04/29/12

Thank You Abba. Thank You for Seth's bachelor party yesterday. Thank You for teaching me about the urban farm. Thank You for a beautiful day. For the Blue Like Jazz date. For my brothers and sisters in the Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility. Comforter I want more of You in my life.

Jesus set the captives free! Please use me as I serve the young men of the SJCF. I wish prisons didn't exist. I wish Your love would be clearly displayed to the ends of the earth. I wish instead of the constitution this country went by Your law. Spirit I pray that You save me from culture that is opposed to Your law. Use me to show these children Your love and just how valuable and holy they are in Your eyes.

Save me from the comfortable, prosperous, lukewarm Christianity in America. Help me to pick up my cross and follow You to my death. Help me lose this life in order to find Your life. Help me become poor in this life to find wealth in You. Help me to become weak in this life in order to find Your strength. I want to become foolish to this world and wise to You. I want to become a doulos to You so that I may truly be free.

Elohim, shine Your love through me to the homeless, to the imprisoned, to the forgotten, to the powerless, to the invisible to the meek for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. Thank You for Your amazing grace.

Amazing Because It Is - The Almost

04/26/12

You are a good and redeeming God, Abba. Last night Bea and I hung out with Travis after bible study at the vine. You are a good God. You have blessed my life beyond understanding. From running water in my house, to having a house at all, eating three meals a day, experiencing Your presence, friends like Brian, Travis, Freado, Kelly, Ed, and so many more, a job that I love and allows me to serve my brothers and sisters too, this body to be able to move freely without pain and fatigue, education, community, and a woman named Bea.

Thank You Adonai, I am so wealthy. You have made me unbelievably rich! Thank You for today, thank You for Your sacrifice. Fill me daily and pour me out daily.

When You walked this earth You loved to party!

The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!
-Matthew 11:19

Jesus I want to live like You. I want to feast and drink with sinners! I want my life to be so full of love and grace that people look at my life and call me a glutton and a drunkard. I want more of Your Kingdom on earth.

A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations...‘Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ After the servant had done this, he reported, ‘There is still room for more.’ So his master said, ‘Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full.
-Luke 14

The Kingdom of Heaven will be a huge banquet filled with the least the last and the lost of this world. Most importantly You will be there. We will have the most precious thing of all, Your presence.

Glory to You Jesus, just thinking about a banquet filled with the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, the forgotten, the invisible, the broken, the imprisoned, the powerless, the orphaned, the widowed, the betrayed, and You Abba throwing the whole thing looking more magnificent than any red carpet event, than anything money can buy, than any party the worshipers of Mammon could put together.

Treasures in Heaven don't rust, living water satisfies eternally, Your Kingdom and Your banquet is so glorious. I cannot stop thanking You, it will never be enough to illustrate my gratitude. All praise, glory, honor, thanks, and power is Yours.

Live Forever - Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors

04/22/12

Could I be equally useful to the Lord if married, or would it inevitably curtail my usefulness to him? The quantity of time available for Christian involvement may be reduced once we are married, but its quality may be enhanced. At all events, I have no right to marry unless I have honestly faced the question of the impact marriage will have on my Christian life and service.
-Michael Green

Which is more precious to You El Shaddai, quantity or quality of time? My heart knows the answer. But the question still remains what do You want me to do? What impact will marriage have on my relationship with You? As I revisit this question of how You want me to live this life which is a living sacrifice to You I am reminded of my perspective 95 days ago. Is marriage selfish? Or rather is it an opportunity to give up my life and focus on lifting up and serving one person intimately?

...you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.
-1 Peter 3:7

What if I spent my life honoring one person. Treating her with understanding. Making her weaker voice heard in this broken world. After the fall You cursed women by saying: And though you will have desire for your husband, he will rule over you. Thus throughout all the history of this world men have ruled civilizations and cultures. But in christian marriage "she is your equal partner in God's gift of new life." In this new life women's equality is restored and in marriage it is my responsibility to use my voice as a man to make sure her voice as a woman is heard in this patriarchal world.

What if I spent my life being her advocate like the Holy Spirit is to the church?
What if I spent my life being her servant like the Messiah did to the church?
What if I spent my life being her groom, loving her like God's marriage to the church?

What if marriage isn't selfish at all but rather it is living completely for that other person. To be Your encouraging leadership, to be Your comforting hands, to be Your counseling voice in this world. To have You pour Your character into me and thus pour out into her. To sacrifice this life You've given me through the sacrifice of Your life to show Your furious relentless love to one person, one woman.

Was it selfish of You to die on the cross so that You could be happy with us in Your presences? When I think about marriage in this way, when I rephrase the question and shift my perspective the idea that marriage is selfish seems to become one of the most absurd concepts ever uttered.

The fact remains, today I am not married today I am not engaged to be wed.
The question remains, could I be equally useful to You if married, or would it inevitably curtail my usefulness?

When we define our happiness by some point in the future, it will never arrive. We'll keep waiting until tomorrow. If we allow impatience to govern us, we will miss the gift of the moment. We'll arrive at that point in time we expected to provide fulfillment and find it lacking.
-Josh Harris

Today I am not married. Today Your presences is sufficient for me. Now I see marriage isn't selfish it is the act of dying to myself daily in order to serve and lift up one of Your daughters. To help my sister keep pushing forward no matter how dark, injured, and hate filled this world may appear to her. Because that is exactly what Rabboni did for me on the cross and Paraclete does for me daily.

Faint Not - Jenny & Tyler

where there is hatred, let me sow love
where there is injury, let me pardon
where there is darkness, let the Light come

04/20/12

A Womans Question - Lena Lathrop

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
Ever made by the hand above?
A woman's heart, and a woman's life--
And a woman's wonderful love.

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
As a child might ask for a toy?
Demanding what others have died to win
With the reckless dash of a boy.

You have written my lesson of duty out,
Manlike, you have questioned me.
Now stand at the bars of my woman's soul
Until I shall question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,
Your socks and your shirt be whole;
I require your heart be as true as God's stars
And as pure as His heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef,
I require a far greater thing;
A seamstress you're wanting for socks and shirts---
I look for a man and a king.

A king for the beautiful realm called Home,
And a man that his Maker, God,
Shall look upon as he did on the first
And say: "It is very good."

I am fair and young, but the rose may fade
From this soft young cheek one day;
Will you love me then, 'mid the falling leaves
As you did 'mong the blossoms of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and true,
I may launch my all on its tide?
A loving woman finds heaven or hell
On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,
All things that a man should be;
If you give this all, I would stake my life
To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot be this, a laundress and cook
You can hire and little to pay;
But a woman's heart and a woman's life
Are not to be won that way.

But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it?
-Jesus

a woman's heart is the costliest thing ever made by the hand above. But it is also the crown of creation. Creation comes to it's high point, its climax with her. She is God's finishing touch.

Avinu thank You for healing. I thank You for redemption. I thank You for marriage. For people, for relationships.

Abba I can't believe where I am right now. How thankful my heart is towards You how freaking rich I am! To wake every morning sipping coffee reading Your word through the steam off the top of the mug. To use this body You've given me to work the very dirt it was created from. To test the limits of this physical body and in doing so extending the limits. To learn more about You and this world, to sharpen my mind through study. Then the most pleasing of all, to lay on Your green carpet staring at Your endless blue ceiling with my friend close by admiring the beauty of both Your creation of this world and her eyes.

The warmth and smile she brings as she tells me about her day and how You romanced her. Spending time next to her studying the bread of life reading the sword of the Spirit. I don't have a wife and I don't know if You want me to have one or not. But tomorrow will bring its own worries today is all that I have and it is more than enough for me. Everything in this world passes away. You are everlasting, All I need to be perfect and complete is You Jesus. I am content spending my mornings alone with You. I am content spending my life alone with You. Anything more than Your presences is a blessing from You and it will only stir my heart to praise You more. For what You have done for me even the air in my lungs is far more than I could ever deserve or begin to earn. It is out of Your unending grace that this short single life You've given me is in anyway joyful.

Thank You Jesus for today.

04/14/12

Today is Blake and Myra's wedding day. What an incredible gift marriage is to us from You, Abba. Tomorrow is Brandon's bachelor party also.

For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her. Husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself.
-Ephesians 5

In marriage we are called to love our wives like You love the church. Marriage is a giving up of our lives for this other person to become holy and clean.

In Heaven we, Your church, are Your bride. We are made glorious without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish through Your sacrifice. We will be holy and without fault.

Will Jesus serve us in Heaven? Is that what Heaven will be like? Our Bride-groom serving us and giving up His life to make us holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. Could I bare that for eternity? In the Kingdom of God the last are first, the humble are exulted, the rejected is the cornerstone. Adonai, my heart can barley accept what You did on the cross for my disgusting self how could I bare it for eternity?

Jesus You said You must wash our feet and die for us. It has to end there I must serve You in Heaven, You paid my debt of sin and death now I want to serve and worship You. How could I bare Your heavy love face to face if Heaven is similar to an Earthly marriage?

For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
-Ephesians 5

Easy task for me to do in Heaven, submit to You Jesus. I want to and I can't wait. But if this half of the relationship is true then Your half must be true and I don't know if I could handle that sort of humility from the Creator of all. Your glory is so beautiful.

Set A Fire - Will Reagan & United Pursuit

04/13/12

Monday Night Lights


Last night as Bea and I were at the Lifeway book store we sat on the floor as she read the books "You are Special" and "The oak inside the acorn" by Max Lucado. It made me start to think about all of my brothers and sisters in the neighborhood and I wondered if they ever had a parent, a teacher, or any adult look them in the eyes and tell them the truth about how beautiful they are. How many Punchinellos are walking around this earth right now covered in grey dots. Abba you are the woodworker, You are the only opinion that matters. "Because you're Mine, that's why you matter to Me. You are special because I made you, and I don't make mistakes." If only this broken world could hear Your words of truth. If only, like Lucia, the judgements, the opinions, the pressures, the benchmarks of this world couldn't stick to us because our identity is built on the rock.

What a luxury to be taught this truth growing up. What treasure to know this truth. The ground the cross stands on is flat. This truth is for everyone. I want everyone to experience the wealth of wisdom You've given me.

Dear brothers and sisters, 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

through troubles our endurance grows as we build our houses on the rock. Once our foundation is You Jesus we are perfect and complete, needing nothing. Not the praise of other humans, not money, not comfort, not glory, not pride, not anything of this fading world.

Holy Spirit use me to speak this truth in to my brothers and sisters lives. I want everyone to be perfect and complete. I want everyone to be like Lucia. Whether homeless, broken, lonely, betrayed, forgotten, sick, powerless that they are still complete and needing nothing.

Life to the fullest isn't just for those with sight or legs that can walk or money or family or anything. It is for everyone and it is through You. Through the truth that You made all the delicate, inner parts of everyone's body and knit us together in our mothers' wombs. That You see us and You are pleased.

This world can have it's gold stars and it's grey dots. This world can have it's fancy cars and it's giant houses. All I need to be perfect and complete is You Jesus.

Give Me Jesus - All Sons & Daughters

04/10/12

When Adam was a child, I loved him,
and I called my son out of slavery.
But the more I called to you,
the farther you moved from me,
offering sacrifices to the images of comfort
and burning incense to Television.
I myself taught Adam how to walk,
leading you along by the hand.
But you don't know or even care
that it was I who took care of you.
I led Adam along
with my ropes of kindness and love.
I lifted the yoke from your neck,
and I myself stooped to feed you.

Oh, how can I give you up, Adam?
How can I let you go?
How can I destroy you like Admah
or demolish you like Zeboiim?
My heart is torn within me,
and my compassion overflows.
No, I will not unleash my fierce anger.
I will not completely destroy Adam,
for I am God and not a mere mortal.
I am the Holy One living among you,
and I will not come to destroy.
-Hosea 11

Jesus I need Your forgiveness, I need Your mercy, I need Your grace. Abba you have done everything for me. You taught me how to walk. You took care of me. You lead me with kindness and love. You lifted the yoke of unbearable religious demands from my neck. You stooped to feed me. Why Abba? Why would You stoop to feed me? I move farther and farther away from You. My heart is selfish, greedy, lazy, and ugly. I deserve Your fierce anger, to be destroyed completely. Yet You are the savior. You take brokenness aside and make it beautiful. You make me beautiful.

Where do You find the love to offer he who betrays You? and offer to wash my feet as I offer to disobey You, Your beauty does bereave me, and how my words do fail, so faithfully and dutifully I award You with betrayal.
-Matthias Replaces Judas - Showbread

I don't want to break Your heart. I don't want to choose anything other than You. Jesus all You have shown me is patience and love. Change me, renew me, make me beautiful. How can I make this life pleasing to You?

The tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner returned home justified before God. For those who humble themselves will be exalted.
-Luke 18

Jesus I fear that I do not beat my chest with my eyes fixed on the ground crying out: O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner. Break me Abba, I want to offer You a pleasing sacrifice. I want to offer You a pleasing life. I am so disgusting and broken but You are the great redeemer You make all things new. Make me new. Make me beautiful.

I praise You Jesus for being Good. That Your character is forgiveness and love.

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like You have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause

Hosanna - Hillsong

04/08/12

It is not safe to remain! It is not the place but the Presence that upholds you! This is your only certainty. Go! Walk where no man has walked, yet you find footprints.
-Erwin McManus

Abba I am a lover of Your presence. I want to be where You are. Thank You for today.

This morning I watched Your glorious sun rise from the top of the parking garage. Afterwards I ate breakfast at New Life United Methodist Church. As I was sharing a meal with my homeless friends on Resurrection Sunday I began to realize that there isn't a better place to spend today. My biological family may be miles away from me but today I spent the morning with my brothers and sisters! Home is where Your presence is, and I've never felt closer to You and Your Kingdom than when I am spending time with my broken and wretched brothers and sisters just like me. My heart is overwhelmed with love at times like yesterday when one of my homeless brothers bought me a hot chocolate while we were talking at Travonna. Or a father turns to his son and exclaims "we're going to eat good today son!" as I give them four McChickens and some fries. This is the Kingdom of God and it is so beautiful.

Giving is more contagious than hoarding, love can convert hatred, light can overcome darkness, grass can pierce concrete.
-Shane Claiborne

Today we are free, Today You set all of us free. I want to spend my life joining with the broken sinners and evildoers of our world crying out to You, groaning for grace. I want to spend my life worrying about nothing and loving everyone. Jesus I cannot thank You and praise You enough for setting me free, for Your redemption, for Your sacrifice, for Your resurrection. I'm alive to live for You. Hope is rising up in me. No place I would rather be than here in Your love.

But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
-Colossians 3:8-11

It doesn't matter if we are gentile, uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, tax collector, homeless, prostitute, addict, leper, failure, broken, HIV+, sinful, or anything CHRIST IS ALL THAT MATTERS, AND HE LIVES IN ALL OF US!

My past is washed white as snow, my wounds are nothing but scars now, I have stripped off my old self and I put on my new self in You my Creator, my God, יהוה‎.

Naive Orleans - Anberlin

04/04/12

The best gift I can give someone is my attention.

All I can control and all I have is myself. Time is life's only currency. I spend time like I spend money.
Where I spend my money is where the desires of my heart are.
Where I spend my time is where the desires of my heart are.
I want to spend all of it on You.

Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning,
for I am trusting you.
Show me where to walk,
for I give myself to you.
Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God.
May your gracious Spirit lead me forward
on a firm footing.

Giving my time and my presence and my senses is the most precious gift I have to offer. What else do I really have? I own five things:
touch
sight
smell
hearing
taste
I wasn't built to encounter my brothers and sisters through an e-mail, a text, a phone call, a letter. I was built to be with them. To be in the presence of my friends. To be in the presence of my Creator.

Dogs jump on people, why do they not simply sit next to someone they are excited to see? All of creation craves for presence and contact. When I encounter an old friend or even a friend I see on the side walk often we cannot help but embrace and to enjoy that time we spend in each others presence. Skype doesn't cut it, no technology can substitute being in the presence of a loved one. Pictures of the deceased never quench the thirst.

Abba all I want in this life is to be surrounded by Your presence and the presence of my brothers and sisters. I want to share this life. I do not want to hoard my time like a savings account. I want to spend all of it on You and Your children. What more is there to this life?

It isn't about conversation, it isn't about tasks, it isn't about goals or accomplishing anything. My heart groans to simply sit with people. One day, if it is in Your will, when I have a wife the most precious thing I could give her is my time. Why work 40+ hours a week when money can't buy anything eternal? All that does is keep me away from her presences. Instead of spending money that will perish, I want to spend time with her who will have eternal life. To spend my senses on one woman, to simply be in her presence, to hold her, is there anything more valuable this world has to offer?

But for now, since I shouldn't worry about tomorrow, I will sit in Your presence. Only You satisfy my soul. Only You bring fulfillment to my life. Single or married, unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. To be in Your presence, that is my hearts one desire. To be where You are, that is all I ask.

I'm A Lover Of Your Presence - Bryan & Katie Torwalt

04/03/12

Following Jesus is simple, but not easy. Love until it hurts, and then love more.
-Mother Teresa

Three months ago I asked You how am I suppose to love my neighbor as myself without getting hurt? Last month You answered with Philippians 4:7. But as I walk with You I see even clearer that protecting myself isn't the point. How am I suppose to love my neighbor as myself without getting hurt? I can't, it's impossible. Love is a risk and it can be very painful. Everyone is broken and to love a broken person involves hurt.

Love is a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, but it is the only answer.
-Dorothy Day

You know exactly how painful it is to love broken people, to love unconditionally, to love recklessly, to love relentlessly, to love endlessly. Sin brought You to the cross, but love kept You there. It was Your ἀγάπη that set me free, that paid my debt, that saved my wretched life. Two months ago I told You I would only give out my φιλία and that I don't have any more ἔρως to give. And that I would guard my love more carefully. But now I see that it is impossible to guard my own heart if I am going to be obedient to You. You want me to love everyone just as recklessly as You love me. And when I get hurt, and we both know there will be much more pain, I will rest in Your peace as I live in Christ Jesus. Your love never fails.

This love is not sentimental but heart wrenching, the most difficult and most beautiful thing in the world.
-Shane Claiborne

Abba I will love everyone as I love myself. I will love You above all, knowing You are there to catch me. Jesus I will love until my heart breaks into a thousand pieces then I will praise You as You put me back together and send me back out.

May my entire life be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind You will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship You. (Romans 12:1)

Hope is Rising - Luminate