Believe again

I saw into your light
I saw into your heart
To see what could have been
And what can happen now

Father, forgive my ignorant heart for not knowing
What You were doing in this land

I choose to believe again,
The possibilities that you can do
To see what could have been
And what can happen now

Sustain me as I join this voyage
And help prepare a way
Your kingdom come
Breath a new fire in this day

Father, forgive my ignorant heart for not knowing
What You were doing in this land

Move my heart to forget my ignorance
To be overwhelmed by grace
Your ever present light
Your ever beating heart

JG

John as a verbal processor

i forget sometimes how valuable the advice of long time friends are. They see through time through the elaborate facades that we even fool ourselves with.

I am reminded of their true value tonight.

Tonight, I felt like I was sitting in some counselors office on a day bed, revealing things I did not know until tonight.

Kyle is awesome. He has a way of doing that.

"has anyone ever truly been silent enough for you to truly speak."

I never knew within lied the capacity to process by the verbal persuasions. But it happened.

Tonight I found out.

He saw it. He heard it.

I heard it.

Passions have faded away to give rise to one pursuit:

Brick by brick disassembling the immensity of the wall that circumnavigates me.

But now that the fortress that I lived in alone for so long lies in large part knocked down , it's time to build something with the piles of brick that lie in the ruins of my city.

Stop being overwhelmed by desolation to see possibility.

I see a great value in such a new pursuit.

Return to passion... to build.
-JG

4am thoughts

Sometimes it feels pointless to go to bed. That is after you have stayed up most of the night. Here I am almost 4 am...still up.

I haven't really stopped and had a sabbath this week things have been rather jammed full of things to do etc.

Landon stopped by tonight for a little bit. I miss his company. He said sarcastically" it's fun growing up." We were trying to find a time to meet this week. Its a shame it probably won't happen with two jam packed schedules.

Friendship, dating, ministry, life its all so very hard. It really is, It's very inconvenient. Its so easy to get lost in your own little world and not care about the people that are around you on a day to day basis. It's a shame but its so easy too.

I'm glad God somehow in this America I live in God has somehow got a hold of my heart and is making it break.

I drove by a homeless person today. I could have helped him out taken him out for lunch you know. I chose not too. I was too busy thinking 1. have to get gas 2.have to put rubber feet on the couch legs so that it doesn't slide anymore on the hardwood floors 3. I need to go to the library 4. I need to take a nap only got 4 hours last night 5. Need to write that paper 6. Need to read. 7.8.9.etc.

Perhaps its the lack of sleep etc. but I don't need any of that all I need is Jesus. He is the only one I need. None of this matters if He's not in it, you know.

And that is perhaps the beauty, the only beauty I can come to tonight is that as christians when God is not in it things arn't right. It's like when someone isn't around...you know things arn't right because you love that person so dearly and want to include every moment with them.

Who are we to deny God His full and utter display of Glory through our lives by the way we live and act:we get too busy to let God into our lives and come to realizations like this where its been too long since we simply all said "God invade my world, invade my life"

I understand perhaps a little bit better through this busy week why America is the way it is.

So I guess this little stretch from 3:40-4am will have to do for my sabbath til things slow down hopefully by Thursday. I look forward to my morning quiet time...God knows I will need it. I also need bare in mind God is with me all day through...

In about 2 hours I will get up. The irony of resting now when I am still awake making sure not to rest to long.oh life!

JG

10

Life has been thoroughly enjoyable as of late. California has been blessed with a heat wave which has made almost two weeks of solid 70-80 degree weather. One would think winter found a new mask named summer. But again, perhaps its just the nature of California and the central coast to be so nice, I haven't made up my mind on that one.

I am taking 13 units for the first time in college. That means three classes. No classes Tuesdays and Thursdays. Mon-Wed tends to be a little jam packed, but gives me about 4 days each week to sleep, read, hang, etc. and as of late enjoy the sunshine and wonderful weather. I am just simply enjoying life! Which needless to say although I classify myself as a diligent disciplined person, over the course of my college career I still haven't had this much time to do these things until now.

And it's just nice.

But the week has not been totally undiciplined: the past week has yielded much clarity, in specific regarding God's viewpoint on who I am and things that need to be worked on. I'm going to list them here in hopes to set them as a reminder to myself.

1.The word of God needs to be put foremost above all other literature and christian activities( 1 peter 2:2)

2.The word of God needs to be a guiding light to our prayers.

3.I should not be afraid of misinterpreting/misunderstanding the Peters and Timothys to the point I do not read them or engage such texts, in turn missing the whole of Scripture. Every book was included in the cannon of the bible for a reason.

4.God does not care what method we use as long as it is backed up with scripture( look up Edwards and the sermon" sinners in the hands of an angry God" and particularily note how he preached and to what frequency he preached that sermon.It challenges our preconceptions of how God would work and that their needs to be passion etc.)

5.The disciplined intellectual mind is a gift and has the ability to loose Satan's ability to work in such a man. But every sin small or great will inevitably allow him to gain a foothold.

6.Many a christian will seek to empty their minds and have no logic in hearing God's voice and wish to be puppets of his will. Such a thing allows the enemy to come in and invade our thoughts and lives. Free will is, therefore, there for a reason and God cannot invade our minds directly he desires us to actively participate in what He is doing bringing our whole being into His will action and relationship.

7.The church is still God's vehicle but something drastic and great must happen within it regarding holiness- the throwing out of sin, pride etc. and God's word must be revered and followed in order for it to be what it ought to be. But that happens within each individual. God will work desperately to get us to this point, even to the point of the breaking of large organizations/ churches.

8.True holiness can only come for an act of the will.

9.God's love is vast and truly wonderful, yet because we do not believe that within our hearts, instead, viewing God as a taskmaster(Judging God) we can't convey his whole being to others and in turn our relationships with the lost suffer as well as their salvation.

10.There's a lot of undiscerned frankly bad advice given in christian circles. One best learn how to discern through it. Read God's word the bible!

I think that will do for the list, for now.I will stop with this note:

The week has been very freeing. Lists help. There is so much of who I am that is in desperate need of redemption. But if we find a way of action to redemptions end, finding ways to navigate in the great darkness of the journey it gives way to hope joy faith and love. And peace too!

-JG

Arch 451 Boards

I forget to post things some times. I guess, I was so amped on the walkthrough last quarter I forget to post these. Here are the board submittals for last quarter.

JG

Silent-self

If these words were music and music could speak as it often does it would speak of a time of wait. No words, just an interlude of sorts. It is beautiful, but words being interjected into it. It feels so unnatural.

And I am waiting for that perfect word to say…to speak. But I know not those perfect words.

If I am not to just do in these words, but do rather that which is most important in them and with them it will be to do very little with them at this time.

I’m waiting and being faithful in the meantime to do follow and heed and see what comes.

JG

To Belong

Perhaps its just an observation of society as a whole, and maybe its being back in california knowing where I belong. Or maybe an observation of what I was so encouraged by last night. I feel like I belong here though.

And it's just one of those desires that I have. That you have too...that is to belong.

And how exactly to belong, its not that clear cut. But you know when you have it, and you know when you don't.

I know I have it, yet not quite sure how I got besides God's providence.

And perhaps its not about the blueprint but about feelings,emotions, and the mind that sings in chorus with the knowing.

JG

Thoughts from the chair...

Last night I sat in my bowl chair...pondering and praying what might come of this quarter. Somehow trying to grasp such an intangible thing. I was reading architectural theory: the inability of most to write and view things outside a single piece of time. Dealing with what was never quite said but definitely the underlying meaning in the 23 page work: discernment.

A lot happened as I sat there last night though. My thoughts were drifting and not at all in that moment yet as God normally does God used it : there was quite a bit of honesty that was self spoken in that moment...this one surfaced

I am so far from where I feel ought to be.

But it did not come from a feeling of guilt or obligation it came out of love.

Maybe it's this dream a few nights ago that was breathed straight from the holy spirit...a much needed word...but it's been lingering like a indefinite sustained chord upon my mind. It was one of the dreams.

There was this man in the dream who spoke. But he spoke of what begun in that bowl chair last night and what the lessons of the present age are to be. That always tends to freak me out. That our God still speaks and directs and knows us well enough to speak of that which we most desperately need to hear and the laying out the tapestry of time before our eyes.

I always write from a moment wishing to capture it so distinctly but in that bowl chair I found myself realizing for the first time really that the Christian's role is not to capture a moment, it's not to stand in the middle of such a raging river. God captures each moment in perfection and doesn't need us to catalogue such a genious perfect thing... there can be no full understanding no historian christian that deals to God's movement in a place.

I will always be chasing as long as I write, record and capture. But to be fully in the middle of any moment it means that we are at the center of something far greater and in full recognition of it and participating with it.

So I sat there in that bowl chair in that moment and found myself in a moment of history and future. In desperation hoping to in that moment find how to fully engage myself in that stream.

It's gonna be an interesting quarter for sure.

JG