The Jesus Prayer

I am in a "training and equipping" class at Common Ground Christian Church that I am really excited about. The guy who teaches and leads the class is like my hero. I want to be just like him when I grow up: long hair, simple, radical, faithful, and wise.

Anyways, here is a prayer that he shared with us that I thought was just really awesome. I am trying to memorize it and thought that blogging it might aid my efforts. I am sure there will be more to come from this class...

The Jesus Prayer

Father Almighty,

Make of Heaven and earth

Set up your Kingdom in our midst.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God:

Have mercy on me a sinner

Holy Spirit, breath of the living God

Renew me and the world.

Posture

Ever have those words that just ring your head all through out the day? week? or in my case the weekend?

This weekend was the Young Life Raceway Region Leader Summit that never fails at being an absolute blast. Full of random dance parties, singing Miley Cyrus, singing awesome worship, being around awesome awesome people, and trying to understand our relationship with God better so that we might be able to love kids better.

The weekend was all of that, the people were great, I learned a lot, and I was re-focused and re-motivated as a young life leader.

But back to that word. The word that haunted my thoughts all week was "posture". It is no secret (that if you know me) I struggle deeply with issues of pride, arrogance, and authority. God has been teaching me and humbling me a lot in that area over the summer and into the school year as well. Yet still, it is no doubt a constant struggle to stand before God humbled and to not constantly think that I am better than others.

I kept asking myself what is that posture I take before God in prayer but also all through out the day? Do I stand humbled knowing that his way is unimaginably better than the way I could choose?

Do I enter into hard conversations with friends in a posture of humility that I may actually be the wrong? OR do I walk in with a posture that says I am right and there is nothing you can do about it?

Yeah.

I think more times than not my posture is not the one of humility that I desire it to be.

so here is some lyrics from my new favorite band that I often come back to when having this conversation with myself...

Seal my heart and break my pride

I've nowhere to stand and now nowhere to hide

Align my heart, my body, my mind

To face what I've done and do my time

Itchy Feet

I have what Chris Mccandless (Into the Wild guy) calls "itchy feet". Better characterized as the urge to go, to run away, escape responsibility, to explore, a longing for adventure, and to escape from any form of authority.

I have been day dreaming about packing up my pack,grabbing my boots and sleeping bag and just taking off. Leaving no note but just disappearing...

I have it all planned out in my head:

First I would hitch hike all the way to Maine and hop on the Appalachian trail and hike all the way to Georgia. Four to six months after I was done with that I would hitch hike to Nevada and hike the Continental divide trail all the way trough colorado and wyoming to Canada. Six months later I would hitch hike all the way to vancouver and hike the West Coast trail (my ultimate dream trail right now). A few weeks later I would ho

p on the Pacific crest trail and hike all t

he way down the coast into Mexico.

So lets see... 5 + 6 + 1 + 3 = 15 months.

probably best that I keep dreaming.

dream about it, talk about it, DO it.

some pictures of the places I want to go and maps of the trails....

Morning Perspective

This summer I read "Life Together" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in hopes that I would gather a better vision for community. Although, I do not actually know if the book helped in the way I was hoping for it did drop on me many sweet nuggets of solid truth like what I will soon be sharing with you.

The sacraments in a sense "spiritualize" or make sacred ordinary events in our life (i.e. marriage, adulthood, etc.). Bonhoeffer in way, spiritualized the morning for me by changing my perspective and giving it theological significance.

Enough said. ..

"For Christians the beginning of the day should not be burdened and oppressed with besetting concerns for the day's work. At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it. All the darkness and distraction of the dreams of night retreat before the clear light of Jesus Christ and his wakening Word. All unrest, all impurity, all care and anxiety flee before him. Therefore, at the beginning of the day let all distraction and empty talk be silenced and let the first thought and the first word belong to him to whom our while life belongs. 'Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light' (ephesians 5:14)."

Quote from G.K. Chesterton

I recently just finished a book by G.K. Chesterton called Orthodoxy. It is basically a testimony/his reasons for rational believing in Christianity. It is deep, eloquent, philosophical, and mostly way over my head.

Here is a passage from near the end of the book where he is responding to people who think of Jesus as being passive and un-exciting.

"Instead of looking at books and pictures about the New Testament I looked at the New Testament. There I found an account, not in the least of a person with his hair parted in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal, but of an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing with the wild secrecy of the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy; a being who often acted like an angry god-- and always like a God. Christ has a literary style of his own, not to be found, I think, elsewhere; it consists of an almost furious us of the "a fortiori" (I have no idea what that is). His "so much more" is piled upon another like castle upon castle in the clouds. The diction used about christ has been, perhaps wisely, sweet and submissive. But the diction used by Christ is quite curiously gigantesque; it is full of camels leaping through needles and mountains hurled into the sea." ....."The one explanation of the Gospel language that does explain it, is that it is the survey of one who from some supernatural height beholds some more startling synthesis." -G.K. Chesterton

Fear

For as long as I can remember I have been absolutely terrified of snakes. I have no idea where this irrational fear of mine comes. I was also a huge Indiana Jones fan growing up and wanted to be just like him. And every big Indiana fans know that his one and only fear is snakes (accurately shown in the clip).

I love to hike and when I do hike one of the only things that I am afraid of are snakes. I choose the path depending on where I believe the least snakes will be and watch where I put every foot in order to avoid snakes at all cost. In fact my irrational fear controls how I hike.

Is this not like all other legitimate fears that we let control our lives? We may be scared to die, scared to be uncomfortable, being broke, or of allowing God to take utter control of your life. I would be willing to beat that everyone has some fear that controls our lives and interferes with us trusting in God completely.

What is your fear that is in the back of your mind that keeps you from running through the trails of life freely, not peeking behind corners and cautiously taking baby steps to avoid what it is that you are afraid of?

Many years ago I had a vision while having an amazing and pure worship experience of a snake slithering into my mind. All of a sudden a cloaked man came with a staff and crushed the head of the snake. I spent the rest of the night holding Jesus' hand in one of the most pure worship experiences I have ever heard.

At the time I had not been introduced to the Genesis 3 verse about a future savior crushing the head of the serpent. But when I made the connection i realized there is nothing to be fearful of, Jesus rules victoriously and no tangible or spiritual evil can cause me harm.

I was reminded of this constantly as I hiked the hills around the Oak's camp that are infested with all kinds of snakes.

Summer Lessons

Will I ever get to a point where I trust God's sovereign, good, and loving hand over my life? I do not know! But It never fails to be incredibly humbling to come out the other end of an experience knowing exactly that God had you right where he wanted you the whole time.

I had a million reasons to wonder why I chose to go to the Oaks summer camp. i.e. (I was surrounded by many christian school kids, people that had been Christian's their whole lives, differences of theologies, difference of methods of sharing the Gospel, etc...)

But man o man did I grow to love the people that I was in fellowship and service with every day for 6 weeks.

A few in particular I know I will be good friends with for a long time. I have to be.. I am indebted into the way they spoke into my life and changed me.