Grace, Love, and Truth

I guess you could say that in my three years at UMHB, I have grown a whole lot, in several ways.  I am sure I look older, I am hopefully a little smarter, and maybe I am a bit more mature.  But I think the most important growing I have done in the last few years is the growth I have done spiritually.   The growth I have seen in my relationship with God, in my understanding of Him, and my understanding of Christianity.  I have grown through incredible times of grief over death, my own personal struggle with assurance of my Salvation, and my attempts to reconcile the academic side of Christianity I get at school with the faith that is and should be my foundation.

Recently, I have found myself reevaluating the way I look at Christianity, the way I look at the church, the way I want and am called to do ministry.  I find myself leaving the Christianity I grew up knowing, in hopes that what I have found is truer to what is found in scripture.  Now this is not to say that the church I grew up in is a bunch of heretics or anything of that sort, but I do see somethings in them that need to be changed. And that thing is mostly love.  I am personally getting tired of the “holy huddle,” and I am getting tired of trying to be the source of morality in this world.  There is a desire in me to just love people, to care for people, particularly students, but everyone is my call.  I think we are called to love, to show the love that God showed us when he gave his son to ransom us from slavery.  I think we are called to love the people of this world, not the things of this world, like Christ loved the church.

I find myself listening to and reading guys who are much smarter in these things than I am, and I seem to be hearing the same thing from them.  And when I go back and look at it in scripture, it seems to be correct.  So here is what I have come to conclude for this point in my life.  This is what I am going to be about, my ministry, my life, what I want people to see when they see me is this.

Grace

I am going to be a man who shows the grace that I have been shown.  I am going to be a man who tries his best to not condemn, to not judge, but to forgive, even when it is undeserved.  My Savior showed incredible grace to me on the cross, a cross that I deserved to die on.  God has not called me to be a judge, he has not given me the right to be the morality police, I am not to judge, because I am the chief of sinners.  I am just as corrupt, I have just as many problems as the next person.  But by the grace of Jesus Christ, I have been redeemed by his blood, and I am going to show grace to others because it was first shown to me.

“And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.  For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  John 1:16-17

Love

I am going to be a man who shows love.  My Savior showed the ultimate love by dying a death he did not deserve to save me, a sinner he just as easily could have written off.  To me, love goes right along with grace.  I am going to show others the love that I was shown on the cross by Jesus.  I am going to care about people.  I am called to be salt and light in this world, and I am called to love others.  I am going to strive to be a man defined by love for everyone.  I am not going to condemn, I am not going to judge, but I am going to love as Christ loved me.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  John 13:34-35

Truth

I am going to be a man who speaks the truth.  I am not going to sugarcoat the gospel, I am not going to sugarcoat what I believe to be right.  With grace and love, I am going to be a preacher of the truth, and that truth is that we are a fallen people, and there is nothing we can do to save ourselves from a death we so justly deserve.  But by the grace of God, he sent his son to be a ransom for many, and through his death on the cross, he purchased us out of the bondage of sin.  That is what I am going to speak.  And whether or not it makes me possible, the truth is all I will preach.  I am not going to preach a feel good message, I am not going to change what the bible says.  I will speak the truth, even if it means being scorned by others, I will speak the truth.

“These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace;”  Zechariah 8:16

So that is what I have been thinking of these last few days.  I don’t know if these are the right things, I don’t know if my aim is way off.  And I do know that if I am going to be a man characterized by these things, that I will be radically different, and I will not be popular.  But I think I am okay with that.

I don’t know how many people read this thing, but if you are someone who is around me often, please hold me accountable to this, please talk to me about this if I am off.  Please just do this thing called life with me.  I don’t think I am alone in wanting to change myself and to see something change in this world, but I don’t know.  I just don’t know.

Rain Down

So, I am laying on my mattress, listening to the beginning of the thunder storm outside. I think rain is one of my favorite events in nature. I just think the idea of God making water fall from the sky to nourish the ground is pretty awesome.

As I sit here and think about the rain, I am reminded of how it is sort of like a renewal of God’s blessing and favor. Here is what I mean: in the Old Testament, when Israel would step out of line on God, he would, among other things, send famine and drought on the land. Now from my understanding, ancient Israel can be a pretty dry place, so these times where there was drought must have been awful. How refreshing it must have been when Israel had finally learned it’s lesson, and God opened the heavens, and the water flowed and the thunder rolled and all turned green again.

So what about me, what does rain in my life mean. It seems to me that quite obviously that when I am closest to God, his blessing rain down on me. And the flip side of that is also true, when I am far from God, it is like a deep drought, with no end in site. I do honestly believe that God uses the times of drought to teach us something, reliance on him, how much He loves us, whatever message he needs to send, I think a lot of the times he chooses to send it in times of drought, in hopes that we will get it and run back to him so the rain can start again.

As thankful as I am for the times of drought because of all I learn and how I renew my relationship with God, I love the rain. I love it most when I am closest to him, as I should. But I love it when I know that God and I are doing good, and by that I mean that I am actively seeking him out and obeying him as much as my humanness will allow. But I do love the rain, I love how when you are in it, you can’t escape it, it totally drenches you. I love how everything is brighter after it comes, life feels better when the rain is around. I love how most of the time, you can sense it coming, and you know that God is opening back up and saying “welcome home son.” I love how it quenches my thirst, how when I am going through the drought I get so dry, and so weary, but then God sends the rain, and I thirst no more. I even love how the rain shows me God is sovereign, it can happen in an instant and vanish just as quickly, it is all in his control (and this is my feeling on both spiritual and physical rain). But mostly, I love that God chooses to send it down. As far as my limited understanding of God goes, he doesn’t need me, or any of us, but he desires to have a relationship with us. He doesn’t have to send down the rain, but he does, because he is loving and he cares for us.

Thank you for the rain!

The Problem of Evil

~Part of this is from a journal I wrote for theology, part is written now.~

These past few days I have really been struggling with something we have not even begun to discuss, the problem of evil.  These days I have just been really bombarded with wondering how a good God can allow suffering and evil in the world.  This is something that sort of blows my mind, and it is not necessarily something that makes me doubt my faith or the existence of God, but it ultimately ends up with me wondering about God’s purpose and why evil seems to flourish while good suffers.  Maybe something of the things I see as good are actually bad and that means that justice is being served, or maybe my ideas of justice and the right course of action for God are really off the mark, which is more likely the answer, but I just don’t have a good answer.  In years past I have often been asked by non-believers how my God could allow for my believer friends to die at young ages, and I have never had an answer, nor do I now, nor do I think I ever will have an answer.  It just seems to me that it is a paradox, that the ultimate good being would allow something to be tainted with evil, in my mind I sometimes think God should just wipe out evil and start over, but then that would go against God being love, so I really don’t understand.

I do know that this problem is much more real when it is someone you know that is suffering and not someone on the other side of the world.  Though we can sympathize with those we don’t know, family is family and we feel our family’s pain.  I’m just not sure of any of the explanations I have read about this subject.  I think this might be one of those things that I really have to be content with not knowing God’s plans and purposes and just allow him to work and hopefully one day I will understand.

I wrote this journal after having a discussion with my mother but the state of health of my grandfather.  It is a trying situation for my family, and I again find myself wondering about how God could allow evil.  And now I sit at home while my parents are with him at his home after a phone call from my grandmother, trying to figure out why he is so sick again.  I just really do not know at this point, I don’t know whats going on, and I just don’t understand why this is happening to a man who has struggled enough with faith as it is, and I am just hoping that now it does not seem to him that God does not love him and want a close relationship with him.

This whole evil thing is something I just do not get, and I really just want an answer.

Faith my Eyes

So lately I have been struggling a lot with the concept of faith, particularly my faith. Lately I have been wondering, as is a constant struggle in my life, if my salvation is real or not, if the decision I made a long time ago was the real deal as it were. My prayers every night were for God to give me assurance that all of this, that my faith was real. The other night I prayed that and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and began reading through the Gospel of John, a personal favorite of mine. So I come to the story of the first disciples deciding to follow Jesus.

“The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.” John 1:35-37

As I was reading this, I was really shocked by the faith of these two disciples. They simply heard John the Baptist say that the Lamb of God was approaching, and they followed Jesus. That’s some pretty impressive faith right there. And then it hit me, faith was the answer.

All this time I had been trying to solve this internal struggle I was having by asking God to do something, when faith was the answer. My faith was obviously; I couldn’t even realize that God was big enough to save me from myself, though I suppose I knew he was, I was not believing that he would do it when I called on him. In all the late nights I stayed awake and struggled with whether it was real or not, I knew that I believed that Jesus came and died for my sins and rose again, but I wasn’t allowing myself to believe that it could be as simple as faith I suppose.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I am just now coming to faith in Jesus Christ, because I have always had that faith, but I think that as we grow, we need to grow in faith to that God is going to take care of us and protect us from the struggles of life, and I think that that is where my faith was lacking. So now my prayer is: “God, increase my faith, so that I will be totally dependent on you and trust fully in who you are, the power you have, and what you are going to do.”

Any thoughts on faith? Or even thoughts on my struggles? I am welcome to any kind of discussion

Discombobulated (yes its a real word)

This semester is going to be an interesting adventure I think.  I’m actually very nervous about a lot of things, which is not like me at all.  I have a lot on my plate at school and the rest of my life is seeming to not want to slow down to comfort me.

One thing I have discovered that is pretty cool is that I have found that I have a love for theology, which is something I did not think would happen.  But there is just something about thinking more critically about things about my faith, not to undermine my faith by any means, but to make sure my beliefs are correct and to enhance the faith that I have.

So here is the thing in the last few days that I have been trying to process and work my way through.  I grew up with a belief that God has a will for your life, and that it is very specific, and the actions you take either move you toward that or push you away.  In addition, I had always believed that God would speak to you (not audibly) and give you guidance as to how to be in that will.  It was recently presented to me that this is not a biblical thought.  Now the man who presented this to me is a scholar and I do trust that he is not leading me astray, but he says that there is not scriptural proof that God has a specific will for your life.

Now in tandem with this, he presented two thoughts.  First, that God’s will and God’s guidance for your life comes from right living and the wisdom he put into the bible.  Secondly, he said that God’s will for your life was a little bit more generalized than I was allowing for, and that there are many choices you could make that would place you into God’s will.

Now I do not in anyway claim to be a great theologian, I don’t even know how much merit there is in these arguments, but I do enjoy the fact that I am being able to look at my faith critically and try to understand what it is I believe better.  I don’t know how many people actually read this, but let me know what you think.

Done.

And another semester comes to an end.  This has probably been one of the easier semesters for me academically, and yet i feel it has probably been the semester where I have learned the most and where I have really found what I like to study and gotten some direction into some sort of career for myself later in life.

So I have come to the decision that I like studying the bible.  I have experienced just every kind of class the Christian Studies department can throw at me, and I have to say that the one’s based on the bible, where the bible is the only textbook, are definitely my favorites.  I have found that I really do genuinely enjoy getting up at 8 in the morning and listening to these two men who I respect so much teach me what they have discovered about scripture and let them encourage me to dive in and find the same.  Even in learning Hebrew, I just really enjoy scripture and all it has to offer.  I like theology and everything else like that, but I like studying what all other disciplines in the field of Christian Studies fall back to, scripture.  I am actually really sad that I don’t get to take anymore classes of New Testament in my undergrad, and that I only have one more Old Testament and no more Hebrew.  Those things really have expanded my knowledge so much more than I have experienced in any other subject I have ever studied.

In light of this recent discovery, I have decided and am in the process of deciding several other things.  The first thing is that, because of my new found desire to really study the bible, I am all the more excited about Seminary.  I have decided that in seminary, I am going to focus on the disciplines of biblical studies, hopefully in the original Hebrew and Greek, and I am almost guaranteed to be able to take a lot of those classes if that is what I really want.  Because of this desire, I have narrowed down my choices to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary or Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.  At NOBTS I can get an MDiv with a concentration in biblical languages, and at SWBTS I can get an MDIV where all my NT and OT classes are in Greek and Hebrew.

The other thing I have decided is that I think in addition to doing youth ministry, I want to go for my Ph.D and become a professor, and teach somewhere.  It makes sense for the level of education I want to obtain, and it is a good second ministry to have that when I can no longer do youth ministry, I can solely focus on that.

Let me know what you think.

At Least I’m Moving Forward

I’m getting older, it’s becoming more clear everyday. I’m not going to rant about how I’m so old now and the young whippersnappers today don’t understand what life is all about, I will save all that for when I am senile. But I realized that adulthood isn’t something I am preparing for, it’s something I am living in now.

On Thursday night I hung out with a friend who I have not talked to all semester. It was nice to catch up and hear about her life and what was going on. Through the course of our conversation, I started to realize that a lot of what we were talking about was how people change, and not in a negative way, but we did talk a lot about how the people we know have grown up, and how it is interesting to sit in Starbucks about to start our sixth semester in college and look back at where we and our friends were when we were freshman. A lot has changed: people got jobs, got engaged or married, broke up, changed their major, moved away, no one stayed stagnant.

Now I am definitely not saying that I hate change, anyone who really knows me knows that I like change, partially cause I am pretty sure I am A.D.D. and partially because new things are interesting to me. When people change though (for good or for bad) it is totally different than moving to a new city or getting a new job. When people change you have to adjust the relationship, it can’t be the same as it was when you first met. I think sometimes people think that they aren’t changing and that no one else should to, or that when others do change it is for the worse, but I don’t agree with that. Change is natural, people are growing, lives are evolving, relationships change.

I guess looking back on the last 5 semesters I don’t know how much I have really changed, I would assume it would be a lot. But I don’t apologize for changing, and it doesn’t bother me that others are either. I am going to move on with my life, you can come with me or you can stay behind, but know that I am not going to be the same person I was yesterday, I can’t be, not if I am going to follow after what God has for my life. I am trying to take steps, the first of millions, to deliberately move toward where God wants me to be.  I am going to do what I have always done and accept the change in my life and in the lives of my friends, not try and fight it. I actually think it will be pretty cool to come back to UMHB in 20 years and talk with the people I graduated with, I am excited to see the change that will occur in that time, heck, I am excited to see the change that is going to happen between today and May 2009 when we leave this place.

I rather enjoy the idea of change, it’s exciting, sometimes scary, but overall it’s for the best, and I can’t wait for what tomorrow brings.

Thanksgiving

So here is a new blog. I know I never wrote on the other one but I think I am going to try and write a little bit more, it relieves stress and I enjoy it, and I think I may enjoy using this one more, cause the other one was kind of a pain (I’m not copying anyone I promise).

So anyway, it is thanksgiving, or at least it was yesterday since it is currently 2:12 a.m. on Black Friday. So as I sit here, not really wanting to go to sleep, I think about the last year, and all I have to be thankful for, and so in no particular order:

The ability to go to school where I want to. As I get older and the “real world” looms ever closer I realize how lucky I am to have been blessed to go to UMHB for the last 2 1/2 years and will be able to continue to go there through graduation. God has blessed my family and I with financial stability and that is something that I am well aware some of my peers do not have.

The job I love at the church. I love being the intern at Canyon Creek, it is absolutely the right place for me. I sometime get asked why I don’t try to be the intern at the churches that all my friends go to, and I know that God has put me here at Canyon Creek for a reason and that is really cool. It’s not a perfect place by any means, and the ministry I have has struggles just like everything else in life, but I would not trade what I get to do with those junior and senior students for anything.

My family who supports me. I have an awesome family. They support me in everything I do and have brought me up in a way that i know a lot of people my age were not brought up. My family is even more special to me this year because I realize the mortality of it all. Having both of my grandpas with some pretty big health problems this fall as really opened my eyes to the fact that these two men who are two of my biggest heroes are still mortal, and that one day they will pass away to heaven, and that kind of scared me. That’s what made today all the more special getting to sit down with both of them and spend time together watching the Cowboys kick some butt. My parents are also really great. I am so thankful for all they have done for me throughout life, but especially since I have gone away to college. My parents have a really cool ability to treat me like an adult and let me handle my own business, while still giving me advice that only parents can give, and all the while loving me, even if they are frustrated with what I am doing or not doing. My family is truly one of a kind and I am so thankful for all of them, and I didn’t even mention everyone.

My amazing girlfriend. I am not normally one to get really sappy or whatever like that, but I really am very thankful for Janie. She has kept me incredibly stable in the past year when things were tough. She has also been a really great encouragement to me this year with all the stuff she has gone through with her family, and how she remained strong and focused on the Lord through it all. She is easily one of the strongest people emotionally that I know. I am also very thankful for our relationship, which has grown a lot in just one year. I have learned a lot from her, and I will continue to learn a lot from her. I am so thankful that our relationship is deep, and I don’t mean for that to sound weird, but what I mean is that our relationship is not about holding hands and being the “cute couple,” but we try to make focused on God. Even in our conversations we try to make it deeper than just “I love you,” but we try to talk about deep things, and that is just really cool to me.

” I will praise the name of God with a song;I will magnify him with thanksgiving.” Psalm 69:30

I really need to work on living life with a more thankful attitude towards God. I think a lot of the time I try to make my life seem really bad, and while there are bad things in my life as there are in everyone’s, I need to be constantly reminded that I am truly blessed, and that a lot of people would love to have just a few of the blessing I have, and I don’t say that to boast, I say that from a place of thanks to God Almighty who has blessed my life even though I am so undeserving. The Father of the Universe as given me a great life, and I need to not complain so much.