Find Shelter

You'll have to forgive me, this post may seem a bit repetitive in the sense that I'm piggy packing off of another one of my Pastor's sermons. Frankly talking about my Pastor's sermons is one of my favorite pass times. It really helps me to evaluate and grab a hold of what God is trying to teach me through my Pastor.

My whole life I've had to deal with Death. It has been very evident sense I was very little. In fact, at the age of 5 I came to the terms that eventually I would die, and believing that nothing happens after died (because all the Christians I had known up this this point felt really phony to me... a 5 year old) I figured I would just cease to exist. My ultimate resolution to this was that if I died I wouldn't even be around to miss not living so it couldn't be all that bad. But it was terrifying.

Under that world view I lived my entire childhood. Frankly nothing in this world really warranted my attention. It didn't really deserve my time. After all, eventually I would die so whats the point? You might say I was a "tad" cynical. I began to look for somewhere to hide from what I believe to be a harsh reality. Don't get me wrong here... I was suicidal or even depressed really by this reality. Not at first. I just didn't want to think about it. I wanted to avoid the whole idea of death; of life. So I hid. First I hid in toys, games, make believe. I never wanted to do anything real. I wanted to live in fantasy. Eventually that really didn't work out so I moved on to books. I used to read eight hundred page books a week. Sometimes people wonder how I know random stupid facts, probably because I picked it up in a book somewhere and stashed it away for a rainy day.

Eventually my escapism lead me to video games I talked about that a week or so ago in my blog Why I Have Given Up Video Games... 

Sometimes I hid in lust. Sometimes I hid in anger. Sometimes I hid in desperation. I was always looking for somewhere to shelter myself from that world I really didn't enjoy. It was my way of coping with what I didn't want to accept.

Tonight, my Pastor talked about finding shelter in God. It's a pretty simple concept. One that most of us Christians have heard before and have even practiced. However, it brought me to a sudden reality: Even with my avoiding of video games I've found myself desperately trying to hide myself in them again and again. If not them, television. Something to get my mind off of the things I really don't want to think about.

It's not that I don't seek God. I do my devotions almost every day.  I pray every day. I worship God every day. However, usually after running to Him with my problems. I usually end up feeling hopeless anyway... I talked about that in my previous blog: Fear: An evaluated look, inspired by my Pastor

I don't really trust where my help comes from (Psalm 121:1). I don't, when I'm feeling defeated or beaten up find refuge in Christ (Psalm 57:1). I bring my problems and my woes but I don't hide in Him. I don't look for shelter. I for some reason think its still my job to take the brunt of it. Like Jesus didn't die on the cross. LIKE JESUS DIDN'T DIE ON THE CROSS. Like the whole point of it all is that I don't have to bare that. At least not alone. As if God didn't provide a place for me. Like he isn't waiting in our secret place to look after me. To converse. To absolve. To forgive.

Sometimes I wonder at how stupid I can be. So easily confused or deceived. We humans are SO FUNNY. We can repeat something, completely understand it. Put it to practice and then forget the entire purpose of it. We take what God intended for relationship and we turn it right into a mechanical religion. It becomes ceremony.

"Of course I brought it to God!" And then I picked it up and walked out with it. LOL!

Tonight I really think I got the meaning that David was getting at in Psalm 121. Taking refuge in God. Crawling underneath the Word of God and letting God defend me. Veiling myself in His goodness. Like, "I don't care about what's going on. God's handling the situation bro. I'm just going to sit here and hide. In the corner, clad in Kevlar behind the blast shield. I think he can handle it."

I'm offended at my Pastor.

I starting interning with my Youth Pastor Seth Trenda back in 2010. Just out of high school, barley knew
Christ. I was a too-smart-for-my-own-good-hungry-like-a-beast-christian. From day one I started to get involved with out media department. I did everything with excitement and with a desire to do it for God. I remember spending sleepless nights with some of my favorite people on the planet. Jordan Shaw and Sean Gleason. It was SO easy for me to follow. So easy for me to do what I was told and work hard to complete a task knowing that I did not have to come up with a strategy or a method to accomplish a ask but I trusted my Pastor knowing he had a plan to help bring youth to Christ. It was easy.

As time went on it wasn't long before I starting raising up as a leader among my peers. Suddenly things got HARD. Suddenly there were expectations of me. Suddenly I couldn't just goof off and let my Pastor handle everything.

Projects would be put in my hands to get done and I was expected to do them. Without help. Without a step by step instruction manual to get it done. I had to work harder than I had initially thought this whole church thing was. When things went wrong, it was my fault. I was in charge of the project. If people didn't get called or someone didn't show up. It was my problem. Worse than that, there was 0 appreciation for what I did. If something went awesome, no one noticed. If I helped put a service together and it went off without a hitch... no one said a word to me.

As time passed it only got worse. More and more expectations were placed on me. I couldn't date. I couldn't hang out with girls by myself. I couldn't drink. I couldn't say what I wanted to say on facebook. I couldn't argue. I couldn't get angry. I was restricted. Had to show up to every service. Had to say the right things. Had to read my bible. I had to be an example.

However what was worse than anything was getting to know my Pastor. He wasn't perfect. He wasn't the all-knowing-holy-man-with-huge-biceps that I put on the pedestal in my head. He got angry. He had unfair expectations of some people. He made mistakes. He blamed me for things I didn't do. Didn't appreciate me. He had favorites. He didn't have the answer for my problems. I didn't like his advise. I didn't like his ideas. I hated his sense of humor. For a while... I hated him.

I remember distinctly a period in my life where I just wanted to quit church. I didn't like my youth pastor. He turned out to be just like everyone else. A person. There wasn't anything special about him. There wasn't anything special about what I was doing. No one cared about what I did. It would be way too easy to just go out and do what I wanted. Date the girls I was interested in. Say the things I wanted to say. Be the person I wanted to be.

Then one dark September day our youth lost a really important young man. Gabriel Washuburn. I didn't really know the guy. I knew of him. He at one time was a prodigy in our youth department. I didn't know him. But my Pastor did. I remember driving to the hospital with Jordan Shaw... I remember all the tears... I remember seeing my entire church morn. Most of all I remember what Jordan told me he witnessed in the bedroom of my youth Pastors home. On his knees. Tears in his eyes. Heart BROKEN. My Pastor. Praying. Worshiping. Crying out to Christ.

Then it clicked. He loves us. Every face. Every young person who steps in our church. He loves them. He'd die for them. He has given up his whole life for them. Every time we screw up. It hurts him. Every time we do the wrong thing he hates it! Every time he put expectations on me it was because HE SAW something in me I DIDN'T. All these expectations on me were about leadership. Expectations he put on himself. You see I finally realized something one day. I was offended at my Youth Pastor. For being human. He demanded I shoot for something I would never reach for on my own and I resented him for it. He wanted me to succeed and fought against every thought and every attitude in my life that stood in the way of that success.

More than that I discovered something about leadership later on that year when I started working with a young man named Wright Miller. You see I need Wright. He does something special on our church. The same thing that I once did and still do for my Pastor. Wright Miller has placed himself next to me under the weight of ministry and put his back into lifting just a little bit off my shoulders. Something my Pastor has always needed. Something I have made my mission here at Faith Center Church. I aim to lift the pressure off.

Now days I love my Pastor's sense of humor. I love his attitude. I think what hes doing in Clark county is phenomenal. I ain't offended at him anymore. I thank God every day for putting a man like him in my life.