(This post flows from the previous post. If you’re curious, check out the last post to glean a more rounded understanding of my thoughts if you so wish. I will summarize in a stanza the gist of my previous post titled “God didn’t call me to be honest,”)

I have realized that honesty is important, but can also cause me to distract myself from changing. While I spend much time explaining myself and opening up, in this past year, it shifted from honesty, leading to change, leading to freedom to honesty leading to empathy, leading to stagnancy leading to honesty and so on. In essence, I was mistaking honesty for being holy, and oh was I wrong.

Now, I’m 21 and I’ve learned a lot. I don’t pretend to remember most of it or to live by it, but I’ve learned a lot about life and Jesus and myself and such, and when I looked at myself the other day in relfeaction, I realized my path was diverging from holiness to hypocrit. This is honestly my biggest fear; thinking I’m serving God, but through my meaningless pursuit of fixing situations through simply and almost exclusively talking about my troubles and struggles and what I needed, I found myself looking a lot like the religious people in the early New Testament. I hated this realization, but at the same time, am so glad for it. There’s nothing worse then thinking you’re right and being dead wrong. This has helped me realize why my joy has turned to fatigue and my hope has turned to criticalness, but I hid it behind positive words and such. 

Let me take a step back for a minuet though. This wasn’t like a switch and it definatly isn’t a complete and utter failure on my part. There has been victories and I’ve learned a lot about self control and prayer and faith. These realizations have just brought me to the next place in my life and I thank God for being here with me through my stubbornness and failures. 

Back to the point of all of this:

A lot of people who read this probably know that Holy means set apart. God in so many places calls people into deeper love with him. He has people doing crazy things that require crazy faith all throughout history, from the beginning until now. He calls people to follow him and love like crazy, to be set apart for a purpose and to be in this ever changing world as a symbol of constantce and truth.

May I be found amidst the few that stand for holiness, who heal the sick, cast out demons,raise the dead and lead people to Jesus all in his name for his glory, and live a life set apart for his glory and honor, laying down my own passions for a crown of glory.

I would hate to just be that guy that was super honest. 

My life in the past few years has been quite the rolar coaster. Not anything like the superman ride at sixflags or anything,  and maybe not even a rolar coaster. Maybe just a ride like the tea cups. It’s quite exciting, with ebs and flows, but in the wrong circumstances can just be nauseating and feel like you’re going around in circles and as you see others enjoying it, you feel it must cause joy but it just feels like pain and pointless. 

2015 felt a lot like the tea cups in the best way possible! Seeing things that were hurtful, finding freedom, learning, growing, asking people for foregiveness, discovering gifts and passions, seeing people healed right in front of me in Jesus name from prayers of others and prayers of my own and so much more exciting stuff! Yea, I got bumped around a little bit, and it wasn’t all flower peddles and gumdrops, but I expected that! That was no big deal. Besides, how could I even think to complain in a situation like that when everything else is just freedom upon freedom.

2014-15 was such a growing time for me. What I learned from disshonesty and hiding things and all kinds of stuff in 2014, and from a lot of decipleship moments through Carry the Love tour and 21 project (two places I really learned a lot from different people. Google them if you’ve never heard of them, they’re awesome.) through fasting, praying and church family; from all that, I learned the importance of honesty. 

I LEARNED THE IMPORTANCE OF HOESTY

I learned that honesty was a wonderful thing that frees us from bondage. It gives others the opportunity to pray for me and encourage me. What I learned in 2016 is that honesty can be a destruction from movement. 

HONESTY CAN BE A DESTRACTION FROM MOVEMENT

2016 has been a lot like those tea cups after you just ate a cheese stake and fries and you know you shouldn’t have eaten the fries, but you did, because you paid for them and you couldn’t find it in your heart to throw them away. In 2015, I replaced a lot of troubles with honest change. In 2016, I replaced a lot of my troubles with honesty. 

Now I’m here, aproaching 2017 with a lot of excuses, a lot of honest moment, few moments of progress and a splash or two of shame. In this coming year, I don’t want to just expose my problems or talk about them. I don’t want to just open up about doubts or fears or temptations or love. I want to be stay honest about them, and then take the next step: change. 

It’s time I put my struggles and hardships in the thrash can and not the recycling bin. I know more will come, but I’d rather conquer a thousand devils through the power of Jesus then let myself get hung up on 2 or 3 problems over and over again.

I’m not called to be honest, I’m called to be Holy. 

As I was sitting on the edge of my tub just moments ago, after finishing my bath and getting dressed for bed, I thought, “I’m really not cool.” 

I started to think of life. Now if you don’t know yet, I have long thoughts that often originate from one statement or thing I notice. Some call it overthinking, and some call it being thoughtful. I agree with both of them, depending on the situation.

I thought of this silly statement because I was sitting, doing such a normal thing after such a mundain day at work and school. My life sometimes just is. This thought can be freeing or it can be scary. For me, today it was freeing. 

So as I sat, I thought, I might not feel like I’m anything great in this moment. I’m not anywhere cool or doing anything exciting, but every single person has to settle down and go to sleep. It might look a little different then my winding down, but we all do it. 

It’s easy to get down on ourselves because we feel like we’re not doing as well as or looking as well as or are as fit as someone else, but everyone has thoughts. Everyone has troubles. Everyone is going through this life. and no matter how good someone is at covering up there issues or dealing with their problems, we all have struggles and that’s ok. We all have questions and that’s ok. We all have dreams and those are good too. The only thing that matters is if you’re focus is on your blessings and not your problems, you stay honest with yourself and the people around you, especially the ones that care, always know there is hope in Christ and don’t close yourself off to improvement. 

I try those things and it helps me a lot. And I’m stubborn minded. It’s really tough sometimes, but you’re not the only one. 

I’m not cool and that’s ok. This way, I can always relate with the broken and the cast always. I hope to never have to prove my worth for a title, because frankly, I think I work better without one!

I really love these people. I help lead with the youth group at Tri-County Worship Center. It sometimes is rough to get myself there when I’ve had a long day, either on Sunday or Wednesday night, but EVERY time it is worth it.

These guys and girls are world changers and I’m so happy I get to share life, wisdom and laughter with them!

These pictures are a few of my group from the lumberjack Christmas party scavenger hunt!

i really have a passion to see youth and even young kids succeed. More then just succeed though, because success is meaningless and also relative if we gain it and lose who we are in the process. Lose ourselves, or even worse, never find who we are. Identity in Christ I believe is the most valuable thing someone can find and I pray that God would use me to help influence as many lives as possible.

This poem I wrote almost 10 months ago. Lots has changed, some has come full circle, but it’s interesting to look back at and see how sometimes we fall into the same struggles we thought we conquered for good:

In the meantime.
This is probably the best place to start.
As questions and problems come, other ones go. But as I grow, I realize that there’s never a time of stop finish and then again, go.
It usually goes more like so.

Start one, while the last one is finishing and the one before will somehow keep on going, and when that one finally finishes, the next is soon coming, while the most recent one before has no sign of ending, but inevitably will before too many more have accumulated and continued piling.
Thinking on such things just seems to add on more strain and less answered questions.

And as I clime this mountain of questions, I begin to loose my breath. Because I’m unconditioned. My mind is not ready to take on the mountain I’ll call mt. Confusion. And why do I get so down on myself, when I know the journey will keep going on.

As every cross country runner knows, you don’t sprint in the middle, because you won’t have the push to finish. You might need that stored up energy to push past your opponent at that ending line. I guess I should’ve ran cross country, so I could train with the same strategy they’ve all told me. But in my life I’ve done so much talking, and quite a bit of listening, with very little discipline and maybe less obeying.

In the meantime, I’ve heard a lot of sermons, I’ve seen a lot of videos and I’ve even done a lot of changing. Changing that has even been positive and impacted how I go about living. But I haven’t been training.

My conditioning has not been constant.
I’ll work hard here to fall apart there.
Build up my mind, while immediately followed by a fall to my lusting desires, then shaming, then rearranging
My routine.

In the meantime, I’m seeking the Lord. I’m reading His word. I’m going to church and I’m encouraging the world, or at least the part I observe. I’m loving Jesus and I’m showing people their worth but in the meantime…

I’m questioning his words. If falling into selfishness and sin I’m even too embarrassed to admit has grabbed me again. But I feed them.

In the meantime, my mind and heart are driven by whatever pulls harder.
And I don’t need to keep giving in.
I know what brings joy that’s lasting.
I’ve felt the freedom and enlightenment found through fasting.
I’ve seen and experienced the power of prayer and I still know that God is there, so why do I stray from it?
Even enough to redirect my attention from what I know is true into a bunny trail, pondering why does this bible translation say, “God hardened Pharos heart” and let it eat away at me, when it really doesn’t make much difference in my heart today, even though it is explainably lost in translation, but that’s another topic.

In the meantime, I’ve never acquired self control. Between the lessons and pieces and bits, the most simple lesson somehow got missed.

Self control. It takes practice. It’s not easy, But it’s attainable. In the meantime, I’ll practice self control.

Feb. 28, 2016

Reading back at this for me is really neat, because I forgot some of it and I really feel like since them, there has been a lot of condissioning. I’ve realized now that what goes hand in hand for me with overcoming and pushing through these times is coming to a point of hating the junk so much that you can’t settle anymore. This is something that has to be causioned though, because we can’t project that hatered on ourselves or we will actually damage ourselves.

Hold onto hope, press through, learn lessons, put in the reps, hold onto Jesus and he will pull you through! You will conquer this through him and you will come out stronger if you let the lessons along the way teach you.

In the meantime is where we grow the most. Bring it on.