Will you get in the Limo? Gods holding the door.

Getting in the Limo
       I’ve had my times of doubt, wondering what I’m doing thinking I was crazy for moving here. I could be back home working at a job that paid the best out of all the jobs I’ve had, plenty of hours, and was permanent. Sometimes I think how I’m going to provide tuition and rent, buy food and gas. I don’t have all the answers. There are questions in this life that I wish I had the answers too, questions that seem like if I had the answers life would be so much more care free.

    I began my journey back in august of 2010, I was lost and hurting but God kept calling out to me. They say here at the college that you may think you found God but really He found us. That reigns so true in my life. Even though every time something went wrong and I blamed God He still kept calling me. I would constantly hear “Do you trust me.” I never understood why, why would a perfect God want someone like me. Someone who by law has led a perfect life, by Gods standard should be rejected. I was never perfect, always leading a double life, living with one foot in the world and one foot on Gods side. I was sitting on the fence not wanting to go all in either way.  I didn’t realize until I got here that the fence satan owns. The fence is where the devil laughs, because we think we aren’t on his side but we are. We think that since we aren’t in the world we’re okay. We need to decide whether or not we’re going to live for God or not at all. With God there is no gray area only black or white. The good news is that God sent His only son Jesus to die on a cross to save us from destruction and eternal horror. When Jesus died on a cross He took all our sins past or present with Him to hell and left them there. We no longer need to feel condemnation for what we’ve done. Condemnation is from the devil, it drags us down and makes us feel unworthy to be called Gods children. I was living there for so long, I felt condemned for my actions, words, and habits.

     I grew up in a great home, I grew up in the church and was taught from the beginning the difference between right and wrong. But because we are all born with a sinful nature my flesh would always go for the wrong, always lusting after the things of this world. Lust isn’t always wanting or looking at a person of the opposite sex, its anything that our flesh desires. A lot of our lust does come from the eyes but its also a lust for money, power, and possessions. Lust is anything that our hearts desire, it can be alcohol, pornography, drugs, and people.

     One side of my double life was the worlds, every day from Monday to Saturday. Wednesday was a break because of church but besides Sunday I really wasn’t living for God. And even on Sunday I was just going through the motions. I wasn’t out partying, smoking or drinking. I wasn’t out committing sexual intercourse but the further I went away from my walk with Christ the more my flesh desired that closeness. I thought that those things would fill a void in my soul. I would always have big long conversations with my mom and dad where it would end in me breaking down and crying and I would try for a while but always come up short. My junior year in high school was a downward spiral, I started taking a Building Trades course at the local high school. I was never actually exposed to drugs and so much talk about alcohol and perversion, I was aware but never around it. I started swearing more than I ever did, the anger that I always had a tough time controlling magnified to a dangerous level. I was hurting, searching in places that could maybe help because church and God didn’t seem to cut it.

    
           This is my situation, I’m empty and feel lost. I try to get back to God but because of condemnation I keep falling. I’m currently not caring about the way I talk or act, and I didn’t care if I died. Church was giving me no fulfillment, it was just a place to go to feel even more rejected and unwanted. The way I talked slowly perverted my mind and actions, I felt dirty inside because of the way I thought and felt. The military looked like a better way to end it all, I couldn’t commit suicide. I didn’t know what to believe, I asked Jesus into my heart after watching the first left behind movie November of 2001 and water baptized in 2006 so I believed I could still go to heaven but deep down I was scared to die. I had my friends that got my mind off of the dirt and junk I felt, all this in my junior year in high school.

     Most of my senior year went the same way, except it changed for the better towards the end. Because I didn’t care I was severely behind in my school, I wasn’t going to be done until the start of when normal seniors head to college. There wasn’t anyone to blame but myself and I was reaping my actions. Through everything God still kept calling out to me saying “do you trust me,” it became even more audible and frequent.  I started to wonder if maybe it wasn’t God causing my problems, maybe it was me that was destroying my life because of my flesh. We started going to a different church where I am greatly joyed to actually be able to call it a home, and the pastor Rodger Cook a friend and a mentor, someone I could look up too and learn from. A pastor that wasn’t untouchable like all the pastors from the past, everything He said made sense and made me long for more. My life suddenly had meaning and purpose, even though I was still wondering what God really had for me. I started reading my bible and things made sense, things came together instead of looking like a bunch of words. I finally realized that God wanted me to trust Him and that everything was going to be okay. If I actually gave Him all things and laid everything I had 100% at His feet, He would be there for me no matter what.  That started my search and desire for what God placed in my heart, a dream that now felt reachable. I looked into several colleges, my pastor gave me some ideas for colleges and gave me some names. I looked up Charis Bible College and it stood out among the rest. I found out about their event they call campus days where you come and experience it firsthand. I left Colorado with an application turned in and a future that excited me.

     This is where I currently am, sitting in an amazing house almost in the mountains and loving every minute I’m here. It’s not always easy and there is always a new level of trust that is added to my faith every day, but I know provision is here. I can’t keep my focus on where I would be right now back in Indiana, this is my home right now. As I try to figure out what I’m doing over the summer I’m excited either way, if I have to go back home then I know a job will be provided that I can pay my tuition in full next year, that will provide me a stable foundation for the following year. It will give me a chance to be back with my family and reconnect with my friends that I haven’t seen in a while. If I get to stay here over the summer it’ll be the same way. I’ll have a new place to stay and a job that will provide full tuition and a stable foundation to live on. I’m excited to see where God is going to lead me and I cant wait to earn my full inheritance here on earth. Every day is new revelation, every day is a new depth of focus, a new outlook, a new chance to let God help me out of a wreak of lost focus on the drive of my life and open the door to a brand new limo headed towards greater things.

   
           I want to thank you all for the prayers and support through my journey. I want to thank all of my friends who have been there for me in in the past and my family for sticking by my side. I want to let you know that God is there in front of you holding the door open to your own limo to take you on your most amazing journey you could ever ask for. He gave us a free will, He won’t make you get in it’s your choice. If you choose to climb in you won’t regret it, even when it’s hard and you feel like giving up Gods always there. Do you trust God enough to leave all the junk and hurt to get in and start living? My prayer is that all who read this are somehow impacted, and if you read it and don’t get anything out of it that’s okay because it blesses me to write it. Thanks again and God Bless!

Another New Year, another year to change and to make changes.

“A New Year, a time to change and to make changes”        

           As I write this it’s almost the end of the first day of a new year. A time where people make resolutions for weight loss, better relationships, better attitudes. But all through the past year how many have kept it? Not many.  So why keep making a promise to yourself when you know you won’t be able to keep it?

            Over the past couple of weeks or months I’ve seen nothing but a lot of drama towards fellow brothers or sisters in Christ. Why do we have so much resentment towards others when we are supposed to love one another as Christ loved us? Does anyone think that Jesus went around the earth holding grudges to those who offended him? No, He went around loving and healing all that were oppressed. So what is the heart of all the drama? What continues to fuel the very thing that rips friendships apart? There are many things like maybe your friend has a friend that you hate, and because you don’t like their friends than you’ll hold back. Or another one like relationships, now this is a big one and I’ll take some time with it. I’m currently reading a book called “I kissed dating goodbye” by Joshua Harris, and everything in that book so far has changed the way I look at a relationship.
           The book isn’t about never dating, it’s about changing the way you look at relationships to where its God centered and focused on a God kind of love. Instead of looking at a girl with the intent of dating and having physical relations with, it talks about centering a relationship off of friendship. I hear people say that it would be weird to marry your best friend, but isn’t it better to marry you best friend than a total stranger? When dating its mostly fast paced, no time to get to know each other. No time to learn each other’s likes or dislikes passions or desires. There’s no time to learn about the person and to study who you’re with. Dating and relationships are like a big test. If you don’t study for them you’ll fail. Just like if you don’t take time to get to know someone before you’re with them you’ll fail. There will just be two people trying to pick up pieces and starting over. Or in a relationship you may be studying but more on the physical side. The book talks a lot about physical purity and how high God holds it. You may have not ran all the bases as people say but the Bible says that even if you look at a woman with lust, you’ve already committed adultery in your heart. |

    So through what you’ve read so far, how many of you have resentment or drama towards someone else because of a relationship? There is way too much of this going on in the body of Christ, and even at my college. I came here with a focus of God and only God, but it’s so easy to get sucked into this guy is with this girl, and this girl wants the same guy. Or there’s five guys wanting one girl. It’s ridiculous really how people can bring up judgment and drama towards another when they are jealous. I don’t mean to say that I’m perfect because I’ve done the same thing. But honestly I got tired of it, I got so caught up in that that I lost my main focus on coming to Charis. I told everyone that I didn’t know what my problem was but inside I knew. I got to the point where I was driving home one night crying out to God and telling Him that I rather be in His will and single for the rest of my life than be in a relationship and be out of His will. That’s a little extreme and I know that that’s not what God has in mind for me but I know I needed to give all of that to God and let Him know once again that I want to be sold out for Him, I want to earn my full inheritance here on earth. I needed to admit my wrong and give my passion to Him. God gave us all a free will to do whatever we want, but we need to set that aside and say God lead me, I’ll follow. You are the driver and I’ll sit in the back and do what I need to do to get to where you want me to go. We will stumble, we will reach forward and grab the wheel and crash. But God is there waiting for us to climb out of the rubble no matter how serious, get into a brand new car and keep going. I told someone the other day that I rather have a bunch of sisters in Christ than a bunch of memories I’d wished I could forget. I rather have the good out way the bad. I wonder what most people’s reason for going to Charis is. Is it to have relationships with the opposite sex, or is it to truly have a relationship with Christ? I rather look back at my time at Charis and see good things, not a bunch of bad feelings and memories. I’m not making a resolution for the right relationship with a girl, I’m going to leave that up to God. I’m not making any resolution this year, I’m only shifting my focus towards God over a relationship. I know that once I’m ready for a relationship the right one will come, but until I can keep my focus on God while being with a girl it won’t ever work. 

        

            Thanks again for reading what I have to say. I hope that people can take some stuff to heart. You don’t have to agree with everything I say, but I hope it changes the way you look at how things can affect everyone. And that if a relationship takes your focus off God, then it’s either too early or just not Gods plan. Hope you all have a great new year! God Bless!