I have a few quick things to say

I absolutely adore my friends at home. I wish I could see them a lot more though. It is also hard because my friends are in like 3 or 4 different fiend groups. I also love my friends at Calvin and cannot wait until I get to go back :)

Unrelated to that, Matthew 6:24 tells us we can't serve God and money because we will end up loving one and hating the other. Guess which one usually gets the shaft in my life?

Of all the amazing qualities God possesses, I think my favorite is his ability to forgive. That's my favorite because it is one category I fall incredibly short in. I"m moved when I think that God is willing to forgive me for all the ways that I fail him, but I have the hardest time forgiving my friend for something stupid and petty. Lord, your forgiveness completely overwhelms me.
That said, what is your favorite quality of God's? Why?

easier said than done

So I recently got back from camp COW and it was awesome; tiring but awesome. The whole week was about going from luke warm Christians and tuning into believers on fire for Christ. We had a lot of cool speakers and the cabin time was good but there was something missing. The sunday after camp, I went to 2HC and Dave G was speaking about the exact same idea. The thing that was missing was not "what are we supposed to be?" but rather "what steps can we take to achieve that?". This is where I need your help. I always want to do more for Christ but what? What steps can we all take to become believers on fire for Christ? I think we all know what we are supposed to be, but we don't know exactly how to get there.

Into the Hands of the Potter

One of my favorite prayers is to ask God to soften my heart and to mold me into who he needs me to be. That's a good prayer. The problem is once I'm done, I go through my day like nothing happened; maybe because nothing did actually happen. I'm heartfelt in my prayer but in reality, I'm still not ready for God to come and knock down the walls I built up. Instead of letting God mold us, we mold him into the god we need for the day.
The Hebrews called out to God for help. He lead them out of Egypt by splitting water, leading them with a cloud and giving them food and water, yet they still made a cow out of gold. As humans we think we need a god that's tangible, so we make one or mold ours into the god we need. We take advantage of God's love and forget that we need to serve Him and live for Him.
I challenge you to see God for who He is, thank Him for His love, and be open with Him. Then we can start to let down our walls.

Good old Koinonia

I liked our high school youth group. I loved all the people that put it together and of course all the students. However, I always had this feeling like it wasn't what God wanted for me. He wanted more of me. Koin taught me how to pray and how to sing so that people would see God through my actions. The problem was that God wasn't in my motives. There are very few times in my life where I felt challenged in my faith and nun of them come from Koin. Koinonia was cool and comfortable for new comers but I needed more. I needed to be challenged. I was never put out of my comfort zone or encouraged by my peers in my walk with Jesus.
I need to be real with God. I don't have to make my prayers sound good, I just need to be real and to be challenged, because I have gotten too comfortable with where I am.

It's hard for guys to get into the Christian life I think. I blame it on the fact that we don't want to be vulnerable to another male figure, or maybe because we have the need to work for what we are given, like salvation. Either way, it's hard. Guys are prideful and hate the idea of depending on someone else when we want to be in charge. But in charge of what, our lives? I, like most of us, need to be reminded that my life is not my own.