Praise the Lord, I am back at school! I mean I miss my family a ton but its great to be back for this final semester. I'm not really "checked" back in for school yet but I will be when Monday gets around. I'm looking forward to what God will do this semester and what will come after it. I haven't posted in a while because of lack of time lately and trying to get into a healthy sleeping pattern. I will probably post a bigger post tomorrow but tonight I just wanted to give God all the credit for what he has done and will do, THANKS GOD!

Where does the time go?

Well, so much has happened since the last time I posted on here. The biggest thing probably is that I am able to return to LU for my last semester of undergrad. The funny thing about that is that I was never really worried about it, I knew that God had it in control and would work it out when it was the right time. The right time just so happened to be the last day of financial check in, but that just shows me that God doesn't forget about us, he is always right on time! This past week has been full of events, small ones, but they kept me busy so when it would come to the late hours of the night when I generally post things on here I was too exhausted to write. One really cool thing happened this week, Tuesday night my little sister Kathy came over to the house to hangout and spend sometime with me. It was great to be able to hang out with her because it seems as since she got engaged she just doesn't care about our family anymore, and that hurts but I have been praying that God would open up her eyes.
So I will be headed back to LU for my last semester of undergrad next Saturday and I just cant help but wonder, where did all the time go? I remember pulling up to dorm fourteen as a freshman and going into a whole new place where I didn't know anyone and just making a ton of friends and slowly started to learn that there is something far more than just living the rest of my life. Amazing how much I have grown over the past four years, and I can't wait to see how much I will grow over the next four.
In my devotions lately I have been reading about how sometimes God has to use huge things to get our attention because if he doesn't then we probably wont notice that he is talking to us. I pray that I am more like him and I can start to notice when he is talking to me without him having to use the big stuff. In Jeremiah today I was reading about how all the false prophets were proclaiming stuff in God's name that he never said and how angry it made him. I pray that I will always say only what God wants me too and nothing else. When we go off and start teaching what we want to teach and not what God wants us to teach we are in sin. We are to teach what God wants us to say. Why else was Jesus always contradicting how the pharisees lived there lives? I am finding the more that I read about Jesus the more of a rebel in his culture he really was. He never sinned while being a rebel but rather rebelled from all the stuff the culture had deemed acceptable that went against God. Amazing, as Christians there is a lot of things we need to rebel against in this generation, too many Christians are just accepting all the sins that society say wont hurt us because its not wrong. God is watching me and pays attention to every action I do, therefore I want to glorify him in all that I do. I challenge whoever reads this that if there is something God has brought to your attention while reading this, surrender it to him, you'll be glad you did.
Verse of the day- 1 Corinthians 11:1 Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ
This is my favorite verse and I want it to be true of my life. What about you? Will everyone know who you follow by the way you live? I hope so.

God Knows best....

You know, I think I stay up way too late and should probably start to get in the bed a little earlier. I woke up this morning and got ready for church, but I don't think I was ready for church. Way to often we got to church and don't really prepare ourselves for church and that is what I did today. I went in thinking oh man I'm going to be late and not thinking at all about needing to prepare my heart to hear from God. Well that was rudely awakened in Sunday School today as we talked about Jesus feeding the five thousand. I really enjoy my Sunday School class at church, Tony does a great job telling us what he thinks the word means. What really encourages me about him is that he is not a fake Christian, what he says he lives. That is the kind of man I want to be known as.
Well as we were talking in Sunday School about how Jesus fed the five thousand it hit me once again, people had to have FAITH in him that he could feed them all. Think about the last time you saw someone feed at least 8,000 people with just five peaces of bread and two small fish.(if your like me you haven't) But Jesus took the bread and the fish gave thanks and blessed it. I don't care what god you follow, there is no way at all that your god can do what my God did on that day. It blows me away to think of all the great miracles he has done on this Earth and yet I still feel as if I ought to worry, ridiculous. Funny thing is right after Sunday School I went over to our morning service and Pastor Jason spoke on Matthew 6, the worrying portion. I have really recently come to the terms with I don't really need to worry about anything because anything I need God will provide if I have FAITH in him. Pastor Jason's message was reaffirming that as long as I do trust him and truly give it over to him, he WILL take care of it. Really, how GREAT is our God?
In the devotional book I bought yesterday, I read about Joesph and his brother's after the funeral and how they were worried that Joesph was going to pay them back for all the evil they had done to him. Joesph is probably my top favorite Bible character, because he reminds me so much of myself. He weeps when his brother's send him the letter supposedly from his father and lets them know that he will not only take care of them but also their children. One of my favorite verse of scripture is here when Joesph says to his brothers,"What you meant for evil, God has done for good." I love that, it reminds me so much of my life. What Satan meant for evil, God turned out for complete good. How amazing is he? My mom said something today that I will never forget, we were talking about how great God is and how I have changed so much from the rough past I have had, she says "I know now that the reason we were put there(west Monroe Church) was for you guys." Boom, right there, never thought of that really but it's definitely true, God had his hand on me my whole life and has always brought the right people in my life when it was the right time. Sometimes I get in a hurry and think its the right time but I need to realize that only God knows the real right time. Satan meant my life for evil, but God has decided to use it for good, HALLELUJAH!
Later on in my quiet time tonight I read in Jeremiah and he discovered that God is never wrong, and what he says will always rule supremely. Jeremiah prayed for the destruction of his own people, can you believe that? they were so evil and far from God that they couldn't even listen to what his prophet was telling them without beating him up and putting him in jail. Sound familiar? Maybe its time that we stop praying for all this peace and we start praying for God to do whatever it takes to bring us back to him. I know the times that I see that I need him the most are when something big gets my attention and lets me see how small I really am. God will have his way, and we need to realize that. One day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.
I read some in Matthew tonight too, its amazing how the old testament leads right up to the new testament don't you think. Tonight was about Peter when exclaimed that Jesus was the Son of God. How amazing is it that Peter knew Jesus was God's son, Jesus even says "it was not men who told you this, but it was God." Amazing, I desire so much to be so close to God that he is sharing stuff with me all the time that others do not know, because our relationship is just that good. I want to know him so much more. I think that should be every believers mentality, to know God more.
Tonight I heard Pastor Sam speaking on love, loving others with the love of Christ. I love people but not nearly the way I should. I have decided that along with Growing to know God so much more this year I want to love others with the love Christ loves us with. If I can do this I think it will definitely make me a better Christian,a better person, and make whatever ministry I am part of more successful.
Verse of the day- Genesis 50:19-21 (The Message) Joseph replied, "Don't be afraid. Do I act for God? Don't you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now—life for many people. Easy now, you have nothing to fear; I'll take care of you and your children." He reassured them, speaking with them heart-to-heart.

Learning to be smaller

Wow, what a day! It started at five forty five this morning and has really been non stop all the way til now. We took my nephews and niece back to Tennessee today, and it was a great adventure. We left around 6:00 this morning and drove through all the unexpected snow and mountains. The kids were great though, they slept most of the trip and that made it such a good ride. I tried to catch some sleep but it never really happened. We drove dropped them off and headed back. We stopped by the Biltmore mall on the way back home and had a chickfila milkshake and checked a Walden books that was going out of business. I bought a devotional by Eugene Patterson, who wrote the message, and it seems to be really good. I am always looking for a new challenging devotional and this one seems to be really good. I did two days of it today so I could be caught up on the new year for the book. It was a pretty long drive back so I called a friend and we caught up on how each other were doing and our plans and such. She made me a little jealous when she told me she was snowed in, I mean can I get any snow where I live? I don't even have to have a foot just give me some ha.
But as far as my quiet time tonight, God was definitely showing me that I need to realize that I am nothing with out him. Jeremiah was still all about how Jerusalem and Judah had made God mad because they were not doing what he wanted them to be doing, and because they were serving themselves and false gods. He was going to punish them by making them captives of a foreign country and not hear their prayers until he was ready to glorify himself and bring them out of captivity again. It makes me think, how often do we find ourselves treating God as just a genie in which we ask for things for but we choose to do things our own way verses following his way. In the end God does get all the glory but why not allow him to have all the glory right now? Just a thought. After Jeremiah I moved onto Matthew and got to read more about Jesus and how to be a better Christian. Something I have been challenging all the youth I spend time with lately is how are they going to be more like Christ? They have to examine his life, what he did, what he said, and why. I find that since I have started implying this into my study I feel like I have grown closer with him.
Tonight Jesus fed the 4000 men (as well as the women and children). I find it very interesting that Jesus while only having seven loaves of bread and two small fish found it a necessity to feed his followers. Jesus was not only concerned about the spirituality side of things, he was concerned with the physical side as well. Jesus shows us an perfect example here of how to evangelize to people, you must take care of their physical need before attempting to do anything else. If he hadn't done this a lot of these followers probably would have collapsed and found it hard to get home. Jesus doesn't stop at just the spiritual life and neither should we. We must love people to Jesus, the older I get the more I see that to be true. I am so very happy that Jesus cares about the small things in my life as well.
Verse of the Day- Jeremiah 16:19-21
O LORD, my strength and my fortress,
my refuge in time of distress,
to you the nations will come
from the ends of the earth and say,
"Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods,
worthless idols that did them no good.

Do men make their own gods?
Yes, but they are not gods!"

Therefore I will teach them—
this time I will teach them
my power and might.
Then they will know
that my name is the LORD.

A New Years Thought

Well it feels like forever since the last time I wrote here and its only been four days or so. I have been on a mission retreat with the youth from west monroe. It is always great to go back and see how God is still working in the old youth group. Now I see it so much differently though, I see it through a leaders eyes(I know as hard as it may be I have become somewhat of a leader) Everything I have learned in my classes and just life in general I try to apply when I'm leading.
We worked in the church and out at an old run down trailer that anyone who saw it would just call it trash. We were fixing it up for a great guy God has also called into the ministry to live in. The funny thing is that no matter who would look at this trailer everyone would ask what are you doing why not just tear it down and build something else. I see the old trailer as an example of us, when anyone would really look at our lives apart from Christ that's just what we are, a rundown no good sinner. But with a lot of hard work and not quitting God turns us into something beautiful. I am so glad that he didn't just see me for being that old worthless nothing but saw me as a treasure just needing some work.
Well while on the mission trip and being the boys leader sleep was not easy to come by, but I knew this that I would not lay my head down to go to sleep before I prayed for each of those boys by name and spent some time with my Father. I think God really blessed that, I had no problem with the boys and they were all safe and worked hard and seemed to grow a little closer to God and each other. And that's what a missions trip is about, ministering to others, growing closer to God and each other. My quiet time with during this trip was brief but man was it awesome. Honestly is was the time I spent in prayer that was awesome. God is so great and he is so big but yet he takes time to meet with me each day, he actually wants to hang out with me all the time. It blows me away to think that the God of this universe wants to hangout with me. Well the trip in my eyes was a great success and I think everyone will agree on that. The one thing I learned from this trip is that if we are always open to doing whatever God wants us to do, there is no telling where he will put us. HA, I say this because I had no clue about this trip until the day before it was to happen and Jason asked me to help. I told him I definitely would because I feel like he needs all the help he can get and I think God really wanted me to do it. I dont know it just felt like God was saying time to put what your learning to work, follow me.
Well it is now officially 2010 and a whole new year. 2009 is gone and the new one is here. This year I plan on being in the best shape I have ever been in. I also plan on being closer to God then I have ever been. I don't know where I'll be at the start of next year but I know that I plan on following God and wherever it leads, Im willing to go. Its very exciting. I commit this year to God and Trying to be a better servant of him.
Verse of the day - Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

catching up

This past weekend was extremely busy, probably could have guess that being I haven't posted anything since Friday night. Early Saturday morning we woke up and drove to Tennessee to pick up the niece and nephews. What a trip, turns out I-40 was closed and we had to take a detour through the mountains twisty twisty is all we did. Well we finally got there and had a great lunch with the family and took off and headed back home. Twisty twisty once again,then after three stops at Mcdonalds and one pizza place we were finally home. The trip that was supposed to take half my day had taken my whole day. It was all good though.
I heard my first sermon yesterday on being overweight and gluttonous appetites. I have to say it was convicting and definitely made me want to get in better shape. Its great to know that the pastor was willing to preach on something that effects everyone. I committed yesterday that I would make this year a better year of getting in shape.
In my studying over the past few days Ive been seeing how horrible we really are. As humans there is nothing we can do to save ourselves and that is why Jesus had to come and take care of the debt couldn't. In Matthew I read about Jesus sending the disciples out to preach to all of Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. In a way they were first legit missionaries. We need to make sure that we are living in a way that glorifies God. We deserve Hell but through Christ we can have Heaven.

Verse of the day- 1 Corinthians 10:31 So whatever you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

Do I really have FAITH

Today was the official holiday of Christmas. I have to admit it was a good day. I was woken up by my mom and the other kids saying lets open gifts, lets open gifts. I was like man I wish I could keep sleeping(I had just really went to sleep because my sisters dog was whimpering all night) So I got up. I had so many gifts, and if you know me I'm not really a gift guy, I would rather the money be spent on someone else not myself. But I am very thankful for them all. This Christmas was the first one I have ever spent without my little sister Kathy. It was actually kind of sad because I haven't seen much of her in a while and I just want to spend sometime with her.
Well after all the gifts most everyone went back to sleep for a little while. Not me though, I was psyched, after lunch I was going with my dad to deliver food to the less fortunate. We had our Christmas lunch, which was AMAZING(not kidding my mom is a unbelievable cook) and I thought to myself how blessed am I? God provides me with way more than I could ever deserve. We ate kind of fast though because we had to leave and get the food out to the people. We got to the church and our music minister was there handing it out to the people who would deliver it. I don't know but when we were there, my dad and I were the only two people besides the pastor and his family there delivering. I feel like way too many "Christians" just take on the name and don't ever do anything about it. That bothers me, I don't ever want to not be serving God. I find myself caring too much about the things I care about and not enough about what God cares about already. If you are a CHristian you really need to be living like one, thats one thing I think God has been hammering into me lately. When you take on the name of God, don't just take it on, live it out!
Tonight in my quiet time I read about how horrible things were in Israel and Judah, horrible as in how the people were living not the land because God has blessed them with this land. God was going to punish them and they rightfully deserved it, but how often do we deserve it. I think we are living in very evil times right now as well. God has blessed us so tremendously and how do we thank him by doing what we want and really not caring what he has to say about it. It breaks my heart to know how much I have broken Gods heart. I hate to sin now because I know that it just must break his heart even more. We (as Christians) really do need to examine the way we live and see if it is how God would really want us to live.
I also read in Matthew tonight, stories about Jesus doing miracles everywhere he went. I've always said hanging out with Jesus would have been the coolest thing ever. I think this because he was always healing someone or teaching some amazing lesson. While reading tonight something really stood out to me, almost every time before Jesus would heal someone they would have to admit they had FAITH that he could. This stood out big to me tonight because I think way to often we ask God for stuff but we really don't have FAITH that he will give it to us and it doesn't happen. I'm not saying we should use God like a genie or something (too many people already do that) but we should really trust that if we ask God, he can provide it for us. In my own life now, I have FAITH God is going to provide the money for me to finish school. I don't know how but I know he will. We just have to keep on believing!
Verse of the day Matthew 8:10- When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.