Fireflies

So I have sat here for a few minutes deliberating what my last blog would be about and how I could creatively explain my time at CHAT. I have written things and deleted things, but now I have decided to just write how I feel. No fear. Just honesty.

I sit here and think of what the Lord has done in my life in only a 10-week period. He has simply answered my prayers. For years at FSU, I have felt like my life has lost purpose and guidance. I have lost tons of people close to me and even thought I had lost my faith. Night after night, I would sit in my room in Tallahassee, and ponder, “what I am doing?” Seems like a pretty common question to ask. It felt foreign to me. I always knew or thought I knew what I was supposed to look like and act like. If I felt one way and didn’t like it, I would just change it and feel better.  It was all about my “feelings.” And for most of my life, I felt pretty good about everything. Actually, I felt so good all the time, that at one particular moment, I decided to pray for hardships to make me stronger. Wow… was that bold! Totally ignorant to what that actually was, I just went along with my life and expected God would give me something that looked really hard, but would be really easy to overcome so I could say to people, “Man… God really moved in my life and I’m stronger because of it.”

Well, God does what He does and answered my prayer of hardships and allowed me to go things that I though I couldn’t make it through. Depression, Loneliness, and a complete dry period of my faith. I got to a point that I wasn’t sure of the purpose of my life and wasn’t sure if I wanted to live anymore.

I carry around a note card in my wallet that has two things written on it; one side states the name of a NFL player that took his life around the same time I was going through my struggles and the other side has 1 Corinthians 10:13

All of these things took place my junior year of college. Towards the end of that year, I really fell down and knew that the only place that would bring peace and comfort was the Lord. I wasn’t sure how that was going to happen, but I knew He would provide like He had promise. I decided to pray for a couple different things. Prayed for a new picture of who He was because even though He hadn’t changed I still saw Him not as He was. I also prayed for authentic Christian fellowship in my life.

The answers to those prayers can be summed up in what Church Hill did for me. It showed me a God that isn’t about if you “look” like a Christian, but actually the personal relationship you have with the Lord and how that transforms your life into something other than what you have planned. It showed me how much a group of people seeking after the Lord can really influence your own life and help you grow in your own walk. True fellowship.

The last week I was with CHAT, I went to a summer camp with 45 kids from CHAT and saw what the Lord was doing all along. I worked with two kids all summer and planted seeds and did my best to harvest those seeds by my own accord, but at this summer camp, when I was all but done and had resigned from the students, He woke me up and let me know that His work was not over. It was my 4^th quarter and I really hope that I did a good job in His eyes. All I know is that kids accepted Christ and came to know Him on a very authentic level. Not emotional. Not feelings. But a tangible relationship with God that if they were asked who they relied upon, they would simply answer “Jesus and His work on the cross.” When I right things like that down, it reminds me that God is alive even when we are dead. That He does not need us to do anything, but He chooses to use us, through are success and failure, to illuminate the only thing that is important in life, a relationship with Him.

I always had a focus on salvation and with good right. Nothing can ever restore us or reconcile us but salvation, but that is not the end. Somewhere along the way I forgot that my life is called for worship. Worship to the One who saved me. Surrender to a God that has so many promises of fulfillment in my life. I was still working for His approval, even though I had already received the gift of the Gospel. I was serving because I wanted to worship instead of worshiping by serving. I know it sounds the same, but if you sit down and think about that mindset then it isn’t the same. One says, “by my own accord” and the other says “by His accord.” I want to worship and surrender to Him, everyday, every second, all the time. He has not only saved me from spiritual death, but physical death. I know that if I worship Him, then I will be following His path and road for my life and ultimately… that is really all I want. He will choose my occupation, where I live, my spouse, my friends, and my words if I just surrender like He has called me too.

John 15:5

I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

…apart from me you can do nothing

Nothing has spoken to me like that verse. It humbled me to a point that I know I cannot move a limb, open my mouth, or take a breath with God’s hand.

I went to Church Hill to serve people and I left serving the Lord.

Peace and Love,

Dirty Handz