A night of worship.

Have you ever wanted to be around, or for you yourself to be one who worships well?

How about to just be still? I mean actually really still. Tonight I decided to go outside and just be still. As I observed I couldn't help but be amazed.

The sound of the crickets who remained unseen performed a symphony without fault just as they were created to do. As smoke from a cigar swirled around me I looked up to noticed the clouds which mimicked the smoke as they swirled around the moon every so often allowing me to catch a glimpse of its brilliance. As the breeze would pick up it would rustle the leaves causing them to sound much like a whisper of praise. All this left me with nothing but a feeling of peace. It did not leave me worshiping the nature around me, but rather the nature pointed me to, as it worshipped in perfection, it's creator. My creator. God. The God of the bible. As the cigar burned down the bitterness of the smoke reminded me of the bitterness of my sin. What a necessary reminder of distaste God has for sin. Yet because of Jesus he allowed me, despite my sin, to experience him. Glory to God for His great Mercy!

If you are like me you long to worship well. Sometimes you may just long to be around others who worship well just so you can be around such a feeling. I encourage you to be still. Not just still in a room, but go outside. Allow yourself to be in the middle of creation. Something that makes you feel small. It will most definitely point you to God our father and will help you forget yourself which, in my personal opinion, is something that is a major part of helping us to worship well. Nature has no choice but to worship perfectly. So go outside, watch, and learn!

Much love........

5 Things....

5 things I'm thankful for:

Transparent people

Honest conversation

Soul feeding music

Truth

Cool winds blowing

5 things I miss:

Reading late in the night just because I wanted

Part time work schedule

Camp life

Certain life impacting friends

Spare time to let creativity flow

5 things I hope for:

Simple Living

Community

A deeper understanding of freedom to be who I am in Christ

The ability to let go of the unimportant that can be soul binding

To be an encouragement to everyone I encounter

Dreams that Become Dead Bugs in a Jar.

I was sitting outside tonight, it is incredibly beautiful out by the way, and as I was sitting there I noticed the lightening bugs lighting up the sky. I can't remember the last time I saw that many. Seriously. It got me thinking about childhood. Do you remember a time when it was thrilling to catch a lightening bug. I mean looking back on it now I'm not sure what all the hype was about. Most adults jump through interesting hurdles to avoid being in the presence of bugs. There was a time though when we were enchanted. Our eyes lit up like the tale end of these flying glowing lights with wonder at the sight of them. We couldn't wait to capture one. It's like wrapping your hands around magic. Holding these small twinkling lights that hang in the sky by the flutter of wings caused our hearts to race. When we finally chased one down after many tries what was it that we did? We wanted to put it in a jar. Why is that do you think? How often in our lives when we come across something so mesmerizing do we want to just hold on to it? It's then we hear that dream killing voice (in our small wondrous minds) of our parents who tell us we need to let it go. How absurd! How on earth could someone think to let something so incredible go?!

Here's my attempt at an analogy from the sight I saw tonight. You see our parents seem to know something that we don't know. What happens when you keep those little gems in that jar? They suffocate. They go hungry. They run out of life. It was then that I realized the parallel between the funny beings and our own personal dreams. There are times in our lives when a dream flutters in front of us and lights up and catches our eye. It captures us. We get excited. However, in our foolishness, we want to hold on to it so tightly and are afraid to let it go that we try to seal it tight "in a jar". The problem is the same in that if we try to hold on to this idea or dream without "letting it fly" then it will end up just suffocating without anything to feed it. Now I understand that every analogy breaks down at some point, but what I'm trying to say is that it is not healthy to try to contain a dream that needs to breath, feed, grow, and take flight. Our problem is though that we are afraid to fly. If we just sit on the floor in our bedrooms staring at that glimmer in the jar we can see at all times exactly where that dream lives. The problem is that the next morning when we wake up, to our dismay, the dream (like the lightening bug) is no longer alive.

So since I'm not sure who, if anyone, really reads this I am challenging myself. Take the lid off the jar and let the dream fly. If I want to see how that dream plays out I can't be afraid to fly with it. The other option I can see happening is that we may muster up the understanding to let a dream fly, but fear may hold us back from following it and that is just as sad and scary an ending as letting it die.

So what's the point? The point is to have courage. Have faith. Our God is the creator of all things and there should be no fear in seeing how these amazing things play out. No, we should not fear them. We should chase them to see where they go. Always seeking direction and guidance as we journey, but journey nonetheless. A friend of mine and I once said to each other "We may not know where we are going, but if we don't start moving we will never get anywhere."

Choices

The choices in our lives seem to mock us.

They stare at us and remind us that we have yet to figure it out.

And as the world looks at us and asks us what it is we plan to do, we dig within ourselves to find something acceptable.

So that we can seem acceptable. To them. To us.

But instead of knowing who we are we feel more lost. More lost because now we have assumed an identity that was never ours and never something we wanted to be.

So we begin to walk. Each step more unsure than the last.

We cry out to God to help us. Hold us sure and hold us fast as we now try to live out who we are supposed to be.

Lord teach us to be, not identified by career, relationship, or finances, but rather by the King and how we are to further the kingdom.

The choices we must make are endless and can seem to overwhelm us, but the one in control is sovereign in all circumstances.

So let us take heart in knowing that so that His peace may reign in us rather than the unbearable weight we feel every day.

For those of you who dont know I work, during the work week, as a custodian at a special school by my house. Not too glamorous, but it pays the bills. This morning I was thinking about our maintenance shed and how everything seems to have a place. One thing in particular that we have is the place where we keep our folders. It's where we have all of our work orders, memos, newsletters, etc. When we walk in we check our folders to see what's on the list for the day then put it back and go about our business for the rest of the day. Now granted if I told a stranger to go into the shop to find my folder they would probably be at a loss. The shed is filled with tools, cabinets, tractors, gators, supplies. (this ain't your gpa's shed behind the house). Since I've been working here, despite the massive space, I know exactly where to go to to find my folder. (Stay with me. I'm getting to a point.)

My thought is this...maybe it's a bit of a stretch. What if we treated our God as this place where we keep our folders. I like to call it the folder holder. We come in knowing where this spot is, check our folders (or maybe somedays not even that), then just go about our days paying little mind to our king. Now I know that every analogy has a breakdown but the thought is this. I feel as though I can, in my own mind, confine God (or His word) to this space and then just set it down and go about my day uneffected. Is it more comforting to me for God to have a space and time without letting it "ruin" the rest of my day. I mean what if God prompted me to bring up his name in conversation? What if he laid it on my heart to help someone in need when I'm late for a party with friends? What if he calls me to give financially in a way that would cause me to have to restructure my whole budget? The fact is that God is not confined by space or time. He created it. I feel like he did that for us. I always hear people say they wish there were more hours in the day, but shoot, we can't even properly prioritize 24 hours.

If you are ready for God to move in your life I would...be prepared. Get ready for an insane ride. If you can't stand the idea of God rocking your plans and intenions for your own life then don't shake your fist at the sky in wonder at why God is not moving in your life. I don't pretend to have this perfected or even somewhat together. Generally when I write it's a way of preaching at myself.

So let's let go of our control on our lives. Let's just begin to move, constantly praying, and see where God takes us as he lights our path one step at a time.

You wanna come outside and play?

Confession: I've kind of lost momentum in the last week. Instead of my time alone being inspiring and time to work on things it has become more lonely/boring. I, for some reason, haven't been able to look beyond that. Basically what it comes down to is selfishness. I do believe that spending time with people is necessary to fuel the soul, however being alone shouldn't lead into a downward spiral of a "woe is me" mentality. I feel as though I've fallen into that rut of focusing so much on myself (in a negative way) that it leads to a feeling of depression. I have a difficult time feeling inspired to do constructive things when I don't have people around to bounce that energy off of. So how does one procuce that? I've heard people say to make more friends. Really? Make more friends. How do you do that? I mean that sounds so juvinile, but it seems like in the season of adulthood relationships are almost approached as an interview process. I mean kids have it so easy. Can you imagine a grown man going next door and saying "You wanna come outside and play?" Just doesn't have the same effect anymore. So again I ask, how does one go about making new friend's outside the realm of their current circles? Still haven't found the answer to that one. No one else seems to have the answer either (including the ones encouraging me to do so). Seems like everyone is just so busy or have just settled in for the rest of their lives. I'm not ready for that yet. What happened to the people who actually got together, went over to each other's houses, ate dinner together? Do these people still exsist?

If you're one of those people who still do this and you're reading this I have one question for ya... "So, you wanna come outside and play?"

~J~

10 years of life in 60 seconds.

So I've been reading a lot of updates and blogs that people have posted about the happenings of their life over the past ten years. I thought I would do the same. I'll put it in list format as to not tire you. Here are some significant events that have happened:

Got my drivers liscence

Graduated high school

Worked at a camp for 3 summers that was 4 hours from home

Went on a mission trip to Spain

Moved into my own house

Changed church membership from my church as a youth

Graduated college

The only dog I ever had growing up died

Dad was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor (completely romoved)

Both grandmothers had serious illness

One of them was in and out of the hospital for a year and since has gone to be with the Lord

Started my own business

I know there is so much more than that, but those are just some of the biggies. Here's hoping we all remember some of the milestones in life so we can learn and grow from mistakes and lessons. A lot can happen in a short amount of time.