Wow...time is flying way too fast. I mean seriously, just yesterday I was a freshman in college. The day before that I was in high school. Now I'm working full-time, have my own place, and my "youth" has passed me. I'm now 24, and I'm a full-fledged adult. Wow.
I just want to take this time to reflect on the past year(s), and equip myself for the year ahead. At this time last year, I got my first experience of the corporate environment...and I couldn't wait to get out of it. What a horrible experience. But I know God led me there, and then God led me somewhere else. But at this point, I was in major transition. I just graduated from college and was trying to figure out what the heck I wanted to do with my life. I missed my college friends and environment, and I felt alone and trapped living in Halifax, far away from pretty much anything. But, I had the opportunity to read and relax, and was able to find God in cool ways through my bike rides through the countryside. And then in November, I began working for my current job, into which I'm now almost 9 months. Then in March, after much prayer God finally led me to my own place in Mechanicsburg and my new church family just outside my door. God led me here for 4 reasons I found: to learn about myself, develop my relationship with God, realize contentment with singleness, and improve my relationship with my mom. And to some degrees, I've achieved some of these. Distance between my mom and I has allowed us to talk more civilly, and I'm MOSTLY content with singleness but I have those days (tonight being one of them) where loneliness sets in and I just wish I had someone to be with.
So the two other things were to learn about myself and develop my relationship with God. Learn about myself...well, what do I mean by that? I mean, you'd think with me being an only child that I'd know by now, given all the time I spent with myself. But see, through growing up and even in college, I was often defined by my friends. Depending on what group of friends I was around I would act differently, say different things, and stuff like that. Because of this, I always felt kind of unnatural, always wondering who I REALLY am. And my identity was established by God through the calling of the White Knight, but I never had the opportunity to explore this in greater depth. Ever since I moved over here I've been busy with work and other activities that I never took a whole lot of time to myself. And that leads into my relationship with God, which hasn't improved like I envisioned. I still find myself on a lot of highs and lows, which gets frustrating after awhile. My busy schedule has led me to place events and activities with friends above time with God. I've been disobeying the command in Psalm 46, "Be still and know that I am God." And it's not even that I've been wasting too much time...I don't have a tv connection in my apartment and my Wii hasn't been hooked up since I moved in. So in this next year, it's vital that I keep growing naturally, but truly exercise my faith by learning as much about my Savior as I possibly can.
And to go along with that, this is what I envision for age 24. I want this to be a year marked by hard work. Not work that eventually kills me in the long run, but hard work that will improve my overall life quality and help me realize my goals. Physically speaking, there are a lot of things that I want to accomplish. I'm SO thankful for my buddy Kyle...he brought me along to Planet Fitness, and he's helping me live a physically healthy lifestyle. I've gotten SO much stronger in just 3 1/2 months, to the point where I'm seeing a definite change in my body structure than just a few months before. But I have a list of goals I want to accomplish physically, spiritually, and in other areas.
1) I want to finish a warrior dash (or multiple). They're the 5K runs through the mud. I would have looked into them this past summer, but I haven't been training for that kind of conditioning. I would love to hold those medals on me and say "Yes...I did that." And they look insanely fun too.
2) I want to excel beyond my past skill in baseball. Recently I've felt a calling to return to the ballfield, but in a different venue: baseball ministry. I still don't know how this will take form, but this is also something I have to figure out (see goal #3). But I want to return to my past form and continue excelling beyond that. I want to be content with the knowledge that I could hold my own in the minor leagues (and who knows, maybe try out someday) :)
3) Take a UPI missions trip. UPI is Unlimited Potential Inc., and they do short-term missions trips to different countries to do baseball clinics and stuff like that. This seems like a really neat opportunity, and I think I would get a great deal of insight from taking one of these trips. So if the Lord allows, I will take one of these trips next year and find out more about my dream of baseball ministry.
4) Schedule God-time. This may be the most important thing of all. In order to do anything with ministry, I need to have God by my side and I need to be seeking His counsel every day. And I can't do that if I don't spend time with Him. Today in Sunday School we learned about praying continually, which means being in constant contact with God. We don't have to spend an hour at a time on our knees talking out loud, but God needs to invade every part of our lives, to the point where serving isn't even a thought but a reaction. I just saw a friend's facebook status, saying he talked about theology with a homeless man for a half hour. Know what I did tonight? I saw a lady on my way home that needed a ride somewhere...not sure what her story was, but she needed a ride. And I blew right by her. I often relate my personality to that of Peter in the gospels...well, tonight I felt like him. I felt like Peter in that moment when Jesus' bloody face looked at him after the disowning when the rooster crowed. And just like Peter did, I sat in my car at my apartment and wept bitterly.
It's so easy to put on a Christian t-shirt (which I was wearing tonight) and listen to Christian music (which I was listening to on my right home), and try to live without God's heart. It's far too easy to do that. We don't get judged, we don't get hurt by others, and we're just another face in the crowd that goes about his/her business. THAT'S NOT WHAT THIS LIFE IS ABOUT! This life is about full service, full surrender, total praise to our King. And I've tried many times to serve God on my own will and power. It just doesn't work that way...we need GOD in order to serve God! So while I want to work hard at tasks I have in front of me, I want my directive to be set. I can't even look in the mirror at myself right now because of my shame from tonight. I prayed "God, I can't believe you could love me. I don't even deserve to breathe. I just don't get how you love me." And I don't know if I'll ever truly understand. But y'know what? It doesn't matter if I understand it or not...all I have to do is believe it. And it's easy to believe it, because it's sitting right in the most quoted verse in history: "FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT..." That's the proof...God loves us, end of story. I can't understand how I just disregarded His daughter along the side of the road, and yet He loves me and has already forgiven me. It's baffling. But, He still loves...the Bible said so. And so this is the most important part of this coming year and years after. I want to work hard at my relationship with God. It's pathetic to think that he was tortured for me, and I can't even give Him a few minutes a day. I know I often wait on God to say something to me, but I think we call the Bible "God's Word" and forget that He's talking to us whenever we read it. So I've got quite a year ahead of me. Plenty to learn, plenty of room to grow. And God be with me...here I go.
And as a bonus, listen to this song. Whether it has anything to do with this note or not, it doesn't matter...just listen to the song and let it convict you as much as it is me right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ec7ofMOqVM
I just want to take this time to reflect on the past year(s), and equip myself for the year ahead. At this time last year, I got my first experience of the corporate environment...and I couldn't wait to get out of it. What a horrible experience. But I know God led me there, and then God led me somewhere else. But at this point, I was in major transition. I just graduated from college and was trying to figure out what the heck I wanted to do with my life. I missed my college friends and environment, and I felt alone and trapped living in Halifax, far away from pretty much anything. But, I had the opportunity to read and relax, and was able to find God in cool ways through my bike rides through the countryside. And then in November, I began working for my current job, into which I'm now almost 9 months. Then in March, after much prayer God finally led me to my own place in Mechanicsburg and my new church family just outside my door. God led me here for 4 reasons I found: to learn about myself, develop my relationship with God, realize contentment with singleness, and improve my relationship with my mom. And to some degrees, I've achieved some of these. Distance between my mom and I has allowed us to talk more civilly, and I'm MOSTLY content with singleness but I have those days (tonight being one of them) where loneliness sets in and I just wish I had someone to be with.
So the two other things were to learn about myself and develop my relationship with God. Learn about myself...well, what do I mean by that? I mean, you'd think with me being an only child that I'd know by now, given all the time I spent with myself. But see, through growing up and even in college, I was often defined by my friends. Depending on what group of friends I was around I would act differently, say different things, and stuff like that. Because of this, I always felt kind of unnatural, always wondering who I REALLY am. And my identity was established by God through the calling of the White Knight, but I never had the opportunity to explore this in greater depth. Ever since I moved over here I've been busy with work and other activities that I never took a whole lot of time to myself. And that leads into my relationship with God, which hasn't improved like I envisioned. I still find myself on a lot of highs and lows, which gets frustrating after awhile. My busy schedule has led me to place events and activities with friends above time with God. I've been disobeying the command in Psalm 46, "Be still and know that I am God." And it's not even that I've been wasting too much time...I don't have a tv connection in my apartment and my Wii hasn't been hooked up since I moved in. So in this next year, it's vital that I keep growing naturally, but truly exercise my faith by learning as much about my Savior as I possibly can.
And to go along with that, this is what I envision for age 24. I want this to be a year marked by hard work. Not work that eventually kills me in the long run, but hard work that will improve my overall life quality and help me realize my goals. Physically speaking, there are a lot of things that I want to accomplish. I'm SO thankful for my buddy Kyle...he brought me along to Planet Fitness, and he's helping me live a physically healthy lifestyle. I've gotten SO much stronger in just 3 1/2 months, to the point where I'm seeing a definite change in my body structure than just a few months before. But I have a list of goals I want to accomplish physically, spiritually, and in other areas.
1) I want to finish a warrior dash (or multiple). They're the 5K runs through the mud. I would have looked into them this past summer, but I haven't been training for that kind of conditioning. I would love to hold those medals on me and say "Yes...I did that." And they look insanely fun too.
2) I want to excel beyond my past skill in baseball. Recently I've felt a calling to return to the ballfield, but in a different venue: baseball ministry. I still don't know how this will take form, but this is also something I have to figure out (see goal #3). But I want to return to my past form and continue excelling beyond that. I want to be content with the knowledge that I could hold my own in the minor leagues (and who knows, maybe try out someday) :)
3) Take a UPI missions trip. UPI is Unlimited Potential Inc., and they do short-term missions trips to different countries to do baseball clinics and stuff like that. This seems like a really neat opportunity, and I think I would get a great deal of insight from taking one of these trips. So if the Lord allows, I will take one of these trips next year and find out more about my dream of baseball ministry.
4) Schedule God-time. This may be the most important thing of all. In order to do anything with ministry, I need to have God by my side and I need to be seeking His counsel every day. And I can't do that if I don't spend time with Him. Today in Sunday School we learned about praying continually, which means being in constant contact with God. We don't have to spend an hour at a time on our knees talking out loud, but God needs to invade every part of our lives, to the point where serving isn't even a thought but a reaction. I just saw a friend's facebook status, saying he talked about theology with a homeless man for a half hour. Know what I did tonight? I saw a lady on my way home that needed a ride somewhere...not sure what her story was, but she needed a ride. And I blew right by her. I often relate my personality to that of Peter in the gospels...well, tonight I felt like him. I felt like Peter in that moment when Jesus' bloody face looked at him after the disowning when the rooster crowed. And just like Peter did, I sat in my car at my apartment and wept bitterly.
It's so easy to put on a Christian t-shirt (which I was wearing tonight) and listen to Christian music (which I was listening to on my right home), and try to live without God's heart. It's far too easy to do that. We don't get judged, we don't get hurt by others, and we're just another face in the crowd that goes about his/her business. THAT'S NOT WHAT THIS LIFE IS ABOUT! This life is about full service, full surrender, total praise to our King. And I've tried many times to serve God on my own will and power. It just doesn't work that way...we need GOD in order to serve God! So while I want to work hard at tasks I have in front of me, I want my directive to be set. I can't even look in the mirror at myself right now because of my shame from tonight. I prayed "God, I can't believe you could love me. I don't even deserve to breathe. I just don't get how you love me." And I don't know if I'll ever truly understand. But y'know what? It doesn't matter if I understand it or not...all I have to do is believe it. And it's easy to believe it, because it's sitting right in the most quoted verse in history: "FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT..." That's the proof...God loves us, end of story. I can't understand how I just disregarded His daughter along the side of the road, and yet He loves me and has already forgiven me. It's baffling. But, He still loves...the Bible said so. And so this is the most important part of this coming year and years after. I want to work hard at my relationship with God. It's pathetic to think that he was tortured for me, and I can't even give Him a few minutes a day. I know I often wait on God to say something to me, but I think we call the Bible "God's Word" and forget that He's talking to us whenever we read it. So I've got quite a year ahead of me. Plenty to learn, plenty of room to grow. And God be with me...here I go.
And as a bonus, listen to this song. Whether it has anything to do with this note or not, it doesn't matter...just listen to the song and let it convict you as much as it is me right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ec7ofMOqVM
