, so he reveals slowly.  Little by little, like a steady stream of living water.  I take comfort in knowing that. 

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

Though outwardly we waste away inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Another day of trying to look up

When I woke up today, it was a little hard to look up.

I felt as if I had been doing something wrong, or maybe not completed enough things that I am supposed to do.

To be honest I do not feel ready to go on my trip to India.  I don’t have my Visa yet, I don’t have a plane ticket yet. I don’t know the exact dates yet.  Sometimes this bothers me, because I like the comfort in having a plan, or structure.  Its embarrassing to think I could have done so much by now and been prepared a month ago.

Funny though how I look at this little things and make them seem like big things.  I know all will be accomplished in time.  I know that I will be ready even if I don’t feel like I am.

God has gone ahead of me and prepared the way.

I went on a run today with Ben. He is one of my best friends and we have known each other through some hard and joyful times. 

Ben is really good at reminding me about the simple things in life that I often forget.  I really appreciate our friendship.  Anyways we were running, it is a beautiful day, blue sky and white clouds.  I looked up many times during our run and just thought, wow, this sky is awesome. Having the ability to run is awesome, being here in this moment is awesome.

We were chatting a bit and reflecting on the past few years.  Ben talked about how good it can feel to just be outside in the fall and experiencing it.

Then I remembered something my friend Ryan Brown would always say, We are human-beings not human-doings.  Just be, do not get caught up in the doing.

So again today I was reminded to look up and just be.

Looking Up

      The view of the night sky from my back yard is amazing, well considering I live just outside of Indianapolis its fairly decent. 

     It’s funny how so often in life we get caught up in what is right around us. We do things like camping to get away and reconnect with the simply joys in life, yet if we never stop and look up to remember God is bigger, way bigger than we are, then I am reminded, God is good to me and is preparing things, great things that I cannot yet see.

     I have to constantly remind myself, "Look Up", for there is a magnificent show on tonight. Its called creation. God created the stars. Millions of bright stars billions of miles away simply to remind me He is good. He is with me.

     I like to pick out one star and just stare at it.  Then the thing in life that seem so important fade and God simply says, rest child. For it is when you sleep that I am working all things together for your good.

     I enjoy looking up.

Oldie but a Goodie

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

O what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.

This is my story, this is my song,

praising my Savior all the day long;

this is my story, this is my song,

praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,

visions of rapture now burst on my sight;

angels descending bring from above

echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest;

I in my Savior am happy and blest,

watching and waiting, looking above,

filled with his goodness, lost in his love.

Thoughts.

Once you have seen the truth you are never the same.

Do any of us really even remember what following God truly is?

Are their any righteous among us?

Proverbs 8:34-36

Blessed is the man who listens to me,

watching daily at my doors,

waiting at my doorway.

For whoever finds me finds life

and receives favor from the LORD.

But whoever fails to find me harms himself;

all who hate me love death.

Are we waiting daily at his door?

As the days go on, I am more convinced that we have truly forgotten God, and what living devoted to Him truly is.  We cry Christian. I am a Christian.

But are we really?

Are we willing to die for out faith?

Wide is the path that leads to death,

But narrow is the road to life.

Prideful. Am I? Or am I simply against the world.

If you are not with me, you are against me.

"If you don't stand up for anything, you will fall for everything" - Brother Ed.

Well Now that I am done ranting. 

Dream.

I had a weird dream last night.

In my dream I was sitting in my front yard and their were all these little ducklings around, then a flock of grown ducks came down, and started attacking the runts of the liters. They all started attacking the weak and deformed ducks. Even the other ducklings turned on their brothers and sisters.

Then their was one duckling that escaped, It only had one leg and was looking at me, it came closer to me as if it wanted me to help. But it was bloody and I was afraid of getting a disease from them, then I panicked and literally threw the one legged duckling towards the attacking ducks, and then I fled. I went about yelling for help because I was covered in blood from the duckling and was afraid I would get sick.

Then I woke up.

As I am today, I am not ready, for India.

Although it was a dream I think it represents where I am at right now. If I was faced with the task of protecting the wounded and deformed who are being cast aside, and slaughtered by the strong, then I would flee.

But I am not afraid.

For God is continuously working in me.

Why do I believe that? Because it is promised.

Because God is preparing the way for me, and you as well. Whoever you may be and have found yourself reading this.

Why do I debate whether to post this?

Why do I question what I blog?

Am I protecting something?

Am I afraid of being vulnerable?

Of showing my weaknesses?

Honesty

For any who may be reading.

Throughout the past year and eight months since I started this blog, amazing and indescribable changes have happened in my life.  Changes in the person I was, to who I am now can be overwhelming at times.  I continually look at the past to remember that it truly is a miracle and only through Jesus Christ have I found myself able to live with joy and freedom.  But through these writings I have shared on this blog many of them were honest and open but I was very careful to share what I felt needed to be shared.  In doing this I may have caused some of you who are reading to misunderstand me and maybe find it hard to relate to this “super Christian” my words may have described me to be.

The past two days I have really been struggling with memories and pain of my past relationship.  It seems weird to have all this come back even though I thought it was already given to the Almighty to take care of.  But I am human.

Maybe some of my pain was never truly dealt with and I just began to move on out of necessity to carry on with life. To finish school and graduate, to begin work to pay off school loans.  To edit videos as they were handed to me.

So I have come to the conclusion that sometimes I feel like crap, I feel crazy for thinking about things over and over, I feel a weird feeling in my gut like I’m going against my own flesh but trusting in God’s promises that I cannot truly understand.  I hang on to one word that seems to be the only thing God will tell me right now, “Wait”

“Wait” is a really ambiguous word.  That could mean anything!  Wait, for what!? 

I get kind of mad sometimes at Abraham’s story, like if His story was never written then I wouldn’t have to think about how long He waited to have a child.  He waited half a life time, and then in his old age it was given to Sarah and him, Then God has the nerve to say Hey, that child I just gave you after all those years, sacrifice Him to me.  WHAT!? WHAT kind of “love” is that!!!! But old Abe obeys and a ram is provided for the sacrifice. 

Or Moses, He was forty when He killed the Egyptian, then he fled into the desert and lived as an alien for another forty years.  He thought He was saving the Israelites when He was forty, but nope he had to wait around till he was eighty, then was sent back to free his people.  Then he was promised a land of milk and honey, yet didn’t even live to see it. 

When I read and think of these and many more stories, I realize man I have never truly waited for anything.  I have seen so many of God’s promises answered in my own life that I cannot even think of being like Hey God, what’s taking so long you promised!

Man that sounds like a child! But that is what I sound like sometimes. 

Isaiah 45:9

Woe to Him who quarrels with His maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. 

“Do not possess any wisdom of your own. For many times His execution will seem so contradictory to the plan He gave. He will seem to work against Himself. Simply listen, obey, and trust God even when it seems highest folly so to do.” – Streams in the Desert. October 3rd

This is where I find myself on October 3, 2011.

In three months (Lord willing) I will be going to India, to start documenting an orphanage to share their stories with the world.  Three months ago I was not even sure if I was going, and nothing is guaranteed, I could wake up tomorrow and God may have a different plan for my life.

I have much work to complete before then.  I feel God speaking these words to me

Proverbs 24:27

Finish your outdoor work

and get your fields ready;

                after that build your house.

Before I build my house, I must have everything I began to do, finished.  That is righteousness.  I am human and may never achieve that. But I will try my hardest.

Why is God righteous, because He does what he says He will do.  He made a promise, a covenant with Abraham, and He will keep that promise to the last.  That is love. 

I began reading through Acts the other day, and was amazed at how much the early church references the Covenant with Abraham, and the entire story of the Covenant love God showed the Israelites throughout history.  Yet the Israelites forgot it.

Acts 3:25

 And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. 

Its all about the Promise.   God made a covenant with Abraham and will fill it to the last.  God is the ultimate example of righteousness that we as humans can never achieve. 

Covenant = Promise = Righteousness = Love

So again, I wait.

Psalm37:7

BestillandwaitpatientlyupontheLord.