God-sized hugs

do you ever wonder what you would do if you were God?

would you be so gracious with humanity as He is?

i mean, He gave us free will. which is a big thing in itself.

he could have just created us as robots,

with the program in our heads to do as we are told.

yet, as homosapiens, we disappoint God constantly.

we cannot even make it through one day without sinning.

what a frustrating concept if you were the one who created all of that.

I know i would not have that much patience to watch my hand-crafted creations disobey me right in front of my eyes.

to put it in the words of one of my best friends at school

"If i were God, lightening would be my hobby!"

how many times a day do we have to go crawling back to Him for forgiveness and to say our apologies, just to screw up again in the future.

im getting upset at myself just talking about it.

if only we would be more appreciative for the second, third, fourth, even eightieth tries God grants us!

boy am i glad God loves me!

dim lighting.

so i know i have talked about living with questions before.

but i would like to take that topic and expand on it.

back home, my home church that i grew up in has grown to over 3 or 4 thousand people!

i try to podcast the sermons as much as possible.

here's the link if anyone is interested...  christian life assembly podcasts

this past week, i had the time and the pastor talked about taking leaps of faith and looking for God's direction in our lives.

even amongst confusion and uncertainty.

he brought up three points, with multiple Bible verses to back them up:

1) Put God first

2) Take leaps of faith

3) The destination will be worth it all.

afterwords, he explained Psalm 119:105

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path."

A lantern is not very bright. but yet, that's what He says He uses to guide us.

this means that we can't see a mile down the road, but only a step.

we need to be able to trust God that where He is leading us is where is best for us.

that the destination will be worth all the leaping, trusting, and not knowing.

so, yes questions are good. but we will always be living by faith, and not by sight.

non-christian grammer lessons.

In my college writing class we have to write an essay on just what God means to us by describing a place.
a tangible, visible, touchable location.
This is incredibly hard to do because those are all things God is not.
He is a supernatural being, who cannot be confined to one place in time, let alone be described by words.
there's a worship song we sing from time to time that goes...

"Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God
Incomparable, unchangeable
You see the depths of my heart and You love me the same
You are amazing God"

This song describes the very being of God and how we as humans cannot understand Him.

Yet, we still try to.

Most of us are still trying to fit him on a grid or chart his love.

This is impossible.
Where im getting at is, this is why the act of "witnessing" is so difficult.
because we ourselves do not even fully understand God to all degrees.
i am struggling to finish this essay, but in reality, this shows that if i was faced with the perfect opportunity to share God with someone, i would probably be stumbling for words to describe the feeling i get when i'm in God's presence or feel his love.
Truth is, we all need to brush up on our non-christian vocabulary and learn how to describe what we believe in a logical way that makes people think.

This way, we will not be left scratching our heads, and at a loss for words when the time comes.

one person i know that is extremely good at putting his beliefs into words is my old youth pastor.

he moved to greece to become a missionary with his family recently. 

he has a blog that he keeps up with so that people back in the states, like me, can see what he is up to

here is a link to his blog. http://becominggreek.typepad.com/becoming_greek/

i encourage you to read some of his posts, they are challenging.

i mean how many of us would be willing to get up, leave everything we know as familiar, and live in a foreign country?

beauty in the eye of the beholder...

Can I just start off by saying that I love God?

He is so amazing! I had the opportunity to go on a retreat this weekend off in the secluded mountains, with the gorgeous fall colored leaves, and log cabins, campfires, and horseback riding.

It was so nice to just get away. to really not focus on school or worry about facebook. But just tune into God and spend the weekend growing in his presence and his creation. 

This weekend confirmed in me why I am a Christian. why I believe in what i do...

By even looking at God's creation in the fall with all the different colors of the leaves.

red.orange.yellow.green.

How can you not stand in awe??

I encourage you this week to look around you,
pay attention to something that you might not have noticed before
about God's creation. be it big or small.

Sunsets. the fall. stars. and flowers. are my weaknesses.

when i see them, all i can do is marvel and praise God!

"It is amazing how much we can endure when we're convinced there is a purpose to our struggles."

do you ever find yourself completely thirsting for God?
of course we have all been there
we occasionally have some amazing hyped-up-Churchy-God-moments and we think we can live in that state for the rest of our lives. (FULL)
but the truth is, our schedules start piling up, our energy is spent on other endeavors, and life gets in the way. (EMPTY)
we can never fully keep that up.
kind of like a gas tank meter. 
our spiritual lives are bound to have ups and downs.

hard and easy. 

sometimes I find it more difficult to focus on God when my days are going well. 

Its those times that I feel like I can handle life on my own. without His divine intervention.

but, the fact of the matter is, we have to continue seeking God and following Him when it's hard, AND when it's easy.

The hard times are growing experiences, but the easy ones can be too.

try to let every day be a learning experience.

"We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." Romans 5:3-4

if you dont stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

this skit brings me to tears every time i watch it.

it challenges me to think of what is holding me back from Jesus.

it makes me really look through my life and get rid of things that could be in the way of my relationship with God.

better yet, it reminds me of just what He has done for me.

"Sometimes God allows what He hates to gain what He loves."

questions

recently i have been wondering a lot about where God is leading me. 

i have been praying that i would follow His Will for my life... 

but what exactly is that will?

how do i know what exactly God wants me to do

sometimes i just wish God would smack me over the head with it, instead of giving me all these options.

but something my professor said this week, resonated with me...

"mature faith is being able to live with questions."

this is one thing that i pray for all the time.

...the ability to live with questions.

being an organized person and all, it's hard not knowing what's coming next. or when. or why.

But that's what faith is all about right?

Dictionary.com defines faith as: "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence"

i don't know what God has planned for me.

but whatever it is, i know that i can trust Him to reveal that to me in his timing... 

i just need to learn to be patient and live with the unanswered questions i have.

i challenge you to do the same.

and trust me, i'm still a work-in-progress. haha :)

bucket list.

as i was looking through one of my old journals

i stumbled across a really old list labeled "life goals"
i don't remember writing it, but there were things on that list that were pretty interesting.
some were serious like get married, graduate high school, have kids, travel, and so on...
but others were hilarious, and made me wonder

just how old i was when i wrote them down.
never get overweight, ride in a hot air balloon, own ten pairs of chucks.
haha. but as stupid as some of these sound,

it motivated me to start a new list. a real one.
so i did.
and now im encouraging you to do the same.
but dont just write a list, start thinking about ways that

you can make some of these things start happening.
it shouldnt just be a checklist...

and don't just think about yourself

how could you benefit someone else?

maybe contribute to sponsoring a kid in a foreign country or go on a missions trip?

the possibilities are endless.
we only have one life to live, let's make it memorable.

TODAY IS A GIFT, THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT THE PRESENT

  :D

numbered breaths

What would you do if you could know the number of days you had left on earth?
would you be acting any different?
what would you change?


LOOK AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY AS GOD'S GIFT TO YOU, WHAT YOU DO WITH THAT OPPORTUNITY IS YOUR GIFT TO GOD...

Crazy.Love

God is the one we deserve the least, but we need the most

 I have been reading this book lately called "CrazyLove" by Francis Chan.

 So far I'm only half way through, but the book has challenged me more than I could have imagined it would.

It talks about how the God of the universe loves us and gave himself to die for us, that we should be living our lives in total thanks to Him.

instead, most of us are what the Bible calls "lukewarm"

we are neither hot or cold.

imagine God drinking a coffee and going to sip it and it's that awful temperature, where you cannot drink it..

God spits us out. He's disgusted.

But if God Almighty loves us like He does, who are we to only give Him leftovers or half of what He wants?

to be not "hot" or "pleasant"?

We need to be in an all-out pursuit of Him.

This is what this book has challenged me with lately and I can say that I am so glad I picked it up!

I'm providing the link to the website of CrazyLove.

Chan gives chapter videos that relate to the themes in his book and overall videos to challenge your faith.

I encourage you ((if you have the time)) to watch "just stop and think" 

It blows my mind just how much God cares for us!

CrazyLove

.comfort zone.

I had the chance recently to be a part of an activity that changed my perspective pretty drastically.

I went to inner city Philadelphia last weekend simply to spend time with the homeless.

We took them lunch and sat around for a couple hours talking to them.

When we first got there there were crowds of them standing and waiting for meals. 

They had been waiting there for hours and when we came up, they snatched the bags right out of our hands and ate them on the spot.

After all the meals were gone, we got to sit down with them in Love Park and just talk about their situations and how they got to be on the streets. 

Some of them felt comfortable talking about this, others would just change the subject.

However, we would sit there and listen to whatever they had to say.

Some of them smelled and you could tell they had not had showers in days.

Their clothes were torn and their hair was very scruffed, and not very kept up with

 

At the end of the day, looking back at it, I was taken back a little.

I was going back to my air conditioned dorm room.

under a roof. with four walls.

and eat my college campus food, three meals a day.

 I almost didn't feel comfortable with living these daily processes that I would have never thought of otherwise...

We have it so well and don't even think about it.

At the end of the day though, we have to realize that the homeless are still people.

they still have souls and feelings.

it reminds me of a quote from Bono that is on my poster in my room:

"Where you live does not determine whether you live"

 This is Charlie :)

I cannot wait to go back and talk to my new friends again. 

Hopefully I will get the chance to share my faith and talk about God's plan for their life...

always in awe.

We have all seen the postcards from cruises and exotic beaches with the crystal clear waters and always perfect sunsets...

Up until about a year ago, I thought places like that never existed. Or at least I have never been to a place that beautiful. But it was last summer that I had the opportunity to go on my third foreign missions trip with my youth group. We had been doing ministry all week long and on the last day the team had the chance to go on the beach and just marvel at God's creation. Look at the blue waters and see dolphin fins pop up out of the waves. Our pastor even took us snorkeling! It was the most awesome experience! We all took our underwater cameras and swam beneath the ocean with the fish and coral. I have never seen something more vibrantly astounding in all my life!

If you thought you had it in you to hold your breath for long periods of time, you could swim to the sea bottom and grab a star fish to swim back up. I mean how cool is that?!

 

The very next day was when we were leaving to catch our flight back home.

While we were in the air, night fall started to come and God had painted this beautiful sunset. It was incredible to see. So not only was my week filled with underwater adventures, but now with breathtaking views!

God definitely had it in store for to blow us away some amazing sights that week. And it kind of got me thinking...

While snorkeling, everything seemed to have so much detail, even from the tiniest of fish.

God has given each one of those fish intricate gills that help them survive and specific traits to help them stay away from predators. I mean if it were me creating the world, I never would have thought of that kind of thing.

But yet a day later, I was sitting over top of it all... on top of the oceans, mountains, and clouds. And even up there I sensed God's beauty and creativity through the colors and shapes of the clouds.

It brings me back to those verses in Job 38 where God is talking about all that He has created like the sun and snow and lightning.

He is no doubt the best artist I have ever come to know [:

Bad Timing?

Just like starting off anything, I think it is fair and completely necessary to keep God at the core of what I do. Consequently, this first blog is going to be about how God has amazed me recently. :]

I would like to tell the story of how I came to Eastern and why...

Let's set the scene: I was sitting in the middle of a community college meeting, ready to schedule my classes and order the books I needed. For some reason, my stomach started getting really upset and I wasn't feeling so great. I kept hearing a voice in my head saying, "You're not supposed to be here, your'e not supposed to be here."

I knew it was God trying to get a hold of me, but I didn't know what it meant. 

I kept thinking, "Well, what else is there? If no community college, what else? God I don't even know what my major is yet!"

So in my head I went through all the colleges I had applied for and one by one prayed about them.

And let's not forget, this whole time, I'm still sitting in a meeting with about a hundred other soon to be students, and I'm almost on the verge of tears because God is making a mess out of me.

For some reason, Eastern University stuck in my head, it seemed to settle well with "the voice" I kept hearing.

So I left the meeting early, and never had a doubt in my mind of WHERE I was supposed to be again- I knew. 

So, I went home, and started the long process of steps to enrolling into Eastern for the fall.

It was the first time God had given me direction about my future, and I wasn't going to complain because I was so clueless up until that point.

What amazed me was how He decided to do it- His timing.

I mean, in the middle of another college meeting? Really God??

Was it bad timing or just in the nick of time?

But, it just goes to show that His Holy Spirit is with you wherever you go. He has a plan and a purpose set out for each one of our lives and you never know when He is going to reveal it to you.

All we can be sure of is if we are going to be obedient or not..

" Where God closes a door, He always opens a window."