I am nearing my birthday here very soon and my beloved brother is having a baby... All this coming upon me is bringing back the fact that even though I will only be 22, I am getting older. But the one thing I am coming to grips with is that life is beautiful and it will continue to pass on by, but you know what? Life is made to be in motion. It is the utmost importance to realize this, no we cannot go back to our childhoods, no we cannot be 10 years in the future, we must embrace each and every day because you never know when you will be playing guns in the backyard and the next moment you hear your brother say that he is going to be a father.
When you have taken life and accepted that it is always continuing then you are ready for what is to come. So I am happy to say that I embrace this next chapter in my life, becoming older, an uncle again and whatever else life has for me I accept it with open arms and you should too.
"There is no wealth but life." -John Ruskin
We never see it coming, but what do we do when it hits us? Do we sit down and cry about it or do we invite it in for tea and make the best of it, I choose the latter my friends because no matter how hard we fight it will happen.
"Be the hero of this story because God knows every story needs a hero."
Sometimes we get so engulfed in our own needs and wants that we forget that fine line between being holy as He is holy and just plain selfish. Even in our desire to be "perfect" we forget who is actually perfect, we zone God out and replace Him with our own image. You cannot see your reflection with a broken mirror my friends. We ask God to forgive "our" needs so much that we forget why we are even asking for forgiveness, I have found myself going through the day "Praying without ceasing" for my own needs. Sometimes God just wants us to stop and listen to Him say "Be still and know that I am God."
Be still and know that I am God... That is so powerful. It is the still voice of God telling us to be as He is, to feel His love overwhelming our very life, to capture the very meaning of power, grace, redemption, hope and love... How can we go a day without standing still and knowing that God is God... This needs to be screamed from every pulpit in America. When we move and ignore God we tend to lose sight of everything we believe in... We begin to cry and morn about how miserable our lives are. Or we judge and get angry at those who do cry out at every step of the way. God has called us to be on His level, but yet we demand that He stoop down for us... This is how we get such blasphemous beliefs like the KKK or West-borough Baptist Church, We get a false sense of what is good and the world looks at that and says "There is no God... What God would allow that to happen?" God forgive the arrogance that we sinners have, forgive us for the way we treat you and your creation. forgive our need to fix things our self... forgive our desire to be independent of you. forgive our stubbornness to stop and listen to you who loves us unconditionally...
"For as great as His wrath shall be at the day of judgement so also is His love."
To be still and know that He is God.... Is all that He wants... And everything is what we should give...
Something I wrote a little while back, thought it was good and that I would share with you guys!
Who am I to say that your pain is any less than mine? I have struggled with judging people on the pain I see and not the pain that I cannot feel myself. How can I say that your pain is less important than the man who is on the side of the road? Has that man experienced your pain? No. Have you experienced his pain? No. We cannot judge peoples pain because we can never experience it on the same level, only one being in the existence of time itself can say "I know exactly what you are going through" He is the one who took that shame. He is the only one who is just, The only one who you should be dependent on. Now it has been said that God is evil because he causes pain, now why would a God who "Causes" pain allow himself to experience this pain to the fullest? Why would he stoop to the level of man? If he was evil wouldn't he just let us suffer? In fact if he was "TRULY" evil he would not even allow us to know pain, because to know pain we must know happiness, now is this something an "Evil" god would allow? No... Evil exists because God is GOOD! It is like a light that shines into the dark, without the light you would not know dark. Do we dwell in the dark or do we dwell in the light? Now I can't say that we will not experience pain once we are Christians, just because you have accepted Him doesn't mean you are automatically taken out of the realm of the world and all its evilness, no in fact we are called to the world, as soon as we deny pain we deny grace, life is full of pain, but growth comes out of pain, your mother had to endure pain to have you, would she give you up now to never have had to experience that pain? By no means! In order to give life she had to endure pain, but after the pain we get life. Christ endured the pain of being ripped from himself, but he did it to give life to the world, we as Christians cannot have an exit plan when it comes to the world, because as the great John Stonestreet once said "God did not save us from the world, He saved us TOO the world." So when you see someone hurting, don't say "There's a child who is in far greater pain then you so suck it up." We don't know their pain, how dare you judge them when you yourself have not experienced this pain. Pain is a battle we all must deal with on our own level, but we can rest assured that Christ has experienced this pain, Also He carries this with him, the scares on his hands, the stripes on his back and the crown around his head. So if you are in pain today, Christ is holding his bruised and beaten hand out to you, he is suffering with you. You are not alone, Christ was the only one alone... He paid it, He lived with the pain. That is why God is not evil.
As I am typing this I am uploading a video to my Vimeo site called "Love on the Mind", I hope you all enjoy it. I also hope you get it. The story is about a young man who is on a journey to discover who his true love is, as he is traveling around town he is thinking about this love and how they have effected his life, he experiences confusion, frustration and pain just like we all have when seeking love, but sometimes love awaits us where we left it... The ending is meant to be humorous/cute if that makes any sense at all. It was a lot of fun filming it with my buds Evan and Eric Wilcox. I love how even if the idea seems silly they will still help me out. It's a HUGE blessing to have friends like that. Of course this video is driven by my love of music, as you will see in the video, I have such favorites as The Avett Brothers, Frightened Rabbit and Vampire Weekend. The emotion behind this project is largely due to the music, also my extreme love for something else as well. But you will have to wait and see it in the video!
