Blood

I just spent the last few minutes of my Tuesday evening reading through my older sisters blog. After making my way through some of her posts I realized I had this ridiculous smile plastered across my face. Not one of those half-hearted smiles you get during an episode of "Wipeout", but rather the kind of smile that literally takes over your face. I took a moment and evaluated what it was that was happening to me, and more importantly why? I realized that the same thing had happened only a few hours earlier when I was walking home from work and I was talking on the phone with my mom, dad, and little sister. That little buzzer went off somewhere in my brain and I realized what it was that brought this unexplainable joy to my entire being. Blood. My family. The people that I have spent the better part of 19 years laughing, fighting, and ultimately bonding with. Only now that I'm 8 hours away from them do I truly realize exactly what they mean to me. Everything.

One of the guys on my floor said something earlier in this insane semester that really hit home. He said "The two things you realize when you leave home is how badly you treated your family and how awesome your childhood really was". Now I'm not 100% sure this is how the quote went (this was like early September and I don't write anything down) but this is what I took from it. God blessed me with an amazing childhood as a part of an amazing family, and I totally failed to realize this until I arrived in this crazy city.

It was at this point that I was feeling a tad bit low. I felt as if I had let my family down by not truly appreciating everything they had done for me. The way they would show up to basketball games despite knowing how bad we were gonna get plastered. The way they kept their cool when I went all high school on them. The way they poured themselves into me despite my refusal to allow any such act of love. I found myself desperately wishing I could go back and fix everything, try again, hit restart, make it right. I was clawing at the edges of my new reality trying to find a way to fix a past that had sailed away like Frodo at the end of Return of the King.

It was only a matter of time before I came to the realization that I was overreacting. I attributed this temporary feeling of overwhelming guilt to homesickness (people I miss my family. true story) and put my man pants on. God was giving me an incredible opportunity! Sure I may have dropped the proverbial ball at one point or another in my first go around back home, but that doesn't change the blood flowing through my veins. I am connected to my family by something that goes so much deeper than any amount of mistakes I could ever make, and that is what brings that ridiculous smile right back!

Go back and read that last sentence one more time. Please. Okay now I don't know about you but the spiritual implications absolutely destroyed me. God has blessed us with so many things in life that picture the love He has for us. It's like the almighty creator of the universe is dropping little hints in front of us all the time in an effort to make us realize just how much He loves us. This feeling of unconditional love I feel for my family, and they feel for me, is just an immaculate portrait of the love God has for us. I am connected to my Master by something that goes so much deeper than any amount of mistakes I could ever make. That something is blood. The blood of Jesus Christ.

I am once again convicted as I think about that smile I spoke of earlier. My sister's blog brought this unconstrained joy to my heart as I read about her daily struggles with her son, and yet where is this joy when I read through God's love letter to me? In John 15 verse 11 Jesus says "I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." There is a joy that is offered to us that goes so much deeper than any earthly relationship could ever go. This joy is promised to be completed in the relationship we gain through Christ's act of love (1 John 1:3-4).

I don't know about you, but I want my joy to be complete. I want to experience whatever this world has to throw at me and still have some ridiculous smile on my face. I want people to look at me and wonder what the shrimp is wrong with me. I want my joy to be contagious. I want other believers to see me and yearn for that joy, the way I currently yearn when I see these joyous people.

I've strayed from my original topic. I want to bring it back for one more moment before I turn in for the night. My family and I have a bond that goes beneath the skin. We are connected by the very DNA that makes us who we are. In this same way my relationship with Christ goes beneath the skin. It flows from His wrists, from His brow, from His side, from His feet, from His back, from His fleshly casing that He so mericfully inhabited so as to create an unbreakable bond with a wretch such as I. When I think about that blood flowing from my Savior it brings me to tears, but then I think of the joy He promises as a result of this sacrifice and a smile reaches the corners of my mouth. It's not a huge smile, but it's a start. I'm on my way to experiencing a joy that is only complete in my relationship with my Master, and let me tell ya, I can't wait to get there!

Not Once

How easy is it to get stressed out!? I mean for real it is so incredibly easy to let the things of this earth grab a hold of every single thought and sink us into a vast void of some form of depression. I write this because I have contracted this disease and quite frankly it's pathetic. I sit back and start letting my mind crunch numbers and I wonder how I will ever pay these school bills...people I am going to a school that pays for my tuition. How weak is my faith? That is what it has come down to because if I truly trusted God with every aspect of my life I would never feel lost to this worlds temporary "problems". I put problems into parentheses because is it really a problem?

So missions conference just rolled through Moody Bible Institute. What an experience! I was blessed to hear the testimonies of people that have left all to follow Christ. Modern day Peter, James, and John's spoke from the pulpit of Torrey-Gray Auditorium and spilled their stories of life, loss, and most of all an unyielding faith that I pray I one day attain. What I seem to see only now is that the problems I mentioned earlier are not really problems at all. They are, instead, tests of sorts. God doesn't let his children coast through life whilst being effective in ministry! It does not work that way! The two just don't go together! Ask any person who has made any impact for God's kingdom and they will tell you a story that will no doubt include trials that make my little school bill "problem" look like that ant you accidently stomped on earlier today. Talk about a reality check...

So money is a bit tight in room 611 of Culbertson 6. Naturally this isn't something I just shrug off, but it also shouldn't be enough to send me into a state of panic. Anxiety is a human emotion, we all feel it from time to time. My mom, however, loves to send me straight to Phillipians 4 whenever I sound anxious. Verses 5b-6 clearly state "The Lord is at hand, do not be anxious about anything, but in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." With what? What does He want to me to pray with? That's right, thanksgiving. And now I see it! How blessed am I? By this world's standards I am well off. I have shelter, education, and a family that loves me! That list could get so much longer but for sake of space lets just assume that I have more to be thankful for than I could ever deserve. Now couple that with the fact that I have been blessed with eternal life as a result of my Savior's death on a cross.

I see three steps that NEED to follow this realization:

1. Get to my knees. Right where I belong. I am so undeserving of God's love. He is the Creator of the universe and I never once leave His mind. As He turned His back on His Son, my Savior on a tree that He created, I was on his mind. I never left it. Not Once. So I pray for forgiveness, and I thank him for the innumerable ways He has blessed a sinner such as I.

2. Get on my feet. Time to take action. The kind that doesn't just attempt to fix my financial, emotional, or (fill in the blank) problems, but the problem that is plaguing the majority of mankind. So many people have yet to see God's face, have yet to accept the gift He offered from the cross. The gift I so easily neglect and forget. Time to make a difference for God's kingdom, and while I do it I can know that I never leave His sight. Not Once.

3. Get on my cross. "And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:38-39). Time to put this world behind me and start living for a kingdom to come. Is it easy? Nah, it's tough. Missions conference showed me real life examples of those that have lived this life and in every single case it was worth it! There is a joy, a peace, in living for Christ that passes all understanding. When I leave this earth I will enter into eternity and hear those precious words "Well done my good and faithful servant" and it will all be worth it. I will live eternity with my Savior and never regret the life of difficulty I lived on earth. Not Once.


Jesus Christ payed the ultimate price for you and me. The prayer of my heart is that I would start living a life that will show that same selflessness for the people I encounter. That I would have the faith to trust God in all circumstances, not just the ones that are easy. I hope this can be the prayer of your heart as well.

Just Breathe

Life is such a blessing. Even more the ability to view life and observe it on a daily basis is a blessing that is so underserved, and yet so undervalued. Here I am in the third largest city in the United States of America and still I fail to grasp the sheer weight of my fortune. The only thing that is becoming more clear to me is that I don't belong. I don't deserve this. Why me? Why don't I get to suffer in the vast emptiness of my own despair? I pass the homeless as they cry out for change, I don't flinch. I see the child wandering the streets, I hardly notice the bruises. I hear the cry of the drunken and stoned, I pretend to feel some deranged form of pity. The truth is I just do not care, but WHY!? I have been saved from sin and death by the unmatched love of my LORD JESUS CHRIST yet I fail to show even a portion of this love to the less fortunate around me. Failure.

So I Breathe. I remember that tomorrow is a new day. But no, the next minute is a new minute. Why wait for tomorrow to show the love I have been freely given today?

So I Breathe. I remember that God has bestowed upon me a spirit of POWER...not to mention a spirit of love with which to love the humanity I encounter.

So I Breathe. I quiet my cluttered mind and embrace the SOUND MIND my Father in Heaven has been so merciful in providing.

So I Breathe. I remember that tract in my pocket. Not the one that condemns the recipient, but the one that shows her need for a Savior, his need for redemption.

So I Breathe. I refuse that nagging feeling trying to remind me of my PRIDE. Trying to make me feel ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So I Breathe.

I approach humanity through the eyes of a carpenter. A man, just like me, and yet nothing like me, for this man was God. He looked down on mankind, but not as those who look down as a result of pride. My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, firstborn over all creation, looked down at me from a tree. My master banished my sin with one victorious act of utter humility coupled with complete power.

The point I am driving at is that when I walk the streets of Chicago I want to put on a new pair of glasses. A new viewpoint, perspective, vision; and I want to embrace the humanity I encounter in the same way my Savior did. Unlike my Savior, however, I am no better than any person I meet. I am a sinner, albeit saved by grace, but still a sinner. I fall short on a daily basis so how can I possibly judge the homeless man who asks for change?

So I Breathe. And I thank God for his creation, ALL of his creation. I thank him for the beauty of the sunset, for the begger I gave change and a tract to today. I thank him for the family I've been blessed with, and for the addict I prayed with on Wells Ave. Most of all I thank my Savior for the cross from which He looked down on me, saw my need, and offered me the living water of his salvation.