Passion, Love, and Heart....

As I start to move into the next phase of my life, I am surrounded by questions and thoughts of what is next. What am I going to do that is going to impact society or stir my heart to not just make a profit? How do I go about finding something like that? The thing is that there isn't a way or a test you can take. In my opinion there isn't a specialist (earthly that is) that can ask you questions and spit the answer out to you. It's something that you have to ask yourself where your heart is, where your passion is, and what do you love to do. Money has no bearing on it. Your friends can help but you are the one that ultimately has the only answer. Not knowing isn't a failure and it might be awhile before you embrace it. But we can find it.

Like I said before money has no bearing on it. If it is truly what you are passionate about and your heart is in it then money shouldn't matter. You don't do it for the recognition or the accolades. You don't do it for the reward because these things result in greed and envy for more. those are the things that come from the dark parts of world. When we are doing it from the heart, that feeling we can't explain that comes from deep down inside then it shines like a light that we can see but affects the world around us. And if we are living to make the world around us better then what are we living for? If we arent living to share our love and passion with others around us then why do we create relationships?

For I do not know my paths destination, I do have a course and a direction and that right now is enough for me. Im excited for what catches my heart in the near future and what i begin to pour my passion and love into. All I can do now is lean on the Lord my father and wait for his guidance.

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." Proverbs 16:9

Living Life to the Fullest....

What is it that brings us Joy in life? What times do we cherish and really see the detailed morsels of goodness that are entrapped in each one? Do we search so fast for new moments of satisfaction that we dont even recognize why the former moments were so comforting? And to go even deeper, what is it about these spots in time that causes us to search earnestly for the rest? Sometimes I am reminded that its not about the future but the moment and really recognizing and seeing the reason for smiles, for laughter, for tears of Joy and pain, for embrace, for insignificance, for language barriers broken, for social barriers broken, for reuniting, for comfort, for rest, and for peace. If you could pause a 4 hour period at different moments would you understand the moments you experience better. I know I would. Maybe this is why photographs touch me and affect me the way they do. That the thousand things going on in a single moment affect and produce the one true moment in our minds.

I watched a movie last night that was a roller coaster of emotions and feelings. At times it would go in to slow motion or zoom in so much that you could only see the one thing going on that was in focus. I started to notice the difference in smiles, atmospheres, emotions, weather, and even thought or ideas going on. It began to wrestle in me a comparison to my own life and similar situations down to the littlest detail. I began to think of all the times I had not truly embraced and seized the moment for what it was, but instead just took in that fact that it was something that I naturally searched for as a human being. Then it hit me.... How Truly wonderful and Majestic is Our God. That he would in the creation of being, put such complexity in to the very workings of a moment in time. That he could reveal himself and make examples of himself in everything I thought about when breaking it down in detail.

Just in this same way do we over look the Lord's work in our lives, or the guidance for us on our walk. We get so caught up in the moment that we dont cherish the moment for what it is. We are so busy running the next thing that we dont take time to really sit and dwell in what God is doing in our lives. We react irrationally and dont hold true to the promise that with the Lord, all things work for Good.

"My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." -Colossians 2:2 & 3

The Light and Dark Of Summer......

Summer for me has been the best times of my college life. I gave my first summer up to the Lord and from then on decided thats what I was going to do. I struggled just like everyone else with whether I should be going to school, getting a job that pays me actual money, or an internship (this one was not really a problem cause I didn't know what I was going to do at the time). But the Lord grabbed a hold of me the first summer and thats all I wanted to do the rest of them. Definantly a blessing!

"You have made known to the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence" (Acts 2:28)

Now just because it was a great time of growth for me and I feel like there were way more peaks than valleys, it wasn't always easy. My summer to East Asia couldn't have been more challenging and difficult to say the least. And there were times throughout the other summers where I was definantly living out of the flesh. But Summer is so special to me because I learned so much through both the peaks and valleys that when I talk to people I always draw from those moments and experiences. I praise the Lord for that growth and the lives changed during those months.

The thing that really stirs my spirit is that summer is looked at like a time of joy and peace no matter what you are doing. Very rarely do I speak to someone about their summer time and they admit that it's not where they need to be. But even though people dont say it, I see it all the time. We mask the desires of the Lord, with the desires of the world. I keep hearing a lot recently the phrase, "Im being pulled in a lot of different directions right now." Yeah I struggle with that too, but there is only one way we need to be pulled and thats the direction of the Lord. Society has skewed the idea that our first job is making a name for ourselves in this world through a job, family, and money. That's a lie, our first mission or "job" if you will is to glorify the Lord and teach his gospel to everyone we come in contact with. That in our job or school that we let him teach others in our lives about him and that we walk in that truth. Not that this doesn't happen in other seasons, but it is opened up to my eyes more in the summer time when our time can become more about us than about our Lord and savior. I end my thought with a quote that rocked my world today by a man that the Lord has spoken to me through him a lot recently.

"To many people are trying to become something, when the Jesus tells us to become nothing" - Matt Chandler

A Child-like Heart...… Does an imagination count?

A challenge has been set on me recently, even though I fully asked for it, it's a challenge nonetheless. I am going to be taking care of kids somewhere between the ages of 7 and 11, thats not the challenge though. The challenge is teaching them more than they are going to teach me. I have not even seen the first kid and they are already teaching me so much about God and myself. I mean sure sometimes you can get frustrated with them and there are situations, that are not to be named, that make you question what they have been brought up in. But have you ever just sat and watched a kid that is that age? Their imaginations are endless and are constantly going 90 to nothing. They for most part take joy in every activity they do as long as it's an adventure. They look up to people sometimes without even knowing them for one reason, because they think we have been on "crazy journey's that makes us a hero". We are older so we know the answers, and sometimes they might think that we never mess up (you give them one reason and they will see right through that). 

-"Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3)

-"Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." (Mark 10:14,15)

I have been challenge by kiddos I dont even know yet to go after God with the same imagination and childish joy and peace that they go after of people with greater height than them. To go after Jesus constantly "looking up" to him like they look up constantly to people (most of the time literally). It's not always the heart of the child that gets my attention first, it's their imagination and how their heart flows through that. When they cant tie their shoe but they can come up with the most elaborate, amazing way of looking at a canoeing activity. When they cant even see over the counter, yet they stand on their tiptoes just so they dont have to ask for help. When they tell you some really simple story of something that happened to them that doesn't pertain to whats going on in the moment, just so they can tell you something and see your approval. They dont care about relevance, randomness, or how crazy/politically correct something is. They just love the "adventure", and when they see your "adventure" is with Jesus, they want that same "adventure". So I ask the question, when I come with the heart of a child, can I come with the imagination too? Because I dont see how they are separated?!

In the beginning........

It has come to my attention that people do not understand something fully until they express it to the world. If you try to ask yourself a question that is difficult for you to answer, more than likely you aren't going to answer it. Either you do not want to know the answer, or you are scared of what the next question will be. But I have truly come to believe that you can't fully start to believe in yourself until you start, not asking yourself the hard questions but answering them. But before all of this you have to put faith in our Creator, that answering those questions are for the glory of his creation and Him alone. 

It really takes someone asking us those hard questions and putting us on the spot to get us to put faith in God and in ourselves. We can't grow without totally giving ourselves up and being vulnerable and answering our questions. What is your passion in life? where do you find your love in life? Where do you find joy in life? Where do you see the end?  Yes, God is the center of all of these things, but where exactly has he shown himself to you. Through what has he touched your life in a way that you couldn't help but see His love and eagerly desire that same love in your life spreading it to every person you can. 

It took me 22 years to fully come around and it took some hard questions being answered for me to truly believe in His love and in my own self.