John 6

This scripture has been on my mind a lot lately. Why? I do not know. I have not gotten anything theologically from it that I didn’t already understand. More than anything it just blows my mind. If you fast forward to the verse 25 in the chapter Jesus begins to teach. He teaches all the way up to verse 60. This is what catches my attention. Verse 60; “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “this is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”  Jesus then asks if this was offensive to them… crazy right…Jesus offend someone….?… Okay, continue to fast forward to verse 66. It says, “from this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”

So to me this is a HUGE WOW! These people were called disciples of Christ, had been following him for who knows how long. Then there came this point…..

….They decided that it was now too hard to follow Christ….

When we are following God, things will get tough

We will be called to do things that are further outside of our comfort zone

He will lead you down roads you never thought you would go, or wanted to go

He will call us to become more disciplined

Call us to lead when we don’t want to

Just because you follow God does not lead to the promise of a wealthy/healthy life

One other thought here…

It is scary to think that people can “follow” Christ so long and be his “disciples” without actually following him and without actually being a disciple. This makes me re-examine myself. I hope I’m not just getting caught up living the “christian” life ? I hope I’m not just following God to a certain point until it gets too hard..?

crazy to think that people can be called disciple, and get to a point where they can no longer follow God.

But it is also scary to look at all of Christ teachings…..they are tough….like real tough.

Comfortable

So, it has been a while…A long long while. I am going to try and keep up with this blog, mainly just because it helps me to process my thoughts.

So here is what has been on my mind today.

I went to the gym today, and I like to shoot the basketball a bit before I work out, to get warm and just because I enjoy it.

But as I was dribbling and shooting I began to just feel free, comfortable, everything about basketball comes natural to me (I am not the best by any means). I began to think, “Why can’t I feel like this in every area of my life?” Why is that that I can see things and move places on the court with ease, I can tell someone where they need to be to make a play, I can fix someones shot, and it is so easy. I am in charge and confident when it comes to something silly like basketball.

Why can I (Maybe you too) be so confident in one area and not another. Why isn’t every area of my life like basketball, in other areas I become fearful of failure, what others will think, etc….

Here are some reasons why I feel like I am more confident/comfortable on basketball court compared to others

1. I know the rules

Don’t you agree you do better when you know what you can and cannot do. When you understand boundaries.

2. I’ve had years of practice.

I have been playing ball for years I would say about 15 -17 years. It takes a long time to get good at something. I always want to be good now, it is hard for me to see into the future and see where practice at things could pay off. Also, I can be confident that  I have a lot of room for growth, and knowing that it takes a while to be good at something…and knowing is half the battle….Anyways, when you understand that you aren’t going to become great over night you and understand that you are going to fail and lose along the way, you don’t feel so much like a failure.

3. I’ve been coached

From my Dad to boys club to junior high to high school. That is a long time to be coached. Coaches can help you hone your skills and help you stay disciplined. Coaches encourage, break you down, and build you up.  We should have coaches in the areas of life that we want to get good at. (I need to take my own advice here)

4. I understand where to be and where others should be

This is much like knowing the rules. When you have been doing something so long you know where to be and where others should be. This in turn makes you a better leader on the court understanding everyone’s job. Just think about a job, sport, team, whatever the case may be where you only had a vague understanding of your job and didn’t really know what other people where doing. Chances are that team didn’t operate or you didn’t operate to your potential because of some in decision or confusion. When you know what you are supposed to be doing you can move full speed through it.

5. Dont know how to put this last one so ill just call it …..Pasison

When you know the rules, understand your role, others role, have been coached, and have experience you can do something will guided passion. When you are doing something with passion you dont have time to stop and worry about whether or not you are confident, you dont have time to wonder what someone else thinks.

So I am sure there are a hundred more points I could come up with but there are 5.  Maybe you can’t use these at all. But think of an area in your life that you just own. You step up to the plate and you dominate. Examine why you are so confident/ comfortable in that domain.

P.S. If I’ve been listening to a lot of Brand New lately …so check them out!!

Paralyzed by adventures….

This post is a continuation of what i was just writing about, there is just a flow from one into another subject, I thought that I should break them up since the last post was probably too long in itself.

After I got back from my trip I must admit I was pretty bummed for a week or so. Just because I went from adventure and something new everyday, back to the same ol’ same ol’. Which brings me to this thought…..

Are we supposed to be doing the same ol’ same ol’. Going to work everyday, doing homework everynight? Does it make sense? I wrestle with it all the time, do my days matter? Why do we go to work everyday? In my head I make the argument that it is because we have to be responsible and pay bills etc… Making myself to this world around me. I mean how crazy would I look to people, people close to me, even my family if I woke up tomorrow, quit my job, didn’t finish my last semester of school and just took off somewhere with what I had. Living adventure, not knowing where food was going to come from, not really knowing where I was going to sleep. Meeting people and telling them about Jesus. How nuts would I look?

I wrestle with thoughts of this all the time. Am I wasting my life by being responsible right now? Or will it pay off and I just need to be patient and let life unfold? Will me having a degree really help me spread the good news more effectivly, or is it just something I am doing? Perhaps I am being unresponsible by even thinking that those things are unimportant? I really dont know and just pray that Gods will for my life unfolds just how He would like.  I do believe that is it for the time. But if anyone who comes across this has any insight or thought to this feel free to comment, I would love to know what you think about this or if you ever do.

Next blog: thoughts on Iran and the Middle East

Adventures…

I have not posted anything in a while, which is usually the case, so no surprise there. But since I last wrote I have explored half the country and have had many new thoughts.

About a month ago my brother and two friends from back home (Van Buren) took off on a journey that I will never forget. We drove from Arkansas, to Denver, to Yellowstone National Park, through the vast nothingness of Montana and Wyoming which is really pretty for there being nothing there. We then made stops in Seattle, Portland, through the Redwoods to San Fransico and finally through Las Vegas, I mean it was on our way back so we had to right.

Some highlights…. In Denver we stopped at this place for breakfast called, The Delectable Egg it was amazing, had the most delicious breakfast burrito ever. In Yellowstone there were so many highlights, the gysers, Old Faithful, amazing canyons and waterfalls, animals everywhere just amazing. But what is even more amazing is that in our hotel room, we only had a bath tub, no shower, very strange for a group of 4 dudes. I think the last time I took a bath before this was when it was still ok for Mom to wash you, haha, maybe a bit much but oh well. Then we went on to our next big stop in Seattle, great city, rained of course. But it was definately my favorite city we stopped in. It was big, but still everyone I came across seemed really chill. There was just a layed back feel to the place. It was the only place we stopped that I think I could see myself living in.

We then drove down the to Portland where we stopped at a little doughnut shop called VooDoo doughnuts(www.voodoodoughnut.com), freakin’ amazing, the highlight of the city for me. I also got to see a cousin and aunt that I hadnt seen in 16 years! Crazy.

We continued down the coast, though the Redwoods (it was dark though, so I seen no ocean, boo. it was the only thing i wish we could have planned out better) they are really tall, and creepy looking at night. We then stopped in San Fransisco where we hung out with uncle Joey and Jesse, the rest of the gang couldn’t make it. But in real life we just visited the pier had some great lunch, seen some sea lions, which dont even get close to resembling real lions? We also came across some really cool drug deals!! So that was also awesome.

Then we began our trek back to Arkansas, on our way back we stopped in Vegas, it was just really really hot and warped all the vinyls we bought along the way.

It was a experience that I will never forget! Seen some things that most people only plan on or wish that they could. It was an adventure and journey, which is what life should be. One of the reasons I wanted to do this was just because of that reason. I dont want to say what if to anything in life. To me this was a way of practicing living out adventure, doing something that was in my heart to do and actually doing in and not just talking about it. I need that, that is not something that is natural to my personality. I just needed a way to practically do to practice doing what you say, and this was it. Now I want this to translate spiritually, I dont want to just have ideas and dreams of things that I want to see and do and just let them go to waste. I want to live them out. There are so many things I want to do but dont. But that is something I am about to get into in a separate post. Im sure this is already too long and I commend you if you have read this far. I recommend everyone do something of this nature, it was great to see the country and how different and how much of the same we all are 2000 miles away in the same country.

Should God make sense?

So the last couple days I have been trying my hardest to think about God. I know that sounds weird. But really, have you ever tried to think about God? Sure there are things that we can comprehend about Him, there are things we know about Him, some of His attributes and qualities. He is loving, just, merciful, compassionate, forgiving, jealous, omnipresent, all-knowing, omniscient, ect. But, I have been trying to understand those things and you know what, I can’t do it. How can there be this all-knowing, creator of everything. How did he do it? How can God, love everyone in spite of all of our short comings? How is He everywhere at once? How is He always in control of everything, working out everything to fulfill His will? Sometimes I get frustrated because, neither I, nor you can explain Him fully. We can not comprehend how truly powerful God is. For some people this is a deterrent to following Christ, because they want to be able to understand all of this. They want answers for all of this before they can believe. But, you know what, I do not want a God that I can fully understand, that I can put in a box and say here He is, this is Him and I understand everything about Him. I don’t want to serve a God that I always get or comprehend. Where is deity if we understand everything about God? There is none, in my book.

So, should God make sense? I think not. I think He should make as much sense as He wants to, because He is God. Would He be worth worshiping if He made sense? Let us come to worship Him out of our awe of knowing that He is up to things that we can’t understand fully. But also out of the understanding that everything He does is out of love for us and for the purpose of His will and only good can come out of it. So, when we don’t understand Him let us worship Him. Because I don’t want a God that always makes sense.

Life update

Well, life, hasn’t changed much. To be honest that is pretty sad. Still working, still going to school. I guess it is exciting to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel with school, after only 5 years. I am just a little worried about what is going to happen after school. I don’t really know a whole lot of jobs that I can get with a leadership/ministry degree, besides the obvious. But I have a feeling that God has a lot of excitement for me in whatever I am supposed to do. I just want to wake up and do something everyday that I know is directly helping other people. But I know that God has only good things in store for me. By good, I do not mean lots of money and comforts, but challenge, adventure and blessings!

On another note, I am pretty excited about my upcoming vacation/journey of awesomeness. My brother (Nick) and I are going on a 9-10 day journey. We have nothing really in mind. All that we know is that first stop is Yellowstone, and second stop is Seattle, after that we turn around and head down the coast until we run out of days and have to come back here. I am really stoked about this! Like I cant even express it in this little blog post here. I know we will see amazing things, have time to talk and get to know each other better, and I know that I will get the chance to take a million amazing pictures. There is just this big world that God put a million awesome things in, and I cant wait to see some of them. But that it is, I hope Aaron Reddin is happy now that I have updated my blog. Here ya go!

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.

Reimagining the Lord’s Supper…..

So I have recently been reading a couple few books by, Frank Viola, Pagan Christianity and Reimagining Church. They are meant to compliment each other. Pagan Christianity talks about where we took all the practices that we use in todays “Church Services”. I was pretty surprised to see where we got a lot of the things that are done today in Churches. There are a lot of things that are done that are not all that biblical. I would suggest this for reading, it made me think pretty intensely about the way things are done. I have this on audio book if anyone would like to borrow for a listen (aren’t audio books great, all the fun of reading without the reading).  But I am currently reading the book Reimagining Church. It is the follow up to Pagan Christianity. It talks about a multitude of things for us to rethink in the Church, and how it can look. He talks about the Church as an organism, the meeting place, the Lord’s Supper (which is where I am heading with this, so hang in there), the Leadership, etc… But so far the thing that has got my attention is the Lords Supper, or Communion, however you want to think about it.

I have always loved Communion, I think that is why this Chapter in Violas book stood out to me. He explains the “elements” in depth and what they fully represent. He says this about “the Bread”. “The bread- being the most basic and lowly of all foods– points to the humility and availability of our Lord. By taking on our humanity, Jesus Christ became accessible to us all– just as bread is available to us all, just as bread it available to everyone, both rich and poor.” What really stands out to me in this chapter about the Lords Supper is how Viola points out how the early Church views the Lords Supper. They view it as a banquet, an entire meal, with fellow believers, remembering Christ, His death, but most of all His resurrection and the life that it gave us, a celebration of what has happened. Viola calls this a covenant meal, in the fact that we are to remember the new covenant we have with God, through Jesus Christ. I love this statement that Viola makes “the Lords Supper was never meant to be a morbid reminder of Christ’s suffering. Nor was it a somber occasion where Christians mourned over their sins. Instead, the Supper was a cheerful reminder of who Jesus Christ is and what He has done. It was a reminder and a proclamation of His glorious victory at Calvary, which will be comsummated at His future coming.” It is meant to be a celebration. So I say let us celebrate! The celebration of Passover is just around the corner. I think it would be really neat, to get some peeps together, have a meal, a full spread, the works if you will and celebrate what Jesus has done in our lives. To come together and share prayer and thanksgiving, words of encouragment, stories of victory in our lives personally, anything. I just think that would be awesome! I am going to try and see what I can pull off for this, I would like to get some people together, it would be powerful and encouraging. But those are just some thoughts that I have been meaning to post on here. Hope everbody has a great Tuesday!

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…