Roll Call

hey all,
I am rather curious who reads this blog on a regular basis. If you do would you leave a comment . Thanks.

John

*If you want you can answer this question . If you could be asked any question what question would you have asked of you?

Insight on freedom

While I have been home my dad and I have been doing a lot of home repair touchup stuff etc on the house.

We are moving come April. So a lot of what the "designer" wants done to sell the house is getting done.

We( more my dad) were grouting the newly laid tile in the master bathroom. I had gotten up early to help him so I sat on the bathroom counter and used the opportunity to ask my dad a few questions regarding his thoughts on my generation and christianity the church etc.

My dad is a very profound/wise man. I realize this more and more as I grow up. I'm learning each and every day what wisdom He has if you can ask the right question. Just like me. Like father like son

While I was on that counter I asked his thoughts on the church in general, he said something to this effect.

"Son, the majority of christians enslave themselves when they are most certainly free."

I have been chewing on this for about a week now and it was one of those things I am sure when I look back while thumbing through heaven's history it will shape me in a lot of ways.

It's true though isn't it.

As much as I would like to say we are totally free creatures we are still wearing the shackles of our sin. If we were totally free and we knew it we would declare it.

Isn't that why honesty is so attractive?

What does true freedom look like?

I hope I get to find out.

I'm praying toward that end.

To His Glory alone,
jg

Book Recommendation

I don't think I have ever recommended a book on this blog. I have put numerous quotes from Tozer over the past few years and a few portions of the bible but I have never recommended a book.

Why, you might ask? I mean I do read a lot. You think I would have found something worth recommending in all the years this blog has existed. But honestly I never thought about it.

You were expecting something more profound...i know...sorry guys.

The book is called the Dangerous Act of Worship by Mark Labberton.

Bomb.

Read an exert here

JG

Regarding Elise

I believe a man is accountable to the words that he has said and will say.

Today I got a call from a friend . I had written him about three months ago declaring what God was doing in Elise at the time. I said this at the time:

To bless you further I desire earnestly to tell you a little bit about what God is doing here in San Luis Obispo CA and how big the God we serve truly is.

In my immediate surrounding my girlfriend, deaf for her entire life, has begun through God's infinite love receiving the gift of hearing in her ears.

Today we got the entire elder board of the church together along with the pastors and laid hands on her and anointed her with oil and her hearing was gave to her for a time.

But the most wonderful part of it all is that people are believing God to be who his word says He is.

God is as Hebrews 13:8 declares the same yesterday today and forever! The same Jesus now fully glorified sits at the right hand of God making our requests known to God and working in wonderful ways through the holy spirit! Our God is absolutely breathtaking.

And that is only one story of so many of what God is doing in this place. Our God is on the move. I pray to that end in your life as well that God is taking your breath away at every moments chance and every move He makes to His glory and renown you experience fully.

I must keep this short because I need to get to bed but know you are in my prayers bro.

I would love to hear about what God is doing with you further and how I can join you in prayer as you reach New Zealand and beyond!
your brother in Christ,
John G

Since then I have not really devoted any significant amount of thought life to the subject because of life's hectic pace. Should I have actually sat down one on one with the guy that called me up I don't know if I could have recounted what God had done in and around her regarding this miracle.

I thank God He has gifted me though with the time to reflect here.

I believe it was winter break of my freshman year Elise and I went to The Next Level Church( a church I attended all throughout high school) here in Colorado. The pastor spoke on a passage about the boy born blind. She pieced all that was going on in her life and what the pastor said to believe that it was God's desire to heal her ears fully. ( she can explain more of the piecing together than I could)

I remember that night or a month or so later I prayed God if I see a shooting star I will know it is time for you to Heal Elise.

My whole life I had never seen a shooting star.

I saw my first shooting star while staring at the sky worshiping one night the beginning of this summer. It was that Friday that I prayed a prayer at the Mill a college service I attend down in Colorado Springs that God would allow Elise to hear the music being played. He answered my prayer.

I did not mention anything to her regarding the prayer that night. Later when I dropped her off at her house she asked me to come in. While inside sitting on her couch she told me she heard the worship that night.

I remember the next two weeks I couldn't focus on anything but the fact she heard. I was at my sister's wedding thinking about what God was doing in Elise rather than focusing on what God was doing in bringing my sister and her husband together.

Over this past summer the elders of the church got together and laid hands on her. She could understand the prayers.

I took Elise up to the hills the night of a meteor shower during the summer. We saw so many shooting stars that night. I prayed for Elise. Again she understood the prayers being offered on her behalf.

It was the day before fall quarter that she called me on the phone left a message telling me to call her. I was puzzled cause she never calls me on the phone. That night her voice was beautiful clear and perfect as if she could hear what she sounded like. She understood me perfectly.

It was sometime that quarter she took out one of her hearing aids placed it in a drawer. Never to enter her ear again.

Since then a few times God has opened up her ears.

And I stand amazed at what God has done already knowing there is so much more but I still have wrestled with why God would choose to work in this manner and not all at once.

My best friend said one night God is doing something even greater here than a mere miracle. He is shaping you into a man who will ask in perfect faith and pray for healing and not be dismayed. Perfectly in delight of God's will for a situation.

There is no doubt in my mind that God will heal Elise. I can't deny what he has has done. I wish I could in a lot of ways, but honestly there is no doubt I am just unsure as to the timing of it all.

I believe it was Abraham who waited twenty years for the promise of His son.

I will never stop believing.

JG

Bring a torch

Bring a torch, Jeannette, Isabella!
Bring a torch to the cradle run!
It is Jesus, good folks of the village;
Christ is born and Mary's calling:
Ah! ah! beautiful is the mother!
Ah! ah! beautiful is her Son!

It is wrong when the Child is sleeping
It is wrong to talk so loud;
Silence, all, as you gather around,
Lest your noise should waken Jesus:
Hush! hush! see how fast He slumbers:
Hush! hush! see how fast He sleeps!

Softly to the little stable,
Softly for the moment come;
Look and see how charming is Jesus,
See how He smiles, Oh see how rosy!
Hush! hush! see how the Child is sleeping;
Hush! hush! see how He smiles in dreams.

-Émile Blémont

Reflections on the Manger...

From the nations you came to declare His glory
From the East seeking what a prophet uttered about He who would set us free

"There is hope in this One’s eyes,
these infant eyes: our glorious king"

Did your eyes gaze into his that night as he looked into the open skies
Past galaxies straight to the throne of majesty:
the one before you who are upon your knees?

Did you see the light of the guiding star exploded
not able to contain the night all darkness fled?

There is more than meets the eye
with this infant found before thee

JG

Reflections from a Side View Window

As of late I have found myself absolutely distraught when I listen to any type of music secular of christian. This is a little more than just merely upsetting see, I was driving back from Fort Collins yesterday listening to the XM station's top twenty countdown you know getting to know my culture better and I started crying during a rap song and getting all emotional about just how things are so broken. There are like four songs that don't make me sad or frustrated as of late. What gives? I have found myself frankly just so distraught at how broken America is in every single facet.

See, I was listening to this sermon the other day while driving around fort Collins by the head of the Great Commission Churches about his thoughts as an older man on our generation. It was really illuminating. I think we probably should be doing that as young people more often asking older wiser men about our generation and their thoughts on it because it gave me a sobering reality of what our generation really is like.

But I believe the concept and reason I got so emotional on my way back goes further and deeper into the idea of different generations coming together in accountability in discipleship and holding each other up to a standard of actually growing and moving and unity.

The man who spoke the sermon was saying that he would be scared to death to not come out of his quiet times without having something to share that the spirit illuminated because he experienced this thing where everyone held each other completely accountable. 1 Peter 5:5 and this concept of how much responsibility a younger man should have in the things he places over him in order that he may grow has given me a lot of insight into these afore mentioned things.

While reading through the comments on my pastors blog he quoted an odd translation known as GOD's Word translation.

GOD's Word translates 1 Peter 5:5 this way:

Young people, in a similar way, place yourselves under the authority of spiritual leaders. Furthermore, all of you must serve each other with humility, because God opposes the arrogant but favors the humble.

What I would take from this is that young men are to literally ask for older men to instruct them disciple them etc. This doesn't line up with the rest of the new testament though as I see it and that is why I was so puzzled to see it translated that way. But my infant like grasp of hermeneutics and understanding of the way to interpret and understand scripture though makes me wonder if this was merely a societal issue of respect or the way things were at the time.

I was talking to my mom back when I was in high school and she said something very peculiar she said " you guys( referring to my generation) have a grasp on scripture and understand so much more than I ever did at your age."

I am led to believe that there is this really peculiar thing about the generations that walk the earth. The younger are in some cases wiser than the older. Keep in mind I said some cases.

It leads me to believe that if men in our society are afraid to interact with younger men which I do see on both ends then it is the charge of the younger to bridge that gap and "place yourselves under the authority of spiritual leaders."

I asked my discipler the last time we met. "Is there any last wise words to impart". He said this "seek out discipleship." He believed in a lot of ways that it was the charge of the younger men.

For a long time I have held to the view that God provides and does all the work. This is deeply rooted in the gift of wisdom He has given me. I understand history so well and what God has done that I believe it is only by God. Bur more so I am afraid of what God is doing and I need to learn to trust myself to be different than what I really would classify as 19 centuries of failure and God's faithfulness in keeping it still going.

What I see God doing is something different than all the history I understand so well. I believe it is time that certain long kept ways of doing things are turned on their heads and perhaps the younger take more initiative in their spiritual states with a proper understanding of their generation.

To His Glory,
JG

A Heart Thawed

There are moments in life where I believe we just know we need to get away: God is calling us to this different place for a time. I believe Many of us need to get away much more often than we do. I know I needed to get away for a while early this week. I needed a couple days to just be forced to reflect, pray etc.

I withdrew myself to Fort Collins, CO about an hour North of Denver and spent sometime with my sister and her husband in their apartment up there.

I took sometime this morning to drive up to the reservoir in the area. I had been to it about a year and a quarter ago and decided to retrace my footsteps: at that time I had just entered into my relationship with Elise, God had silenced a lot of my spiritual gifts and was stripping and silencing a lot of the core of who I was.God was literally just hacking away with his pick axe at my stone heart that was so unloving at that time.

Now the trail was a little muddy due to the melting snow but when I got down to the water's edge I saw something I did not expect to see. No part of the lake was frozen.

The reason this is so remarkable is because last year while I was in Colorado we had three blizzards within a 21 day period ( unheard of ever). This break is so different.

See, when God decided to thaw Colorado last Christmas break Elise and I went to her Aunt's Cabin in the mountains with her parents. We went to a Lake named Dillon up there. It was completely frozen much like my heart at the time. We ventured out on the lake and heard the undercurrent moaning and complaining wanting winter to end. One of the most unsettling things you may ever hear.

It may not have hit you since you have not walked my shoes and share my experiences but the beauty of the non frozen lake in the middle of winter put my heart at such a peace.There was tranquility in the waters this morning.

I found myself in awe of what God has truly done in a year and a quarter since I was last there. Things have changed in such drastic ways and I have complained so often but after this year to reflect upon where I was and to see now where God has brought me I can hardly speak. I find myself just awestruck by who God is that He would really even care.

What a great God we serve who does not leave things frozen or broken but reconciles all things and blesses the undeserving so richly.

To His Glory alone,
JG

and so it begins...the first flower blooms

Many prophets have wept for what I was blessed to see today :The American Church's first white flower blooming!

This morning I got to worship alongside those at New Life church in Colorado Springs. For those who know not Newlife was the scene of two deaths last Sunday after a gunman attacked the members of the church. God has done much within this church over the past week after the aftermath. But this week only scratched the surface of what God has done within that church.

What I saw this morning while joining with my brothers and sisters was not a church of 10,000 grieving but a Church that has overcome in so many ways. A church of joy unspeakable and unexplainable . A church and a people sold out with their eyes fixed on Jesus alone: A church tested in their faith and risen up through the strength of Christ to meet the challenge. A people BOLD and not afraid to worship with their whole heart in beautiful honesty. A church of men not afraid to shed a tear for God's greatness.A church forging something on God's power alone.

They have overcome, exactley where God desired to lead them.

The church glistened purest white this morning: that is what has come out of all this and the trials before. I saw such a thing this morning and I could not hold back my heart and tears. My words do far injustice to the God who does such things and my combination of letters could contain.

To His uncontainable glory alone,
JG

The Forum of Honesty

God has these certain things He uses in my life, reocurring things if you will. It seems we are back to the white flowers again.I think it is very fitting I have always been fascinated with white flowers. It is a personal metaphor for purity honesty etc.

I remember it was in a field full of white flowers that I got the chance to see hundreds of men meeting God individually and being blown away by the depths of who He
is: Where authenticity before God and men was showcased.

I remember it was a white flower that was the first to bloom after the fires in the hills where I hike.

And I remember before I left to come back to the snow of Colorado seeing one single flower white and beautiful on the orange tree outside my house in Cali.

It would appear as if God is doing a great work inside of me and His people and those who are yet to come!

I see it...do you?

I see the signs of the winds changing.

I have always been curious as to how all this would play out.

Of this I am sure...more white flowers are to come!

To His Glory alone,
JG

So here I sit in the living room of my childhood. My parents have gone to bed and I sit here in the normal pondering mode that I go into after about 10pm.

I really haven't done a lot since I've been home I believe I have watched more tv than I have watched in the past two years combined in these short four days of being home. And despite all of this so called relaxing my body mind etc is still exhuasted. The more and more I reflect upon the quarter the more and more I realize that I relied on my own strength far too much

JG

A Breath and a Sip of Something Great

It is on the seldom occasion that I rise from the warmth or my covers before the world wakes. But everytime I do, this morning because of my flight, I see something beautiful unfold before my eyes: seeing stars fade to morning. And this morning it hit me. God is even more faithful than the morning. Woah! Watching it unfold before my very eyes. Simple truths about God His character and His love, Simply incredible.

To have a day like today to just relax and enjoy God, what a day! To reflect on what God has done this quarter in SLO let alone what I sense and see when I get on a flight. My words do far injustice to the work He does.

Our God is so awesome!

JG

*Left- Tell me there is no God, small man.
*Right- Peet's in the airport "what?!?!?!?" And what is with this croissant shaped like a muffin? They better patent that seriously!

If I have not Love

Why is it that all the great hymns must be born out of the pain bore in one man's soul of such a exhausting pang?
of such things I take great joy in?
Why can I find no answer to why I love God other then the blessing I see around me?
of such things I take great joy in?
Why can't great love and great hymns come when things are perfectly still and good and be from a pure heart?

Why do we still struggle with these things that God has clearly redeemed?
of such things I take great joy in?
Why does it seem that a choice to be what God says we are appears to be only the beginning?
of such things I take great joy in?
If I have not love...

.... I have nothing.

Love makes the world colorful.
And all these things like raindrops
striking a piano's keys

JG

Fearless

If you gave this boy the keys to a legendary place?
Something born of the ruins of long ago?
Would the walk through the remanants of the ages shape His soul?
This boy who once upon a time dared to wish upon a shooting star?

I remember many times over the course of my life where God has brought me back to the ruins: The places where walls have been knocked down and pieces of who I was still remain as a reminder. I found myself walking through those ruins this morning.

I found myself crying for the first time in the hills here praising and worshipping a God who has done so much.

I peaked this morning at a patch of forest I had been to a year or so ago I remember being so scared to enter into it because it was dark and overgrown and there was no path. I remember being so crippled by my fears that I missed what was beyond that forest. Walking through the burnt remains the ruins made it ever so clear there was the other half of the ridge hidden ready to be experienced if only I would have ventured in.My fears used to cripple me in so many ways.

But walking through the ruins of that forest this morning made me realize that I am fearless: walking fully into what God has for me God alone has really done an incredible thing in mixing truth with love. So far from who I used to be.

And while I was up there I could not help but think there is always something more wonderful ordained by a wonderful God. Christianity is not some bland boring thing that is limited to religous ritual and emotional responses. There is always something more if we are willing to enter into it in truth and love. There is a relationship that can take your breath away at every moment!

to His glory,
JG

1 class down 3 to go

One down. Three more to go.
That is really all I have to say.

JG