Epiphany

Today while brushing my teeth, I was thinking about how frustrating it can be to have 2 extremes of myself; the driven jock business side and the musician deep sensitive side. The two extremes seem to always pull so heavily in opposite directions and I end up getting upset with myself. Today, however, was different. After asking the Lord the why the heck did He makes such a random assortment of me... the thought popped in my head, "maybe I don't have to make the two extremes converge. Perhaps I don't have to have this perfect balance of personality. Maybe I can just be myself, do the best I can, and love the Lord. Maybe I can just let myself BE."

What if we were all just ourselves and didn't try to make ourselves be someone else, something else, more balanced, more calm, more excitable, more reasonable, more. more more...

What if we were just exactly who we were made to be and just rested in that truth. Seriously if we just love God and love our neighbor we fulfill everything God would want us to do and be... love never fails. Why do we make things so complicated, especially in ministry. Love is my ministry and I can do that in any context at any time because Love itself resides in me.

What is Love?

Lately amazing things have been happening to me. I have been so incredibly blessed with opportunities and provisions. The Lord has really taken care of me well. Yet my heart has been aching for something more. My heart literally hurts and aches to know true and genuine love. God is love and so I guess my heart is aching to know God more. His Spirit resides in me and yet sometimes I don't feel as if I really know Him as a friend... my heart has been just yearning for a deeper relationship with God. I decided to post 1 Corinthians 13 via the Message translation because this is the definition of true love as well as a description of who God is...

1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

11When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

I look at all these characteristics of love and see two things... I have no idea how to love and I'm not sure I really know how to love others either. It's basically impossible for me to love people in my own strength... BUT it's cool because Christ in me can... He can help me in the places I am most likely to fail because in my weakness He is strong. :)

Transition and Reflection

I'm excited because on June 14th I will officially be graduating from MSU from my first year! :)

Reflection: This year I think had exceeded many years of my life. I've overcome fears, healed people, lead people to salvation, learned to prophecy (which I thought I could NEVER EVER do), lead worship with the best congregational musicians ever (in my opinion), stepped out in leadership, public spoke, overcame discouragement, depression, and anxiety, had so many doctrinal controversies thrown at me and sorted through them with the Lord, helped homeless people, blesses community leaders, traveled all over the east coast, wrote new songs, played bass for the first time, learned new songs, made new friends that I could NEVER forget, dug deeper into who God made me to be, read more books than I ever thought possible, loosened up and had some fun, and so much more...

Transition: I'm really feeling the transition from my first year into the summer. I'm really excited because over the course of working my butt off, getting in shape, and getting deep in the Word I am going to start doing some of my own evangelism.

A group of friends and myself are going to play some secular venues to minister to people in cafes, shoppes, restaurants, and maybe bars to let our lights shine. I want to do mini faith courses each week just to stay in the flow of staying outside my comfort zone as well as sharing God's heart to the world. Being a "minister" is not something to only be done in Bible school or church, I want it to be ingrained inside of my very being. I believe it is and I want it to come out!! lol I also just want to get a small group of people to study the Bible more and pray.

I really feel like this year is going to be an intense time of getting launched into something bigger than I think. I'm already very surprised at the way things have turned out this year. God definitely has a way of leading us in a very adventurous way. Sometimes it really crazy and I think I'm going insane, but I LOVE It because God always comes through and shows me the bigger picture as to what's going on.

In Him I LIVE, MOVE, and HAVE MY BEING!!!