Back to the way it was meant to be

Well, it's been a while since my last post again. I've been busy. I'm not going to get into that too much, but it has made me realize something. My idea that I would post more frequently will probably not come to fruition. I think part of it may be that I'm giving myself deadlines. It makes writing too much of a chore. Then it's not that I'm writing because of something I thought of but because I feel I have to. Even if I don't really have anything I want to write about. So, from now on I'm throwing out the idea of posting every other week. It doesn't mean I won't. It just means I'm no longer giving myself that requirement. That way my posts will get back to being what I wanted them to be, ways of sharing my thoughts on things. Then, I think, I will be more likely to actually want to write them. 

So here's my quick recap of things from the last few weeks. Had a costume party to go to a few weekends ago, so leading up to that I spent a decent amount of my free time working on my costume for said party. So for less than probably $10 total, I had my costume:

If you can't tell, I went as Thor. I think that the process of making the costume was almost as much fun as wearing it. Though, my family would probably not agree. Bonus use of the costume was a super-hero themed service project the morning after the costume party. So, that was all a lot of fun. Since then, there's just been a lot of things that add up to taking up all of my free time. Parties of several varieties(barn, surprise, even Christmas), line dancing, spending time with friends and, of course, school. Oh, and I started a new puzzle. It's pretty cool and I like it a lot so far. But let's get on to the meat and potatoes of this post.

I've had a lot of ideas come to mind for what to post over the past few weeks, but every time I would sit down to write something, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Whether it be the fact that I felt I didn't have enough to say about the topic or that I just couldn't find a way to start the post, the words just wouldn't come. Until yesterday. Yesterday, I realized what I wanted to write about.

One of the things that has been a part of my busy life of late is a bible study called Real Men. Our goal is to figure out how we can be the men that God meant for us to be; Real Men as only He can define. At some point I would love to write about that. But not today. Maybe after we've spent some more time on it. Maybe sooner. Today, though, I want to write about something that came up while just chatting after our bible study one night. It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately and found that several of the other guys in the group agreed. I feel like the Church has not been the Church lately. By that I mean that the Church of today is not what it was meant to be from the dawn of Christianity. And when I brought this up, we started talking about getting back to the first Church, becoming like the early Christians. We talked about diving into the word and really trying to figure out how God wanted us to live as Christians within the Church. And that's exactly what I want to do. 

Now the reason I say that it wasn't until yesterday that I realized I wanted to talk about this is that we had had our conversation a few weeks ago, but the busyness of life buried the thought in the back of my head. Yesterday, my daily reading included Romans 12. The heading for verses 9-21 is "Marks of the True Christian"(ESV). This passage gives a pretty simple list of things that we need to do. But there's also a lot of other places in the bible that show us how we can live as true Christians. Then today, I read Romans 14. What that caused me to realize is this; we have many different beliefs when it comes to how we should serve God. This is evident in the fact that we have so many different denominations in the Christian faith. The only reason why we have different denominations is a difference in what we believe is necessary in following God. But as Paul says to the Christians in Rome; "Who are [we] to pass judgement on the servant of another?" It's not about the things we do, but the reasons behind it. So, in figuring out how to live as true Christians, we need to recognize that there are different ways to serve the Lord.

I am going to challenge myself to examine my life in comparison to that of the True Christian Paul writes about. And I am going to try to learn what the Church is meant to be and try to bring it to reality. And I am going to challenge you to do the same with your life.

Changed To Bring Change

I know, I know. I'm already off to a great start with my whole "post more frequently" thing. It's been over 3 weeks since my last post, but I have my reasons. Okay, they're more like excuses. Honestly, the first week since my last post, I didn't have too much happen, so that weekend I had pretty much nothing to write about. Since then, I've gotten super busy. Or at least busy enough that in the times that I do have free, I just haven't felt like writing. I think that part of it is that, at the time of my last post, I hadn't quite gotten into the routine of school quite yet and had underestimated the amount of work I would have to put into this semester. But that's not the only thing that has kept me from writing.

I have recently started to really work on my relationship with God. Part of that has led me to join my church's youth group as a leader of the freshman guys. It's not an incredibly huge time commitment, (a few hours every Sunday night) but so far it has been awesome. In the few short weeks that we've been meeting so far, we've started to get pretty open and honest with each other. And the opportunity to share with my co-leader and the guys has already presented itself as an opportunity for me to grow in my personal relationship with God, as well as being able to help in theirs. And there's lots of fun to be had. Like the weekly challenges before our Bible study - which the freshman guys (team name: Hot Tamales) are dominating in the scoreboards. And the trip to CedarPoint the Saturday before last.

Waiting in line for Millennium Force

And the picture brings me to my next little anecdote from the last few weeks. You may notice that it's not the same ninja from the previous post. Unfortunately, as ninjas are so good at doing, he disappeared the night that I took those pictures. I have a couple ideas where he may have gone, but I highly doubt I will see him again. So, when I was out for dinner with my family the night before the CedarPoint trip I checked the quarter machines on the way out. Lo and behold, they had the exact same ninjas. So, I quickly fished a quarter out of my pocket, inserted it into the slot and reached for my prize. So there's a new ninja to name (and frankly I kind of like the daggers this one has a lot more than the grappling hook of the previous).

I'll share just one more of my recent distractions with you before I get to some of my thoughts of the past few weeks. This July, I took a motorcycle safety course and got my cycling endorsement. Since then, I've been riding a Suzuki Boulevard S40 that my dad picked up for my mom and me to learn to ride on. A little over a week ago, I bought my own bike, a 1982 Suzuki GS850L. It needs a little work. So, I've been doing a little work on it. And that takes time.

My new baby

 One of the things I've been paying a bit more attention to as of late is worship songs. Or rather, the lyrics of the worship songs. One common theme I've noticed in worship songs is the idea of darkness and God's power over it. I love the ideas that these songs portray to us, but the truth is, they aren't completely true. Don't get me wrong, I know that God has power over the darkness. I just think that some of the things we sing don't really hold up. There's probably many other songs that talk about darkness, but the two examples I had come to mind are both by the Newsboys. The first is I Am Free, in which there is a line that says, "Through You the darkness flees". This is beautiful.And I believe one hundred percent true. The only thing that the darkness flees from is God. And it is only through Him that it flees. The second song is a different story. He Reigns. Another beautiful song. Another mention of darkness. But this one I have a little bit of a problem with.

"And all the powers of darkness

Tremble at what they've just heard

'Cause all the powers of darkness

Can't drown out a single word"

This is such beautiful imagery. I love the way it sounds. I love singing it. But the last time that we sang it in church, I had a different thought come to my mind. The truth is that the powers of darkness can drown out our words. They do it all the time. If it weren't for the powers of darkness, everyone would be brought to Christ. How else could someone hear the Gospel (the Good News) and not come to Christ. But there are powers of darkness that drown out the words of truth. Even in those who have come to Christ, we see the powers of darkness at work. We know the things that we ought to do, but we do not do them. And the things we do not want to do, we do. That's the powers of darkness drowning out the words of truth in our hearts. But the fault isn't in the words of truth. Nor is it in the powers of darkness. It's in ourselves. We are the ones that allow the darkness to defeat the truth. Yes, for most, it isn't a conscious choice. People don't typically think Today, I want to do something wrong. Something evil. But we are sinful in nature and that is what gives the darkness power over us. And it takes a conscious choice to battle that. We must decide to do good. And that is only possible through God.

Which brings me to another song that made me think over the past few weeks. I'm not exactly sure what the name of it is. I've even tried searching for it, but to no avail. The lyrics that I want to focus on though are "I have been changed, to bring change, to bring change." I think this is a great thing for us to remember. And it ties in to the idea of darkness. When we encounter Christ, especially when we decide to live our lives for Him, it changes who we are. And what we need to remember is that it can't stop there. We are changed to bring change. We have to be a light to the world or else the powers of darkness won't even have anything to drown out. 

If we aren't bringing Christ to the world, we have basically surrendered to the darkness.