answered prayers

"I asked God to let me see his presence in everything. So he gave me eyes." - David Bowden


it's funny how life works. 


i have started journaling again. mostly just my prayers as a way to be more deliberate about prayer. writing keeps my mind focused and my hands busy. i was never a big journal-er when i was younger, mostly because i felt my life much too insignificant to document.


"dear diary, today i went to school. i think i love some boy. i got into an argument with my friends"


why would i want to go back and relive those days?


but now i feel that God has laid the pen upon my heart for other reasons.


one of my constant prayers is that each day God will provide me with someone whom i can serve. David Bowden's words "answered" my prayer. there are so many people who need a bit of light, you just have to look into the darkness to find them.


i've always been afraid of the dark.


but my God is the purest light that ever was, is, and is to come.


so into the dark i will go.

Jesus loves christians, but doesn't like them.

i am writing this as i listen to Francis Chan speak at Passion. his message is about reading the Word instead of merely listening to it from a teacher's filter.

i find this so convicting to me. sometimes i fall victim to not reading the Bible. i figure that i pray, and sometimes i see a Bible verse only, or i'll listen to some worship music and that it is enough.

it's not.

gut punch.

on days like that i would call myself a christian. i'm pseudo doing it. i'm thinking about doing it. my intentions are good.

but in that same moment that i am listening to a worship song, i may have a mean thought about someone somewhere. this is not Christ-like.

i am a sinner. i have been saved by grace. a suffocating amount of grace. so much grace that i should be trying to give it to other people because my spirit is so full that i cannot contain it all. and even if i tell a million people of God's grace, my spirit will still be overflowing. it's a terribly wonderful catch 22.

i think that there are already enough people like that in the world. people that just go with the motions, they merely receive God's grace instead of pouring it into others. i think that God has called me to be something bigger than that. i think God has called everyone who claims Him to be Lord in their heart to be something bigger than that.

in my mind, christians are too content with just being stagnant. they are the priests of Jesus' time. the ones who sat and refused to associate with those who were unworthy. those who were unlike them. people were either in or out.

christians are the ones holding signs that God hates Fags. they are the ones who are pounding the Bible over other's heads and yelling "you're gonna go to hell!" christians are the ones the world hates. they hate the world.

i don't think Jesus likes these people. He loves them, because that's what Jesus does.

i think that we are called to love others. i think we are to love the addicts, the orphans, the prostitutes, the atheists, the agnostics, the sinners, the HIV infected, the starving, the uneducated, the overly educated. we are called to love these people in radical, unworldly ways.

we are not called to judge, to criticize, to talk down upon, to argue with, to make fun of, to ignore, to scoff at. we are called to show people who Jesus truly is. to the core of His being. we should pour on them an unending amount of grace and love and care and to fulfill needs.

i'd like to think that if more people read who Jesus actually was, and was actually about, there would be more who followed Him. christians do a really lousy job at showing others who Christ is.

i do a lousy job at showing others who Christ is. but, tomorrow is a new morning, and my heart overflows with grace. thank you Jesus, for giving me infinite chances to show who you truly are.