keep on truckin

This one goes out to the man who works two jobs to put food on his families table, the boy who helps his sister with special needs every morning to get ready for school without complaint or second thought, the man who studies every day to make sure he gets good grades because without his scholarship, he would be back home working minimum wage...
These are the stories of people, this is the story about Dedication.

Why? Why do we choose to get up in the morning, eat, fill in daily work, eat, sleep?
Doesn't it seem a tad bit pointless, to live in this fallen world of infallible people? I suggest that we all take a chill pill and lay in our beds for the rest of our lives. It sounds tempting right? You can do whatever you want and just be lazy ALL THE TIME.
It's what most people secretly desire with their time, but what happens. You slowly waste away as life passes by without you, leaving you with nothing to show for it except broken relationships, no trajectory and maybe that strange piece of belly lint you've been staring at for the last week
"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Romans 12:1-2.
We are so much more. More than the person who wants to lay on the couch and watch all 5 seasons of Breaking Bad in two weeks (okay yes, that example hits close to home). But get this, we are more than even the unrealistic standards the world tries to put on us. More than the unreal pressure to keep performing and be better than everyone. More than that job promotion, more than that A in Spanish, more than the affirmation you crave from your significant other.
Isaiah 40:31 says, "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.
Feeling tired? Out of strength? Easy, there is not a single thing God can't renew us from. I am telling myself this today, I feel the weight of this heavy world pressing down on me.

Lord, give me strength. Bring me the encouragement and strength to have all I could ever need in you. Help me to keep on truckin, never letting sin and sorrow take me to a place where I can't see Your face. Renew my passion, restore my life, forgive my transgressions. Lord, I know you don't give us more than we can handle and help me to understand the place I am in and the wisdom to continue to follow Your path. In Your name, Amen. 

Psalm 22:19
 "But you O Lord, be not far off; O my strength, come quickly to help me."

road rage

Driving down the interstate, stuck in Atlanta traffic you get frustrated. Bumper to bumper, the CO2 starts to mess with your head. Why are all these people in my way, don't they know how important I am, I have places to be and people to see...but then you look around.

Green minivan has four kids in the back with no dad to be found.
White Lexus is talking his ear off vehemently towards who knows who, probably the president himself.
18-wheeler has at least 400 tons of timber in his trunk and those trees aren't getting any younger.

Bottom line is, you are one person. ONE. There is nothing more humbling than to understand how little you matter in this world. When there are 6.794 billion people on this planet and around 370,000 babies being born every day it's hard to justify road rage.
To others, we mean nothing. To us, we mean everything...why don't they slow down for me? I matter the most. 1 Peter  5:6 "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you," 
We are nothing and will never be anything to almost all of the world. If you met 1 million people in your entire lifetime (and that is pushing it (big time)) you would have possibly influenced way less than .1% of the population.

How can we ever impact a world that is ever increasing and less caring than ever before?
We can't.
...at least that's what most people would say. But, as Christians we have the ultimate tool for impacting lives and showing others how to live for Christ.
It's love, people!
"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." Ephesians 4:2
What? That can't be right, if I am humble and gentle people on that interstate will run over me, no one will ever hear me and I have no possible chance at making an impact on this loud and sinful planet...
Yes, our world is full of liars, cheaters and backstabbers, what better way to be heard then to shine the  love of God and be the contrast for their life. Your light is shining so brightly they have no choice but to turn and look at you and therefore Christ. We are called to spread the love of Christ Jesus that is within us, it really is that simple.

Love simply.

 Peter 4:8

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

stop trying

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Oh that's easy, I'll graduate college a semester early with my boyfriend who then will propose and we will get married. After that, we will move to a big city and get jobs we love together having free time and money to take spontaneous trips on the weekend and get our yearly missional trip out of the way during the summer, maybe Uganda or something....
"Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"--yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil," James 4:13-16. 

What then, do we do? We could sit around binging on Netflix and professional sports putting our efforts into things that matter very little in this fast paced society we have been shoved into. There's probably a special on cheese balls at the grocery store, a coupon for a free scuba diving lesson somewhere on the internet, or even a new recipe to try out...but these things mean nothing without God. Am I saying God is in the cheese balls? Yes, absolutely but thats not the point that's being made here.
We, as a culture, have to stop planning our lives putting an unrealistic amount of tension and stress on our lives and future when all we are is mist. God says that we live in arrogance if we believe we can predict the plans the Lord has for us. Have faith, His plans are good and prosperous...why wouldn't we take all of these gifts He layed out for us so perfectly. The cookie cutter life you so lustfully crave can exist, but at what cost to your soul?

Let go these earthly prides you call your future. Let God take our broken bodies and become anew through His spirit. Take the eyes full of sin we have and transform them into portals for Your vision, making all things we do directed towards Your glory and Your presence in our lives.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he," 
Proverbs 29:18.

This is not a blog.

René Margritte was a French painter who created                "The Treachery of Images". It is simply a picture of a pipe with a French inscription that reads     "This is not a pipe."
His work culminated to the simplest of images because it became countless talk of introspection and what it meant to claim reality. This representative reality confused many people and he went on to create many images similar to this.

In much the same way, I propose my own introspective gesture.

This is not a blog.

Yes, it may look like a blog and I am certainly having to type all this stuff out sitting on my computer in the library, but this reality is clouding what you will really find on my small little subsection of the world wide web.

I can only claim this "thing" you are reading as an outpouring of God's infinite wisdom and grace and steadfast love for all of us. To put God into the containment and limit His unending presence in our lives to my blog (yeah yeah okay its my blog) would be a gross mistake and a depressing look into our reality.
"Oh God, you are my God; earnestly I seek You; my should thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary, beholding Your power and glory. Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You," Psalm 63:1-3.
We live in that dry and weary land, He is our water. Eternal water, I will give you living water and you will thirst no more He told the woman at the well. Come, follow me He says countless times.

He loves us so perfectly that He would die for us on the cross and cleanse us of all of our transgressions both past and future. But He also loves us so much that He conquered death so that He could live for us, a permanent fixture in our lives. The Holy Spirit lives within us and we become more than conquerors.

"Yeah He loves us, oh how He loves us, oh how He loves, oh how He loves," David Crowder.
This simple fact should resonate to the very core of our being. We are nothing, yet He gave us everything.

Thank you God for Your sacrifice, let me be a living sacrifice in Your name.

"Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me,'" Matthew 16:24.