As I sit here typing this, I realize that I have lived in North Carolina for just over 3 and a half years. It's tough to comprehend all that's taken place in nearly 4 years since moving from Pennsylvania. To say that my life has been something like a roller-coaster during this time would not be far off, though it might be relatively cliche. I never would have thought that when I felt God leading me to move that He would also eventually lead me to join a band called "Attalus", or that while in that band He would give me the chance to play shows with bands that I grew up listening to, which no doubt, were a big part of the reason I longed to play music in a band from the time I learned how to play guitar.
I suppose I'm feeling nostalgic for a number of reasons. Namely, last weekend I spent some time with my family at my brother-in-law's family's farm house in Harrisonburg, VA. This is the third year that we have all met together for a weekend in November. We were struck by the thought that the first year we were there, my dad was still working at BBC and praying about the possibility of getting back into a local church as a pastor. That same year, I was still living in the Charlotte area and once a week would take care of my nephews, Chail and Rocky. It's crazy how much they've both grown in 2 years' time. Another reason, I would guess is the fact that I'm approaching my 28th birthday. It seems the older I get the more I realize how little I truly know. I don't mean for that to sound sad, depressing or that I'm looking for sympathy, so much as I am coming to a better understanding of the fact that anything and everything I have in this life is a blessing from God.
The simple truth is that the only thing I (we, really) deserve in this life, is the one thing that God has spared me from - an eternity separated from Him. It's one of those things that just doesn't make any sense. It can be explained and read over and over that God saves us because of His love for us, and I get that, but at times it can just be so difficult to get why He would even love us, especially enough to have His Son take on the death that we deserved. The best I can make of it is that God has a specific purpose for my life, to honor and glorify Him and share His love and what He's done with others who don't know Him.
That is the reason that I've always wanted to be in a band. To make music with the express purpose of reaching out to those who don't know Him and may have never heard the Gospel, while also encouraging those who do. It is beyond humbling to me that God would allow me to be involved in Attalus. I don't believe I can adequately describe how unworthy I often feel to have this opportunity. To go one step even further, we are currently recording a "hymns/modern hymns/worship" album, the proceeds of which will go toward building Christian schools in Africa with the purpose of giving orphans a place to live, learn, and God-willing, come to know Christ. That God would choose any of us to be able to help in such a way is hard for me to truly comprehend, but I am so thankful to be a part of it!
In closing, I just began studying the book of Philippians this week and was struck by chapter 1, verses 9-11 (I found it incredibly encouraging and challenging and decided to text it to a few of my friends and so I hope it will do the same for you):
And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
(Philippians 1:9-11 ESV)
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Entitlement Issues. . .
In my last post I mentioned that God has been completely changing the way I view relationships from the way I used to view them. Specifically, I stated that my old view was completely wrong. There's a lot to it and I will explain in this post why I, and I think lots of single Christians have a problematic view of relationships.
I grew up about a mile from Baptist Bible College (where I would eventually study Youth Ministry and meet some great friends whom I am still very close with) and consequently, this affected my thoughts and beliefs about relationships. What I saw, growing up, was example after example of people meeting at BBC, dating, and getting married right after they graduated. When I decided that I would attend BBC during my junior year of high school, I thought I knew exactly where my life was headed; study to become a youth pastor, meet a girl, get engaged, graduate, get married, become a youth pastor, and start a family. . . the end. Sounds great, right? More like a little ridiculous that I actually believed that's what would happen. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I was dumb to think that would happen, or that those couples that did work out that way were wrong, but it was more that I expected it to happen. I can look back on every single relationship that I pursued and with absolute confidence say that my expectations were a huge part of why they failed. Partly because, rather than getting to know a girl as I friend, I had the tendency to tell myself that I was "interested" in her before I even really had gotten a chance to actually get to know her (when I say "her" in this instance I mean for it to be a general "her", not specific, because as I said before this was the same with every girl that I pursued). I knew (and know) that relationships take time to develop and don't necessarily just happen over night, but years of seeing what I perceived as "instant" relationships led me to think that eventually if I was persistent enough, or funny enough I would find a girl who just wanted to jump into dating me without really knowing me. I can honestly look back at that and realize how silly that line of thinking was, and truthfully, I can laugh now, but the reality is that it's actually kind of sad. The sadness only begins there, however, as I would eventually go on to place the idea of a relationship on a pedestal so high, that not only would no girl ever be able to meet these expectations I had (though didn't quite realize), but worse, it would supplant my desire for my relationship with Christ.
God's love for us in incredible. Not only does he save us through the death, burial, and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ, but after that he chooses to continually bless us with friendships, family, and many other things that he entrusts us with and gives to us for enjoyment. James 1:17 says it this way, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of change." Unfortunately, we forget this often and sometimes we begin to feel as though we deserve these things. We develop within ourselves a sense of entitlement, even for things that are good. But when this happens, there is a tremendous danger of placing our desire for those things above our desire for the only relationship that we as believers truly need in this life, just as I did. You see, for me, a dating relationship that would lead to marriage had become the ultimate achievement in this life. I took something that God absolutely intends for good, and I gave it the utmost importance that only God is worthy of and deserves. It's still a struggle at times, but I think realizing a mistake is the first step in the right direction. Understanding that my identity is in Christ, not in marriage, not in my job, not in trying to be funny; it's in Christ.
Beautiful Eulogy has a song that, I think, perfectly sums up the whole idea of believers believing the lie that we deserve the things that God graciously gives to us.
Entitlement by Beautiful Eulogy
I grew up about a mile from Baptist Bible College (where I would eventually study Youth Ministry and meet some great friends whom I am still very close with) and consequently, this affected my thoughts and beliefs about relationships. What I saw, growing up, was example after example of people meeting at BBC, dating, and getting married right after they graduated. When I decided that I would attend BBC during my junior year of high school, I thought I knew exactly where my life was headed; study to become a youth pastor, meet a girl, get engaged, graduate, get married, become a youth pastor, and start a family. . . the end. Sounds great, right? More like a little ridiculous that I actually believed that's what would happen. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I was dumb to think that would happen, or that those couples that did work out that way were wrong, but it was more that I expected it to happen. I can look back on every single relationship that I pursued and with absolute confidence say that my expectations were a huge part of why they failed. Partly because, rather than getting to know a girl as I friend, I had the tendency to tell myself that I was "interested" in her before I even really had gotten a chance to actually get to know her (when I say "her" in this instance I mean for it to be a general "her", not specific, because as I said before this was the same with every girl that I pursued). I knew (and know) that relationships take time to develop and don't necessarily just happen over night, but years of seeing what I perceived as "instant" relationships led me to think that eventually if I was persistent enough, or funny enough I would find a girl who just wanted to jump into dating me without really knowing me. I can honestly look back at that and realize how silly that line of thinking was, and truthfully, I can laugh now, but the reality is that it's actually kind of sad. The sadness only begins there, however, as I would eventually go on to place the idea of a relationship on a pedestal so high, that not only would no girl ever be able to meet these expectations I had (though didn't quite realize), but worse, it would supplant my desire for my relationship with Christ.
God's love for us in incredible. Not only does he save us through the death, burial, and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ, but after that he chooses to continually bless us with friendships, family, and many other things that he entrusts us with and gives to us for enjoyment. James 1:17 says it this way, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of change." Unfortunately, we forget this often and sometimes we begin to feel as though we deserve these things. We develop within ourselves a sense of entitlement, even for things that are good. But when this happens, there is a tremendous danger of placing our desire for those things above our desire for the only relationship that we as believers truly need in this life, just as I did. You see, for me, a dating relationship that would lead to marriage had become the ultimate achievement in this life. I took something that God absolutely intends for good, and I gave it the utmost importance that only God is worthy of and deserves. It's still a struggle at times, but I think realizing a mistake is the first step in the right direction. Understanding that my identity is in Christ, not in marriage, not in my job, not in trying to be funny; it's in Christ.
Beautiful Eulogy has a song that, I think, perfectly sums up the whole idea of believers believing the lie that we deserve the things that God graciously gives to us.
Entitlement by Beautiful Eulogy
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Recently
So, it's officially the fall season. Football, leaves, the sun setting before 8:00, even down here in North Carolina it's beginning to cool down. It's been quite a while (over two years) since my last post here; needless to say, a lot has happened in two years. Rather than trying to catch up, I'm going to dwell on what's been happening recently.
To say that God has taken ahold of my heart in ways that I never let him before would be an understatement. Around two months ago I had a conversation with a friend. Attalus had just gotten back from a late show in Charlotte, and we ended up talking until almost 5 o'clock in the morning. I won't go into specifics of that talk, but God used that conversation to awaken something in me. Sharing struggles with a fellow believer is a great way to grow and challenge yourself and others. After my friend and I talked, I realized so much of the sin that I had been struggling with over the last months and even years that I had considered "not that big of a deal", was in fact a HUGE deal to God. I had also listened to one of Dwight Peterson's messages about the progression of temptation. He used an "I Am Second" video to illustrate his point along with James 1:14-15. The point of the video and of the message was that we have no idea where the consequences of our sin will lead us. For those of us who have been Christ-followers for a long time, we've seen many brothers and sisters "fall away" into sin, and we often find ourselves wondering,"Where did that come from? How did that happen? They were so faithful and such a great example." As we read in James, however, we see that we don't just make huge mistakes like infidelity, stealing, etc., overnight, but rather it is starting from point A and a continuation onto point B, and so on. We further know, unfortunately, how easy it can be to put on a show and deceive others so as to look like we're doing great, spiritually, when in reality, we are a train wreck. For almost the entire 2 years I lived in Charlotte, I was living a double life. On one side, I was happy, helping out with music and youth ministry at a church plant. On the flip side, I was drowning in a sea of loneliness where I struggled to read God's Word or even pray. I remember thinking, really, knowing that I should have been spending time every day in Scripture and prayer, but instead believing the lie that I didn't really need those things. I was surrounded by people at church who loved me and cared about me and would have been more than willing to take some time and listen to my struggles, but I just continued to believe lies rather than reaching out. This is one area where I believe Satan can attack believers so easily. If he can get us to accept the lie that we are alone or have screwed up so much that we are unforgivable, I think he will do everything he can to push that on us.
I truly believe that God saved me from my struggles by literally ripping me away from them. Sure, He used Attalus as a catalyst to move me to Cary, but looking back, I think it was more to pull me away from my sin and draw me closer to Himself. Sure I still struggled, and still do, but God has challenged me and grown me in ways that I probably would have doubted 2 years ago. I'm amazed at what God has been doing in my life the last 2 months. From changing the way I view relationships (yes, THOSE kind of relationships, and man, did I have it so wrong), to giving me a hunger for His Word and completely revolutionizing the way I pray. That is not to say that I now have it all figured out. I know this is just the beginning of what He's going to do in my life and how He will use me, but it makes me that much more excited to see what that will be.
Right around the time of that conversation with my friend I had been spending a lot of time meditating on Romans 5:6-11 and the weight of that passage just crushed me. Sometimes it's hard to understand why the all-powerful, all-knowing and all-present God would choose to save someone like me, but sections of Scripture like this remind me that it's because He loves me and wants to use me to honor and glorify Him, not because I can offer Him anything in return. I'll leave you with Romans 5:6-11. It has become my favorite passage in the whole Bible, because it is the GOSPEL and I have no kind of "closing statement" that could compare with what God has done for us:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
(Romans 5:6-11 ESV)
To say that God has taken ahold of my heart in ways that I never let him before would be an understatement. Around two months ago I had a conversation with a friend. Attalus had just gotten back from a late show in Charlotte, and we ended up talking until almost 5 o'clock in the morning. I won't go into specifics of that talk, but God used that conversation to awaken something in me. Sharing struggles with a fellow believer is a great way to grow and challenge yourself and others. After my friend and I talked, I realized so much of the sin that I had been struggling with over the last months and even years that I had considered "not that big of a deal", was in fact a HUGE deal to God. I had also listened to one of Dwight Peterson's messages about the progression of temptation. He used an "I Am Second" video to illustrate his point along with James 1:14-15. The point of the video and of the message was that we have no idea where the consequences of our sin will lead us. For those of us who have been Christ-followers for a long time, we've seen many brothers and sisters "fall away" into sin, and we often find ourselves wondering,"Where did that come from? How did that happen? They were so faithful and such a great example." As we read in James, however, we see that we don't just make huge mistakes like infidelity, stealing, etc., overnight, but rather it is starting from point A and a continuation onto point B, and so on. We further know, unfortunately, how easy it can be to put on a show and deceive others so as to look like we're doing great, spiritually, when in reality, we are a train wreck. For almost the entire 2 years I lived in Charlotte, I was living a double life. On one side, I was happy, helping out with music and youth ministry at a church plant. On the flip side, I was drowning in a sea of loneliness where I struggled to read God's Word or even pray. I remember thinking, really, knowing that I should have been spending time every day in Scripture and prayer, but instead believing the lie that I didn't really need those things. I was surrounded by people at church who loved me and cared about me and would have been more than willing to take some time and listen to my struggles, but I just continued to believe lies rather than reaching out. This is one area where I believe Satan can attack believers so easily. If he can get us to accept the lie that we are alone or have screwed up so much that we are unforgivable, I think he will do everything he can to push that on us.
I truly believe that God saved me from my struggles by literally ripping me away from them. Sure, He used Attalus as a catalyst to move me to Cary, but looking back, I think it was more to pull me away from my sin and draw me closer to Himself. Sure I still struggled, and still do, but God has challenged me and grown me in ways that I probably would have doubted 2 years ago. I'm amazed at what God has been doing in my life the last 2 months. From changing the way I view relationships (yes, THOSE kind of relationships, and man, did I have it so wrong), to giving me a hunger for His Word and completely revolutionizing the way I pray. That is not to say that I now have it all figured out. I know this is just the beginning of what He's going to do in my life and how He will use me, but it makes me that much more excited to see what that will be.
Right around the time of that conversation with my friend I had been spending a lot of time meditating on Romans 5:6-11 and the weight of that passage just crushed me. Sometimes it's hard to understand why the all-powerful, all-knowing and all-present God would choose to save someone like me, but sections of Scripture like this remind me that it's because He loves me and wants to use me to honor and glorify Him, not because I can offer Him anything in return. I'll leave you with Romans 5:6-11. It has become my favorite passage in the whole Bible, because it is the GOSPEL and I have no kind of "closing statement" that could compare with what God has done for us:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
(Romans 5:6-11 ESV)
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