A New Direction

So i have decided to go a new direction with this blog. I realized when I wrote my previous entries that obviously not everything I wanted to say was said. And I think I do this often. That said, I'm going to try to be more open and honest about my emotions, struggles, and realizations as I write from now on. If I cannot express reality in real words then I may be experiencing it in a fake silence.

Surgery, Part 2

I finally got home yesterday night! The hospital was actually a positive experience though. It's funny how we make the unknown much worse than it usually is. Anyway, I'm hooked up to this really cool machine that constantly is draining my leg of anything I don't need which makes the healing process much faster. Enough about that. I wanted to say thanks to all the people who came and visited me, called me, or contacted me over the past few days; I found that to be very uplifting. But I thank you the most for your prayers. God has blessed me tremendously throughout this whole process; God has continued to be faithful as that is all he really can be! My belief that you are really all more than just friends to me, even family, has been more than confirmed throughout this whole thing. God has used you to speak to me and encourage me over the past month. My great thanks and love to you all; God bless you!

4.23

Not that I am anyone to speak on such a subject, but I have found that perseverance is a key foundation of our faith. The world expects us to sulk when unpleasant circumstances would drive us to the ground, the world would justify self-pity in hard times and long nights, but as disciples of Christ we do no such thing. I have found myself doing all those things; after all, to feel sorry for ones self is a strong temptation. But because of Christ I rejoice. I have so much to be thankful for, more than could be said in a lifetime. I am not letting circumstance tell my heart where to reside. My joy and my heart are with the Lord in heaven, and nothing on earth can change that fact. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. What can happen to us in this world that can separate us from a love that knows no physical, mental, or spiritual bounds? Our lives have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, a deposit guaranteeing that whatever happens to our physical bodies on this planet, we will live with Christ for eternity by God's good grace. And if I put my hope in this, then I do not worry. I put my hope in this.

Surgery!

So I'm sitting on the couch right now. My mom and dad have gone to bed and I've taken my last pain killing dose for the day. So I probably have about 10 minutes of sensible writing left in me before I turn into a pile of Joe (if you don't know, ask him).
During the leader meeting tonight I wanted to tell of how God has been working in my life these past few weeks since I cannot be there to tell everyone on my own.
These past few weeks have probably the most thankful days of my existence. From the day I received news that I had a tumor in my leg, I have been so thankful to God, and this is by his work. All the love I have received, all the support, and all the consideration have been such a blessing to my life. Not only this is so, but God has shown me what it is to trust in him and to hope in him with all my heart. For these I am very thankful. I know it might not seem like a big deal to be thankful. Indeed it should not be. But for me it is. I realized a few weeks ago just how much I take for granted during one of Brandon's sermons at FOCUS. We wrote out three areas of our heart we needed to work on. My number one thing was thankfulness. I know, I know, it sounds cheesy. But it is true! I remember praying after that sermon for God to make me a more thankful person and I prayed this in the following days. A few weeks later I was told I had a tumor in my leg, days after that that I would need surgery, and I received some amount of uncertainty as to whether it was benign or not. But God allowed me to cast my anxiety on him; for this I am thankful! God allowed me to place my hope in his promised life and not my own earthly one; for this I am thankful! God allowed his people (you) grace enough to care for me and place my mind at ease in these things; for this I am thankful!
I can go on, but I would rather store these things up in my heart. A tumor does not seem like a likely agent for thankfulness, BUT "God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong"...you see, the strong thing was the tumor, the weak thing is myself. And to God, our Father, our Deliverer, our Redeemer, and our Hope, I am thankful beyond words or description. Now may I only live my life in response to this thankfulness welling up inside me, and may it stay. Thank you all very much!
And I must say only one more thing: Brad has been such a blessing to my life. He stayed with me from the morning of the surgery all day, over night (and my constant waking him up to help me), and all this day. His patience and caring love for me have reminded me just how awesome of a brother God has blessed me with, and he has provided me a model of friendship that I can only hope to live up to. Love you Brad.

I had the great opportunity to go to teen camp the weekend before last and do praise and worship for the teens. It was an awesome experience. No matter how I go into those times with the teens I always come out learning so much, or at least remembering so much. This camp especially. As we shared about the Romans 8:28-40 verse that speaks of being more than conquerors I came to realize something about myself and about what God was saying to me through that verse. The first realization I had was that being more than a conqueror is about conquering myself in Jesus. It has always been easier to conquer other people, to run over them in words and action, to subjugate them to our wills and wants; it is another endeavor entirely to conquer oneself. As I came to this realization, I asked myself if I had attempted to do such a thing. God showed me just how much I have changed over the years. The long nights I fought with him attempting to conquer him, the people I scorned, the rebelliousness I pursued, and the pride of my heart all diminished, all conquered through Jesus. Jesus really does make us more than conquerors, for conquerors only conquer others...we conquer ourselves.I die to myself every day if I am to serve Jesus. And he showed me just how powerfully he has worked in me over the years, chipping away at me and reshaping me to be more like Jesus. This is all by his work, he said, not by mine and the best thing is that it continues to happen by his great love. And I am so grateful for his work in my life. As Paul said, "by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect". Praise God for his power and love that makes us more than conquerors!

Two types of understanding

It has been about a month since my last post! I need to do better at actually getting the things I'm learning on this blog because it seems like i learn more and more each week. Anyway, this is what i learned this past week:

After the lesson Brandon did Sunday before last, i found myself wondering how to get to the heart level with everything. So I decided to look up the answer in the scripture. I got on biblegateway.com and I found some thought-provoking scripture. None of these are end-all arguments by any means, they are simply what i found in the scripture and my thoughts on them (so please make comments!!):

1.) Job 38:36
This has been one of my favorite chapters of the Bible for a long time; Job is put through so much pain, questioning, and suffering and finally God speaks. The way he begins to talk to Job is " Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me"...wow! After asking Job question after question that Job, himself, cannot even fathom, God asked him another: "Who endowed the heart with wisdom, or gave understanding to the mind?". I find this question to be deeper than I can go! But it does lead me to this: the heart and the mind are not the same thing (while they may both be considered 'in the mind' in the form of the left and right brain, they are different nonetheless). While I might know the answer to this question (God!), i still do not understand the wisdom of the heart God is talking about and why he separates it so from the understanding of the mind. I would go deeper into this, but i'd rather you help me with it because it seems like a big dig.
Here are more scriptures i found on the subject.

2.) Proverbs 2:1-2,5, 10
"My son if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding...5Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God...10For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul."

3.) Isaiah 6:9-1
He said, "Go and tell this people:
" 'Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'

Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed."

4.)Ephesians 4:18
"They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts."

In all of these scriptures, and much more, I can see one constant: understanding and wisdom of the heart is important(an understatement) and different from an understanding of the mind (which also is important).

I ask myself this question: Do I understand with my heart?

Seeing

This is a picture from Bridgeport. Man, I really wish I lived out there...or some place like it. It seems easier to concentrate, easier to focus on how beautiful what God makes really is. It's almost as if the more human hands have touched a place, the harder it becomes to see God in what He has made. That may seem obvious, but it's not simple. I see that principle in my own life. The more I do, the more I have a say in what goes on, and the more I focus on things that man has its hands on, the less I see God. God didn't make television, man did; God didn't make computers, man did; God did not make money, or universities, or football, or cars and buildings...we did. And despite the fact that every urge in my body tells me to go after all these things because of how "natural" it is to do so, i have to ask, why? I'm not saying these things are wrong or bad...I only wonder if we see God by their steady use and consumption. Is there a better way to see Him than these? I for one have focused too much on these things, Bridgeport showed me that, in part. I want to see God around me, I want to be able to see him clearly all day long. I want to be able to repose from my busy schedule regularly and be reminded by God that He is there and that He is my life. Maybe I don't feel like God reveals Himself to me all that much because I can't see Him in the world around me. I'm going to start looking for God more; I'll stare for days if I have to, I just want to see Him more. I'm realizing that He's my livelihood more and more.