Becoming a man...

Sometimes, I wish that becoming a man was as easy as our culture makes it look. Sometimes, I wish that becoming a man was a simple as some treat it. Sometimes I envy those who spend their life as boys, never having to actually step up to the proverbial plate before them. It's so much easier! It takes so much less time. Get a job, get a car, get a wife. Have kids. Presto, man. Like, making money and obtaining things automatically brings us to some kind of maturity. Like having a women is more effective than loving a women. Like working a job is more important than effecting a life. As if when we learn to focus on ourselves, we suddenly reach the pentacle of our earthy existence.

I'm so tired of hearing about it. I'm so tired of seeing it! Watching people just blow themselves up over it. I watch young men fall apart every day over it! Then, when they get there they fall apart again. Realizing that everything they had hoped they'd get when they reached that goal isn't even there. That being a "man" isn't even the same thing as being a man. They get that cheap taste in their mouths and they don't even know how to cope with the lie they've been told for the last couple decades of their life.

It's really not surprising though. This life is so hard. This route I've decided to take is so long. It's drained years. Its drained emotions. Its drained patients. Its brought me to the edge of myself time and time again. Its caused me to stretch and become more than what circumstances have left me as. I've spent many sleepless nights crying out to God. I've shed enough tears to revitalize the Sierra desert. I've made mistakes. I've gotten hurt. It just isn't easy. But, even all that would be easy if only the path was clear. But it's not, it's wild. It's overrun with the unknown. It's an adventure. It requires more endurance and perception than any boy is capable of possessing. It forces us into men.

Real men are kind. Real men are patient. Real men are not self seeking. Real men are not puffed up. Real men don't envy. Real men aren't provoked. Real men think no evil. Real men don't celebrate iniquity. Real men celebrate truth. Real men bear all things. Real men believe all things. Real men HOPES all things. Real men endure. Real men are Love. And love doesn't fail. Love goes to the places other people don't want to go. It does the work, most men deem too difficult. It deals with the situations people don't want to deal with. Love is hard.

So I'm learning to put away childish things. To set the video games, the fantasies, the delusions aside. To focus on the things that are not just important to my Father, but to me. Honestly.

I am so far from being a man. Each day takes me no measurable distance closer to becoming one. Its a process. If it wasn't, we wouldn't need seventy plus years to do it. So, I sit here. Screaming in the night. Fighting in the day. Desperately trying to look forward. Trying to learn from my mistakes. Trying to learn to be kind. Trying to learn to be love. And even though I usually feel unqualified, ill-equipped and stacked against... I take Hope that the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is working in me. Teaching me to be in this world and not off it. To work. To use my passions for glory. To love. Bringing me hope when in the dead of night it all just seems so hopeless.

This video by Trae Elijah says it pretty accurately.

Help Someone Who Deserves A Little Support

My friend Sabrina Hanson is trying very hard to win this Kindle Fire, from a crazy face contest. Besides the fact that her face is really nasty, she really deserves to win this thing. Heres why.

Sabrina has recently join our Church's media team and has put a enormous amount of time and energy into is. I can't tell you how blessed we have been to have a volunteer like this who is willing to give up so much of her time to see peoples lives changed.

Despite the tragedies that have recently gone on in her life, this girl has poured out everything for our team and I want to see her blessed! So if you have a moment, go to the link below and like the global venture page and vote for this young lady 5 times. You have to refresh the page each time you vote. I'm sure she appreciates all the votes and support shes getting. Thank you all.

http://promotion.binkd.com/Contest.aspx?id=7121&eid=334474

Take Captives...

As we become closer to God, our weaknesses become more apparent. Its not hard to see where we have fallen short. When compared to the living God... the perfect being... we always find ourselves lacking. Don't mistake this for a glorified pity party. Our recognition of our weakness comes hand in hand with the realization of God's amazing grace on us and the strength that He provides for us daily. However in that weakness we often find that our thoughts run wild.

I have always been one to immediately become frustrated with people. I would rather hit someone with a chair than actually deal with them. I don't like being slowed down. I don't like miss-communication. I don't like laziness or failure. Ironically all things I'm very guilty of. However, I tend to become impatient with people. I want them to get their crap together so I can move on with my life... this has never been a secret to me. I've always known of my inpatients but until Christ I never knew what to do with it. I could never process the irony of my failures being my greatest annoyance.

That is, until I understand the meaning of taking thoughts captive.

I'm a fighter. I'm a warrior. I like to break stuff. I like to bulldoze through things. I love overwhelming force. I love quick and decisive victory. So these words came to me with great weight. Take your thoughts captive... amazing. Imprison them. Don't let them run free. Keep them in a cage. Lock them away. I love it. Its a great idea. However... its unhealthy. You can't just lock stuff up and hope it goes away. You can't just bottle up emotion and frustration. It doesn't work. Eventually that coke can is going to blow up. Eventually I'll lose my patients.

Thats where things get tricky. Take them captive, and give them to Christ. Surrender them to Christ. Let Jesus take them and punish them accordingly. Let him take care of your stress and frustration. Let him deal with you in all your imperfectness. Thats what Hes really doing here. Hes dealing with you. Your pride. Your arrogance. Your temper. Let him do it. You suck at it. You can't deal with you. You're bigger than you can handle.

Thats genius! I can't deal with me! I'm too head strong! I'm too unbending! I'm too darn prideful! I'd rather punch me than talk to me! Let God do it. Let him deal with my unreasonable attitude. Let him deal with my temper. Hes probably a lot better at it, considering He made me.

This, has changed my life. I have learned that when my temper is let loose... or I start to become impatient or unreasonable... its time to get a little closer to the Lord. Its time to let God deal with my attitude. Intense worship of Him is the only way to deal with me. Demanding that my flesh submit to my God.

He always shows up. And He always helps me to understand myself, to deal with the root of the issue. To allow me the opportunity to put myself down and actually take up my cross. And when He does... my perspective begins to change. Suddenly I'm not so right. Suddenly I begin to really understand the situation. Its like a veil is lifted. Finally I can see. All I had to do was take captive my naive thoughts and hand them over to Christ to filter and understand. Its a great system. Take Captives.

Because He Loves You So Much...

Every time I look at this image, it breaks my heart. A picture of a lion and a little kid reaching out to one another but separated by glass. Realistically this lion may want to eat the little girl as a snack (joking) but symbolically there is something profound I find here.

I grew up without a mother. I never had someone to hold me when I was crying or to teach me the compassion and heart of a women. There are many experiences and life lessons that I spent a great deal of time without. However one thing that I did not miss out on, was the love of a father.

I never had to wonder if someone loved me. I never had to wonder if someone would protect me, if they could protect me. I knew that if anything ever tried to come between my father and I, he would tear it apart. I was always proud of my father. Even in his alcoholism, I never once doubted his love or ability to take care of me. He has a felony to prove it.

When God was introduced into my life, it became overly apparent that He held those same characteristics as my father did. Loving, protective, jealous for me. As I contemplated my time in life without God, I began to get a picture like this one in my mind. God says Himself, that He will never leave us, so He must have always been there... right?! So what... what could keep Him from us?! A veil. Revelation. All that time... He was just sitting there, patiently... desperately... jealously. Waiting for me to look on the other side of it. Waiting to rip the only thing separating us apart.

That's how much He loves us.

The very idea that God is just waiting on us... waiting... trying send a message through that glass house. Unable to speak to us... because we are so unwilling to listen... unwilling to believe the truth. That He's always been there. That He never abandoned us.

I get this picture in my mind of a little kid trapped in a dark dark room. Filled with hate. Filled with hopelessness. Assaulted and hurt by the evil that occupies the room. The only door to the room is made from solid wood. Worn down by years of pounding and banging... scratching... trying to get out. Screams can be heard inside the room... crying... sobbing...

On the other side of the door sits a man. A father. He hears the cries of his child. With each yelp and scream he pounds harder on the door. Like the beat of a drum, without pause and without relent. Desperately trying to break down the door. Unable to open it from the outside.

The words shoot violently from His mouth.
"Unlock the door!"

He never gives up. He never walks away. Because He Loves You So Much...

The Laborer Is Worthy Of His Wages

Pride, often in our lives is our downfall. We are unable to put it aside and accept the help of others, or we are unwilling to put it down for the sake of others. It alienates us from those we love and ourselves. It puts us in a position in which we can no longer be ourselves. We gain an unrelenting fear of failure because while in pride it is all we have.

Pride has been a reoccurring theme in my life, as it is with many people. It is something I struggle with on a daily basis. However, I have come to peace with my own imperfection and short comings, as they were all settled on the Cross with our Lord Jesus. Yet, I feel inadequate at times. I feel as though I am not doing enough, or that I am not doing the right thing.

My heart is and always will be for His kingdom. I strive each day to further it in whatever way I can and I submit and serve as best that I know how. However, I do not work. I have no job, except that I am employed by His kingdom.  I bring in not revenue and I save no money.

This is my inadequacy. I feel as though I should. I feel like I must work to obtain something, as though somehow if I could just get a job, if I could just gain something, that everything would be alright. I want desperately to work and gain, to show achievement, to show progress. What kind of man wouldn't want that? What kind of man would not want to provide and to give freely. And yet, in serving Him, I have found no cause for a Job. I am supported and taken care of. I am given to freely and blessed abundantly with friends and family who care so much for me.

Is it Pride or Righteousness that tugs at my heart to go out and obtain, to provide. That is a question only my heart and God can answer. Recently it has been an on going struggle to deal with this inadequacy. I have not known how to deal with it. Should I drop what I am doing and get a job? Is that Biblical and Righteous? Or is it Pride and selfishness? In this search, deep into my heart and in the spirit of God I came to a revelation. My Father, God lead me to Luke 10:7 "And remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house."

This is the answer that my Father gave to me and the same He gives to all His servants wherever their faith is. I am worthy of my wages because I serve a just and fair God. I serve a Loving and fatherly God. Thank you Lord, for your grace and spirit of revelation and comes upon me. You change me and humble me daily, you are my rock. You are my center, my everything. Amen.