Blindfold Obstacle

a group of people, including yourself, stand in a semi-circle listening to directions. the instructions are given and you all take the spots. the color that you once saw drowned out by the blindfold tied around your eyes. You stand on a small platform big enough for your feet to be standing on and that's it. "Alright begin!" a single voice resounds then within a matter of seconds your ears are bombarded with a multitude of voices telling you what step to take next. there is an obstacle course that you are suppose finish without touching the ground,everyone else around is to give you directions, and there is one person in the middle on the obstacle course who once you meet you can grab their hand and they can guide you with their hand and voice but until then they can only vocally direct you. you decipher a few directions that seem to be coming from a couple of different people, your friends, and choose to follow them. first step, complete. so you listen again...a resounding group of voices again. so you take the step again. second step complete. again...listen, go. left foot out with a slight height increase...your foot misses completely and you fall to the grassy ground. unable to remove the blindfold the leaders of the obstacle come and help you up, taking you back to the beginning. as you are led back you wonder what went wrong? why would they led me in a wrong direction? Again you try the course, fail. Again fail. what is going on? at this point so fed up with the blindfold and just want to give up on this stupid obstacle course. And to your fortune this time the leaders remove the blind fold but put on special goggles that won't allow you to look down. You are able to look at those around you and the person in front of you. Your eyes slowly adjust to the light to see that everyone on the sides are blindfolded too. They had a chance to look through the obstacle course but then they were all blindfold. the only person who isn't is the person in the middle. this time you try hard to to focus on the person in the middle but you can't hear them everyone else is too loud. So you try on your own. it worked. alright again. fail. Again and again you try listening to others trying yourself but never being able to accomplish the task. You wearily step up onto the small platform once again. people start barking orders again...you yell above everyone else and ask them to stop talking. The middle person's voice comes clear and you step by step still a little unsteady go father and farther until you reach them. their hand now guide yours allow with their reaffirming voice and within moments you finishing the obstacle course.

This past week there was one these obstacle courses that I've done before at high school and leadership building retreats were brought to my mind, but not in that task so much as the metaphor to life. So often we are like the blindfolded person aimlessly wandering trying to follow the right path. We turn to friends, to family, to people we don't know, to things, but we miss the one person who knows and sees the path that is before us. And all we need to do is listening and lift our eyes to that one being, Jesus Christ.

"If only we took the time to turn our eyes and hearts away from this world, even from the faces of family and friends that surround us, the joys that attract us and distract us, and fix them steadfastly on the face of Jesus, He would manifest himself to our hearts and we would be filled with the consciousness that He is with us."
Absolute Surrender by, Andrew Murray


Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2

fire cracker growth

I had to write an essay recently describing how I want my faith to grow in the next couple of years. rough thoughts:



I want my faith to more than just a word in which I speak but for it to be, vibrant and on fire. Pastor Von is one of the legends here at Caravan Ministries, where I am currently an intern, and he recent spoke to here of a dynamic faith. He told the story of when he was a youth pastor and he asked them if they were believers. They responded with yawns in between their words, “Yeah we’re believers.” Von shook his head at their response. He then took out a fir cracker; the powder already removed, lit it and threw it into the crowd of thirty youth. Instantly they all scattered, some out the doors and others to the edges of the room to see what would happen. When they resumed after the realization of it being a dud, von told them that the reaction they had toward the fire crackers is the reaction they need to have about their faith. Not a half yawned faith but a dynamic faith, one that moves! A faith that can not be contained. A vibrant, dynamic faith. James also speaks on a moving faith, a faith to be lived out not simply a statement.

“What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone?” (James 2:14 NLT)

“So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Now someone may argue, ‘Some people have faith; others have good deeds.’ But I say, ‘How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.’ You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless?” (James 2:17-18 NLT)

I wish to grow in a dynamic moving faith, on that is more than just words. Also knowing that good and bad times will come but to continue to persevere, “…when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” (James 1:2-4 NLT) Knowing of course that I will not be complete until Christ’s return (Philippians 1:6) but to be continually striving, despite circumstances, to be more and more like Christ. That is my ultimate hope that during my life that my faith would be like Jesus Christ and looking in every opportunity to conform to Christ Jesus.

Lyrics and Quotes to ponder

You were bought, at a price you are owned by another...and the only rightful thing to do is to find out His dream, His passion, His desire and spend every last breath you have living it out.
_Brad Bruser

And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
(from the inside out, hillsong united)



Why should anyone hear the gospel twice before everyone has heard it once?
_J. Oswald Sanders


Your Hallowed name, oh may I bear with honor
(Then I shall Live, William Gaither)


Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man… Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory.
_John Piper (Let the Nations be Glad)

Tijuana Roof

Blankly starring at the city lights tonight
Trying to comprehend these spiraling thoughts
Explain to me how this works
Being aware of all I've done
and loving despite?

There's no comparison for me to look to
For understanding
Your love is beyond all

Explain to me how this works

It doesn't fit into the world's mentality
Looking beyond self and pride
Explain to me how this works
Being the All Powerful, Sovereign God
Who deserves it yet gave it all and came to serve.

You've known from teh beginning
What I've done
And to the future of what will be
I am not in my rightful place
Destitute alone on the streets

Cursed by all my life
For its wages are death
And even my life is not enough
I am unworthy

Only the greatness of your love is enough
No longer a slave, these shackles broken
For you love knows my faults
Yet forgets all I've done
No records kept but washed clean

Explain to me how this works

So I may never understand the depths of your love Lord
But one thing I know
That by your love,
I am free

Your love is beyond all

For it is all I'll ever need, its all I'll ever need
You are all I'll ever need

Enough

The sun rises for a new morning. She rises for yet another Sunday morning and all that it holds. The weekly routine sets in; get ready, breakfast, church. She walks in and sits into the back as the pastor adresses the congregation greeting them. He prays opening the service. She stares at the floor and acknowledges the shuffling feet of the praise band walking up to their instruments. He ends the prayer and the songs begin. They begin with a classic praise song one she has sang a million times, and continues to sing without a second thought. During the message her thoughts are just as scattered. She flips through her Bible looking at different passages searching from something but unable to find it. The messages ends, it is communion Sunday. The pastor prays and a song begins as the elders pass out the pieces of bread. A voice in her head whispers, "How free are you? Kneel and praise Me."

She is reminded of something someone said to her once, "We have perfect freedom in Christ and here in the United States we are not confronted with persecution yet on Sunday morning when you hear kneel and praise Me, lift your hands high and exalt My name...we are paralyzed. What will the person behind me think or will the guy standing next to me give me a weird look? How free are you?"

The song ends and the pastor read from Matthew 26, "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body." She ate. The next song began for the juice to be past and again, "How free are you? Kneel and praise Me. " She sat down on her chair thinking surely this would be enough. "Are you not free? Some who praise Me will and have been persecuted for this and you only sit because you are worried of someone's opinion? Are you not free?" She fell to the floor ashamed. The pastor finished reading out of Matthew 26. The praise band led the congregation into another song. Another song she had sang several times before but this time it came alive because she was broken and humbled.

crazy?

I was talking to my friend, she was asking me how things are going. I began to reply with some of the different things I'm thinking through, "schools-which is the best choice, where to go on the field, how to make the best choices to get there, to be faithful here and now (tomorrow is no guarantee), etc." Then I began to explain how God is working in me, "insane when you actually are yearning for Him to change you, you're broken, and open to Him molding you what He'll do. And then to keep your eyes open to see those things. Every day, by the time it is coming to an end, I am more and more in awe and in love with God. something that has been one of those things, is forgiveness. God gave me another glimpse of it last week and I was/am blown away." then I was intending to end with "it's crazy" ... but I couldn't do it because these thoughts ran through my mind:

I started to say it's crazy...but it's not because why should we be shocked by the fact that God fulfills His promises, is Faithful, etc. when He said/says He will be? because if we believe the Bible and all it says then when He says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" why are we shocked when He's always there? Or that He is a provider, protector, faithful, powerful, worthy and then when we see those characteristics why are we surprised? so it's not crazy, it's God. Glory to God!

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I remember in small group when some one will ask, "favorite attributes of God? or ones that mean the most to you right now." I would spout out answers trying to think of all the different ones but saying them with knowledge not heart. But last night one attribute dawned on me. συγχώρεση -forgiveness

Last night my mind got another glimpse of its meaning. How did Jesus bare all my sins that day on the cross and still in knowing them chooses to love me? to use me? Dictionary.com defines forgive as:

1.	to grant pardon for or remission of (an offense, debt, etc.); absolve.

...........-absolve: to set free or release, as from some duty, obligation, or responsibility

2.	to give up all claim on account of; remit (a debt, obligation, etc.).

..........-remit: to refrain from inflicting or enforcing, as a punishment, sentence, etc.

To set free:
Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.-Galatians 4:7 (NAS)

He sets me free from the bondage of sin and then calls me a son (daughter)? ... I am undeserving with all my sin but Jesus made an end of all my sin(Before the Throne Above) then beyond that gives me rights to be His heir...His daughter. And then why is it so often I give power to evil. I sit in unnecessary bondage. I am not a slave. I need to embrace His forgiveness and forget. move on for sin has lost it's power (Marvelous Light)

Forgive and Forget:
I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins. -Isaiah 43:25
...for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. - Jeremiah 31:34
For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. - Hebrews 8:12

That's another thing if I am not bound to sin why dwell? God has forgiven and forgotten. God (love) keeps no record of wrongs. [1 Cor. 13:5]


Now that I think about what I just wrote I don't know if it makes sense all together but...basically I got another glimpse and still I am baffled and I can't fathom it but I am immensely thankful. And in thinking about all of this it just makes even more sense (if I ever needed more then a command) that I go.


Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.
_In Christ Alone

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