Why me?

How many times in a day, a week, a month does the phrase, "why me" come up in your life? If your anything like me I 'm sure the answer can be summed up quite easily. Alot. One thing after another was my mentality for quite sometime and if it wasn't one thing going wrong it was another. I want you to know that if you are in that stage right now I have been there!

Rock Bottom is a real place, down and out is a true feeling, and brokenness is nothing a doctor will ever be able to fix. But more real than the destinations,emotions, and heartache is the love that God has for you!

Hearing that God loved me was something I simply didn't want to hear. For the skeptics who don't believe there is a God, I was there. For the one who believes God is not all loving, I was there. For the one who walked away from God because you couldn't trust him. I was there. And For the one who believed there was no way out. I was there!

Jesus Christ is the one and only source of Love.He is the defintion of what love is. The fact that we even face trials proves there is something very precious to our Lord in us, or else He would not spend so much time and energy on us. 2 Corinthians 4:8, says "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed". From one skeptic to another: He is Real! His love does prove true, his promises won't be taken back, and he really does want to have a relationship.

Trust Him! He who sends the clouds can just as easily clear the skies. Lets us be encouraged-things are better down the road!

Be Different.

Imagine yourself in New York City in the middle of a crazy rush hour mob and you just realized that your going the wrong way. The current has taken you many blocks past your destination and now you have a choice! Do you continue to go down this road because your afraid to turn around and face the crowd or do you make the choice to turn around and fight the current to find your way back?

Be Different!Fight the current, turn upstream, dont be afraid to hit the brakes and bust a U-Turn.

Jesus Christ came and showed us the way to encounter the rush hour mob with confidence. Jesus was not ashamed of being different he wasn't worried about fitting in, being rejected, or mocked in fact he promised it for all his followers (2 Timothy 3:12). However, with that promise he also adds the promise of a future, a hope, and an abundant joyful life(Jeremiah 29:11; John 10:10) something far beyond anything the world can manufacture.

Begin to fight the current, turn from the ways of the world and experience the life you were always intended for. While the world struggles to fit in begin to standout! John 13:34, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this people will know that you are my disciples".

Super Storage

The whole moving process is such a pain! You have to go through all your belongings and decide what to keep, what to sell, what to throw away, it can be a bit of overwhelming chaos. When you take the time to actually sift through all your belongings you begin to realize that you have accumulated alot of unnecessary junk over the years. However, we keep this junk with the mindset of, "You never know when your going to need this" (Or maybe that's just me ha).

What about our lives do we accumulate alot of the "unnecessary junk", fears, failures, anxieties, etc; and never take the time to clear it out? We as humans hold grudges, keep our past failures at the forefront of our minds and allow it to control how we act, hold to the wrong that has been done to us and consequently it effects how we interact with others.

Moving may mean just moving your "unnecessary junk" to a storage unit or even the attic. However, despite the extra space around that is not going to get rid of the problem because somewhere down the road that storage unit and attic must be cleaned out. But what if you had someone to help with the whole process, someone who will rummage through your life and find the positive most beneficial attributes of you and throw away everything else.

Jesus Christ came to set us free of the "junk" that encompasses and binds us to the world and our sin. John 8:31," If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Our lives do not have to be defined by past failures, regrets, grudges, addictions, or anything else keeping us suppressed.

We have a God who has been through our struggles and has conquered them all. Hebrews 4:15, "he was tempted as we are, yet without sin", bring your struggles, failures,addictions whatever it is that is holding you back from experienceing the life of Christ has for you and walk with him today.

He wont Leave!

For someone like me, who suffers from the issue of abandonment; hearing that God loves me and wants to have a relationship with me was just something that I could never take serious or believe. My issue rooted from individuals who always said the words, "I love you", "I'll always be here for you", "We'll get through this together", etc yet whether intentional or not they walked out of my life leaving me with the empty feeling of abandonment. This issue has impaired my relationship with the one true person who would never leave me and truly does mean the words I Love You but through my interactions with others trusting God just seemed like a big risk.

For two years I have struggled and wrestled with the idea of trusting the words that "God will not abandon me and that He loves me". Through painful trials and constant reassurance over the past few months I can finally say that the words in Isaiah 49:15, " I will not forget you"; are in fact true.

To feel abandoned is a lonely place and to feel that the god you believe in is so far off and can't hear you is an even worse feeling. For so long I felt I wasn't good enough to talk to God because of all my problems but one thing has become very evident when reading the Word and that is He hears our cries no matter what state we are in. Psalm 18 so beautifully express', "In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears". Love has no bounds. Love doesn't care what you've done. Love endures all things. Love is a refuge. Love is perfect. God is Love.

God's love for us is enough for him to engrave our names on the palms of his hands(Isaiah 49:16), God's love for us is enough for him to desire us to be with him(John 17:24), God's love for us is enough that he would send his only Son to die for the transgressions of all mankind(John 3:16). Without a doubt I can now stand confident and proclaim that the love of Jesus Christ is real and is never ending. Abandonment is never something you have to worry about when your walking with the King!

Where are you headed?

Would a soldier go to battle without his weapon? Is it smart for a baseball player to go to the plate without his bat? Than why would Christians today drive with their lights off?

Driving at night usually requires the use of headlights with the help of conveniently placed street lights to help illuminate our path so we may get to where we need to go safely. A street light is not normally intended to illuminate the driving route( headlights are preferred), but to reveal signs and hazards outside of the headlights' beams so why than do we as Christians consistently travel without the headlights on?

God has given us all the tools to travel safely on the road trip of life and as the street lights indicate He is there to help but turning on the lights is all on us. Gods radiance illuminates the potential danger and hazards and steers us away from it but His word is what will begin to brighten up and make clear where it is he is taking us. Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope".

The way of the Lord is a narrow path that few will find(Matthew 7:14) but those who do find it have the tools necessary to make the journey bearable with the help of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Be the soldier who goes to battle prepared, be the baseball player who goes to bat ready, be the Christian who knows where they are headed and who is taking them there!

We are all Snitchers!

We as a generation are far more alike than many people would like to imagine. There are individuals that strive to be "different", individuals that will claim "originality", and even the radicals who will do anything to prove their disconnection from the culture. However, despite their efforts to not be main stream we as a generation have one thing in common and that is we are all chasing our own "Golden Snitch".

For all those who are not Harry Potter fans the "Golden Snitch" is the smallest and most illusive object in play during a Quidditch match. This "Snitch" is the most prized possession in the entire game because if caught by the "Seeker" the match immediately ends and counts as win for the team who obtained it.

Our lives are no different than that of a Quidditch match. What is your "Golden Snitch"? Money? A Girl? Big house, alot of cars? What is it that you are relentlessly pursuing that you believe will give you "true" happiness?

We so often fall into the trap that if we finally got what we were pursuing we would be happy but how many times has that worked out? Today forget about your pursuits of things that will pass away, things that are trivial and momentary; and begin to set your sights on the one true source of happiness!Christ came to give us all life and life abundantly(John 10:10), fix your eyes on the one who promises to satisfy(John 6:35).

Turn or Burn is All they Hear

"Christian evangelists" screaming Turn or Burn and God Hates Fags seems to be the only interaction todays society has with so called "Christians". So can you blame society for not wanting anything to do with this so called religion? I certainly dont. The example that has been set is that of condemnation, which is ironically preached about so much that those in Christ Jesus recieve no condemnation because Christ has set free those chained down by the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1-2). This generation, myself included; has found it easier to condemn those who do not walk with the Lord rather than condone them and show them the love that we as followers have recieved. As Christians we so often forget the two greatest commandments Jesus spoke of 1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind and 2. You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22: 37-39). Jesus also commanded us to love another as he has loved us (John 15:12), so with Christ as our roadmap to how we should live should condemning be at all part of our daily lives? Christ never condemned so why should we. We are all sinners and that will never change but what can change is the love shown to those who havent yet found that condoning Christian. Christians are the only bibles some individuals will ever read so therefore we must always seek first the love and grace that was given to us by the one who died so that we may never face condemnation."Turn or Burn" is the of the past now and with our generation growing full of condemners, myself included; let us make steps toward becoming a revived generation of condoners.