Some Honest Thoughts

I told Elise a couple days ago I think for the first time I feel overwhelmed. I have no medium to get out these anxious and troubled thoughts. Every move I make I question because there seems to be no more guidance in my life. Which brings me to the troubling thought I stumbled across today: it seems that when we seem to strike a healthy balance another thing comes along that tilts the very balance we just maintained.

I think in a lot of ways I forget a lot of the things God has taught me about faith, love and life.Yet why, I have a friend in heaven who has performed miracles in my own life that I have tangibly seen them, yet somehow I do not believe fully. I have a guide who has sheparded me through many times of dessert and down-trodedness, yet I don't trust. I have a God who is bigger than myself, yet I can only still fit him into my box of perceptions. I have a God who has loved me first, yet I do not love Him in a simple form.

I have been wondering why I can only approach God in tears as of late? It became apparent today in worship, I have forgotten my first love.I have become so consumed with doing things my way that I forgot the necessity and need to surrender.I have been so busy with entertaining people that I forget that you can only entertain so much.I have quested to find answers yet forgot the necessity to no longer question those things that have no necessity of being questioned. I have forgotten. I have simply forgotten.

And now a week late coming back to this blog attempting to finish it up I find myself, suprisingly in the same place. I am constantly battleing these tears when I approach God. I feel so overwhelmed yet amazingly at peace and I don't really know if I can explain it all because my thoughts are a thousand swirling puzzles that are entirely new.

I have entered in a sense a new part of my faith, a new part of my Christian walk and a new part of who I am that I don't think I am ready at all to enter into, yet, God trusts me to enter into this new season. And I feel almost as if I am entering the darkest nights of my soul and I know but I do not trust.

Awaiting

"awaiting eagerly the revalation of our Lord Jesus Christ"
-1 cor 1:7b

I think in a lot of ways things have shifted. That is probably an understatement. Actually I know that is an understatement but it is one of those things that if I were to realize the full extent of how many things actually shifted, I doubt I could handle it all. That is in part why I can't see and have no divine direction for this season. But I think the internal perspective I am gaining is one that I wouldn't trade for anything else. I'm begining to think this perspective I am gaining is the treasure of darkness God promised to me during this season.

It is terribly facinating what my worship is looking like more and more when I come to God needing him so much more than I ever have in a season where I shouldn't be needing him more but I can't help but lean, actually needing him. Tonight I found myself unable to contain my tears because of the whole fact that God desires so desperatley for us to be unified. I see myself as I find myself each day desperatley needing Him, so desperatley. The thing is I can't help cry knowing that God is so good to the undeserving, to me.

I think I feel for the first time in my life like I have nothing to offer anybody except the very good news. Which is as it should be. I found myself tonight asking so many questions about me awaiting the fruition of this internal perspective, what does it all entail? Only the next...will show that.

But although this may be shifted and completley foreign, all of it, I am found in my Savior's arms and that is where I love to be.

I can't help notice though that in a sense with as little perspective as I do have the campus seems to be in an almost anticipation an awaiting to be more accurate, and I can't put my finger on it exacltey but look at your surroundings and tell me you don't see something stirring. This campus is awaiting the secrets and treasures of darkness. I think it is this perspective of simplicity, foundationality, and humbleness that leads to unity.

The most interesting thing is that the picture of Jesus sweating blood as He prayed for us, that image is burned into my mind and the thing is...it is one of the most powerful images I have had in a while. His very blood spilt that we might have a chance to be unified that is so amazing. That was a powerful prayer prayed in Gethsemini .

Understanding through Wine and Cigars

God has been radically transforming my heart over the past few weeks especially last night and I am captivated at this new understanding that I am gaining on some of my long held questions in life. I have always wondered what was the point to wants and desires and what all of us should base our decision making process upon. I think I finally understand it.

For those of you who don't know these past four months I have been prophetically blind as to what God is doing. It has been one of the most intense, crazy, hardest and most difficult seasons I have lived. Yet in it I have learned to trust. Learned to rest secure in my salvation and God's greater plan. I have learned to embrace the fact that we are a body not one man. I have learned to love not lecture. Most important I have learned to rest on the knowledge and understanding God has given and use that alone as the basis of my current decision making process in this season however long it may last.

I think for me all I have learned this season goes back to understanding what true love is. It goes back to focusing on the horizontle plane rather than the verticle for a time. Jesus obviously really didn't mess around in the second half of John 2 He threw over money tables and had a side to him that was frustrated with peoples defiling of His house. In all His infitude and wisdom though as the first part of John 2 talks about He didn't give everything that was absolutley necessary like the wine with His first miracle in Cana. And I look at my way to approaching ministry and I realize that foremost love is patient as 1 corinthians 13 talks about.Love is,yah, not giving people what they want all the time, yet at the same time sometimes it is doing and giving those things you never thought you should give. We should live with smiles on our face, yah, consider the consequences but rest secure that God has you under His wing and will protect you as Isaish talks about. As I corinthians 8 talks about as well in verse 10-12 we are called not to live a ministry of absolute necesssity because it can cause our brothers in Christ to stumble. We are to be not of the culture but always realize that some ways the only way to reach a place is by a necessity of fulfilling desires that arn't necesarrily really necessary.

After I got back from the freshman welcome dinner last night I went out with one of my roomates to a cigar smoking party. As I was sitting there with everyone smoking around the bonfire but me and a few others and how they really didn't have anything to say until they were "buzzed" as they called it. I realized something I never realized before that some men because of circumstance and the way they are need a totally radically different way to get deeper with one another than simply let's get in a circle and talk about our problems. We as christians brothers to them need to be patient and not tear their heart apart. I have used this technique for honestly all my life in getting deeper with men around me but the thing is it can't be this season's response...

I have realized over the past couple days a strong desire within me is just a desire to have some other guy partnering with me in ministry not necessarily someone who I can talk to about anything but rather someone to serve with. I had the oppurtunity to lead with several wonderful men of God over the course of highschool and the bond that is there I know that is what I miss. In my quest to attain oneness with Christ I ended up forgetting the fact I will have all the time with Him in eternity. This life is a season in which we are to focus not only on the vertictle with God but we must focus on the the horinzontle with the people that are here. We don't need a radical new ministry, we need a transformation from the inside out. Realize though when the Spirit is prompting to bless you with sharing in the response of someone else. Never take it into your own hands, though. Never. It robs God the glory He is most certainly due!

JG

Carried to the Table

Wounded and forsaken
I was shattered by the fall
Broken and forgotten
Feeling lost and all alone
Summoned by the King
Into the Master’s courts
Lifted by the Savior
And cradled in His arms

I was carried to the table
Seated where I don’t belong
Carried to the table
Swept away by His love
And I don’t see my brokenness anymore
When I’m seated at the table of the Lord
I’m carried to the table
The table of the Lord

Fighting thoughts of fear
And wondering why He called my name
Am I good enough to share this cup
This world has left me lame
Even in my weakness
The Savior called my name
In His Holy presence
I’m healed and unashamed

You carried me, my God
You carried me

-Carried to the table
Leeland
Sounds and Melodies

Lessons from Reflection upon wine

With the Lord's help I will hopefully be able to get at least the begining of this written tonight...I have been interuppeted in writing this twice now so it is my hope the third attempt will be the charm as they say...
As I continue to write this almost a week later and the periodic edits I am currently sitting at my desk...a new desk,a new place where so many wonderful things will be written over the course of this upcoming and currently continuing year. I am honestly hardly containing my joy at the fact that I have the privledge to be a scribe in a sense to what God is doing here, it is with great joy I pen every word that is here...it with great joy that I recount in the next year what God is going to do!


It seems that God has taught me so much these past few weeks. I feel honestly like I have a list that is a mile long that I could write. Like always, however, I will let the Spirit dictate these hands and let Him move the words through me. It is far shorter and far better that way.

I have been thinking, pondering a lot about the fact of why Christians feel oftentimes powerless to do anything when given a foreign situation. We have a life transforming message but how often do we fully know the extent of the message that we preach. It is much like my childhood... I grew so much because the spirit guided me. Yet little did I know what foundation was being built by the spirits guidance and my actions. We are so unaware of what God's full plan is because I don't think we can wrap our mind around the whole fact that God is so incredible and moving in so many wonderful ways that don't seem like the rituals we seek to cling to, we can't adapt quick enough to this new higher calling. But why? What happened to the days of old when the spirit would leap forth from a place and countless things would be done and changed because of it? I ask myself the question why is something not being done and we as Christians with a radically powerful message are so crippled and powerless.

I think it has every part to do as I heard it said tonight that we are not one. I remember the picture of Christ sweating blood because he was so troubled and praying so atimately for us christians to be one. I have seen over these past weeks fellowship so sweet here but it isn't everywhere here and that troubles me there are still pockets of community not aq big blob of ommunity. We are the body, we are meant to experience fellowship so sweet. We need to as Bush says leave no child behind. Leave no child of the most high alone to fend for himself or herself in a world of ravenous lions. We need to raise them up!

I wonder so often all these questions about initative and should we wait on the Spirit's prompting. Should we trust ourselves when the Spirit is not guiding? Is there really one way to spiritual growth much like the way to heaven? I have so many questions in my mind and it all boils down to the very choices we make. What should determine our choices?

The spirit brought me to John 2 over the past couple days. Reading it over and over again I come to several conclusions about such matters as listed above. I was struck by the whole fact that Jesus' first miracle was to turn water into wine. Much like Moses' first miracle in Egypt, turning water into blood. I think we can draw a comparision in the fact that in communion remembering Christ and the sacrifice made we must remember that it was all to point out that His death was not a necessity but a gift. Much like the fine wine being given after the poorer wine was given. We see also that Jewish entitlement had a necessity for the blood!

The second thing I pulled out is when Jesus rebukes his mother asking her the question "woman what does this have to do with us? My time has not come" My discerning spirit atomatically picks up a kind of harsh tone. But I think if you look at it ,yeah, it is a rebuke but I think it is different than a lot of the rest of Jesus' questions and teaching in the fact it was made to make her think of something else entirely. The question phrased in this way truly states" my time has not come, why do you push me, God, to give you anything that I haven't given you?" As is shown though he chooses to bless those things which were good and those who submited. Mary was submissive and submited herself to the words Jesus said instead of her own plans.

I think in a lot of ways the only way to seek initative clearly is to submit and let God dictate the show. I've heard it said several times the best thing you can do to a church is fire a bullet into a ministry. I think in a lot of ways the world doesn't need another campus group, it doesn't need anything other than God dictating the show and we being sumissive and one. Jesus was sweating blood the very same blood that saved us when he prayed that we would be one. We should regard His blood highly and that he would shed His very life that we might have an ability to be one...that is something.

JG

Shattering the Glass Perception

To think of expectations
now shattered by my observations
airplanes of old raised to blue heavens
soaring above the green havens

To think of lack of expectations
now shattering these glass perceptions

oh what beauty to know
what was old is now new
This new calm
unknown to the fall

And as I soar, am raised renewed
I am sprinkled by this ever wonderful dew

oh what beauty to know
what was old is now new
This new calm
unknown to the fall

If only I had time to put together a coherent thought

So I want to blog really badly but I am only left with 10minutes of free time this afternoon so perhaps I may be able to blog tonight!...I am really hopeing but let's just say God is AMAZING!!! what He is doing here is amazing. Also what he is doing around me is AMAZING!!! What He is doing in people is AMAZING!!! And I wish so badly to make a coherent thought of text tonight because my God is so AMAZING!!! and I hope you can get a glimpse through the words I write here. So until tonight...!!!

JG

Peaceful Lullabies

These times when paper seems to be so rare
and I need to write these words to you
where oceans break and sunsets still
when I find myself on this road inbetween

With peacefull lullabies, and traveling hope
when Your ways seems so truly wonderful

You are surrounding
You are this stillness
How could this happen to me
I am so undeserving

I look back on the faithfullness of the past
I am simply staggered
I look forward to this faithfullness continuing
I am simply amazed

With peacefull lullabies, and traveling hope
when Your ways seems so truly wonderful

with a heart of peace
with a heart of wonder
I love You, I love Your ways
in this beautiful stillness

It's been an interesting week almost in a sense being thrown into an apparently similar situation going back to school etc. but so radically different than last year. The thing is things here are so wonderfully foreign to me that I can't seem to make any sense of it. But I know that is what exactly and how it is supposed to play out...because there are lessons to be learned in faith and trusting in God's faithfullness. By all accounts looking back on my life and God's incredible faithfullness I shouldn't even doubt he will be faithful and sovereign in the future. Yet somehow I do sometimes and that has led me to honestly question how deep my faith really does run. I know I have grown so much in that this summer and even as 1 thessalonians talks about that I would pursue on to sanctification even more, and I have seen God's faithfulness in doing that so much. I know though that my faith is not flawless, but I will pursue it til in my belief and my faith in Jesus I believe Him to be the very God He exclaims Himself to be.

I know in so many ways I am begining to see the rippling effect of this revival that is currently happening and it is a beautiful ripple. For instance yesterday while I went down to Magic Mountain and I happened to be in line for the Goliath( sweet roler coaster) there was this group of like 13 people just singing to our True Maker at the top of their lungs and it was beautiful. I have seen so much that what Christians have in the fellowship department is so sweet and it is not to be even compared to anything else because it is that different when it is true.

I got the oppurtunity I think it was wednesday night to meet the summer project that went down to Santa Monica and the fellowship and them just wanting to sing worship songs enjoying the company of God in each other's presence that was so sweet. I got the chance to lead them in a couple of worship songs and I wonder why so much blessing has come to me with my talents and abilities and i know God just wants to bless us so much if only we let Him and know as the little saying says JESUS LOVES YOU, think about that a perfect God love YOU that is something to sing about.

Anyways the rooomates are up and about and I need to get some food in me, so until I find a divine appointment with my keyboard you are all in my prayers and I love all of you so incredibly much. This place is blessed and I love it.

JG

Week one!

Campus Crusade has about 2,000 contact cards from the WOW week SLO bound downtown event. I, along with all the other T1 Bible study leaders are going to follow up on the freshmen in the dorms who showed interest (roughly half of the cards, so about 1,000). There is a lot of fruit to be taken by storm from this place. Cal Poly is tremendously blessed, as a tree abundantly producing fruit and as it falls on the ground, the seed takes root and new trees are born. We have Christian clubs and events and community, and all the resources that most college Christian communities could only dream of having. My prayer is that we will not just win the freshmen, or even stop with building them into men and women of God, but that we we will send them out to the corners of the earth both domestically and abroad, workplace, and home with a passion to disciple others and send them out as we did them. I pray God that we will fulfill the great commision and not just be a Christian comfort zone for four years. We have all the opportunities in the world, without much, if any persecution. Thank you God for all of the men and women that have gone before me and prayed the way for all of this to be possible! I pray let us never ever take for granted all the blessings that you have given to us. Prepare our hearts, Lord and use me and all the other leaders. Develop us into the leaders you desire, that we may train, encourage, and disciple others that they may do the same as they walk in our footsteps, and we in the footsteps of the ones that stepped up to the plate before us. God, I want my years here to continue throughout eternity through the way I am able to impact my freshmen guys. I pray use us, though we are not perfect, because that is what you love to do, God!
-Colin

Being Back

Undoubtably it is nice to be back but it is not the same in any likness and that is a shame but of definate necessity. It seems strange because in a sense I almost feel depressed being back, I can't exactley put a finger on it. Who knows maybe its spiritual warfare, maybe the change, maybe realizations about just how truly awesome the first year was. Like I said before I don't know I can't put my finger on what it is.

Things are good though I really like the people I am living with but I need to take the first steps in getting things in order for the line of accountability and other things etc. that need to be set up in a sense. God gracously gave me all those things last year but this year I am actually having to take initative in things and it is rough because it is so incredibly different.

Untitled

It is seldom that I would refuse to name something because I believe it is nice to know what one is looking at in generality...but today I will leave this blog title as Untitled because I believe there to be no structure to what exactley God is doing here. Consequently because of that my writing here will likewise have no structure but I know it all is going to work out for His glory but I can put no thread of commonality between the two. And quite frankly that is really awesome! Thank God that He doesn't work in the common ways that there is creativity in His ways! That in every step that we are able to take through Him we can move in uncertain ways new ways!

The last couple days have def been interesting, def unstructured. I ended up pulling an "all nighter" with the middle schoolers the fri-Sat before I was to fly out on Sunday. A forth of them ended up accepting Christ, about 15 total which was awesome but I do wonder why there seems to be victory over Satan whenever and wherever I go, because after this summer i do not view myself as highly as I once did, I consider myself nothing compared to my Jesus and His spirit within me.

Another interesting thing that happened is I feel so unprepared for this upcoming year because I have no idea what it is going to look like...in a sense I am only dependant on Christ which is a totally honestly new thin, the place I should be always but I feel so weak. I am gaining so much understanding in all this silence and season but how my flesh would trade it for a season of emotional consistency and strength in my own right.

It's interesting now being back at school because in a sense it is so radically different than what I knew last year but I think it is awesome because I need not establish any commonality if I am to truly pursue Jesus Christ. Honestly I feel part of me wanting to simply be babied but as it talks about in the bible I need meat not milk.I know I have entered a new era of my christianity and I need fear nothing beside my Father or get discouraged in anything but this season it is a killer I don't know what is going on I have consistent headaches I feel almost as if something is missing and granted school hasn't started yet and I don't have anything to keep my mind off of things but I am so sick of this season .

My worst fear is the fact that maybe it won't be the same which obviously it is not going to be the same. Things are rekindled but they are themselves a different fire and keep dilgence and more effort to do things. I am so sick of this season once again. Rory comes home today which will be good, I do wonder if the whole kinda funk I am in is because I am not surrounded by non[-christians because I know I have a mission field and that is the whole field I am called to. Perhaps God is clarifying that within me or perhaps he is simply pointed out the necessity for that calling in my life in particular.

Evan and Matt are great and I know they have necessary things to do but I wish they would just come and talk . That is what I will be praying to is that they would simply just come out and talk to me . Because I feel lonely I have always had the ability to ask really good deep questions but I don't think beyond that i have any special abilities with relationships it all seems to flow from who I am and the suckyness I have in relationships.

Or perhaps maybe this is all to draw me to Elise which I am fine with but I know you are not calling me to neglect the guys here in this apartment. It is very difficult to determine your calling in my life and I am quite useless it would seem. I just feel so powerless placed in situations I put myself in but not knowing what exactley it is all about and why you directed me into this place. I am called to delight. Mr. Nee wants me to be still but not anylyze what is going on. I think in gaining this new ground I neglected some of the older. I hate how this is always a balanceing act between the new and the old. Keeping the old but never forgetting the present and rooting outselves in the future. It is so difficult to manage.

I seem to just be ranting maybe because of all of it but I just want to say that I am just so incredibly tired of it all.

I wonder though what exactley this new era will look like but I know it will be good...and that is good but it is very unsettling everything being foreign.

JG

Gentile and Jewish Entitlement

I've been meditating on a question for the past couple days "Do we as gentiles have the same entitlement of blessing just as we have an entitlement for Salvation as was given to the Jews?" Now I know what you are saying of course we are entitles to the same stuff. But I believe it to be more murcky than that. Before you get all pissed at me for maybe dwelving into murcky territory and asking questions that need to be asked I am going to simply put scripture forward and my thoughts and try and string it together. I will let you decide for yourself these are merely my observances and what I see pointed out in scripture...

"If you will return, O Israel, return to me", declares the Lord"If you put your detestible idols out of my sight and no longer go astray and if in a truthful just and righteous way you swear" As surely as the Lord lives, then the nations will be blessed by Him and Him they will (give) glory (to)"
-Jeremiah 4:1-2

You can see as Jeremiah points out that if Israel returns to the Lord at any point in history putting and laying aside sin then that the entire world will give glory to Him because of it. I do wonder though if Him points and means directly Jesus(rehtorical ?) If they turn will they themselves see Glory and see Jesus? I think that is the beautiful part about it all that if we don't sin then we see Jesus all the clearer! It's strange that if the Jews turn that everyone else sees. It's very strange. Indirect missions...

God proclaims in Jeremiah 11 "cursed is the man who does not obey the terms of this covenant -the terms I commanded your forefathers when I brought them out of Egypt out of the iron smelting furnace. I said obey me and do everything I command you, and you will be my people and I will be your God. Then I will fulfill the oath I swore to your forefathers to give them a land flowing with milk and honey-the land you pocess today"

It kinda sucks for the jews that because of the covenant made 5000 years or so ago that they are cursed when they do not obey because that was their responsibility. I wonder though if living indirectly under their covenant still today if we are curse when we choose to not act in accordance with obedience. I see that all the time that God will bring us back in order that we might have purpose and be used to tell at least someone about the good news found in Jesus!

It's sad to see that almost 5,000 or so years after the covenant with Israel that that region does not know Jesus, it would seems the Jews failed. I think it was because they didn't have the holy Spirit. That is probably why in round two with the gentiles he sent the Holy Spirit because he knew without it we couldn't do it.

One question remains though "Should we as gentiles bring this idea up once again of blessing flowing in indirect missions? "

Side track...but I know this will be valuable. Elise and I have had a lot of discussion about what exactly is the best mission work and mission approach. Normally we say it inderectly and don't even realize it but the answer always ends up being prayer and a heart fixed on God. God will fulfill his promise in blessing those who bless Him but I know three fold that we must follow certain things in order to stay the path of obedience. We need not grieve the Spirit by being a people of prayer. a people firmly rooted in the word that we may recognize when the Spirit speaks.And lastly ee must fulfill the great commision by being true flames. We need to be flames of discipleship. We need to be pouring those two things into other peoples. We must pour prayer and the word into other people. It is of a necessity that we do not even comprehend!

We must always also remember that God is not done with the Jews but until they turn to Him, Jesus our savior as well, we as christians need to obey and be blessed that the world may bring Glory to Him!

JG

Lessons from Reflection upon the Jewish Intent

Like I was saying last night things have shifted over this summer. To what extent I have no idea, the only hint I have to the extent is the shocked expression I have when I look at who I am. I can't help wondering with things so different what intent God has for this new season I am entering into. My only hint comes from somethin I have learned in studying through the old testement.

Many people wonder why...in particular with the jewish people...why exactly God chose them and I think oftentimes we don't see what exactley they were put here for and why God chose them. It my strong held belief that the Jewish people were to always point to Jesus...their coming messiah! They were to be so radically different in their obedience and from the outside culture that God would be able to bless them so incredibly much that all the generations would know that their messiah was the way to salvation, that their God was the true God.

Instead of turning to blessing though they turned to the voice of another. They did not continually pour themselves into the word of the prophets. There are so many lessons we can learn. One in particular though that fits with the lake analogy of last night (that I now have a lake to draw from instead of a small pond) I believe God is calling and saying that "I want to bless you so incredibly much that the world will see your blessing and it will point to Me. That tis what I believe God is doing in San Luis Obispo. I wonder in particular why we are not mentioned in the revival prophecies that have come from those down in LA. But I am so selfish to believe that God is so good he wants to do even greater things through us even greater than reival.

I am not a hundred percent sure but I will do my best to make sure that when revival does hit as it has had its begining last year..it will never die with the people in SLO. I count on God's spirit going foreward aheadand doing as habbukuk talks about doing something that I could not even comprehend percieve or inagine.

JG

The Summer Season

This is the first time I am really sitting down stopping all I have to do and reflecting upon what exactley God has done with me this summer. It's interesting because in not stoppin since really spring break, march of this year, I am going to have to sift through an entires years worth of God's teaching in my life, and I know it is a very difficult task ahead of me because God has sifted and shaped my heart so much. I know where my heart was at this time last year and I look at my heart today and wonder what man stands before me? For if you were to see the old man I was you surely would not believe I am that same man!

I guess I will begin with the silence and perhaps only focus on that because the picture above is so fitting to what I believe the whole key to this summer was. In giving this summer one word it would fall somewhere between radically different, desert, and utter silence. And I am very careful not to define it as one word because one is not fitting at all because it has not been complete silence but rather a time of a different way of God speaking and it hasn't been a dessert because I have had diligence and been learning so much but it is dessertesqe if you will and I feel very strange in the fact that I cannot define the word.

I think the above picture is so fitting because it's not so much that I don't have any water in this dessertesqe season, maybe that's just the thing? I have an entire lake that has been given to me but I need to begin to use the lake... begin to cultivate the hard soil and let things begin to grow. But I think I look so often to the old ways, the fact that I could get my replenishment from the little lakes not this unending bigger source. And the thing is I don't know when things shifted really? All I know is that things are somehow now incredibly differetnt. I have different responsibilities because of the choices i have made for Christ. And I think that's just the thing I feel so incredibly overwhelmed because all of it is new, it is good but it is new.

Well I think that is all I will write for the evening. I will repost this tommorow with tommorows thoughts but as for now I am going to sleep.
JG

Something Unexpected

It is interesting to think of the directions that God takes us in in our lives...to think of all the unexpected u turns regular turns underpasses overpasses tunnels and everything else that He has in line for our often times not very straight directionally lives. Often times it reminds me of a quest where you have to go get something in a far off land to fix something in your own land. It is not until you have the knowledge or something you gain in that different land that you can set things right once again.

This summer has not been a straight road in any fashion andI have never known what quite to expect in it. But it has been a blessing in disguise, and a time of gaining knowledge that I need to go back to a distant land and set things once again right.

This friday in particular God took me on an unexpected turn, I thought I knew precisely what direction God was going to be directing things in...but as is the case in these summer months I have no idea being prophetically and conversaitonally blind what turn is coming up next. All I know is that I must gain something somewhere else to gain where I thought God was going. In particular God gave me friday night a very interesting direction for next year a means if you will but an end also. I will not mention it in its fullness here because I have yet to take time and pray about the matter but it involves the blessed fellowship of the saints and something even greater than revival. Think of it a people of God planted on the central coast whose hearts would never ever die in passion for Jesus and His word, His communion,His spirit, and His delight! A people who went out to all nations and preached in every single corner of the globe. Millions laying facedown running and dedicating their lives to Jesus. All starting with the personal life that we have with Jesus, everything good that will flow out of that! I think that is something to talk about.

I think to some degree retartadly I am still putting God in a box but as I have been reading about Jewish culture and how radically different Jesus is I don't think we can ever ever ever fully grasp even a glimpse of who our Creator is! Take for instance Jesus, studying jewish culture through the dead sea scrolls something radical comes out of Jesus Christ. He was the author of the parable! Before that there were no metaphors used in the average conversation or teaching but Jesus took it mainstream! He took something ordinary and made it extraordinary! We should never limit God because his ends are not even close to the ends to our means!He reflects himself in everything but it doesn't even come close!

As I take time to reflect over the next week spending time in "the fort" I will try and let the spirit clarify this direcion and these ends but I doubt mere words could contain my God's acts. He is the incromprable God after all!

May all of you who read this be blessed and I look forward to seeing all your beautiful faces very soon!

JG

To You (unexpected)

Oh the love and delight
of the Three in One, Divine Heavenly Light
of the friendship and deep communion they bring
those Three of whom I fear, love and sing

In unity I gave it all to You
Fear of God that drew me into You
blessed Spirit, that moves this heart to sing to You
I give it all to to You

To You,to You...to You

Jesus who came to earth to die
He gave it all to You,
And it was the fear of God that drew Him
blessed Spirit that moved His heart to sing
He gave it all for You

And oh the love and delight
one in three, heavenly light
and oh the friendship and deep communion that He brings
those three of whom I fear, love and will forever sing

To You, to You...to You

JG

Oh the intricate thread that ties us all
of plans uncharted and plans of fall
to know the unknowable
to find a once untrue now true fable

Oh the intricate thread that ties us all
oh to see it come in the fall

Oh to see what tapesty was weaved
in summer days, then missed, not percieved
to know hearts that were sifted
seeking God with dilegence, hearts now shifted

Oh the intricate thread that ties us all
oh to see it come in the fall

And we praise this God who has weaved it all
He who knit and paved the way for the fall
so intricate so fine, an unmistakable line
oh to see and know it all, what a beautiful time!

JG

On my right hand

There was a while, about a year and a half that I wore my purity ring on my left hand. This was a sign to God of my single devotion to His work through my life and my unwavering toward anything involving relationships. Things have changed though! Wednesday night I switched my ring from my left to my right hand, signifying that I am choosing God's plan not my own of singleness and sole unwavering devotion to God.
I know to most of you this would come as no hard choice by any means and it is the same now with me, but over the course of this year and especially over the course of this summer God has changed my heart. He has changed my direction and is designing a plan that I couldn't even imagine!
As I got the chance to talk to Elise last night, having some much needed time alone in conversation I knew that this choice to pursue God with the ring on my right hand, this is the right choice! How could God design something undesignable and execute with such beauty! I am amazed!
I do not know what plans God has I have a few general ideas but like all things God blows me away! He is so truly awesome!
JG

A commonly coined phrase

So I would have to say that my thoughts as of late have been scattered, much like diffused light. So I will say this evening as I write that you shouldn't expect anything from these scattered thoughts these are for me. But I will post them because God has a way of working and speaking through the chaos and that is awesome but it boggles my mind everytime. So if the words I am about to write make any sense thank the spirit not I!
This summer has been a blessing, but very difficult. With the prospect that I only have 8 more days of work, Elise has returned home and I am experiencing the blessing that was given to me in SLO,and my sister and all my fellowship here is gone and off to college prettymuch I find myself very lonely. I find myself longing for the future in so many ways! I find myself lately being incredibly lazy in a funk and rather honestly tired. But as always I should rejoice, taking time to honestly sit back and enjoy it, in the present. Infact I was thinking on the way home in this reworked heart that I find within asking "why wouldn't I rejoice in the present?" I came up with some strange theological concept about us only being half flesh and half spirit. Thinking about the whole fact that knowing what God has planned somewhat for me, I should rejoice in the fact that this is going to be the easy part! I should be taking the time to rejoice in the easy. I know that doesn't explain the theological concept at all but understand I am just trying to gain perspective not sit here and come up with concepts that may or not be true. The bible is the only thing honestly we should take a lot of deep thought and time to understand!

Like most nights I am sitting here, alone with the silence of my thoughts, a pretty scary thing! The thing is though that this week has been different because my parents have been out, I have been watching my neighbors dogs and house and honestly been able to just do whatever I want to, and I see the first light of the core that has been developed in me shining through and it is cool. But I understand that I have so much more covering to rip off that wonderful light!

Over the past week I have gotten the oppurtunity to blare music, sit in silence, dance uncontrolably, record on the grand, and honestly be free in Jesus Christ, I feel so often times although I live in a christian world to a sense here in CO I am chained! That is precisely why I go to the Springs every Fri, so I can be crazy, jump up and down and show how I really feel about this guy named Jesus! It is pretty awesome!

Also in regards to scripture, my biblical scholar side is coming out once again, I'm glad I've been missing him! I have been dwelving into the hebrew language in all of its subtlties! It is also reallly awesome. Reasearching books that weren't included in the canon, reading through the dead sea scrolls commentaries from the 1st century AD on Isaiah and on the creation. Fascinating works! I still regard the bible as number 1 but because of my world view I don't believe the knowledge of Jesus Christ is limited to just those books that were included in the common era bible !

On one other note I think I am going to try and get some of my character back into my writing by asking a rediculouus question or by adding some really lame quote at the end of this blog every time I post!

2QOTD
"The VP, he look like Ralph, he good looking man, even better than Ralph!"
-Polo sales associate talking about the vice president of Polo Ralph Lauren that visited today...

"You know John it's not Jesus Christ who is the most commonly understood thing in the world, not the bible...it's Coca Cola"
-My friend jonathan


JG

New things

So this is what is up with the post below this one...I am getting really into mixed media things and I found this site that hosts free video blogging so the bottom one was just a test. But get ready cause here comes powerful words, moving music, and cool images!
JG