Deep Thoughts…….

So God gives me some strange analogies. But, they make perfect sense to me. And, I guess that is all that matters. These analogies often have to do with athletics/working out. So today when I was working out I got this analogy about how I tend to be in my relationship with God.

I enjoy working out, the way it makes you feel, the energy that you have, and even the way it makes you look, as vain as that may sound, but it is a reason most people work out. Moving forward with the point. There are times when I will get on a really good streak of eating well, working out consistently and seeing results. So, I will start to feel good about myself, and become content with how I feel/look. I then hit a streak of weeks where I don’t do a lot physically, work out sparingly……Results gone. The results that I had don’t really matter after this period because they are gone.

It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is going. But my spiritual life has a tendency to be very similar to this. I will have weeks where I am in God’s word, in prayer, reading books,serving others etc. you know the drill. I will start to feel ‘holy’ if you will, so I’ll feel like it will be okay for me to not read for a day, not pray for a day, that turns into days which turns into weeks. This is a pattern that I am currently breaking in my life. I cannot become the Man God designed me to be if I keep on with this pattern. I will keep starting over from the same point. I have to get over this hump in my life.

I was just thinking about this too specifically about my prayer life. Consistency is going to yield results that are lasting. I cannot just workout for a week or too and expect results to stay. And I can’t expect results in my prayer life if I am not consistent in that. The Bible says over and over again to “seek” after God. Seek is more than praying for something once, asking for something once. It is a constant, consistent asking, wanting, desiring. Seeking, takes time, it takes discipline and patience. Patience not to bail out when it seems like God isn’t moving, when you are not seeing immediate results. And it goes back to working out, when you feel like you are working your butt off in the gym and seeing nothing it can be discouraging and you’ll often throw in the towel for a bit, I know I do. In my life God has very very rarely been about immediate results. He really opened my eyes up to that today in the gym, if I really want Him to move and answer prayers I am going to have to stick in there with consistency and discipline.

And another quick analogy, also having to do with working out………..

If it isn’t hurting, if you aren’t challenged and pushing yourself  to your limit in the gym or running then most likely your muscles aren’t growing. Going through the motions may maintain your body, but when you really get after in and push through the tough part then you are going to see the results. You can relate that spiritually however you want. But I feel like this principle is true for me spiritually as well. So my prayer for me and for you if this applies to you, is that God would discipline us to be consistent in our walk with Him, in reading and in prayer. To not become satisfied with where you are, and to not be discouraged when things are happening immediately. To challenge yourself and allow God to challenge you. To push through the tough parts so we can see the results, so we can enjoy the growth and the fruits of that.

Everybody’s Workin For The Weekend

We all know the song right?…..”Everybody’s working for the weekend”. And we all know the sayings like, “Looks like somebody has a case of the Monday’s”. There are several more sayings and what not that apply to where I am heading with this. But I think those two will suffice.

I have noticed a lot of people’s facebook status’ (not calling anybody out, I’m sure I have even done this) at the beginning of the week or during the week that refer to the sadness of the start of the week, or how they are looking forward to the weekend, or can’t wait for the weekend. I thought about what a bummer that is to live like that. Yea it happens to the best of us, and yea I do enjoy the weekends because I usually do not have to work or go to school. But to always be looking forward to the two days on the end of the week is sad. That is five days out the week that you dread and probably don’t take advantage of. What a waste of a life that is. It just saddens me because that is the culture that we fight to not be like. Culture tells us to grit our teeth and just make it through the week to get to those two days at the end. Ok, just think about this. If the good Lord allows you to live to be 70 you would have lived 25,550 days, give or take a few bc of leap years.  And there are about 260 weekdays in any given year, and only about 104 weekend days in a year. 18,200 weekdays in your life if you lived to be 70, and 7,280 weekend days in your life if you lived that long. So 71% of our life would have been weekdays and 29% weekends. So if everybody is really working for the weekend, then everybody is really only living 29% of their life and neglecting the other 71%.

Let us take advantage of the days that the Lord has given us, the weekdays are just as good of days as the weekends. Live each day with the same amount of freedom that you live with on your weekends. I know that I dont want to be caught up in the working for the weekend trend that most people get caught up in. That is not the way we were intended to live, and it is not that way that I am going to live. One of my goal/prayers recently has been that I could live each day with the same amount of joy and (for lack of better word) intensity. Always looking to seize the moments I have been given, no matter if it is a Monday or and Friday. I challenge you to do the same as well.

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” Psalm 118:24

The Middle East

Over the last 5 months or so I have taken quite the interest in the Middle East. Anything to do with it, the history of it, whats going on today and how it matters to us. After all it is where everything began, and is the center of most of the happenings in the Bible, so it had to be somewhat important.

I think what sparked my interest in the Middle East was my beginning to become more involved with prophecy and end times happenings, and there were just a lot of prophecy that has to do with things in the Mid East and more specifically, Israel. I then got suggested an author to read by one of my great friends Garrett, who had been becoming increasingly interested in the same thing I had. He suggested I read some stuff of Joel Rosenburg. So I began to read the books “Epicenter” and “Inside the Revolution”. Before Rosenburg wrote these to non-fiction books, he wrote a series of political thrillers, starting with “The Last Jihad”. In this series he based his writings on prophecy from Ezekiel 38-39.  Strangely enough a lot of stuff was happening in his books that was happening after he had wrote it. Such as the opening scene from “The Last Jihad” is two planes crashing into American buildings in an act of terrorism. “The Last Jihad” was published some time before the events of 9-11, at least 6 months I believe. But as I have read both of his books I have began to learn a lot about the Middle East. There are so many prophetic things come true that it is crazy really. Like in Eziekel it talks about how Russia and Iran will come together against Israel, and looks like it is coming true. It talks about how Israel will become united again and establish itself, which happened a good while ago. One that I just came across in reading “Epicenter” I found very interesting. There is prophecy in the Bible that says Israel will be given great gifts of the depths (oil?). Now Israel had never been known to be a place that had a huge surplus of oil at all. But over the past years there have been huge findings of oil in Israel, in fact I believe I read that it was there may be some of the biggest findings of oil that have ever been found in Israel (which is prophesied that Israel will have great great prosperity in the last days). Even crazier is that these findings have been found in the Valley of Megiddo, which if you don’t know is where the battle of Armageddon is supposed to take place. Somebody in Rosenburgs book asks, what could Israel possess in the last days that would make it such a prize for conquest that world’s armies would meet there to fight the spoils? …..perhaps the one of the greatest oil deposits ever found?

Those are just a few of the things that have interested in my pursuit of knowledge of what is going on in the Middle East. Rosenburg also gets into Islam and the difference in the radicals and the reformers, which is also very interesting. There is just so much more going on, I can’t even begin to get into it all, nor am I anywhere close to understanding it all. I think that everybody should take an interest and try to gain an understanding to what is going on over there. If anything just so you understand what is going on in the world. God is doing some stuff I believe, and I think we should all be paying attention to what is going on outside of our little worlds. Check out Joel Rosenburg’s blog at http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/

Thrice- Moving Mountains

This is  one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, Thrice “Moving Mountains” . Lyrics are pretty amazing. The bases is 1 Corinthians 13:1-3.

check it

Adam’s Manifest Destiny

This summer, I shall journey across the great Northwest of these Americas. I have been looking forward to it a lot lately. I dont really have any plan for the trip. I don’t know if anyone is going to go with me. I just know that I need to go. There is something inside of me that needs to move. That needs to go. My goal for the trip is to meet as many people as I can that are different, from different places, and see the world differently than I. I just want the Lord to guide me on this trip, see things He wants me to see, go places He wants me to to. I feel like this will be like a exercise to make me more sensitive to the voice of God. I feel like there are some amazing things I will learn on this trip. At work, this trip is pretty must all I have been thinking of lately.

How freeing this will be to just go, no certain direction, no place I have to be, Maybe ill stay for a few days somewhere maybe I’ll just drive for days with no stopping. I just can’t wait to see things I have never seen before! I have to go! and I will go!

But that is all for now, for whoever reads this, God bless, keep loving people and enjoy the rest of this day you have been given! Shalom.

Please don’t feed the bears….

So I am writing this with my phone, so that’s pretty odd. But I was having a thought that I thought I should share with my following I have here (sarcasm). I was doing some reading earlier today, and I came across something rather intersting. There was a reference to yellowstone park and the bears there. The author was talking about his trip to yellowstone. He says he noticed signs everywhere that said,”please do not feed the bears”. Yet he seen bunches of people feeding the bears. The author later talks of a conversation he had later with a park ranger. The ranger was saying how the signs weren’t up for the peoples protection but rather for the bears. Every year park rangers have to drag out a number of dead bears after winter and fall because they forget how to fend for food because they were so used to getting fed by other people.
I was thinking that this is how we can get and how I had been and maybe still can be spiritually. I think this serves as a pretty good warning as to what will happen if people are not fully discipled. They/we will become dependent on someone else spiritually feeding us and if nobody does then we will slowly die spiritually. Yes we need to have friends and mentors that we learn from. But that should not be the main source of our spiritual feeding. There is no substitue for time with the Father and time in the word.
This is no great revelation of course. but this just reminds me of the condition of the American Church. There are a lot of great programs and groups, people are gaining friends and aren’t cussing and drinking anymore which is great. But are people being discipled and taught how to feed themselves spiritually? I have a strange
feeling that most are not. This makes me feel an urgency and conviction. A urgency for our countries spiritual condition and conviction because I haven’t done anything about it. I currenly pour into nobody’s life, and am living in blatent opposition to the great commission.
This ended up turning into a rant, I apologize for that. And it looks like from looking back over this, that this was written mainly out of disapointment in myself more than anything. Anyways, just needed to write. That’s all.

Top 10 of 2008

Alright, well what sucks is i did this once already and it took me forever, so now its just going to be a quick 1-10 without any breakdowns and amazing insite….i know your totally bummed now. Here goes, top ten albums of 2008. P.S. all of this is based on my opinion so its pretty much solid gold fact.

1. Thrice-”The Alchemy Index III & IV”
Amazing!
 

2. City and Colour-”Bring Me Your Love”
Dallas Greens vocals and lyrics are so good

3. TV on The Radio- “Dear Science”
Innovative and Fun

4. The Raconteurs-”Consolers of the Lonley”
Jack White is great, every song it good. My fav. is the last song “Carolina Drama”.

5. Foxy Shazam-”Introducing Foxy”
Fun, plus they have a song about, The Rocketeer, how can it not be good.

6. Underoath-”Lost in The Sounds of Separation”
Classic Underoath, plus produced by Adam. D equals quality album

7. Potugal. The Man-”Censored Colors”
I like a lot, you can just chill and listen the whole way through.

8. Kanye West- “808′s and Heartbreak”
What can you say the man is a musical genius. My only complaint is that he uses the voice changer too much. But most the time you don’t even remember because the beats are so good.

9. Trenches-”The Tide Will Swallow”
Featuring Jimmy Ryan, fomerly of Haste The Day, so you know its good. (playing off Anchorman, “made with real bits of Cougar, so you know its good”)

10. Russian Circles-”Station”
All instumental, has to be good to keep your attention without any vocals.

Honorable Mention: The Killers-”Day and Age”
When I listen to this I feel like I could be wearing an all whit……e (dodgeball) suit with the sleeves on my sport coat rolled up and a v-neck under it and a cigarette in my right ear, hanging out with Hall and Oates and nothing would feel out of place. ….Ok I got a little off track there but my point being, it feels 1980′s ish and I like that.

Well thats it and I am back and ready to blog the new year in. Funmaker…out…