A Season of Creativity and Reinventing

I believe it was sometime around noon in the midst of my 18 hr day yesterday that I was sitting in my hammock on my only break throughout the day. I was delighting in the wonderful late October/ early November heat wave that has graced California. And it came upon me that I am reinventing myself.

-John G.

Sin + Action

Q: What if we don't know a true form of Christianity because we were never taught it? How do we as ignorant believers not make this an excuse for improper christian living/virtue but instead live rightly for Christ and His glory?

When we grow up we tend to learn a lot about out deficiencies and let them cripple us . Likewise when we are young we believe in an infinite realm of possibilities: that we can be anything, and do anything.

Christianity is very simply put in the terms above. When one is young we believe in Christ's grandness the ability of him to intersect with the world in extraordinary ways. We grow up realize how untrue that possibility is because of the lack of Christ intersecting with the world in the way we originally thought. And in turn believe it will never happen get upset and moody either leaving the faith or being dead while stuck in empty religious ritual.We forget all possibility because of pride thinking Christ to act in the way He ought preconceived by our own notions.

AND INSTEAD OF ASKING YOURSELF THE HARD QUESTIONS, HONORING CHRIST AS YOU OUGHT YOU END UP MAKING YOUR LIFE MEANINGLESS DEVOID OF CHRIST'S LIFE , AND NOT BELIEVING THAT YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD, THROUGH CHRIST, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T GET OUT OF THE WAY.

and sadly we stop in the sorrow and never take off from there.

...

Personally this truth that this question alludes to has taken a long while to sink in. For so long I was the one who was crippled by my deficiencies, overwhelmed by sorrow. But as I have grown I have finally realized life happens outside of just observing and being crippled; Christ's life is taken hold of when we know we can't walk as we ought but are still willing to walk nonetheless into the life out there waiting to be taken hold of if we would just get up. I have got out of my wheelchair and am dealing with this problem to be reckoned with in my ownpersonal life. I am on the cusp of adulthood , marriage, life , career, graduation etc. and I am finally asking myself the question out of shear need "what do all these realizations I have made thus far point to and what do I do with it ? But more specifically" how do I move into this... whatever is to come?"

I see a well intentioned empty pursuit of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ looking for direction. And desire for them so desperately to experience Christ's love joy and delight in the simple stillness of being in the moment with Christ and letting that dictate their action.

They and myself often included are looking for a roadmap and not a leader in Christ.And this is a serious issue

AND HERE IS THE MAIN POINT:

The thing that hinders them and myself included is their inability to go to the word of God and let Christ teach them how to do the new. No one has been successful thus far in this pursuit. Why should that bother us? Christ is victor over all and walks with us. But sadly we are focusing on looking for a guide in the form of a roadmap not a person. When that new is written all over the Word of God and specifically in Jesus. Christians aren't maturing at an alarming rate and I believe it is because we aren't daring to trust Christ in a great unknown. I am willing to dare to dream as a child might in his youth. But no more ignorance. A simple belief Christ is King of the earth and Heaven. Easter accomplished a great deal...and it is truly earth shattering!

JG

In a purity of joy

For a large majority of my christian walk, joy has escaped my best attempts to capture it.

Many do not see the perhaps intense ups and downs I have experience over the course of my life.

This blog perhaps captures it to some degree. But my love of image has kept many from being let into the fullness of who I am.

These blogs have served to capture joy through a pride of my own intellect, an ability to capture truth, bottle it as some might do to a firefly on a long summer night and then show everyone what I and I alone found.

But the truth is most of my blogs were derived from the sermons of those I listen to and not really out of the times I spent with God himself.

The long silence I have recently had in my written work here has pointed out the sin in the blogging.

The lack of revelation and the incredible amount of information that really didn't sink fully into my own heart.

But as I walk into a time where I am making my own decisions more and more for practically all my life now. I am finding what I walk into is a great unknown. And I need that revelation. The old isn't satisfying any more.

But as I discover what it is to be fed into this time. I am finding joy. Beautiful incredible joy. The kind that warms my heart. Stills my steps. And moves me to tears and action.

And all the things I use to do; those things I now see so riddled with the sinful man I was and will always to some degree be. They have trained me extensively for whatever lies in the present. I am no longer overwhelmed by the lack of perfection in myself but on the need for God himself. He has already gone before me. For any type of ministry that I might find in my joy to do. And strangely there is a peace and a surprise at what is happening before my eyes and in my heart : how well I am doing with all the uncertainty.

I am leaning on God. Desperately I am leaning on him. And I am finally seeing who He is.

I can't believe it took me this long to see clearly who He is was and will always be. His love. His overwhelming love. His justice. His wrath. etc.

I am growing up.

I am excited for what comes. Where God leads. And learning more about my wonderful God!

-JG