Namesake

Why are we so intent on our own way? So many things we do, we do out of a selfish notion, an arrogant notion. that our preconceived ideas and plans are better then the next person's. That's the problem. The problem I'm sure we'll come upon many times in the course of this blog. Humans are selfish. Without God, we can never truly care about something other then ourselves for longer then it benefits our own emotions. Recently at camp, I saw a video where our condition was described as "depraved indifference". For those of you who had trouble figuring that out, (like I did when I first heard it) it means we don't care about stuff and that condition is unchangeable. It's how we are. Sure, show us some pictures of people in poverty halfway around the world and we'll feel bad. We'll cry, pray and give, but we will go to bed that night just fine. Because that's how we are.

Notice I have been italicizing (I love doing that, it's like caps lock for refined people) the word "are". Because this condition hasn't always been around. We were created without it. When we were created we were all for each other. I'm for you, like you're for me. (points to whoever understands that reference.) We were that way when we existed in the presence of the Almighty. When He's around everything becomes lesser. Even ourselves. That's how we solve"depraved indifference" problem here on earth. We must constantly be in God's presence, God must constantly be at the forefront of our thought and we must be living with the Gospel as our anchor, as the thing we are always coming back to. Step 1 of the Gospel. We are all fundamentally broken. Sinful from the moment our existence begins. With that in mind, with all fading away before Glory, how can we look at a fellow man and pretend that we are better? We all pale in comparison, because there is no comparison.

Like I said earlier, one thing we'll continually come back to is the disgusting selfishness of man, but another thing we will always come back to is the thing that makes that obsolete. The thing that keeps me going even when I find my own life to be one failure after another. Grace. Grace is why we wake up in the morning. It's the reason we keep fighting, it's the reason we have hope. It's something we'll never understand, because God's grace in its full extent is unfathomable, that's why I can't see myself ever running out of things to write about. Because I could write on this blog forever and never understand the full extent of Grace.

I'm Not Lonely Iron

I have friends. I know right? It's weird. How does that happen? I can tell you that I have been blessed with the ones I have. Blessed. My old friends, my friends that I've known since I can remember, those are the ones who are my brothers. The ones who have seen me struggle, the ones who have struggled with me, we are ones who saw how hard life was going to be, saw each other early on and decided we would fight through it together. That's one kind of friend God has given, but there are more.

There are mentors. Yes, my mentors are my friends. I have small group leaders, pastors, and most importantly, my dad. All of these are people who I would go hang out with just as soon as I would with any of my friends. These are the people who, though they didn't have to, saw me. They decided to take the time to invest in my life, to teach, laugh with, share and love. These are the people who would be unknown to me  without God. Their wisdom would be lost on me if God hadn't called them to share it with me. A relationship between two age groups is so awesome. God doesn't look at any of us as a certain age, He looks at all of us as His children, who should be one under Christ.

My favorite friendship to see God orchestrate is the ones that don't make sense. The ones that seem like trying to put two puzzle pieces together that are from different puzzle, but our God makes them fit. He uses one shared experience to make people feel like they've been friends forever. These are the ones I've seen made recently.A lot of the people that I now keep up with from camp, I barely talked to until the last days. What holds us together? God does. Because no matter what previous experience we had, when we as a group related our struggles to one another, when we as friends, entered the presence of God, we were bonded. Yeah, it sounds sappy, yeah I can't tell you a lot about some of these people, but it doesn't matter. These are my brothers, these are my sisters. These are the people who will be on my left and right in eternity around the throne. These are the ones I stay in contact with because that bond is there. All my friends, all of them are people God has chosen to surround me with. Because iron sharpens iron. Together we can be dangerous. We can struggle, live, confess, witness, love and die together. This is what Christian Community is, this is what God uses to advance His Kingdom.

The Grace and Power of an Almighty God

I'm a jumbled up mess of different flowing thoughts right now. So if this post doesn't flow at all, that's why. I just got back home. The place where I can recuperate from the second week of praise and discipleship in a month. Both of these weeks have had something to offer, the one I just got back from was personal. It was powerful. It was prayer filled. It was hilarious. It was enough o make me wonder why I am not constantly praising God. I tried to keep notes throughout my week for this post right now, but again, they don't flow, so I'll just write about a selective few.

First and foremost,God worked this week. He was in the camp, in the cabins and the chapel. One of my favorite moments was when all those who had questions about their faith were called to the campfire and the opportunity arose to simply sit in the chapel and pray. So that's what I did. I sat. I prayed. I thought. I listened. the thing about God is He has a way of bringing the right people at the right time. I prayed with multiple staff about a problem i was having defeating a sin problem. Or at least  that's what I though my problem was.What I understood that night through staff's prayers and God's grace, is that in now way should I ever have to defeat a sin problem. That's out of the realm of human limits. What I hadn't been doing and have needed to do for oh so long, was rest in the fact that Christ has already defeated everything. All sin. All shame. All pain. My problem was that I hadn't fully understood the gospel. Later that same night I took a walk into an open field. I looked up at one of the clearest night skies I may ever see. I looked up at that view. That panorama of twinkling, dizzying, colossal orbs, shining millions and millions of miles away. How big must they be? How much do they weigh? How many were there? I didn't know any of those answers, but I knew one thing. God, the same God, who defeated sin and hell and healed this tiny planet's deaf and lame, He was the one who breathed these stars out. He spoke and they were. He knows each one like the Duggar's somehow know all their children. That thought had me running through that open field, laughing, possibly looking like a crazy person, but laughing at the wonder of God's full uncontrollable grace.

I'll write about one more lesson and save the rest for a later day. This relates somewhat to what I said about God bringing the right people at the right time. I love people. That's little secret, anyone who knows me even a little knows that my favorite thing is talking to people. My God has put amazing people in my path this week. I love all of them so dearly, because of the laughs we shared, the tears we cried, the prayers we offered. All of these times are things I will cherish forever. Not because they were funny, (although they were funny) or because they were emotional, but because I could sense God in our midst when we were together. Throughout the week we felt so comfortable just asking each other for prayer and asking that we could pray for situations that were going on in the camp. I believe that the week was successful because we prayed our way through it. That's what community is. At least that's hat Christian community is (and there isn't any better). We are flawed. We are broken. We are sinful, but we are saved. We are forgiven. Christ is our King and we are all fighting ourselves, our evils, to keep our eyes on the cross.

I thank God for my week at Lake Lundgren so much. I pray for any of you reading this that may have attended this week, that  you would not experience another roller coaster. I pray you experience the Gospel. That's what saves and that's what will get you through life. Highs come and go, but we worship a God who is holier then we can comprehend, so why should we let emotions dictate truth? Love God always, remind yourself of the Gospel daily and spread it to anyone who will listen.

Learning to Breathe

This song has been my week. I started writing this Monday as a way to get over....Monday. I had felt so empty, so fake. Like I wasn't fulfilling a purpose I was meant for. I went to my source of inspiration, my place to think and to be alone with God. Lake Michigan. I sat there in my emptiness and asked God what He wanted me to do, what was His plan for me? At the time, I didn't feel a concrete answer, but I felt like I should write something. I went home and started writing. This is what came of it. I feel like I'm doing what I should be when I write. I'm living again, awake and alive. The key word for me in this song is learning. In no way am I all together. I still am as sinful as anyone, no less then I was last Monday. What I am now, is living in Christ, in His purpose and in the knowledge of mine. Not to write for the fun of writing, not to write wise words for the attention of others, but to write, in my own insignificant way, about what God wants me to write about. With the hope that maybe, just maybe someone will read it and be encouraged, someone would understand something in a different way.

So this is the way I say I need You,
This is the way that I say I love You,
This is the way that I say I'm Yours,
This is the way, this is the way,
Learning to breathe, I'm learning to crawl,
I'm finding that You and You alone can break my fall,
I'm living again, awake and alive,
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies.
-Switchfoot

Light

As a member of a group of only 80 or so people who attend Sheboygan County Christian High School, there is a camaraderie between us. Not simply: "I like to hang out with you cause your a fine 'ol fellow" but, something more along the lines of: "We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, we share the same hopes, goals and faith." A group of us in public can do amazing things. People see us, they see us loving one another, laughing with one another, using our words to build one another up and still be able to poke fun. Yesterday I was able to hang out with 8 people, not all of us from Christian High, (in fact some were from....Lutheran...) but we all share our faith. Another group of people played in a volleyball court adjacent to ours, as our game went on someone on their side asked if we would be willing to play a game against them. We looked at each other and said "Sure!: Why not?" About one point into the match it became decidedly clear that our friends were probably not brothers and sisters. They asked us what school we went to and the verdict was: Christian High, Lutheran High and one homeschooler. The difference we saw after that was almost funny. One member of their team would swear and somebody else would whisper urgently "Don't swear! Their from Christian!" We shrugged it off and had a great game, making new friends and laughing.

This experience is one I hope all of my fellow Christians can have. To see a group of people change their entire attitude because we were Christians is awesome. They saw us encouraging one another, not swearing, (although they did enjoy my habit of using the word: Biscuit! in situations that constitute something to be yelled.) being good sports and maybe most importantly: Encourage them. I don't think one of us saw the game as something to be won, but we saw them as people to be won. The fun came when we saw our friends later at the ice cream parlor, to exchange jokes with them and to continue being a light.

Matthew 5:16  

Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

Life is hard, people are profane, friendships are difficult, but because God is good, friendships are possible and when you have friendships and a good God, you can make profane people friends and brothers.

Through Hell With a Smile

Rain. A whole lot of rain. For some reason I decided that today would be a good day to bike around the city and I didn't use my foresight and check the forecast. So I, in my brilliance, took the 5 mile ride home in pouring rain. I started off thinking how much the whole ride would stink, but as I got farther, my clothes wholly soaked through, my bike throwing extra water on my back, I thought about where I was going. I was going home. Sure it was a horrible condition to be going home in, but why does it matter? The thought of home and rain and life made me smile and laugh right there on my bike.

This is how we should go through life. We live in an evil, disgusting ball of a world. If that's how we want to see it, but why should we live depressing, self-righteous lives just because of our circumstances? We must live with the end in sight. We are all on our way home, so what reason do we have to not smile? This is joy. Not always being happy, but always being aware that Christ has redeemed and God is waiting. So laugh, bike through this raining world and praise, because we serve a God who is ready to give us a towel when we get Home.

Praise and Grace

The crowd cheers, students praising God. A particularly moving song begins. Everyone in the room, including me, faces the same “spiritual” choice, to raise the hands in praise or no? It looks like everyone else is. God has died for my sins, I guess I might as well. OK, done. Oh, boy. My arms are getting tired. I wonder if I’m on the big screen… What is that woman doing? Oh we’re clapping now, should I bring my hands down and clap? Ooh, maybe if I keep my hands up people will think I’m more spiritual! The classic church youth conference problem, we are distracted people. We have a Maker, a Maker that has completely saved us. Yet when we come to praise Him we are still just as distracted. We are all ADD, maybe not in the medical definition, but in the spiritual. We come to worship and the first thing we think about is ourselves. That’s because spiritual ADD is known as selfishness. We can’t be reverent for God because we’re too focused being reverent with ourselves.

Why is this a problem? Why can’t we have a little time to think about ourselves? God receives enough praise from this crowd doesn't He? Let’s go back to the Garden. Back when praise was perfect, when God and man were locked together in a perfect relationship. We weren't thinking about ourselves, we were thinking about the God that just created us. The one who said: “Look at all this stuff I just made, oh by the way, you can have it.” Yet even in this environment where God dwelt with us in a perfect place we found a way to mess it up, in the words of a popular saying: WE HAD ONE JOB. There was a perfect relationship with God and we messed it up because a snake told us we could have it better. So at this point God had every right to wipe us out, start over, press the reset, game over, but that is not the nature of our God. The God we worship, the God we praise looked at our insubordination and our rebellion and decided that He would never go to plan B. Because God does not need a plan B. We are God’s great Plan A, even if we are ignorant and intolerable and sometimes a little smelly.