The “Good Feeling”

The good feeling is often what Christians look for when it comes to God. We often want to be empowered and get drunk in His presence.

There are times that I feel I could move mountains with Gods help. I have gone to worship seminars and truly felt the presence of God. It was overpowering, I was drunk in the spirit and needed to sit down. Many of my Christian friends know this feeling. When you are so blasted by God that you feel as though you can do anything.

But, so often we do nothing. Often it becomes a high for ourselves and not about other people. Have you ever thought that you can be selfish with the presence of God?

Being a Christian is not about being drowned in Gods presence.

Being a Christian isn’t about feeling huge doses of God and thus being able to call down fire from the heavens or being able to part the Red Sea. It is about what you do in the darkest of times. It is about what you are able to do with the gifts God has given YOU.

We as Christians look at how Jesus healed the sick and how Moses separated the Sea and tell ourselves that we need to do that. Many of us think that God’s presence is when you feel really happy and you want to dance. Have you ever wondered if God is moving in you just as much when you want to cry after seeing the brutality of starvation?

I think your faith in God is measured in how you act when the lights go out. Are you able to stand strong or do you retreat to the place of comfort?

Are you able to keep on walking?

The “tough times” when you feel as though you have NOTHING, are the times where your faith is being tested. Will you be able to still grab onto the dream God has given you? When your rent is due and you don’t have money to pay it off, will you still be able to help the person who is living on the street?

Your calling by God can very easily be about healing the sick and turning water into wine but it just as easily could be something completely different.

Our views need to go beyond the Ups and Downs or our definition of “Great” miracles. We are limited if we concentrate on those things. Our faith needs to be in the hands of the unseen. We must be able to realize that we do what we do for God and not the other way around.

When it is truly about God and not about ourselves, we can NOT be stopped and will find our CALLING.

Remember

Why is this nation blind? Why are we not able to see the suffering and death throughout the world? Why do we still not realize that revenge will only bring more sorrow and neglect will only allow the sorrow to happen? Why are most people not pushing forward but instead falling backwards? I think I know a partial answer to all these questions. We have forgotten.

No longer do we remember what we have been taught and what our elders have seen. As a nation we have neglected the past and thus have chosen not to see. The past is our sight into the future. Without past events to guide us we do not have any idea on what works and what doesn’t. Too often we reject those who have seen and experienced the past. A typical teen is more likely to complain to their peers then to embrace them. The inspiration that has come from great people in the past is no longer seen let alone heard. Without a past you are like a human surrounded by the wilderness with no tools to survive.

A Waist of Time?

A passion in my soul has arisen. Why do I do what I do? Many people should ask themselves this question. I mean I would say I do art because I feel that I am gifted at it. Or, I study film because it inspires me. But those two things are done very little by me if I really think about it. I mean, I spend most of my time complaining about hyper spiritual Christians and watching mindless television that does not effect me in the least.

I can say that I don’t waist as much time as most of my friends. Or, what I do when I waist time is much more productive then some people. But I really don’t know if this is true and it will not help me in any way.

Why do we make excuses for neglect and lack of vision?

It might have to do with us being born with a “sin nature”. We might just be born with a inherent, “I don’t give a dam”. But, “I don’t give a dam”, is no fun. I mean I have seen many people who do not really care about life but none of those people I have seen who just “don’t care”, seem very happy.

A harsh thing time is. I always seem to worry about time and if I am using it wisely. I have come to the conclusion that worrying about wasting time is a waist in itself.

So what do I do? I guess I need to just not waist time. It is not about constantly checking yourself and trying to measure if you are wasting time or not. It is about going for the things you choose and not stopping. I believe everyone can find a vision and I think that should be all of our goals.

There is so much that needs to be done and so many who are just right for the job of doing these things. Life is not a right, it is a gift. A gift that we have been aloud to use as we wish.

The Wings Of His Presence

I am standing safe

I can see the beautiful landscape and marvel at the great mountains infront of me

The wind blows toward me and I am at ease with its cool feel

Then I hear a whisper

“Jump.”

I look around and can’t see anything

I hear it again as if coming from the wind itself

“Jump.”

In front of me is a ledge, I am afraid to go close

I am comfortable where I am.

I then raise my face

feel the wind’s powerful presence

My senses feel heightened with my surroundings

I close my eyes and am devoured with a warmth

truly I am at my happiest

This must be the presence of God

The earth down below begins to rumble

“Jump.”

I hear, as if coming from the mountains in front of me

I am shaken to the core

My eyes widen and I slowly walk toward the ledge

Looking down I see far below small ledges sticking out and beyond darkness

I feel a dark chill flow through my body

I step back

I bend down put one knee on the ground

I bow my head and feel my heart pump faster than ever before

“Come”

I hear as a whisper again

My head is bowed lower to the ground, now frightened by what is asked of
me

“Come, and I will make you a light of nations”

I feel the sun on my shoulders, and look up

again I am marveled by the mountains

A passion grows in my soul

I stand

I slowly walk toward the ledge

I come to the edge now more scared then ever before

My toes grip the ledge

I stop and look up into the sun

It does not hurt my eyes

The wind blows now toward me and the spirit moves through me

I hear the cries of the hungry

I hear the cries of those who are lost

I hear the bitter quietness of those who have fallen back

Into comfort

I close my eyes

Jump

And fly

A Cry For Godly Men: pt 2

“A Godly Man“. I often think about the meaning of that phrase. I have grown up in a church. I learned how to pray and how to worship. I was “Saved” at a very young age. I remember going with my best friend in the corner of the playground and both of us “asked Jesus into our lives”. I was told that I was now legit as a Christian. I now did not need to worry about being condemned to an eternal Hell and I was able to be in contact with the one true God.

It was interesting because if I really thought about it, for a long time I thought most of the people around me had nothing godly in them because most of them did not accept God into their lives, and if I really, really, thought about it I thought that most of the people in the world were going to go to Hell. Because if you did not confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus died and rose again, you were not saved.

The past few years however have changed my perspective on the whole “Godly Man” thing (Heck! It has changed my whole view on EVERYTHING). I began to see some pretty Godly stuff in people who I had been taught were not even Christians and did not have God in them so could not possibly be godly.

It started with movies. I have always been a fan of movies. The movies that I like the most come from tales about what I like to call “real life”–movies in which the characters’ didn’t seem fake; they had flaws and showed them. Schindler’s List was a personal favorite of mine. This movie takes place during the Holocaust. You see a rich German snob who seems to only be interested in women and money. He is extremely willing to take advantage of the war by hiring Jewish workers for almost no money. He is shown committing adultery and strongly implies that he does not have time for God or going to church.

But still what I saw amazed me. This sinner was able to save about 12,000 Jews. I mean there was no reason for him to do this. He put his life at risk and spent almost all his money to save these peoples lives. At the end I was brought to tears because this man Schindler began to break down in the middle of all the people he had saved because he knew he could save a few more and didn’t.

This was an extremely touching story. The movie didn’t tell us that he began to go to church or he stopped committing adultery afterwards but I did find the guy inspiring. I began to think that he was a Godly man.

I began to research Walt Disney. I found him intriguing and realized that he truly cared for the people he made movies for, it wasn’t just about making money and although he had a few bad qualities he did some amazing things–things that are not even about his movies, such as, giving presents to the local orphanage every Christmas, and taking dying kids on tours of his parks. Out of literally hundreds of hours of research I found myself really looking up to Walt as a man who knew his film making and showed grown ups and kids qualities of God.

The problem was, Walt Disney did not go to church. There is nothing that told me whether Walt believed in Jesus or not but I could not say that God was not working in him because, WELL… I knew God was. My whole concept of “a Godly man” was crumbling in my hands. I saw other movies like Dead Poets Society and Blood Diamond that didn’t even mention the name God but seemed to have Him flowing around and through the stories none the less. I read about some great people such as Gandhi who brought peace to literally hundreds of millions of people but he wasn’t even a Christian.

Then I began to see God in my “non-church going” coworkers, when they worked with clients and talked to me about family life and all the sacrificing they had already gone and were willing to go through for the benefit the others they loved. And, then I began to see God in people who had been kicked out of the church. Being kicked up did not make them godly, but the godliness they already had seemed to show up. They were able to forgive those who had hurt them and still were trying to follow God by giving away cars, helping at food banks and befriending even the dirtiest of people.

The concept of a Godly man has changed completely for me. You are not Godly just because you go to church or pray a lot. God does not just show Himself to those who can perform great miracles or those who receives great visions. God is shown by those who are willing to act. He is seen in those who don’t act to be perfect or hyper spiritual but by those who strive to do the right thing. By those who act on the vision that God has given them.

I in no way am saying that you are saved by what you do. No Jesus has taken care of that. But we have to choose whether or not we are willing to act in what God has shown us through out our lives. We need to be able to see God where he is, and that is in saints and in sinners, in the people who we might have grown up being told were Godless. We must drop the lenses that our finite life has given us so we can see the truth of who God is.

He is limitless.

The Key of a Child

I really am not big on Bible verses in my blogs. I don’t think I have quoted even one verse directly yet. But this blog calls for a (direct) scripter quote. This scripture gives a fundamental point that we must get a hold of if we do indeed want to enter into God’s kingdom.

Mark 10: starting at verse 13 “PEOPLE WERE BRINGING LITTLE CHILDREN TO JESUS TO HAVE HIM TOUCH THEM, BUT THE DISCIPLES REBUKED THEM. 14 WHEN JESUS SAW THIS, HE WAS INDIGNAT. HE SAID TO THEM, “LET THE LITTLE CHILDREN COME TO ME, AND DO NOT HINDER THEM, FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD BELONGS TO SUCH AS THESE. 15 I TELL YOU THE TRUTH, ANYONE WHO WILL NOT RECIEVE THE KINGDOM OF GOD LIKE A LITTLE CHILD WILL NOT ENTER IT.”

A child is often selfish wanting anything that she or he can get his or her hands on. Just from personal experience I know that my three year old sister asks for the world and then some. A child doesn’t seem to obey very well, either. Their favorite word, no doubt, is “no”. You need to watch them like a hawk so they don’t get into too much trouble. You need to pick up after them and clean them because they are so messy. Why then would Jesus tell us that we need to become like a little child to enter into the kingdom of Heaven? What qualities does a child have that I as an adult do not?

It is a really funny thing and you and I probably often wonder if Jesus was all there when He told us that we need to receive the Kingdom of Heaven like a little child if we wish to enter into it. But as frustrating it seems to be when it comes to a child’s ability to listen and obey I have found some things that only a child seems to posses now a days.

A child looks at the world with curiosity. As an adult I sometimes don’t have time for looking at new and unique stuff. I am too caught up in what I like to call “life”. But a child does not have a obligations to go to work, deal with family issues or need to talk to a friend at a curtain time. A child has time to examine a flower and even needs to be taught to stay away from a stranger because their natural instinct is to be friendly. A rubber ball or a lady bug are interesting things to a child. They have time to devote to things as simple as a pile of dirt. Yes, we can consider this a bad thing. “Billy! Get out of that dirt”, or “Sally, don’t bother that man”. But what if we as adults could get away from our common life and routine and spare some time for a stranger that might not have any friends? Or give time to things, that we have been taught don’t mean much?

A child is not afraid to show emotion. I realize that this can be frustrating at times. But what if we as adults were able to show others what we truly felt? There are many examples of my three year old sister telling me straight up to not call her a name she does not like. I never worry about her not telling me if she is hungry or wants to go to Mc. Donald’s. Too many times I see people that get made fun of, and instead of telling the person how they truly feel about what was said or done they act as though it is ok and laugh along with the crowd. So many grown ups hide there emotions so far inside themselves that they become lost and their self worth is extinguished.

As much as a child might seem to want everything so that they could be happy I do not see them as selfish beings. They aren’t just caring for themselves they grow attached to the people around them very quickly and begin to care for others. They are not worried if the person is rich or poor, strong or weak. They have not been taught who you should care about and who you should not. They see the people in need and truly feel for them without the lens that society tends to put onto us.

When I was sick with a fever above a hundred and was dizzy every time I stood up, it was my three year old sister who came to my side and asked me if I was ok and drew pictures for me so I could get better. There have been many times that I have been hurt and my sister was teary eyed because she couldn’t stand seeing me in such a condition. She was not interested in the mistakes I made that might have made me sick or the way I might have treated her badly a few days before. She cared about me getting better and was not afraid to show her love for me by the emotions she expressed and the pictures she drew.

Having a childlike approach is what counts when it comes to who enters into the Kingdom of God. Jesus does not need you to be a good student or athlete in school. He does not look at how skinny, fat, strong, or weak you are. Instead God wants you to strive for something more – to strive to become a child once again and see the world with the clear view that you were originally given and not look at it from the lens that society or even your friends have given you.

If you want to have a wonderful life, if you want to see the true value this world and the next has to give, if you want to be able to change the world you must see the world as a little child sees it–without judgment or condemnation, without the need for money or accolade.

The God Out Side The Box

Throughout my walk in Christ I have realized that words can be weak, that there are many talking about the coming of Christ but few that see the places He already is. For so long in my “Christian” life I saw God as an almighty powerful being (which is true). He was beyond anyone’s understanding and could not even be around the presence of evil because he was so pure (which is not Biblical). I was taught that God was only open to those who “believed” and it was our mission to bring Him to others.

For many years I walked in this world ignoring God when He came to me as a homeless man or showed up at work as a divorced man who had been dealing with alcohol abuse his whole life. I thought that the people who did not go to church were sinners and most likely did not believe in the one true God.

In all people I believe there is Jesus. A few years ago I had a revelation and I truly started seeing God, not in all the places I was taught He would be (church friends I grew up with, Sunday morning worship, etc…) but more so in the places that needed me the most. I saw God in the streets and the needy. I saw God in those who struggled and had been hurt. He was able to show Himself to me because I finally understood what He meant when he said, “What you do for the least of these you do for Me.” Jesus is in the least of these, but once we become Christians our tendency is to “clean up our act” by putting on a dressed up (often less honest) form of Godliness.

Have we forgotten that Jesus lived thirty years before He started his ministry? How often it is that we forget that Jesus was homeless? Have we also forgotten that it was the religious leaders of the day who persecuted Jesus the most? It was not in the church that we saw Jesus move. But, instead in the streets and homes of sinners. The faith that I saw in Jesus’ day was not illustrated by the Pharisees and church goers but instead by the sinners and the “non–believer’s”. I saw a Roman soldier come to Jesus and have enough faith that his daughter was healed. It was a blind man that I heard calling out Jesus’ name even when every one else was telling him to “shut up”.

The true Godly weren’t the ones that went to church and were well respected by other “godly men“. But instead, they were the ones who the religious voices of His day did not think worshiped the same God as they worshiped. The true Godly were like the Roman soldier or the out cast who ignored his peers and society in order to cry out God’s name.

Many people in the church cry out for God but are they really willing to look for Him. I have experienced God in some amazing places. But they aren’t the places my church told me to look. In Ephesians 2: starting at verse 8 it says “FOR IT IS BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED, THROUGH FAITH –AND THIS NOT FROM YOURSELVES, IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD–”. In so many Christians I see this gift covered up by the obligation to be “Godly”. We put on “prayer”, we put on “serving the body”, we put on “tithing”, we put on “Church going”. None of which are bad unless they hide the God-likeness God gave us.

Let us as the body of Christ release the gift God has given us rather than bury it. We are not required to go to church, pray out loud, or even “have our act together” to receive His gift. HE ALREADY GAVE IT TO US! He is a personal God who is already around us, in us, and with us. We aren’t filling a God hole we are exposing the gift that is already there. Let us look past the wall of our religion and see the greatness of God outside the box.

“A Prayer?… Where? “

Prayer! What a funny thing prayer is. I mean I guess I was always taught that it was a really simple thing… Just find a place where you can get on your knees and talk to God. Just talk to God and tell him what you need and tell him “thank you” for what you have, if you have a problem you should go to Him and talk to him. He is always listening…

Why then “praying” sometimes so “un-simple”? I mean I don’t buy all of that stuff I have been told through out the years. I don’t feel like we have the whole “prayer” thing all thought out. I go to my church and see them “praying“. A lot of people might say that we have some “world class” prayer people. I mean sometimes they just shout to God telling Him what their friend’s needs are and ask Him (extremely formally) to grant their wish. I also see those guys who pray all the time, I mean they like verbally talk to God all the time and go to special rooms to do so. I am not saying all these things are bad but I just have been struggling with it recently, just thinking that there is some more to this whole picture of “prayer”.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend about a drawing I have been working on. A drawing that is made up of about a hundred portraits emphasizing all the poverty we have in the world. I was explaining to my friend that I wanted to confront Those who saw the drawing with the need for help. I was doing this by drawing portrait after portrait of people who were suffering. Weather it was a portrait of someone who doesn’t have a home or a person who was visually starving to death I wanted it to hit the audience. I commented to my friend on how hard it was for me sometimes, to draw all these people who were suffering. I told my friend that I could really feel for them and could only work on the drawing for a certain amount of time before I started feeling depressed. Well my friend told me that maybe I should pray for the guys while I draw them.

I don’t know if I had a hard time with what he said or not but I did think about that comment for a long while after he said it. To tell you the truth, being told to pray is a pretty typical answer to one‘s problem. I get into a jam and have some problems and most of my friends think the best thing to do is pray. Now I don’t quite disagree with my friends all the time when they tell me to pray but I do think my friends don’t understand something. Most all my friends and I have grown up thinking that the way you pray is verbally and a picture (as good as it might be) is most certainly not a prayer.

However I realized that I was in fact praying. When I drew those portraits I was praying to God. I didn’t start that drawing project so I could be looked at as a “Great Artist”. I for sure did not do it for the money. I wanted to show these suffering people to others, including God. I was praying for each one of the people I drew by drawing them alone. I knew I could not do anything about the problem with just me but I knew the gift my Father gave -my art was my own special prayer.

Just as a typical prayer is spoken out loud so others can hear what the person has said, my drawing was available so others could see what I was praying. I knew even when I started the drawing that it took God to do something about it. This has given me a great lesson not easily forgotten. Prayer can be more then words. Heck you don’t even need to talk. Think outside the box Prayer is communication with God. It comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes- visually, verbally even musically. As soon as it becomes repetitious words without meaning its value is diminished. The value behind the words and the art is what counts. How great is our God to whom gives us so many different ways to fellowship with Him?!

A Gift That Was Missed

I put my hands on the chair during worship at church. When the music starts to play I get very still, thinking for a few minutes, not trying to exactly get in my spiritual grove but just think about life and God. It really isn’t a huge sight or anything but most of the time I get “in the moment”, where I forget about the people around me and start just thinking about the beautiful music being played. Then it happens. I start to hit the chair in front of me. I don’t really think about it but I am trying to go with the beat of the music. The chair is like a drum and I just start tapping it. I don’t think I am too loud or distracting but really, I don’t care. I am in the moment.

The thing is God truly gave me a gift with music. I was very musically inclined as a kid. I loved the music that came from most the Disney films I watched. I always had the feeling that I could make those noises and always wanted to do something like the drums or the violin.

However I did not begin to get any instruction with music until 7th grade. In the 7th grade I began piano lessons along with my brothers. I was being home schooled at the time but we did have a piano and my neighbor volunteered to give us some lessons. I wasn’t too big on the idea. I mean I liked music but I didn‘t like practicing or instruction and piano wasn‘t the instrument for me. I would need to miss like a bunch of TV shows and put like a ton of time into practice. That just didn’t seem to be my cup of tea.

Well, my mother ended up pushing me into the lessons. And I fell in love with it. I can remember the first time I learned a song, “When The Saints Come Marching In”. I played it all the time. I loved the feeling of me myself making music. I, not anyone else was creating a beautiful sound that rung throughout the house. I also was learning much faster then my brother. I truly had a gift, it came naturally.

Many years later I took a test measuring all aspects of my intelligence. I was not taking any piano lessons at the time. Piano along with all other types of music ended the year after I started the lessons. We moved out of our house leaving the piano and neighbor who gave me lessons behind.

The test however was surprising. I knew I liked music but did not think much of it. I did take piano lessons for about a year but I did not remember how to play any of the music anymore. Music intelligence however was the second highest score I had in the whole test. Think of it as a pie graph the two largest pieces of the pie (by a considerable amount) were spatial intelligence and musical intelligence. I could understand spatial, I mean I am an artist and you need to be able to know how to work with space if you want to be good at art. But why would I score high at all with music? I mean I only took music for one year in my life.

The real thing is that I missed a gift. God truly gave me a gift in music and I often think of how it would have been like, if I decided to use the gift God gave me. I mean it wasn’t just like beginners luck when I was taking piano lessons. I was really talented, I had a feel for the sounds coming from the keys, the sounds were not just interesting and fun to me but more importantly they were speaking to my soul..

Looking back, deep down I realize I saw this calling toward music, but I chose to drop the ball and not pursue a gift that God truly gave me. God has been kind enough to give me a new calling that even deals with music a bit. But my question is how many visions or passions will we pass up because following them takes us on a path less walked on? When are we going to decide that the passions God has given us are more important than anything else? It doesn’t matter what society or your friends or your parents think? What matters is our heart and the calling of our soul.

A Cry For Godly Men

What makes a Godly man? If you are for “life”, against gay rights and are a consistent church goer you are considered a “good Godly man” by most Christians. Now, if you are for “choice” and for gay rights, I don’t know if even going to church could save you from the condemnation of most “Christians”. Abortion and gay rights are two views that are HUGE in the Christian world. Let’s take President Bush and President elect Obama as examples. I personally have many friends who think that President Bush is a good President/man because he is against abortion, against gay rights and he openly confesses his faith to the public. Now Obama is for abortion rights, for gay rights. I have had many friends who call him a deceived man and call those who chose to vote for him, people who have chosen the path of darkness (even though he confesses his faith).

I think there is more to God then being willing to call Him savior and being against gay and abortion rights. Actually I know there is. I am making a call to Christians to see the good in what you would call non-Christians. The cry of my heart is for all of us to see the passion and God given vision in others.

Gandhi did not claim Jesus as savior but still had a vision of saving others and giving them freedom. He did many things wrong (like all of us Christian and non-Christian do) but still moved in the heart of NATIONS. It is time for all of us to see the power of God in others. If we choose to see only the darkness we will never be able to show others the light. Take a hold of what others say and do, and pray against the evil and praise the good.

Did you know Hitler was a watercolor artist? I did not see very many of his paintings but the ones I did see were not filled with tears and blood shed. Instead I saw beautiful buildings with great lighting. Every man has good in them. Jesus did indeed die for us, all of us. We must treat all as children of God or there will truly be Hell on earth, not after we die but truly on this earth.

I see people who are in Hell all throughout the world, because they are left to feel worthless. They do not see their strengths but only their weaknesses. People go their whole lives consumed by money, drugs, and starvation, never being told that God cares about them and is in fact with them.

A Godly man isn’t the one who says he/she is against abortion and gay rights. It is not even about going to church. If you are able to look beyond yourselves and toward others, then you have made the first step to becoming a Godly man.