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.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

So I was thinking yesterday about a question that most of us have all been asked.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Ok, raise your hand if you've hated hearing this question. I mean seriously! EVERYONE asks it. Or now that most of us are older the question is: "So what do you do?" Shoot most of us are still trying to figure out what the heck we want to be when we grow up. Then it started to make me think about, as a child, what I wanted to be when I was older.

Wanna know what it was? ........A singing astronaut veterinarian. Yep! Can't make this stuff up folks. That's what I wanted. You know what? Now that I think about it, no one ever said that I couldn't do that or that it was a stupid idea. Unfortunately not all are so lucky and for those people my heart breaks. However, somewhere along the way we throw away our "childish" dreams and we try to have grown up professions.

When did we lose ourselves? People became so concerned with who we were going to be that by the time most of us get to college we haven't a stinkin clue! We have students that are triple majoring or that change their major multiple times to try to find the perfect fit. Most of us will fall into the category that I fell in which is by the time of graduation you have a moment to stop and think. Crap. I need a job.

So what's the answer. I have no idea. I said I just thought about this yesterday. I wonder though if we should stop asking kids what they want to be though. I don't know. Maybe not. Just a thought though. I didn't need an adult to ask me if I wanted to be a singing astronaut veterinarian. Please! Adults aren't that creative.

Food for thought. Nothing more really.

Raise My Ebenezer

So I know I say this probably every time I write something, but I really haven't done this in a while. I mean like actually write a real post. So here is just a little bit of what I've been learning lately.

Recently I've been thinking about how I would love to...you know the old cliche..."move on to big and better things"

While I am extremely thankful for having a job I just want to start moving towards my dreams. I suppose I am doing that, but at times it just feels like I'm trying to run through molasses. Know the feeling? Perhaps I'm inpatient. I just want it to happen now! I've always been that way a little bit though.....ok a lot bit.

As I was analyzing my work habits, spending habits, etc. I realized that I am not being the best steward of those things. No, not enough that people would take notice. In a lot of cases probably not even enough that people would see anything wrong with them. While I'm not anywhere near going bankrupt I have noticed that I'm much more quick to buy a $5 latte than save it for house repairs. Or go out to dinner with friends rather than stay in and save to possibly buy a coat for someone who is using newspaper as their blanket rather than the plush afghan I nap under. I suppose, as most do, I feel if I have money in the bank then I'm doing something right.

The other day I was talking through some of these things with a friend. Ok I was actually texting it because, you know, texting is totally the new face to face relationship. As I was sharing my thoughts to him he exclaimed to me "Raise your ebenezer!" I wasn't too sure what he was wanting me to do. I'm not sure he knew why he instructed me to do so either. However, it led us in an interesting direction of conversation. We started to talk about the old hymn where that line is sung. The line comes from the bible verse 1 Samuel 7:12

Then Samuel(A) took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen[a] and called its name Ebenezer;[b] for he said, "Till now the LORD has helped us.

Samuel lifted a stone as a mark for what God had done. It was a symbol, a defining point.

Well while I don't have a giant rock to lift up in the air I do have this blog. I hope that in writing this I will think back and remember it and what God has been teaching me when faced with the little decisions. Do I buy a latte and a muffin or an entire bag of coffee that I can make at home that will last a few weeks? Do I go out to the movies or do I rent one for a dollar? Yes they seem like small and meaningless decisions, but I think these are ways to be smart for one and more importantly to honor God in the small things.

After thinking through these thoughts I was reminded of the parable of the talents. We are trusted with time, money, resources, talents and we are most certainly responsible for what we do with them. So:

HERE I RAISE MY EBENEZER!

Desert Song

A friend of mine posted this video. I just wanted to share it as well. How often do we feel overcome yet we are still called to worship a God who is never failing.

Download My Friend's Music!

So I've known one of my closest friends, Nathan Smith, for almost 8 years now. He is insanely talented. He plays guitar like a magician and has an incredible voice. I'm truly blessed to have such a friend as him. His talent truly amazes me. He recently put on his blog a couple songs that you can download. Please go there and support him.

For those of you who don't know I am a photographer so I am often snapping random pictures of my friends. I'm sure it can get annoying. Thankfully no one has kicked me in the teeth or anything yet. Here is a shot that I caught of Nathan. This is the album art that you'll see when you're downloading.

It's here!

After several calls, email, and frustrated breakdowns....IT'S FINALLY HERE!!!!

I gave in.

So I finally did it.  I became a follower.  Go ahead.  Call me a conformist. 

Incomplete Trinity

So I've been reading the book Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin.  Its directed towards worship leaders.  I think its a great book for anyone to read though addressing the worship time of the musical portion of corporate worship.

The chapter I just finished was focused on the role of the Holy Spirit.  Something that he said particularly struck me in how I've been feeling lately.  The quote said:

"Paul reminded the Philippians that 'we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh' (Philippians 3:3).  Part of his intention is to communicate our need to rely on God's power rather than on our own when we draw near to Him."

Lately I've felt as though when I come to worship God I can't "feel" Him.  This chapter has caused me to question whether or not when I come to worship God if I try to do so apart from the Holy Spirit.  I wonder how many times we come to worship the true God incompletely.  If we try to worship the Father through the Spirit yet forgetting Christ are we not in the wrong?  In my case if I try to worship the Father through Christ yet without the power of the Holy Spirit have I missed God in complete identity?  Have we allowed the mystery of the trinity to cause us to miss His complete identity?

A message from Jon Macarthur.

An excerpt from one of Jon Macarthur's message's on his site. To read it in it's entirety, go here.

Only God has the capability to fill our life with song. Only He is the one who can save us and redeem us. And as a result of that, we are in tremendous debt to Him. And that is exactly what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:12 and 13.

Let me read those two verses and then we'll look at them, talk about them; see if we can't apply them to our hearts. Romans 8, verse 12:

"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do kill the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

Two very, very important verses. And I trust the Spirit of God to be our teacher, tonight.

To begin with, let me say that I want you to know that the things that I teach and the things that I preach in the Word of God are very personal things to me. This is not an exercise in theatrics. This is the commitment of my own heart. I take the Word of God very seriously. And I believe that before I can ever be so bold as to apply it to your 1 if e, I have to apply it to my own 1 if e. And so, I find myself in the text of every sermon of every lesson and no different here.

This is not just a message to you; it is a message to me. And it is a very important reminder that I am in no debt at all to the flesh. For that's a part of the life of deadness that I no longer am engaged in, thanks to Jesus Christ. And so, I owe the flesh nothing. But I am in debt, and that's implied here, I am in debt to God with a tremendous debt. And that's really what I want us to understand tonight.

This week as I was thinking about my own responsibility to be the kind of man God would have me to be, whether or not I was the pastor of a church or not, I was drawn to read a book which has a way of confronting my soul and it's an old book, in fact it was written in 1656. 1 have a current edition, I want you to know. It's been republished many, many times. The title of it is The Reformed Pastor and it was written by a pastor by the name of Richard Baxter. And he says this, on one page, and he speaks to those who are pastors.

"Take heed to yourselves lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others and lest you be guilty of that which you daily condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God and when you have done dishonor Him as much as others? Will you proclaim Christ's governing power and yet condemn it and rebel yourselves? Will you preach His laws and willfully break them? If sin be evil, why do you live in it? If it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it. If it be not, why do you tell men so? If God's threatenings be true, why do you not fear them? If they be false why do you need righteously troubled men ... why do you righteously trouble men with them and put them into such fright without a cause? Do you know the judgment of God that they who commit such things are worthy of death? And yet, will you do them?

"Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself. Thou that makest thy boast of thy law through breaking the law, dishonorest thou God. What, shall the same tongue speak evil that speaks against evil? Shall those lips censor and slander and backbite your neighbor that cry down these and the like things in others? Take heed to yourselves lest you cry down sin and yet do not overcome it, lest while you seek to bring it down in others you bow to it and become its slave yourselves. 0 brethren, it is easier to chide at sin than to overcome it," end quote.

I find that a very important warning in my own life. And Baxter went on to say, "Many a tailor goes in rags that makes costly clothes for others. And many a cook scarcely licks his fingers when he hath dressed for others the most costly meal."

Honestly

So I know that I haven't blogged in some time. I don't really know that that is a problem considering I'm not sure that anyone actually reads this, but lately my head has just been so flooded with biblical teaching that I'm wrestling to sort through it all and just absorb as much as I can. Hopefully I can sort through some of it soon.

Christmas Poem

This is a poem I wrote around Christmas time for a service
A poem from the perspective of Joseph at the birth of Christ:

God, what are you doing?
I don't understand.
I'm trying to trust in your mighty hand.
She is just a child, I'm a coward at best.
Have you looked around, have you seen all the rest?
Why did you pick her, why did you pick me?
Why have you chosen it us to be?
I'm supposed to provide a place for us to stay.
You weren't supposed to come this way.
But now here you are, I feel such a fright.
A child in a trough, yet the marvelous light.
You've asked us to hold this helpless babe who will one day be mighty to save.
Father give us the strength to follow in faith.
Surround us with prayer from your holy saints.
Now what do we do? Take one day at a time?
I don't feel that brave no matter how hard I try.
What is there left to do on this silent night, but to sing to him sweetly and to hold him tight.

Sweet video

I found this video on someone else's blog , who saw it on someone else's blog. I just couldn't pass it up though. It's pretty amazing.

Worshiping when you don't feel Him.

These are some thoughts that God laid on my heart in a conversation with a friend.

"So I was thinking about why it feels so devastating at times to not feel that closeness with God. If I am interpreting His word correctly it seems that His way of loving us is by letting us experience Him. So when we don't feel that closeness, we don't feel loved, often times leaving us not wanting to be loving. Maybe thats why it causes us to not feel motivated to worship. The thing is that we love because He first loved us. So our response is from that one incomprehensible act which wasn't just loving us once, but is in a constant state of love. So our worship shouldn't be out of reaction to every small feeling we call love, but from that one act that is continual love."

Happy New Years

The morning after a freakishly long night of rock band.