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So Wow! I guess its been a little over a year since I’ve updated this thing. Thats ok… this past year hasn’t been one of thought anyways. Just another year. Not saying amazing things haven’t happened. Since my last post, I’ve gotten a house of my own, built a friendship with two of the most amazing people in the world, and grown in so many ways. I think growth is good, however, as it stands right now… I don’t like being forced into things. I feel that at this current point… growth is the only option. I feel that moving backwards or staying where I’m at are not an option. Hence… I’m forced into being better and growing further.

I’m finally moving into what I would call being a man. It seems that I need to put childish things behind me now and focus on what is important. No more ill subject humor, no more jokes focused in the ironic. Its time to be prepared and look ahead as apposed to living in the moment. Not saying that living in the moment is bad, but its hard to be prepared for the future, if you don’t look ahead to see what is coming. I’m finding that all my friends are growing up, and unless I plan to be left behind and drive my wife crazy, I should consider moving along with them. This means sacrifice. But sacrifice for what? I don’t know what I’m sacrificing for? I mean… I do… but are things I’m sacrificing for things worth while? Maybe they are. I know I’m sacrificing my self and my own desires for the most part. I’m being forced to die to my self, and it hurts because it isn’t a quick death, but a slow one of starvation from the things my self desires want to devour.

I feel like I’m quitting crack but worse. Its hard to kill and pull and starve roots so deeply ingrained in one’s self that reach back through child hood. Habits that I once used for protection and now block me from intimacy. I hate looking into my self because I’m afraid sometimes of what I might find. I know what and who I can be if I let my self be that way. I so want to be lazy, self centered, focused on what I want, taking no one else into consideration. I want to reject everything and every one some times and just run till I find a place that is perfect for Me, then let no one in unless then serve me and give me what I want. That is the demon with in that though has very little power over me, is very hard to kill completely. For those who are reading this… don’t judge. You know you have your dark side too. I’m not saying I want all that I just described above… I’m just explaining my tendencies from time to time that I have to starve and push away.

Who am I kidding… I’m fairly sure that no one is going to read this. Anyways… those are my thoughts of the day. I have a beautiful life, wife, home, and friends. I have nothing to complain about. Its not that life isn’t good, but simply that I have to be better. I know this for sure. I was not put on earth to have a good time and Always be happy. The funny thing about that is when I chase those things is when I’m the least happy. In order to gain the things I truly desire in life, it requires sacrifice. It requires me to die to my self. You can’t get something for nothing right?

So tonight is the last night of summer camp here in San Diego. Its be so much fun. Its been CRAZY. It’s been exhausting. Right now I’m in charge of 26 kids all by my self as they are wrapping up to go to sleep. My other 3 guy youth leaders are all walking around somewhere doing God knows what. Its fine… I’m just going to write this blog, and as long as they don’t kill each other, we are good. So here are my over all and final thoughts on camp. 

1. If you get bored at camp… there is something wrong with you.

2. Watching God move over a body of believers in worship at camp is something you will never forget.

3. I AM SO TIRED.

In fact… I’m going to sleep.

Good night

I wrote this song about how you can’t taste, and feel this life in truth to its till God is the director of it.

So I’m reading this book about crucial conversations called crucial conversations, and a big concept it talks about is finding the higher goal. The idea is that in an argument between two people, one person has one stance, and the other person has a different one. The point of the higher goal, isn’t to compramise between the two stances, but to find the higher goal that both parties are trying to get to. I didn’t really understand this concept in full till later in the book when the author told a story about two people having an argument.

There were two girls who wanted to use the bathroom at the same time. They started arguing because each wanted to use the bathroom first. They ended up spending 25 minutes arguing about how one needed to use the restroom worse then the other. Both wanted to win at their own agenda, but werent looking at the higher goal which was to use the restroom. If both would have stopped, and realized the over all goal, and weren’t so concerned with themselves, they both could have used the restroom much quicker with out wasting all that time and energy and discomfort. I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes its ok to lose at the small things to win at the bigger things.

Lol… it seems like life goes in an upward spiral, yet seems in my paradigm, to be only two dimensional. On one hand, I could say life goes in circles, or seasons of up and down if you will, yet on the other… when put in perspective, everything seems to always find its self higher then before.

I guess you can look at it this way. If you’re goal was to walk from one side of a country to the other, the only way to get there would be to simply start walking. Now on this metaphorical journey there will be problems, trials, rivers to cross, mountains to climb, but regardless of where you are at, if you are still walking in the direction of your goals… you will eventually get there. Right?

That’s where I’m at right now. I have goals set in place, and I am doing my best to find my way across this country. I have a map, and a compass. I just need to keep reminding my self to always follow them. To keep looking up at God for guidance as I walk through this life, knowing what awaits me on the other side.

So Ruby and I have been living here at my Moms for just about a month now. Its cool because in that month I have been right on track on completing the goals set forth on the very purpose of moving in with mommy. At the same time… different events I was hoping to avoid have taken place. I guess looking back on it… expecting to not have experienced those was foolish of me. Its difficult however. Its like I’m trying to hold everything together and everyone here is looking at me to make sure that happens. In life… I’m finding that there are few moments that I am allowed to be weak, and even in those times… I am my own enemy. I try to steal that moment telling my self its wrong to cry, to worry, to have doubt. 

I enjoy this life so much because of all its complications. When I was younger and I looked ahead and tried to fathom all of this… I thought to my self “Thats impossible!” Realizing all the responsibility. I thought “Will I ever have time to play.” Being use to playing every day and having a new adventure. Now days I get few adventures… but at the same time, I have realized that I’m living in a never ending future. With a life as volatile as this… how can it not be?!? 

Anyways… thats my burb of the day. I should really write in this thing more often. Anyways… PEACE!

So I’ve been reading this book called “The Shack.” It’s a really great book and I’m sure most of you reading this blog have either read it or have heard about it. It seems that one main point the book really really pushes home are two things. First, is that God is Good, and he really really loves us even though most of the time we don’t believe it. Second, is that relying on God goes much deeper than I ever thought.

When I think of relying on God, I mainly think of trusting that God will make sure my wife and I don’t end up naked and hungry on the streets. From reading this book however, there is so much more to it. To rely on God means to give up our desire for power over our lives and the things that happen in it. To give up your “right” to judge. To give up your desire to control things. To trust in God so much and so far that if anything happened, because you trust that God is really good and in control… its OK.

The character Mack in the book didn’t fully trust God with everything because he didn’t believe that God was truly Good or truly loved him. When it comes down to it… that’s a question we all need to ask our selves. What are we not giving to God, and more importantly… why? It seems that so much of why we don’t move forward in our relationship with God is that either we don’t trust God, or we aren’t sure we even believe he is there. Its easy to say the “right” answer to our selves in our heads on what we “believe.” But do we really really know that God is Good and that he is right here next to us. How can we truly have a relationship with anyone till we at least accept those two things? It seems so simple, but I believe that there are things inside of us that need to be worked out and unwound before we can truly accept who God is.

I’m starting to see a lot about my self and my impression of God. When I imagine God, I picture a really big light that I can’t fully grasp, or a spirit who “loves me” that I always fail. I feel like I always disappoint God. I keep trying to bring God down to my level as if he was just another Roman God that was almost human. So what I’m working on is removing those images, thoughts, feelings and emotions from my sense of who, and what, and how God is, and giving up on trying to do that on my terms. I do want to know who, what, and how God is, but for the first time… I WANT TO KNOW who, what and how God is for who he really is and not how and what I think he is.

In order to rely on God, we must first trust him, and know he is Good. We must then understand he loves us. We must then give up our thirst for power and control over our loves. We must then give everything we have first to God and Second to anything else. Its a hard thing to truly wrap our minds around. If your reading this and think that the concepts of what I’m saying are simple, your missing something.

All in all, I’d say the most difficult thing for me to grasp right now is that God is my father, and I’m his son, and that he really truly, and deeply loves and cares about me and what goes on in and around my life. I’m such a tangled mess inside and its going to take some work to sort it all out and make it beautiful for God. This I can only do with God with me, and right next to me helping me.

Ok… I gotta be at work in 30 min, so I don’t have a lot of time. I just wanted to throw something up because I haven’t been writing in some time. So here it goes.

I’m reading this book called “The Shack.” It starts out pretty sad because a little girl named Missy gets kidnapped and killed and it talks and talks about the fathers grief. He gets invited up to the shack where her daughter was killed by God however. Its a really great book, and I recommend it a read for anyone!

An update on Ruby and I moving. I finally got her garage cleaned. What a mess! We are starting to move stuff as of yesterday. This next 4 to 6 months is going to be very interesting. Keep us in prayer. My family is something to the affect of Malcolm in the middle if you have ever seen that show.

Ruby and I are moving back in with my Mom. On one hand… it SUCKS! On the other hand… I will be saving scads of money not spent on rent, and utilities. This will allow us to pay off some debt and save for a house. I really wanted to do this on my own… but it just makes to much sense. In the long run… it will just be easier, and quicker to get into a real house of our own. Plus… living back with my mom will make the move to our own home that much more SWEET!

Santa Barbara is home to me. I’m not from there, and I’ve never stayed for more than a week, but its home. Its where my soul feels at peace. Its where I feel most safe. I think its a conglamorant of the relationship I have up there, mixed with the layed back culture. There isn’t one part I don’t love. I could walk the same area for days and not get tired of it.

This last trip that I just arrived home from only a an hour or so ago, was to help my cousin Lori with her computer and see my younger and only sister Christy. I wish my stay would have been longer, but for the time I spent, I was able to maintain strong relationships, catch up with family, and eat at one of the best places in town… The Break Water. Anyways… below are pictures from my trip.