Overwhelmed

I am not real sure how I am still functioning. Is there a point where you just can't contain anymore information?

If so I am almost there. Whether it is studying for school, morning Bible study, what it means to be a church leader, or just meditating on thoughts going through my head, there is a lot to take in and think about.

I continually ask myself if I have committed to too much, did I pass the point of my potential? And yet I am amazed that I have made it this far into the semester and not utterly lost it. God's grace and strength is showing forth.

Over the last few weeks I have never had more questions about my faith, nor more testing of my flesh. I was overwhelmed and my thoughts were wrong. I thought that I could merit favor before God, like there was something I could do to make Him love me more or think better of me. I had to step back and consider why I was doing the things I was doing, was it cause I loved Jesus or did I just want to feel important(self gratification). Why were these thoughts there in the first place? I know I am saved and yet I still heard a small voice (Satan) saying well how do you know? Where are the cold hard facts? I forgot the simple assurance of Hebrews 12:5-6 which says "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punished everyone he accepts as a son."

I must confess that I did not go about this the right way. The best thing I could have done was to tell some of my close friends and even leaders of my church, and allow them to help me through this struggle with prayer and counsel.

Finally today I talked about it with my close friend and mentor Chris, and even though I was a little reluctant to talk and once I was talking I didn't feel like I was much making sense, he understood me and was quick with words of discipline and encouragement. If you are asking do those two words go together let me answer, yes they do. One of my biggest struggles is transparency letting people in and telling them what is going on in my life, such as things that are on my mind or where I am at spiritually and mentally. It has been great to get to know Chris and all the Feldmans, for that matter, they have helped me more than they can ever know.

A great quote from Matt Chandler has also refreshed my thinking, he says "Holy is about being, and we have made it about doing."

By the grace of God and through His wisdom He has revealed this area where I have struggled. Where I have made holiness about doing things with selfish motives, instead of being holy and reflecting Christ through the things I do. I am extremely grateful that He choose to show me this, I mean I could still be ignorant to that fact and living in selfish sin.

So where am I today?

Well I am freed, I know I will not have all the answers and I don't need too otherwise faith would be useless, I am striving to be more transparent, and I am reevaluating all that I do. My primary focus must be on making the truth about Christ known. It is not about me and what I can get out of it, rather it is reflecting the actions, words and finished work of Jesus.

Our friends the Atheist

Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA is a company that offers service to Christians that are also pet owners. They are willing, for a minimal price, to take care of our pets once the rapture happens. I mean how nice can you get? I can only imagine that this is a joke and yet I wonder how many people claiming to be Christians have signed up for this. We all know a person who has just a little to deep of a relationship with their pet, I mean I have seen people stuff there pet once they die because they still want that pet to be around. Freaky!

At first before talking this idea over I assumed that this website did believe in the rapture in which my response was:

How can you call yourself an atheist and offer a service that requires you to believe that the rapture is going to happen? Here is what I found the defintion of an atheist to be : atheist - One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods. If you deny there is a God then you deny that there is a rapture. I will look past the fact that people don't really know what it is to be an atheist, that they just want to be something different than other people or a so called "individual".

Then I was enlightened to the fact that most likely this website is playing off the fact that they think Christians are suckers and are waiting for this "rapture"event to happen, and just want to make a profit off of someone's beliefs. This part saddens me, deep down I wish that everyone could recognize the greatness and reality of God and what Christ did for us, repent and believe in that, but that isn't the truth and many will reject Him. I am sure I will come back to this later.

On a side note I almost want to by a T-shirt... Oh yes they have T-shirts as well here, but they are to expensive and don't really feel that I could support their cause. If you get a chance read the terms and conditions as well. I wanted to pee my pants it was so funny.

When mammal meets metal

What do you get when a deer crosses the road at 10 MPH and you (in the car) are traveling 70 MPH?

You get a deer that is propelled 30 feet in the air to a ditch and dies, a huge dent in your car, and then fire....?

Here I was about to leave my house and head over to a friend's house, when I get a call that says "Hey can you come get us we just hit a deer and the car is on fire." I have to say this is the most bizzare sentence that has been spoken to me. After I absorbed what was being said to me, I headed out on 21 to see the entire highway stopped. When I got out there the fire department was hosing of the car. Praise God that no one was hurt....besides the deer but I am sure he didn't feel much and he looked a little young to have kids so most likely he was single.

 How on earth does a fire start? This is my guess, you ready for this.

So when the deer impacted the car the shear weight of the deer was so much that it actually pushed the under carriage of the car to the ground which then shot sparks flying in every direction, and in turn caught some left over oil residue on fire and then spread. Whether that really happened or not I might never know, but it sounds good right? I mean even the tires were melted that is just crazy to me, I can't imagine what the fire must have looked like.

One of the humorous parts of the night, that I think made the situation a little more bearable for the famil,y was when Patrick's younger brother got his picture taken with the deceased deer and one of the officers gave him a piece of the deer's antler, that had broken off, as a momento.

It was such an encouragement to see the family's reaction to what had happen, when they could have complained about lossing their car or their plans being ruined they didn't, rather they praised God that they all got out alive and no one was hurt. We should always remember that we are never promised another minute.

Where the wild things are

First off I don't even know how you can make a movie out of 13 page book with only one sentence per page, but they did it.... and they shouldn't have. Not going to lie it was a bit creepy and depressing. I mean you would think that they could have put everything that was in the book into the movie. I just wanted to slap the kid and his mom, I don't have kids or anything but I am pretty sure if my kid said "he was going to eat me", there would be some problems for one of us and it wouldn't be me. I don't think I have seen more randomness in a movie ever, but all in all as a movie it could have been worse, so I won't be to much of a debbie downer.

Tatoos

I have this fascination with tattoos, I think they are awesome. There is nothing like seeing a person with a full sleeve of intertwining pieces of artwork. If I had the guts to do it I would, but I rationalize and evaluate to much. I already have one tattoo and I am wanting to get another one.

Even though I know what I want my tattoo to look like I am still determining if I am really going to do it or not and where it is going to go. So I have laid out a short list of pros and cons

so first the pros

• I enjoy the artwork
• I just want too
• I enjoy people asking why I would get one and why I picked what I did

Ok so wow there aren't so many pros now that I have to actually lay them out... Well there are a more cons

Cons

• I am not sure if I can handle the look on my Grandmother's face
• it is extremely permanent
• what if I didn't want it anymore (though that is unlikely)
• they cost a lot
• is it really necessary for me to live

Even with the amount of cons out weighing the pros I still want one. I love how my reasoning is so terrible sometimes.

So just in case you didn't know what the tattoo represents let me explain. It is a tree which is the obvious but in the roots is God while through the trunk is Jesus, and the tips of the branches say Ekklesia, which is Greek for "the Church". This idea stems from John 15:5 which says "I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." and also Matthew 7:24-27 which is a parable on the foundation of a house. Where God is my foundation or roots and it is through Christ the vine or trunk (in the case of the drawing) that reaches out to make smaller branches, which are the disciples of Christ or "the Church".

Community picnic in Bryan

Today was Living Hope Bryan's community picnic, and was a great time. There were tons of people from the surrounding community who came out had lots to eat, lots to do, and got to hear from the Bible about Christ. I showed up late but I got to see first hand some guys come to accept Christ as their Savior. I can imagine how hard that is being a full grown man in front of your neighbors and everything saying "man something is not right with me and I need a Savior." It is truly amazing how God works and when He works nothing can stop it.

Also it was good to see all three churches there hanging out and fellowshiping with each other and with the surround community. It was just a great example to onlookers to see three different bodies come together, all for the purpose of telling others about Christ.

My very first post ever....

I have no idea what I am doing or what I am going to talk about, but I felt that there was a need for me to get my thoughts out. One of my friends tells me I am terrible at communicating, and in some aspects I agree with him. So this is my attempt to talk about stuff that is running through my head on any given day and also to hopefully at some point here other people's thoughts as well. Whether anyone reads this or not doesn't really matter, I want to learn how to put into words my thoughts. So here goes nothing...