It's been an interesting week. I got some good news on Thursday. Howard Payne finally got all my paper work, so I'm officially in the system now. I signed up for my summer classes and am already dreading them all. The family and I went out to lake Brownwood to celebrate some birthdays, which was a great excuse for me to go fishing. I came down to Goldthwaite Friday night and will be here until next Saturday. I'll be honest I'm not really looking forward to spending all week here, but it will give me a chance to catch up on some reading I've been wanting to do and see my family before I start all the stuff I'm doing this summer.
I'm really excited to see that some of my friends have entered the blogging world and can't wait to see what ideas/topics/random stuff comes from them as the days go by. You should check out their pages as well in my links column. Pray for them as they go through their daily struggles and that they would live their lives, not for themselves, but for Christ.
Kaylen and I have started doing a devotional together. It was recommended by some awesome friends. It's been an interesting experience thus far and I'm very excited to see what God has in store for us as we move down this journey together. Pray for us that we can learn and grow closer to God together.
The past couple of weeks have been stressful and the events of this last week really relieved some of that pressure but I know that there is more to come. I've really come to understand just how much I've been blessed to have the friends and family that I have. Pray that God continues to use me and that I allow myself to be used.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
It's all part of the plan!!
As I sit in an Arkansas hotel room and try to come up with a cool title for this blog (like the big time bloggers [not you nic]), I feel very anxious. I've been in the car for about 8 hours the last two days and have another 5 to go in the morning. I got to see an interesting part of my family (I keep reminding myself I'm in Arkansas), and attend the most unusual funeral service I've ever been to in my life. After lunch today, I made my daily call to Howard Payne to see if maybe, just maybe, today will be the day that they get all my transcripts and we can move forward in the process with them. I'm ready to be back in Denton, to rest in my own bed, to spend some time with Kaylen, to see my friends, to get out of the car, to go on vacation with my family, to go fishing, to find out what next year is going to look like. As I examine all of this spinning in my head, I realize that "I'm ready" and "I'm getting frustrated" are common themes in everything that is going on with me lately.
"He has made everything beautiful in his time" Ecc. 3:11
Father,
Help me to realize that things don't run on my schedule. Help me to see that you have made things beautiful in your time and not mine. Give me patience and understanding in this mess that I call a life. Amen.
"He has made everything beautiful in his time" Ecc. 3:11
Father,
Help me to realize that things don't run on my schedule. Help me to see that you have made things beautiful in your time and not mine. Give me patience and understanding in this mess that I call a life. Amen.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
It's a Family Tradition
This has been a very eventful weekend. I have to say that one of my favorite things to do is to head down to Austin one of the first weekends in May and watch some great athletes run in the State Track Meet. I also enjoy this weekend because I get to spend it with my family. Here's an update on how the weekend went:
- Drove the three hours from Denton (always fun) and got to G-Town on Thursday afternoon.
- Friday around lunch we loaded up and made the trip to Austin, making stops along the way to do some shopping.
- After checking-in at our hotel, Dad and I headed off to the stadium to watch the 3A and 4A portion of the meet.
- We got in to the meet and headed to our favorite spot in front of the pole vault pits. We were then joined by some good friends and got to watch a good bunch of running.
- We left later that night and along the road home, got some good Freebirds, and then got some good rest for our day at the meet on Saturday.
- Saturday morning got off to an abrupt start with the fact that we had NO hot water in our room. The hotel hotwater heater was out and we were all forced to take COLD showers.
- We were told that they were trying to fix the problem and decided to head off to the meet and hope they had it fixed by the time we got back.
- We got some food, sunscreened up, and got set for what was to be one of the hottest days yet. We watched a good meet, sweated alot of sweat, and got a little burned by the sun, but for the most part had a really good time.
- Then it got busy. We got back to the hotel looking for a shower and rest before dinner, but were met with a suprise. The hotel hadn't finished fixing the hot water and offered us a discount on the rooms. We then took our tired bodies and move our stuff to a new hotel.
- After a much needed HOT shower, we go grab some ice cream from coldstone, and did a little more shopping.
- Sunday we got up, packed up, and headed off to get some cajun food for lunch and had a little celebration for my mom. We then headed to Cove to see my uncle and granny. We got home Sunday evening just in time for a little rest before starting another week.
I've been going to this meet since I was in the 2nd grade, missing only three years. It's always been something that i've looked forward to doing. It started as a father-son thing and evolved into a family thing a few years later. Being able to spend that time with my dad is always something that I will treasure. It's not everyday that you get to spend time with a Dad like mine, doing something you love. My Dad is one of my biggest heroes and is an inspiration as a godly man. Spending time with him, watching a sport that we both love, is such a joy.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
New Starts, Life, and a Funeral for me
Well.....
I don't even really know where to start. I was sitting in my bed, doing a short devotional tonight/this morning, and I started thinking about where I am with God. There are so many times when I feel totally disconnected from him and even start to wonder if he really is there. I've come to this point numerous times in my spiritual journey and can never figure out how I get out of this feeling alone or why I keep coming back to this point. Then I am reminded of the numerous times I have been told that I should be journaling my experiences and that by doing this I can look back on where I have been and this will help me move forward. So I pull out a notebook and a pen and look at the blank page. "I can't write all this stuff going on in my head" I say to myself, "there is too much to write and I don't want to spend the time physically writing all this stuff down." So then I realize that I should type it on my laptop, and off of that thought comes one that I should blog. Just to make it clear, (even though it's pretty evident seeing my number of blogs) that I am completely horrible at this blog thing. I'm pretty sure nobody will read them. I look at people who blog almost everyday and wonder where they find the time, but then I look at myself and the stuff that I do everyday and see that I totally have the time to do this. So all that being said, I'm going to ATTEMPT to be more consistent with this. No promises are being made, but I really feel that this is going to help me (and maybe some of you) move along this spiritual journey.
So to catch everybody up on what's been going on in my life over the past year (yeah it's been that long), I moved out of the dorms in May of 2007 into my first apartment. YEAH for me! Anyways, I lived in Denton over the summer and found out just how much fun life can be and suck at the same time when you don't live with your parents. I spent the first part of the summer working some summer camps and just basically living it up with my friends. Then in July, I got a job working in Arlington/Lewisville, making sandwiches at a place called Firehouse Subs. Not too bad a job, or so it seemed at the time, and it was paying the bills. I was working with my roommate at the time and things were going pretty good. Then before I knew it the summer was gone and I was back in school. I had started to work my way into a few of my major classes and thought that things were going pretty much the way that I had planned for them to go. This is the point where God steps in and changes things up completely. I didn't find anything I was learning enjoyable and dreaded every class that pertained to my major. I was doing horrible in school and the stress of it was killing me. I didn't understand. This is what I wanted, this is what God wanted, but it wasn't and I knew it. I was to the point of running from God. I had made up my mind that I wanted to finish school, become a basketball coach in a small town, have a house out in the country, raise a few kids, and enjoy life with my wife. I would follow through with God's plan by doing all this. The only problem was that these plans that I had made, they didn't at all involve God. They were what I wanted for my life to become. They were what I had envisioned as being the perfect life.
I've felt God calling me to a life of missions for some time now. I never really understood quite what that meant but I knew that this was definitely what God wanted from me. I ran from it, literally as far as I could. I tried to get away, but the funny thing about God is that you can't get away. He is always there. Waiting on you to come back. Knowing all along that you will be back, and in the weakness that brings you back, he will make you strong.
I told my parents before Christmas of 2007 that I felt that God wanted me in the mission field. I told them that I was considering changing school and looking for a college that would help prepare me for my journey with God in the mission field. I move into an apartment by myself, signed a short lease that would allow me to move out after the Spring semester, signed up for a few basic courses, and started the process of looking for that perfect school that would be exactly where God wanted me. I had just one thing that I did not want to see happen. I DID NOT....IN ANY WAY......NOT EVEN CLOSE.....want to attend Howard Payne University. It's too close to home and i'll get made fun of by my close friends if I go there. So I started looking at other colleges. I look far and wide. In state, out of state, Baptist, non-denominational, bible college, mission college, I looked everywhere. I visited a few, talked to a few on the phone, spent a ton of time on the internet looking. People would help me, by telling me of different ones that they had heard of or knew something about. I would look, maybe even become interested in a place, and then something would go wrong. They wouldn't believe the way I did, the school cost too much, the program had way too many hours, I didn't see eye-to-eye with the staff at the school, they didn't have the programs I was looking for......the list could go on forever. So after getting tired of my parents asking, I visited Howard Payne. We took a tour (I'd seen it before), we talked with Financial aid (they told us nothing new), I got a T-Shirt(wooo), and then right before we left, I got to meet some of the professors, specifically the one that would be dealing with me. I made my decisions based on two things she said: 1. That we want to not only invest in your life through your education, but also through where you go after you leave us, and 2. That we aren't always about the theology of it all, but are about loving people the way Jesus loves them. I was sold. If anybody could some up the way I view ministry, it's with that. Loving people the way Jesus loves them. I didn't want to go to Howard Payne, I'm still not sure I do, but God wants me to. I don't want to leave all my Denton friends, Overflow ministries, my girlfriend that I love with all my heart, but God wants me to. It's been tough. I don't like it sometimes. It would be so much easier to just do it the way I want to do it, but that's not what it's about. It's about obediance to Christ. And so i've come to this conclusion: It's Not About Me.
Ponder that statement. Does you life look like mine did (and still does sometimes)? Do you make it about you? Or something bigger than you?
I don't even really know where to start. I was sitting in my bed, doing a short devotional tonight/this morning, and I started thinking about where I am with God. There are so many times when I feel totally disconnected from him and even start to wonder if he really is there. I've come to this point numerous times in my spiritual journey and can never figure out how I get out of this feeling alone or why I keep coming back to this point. Then I am reminded of the numerous times I have been told that I should be journaling my experiences and that by doing this I can look back on where I have been and this will help me move forward. So I pull out a notebook and a pen and look at the blank page. "I can't write all this stuff going on in my head" I say to myself, "there is too much to write and I don't want to spend the time physically writing all this stuff down." So then I realize that I should type it on my laptop, and off of that thought comes one that I should blog. Just to make it clear, (even though it's pretty evident seeing my number of blogs) that I am completely horrible at this blog thing. I'm pretty sure nobody will read them. I look at people who blog almost everyday and wonder where they find the time, but then I look at myself and the stuff that I do everyday and see that I totally have the time to do this. So all that being said, I'm going to ATTEMPT to be more consistent with this. No promises are being made, but I really feel that this is going to help me (and maybe some of you) move along this spiritual journey.
So to catch everybody up on what's been going on in my life over the past year (yeah it's been that long), I moved out of the dorms in May of 2007 into my first apartment. YEAH for me! Anyways, I lived in Denton over the summer and found out just how much fun life can be and suck at the same time when you don't live with your parents. I spent the first part of the summer working some summer camps and just basically living it up with my friends. Then in July, I got a job working in Arlington/Lewisville, making sandwiches at a place called Firehouse Subs. Not too bad a job, or so it seemed at the time, and it was paying the bills. I was working with my roommate at the time and things were going pretty good. Then before I knew it the summer was gone and I was back in school. I had started to work my way into a few of my major classes and thought that things were going pretty much the way that I had planned for them to go. This is the point where God steps in and changes things up completely. I didn't find anything I was learning enjoyable and dreaded every class that pertained to my major. I was doing horrible in school and the stress of it was killing me. I didn't understand. This is what I wanted, this is what God wanted, but it wasn't and I knew it. I was to the point of running from God. I had made up my mind that I wanted to finish school, become a basketball coach in a small town, have a house out in the country, raise a few kids, and enjoy life with my wife. I would follow through with God's plan by doing all this. The only problem was that these plans that I had made, they didn't at all involve God. They were what I wanted for my life to become. They were what I had envisioned as being the perfect life.
I've felt God calling me to a life of missions for some time now. I never really understood quite what that meant but I knew that this was definitely what God wanted from me. I ran from it, literally as far as I could. I tried to get away, but the funny thing about God is that you can't get away. He is always there. Waiting on you to come back. Knowing all along that you will be back, and in the weakness that brings you back, he will make you strong.
I told my parents before Christmas of 2007 that I felt that God wanted me in the mission field. I told them that I was considering changing school and looking for a college that would help prepare me for my journey with God in the mission field. I move into an apartment by myself, signed a short lease that would allow me to move out after the Spring semester, signed up for a few basic courses, and started the process of looking for that perfect school that would be exactly where God wanted me. I had just one thing that I did not want to see happen. I DID NOT....IN ANY WAY......NOT EVEN CLOSE.....want to attend Howard Payne University. It's too close to home and i'll get made fun of by my close friends if I go there. So I started looking at other colleges. I look far and wide. In state, out of state, Baptist, non-denominational, bible college, mission college, I looked everywhere. I visited a few, talked to a few on the phone, spent a ton of time on the internet looking. People would help me, by telling me of different ones that they had heard of or knew something about. I would look, maybe even become interested in a place, and then something would go wrong. They wouldn't believe the way I did, the school cost too much, the program had way too many hours, I didn't see eye-to-eye with the staff at the school, they didn't have the programs I was looking for......the list could go on forever. So after getting tired of my parents asking, I visited Howard Payne. We took a tour (I'd seen it before), we talked with Financial aid (they told us nothing new), I got a T-Shirt(wooo), and then right before we left, I got to meet some of the professors, specifically the one that would be dealing with me. I made my decisions based on two things she said: 1. That we want to not only invest in your life through your education, but also through where you go after you leave us, and 2. That we aren't always about the theology of it all, but are about loving people the way Jesus loves them. I was sold. If anybody could some up the way I view ministry, it's with that. Loving people the way Jesus loves them. I didn't want to go to Howard Payne, I'm still not sure I do, but God wants me to. I don't want to leave all my Denton friends, Overflow ministries, my girlfriend that I love with all my heart, but God wants me to. It's been tough. I don't like it sometimes. It would be so much easier to just do it the way I want to do it, but that's not what it's about. It's about obediance to Christ. And so i've come to this conclusion: It's Not About Me.
Ponder that statement. Does you life look like mine did (and still does sometimes)? Do you make it about you? Or something bigger than you?
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