To give it all

More and more I keep on finding that God is continually redefining who I am, and what I am. Before it used to be like this. God help to do just enough, keep me from drinking, cussing, and having sex before marriage. Protect me from all suffering, keep me happy, and finally take me back home after I've lived a full life with the perfect family of a wife and 2.5 kids. NO! That's not what it's about!!! This is the way I see things now and am still constantly growing. GOD! FATHER! LORD! Even should the very world stand in my and beseech me to stop seeking you because I'm doing more then can be expected, grab ahold of me and take me deeper still. Help me to throw away from me the very thought of doing wrong and to take captive everything about me for your will. Please God let me suffer! Let me suffer so that your glory will be made manifest inside of me. Let me experience your true joy in and through this suffering, and finally don't wait. Use me, expand me. Let me die as soon as my mission is accomplished no matter the age because I want to be with you.


I struggled for a long time with this one, but I've come to realize that singleness is a true blessing and I will hold tightly to it. I don't care if I'm ever in a relationship, get married, or have a family. That is not the goal. The goal is to do the will of the one that saved me.

I'm starting to truly let him be Lord of my life. I'm starting to feel what he feels for other people. Where no one else cares I am burdened, where others are clouded I see the way. I cried today hearing about the incredible pain that a person I have never met goes through. Most of the time I wouldn't have felt anything, but I felt what he felt and heard his whisper. Am I where I need to be? No I still constantly screw up, but his grace is bigger then my goof-ups. I'm getting there.

Lessons

Ok so I'm going to try and focus on this. I have been having some real trouble focusing in on whats important today. In fact that's one of the lessons I've learned Don't be afraid to admit you make mistakes. I do.... All the time... A lot, everyday. It's about continually getting back up when you fall.

This one probably impacted me the most. Have you ever heard God speak? Like actual no doubt this is God's voice? I have twice. Once was during a service when I felt a love so strong that I could barely move, and the other was this weekend. I was reading a verse and really thinking about it when all of a sudden I understood what it meant. I heard God's voice clearly tell me what the verse meant. It was the whisper of Jesus, and boy was it powerful. (major understatement, I usually am not that emotional, but the tears were flowing majorly)

This is another big lesson that's really been getting at me. It's Love... Just love people unconditionally. I'm having trouble with this (a lot) and also with not being angry at people. People just need to be loved, to feel like they are wanted or important. My life has already seen a huge improvement just by smiling at people more. it's really hard, but soooo worth it.

Next up is be connected to God always! and with everything I do, do it for him. Again really hard, but so worth it. (it's hardest for me when I'm at school, and when I'm having lots of fun)

Finally this one is about relationships. I think somewhere deep down we all  want a relationship, and that's because we are made that way, but you can never be in a fulfilling relationship unless you are first a whole and complete person. No other person can fill a void in your life because no other person will ever truly meet your expectations. God needs to get a hold of you first. So I have decided not to worry about it. I honestly don't care anymore. God's will, will be done. If I stay single forever then so be it because I am blessed with amazing female friendships, and most importantly Jesus is all I really need. So even if the entire world shuns me I will be satisfied knowing my creator loves me (thats really hard for me because I love people, and connecting with them in everyday relationships)

All this stuff is things I learned this weekend. I struggle with this constantly, but I'm allowing the savior to gradually work in my heart, and build the qualities he wants in me. I'm slowly becoming the person he wants me to be. I'm so excited to see what he is going to do with my life. he has big plans in spite of my failures. Like Paul said I have not yet achieved these things, but I will run the race set before me. Remember guys it all boils down to one thing. Love God with everything you are, and love people the same way. I challenge you to take this journey with me and be all you can be.

I'm bbbaaaaaaccckkk!

Hey people who read this! I'm back! Just got back from a week long vacation, and boy do I have some stuff to write haha. God got ahold of me big time and showed me a bunch of stuff that I will share with all of you real soon, but for now I was just in a car for 12 hours so I'm getting some much needed rest and I will update everyone soon

I surrender

The name f my blog if you have been wondering comes from the fact that we should never surrender to sin even when faced with death. I didn't choose to call it that because thats how my life is, no I chose to call it that so that everytime I saw it, it would be a reminder too me to never give up. One of the big things that I have been learning lately is that faith is super important, and without it I can't follow God. Obvious right? Well ya, but I had never really taken the time to figure out what that means and because of that I see now that I still like to hang onto some areas of my life instead of letting God have them. I don't want that I want to make God my number 1 forever and always. It's all about intentiionaly giving up your whole life. God is so great and if you are struggling with this 1. your not alone, and 2. his plans for you are so much greater then you can imagine.

The other thing is that we need to control our tounges. Life and death is in the power of the toung (thats scripture) our thoughts become our words, our words become our actions, our actions become our habits, our habits become our chracter, and character is everything. (Sam Mayo quote) it starts with our thoughts because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Our tounges reflect our hearts, so when our hearts are messed up or our thoughts then we speak evil, we speak against God. We have to allow him to come in and take control of our tounges as well as the rest of us.

Thats what I have been thinking of lately.

As a cool side note I think it's a God thing, but I've found a couple of amazing bands the last few days! One of them like my own best friend Holly is an amazing musician and really has a heart for God. One of her songs is called surrender. Her name is also Holly. I wonder if she likes coffee. I think they kind of look alike which really throws me off hahaha.

Lyrical Love

Who but You, could breathe and leave a trail of galaxies and dream of me?
What kind of Love is writing my story till the end with Mercy’s pen?
Only You.
What kind of king would choose to wear a crown that bleeds and scars to win my heart?
What kind of Love tells me I’m the reason He can’t stay inside the grave?
You. Is it You? Standing here before my eyes, every part of my heart cries

Alive! Alive! Look what Mercy’s overcome; Death has lost and Love has won
Alive! Alive! Hallelujah, Risen Lord, the only One I fall before
I am His because He is alive.

Who could speak, and send the demons back from where they came with just one Name?
What other heart would let itself be broken every time till He healed mine?
You. Only You could turn my darkness into dawn; running right into Your arms

Alive! Alive! Look what Mercy’s overcome; Death has lost and Love has won
Alive! Alive! Hallelujah, Risen Lord, the only One I fall before
I am His because He is alive.

Emmanuel, the promised King the baby who made angels sing
Son of Man who walked with us, healing, breathing in our dust
The author of all history, the answer to all mysteries
The Lamb of God who rolled away, the stone in front of every grave

Alive! Alive! Look what Mercy’s overcome; Death has lost and Love has won
Alive! I am His because He is alive.
Alive!

This song is amazing! and speaks for itself. Enjoy my friends

Valentines Day

I have mixed feeling about this holiday. On the one hand I think it's a disgusting display of puppy love affection, and over priced chocolate that happens to taste like butt. It seems to be a day where being single is almost a crime and its just so UGHHH!

On the other hand, it has long been a symbol of love and whatnot and I think thats important. If you get rid of all the gushy stuff (which isn't all that bad as long as it's kept to a decent level) and really think about it, why not have a day dedicated to love. Love by the way is not a feeling its a choice and there are different kinds, not just a boy girl romance type deal (geeze). Anyways. it's a good time to reflect on how much the people in your life mean to you. Tell someone your thinking about them, or that you care. Heck just encourage someone. Take a minute to thank God for the people he brings into your life, and don't forget it's easy to get caught up in relationships, friendships.. etc. Just remember that your savior and God should be getting all of your love first so that when you show it to other people it's mixed in with his. It's all about God in the end. All love comes from him let it fill you.

Tomb of the unkown

Check this out. These are some of the required codes of conduct for those guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier. Really makes you think.  (for those of you (like me) who before this had no idea what this was, the tomb of the unknown soldier contains the un-identifiable remains of a soldier and serves as a monument to all the soldiers who have died and not been identified)

A guard takes 21 steps around the tomb, then waits 21 seconds before going the other way. This is in reference to the 21 gun salute. They keep their gloves wet so they don't lose their grips on their rifles. They carry the rifle on the shoulder facing away from the tomb. The guard is changed every 30 minutes 24/7 363 days a year.
the physical traits of the guard are limited to: he must be between 5' 10' an d 6' 2' tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30.' Other requirements of the Guard: They must commit 2 years of life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty for the rest of their lives. They cannot swear in public for the rest of their lives and cannot disgrace the uniform {fighting} or the tomb
in any way. After two years, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on
their lapel signifying they served as guard of the tomb. There are only
400 presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of their
lives or give up the wreath pin. The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the
top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt.
There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty
in front of a full-length mirror.
The first six months of duty a guard cannot talk to anyone, nor
watch TV.
Every guard spends five hours a day getting his uniforms ready for
guard duty.

This is all for dead people! I mean Holy cow I thought my standards were high. We serve the LIVING God. We should be so flipping excited and zealous for him that we melt other peoples faces with our enthusiasm (not really, but you get the point) bottom line is God deserves our respect, and I can think of no higher honor then serving him.
We need to get passionate about him. These guards though what they do is great. Rigidly stick to a set of rules. These rules do not bring life, but our God does. He brings us life to the fullest extent. Life such as we have never known, A LIFE THAT GETS DEEPER EVERY SINGLE DAY!  COME ON PEOPLE! I KNOW I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE THAT FEELS LIKE THIS WHAT IS HOLDING US BACK!!!!!! WE NEED TO GET OUT THERE AND START MAKING A CHANGE IN THIS WORLD! and I'm talking to myself on this as well, this is an area I have a huge amount of trouble with. Don't get discouraged, much love to you all! Lean on his grace to show you how to be who he wants you to be.

Back for more

Wow! It has been a long time since I last posted. For those of you that check this often I apologize. I hope to keep up with this more often.

In the meantime check out 2 kings 2:20 something.

it shows what happens when you have badley behaved children who make fun of people they shouldn't make fun of. Enjoy! :)

Saviors Laugh

Today I was sitting in church and I was thinking we always see images of God talking in anger, and how even when he talks normally his voice shakes mountains and stuff, but imagine God laughing! Wouldn't that just be the most beautiful sound in the world. I can't wait to hear that someday.

Bring it!

Not for the first time, I apologize to everyone that I don't have more hilarious things in this blog, if you know me you know that random times happen no matter what so I guess this will continue to be about serious stuff until something funny worth mentioning happens.

Now for the meat of the matter, it's youth group, I'm having fun talking with people then we get everything started. I pray over everything, we do a couple quick games to get to know some people better. Then we move to  worship, and it is so powerful. It usually takes awhile before I can let go of everything and focus, but I was drawn in from the first word. Our worship leader was allowing God to use her and he responded big time. Just then I glanced down at our lesson plans for the day it was about spiritual warfare and almost as soon as I read that the most powerful song of the night started, and our worship leader started feeling really sick. Somehow things moved in slow motion and I realized that she was under spiritual attack. She had to leave she felt so sick, and all that was running through my head was. She had the enemy deathly afraid, there was nothing else he could do to stop what she was doing so he attacked her physically. I got mad! I started thinking are you serious devil! I hope you know that you already lost and nothing you can do will prevent God's will form being done. I started praying over her, and I called the next day and she was doing a lot better. We are at war! don't forget that because if you do you may become a casualty.

On the plus side of things, winter camp is coming up! Expect many a good story.

Things to think about

Hello all. This past week I had the amazing opportunity to skip school and attend a class. Confused? At this point you may be thinking something a long the lines of is this guy crazy? Skipping school to go to a class makes no sense, but bear with me. The class was one about Mother Teresa and servitude taught by Mrs. August. So not only did I get to learn about God, but I also got to hang out with the coolest family I know for a couple of hours. What really got to me at the class was not only what Mother Teresa gave up, but what she accomplished because of it. Everything she did was modeled after God and his will for her life. There is a verse in 1 Corinthians (I think in chapter 2 or 3) that says I have resolved to know nothing while i am among you except for Christ and him crucified. The whole time she thought only about how she was fulfilling God's plan right then. That's amazing! Even more then that though God was showing me stuff about my family. I love most of my family to death, but some of them.... I don't and it's a struggle, but God wants me to change that and I really have to work on that. A quote from the book went something like "How can you love God who you can not see, if you can not love your neighbor who you can see." That really hit me. So prayers would be much appreciated as I struggle to climb this mountain. Another thing that hit me real hard was an essay we talked about in class. A part of it talks about Jesus walking into a room filled with note cards detailing every moment of your life. He takes these cards on the top of which are written your name, he crosses them out and writes his name over yours. The character in the essay starts yelling NO! Anything but that! Your innocent! You don't deserve this, let me bear this by myself. Jesus took all of our shortcomings upon himself and thank God he did because if he didn't myself and a lot of other people would be in a very bad position when he comes back.


Seriousness aside. Like I said I got to hang out with the Augusts and Holly decided to cook while I was over there and well.... HOLY COW! She is an amazing cook! She made these really awesome scrambled eggs, the best mac and cheese I have ever had, and I seriously almost died from joy when I ate this banana cream pie type thing she made! Delicious! I love good food, and having a best friend that likes to cook is pretty awesome. I love cooking as well so it's a lot of fun being to help friends when they are trying to make stuff.

In other news Wednesday at youth group we talked a bit about sheep, and well since no one will understand it I wont go into detail, but the inside jokes from that night are probably some of the funniest things ever! Also I'm excited to be able to go see a concert next month that some awesome friends of mine are putting on. They have a band and while I have yet to hear them play i have no doubt they are awesome!

Value

First of all we talked about sheep in youth group tonight, and well we are a group of fine looking sheep (inside joke)

Next I want to tell a story. The I re-worded some things so they make sense in the context of Christianity. There was a commander of an army, and there was a captured band of good for nothing beggars. The commander wanted to buy the men's freedom from another commander, but he would not part with them. Not for money, land or any other riches. Finally the commander said " I will give you my life in exchange for thee live of these men." The other man agreed. After words one of the men whose lives were saved came up and asked "why?" He replied. " What is the worth of a life?" The man said " A life is priceless." The commander said " So, what you are telling me is that I gave up something priceless that costs me nothing to gain a multitude of priceless things."

Stuff

Ok wicked awesome devotional thought! I was skimming through the Bible when I  found Daniel 8:15-17. In it Daniel has a vision of the end of the world and meets the angel Gabriel who explains the vision. When Daniel saw Gabriel he was terrified and I think it even said he almost fainted from pure terror. Fast forward to Luke 1:26-33 Mary (who is still a virgin at this point) is told that she will soon become pregnant and carry the savior of the world. What does she do? she asks how it's possible then gets excited! Mary had some serious guts! Whenever an angel is mentioned in the Bible people are usually beside themselves with terror. Mary seemed to be an unusually brave person, and the news the angel gave her was no small deal. I would say she definitely fits into the category of a proverbs 31 woman.

I have been blogging a lot the past few days and you know what? I'm enjoying it!

In other news I hate it when guys try and act a certain way only to try and get what they want from girls. That kind of thing makes me so mad I can't even accurately describe it. Which is why girls you need to guard your hearts!!!!! BIG TIME! and as for the guys read the mighty men post, or the book Wild at Heart by John Eldridge. My post will give you something to think about. That book could very well change your life.

I probably should get back to class now (yes I'm writing during school and skipping class for a few minutes. With permission of course.)


Don't lose sight of God he loves us unconditionally and is the source of peace and comfort when we go through storms in life.

2012!!!!!!

Well it's the new year, and I think it is going to rock!!!!! I'm so excited! Yesterday I was sitting down and stressing out because of all the unknowns in life when all of a sudden i just started playing the guitar. I played for like an hour straight. I didn't play any specific song, but I played to just connect with God. Then I started praying, and then reading the Bible, and pretty soon I was worshiping like I haven't in a long time. It was beautiful. I knew that whatever would happen I would be ok. Then I started to get excited because of all the possibilities. This year here are some of my goals. 1. Get closer to God. 2. Further my musical skills. 3. Have crazy awesome time with my friends. 4. Get to know some new people ( new people get ready haha) 5. Drink an insane amount of coffee. and finally I desperately need to eat this cheese cake at a place Holly told me about.

Some other cool stuff. More and more I see people truly seeking after God and it's amazing. I just learned about a pastor who is friends with some of my relatives and everything that he's doing, and it's just really inspiring. I'm starting to think maybe God has a plan for my future that I would normally not have chosen on my own, but I feel as if I'm slowly being led there. I'll write more about that once I I know myself haha

Recently I got to read and learn about other world views vs the Biblical world view and that was amazing. There are a lot of really good things a person can rake away from studying that.

Some sad news: I did not eat any hot wings over the holidays and I still have a craving for them. I'm going to have to fix that. It's fun to cook things, but I would still rather just eat something someone else made. Some of my friends like Holly can whip up some amazing things in the kitchen. Last time we hung out she made these awesome stuffed noodle things, and they were amazing and healthy!!!!! Usually the two don't go well together.