Follow the Leader

Lately I've been thinking about what I'm gonna do with my life. I know I want to do ministry - I want to help people; show them Jesus.

But when it comes to specifics, I get confused, and I tend to avoid it altogether, saying, "Oh, I'll be fine," when in reality, I haven't prepared or anything. That's not faith - that's just ignorance I think.

How do you prepare for something if you don't know what it is?

Prepare for everything?

⁶ Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.

I don't want laziness that pushes the thought of the future to the side in order to avoid it - I want God's peace.

I'll tell Him what I need [I NEED to serve Him - Acts 20:24]; but do I NEED to know how to do it?

I will just pray and thank Him I guess while I just keep serving Him where I'm at until I hear His voice again.

I will follow.

You are my leader.

You are my Father.

You are my Love.

You are my Strength.

You are my Peace.

You are my Redeemer.

You are my advocate.

[You called me to this - You will provide for me]

Get Ready. Get Set.... Keep Waiting.

Izetta and I are preparing for marriage - as much as we can.

I feel like this is the next step, but why?

Why do I want to get married?

My initial answer was - because in order to progress in every aspect of our relationship, the next step is marriage.

Emotionally, spiritually, and physically, would it be healthy for us to continue to progress at this pace without getting married?

The physically is obvious.

But do we ever think about emotionally and spiritually? How far should an investment of emotional "deposit" be allowed to go before marriage? - can you invest too far emotionally before marriage - I'm beginning to think so actually.

And more importantly than all of this, my thought up until this point has been "WHEN we get married isn't really a big deal - if we were really self-controlled like God wants us to be, we could last as long as we need to before getting married - after all, anything we're not in control of is a problem, right?"

I'm beginning to think differently.

Naturally, we are designed to grow; progress. I think maybe, just maybe, halting that growth for too long in an area as important as a relationship (possibly a marital one), could actually be unhealthy.

I wish I were older. But then again, no I don't :)

i'm scared. and really, truly uncomfortable.

This is one of those posts that is written out of confusion, desperation, and sheer and utter scared-ness.

Lately, I feel a tug on my heart - one I haven't felt in quite awhile; a small whisper, that politely, yet at the exact same time, so uncomfortably reminds me of one word - evangelist.

You may or may not know that I, as a small child, received a calling to be an "evangelist", by that same small whisper - asking me how many dots were on the carpet my face was pressed against during an altar call. I responded with "I have no idea - a lot". The whisper responded, "That's how many people you will reach."

At the time I was ecstatic - God called me.

But now - what the heck.

What do I do with that?

What even is an evangelist at its best - what are they supposed to do if they are doing their job right?

my first thought this afternoon was - "if an evangelist is Johannes, I don't want to be an evangelist" - they have to heal people and travel to other countries and extremely scary stuff.

I'm scared out of my mind.

I don't know what to think.

Part of me says, "Church planting is a form of evangelism"

But the voice seems to say, "That's not the form I called you to"

I don't know what to think (I think I said that already).

I feel so uncertain. I hate uncertainty.

the voice knows that.

I feel uneasy and out of control and every fiber of my being screams out in frustration and agony, "I WANT TO BE IN CONTROL!"

just let go, right? ugh.

I even hesitate to post this - it releases the thought from just my brain into the public. scary stuff.

I always had the unusual ability to be good at the majority of what I set my mind to; the assumption coming from that being, "you can pick anything and do it for God, and you will succeed and be doing God's will"

now I'm not so sure.

I hate being unsure.

little voice - why must you know the innermost desires and fears of my soul?

Loopholes.

I'm beginning to see that I will NEVER be able to control my sinful desires alone: because you see,

when I sin, I feel bad for it - thus, I create "rules" or "standards" that I am supposed to be held to; but, subconsciously, I allow room for "loopholes" in these "rules", that I can use later on after the guilt has passed, and my sinful desires rage yet again.

as humans, we are great at convincing ourselves

that anything is okay when the

moment is convenient

[God, I'm good at logic; help me to

combine it with the skill of

constantly dwelling/working in your spirit]

I often find myself wanting to rush to the place in ministry where I see myself as having all

MY

issues dealt with,

(by the way, I'm becoming more and more convinced that there's no such time in one's life)

without the hard, shameful work of actually acknowledging that

I might need help.

and then actually getting help.

[God knows, I hate help]

[God, I want to be the kind of person who never turns down someone else's honest desire to help me]

I love warm weather - bring it on summer. (today was SO nice :)

candles vs. people

scentedsoycandles.co.cc

DO CANDLES LIGHT THEMSELVES?

Unless you're being ridiculous, the answer is no. Candles only ignite when something else lights them on fire.

DO "UNLIT" CANDLES DO ANYTHING?

No, they just sit there. They're boring.

if you haven't gotten the metaphor by now, we as followers of Christ are "candles". One person ignited leads to another (ultimately the first 'lighting' being God).

but when we're not lit,

we're boring,

we don't do

much.

but when we're on fire we produce something,

we become interesting,

(to finish the metaphor out, we smell good; we produce wax, we produce odor, etc.)

"Jordan, how do we "light" others on fire, or get "lit" on fire?"

fellowship.

accountability.

faith stories.

blogs, maybe?

Monday Nights. Christmas Lights. The Corner of my Room.

I have changed the title of my blog simply because I have changed the purpose of my blog.

So in Honor of this new template, blog title, and other little details no one will or should ever notice (or take the time to edit),

I have decided to title this specific post after the new blog.

Blog explanation - check.

So I have realized how much we as Christians stress the idea of "time with God", and how few of us actually take the time to DO this ourselves. I mean really, think about it, if more of us actually spent time with God, there would be a whole lot more facebook posts about God's goodness and a lot less about why our lives suck (or at least I would hope so).

I've decided I need to spent a lot more time reflecting. Too often I repeat

mistakes simply because I'm too

ignorant

or ashamed

to think or reflect on what I've done that has been self-destructive.

But that's what repentance is, right?

Telling God exactly what we've done, and then

thinking about how it affected us,

and making a conscious decision to not to it again.

I feel like our lives as Christians in this day and age

are very accurately indicating how our walks with God are.

It seems we talk a great game, but don't live it out very well.

(at least I often do).

Why is it that I've found recently that as Christians we are further

and further away from the actual relationship part with God?

The idea of actually looking up to the sky

and speaking to God as a real living God is foreign to some youth that I've had conversations with lately.

We are so stressed that we feel we have no time to give God,

and in essence, we are not allowing time

for the only important,

and absolutely

essential

thing

we

NEED.

After all, what is "Christianity" without "Christ"? - a lot of guilt, sorrow, and repetition.

So my time with God consists of Christmas lights, candles, and the corner of my room.

I wonder how girly that last sentence sounded...

Working for Pam.

I don't hate a lot of things in this world.

I hate painting.

I have discovered the things I hate have at least 1 of 2 things true:

1. I'm not good at them.

2. I can't finish them. (in the time allotted)

These statements are both true of painting.

So basically, recently I have been working for a lovely lady named Pam - helping her get her bakery/restaurant up and running. It involves a lot of manual work - which is a cool idea at first:

MANLY HARD WORK, RIGHT?

It turns out, I'm not very good at hard work; which is different from not liking hard work. I am legitimately BAD at hard work.

So today I have a few things to tell you today:

People are a lot like stains - which, yes I know, may sound odd at first, but let me explain:

Similarities between stains and people:

1. Both are often stubborn

2. Both take work to get clean

3. Both need individual attention to actually get completely clean.

Often as ministers, we try to "shoot for the many, and therefore, try to get as many as we possibly can" - which often works. But I think the role of PASTOR comes in with the work of individually working with each person.

So in this metaphor, evangelists are like the people who just spray and wipe lightly over the whole surface, whereas pastors sit and scrub and work with each one (makes pastoring sound much more difficult if you ask me).

also, today I painted almost an entire wall the wrong color;

man do I hate painting.

Subway, Third Place, and focus.

I've discovered I have a problem with self-indulgent spending. I like to reward myself for what I consider to be a job well done or a day well spent by spending money on things like Subway, Third Place, etc. I find that I am dependent on such things for motivation and encouragement, when I need to be dependent on how God views my work as my source of motivation.

I don't think there's anything wrong with rewarding myself from time to time, but I do it far too often, and for far too trivial things. I end up wasting money, on food that isn't healthy anyways, and it doesn't actually encourage me like I think it will. Or I'll watch a tv show, trying to relax, when the entire time I'm just thinking about how bored I am, so I'll try to multi-task with something, and that something will always end up being done less than adequately.

I am really focusing on taking each thought captive and deciding if it is something of God, or something of my selfish, self-indulgent nature.

self-control is the solution to self-indulgence.

I should fast something.

I complain. A lot.

I think I may be the biggest complainer I know.

Recently, I prayed and asked God for a little part-time job so that I could have another way of witnessing and have another small trickle of income (gas is expensive!). I was offered a job, but not the kind I wanted - I pictured a coffee shop job or a job at a cash register (areas I felt quite adequate). What I was offered was a job scrubbing stainless steel for hours upon hours.

I have never really done physical hard work - just mental hard work.

I got home and the first things out of my mouth were words of frustration and complaining (frustration as a result of my small build and pampered physical condition clashing with hard work).

But who do I think I am?

Didn't I pray for a job?

Didn't I get one?

Haven't I been blessed?

Complaining is pointless - It doesn't get me anywhere.

Hard work is hard.

Let's blow up.

I've noticed recently that the youth group I serve in (The Edge), has been doing fairly well on the "things people at high school talk about when awkward silences pop up" list. Every now and again, someone will tell me of conversations that had started about The Edge during classes, and the curiosity it's building.

I want our churches to, for lack of more exciting and perfectly culture-rebellious words, "blow up" in our schools.

I envision a youth group that raises leaders in their schools. What if - schools had to question "why" there were a lack of detentions being handed out because kids were just being responsible? What if schools had to question why there was a lack of attendance in activities that required Wednesday night practices because kids were packing the youth groups? What if time with God became more important than musical practice?

Now I understand there is a time to fellowship with your classmates, but we have 7 1/2 hours each day to fellowship. What if youth group became as important as the super bowl - we cancelled societal activities because kids were blowing up the churches?

What if See You At the Pole was one giant meeting of the whole school?

All it takes is a select group of people the deeply care for their students, and I'm not talking just care - painfully care.

Care so much that, and I'm not saying it is, but IF youth group is the way to bring their friends to God, they do WHATEVER THEY NEED TO DO TO GET THEIR FRIENDS INTO THAT BUILDING.

what if kids preached in school on lunch tables? (i may be getting too rebellious...)

however,

let's blow up.