God's Plan

Over the past month or two I have realized that my plan does not always line up w/ God's plan. Where I want to go to school in the fall may not be where God wants me to be. This has been a pressing issue on my mind the last couple of months.

I just have to ask myself the question, "How hard is it to follow God's will?"

Why can't our church today just get out of the way and earnestly seek after God's face and follow his plan for our lives?

Today the average American (including myself) is so caught up with jobs, money, dating, school, friends and all kinds of other crap that God and his plan for us gets shoved to the back burner.

I say that it is time to start following God again. We cannot have our churches as meeting grounds for people. Our churches need to be meeting grounds for God to work in congregations as a whole instead of a social hour.

Figuring out God's plan is not the hard part...it's following it once he reveals it to us. God will not withhold his plan for our lives from us. He will reveal it to us in His time, not ours. All we have to do is follow it.

Luke 9:23 - look it up

God is so awesome

Man, I love our youth group. We have grown so much over just the last month, not just in numbers but spiritually as well. It has been great to see some new faces w/ us. I love when leaders have to drive their own cars because our 15 passenger van actually has 15 people in it.
God has great things planned for our student ministry and has placed excellent leaders to carry out his good and perfect plan. I only hope that when Allen and I are ministers that we are apart of something half as awesome as this youth group. Tonight was great. We had a rockin' good time w/ R.L. Ah, good ol' D-Now days (Only Allen knows what I'm talkin' about)
I'm really excited to see our ministry molded into what God wants it to be, a beacon to lead our church into change. I love the way we as a group have stepped up and just like Paul said "Look at us...we as a student ministry are following God. It doesn't matter if there are a million different problems w/ this church or none...we will continue to seek after God's plan for our lives. Man to all of you who read this from WHBC, I love you guys w/ all my heart. You guys are amazing.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Servanthood

Working at a crappy grocery store such as Albertsons has enlightened me in many ways. I have learned that people can be real, 100% certified jerks sometimes. It's not so much that this offends me but I just hate to see people from my very own church come into the store on a Sunday afternoon and be extremely rude to a high school kid just tryin' to save up for college.
Now don't get me wrong I'm not complaining, it's just that God is an awesome teacher and even though I catch more crap a day than a port-a-potty does all week He still taught me to be more kind and compassionate to the people that serve me.
Like today the lady @ Wal-Mart messed up my checkout somehow and had to call her manager over for something. The lady had obviously had a long day and was becoming frustrated so I struck up a friendly conversation w/ her instead of getting my feathers ruffled over the situation like the guy in front of me did. At the end of my transaction I said "thank you, and have a good rest of the day" to which she responded with a grateful smile and said "Thank you, you too."
Along w/ her grateful smile came somewhat of a curious glance like she was wondering why I wasn't like every other rude customer she had dealt with on her shift.
We are called to be Jesus to the people around us and sometimes that makes us stick out. We are resident aliens on this earth and are called to a higher purpose than anything we can strive for here. If you're not good at talking or teaching about Christ's love (which I'm really not) then show his undeserving loe to the people that surround you because imitation is the sincerest form of servanthood.

Mission Trip

This past week I had an amazing opportunity to embark on a mission trip to the one horse town of Coweta, Oklahoma. I went with Amy's church so I didn't really know anybody but it didn't matter because our work team of 7 people came together and meshed so well. We basically rebuilt the inside of an apartment that a sweet old lady named Ms. Lu Prather is trying to rent out. She only makes $12,000 a year and receives her food consisting of pinto beans and rice from her ex-husband. She had no electricity, heat or A/C. Her son, Allen, started the repairs and then they got in a huge fight and he packed up and returned to NYC. Despite all of the obstacles in her life she would not stop telling us about how God blessed her so much throughout her entire life. I am extremely grateful that God presented me with the chance to be his hands and feet. We finished every part of the house except the bathroom. Keep Lu in your prayers and pray that somone else will finish the work we came so close to finishing. She is the lady in the pink in the middle of the picture. Oh yeah and I'm the dork holding the speed square up to my face.

One last note: to all of you who saw me on Sunday when I was feeling like crap....I so have pneumonia and a wicked case of bronchitis. It's cool though cause I'm a beast.