And I Saw Me

I know it has been a ridiculously long time since I’ve written, but… okay, I really don’t have an excuse worthy to be read, so I’ll just go on.

This summer was beautiful. Prague absolutely fantastic, and… I loved the time I spent there. If you ever get a chance to visit, do, because it is the experience of a lifetime. Adding to that the time with my family, and meeting new friends, I just… I couldn’t have asked for more.

But when I came home, my life took a bit of a different turn, and this turn ended up being the highlight of Summer 2012.

I came home stronger than I had been. I knew who I was, or at least, I had a better idea. I had grasped a newfound love of God, and depth of relationships with my family that I would never have had without that trip across the ocean. And, I had allowed myself to feel everything I had held on to for so long… 

When I was in Prague, I was being poured in to, and when I came home, I was given the opportunity to turn around and give it out to others. 

Church camp.

A few weeks after I got home, camp started. I’d never gone to a camp before, and I loved it! For the first week, I was a camper. And then I spent the next three weeks being a counselor to younger campers experiencing a summer’s highlight of their own.

I’ve never been a part of something so wonderful in my whole life…

God gave me the opportunity to pray with a little girl as she accepted Christ… sat with her little body in my lap as she prayed for Him to be the Leader of her life.

I held the hands of girls who poured their hearts out to me; some of which were truly terrible things that they, “had never told anyone before”. I watched as God used messages and songs and verses to not only give them the confidence to open up, but the courage to take His Word as truth. I watched as He healed little broken hearts, and wooed children to Himself.

I’m still in touch with several of the girls from my groups, cabins, and from just hanging out during free time. God really is working in them… And He gave me the chance to be a part of it all! It was just… the best month. Though it was the messiest, longest, most emotionally, physically, and in all other ways draining month in my life; all of that seemed to add to it all! I cleaned, served food, stayed up late, got up early, and had to be “on” all day long. There were names to remember, personalities to mesh, hands to hold, words to be said, and words to be listened to. There were songs to sing, messages to take in, and devotionals to read and re-stated in simpler terms to a group of children I had only known a few days

There are so many stories I have to share from these weeks, but right now, I want to simply share one. I’ve been itching to write it since it happened! So I guess it’s time to finally share.

During the Middle School week at camp, there was a little boy, G.C., who was a sweet as sweet can be. He was always smiling, and always seemed to have something new to talk about. His dad was a counselor as well, and their relationship was precious. You could see the love in how they talked to and treated one another.
G.C. was and is wonderful, and his disability almost seems to add to the person that he is. I’m unsure as to what his specific disability is, but he has trouble doing most anything at all. Even a regular conversation can be a struggle for him. That doesn’t hinder G.C. though… no, not at all. And because of that, I have truly grown to admire this young man.

On the last day of the week, the kids were on their way home. Parents and children alike were running all over the place; grabbing this last thing, thanking that person, grabbing, losing and then re-finding their extra children. Music was playing through the giant speakers on the stage, and small groups of unclaimed kids were dancing along, playing basketball, or engaging in their own little games.

Then, music stopped, and one of the men’s voices was heard. He announces that G.C. has something to share…

Through great effort, G.C.’s voice rose out over everyone, as he told his story of how God touched him one night during the week. The details were lost to me, but I knew the core of his words. God had showed Himself to G.C….

Listening to his voice, I marveled, “Wow God…” I thought, “He is so broken… yet You were able to touch him through all his problems. You are so mighty. It amazes me that You could even do that! I mean, I know You made G.C., but… You got through to him, despite everything! How? That’s just… wow, God… You are… so… so powerful…”

And then, mid-marvel,  a quiet voice spoke to my soul… and this simple sentence knocked the breath out of me, and brought tears to my eyes:

“You see how broken he is on the outside?… that is you on the inside.”

Oh… wow…

My eyes were locked on G.C.. Instead of his wheelchair, I saw my scarred heart, bruised and broken from every lie I’ve forced myself to believe. Instead of his hands, I saw my own, covered in the dirt of my own pride and self-centeredness. As his mouth formed struggled sentences, I saw mine; pouring words that have hurt more people than I could ever stand to know. I saw my anger. I saw my hatred. I saw my stubbornness. I saw my scarred arms, broken from trying to hold the weight of the world, instead of letting God hold it for me.

I looked at G.C…

And I saw me.

And as I saw G.C. proclaiming his miraculous revelation of whom God is… I saw myself, proclaiming from my brokenness, that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to reach down through all my junk… and reveal Himself to me.

That’s love, guys. That's love.

           

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Getting to Know Him

I’ve been back from Europe for almost two months now, and I'm sorry this has taken so long! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started writing a sum-up post about the time over there, and how many more times I’ve simply thought, "How in the world am I going to do this…"

Summing-up two months of your life would be hard enough as it is. But summing-up after an experience like that one? Two months of new people, new ways to worship, new sights, smells, and new (for the most part, somewhat nasty) tastes? And all of that on top of experiencing homesickness at an extent that I’d never had before. Feeling awkward and ignorant as I attempted to fit into a culture that I was simply not used to, being surrounded by a language so unlike my own, and learning to laugh at my own clumsiness and at the odd world in which I found myself. I grew an admiration for missionaries and missionary kids like I’ve never had before, because I’ve never had the opportunity to watch them, and… be apart of them, ever before. They truly are amazing, strong, Godly people with a heart for the people they have been sent to minister to. The group that I was blessed to be in contact with?… God has definitely got His Hand on them. And I feel so encouraged to know that that portion of my world is being touched by those people… They are definitely the people for the job! And I’m just proud to know them.

Getting to know my cousins, aunt and uncle, I mean, really get to know them… That alone was priceless! Those two months were so full. And words alone cannot convey everything that God has shown me through that time. I can’t point to the healing places in my heart that were so bruised and broken when I left 4 months ago. I can’t simply describe how big my God has become to me. I can’t show you the joy that I’ve found because of Him. I can’t make you experience everything that I have… But, I can share probably the biggest thing that I’ve learned this whole time… It took me a while to realize what the biggest thing from this trip has been! But… I think I know what it is…

Joy.

"Have Joy in the Lord" is a phrase we’ve probably all heard before. There are so many songs that talk about the joy knowing the Lord brings. There are sermons about it, verses in the Bible that talk about it, there have been books written about it; tee-shirts with cheesy sayings plastered on them… and they all express the same thought about joy. Knowing Jesus brings… joy!

But, what does that really mean?

In a small group at my church, we were discussing reading our Bibles, praying, and how close we feel to God given different circumstances. And one girl said, "You know… It’s actually harder for me to want God when things are going well… It’s easier to need Him when things are rough…" Many of us agreed.

In the rougher times, you are clinging to God because… you don’t have anything else. When life is falling apart, you do instinctively cling to the things that aren’t falling. You cling to the things that are standing strong. For Christians, this should be Jesus because, no matter what, He is always standing strong, and He does give you the power, strength and courage to face the day.

But when things are going well, it’s easy to just sort of… forget… We get in a routine, we get busy with life, and all of the sudden life is… Good! We don’t feel that desperate dependence on Him! Life is good! And in that goodness, we tend to forget Him.

Before I left for Europe, I was in a rougher place. I needed God, and I knew it all with everything inside me. He truly was there for me, and I could… I could feel Him. He was so real! I think most everyone has been there before, and if you haven’t… not to be a downer, but it’s probably just a matter of time. Life is hard. Is just is! And some times are harder than others! When I left, it was just during one of those harder times. But, when I was over in Europe, and since being home from the trip, it’s definitely been a "good time". The bump is over, the trials have ceased for the time being, I wake up in the morning and I don’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders. Life is good! It is good to be alive! I’ve been in a "good time".

The thing is though, I just… I guess I just got in the habit of seeking God during the rougher time, because… when things got good, I just… I didn’t stop. I continued to make reading my Bible on a regular basis a priority. I continued to pray, to just… talk to God about life! Just like I had before. My situation changed, but my relationship remained.

And I realized something really neat…

As real as God was when life hurt? He is just as real when life is good. God is just as much there for me now as He was in the rougher times. He doesn’t move! He’s still here!! He is still revealing Himself to me! He’s… He’s still God!!

And I realized that in all honesty, what we have with God is a relationship. It truly is. And a relationship isn’t a go-to line when life gets crazy—that’s not what God is. God isn’t just some big Healer in the sky who you go to with your bumps and bruises when you want all the hurt to go away. He is that! But that isn’t all He is.

He is our Friend.

Our Friend.

Think about that for a minute…

You don’t just have friends so you can run to them when life gets hard—yeah, if life gets hard, and if your friends are good ones, they’ll be there for you when it gets tough, but… that’s not why you have them!

You have friends because they are people that you choose to be around! You like them, so you want to be around them! You talk to them! You go out and eat lunch with them just to catch-up when you haven’t seen each other in a while! You care about one another. And the longer you’re friends, the more you discover about each other, and the closer you become. And usually, the closer you are, the closer you want to be. The more you know about them, the more you’d like to know…

It should be that way with God too.

We should love God simply because He is.

That’s it.

Simply because He exists, and we have the opportunity to know Him, we should seek His Presence like we seek the presence of our best friends. And we should enjoy Him simply because He is.

I learned the Joy of knowing Jesus.

I experienced, and continue to experience knowing my God.

I love my God.

And I’m so excited that I get to spend the rest of my existence falling deeper and deeper in love with Him. I get to spend the rest of eternity getting to know Who He is!

The little bits of Himself that He continues to show me… They are priceless! And I just… I can’t wait for more. 　

All My Bones

About a month ago I read a verse, and I haven’t been able to really get it out of my head. Actually, I’ve taken to writing on my hand. I’ll explain more about that in a minute…

The phrase that really struck me, (which is the phrase that I write on my hand), is a simple 3 word phrase: “All my bones…”. Out of context, it makes no sense, (or… I don’t think it does. If that made sense to you then… That’s amazing…) but it comes from Psalm 35:10 which says, “All my bones shall say, ‘O Lord, who is like You…” (ESV)

See, in Psalm, it’s sort of normal to read phrases like, “I will praise You with my lips”, or, “My heart will say, ‘Who is like You?”.

But from his bones? That seemed sort of special.

David, (the writer of Psalm) wasn’t just proclaiming God from his lips, or from his heart. He was proclaiming God from the very core of his body! His entire being!! The very parts of him that make him up were the very parts of him that were praising the One who made him up!

Everything in him was giving praise to God!! Isn’t that just beautiful? You can’t get any closer to the very core of yourself than your bones, and if you are praising God from that deep inside you, then the praise will spread through the rest of you too!

I feel like that’s what true worship is supposed to be. The giving of ourselves, of the very things that make us up, to the praise of Him! When it comes from everything within us… I feel like that’s the most glorifying form of worship, when we are completely focused and completely filled with… Him!

We’re giving everything we have to Him, saying, “I am yours, because You are worthy to be praised”.

Sometimes we can be funny when it comes to really giving our everything to God… Sometimes we just pay lip-service to God, or… we sort of want to be doing the right thing, but the application of that desire is sometimes lacking, and sometimes that can get in the way of really worshipping Him…

I know I’ll never have it all together. But, the idea of taking everything inside of me, all of me down to my very bones, and using it to praise God because I am genuinely in awe of Him? I like that idea. I want to be that kind of Christian. And that’s why I write the phrase on my hand, because I want to be reminded every time I happen to glance down, or reach for a cup from the cupboard, or tear off a leaf from a tree as I pass by, that right then, in that moment, I want to praise God with everything I have.

Praising God doesn’t have to be a tiring thing. Sometimes we make it out to be a big deal, or a show, or something absolutely exhausting… but it isn’t. If praise were supposed to be a big, tiring deal, then we wouldn’t have everyday life.

God put us on this earth for His glory. If we couldn’t truly glorify Him in everyday life, then I don’t think we would have it. But we can glorify Him in our mundane, everyday existence! We really can. And I’ve found that the more I focus on praising Him in everyday life, the more I find to praise Him for! It’s gone from thanking Him for “the biggies”, the obvious things, (family, friends…) to where now, the ordinary things begin to sparkle with the possibility of praise. They’ve become… alive! And I’ve found that my life is full of little gifts from God that make it… so wonderful to live!

And I think that the more we find to thank Him for, the easier it is to really worship Him; because the more we thank Him for, the less complaints we have, the less complaints we have, the less of us being distracted by those complaints, which means more of us can be focused on Him…

I think that when we really are focused on Him, and we really are content with where He has placed us in life, we really can be joyful, and we can really praise Him with absolutely everything we have…

Don't Be Hatin'

I was reading the story of Cain and Abel, (It’s the story about the two brothers who both offer a sacrifice to the Lord. God is pleased with Abel’s sacrifice, but not Cain’s. So, Cain gets angry, and he kills Abel. God asks Cain where Abel is, Cain replies with the sassy line, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” then God tells Cain that He knows what happened... There’s more to the story! So, if you’d like to read it for yourself, it’s in Genesis 4) and at first it seems like God is picking favorites. He liked Abel’s sacrifice and not Cain’s. Poor, pathetic little Cain... God is just so unfair, it isn’t Cain’s fault! He’d offered a sacrifice, hadn’t he?… But then, if you look at verse 7, God is talking to Cain, and He says, “If you, (Cain) do well, will you not be accepted? (ESV)” Which suggests that God isn’t picking favorites at all! Abel gave his best to the Lord, and he conducted the sacrifice the right way! So, God was pleased with the sacrifice.

But, due to verse 7, it seems that either Cain had chosen to not give his best to the Lord, or he had conducted the sacrifice either half-heartedly, or incompletely.

Either way, something was lacking in his sacrifice, and because he had not done well, God was not pleased. It makes sense, God’s not being unfair, and Cain is actually to blame for his own actions. 

Now, this is the part that really hit me:

Cain was wrong. Cain knew he was wrong. He’d had a conversation with the God of the universe to prove it! But… it was something that he could change. He could begin giving his sacrifices the amount of care that they deserved. He could begin to actually give God his best! Whatever it was that was lacking in his sacrifice, he could change it! But he had to admit that he was wrong. He had to admit that he was guilty. He knew he was! God knew he was! It wasn’t going to be a real shocker to anyone.

But, because of pride, he wouldn’t.

Instead, he turns to his innocent little brother, who had done it right. Abel’s very presence probably bugged Cain. And it was easier to focus on hating Abel than it was to admit his own sin. And Abel was a constant reminder of the things Cain knew he needed to change about himself. Without saying a single word, Abel’s presence alone reminded Cain of all the things he was doing wrong. But again, Cain wasn’t willing to admit to sin. He wasn’t willing to admit to guilt. Instead, he focused on Abel. How “righteous” Abel was, and how much it ticked him off that Abel was even born! Then, one day he lost it. He couldn’t stand being around Abel for one more second. So, filled with his own hatred, he killed Abel.

Maybe there had been a conversation, maybe Abel had said something obnoxious, maybe he’d suggested Cain change something. Maybe they were just flat-out arguing and Cain lost control! Or maybe Cain had planned the whole thing out, and he killed Abel before Abel even knew what was happening! I don’t know, but whatever happened, the point is this: Cain despised Abel to a point where he just… didn’t want Abel to live anymore. It was time for Abel to go. Abel was innocent, but because Cain did not want to face his own guilt, he killed the thing that reminded him most frequently of his shortcomings.

That seems so crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, who would never kill someone just because the other person got on their nerves?

Well… we would. But with obvious punishments for killing people, we probably wouldn’t go that far nowadays, but… sometimes we want to. We have the same attitudes that led Cain to that place where he could justify killing his own brother. They’re ugly thoughts and attitudes that are honestly there just to protect us from what we already know: we have work to do in our own hearts.

I’ve watched it happen over and over with friends, and it’s just… heartbreaking. Girls are especially bad at doing this!

There will be a group of girls, and they’ll be perfectly happy right where they are. Talking about guys the way they do, dressing the way they do, having the attitudes towards parents that they do, spending time however they spend it, they’ll just be happy with their standards.

And then the new girl comes in.

Maybe she doesn’t talk about guys as much. Maybe she dresses a little more modestly. Maybe she’s really close to her parents, and maybe she really respects them. Maybe she carries her Bible around with her, and reads it when she’s sitting alone, or maybe she’s just a really, really nice person who never seems to have a cross word for anyone.

Or maybe it’s a combination of some of those things, but whatever it is, suddenly the group of girls feels threatened, because her standards challenge theirs. The new girl may be nothing but nice to them, but even her niceness is hard to deal with, because the group of girls have gone into defensive-mode so they’re acting as if they really could not care less if she dropped off the face of the earth, and her niceness almost makes it harder…

See, the new girl may be sweet, and dear, and just… a great person! But she lives by standards that the group of girls does not. And maybe her standards are too high! But, maybe she’s right to do the things she does… The problem is that sometimes we’re way too much like that group of girls, and we can take people with different standards and beliefs, and we run from them, instead of seeing them as opportunities to re-think those areas of our own lives, to see if maybe this person is a way God is using to point out an area where He really isn’t in control, or if their ideas would be ideas that God could use to mold some of our opinions. We run from them. We get protective of our choices, and we don’t want to think about the fact that we could be wrong. We alienate the new person, or we’re “nice” to them, but we’re not really open, because they make us feel… guilty. And instead of trying to figure out if that feeling of guilt is coming from the fact that, deep down, (even if we aren’t willing to admit it to ourselves), we do need to change, we just… avoid the person!

Unfortunately, it is way too easy to become the group of girls. It’s easy to get around someone who seems to do EVERYTHING right, and feel judged, inadequate, less than we are. It’s easy to turn on them, and make them out to be the bad-guy, rather than taking a step back, looking at ourselves and saying, “Okay. Am I doing something wrong here?”

We get defensive and start putting up walls against people who are just… living! How stupid is that?! It’s unfair. It’s wrong. And it does not honor God.

And it’s really hurtful, too… I’ve also had several different friends look at me and say, “I just don’t get it! Why don’t they like me?!”… and it was for this very reason. It’s unfair to the person being put on the outside. It’s unfair to punish someone else because you don’t want to maybe be face-to-face with your own sin. It’s not right to treat someone coldly because they might be doing something right in an area that you’re doing something wrong. It’s just… wrong to treat people that way. And I think you'll find that if you give that "perfect" person a chance, you'll see that they are just as human as you are...

But, just to sum-up here, I’m not saying that every Christian should agree on everything all the time, and we should all dance around agreeing on super-high standards, and welcoming any chance to make those standards even higher until we get to a point that our children are being born perfect because they have no other choice. Obviously, that’s a flawed, totally impractical plan. 

But, for goodness sake, we can take the pride, defensiveness and passive-aggressive hatred out of our relationships! Jesus died for all of us! The super-conservative girl who quotes verses with every-other breath, and the extremely liberal girl who is in love with Jesus, and that’s about all she’s got figured out. If you’re a Christian, the God of the universe died for you! You have no right to hate anyone, ever! Especially if that person simply gets under your skin because they’re “perfect”. No one is perfect. Everyone has problems. Everyone has hurts. And everyone wants to be loved! So, get over yourself, get over your pride, check your motives for choices against the Bible, and then love that person! That’s what God has commanded of us! We’re supposed to love!! And if God could love you… you can love that person.

Ask God for His help. Ask Him to help you love them! He knows it’s hard… But He’s there to help you. He will help you. Just… ask Him.

One plus One equals One

A few months ago, I started reading through the New Testament a chapter at a time. It’s been pretty slow going, but I really don’t mind. See, by taking it a chapter at a time, I have plenty of time to really reflect on the verses! And I have been getting so much more out of the Bible! It’s been… amazing.

Last weekend we went on a retreat with my cousins’ church. The speaker spent every session on the book of Joshua. And as I was sitting there, listening to all that he was pulling out of this overlooked book, I had a desire to read through the Old Testament and see what amazing things I can learn that I’ve overlooked so many times before! So, I’m doing that now too!

I’m only a few chapters into Genesis, but as I’m sure you’ve probably assumed, I’ve gotten something that I think is cool out of it! Hence this post!

I’ve heard how God made Eve out of Adam’s rib about a bajillion times. And… (I’m just gonna flat-out say it), I have always thought that the fact that Eve was made out of a rib was weird. I’ve also thought that the fact that this obviously left Adam one-rib-sort of a full person was a little unfortunate for him. I mean, honestly, how would you feel if one day you fell asleep and you woke up to find that you were not alone anymore! And this person sitting next to you was created from a piece of you... and now you lacked a piece of you.

And it’s not like you could see what you were lacking, it’s not like God chopped off Adam’s arm and handed it to Eve! God took a really intimate part of Adam. He took something from Adam’s very insides, and used it to create Eve… And when Adam woke up, he was not only lacking a bit of himself, but he was staring into the eyes of the person who now owned it.

Of course, someone could really make this an extremely sweet and mildly cheesy thought. Just throw in a couple of good-old Hallmark Card sayings, and boom. You’ve got a mushy love story.

But, think about the situation honestly! How weird would it be to be Adam? Or Eve?! Why didn’t God just make Eve out of dust too? Then no one would be missing a part of themselves! The situation would be weird enough on its own! Why throw in the rib part too?

The whole thing just never made sense to me, and I was content thinking that it was just a really strange part of creation.

But, in reading it for myself the other day, it fascinated me… the way the verses are set up. After God makes Eve out of Adam’s rib, and Adam rejoices at her existence, it says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24 ESV)

“One flesh”…

That phrase has always kind of confused me too. Obviously, they were two different people. Anytime people are married, they are two different people! Why the “one flesh” phrase? It doesn’t make sense.

Then my thoughts when back to that rib…

Adam really was not one whole entire person without his rib. He was missing something. He was missing something that in every practical sense made him a whole being. And Eve had exactly what he was missing! Adam was not a completely whole, one person, without Eve! On his own he was lacking… he was lacking what she had. He needed her to be a complete being. And she needed him too! Without him, she would be lacking a rib as well! Because of him, she was a whole, one person. But they had to have each other to become complete. Together, they were one.

Then it all clicked. The rib made sense! The phrase “one flesh” made sense too! And once it clicked, the picture of the rib was… beautiful. It was an extremely open, yet extraordinarily intimate picture of two people becoming one…

There may be more to the rib and to the phrase “one flesh” than what I’ve written here. In fact, I’m pretty positive that there is! But, the two ideas finally connected for me, and it made a previously confusing and altogether odd situation into something that I think I’ll cherish… And the more I think about it, and the more God reveals, the more beautiful the idea of two people becoming one is to me… It really is beautiful. A little mysterious, and still a little difficult to fully understand, but… it is quite beautiful.

Selfish Sunflowers

The other day I learned something new!

Sunflowers follow the sun. Like, in the morning, they open up, and through the entire day their face is toward the sun! They move with it! When the sun moves across the skies, the faces of the flowers follow right behind!

(If you’re a Christian, I’m pretty sure you know where I’m gonna go with this. So yes, here’s a cheesy analogy for you. But it got me excited! So I’m sharing it!)

I feel like, as Christians, we should be sunflowers. Our entire existence should be focused around following Christ, following the Son, wherever He leads. Our faces should be always turned toward Him. And what’s more is… that’s how we should be defined! We should be defined as a people whose faces are always turned toward Him! That’s how we should be seen! People should not be able to think of us without thinking of God.

When you imagine a sunflower in your mind, how do you imagine it? For me, I see a small garden, with big, yellow (like they come in any other color) sunflowers, on a bright sun-filled day. In my mind, it looks like a day where, if you were inside, you could almost feel the warmth of the sun without even setting your foot out the door… That’s how it is in my mind! And to separate the sunflower from the sun just seems wrong. I have to actually make myself image a sunflower on a gloomy, sunless, rainy day… it just doesn’t seem natural. It’s just hard to separate the sunflower from the sun.

In our lives, it should be hard to be able to separate our actions, activities, personalities… anything, away from God. See, I think God should be our motivation for… everything! And that doesn’t mean living your life with your nose in the Bible all the time, either!

What I mean is… well, I don’t know how else to say it without an example so… I play the guitar. I love the guitar. I just truly cherish music as a whole, and the guitar has a way of… breathing music. When I hold a guitar, I have magic in my hands! And I just… love it. But, I really don’t want to simply get lost in my love of music. The way I see it is, God is the one who gave me a love for music in the first place! And I want to thank Him for giving me this love. So, when I act on this love by playing, I try to always make sure that I’m playing… for Him. But that’s so much easier said than done! Sometimes I have to remind myself when I play that I should never be playing for me. I should never be playing so people will say, “Oh wow. That song, did you just write it? You did? Seriously?! Wow… it was really good.” I mean, the handfuls of times where someone has been kind enough to say that has felt… really good. I like it when people like what I’ve played, especially when it’s something that I’ve written. And every now and then I’ll find myself in a situation where maybe I could show off a little, (not that I’m really all that great! But when you’re in a room of people who can’t play diddly-dot on any instrument, just a couple of strums with a few simple chord changes can leave them thinking you’re some sort of musical master-mind!) So, in those situations, if I let the focus of my music be… me, then what’s the point? There is no point, except to feed my own pride. So I have to check myself, and I have to check my motives, and sometimes I won’t even pick up the guitar because I’m not sure if I’m trying to show off myself, or if I’m trying to bless someone else through the words of the songs that God has laid on my heart.

I know to some people that will seem like an insanely over-thought process. I mean, for Pete’s sake, I’m playing a guitar! Big whoop! And maybe I have taken it too seriously, but… I never want to get in the way of someone else seeing God. If the lyrics I’ve written can touch someone’s heart, then I want to share them! Even if they’re funny lyrics! Sometimes humor is an amazing way to open people up! And it’s an amazing way to let people know that you love them! And if someone asks me to play something I’ve written, then I’m more than happy to share! But, I never want to allow myself to be the focus. Because, without God, I wouldn’t care one itty bitty bit about music. He gave me this love! And He gave it to me as a tool to glorify Him! And that’s what I always want to do with it…

So, what I’m trying to say is… don’t belittle the loves God has given you, because He gave them to you for a purpose, and that purpose was not to glorify yourself! So, don’t let yourself become the focus of your gifts. He has given them to you, and He deserves to be glorified and praised for blessing you with those unique qualities!

And seriously, do you really want to be that guy who only used his talents to raise himself? I mean, really. Once we die, does it matter how many compliments we’ve gotten in this life? No. It doesn’t. At all. But it does matter whether or not we’ve used our gifts to glorify Him. That… that really does matter…

You see, selfishness and pride are evil little things, and when left alone they can quickly grow into a big-little things; big, fat, ugly things that control every single aspect of your life. They hurt you, and they hurt the people around you. They are two things that, as a Christian, you have to keep in check at all times, because, other than really hurting people that God has put in your life, destroying you, your relationships, and sucking your joy out of everything, more than all of that is this: With selfishness and pride, you become center-stage, and you leave God to be the stagehand of your life. And that… That really doesn’t fly.

Think about this: If you saw a sunflower, and it was turned to itself; if it’s petals were touching on either side, and it was bent over its own stem, What would you think? You’d probably think it was ugly, wouldn’t you? It would be ugly! There would be something wrong with it! It would be unnatural!

If we love ourselves so much that all we do is focus on us, then we’re ugly too. We just look… wrong.

But, when a sunflower has its petals opened wide, and its face is turned completely to the sun, then it becomes absolutely breathtaking. So is a Christian whose eyes are focused on God. We become breathtaking, because we are not the focus, we are not center-stage, we aren’t even thinking about center-stage! Our only focus is Him.

What would a sunflower be without the sun?

What would a Christian be without Christ?

Lost.

Closed.

Useless.

Dead.

So, turn your face toward the Son. He’s waiting to shine His beauty through you…

He Fills Our Hearts

Today was neat! Lunch at the school was great. After which, I came home and slept for… I don’t even know how long. And then we ate food! After dinner, we attempted to clean up, and somehow clean up became a massive wrestling match with all 5 of us kids. It was so much fun!

After the kitchen was clean my older cousin, little brother and sister got ready to go to a highschoolers’ lock-in at my cousin’s school. Once they were all ready, they left the apartment to go to the school and… stay awake all night.

My youngest cousin isn’t quite at the highschool age, so he had to stay here at the house. I’d stayed up really late the night before, and as fun as I am when I don’t sleep, I figured it’d be more beneficial to myself and to the rest of humanity if I stayed and actually went to sleep at some point in the night. Also, I’ve missed my cousin! And I figured that we might as well have a lock-in of our own! Even though I figured we’d end up sleeping. But sleep is beautiful. So that was okay with me.

We were just going to watch a movie with my aunt and uncle. It was some alien movie… But before we could watch it, we had to let it download, (we bought the movie on iTunes). I had a couple of e-mails that I wanted to reply to. My cousin was killing people on the Playstation with the new games my brother had given him, so I pulled out the laptop and began to type. A friend had sent me a link to a funny video on Youtube, and after I’d watched it, a link popped up to see the Miss America pageant from when Miss South Carolina gave her famous, “Like, such as” speech. I pulled out my earphones, and my aunt came over to watch it too. She leaned on the couch and laughed. A lot. My cousin had finished his game. So, he came over and sat next to me on the couch… and he laughed! A lot! We all laughed. A lot. I’m sure Jesus was so proud of us…

Well, after that my cousin and I spent a good long time watching various videos that showed… uh… “special” people… It was funny. And then he showed me these videos of people who are insanely good at playing basketball… er—really just throwing the basketball from unrealistically difficult places. It was so cool! Then we went from that, to me continuing my typing, and him playing his game on the iPad, connected by a shared pair of earphones. I played some of my favorite music, and we just kind of sat like that for a while. Occasionally we’d sway in unison to the music, and once or twice I pulled a sarcastic life lesson from the lyrics that we were both only half-listening to.

After a bit, the movie downloaded fully, and we started it. The movie was “Darkest Hour” and to be honest, it… it was... kind of… stupid.

But anyway, I sat on the couch and my cousin laid down, leaning against me. I spent most of the movie completely ruining his hairdo. By the time I was done playing with his hair, he looked like he’d stuck his finger in a socket. Twice.

The movie ended, and we lost my aunt and uncle to the depths of sleep. My cousin and I returned to sharing earphones, showing one another some of our favorite songs. Right now, he’s sitting next to me, playing a game on his iPad while I write…

And just a minute ago, it hit me. I would not choose to be anywhere else but right here in this moment with him…. Tonight will be a night that I hold very closely in my heart. Wrestling with my siblings and cousins in-between cleaning dishes, and then spending hours with my, “Little Buddy”, doing nothing more than sitting next to each other, watching movies and playing music…

See, these nights, these moments… they’re the things that really mean the world to me. They’re the moments that I love. The moments where I can simply… be, with the ones who make my world what it is! I love my cousins. I love them so much. And right now, sitting here with my Buddy at my side, life is… perfect.

I hope that I will never forget to cherish these moments. I hope that I’ll learn how to love them more deeply! And I hope I’ll learn how to notice everyday moments that could be turned into lifelong memories.

I hope I’ll always want to keep my loved ones close, and that a couch and a little bit of music with someone I love will always be something that fills my heart, and turns my mind to the goodness of God.

You see, He gave me this moment. He gave me tonight. And words cannot express how thankful I am that He does give me nights like tonight.

He truly does know the desires of our hearts. He knows our hearts, and He knows how to fill them… And He does fill them. Sometimes through a kind word from a stranger, sometimes through a feeling that He gives you, just to let you know He’s there, and sometimes… Sometimes through a shared pair of earphones with your Little Buddy at your side…