Drawing the Blinds

a light can and will always be seen. there's a light in my backyard that shines brighter than any other light around it. it's taller than any other light around. this light is a good 60 yards away from where i stand, and yet it still is able to consume my body and leave an imprint of me on the ground. a shadow. you can look at a shadow and see emptiness, which is mostly true. but i like to see a shadow as the direct output of what the light is feeding. so i guess a shadow is more than just an empty picture of what you could be. a shadow is what you are. a shadow is a reflection of your body. since we've established that a light will always be seen, i guess that means that a light will always aid in the casting of your reflection. another worthy observation is that the intensity of the light goes hand in hand with the size of your shadow. so when Jesus said "I am the light of the world" i tend to look behind me to see the size of my shadow. and as much as i would say that i'm a devout christian, i do all the good works, i say all the right things, no matter how much i believe that statement, there seems to always be room for me to draw the blinds. its definitely not easy to hide a shadow, or even outrun a shadow, it's always with you. so when Jesus is shining down on us, how much of the blinds do we truly open to let him light us up? how big is my shadow, really? here's an interesting thought..if we all were taking this brilliant light in, when i say all, i mean every one on the planet, would our shadows drown out the light? of course not, stupid question. which brings me to my next point. i love my friends. i enjoy being able to be completely real with someone. and here's another interesting point. how is it possible for one to feel closer to someone 100's of miles away, but for someone across the street, not so much. i've thought of this, and of course im talking about my workcrew and summerstaff friends, and on one hand i can say that i've shared experiences and intense God times with them. but then i can look at the friend down the street and say the exact same thing. relationships is something i will one day fully understand, but for now, i must continue to wrestle. another thing i find interesting about light, is that people will do whatever it takes to get to light. why? light creates security. your all alone in a house, you turn on some lights. your in a sticky life situation, you pray. and now your back..a light can and will always be seen.

why have you forgotten me
depression it comes from the enemy
it only makes me wanna run

but out on the distance
i can see your light
standing so tall and so bright

felt shivers like a summer wind
the very first seconds i breathed You in
and now i'm climbing the fences

cross over the pastures
the mountain tops and seas
for nothing will get in the way of you to me

a love so deep
i can't imagine a life without it
it tugs at all my strings
and now i'm back

Fabricated Faith

Matthew 17:20 says, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. "

faith has captured my interest in these past long, somewhat forgetful, days. if we as Christians value each and everyday, give everything we have to Jesus, do everything in His honor..why is it that when we look back on our week and we can't seem to remember what happened? that's interesting. now back to faith. if you don't know how big a mustard seed is, then look at your pinky finger. focus in on the nail portion. now cut your nail in half. now do it again. that's about how big a mustard seed is. who can honestly say that with their faith, they have moved a mountain from here to there? is this just another parable that Jesus was saying? i don't think so. i guess that brings up the other question of, is everything in the bible literal. as in, are we supposed to take everything to heart, leave no vagueness. did Jonah and the whale actually happen? did a little puny kid take down an 8ft beast of a man? or were all these stories, just stories. i think if you believe that any story in the bible is just a story, then you have taken a huge side step. the bible is God's word. these things are true. so why can't we move mountains? i feel like even i have faith the size of a little tiny, wimpy, puny, mini mustard seed. i feel like most Christians have at least that amount of faith. why can't i move a mountain?? maybe we take God's ability too lightly. who has prayed for a cold, a couple day sickness that really isn't a big deal, to go away? who has prayed for a hospital inducing illness to go away? are the two really all that different? both are disabling your body in some untimely fashion. why not ask God to take it away? i don't think the reason why we aren't moving mountains is because of that, although it could play a part. still caught up on this faith thing. i found myself driving down a 50mph road and wondering what it would take for a person in the opposite lane, 2 feet away going the same speed if not faster, to turn the wheel a little to the left and kill me. we put a lot of trust and faith in other drivers. even after that, i entered a house and sat on a couch, having faith it would catch me into it's soft goodness. then after that i took a bite into some chocolate goodness, having faith that it indeed was chocolate and not poop or something. so there's obviously a faith in things of this world. is that the same faith that we should have for non-worldy things? as in God, Jesus, Holy Spirit. have we fabricated a faith so heavenly, and pure, to something that we can relate to. to make having faith a little bit easier?

i'm no bible scholar, and i'm definitely not anywhere close to being a theologian. so there's no real truth behind any of that. but i'd figure i'd just let you know what i think about on a day to day basis. you have to admit, it's kind of interesting to ponder about.

Undeniably You

a soft breeze rolls down my spine
You shiver me to tell me i'll be just fine
it ignites my soul as i look up and stare
at the stars You've created to show me You care

as i begin to spit
oh lord You begin to pour down on me
i find it funny how i search for my own two feet to hit the floor
with my eyes closed tight
You let me see so much

You roll in on clouds
i'll sing a sweet melody of how
You have saved me from insecurity
You roll in on clouds
i'll sing a sweet melody of how
my search has brought me nothing but humility

oh lord, how unworthy am i?

as the breeze comes back through
i know it could only be You

for about the past 3 months, every night, i have gone outside to have some chattin time with God. i love to sing this song before i go out. the first line 'a soft breeze rolls down my spine, you shiver me to tell me i'll be just fine' every night there is always some sort of breeze. most nights its just a howling wind. but nevertheless it always makes me shiver. it makes me cold. it changes how i act. it affects how i dress myself. it fully consumes my body. i love to picture God as a wind. wind changes everything in its path. again, it makes me shiver. my body responds to what is consuming it. i love to picture God as wind. the next line 'it ignites my soul as i look up and stare at the stars You've created to show my You care' lets be honest here for a moment. when you're outside, whats the first thing you do? more often than not, you check to see if the stars decided to shine. whats more unfathomable than stars? than space? than other planets? God created all these things before he created us. i feel as if He thought they just weren't enough, so He created us. "for we are good" He said. things that blow our minds, that make us think on what we like to call a "deeper" level, to try and use that extra 90 percent of our brain, to maybe even close our eyes just so we can focus better, things that we may not even have words for, and if we do, those words still aren't good enough. all those things weren't good enough for Him..so He created us. for we are good. the next line 'as i begin to spit, oh lord You begin to pour down on me' could this be self explanatory? how many times have i talked back? how many times has He left? how many times have i came back? (why do we leave in the first place if all we're gonna do is come back?) who just likes to go play in the mud, then not take a shower? the next line 'i find it funny how i search for my own two feet to hit the floor' "hmm, it's ok God, i got this one" "you can only take me too far, i mean, this is a pretty big judgment call" i look back at times in my life where i have said these things, and i can't help but laugh at where it got me. (just thinking off the top of my head) it got me drunk almost every night for 2 months, trying to pick up girls, or trying to fit in and be the commemorated cool guy. why are we searching? i feel it best for Him to search for me..a lot less work if you ask me. the next line 'my eyes closed tight, You let me see so much' the term, "walk by faith" comes to mind. and ain't that the truth? the next line 'You roll in on clouds, i'll sing a sweet melody of how, You saved me from insecurity..You roll in on clouds, i'll sing a sweet melody of how, my search has brought me nothing but humility' i find myself looking at clouds a lot. and reading about how God comes down on clouds. they seem like the perfect mode of transportation..i guess. but lets talk about all this insecurity i'm being saved of. self image? the way i dress, maybe to impress someone. you gotta brush the teeth, i mean what girl likes the color yellow. and you have to put on deodorant cause nobody, male or female, likes a stinky fellow. if we want to get on the verge of out of control thinking, most of us even get braces just so that we look better. not saying these are bad things, in my opinion they're all good. but don't they all contribute to a self image insecurity (on some extreme level)? i have almost mastered the art of not caring what i look like, and in front of whom ever it is that is doing the looking. knowing that God made me and my personality, and knowing that God says i'm "good" is ok with me. and from that i find myself humbled. the next line 'oh lord, how unworthy am i?' again, with all this being said, a sense of unworthiness should be self explanatory. the next line 'as the breeze comes back through, i know it could only be you'

extreme mountain tops are always followed by extreme valleys. what's beyond the valley's? i guess that's for only God to know, and you to happily find out. but a shepard never leaves his sheep behind in a valley, for they're too stupid, and will surely die on they're own. [psalm 23]

Brand New Eyes

me and casey made a cajon, a box drum. we basically made it in about 2 hours. it made me think about the earlier half of my day, or even week. when was the last time 2 hours of doing anything made me feel like i had accomplished something. let me tell you, school was not at the top of the list.

since the adjective revelation, as i like to call it, i feel like i have been pretty good at not saying the words like awesome, great, powerful, and others that are out there I'm sure, unless I'm talkin about God himself. holding out on good words only for topics about a good being...it feels like so much more is being said.

I'm reading a book, crazy love, and the first sentence of the book says "what if i told you to stop praying?" dang. the first chapter is all about stepping aside and truly recognizing God's beauty. not just pestering him with everyday mumbo jumbo. not saying all prayers are mumbo jumbo but i think you get the ones I'm talkin about. all the ones that you say to either have a clear conscience or just to say and not even full heartily believe that God can go through with it. which is weird. why do we, me included, ask God for things that we feel are too big for him to answer. why do we feel that way? i know I've asked a lot of those prayers. i guess when you add up all the thoughts and emotions going into those types of prayers, the outcome is almost the opposite of those exact thoughts and emotions. Fear. so again, why do we ask for God to answer prayers that we are down right afraid of? for Him to prove something to us? for us to prove Him to somebody else? (why should he have to prove anything to us?) or maybe just by telling Him something we are just hiding our insecurity in Him. instead, shouldn't we want Him to wash away our insecurity. i mean if we are just using God as a tool to hide insecurities, i feel we have missed the mark. if something's hidden, it's not necessarily gone is it? but if something's washed...hmm, that was an interesting tangent we just went on. but back to the whole "what if i told you to stop praying?" thing. i like that. it kind of correlates with saving good adjectives for only God. stepping aside from worldly visions, worldly thoughts, worldly prayers, and truly see the majestic beauty behind what God is. and i think that when you do just that, lay aside everything and just have God remain, you'll have brand new eyes.

what am i afraid of?

the day started by me waking up at 2pm to jared calling me and telling me to go play volleyball. so i put on my short billed hat, sweet new tank, and was out the door. oh ya, pants were involved as well.

after wards went to chris whitneys for some frontier bible time. i love hangin out with those guys, they're fun. talked about the tower of babel. i couldn't help but think about the tower that im building, and why i'm building it. its strange to actually sit down and think about what that one thing is that God just detests so much that he breaks it all down. its actually really scary. this thought has been a reoccurring theme. that, and psalm 23:2 "he makes me lie down in a green pasture" what the heck is going on in my life that God is just saying "go lie down", almost like a timeout or something haha. i honestly can't think of a single thing for either of these themes, and yet i feel a strong push from God that i need to figure stuff out...if only i knew what that stuff was.

words. amazing. awesome. beautiful. majestic. mighty. king. great. love. first glance at these words, even my first thought..isn't God. there's something very wrong with that. sure i hear these things, plus many more, but can't help to think of worldly connotations. the divine are mere after thoughts. "this pizza is awesome" compared to Deut 10:17 "For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome,"

how have we managed to change an adjective of god to an adjective of pizza.
conviction of the day

Carpe the Diem

the past two days have just been incredibly fun, packed with adventure. friday, i journeyed to ellensburg for institute. basically a discipleship thing we do once a month with yl leaders from the region, its pretty fun. when we were walking up to the front door, i could see a trampoline that was set up in the middle of their family room. it was crazy, don't see that too often. but we had a good discussion on Psalm 23. there's a book that a shepard wrote, literally a shepard, that is all about that psalm. it had some pretty cool insight. one thing that hit me was verse two
"He makes me lie down in green pastures"
it really got me thinking about what it is i do in my everyday walk that would cause him to make me lie down and rest. is it that im just going too fast or that im just coasting through my days? it's an interesting thought to just keep rollin around in my head.

that night, it being traditional, all the guys slept outside. it was awesome. the stars were just everywhere, way more than here in the tri. and again the constellation thing came back, why the heck did God make them. Rich told me that it was just so i could sit and think about it. but i feel like there's more to it than that. just another thing to ask God about when i get to Heaven.

but at around 430 in the morning i woke up and there was nobody outside. now my first thought, and probably the most logical of the two was that someone came and stole them. not like an abduction, but a stealing. it really freaked me out. but then i got smarter and realized they probably all just went in side. at that moment of realization i stretched my legs out in my sleeping bag and could feel the straight bitter coldness at the end. i couldn't feel my feet. so i figured i should follow them, and ended up sleeping in front of a space heater on the floor.

last night, saturday, was pretty cool. i told some people that i would tell my testimony to them and it went down at the park. telling my testimony is always a funny thing to me. i know i have a crazy testimony, and a lot of stuff has happened to me, and God has done a lot of stuff as well with me. but i was at point where it felt like i was glorifying all of the crazy bad stuff in my story a lot more than the crazy God stuff in my story. see once people figured out that i had a crazy story, i just started telling it to everyone, and it eventually, to me, just became a story. so for the past couple of months i've really just tried not to share to much about my life with people just so that i could re-establish the glory in it to God. so last night was very good, tellin it for the first time in a long while to some people i really care about, and can see God workin in them all the time.

the night concluded with just me, casey, and kirby sitting in kirby's living room talking about girl stuff. kirby and casey instantly got so tired and i video taped our conversation on my phone. it was seriously the funniest thing i have ever heard. listening to casey try and remember things and kirby just falling asleep in the middle of any convo. it was priceless. i then, at 430am. took casey home. on the 3 minute ride, he fell asleep. so i took full advantage of the opportunity. i started screaming and swerving. funniest reaction i have ever seen. although i think he was really upset. in all my laughter he got out of the car saying "why would you do that? that really wasn't a cool thing to do." so casey im sorry. but it had to happen haha

spontaneity at its finest

last night was a pretty sweet night. at around 8ish i went to jared gregs and watched some planet earth, followed by the birth of jim and pam's child, then took a trip to winco and smelled some delicious coffey beans. had some delicious crescents by a fire in a backyard. some sweet conversations took place, one thing led to another and we were climbing badger at 2am with intent to dine with the stars. found a relatively flat spot up at the top and pulled the sleeping bags out and stared at the stars for a while. as soon as we were situated, for some reason all of us couldn't help but start to laugh. something so small and so spontaneous brought so much joy and happiness. it felt good to just laugh. i couldn't help but to think about the constellations. what the heck. a group of stars that are always together, in the shape of some object or person or something. the big dipper for instance. what the heck was God thinking when he made that? after many minutes pondering this i had came to a conclusion that made me feel good about being a human, having life, not just sitting around in the sky. but i like to picture God, at the beginning of creation, making some constellations and seeing what it would be like. He even gave them a spoon, a big one and a little one at that, so they could eat, or get water, or do whatever it is that a constellation would do. but at some point in all of this constellation commotion God thought that it just wasn't enough. so he made me. i guess you could say the same thing about anything on this earth, mountains, oceans, valleys, canyons, clouds, forests..all these things that we look at and are just flat out amazed. i guess God was too at one point, but then he made something better..me. yeah.

awakening from this slumber felt pretty good, rising as the sun rose from the horizon. jared found a spider crawling on my sleeping bag and i freaked out. i was trying to shake it off so hard that i shook my socks off of my feet haha. casey got a good vid of the spider so maybe you'll get a chance to see the beast that almost took our lives.

just filled my belly up with ihop. felt good. talked to a summerstaff friend. the one and only miss addie. but she was in shadyville, georgia..thats a real place i guess. so she had to leave. the service was pretty shady. and now im sitting in bed trying to fancy whoever reads this with profound and mystic words accompanied by joyous sentence structure. i hope i could please.

The clouds today were simply amazing. i always feel like God is just chillin up on one, like its a siesta sack or something. they didn't look anything like these clouds, i just thought this a sweet cloud picture. the ones in real life were very extraordinarily fluffy. most accounts of God coming to earth that i have read have been on clouds, something glorious that we'll never understand.

this morning was probably the worst i've felt as far as where God wants me in a very long time..actually about this time last year. i applied for a year long internship at a younglife camp, windy gap, and was pretty set on being there. i felt very confident on that being exactly where God wanted me to go and wanted me to do. but an email said otherwise. windy gap told me that i did not meet the age requirement for the program. this really made me mad at first but when it all sunk in i almost felt like i was lost. there's usually things that i tend to put in my life that i have the utmost confidence in not only myself but God as well, that they will not fail, will never go wrong, and will always be there. and i felt like this internship was one of those things. but i guess God has a different plan for me..i've come to realize that with the whole windy gap thing, it was mostly on a whim that i applied. then i slowly involved God. well the kind people at windy gap sent my application to another camp where age didn't matter, and i feel a lot better just knowing that God was apart of this decision for the new camp from the get go.

played some worship tonight with the best worship team for youth in the tri-cities, haha. we played this song that is just so sweet to listen to. i felt honored to be able to play it for God, i've never felt like that when worshiping. it was a pretty cool experience.

Proverbs 16:3 - Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed

Man, at first glance i just thought this pic was ridiculous. i have a program called stumbleupon, and it just takes you to random websites with your personal preferences in mind. i love to stumble pictures just cause im jealous of the talent that people have at taking pictures. that's it, next task, somehow find a camera and learn how to be creative. but back to this picture, it reminded me of the tsunami advisory at seaside. it was literally minutes before a big tsunami was expected to occur and there were people down on the beach! what the heck? i just didn't understand it. i guess i was no better..i was about 200 yards away haha.

these past two days of school have been completely ridiculous, i feel like my teachers care about the class just about as much as i do..which is not a good thing, 2 days in a row with cancellations in all 3! this may seem like a cool thing. i'm kindly asking you to reassess the situation.

1. its a community college
2. this community college is located in pasco washington
3. if you want to sit in the hub, you have to: a. be wearing parachute pants and have a gross girl laying on you; or b. be in to magic and dungeon and dragons.
   

now be there for 3.5 hours everyday for absolutely no reason. it sucked today haha.

on a happier note, i decided to go and climb badger mountain today. if you were in the tri-cities and looking outside at around 5 then you'll know that the sky was pretty sweet. it was raining all around me so i got to see the clouds with hair, as i like to call them. but add in a bit of pink goodness from the sunset and you get something that is pretty cool to just look at. there was a way the air smelled today, it was that 'right before i rain' perfume that mother earth sprinkles on. im trying to find a poetic way to express what i was thinking at the moment of inhalation of this goodness, but im at a loss for now. but when i do, i'll be sure to let you know

this song still gives me chills..in a good way

Outrunning a Shadow

well this past weekend i got the wonderful opportunity to go to breakaway lodge, a young life camp on the oregon coast. so many great things and little realizations have crossed over my mind just through 2 days of being at a place where people are all living for the same reason, searching for a higher meaning and really just trying to grasp what life could be all about. it gave me some time to just look back at really the last week and a half of my life and how God has seriously put a goose egg in my life that i can't really get around..something that telling white lies to myself and to God to make both of us feel good, just isn't good enough anymore. i found myself in cabin time telling my guys things that were true and honest about Jesus and his love; and few days earlier telling some kamaikin guys at their campaigners things on relationships and lust. and on the last cabin time we were outside and i said something that shocked not only my guys but it shook me up as well.."there are time in your walk as a christian when all you become is exactly that..a christian. a label that people put on you, and really being a christian nowadays just isn't a good label. we tend to quit following Jesus and become a label. labels have all the right answers, they have meaning behind what they're selling..but when do we cross the point of saying all the right answers and actually believing all the right answers?" i love the fact that you could be in a situation where there just isn't anything left to be said and all the sudden your mouth opens and a light can shine through. now at that point i judged all those guys on the spot, but little did i know that that wasn't just for them. all in all it was a great weekend

as for tonight, i came home after yl club to a brother who isn't a believer and he started asking me questions about God and Jesus, and Heaven and Hell. it was one of two times i've had a decent conversation with him. i learned a lot of things about how he views life, and i just pray that something i said tonight about Jesus, just keeps him thinking. hopefully makes him want to prove me wrong just so he can go research about it..at least he'll be reading about Jesus. Funny how he plants seeds like that.

i have grown to have a strange obsession with light..ask me about it sometime, its a strange topic.
"shivers like a summer wind
the first seconds i breathed you in,
it makes me wanna climb the fences.
cross over the pastures
the mountain tops and seas,
for nothing can interfere with you getting to me."