Finding God

About a month ago one of my good friends followed the call of God and moved to Austin, TX to begin a new chapter in his life. He used to serve as the worship leader and associate pastor of the church that I currently attend. He also started a high school youth ministry while he was here. I had volunteered to be a part of the team back in late September, simply to help out where I could and possibly gain some experience in the field of ministry. I had never lead a group of high school teens before, and would never claim to be well-versed in the area of ministry by any means.  I would consider myself to be a fairly "new" Christian, considering that I spent the first nineteen years of my life faking my way through religion. I have never read the entire Bible, I don't have many verses memorized, and I haven't lead anyone to Christ since I was in the second grade. It's clear that I don't have the experience or the expertise anywhere near what is required of ...

It’s time to get dirty. Roll up your sleeves, pick up a shovel, and dig in. If you claim to be a follower of Christ, you better be living out your faith – on a daily basis. So many proclaimed “Christians” live out their entire lives without significantly impacting the lives of those around them. We were not called to live comfortably or casually. We are all called to very specific purposes, ones in which we are to fall in love with our Savior, ultimately compelling us to share the Love that He has so graciously given us to those around us. But how many of us actually do that? Don’t you realize what He has done for us? Don’t you claim to follow Jesus? He died for us. He gave up His very life to save our broken souls from what we deserved – an eternity separated from any semblance of hope. If you have grown up in America, you know full well the promises that this country so proudly offers – “The American Dream”. If you work hard, you will ultimately become wealthy and/or ...

As a follower of Christ, it is easy for me to fall into a routine – going to work, going to class, going to my other job, going to sleep, and initiating the same cycle every morning, five days a week. While I may include a few Biblical or “Christian” activities in my schedule – such as volunteering at a homeless shelter, leading a youth group, or reading my Bible – these actions are only as good as the amount of prayer and preparation that I’ve put into them. Put more simply – living as a true follower of Christ requires intentionality, and I am not intentional. When I work at the downtown homeless shelter, I may be serving the homeless and working poor in a physical way by giving them a hot meal, but I am not serving them spiritually. I can’t think of a time in which I’ve actually prayed before I’ve made my commute to the alley in the city. I haven’t prepared my heart to see the work that God has already started in so many of these peoples’ lives, and I haven’t allowed God to use...

Lately I have come to understand the relationship between myself and my Father in more detail through the simple analogy of love. Though the love we understand may be complex in many ways, as some of you may have experienced in previous relationships, the Love of the Father is so beautifully simple and even more incredible. We, as humans, often consider the love we know on this earth to be wrought with nearly as much pain as joy. This is due to our imperfect and sinful disposition, which can never seem to be fully satisfied short of a supernatural interference. I think that this is one important detail that may explain why it is so difficult for us to understand the full beauty of the Love of Christ. Because we so often feel the need to prove ourselves to other humans, we feel the same urge to attempt to prove ourselves to the One who sculpted every edge of the universe and knit our flesh together. We believe that we can make ourselves look better or have a better chance at salvat...

Life lately for me has been quite tedious and uninteresting. My days are dull and uneventful, and I’ve noticed that moments of true happiness are rare and few. I feel like I have been simply pushing my way through life – through the thirteen-hour workdays and hardly restful nights; through the long, lonely, and boring days at my apartment, and through the notions of apathy that seem to so frequently invade my thoughts. I’ve tried, rather unsuccessfully, to combat the problems currently facing me, but I’ve come to realize that I am in a spiritual rut. I’ve fallen again into the strange comfort of convenient Christianity. I simply go through the motions and choose to believe in a God who is only there for me to get what I want. I never choose to sacrifice anything lest I be robbed of the few comforts I have and choose to hold onto. I find it odd, that though I know that being a follower of Christ is about more than a simple transaction between man and a Deity, I still so of...