Rejoice Instead

Sometimes it’s hard for me to realize that I don’t always need to be around “church kids” to see who God is through others. He often teaches me powerful life lessons when I’m not constantly around other Christians. Sometimes I learn the best when it’s just Him, the world, and myself, because when I read my bible or I pray or I just think, I don’t have other people’s opinions influencing my thoughts. Sometimes it’s just better to hear what God has to say directly rather than through other people. Not always, but sometimes.

I think one of my favorite stories I’ve read in the whole Bible is in Acts chapter 8. In this chapter, Phillip is sent by an angel of the Lord to Gaza to share the Gospel with the people there. On his journey, he meets an Ethiopian eunuch reading a passage from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit tells Phillip to go talk to the eunuch, so he does. Phillip asks the eunuch, “Do you understand what you are reading?” and the eunuch responds, “How can I unless someone explains it to me?” Phillip shares the Gospel with this eunuch, he accepts it, gets baptized, and they both go their separate ways, rejoicing, to share what they have learned with other people they meet. (My summary is not as effective as the story itself, if you want to check that out go to Acts 8:26-40).

I’ve heard several sermons on this passage, and they have been focused on Phillip and his boldness in sharing the Gospel with a man he never met. Recently I read it, and I put myself in the place of the Ethiopian eunuch rather than in Phillip’s. Whenever I have had someone come and share something with me as life changing as Phillip did with the eunuch, I want that person to stick around for a long time, not just tell me what they know and leave my life forever.

I find that more often than not, God doesn’t keep those life changing people, or “Phillips” around for a long time. I think if He did, we would forget how to appreciate different people’s opinions. God often takes us away from people so we can learn new lessons from new people, and we can take the things we learned from the Phillips in our lives and teach them to the eunuch’s we will come across on our journey.

The thing that stuck with me the most was that the Ethiopian eunuch did not get upset that he would never see Phillip, a man who God used to change his life, ever again. Instead of being upset, he “went on his way rejoicing,” being joyful of the things he learned.

I need to be more like that. I need to learn to rejoice about the things and the people God placed in my life for a time, rather than being upset that they are no longer there. I need to learn to take what I learned from those people and share it with different people so they can be just as encouraged as I was.

I think we could all be a little bit more like the Ethiopian eunuch and rejoice over the things God has given us, rather than being upset over that fact that He has taken them away. 

Little Things

Last summer I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to experience Lake Ann Camp in a way I had never seen it before. I was chosen the summer before to be a part of their Reborne Rangers program, a program that encourages high school students to step out of their comfort zones and hone in on their leadership skills. That week at camp changed my life, and I will never forget it. But there was one night that I will always specifically remember.

Tuesday night we sat in the Welcome Center as a group waiting for our next session to start. The lead singer of the Cedarville’s worship band, Heartsong came in and our counselor JB asked him to play a couple of songs. He was more than willing, and that night I saw some of the most beautiful worship and prayer I had ever seen in my entire life.

Before then I was not living in a way God would have wanted me to live. Sometimes I forget how important it is to stay connected to the body of Christ. That night God showed me that there are people who want to support me, love me, and fight along side me in my life. He showed me that if I need it, He will send people to pray, laugh, cry, and live with me. It is because of that night and those people that I see God the way I do now. And I will never forget it.

I have been reflecting on that week of camp a lot lately, and if I could go back and re-live it I would in a heart beat. It was full of stories and life changing times that God used to mold me into the person I am right now. One week in comparison to my entire life is not a very long time, but God uses small things to do big things.

Another personal example of God using small things to do big things in my life is a simple conversation I had recently. I went to one of my teachers for help with schoolwork, and before I even realized it I ended up telling her a little bit of my testimony. She asked me why I didn’t end up in the same type of lifestyle as some of the people around me, and I said it was because I found Jesus. When I said that, we just kind of looked at each other and smiled. She’s a believer as well, and that conversation was one I think both of us were kind of waiting to happen all year to make sure our assumptions were right in the things we thought about each other. I was getting ready to walk out of class, and she looked at me and said, “How are you and Jesus doing now?” She’s my teacher, she sees me every day and the way I interact with people on a regular basis, and she knows me pretty well for a teacher,  so she could tell something was up. It’s not that difficult to tell when someone you know pretty well is not as good spiritually or emotionally as they usually are. I responded, “Alright, it gets kinda hard sometimes but we always end up working through it.” I said something about salvation that I can’t quite remember, and she said, “Just remember, once you have it, it’s something you can never lose.”

That comment stuck with me. It rolled around in my head for days. When I get stuck in a rut spiritually I tend to blame it on God and think He’s moving further away from me as time goes on. That simple statement was a seed that sprouted into a tree in my head and it brought me back to reality. I was living my life like my salvation was slipping away slowly but surely, but that made me realize, if anything, I was slipping away, not God.

To me, one of the most beautiful things about God is that He uses small things to bring our attention to bigger things. There was one week out of my entire life that changed my walk with Christ 100%, and one conversation from a person I will probably rarely, if ever, talk to again after high school. Without those two circumstances, who knows where my life would be now? I fully believe in the fact that God will bring His children back to Himself with whatever it takes, but I’m glad the little things are all it took for me.

I love little things. Simple things are what the Gospel is essentially based off of. I think the church turns it into some deep theological concept that no one can easily wrap their minds around, but the bottom line is that God loves you.

God loves you.

It doesn’t get much simpler than that, and that’s the key to understanding life I think. To know and believe with all your heart, mind, soul and strength that God loves you, and to love Him the same way, and it seems easy but you’ll find that it isn’t always a walk in the park. Just know that when you need it most, God will bring along someone or something to show you that He is still there.

So don’t forget the simple truths, and don’t overlook details, because sometimes those are the only things we need in life.

Carpe Diem

You spend too much time living in the future that you overlook the blessings today can hold.
Sure, your future is bright, and you're the only one who can make it any different,
But the future isn't now.
Right now is the only opportunity you'll have to smile at someone, and to show them love and kindness that you may never be able to show them again.

A teacher once told me, "If you learn nothing else from me this year, I want you to learn the meaning of carpe diem." He meant literally, to learn and remember that carpe diem means seize the day. But that taught me that I need to learn how to seize the day.

I will seize today, as much as I look ahead to the future, I will embrace right now with open arms. I will learn to appreciate my friends, family, and circumstances as they are right now because they could totally change tomorrow.

The future cannot happen without the building blocks of today, tomorrow, and yesterday. But this moment is the only thing we are guaranteed.  So look forward to the future, but don't lose appreciation for today.

Change

The only constant thing is change.
We need to learn to love it
Or we will never love our lives.

Juggling Democracy

Nothing really ties us down,
We have nothing to be.
That is probably why complacency
Has struck the land of the free.

We have nothing to fear,
We have nothing to hide,
We have nothing to lose,
We have nothing to gain
In this endless game of democracy.
Because no one will ever win.

Closer to Reality

The sunset was burning the brightest reds, pinks, yellows and oranges I had ever seen. It was like a painting. It was beautiful. That whole evening was just beautiful in general, because the weather was perfect and I got to spend time with some of my best friends for the first time in a long time. We were driving down the highway in my friend’s convertible when I asked if we could pull over so I could take a nice picture of the sunset and of everyone together again. They refused, so I attempted to take it anyway, but I couldn’t seem to get it right. With the car always moving and trees always getting in the way I just couldn’t get the photo. I was upset, because that sunset made me happy. My friends made me happy. But they didn’t want to stop for even a minute so I could get that picture. If they asked why I wanted it so badly I wouldn’t have been able to answer. It was just something I felt I needed, and I couldn’t get it because they just wouldn’t stop.

So we continued, traveling down the highway at a speed that would have gotten my friends license taken away if she got pulled over. I gave up on the picture at this point, sat back, and clung to the car for dear life. I told her to slow down but everyone else was encouraging her to go faster. I kept yelling “Slow down, slow down!” and praying that a police officer would come by and pull her over. We were coming around a bend and she tried to turn, but she lost control. Our car went spinning off the road and over the guardrail.

All I could hear was crushing branches and heavy breathing. I think we were too scared to scream, or maybe we did and I just couldn’t hear it.

I woke up at that point, in a cold sweat and crying. It was all just a dream; we were all sleeping quietly in our beds dreaming the night away. I went back to sleep, and as I drifted away I realized, that dream was far closer to reality that I thought.