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| When the weather man broke the news, i knew it was time to act. There were only five hours remaining to allow me to complete what I believed to be my life's goal. At least for the moment. Besides, it was the first day of spring break, what would any normal 18 year old do? I grabbed my keys, said my goodbyes, jumped into my car and sped off into the night. I was in hot pursuit of that ever elusive prize. The end all of all cosmic phenomenae. I was going to finally see a lunar eclipse. Im still not sure what drove me to speed off in the night at seven oclock, racing against the darkening skyline to reach my usual deserted spot on the lake. I never quite know the reasoning behind these actions. But despite the unusal aspects of it, I have never questioned it. I just.... do it. One might call it a sixth sense, that feeling we all get that comforts us, the "inner voice" that leads us through decisions and questions throughout life. When that voice tells me to go, I go. So I pushed a little harder on the acceleration, and sped off into the night. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our generation begs for a sign. In the current world of war, famine, starvation, and death, the nations cry out everyday for a miraclefrom the God they believe is there, but can never seem to hear. Millions drop to their knees everyday in desperation, pleading with their Creator, that omnipotent being in the sky, to bring them peace. To bring them food. To bring love, fame, money. And all those millions rise from their knees agian to face yet another day filled with war, famine, starvation and death. And with streaming eyes, they look to the skies and ask the same question "Where are You?" The world stops to ask the question, but does it linger long enough to hear the answer? The planet we find ourselves on in 2007 never seems to find time to stop and listen. "Stop and smell the roses." "Hold your horses." Phrases that are nearly obsolete now that the Westernized world has created a bad image around being slow. Credit cards and fast food promise instant satisfaction. Hospitals operate around the clock, not the patient. The government has destroyed the idea of a person, replacing heart and soul with social security numbers. Fast. Here. Now. Jesus never had a credit card. His disciples didn't carry around His Holy Day Planner in order to keep him up to date on all of his current appointments. He never had tp pass a leper because he couldn't "Fit him into his schedual". Even knowing the limited time he had to work with while here on earth, Jesus always found time to meet alone in the quiet with his Father. In the beginning of his ministry, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness by himself. After the death of his friend John the Baptist, Jesus left the crowds and his disciples to grieve alone. Before His death, Jesus left the fellowship of the nights meal and left to be alone in the Garden of Gethsemane. His most important task on his To-Do list was to meet alone with His Father. And He did. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As I pulled into the park's parking lot at the lake, I stopped the car and climbed out, ready to see the wonders of nature. I climbed up onto the hood of my car and gazed at the moon. Slowly but surely a shadow began to fall over the moon as the earth passed between it and the sun, blocking light from reaching the moon. As soon as it began, the shadow began to recede and the moon was soon fully visible once again. All in less than 15 minutes. I sat in awe of the wonder of nature I had just seen. I stared in disbelief that it had happened so fast. After the rare lunar occurance ended, I was left to sit alone in the dark, wondering to myself why exactly I had felt so led to drive all the way out here in the first place. I laughed at myself as I began to realize that something so seemingly insignificant as a luner eclipse had caused me to stop all I had been doing, made me drop everything, and rush to the middle of nowhere to watch the beauty of nature. Nature that God had created. Thats when it hit me. God had been speaking to me all along. I had just been to busy to listen. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Maybe we don't take the time to stop and listen to the reply of God. Imagine the blessing He must feel to have His children pleading to Him in prayer, and then the disappointment when His reply is not heard. In our world of V6 Mustangs and microwave Easy Mac, do we as humans really take the time to get away from the noise and static that is blocking God's answer to our prayers? Now, being humans we are forever doomed to be complete screw-ups when it comes to following the Almighty, but how hard are we trying to follow the steps of Jesus Christ and by following Him, stopping when He does? How much time are we taking to find release from the noise of life and meet with the Father alone in the wilderness? How many meaningless meetings are we finding ourselves attending, when we could really be finding the voice of God in the quite? Maybe if we find silence, we may find Him. God Bless. The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire... ...And after the fire came a gentle whisper. | | |
| I stood there on the ledge that was jutting out over the lake. The strong north wind was biting at my skin, and I pulled my jacket closer around my body. As hard as the wind blew, I didn't move. A mile or two of water stretched out in front of me, and I watched as it was tossed by the wind, moving quickly across the glass-like surface until it crashed against the rocks at the waters edge. The sun suddenly broke through the clouds and began to set in the distance, a giant orange sphere appearing in the western sky, offering it's last rays of light to the sky, but being quickly chased away by the coming night. I watched the sun slowly setting, silently cursing the God who made it. I was mad. Where are You? If you really cared about me, then why don't you show it? Show me something, anything to prove to me that you are really here, really watching.... really.. REAL Thoughts were racing through my mind like wildfire, and I continued to curse the water, the ground around me, the air, anything that I could possibly be mad at. It wasn't fair. I had done everything possible to fix it. Everything I could possibly try to fix the past, to bring back that feeling I so desperately wanted. I had amazing friends, a supportive family, an amazing church group, yet I felt empty. Hopelessy lost, and I couldn't figure it out why. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ God brings us to a certian point in our walk with him where we can see nothing but Him. It's a fairly common human flaw - complacency. The feeling that what we have is just what we need, and we are content with where we are. Happy with who we are. What is around us is..... good. Woah, hold on. Haven't we heard that one before? "God created... and said it was good." There we go again, us humans playing God... It seems to be a pattern of behavior among us simple people of Earth. God gives us a little free will and we decide to take the whole world on our shoulders, thinking that we can handle it, that we have it all under control. "God, you can take an extended vacation, I've got things handled down here." But throughout the Bible there are countless stories of people who became complacent in their walk with God, had things down on the farm pretty well handled, and suddenly things started happening. Bad things, usually. The Lord tends to give a wake up call to those who think they know everything they need to about the "Unknown God". And that slap on the head opens our eyes, and we find where we are isn't really where we want to be. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So as I stood there on that cliff, watching the sun sink deeper and deeper into the water miles away, I began to realize something. Maybe that hole in my heart, that emptiness I had been feeling was beginning to take a shape. It was starting to take the form of a guy I hadn't seen in awhile. A man with holes in his hands and a crown of thorns on his head. And as I stood there, I realized it. For months I had been searching for that acceptance that I so urgently needed. That love that I had at one time had, but somehow had lost.... Or had I? Had I simply lost view of that which was there all along, looking at the physical instead of the spiritual? Had it been there right in front of me the whole time? I had spent so long looking for acceptance and assurance in the things of this world. In people who were no better than myself, who were struggling and falling along with me, and had looked straight past the One who does have it all together. Who knows exactly what I was going through, because He had been there. Had walked on this earth for years, the weight of the sin of the world on his shoulders. A man with who could find no acceptance from the people he lived around, who had every reason to doubt the Father he so desperately needed. Yet everytime Jesus fell He looked to God. Everytime he was persecuted, He looked to God. As he was dying on the cross, alone and fallen, He looked up to God. And when he did, in the moment he was most vulnerable, most helpless, and most alone, with God He was the strongest Person in the world. He was glorified above all, and as he hung there bleeding, He was being risen up by God. As the sun finally dissappeared behind the treeline in the distance, I began to pray. I prayed for forgiveness for my actions, for my thoughts, and for so much I had missed, and I recommited my life to God, right there on that exact spot. Now may you, when the world is closing in on you, when you have nowhere to turn, no one to go to, and nothing left, may you find God in your heart, and may He give you the strength to stand up and live once again for Him, and be filled with His love. And never forget... God Provides, Keep Looking Up! | | |
| Do you think He would actually do it fairly? Since, you know, He is Almighty God, Knower Of All Things, Creator of... Creation... Its funny how sometimes the most random things can cause you to think of God in a whole new light. Take for example, the seemingly easy sudoku puzzle Mr. Clevenger had put up on the overhead, that he just couldn't figure out how to do. (With our help, he finished it in about 10 minutes) As we began to dive into the puzzle and try to figure it out, a thought seemed to come to my mind... Isn't our faith in God somewhat like a giant Sudoku puzzle? We are given this huge "puzzle" of how true faith in God is supposed to look. Now, there are a few spots filled in, where knowledge and faith we may already have has been established, and where other doctrine and ideas others have taught us lie. But surrounding each of these, different but at the same time connected, lie empty spots. Spots that hide different ideas, different views and truths about who God really is, and what our faith in Him is supposed to look like. We spend countless lifetimes trying to figure out what numbers go where. We take guesses, check our answers, seem to get almost get the complete puzzle... only to realize at the end that something doesn't match up, and we are sent back to where we began... with nothing but our original faith. Those pre-filled in spots where experiances of God, stories and real-life testimony must be true. So we try again. And again we fail, each time becoming more and more frustrated with the puzzle. We look at all the angles. We try to do a square at a time, a row, a column, until finally we tend to just want to give up.... Have you ever been going along in one of those puzzles, and found that one number, that one key that unlocks the whole puzzle, and the rest of the numbers and spaces fill in easy? Maybe we look at God from too many angles. We approach the problem with too high of expectations, wanting to "have our cake and eat it too" - wanting to figure it all out at once. Maybe that secret combination, that just-right number that fits into that just-right space, that allows all other numbers to fall in... maybe that is as simple as our trust and faith in God to lead us, to guide us. Allowing God to take us deeper into a relationship with Him, and show us the correct way to go. To fully rely on God, to trust him with everything... Then maybe the rest of the numbers would fall into place.... Wanna try? ~ Brad lee | | |
| A few days ago I was flipping through my school planner, writing down the days my english paper would be due, and I came across the holiday Yom Kippur in small letters under one of the days. I glanced over it, brushing it off as just another weird religious holiday. But throughout the week, those words "Yom Kippur" continued to repeat in my head, and out of curiousity I decided to look it up.. and i stumbled upon a Rob Bell (Nooma guy) sermon on his Mars Hill site ... In Leviticus 23 (yeah, old testament, boring..), there are 7 major feasts/holidays that are shown. In verse 23, it talks of a "Festival of Trumpets". The trumpet was this huge rams horn. God told Moses to tell the Israelites that on the 7th day of the 7th month (anyone seeing the 7 thing here?) to tell everyone to stop everything, and take a day of Sabbath rest. Everyone would gather, and the blowing of trumpets would represent God's reminding them to check themselves. This worked really well due to this being the beginning of the Jewish New Year. There would be 10 days after that where the Jews would look into their hearts and souls and figure out what they were doing. Who they were, what they were doing, and what they should be doing... a sort of spiritual check-up. Then on the 10th day, known as Yom Kippur, the priest (at this time a pretty cool dude named Aaron) would take a goat offering and would pile onto it all the worries, sins, and wrongdoing of each person, and Aaron would put them on the goats head... stinks to be that goat, huh? The goat would then be taken to the wilderness, and then would be released into the wilderness, sin and all. This is God's way of showing us visually how we can take this "goat" put all of our junk and worries, sins, and hurt on this "goat" and then lead the goat away, and send it off. God was creating a way for us to see that each of us, every day, get a chance to start over... A clean slate... a new day... a fresh start That goat sorta sounds like some man we might now, huh? oh yeah, Jesus. That ultimate "goat" that would serve as our sacrifice for our whole life. That we can always come to him with all of our junk, sins, anxiety, worry, stress, and we can put this giant load on him, and on that cross, every moment of everyday, and takes it with him to the wilderness, never to be seen again. Never Ever EVER. So have you stopped lately to check your life out? Are you moving too fast? To slow? Not stopping to look at your own life, letting things build up, and being weighed down by all this junk of the world? This life is a gift, and there is no better day to live than today. Maybe it's time we stopped, looked, prayed, and asked God to take away our junk, and give us a new slate, a new chance, a new day.... Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I AM GOD. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted among the Earth. The Lord Almighty is with us." | | |
| I think it's about time we resurrected Brad The Senior. Why? Facebook is becoming too powerful. Nuff said. Plus, I forgot how fun it was to have this xanga. To have it personal and my own, and well.... have control? So thank you xanga, thank you for being you. ....to be continued | | |
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