A Year In Review 2011

In these last days of the year all news channels, websites, papers, and magazines have the year in review looking at all the great happenings, sad tragedies, awe-causing disasters, and everything in between that has come define what this year has been in America as well as around the world. We have the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, The Earthquake in Japan, The Tornado in Joplin, The Shooting of Gabriel Giffords, The Royal Wedding, The Death of Osama, and the list goes on.

This year has been one of great highs and great lows not only on a global level but also on the national level and a personal level for me. I have had some interesting times this year from running my hand into a metal sign and having surgery because of it, I turned 21, I did street ministry, finished reading the bible cover to cover for the first time, I was depressed, I was happy, I went lukewarm, I grew, I loved on people. So much happens in 365 days. it seems like nothing really, another year, another 365, and we have to be reminded of what happened that year because we are so ADD, so self-serving-egocentric-consumers who are wrapped up in ourselves.

We need to stop, relax, look at the world and its pain and live like we are dying, Live simply so others may live.

I have to admit I am guilty as the net person thinking that "I am part of the 99%" when really I am part of the 1% of the World. I am selfish, in my actions, thoughts, and even my spiritual walk. I have to be constantly reminded that I am a Broken Human Being saved by grace and that without God I am nothing deserving Hell.

So that being said I have had a hard year, semester, time in this thing we call life, but I am pressing on; God has pulled me through and yes I need more help than others but i am making it. So as I go into this new year

I am well excited and scared for what is to come,
happy to think of a new year as a blank chapter in a book which I am about to fill,
Blessed by my Lord to have another year,
Trying to live Life and Love

I do have goals for this year and you can read them here,  but I am not going to be crazy over these I am going to do these and enjoy this year.

With that in mind  here is a prayer I wrote this past year which I hope to pray through out this next year:

Dear God, 

Thank you so much for your love and mercy and how you love me even in my sin. May I be moving forward, moving towards you and not backtracking; moving from my old self and the Pharisee I was and am now... May I realize that I deserve Hell everyday and that anything else in this life or next is grace. Your Grace is enough, sufficient and all I need. May you teach me through any road, journey, or school you choose for me. I am wanting to be molded to your will, and the teaching of your son.Please Lord fill me, use me, and allow me to be used to glorify you by doing your work. Thank you for loving me and never giving up on me.

Love,
Me 

#finishyear

so you may asking yourself...  #hashtag? they have have taken over the #world!!!! #overreacting...

yes hash tags have taken over the world but here is the reason for this post 

ok so, here's the thing I never have a hard time with new years resolutions... so here are the #finishyear resolutions!!!

1. Journal everyday
2. Blog at least once a week
3. Work out 3x's a week
4. ALWAYS TAKE A SABBATH each week!
5. Actually invest in friends lives beyond the surface 
6. Be consistent in my daily walk and cling to the cross no matter how I feel emotionally
7. Challenge myself and those around me to be more Christ-like 

to see how im doing follow my twitter feed.... 

A Series Of Confessions: Scrooge, a Christmas Wish, and Music of the Heart

This post is in a series of posts; to understand The Reason(s) for these posts please click the hyper link.

I am scrooge when it comes to Christmas. Not Christmas the actual celebration but rather the consumerism, the craziness, the crazy family, the hoopla, the feeding of the American "Me, Myself, and I" complex, and so on. The day that comes from the Lord coming to bring "Peace to Earth" causing craziness and greediness that makes black Friday shoppers turn stampedes and even death. In addition I hate Christmas music and decorations happening before Thanksgiving and in October rather happening in December. In addition the holidays always bring out the best or worst of every family and my crazy family is no exception... i almost dread holidays because of family and coordinating around everyone else's schedule, pleasing everyone, buying presents... the holiday just brings stress to us and we are the 1% of the world that has money and more than half the time we want more than we have, are disappointed with what we received, or just down right ungrateful for our blessings.

Whatever happened to "...Good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." (Luke 2:10b-12 ESV, emphasis added) What happened to silent night, peace on earth, good will towards all men, and all that jazz? Christmas is not what it used to be; we went from Peace on earth to stabbings over a toy, what is wrong with people. SO BAH HUMBUG to what we call Christmas, the most egocentric-commercialized holiday in the US.

So my Christmas wished is two parts:

1. That the True meaning of Christmas will come back and take over this shadow of the holiday; that people will love each other, reach out and help their fellow man and love their neighbor as Jesus, God loves us.
2. That I will actually grow closer to God, this year has been crazy and here I am again not knowing what to say other than what Relient K says in a song:

And with this Christmas wish is missed
The point I could convey
If only I could find the words to say to let You know how much You've touched my life
Because here is where You're finding me, in the exact same place as New Year's eve
And from a lack of my persistency
We're less than half as close as I want to be...
and I, I Celebrate the Day
That you were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life~Relient K

 Finally I have been obsessed with the band Needtobreathe. they have two songs that have just been speaking to me so i want to share them so enjoy:

These Hard Times:

Something Beautiful:

A Series of Confessions: God, the Father? A reflection on Fatherhood of God.

This post is in a series of posts; to understand The Reason(s) for these posts please click the hyper link.

This was a reflection on fathers' day in addition to God the Father, and I apologize that it is so late but, this post hurt every time i sat to write it.This post was actual the first post I stated in this series and never finished it, till now.

The issue of whether or not there is a God is not necessarily a problem for me, even though now and then I may doubt the faith (which is another story), but rather how I am supposed to relate to Him and the Persons who make him up. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the easier two to relate with; Jesus was a man, and the Spirit moves about convicting, challenging, and helping me to grow. But God the Father has always been hard for me to relate to or even really call him "father". I also have, at times, a hard time reconciling the God of the O.T. with Jesus (God) of the N.T. at times.

It all has to do with a couple of things in my own Life. The word "father" still holds some bad tastes in my mouth. Unfortunately, I come from a broken home, and have had an "interesting" relationship with my dad. I have grown up in a world where mom was there, and worked nights as I slept at babysitter's houses; where I "had" to grow up and be the man of the house; Where I learned I was another statistic waiting to happen; Where my dad showed up on birthdays and holidays and the occasional random days when he could.

You must understand I do not want sympathy for this, its a now sad part of life even more so now than before, it is a weight that hurts that i need to share and  let go of more and more. I have been hurt by my dad, he has left a scar and has tainted the word "father" for me, or rather what it should be. Father should be a representation of the Love of God, the Care from God, and a Representative of God. Yet no one can do that perfectly, therefore we all have been hurt by our fathers given a  bad representation of God, some have it worst than others. Yet our true father our heavenly father is different. He is there, He cares, He provides, He Loves, He is listening, He protects. He is the Perfect Father, the one we long for, we want. He is the perfect teacher of what it means to be a father.

There are so many guys and girls that have been hurt by their father or lack there of. Whether it be physical, emotional, or mental scars, You are not alone and I can say that you can break the cycle and the statistics I have. I may not have the earthly father i want and or need but i do have a Heavenly one who cares and will not let me down.

The book Wild at Heart by John Elderidge, I know that this book is controversial but I learned form this and understood what the book was trying to talk about; it talks about the scars on our hearts our earthly fathers gave us and how our Heavenly Father Heals them and fills in any and all gaps in our hearts. A couple other books have helped me as well including The Masculine Mandate by Richard D. Phillips, and Father Fiction by Donald Miller. All these books are geared toward men and boys but Father Fiction is a good read for both genders.

A Series of Confession: I Need Christ More than I Admit

To have a full understanding of this post and the series it is apart of please read the Reason.

Its been a very long time since ive blogged and it upsets me... I am too busy... too independent... too dumb... and I need this as a stress release as well as a way to express my ideas and feelings and organize them.

Yet i need God more than i want to admit or let on even to myself. I Need him everyday and yet everyday i dont always act that way. I am independent dont trust anyone because they will fail me and i will have to work harder anyway. I just cannot sit still and relax. I become anxious. I have to do something... anything. Probably why I am stressed, always busy, and I cannot say no. Thus leading to sleep deprivation and hard time sleeping in general.

But any who i just expect my hard work to work out in the end. God gave ,me this talent, I use it, I do the work, ME, ME, ME, I, I, I... I don't see a line of black and white but rather a mist, a grey area where the two over lap and I assume that its my area to work in and take control and let my kingdom come. I have to learn when I pray, "Your Kingdom come" that automatically my kingdom has to go. I have a hard time doing this because I am an artist, a writer, a musician, an actor, a director... I love the arts. In these worlds you did the work, not God. God just was there to give you the talent...? Where does my hard work come into play?

Ok sorry about the rabbit trail... but I have been realizing that I am very emotional and my spiritual life is very much affected by this fact. I need God to be my refuge, my strength, my base line, my rock I cling to where ever I am spiritually, mentally, or emotionally. I need to be consistent in my walk... I need to not fake my way through this... I need not be fake with people... I need to be open... I need to be more dependent on my heavenly father who wants to give me good things, who loves me and who is perfect.

This is especially true when i am doing well "on my own" for pride goes before the fall and man do i fall hard... like the saying goes the bigger or higher they are the harder they fall. I just need to put back into practice my disciplines. Prayer is coming along and i have aids to help me when i don't know what to say, reading the bible and studying it well I'm working on it... these things take time and i'm short on it because its the end of the semester... lame excuse I know but its what i tell my self to fell better, or try to make myself feel better, failing at the moment btw.  But I was able to go do the Lord's work Last night in the downtown section of a near by city just praying for the people of the city and talking with a couple and praying for them. Sowing seeds and just trying to show them love and life, eternal life. this was a wonderful experience, a wake-up call, and smack-upside-the-head all wrapped up into 5 hours of a friday night.... and i can't wait to do it again... well life keeps on ticking and a paper is waiting for me.... ugh but tonight is a movie night for a class hopefully it will be a good night.\

God Bless all of you and thank you for reading my thoughts i need to get out on paper.

A Series of Confessions: Dandelions

To have a full understanding of this post and the series it is apart of please read the Reason.

This is a post from last may:

Dandelions that flower that children see with great wonder full of perspective fun, hopes, and wishes. The weed that all home owners and groundskeepers dreads and hates.Yes that flower. as I write, instead of writing a paper, there is a field of dandelions outside my dorm room window. the past couple days it has been a bright yellow field, but yesterday it turned into a field of white puff balls just calling out to me to come and play. I have resisted thus far but I am weak due to finals week causing me to go insane.As I had the thought to run, dance, frolic, and/or play in this field of white I was reminded of two things:

When I was a child I remember always trying to get a full white dandelion with all the seeds intact and ripe for the picking and wishing upon. I would make my wish and blow with all my hope wishing for silly things and serious things, making sure to blow all the seeds into the air. Unfortunately,I did not always achieve getting the seeds in the air and sometime I cheated and pulled them off and threw them in the air hoping the rules of the dandelion were not broken. But I always find a new one and make a wish, often being scolded by my mother to not help the "evil weeds" spread. Despite however evil they were there was a magic about them, that to this day I still cannot put my finger on. I also remember once I caught a seed, we called them "wishies," in the air. At that my friend told me that I had just caught someone else's wish and could ruin their wish. At that I worried about the person and their wish, so I wished upon that wishy to allow the person-who-originally-wished-upon-it's wish to come true and released it.   

I was also reminded of my Favorite Five Iron Frenzy song, Dandelions. The awesome Ska band that was witty in lyrics and album tittles really hit home with me on this song even today. Dandelions tells a story of a boy who picks a bouquet of dandelions for his mother. His mother treasures this gift and places them in a vase; She saw Love where anyone else would have seen weeds. 

This is almost how I see myself at times, a child, not befitting a place in the Kingdom for I see my depravity and the evil with in me. Yet I try to give  my best to God and give him all my love. God also sees me for who I am and yet he still loves me. He also sees that I try as I offer up my dandelion offering to Him and chooses to see my love for Him rather than the weeds I give Him . As I mature in the faith I hope I can pick better flowers to present him but formerly the dandelion blossom expressed the virtuous idea of loyalty and faithfulness.So I guess Dandelions are not this evil weed and one could see the good in them.

Let me end with the song and lyrics used as a prayer:

Father God,

"Fathomless your endless mercy, 

Weight I could not lift, 

Where do I fit in this puzzle, 

What good are these gifts? 

Not a martyr or a saint 

Scarcely can I struggle through 

All that I have ever wanted, 

Was to give my best to you. 

Lord, search my heart, 

Create in me something clean. 

Dandelions- 

You see flowers in these weeds. 

Gently lifting hands to heaven, 

Softened by the sweetist hush, 

A father sings over his children, 

Loving them so very much 

More than words could warrent 

Deeper than the darkest Blue 

More than sacrafice could merit 

Lord,I give my heart to you, 

Lord, search my heart, 

Create in me something clean. 

Dandelions- 

You see flowers in these weeds."

Love, ME