11 pages of heart readjustment

As I was on my way back from Eugene, OR I had some spare time so I wrote about 11 pages in my notebook/journal. Sorry for the long post, but let us see how well it translates onto the website...

As I am riding on a bus that likes to tilt to one side, similar to a sailing ship tacking upwind, with a driver that looks and sounds like a younger Sylvester Stalone, I am reading a book by Gary Witherall called Total Abandon. We are passing the fertile fields of central Oregon, many of which are flooded from the incessant rains lately, and I think,

"What is this adventure that I am on, God?"

I want to be in ministry, my church wants me too, Ignite needs me (I feel) and my sister Laura just asked me to look into taking over as the youth pastor at her church. I love ministry and I love seeing people grow in a deeper relationship with Him, but do I love it too much?

God does not want me in ministry. He does not care if I ever lead worship or preach. All God wants is me, on my face, in His presence, worshiping in His throne room, reading His word... In short, God does not want my ministry, God wants me, all of me. As Tim Hughes sings,

"...take the world, but give me you..."

I spent a while at the Onyx House at the University of Oregon with my friend Aaron "Montana" Bradley. It was cool to see him in his natural environment, surrounded by people that love him and really know him. It was also cool to live in a Christian community for at least one night. This weekend was the latest step in my journey to my groundbreaking realization that God does not need my miistry. While we were at Onyx House, they had their weekly college group service. Yes, the worship team was not great. Yes, there was a lot of people who missed the point of worship. Why did that stop me from entering myself? Do I have to have it loud or my style of music? Does it have to meet a certain level of excellence? Have I become a religious Pharisee that cannot see the spirit of things becase I am blinded by the form?

Lord, SAVE ME!!!

One of the chief topice of conversation was Aaron and his girlfried of less than a month, Katherine. She is a real sweet, friendly and Godly woman and Aaron is a goofy, hilarious and Godly man. I found it hard to listen as conversation invariably shifted...
"Can you believe Montana and Kat are dating?
"No! I had to go ask so-and-so to find out if it was true!"
"I just can't see it?!?!?!"

But who am I to judge another ministry. The Lord brought me to Romans 12 in worship on Friday night, especially verse 9 where it says,

"Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor evil; cling to good.

My love is hypocritical. I cannot love without putting a price tag on it. Even my closest friends, I find sometimes that I need things from them in order to love them as they deserve to be. I need the love of Christ to change the way that I love people. I don't come across as a very loving person sometimes. I can be very proud, think of myself first and I generally think that I am right about everything.

Lord, teach me to love like you do!

This issue of my high opinion of myself has been coming up lately. Ignite hosted 48 Hours of Prayer and I was the guy who organized it, planned it and at times pushed it on people. Despite my humanity, the Holy Spirit took it and blessed it regardless of me. I am also planning a Spring Getaway for Ignite to Aberdeen. I have been tracking down all the little details of the trip and crossing "t's" and dotting "i's". I am enjoying the process, I just forgot one little detail... I haven't asked God what He wants to do with our group in Aberdeen. God has been planning this event since before He created time and He is allowing me to be a part of it. In all of this planning I was talking to my mentor and pastor, Mark Wolbert and he mentioned that it must feel good to be used by the Lord. I said something to the affirmitive and now looking back, my heart was not right! In my heart, I had a seed that said it was about time that the Lord recognized my leadership potential and started to use it.

HOW ARROGANT AM I?

To think that the One who made me is "finally" recognizing how the skills He gave me can be used... Ouch. I want to be used by the Lord, but I need to realize that God will use me for Himself as long as I am not trying to use myself for Him.

This whole can of worms came up when Aaron asked me on the way down to Eugene who should lead the Spring Break mission trip. I thought for a bit, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of everyone in our leadership team and quickly deducted that I was the only one who could manage the job. I told him that it should be ME and Niki, who I love doing ministry with. We really work well together and between the two of us, we could do the job. Aaron said something that shut me down and made me think. He said that he would rather have someone lead it who was going to fail and learn something than have someone who would not fail and in not failing would fail to learn something.

I have never been able to accept failure. I hate it and would rather never go through it. But I need to fail, how else is God going to teach me anything? I need to learn that mistakes are okay and that I can make them, if I learn from them. I am not always right and there are many ways to skin a cat. My high opinion of myself and my ministry ability are based on MY talents and MY skills. Both are not good things to put much confidence in I am realizing.

So, the mistake I am learning from is the attitude that MY ministry matters. Onyx House does not need ME to come down there and lead worship. Ignite does not need MY leadership ability to run a good trip. My sisters church does not need ME to come and lead their youth. The only thing that they need is Jesus and if He chooses to administer Himself through me, then I am willing. I do not need to step out and offer MY services if it is not what God wants.

The only thing that matters in my ministry is my ministry unto the Lord, the time I spend with Him, the worship I offer Him when we are alone together and my abandonment to His Holy Spirit.

As I finished the book by Gary Witherall, one scripture comes to mind 1 Corinthians 15:54-55. Jesus conquered death and He has removed it's sting. He has given us an eternal hope that cannot perish. Life gets easier when I realize that I am going somewhere eternal and what I do on earth is transitory. Whatever ministry I find myself in, I know that the Lord will not be impressed by it. What will impress Him is when I get alone with Him and practice for my eternity with Him. I will be worshiping outside of time for an eternity...

Might as well get started now!!!

Lots to talk about pt. 2

So I forgot to mention the biggest miracle of all for me right now. My dad has agreed to take a loan out for me so that I can stay in school. Dad, if you read this... THANK YOU, I have a difficult time expressing my appreciation and love but know that you have them both.

Also, not a miracle in the same sense as getting finacnial provision from the Lord, but He has blessed us to be able to watch the Seahawks in the Super Bowl!!! What a thrill, watching the NFC title game with a bunch of guys and watching them play so well, awesome!!! Anna, are you going to be able to watch the game in Belgium? Do I need to tape it for you and then mail it? I will you know!!!

GO SEAHAWKS!!!

Lots to talk about

We have been holding 48 hours of prayer the last two days and it has been awesome!!! A team from Operation Mobilization came to campus and have been hanging out with us for a couple of days. They brought a guy named Gary Witherall to our Ingite meeting on Monday night and he tore that house down (well the Holy Spirit did, but Gary ministered it). People were on their faces before the Lord repenting and crying out before Him!!! Worship was amazing, even though I butchered more notes than I have in a long time, people would not have cared (I could have been playing chopsticks on the piano and they would have been worshiping!)

48 hours of prayer is not an easy thing to get going, especially on this campus, but God did it. Every hour was scheduled to have somebody in the prayer shack in the Lord's presence crying out to Him. I only know of one hour where someone missed their shift, but other than that I think all 47 other hours were filled. SO AMAZING!!! I have read the book "Red Moon Rising" about the start of the 24/7 prayer movement in Europe and I am glad that we got to do something like that. Click on 24/7 Prayer for more information. People wrote in a "shift log" about what the Lord did during their hour (or two) and reading some of the things people wrote is quite amazing!!! God did some major works on our hearts. I love it, I love Him and I love worshiping Him.

Speaking of worship... My dad came to PSCC's youth group last night and played bass for me as I led worship. It was really cool. Instrument wise it was him, Jonathon the drumer, myself on guitar and Nikki sang with us. Another annointed time in the Lord's presence!!! I know that the Lord blessed it especially because Nikki and I along with the rest of the 48 hour prayer group had been spending considerable time in the Lord's presence beforehand. The kids were worshiping. Let me say that again, THE YOUTH WERE ENTERING INTO WORSHIP!!! I even saw this one girl, who never engages in worship and (from what I have seen) is always talking to a friend or looking at the boys and in general being very distracted, she was singing along!!! We were able to play really softly and I heard the kids singing the song. This has never happened before, at least when I have led! What a victorious time last night, God thank you for your victory over the strongholds in place of worshiping you. Powerful time... I live for times like that.

With the Operation Mobilization people here, it got me to thinking about missions and workers going over seas to spread the gospel. I don't think that I am called to missions. Maybe that is the season of my life or maybe I am supposed to be a sender of people but I don't know. What I do know is that I love supporting people and sending them out into the mission field, so maybe that is my role right now. I really enjoyed meeting the team fro OM and if you are reading this Michael, Heidi, Edgar or Erik... BIG UP'S to you all and your adventures at different colleges around here. You can read there blog from here or link to it from my sidebar.

I am hungry and I love it!!!

I get to fast again!!! I am on day 2 of no food and I love it, it is so good to sacrifice and procalim that I want to be closer to the Lord more than I want to eat!!! I went out to luch with my brother Joseph and although we had a great conversation, he ate the biggest, best looking burrito with chips and salsa I have seen in a while. I love burritos, but I love Jesus more. As you frequent readers will know, I fasted all food for 3 days at the start of this month and I think that it is going better the second time around. I am not as hungry and I have more hope for this Sunday, which is when I get to eat again. Sunday marks the end of 21 days of prayer and fasting and I am excited to start eating with my church family. I love church potlucks becasue there is always so much food and it is sooooo good!

I have finally tracked down every piece of financial information that I can and am ready to show my Dad... I hope that this can be a positive experience for the both of us, maybe even grow us closer together. I have been looking at it and hopefull y it won't be that bad... You never know though.

We are going to have communion tonight and then go on a prayer walk. I am really excited, I have never led communion before, so it will be a new experience for all of us. I don't think that Ignite has had communion on campus since I have been here. Maybe it is something that we should do more often! I am excited about it because I love the heart of this ministry which is about being intimate with the Lord. That is what communion is for and then we get to take the overflow and go out onto our campus and pray for it.

I really think that there needs to be a balance between intimacy with the Lord and going out and using the overflow to minister. One without the other is in a world of trouble. You cannot do ministry without being intimate with the Lord and I feel that you cannot be intimate with the Lord without ministering in some way. There are many ways to minister; service, evangelism, prayer, praying for people etc... but you need to do something. y favorite way to minister is to play basketball or something with non-christians and just show them how the Lord has changed my heart. It is not in anything I say or overtly do, but it is how I live and act or react to stuff that shows the work God has done in my heart.

I am also really excited about the Aberdeen trip we are going on soon. People are signing up and paying for the trip already. I need to talk to some people and get them to help me with some of the financial details, but it shouldn't be that big of a thing. I love planning stuff like this, it is not my strong suit, but I am finding that I can do it! I also look forward to seeing the trip happen and being involved in leading it.

Another Update

So yesterday was really fun in a hectic and unorganized kind of way. I spent the day getting financial issues sorted out and taken care of. I hate doing stuff like that, I would rather ignore money and not have to worry about it. I think that money is nice to have, but I could care less about it. I suppose that this is a good thing, because I went and asked my Dad to co-sign a loan for me. He is making me track down evey possible piece of financial information and I hate it. I think he is being unreasonable, I understand wanting to be informed about this decision, but I don't recall asking him to take over my financial state of affairs.

Marci the lady in the financial aid office that I am working with is an absolute saint. She has put up with so much from me, that it is a wonder I am still in school. She has helped me with so many things and has single handedly kept me going here at PLU. Thanks, Marci...

I suppose that it is a good thing for me to do, getting all my financial information put together. I will need to see all these documents someday, but I would rather ignore it right now. Again, it will be a good thing for me to do, it just sucks right now.

Last night was crazy, because Ignite was doing worship for the evening chapel sevice here on campus. Chapel started at 5:30 and was supposed to end about 6 pm. The youth group started at 6:30 and when chapel eventually ended, about 6:10 I ended up late for youth. I had to hustle to get to church on time and lead worship for the youth. I showed up 10 minutes late and had to get everything ready. I am glad that I did, it turned out well, but it was not easy. After worship, I was the speaker as well. I spoke on how you can know of God but not actually know Him. I had lots of fun doing that and I think that the kids received it well. We had fun, lots of laughs and I think that they understood what I was trying to get across.

Oh, I found out last night that Kaj and Janel are epecting again! There is going to be another new Martin to terrorize the world and I can't wait to meet it.

Oh, I started to fast all food again today. I am looking forward to it and I think that it will produce lots of fruit in my life. Pray that I will have the strength to get through it and that I will find time to pray and worship more due to not eating.

Attaway Hawk's

How cool was the Seahawks game today? I am very proud of the way they battled and fought today against a good Washington team, overcame injuries and never gave up. I am very proud to be apart of the 12th man!!! It was not the prettiest game I have seen them play, but they pulled it out.

It was really fun to watch the game today with a bunch of guys in one of the dorms on a big screen.

GO SEAHAWKS!!!

The question now is, can I afford tickets to the NFC championship game? The answer of course is no, but I can dream can't I?

The state of my heart... (be sitting down for this one!)

So have you ever pulled a prank on someone and found out that it was terrible timing? Yeah, that was me today. I changed a lot of the settings on my friend Emily's computer and she found it and could not log in to her computer after a fairly stressfull day, so I felt really bad. I went and corrected all the problems, but it was still a good lesson in timing.

Another downer, my friend Anna from Oregon who I knew in the internship I did this summer is running hard away from the Lord. She has always had a hard time being a pastors kid and living with her family. She turned 18 in September, ran off and got engaged to a pedophile sex offender. She is living with him in every sense of the word and is suffering the consequences of it. She got very sick with Chicken Pox and then had a really nasty infection in her legs. She moved back in with her parents so that she could get back on the dads insurance plan and go see a doctor. She and her parents had a large blowout the other night and she ran off back to her fiancee who lives 5 hours away from her parents.

I don't know if her sickness is from the Lord, but I know that He is using it to get her attention. I was planning on going down to get her from her parents house this weekend and taking her back to Aberdeen for a while, but she moved another 5 hours away from Tacoma. The way Anna presented the blowup with her folks, she made it sound like her dad did some very despicable things and that she could not live with him. I don't know if she is lying to me to try and get me on her side or if her dad really did some abusive things, but I am sure that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I really wish that her parents could express a love for her that she would feel comfortable with. Jesus would love her right where she is and would not condemn her or try and force her to turn. I feel that her parents are making it worse.

I got to talk to Anna's mother on the phone a couple of times and it was scary how much of Anna I heard in her. The stubborn pattern of speach, the my way or the highway tone and the belief that she is always right scared me to death. It reminded me of the battle between the immovable object and the irresistable force. Things will break insted of give when those two argue I am sure. If both of them are never wrong, then how can they compromise? Oh, well... Pray for Anna. Pray that her fiancee does not become violent towards her, that she will listen to the voice of the Lord telling her that He loves her more than anything.

Anna if you read this, I love you and want the best for you. I do not judge you, I do not condemn you, I only want to help you. If you do not feel safe or if you start to feel worse, call me and I will drive the 10 hours to get you.

On a lighter note (after spilling my heart out onto the web!!!) I want to say that I am encouraged and challenged by the Lord right now. I am encouraged by the fasting and prayer that PSCC has been doing, my friends that I care for more than almost anything and leading or being apart of worship for the last couple of weeks.

So, as you long time readers know, I have been fasting meat and sweet food for the last week and a half. I have also been praying more and spending more time in worship. This has really bourne fruit. I have led worship for the youth the last two weeks and I have had so much fun and freedom in worship, just incredible. The young men that I have been playing with have begun to catch a vision of what passionate worship and I can hear it in how they are playing. The drummer started to play beats totally different than we had planned during practice, but it worked and it was annointed!!! Also, worship at Ignite has started to break through and that is really encouraging.

I have been challenged to let the Lord carry my burdens. Great... Only problem is, I don't feel that I carry a lot of burdens. With my whole money situation, I have not felt burdened by it, I have been able to trust Him for the most part. But my prayer is that if I am carrying burdens that I should not be, then Lord I want to rid myself of them.

Cool. Sorry for the long post, I just had a lot to say tonight for some reason...

Money

So I need money and I need it bad. If I don't find a cosigner for a loan of $15,000 dollars I might not be able to attend school here at PLU anymore. It has been an exciting adventure to trust God, even when things are not going well. I know that He has me in the palm of His hand and that I will be provided for abundantly. I keep thinking that I could go back to work at the hospital and make lots of money, save some, buy a Taylor guitar with some of that saving... It would be nice to have soe financial security. Mark Wolbert, my pastor, told me that this is the Lord asking me if I am willing to lay down school, even 2 semesters short of graduating, to follow Him. Can I handle being branded a college drop-out? I am not the kind of guy that needs a lot of money, I have never had a lot and probably never will. I have always been able to scrape by, but doors are closing around me left and right and I need to find the window that God is opening.

I really feel that if I leave school, I won't graduate. This means that I won't get to hang out with all the cool guys on my floor and in my dorm, I won't play a final year of football and I will have to find a steady job that can pay for the loans and bills that I have. Oh, well... God is still good and I am learning to trust Him.

I don't want you to misunderstand, I am not asking for money, just expressing my heart. I need to seek the Lord on this, and all the rocks He asked me to turn over I did and found nothing. So He has full control over this and I will wait for Him to move on my behalf.

On a much lighter note, Ignite is planning a trip to Aberdeen and I am really excited about it. I love the ideas tha twe have for the trip and the whole focus of going there, blessing the church and worshiping Jesus. I have been talking to Pastor Jake out there and getting their ideas for what the weekend will look like for them and what they want us to do. This is my first time to really plan an event like this and I love it. I am not a real detail focused person, but I find that I am enjoying the little things because I know that if I sweat the small stuff, then it won't come back to bite us later. We have lots of cool things going on and best of all we will be back in time for the Super Bowl!!!

I am also excited about the worship team and the direction we are going in. Wess stepped out in faith and decided to leave the comfort of his piano and let Nikki play it. This left me as the lead instrument and this is a role that I am more comfortable in. The whole Ignite meeting was annointed, from worship to announcements to the speaker. It was fun to be in th building and people were being talked to and we were growing our connections with the students. We will be playing a worship night out in Aberdeen concurrant with our spring getaway out there. It will be like going on the road! Maybe I am supposed to drop out of school, make some money for a season and then start a band, go on the road and glorify Jesus in all of it??? I am kidding, I am pretty sure that is not what I am supposed to do (but it would be fun).

Ultimate!!!

So my friend Mary Carlton in Honolulu sent me a long sleeve T-shirt yesterday and what is the first thing I go out and do? I go out and play ultimate frisbee in the rain and mud here at PLU! As the game was winding down, My friend Aaron and I found a large puddle in the middle of the field and we went sliding face first, on our bellies in it. So much fun!!! The only problem is that the mud does not smell good and I was caked in it. I will post a picture as soon as I get them from my friends.

If you could be praying for the xxxChurch ministry as they are at the Porn convention in Las Vegas this weekend that would be cool. As a recovering porn addict, I think that this is a very important ministry and know that God is going to use them hugely down there. You can read about what is going on down there in their blog on their website, xxxchurch.com

We had a fun prayer time tonight and it followed the principle from Acts 3:19 where we all repented of stuff and then turned to the Lord as in James 4:10. It was very cool because the Lord was faithful and sent the Holy Ghost to refresh us. It was good and some breakthroughs were made.

I have to get up early tomorrow so I won't try and post any more. I love this blogging thing though, really a kick in the pants!!!

What a day...

Today was a spiritual edventure. The day started out great and I had a great workout and spent some time in the word and then I tried to go to lunch. When I got to lunch, Dorothy, the sweet meal plan lady, told me that I needed to get a meal plan, which I had already done. Then I remembered that I have not gotten all my financial situation strightened out yet. I have to apply for a $15,000 private loan to cover my expenses this year and I had already tried to apply but my cosigner was rejected due to poor credit. I was really depressed and dissapointed all at the same time, my own family can not take care of me and it really sunk in. Both my mom's parents are wealthy, but not really willing to go out of there way to help people out. My grandmother promised and delivered on $1,000 this year btu that is all she is willing to give and I know that even is generous. So the financial adventures continued when I tried to apply for another loan with a second cosigner and the website was down. Oh, well at least I tried.

Tonight at youth group, I led worship and I loved it. The only problem is that no one else was worshiping along with the team and I. I played my electric guitar and all my pedals tonight which was very fun. We only had a 3 piece tonight, but we rocked the set pretty hard. It was very annointed during practice and we were loving it and then the rest of the kids got there. I was really bummed to be one of the only people pouring my heart out to God and to open my eyes and see the rest of the people just standing there.

One of the leaders told me afterwards that the Lord showed her a picture of the Throne Room and that God was standing up, like a father when their kid gets his attention. This was a cool image and I am glad that God was pleased, but I would like the rest of the group to be in the Throne Room with me. I am encouraged because I know that a spark was put in the hearts of the two kids that played with me tonight and I am fired up to play some more worship music with them. We really had fun experimenting and playing some classic worship songs very loud and distorted. Ok, so they were all about 3-4 years old, in the infancy for a worship song.

I got to share from my heart about finding a way to worship God that is there own and to worship in Spirit and in Truth. I hope to keep on encouraging them to press in and worship however the spirit leads.

Oh and USC lost today to Texas, I am bummed about that (I wanted the Pac-10 to do well in bowl games) but I know how trivial and fleeting that really is. It was a very exciting finish and from what I hear an awsome game to watch.

What a crazy day (spiritually and yes I know football is not spiritual)!!!

I'm FULL

So I felt released to eat tonight at 6 pm and so I went to eat shortly after. I kinda miss fasting all food already, it was fun to know that I was hungry but that the Lord was so much bigger than my hunger. Oh, well... It was nice to eat too.

This month at Ignite, our campus ministry here at PLU, we have decided to focus on prayer and seeking the Lord. We started it off with worship last night that was scheduled for an hour and lasted for near 2 1/2. God is really taking us deeper here on campus and it is fun. We have decided to get together for prayer every night this week and we expect and know that God will show up. I am excited!

I got some CD's in the mail today. I went onine to Solid State records and bought three CD's for $37. They were selling the CD's for $10 and with shipping and handling it came to $37. I got the new CD's from Underoath, Norma Jean and As Cities Burn. I have not got to listen to all of it yet, but I expect good things. I love how they can play some really cool music and just glorify Jesus the entire time.

Anyways, if you read this, post a comment and left me know...

Day 3

So day 3 of this fast is going better than I thought it would. I guess that it is true that once you get past day 2 or 3 you can last a lot longer. Oh, well... I am looking forward to dinner tonight with my friends!!! Some people and I went to Red Robin yesterday and that was fairly difficult. But today is a new day and I am almost done.


One of the things that I love about fasting is that I am starting to feel closer to the Holy Spirit than ever and I want to pray more and worship, it is cool.

Anyways, Thanks to Tim for your kind words on the e-mail. They are always appreciated man.

I honesty don't have much to say right now! (I know, weird...) Maybe I will post later as well.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

So a dude named Tim left a comment on the blog and in my "vast" knowledge of how all this works, I ended up deleting it, Sorry Tim! So in respone to Tim's comment I will attempt to expand on 2 Corinthians 10:3-5.

In our lives we have things that we can place in front of God. There are many things that we can turn to instad of God and us guys have it pretty bad. Anything from girls to a career to the latest video game can have a negative influence in our lives. An example from my life is ministry itself. I find myself sometimes concentrating on doing things for the the Lord and not being with the Lord. Sometimes in my own private times with the Lord, I will find myself playing my guitar to get better instead of just worshiping and there is a big difference between the two. Even though I am playing worship songs and maybe even working on a new arrangement, it is still not me encountering the Lord.

One of the big things that I see in a lot of guys is the striving to live a good christian life. While there is nothing wrong with living in a way that pleases Jesus, I see many guys that live scared to face life and afraid to lead in the way they are meant to. I am as guilty of this as anyone else and this too can be something that we look to instead of Jesus. Life is near guaranteed to be unfulfilling if we try to make ourselves happy by attending enough bible studies, church services and behaving how a "good person" behaves.

Unless the changes in a persons behavior that makes them a "nice person" is initiated in the heart by Jesus, it is just acting and is not real. Verses 3-4 talk about how we can get rid of the strongholds of our hearts and explains that there is nothing that we can do about it in and of ourselves. The weapons used to take down the strongholds are not of our flesh, but they only come from Jesus. The only way that we can sucessfuly live the christian life is to look firmly at Jesus and run after Him.

What happens in the end if we have things in our life in the way of God? 1 Samuel 5:1-5 tells the story of the ark of God and what happened when it was captured by the Philistines and when they had put it in the temple of their god Dagon. In the end, Dagon ends up on the floor of the temple in pieces, face down before the ark of the covenenant. Any idol we set up in our lives will be removed, God is to Holy for them not to be.

So, as David prayed in Psalm 139:23-24
We need the Holy Spirit to show us the areas that we have set in front of God in our hearts and then we need to ask Him to help us tear down that stronghold.

I hope that this helps, friend. Please feel free to e-mail me if you have more questions, hillsj@plu.edu!

1 Down, 2 to Go.

So I still have little to do except write on my blog and I was looking at it and I am kinda proud of my effort yesterday, I like how it looks!

Last night was cool because I got to share at my friend Jonathon's bible study. I shared out of 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 about taking down the strongholds and thoughts that we set up against the knowledge of God. It was a very fruitful time and we had some fun. I found that I am fairly good at that kind of thing and even though I did not write out any of my thoughts about it, I always had something to say. We started to talk about how men can really weaken themselves by trying to live the typical "christian" life and how that can be something set up against the knowledge of God. They want to talk about all this stuff again next week, so we get to talk some more about another passion or mine, seeing men rise up and be released into the fullness of life.

Day 2 of the fast is better than yesterday, I am not dying from hunger pains! I am hungry sure, but I am able to withstand it more. I think that this is the longest I have fasted ever and I cannot imagine the full 21 days without food or even the 40 days that Jesus and Moses did in the bible.

I am enjoying the fact that people are starting to populate my dorm again. It is good to see some people again. My frined Aaron and I are going to Seattle this afternoon to hang out with some of his friends from the U of O. I don't like Seattle much, but it should be fun.

Wow, time does not fly when you are hungry.

So one of the things I like about blogging is that you get to build your own site and customize it how you want to. I have had nothing to do today, besides starve, except sit here on my computer and try my best to figure out HTML and make a cool looking blog. I am pretty proud of myself for figuring all this out on my own, mind you I still have lots to learn, but I think that this is fun this whole HTML business.

Change of major??? Nah...

For the record, doing all this work does not ease hunger pains. Maybe the color blue will, it is supposed to put people in a more relaxed mood.

Oh and if you think of something that I should put on my sidebar (the only area I am good enough to change consistently) then let me know!

Fasting Sucks!!!

So PSCC started 21 days of prayer and fasting today and I feel led to fast food for three days at the beginning and the end of the 21 days and then meat and sugar for the time in between. Needless to say, I have not eaten all day and I am hungry. Knowing that I still have 2 days left to go is not helping either. This is good for me, I need to learn how to really sacrifice my flesh and put Jesus on the throne of my life.

The New Year has come, with much fanfare and DJ music (thanks Nikki), but now I am settling in to the grind of school again. Oh, sure it is exciting for the first little bit when you reunite with all your old friends, ask them how their Christmas was etc... andthen the fact sets in that you have class and school work to do. After all this went through my head, I realized that I do not have a class this J-term, so I get to focus on working out, PSCC youth and Ignite. This is almost a dream come true! I have always said that if I could, I would change my major to football and Ignite, so for the month of January I get my wish. I am excited for this time of prayer and fasting, especially for the campus. I hope that we learn from last year and hold our prayer meetings at night instead of the nether regions of dawn.

I get to go and share at my best friend Jonathon's bible study that he holds for the guys at his church (Northwest Foursquare) in Federal Way. Jonathon and I have known each other for forever, he is 2 months older than me and we have shared eerything since; crib, bathtub, bed and our lives in general. Even though I did not see him for almost a year, when we got together, it was like notime had ever passed. We were sharing our hearts and the struggles we have like old times, I loved it!!! He asked me to share at his bible study tonight and we have been talking about how men can sometimes be emasculated in a variety of ways. He told me that he sees lots of guys trying to live like a "Christian man" but they are nothing but weak minded and very lost. I am excited to go and share with these guys about the primacy of Jesus, nothing else matters except Jesus. I hope to impart the fact that they don't have to maintain an image to have a witness, all they have to do is RUN after Jesus. I am pumped to share if you can't tell.

Even though fasting stinks right now, I guess that it proves how much I needed to fast. I even hope to lose a little weight with this fast and more stringent and regular exercise. If God is calling me to great things, the least i can do is not eat for a couple of days!
Sorry for the long post, but thanks for sticking with me =).