Ending + Beginning

This is dead and ending. Yet This is alive and beginning and very much a different book.

I am here: A manifesto of Stand Firm

I’m grateful for new places and new people: they have in my life given an ability to become new again: no longer constrained by past sins or past ways of living. Through them God always has a way of shaping me into the person I need to be for the moment. Different from who I was and marked more and more by resemblance to the name I bear as a son.

…

The fact we are now living in NYC is finally setting in. And the fact we are here for the long haul because of God’s faithfulness and goodness in providing financially with Elise’s new job makes it all that much more real. And makes us continue to really understand that clearly God wants us here.

And in the newness of all of this that I can’t quite articulate yet, I am finding that this time, the people, and the place have given me the ability and freedom to become new again, again.

And in this I am finding endings in beginnings. Things God’s been asking me to end. Things God’s asking me to respond to and begin.

I’ve been hearing God here. He’s been whispering saying “I am here” in the subways depths in the grand cathedrals and the many other places in-between.

I think the words for this blog came tonight from one of those whispers. A whisper of identity (I am) and place (here).When God uttered two words whispered as I stared at the stained glass window Crusader/ Knight in front of the cross in the 18^th century cathedral-like church where Apostles Church meets on Sunday nights.

God whispered authoritatively as I was staring at it tonight:

“Stand Firm”

He wanted to say something intimate. Say be this be no longer who you were. He put in two words with as much authority as “ it is finished” a work that has unfolded over the better course of 3 years or so.

I think God was simply saying tonight "the dark night of your soul ends. Stand firm, the work is done, so take your stand son". The career thing (my dark night) has been used as a deeply intimate instrument in God’s work in me the past 3 years It has become a source of a lot of emotion and thoughts. . Emotional in the sense I’ve felt a very deep anger, depression, and hatred. Thought filled in the sense it has left a lot of unanswered questions, late nights, written expositions etc. And it has created a very muddled and mangled mess of emotions and thoughts. And it hurts to speak or think about in most moments. A general confusion about identity and about my place.

But tonight when God spoke I think what he meant was "I’ve been shaping you for this moment where you will change your misunderstandings of me and see me. Who you view me to be and where you view me to be…because that’s what’s important."

And I think in that stained glass man I saw who God wanted me to be. Who he made me to be.

A wise man I read from often says the most important question we can ask people is which God they believe in? I should have considered this question of his for myself. Because it is not whether we believe or don’t believe it’s who we believe in. Is he good is he wrathful does he make puppets of humanity?

To be honest, if I’m honest, I’ve been misunderstanding and believing in a false god. A god who makes puppets of humanity with nowhere to escape from their God who controls everything. A god who knows who He made humanity and myself to be but wishes a denial without strength from him to do so.

I’ve understood who he is but only in part, I was skeptical of the heart of my maker. God is more than mere morality logic reason, emotions. He is authority. He is always present. In every high and low. But an authority and presence that is the best type of father you could imagine.

God’s been refining my thinking in this larger issue of freewill which ultimately controls my drive, my joy, my trust, my understanding, my willingness, my perception etc. But I find in this new place; the newness is more of an abandon, an all-in-logic-aside type of thing.

My God is a God who gives his children the freedom to stand and join Him in His work. My God is a God who hates sin but dwells and dines among the sinners. Who bled and died .Who will patiently woo for years decades centuries even millennia. Because He has the best in mind.

AND I am a sinner. Who chooses to stand firm in the cross and Christs death on it. And his conquering of it through his resurrection. Standing firm in the fact He is among us. And he’s been screaming against the many noises in the street “I am here” I am here John. I didn’t craft your sinfulness you are choosing it and if you let it continue it will become an even darker night inside your soul. Let not it take its course. The pain was for a purpose. For this joy.

“Stand firm”

J. G. Grinstead

Together

You know those moments. The ones when you hear the voice of God through another human being. I had one of those last night as I was praying with my wife. And they seem to be happening a lot since I’ve moved here. There’s just something about being around an immensity of humanity that allows you to see God clearer in a strange way.

My wife told me yesterday that the transition to NYC has been easy. That is when it hit me:

"You know why? Its been easy because we are doing it together."

And in that little realization as we were lying in bed I saw a whole lot of gospel truth.

I think I’ve been realizing that when two people in marriage, meant to mirror Christ and the church are doing things together it is easy. But when we are alone and apart it is difficult. We weren't meant to live that way!

There can be great power in marriage. There is great power in being of one heart and one mind in decisions and doing life.

Yet we forfeit that so often. Why do we do it?

I think that is what I really came to last night is that if we really wish to do anything with God we need to be together in it. Of one mind and one heart in each decision. In obedience to our great loving Father. And it will be easy. Just like Elise and I doing NYC.

I’ve always wondered what Jesus meant when he said his yoke is easy and his burden light. I think the above statement and the truth in it is what he meant. Its easy when you are co-laboring and doing life together with Jesus. Not so easy when you aren’t.

…

As I believe the not having an architecture job phase of my life is ending( this 3 year long endeavor). I think I am realizing maybe it was an issue of obedience. Maybe it was an issue of not being of one heart and one mind with Christ in this area. (that’s another set of blogs in itself) but I know this much…that in NYC I am where I am supposed to be architecture job or no architecture job... and he will continue to handle the admin stuff and tell me which door to go through when that time comes. And its probably not going to look at all like I thought it would look.

I know this is where God has me because it’s easy to be here…and it should be very uncomfortable. But the burden is light with Elise and I here doing this together…and I like doing this together. There is no place else my heart would rather be than with Christ and alongside Elise.

And knowing that…it will be easy…and it will be joyful and full of peace. And it will probably be challenging and difficult and painful at points…but together…with them I feel like I have the power to do anything.

And that’s something wonderful.

-J. G. Grinstead

Unexpected, Yet still in God's plan

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. ⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰ As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, ¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. ¹² You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. ¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD’s renown, for an everlasting sign, that will endure forever.”

-Isaiah 55

I had the pleasure of hearing N.T. Wright speak when he was in town this past week. He spoke on this passage among a few others. It was a fitting passage to speak on for what would transpire over the past few days.

The Lord's ways are not my ways. I have learned this and it should not shock me. But it still does when God continues to move unexpectedly in the unexpected and largely unwritten life he is making for us here in NYC.

In entering into this blank canvas that is NYC, I've been trying to paint what I want things to look like rather than letting things play out as they will. I think I am a bit impatient.

On Sunday morning at 5:30am the day before I was slated to start my trainee/ intern position with an architecture firm here in NYC they sent me an email letting me know that " after much thought and consideration, they do not have a position available at this time." I handled it well on Sunday trusting God that he had something better. But when Monday came and the filling of empty time with errands in Manhattan and knowing I was so close to being in an architecture firm I was more than a little upset. I spent most of the day being a horrible human being.

I think in this whole architecture thing I am learning to trust that God has his hand in things. And nothing really matters besides my relationship with Him and letting that flow into other things... my ways are not his ways a lot of the time..... most of the time...and even this opportunity that disappeared is for His purposes.

I am clueless as to what God is doing. I am okay with that. Because he can handle all the admin stuff. I get to experience the joy of trusting in His providence. He will provide. He is a great father. Things will come in time...when they are supposed to...so we wait. Just in a new place.

-J.G.Grinstead

16 Days

Well, its been a rather eventful 16 days since I last wrote. I hardly can believe all that has transpired in such little time. We have relocated our stuff from Colorado to New York City. I have an internship starting on Monday with an architecture firm and Elise has interviewed for a salaried position with a great company...and is pursuing other leads.

I wanted to take the time since I had it to write. There are so many emotions going on. So many thoughts pouring through my head that its best to organize them.

I will break things down into a couple categories to hopefully organize this for my readers: Money , Jobs/Careers, NYC, and community/church

MONEY:

Elise and I were able to save quite a bit during our first year of marriage in great part due to free rent and living with the parents. Although it wouldn't be my first recommendation for newlyweds I see God used it tremendously to show us the gifts we have in our families and to start off our independence with enough change to get our careers hopefully started without going into any debt. Needless to say we have spent a lot of money to move here more than I have on anything in my whole life! And it is definitely uncomfortable whenever I spend money on myself, I freak out a little. I'm not one to spend on myself unless it comes in a coffee package. And although we have enough to live on for quite a while we are still in tight mode til things become more settled. This means saying no to a lot of things I love and cherish like coffee shop coffee pastries and other things that are now luxury items.

JOBS/CAREERS:

I was offered a 3 mo. unpaid internship with a great architecture firm that could possibly turn into a paid position after my 3 month commitment with them and at least would offer me valuable experience that I don't have on my resume and get my foot in the door to even be considered by other firms in the area...I said yes, it is a great opportunity. I just had to stomach and am still swallowing the fact that I will be paying for the opportunity myself and putting Elise in a position where she needs to make x amount of dollars per month for 3 months to not eat up a significant chunk of our savings. This is not an ideal situation. But that is NYC for you things are as they are nothing is completely ideal especially whenever you have twelve thousand cultures merging in one giant city. Having people involved makes it complicated. But in the words of my boss of my last job where I quit...it is as it is!

But I guess that is probably the big lesson in this whole career job opportunity thing. Life is not perfect but it is how we react to the constraints put around us and how we honor God in these.

NYC

Being in a different culture (our area is largely Jewish and Caribbean black) where communities are so ethnically tied and linked is lonely, nothing is familiar...it is truly like being in another country. Everything becomes about your community because you cling to what is like you. And to be honest it's hard to be the only white people on the subway by the time we reach our stop. But perhaps this too is another great lesson as the letters on our ancient 1918 apartment building showcase " (AMBASSADORS COVRT) " we do not belong here. Here is not our home...heaven is our home. And although Elise and I have finally found a place for all of our stuff...we are still sojourners in a dessert where there is little water and much death.

I am grateful for my little black friend who met me the day we moved in and continues to think I am cool and we exchange fists to say hello in passing. He made my day today.

COMMUNITY/CHURCH

Building upon the loneliness of the city, its been a little bit of a challenge to meet people. Not to mention I don't know how to interact at all with the few cultures around me nor do I even begin to know how to interact with all of the cultures of this city! Church has been a breath of fresh air in all of this. It is nice to see people smiling and willing to meet you and actually converse. It is always a challenge though meeting people and making friends. You have to let things develop over time as they tend to do and see what God has in the opportunities and relationships He places in your path. I am largely rethinking this though...and mission....and other big topics in my life. God is guiding it though and I don't think community and church will look the same as they did in college but I am excited to step into the joy set before me in this and willing to suffer in the initial pain and disappointment that getting plugged in can often cause.

Beyond that I will continue to keep you all updated through this and other things. I am excited to see what the Lord does in the next 16 days. He has already done much in these first 6 of being here in the city. Things move so quickly here!

-J.G.Grinstead

June

It's been rather of a whirlwind of a month. Between the switching coasts on adjacent weeks being a best man on the west and being an apartment hunter in the East. There is definitely no thread that ties the many things that happened in the month together besides God seeming to be in it all same God just very different places.

I was with Landon as he got married in the earlier part of this month. Seeing the life in CA I chose to lay aside to pursue what God was calling Elise and I to!

It was a joy to be beside him for an extended stay. In reflection, God wanted to simply say "I love." Nothing quite like a wedding to show that. How even inspite of all the wreckage of the past marriage happens and endures.

In reflection, God wanted to simply say " hold open your heart and hands, I will take care of your friends "

All the friends that I treasure in the west. God loves them with the same abandon. He takes care of his children.

Throughout the week especially the night a few groomsman sat down with him in a newly retrofitted exposed brick cafe with wine in low lighting and told him how much he meant to all of us in the late part of the night. It was in that moment and the conversation as I walked him home the night before his wedding. I realized that God cares deeply for all of us. I do not need to fear that in pursuing what God has called me to, I need not fear lack of providence for the ones I leave behind.

In reflection, God wanted to simply say " you should have no reason to doubt my love, my child "

And on that wedding day. I saw the gifts of the past. I saw the gifts given to others for their future.

In reflection, God wanted to simply say " step into yours now! Do not fear! "

And so we drove another 1200 miles and the odometer declared it was time to leave 80108 and step into 11213 in the 7th month of 2011.

We packed again and we printed paper work we did not really need. And early that next morning we flew to NYC.

We visited apartment after apartment and found the perfect situation: the right time frame, the right price, the right commute time, in a safe area, furnished and big too!

In reflection, God wanted to simply say "I love."

And by the time we were having dinner with a married couple from the church 3 days in to our trip and we had secured the apartment. I think both of us realized that God undeniably wanted us there. For what and why? The future will tell.

And that Sunday as we were waiting for some paperwork to come in we went to the NYC Public Library and Central Park and an old church reborn to house a beautiful congregation and fell in love with the city and the community of believers we are going to join there!

We had everything finalized for the apartment by the time we were eating lunch the day of our anniversary, 1 day later and God provided the perfect couple to sublease it from us while we are not there and here in Colorado. We celebrated that night with the gifts that God gave and the knowledge this is His will for us...

In reflection, God wanted to simply say " hold open your heart and hands, I will take care of you"

As we headed back on the Subway to our hotel there was a keyboarder at the canal street subway. His music filled the watery depths of what used to be a canal where the subway track lies. I think it was in that moment in the echoing synths and steel screeching that I sat waiting with my wife besides me for the subway that I realized this is my future, a good future.

In reflection, God wanted to simply say " you should have no reason to doubt my love, my child I am even here "

And that first day of year two...we went back to Colorado to gather our things and move East the 1800 ish miles before we move in on July 9th to our new address in Brooklyn.

In reflection, God wanted to simply say " step into your future now! Do not fear! "

-J.G.

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

…

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...

...

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

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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