This summer, I learned about how important it is to have a Christian-community for support, but I do not really have that, despite being heavily involved in several aspects of my church, including the youth bible quizzing program and the youth group. I do not really have people who I connect to or can simply talk to about my struggles. Nor do I have a mentor planted in the word.

So I find myself often going back and forth between a couple passages in the bible that talk about “good fruit”, trying to find an ‘escape hole’, so-to-speak, that would make living a Christian life easier and could help edify myself and my church and my youth group. It isn’t that I don’t want to live for God, it is that I am tired of having a mind set that after asking for forgiveness from God, within a short period of time, I will mess up again, as well as that I am longing to find some way in which I can fit in with my youth group; that if I can find a loop-hole, I would be able to partake with the youth free of conscience. But there isn’t, leaving me the church outsider. Maybe I am that one weird girl who just cannot fit in because she is too different. But whatever the supposed reason, it is really because I am not happy with my church and quite frankly fed up with my youth group.

And I get it! As Christians, we are the biggest examples of hypocrites and the definition of internal warfare, as I mentioned in a previous post, because we are literally fighting ourselves in regard to our earthly desires against our passion and desperate need to follow God. So I feel like the biggest hypocrite for pointing any of this out, but, generally speaking, no one cares to change. We enter into worship with God on Wednesday nights and then right after we exit the room, we curse with the same mouth. We exclude. We judge. We tend to be ignorant. But why? How does one look intently into the bible on a weekly basis and then reflect a life of a judgmental, ignorant, blasphemous, conceited people?

I have studied several books in the bible, and never have I ever read about us being told by God to be any of those attributes! On the contrary, we are COMMANDED BY HIM to be a loving, accepting, nonjudgmental, out-reaching, merciful, forgiving, welcoming, and fruit-bearing people.

So, where is the fruit?

In Galatians 5:22-23 it says that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It then goes on to say that against any of these things, there is NO law.

So then, where do we develop these attitudes?

Anytime I feel a bit of neglect towards a person, the Holy Spirit reminds me about hell, not threatening me, but helping me remember that if I do not display God’s love in my life, that if my life is not a mirror image of God’s grace and joy and love, then that person may never experience truly the majesty of being broken for God. No matter what a person may do to me, I would HATE for them to experience the torment that is hell, which is defined as being completely and utterly separated from God’s love.

But again, everyone makes mistakes. Is that enough? Will that be our answer to God when he asks us where is our fruit? Will we simply tell him, “Oh, well, everyone makes mistakes. We tried”? No. We would be scrambling around trying to find a shred of proof.

And we are warned in the gospels, as is written, “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” – Luke 3:9

We know that we need to produce good fruit. We know that faith without deeds is dead, as identified by the book of James. What in the world then is keeping us from doing that?

 See, a few weeks ago, I felt so unaccepted at my youth group that when the pastor asked me to join the group for bowling, I had just about broken down almost in tears. That was when I told him and another youth leader that I do not have friends at the youth group and did not want to be the awkward person there who no one will talk to. The person who doesn’t appear in any photos, despite there being hundreds of photos taken from the event. I went under the pastor giving me his word that at least him and this other youth leader were there for me…

That's the fruit. There it is. Some of you reading this have probably read my original post entitled "Where's the Fruit?" I have created this post because upon it being posted and reading it over, I realized that the point I am trying to get across may have become lost in some of the text. I wrote it not to point out the things that are not working in my church, because it is not mine to judge, but to tell you all that there are people like me in your churches... Members who don't feel accepted and are really and truthfully scared to seek help from the church and congregation and staff due to judgement, ridicule, being called a liar or an attention-seeker, and the gossip. I am not content just going through the motions, nor am I okay with hearing sexual connotation and jokes in church or feeling like I have to be put together and perfect. I have friends from school who have actually given up Christ because we, as a whole and individuals, claim to live our lives for God and then we walk out the doors and continue on with our indifferent lives.

I mean, no matter what the situation, I would never give up my relationship with God. He is too real for me to ever even imagine life without Him. I have such a strong faith in Him because of all that I have been through which He has carried me through. But not everyone has this. How can we, as Christians (claiming to be followers of Christ), let there be a possibility of us turning off nonbelievers who simply want to know this unconditional love we profess with our lips?

It is my CHRISTIAN friends who pressure me into drugs and sex and partying. It is my CHRISTIAN friends who judge me. It is the CHRISTIAN “rolemodels” who surround my mouth with swearing. If I try to share a struggle with a fellow CHRISTIAN, they chuckle at it, not taking it seriously, or they only say what they think they are supposed to say regarding it, mindlessly, not even caring.

However, it is my CHRISTIAN youth pastor who is constantly trying to ensure I feel wanted and know that I matter and it is one of my CHRISTIAN youth leaders who sits down with me for a couple hours just to hear how my life is going and to offer me support and it is my CHRISTIAN Bible quizzing coach who has gotten down into the dirt to help me up and who is constantly encouraging me through God's word. And that's where the fruit it.

“I tell you the truth, there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents then over a thousand righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

If that’s so true, why am I so defensive about making a mistake, messing up? Why do I go to church looking like my life is all put together when it is clearly not. We all struggle and each one of us is just as scared as the other to lay it all out there… What about when I bent down at the alter that first time? I was with some friends from youth church about five years ago and we went to the adult service, because the youth leaders were away on a planning-retreat, and they did an alter call. I was really scared to do it, to be quite honest… I mean, it wasn’t only about the youth, but also my parents seeing me do that and the rest of the congregation. So I just focused onto where I was going to lay it all down to Jesus. I remember staring at the one spot where I was going to kneel up at the front of the church, kind of thankful that I chose to sit right up front. Then, slowly, person by person made their way to the front. I just didn’t want people to think that I was constantly making mistakes nor that I was struggling with many things. I was even scared about how I was going to give it all up to God. My first time in public surrendering myself to God as a broken person.

Then I noticed a rose on the organ.

This past Sunday I was reminded about what a rose on the organ actually stands for. A rose on the organ is a public announcement to members of the congregation of a person who has, through one of the ministries offered at our church, come to know Christ Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

I never really thought too much about it. It was just something where an announcement would be made and people would clap, but I mean, that was not something you would hear people talking about afterwards. Why? The bible tells us that there is such great rejoicing in heaven over one person who comes to know Christ as their personal Saviour and Lord.

Since it was new year’s day and the pastor who was preaching threw it out there as a challenge, I decided to make my focus resolution to putting a rose on the organ this year.

But what is the whole process really? I’m not a person of great wisdom… I’m just a kid. I am someone who has barley anything together who is constantly being ripped apart for her beliefs. Who am I to be a disciple? Sure, Christ calls us to go out into the world to disciple the nations and I have always wanted to be a missionary… But that’s overseas… Or at least, you know, away from school friends and non-Christian family members.

I know you may be thinking, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!?!?! YOU ARE IN THE PERFECT POSITION TO DISCIPLE!!!

But I cannot treat it like that. I cannot simply preach to students at school. Here’s what I mean: No teenager wants someone throwing verses and such down their throats. You don’t go to school to hear bible readings. The best I have been able to do without offending anyone is offering to pray for someone when they tell me about something they are going through and struggling with. But it feels like there should be more done. I should be doing more. It isn’t enough anymore setting apart my morals from everyone else’s. No.

When you listen to these students go into their live’s trama and drama, it is obvious that us Christians have scarred them more than anything! I have too. It is something we have in common. But how do I use that connection to them to show them God’s love and explain to them the gospel? I have gone through so much and am still hanging on to the one thing that is holding on to me. Why have these others not? What is the difference?

Being again honest, I do not know. Sometimes it feels like there is no difference. Maybe it is just our mind frame. Maybe it truly does have to do with the verses I have learned. And if that’s it, how do I share those verses about perseverance and pure joy and being made complete and holy as you are constantly being rebroken for God to a group of people who have already let go or chosen their path? I learned those verses before my life had reached the breaking points.

Again, I have no idea as to what God has in store for me and what I was thinking making a commitment like that. I know that when you ask God to do something, He never fails to go beyond expectations and, though I am a bit scared and unsure as to how my life is going to look by 2013, I do not take it back. This year, I resolve to put a rose on the organ by letting God take full hold of my brokenness.

Prayer has recently become a “hot topic” for me since the beginning of the summer. I am just so fascinated by exactly what prayer is and the direct result of sincere prayer.

Over the summer I began to fall in love with prayer and I could see it actually make a difference in my life! I found that my internal attitude became more sincere to myself and God and that I just couldn’t ever get enough of it! When my friends and I sat down to eat a meal together, we would tend to have one person pray for the meal, though we did also do more of a popcorn prayer style sometimes, and almost every time that I would pray for the meal, it would take me almost as long to pray for the food as it would to eat it. It was that I would pray for one thing and then another thing I want to pray about would appear in my mind, so obviously I would pray for it as well. It is this so complete and comforted feeling and I could just never thank God enough and I always found new passions for requests. God gave me this fire to pray. Each day I would start off with prayer and, no matter how long or short, I would always request God to give me a servant’s heart.

It was really quite funny because even after I got home… Even to this day, when I am about to pray for a group of people at dinner or at an event they joke and ask me if I can keep it under a half hour… Even now when I am partaking in a popcorn prayer, I am constantly asked to open but never to close because I find it so hard to… It is that I don’t want to stop there and that my ‘amen’ is this reoccurring phrase in my head just thanking and blessing God for more and more things.

But the best part of my prayer experience this summer was when my Frontline Kaizan (which means constant improvement) meeting occurred one Friday afternoon at 2 and we spent the entire hour or two talking about the different aspects of prayer. This is what I want to share with you now.

Firstly, we were asked what prayer was? What WAS prayer intended for? I believe that prayer is meant to serve as communion between us and with God. And the key phrasing there is union. Prayer is meant to be us uniting with God. But it isn’t a one-way thing. It is a two-way communion. So by that definition, we see that we are to:

1) talk to God

2)listen to God and then

3) be silent before God

When many people think of prayer, they think of The Lord’s Prayer. I find it quite ridiculous to think that some people just memorize and recite this at the Sunday service. Yes, the Lord’s prayer is a perfect example of how to pray… But that’s just it. Jesus wants it to serve as our reference tool. He doesn’t want you to literally recite this if it isn’t what your heart needs. It is an outline as to how to pray. It relates to when in Paul is talking to the church of Corinth and he shares about how if he prays for the church in tongues, though he himself will be blessed, the church will not be blessed by saying amen if they do not have an interpreter that they might know what is being prayed. This is a direct parallel to the Lord’s prayer and simply reciting it. If you do not understand exactly what it is the Lord’s prayer is saying, it will be of no value to you and you will not be edified.

So I am going to break it down for you.

The Lord’s prayer outlines three areas in which to pray:

1) Praise: blessing God for who He is and thanking Him for all he has done and continues to do; that we are able to pray directly to Him concerning any matters and that we have been given the freedom and joy of praying without ceasing (as seen is 1 Thessalonians 5:17).

2) Petitions and Requests: laying down our burdens before the cross and bringing all of our needs to God’s attention; here we are also calling on God to answer the promises He has given us and the hope to which we cling that we might boast in Him; we are also requesting God that all things might be done that His majesty might be revealed.

3) Solicitation: praying for matters, not concerning ourselves, as God leads us.

Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.

… In this first part of the prayer, Jesus is telling us to recognize who God is and bless Him. This opening of the prayer also reminds us that God is our heavenly father.

…The very first two words mentioned by Jesus in the Lord’s prayer are “Our Father”. This first part is so exciting as it displays the close relationship God desperately desires to share with us. Since Jesus came to rebuild the bridge between us and God, so-to-speak, we see in this passage that God wants us to  approach Him with confidence and trust, with a childlike faith.

…Also, by declaring that His name be “hallowed” we are sending off a plea to God that we might be continually made more holy. We, right off the bat, are professing that we are sinners, unworthy to have His attention.

Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth,
As it is in heaven.

…Here, we are taught that a sincere prayer is asking God’s will to take presidency in our lives. Going back to the definition of prayer, prayer is the communion of us and God. This means that we are uniting with God and His will and desire and love and all that He is, as His intentions are pure and perfect, and He always has our best interest in mind. It is the surrendering of ourselves and our will to God, admitting that His plans are greater and better than we could ever imagine. It is asking Him to align your heart’s desires with His… We see then that it is important for this part of our prayers to come in the beginning so that when we pray, our prayers will be sincere and that when we pray we might be doing so out of love and reverent submission to God.

Give us this day our daily bread.

… This is a pretty self-explanatory line. This is the time in our prayer when we are being asked to lay down all of the burdens in our hearts. Everything that we have been struggling with we lift up to Him and ask Him to provide for us and all of our needs. We are calling on God’s promises in the old testament that He will care for us as it says in Philippians 4:19, “And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from His glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.” And again we see in Matthew 6:31-32, “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.” And yet again we read in James 1:6 “If anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” Which then verifies Matthew’s recording of Jesus, assuring those who love God, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”

…This section of the Lord’s prayer also refers to our hearts yearning for a taste of the heavenly banquet yet to come. It is us requesting God to bless us in the things we do and the harvest we reap.

And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.

… I would like to focus on the second line here. You see, if the Lord’s prayer only included the top line, “And forgive us our trespasses,” we could assume that it is just us again calling on another promise given us by God… But we see here by the inclusion of the second line that there is one mandated requirement here… That we forgive our brothers and sisters. In the first line, we are calling upon God to let us receive our long awaited promise come true, but we must uphold to our end of the bargain. After all, if we can’t forgive someone for hurting us in any which way they can, how can expect Christ to forgive us our sins, which he HIMSELF paid for by suffering a humiliating and tormenting, innocent death? It again goes back to Jesus’s parable about the unforgiving servant as seen in Matthew 18:23-35.

.                                            ”Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who wanted to reconcile accounts with his servants.  When he had begun to reconcile, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.  But because he couldn’t pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.  The servant therefore fell down and kneeled before him, saying, ‘Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!’  The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.  “But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’  “So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will repay you!’  He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due.  So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told to their lord all that was done.  Then his lord called him in, and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me.  Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?’   His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him.  So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you don’t each forgive your brother from your hearts for his misdeeds.”
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.

…This sixth petition is our acknowledgement that we cannot stand against temptation alone; that without God, we will fall undoubtedly. So here we are calling on God to strengthen us without ceasing as our enemies (that are our sinful nature, the devil, and things of this world) are attacking us full might without ceasing. It is furthermore the acknowledgement that though we cannot stand alone, we can face all things and overcome all obstacles through strength given us by God.

…For we know without a doubt that God wants us to succeed, as shown in the writings of Jeremiah chapter 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
…What is more, we are assured in James chapter one that God does not tempt us to sin… That temptation comes from our earthly sinful desires. It reiterates that temptation is not sin; it is the prompt enticement to sin. We are promised there that if we rely on God during times of trials and temptation, we will be able to resist and then develop perseverance so that we might continually be made more holy… Wait, isn’t that the matter of which I shared at the beginning of the Lord’s prayer? That we are begging God to continually make us more holy? So we see that they go hand-in-hand and that as we call on God to strengthen us in times of trial and pain, He will make us holy through perseverance.

For thine is the kingdom,

The power, and the glory,

For ever and ever.

Amen.

…And in this final portion, we are affirming our faith and restating that everything will somehow be used to reveal God’s glory and majesty; that we want everything we do to be an echo of this profession. Another great passage that has a bit more detail of this affirmation ending is 1 Chronicles 29:11                 .                                    ” Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.”

…And with the “Amen”, we are declaring that we understand and agree with all that was just prayed, hence how important it is to understand these aspects of the Lord’s prayer.

Prayer used to be such an important part of my life… Not the format or anything, but the communion… Having time to freely speak with God and show Him that you want Him to know you.  As I would walk to and fro school, I would find myself in constant conversation with Him, seeking His guidance and wisdom amongst and a midst all of my struggles. I didn’t realize how much less often I prayed when I got into high school and bused my way around the city to school and back again… My half hour walking commute had become my prayer time and I lost that and did not realize that I needed to set aside a separate time of the day when I can commit to it being solely me and God in chat with each other…. I really do praise God for this past summer as it has shown me what I have been missing and has grown my prayer life which has, in turn, grown every other spiritual aspect of me and my relationships with not only Him, but with both believers and nonbelievers… Friends, don’t lose time for God… Just try sincerely praying… It may feel a bit awkward at first but I assure you, as does the bible, that if you draw near to God, He will draw near to you and you will develop this fiery passion for Him and His word and to know Him and live like Him.

Blessings.

“The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

-Manning, Brennan

Every time I hear this quote in a song or read it somewhere, I get the shivers. I mean, we truthfully are the epitome of hypocrisy, myself included. And it isn’t necessarily that we are trying to be… It is just that we aren’t trying hard enough not to be. Christian is the definition of internal warfare. We were born in this world, but upon having accepted Christ, we are commanded to not be of this world. To live in a familiar place but have to leave all familiar aspects of our life behind? How could we be asked to do such a thing? Well, the simple answer is that we ourselves are the ones choosing to leave these things behind because we believed at one point in time that it was worth it. Is it really worth it? Well, I for one think it is!

But what is more, not only does the world hate us being so lukewarm, God does also. He says in revelations that if we are lukewarm, He will just spit us out. He says lukewarm not to be an adjective or an adverb… He says it as a noun. It is a title. It doesn’t merely describe a person. It is the entirety of who that person is and what they believe and what they do.

So then, how can we make a complete u-turn from being to being different?

The old youth pastor from my church told us a few times about this girl he grew up with in school who was just so filled with the Holy Spirit that you could tell just by looking at her… Not that she necessarily had something different about her physical appearance, other than dressing more modestly I presume… But her life was just one that echoed God’s love. Everything she touched, everything she did, everything she said was out of her love for Christ. Now, I am guessing she had a few stumbling blocks along the way because none of us are perfect, but I find myself coming back to the thought of her and the thought of God’s love. What would God’s love look like? What would His love feel like? What would it say?

Going back to 1 Chorinthians 13, God’s love is described as being patient, humble, kind, non-judgement, envy-less, selfless, polite, meek, merciful, gentle, always delighting in the truth (no matter what it may be), always protects, always hopes, always perseveres… And that love NEVER fails.

That last point is particularly interesting to me because if love NEVER fails, then we could not ever possibly be lukewarm if we grasp and cling to this love. If we are full of this love, of God’s love, then it should be overflowing in our lives and God tells us in the bible that it will be so desirable and a person won’t be able to resist such a love.

How then do we attain such a love?

Well for starters we can pray and dig deeper into God’s word. We can ask him to show us how to love. I would think that it is so hard to love someone, but just by smiling at them I realize that it isn’t… I mean, where do all of these feelings of hate or despise come from? Certainly not God! Which means that I don’t want any part of it!

I remember when I was younger how adults would tell you that it takes more muscles to frown then to smile and the same goes for all of your actions. I find it a whole lot easier offering my seat on the bus to someone who needs it or would like one rather than awkwardly sitting there, having that feeling in my stomach and feel terrible about it for the whole day. I also find that it’s easier not being apart of the gossip then helping spread it. If you don’t let anything bad be said, then there is a whole lot less drama and you will have a clean conscience over those matters. Not to mention that you then won’t allow someone else’s fight conflict your opinion concerning a person. I believe that it is wrong for your opinion of something someone has done to you affect someone else’s view on that person, despite me falling short of this several times.

Again, we are going to screw up and fall. But an easy way to change all of that is by spending time in prayer and digging deep into the bible. Smile at everyone…. People are passing you by from every which direction in each of their own situations and circumstances and you may have just opened this window for them to feel just a bit of God’s irresistible love in their life! Finally, get an accountability partner… It may be extremely hard to find…. But the best things are the hardest… Have someone actually keep you accountable for things you stumble upon, for example swearing or lying or stealing…. etc.

If you try to just make this instant u-turn, you won’t know how to start. However, if we turn our mind-set from thinking of a habit to being a lifestyle or attitude of this joy, we can improve and grow closer to others and God. It is not something worth trying to quantify all of the data for. It is simply this change in our life that causes us to be set apart from the rest of the world and how they’re living. I mean, why would we not want to be always happy and full of joy and love? It is easier than dieting or exercising or going to the dentist… It is such an attractive thing and always we must do is yearn for God to have His way in us? If we really love God and are drawing closer to Him, then these sacrifices that we are making now will no longer be sacrifices… We will no longer desire for what the world has to offer and we will become familiar with a new self.

If you really want the perfect definition of faith, here it is:

The world defines faith as belief that is not based in proof, which is true… But faith is more than just that. If you look in the bible at Hebrews 11:1, you see that faith is defined as “being sure in what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” So we see that faith has two parts: knowing what our hope is and having assured belief in what is not in plain sight.

I personally think that the first part is what the world can’t comprehend… Hence it only including the second part for a definition… I feel like so many times we think, oh yeah, I have faith in God, I know he exsists, I know that Jesus is my Lord and Saviour… But, personally, I feel like we forget about the promises we were given by God. I mean, when we describe faith to a non-believer we say the same thing, I believe that Jesus Christ died for sins and that, because He was found without fault, defeated death and now reigns forever in heaven. AND THAT’S A GOOD START… BUT IT IS ONLY HALF OF THE STORY.

WHAT IS OUR HOPE? WHAT ARE WE COUNTING ON? WHAT ARE WE EXPECTING GOD TO DO ACCORDING TO HIS PROMISES? WHAT MAKES A FAITH THAT CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS? For surely your faith isn’t unmotivated. I mean, if Christ just came down here to show how great and amazing He is by dying and coming back to life, why would people sacrifice their own will and lives for Him? Just like any good story, their’s a hook… From the beginning of time, we are being shown God’s love and mercy. And knowing that Jesus is our Lord and Saviour also comes with a gift. A gift of God’s mercy and knowing His love. IT IS HAVING THIS HOPE FOR WHICH WE CAN FREELY BOAST. It is wisdom and pure joy. It is friendship and community. It is freedom from bondage. It is something that no one can ever attain by themselves. It is a comfort greater than anything imaginable!

And THAT is my view on faith.

I have been on several youth group retreats and of course, I have experienced, what I like to call, the spiritual high…. It seemed to catch on after my repetitive use of it in grade eight… Anyways, this past summer I spent working up at Muskoka Bible Center in Huntsville and, well…. WHAT A RUSH!

You see, I have had summer jobs working for Christian camps before and am heavily involved in my church and youth group and bible quizzing… But this was nothing like those times…. The camps I worked at in previous years were day camps and so, councilors come in each morning for eight and worship God and then leave the building at 4:30 to return to their indifferent lives. Now, it wasn’t at fault of our bosses or anything, it just was that way… I mean, we would have staff devos. for a half hour to forty-five minutes before we began to work and we would start AND end the day leading the campers in worship… But then afterwards, the staff would return to doing whatever they wanted just minding not to get caught. So after a while, as I catch on to these things, it just kinda destroyed the whole thing for me… Which I should not have allowed. I was just tired of going on all of these youth retreats and working for an eight hour day with these “Christians” just for people to be faking every second of it…

I became the youth group outcast, so-to-speak, and I didn’t find a place where I fit in… Not even in bible quizzing… I kept growing stronger in my faith with God but farther apart from any Christian-based community.

Then I had the privilege to spend this past summer up at MBC. My duties were working Monday to Friday mornings from 9-12 teaching youth, from grades four to twelve how to build model rockets, that flew up to two-three thousand feet in the air, and I also worked Tuesday through Thursday afternoons Saturdays at the Marina. What sweet jobs! I would also then volunteer in different departments during my spare time.

This was my first summer away from home, so obviously I was nervous about making friends and being accepted, which was really quite weird because I am usually the one person excited to meet the new person and make friends with people and reach out… I guess it shows you how judged and unaccepted I felt then….  But, I was going to make it work! I would tell some new friends I made about all of my accomplishments, as if I hadn’t learned my lesson the first time about giving God the glory, and did my best to impress people.

I made friends.

However, the cooler part about it was that I didn’t make them by the stories I told. They enjoyed my personality and spunkiness and, yes, I’ll admit it, clumsiness and blondness… I finally found a group of people who accepted me.

What was even better was that they were all desperately seeking God’s face this summer and to grow closer with God, as was I. It was so different being in a 24hour accountability setting. You and your co-workers were always in constant prayer with each other. And something more, people were actually getting down into the dirt to walk alongside the other.

As a bit of background information, all of the workers in this program ranged in age from 15-25 and so the older employees (being university students) would be mentors to us younger ones…. Now, that was a truly new concept to me. Someone who I could tell anything to, who is not like a dumb therapist or social worker who just recommend me solutions without actually understanding, who would be my friend and would PRAY over me and just chill with me… Off/bad day or not… Despite feeling a bit awkward at first about it, I chose this 22 year old, Stephanie, who had already helped me out with a situation that I went through in the first week.

With Stephanie and my other new friends, I grew even closer to God and really began to understand the importance of having a Christian community for support. I mean, this summer, even with all the amazing things God had been doing, had a lot of trials and pushed me. I experienced overwhelming fear almost everyday whereas, if you had asked me before the summer, I would have told you that though I might be a little scared of stuff at times, I don’t really have a fear… Yet each new day had brought about something new that struck terror to my very soul and I would feel so insecure about myself.

But up at MBC I could feel God’s love and pressence so greatly. So much so that I even dared to share my testimony. Just telling them everything I have been through and how God has used it to help me and bring him glory. Afterwards, I spoke with a great friend and encouragement, Kurtis, who basically asked me, “After all of the things that you’ve gone through, how could you have such a strong faith in God?” My response was simply, “How could I not?”

This really got me thinking… I mean, the whole summer, he had been a major inspiration to me of how real and sincere and strong his faith was and yet, people were coming up to me for encouragement or to pray over them or to give them advice and wisdom as to what Jesus would have them do…. I didn’t realize how visible and strong my faith was up until that moment. I felt earlier on in the summer that I was being tested to show me how weak my faith was….

This just lit me up, not that I was proud for keeping to my faith, but finally understanding that God is still present in my life, which just encouraged me that he is still working with me and through me in the hard times. And I was determined to keep this spirit alive when I returned home to the big city in September.

The one thing I wanted more than anything about returning home was to be closer with my family and the one thing I was terrified about leaving camp was that I would be one of those crashers…

In a way, I do feel like I have crashed because it is just so much harder now not being in this sheltered environment… But at the same time, I know that I just have to persevere more and that God is here with me and that is giving me the strength to push past this feeling of a spiritual hangover…

The one thing that I am trying to really remember during these tough times is what I learned in this summer about Christian community and God’s omnipresence-ness because spiritual growth is not something that can ever die down… If it does, than it isn’t really spiritual growth… As well as that spiritual growth doesn’t mean that you won’t have those times where you feel like you are breaking down… They actually mandate your constantly being rebroken so that God might build you up in a new way and that you may grow closer to Him more so.

hello,

Recently , ive been touching on becoming more grateful in everything. Sometimes i find myself catching attitudes when i shouldn’t be. Or having bad moods when i shouldn’t be. And i realized that me being in bad mood or having an attitude is only pleasing to the devil. It is not pleasing to God or Godly like. So i just focus mainly on that . When i have attitude Satan is probably thinking yes got you right where i want you,but i cant allow that to happen . I cant live for Jesus and please the devil . So just think of this the next time you catch yourself saying this is a bad morning, or I am having a terrible day because your not accepting that your day can turn around and change!

There have been several things lately that have preoccupied my mind. Mostly, the storms that have gone on lately have made me think. I live in Nebraska. If there is going to be a tornado, it could very easily and unsurprisingly be here. It hasn’t happened yet and my area hasn’t had a really bad tornado in a while. Then I think about the storms that happened in Massachusetts yesterday. I know that kind of weather is rare there, but it did happen. Now people are without electricity, have suffered injuries and damages, have lost their homes, and have even lost their lives. I’m sure when they heard about the strong storms passing through Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas or when they saw the devastation in Joplin, they never thought that in the following week it would be their turn. But it happened. It can be scary to think about what the future might hold.

In my daily bible reading, I came across a verse that I really like. It is Proverbs 10:22. It says: “It is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich, and He adds no sorrow to it.” It made me ask myself something. The Lord doesn’t do anything to make us feel anxious (2 Timothy 1:7). He only provides good and perfect gifts. However, so many people, including myself, can be so overtaken by fear. Fear is a hinderance. The passage in Proverbs makes me believe that sorrow is a hinderance as well. If there’s anything in life that causes any negativity, like fear or sorrow, we can know that it wasn’t God who caused it. It is from the devil. The devil works hard to deceive us and keep us from heaven. If we let fear and sorrow guide us, I feel like we could be letting the devil win. It’s like the devil found a way to lead us astray and he will take advantage of it.

So from now on whenever I start to feel afraid or sad, I will try to remember that God doesn’t cause those negative feelings, but there is no one better to help us get over them. But when you think about it, with the promise God has given us and with the blessings He has showered us with, how could we ever be so lost in negativity? We need to remember that when there is a tragedy, or when we’re in pain, or when we just feel lost, it is the work of the devil. Things happen to us in this world, but that’s just it. It happened in this world. This world is not God’s kingdom. This is the devil’s kingdom and he is the one causing the problems. But we know that God will win in the end. Until the end comes, though, we need to live and work with God’s peace in our hearts.

I am not even quite sure where this is going, but I have had an aching in my spirit that will not let me go until I write what is on my heart. I live in a small community, a religiously conservative community, and I have taken some heat over the past few years for some of my beliefs regarding worship and life with Jesus in general. But that will never deter me from going hard after Jesus! Soooo, here it goes.

I look at Jesus’ life, and over the past few years I have really begun to see that His life was far from what we would call normal. I mean, look at Him. He ate with sinners and tax collectors. He defended a prostitute. He hung out with the lower class of His day, and He talked and touched people that most people ignored, and in today’s society we would put gloves on to touch.

So why do we try so hard to not look odd today? If my life is sold out for Jesus, and if I am yearning for more of the Holy Spirit, wouldn’t “odd” become normal for me? And yes, my friends reading this are probably saying that “odd” is my way of life! (haha)

I have grown tired over the past few years of just going along with the religious crowd. It left me empty and without answers. Sure, I was comfortable, and there are a few times now when I wish for comfortable. But most of the time I am just finding joy in the journey to seek after Jesus with all I have!

A little less than two years ago I was blessed to have a daughter come into my life, but it wasn’t how I expected it. I have two wonderful sons, who I love and have enjoyed watching grow up, but since I can remember, I have wanted a daughter.

About 3-4 years ago I went on this journey to find God. I began spending hours upon my face just longing for Him, aching for Him to speak to me, and out of that obedience a very shy and quiet 16 year old girl came into our lives. You see, I had given up the idea of having a girl more than 10 years ago, so the thought of a daughter was nowhere in my mind, but God saw things differently, as He usually does.

I didn’t know much about her, but God didn’t care. He told me to step in and be her dad. I knew, being a youth pastor, that people wouldn’t understand, and believe me, I didn’t understand at first either. But after hashing it out in prayer with the Holy Spirit over a 10 day period, I finally agreed.

Has it been easy? Haha, not by a long shot! Have I made mistakes along with way? More than I would like to admit! Have people not understood and made snap judgments about us? Well, I am sure you know the answer to that  one as well. But has it been worth it? More than I could have ever imagined!!

You see, following hard after Jesus takes us on some pretty interesting paths, and many of them are far from what most would call normal! And if we think that this walk will be an easy one, then you better not sign up for this walk with the Savior! I don’t want to be “normal” any longer, no matter what difficulties await.

I just want Jesus!

I now have three children, and I love them all with everything I have, and even more so, because Jesus loves them through me. And that shy, quiet 16 year old is now a very beautiful, vibrant, outgoing, vibrant daughter of the King!!

You see, once we taste a father’s love, we will never be the same again!!!

Choose to be abmornal…Go all out for Jesus!!!

Brian

There’s parts of the word that people never want to talk about; situations that arise in Christianity that people try and blank out. Everyone wants to pretend everything’s all perfect; nobody wants to be the one who made the” mistake”. We keep trying to blot out human error.

So much don’t do, don’t do..where’s the do do? Calling for judgement on behalf of the already judged, ya know the blind leading the blind with no such authority. Good intentions gone wrong……

And all the time we just have to face facts, got to be real. It’s amazing we’ve forgotten how to genuinely serve, we have covered our eyes; guys, at some point we’ve got to unleash the veil. Where is the intimacy/ Where are the basic teachings? Since when is it okay to represent light, to speak in the name of hope, yet conveniently  leave out the truth? It’s sickening, praying in the name of the way, the truth and the life…yet demonstrating the strayed deceitful path to death.

At what point did we begin to put standards on coming to Christ? We’re clearly confused.

What type of perfect picture are we trying to paint? I just don’t get it. It’s like, let’s talk about how real the struggle of commitment to Christ was for the disciples and other people in the bible, but let’s not talk about ours. Let’s just be perfect. Let’s cover up our sin..maybe we shouldnt tell them how it really is.

All the while only fooling ourselves, this outside shows seems to only be a parody; mocking ourselves with constant ignorance; playing church…a crazy set up for failure.

Simply calling ourselves “the body of christ” because it’s a nice title, it represents some good sign. Forgetting, leaving out, and not acknowledging the blood that came from that body, the thorns attached to that body’s head, the nails that went through the body, the spit on the body’s face, the unbelief that pierced the heart in that body, that body so weighed down…by the burden of a cross.

Nobody wants to lend a hand when times are rough. See then you need to be self sufficient; then you need to rely on personal relationship…but when you’re feeling a little happier, come play church..come be perfect again…go ahead have a relationship with Christ.., but do it on your own time, we have a program to stick to.

It seems impossible to be overzealous, yet into deep worship with tears ever-flowing, with a heart so heavy…cuz it never seems to click that those tears are of joy, & that heart is simply eternally grateful, no, no, she ‘s acting like that because she’s going through something, probably because she sinned.

Our scheduled program is more evident to us, than our scheduled daily worship. The kind of worship that’s instinctual. The spiritual connection that has no beginning or end, and no designated area to take place. We have put God in the walls of Church…took him out of our hearts, out of our spirits, out of our minds…and left him in the church.

Tell me what do I do when the church is locked, but church is the only God I know…what happens when visiting hours are over, where can I find him, the almighty, the one…ya know the heaven sent son?

I keep  finding that temporary God, the convenience of emotional arousal. I keep hearing ALL good, but what do I do when it’s ALL bad?

Give me back my God, bring him out of the church…remind me of the ever-present God IN ME, that “impulse to pursue God that originates with God” (a.w. Tozer) Let me know that hard times are sure to come, and its no necessary fault of my own, show me my life doesn’t end when I sin, teach me that the power of God has the ability to overpower these urges & desires within.

I don’t need you to make me feel that something is “wrong” with me. Tell me I’m just getting my scar, that it’;s simply the whipping of the body of Christ. Let me see YOUR scar, let’s live in God’s name together, say to me that the plan is falling into place. Be there when it all goes wrong, be there for me with that Godly love. Revive our connection: creation to creation through our connection to the creator.. and soon I will rise, soon the stone will be rolled away, and it wont matter, it wont hurt..there will no longer be the burden of a cross.