Humble! Humble! Humble!

I started this blog not too long ago, and titled it Becoming Humble, because God was humbling me more and more. Somewhere along the way I had forgotten about how God had showed me so much this past summer in Guatemala, and how he was showing me that I needed to be more humble.
It all started when I was asked to help out at one of our worship services at Trinity Baptist College. I was excited to see that I got a Facebook message from the leader of that worship team; until I read the message. This is where my pride kicked in. He asked me to play the sleigh bells at the Christmas service they were having. As a fellow worship leader, guitarist, and drummer, I was quite offended. Now don't get me wrong, he was not by any means insulting me, that was just what I felt. Actually as a freshmen being offered any chance to help in a worship service I was an idiot for not replying to that message. Now instead of truly being upset or offended; I started making jokes about it with others. Pretty much everyone joked around with me about it, but some kinda woke me up.
When I was telling two of my closest friends at Trinity, they were laughing about it with me, but at the same time saying that I need to be more humble. Since we were laughing and joking about it I didn't take it seriously and just moved on with life. When I got home for break, one of the first things my parents asked me was, "are you involved in music up there yet?". I told them about how auditions went and then I told them about the only opportunity I got, since the auditions, was a chance to play sleigh bells. Once again I joked about it with them and they made fun of me (as usual), but my dad made sure I knew that I need to work on being humble. Again someone had corrected me on what I was saying and feeling, but I ignored it because I honestly thought I was humble. When you think of yourself as humble, that's a good indication that you should probably work on being more humble.
I was invited to go on a weekend mens retreat. The focus was meditation on the bible, and we did a few workshops on that. The start of the weekend we just focused on preparing our hearts for what God was going to show us, by giving all our distractions to Him. I was truly prepared for what God had to show me that weekend; which is good, because I was going to need an open mind for this one. The guy who was leading the retreat had given us a few options on passages to meditate on. I chose Phillipians 2:1-13. So I got into a nice secluded spot by the pond, and I opened up my bible to the passage I selected. The title of that section was Imitating Christ's Humility. Ouch! I knew what God wanted to show me that weekend immediately. I actually almost decided to do another passage, but I didn't because I wanted to have change that weekend.
I began reading it, and used the techniques they had taught us for meditating on the Word. After reading it a second time, out loud, I suddenly started seeing what Paul was saying in this passage. All of a sudden, all the instructions of being more humble became very life aplicable to my life. As I continued on I realized how humble Jesus really was. The Son of God humbled himself as a servent and came down to earth, to die for us.... To die for me! Little ole me, who is too prideful to even realize that I need to work on being more humble. Someone who wouldn't play stinking sleigh bells because I thought I was to good for that. Who do I think I am?! I should be burning in hell because of my sin, but the creator of the Universe died for me, who isn't even worthy to call on His name. If I am to even consider myself a Christian, how can I not be humble? How can I think of myself as any better than anyone else? If I am to be a "Christian", which specifically means little Christ, I HAVE to be more humble.
You see, we often forget about how unworthy we are to even be living, and not burning in hell; all because the most powerful being who decided to be humble. Lets try and practice being as humble as Christ, and lets see how we change this world. Philipians 2:13 tells us that God can use anything for his purpose; meaning that God could have used me by playing sleigh bells, for His glory. If we humble ourselves and are open to do anything that God calls us to do we will change this world. BE HUMBLE!

Down Hill Spiral

Life is full of choices. What you do with these choices is totally up to you. They can make or they can break you. From a Christian stand point, their is really just two choices. Are you going to follow Christ or not? Now this sounds like such an easy choice to make right? Well in this day and age we seem to have made a third choice, and that choice is, are you going to follow Him sometimes? The bible clearly states that their are only two options, and this third option is the same as not following Christ, actually God says its worse!
As a Christian who struggles with this problem, I can tell you it's not easy to follow Christ in every situation, everywhere you go, in this world. But, God says we have to, and if you want to please God, and truley follow him, then you need to listen. The christian church has such a bad reputation of housing hypocrites and judgers. The thing is we earned it. It is so sad to see, and be apart of a generation that is leading people away from Christ. I dont know about you, but I want to live like Christ in everything I do.
I have been slowly working this into my life on my college campus. Yes I go to a Christian college but I also play for the soccer team who are not all believers. When I left home to come to Trinity Baptist College I was very strong in my faith, and I was excited to be apart of a school fool of people just like that. The school is great and has some of the strongest, most faithful christians I know, but the soccer team was a diferent story. The soccer team is filled with awesome guys, but mostly not followers of Christ, and then their are some that claim to be followers but dont live the life. I figured my faith was strong enough that I would be able to handle it. Boy was I wrong! It is incredibly frightening how quick I did a down hill spiral. In a about two weeks I was cursing and laughing at inapropriate things, and just being like the rest kf the world. It honestly scared the crap out of me because of how quickly I had turned away from God, after being supposedly " strong in my faith". God woke me up though and I texted some christian mentors back home to pray for me to get out of this trap that satan had caught me in. I got back to reading my bible and talking to God, I stopped cursing all together, and started listening only to christian music again. God wrapped me up in his arms quicker then I had wiggled out of them. I can now say I am stronger in my faith then ever before and you know what? It's not even hard to live for God everywhere I go. It was that simple and easy becahse of God.
If you struggle with this very common disease, then it is a simple solution.... get closer to God. God wants to hold you in his arms and embrace you. All you have to do is let him. I can tell you from personal experience that God will bless you in more ways then you could even imagine. He did for me already. So get out of this down hill spiral and jump up into our Daddy's lap.

Spirtual Gifts

"Spiritual gifts", is a term we here often in church. I think it is a term that is thrown around without much meaning and understanding. I know because I would throw that term around and it didn't really mean to much to me. I mean I know what my gifts are that God blessed me with, but I didn't really know what the point of them were. I could tell you that God gave me the gift of leading music, but all I could tell you the purpose is for, is for leading music at church, and thats it.
Well God woke me up to the purpose of theses gifts on my trip to Guatemala. I lead music for the group that was with me at the hotel every morning and evening. Now I figured that was the only purpose for my gift and I thought that was good enough. Thats a really stupid thought if you think about it because why would God want you to use your gift for those who have already accepted Christ. Of course you do that too, but that shouldnt be the only purpose. God created this giant place for us to use it for his glory. God was really nagging at my heart to bring my guitar to the center and play for the children, but I aways dismissed that idea because I didnt really think would enjoy it much.Well God used another lady in our group to get me to bring it. She wanted me to play when the nannies were having their devotional, so I agreed and brought my guitar along. God sure woke me up to the reason he gave me this gift. I was supposed to just play one song but they asked for more and more. I could really feel God speaking through me too and the ladies were getting the message he wanted them to hear. I was so fired up about finding the purpose for my gift and I ended up bringing my guitar the next day to play for the kids. I was still a little nervous that the kids wouldn't really enjoy it, and that they would go nuts and want to start playing with me. But nothing was going to stop me, so I started by sitting down in the room that I had been working in all week, and just started to play and sing worship songs. Before I knew it I had every single kid in that room sitting down in front of me quitely just staring up at me with this look of awe on their faces. Once again I could feel God speaking through my singing. I got to play for all the kids in the center, and I finally understood the purpose of the gift that God gave me. Not only could I feel God speaking through me, but it brought me closer to all the kids and even nannies at the center.
The importance of using the gifts that God has given you for his glory, I can't stress enough. Now, what if you havn't discovered your spiritual gift? Well I promise you that you have one. All you need to do is pray, and I even find that serving him throughout your entire life can bring you to discover your gift.
God will show you your gift. You just have to be open minded and be preprared to do something you never expected to do. God made you, and God made you to glorify him, and God gave you a gift so that HE could use it to make his name known.
More thought into this and I realized that God created us to glorify him in everything we do, and if our gift is supposed to glorify him then that means, everything that we do that bring glory to God is our spirtual gift. If you look at it that way, then its not so hard to find that one thing that God gifted you with. God gifted you with more than you know, so just glorify him with all these gifts and let God build his kingdom here on earth.

Señora Lupe

It was the last day at the center in Guatemala. The last hour of the day is when you start saying goodbye because it will take that long to let those kids go from your arms. It's an emotional time for all that are involved. 

This year was the first year that I had made a connection with one of the Nannies at the center. All the other years I sort of admired them from a distance, but this year I got very close to a certain Nannie. Señora Lupe was the Nannie for the "Chicks" room. (They name each room according to the age. The babies are canaries, one step up from that is the bunnies. Now you are at the age where they are potty training and that is the chicks room, where I worked. Then the older kids are ducks for boys, and squirrels for girls.) It was the last day, and it was time for the kids to go to the bathroom as usual. A bathroom trip takes a minimum of 45 minutes, and that's if you are lucky. Lupe wanted me to stay back with her and help her by putting all the kid's names up over their cribs, so that it would be easy for the next group to know where each kid sleeps. 

At that time it was just Lupe and I in the room together, and we started to have a conversation. Now keep in mind that Lupe and I had trouble all week trying to understand each other because she didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any Spanish, but God did a miraculous thing. I was able to completely understand everything she said and she could understand everything I said. It was truly remarkable, and incomprehensible. She was telling me how thankful she was to have met me, and that she had me in her room all week. She asked when I would be back, and she was quite disappointed with my answer, "next year", as was I. I did get to tell her that I would be an intern, meaning I would be there for 5 weeks instead of just 1. She was excited about that. She also told me that the kids absolutely loved me, and that all the little girls had a crush on me. ( in fact one of them wanted a picture of me over their bed. What can I say I'm a ladies man....) 

It was great to hear that I had made an impact on her and the kids lives, that no one else had from all the hundreds of groups that have passed through there. I reluctantly said goodbye to all the kids, who dog piled me and gave me kisses that could melt your heart, and then I said goodbye to one of the greatest woman I know, Señora Lupe. With tears in both of our eyes, we gave each other a big hug, and she told me to hurry back. 

This has to be the most touching thing that has happened in my life. God is just truly amazing in how he works, and I will always be grateful for those 45 minutes of mutual understanding between Lupe and I. It just shows how amazing God is, that he can completely take a language barrier away like that, just to show off his spectacular power. God is good!

Leap of Faith

It was day 2 at the Malnutrition Center in Guatemala, on our 4th mission trip there. The kids were starting to warm up to all of the "gringos". One little girl in particular attached herself to me that day, and for the rest of the trip really. When I say attached I mean literally attached. Her name was Adallyne, and she started this game where she would stand on my legs, which was incredibly unstable and dangerous for her to do, and then she would push my hands, that were holding her, away so she could just fall, not knowing where she could land. I had to quickly catch her before she hit the tile floor. Then, if that wasn't enough, little Adallyne started a new game. A game where she would back up and run and jump head first over me legs, to the opposite side of me. I wasn't paying attention all the time because their were 20 other kids to pay attention too, so when she would leap I would see her at the last moment and catch her before injuring her, or the pile of kids she was about to jump into. 

That was I realized that Adallyne had absolutely no doubt in her mind that I was going to catch her every time she leaped. I'm really not sure that she should've had that much faith in me, but it was clear she did. I started thinking about my own life, and how I could apply this to my relationship with God. Adallynes amazing faith to leap into my arms, a guy of the world that makes mistakes every single day of his life, is exactly what Christians are afraid to do with God. You know God, the creator of the universe, the one that made you, oh and the one who loved us enough to send his only son to die on the cross for us, yeah that God. The God that has arms big enough to hold everything that he has created and then some. If this little girl had so much faith to leap into my little human arms, knowing that I would catch her every time..... Why do we have so much problems with this concept?! Especially as Christians, if we were living a life pleasing to Christ, wouldn't that mean we would have the faith to do whatever he desires of us? To leap right off the edge of that cliff, the cliff which represents our, blessed by God, comfortable life style? You see our fear is of this world, but we serve an almighty God that holds this world in the palm of his hand. 

I know I want the faith of little Adallyne to leap no matter what knowing I will be caught. Don't you? Don't you want that worldly fear to be gone? Who is going to have the faith in our generation, or all generations, to leap? To go wherever our God desires us to be? To trust Him with all your life? Who wants to take that leap of faith? I know I do.