try

it's been a crazy week, but it ended great. sunshine and hot weather don't really do it for me, and it has been overcast and drizzling lightly all day today (friday). i think it is a beautiful day to end this particular week on. it's cool with a light breeze, not to mention i feel i get some of my best thinking done to the sound of rain drops crashing down on everything around me. rain forces me to sit still and relax, to stop and think...and that is what i have spent most of today doing (and it's not even over yet).

the past few weeks have been strange. all i can think about is what i am supposed to do with my life, where i am going when i finish here at ACC, and how am i supposed to do what i am supposed to do when i don't even know what it is. there has been a few points in my life where i thought i was 100% sure about what god wanted me to do with my life, but never have i been so unsure. i love the tought of teaching church history for the rest of my life, but i also see the needs all over the world and feel like such a hypocrite tellings others to meet them while i sit in school. the road to teach is not an easy one by any means, but it is safe. the road to serving globaly is no easier than the previous, and it is anything but safe.

the truth is...im scared.

scared to committ and fail.

scared to let people down.

scared to let god down by missing his calling for my life.

im scared...but it's a good scared. you see, for the first time in my life im seeking what god wants to do with my life, not me. for the first time in my life others are the main factor in the plans for my future. for the first time in my life...

im the last thing on my mind.

there is a world of people out there hurting...starving..........dying, and not nearly enough people helping them. there is a world of people crying our for love and not enough people loving them. im in a world groaning for change, and all i want is to be to be that change. whether in america, china, africa, or wherever else, a difference must be made...

and the one thing i know about my life right now is...that i have to at least TRY to be that difference...

because "god doesn't require that we succeed, only that we try..."

forgotten...

i think i might be one of the most forgetful people in the world. i've been told that i could destroy the world with my clumsiness and forgetfulness...and i don't doubt it.

i say that to say this...things are forgotten (on purpose or not) and sometimes it can destroy part of something very beautiful. say da vinci forgot to pain the eyes or nose of the "mona lisa"...it would lose its beauty. things have are beautiful are only so if they have everything they were intended to.

i feel that we as christians have forgotten an essential part of what salvation is, of what all is to take place at the foot of the cross. sure, we as christians are leading others to the foot of the cross, and we are explaining to them that it is there that we are able to lay everything down. every bit of that is beautiful and it has changed many people lives, but there is more and without it the picture isn't half as beautiful. salvation is not just laying your life down and embracing a 'happily-ever-after-with-jesus" mentality, but laying your life down and picking up the task of living a new one. amazing and wonderful things happen at the feet of jesus, but i feel that an essential part of what happens at the cross has been left out.

we have spent so much time getting people to repent and lay their lives at the foot of the cross, that we have forgotten to tell them that their is an entirely new life to pick up and live. we have made sure to inform them of all the don'ts and what they can't do anymore, that they don't know what they are supposed to do!

we have forgotten to let those at the foot of the cross know that it doesn't stop there, that there is more, and that they have a purpose in life now. we have failed to mention that christ died AND went through the other side into a new life. and now he is offering us the chance to begin that life. he is offering us a life of liberty, freedom, love, and justice. jesus is offering us the chance to forget about what matters to us and embrace the chance to spread the love that christ has given to us.

i would say that there is nothing christ-like about sitting at the foot of the cross smiling up at jesus. we were never meant to let things end at the cross, but to venture away from it, imitating christ so that others may find him. i believe that the way of christ is the best way for me to live my life, not becuase i think it will gain me favor with christ, but so that others may get a glimpse of christ...through me...

let this not be...forgotten...