Blue Like Jazz Passage

Just wanted to share a passage that I found really thought provoking hope you find it to be that way too.

I will love God because he first loved me. I will obey God because I love God. But if I can not accept God's love, I cannot love him in return , and I cannot obey him. Self dicipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God's love will.The ability to accept God's unconditional grace and ferocious love is all the fuel we need to obey him in return. Accepting God's kindness and free love is something the devil does not want us to do. If we hear, in our inner ear, a voice saying we are failures, we are losers, we will never amount to anything, this is the voice of Satan trying to convince the bride that the groom does not love her. That is not the voice of God. God woos us with kindness, He changes our character with the passion of His love.

100 views, 2 years of worship, & The perfect pair of jeans

So my blog number tally thing says 100 right now so I guess I should probably say something profound because apparently people enjoy my blogs or something. But all I have to say is that I have nothing today to say. I'm beginning on a journey that takes me into uncharted territory. I no longer have to lead worship for my youth group on sunday and I think for once in my life I have Saturday evening all to myself . Instead of spending an hour or two planning worship I can devot it to other things. It's interesting, I feel like I'm actually on vacation. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed planning and organizing worship and playing sunday morning but it is time that I begin a new phase of my life that involves less serving in that area. See I've been doing it for the past two years and it is exhausting. Worship no longer becomes an easy thing to do you have to not worship by singing but by living it out, living your life in such a way that you put God before all things. And eventually a christian gets to that point in their life that they no longer live for themselves but for God and his purpose. With me it really happened about 6 months into my two years of leading worship. I began to understand that I was not getting rest and joy from just singing and playing music for God. Shocking, especially for a person who enjoys music as much as me. I began to find that the only way I felt that feeling when I worshipped in singing for the first time was when I began to serve God and honor him with my life. And what I'm beginning to understand is that when I don't serve God and don't honor him I don't feel that same feeling inside. I guess that is the spirit working in me. It's like the perfect pair of jeans I found today. They are a little worn out like the state of my spirit in serving God on Sunday mornings. They are a stonewash but fading which is the state of my heart. The once hard "stone heart" memory lays in my mind but is fading to the ever wondeful love of God and the wonderful plan for my life. Night to all, hope to see you all soon. To my friends you're the best and I am going to miss you so much when I or we go our seperate ways. Know you're in my prayers.

Ashwaganda, Ginseng, & Astragalus

It amazes me how when I turn over some food or drink and look at what is in it there are so many ingredients that pretty much I have no idea what are. Many things that apparently are good for you. And it got me thinking how often times we just need to trust in the fact that perhaps those people who are older and wiser then us actually know what they're talking about and perhaps can help us out.
And I was also thinking yesterday about how rediculous we as Americans are. See I have been shopping a lot lately, and I have been in three or four old navys in the past week and they all had the same merchandise for the most part but they had more of the things that people would buy in those areas. And I was thinking about how we really don't need any of these things in the Old Navys or department stores because pretty much they are just excess. And then I looked at my closet and realized wow I have a lot of stuff that I really didn't need to buy. But I am asking myself the question why do we as a society buy more than what we need? Why do we add things to drinks that we can't pronounce? The only answer I can come up with is it's all to give life a little bit of color as one might say. It makes things interesting and shows each person's personality and hopefully a little bit of individuality. That's is why there are so many choices in the world, because we like variety and showing what we like. And that's cool but I still think we need to find a balance between excess and being too uniform and being too unique. I don't know my thoughts are very scattered and my minds trying to mash them all up and make sense out of them. I don't think it's working too well, anyway I'm out.

Meaningful

I was thinking today why we can't seem to have any meaningful conversations. We meet new people but why must we have small talk. I mean small talk its good with a new person your just meeting but isn't it to get to know them. But can't you learn more about a person by how they can or can't engage in an actual meaningful converstion. That's is one thing I really enjoy in my friends the fact that they get straight to the point they will be open with you and that way your not just talking about surface stuff. I feel sometimes that we as a society don't know how to hold a conversation we don't know how to express ourselves. And that sucks because if you think there are so many people in the world, each one with a unique story, and it tears me up inside the fact that we will never get the chance to really see people for who they are and not be able to really help them becuase they don't know how to be open. So lord I pray tonight that you would help people be open with who they really are I pray people will be open with me. It's funny that in the bible there are opposites but the thing that most surprised me is that the opposite of evil is not good. It is truth. We as christians should fight evil with truth, being open no matter what happens. Jesus is the truth and the life no one comes to the father but through him. Jesus is truth. Be truthful don't lie tell people what is really going on.

Water & Raindrops

Rain is one of those things that I love so very much, the very sweet sound of the raindrops falling outside my window relaxes me and gives me a sense of rest and peace. The reason I think I love it so much is the fact that I have been doing so much stuff latly getting registration ready and getting money sent out to CalPoly that its just nice to be able to sit listen and write and not have to talk about money for once. Anyways If you havn't realized it yet I enjoy pouring all my thoughts normally into journalling and the simplicity and enjoyment of just sitting down with pen and paper. But ever since I've become a blogger I've realized you no longer have to keep these thoughts for yourself which might not be a bad idea seeing how random I am, but it's good to let people see how you actually are, because believe it or not if your pour out anything personal into anything people are going to see the real you. So hopefully people see that I;m not always good. I may wear a smile but there is more then just the smile see we as a society are happy with the whole "good" phenomenon the "i'm good" "your good" "we're all good" sayings. See we may say we're good but I think we're afraid of being honest and really letting people into out lives, that's the hard part.
So what to do. Simple stop being concerned about what others think the opinions of others don't really matter & be open with others. That's all I got I'm going to go listen to some rain. Night

Being in Awe of God Every Day

I have to say that as i've known God these past almost 15 years there have been very few times that I've just sat in the presence of God, been silent, and just sat in awe of all he has done for me. But thinking over these past couple weeks I have to say I'm not in awe of God because of joy but rather because of the tough times. I've heard it said that we only know love because of its placement next to evil in this world. And to some degree that's true if we see all the evil done around us we know love because we know to what to compare it to; Its the hard times that make us enjoy the times of peace and joy. To those of you who havn't talked to me in a while you don't know that one of my friends in youth group mysteriously died on a backpacking trip. The whole idea of peace and joy in troubling times has been reinforced within me. But it is miraculous just to think that God created life and even more aweful to think that he loves us christians enough to give us peace in troubled times, infact just the fact that God loves us at all, and the incredible grace that is shown to us. Reflecting on the past couple weeks the ability to laugh and think over people's lives and be glad we met them but be gladder that one day we will get to know these people better and discover apart from evil what true uncompared love is like, is just so truly awesome. Just think those of us that know christ when we get to heaven will not know evil and will worship God not because of a comparison to evil but rather a full knowledge of what love is not a definition made up by comparisions and full knowledge of the full sacrifice that God made by sending Jesus to Earth and letting the very holy spirit indwell us. Followers of christ truly serve a great God worthy of at the least being in awe and saying wow! We serve such a great God.