Stop Me if I'm Lying

I sit here in an empty house as my two roommates Emile Frey and Logan Dugard begin their trek around the globe to an unreached people group in India with the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  What a mission.  They are living out the call of Christ in Acts 1:8 when He tells us to go to the "ends of the earth." I am immensely proud of them both.  Their journey has been one of hardship and amazing beauty.

I wish to give you a glimpse into this journey.

Around October of last year the news was brought to them of a possible mission trip being taken by Crossroads church to India.  For ten days a group of normal men and women would be going to unreached parts of India to share a message that was essential to their lives.  Christ.  They both liked the idea and began to ponder over the possibility of them actually going.  Well this pondering turned into action as they began to attend the India meetings discussing what the trip was about and how it would look.  Except there were a few problems.

Going to another country for upwards of double digit days is quite expensive and college students aren't known for their abundance of money.  But this was not to stop them.

They began to write letters.  Hundreds of letters asking for help in raising money.  Unknowing if people would give or not but just simply trusting that the Lord would somehow produce money where it seemed money could not be produced.  People donated that had never met Logan or Emile but believed that what they were doing was to the benefit of the Kingdom.  It was a beautiful picture of miracles happening day in and day out.

Secondly, there were medical issues, logistics, and training times that go into trips like this.  Much time has to be invested in going to the doctor, in planning what to bring, and in learning about the culture.  They invested this time and more.  They read, watched, learned, and trained so that they would be as prepared as possible when the time came.

Lastly, there was the simple problem of not becoming overwhelmed.  Looking at all the issues of this trip by themselves can overtake anyone with a feeling of inadequacy and the inability to complete them.  To see how short they are on money with a payment due in two days, to fill out medical form after medical form until they didn't even realize what they were writing, or to constantly be reading and attending meetings even when they had school work due.  These are the things often overlooked in trips like this, but are often the most likely cause of someone not following through and completing the mission.  Emile and Logan showed amazing resilience in this area and I admire them for it.

Their ability to leap when they could see no end in sight is an amazing testament to me.  To trust in all times, to persevere, to obtain the goal no matter what the cost, this astounds me.  And this is what God calls us to.

Stop me if I'm lying here.

God calls us to jump in the pitch black of our lives and to believe that He not only knows what is ahead, but where we will land.  Every step is planned, calculated, and sovereignly chosen to bring Christ glory. Do you take the steps willingly like Emile and Logan did and are doing?  Do I take those steps willingly?  I pray we do.

I am so proud of the men and women leaving their homes, comfort, and families in order to be uncomfortable for the Gospel.  That action in itself is showing Christ.  When someone is willing to step out of their lives in order for others to know what life is all about is when people become truly changed because they see how real the Gospel and the God of the universe is.  And that my friends is a beautiful thing.

A Serious Moment

Today I have been challenged with a fact that I have not seen in the same light for many days now.  It is a simple yet profound truth which affects every aspect of our lives:  how we talk, how we act, what we watch, what we read, what we seek, and how we seek it.

God loves me.

Astounding.

The God of the universe, creation, all that is, will ever be, and ever was, the King sitting on the throne of Heaven, the Lord over all humanity...loves me.  The impact of this truth is more then just a simple emotion, it is an action, He pursues me, He wants me, He longs to love and know me.  I bring nothing to the table but a broken sinner deserving of hell to the highest degree.  I don't offer more glory, more love, more mercy, more grace.  He supplies it all and then some.  Apart from Him and I nothing more than a man sinking in his own sin.  Yet, He chooses to save me.

I find myself most days not even noticing a glimpse of this love.  I see the beautiful world around me and shrug it off like it is normal.  Like everything that is happening is happening because it is supposed to happen.  No cause.  No reason.  Just happening.  Yet, Romans 8:28 states that the world is groaning in anticipation for the coming King to reign again.  The world is alive because of its hope for the second coming of the King.  That is the best purpose I have ever seen.

So, a question that has been bothering me is, "How can I sit and look at a world that groans for the Father all around me and yet live as though the world exists for my pleasure and my wants?"  I know in my head that I am supposed to be groaning for the second coming, however my actions do not seem to point in that direction.  As Brennan Manning says in The Ragamuffin Gospel:

"When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes.  I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty.  I am trusting and suspicious.  I am honest and I still play games..."

I believe that He is the all-forgiving Savior but my actions show doubt.  I hope is His coming and yet I get discouraged by His timing.  These are just a few examples of these truths in my life.  There are many more.  This leads me to think of one of my hopes in college.  I wished that at the end of my tenure at Louisiana Tech I would leave and have people only know me as the guy who loved the Lord and loved others.  Now it seems that Facebook is what people know me for, or sports, or playing music. I am not saying that these things are bad, but when a professing Christian is known for things over the Lord something is wrong.

 Something must change.

My view of this monumentally earth shattering belief that can change an entire world.  His love.  I wish to consume myself with it, to breath it, to drink and eat of it, to wash in it, to love through it.  I want God to blow me away with His love because His love is existence.  He exists to be glorified.  I glorify Him through His love.  Its a beautiful existence and it is an existence He wishes everyone to have, we just have to realize it because in the end this simple statement is where everything began and where everything ends.

God loves me.

Positive or Negative

Throughout life people always consider themselves to be one of two things:  a positive person or a negative person.  AKA: optimist or pessimist.  Well I am here today to discuss what I am, the third choice...a realist.

People often mistake me as a negative person when I tell them candidly that they will most likely not complete a certain assignment or be able to perform a certain task.  Let me give you an example...

Me and three of my friends are at a football field and we are kicking field goals for kick and giggles (thats a pun) and one of my friends decides to try and kick a 30 yard field goal.  Well this friend is not the most athletic person and spends a lot of time playing Call of Duty and such so I say to him, "Chances are you are going to miss this. You are probably going to be short 5 or 10 yards."  Well my three friends immediately start harping on me about how I am always so negative and should be more positive and supportive.  So to appease them I say, "Ok.  Don't suck."  Because if they don't suck and miss the field goal then everyone will be happy.

I might as well interject for a moment that I could have said that a little differently and I admit that.  I could have said, "Do well." But let's be honest, if they are doing well then they aren't sucking and if they aren't sucking then they are doing well so they are both equally good statements.  Apples and oranges you know.  

Well, once the harping was over my friend eventually kicked the football and missed.  Coincidentally he was short 5 or 10 yards...who would have thunk it?  So, let me ask you, was I negative or just real?  I believed he could do it because I never said he couldn't, but I knew that statistically speaking he was going to suck really bad and miss it.  I have a belief, it just based on realistic life.

Or we could look at that my first original comment should have beefed him up to make him kick the ball harder to prove me wrong.  I was playing the "I'm going to say something to make you really mad to make you play better" card that some coaches do.  Call me Bob Knight from now on.  Except with no thrown furniture.  Life can be seen through many different eyes but I just choose the most logical.  

This makes me think of a serious thought.

Faith

Someone could read this and say, "Hey how do you believe in Jesus if you only look at things realistically, because realism leads to science and science can't work with Jesus?"

First off I would like to say that this is possibly one of the dumbest questions ever asked because science alone points to Christ 100% of the time.  Secondly, to look at the questions through my eyes of realism we must ask ourselves what the statistics of God are.  Well, He is right...always.  He is wrong...never.  Statistics show God as the logical choice not the other way around.  The faith aspect comes not in mere belief but in the control.  I know God is real, but to let Him control my entire being a life, my circumstance, my finances, my relationships...that is faith.

(Thought of people reading this..."Wow this blog really got serious quick. He was all humorous in his other blogs but now he is all mister serious guy...")

Well have no fear because I am stepping of the box that holds soap now.

In the end people are either Positive or Negative...well, I am neither. 

First Five

So I am graduating college in around three months and I am no closer to finding a job than I was fours years ago wonderfully thinking, "Yay I'm about to graduate high school and be in college, gah I have so much life in front of me..."

idiot

If I would have known that college would go faster than a blink of an eye then I would have been planning way in advance.  But who knew?  Besides every college grad and parent in the world that kept telling me that since I got in college, nobody.  Oh well, who's counting?  Besides all the seniors in college across the nation that are in the same boat I am, nobody.  Whatever, who cares?  Besides my immediate family, everybody important to me, all my close friends, and that blind kid Jeff Pardue that told me in eleventh grade to be President for him, nobody.

Sorry to let you down Jeffy but that just isn't going to happen.

I am now having to make a decision that will not just effect one year or the next couple of years of my life, but the first five years coming out of college.  It is terrifying, yet so exciting.  Its one of those paradoxes.  Jesus used a lot of paradoxes.

OH he had to throw down the Jesus card in there somewhere!
Yes, I did.  I was raised baptist.  Southern baptist by a southern baptist women.  And momma didn't raise no sinner!

Any who, back to college.  I have heard throughout my life that high school are the funnest years of your life.  Those people didn't go to college because they are a thousand times better than high school.  So, I wonder how exciting these next couple of years will be.  More exciting?  Less exciting?  Probably more.

Well, I may not know what the final step is but I am fully loving this step I'm in right now and I will live it to its all out.  Enjoy your time, go outside and throw a frisbi or something.  It's much too beautiful to just sit inside and type on a computer....hypocrite.

The Devil Named Facebook

I guess I should begin with telling everyone that this is my first blog but that is irrelevant due to the severity of this next subject:


Facebook


Recently I have made some mistakes with this social network. Adding then deleting. Deleting then adding. And for this, I am sorry. I should not have messed with the friendships on the world of Facebook. It was unwarranted and unnecessary. I should have probably never added you in the first place and I would not be in this situation. However, here I am and there is nothing that I can do to change it. So I write this to discuss the reasoning behind my actions.


It all begins with the high school Frank who spent much to much time on Facebook, an absurd amount to be exact. Well one day my freshman year in college I changed that and just deactivated my account. Cold turkey I quit. Quite a freeing experience to say the least. So for a little over two years I lived without the weight of Facebook; loving every minute of it. Well, transition to the summer before my senior year (this past summer to be exact) and there is me creating a new Facebook for myself but this time with rules. Rules that I wish to follow to the best of my ability so to keep the high school Frank from ever returning.


Here are the rules:


1. Add people from past summer camps and past summer baseball teams. I don't see these people all the time so Facebook is a good place to keep up with some of them.
2. Add groups that are necessary. For example: the BCM, FCA, etc. This is the most efficient way to tell people updates and such.
3. Add people from my community groups.
4. Only add people not in the three above categories if I have to contact them and it is the only way. But once I contact them and figure out that I can see them throughout the day without Facebook then I will most likely delete them. It is not that I don't care for them but I would much rather hang out with them in real life than on Facebook. Plain and simple.


If one were to run through my friends right now you would see that these rules are for the most part held true. I understand that these rules may not be accepted by all but to me they must be and will always be my standards. I hope this answers some questions about my Facebook life to some and if it doesn't then tell me (not on Facebook most likely) and I will hopefully answer your question.


Lastly, if you are just now realizing that I have a Facebook and are now opening a new tab to try and become my friend. Stop. Close that tab. And walk away from the computer.