October 10, 2009
Another birthday has come and gone and here I sit, officially in my 30’s. It feels good to be growing older yet there is a small part of me that fights against the society standards for someone my age. See, society would say that at the age of 31 a person has the following: a career, a family or at least a significant other, a house. Those are just a few of the things expected but I currently have none. What I do have can not be measured by society standards and that is a heart that is alive. If I hadn’t spent the last four years in this place of spiritual hard work, prayer and IHOP then I’m pretty sure that I would still have a heart that was dead.
Thank you society for your ridiculous norms and how you measure success, you may keep your measuring cups. I on the other hand will continue to live my life by the measure of my own heart and strive to always keep it alive.
August 8, 2009
I tend to get busy, busy with work, busy with prayer room, busy with friends and then I get worn out-pretty much in that order. We do that as a society, we run from place to place with our cell phones plugged into our ears and we stay busy. We go and we go with all the rest of the traffic of this world and we never slow down. We never turn off the music just so we can sit in the silence of it all just to think. I’m learning more and more that for me I need to do that way more then I do. Call it introvertism (if that is even a word) or call it being a contemplative. I just call it being me and what I need to keep myself at peace. I need to turn it all off and sit in silence to think. Think about God, my life, my heart, my soul, where I’m going, where I came from, and every other random thing that I process. (my brain is processing alot ALL the time) PS..when I say random I mean random-things like the org chart of the army, the year 1776, what it would be like to back pack through Europe just to see where the battles of World War II took place, the future of IHOP and where I might fit into it, Job, Amos, St. John of the Cross and everything in between. If I don’t get a chance to do that once and while then I don’t function well. I don’t think I am the only one that functions this way and I don’t think everyone thinks the same random things I do. I do think that we as a society would probably start doing a little bit better if we turned off the music and just enjoy life, enjoy our families, and do it free from phones, tv, and the noise. Those are my thoughts today as I sit in my room with no music and my cell phone on silent.
June 21, 2009
A thousand miles from where I have started and a thousand miles from where I will be in the end. That is the place that my everyday life is lived, that is the place where most peoples everyday life is lived. When I first started on this journey of loving Jesus I was only 8. I walked down the aisle of my church after talking to my parents about what it meant to be saved. I was baptized on the day after my birthday September 29 in 1985. For me and my family church was a given, its what you did on Sunday and unless you were sick you where there. Even if you tried the ” I don’t feel good can I stay home” routine it was usual answered by a no-you need to go to church. I had two or three church dresses and boy did I hate wearing them. I mainly hated the panty hose that went with them and the fact that I had to act like a lady. That was tough considering the rest of the week I spent my days outside riding bikes with the neighborhood boys, or on a soccer field, or fishing with my dad, or haunting with my dad, or shooting guns at the rifle range with my dad, or playing GI Joe with my brother. Anyway, lets come back from the bunny trail-I started loving Jesus a long long time ago and what feels like a galaxy far far away. Here I am 20 some-odd years later still loving Jesus with a few rough spots in between. Yes, I am a thousands miles from those days and feel that I have lived every one of those miles. There have been some good moments and rough moments and every other moments mixed in there. Yes, I can see where I have come from and the ways in which I have grown. The catch is that there are still a thousand miles to the end. The end being, of course, that day, that glorious day, when Jesus returns to the earth. Yep, I am sooo ready for that day. When redemption is complete and we are transformed into the likeness of Christ. Until that day there is a thousand miles to walk out and so much of God’s heart to get acquainted with. God give us grace to walk this life out well, with integrity, with compassion, with love, and standing up right before you. Amen, lets stand.
