Integrity

I love dictionary.com for many reasons and you'll see why in a quick second.

Looking up integrity I found this:

1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.

Followed by a great illustration...

3. a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition: the integrity of a ship's hull.

As a kid I've always struggled with being honest, and now as a "young adult" and more importantly as one who has trusted in Jesus and has a relationship with the sovereign God of the universe He calls me to a life lived with integrity.

Cool verses for that- Romans 12:1 (Therefore in light of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing, this is your proper act of worship.)

One of the ways I've thought about this is if my 24 hours of life were made into a movie how would that look? Before God nothing is secret and He knows everything. Everything. Take a moment and think about that, you can fool everyone but God knows you inside and out.

The past couple days I've had opportunity to practice this, and be tested. Over the weekend I got to take my small group of 8th grade boys to Des Moines for a get-away weekend, and it was awesome, and also extremely tiring (staying up til 4 am and getting woken up at 7:30 to go to play in the pool!)

I got back and had to work a night tending the bar later that night. It was one of my most tiring shifts, and the following two days I get to do it again both nights in a row. There were times where I wanted to call in sick, especially Monday night when I just felt legitlly terrible. However something in the back of my mind and deep in my heart reminded me that all of life is spiritual and it is either glorifying to Christ or not.

The cool thing about not copping out to a lie is that it felt great to uphold all my obligations and work is fun. I love working at a bar because it such a laid back environment and all of the servers come back to shoot the breeze and sometimes complain about their customers (it's quite funny). I've gotten to build some good relationships with a lot of the servers and bussers, and I'm excited to be able to talk about deeper stuff. My hope is that they see I'm a servant and someone who lives differently with joy.

Dictionary.com gave a great definition about the hull of a ship. Think about it, if the hull is rotten the ship will never make it across the choppy seas. The same with our character, if we are full of holes, even if we plug them and make our reputation look great, eventually we will sink. Here's another kicker, we might think we have everyone fooled but we don't have God fooled. God has made us in His image, He is just, righteous, and keeps His promises, we as His image bearers should as well.

In His grace, to live a Micah 6:8... to love mercy, act justly and walk humbly with my God.

Steadfast

⁷ “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
⁸ They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”- Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NIV)

At noon I got together with Andrew Lee to share life and pray. God inspired a clear theme during our prayer time which was having full assurance that He is in control and to be submitted to Him. Reading the book "UnChristian" which describes one researcher's analysis and findings of American Christianity it broke down like this:

60-70% of America say they are Christian
15-25%- Have stated they have a personal relationship with Jesus
5-9%- Have a Biblical Worldview

I have been asking God lately what a Biblical Worldview looks like. My heart is careful not to be too narrow in it because God is not narrow but also I am careful not to ponder on an idea and not act on it. The last thing I wish to do is to pull a James 1:22.

Here is what I'm focusing on for my goal to be steadfast with God.

1.) Character- I desire my character (who I really am) to be an accurate reflection of Christ and what He has done in my life. Character is deeper than reputation because the latter is only who other people perceive you as, but character is who I am 24/7.

2.) My Words- I want my words to be careful and life changing. God needs to guard my mouth and inspire my mind.

3.) My joy- All of my joy I want to come from delighting in God, and not what He gives me as the primary.

4.) My life- I want to be steadfast and unwavering with the direction of my life and to pursue the one passion of serving God (Romans 12:1-2)

180 tonight! Sweet

Day with God

Labor day 2011

Looking at a day where it is a day off from school, and work there was nothing else I wanted to do other than take a sabbath. God rested on the last day not because He was tired or needed a break but rather to set an example for His people. A day taken out of each week to connect with God, and find rest in Him. The daily hustle and bustle of life makes it hard to set aside a chunk of time to completely devote to God and therefore I am very thankful for this day.

I connect the best with the Father when I am actively doing something. Be it out biking, walking around campus, listening to worship music, or anything else I love being active while praying and listening to God. In total I biked around 40 miles today, hung out at a lake for five hours, and had some awesome conversations. Ended the day with biking out to Neveda and cooking for a family that I love dearly.

It was awesome getting to be challenged by Chan's book "Crazy Love". Very convicting what Jesus said to the church in Sardis in Rev 3:1- "You have the reputation of being alive but you really are dead."

The last thing I want in life is for myself to have a reputation of being fully in love with Jesus and yet in my heart be dead to Christ. As the busy year progresses into being closer and closer to graduation it is so easy to take my focus and passion off of Christ. God has designed us with the ability to have one passion and to be able to push forward fully in only one direction. Regardless of how busy this year gets, life will get, and how wonderful, exciting, confusing, tough, etc the future will be, my focus needs to be on the one eternal everlasting God.

Thank you Lord for a day I got to chill with you and just enjoy being loved by you. New week here we go!

Blessed

So... it has been a year and 28 days since the last time I posted. Just the otherday I had a conversation with a guy hanging out my house about how I used to blog, journal and reflect a lot more but the past year just got "busy". The fact of the matter is I love writing, and it is a way that God and I connect. And here's me saying that I will start blogging again because being too "busy" to reflect on how awesome it is to be loved by God is a terrible and tacky excuse (as Pastor Tom would say) straight from the pits of hell!

In short here's why I'm blessed

1.) God loves me and gives me grace despite me being completely worthy.
2.) My friends are awesome, guys like Andrew Lee, Joe Brown, Andrew Helzer, and a few other key people in my life encourage me so much.
3.) I went from 0 jobs to 2 jobs in the past 2 weeks.
4.) Tomorrow is labor day and I get to plan nothing, just chill with God. Excited to do some solo biking, explore Ada Hadden, journal, sing, and be with Jesus.

Expect more soon.