Finding God

I’m sure by now you have heard of the events that have been unfolding in Japan. Severe devastation has completely shattered any sense of security for these people; thousands upon thousands of Japanese citizens have been declared dead and still more are categorized as missing. I have to be honest with you. Though the devastation is immense and the affect on these people is so great, I have been having a hard time truly empathizing with these people. It’s not that I don’t care – I can’t imagine having to deal with catastrophe of this magnitude – I simply don’t feel connected in any way. I haven’t watched television since August and I don’t have the internet at my apartment, so I obtain my news from the Wall Street Journal at school or glance at CNN.com while I’m on campus every now and then. I initially heard the news through Facebook that morning. The damage to Japan seemed enormous, and the videos that were being streamed were surreal. Yet despite the conveniences of modern-day tec...

Routines will be the death of me. Each day blurs into the next, causing the week to zip by. It feels like only a couple of weeks ago that I began my senior year of college, but that was six months ago, and I’m preparing to graduate in a little over two months. Time is not my most abundant asset as a full-time business student with two jobs and three volunteer positions, also attending two small groups per week. But despite the breakneck pace of my week, I still find some comfort in filling nearly every spare moment of time with something ‘productive’. At least, that was until Friday night. On Friday night I began to realize that my body was not functioning like it should have been. I became extraordinarily weak and achy, and I hardly slept a wink. So began more than four and a half days of fighting influenza, and I’m still not finished. Not my favorite cup of tea. So far I’ve missed two days of school, my volunteer shift at The Carriage House, and nine hours of work. As ...

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...

You step into the sanctuary of a church. The five-piece band is playing; bar chords from the electric guitar pierce the air, vocalists sway to the music under the primary colors of the stage lighting, and quarter notes pulse in metronomic fashion from the bass drum and through the sub-woofers. Two coffee makers and a tray of doughnuts sit atop a table draped in a black tablecloth, offering boxes sit near the doors, and rows of comfortably plush seating line the sanctuary floor. Everything seems to be in perfect order. But one thing is missing. No one is worshiping. Sure, members of the congregation are singing. Some of them may even be tapping their feet, clapping, or raising their hands. What most of us would describe as modern-day worship is currently taking place, but has our understanding of what is means to truly worship become so narrowly defined as to only include the practice of singing along with a well-rehearsed band in the comfort of million-dollar church structur...

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...

Over the past several weeks I have been exposed to many endearing notions of the Love and Grace of God. This past Saturday, I helped to lead worship for an all-day conference at a local church in which the speakers spoke of the beauty and the continual Grace of our Father. One speaker explained that "grace is opposed to earning, but it is not opposed to effort". In other words, we cannot "earn" our faith or the redemption that comes along with grace. It is only by the Love of our Father that we can be made brand new. We are nothing without Him. We were all given a few books to help us in further understanding what it means to live with an understanding of God's Grace, one of which was The Practice of the Presence of God , by brother Lawrence. It is a short book, but it is packed full of such beautifully simple language that describes the joys and fulfillment that comes along with the presence of God. Brother Lawrence explains that it is essential to spend eve...

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...