What now?

There are several goals that I have for my time here in Minnesota. The first goal is to focus on my relationships with God through time in prayer, in the Bible and in everything I do. The second goal is to find others with a similar interest and encourage their pursuit. Besides this I have no real agenda. I cannot change anyone’s heart. I cannot point out anyone’s sin by my own. Jesus told a story of those who think they can see clearly to point out the problems that other people have and offer to help with them. It is quite obvious that those who think they can see and offer a solution to others have a much greater problem than those they criticize.

Furthermore, John 8:1-11 constantly returns to mind as I stand with the Pharisees ready to throw stones at the sinner, but realize that I too am imperfect. At the end of the story, Jesus was the only person who remained with the woman and He is the only one who could speak the following words to her; “go and sin no more.”

For as long as I can remember, I have searched for a solution to the problem of broken churches and sinful people - some method or shortcut to the perfect lifestyle or church.  Every time I thought I had found it, I would be disappointed that following the steps exactly as described failed to work. After giving up hope that such a solution existed, I discovered that the answer is not an idea but a person. That person, Jesus, has completely changed my life and offers to do the same to anyone else who will come to Him in humility and let Him begin to work.

I could not fix my problems and cannot offer to fix them for anyone else. All that I can do is introduce them to the One who can.

Sunday night, I arrived back in Minnesota with plans to attend my church, but discovered there was no service. I then drove to another meeting, but found out the church had moved. Finally, I decided to drive until I found a church parking lot with cars in it. I had to meet with some Christians. Walking into the first church that I found, I eventually came across a gather of college students and enjoyed some time of prayer and bible study. I left encouraged and excited to have made my first connections with the church south of the river.

Monday, I spent several hours talking with a neighbor about my experience and like the night before was encouraged both by his walk with God and by the way our conversations were so encouraging. He warned me as many others have that most people are comfortable with their idea of Christianity and not open to change. To this I responded as I had learned in Colorado that my job is simply to run after God faithfully and let Him worry about working on the people around me. If I get the chance to love them and participate, I get the blessing of being faithful and possibly the joy of seeing fruit.

Tuesday, I connected with several individuals on my job hunt, but wonder how any of them knew that I was a Christian. I found it slightly awkward to announce to one of the ladies I met that the reason I came to Minnesota was to work with a church. She seemed to have no concept of what I was thinking.

Finally, today, I enjoyed spending time with my grandparents, sister and brother-in-law, brother, and an old friend. It is so much fun simply enjoying the life that God has given me realizing I am free from any obligations to Him, but constantly looking for the chance to know Him more fully through everything that I do.

One of the things that I struggle with is the idea of measuring up to expectations of other people. As a broke, recent college grad, it can sometimes be difficult to remember that my valued does not depend on what I do or on how much money is in my bank account. My value is secure and unchanging because of the price that Jesus had to pay to call me into His kingdom. As I follow Him, He will provide for my needs in ways that many people will never get to experience. Even now, looking for a job, I am excited to find out exactly how He intends to fill that need in my life. There are several interesting things that have happened so far in my networking, applying, and searching. I will write more about them later.

Why Minnesota?

May 23, 2012

One of the questions that I expected on my return to Minnesota after setting out with LA as a destination is “why didn’t you go all the way there?” It was a question that I had to deal with before I made the decision to go to Minnesota. I was half-way between the two places. There were a couple key factors that drove my decision

First, even before I reached Colorado, I recognized that the trip was not about my destination, but about my relationship with God. I needed to begin my post-graduate life by recognizing my role as both a child of God and a representative of His kingdom. I had been raised to serve, but needed to encounter love (1 Corinthians 13). After days of prayer, I recognized clearly that I did not have to do anything to make God happy with me. He accepted me as His child while I was still His enemy. Now that I am His child there is nothing I can possibly do to change that. Thus, I was completely free to do whatever I wanted with my life.

Second, even though I am completely free to do anything I want, my greatest desire is to know God. One of the best ways I have found to discover Him more fully is through loving and serving other people. For this reason, my call to pray and to love remained the same even after I realized my destination didn’t matter so much to God as my heart. He wanted to be my only focus, but as I ran after Him, I was distracted by the possibility of doing something for Him. Now I wanted to see Him do something through me as I sought to know Him in the way I lived my life every day.

Third, my life has always been about ideas. I love ideas and concepts, and watching them materialize. However, it is only recently that I have been given a love for the people that make these ideas worth anything. Travelling to California was about an idea. The idea was good, but I had no clue who the people were that I was going to serve, worship, and enjoy life with. At the same time, I knew several people in Minnesota who I desperately wanted to show the work that God was doing in my life. One direction was an idea, the other direction was an individual (specifically a church).

Fourth, along the way I received three challenges from the believers I spoke with. The first, was to determine where I was going, the second was to prepare for what I would do there, the third was to follow God wherever He would lead me. The first, I recognized was completely up to me. I have wanted and still hope to go to LA at some point in the future, but right now I have some things to do in Minnesota. The second was advice that I am currently following: developing a plan for when I do begin to minister in LA. The third was probably the most helpful advice for two reasons. It drew my heart in a direction that God had been calling me for some time, but it also removed the fear of people that has often kept me from responding to this call.

Fifth, I have always wondered why so many people who spend their lives serving the kingdom wind up with ruined families. One of the qualifications for a leader in the church is excellence in fatherhood. Christians often take Jesus call to love him and be willing to leave family behind as an excuse to avoid serving those closest to them (who are admittedly some of the most difficult to love). I do not want to be the person who succeeds at sharing God’s love with a world of nameless strangers, but fails to do the same to those that are most invested in my life. One cannot sacrifice love in the name of ministry. It is inconsistent to act in an unloving way toward one person in order act out of love for someone else. The tree cannot bear both good fruit and evil. Either I love God and all others, or I don’t. This was ultimately, my greatest reason for driving north instead of south when I left Colorado Springs.

Finally, I knew all along that the call to follow God would lead me to an unknown destination. I never expected it would be to Minnesota and struggled hard against my desire to start a fresh life in another state that I have always wanted to live in. However, as I came to understand God’s love for me more fully and the opportunities I would have to share that love with people I care about, I began to desire to go to Minnesota more strongly than I had ever desired not to go there. I realized that the journey I began in Indiana on May 10 would not simply end when I had reached a destination. It would continue every day that I turned my heart to seek God and offered my life to see how He would reveal Himself through me. So far, it has been an exciting adventure. 

Note to self

Dear Me, 

Why should you be such an important figure in my life? It seems like every time I go about trying to become passionate about something you get in the way by appealing to personal pride, or face or something else. You are the reason why I so often find it necessary to carefully craft and then flawlessly project an unrealistic of myself to those around me. Is it for fear that I will not be accepted that you force me into this shroud? Why am I so concerned with trying to protect your feelings when all you ever do is demand more of me? Is my view of the world so small that the problem you have with feeling like the most important person in the world becomes all that consumes my life?

If I were to for just one day forget about you, I might see that all around me there is joy, there is suffering, there is pleasure, there is pain. Achievement to be won and souls to be affected, success is mine to have, but you would have me just reject it? Why? Do you offer something better than putting my life into the service of something greater than you and receiving the satisfaction of actually making a difference somehow?

Upon reflection I find that you are too concerned with self-image to give any sort of thought to the bigger picture. It is not a window you are looking through, it is a mirror that shows you only what you want to see: your magnificent reflection. However, that reflection cannot always be so perfect. In a quiet moment, you find that there is no one to admire your beauty. In the middle of your triumph, you question whether any of the attention you receive is actually genuine. In the end, you know that living a lie can never produce the kind of fulfillment you are seeking; yet you cannot let me choose the alternative without seriously considering what it will do to your image.

Pfffsh, your image. This is my life, we’re talking about here. Image got me nothing and nowhere. In fact, by trying to submit to your ideas about what it takes to be happy, I had lost all sense of purpose whatsoever. For one can never find his own approval in his peers. There must be something else to support a man; some dream or vision that is grander and much more fulfilling than you are. The enjoyment of an image is like the vision of a flame, ever changing and completely untouchable. To willingly sacrifice you to achieve something of value – that is where true happiness is found.

Yes, there will be problems, but these are the building blocks to success. In reaction to my passion, some people will no longer wish to be my friends. However, this is the only way in which I can discover who is truly a friend. I will be required to give up my comfort and even some of the good things I like, but these are simply the enemies of that which is better. To every man a choice has been given: to spend his life serving you, or to spend you to achieve what can truly be called a life worth living.

So, here’s goodbye to pleasant roads, sweet dreams, and easy living. Farewell, to perfect image, plastered smiles, joyless pleasure, and mere survival. I choose to live; to sacrifice everything I have for something worth obtaining, to give up what you want for a cause of my own choosing; to exchange the image for the reality; to do what no one else has dared to do. So that mine will have been a life truly lived.

Introducing - the journey

On May 10, 2012, I began to live my life in a way that required God to be real and active. If He wasn't, the trip across the country that I began that afternoon was going to be completely idiotic and worthless. The directions I had were to drive to Los Angeles and pray. I would then see what God was going to do. Along the way I would receive more instructions.

One of the routes to LA from southern Indiana led through Denver Colorado where I wanted to stop and visit a church that I had been following since its inception. This was a place where I knew people saw God work on a regular basis. I had been inspired last time I visited and wanted to stop there again before I reached my destination.

The places I have stopped along the way have been filled with people who blessed, encouraged and counseled me in this quest. As one of the girls who prayed for me an Kansas City, MO said, "you are on an exciting journey, no matter where your destination, you are going to learn something about God."

It wasn't until 500 miles later that I realized the true significance of her words. God had brought me on this journey to teach me something about Him. My objective was not one of accomplishing something for God any longer, but of coming to know Him in a new way as I followed Him in faith to wherever He would lead.

This blog was created to showcase the thoughts I have had along the way so far and to demonstrate what God can do when a person is willing to trust him completely. A week after I left on the trip, I am just east of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Springs waiting to know which direction to go next. However, I continue to live one day at a time with God as my focus and my destination unknown.

To make it easier to read, I am posting the details of this trip, the adventures, the thoughts and the changes that I go through in the tab 'The Journey.'

Thinking Through life

I wrote this a few weeks ago and posted it here since it plays a role in the decisions I made over the next several weeks. There will be more to come.

April 22

This night at the end of the prayer furnace meeting, I found myself once again in the position of letting go of everything and completely trusting in God for my future and my present. My prayer was to live in the present, each day, one day at a time, one moment at a time asking Jesus for what to do next, following His voice and loving other people. I have a feeling that I will be doing something in Chicago that I don’t expect at the moment. I don’t know what it is yet, but it has something to do with my desire for the church to be free from religion.

Then I asked when that was to start and how I was to begin my work in Chicago and He said that I had several interesting things I was working on that I should continue to do until I was told that it was the right time to start something else. However, I need to hold on to my projects loosely and always be ready for the opportunity that will present itself when I don’t expect it.

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I have been challenged to commit to something and believe I have not yet embraced that challenge. Tonight, God spoke through a man that ‘I had to talk to’ who had spent much of his life avoiding commitments and was sad because he had never accomplished anything. However, he is now committed to one thing: his relationship with Jesus. That is what I once again committed myself to.

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In any case, I believe I am called to something big, but my focus is to be on something little. My call is the kingdom, my mission is love. Simply living honorably, acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with my God.

At this moment, I am perfectly at peace with my future because I know who has planned it and who will take care of me through it. Even though I don’t know the first steps, I know what will take me the right direction. Lord, give me the courage to walk that way even when no one else will join me. God will change the heart of His church through prayer. Through time spent with Him, through people who will give up their lives to Him. If I can live a life following Jesus example, I will be satisfied.

The call

You are called, you are chosen, you are created, you are prepared, you are set apart for this purpose. Your hands have been prepared for war. Your armor has been won through suffering, but your weapons are invisible. The battle you wage is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, powers, and rulers of darkness in heavenly places. The fight is won before it is begun by the Son who reigns forever by merit of his great sacrifice. His inheritance is your reward and his resurrection is your promise.

Desire

April 15, 2012

Am I going to make excuses or am I going to make something happen?
Am I going to make my life count or am I going to waste it?
Am I going to make my life about what I have or about who I am?

What if it isn’t a dream. It isn’t a movie. What if this longing is for something that has not yet happened? For what will be in the future. What if it is the present reality of what will soon come to be? I have felt this before. It can’t be satisfied by anything that I try. The only place it actually comes close to being fulfilled is back in the presence of God. A knowledge that everything is perfect that comes through giving up everything, letting go of whatever I hold dear, and completely trusting that He is good and He is all.

The question remains that why with my understanding of the situation, I consistently choose to ignore the one answer I know in search of one that I can’t discover. Have I become so short term oriented in my thinking that I cannot bring myself to fight for what cannot be won in a moment? Am I so distracted by my feelings of discontent that I cannot bring myself to go after their solution?

It’s that moment when you realize watching someone else achieve their dreams is not going to cut it anymore. You have to go out there and do it yourself. Dreaming isn’t good enough, you’ve got to get out there and live it. IT’s my life. It’ my time. It’s my destiny. What do I choose? Will I buckle under the pressure or will I plow through it, rise above it and see the stars above the clouds. Will I push past the last available breath to the one I never saw coming that will take me to places I haven’t dreamed of yet?

When do I reach the point where I realize my dreams have been too small? That what is unrealistic is much easier to dwell on than what is achievable, but it is also much less rewarding. Certain things in life always hold true like the level of input determines the level of output. The level of risk determines the level of reward. The level of patience determines the level of success. I will not become tomorrow what I am not already becoming today and I must plot a course that will deliver me to the destination I choose rather than the destination I will reach by default.

There are choices that must be made and lived with. Decisions that will affect the rest of my life. These do not appear in earth shattering moments with ominous music in the background, but in split second choices that shape my priorities and my character. Right now they are taking me a direction I do not want to go. I have certain things I am learning from following this direction, but I also have things I regret.

One thing I have learned, I need balance. I cannot work all day one day and relax all the next. I need to fill my life with a little bit of everything I need. I also need the discipline to say no to whatever is not profitable for me.

How do I change? Do I make a decision to never go back to this frustrating position I so often find myself in? Do I eliminate whatever is holding me back? Do I give in to what I feel because it is naturally me? What do I have to sacrifice to achieve what I truly desire?

What is truth?