What they don't tell you and how I didn't listen...

What they don't always tell you, they being teachers/pastors/friends/parents/mentors, about following Christ is that it is hard. Sometimes... they don't even realize they're doing it. I grew up in a time, era, location, lifestyle where Changing the World for GOD! got many exclamation marks. Where the domino effect was preached about changing one life that effected the whole world, and how people were just waiting for God to come in and fill the emptiness inside them. They rarely mentioned the burned, the angry, the tired, the hurt, the misinformed, the confused, the thinkers, the theorists, no, no I mainly heard about the LOST. Lost people are looking for something, and when you give it to them they are overjoyed. The burned are scared of it happening again, the angry are not going to listen to what you say about it, the tired are going to avoid it, the hurt are going to run from it, the misinformed are going to gossip about it, the confused are going to damage it, the thinkers are going to analyze it, and the theorists are going to agree with you on most points. 

No one taught little Christian boy here how to communicate Christ to someone who has been through hell and back a few times and has been burned, lied to, misunderstood, and is fed up with anything to do with God or Christianity.

Until I became him.

Someone mentioned something about my blogs, and what I took from it was that I tend to talk ABOUT things, ABOUT my struggle, or my feelings about them, but I do not say what they are.

So here's a confession, I struggle with talking to people about my faith in Christ, which is a way of saying I do not talk to people about my faith in Christ. I can count on one hand the people I personally while talking to them have seen accept Christ in front of me. A majority of my life I have not been living "on mission" as we sometimes say. In part because I never met a LOST person, everyone knew exactly where they stood, or had a hard to counter explanation as to where they stood. Also in part, because I didn't listen when someone said that following Christ was hard, and I pulled on my label of Christian around follow Christians, and was the "good guy" around everyone else.

What has been happing to me over the last few years, is a violent roller coaster of following God and then running from Him, add in that I struggle with depression that makes it abnormally physically exhausting to do laundry, or clean my house, my car, shop for food, make meals, (Basically function as an adult)  and that Change the World mentality that I've been "failing" and I'm in a serious mental mess on a regular basis.  I can throw on a good face in public, but my mask is wearing very thin.

I'm scared to take that mask off for good, and, its easy to type all this here because I'm alone and I'm going to post it before I seriously think about people reading it.

I'm scared because I know everything that people are going to say, Meds? Sleep? Prayer? Bible Reading? Accountability? Counselor? Therapy? Diet? Just tough it out? Overreacting? Herbs? Exercise?

I don't want to snap... I don't want that mask to come ripping off my face... I want to take it off myself. Starting here, in the place I pick and choose what I show the world the most.

So like I said, I became him.

And God is teaching me how to communicate with those like me by loving me.

What did I not listen to? the people who talked about how hard following Christ is, the ones who died to spread that word, the ones who have gone before me, I didn't listen to them. I didn't believe them.

This is becoming scattered and I'm considering deleting it so I'm going to wrap up.

Just... prayer... a hug... time... 

It's going to be long and hard, and thank God I'm not alone. 

How everything went wrong...

Now, I know my last post was heavy so I'll start off on a lighter note. 

It's Super Bowl Sunday and the Seahawks whipped the Broncos.

Onto the serious.

Just kidding, this one is pretty light, but I do want to start off by listing everything that went wrong this morning for Tech at LifeCity.

Worship leader got sick and lost his voice, had to change songs because worship leader couldn't sing, the lights decided to be rebellious, the control tablet had a glitch, a video didn't render, we were short handed... you get the idea.

I have a awesomeness scale for Sunday mornings: more things that go wrong = how awesome Sunday will be. This morning was a 7+ before service started on the wrong to awesome ratio.

It ended up being on a pure awesome scale of well over 11. 

Why? Because God.

God had a plan for this morning, and it happened exactly how He wanted it to. No bumbling of man, or technological glitches were keeping this morning from happening. The worship was flawless, and God clearly spoke through Darby and the message. It is a privilege and an honor to be a part of all of this.

We're doing a series on Covenant and Kingdom by Mike Breen for the next 5 weeks. Our whole church and CityGroups are doing a book study at the same time, it's incredible. You can sense the movement that God has stirred in us as a body and I'm super excited to see where He's taking us through this. I'm pretty stoked inside even though I'm physically exhausted as I write this.

So, that is it, I just wanted to share some light hearted excitement with you all. 

God bless you, whoever you are, wherever you are, and whatever you are going through. I prayed for you tonight while writing this, be encouraged and full of joy!