He Bled....

One of the most important aspects of Christ's life was His blood. It was through His blood that we were made clean, that we were forgiven, that we are even able to have faith. He bled on the cross so that we can live.

But that's not the blood I want to focus on here.

Christ bled before the cross. Before His torture. Even before His arrest. He sweat blood.

In Luke it says that Christ sweat drops of blood as He prayed; "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but Your will be done."

Christ always served as an example, and here He shows us how to deal with the struggle of following the Almighty. Christ knew what God wanted Him to do, but He couldn't do it. At least not on His own.

Christ prayed for God to find another way, but Christ also prayed for God to give Him strength to do His will. Essentially, Christ had to rely on God to be obedient.

Often God asks us to do things we don't want to do. It's alright to be scared. It's alright to not want to. Christ was scared. He didn't want to. So don't feel bad when God asks you to do something and you're not jumping up and down for joy.

Deal with it like Christ did. Pray for strength. Pray for obedience. If Christ needed God's help to be obedient, don't feel bad if you do too.

Some Worship Thoughts....

Over the past 36 hours or so, I have had a few ponderings regarding the practice of worship....these are my thoughts....(again, in random order)

To start, I am super thankful that God has chosen me to lead His people in worship. To make music to the King is truly an honor and I am thankful that God's grace covers my insufficiencies to the point where I can do that. I'm extremely humbled every time I remember that my feeble attempts at music are for the Almighty.

Raising of hands in worship...I think it is a really cool thing...but is it overdone? Why do we raise our hands for only certain types of worship? Shouldn't it be a consistent thing?

Tonight, I tried to worship without singing, but rather listening. It was cool to hear the Christian body and imagine what the music in heaven would sound like. It was also cool to hear the Spirit moving. What wasn't cool, however, was that I noticed I didn't get the same feeling as when I am singing. Said a different way....perhaps I enjoy the sing-along part of worship more than the praising part. Make sense? I mean, it's easy to feel the "joy" when we are singing our favorite songs...so maybe that "joy" we thought was heavenly based turns out to be karaoke based....I dunno....

Finally, the worship grading system. Yeah, I critique worship sets. The musicians. The song selection. And typically I show no mercy. It's a really good thing God is merciful in accepting my worship, because if He were as harsh a critic as me then nothing short of Hillsong or Crowderband would be good enough....

The moral of the story (or blog) is that worship is something that both puzzles and amazes me. I am so grateful to be able to praise my LORD, I'm just not sure about a lot of aspects....

Thoughts?...

Some Thoughts....

The following is a list of random thoughts I had throughout the day that I thought I'd share with the blogging world (or at least those who read this). My head has been quite full recently, so I decided to let a bit out.

If the LORD came down and gave you the answers to any three questions, what would they be? What do your questions reveal about yourself?

Remember breakfast? Eggs, bacon, sausage. Yeah, we should bring that back.

Writing music...it's a love hate relationship.

Ever ask God how His day went? Ever get a response?

Infatuation vs. Love...which is stronger?

Shoe tying = pain in the butt....Let's make velcro acceptable again

Taco Bell...it's a love hate relationship

Being a fish would be the pits, you're stuck with one facial expression your entire life.

Hair

This be the result of my shaving endeavors this morning. I decided to compare faith to hair while not-so-neatly trimming up. This isn't really a useful analogy, rather just a set of my random ponderings.

Everybody has hair of sort (some more than others). What's more, everybody's hair is different. The reason for this difference is because (like faith) there are two contributing factors to hair styles.

You are born with certain hair characteristics (much like people are born into certain traditions). People then choose what to do with the hair they are given (much like some people leave or embrace those traditions)

Nobody keeps the same hairstyle for their entire life. They go through a trial and error process until they find one that they like best. Those hairstyles are form of expression, and they say a lot about person. Your hairstyle is a lifelong process that really never stops. We care enough about it to constantly make it work. How many of us are satisfied with our faith and have stopped adjusting?

Here are the two parts that I really do like:

1) Hair requires maintenance....It's not something you can just leave alone, you have to continuously pour into it. Our faith requires constant attention as well. How many times a day do you look at your hair in the mirror or adjust it. How many times do you examine your faith?

2) Hair is constantly growing. Economic recession, stress at work, relationships, and successfulness can't help or hinder that growth. Hair grows consistently through all things. Does your faith?

Sorry to any hair sensitive readers...Especially bald ones. I promise your ticket to heaven doesn't depend on your hair cut....

Other thoughts on the hair-faith analogy?

Waiting....

Ever heard the phrase "I can't wait until...."? It's really a silly phrase when you think about it, because if you can't wait, then what else are you going to do? How do you "not wait" for a future event?

Webster defines "waiting" as "remaining inactive or in a state of repose, as until something expected happens"

How many of us are in a state of waiting? Waiting for that special someone. Waiting for that awesome career. Waiting for graduation. Waiting for summer.

Whatever it is that we're waiting for, we seem to do so in a passive state. We wait until that special happening to start living our lives. We live them as though they haven't really started and everything until that ultimate event is just the warm up.

Throughout the Old Testament, we see cases of people who could have lived their lives in a state of waiting, but didn't. Women such as Sarai, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah were all considered barren, which was a big deal in those days. A woman's role in society was basically to raise a family, so these women faced a huge struggle. But they didn't just sit and cry about it, rather they prayed about it. They worked towards their goal. In the end, God blessed them with children. You may have heard of them, they were Isaac, Jacob, Joseph & Benjamin, and Samuel. God had work for those women to do before they had children. He had a plan for them.

So I would encourage you to use that silly little phrase and "not wait." Don't spend your life waiting for that special someone to walk into your life. Don't just sit by and hope that job falls into your lap. Enjoy school while it lasts. And make the best of winter while it's here (or at least try).

Or maybe you are waiting for the wrong thing. Maybe that special someone is already in your life and you are ignoring it. Or maybe you are supposed to do a different job than you thought.

Whatever the case, pray about your time of waiting, and ask God what it is that you are supposed to be doing instead of sitting on your hands and marking days off the calender.

Live your life now. Don't wait.