Autumn Changes Lives.

I love Autumn, the leaves turning colours, the weather cooling down. It is a fantastic season. Autumn and I get along pretty well. One of the themes of Autumn is change. Everything changes in Autumn. The leaves change colours and fall to the ground, students go back to school, and youth starts up again. I love change. I think it's safe to say that I thrive on change. I am driven to change something in my life almost constantly. I'm not sure if this means that I need to learn contentment, or if I've been given a restlessness for a reason.

This summer has been a summer of growth for me, my relationship with Jesus Christ has become more real to me this summer than it has been in years. Often I feel as though the reality of my relationship with Christ, and the way that I think my relationship with Jesus are and should be are different things. This spring I began to realize that I needed to change something. Ha! Isn't that weird? I always feel like things need to change. The change that I realized I needed was to give up my skepticism, give up my "theologian's pride." Even though when I went to Prov I wasn't really into a lot of the deep theology stuff, I thought that since I was studying the Bible and learning a lot about God and who he was and is, that I was an authority on God. WHO AM I to think that I can know who God is from taking a couple of courses in college? God is so much greater than we can ever hope to know completely. Yet he still wants to know us personally, well, he does know us personally, but wants us to seek him and know him.

In less than TWO WEEKS, I'm going to be heading down to San Carlos, Mexico with Ryan Thiessen, and Juan Carlos. I'm going to be living down there and serving for 3ish weeks, doing whatever they tell me to do I guess. Why am I doing this? Firstly, in order to learn what it's like to see God at work in another country. To feel what it's like to give up my comfort, my safety, my job, my friends, my church, for a time in order to get to know God better. I'm sick of living my life as though I don't believe what I say I believe. It's about time I get real, and put my "money where my mouth is" as it were. I love Jesus Christ, and I want to go where he calls me. The amount of money I have in my bank account does not dictate what I can and cannot do for him. Since he controls so much more than finances.

It is so hard to surrender. It is so hard to think about all the pain and suffering that people endure every day because of Christ. It breaks my heart to think about all the people that live in North America and can't see how it's destroying their spiritual lives. It is SO HARD to realize how much we actually need God when we live with such blessings. We often don't turn to God, until someone we know and love, or we ourselves are in dire trouble. I want what I say and do to line up with what Jesus wants me to say and do. If you're reading this and are comfortable where you are, think about what Jesus would want you to do that's uncomfortable. What can you do in your day to day, that you know you should be doing, but aren't? I know there isn't any scripture in my post. Search scripture yourself. Jesus can speak through his words to you, even if you're not a biblical scholar. He's more powerful than language barriers, his love is more complete than the love you can feel from anyone here on earth.

Stop making excuses, if you think that you should do something, and it lines up with what God says in the Bible, do it! God will do some amazing things.

It's all about Jesus, all of it.

Taking a Break and Being Real

Hey all,

Being busy is good, and it sucks. I had two weeks off from work for Christmas, about half of that time was spent at gatherings and parties, while the other half was spent road-tripping to the west coast and back with some buddies. Throughout the whole time I realized that with how busy I was, I didn't have a lot of time to just relax. Granted, there were times throughout the whole "break" where I was relaxing, and spending time not doing a whole lot. The thing is, I think that often we try to busy ourselves, that it gets to be a bit ridiculous. We often forget to take care of ourselves, or even to know what that looks like. I have some thoughts on what it takes to take care of yourself. I'd say that I am a relatively stress-free person. Emphasis on relatively. There are things that stress me out at times, but I think that I am pretty effective at distracting myself from the things that stress me out.

Two thoughts: DO THINGS THAT BRING YOU JOY! and DO FUN THINGS, FOR FUN! It's super easy to get bogged down and frustrated with life, and the worries and stresses that get us down. It can be hard to want to do fun things, or take time to do things that we enjoy when we feel we have obligations to fulfill. Perhaps we all need to take more time to just have fun. I used to want to postpone growing up. I thought that grown-ups had all sorts of problems that I didn't want to have. They were always stressed out. I think that it can get to be that way sometimes, but we need to take time for ourselves, to do things that bring us joy, and fill us up with a love for life.

Sometimes it can be hard to think of things that bring us joy, when we feel as though it has been a long time since we felt joyful. I suggest trying to recall the last time you were really, truly joyful. What were you doing? Maybe try doing that again. Perhaps we need to take a page out of a child's book, and learn how to play again. Spend some time just goofing around, and not trying to pretend like we have it all together. It's hard work pretending to be alright all the time. I think a lot of times when I do that, I'm probably trying harder to convince myself then anybody else that I'm alright. As the body of Christ, we should share in each other's joys, and each other sorrows. If we just want to support each other in the times of joy, it would seem that we are missing half of the spectrum. If we take more time to play, we likely won't be as stressed. So play with your friends, do things that will bring joy to each others lives! Praise God for he has made each of us unique and with gifts to help each other out, and build each other up. You are all made in the image of God, and he loves you!!!

I'm a follower of Christ, but I don't know it all, and I don't have it all together. Life is messy, messy is real. I want to be real.

"This is the day the Lord has made.
      We will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24 (NLT)