Dare You To Move

I want to start off by saying this: Our God is the most wonderful and awesome Creator of this earth that we live on. He is in the sun, moon, stars and every living and non-living thing on the earth. This omnipotent, omniscient and holy God has been speaking to me a lot the past couple weeks and trying to tell me something. Last night, I believe I figured it out. Here's what is going on.

First some background: About a week and a half ago, God finally answered my prayers and provided me with the job I had been praying about for a long time. I am now part of the tech staff at Calvary Church that does special events. I basically do sound, lighting and/or whatever else is needed with a particular event. Since then, I have actually been at church quite a bit, not necessarily related to that of course. Also, I've been running tech for the high school ministry for about 6 months and the college ministry for about 3 years now. I'm at church at least 3 days a week, regardless of what else is going on!

For the past few weeks, I've been talking with a friend in the college group who has been very encouraging to me. He knows I've been wanting to work at Calvary for awhile and has reiterated several times that I should get paid for as much as I do help out. Not that this has any more weight than any of the other things, it is just pleasant to be encouraged. Thank you Tommy!

This past Wednesday, I had one of the best encounters I have ever had in the high school ministry. The night had just wrapped up and I was beginning to unwind. As I stood there talking with Blake, a couple of students walked over to us. The female student basically says to me: "Hi, I don't think we've officially met; but you're our tech guy and you're awesome and.....you have amazing hair. I just want to thank you for being here and.....ya. I'm Madison." That seriously made my week up to that point and will be the measure by which every one of my experiences as part of the high school ministry will be stacked against. Sure, it's good to hear how glad Doug, Melissa and Blake are to have me; but, it's infinitely better to hear it from one of the students themselves. Thank you Madison!

The following evening, I had the opportunity to go to Catalyst West, a conference for church leadership (or as Mary Jane described it, VBS for adults). I have wanted to go to this event for years but, as I have not been part of church "leadership", have not been able to. I was only able to go this time because Anna had to come back for an art festival event. She offered to let me use her pass for the evening because Chris Tomlin was leading worship and he is one of my favorite Christian artists. I literally jumped at the chance to finally go to this amazing conference. When I first walked into the sanctuary with Ben and Danielle, I could already tell the atmosphere was different than anything I'd experienced in quite some time. As worship started, I felt my heart opening like it hadn't in quite awhile. It was amazing to finally be able to worship my Creator, uninhibited and undistracted. With everything that I do at Calvary, it always involves worship. For the high school, college and young adult ministries, I run tech; for the Elevation service, I run lighting once in a while and am head usher so I always have those duties in the back of my mind during worship. I haven't really been able to fully experience the worship of my Savior in a long time. That night was incredible! The speaker, Louie Giglio, delivered a powerful message that resonates deep in the heart of all leaders. But for me, the greatest experience was the worship. Chris Tomlin is an amazing worship leader and man of God. He has a way of picking just the right songs for the response that is appropriate to the message. Worship leaders should be able to do this well anyway, but Chris just has so many songs that create the right mood of worshipful response. My soul felt completely overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit! It was especially therapeutic for me because I have been helping with the art show at Calvary this week. I helped Anna with setup and have been watching the art overnight since Tuesday (and will be tonight as well). In that time, I've actually only been home for a total of about 3 hours! It's not like I'm tired from all of that, at least physically; physically, I've had mountains of energy this week. I have felt a little drained mentally, but I've been on sort of an emotional high. It felt good to relax and worship in that room full of amazing Christian leaders. It was a truly amazing night of worship that I hope will not fade from my memory. Thank you Chris; and from the bottom of my heart, thank you Anna!

My soul yearns for that feeling again. I don't want this to be an annual thing; I should be feeling like this a lot more often than that! I'm not sure what to do about it, but I welcome any suggestions. All of this has led me to the conclusion that this is where God wants me to be. I've been contemplating and praying for a long time for God to show me where He wants me to go. I'd been out of a job for a year and a half before God finally provided the job at Calvary. Even though it isn't anything consistent right now, I'm praying it will lead to the job that I would love to have (and am actually pitching to leadership in just over a week). This all has shown me that God wants me to be here at Calvary and that I'm not being self-serving in pursuing more opportunities here. I love volunteering for anything that comes up and working with everyone at Calvary. For me, this is the ideal place to be and I can't think of anywhere else I would rather work (though I might have a job at Apple in the next couple weeks and am really looking forward to that if I can do both). As I type, I am still sitting in the Worship Center lobby because I just don't feel like leaving yet, even though I don't have to be here right now.

Again, thank you to Tommy, Madison, Chris Tomlin and Anna! You guys have had more of an impact on me than you may realize (especially Chris since I've never actually met him before) and I could never thank you enough for that! I know I have the most amazing friends in the world and I love you all!

Peace, love and soul.

Men, Women and Relationships

"You know, the right guy won’t get you to change. He won’t subtly pressure you. He won’t tell you who you can and can’t talk to. He won’t hide the fact that you’re hanging out. He’s not gonna tell you you’re wrong for feeling; for being a girl. The right guy will show you off to his friends. He’ll take it as slow as you want. He’ll only go as far as you’re comfortable with. He’ll take you out to places, even if it’s just a fast food place or the store. He’ll actually sit through your stupid, girly Disney movies with you because he just wants to be with you. The right guy will come along someday, you just gotta tough it out and wait for him. But whatever you do, don’t settle for the wrong guy. You deserve so much more."

Reading things like this make me sad. Not sad because I don't agree with it (because I do). But sad because it just simply isn't realistic, not for women that is.

You see, guys like this do actually exist in the world. Myself being one of them, I know what this kind of relationship ends up being: friendship. All these kinds of girls really want is to be your friend. And it's true, we make really good friends. We can go places, hang out, have dinner, etc. and have a dandy time. But as this goes on, the woman becomes complacent with this casual type of hanging out. This leads to an inherent decision that the guy is best suited to fill that role of a close friend, and nothing more. Whether or not the guy is interested in a deeper relationship (dating) or not is usually irrelevant as the woman will make this decision regardless (unless it was established at the beginning that dating would never occur). Even then, there's always the possibility of self-change and everyone can be there own judge to that (but don't bank on it!), but I digress. Whatever the individual circumstances, the guy will never be fully in control, which is okay cause that shouldn't ever be the case (that would be bad and you wouldn't be this guy).

But my point here is this: the guy that is described in the above quote, will most always end up stuck in the "friend zone". It's not our fault. We're the ones who sit here and listen and comfort and cry with you, even when our day has other important things in it. We're the ones who are always looking out for what's best for you, even when you don't realize it. We're the ones who put your needs before our own, even when you don't know it. We're the ones who choose to return that close connection, even when we could get it from another friend or already have it with one. We're the ones who are there when you need....well, anything. Cause that's the type of guys that we are. We are willing to drop everything because you are just that important to us. Now yes, the guy that does this is, 99% of the time, interested in pursuing a relationship much deeper than friendship (there's always exceptions). But the type of guy described above will even do this for certain friends. There is also the factor of his relationship with the Lord. A true man of God would be willing to give his own life for his fellow man and some carry this over into everyday "emergencies" that arise. Yes, we do have our own lives and we do manage to lead them just fine. We just choose to put your needs first at that time. Cause you are one of the most important things in our life and we would do anything for you.

Now, isn't that the type of guy that these women want? Give me your thoughts and comments.

P.S. I realized about halfway through writing this that it was starting to get really personal and some of this does come from personal experience. I have learned from talking with others and reading several articles that these opinions are shared by many others. This was simply meant as an additional commentary on the quote.

P.P.S. I am gonna try and blog more and am thinking of starting vlogging. Either way, I will have an update forthcoming on my current happenings and my Lent experience this year. Stay tuned!

Why do we rationalize sin?

The reality of sin is quite simple: Sin separates and sin destroys.

Sin separates us from God and from one another. Sin separates us from peace. Sin separates us from joy. Sin destroys family, relationships, community. Sin forges a wedge of hatred between cultures, denominations and political parties. Between interest groups, races and genders. Sin convinces us that we are right and everyone else is wrong and that this distinction is more important than love. Sin numbs a heart until it no longer yearns after people—and eventually no longer yearns after God.

From an article, www.relevantmagazine.com, written by mark steele, adapted from his

book christianish

From the blog of a friend of mine. Go check it out; she's pretty cool: http://chelseaksmith.blogspot.com/