Decisions, Faith

I’ve come to that point in every young person’s life, the time to make those decisions that will significantly effect my life for the coming years, I dare say the rest of my life. Normally I like the challenge that decision making brings, but never before have the decisions to be made had such a magnitude. I find myself struggling to make these decisions for several reasons:

First, the decision does not just impact me. I get married in June, and from that day on, I am responsible for another human being. Now I am well aware that Janie will be making considerably more money than I will be, but I think that biblically I am still to be the one to take care of her. The decisions I make on what church we go to and where I go to school and where we live will have a significant impact on how she is able to live her life. I love Janie to death, and I want to give her a great life, I want to take care of her to the best of my ability, but every option I am presented with doesn’t lead to anything anyone would consider easy. I thank God that she understands the situation she will be marrying by marrying me, but I still struggle with thoughts about how I am going to take care of her.

Second, my own future is “at stake” as it were. I have things that I think God is calling me to so that I can serve Him. The big one would be that I feel he is calling me to later in life be a professor. In order to do that, you have to have a whole lot of schooling which I am actually really excited about. Unfortunately, affording all of that schooling is a different issue. There is also the decision of where to go to Seminary, what will be more beneficial to me later, etc. I know where I want to go, and I know where Janie wants me to go, but it is an expensive choice and I don’t see the finances being there anytime soon. There is always the choice to wait, but I fear that if I don’t start right into my schooling, it will be even harder to get into it once I am established in a job.

Finally, I really want to follow God’s will on this one. Let me rephrase that, I really want to choose the options that will bring the most glory to God, where I can serve Him the best. This is the first time where there are several options ahead of me and I have the potential of “messing up” (for lack of a better term) real bad. I am really trying to seek God on these things, and as of yet, he hasn’t made it clear where I should go, and that makes me nervous. I talk to some people and they know what they are doing once May 10 gets here. Normally I would be the one who has it all figured out and knows where I am going, and I just haven’t been given a clear direction yet, and that frightens me.

So I am feel like I am going to have to really step out on faith on this one. I think I am really going to have to just trust God and run with what I know He has given me as of now. Much prayer would be great, and any advice is welcome as well. Maybe I will post my options later and try and get some feedback.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2

Light Drums

Live Love

 

So this past weekend we took our youth group to Student Life Conference in Euless. It was incredible. The theme for the weekend was Live Love, and the speaker was Francis Chan.

I think this was a conference that was really able to hit all of our students right where they were. For our students who are growing in the faith, a topic brought up was having love for others, those who can’t love them back. But even more exciting than that, for our students, and I think all of them needed to hear it, but certain one’s in particular, the message was primarily focused on how much God the creator loves us and how we should reciprocate that love.

Something that Francis Chan pointed out the first night, and I think it is something that really hit our students and even me, is how we approach praying to God. He mentioned how we don’t necessarily approach prayer as being toward the almighty creator who has no responsibility to hear us when we talk to him. He read Revelation 4, describing John’s vision of God on his throne. He used the magnitude of what John described himself seeing to implore the audience to think about who they are praying to. To take 30 seconds before praying to God to think about who God is, how awesome and mighty he is, and then to pray to him realizing how much God loves them to even hear them.

Chan also made mention of how we are to be children who are crazily in love with God. We are to be excited about being his child, excited about getting to talk with him. God is so in love with us, all we should be able to do is be crazily in love with him, and in so doing, love the people around us in an unbelievable way.

Crazy Love by Francis Chan

Here is a book that has been given quite a lot of praise in the past weeks and months. Crazy Love is the first book written by Francis Chan, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California.

Now first off, let me say that this book, in my opinion, is not putting before it’s readers any new idea. The basis of the book is this: God the creator is showing his creation (us) a crazy kind of love, a love that is undeserved. Because of our sin our just God has every right to kill us, but instead, he sends us his Love in the form of His Son Jesus Christ, sacrificing him to a death that would take away the sins of the world. We, as the rebellious creation, can partake of this love, and in doing so, should fall into and live a life in a crazy love with our savior. I believe the verse is Matthew 22:37, ““You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

This is nothing you have not heard before if you have spent any amount of time in church. But I think the reason why it is impactful, so seemingly different and radical an idea, is because we as the American church have really made church a dull obligation that we have all figured out. All Chan is trying to do is to tell the Church that we need to fall in “crazy love” with Jesus Christ. That should be the starting point, if we are in crazy love with Christ, then we will act rightly, we will worship with all we have, we will appreciate the greatness of God.

In Chapter One, Francis Chan really just tries to get the reader to stop and look at the world around them created by God. This first chapter is really there to try and bring the reader back into a state of awe towards the creator.

Chapter Two is the chapter about human mortality. This chapter is very much about not wasting your life, about realizing how fleeting the human life is, and to spend our times praising and loving and remembering the God who created and loves us.

In Chapter Three, Chan really talks about the Crazy Love that God the Father has for us. A lot of what I wrote above is contained in this chapter.

Chapter Four is entitled the Profile of the Lukewarm. It is really designed to be a tool to help the reader look critically at there life and see which areas of the life are lukewarm towards God. He focuses the chapter around Revelation 3:15-16 which says, “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

Chapter Five is a chapter on offering your first fruits to God. It is a chapter basically about not holding anything back from our God; being willing to say to God that he can have anything.

Chapter Six is talking about what it might be like being in love with God. A lot of examples are pulled from being in love with a significant other.

Chapter Seven is primarily about how for the Christian, the best life comes later, in eternity. Chan talks a lot about how life for the believer will not always be easy, but we must remember our better life comes later.

In Chapter Eight, it is simply what it might look like to be people who live a life while being obsessively in love with Christ. In Chapter Nine, Chan offers real life examples of what it might look like to live that way.

In Chapter Ten, Chan concludes by bringing the fleeting life back into perspective. He asks the question of whether we want to be doing what we are currently doing when Jesus comes back or not. He concludes saying that we should hopefully be loving God with all we have, persevering through this race of life, and falling in crazy love with our savior.

All in all, this is a great book. I recommend this book to everyone. And if it helps, there are helpful videos online at www.crazylovebook.com that go with the chapters and some other times in the book when Francis tells the reader to watch these videos.