God Was Messing with Me...

Today has been an overly busy day filled with lots of assignments, work, and periods of boredom (World Lit Survey Class). However, as my consciousness leaves me as quickly as rum from Capt. Jack Sparrow's rum bottles, I wish to note how God rocked my world in little ways today!

(Warning: in order to appreciate this you must understand that I, like God, do not play with dice and do not believe in coincidences) It started in the morning, walking from class, that I began to be truly in awe of my relationship with a mysterious God. We don't know what Jesus looked like, nor do we see him in a physical form (at least most of us don't). I think this is INCREDIBLE to say it plain and simply. But, as the day shows, Jesus makes himself visible by ACTING in our lives.

Today, Jesus did this in a way that made me wonder if I had psychic powers. Let me list the incidents:

1.) In World Lit class, I hoped the professor would call on me to discuss the Odyssey and not read from the book because I had left my book at home. And guess what...IT HAPPENED!

2.) On the way to work, I called Whit but she didn't answer. I saw a black BMW drive by, I thought of her again, and BOOM! I get a call back from her!

3.) At work, I looked in the cash register and thought "We need some more ones really soon!" The next lady that I served paid ENTIRELY IN ONE DOLLAR BILLS!

4.) While waiting for customers, I noticed the bagels were still out. On contemplating whether or not to put them away, I thought "I mean really, who's going to want a bagel at 6:30 in the evening?" Shortly thereafter, a little girl came in and bought a bagel!

5.) At work, I ordered dinner from Sullivan's expecting to pay for it with cash that lay in my wallet. At the end of the night, I had about $11 in tips. Then, the server from Sullivan's came in and gave me my bill...for $11.

So, how has Jesus shown himself to YOU today?

Clemson FCA: Clayton King (AWESOME!)

Yesterday Matt Feiling and I went to Clemson FCA and we met up with some pretty cool new people as well as some of our fellow Igniters!

Clayton King spoke last night on the subject of love and what love really is in a biblical sense.


WOW. There was some good stuff to be said and some awesome challenges that were made. If you missed it, look for it to be uploaded here.

Clayton said a lot, but there are some things that struck me to write them down immediately, some is paraphrased:

Love is the Glue that Holds the Kingdom of God Together (1 COR. 13:13)

1.) True love is the "deep, gritty, passionate love" for others

2.) "Love is blood and sweat, callouses, and dirt under your fingernails" (I LIKE THIS IDEA!)

3.) a.) "Love is not a kitten" (warm and fuzzy)
b.) "Love is not a kiss" (physical attraction, romance)
c.) "Love is not a canoe" (the love of something, like adventure)

4.) Love is SACRIFICIAL "sacrificial, not sexy" (1 John 3:16). Clayton emphasized practicing selflessness in little ways that can benefit the Kingdom, instead of wasting time on ourselves. Clayton asked, "At some point, don't we have to sacrifice ourselves to build up others? When does that start?" This question later translated into, If you can't give up the little things, how can you ever give up the big things? Sacrificing what we want to benefit others is the practice of selflessness.

5.) Love is PAINFUL. (1 John 4:20-21) Love can be inconvenient at times, and being inconvenienced doesn't make us think godly thoughts right off the bat. And, it is IMPOSSIBLE to love with jealousy, envy, gossip, or grudges in our lives. We are called to forgive , even when it isn't comfortable to do so, because the most important thing ever is to LOVE WITH THE LOVE OF CHRIST. Acts of selfless love, even when you are inconvenienced, can show a person that you love them enough to see them saved. If you can't selflessly love someone, then you don't love them enough to see them saved. (oh, yeah! Clayton went there!) When you worship with your hands up, is your heart up?

6.) Love is a RESPONSE, NOT A REFLEX (1 John 4:19) If someone hurts us with words or actions, our natural reflex is to hurt them back and thus escalate the situation. A kind response is godly and sets the tone for love. We can make this godly response a reflex.

Factoid: It takes a month to develop a lasting habit. What is your habit?

7.) True Scriptural love encompasses: 1. WORSHIP 2. DISCIPLESHIP 3. EVANGELISM (John 13: 34-35)

Love is an act of worship. How good must God feel when he sees us loving one another? How must God feel when we don't?

When we do not give of ourselves, how can we love selflessly and sacrificially? We can't. Any small, selfless act of love becomes a sacred, holy ritual that brings glory and honor to God.

8.) "The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is apathy."

Amazing Weekend

I had an awesome weekend!

The End.




...Just kidding. It doesn't stop there! I worked a bunch Friday night at E-city Java (made $30+ in tips...yueah!) Saturday, I met with the Ignite Creative Team (more on this later) at Denny's and we had some awesome ideas and whatnot, including ideas for the stage set for last night at Ignite! (Alden spoke about "Foundations" and what it means to have a strong foundation in life. To have a good foundation we need: God's Son, God's Word, and God's Family.) SO, we fabricated an awesome set that was put together literally minutes before Ignite started; here's some pictures:



This is the bare minimum of stage design that would be awesome for every series! I'm pretty pumped, 'cause we got some awesome people that will be helping out with this stuff!

Also this weekend, God got all up into my grill about some things pertaining to relationships. I talked about it, and found out that God really does give us immeasurably more than we can deserve or imagine. Whitney had the incredible idea from God to take a sabbatical or hiatus for two months from any sort of serious relationship other than with God. This means no dating or looking for a relationship, but focusing on the most important relationship: the relationship with Christ. Now, Whit might say that it was all God's idea, but I think it's incredible of her to have this sort of wisdom and understanding and discernment of God's speaking to her. (thanks a lot for this, Whit!)

I want to spend a similar two months to focus on my relationship with God as well. This means perhaps getting more involved with reaching the school for Christ, and planning out some things to come closer to my calling, and making sure that God has everything of me and to practice living by His Spirit and Will each day. I LOVE THIS! It is amazing that God has shown the importance of this through someone else...He is an awesome God!

I will update about this as time goes on, but now I have to go and get some supplies and work some on Architecture and Ignite Creative Team stuff. Good-night! God loves you!

Tired, but Restless

(nearly falling asleep on the keyboard)

Today has seemed like a really long day...kind of like a real-life day for Jack Bauer on "24" (kiefer sutherland, u kno!) I'm tired, but things inside myself are keeping me awake (and no, it's not gas or lack of bladder control).

I started off the day with some classes in Architecture and World Lit, and I had lunch in there along the way. I also purchased some more books and began mapping out my schedule for the next few weeks. I'm waiting to see how German 102 will treat me to decide if I want to change to a milder German 104 for this semester. I'm thinkin that might be a good call.

This evening at 8:30 I got to coach the NewSpring 2 13 and Under boys basketball team to an impressive 31-31 TIE! It was incredibly intense, but the boys played well and they are improving with each game that they play. (Pray for all of them to make it to practice this weekend...this is KEY!)

SO, today was not a bad day except for the fact that I seriously wrestled with some sin. It beat me up a little that this sin would still have such an impact on me, but I managed to kill it off ! It has made me more thankful that Jesus has already forgiven my sins and it showed me that I continually have to work at living my life as God designed it to be.

I am currently trying what to do about my dating relationship. I am not looking to date, but "live life to the fullest" in my single-ness for God (which I think I've done well). But there's always that hope, that part of me that's still holding out, that part that wants to wait til kingdom come, that part that wants to just go for the relationship again because it will be better than ever before and God has blessed it. It is this struggle that has kept me up these past two nights because of what God has revealed to me through my life. I don't know what's next: happiness, disappointment, both? I am waiting to discover how God has been moving in our lives.

In other news, I think I am spent for tonight and I am going to hit the sack for now. Until next time...

Fantasticus!

So, I'm pretty pumped that Ignite is starting back up this weekend! It'll be good to see all the old faces of leaders and students, and it'll be great to see some new faces as well! We have an awesome video lined up, and we're going to be incorprating some more games, skits, and overall crazy fun!
I was watching a video this week about the Hillsong Church youth programs-- those guys are awesome! Something they said when they were talking about they're weekly youth gatherings was really cool; it went along the lines of "nobody knew what was going to happen each week", "the staff just went all out to make it fun and interesting even if everything went wrong, which it often did." I thought that was pretty awesome: that they could just have this wreckless sense of fun and spontanaeity that was just saturated with a passion for Jesus so that they could reach students and that students could take that to reach their schools! That's the vision I see for Ignite! I want all of our youth to have such a passion for Christ that they can share it with others in their schools with those who don't know Jesus and those whose Faith needs strengthening. Once that happens, these kids are going to need more venues than just church or Ignite where they can share and live their love for Christ; they are going to need a youth center, a place where anyone can come and recieve counseling, receive love, and receive an expereince of learning and fun (Whit, I'm counting on you and Amanda to live out the dream!).

Looks like I've gone for long enough today. Don't forget to comment!