Yours to Own..

Preface.. yes I am procrastinating, and I should be studying but I need a break!


All of my life is Yours to own...You orchestrate it all along... if my life is a cup.. come fill it up.. so the whole world can see what You've done.. Jimmy Needham ft. Trip Lee


Man.. I love the power of words in songs. It's something about a song being able to say what my mind can't seem to formulate. There has been so much happening this summer, but I have gotten back to the point where I want to scream " All of my life is Yours to own!" The Lord has had me on a crazy hard journey this summer and I am no where near the end of it. It's crazy when you start to see the ugliness of your heart the way that the Lord does, and it moves you. I've been moved to action. In previous post I talked about community and band-aids. Well, I have been blessed in a sense with community ( the good and the hard) and the band-aids have been RiiiiIIPPPeeed off, so painful, but so good.... so where does that leave me...


NAKED! ( Im not crazy just keep reading)


I am fully naked and undone before the Lord. A place where I have longed to be for awhile. Over the past 2 months I have had to be painful real and honest with the Lord, and the women in my life who love me and want to see me pursuing the Lord, and what I have learned is with out holiness no one will see the Lord.  I have no arrived to full understand, believe me! I fail miserable all the time, but my motives are changing. My desire is to know him and be known my him, to know the power of His ressurection, and share in his sufferings Phil 3:10. Thats good stuff..but that is my desire.

On another note.. I started a bucket list this summer and I failed at it.. I think I did 3 things out of the 10 on the list.. so I am going to start a new one for the fall. If you have any ideas let me know!

Stay tuned...

The thoughts are scattered.. I just gotta get them together.. it's gonna be good!

hahahaha! (evil laugh, but not really)

Band-aids Suck!

I've been thinking about this for a few days, but this morning I took some time to myself and realized this.

 I say this because they are a quick fix. The real issue is still there.Lets just say a kid falls down and rips his leg open, his mom's immediate response is to clean it up and put a band-aid on it. At first glance you look at this and you think that the mother did a very admirable thing, but did she?

Maybe the mom should have let the kid cry..

Maybe she should let him clean it up himself..

or maybe...

just maybe...

She should have examined the wound and dug in deeper, because what she missed by putting on the band-aid "the quick fix" is the small peeble that could have led to an infection...

Now of course this is a hypothetical situation there was no kid harmed in the telling of this story, but I think it is a true story.. its a story of my heart...

In my life I am quick to run to band-aids, because lets face it they are easier to get to.. If there is a problem then I stop an action or replace a bad action with a good action, but what's the point?! That is only a quick fix and doesn't address the real problem. What I have found honestly, is that the problem is just manifested in another way. So I want to go on a hunt for the band-aids in my life, I want  God to  RIP them off and expose the issues that are deep within. Instead of wearing band-aids as a quick fix I want to allow the Great Physician to bring healing, so I won't run to the band-aids.

Still chewing on what that means..

Confession

I'm so confused by this word, and not in the sense of not being and able to define it. I know what it means.. well solely by itself. Every time I see this word it always leads me to actions, but I am quickly halted because it sparks in me the need to define the action. If you know me, ( which you should if you are reading this) I am completely analytical.

Questions arise like:
- What should this look like?
-Who should you confess things to?
- How often do you confess?

Those are just a few stumbling blocks along the road. I have been reading " Life Together" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and he brings up some great points about living within community and the act of confession.  He says, " A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person." Don't get me wrong, our first confession is to humbly bow at the feet of  Christ, but in community we must confess to our brother or sister in the hope that they will walk along side us.

So where does that leave us.. I guess more specifically where does that leave me.. I guess I could say that I have completely changed my mindset, and am ready to practice this spiritual discipline, but thats not the case all the time. I think in my life pride starts to show up and it tells me I am suppose to look a certain way, and of course that look goes against what I  presently look like, so the confusion and frustration sets in.

Break..

On the other side of confession is the freedom that it produces. In Bonhoeffer's " Cost of Discipleship" He says sin boldly, ( not without regard for grace) but in the sense that we fiercely approach our Lord because He is willing and able to handle our problems. There is freedom in knowing that we are all a mess and we can't help ourselves, and that the only one who can is Jesus. We confess to our brother in hopes that he would partner with us in confessing the ugliness of our hearts in light of the goodness of God. Oh man, to speak of my sin in order that the goodness of my Saviour would shine through! I want to walk in that, and it starts today..

Liars,Wolves,and the Swine

I DESPISE LIARS....

Ok, that was probably a pretty bold statement, but it's been on my mind the last few days. I started thinking about this the other day when I sat out at the lake and had lunch.

I don't understand the human
race and our lack of follow through. I remember hearing stories (back in the day) of how a person's words carried weight and how their actions spoke of their character. Where is thy now? I feel like that doesn't exist now. A person's words are only good in the moment.. We live in this false world we have created and in order to continue in it we continue to live and make false promises and tell half truths...I don't understand...


Actually, I do understand it, it's a heart condition. Our hearts are defective apart from the Great Physician. I think the thought of liars hits me so much because I am one, and I hate that. I strive daily, but I definitely fall short. I'm not writing so that you think to yourself," I'm a horrible person," but I do write this so that you say," I am a sinner in need of a Saviour!" I have been constantly hit with a few verses over the past few weeks that I am trying to live out...

"Let your speech always be gracious,seasoned with salt,so that you may know how you ought to answer each person." Colossians 4:6

" let your "yes" be yes and your "no" be no,so that you may not fail under condemnation. " James 5:12

But I think, no, I know that there is hope...

I think the change or transformation happens when we are connected to the Source. I was talking to my 11th grade girls in Sunday school about this. I think when we are daily going before the throne and laying our lives before Him then that's where change happens. We start to see things and people as Christ does, respond as He would, and feel as He would. It seems like the times when I fall into this liar category are times when I am concerned for myself first and only.

These are just random thoughts that were eating at me. I had to get them out so I picked this outlet.

What are your thoughts??


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Eleutheria...

Man, I've been very nostalgic the last two days, not sure why, but I went back to my old blog ( yeah xanga!)  and got this excerpt from there...

Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, There is freedom!
Wow, isn't that the truth? that song just speaks volumes. There is definitely Freedom in Christ. I am no longer held down by the chains a sin, because Christ broke those chains long ago on the cross. Which reminds me of a song.
Remember your chains, remember the prision that once held you, before the love of God broke in, remember the place you were without grace,
It is definitely true to say that there is freedom in Christ, but we also have to remember where we came from to know where we are going. ( i know very cliche) but God wants us to remember that so we won't have to repeat it.

Freedom...

Man, this post was good for my heart. It was good to be reminded of my passion for the Lord then and how it looks now. A friend and I were at the Children's park today talking life and enjoying the great outdoors of East Texas ( haha) We started talking about what it meant to pursue Christ and accept grace. It was a great conversation, but it reminded me of the Freedom that He has called us to, not a freedom to sin freely,but a freedom that causes us to walk boldly with the Lord.

I want to walk fully in the freedom that God has given me.. Galatians 5:1

What does walking in freedom with the Lord look like for you?

Community..

This subject has been a theme in my life for a few years, but more so over the last few weeks. I feel like somewhere along the years we as believers have gotten the idea that true community makes up feel good. Who are we kidding? Is that all its intended to be? I have been looking at biblical living and what Christ calls us to when living in community, and I believe it is far more than comfort.  I have been trying to grasp what true community is, so that I know what to pursue and how to live it out,  and the journey has been hard. To be honest, it has left me lonely most of the time. I want to live out my faith with people who are crazy about Jesus, notice I didn't say perfect and have it together, but people who love Jesus and are a mess, haha.

But what I have found even in myself is the mess part, but people who love themselves more than the pursuit of Christ. I don't want that! I want to echo Psalm 63 "my souls thirst for you, my flesh faints for you" Psalm 63:1 This is legit stuff, oh to live with that mindset, man, my life would look drastically different.

So I guess that's where I start, instead of pursuing people in hopes of finding a community of faith lived out daily. I pursue my best friend, in hopes that he would change me so I could be a light to others.


This is one of many thoughts I had today, decided to filter through and only put one up.