Reflections on the end of the World

“In your patience possess ye your souls.” –Luke 21:19

"Possess your souls, be your own men, keep up the authority and dominion of reason, and keep under the tumults of passion, that neither grief nor fear may tyrannize over you, nor turn you out of the possession and enjoyment of yourselves.’’

"In suffering times, set patience upon the guard for the preserving of your souls; by it keep your souls composed and in a good frame, and keep out all those impressions which would ruffle you and put you out of temper.’’

-Matthew Henry in his commentary on Luke 21

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I write at the beginning of the end of a long engagement personally. I feel it undeniably. I know it. Things are drawing to an end a stage of life is ending and a new one is fading into beginning.

And it is fitting on this day that I write to talk about an end to things because the world is to suppose to by the authority of some men end this day. I chuckle at that idea but today, we should use this day and show respect and reverence to God and his destructive power on the 7000^th anniversary of the flood that baptized the world and made it again new.

And I must choose this day in patience to possess my soul, as should many other men. And remind others to let reason say perhaps today will most likely not bring the end. BUT in this moment, I find it a fitting opportunity to reflect on a majestic God and the last 7000 years of history and how it affects me in my own unfolding one!

The great grace-filled and loving God who never gave up on His creation the One who never gave up on me. And all the diversity of birds and dogs that came in those 7000 years since that water filled event. What beauty he breathed into the world even still…when it needed and deserved utter destruction.

...

I was struck by Luke 21 as it begins with the parable of the widow who gave the two pennies, all she had. I think she knew somehow and was caught up in the idea that the world was at an end of sorts...being willing to in a sense " throw it all away" strangely I find there is no more fitting a parable to begin with than this in any beginning.

She found something greater...and that God honors faith… holding things openly and in the proper perspective of letting it begin again.

I’ve been so struck by this thought as of late as much of the world remains in a state of flux. The profession I pursue is torn between old habits, business practices and old economies and is struggling to make itself viable in the emerging world. And my life is delayed by old ways and old powers shifting into newer ones.The thought that to begin again takes humility unprocessed by much of the world and yet how good it is to step into an open hand way of life letting Christ Rule and Reign in our little Worlds larger World and hearts.

…

The past 8 months have told me this and if I have taken any big lesson it would simply be- I would not wish to live the way my parents live and have crafted their lives because it is not the world Christ is making new with and within me as a character and part of the plot. I can understand every angle and desire they have and the world those desires and circumstances birthed- that is their story not mine.

It is better to live with open hands and go where Christ directs as the author of our lives which in Elise and I’s case for now is NYC and be willing to give all we have to follow where He directs.

Elise and I are moving to NYC. We are beginning again. Crafting a life of two diversities and letting God’s tangle us in unity. Jumping in radical faith and willing to give up all of our two pennies to do so. There is no guarantee of work. There is no guarantee of housing. Only the truth that God wants to make the world anew and he wants to infuse beauty and diversity into it and use us in that process!

We are humbled and overjoyed for the God-filled things which are slowly beginning to unfold as we move toward that new beginning at the apparent “ end of the world”.

We do hope the world doesn’t end today. But if it does we will both be in heaven with our maker and nothing else will matter but the joy that supernovas in our hearts.

I thank my God that he has never given up on me. May I never give up on Him and who He is! He makes all things new!

J.G.Grinstead

Trust

It’s never really all that easy to write about the core of who you are. But nonetheless to write about anything else would be of a lesser or more inconsequential point, God is dealing with the core of me and healing a few things along the way.

And it’s complicated to say the least.

At my core I am an architect and designer. To be doing anything else doesn’t do all that much to give me joy or isn’t really something I can dive into fully. I half-ass it because I can’t really get into it. Which is on par with most employees, sadly. But its because I have known what it is to dive into something so deep, something that sings and is in concert with who I am. And to be doing anything else just feels as if something is missing, as if I have lost my love.

My buddy Landon posted this in his blog:

“If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not ‘studying a profession,’ for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

I think it puts rather well what I have been feeling. And I think from it we can take that the hundred chances are better than the one. As a Christian knowing that God is mightily for us we can be guaranteed he is in our 100’s chances and is in that first enterprise too! But he may have other things to do within that man( in me)in the 100 before he leads him back to the first.

In many respects I am the first man who has miscarried thus far in my enterprise not being installed into an architecture position in New York City as the time approaches the end of within a year. I believe that time will come as God continues to lay the ground work for such a thing. I am confident that my God is for me in giving me to a profession which makes my heart sing and can be an act of worship.

But he does have things to do inbetween that future reality.

I have said before I do not claim to know all that God is doing in this really awkward strange season. But I know the other day He spoke for the first time in a while and said to me.

"THIS IS IMPORTANT JOHN!!!”

…and it is. I can't deny that or logically say this is stupid...As much as I would like to at times! Every moment of this winding path every miniscule detail is important! So I must

Trust in the LORD with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding; in all my ways acknowledging Him, and Him alone making my paths straight through that obedience and trust in WHO HE IS.

-Proverbs 3:5-6 ( loosely translated)

I am learning to acknowledge him. Who he is, trusting in Him and am not leaning on my expectations or my understanding of how it will work out. I am acknowledging Him our great and awesome God. He is in this. I look forward to the day I can look back as I can look back now and say my FATHER in heaven is great and look how he fought for me with a jealous love even against my best ( still faulty and failing) thoughts.

JG

Needs

Blogs are funny thing because they can become soapboxes by which to profess our frail and often shortsighted opinions. Or they can be used to bless people. It is always my hope that this will bless. What I've found though is for that to happen truthfulness, straightforwardness, and honesty are the catalysts that tend to bless in the later case. By simply telling what is going on in our lives how we are coping in it and who we are clinging to in it. This can provide a depth of insight that gives blogging its purpose and blessing in this strange world we inhabit.

With that in mind in being honest and straightforward, this is going to be a longer that normal one: the issue I am going to try and tackle is less a blog and more a summary of the past 3 years or so... So I will try to highlight important parts only...

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My last year of college, I paid my way through. I was engaged to a beautiful and wonderful woman. And in that first year in a sense of being financially on my own I began and saw what I wanted my life to look like. What I deemed as important. And in that I began praying for where the Lord might send my future wife and I together as we began our lives together after college. And the Lord started planting this crazy idea of moving to NYC. And the idea stuck...and hasn't gone away.

I saw the detriment of what a long car commute can do to a marriage and didn't want any part of that in mine I wanted public transportation options where I could use the transit time productively. I knew the realities of architecture and that when I do get a full time job in it it would occupy a majority of my time. I saw what suburban living did to further divide an already splintered world and frankly didn't want any part of it. I wanted a diversity of people poverty and wealth in my face day in and day out. I didn't want to ignore it by doing the garage freeway office freeway garage option.

And in looking back God started laying a ground work long before I even began considering NYC : this jump to the other side of the country:

See, I have never had an architecture job and God seems to have bitterly opposed it up to this point. I have done design-build construction but never worked in an architecture office, because frankly God didn't want me to for I imagine the NYC reason. Most people would agree with me in this statement that if a firm were to have me intern with them they would have offered me a full time job and I would have accepted and that would not have been in NYC. So instead God for whatever reason during the years I could have interned or chose to try to get a job as an intern orchestrated the biggest financial collapse and worst architectural hiring crisis since the profession began in the late 1800s. I instead during the past two summers designed and built a 2200 sf "house" for Elise and I to survive one of the most crazy winters on record for a lot of the country in a rather warm Colorado while working two management positions on my end and several graphic design jobs on my wife's end to save enough money to have us line up with this movement of God.

But it hasn't been all about saving because we really have has a year off from the craziness that is the working world reality. We have been able to bless our family. I have been able to serve my wife in ways I couldn't as an architecture student who also worked part time and had a social life and it has been a joy. We have been able to help out my brother in law who tore his ACL and LCL in a skiing accident and just bought a fixer-upper which he can't do certain things due to his accident working, physical therapy, and being the youth director at the church etc.. and me with all my design build knowledge can help out... . We were able to spend time with and see off my other brother in law who recently moved to Florida. We became part of the respective in-laws family and now know how to fit in quite comfortably.

And now that the world is on its way to recovery and we feel a great need to get our lives started for our own sanity we are going to step into what we have felt God orchestrating for a long while. I'm sure it won't pan out exactly like we think but God is still most certainly in it.

So in light of that and many other things and what we feel and see the Spirit doing Elise and I have decided to move sometime in July to NYC. We have planned a housing trip to NYC June 22nd-28th which will hopefully be enough time to secure an apartment. We will be celebrating our one year anniversary on the 27th there and beginning our journey shortly after!

Pray for us to both secure jobs or to have enough coming in to survive so hopefully we do not run out of savings in the most expensive city in the world. I have a firm that is interested in me and is very likely to hire me on a contract basis if enough work comes in, pray for that. Pray for my wife's job prospects. She is wicked talented and has many contacts she will meet with when we move. Excited for what God has for us there that week and beyond! and the six weeks we will be in Colorado two weeks in California before that!

JG

8 months

I imagine I hardly grasp what God has done in my heart over this time. 2/3 of a year has passed since Elise and I have been back in Colorado. I am now on my third job and to be honest there's been a lot of hard lessons along the way . I believe however maturity has been developed within it...and God has been glorified because of it and I am deeply thankful due to that single fact.

Lately and in part with our past few jobs here in Colorado Elise and I have been learning how to wrestle and not get pinned down by the realities of the working world and trying to grab onto the reigns of married life and the realities of day to day . I have come to the conclusion that no one can really prepare you for this and the intensity and amount of effort you must put into such a thing and the realities of I imagine seeing your selfishness and humanity due to it are something you can't prepare for. Architecture school helped because current life is a downplay from that but it will ramp up again soon! And many a sleepless selfless night will have not prepared me for that

But the reason for this blog isn't to say that, although it does run parallel to that thought; it is simple to say and sort through the fact that there's something happening in my heart in this time that is immensely new that needs to be sorted through and written down.

Perhaps its easiest to say it this way, the weight of the world has a way of showing Christ as the antithesis to what the world is and the realities of the world hinder Christ coming into it and you really have to learn how to make inroads for Christ in the world and choose whom you will serve or you will simply get bowled over by it.

Seeing God for who He is is so much clearer in a world unsheltered by family support or places in society where we have deemed by age to be places of rest and shelter from the outside world simply put, it changes your perspective. I don't think many are comfortable with this but it is a truer picture of God.

Personally it has been shaping desires for strange things and has been giving me strength to work towards long held ambitions that lie deep within my heart knowing that those are the ones that really matter.

But by choosing that it means life isn't gonna look like what I thought it would look like, and due to that my heart is both fickle and redeemed and is immensely torn in times like these.

Needless to say its been an unpredictable 8 months but it has been good. I have plans but we'll see if they pan out.

How much can one man do?
To change the world
The answer is not that you are to become that man
But their is one man who already did
And the changing goes like nothing before it has
imperceptible until you know its way
infinite complexity undoing you
to find what was deeper within
the deeper you
To show what was already done
by a father who loved you

JG

Overwhelmed by His Goodness

Trying to find my way into the second section of an architecture career( the internship junior architect working faze) has been an interesting journey to say the least . But in these 8 months or so after graduating seeing this grand plan unfold you know the one that God has for my life, I am truly severely overwhelmed at how deeply God loves me and how He has been loving in spite of my sometimes fitfull two year old like and loss of perspective depressive tendencies. His plan, is so much bigger and grander than my small scale dreams( and I dream big compared to most) and it is far better than anything I could have ever dreamed.

God’s been meddling a lot for Elise and I’s joy….It's too complicated to spell out but He is at work and it is breathtaking and I am overwhelmed by his goodness…

JG

True Love

Worship Element: True Love from Adam Kring on Vimeo.

Lately I find myself speechless I am certainly at a point in life where I am really confused as to what God is doing. 

Perhaps it was an illusion in the first place that I ever thought I could understand. Or perhaps my small view of God that keeps growing bigger to a point of lack of understanding. Needless to say i am largely confused and my perspective and dreaming about what will happen changes daily. 

It makes it hard to blog because if anything I strive for is for this to be an honest bigger picture account of my life. 

Right now there are few possibilities that could happen:

1. Elise gets this job in hackettstown nj we live in orange NJ and I look for a job in NYC or the job with SOM or Rottet NYC comes through. 

2 God has us wait some more here in Colorado we continue to save money( which I am so stoked on) Elise continues her work for the broncos and I help fix up my brother in law and sisters new house they purchased while serving my wife and hopefully finding a job here that is somewhat flexible for that. 

3. My uncle in LA creates an intern position for me in LA and we move out there in hopes of me transferring to the NYC office in the future. 

4 or an option we have not considered yet that will pop up. 

It changes daily though it really does . And God is in all those options we are just waiting for one to happen. 

And personally I am happy with any of those options whatever the Lord does I am grateful. 

I think that is what has really been changing within me. I have no great expectations about what God is going to do with the NYC thing. I am happy with what he has put before me. In Colorado maybe LA or even NJ. 

I think that is what times of confusion are there for, to really stretch our faith and to learn habits of heart and mind to cling in faith to who God is. Hoping in his character and deliverance expecting it. And lastly and most importantly loving in the meantime. 

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See, there are these moments where I notice ways I used to think replaced by The most wonderful thoughts . For instance we have a family friend who loves the Broncos Elise working for the broncos got all these free posters and she gave them to this guy. He was having a bad day I guess and the posters really cheered him up. Maybe it is the love I hold for my wife but a thought came into my head that if we were put in Colorado for that one moment it would have been worth it. That thought was from God. A gift in the form of the way I think about Him and how He loves through us. God puts in so much effort just to love his children. And every pain we endure as believers is to show how He loves. 

I May not understand what this season is all about but I know it was conceived and is controlled by someone in heaven who loves me more than I will ever realize and comprehend. And in this time I get to simply love my wife without the distractions that real life offers and what a wonderful way that is to spend the majority of my first year of marriage. The lord loves me! He loves Elise and He loves you. His name is Jesus! He died for all of us because of his love. I think that is what valentines day means to me this year and what I will choose to focus on is that I have love from my family my wife, my Jesus, etc. And I am joyful because of it and am powerful fierce and a warrior due to it. 

And no matter what I am loved and am able to love because of it. 

Happy valentines day everyone! 

Hope in Waiting

Four Hundred Years from Salomon on Vimeo.

History records that for 400 years heaven was quiet

hearts lived in famine and no prophet walked the earth.

The heart of man was a barren wasteland holding fast to the hope

that one day the silent skies would break open.

But imagine the sound of desolation

the breathe that searches for life taking in the stale air

devoid of the life of its maker

But we hold out the utterances of heaven waiting in quiet hope

that this is the age when heaven roars with a voice so powerful

it thunders over the waters

a voice that breaks the mighty cedars of Lebanon

a voice that flashes forth with flames of fire

and in his power shakes the wilderness

a voice that bring forth life from desolation

and you are holding it in your hand

...

I want to thank Salomon for this short film. It is both beautiful and captivating as well as engages me personally on a level that few things can right now. Through it I see clearer.

Thank you.

...

I don't post movies often on my blog...I reserve such things for Facebook normally but this short film really stirred something in me.

Personally, many of you know I am playing a waiting game. Waiting in many ways for the economy to get better so I can get a job in an architecture firm and begin working toward licensure.

I hope one day to be in NYC doing this and believe that is where I would best be able to serve love and benefit the world with the good news of Jesus Christ with the gifts and talents He alone has given me.

AND Although my waiting game does not compare in any way or shape to the waiting game the jews and the world waited for in their Messiah and that 400 years. I find myself focusing on that time and that thought and gaining much from such a reflection.

They must have wondered? Just as I wonder each day.

Maybe it took them that 400 years to be ready for Jesus. Maybe it took 400 years for the Jews to get rid of certain sin. I am uncertain as to that exact history. But what I do know is that they probably wondered what was going on and why they weren't hearing from God.

But the thing was they were hearing from God BUT it was not in the ways they were looking for it was in different ways then what they knew of his voice through the prophets. And in that shaping they were on track towards seeing him in a completely new way. They had to take their bibles at least what was written of it at the time and see what was coming and see the beauty of God and the seriousness of sin in that reflection.

I can relate to that. And I really believe that is what God is doing within me. Reforming and shaping me into who I need to be for what He is about to do. It was no different with the jews and the world during those 400 years.

And the one thing I keep coming back to is that you can't lose hope. Especially that God is good and has plans that will set hearts more ablaze than it ever has before. And of course when its a lengthy endeavor of God changing you to be of use to His purposes, their will be questions. But those questions are pointless really.

I can't forget knowing that the Lord is for me not against me. I am honoring Him in the actions I am taking and my heart. And I don't understand all the implications or reasons why I am here. Why I am waiting but I am here and the Lord is for me and I can put my hope in that.

J.G. Grinstead

Faith

At my core I am a two year old in need of some refining; specifically in the area of wanting to get and have my way.

And I know this because I have had a nose dive into depression this week.

And in unraveling the complexities of the why, the really why, and the what’s really going on I have come to some conclusions.

1. I am hiding under the hollow shell of something that use to be but is long gone and refined.

Part of our challenge as christians is taking our identity in Christ seriously and really believing it. Because sin and how sinful we are is at the core of our new birth, it becomes very difficult to really take Christ serious when it comes to our identity in Him as his sons and daughters.

The truth is though He takes this issue very seriously He mandates in scripture that we believe we are who he says we are. It hinders Him and His glorious work when we don’t.

The beauty and oftentimes scapegoat of sanctification though is that God continually works despite us; he hollows out the things we cling to in our identity til the point we can begin to believe them where he finally is able to in essence ninja kick our version of identity, smash it and see it fall to pieces on the floor dealing it its final blow...and we move on to the next two year old tendency needing some reworking.

And when I look upon my life all the recent developments realizations and perspectives I am coming to terms with accepting that this life is this long term faith building exercise. That is real life and proper sanctification as God eagerly awaits the awakening of His sons and daughters.

2. New York City and my career/work and all things are very much tied into this. More intricately than I can articulate.

It’s taken me a long while to actually be able to articulate these complex thoughts. It took me about 4 days in the mountains of stilling life to a point of prayer journaling and reading alone to come to terms with the fact that NYC was my idea. And my idea was about to fail. I had to understand,I had to understand New York was my idea. And my idea died monday night.

I do not believe New york city died when I received that email on Monday letting me know that 3 big projects a firm was counting on for my hire didn’t come through. But my idea of how New York timing life etc. would all work out died.

I am walking in the reality of God’s providence in the in between. And I have to remember that every place is an opportunity to exercise faith and see what it brings.

God brought me to a breaking point a few days before that email where my two year old tendencies came out full force. It led me into what would normally have been a nose dive into depression if I really struggled with that still...I woke up joyful a day ago. I have simply been a two year old trying to be depressed and apathetic and unmoved to the point where God would magically do something my way.

God isn’t like that though.

I like J.I. Packer’s thought on the subject:

“What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God for his Father…Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption…The truth of our adoption gives us the deepest insights the New Testament affords into the greatness of God’s love. Were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be – adoption through propitiation.”

“You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ‘Father’ is the Christian name for God.”

I am a two year old. And God is a good father. But if I don’t believe Him to be that, then I simply will rot away the blessing of what Christ has for me in every moment.

And therefore I choose to believe.

JG

Coup De Grâce

Last week, I got the opportunity to go out to New York City for 3 days for an interview/meeting for a potential architecture job with a great and wonderful firm I've been in contact with since June. It was a long awaited trip and I used the opportunity of being out there to see the city interact with its people and get a picture and a more tangible reality of my possible future life there.

I can’t begin to possibly contain the trip in mere musings here and I apologize for many a delayed response to facebook comments emails etc.; but its taken me a while to reflect. I try not to spit out initial responses that might be erratic and illogical at best through those methods of communication.

So, in piecing together this thing together, as I don’t do with many others I have decided to forgo shoving emotion to the side; but I have given it sufficient time to be of benefit. I lose all the power and depth of what God has been trying to get at in me through the things behind the many tears that were shed as an emotional response over this past week in sorting through what happened in NYC, if I simply let emotion have no part. So I will be honest and bare my heart here while trying to make some sort of sense.

So I will start out with the response I would have posted on facebook..."The trip was wonderful"…it really was...but it was much more than that. I got to see some amazingly beautiful buildings meet some wonderful people and eat wonderful food but God used the last day(the day of the interview) as an opportunity to wreck me and wreck me good. The interview and the firm ended up being a big surprise…totally different than what I expected them to be and what I expected them to say and it forced me to rebuild a lot of my speculation and expectations of what I expected my life to look like in NYC.

The week following the trip was very emotional due to those 8 months of expectations being rearranged and the realities I saw and experiences not even remotely resembling what I expected. It actually hasn’t been really til today a week later that I have been able to reflect without bursting into tears. Which I am still sorting through. Elise can attest to the fact I really have been an emotional nut-job as of late.

What I can gather from the tears though is that for those who don’t know or wouldn’t suspect going to NYC, for me, meant a possible end to a long period of waiting eager expectation hopes and heart…and I really believed this trip to be the coup de grâce to the 8 months in pursuing NYC, the 3 years of strenuous emotional effort pursuing an architecture job, and the lifetime endeavor I have had since I was 4 to become an architect. NYC, though, was not the "blow of mercy(coup de grâce)" I hoped it to be… it was a simple repetition of a word I've heard a lot of for the past few years " wait. "

And don’t get me wrong the interview / meeting went immensely well and I am led to believe I am at the top of their list but a few more things have to go right before they commit to hiring a salary position and I must continue to wait.

And that was way too much for my heart to handle in this week following the trip. That's what I've been working through.

But as I’ve begun to pray through the very casual interview that resembled more of a meet and greet and the conversation I had with the principle about the company and its future and my skills and talents and how they could be used there ; I’ve begun to see ,regaining my emotional sanity, that God is in it in more wonderful ways than I expected Him to be…and He always has been and giving up in this perhaps last leg of the sprint is stupid and pointless. And I'd be a fool to do so when in reality the door is still just as open as its ever been to be sent with my wife to NYC!

And frankly…nothing has changed… besides the fact we're another week down the timeline of what God has for Elise and I...but the truth is I’m still waiting on the Lord and His timing on this thing…but things have changed a little...the door is cracked a little bit more open and the things I’m learning about my heart and myself and the Lord Himself and growing in along the way are changing me in more profound ways than I possibly could write about or summarize here…yet strangely those things are the things that matter immensely more than what we might call big. And I'm glad that God sees fit to be thorough with my heart and prepare me for wherever and whenever He is leading because I know I will need it and He's laying good things ahead of me! And that's exciting and worth enduring for!

JG

Fullness

I’ve been trying to write this for several weeks now but the time of reflection and gluing together of a thousand instances was impossible to do except for now.

So I apologize but I believe these reflections come in their perfect timing!

…

I’m working currently 6 days a week with an international relief non-profit and love love my job!

In this job, I have faced and seen more spiritual warfare in these past few weeks than I ever have encountered. And in dealing with it, I could go into the thousand reasons and speculations but what I have come to realize is unexpected; but is the more proper response the greater question, the greatest question, “who is God?” And in that question finding an answer and implications that I was empty until I found.

Christ and what He did on the cross is what I’m seeing: the intermingling of the cross and my world and the implications of it.

Here it is:

“The fullness of God was pleased to dwell” in Jesus and so rests in us if we choose to believe. The one who is able to conquer death is in us.

Do you get that, what that means? I don’t even scratch the surface of the implications and am still amazed!

That has been the great mark I have seen these past few weeks between the believers and the non-believers I work with. Those non-believers who are helping us out that are in the job for money or helping out mankind are plagued by outright demonic attacks. Three tires blowing out, a house burning down, hands needing to be amputated etc. And that is only 3 days mind you.

For the believer Satan is a defeated foe by what Jesus accomplished on the cross. For the unbeliever he is still allowed to terrorize them in blatant and obvious ways because again the fullness of God does not reside in the unbeliever they are empty and open for counterfeits that will never bring them the fullness of what life was meant to bring. That may seem harsh but it is true and I stand by it. A non-believer will never step into the fullness of anything without accepting Christ.

But this thought does not end here it explodes with something not easily noted. If we have the fullness of God in us and have the victory over Satan there is no limit to who we can become in Christ as we bury the deeds of darkness and reach for the world under Christ reaching the potential and fullness that Satan bitterly opposes.

This is the beauty in fullness and what Christ death on the cross and resurrection after means.

I’ve seen fashion and ad executives join this job from Manhattan and join part in this endeavor. I have seen volunteers from 2 countries so far and 23 states join hands in helping kids. There is something to following Christ and his commands to love and the morality he taught but without Christ these people will never experience the fullness of joy that Christ promises because of Satan’s deception of them. And that breaks my heart

And I believe in this God has led me to the grand lesson of this time that as I step into my interview in NYC on the 13th of December. I was buried with Christ in baptism and am made alive in Him I suffer and love others in stark contrast to the culture I step into. I must allow Christianity to critique every culture that I step into; and it will not destroy it but will make it reach its fullness. And that is why I am sent because there is some beautiful potential that God sees for the world and for this country and for that city and for His joy as well as my own. And he is pleased to allow my wife and I to step into co laboring with Him in His victory.

We as believers are still in a war with Satan and the forces of darkness. Never forget that or be unmindful of his ways. I am going to war soon, I can feel it coming. The outer lying battles here have trained me; but they are nothing compared to what is coming…but the beauty of it is Christ is already Victor over all “ he has overcome the world”. And we have power and authority through Him alone to cast out demons and help this world grow in justice in love grace and in the glorifying of God. Calling leaders and authorities to the responsibility of keeping this great world in order because God demands it so that his gospel may go forth and making light shine in immense darkness and by dying becoming alive to the greater things in their fullness.

What a great God we serve and love!

-JG

A Cross of Joy

The cross cannot be separated from the resurrection. They are they linked. The death of Christ cannot be seperated from his resurrected life. It is importantly so with our lives in Christ. We cannot experience joy and the better life here on Earth without the cross in our lives.

…

I could contentedly close my conclusions there because there is so much depth to that thought; but for me that thought is shaping me in more profound ways than I can possibly write in this time.

But nonetheless God is brilliantly working in me and I desire deeply to write. God has deeply impressed that upon my heart tonight. So I will illuminate further some recent thoughts etc.

…

I have always been one to do things immensely well at nearly everything I set my mind to…except a recent endeavor of shooting hoops with my wife and brother in law ( I thank God for such reminders that I am frail and human). But, to Most they interpret that quality and character of my work to be from God .

I’ve been asking myself as of late though how much of it is me and how much is from God.

And upon reflection I think that God does play a pivotal part but I am finding the source more applicably is myself choosing to die to myself and my desires and deciding to take up my cross.

As this time of stillness and sober reflection is showing me choosing to follow Christ’s voice and call in bigger and quicker ways shows me this truth clearer than I have ever seen it. I think the saying goes “the greater the risk the greater the reward”. It is true with Christianity too. The greater the honoring of the voice of the Lord the greater the joy..

Tonight God led me to Romans 12…but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is.

Coupled with last night’s reading from Exodus 16 I am convinced that God wanted the Israelites after He took them out of Egypt to completely and utterly to get Egypt out of their minds. He wanted them to walk think eat etc. differently. He wanted them to be completely new.

In this time I am thinking differently. I recognized it tonight. I am thinking newly and in it I am finding the good will of God Himself his love beyond anything I can fathom or take in without being moved.

God wanted me to die and in order for that to have happened I had to take up my cross. Stepping out in faith in pursuing New York when we could so easily be comfortable someplace else. We could have stayed in California and had every comfort and luxury society tells us to have. But it is my current cross that is making me die. And in dying I am finding life and finding a deep deep joy.

And I will gladly take up the next cross when it comes because there is joy in the cross.

I had the pleasure of going to dinner with Elise’s spiritual mama this evening. I was listening to them be women and converse back and forth when something hit me. She trusts God so deeply.

She told me that was part of her renewing. I find myself trusting God in deeper ways than ever before. I find the questions lacking. I use to think that so ignorant!

I trust and know God to be a good God. That is enough

It doesn’t mean I don’t wander what each day will hold or how I am to play a part in it. But I trust him at his word and by His remarkable love and I need nothing else. And that is so deeply pressed upon my heart.

I know deeper than my head
Inside my heart

Love is here
I trust so deeply
I can’t deny

Faith deeper than my head
…is here

There are no more questions
This night and forevermore!

JG

Psalm 27

I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes wait for for the Lord.

-Psalm 27 13-14

To Wait is good

My life is good and is so immensely blessed.

I come to that conclusion far to little in my life.

But it is true.

I look at my life, my beautiful wife, who I am, and where we are , and where we are going and I smile because life is good and I am so richly blessed by a good God.

And its not because he has given me a great architecture job, cause that hasn’t happened yet! It’s because I know deep down God loves me - that , whatever my lot it is good. It has not failed me yet and I should not doubt it will in the future

If this season has taught me anything through deep sensible reflection it is that the reason life is good is because I have let Christ be king in my life… let Him have control…even when I doubt him to be good and deny the love He has for me.

Therefore, the most sensible thing to do is let Him be Lord and let me be loved by Him even when I can’t understand or see the full picture, submitting to his will.

The decision to pursue New York City for Elise and I’s life has been an interesting journey . It hasn’t been easy by any means but as time has progressed we see God’s continued leading and wise governance over the situation.

And the simple fact has come that to wait on something is good.

Financially I will not mention numbers but we should, should a certain job go through have enough money to completely pay for our move to New York, all of our furniture ,trips to NYC for interviews, first months rent and a security deposit by January 1st, 2011 just through what Elise and I have saved while in Colorado.

If I would have had my way I would have had a job with a company I applied for in SoHo in late July. And would have moved to NYC September 1st of this year. An unrealistic dream!

But this way is better and I would not trade the humility and confidence growing within Elise and I the rest and simplicity of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loves us and is directing our lives forward, for anything.

It’s been such a blessing to be here with both sets of parents, to be able to talk with them enjoy life with them and discover who they are.

The Lord is good, May we always remember even when things happen that we don’t understand.

-John Grinstead

A Quiet Place called Colorado

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.

Mark 6:30-32

Rest + Simplicity

While in school I had these breaks in the chaos that was architecture school: working, managing a social life, trying to have generally good sleeping habits and wooing a woman. But those breaks were not enough time to rest and to get at what God really wished to do. Because other things had to come first.I am seeing that every day more and more.

There is an adjustable time-line to God's working in our lives. We have to pass the test before we can move on.

See, God shaped me while in school. He did a lot of shaping that I am only now really discovering the immensity of . He was working with my breaking point giving enough rest to develop me and shape me in the breaking point to bring me to this point where He could accomplish what he is accomplishing now.

Surprisingly though, even though I have been here in Colorado for two months now and been four months tomorrow since I graduated; It is only really just now in this length of time of stopping that I am finally having these moments like these... where I finally feel like I am on the precipice of walking into what I was meant to all along.

There are these rare moments that are becoming more commonplace where I simply enjoy the fact I am married and becoming who I am. Rejoicing in God's goodness graced in my present where my education and experience collides with my career heart and action. It is different than anything I have experienced before it is so good yet defies my best attempt to conjure up words.

I get to share a bed with a woman and get to live life's simplicities with her: Apple Cider. Reading in bed. Autumn Puzzles. Cooking tacos. Sitting at Panera for hours just catching up while eating 3 desserts. Watching Planet Earth.

I am moved by the simplicity of this time and what God is doing in me.

I am moved to my heart. to joy and immense peace and confidence.

I am moved by how God is providing for the realities of what I can imagine and have no idea.

He is very thorough.

He is very good. Even when I don't see that. The fact is true.

Why would I not believe?

Why would I not choose to trust...in Love itself?

JG

Run in the Night

I’ve been reflecting.

I finally have brought myself to it.

To be honest it has taken me so long because I feared the pain of seeing the blessing of what I was letting go of…choosing to hold everything with open hands.

Why did I fear. A good God will never lead me into something that will not in time set my heart ablaze.

He is a God who works over time and perfectly and thoroughly not missing a speck in my heart. Who rips soul and spirit apart to create a perfect person in perfect will and perfect joy.



I read through all of my blogs of the past 5+ years

I saw college through a wide angle lens and in turn saw God.

Saw my narrow entries.

But despite me..

God was there…and everywhere working despite all humanity.

We have confidence in the Lord concerning you, that you are doing and will continue to do what we command. May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.

Paul saw that. That is why there is freedom in true Christianity because God is good not because we are any better.

In the words of my sister’s pastor this weekend God did not save christians from the curse. We are still broken and in need. God deems that beneficial to us and the relationship we have with Him because we are therefore not hinging our joy on ourselves but on God’s good works despite us.

" Our lord said"go" but he also said "wait," and the waiting had to come before the going. Had the disciples gone forth as missionaries before the day of pentacost, it would have been an overwhelming spiritual disaster, for they could have done no more than make converts of their own likeness, and this would have altered for the worse the whole history of the western world and had consequences throughout the ages to come."
-Tozer (warfare of the Spirit)

There are days where I wonder what this time is here for…and I would be a fool to say I know what this time is here for.
I speculate often. But what I do know is that it is wrong to manhandle the timetable…I am here til God says “go” in his perfect timing.


He is the ultimate authority in my life. Not myself. The spirit inside of me which he has given has enabled me to go but certain things must happen before others.


I saw that in my writing how perfect was the timing of it all, perfect against my will and frustration. And that is why I can reflect in such overwhelming joy and holding it with open hands.


God is in this moment even now. I can rejoice in this time to reflect and realize who I am; all those people I took the blessing that God gave me and met them impacted them and was able to be a blessing to them. I have 22 letters from 22 men who I was blessed to impact.


That book brings me to rejoicing tears every time I go through it by myself.


In Landon’s words I left a legacy for others to walk into. I trust God that even if they fail in reaching my most lofty hopes for their lives God is still working within the larger timetable and working in their lives. I pray they can become spiritually worthy realizing their own brokenness and sinfulness in order that they might be able to go to the ends of the world proclaiming the gospel and not delaying any longer and making it more painful for God to finally break them and bring them to their knees.


This song from Jars of Clay entitled Run In the Night describe my situation very well. The things I am learning and describes this blogs reasoning better than I could do.Enjoy.




I know who I am

Once I was nameless, alone and You found me

You formed my knees to bend

You called me beloved

I am perfection



All my failures won't condemn me

Or leave me paralyzed and bound

And when I'm at my worst

Your love, it finds me first

By You I can run in the night

For by You I can run in the night



For I am such a man

Seized by the power of a great perfection

No matter where I am

Peace spreads below me in every direction



When evil sets the war upon me

I won't stumble, I won't fall

And though they do their worst

Your love has found me first

For by You I can run in the night

For by You I can run in the night

For by You I can run in the night



Hide me in the shelter of...

Keep me in the cover of...

Lead me in the light of Your love

Hide me in the light of Your love



For by You I can run in the night

For by You I can run in the night

For by You I can run in the night

For by You I can run in the night



For by You I can run in the night

For by You I can run in the night

For by You I can run in the night

For by You I can run in the night



JG

Compass

“Dream a dream so big it is doomed to fail if God is not in it”

…

In many respects I am idealist.

To you that probably doesn’t make much sense. To me it really doesn’t either.

Especially in the world we inhabit!

I am finding when doing things for God’s kingdom: being in community and engaging with people, the situation is never ideal. It never has been with sinful people. The idealism comes when God steps in.

This is an aspect of myself I am learning to lay down: the gentle whisper that is the Spirit telling me that the dreams He dreams for me and my life are the true ideal things.

…

When it comes to people understanding me fully, few if any ever really come close. Perhaps, I withhold much or perhaps I simply don’t understand myself enough to convey it or come close. But I think the above quote sums me up more than any words I could write because that is simply what I am doing with my life: I am dreaming a big dream and working towards it and seeing where God leads between point A and point B.

Destination B ( New York ) is where Elise and I believe we are called: we believe wholeheartedly God is leading us there!

But we are more excited about how it’s all going to play out because B is a point and place a climax to a story, not a story in itself it is simply the answer to a really big question and an idealistic dream. But it is the in-between that we are finding to be quite more exciting.

See, in a time without structure, I am learning what it means to be led by the spirit and follow him into the strange things he leads us into as believers when we heed and follow his soft yet authoritative voice. And it is immensely strange and exciting and uncomfortable; its a lot like good art.

Because it has been a while since my life has been unstructured or my schedule opened up it is an art I am learning again or perhaps for the first time to be in-sync with a greater art going on.

And its been strange finding God in all the normal everyday things from playing Zelda to a shower that does not give forth hot water until two days ago a paved bicycle path that ends in a grove of trees etc. and all those wonderful people we have met in the two months, so far, between A and B!

And I say all this to simple echo the words of Jacob “ surely God is in this place and I was unaware”! He is with Elise and I on this journey and it probably won't be ideal until God steps in and boy does he!

So we hold out a compass with open hands and submit ourselves to that spinning needle that is led by forces outside of our control but it is pointing to the one who spins the needle along the journey.

-John Grinstead

A story of the spinning needle

Fall is quickly approaching.

I can feel it in the air.

The days are cooler now.

The air a bit more biting.

The leaves are changing.

Through the evening air the other night

with a low hanging sun peeking behind the grain filled hills

Fall five years coming for her and I.

Excited to feel these things again.

Excited to feel again

I use to understand it

been a long while.

my bicycle and me

my girl behind me

Through the evening air the other night

with a low hanging sun peeking behind the grain filled hills

Excited to feel these things again.

Excited to feel again, been a long while.

A glorious Dependence

John Wesley once wrote that a church is “ all at it, and always at it”

I’ve been thinking about this idea …

And one interesting idea comes to the surface “unfavorable circumstance…leading to immense benefit and kingdom progress and building.”

We must turn to Paul to understand this well...

See, I would say Paul was always at it even in his often-unfavorable circumstance; those moments where he was probably asking God why but trusting in his immense faithfulness and sovereignty. See, Paul wrote most of his letters from prison and I strangely find myself encouraged because even though Paul could do little and had little to do he found himself “at it”…following the impulses of his heart and his love for mission even when mission seemed impossible.

In my circumstance and in Paul’s he always returned to faith in God’s good purpose for the world even if it meant difficulty for himself. In this “ all at it, and always at it” he was always encouraging others to trust in God’s good purpose for the world and work toward it which perhaps was God’s greater purpose through Paul besides his mission trips and speaking engagements: because Paul’s true purpose was only shown through time and known through God’s lens. Which points to the fact that there is a glorious dependence to be had upon God as his children and as our father for the purposes unseen.

“All at it, and always at it” doesn’t mean there is not differing circumstances. It doesn’t exclude the season of Sabbath and rest it simply means that we must find ourselves doing what we can for others and for God’s Kingdom even in seasons of rest. Trusting that when we have been given seasons of rest that we are not given them for ourselves but for others. We have to follow and trust in the fact that the things that are for others will fill our soul with more rest than we know and are in God’s good purpose and that the intentions for God’s kingdom are being worked out by the Father himself: faith coupled with confidence.

May we be “all at it, and always at it!”

JG

: Rest :

Time will tell of all the purposes yet unrevealed. I wait upon the Lord…

In the meantime, I am safely back at home in Colorado with my bride. Have left my college town in California and am waiting on God to show forth his calling. I wait upon the Lord to reveal Elise and I’s future

AND

In the meantime am finding myself immensely grateful for home and my family.

In the meantime, Elise and I will be living in the basement I designed and built with my bare hands designed with my sensibilities and dreamed of until a point where God directs and opens his door to our future. The basement is a few days from completion: only a few things are left unfinished like a shower door that needs to be installed and a few pictures to hang and a few boxes to sort through and the putting of those items into their proper places.

God has thoroughly given me a place to rest here, I am immensely grateful for a place for the re-cultivation of the things I lost while in college. The pieces of my character and delight I am finding again.

And to be honest it’s hard to have moved back in with the parents and in-laws because it is against nearly every guiding principle based direction I put upon my life. But whom am I to deny God’s leading…I know He has me here with incredible purpose…and I am beginning to see that. I am rejoicing in it.

In many respects the basement is God’s design coupled with my own. A tangible representation of where I can be at peace. I feel it every time I go down there. There is a deep satisfaction of it nearing completion and seeing vision turned reality.

Beyond that, there are fears here and there but I am at rest. God is surely good and showers his goodness upon his children.

He is so deeply good!

I heard the voice of Jesus say

“Come unto me and rest.

Lay down thou weary one, lay down,

Thy head upon my breast.”

I came to Jesus as I was,

Weary and worn and sad.

I found in Him a resting place,

And He hath made me glad.

JG