Hope

The final days of Summer are upon us. The days are hotter than ever here in the south, but, as television commercials and signs hanging from the ceilings of our favorite department stores will remind us, it is coming to an end. People of all ages are preparing to return to school. The once young and naive children of parents are growing up and moving out. Relationships are beginning and ending inexplicably. Everything has that 'end of Summer' feeling it it... which is never a happy feeling.

I've realized that a lot of people I know have had these 'blues,' but it seems so inappropriate to call them that; no, it is inappropriate to call them that. Several good friends of mine seem to be, quite simply, loosing heart. I have friends who feel trapped where they are right now - desiring, deeply, to leave the home they know, and go to bigger and better things. I have friends who are just the opposite - after being uprooted from the home they loved, they're in a completely new world, feeling alone, friendless, and like they don't yet belong where they are. I have friends whose minds are racked with thoughts of their beloved, and those who have been hurt by people in the same position. I have friends who feel like they cannot trust their parents. I have friends who feel like they are alone. I have friends who have no idea where they're going on the road we call life, and I have friends who simply have become so disconnected with their own hearts that every day that passes is miserable; they're just working for the end.

It breaks my heart to see, not just my friends but, anyone like this. I'm here, to tell you, if only in text-form, on an unpopular internet blog, that this is not all there is.

"You've been hiding in the bedroom, hoping this isn't how the story has to go. It's not the way it goes. It's your book now. You are Golden." says Switchfoot. Like I said in a few posts back, you are a masterpiece created by the Almighty Himself. With that knowledge... what kind of story do you think God is telling through you? Have you ever thought about that?

"Life, you'll notice, is a story.

Life doesn't come to us like a math problem. It comes to us the way that a story does, scene by scene. You wake up. What will happen next? You don't get to know-you have to enter in, take the journey as it comes. The sun might be shining. There might be a tornado outside. Your friends might call and invite you to go sailing. You might lose your job.

Life unfolds like a drama. Doesn't it? Each day has a beginning and an end. There are all sorts of characters, all sorts of settings. A year goes by like a chapter from a novel. Sometimes it seems like a tragedy. Sometimes like a comedy. Most of it feels like a soap opera. Whatever happens, it's a story through and through.

If life is a story, what is the plot? What is your role to play? It would be good to know that, wouldn't it? What is this all about?

If there is meaning to this life, then why do our days seem so random? What is this drama we've been dropped into the middle of? If there is a God, what sort of story is he telling here? At some point we begin to wonder if Macbeth wasn't right after all: Is life a tale "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"?

No wonder we keep losing heart.

We find ourselves in the middle of a story that is sometimes wonderful, sometimes awful, often a confusing mixture of both, and we haven't a clue how to make sense of it all. It's like we're holding in our hands some pages torn out of a book. These pages are the days of our lives. Fragments of a story. They seem important, or at least we long to know they are, but what does it all mean? If only we could find the book that contains the rest of the story." - John Eldredge, 'Epic.'

If there's one thing I've learned from reading authors like Eldredge, listening to speakers like Perry Noble and Francis Chan, and spending time with God himself, there is one thing that has become abundantly clear: we are in a story. And stories have endings, don't they? Does that scare you? Does the idea that your story has an ending intimidate you?

It shouldn't. You know why? Because it's a happy ending. It's a fairytale ending.

"And they lived happily ever after," the Creative Arts Pastor at my church, Jerry Davison, begins, "Probably the most beautiful and haunting words in the English language. Don't roll your eyes! "Cheesy. There's no such thing as happy endings - that's not real life." Put that aside for a second, and let this be true for a minute. 'They lived happily ever after.'"

When we join the family of God, when we're adopted as a son or daughter to the Father God, we change not only the entire course of our life, but we change the ending to our stories. "This fallen world doesn't hold [our] interests; doesn't hold [our] souls." Switchfoot says. Thats because this world is not our home anymore. We try and get comfortable in one place, we expect we'll feel better in another place, in a new town, a new school, a new year... we expect that we will be ultimately happy here, that we can find home here, but we know, in our hearts, there are greater things. Don't we?

"I belong somewhere past the setting sun," Jon Foreman sings. "Just a few more weary days and then..." "I'm going home, to the place where I belong." Says Jars of Clay and Daughtry. "The earth spins, and the moon goes around, green comes up from the frozen ground, and everything will be made new again." "Now I've found it... This is Home.... Where the streets have no name, all my tears be washed away.

What do all these songs mean? There is hope. There is hope in your life. There is hope in God. There is hope in your happy ending. There's something to look forward to.

Life is like a vacation. There is a lot of fun to be had. There are a lot of new people to meet. There are things to do, places to go, a whole world to experience. But sooner or later, we get this longing in our heart for home. I feel, right now, it is my job to tell whoever is reading this that if your hope is in people, in things, in this world, you will be let down. But if your hope is in God... you will not be forsaken. You will not be forgotten. "Even if my own Father and Mother forsake me, you will hold me close," Psalm 27:10 says. "Who shall I fear?" the Psalmist also says, "if the Lord is with me?"

There is hope. There will always be hope.

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing." - Zephaniah 3:17

The Shadow Proves the Sunshine...
-Matt

This Road that We Travel

All heavy laden acquainted with sorrow
May Christ in our marrow, carry us home
From alabaster come blessings of laughter
A fragrance of passion and joy from the truth

Grant the unbroken tears ever flowing
From hearts of contrition only for You
May sin never hold true that love never broke through
For God's mercy holds us and we are His own

This road that we travel, may it be the straight and narrow
God give us peace and grace from You, all the day
Shelter with fire, our voices we raise still higher
God give us peace and grace from You, all the day through

Tonight, I don't really have much to say, other than I've been re-captivated by this gem of a song. Jars of Clay is one of my favorite bands, if not my absolute favorite. 'This Road' was the first song of their's I ever heard. I remember my first time listening to it. I was only a kid - maybe 12 - and I found it on a CD we got from some old Dollar Tree that sold unpopular CDs for only a buck. It came on an album called 'The Dove Awards: 2001. I listened to it, and... I remember being moved, even as a child of 12. Really, I hadn't exactly given my life to Christ yet at that point, but the depth and meaning of the lyrics resonated in my for years to come.

I return to this song years later, as a Christian, and it touches my heart like no other. The main idea is that the life we're living - this road that we travel - ends someday... but there is hope in that. Our happy ending begins by the Creator of the Universe welcoming us into his Kingdom with open arms. This song is about the trials that lead up to that awesome day, but until then, the road is rough, and the fight is long. We can only pray that, in the meantime, God will make the road straight and narrow. That he will give us peace. That he will protect us; shelter us. That he will follow us, shepherd us, love us all our days through.

He will. Oh, how he will.

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord... Forever." - Psalm 23:6

Enjoy the music.

-Matt

Masterpiece

"We are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." -Ephesians 2:10

Read that word again. 'Masterpiece.' Do you know what a 'masterpiece is?' Princeton defines the word as this: 'The most outstanding work of a creative artist or craftsman." Webster defines it as a 'supreme achievement.'

Whoa. Think about that for a second. Did you ever realize that you, YOU, are 'the most outstanding work' of God? The creative artist - the master craftsman - has named you as His 'most outstanding work?' As His 'Supreme Achievement?' Can you believe that? Out of everything our Creator God made - the beautiful sunsets, the captivating clouds of the deep blue sky; out of every creature that walks the Earth, every fish in the ocean, every bird in the air; Out of every star in space, out of every planet in the heavens, out of EVERY glorious, massive thing hanging in the universe.... YOU are his masterpiece?

Face it! You are God's favorite. Seriously! I really just want that to sink in. Out of everything God made... YOU are his FAVORITE. He put more work into you than anything else. He put more creative energy into you than anything else, and most importantly, he put more love into you than anything else. We wonder, sometimes, 'Why does God love us?' The answer should be obvious! He absolutely adores you! He is proud of you! He looks at his children, and, I believe, beams with the same love and pride that a proud parent has on their face when they look upon their own children.

And when I say 'You,' I do not mean a collective 'human race' type deal - that verse at the beginning of this blog post proves otherwise. When we give our lives to him, he re-creates us in Jesus Christ. We become, or begin to become, everything God intended for his 'masterpieces' to be - these awesome, wonderful, created sons and daughters of a Holy Father who loves us, and has BIG plans for us! And these things He wants us to do - these plans He has for every one of us as Christians - are not just random jobs or tasks. No, he looked into our hearts from eternity (before the world even existed) and said 'Oh, I have BIG PLANS for that one!'

All this may seem like very bottom line, early Christian, 'Yeah, we already know that' type stuff, but I think that we all, even myself, need reminded of the simple truths sometimes. Today, that simple truth is 'God made you Special, and loves you very much.' Thanks, Veggie Tales. :P

Anyway, I just felt 'lead' to write this, if you want to say that. I read that verse in my time with God today, and I found it so awesome, I had to write about it. I hope you got something out of it!

God as Our Father

There are a few Christian authors/speakers/pastors out there that God has used in my life in pretty big ways. People like Perry Noble of NewSpring Chuch, or Greg Laurie of Harvest Ministries, or even musicians like Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay or Jon Foreman of Switchfoot. One man, though, who podcasts and books have really effected me and changed my perspectives on a lot of things is John Eldredge of Ransomed Heart Ministries. This blog post isn't necessarily about any particular idea he presents, but one that is one of the simplest, oldest biblical ideas he wrote about in a book(Fathered by God); the idea of God as Father.

My father is a Lt. Col. in our county's Sheriff's office and the commander on our S.W.A.T. team. Lt. Col. is pretty high up in the ranks - I believe 2nd or 3rd only to the Sheriff himself. He's a pretty important guy - he's in charge of a lot of things and a lot of people - has been as far back as I can remember.

I remember as a kid of around seven or so, our area would put on a huge arts and crafts festival where, literally, thousands of people would flock to buy wood-craved yard decorations, old knick-knacks, and basically a lot of crap no one would ever need, ever. It was a lot of fun to just walk around and see everything, though. The Sheriff's office was always in charge of security, and it would seem that my dad was always the head of that. I remember waking up early the weekend of the festival and riding in my dad's cop car all the way to the fairgrounds, and getting out behind the Sheriff's office headquarters. Even as a little kid, I felt so respected and important around the other officers. Why? Because I was the son of the guy in charge!

I was big stuff for only seven years old! I knew that no one could pick on me - my dad was a cop. He was able to give me all sorts of cool stuff that the county would give him for free, or that he's get in the festival for just being a police officer, and he'd give them to me. The popcorn lady would give him a bag, and he'd give it to me, or he'd get me something from the wooden toy place (like these wicked rubber band guns they used to have); all that kind of thing.

But, most importantly, I was the son of the man in charge, which made me feel special, but that's because I was special; still am! The bible says in Matthew 7:11 "So if you know how to give good gifts to your own children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him!" I don't have children, yet, but I know, when I do, it's going to take everything I have not to spoil my kids by just giving them every thing their little hearts desire. I take joy in that sort of thing - making someone else happy, especially children, and I'd imagine especially if they were my own. A father - a dad - that genuinely loves to make his kids happy? You ever think of God like that?

I think all too often we will recall God as 'Father,' but do we ever really think of him as a loving father? I think we neglect that quality of God too often! God is generous, he is good, and he is loving - the perfect father.

"You are the son of a kind, strong, and engaged father; a father wise enough to guide you in the Way, generous enough to provide for your journey, offering to walk with you every step. This is perhaps the hardest thing to believe - really believe, down deep in our hearts, so that it changes us forever, changes the was we approach each day." -John Eldredge, 'Fathered by God'

As a Christian, you are an adopted child of God. Ever think of that? Ever think about how your dad is 'the man in charge?' How much he loves you? Like, as a father, loves you? Ever think about how important you are to Him? How proud of you he is when you do something great, or how forgiving and loving his is when you mess up? That's a big one. What about how he's there to offer wisdom when you need it? Or when you just need to know your loved? The father who provides for you, the father who 'walks with you every step' of the way? My friends, God is Father!

I know, personally, if there's one quality of God I tend to overlook so often, it's his ability to father me. Eldredge says, through prayer, in his book...

"You have taken me home, through Christ, to be your own son. I accept that. I give my life back to you, to be your true son. Father me. Father me."

Those are powerful words, aren't they? I don't have much more to say (tonight at least - it's 2:3oAM, haha), but I will say this - will you let God... be your father?

See, now I really want to read through 'Fathered by God' again. :)

"I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me." John 6:57 NLT

Little Kids

I love children. I really do. The people who say they hates kids, or who say they never want to have any make absolutely no sense to me. "People who say that probably have never been around any awesome kids" says a good friend of mine, Erik (He's got a blog), and while that may be true, even in the worst of times, sometimes you can just look at a kid and see so much going on at once, it's overwhelmingly powerful. There's something about their innocence, their sense of adventure, their energy, and their love that makes us as adults envy them and, in a way, want to be more like them. In fact, Jesus himself says in Matthew 18:4 "Anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven." (NLT). He tells us we need to go back to 'square one' as the Message bible says. We can learn a lot from kids.

One thing I've been seeing lately is how, really, adults and kids work together for something. I know as a little kid, my father would be working out in his workshop, building some new piece of carpentry or fixing something that was broken, or working on something that needed working on. I remember, as a little kid - maybe close to five or six years old - standing there, and asking 'Can I help?' He's hand me the hammer, and he'd guide me in driving a nail into a piece of wood, or screwing a screw back into something, or telling me how to sand down a board while I held the sandpaper in my hand.

Actually, what reminded me of this was something I saw happen at my church the other day. Our church (The Church at the Ridge) is all about the volunteers and serving in the church and the community. I, myself, have been volunteering there for close to two and a half years now, and I've adored ever second of it. I was setting up my equipment (I do video) in the back, and I saw a man on our operations team walking around putting out the communication cards and offering envelops we put on the seats before the services. His son, maybe seven or eight years old, was trailing him. Now, the man was very efficient - speedily placing all the cards with care and precision. His son, though, asked 'Dad - how can I help?' His father smiled, and gave him half the stack of cards, and told him what to do. The boy proceeded to do what his father was doing. Maybe not as perfect or as fast as his father, but he was doing what his father told him to, and the father was smiling as he watched him do so.

So, what can we learn from this? I think both of these examples (mine, as a boy, and this father and son I saw at church) as well as yours can be the perfect illustration of how God delights and loves it when we're doing His work. We think that 'I might as well not volunteer or do anything - if God wants it done, he'll do it himself.' While God has every ability to finish his work himself, he gives us the incredible opportunity to help him accomplish his works. Does he need our help? Of course not - he's God. But he loves to see us ask him 'Father - how can I help?'

I'm not a father yet, but sometimes, I get to work with kids at church. I love serving in children's ministry and childcare, on the very rare occasions I get to. When a child asks to help with something, what do you say? "No, I can do this on my own. Go away." or do you go out of your way to make a child feel valued and important by finding him something, even if something little like driving a nail, or putting out cards, or by letting a little girl add the milk into the mixing bowl, or letting a little boy wash the car - allowing these little kids to do these things, I think, is a perfect model of what God invites us to do when he invites us to be apart of the BIG things he's doing.

But he's not just going to make us, no. Those would be like the chores we had growing up, and kind of a way of us 'working our way into Heaven.' No - we must first ask 'Father - how can I help?' Once we truly and passionately want to not only follow God, but SERVE God, then he will invite us to do big, epic, extraordinary things that are God-sized. How cool is that!? That God actually loves you as a child so much, he basically says "Hey, champ! Guess what? I've got a little job for you to do - you want to help?"

We can learn a lot from kids - this is just one thing. If a child wants to do something like that, don't shoot them down. Invite them to help you, just like God has invited YOU to be a part of his work. Model God for the little kids. If you don't, maybe no one else will.

Old School Bloggitory Style - Electricity

So, I found this OLD post I did about the awesomeness of God a while back. Might have been the first Christian blog post I ever did. I still think it is pretty awesome. It's at least three or four years old, and I definitely like to think I can write a lot better now, but I thought it's share it with you all. ;)

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'ELECTRICITY'

(circa 2007)

“Shocking. Positively shocking.”

-James Bond, ‘Goldfinger’

Has something ever just completely surprised you? Has something ever just blown your mind, or scared you so badly, it sent tiny electric shivers up your spine? Have you ever been in a situation where you could actually feel the liquid adrenaline rushing through your body when something happened or someone says something?

It’s happened to all of us, I think. When I was in 7th grade, I had a Geography teacher named Doug Johnson. Mr. Johnson was a big guy. I mean, a really big guy. Tall, wide, and he looked like he could rip your head off if he wanted to. Mr. Johnson was not a nice man, either. He was constantly screaming, yelling, beating on desks, stomping around his room, and just making us dread 4th period.

One day, he went too far. He started yelling at this poor girl in class. Really loudly. It was clearly upsetting everyone in the classroom. People were crying, and he continued on his rampage.

I’m a diabetic, you see, and when something gets really stressful, my blood sugar spikes. Well, Mr. Johnson was yelling and screaming and cursing and whatnot, and my blood sugar shot way up. I was in such pain, that I doubled over onto the desk, crying. Mr. Johnson was still busy screaming at the girl in the classroom for not putting her name on her paper or something, One of the students sitting next to me stood up, and started yelling at Mr. Johnson himself.

“Look what’s happening to Matt!” he yelled. Mr. Johnson looked over, and saw me shaking and crying. He walked over, and asked if I was alright and if I wanted to go to the nurse’s office. He put his hand on my should, and I jolted upwards, and yelled ‘DON’T TOUCH ME!’

He backed off, knowing that he had made me go into a diabetic shock. Now, I sounded angry at him, and I was, but the words just came out - I didn’t want this man, who’d put me in so much pain and had been making me miserable for the past year touching me.

I stood up, and two friends of mine came and put their arms around me, and walked with me up to the clinic.

Only those who were in the classroom knew why I had gotten sick. I never told anyone else, for some reason. Not even my parents.

But, anyway, all the happened on a Friday. When Monday rolled around, I was walking down the hallway to one of my classes… and then, turning around the corner, was the towering Mr. Johnson.

That’s precisely when I felt like I was going to faint. I felt the electric currents rushing up my spine; I felt the shivers on my arms, and I felt like I had just eaten a 9-volt battery.

He stared at me, and I stared at him. He smiled like we were good friends or something. The sparks of fear and anger starting shooting through me.

“Hey, Walker,” he said. “How’re you doing?”

I just looked at him. “Fine,” I said, “Better then Friday.”

“That’s good,” he said, walking away.

But, even as I tell that story, the one thing I remember most and most vividly is that feeling I had when I saw him on the following Monday. It was so intense, and just nerve-wrecking.

Like, I said, we’ve all felt it. Maybe not in the midst of fear, but maybe in awe of something.

About a month ago, I went with my Mom, my sisters, and their children down to Savannah, Georgia to spend the week. I love Savannah. It’s so beautiful down there. There’s a particularly amazing building on E Harris St known as the St. John Cathedral. This building is the oldest Catholic church in the Savannah area, and built back when America was being settled.

When we walked in, all of us were speechless. You didn’t have to be Catholic to be blown away by all of this building’s awe and just raw splendor. Again, I felt those electrical shocks radiate up my back and into my neck. I felt my blood rush all around my body - warm and tingly. The sheer size of the building was enough to make your eyes widen, but the architecture, and the paintings, and the organs, and the pews - wow, it was amazing.

But, again, when I tell that story, the one thing I remember most is feeling those butterflies and that electricity when I walked through those huge, heavy wooden oak doors.

What are some times you’ve felt that burst of electricity or that rush of adrenaline? When we feel that, we know what it means - we’ve either really afraid of something, or we are in total awe of something.

Now, here’s a tougher question. How do you feel about God? Do you tremble in fear and in awe when you think about him? Do you have more of an adrenaline when you beat that really tough level on your Xbox game, or when you pray and read the bible? Do you feel more of those butterflies when you see that amazing cute boy or girl in the lunch line, or when you sit down, and just think about God.

Go ahead and do that. Think about God.

…

…

If we were to ever fathom what God looks like or who he really is, we would just die. In Exodus, we see God saying ‘But He said, "You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!"‘#

Wow. Could you ever imagine trying to stare down something so awesome or so terrifying that, simply by looking at it, you just died? Something so huge, so wonderful, so glorious, so immaculate, so amazing, so holy, so awesome that you would just fall over and die? Think about that!

I went with my Church’s youth group to a conference recently called ‘LiveLove,’ and the speaker, Francis Chan, talked about the sheer awe-inspiring look of God himself.

He showed us where, in Revelation, John described the vision the Lord had given him of God the best he could.

Revelation 4:2-8

(2) Instantly I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne in heaven with a person seated on the throne.

(3) The person sitting there looked like jasper and carnelian, and there was a rainbow around the throne that looked like an emerald.

(4) Around the throne were 24 other thrones, and on these thrones sat 24 elders wearing white robes and gold victor's crowns on their heads.

(5) Flashes of lightning, noises, and peals of thunder came from the throne. Burning in front of the throne were seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God. (6) In front of the throne was something like a sea of glass as clear as crystal. In the center of the throne and on each side of the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.

(7) The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature was like an ox, the third living creature had a face like a human, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle.

(8) Each of the four living creatures had six wings and were full of eyes inside and out. Without stopping day or night they were saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is coming."

Can you even imagine that!? At all!? I had never read that until Mr. Francis Chan pointed out that verse to us at the conference. It all really make you shiver and shake doesn’t’ it?

The creatures with the billions of eyeballs all over it’s body, that looks like a lion, probably roaring and pouncing around - it’s it just too much to think about? Even still after that, THOSE four creatures, as awesome and freaky as they are, are STILL in awe over the one who is holier, and sits on the throne that lightning, fire, thunder, and just sheer light radiates from. They cry ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is coming.’ Can you even imagine?

If you’re not getting those intense, spine-chilling tremors yet, maybe this will shock you a bit. That intense, holy, glowing being on the grandest throne of all; as huge and glorious as he is, loves you.

He loves you as his child. He loves you and wants to know you. Can you even imagine? At all? The One who spoke the Universe into existence with his wisdom and power, loves you. So much so, he sent his only son to suffer the worst death imaginable to die in our place. His own son. The cross. The blood. The crowds shouting ‘CRUCIFY HIM!!!’ The pain. The suffering. The death. Then, finally, his resurrection.

If that doesn’t give you the electric shivers all throughout your body, then nothing will. The one in Revelation, the one that shines like priceless gemstones, that sits upon a throne of thunder and lightning, with pillars of fire surrounding him, the one that if we to so much as glance into his face as mortal human beings, we’d die… that very one loves you enough to get off of his throne, come down to the Earth he created, suffered, bled, faced intense humiliation, and died for you. For you. For you. Get that concept - ‘For you.’ Personally. For you.

Why do you deserve it at all? Why do I deserve it at all? There is absolutely no reason why he should ever love us at all. He built this beautiful planet for us, and we break the rules he’s given us, blaspheme his name, and completely disregard him sometimes. But the cool, awesome, super, magnificent thing is HE DOES! He LOVE US. I’m actually crying as I type this, because I finally understand! I finally get what I thought I understood for years, but now, I finally get it! There is no greater feeling ever. None at all.

I hope you think about that the next time you pray or tell others about God. Think about who he is, what he’s done, and how humbly he did it all… for you.

I’m going the say ‘The End’ right here, and I hope you enjoyed reading this spur-of-the-moment four-page thing I felt I had to get down on paper somehow. First, though, I want to tell you to go read Romans 8:12-18 for yourself to see an awesome example of how much he loves you.

Prepare for the electricity.

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I love the random James Bond quote at the beginning that just barely alludes to the rest of the post, haha. Although I've grown a LOT in my faith, I still believe that a lot of what I wrote there still rings true. I wish I had gone on more about God's love for us in the here and now, but I think that that speaks for itself.

Hope you enjoyed a little blast from the past!

-Matt