If you are familiar with the book of Job, you would know that God allowed Satan to do whatever he wanted to to Job as long as he didn’t kill him. When Job’s family, livestock and health were all taken from him, we read, ‘At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

Life doesn’t always happen quite the way we plan. But how we choose to deal with the unexpected changes in events will make all the difference on how it will affect us.

For those of you who don’t know, I applied to work with the non-profit Invisible Children while also working on hosting a screening of their documentary in my town. I was so passionate and excited for this job. I was prepared to pay to work for them for the whole summer rather than getting a real job and making money. But even after I had my interview, I didn’t get the job and now I have been without a job for a month and I don’t know why. I’ve sent out resumes to over 15 companies but just haven’t heard back from them. It’s definitely discouraging and I could choose to be really angry that things didn’t go the way I had planned, but the truth is that God’s plans are always so much bigger and greater than we could ever dream of for ourselves. The obstacle is however, when we don’t know what His plan is.

In church, a man was giving testimony and said that while in school in Toronto, things were really tough for him (whether back home, studies, health, a job, etc). He was visibly distressed causing a classmate who always kept to himself to approach him on his worse day and told him that he looked bad and that this guy could offer him something that would take away all the pain. It sounded good so he followed him after school through dark downtown alleyways and up stairs to an old apartment where a group of people were praying by candlelight. The experience he had there completely calmed him down and when he left, he knew that God led him there for a reason; to cure him. When he returned to school the next day and for the rest of the year, this mysterious classmate didn’t return back to class, he was never seen back there again. This man sharing his testimony knew that this classmate was placed in his life for a reason, and once he served the purpose God had for Him, he went on His way.

It’s true though, right? Some people are placed in our lives for just short time, but for a specific reason; and then they’re gone. But I want us to look at this situation from the classmate’s point of view. Why was he there, and why did he leave? Maybe it took him 3 years and a lot to sacrifice in order to afford being able to go to school. He was there for a while and got involved with this prayer circle which he was really loving. Meanwhile his sister was in the hospital and getting more and more sick from cancer, before he knew it he had to leave to go back home to be with his family during his sisters final days. She passed away and it really took its toll on him resulting in him dropping out of school and is still working through depression and methods of coping. It’s been a long journey but through a few special people being placed in his life, he’s well on his way to full recovery and is hoping to return back to school in a year.

You see? Some things happen in our lives that we just can’t explain or understand why. From this classmate’s point of view, he worked hard for something, and just when it started going well he lost his sister and dropped out of school. But through one of his last encounters while at school, he led a stranger to freedom and a better life in Christ, without even knowing it. Just as God places specific people in our lives for brief moments but with monumental influence, He also places us in other people’s lives for their sake and we may never even know about it.

I’m reminded of a scene from the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Brad Pitt explains a huge long series of events that eventually leads to Cate Blanchett being struck by a vehicle. He states that if only one thing had happened differently, then she would not have been fine. He says that, “sometimes we’re on a collision course and we just don’t know it. Whether it’s by accident or by design, there’s not a thing we can do about it. But life being what it is, a series of intersecting lives and incidents, is out of anyone’s control.” I think there is some truth that can be drawn from this story. Situations happen, both good and bad, and everything has a part in influencing who we are today. Although we may not like what is happening right now, it’s part of a bigger story that we just haven’t read yet. Jeremiah 29:11 says ‘For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ Although we can’t see the whole picture but only see what’s happening in the here and now, God sees it all and has a plan. Whether that plan is in our best interest or the best interest of someone else and God is merely using us to help someone else; like the classmate example from before. I’m not saying that God plans for bad things to happen to us. Because of our sinful nature and God’s just nature, He allows for bad things to happen to us just like He allowed for Job, but He works in such a way that He can still be glorified through it all.

I can choose to be angry with God; discouraged and depressed that He didn’t get me a job with IC. I could regret not getting applications elsewhere earlier as a back-up plan, I could ask myself plenty of ‘what if’ questions regarding my answers in my interview with IC. But God didn’t allow me to go through all of this just so that I would be angry with Him, beat myself up, or wish I made different decisions. Regretting some decisions, however, is healthy because the Holy Spirit puts it on our hearts that we made a wrong choice, but allowing guilt to dwell in our minds is not from God; He offers freedom from that guilt.
He allowed me to go through all of this with IC so that His glory can be illuminated and so that I may grow deeper in relationship with Him. I am not working with IC for a reason; one which I don’t really know yet. But I am going to remain optimistic, hopeful and thankful to God even though my plans fell through as I remember Philippians 4:6-7 which says, ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’ I know that He see’s the bigger picture and I’ve got to trust that He allowed me to endure all that I did for a greater cause than to just be disappointed. And I’m eager to see what that reason is.

At the end of the book of Job, 40 chapters later, we read:
After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.
The Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.

Forgiveness. It’s freeing. It’s always a result of pain. It’s a place for healing. It’s often hard. It makes way for restoration. Forgiveness.

Over the last few years, I have had my share of painful experiences through various friendships and relationships. In order to maintain peace, I won’t share details of these relationships, just know that I’m speaking from true experiences from my life with both genders and people of all ages, I’m not just talking about dating relationships here. And I know that we all have our own lives with extraordinarily different circumstances, but I believe that forgiveness has been put in place as a gift from God.

When I drifted apart from particular past relationships, I began to talk about them with my other friends. My intent was not to share about the good times from my past, rather I wanted to express the pain I felt and put all the blame on these people. I wanted to turn as many people as I could against them. Why? Because they hurt me and it felt good to inflict hurt back upon them without actually hurting them. However one time, I had shared some negative opinions of one old friend with a mutual friend and because I feared getting caught and actually hurting this person, I felt I should tell the person myself and apologize. So in an email I explained that I had trash-talked them and our relationship, and I knew that it was wrong, and I wanted to apologize. I thought it was a noble thing to do but it was not received well; but I did feel better about myself, and that’s all that mattered to me.

It wasn’t until this past year that I realized this all needed to stop. I was trash-talking old friendships and past relationships just because they didn’t go the way that I wanted them to. I took any opportunity I could to share with friends about the bad things these people had done to me in the past because it earned me sympathy and revealed the hidden dark sides of these people. But it was not healthy, and not the reason why God put me in those relationships. He didn’t allow these relationships to end so that I would hate them, or warn others about them or to turn others against them. No. God put me in these situations so that I could grow as a result of them. Each and every failed relationship or broken friendship has contributed to the man who I am today. And despite the amount of pain that came out of those, the amount of love and growth makes it all worth it. Do I wish I could go back and change things so that I didn’t experience the hate, the betrayal, the neglect? Not at all, because I’m thankful for those experiences that God allowed me to endure, because I’ve grown with Him so much more through them.

But to be thankful is only one part of the equation. To forgive is what completes this process. It is what brings about restoration, trust and hope for a brighter day. And to be honest, these can only be obtained through the love and grace of Jesus Christ. It was as if He just flicked a switch in my heart and told me that I needed to forgive these people. To make amends with them was such a difficult task. But through His strength, I was able to contact each one of these people who I held grudges against and tell them that I was thankful for them and the relationship that we had. Recognizing that although we were distant now, we did have some good memories and that I was thankful for God placing them in my life for the time that He did. The response was mutual and freeing, and so the restoration began. Now, whenever I engage in conversation about these particular people, I must be sensitive and careful with my words as to make sure my listeners understand that we although had our ups and downs, I am still thankful for them and I don’t hate them; in fact I love them.

Forgiveness. It’s an odd thing. It’s not forgetting the pain, but rather it’s being thankful for the pain. It’s realizing that some things are not worth our stubborn, bitter and hateful attitudes. It’s redemption. It’s love. Forgiveness.

How often do we catch ourselves at the end of the day, resting our heads on our pillows and realizing that we haven’t talked to God yet that day? Or maybe one afternoon you realize that you haven’t spoken to God in the last few days even? And what is our response? We either begin to pray to recap all the time we missed and eventually get off track or distracted and we move on with our day, or we feel incredibly guilty and beat ourselves up for not being good enough Christians because we haven’t acknowledged Christ in our everyday lives.

Before I get started, the disclaimer is that I fully believe 100% that an active relationship with God requires constant communication and we cannot dismiss this fact. It’s integral to our Christian walk that we communicate with God so that we may hear His voice speaking truth into our lives, our struggles and our dreams.

What I want to talk about though, is this idea that we should feel absolutely terrible when we don’t talk to God during our day. Where has this guilt resided from? When we lie down and reflect on our day, only to realize that we haven’t spoken to God at all, why do we feel like we have upset God, or that He is disappointed with us because we’ve wasted our day. He gave us this glorious day, another day of life to live and we didn’t even include Him in it, right?
But I want us to break down that wall. Break down this preconceived idea that God frowns upon our day when we don’t communicate with Him or consciously acknowledge His presence each day. Did you notice that I said ‘consciously’? That’s what I want to talk about, because I am confident that God loves us and smiles upon us each and every day whether we’ve knowingly talked to Him or not.

You see, God gave us family and friends to fellowship with each day. He designed us to dialogue and enjoy the company of one another, we are made to embrace fellowship. So unless you are a hermit, surely you interact with multiple people each day; don’t you think God loves to see us talk with one another?
God gave most of us a great sense of humour and appreciation for funny things. Jesus laughed, God laughs, why shouldn’t we? When you are told a story or something happens right in the moment that causes your sides to splits, or makes tears stream continuously down your face for the next half hour; does God not absolutely love watching you laugh? He created you to laugh, so when you embrace that opportunity, surely He smiles upon you.
Each and every person has been blessed with many skills and talents, some unique and some that can be shared among many. When you sit down and jam on your guitar for an hour, or you take a photo of a beautiful sunrise, or you sweat over the oven to make your family a delicious hot meal, you are utilizing and developing your God-given skills and talents. If you don’t pray first before you partake in these activities or consciously recognize God’s blessing of these gifts, will He not be happy when you do them? Surely He can’t help but smile upon His beloved children when they use the gifts He’s given them.
We all love to eat, and we can all make the choices to eat healthy or not. Sometimes snacking on junk food is nice, but consciously eating healthy is the wiser choice. When we take care of our bodies by listening to what it needs rather than what our taste buds want, God is pleased. When we exercise, go for a run and give ourselves enough sleep so that our body can heal and be in its best shape, how can God be disappointed with us?

Do you see, that in all these ways and hundreds more, we are praising and worshiping God all day long, without even realizing it. When you look outside your window and see the sunset and think to yourself about how beautiful it is, or you get lost in the mesmerizing flicker of a candle’s flame, you are appreciating God’s beauty, His creation, His love for you. We worship God in so many more ways beyond the expected words and music.

And with that said, is it worth beating ourselves up over not praying to God throughout our day? Because if you think back on all that you’ve done each day, you’ll soon realize that you have acknowledged Him and pleased Him without even knowing it, and you’ve made Him smile many times over. Obviously actually acknowledging God in all these things will help you develop in your relationship with Him more and that will make Him smile that much more; and if you don’t consciously communicate with God, you need to improve on that.
When you recognize the majesty of a cloud, acknowledge His craftsmanship it that.
When you have a good talk with someone you haven’t seen in a long time, acknowledge His hand in that.
And when you play a Taylor Swift song on your guitar, first acknowledge His blessing of your skills, and then pray that you learn some better music.

But, when you rest your head on your pillow knowing full well that you haven’t spoken to God at all yet, don’t beat yourself up, and don’t feel He’s mad at you. Know that you’ve made Him smile today, know that He still loves you and always will, and know that tomorrow will bring that much more love and smiles.

This is inspired by the late Kyle Lake’s [Re]Understanding Prayer.

Scripts.
When you think of scripts, what comes to mind? For me, I think of actors memorizing lines for the purpose of taking on a role of someone else. They read a script to get a clear understanding of what they should say, how they should act, how they can best represent their character.

Our Christian subculture has created its own scripts –its own means of instructing others on how to do things we as Christians do– and Christians always seem to be searching for it. They’re looking for a formula to best do everything. Whether it’s how to dress, worship, read the bible, care for others, forgive enemies, or in this case, how we pray.

How do you worship? Do you stand up? Do you sing songs of praise? How about close your eyes? Do you raise your hands? In some churches and denominations, whole levels off spirituality are derived from the placement or extension of the hands.
What is your first impression of Christian music? When I was in high school, I would share my music with friends and they often loved it. When I told them it was ‘Christian,’ they were so surprised because it didn’t match what they originally perceived as Christian music. They understood a script for Christian music, and what I shared stepped beyond those boundaries and they couldn’t believe it. They were blown away by this new concept.
How do you read the bible? Do you read it one book at a time? A chapter at a time? Maybe you take a small passage and spend weeks meditating on it? Why do you read the bible? Just so you can dissect it and reword it in order to better apply it to today’s world and your current situations?
How do you offer advice or support to a hurting friend? Establish eye contact, ask them questions about their well-being, repeat what they just said in a more sympathetic tone, read a scripture verse pertaining to their situation?

These are just a few examples of the formulas that we search for. And they have become readily available to us especially through thousands of self-help books found in the Christian book stores. And they are pretty simple formula’s to remember, but when they’re used, you can easily lose the genuine realness that should never be faked.

Now here are some examples of the scripts that are offered to us regarding prayer:
-Address God as ‘Father God’
-Thank Him for 5-7 things or people around you before anything else
-Use the word ‘Just’ a minimum of twenty-five times
-Address God at the beginning of each new phrase or sentence in case He forgot you were talking to Him
-Finish every time with ‘In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen’
And for some bonus points be sure to:-use more words, bigger words, quote God’s own scripture to Himself, increase your volume, add more emotion for best results of promotion of self and for the purest and most free connection with God

I often spend long periods of time where I won’t pray out loud. I’m not certain, but I pretty sure that the bible never says that you have to pray out loud –it merely refers to people praying together, or in groups. When I open my mouth and begin to pray aloud, I find it very difficult to not think about what the people around me think of my prayers. I can’t stutter, I have to have my thoughts all figured out first, I can’t repeat what’s already been said in a prayer circle. These are all scripts I am afraid of breaking.
When I worked for a youth group I found myself having to pray one-to-one with the youth. They would tell me generally what they needed prayer for and then I would pray for them. But my prayer became advice for the youth. “God remind him to wake up early to pray, help him to listen to his parents better, help him to see you in nature and think of you during his day when he’s walking down the street, brushing his teeth, etc.” All of this I could have just said to him before praying in order to make my prayer a more direct conversation with God. Instead my entire prayer ended up having the sole purpose of making sure the youth heard what I was saying.
From this point on I learned that I could verbally give my advice and support to someone first and then follow that with silent prayer. Tell him “I'm going to pray for you now silently, but know that I am praying for x, y, and z for you.” Often someone likes to feel supported through prayer, but this doesn’t mean they have to hear your prayers. Prayer is to be an intimate conversation between you and God –not necessarily for others to listen in on. If you’re past this point of caring what others think of your prayers, good for you, but if not, I’d encourage you to take time to really think through your motives and why you’re praying out loud. Maybe you need to take a few steps back and pray silently until you’ve humbled yourself enough to pray out loud.

Jesus associated the Pharisees with the word Upokriseus, which translates to Hypocrite. But when Jesus was using this word, it actually meant two-faced and people would often think of an actor –someone who plays a part on a stage, someone following a script.
The Pharisees had mastered their religion so well that it became more about methods, skills, and techniques rather than a change of their heart. Much like an actor, their lines were unattached from their person.

There are many special groups who share a common language that is largely unknown to those outside of the group. Take televisions for example. Did you know that a DLP DNIe 720p is jargon for Digital Light Processor chip and a Digital Natural Imagine engine and delivers 720 lines vertically scanned in a progressive fashion? Or if you are a true golfer, you would know what Grow Teeth, Backdoor, Four-Jack, In the Leather, Kick, Knee-Knocker, Run, and Thin all mean.

I often use to begin praying and then catching myself quickly, realizing the clichéd vibe of my conversation with God. And asking myself, ‘what did I even mean by that?’ I would then go back to the beginning and try to think about what I meant by the words I said before. We need to be ready to locate and uncover the scripts that have been handed down to us for generations in regards to what and how we pray. Consider the following common scripts of prayer:

“Be With”
Jesus said ‘I am with you always.’ Do we have to ask Him to do something He’s already always doing? What we are usually asking for is God to help us identify His presence and involvement in the present situation. So why don’t we just say that?

“Bless”
When else do we ever use this word in our normal vocabulary? We say it so often in prayer, but other than to excuse someone who sneezes, we rarely ever say it. It must be great for God to hear our generic conversation with Him. What we are usually asking is for God to give us or someone else something. Why don’t we stop trying to sugar coat our selfishness and say it like it is?

“Lead, Guide, and Direct”
Three words that all mean the same thing.

“I pray for the best for him”
This doesn’t even make sense. Do we think that God doesn’t already have our best interests in mind, and has us facing what we’re facing for a reason? Whatever we’re going through might be difficult and hard, it might be a sin, but God’s got us right where He wants us every moment of every day. God always has our best interests in mind; we don’t need to ask Him for that. What we should be saying to God is thanking Him for the situation, asking for His guidance and thanking Him for whatever the result of the situation or decision may be.

So the next time you pray, try not to use any of these words or phrases, it will be very difficult. The next time you pray, if you can’t use other normal words to articulate what you’re saying, there’s a good chance you don’t really know what you mean or what you’re praying. The following are more great words that are in our prayer vocabulary, that should be reconsidered. Read through them and see if you can think of what you really mean when you say it… then try using that alternative next time you pray:
Fellowship? Confess? Born Again? Have a Burden? The Lost? Anointed? Raise Up? Prosper? We call on You to…? We ask this only if it be Your Will? Go before us and…?

Prayer is a conversation with God. Someone told me they will sit a chair down in front of them and picture God as a man sitting there in the chair and then they will talk to the chair. It makes Him feel real to them.
We don’t need to impress God with our fancy words taken from scripts passed down through the ages, and we definitely don’t need to try to impress others with our words.
Prayer is a response, prayer is talking to God. He’s asking us ‘How’s your day going” and prayer is our answer to that question. Let’s respond.

“The point is to gain simple conversation with God where tired, vacant language is abandoned and replaced with truthful speech.” –Kyle Lake

I once stayed in a church called The Winnipeg Centre Vineyard (The Vineyard for short) when I visited Winnipeg. John Rademaker was one of the founders of The Vineyard and the best example to me that a rich man can enter the kingdom of heaven. We’re all familiar with that verse in Matthew 19.
Who was John though? John was a professional entrepreneur for 40 years. He was at the top of his game, having founded 3 businesses and managing people and customers from 1960 to 1995. This man was living the life, until he took an abrupt exit from the corporate world...

I was engaged in a conversation at one time where the group was discussing what is worth spending our money on? What are good jobs to have that will provide enough cash? How much money should we be saving and how much can we have as personal spending money? From this, more questions arose: What should we find valuable? What defines enough cash? What are we really saving our money for?
I soon realized where this conversation was going, and I posed the question, how much of your money do you really earn? Surely there is an element of earning your cash, but is it possible that the money we possess is all one big gift?
Too often we make our money and then decide what we want to use our money for and how we can benefit and earn even more for ourselves. Sound a bit much? ‘No, that’s not me’ you say. I’m not accusing anyone, I merely want to point out a fact that many forget too easily, myself included.

The money you claim is yours... isn’t yours?

Does our money not belong to God? Is everything we possess his? He’s provided us with our money, our house, our food, despite whether we’ve necessarily earned it or not. Specifically here, God blesses us with this thing called cash, and in return, don’t you think He expects us to use it wisely?
I don’t understand why I think I can do whatever I choose with my money; I wonder if it is even technically mine. God has entrusted this money to me, but not to do with whatever I please. To entrust, is to pass ownership of something to someone else, suggesting that it was His to begin with. Not only do we need to consciously recognize whose money we are spending, but wouldn’t it also be a good idea to make sure that the rightful owner is alright with it.
If God gives you His money, He’s got a reason for it, agreed?
If you want money and He doesn’t provide it to you, He’s got a reason for that too, right?
It’s His money and He can do with it what He chooses. And more often than not, He chooses the right things to invest His money into...

Ecclesiastics 5:10 says, “The one who loves money will never be satisfied with money, he who loves wealth will never be satisfied with his income.”
Why do we waste so much money? We’ll go out and buy fast food while we have perfectly great food already back home. We’ll spend $10 a week on the latest movie. We’ll upgrade our shoe, hat or purse collection to match our newest outfit or the latest fashion. Whose money is this again? Is it ours to do with what we want? If you ripped your one pair of jeans and have no replacement pants, then sure, buy a new pair for yourself. If you haven’t had your favourite chocolate bar in a while, then sure, treat yourself to something nice. God has entrusted you with this money, and you’ve got to be wise with your purchases. Do you need this or that? Do you think God shared His money with you so that you could buy yourself five $20 CDs so that you could get the sixth for free? That’s something for you to talk with Him about.

1 John 3:17 tells us that “Whoever has the world’s possessions and sees his fellow Christian in need and shuts off his compassion against him, how can the love of God reside in such a person?”
Why do we tend to hold onto our cash so tightly? Is it the security we feel it offers us; is it this sense of earning that prevents us from giving it up, what is it? When it comes to helping others by giving them money, why do we think so hard about it or try to avoid the thought completely? And I’m not just talking about flicking a quarter into a man’s Styrofoam cup. But how about helping out the lady in front of you who doesn’t have enough money to cover the groceries that she chose, or spotting the guy in line the extra change he needs to buy his coffee? Or buying lunch for the really annoying classmate who forgot their food, despite how much you can’t stand them?
It comes down to the convenience of the situation, the relationship you’ve established with the individual, and back to this question of whether they’ve earned the cash. But who cares about all of that? Why do we have this checklist; that if 4 out of 5 boxes are checked, then we will help someone financially. But it’s not our money, remember? This is God’s money that we’re holding on to, and He’s given it to us for a reason: not to bless ourselves all the time, but to bless others too. And if the opportunity arises to give our money away for the better of someone else, I think that is exactly what God would want us to do.

But what if you’re tight on cash? You need that $20 to buy this, or you were saving it for that, or you’re a student and you need all the money you can get just to survive? This may all be true, but like I said before, God will provide us with the money we need. If he wants to give us His money, then He will. But we must step out in faith, that through honouring God by sharing with others what He has shared with us, He will bless us in return in whatever way He sees fit.

1 Timothy 6:10 says, “For the love of money is the root of all evils. Some people in reaching for it have strayed from the faith and stabbed themselves with many pains.”
John Rademaker is such a powerful example to me. God entrusted millions of dollars to John over the span of 30 years. There were bound to be times where John spoiled himself throughout those years and was not wise with his cash. But what did He end up doing? John stopped in his tracks one day and thought to himself, “Why am I making all of this money? When I die, I can’t take this monetary wealth with me.” And from that point on John decided to listen to the Holy Spirit in taking this money and using it to serve others. John invested this money into renovating an old downtown Winnipeg warehouse into a church. This beautiful building serves as a place for worship, but it is also serves meals, a daycare, hosts guest groups, has meeting rooms, and the second floor now serves as a home for people off the streets who want to get clean from the drugs and lifestyle they are currently in. From my understanding, John continues to invest the money God has given him into buying more nearby buildings and renovating them into better homes for current and future residents. John has taught me that I can be rich and still serve God wholeheartedly despite how difficult that may be for others. He has taught me that God may give some people just enough money to get by, and give others millions of dollars. In the end, the money still belongs to God and we must be willing to hear His voice telling us how we should be spending it.

Matthew 6:24 says, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

We all know about the idols that people physically bow down to and worship. Golden statues that people pray to and feel comfort from and receive blessings from. These are just one type of idol. But how about all the idols you have? You say you don’t have any figurines on your mantel though, you don’t pray to anything, you don’t burn incense in hopes to have good fortune. But how about all the other idols that are around us? There are so many of them, and even without our knowing it, a spectator may easily be able to say just as Exodus 20 does, “They are becoming like these idols they are surrounded by.”

How do we define an idol? Something is an idol if it receives more of your worship than God does. It takes the place of God, it competes with our time with God and they are more often than not just bloated good things. When we say yes to what the world offers and no to God; that is an idol. When you believe that someone/thing did something for us when it was really God who did it; that is an idol. Likewise, when you say yes to Jesus, you’re saying no to the pretenders.

Idols are so much more than physical statues that people bow down to, they are all around us and they seek to take the position of God in our lives. However, we read in Colossians 1:15-23 about God’s supremacy. Everything is made for God, and by God. We can not take these huge definitions of God and just tag them on to something else. God says to us in Exodus, ‘you shall have no other God’s before me.’

How do we hear the voices of idols? They are found in our head, through those around us, and through various other inputs in our everyday lives. An example would be the narrow view of what beauty is, determined by the magazines issued to our world. The magazines will tell us what beauty is and whether we fit the category or not and where we are ranked. These depictions of beauty say to us, ‘We own you. We will rate you. We will tell you your worth.’ As soon as we allow a magazine to do this and we listen to it, it becomes an idol.

Not only do idols tell us something that is contrary to God’s teaching, but the benefits that they offer us are temporary. Idols tell you your value, they measure you, but God loves everyone, and values each person equally. Idols tell you to use your power to fuel you passions/pleasures, but God gives you power and defines its limits. Idols tell you that pleasure is found in seduction and if something feels good then don’t stop, but God gives us proper mixtures for all our pleasures and tells us not to tamper with the mixture.

Taking the example of the magazine, only God is loving and wise enough to define the value of humans. When you insert someone or something else in to replace this position then you have an idol. You may not like the thought of that, but just as much as the voice of people affects us, so our voices affect others. We have the power to create idols for others by putting value on them, but we must be strong enough to fight that temptation and declare that we will not sit alongside all the idols on the mantel that are trying to put value on others.
So what idols put value on us and how? Money, peers, physique, clothing, association, intelligence and media. They all attempt to put value on who we are and how we compare to others by ranking our economic and social status.

Right from Genesis, humans have had this desire for power. In response to this desire, idols tell us who has control over us, and who we have control over. Maybe you can relate to one of these three: a victim using power to control others by acting more helpless than they really are; a persecutor using power to control others by bullying them, withdrawing power from them and placing value on them; or a rescuer using power to control others by smothering them with love and sympathy. God tells us who can have what amount of control and power over other people. As soon as we take advantage of that power and use it for self-gain, it is not glorifying to God and therefore is an idol.
Similar to the idols that place value on us, the idols that tell us what power we have, including physique and intelligence, by using our superiority over others to control them and there actions. Another idol may be the voices telling us about the false power that a certain race or gender may have over another.

When we talk about idols that use pleasure to lead us away from God’s direction, it’s not too hard to think of relevant examples. How can a pleasurable thing become an idol? First, if it consumes all your time and you can’t go without it, it is an idol. If you can’t leave it without still knowing that you’re loved by God and that He is the fill for the void you are trying to fill with this pleasure, then it is an idol. Likewise, if there is a pleasure that you’re able to give up and miss, but know that you don’t need it, then it isn’t an idol to you.
But there is more to it than that. Maybe you’ve dealt with a lot of heartache, sufferings and struggles in your life. Maybe the pleasure you seek isn’t to fill a void or make you feel really good, but it’s just less pain. Some may say, “I know God loves me, but that just isn’t what I want to hear right now.” Take the pleasure of drugs for example; they make you forget, they can free you from the pain inside.
God’s given us pleasurable things in this world to enjoy, and He tells us to be creative with them, but not to mess with their purpose or mixture. Idols tell us that they have the authority to rewrite the formula of these pleasures. God’s given us a mixture for sex with faithfulness, but idols tell us to play with sex by mixing it outside of wedlock and faithfulness.
So what idols encourage pleasure by means outside of God’s intent? Videogames, movies and music can distract us and teach us false morals and beliefs. Sex is a pleasure that God’s given us but when taken outside of wedlock it can become a dangerous idol. The visual stimuli of nudity, the thoughts in our heads, our desire for intimacy, and the physical stimuli with others can all be stemmed from God’s good intentions of pleasure with which we take advantage of and abuse. Relationships with friends, girlfriends and boyfriends can become idols when we can’t be without them. If we need them, find our identity in them, or seek constant approval or acceptance from them, then that relationship has become an idol. Even our hobbies and skills can become idols. If you become so addicted to hockey, guitar or coffee that you can’t give it up or if you find your identity in it rather than in your relationship with God, than it has become an idol.

So, how do we cipher through what is God’s voice and the voice of idols? How do you know if it’s God telling you to stop investing so much time in a friendship because He wants more of your time, or an idol telling you that you don’t deserve such a good, healthy friendship, that all you deserve to be alone. How can you tell if it is God giving you talents and Him wanting you to use them as best you can, or if it’s an idol telling you to be the best you can be and work as hard you can to always be at the top of your game?

The following are a few easy ways to tell whose voice it is that you’re listening to:
-Through prayer and biblical knowledge; you should be able to find the answers to your questions and be able to tell what is God’s voice verses an idol’s
-Through community accountability; you should have close friends that you can trust to tell you to smarten up when you need to
-By trying to give it up; you should be able to give it up. You can miss it, but know that you don’t need it
-By asking yourself; if you are too afraid to hear the answers to your questions of whether something is an idol or not, then there is a good chance that it is an idol. If you can’t even ask yourself the questions, then you really need to work out some things

Idols are all around us, and Satan will always use them to try to lead us farther off the track to a healthy relationship with God that is glorifying to Him. What idols are in your life right now, and how will you eliminate them? Sharing your struggles with God is a great place to start. Go ahead; see how He will teach you what it means to take down the idols on your mantel.

What does the bible say about how we should support our church financially? Or how we are to support our missionaries?
There’s something in there about tithing, right? About ten percent, although some believe that is just an estimate; just a suggested amount. Others take it literally and faithfully give ten percent of their income to the church every week.

Who are missionaries? Some people believe that all Christians are missionaries? But there is something distinctly different between missionaries and evangelists. A missionary is a special kind of evangelist who goes deep into groups where it’s hard to reach. I think that Romans 10:14-15 identifies the important role of a missionary well. Evangelists are here, right now and share about who God is through their words and deeds.

Just because we are not on the frontlines like the missionaries are, that doesn’t mean we get to sit around and wait for the time to pass. Our mandate is to proclaim Christ here while facilitating the proclamation of the missionaries wherever they are.
So how are we to be a part of the supply line in supporting our missionaries? We can supply foundational prayer, and we can always be inquiring and encouraging the missionaries perseverance. We can help find more people to send out possibly including ourselves, and lastly we can help through financial support.

It is so important to financially support your church at home, but it is equally important to supply the missionaries with what they need. Consider the Marine Corps. For every one man on the frontlines, it requires 10-20 men to stay back to support him. The four services that the Marines are to provide are Beans (the supplies), Bullets (the ammunition), Band-Aids (transporting injured soldiers), and Bad Guys (transporting enemy prisoners). The Marine’s rarely ever hold a gun at the frontlines, but without them the men on the frontlines would never succeed. In Latin, Semper Fidelis means to ‘Always Be Faithful’ and this is the Marine Corps motto as it should also be the motto of every evangelist staying back home. Staying back does not mean sitting back and relaxing while the missionaries do all the work. We have a role in all of this.

If you currently do not financially support your church, I strongly urge you to consider it. It is something that I am working through as well. If you feel you are tight for cash, and don’t want to give up very much money, think about whose money it is. God commands us to give what we have to others and to the church, so despite how little amount of cash we have, we need to learn what it means to step out in faith; that through honouring God by sharing with others what He has given us, He will bless us in return in whatever way He sees fit. We must have faith that God will provide us with the money that we need.
If you do support your church, I thank you for your faithful service; but how about your missionaries? How are you supporting them? Anything is great, as little or as much as you can give. It doesn’t matter what others think about how much you give, what matters is that you give.

Are you fulfilling your role in the supply line?

.we consume so much.

How have we reached this place where we go to restaurants, order pretty decent food for a pretty ridiculous price, and can rarely eat all that’s on our plate? Not because we ate too much before the meal, but simply because the plate is piled high with food! As it turns out, the price isn’t actually all that ridiculous because you really are paying for what you’re eating. The portions on these plates should really be able to feed a few. But no, we decide to order the whole thing for ourselves, and because it’s our money, despite how full we may be, we know we better eat everything even if it gives us pains for the next few hours that follow. Much like a buffet, you’re full but you feel you have to keep eating because you’ve paid so much for this food.

‘What about the starving children in Africa?’ We hear this often, that we don’t really let it phase us anymore. They’re over there, we’re here. It’s a world away, and I’m hungry. If they were here I’d share it with them. But by me not eating all this food, isn’t going to save those hungry children with flies in their faces.

We’re so tolerant of something that we should be losing sleep over. Maybe if we eat wiser and cheaper, our friends and family will notice and appreciate our reasons. Maybe if they join in, their co-workers will recognize it and will consume less. Maybe if enough people make conscious efforts to eat less, the media will grab hold of the restaurants who are losing business and tell stories about it. And maybe when the news stations broadcast that this is all being done because of those starving in other countries, something will be done.Maybe… but even if none of that happens, we should still try to eat wiser and cheaper and tell our family and friends why we’re doing it. Not in a self-proclaiming manor but to raise awareness and to free our self-conscience.

.we consume so much.

.but it’s our choice.

Our first day was a great one. We had a huge history lesson on the First Nations people and it was all very interesting. First off, it was in a residential which was pretty eerie, it was the last one built in Canada and the last to be shut down in ’86. it was cool learning about their culture, which is something I had mixed feelings toward, not knowing what to expect. A lot of what was said I could relate with as good morals and Christians values while other things baffled me that they could believe such things. But I feel that it is important to listen, whether we agree or not, and accept and appreciate their way of life without having to conform to it. I particularly appreciated what Brander McDonald (a speaker of ours) had to say about doing a dance, where one foot is in his Christian faith but the other foot is in hi Native culture, and he often finds himself questioning and bouncing feet back and forth.
I found the First Nations ‘representation’ concept interesting and in some ways relevant. Aside from their not making eye-contact as a show of respect, I too feel that the contents of a first impression are much more valuable than the presentation of ones self. It’s really cool to learn of their values though, and how I could possibly adapt them into my own life or at least challenge my own values and morals based on theirs.
In reaction to the Firs Nations land, I only ever knew what other people would tell me. That we’ve stolen their land, and they hate us and just want their land back and are stealing our tax money. But learned first hand, what is really going on. It opened up my eyes and not only reminded me how naïve I am, but it gave me a stronger appreciation and sympathy level for them. I learned that since they believe that they belong to the land they had never had a concept of ownership before. But now, because of our force, they must adopt this policy. And I think I’ve created a way that I can best understand this vicious cycle that they are living in and it goes like this:
First Nations people can only maintain their culture as Status Natives if they live on a reserve, if they live on a reserve they cannot own any land because it is seen as government owned land (Federal), if they want to own their own land they must leave the reserve, if they leave the reserve they are sacrificing a big part of their culture.
What a horrible cycle to be stuck in –all just to live out their heritage, their history, their culture. I can’t imagine living in such a way with regards to my faith.

The second night we joined with six First Nations elders for a healing/sharing circle. This is a time for people in the circle to share what’s on their hearts, what they feel the Creator wishes them to share. For us, it was a time to be more of an observing audience, but they seemed to have slightly different plans. It’s almost impossible to find words to explain what went on that night. Beyond all the smoke and waving of eagle feathers, these elders had some great wisdom that they were happy to share with us. Some of it raised a few eyebrows as it clashed with many of our Christian beliefs, but amidst this like I said before, we were able to have an open heart to what they wanted to say and God was able to use them to speak powerful words to each one of us.
To begin, one of the students sat in the Medicine Man’s (Uncle Norbert’s) chair, but he told the student that he could. To the other elders, this was quite prophetically powerful. As they later learned that the student was from the same territory as the Medicine Man, they saw that he would be a great leader when he grows up. There was so much power in this for the First Nations people.
Midway through the night, as an elder share his personal past addictions with alcohol, another student couldn’t hold back their tears as they could relate in some way to this. Farey ‘The Love Lady’ later spoke on how wonderful it is that the student shared those tears with the rest of us. After she continued with a speech to the student, she asked for all the elders to share some two-sentences of wisdom that they felt the student needed to hear. As they did, it was clear that it not only affected the one student, but all of us. As tears were being shed by many, the words of wisdom were heard by others in the room that needed to hear them for themselves (as we later learned during a debrief session). This was very powerful and despite some of the elder’s beliefs, God used them still as the affected student reflected, “Who but God knows our thoughts? No one. They didn’t even know me, but knew just want I needed to hear.”
It was impossible not to feel loved in this place. From the moment we walked in, there was a real sense of God, a complete sensation of true love. And as Farey shared throughout the evening, you could tell she was just so full of love –she even told us, all of us, each one of us, that she loves us. It’s no wonder that with comments from her like “You have arms to hug with, a voice to say ‘I Love You’ with, you have these things, everyone has these things, use them” that another student was led to share in our debrief exactly what they felt.
“I saw real genuine love tonight, something that Christians speak so highly of but rarely actually have. I’ve never felt that kind of love from any Christian group before, and if I ever had to choose, I’d much rather join their type of lifestyle and belief system than Christians because they’ve got it, they’re real, and that’s what everyone needs.”
It was a slap in the face –something that was so necessary to be said. I wish he could slap the face of every hypocritical Christian out there. I thank God for his raw words of honesty.
Our week continued on as we visited the Charlie Longhouse where a man, Kelsey Charlie, who had just hosted a funeral the day before and wasn’t expecting us at all, welcomed us into his home with open arms. As he started up the fire hoping to warm his home for his new guests, he shared with great excitement of his family’s history, the traditions they had, and the stories that are the foundation of their territory as the Chehalis tribe. Kelsey felt so comfortable and respected by our group that he wanted to show us his great grandfathers’ pit homes, where they use to live underground. What an honour it was that he wanted to share this part of his family’s heritage with us –something he would rarely ever do with a group.
As we were told by Brander, Uncle Herman (one of the elders from the healing circle) said that he’s never been so happy at a healing circle before. And our good friend Tim, who helped co-ordinate this week for us, shared that the opportunities that we encountered this week were one of a kind. He told us that we followed through with many missionaries broken promises to participate and learn from their culture. We represented so much more than just a small school group. We helped to bring restoration by paying respect to this beautiful culture that so many are quick to reject.
We had the incredible opportunity to be invited to join the Chehalis in celebrating the new year. We indulged in some Salmon, and sat and watched many dances and songs –ever being welcomed to join in at one point. No textbook can give a student the education that these experiences gave us. We were never supposed to be there, but at the last minute we were invited –they wanted to share their culture with us. Near the end of the celebration, as children ran to our group and gave us gifts of fruit, artwork and peach jam, the man on the microphone expressed the entire groups appreciation that we joined them, and how pleased they were to share their culture with us. Surely, we were the blessed ones. What an honour it was –to be shown such love, generosity and hospitality. Despite some of the elders and First Nations belief systems, I ask myself which one of us would be more easily recognized as living the life that God calls everyone to live. It hurts to say, that probably more First Nations people are living this life than most Christians who believe in the God they claim to be following.
How do we obtain this lifestyle, this love that we talk of but rarely act out? What does it truly look like? And how do we break from our selfish moulds to selflessly love the way we’re called to. Even those who don’t believe in God can do it, so what’s stopping us?

I visited Oppenheimer Park, a place overgrown with weeds, blanketed in trash, home to hundreds of seagulls and street dwellers, and surrounded by homes tagged with the poorest postal code in Canada. As I stood in that park observing all that I saw, I was overwhelmed. My heart broke for this community. It didn’t matter that I had no idea of how I could possibly solve anything here, I just wanted to right then and there.

This isn’t the first time for me, I have seen and been a part of many broken communities all over the country and I just want to help, I want to be a part of the solution. One friend found it difficult not to ask the question of where God was in all of this, and I know direct that question toward ourselves and how we are being Jesus to these places. But what I struggle with is that I want to help places like Oppenheimer Park, but I honestly would really not want to live there. I thought of my comfortable home in Ontario, my family, my security and the blessings God has given to me so graciously. Then I thought of how we don’t have communities like this one anywhere near my home. In fact, I would have to travel quite a distance to find a place like Oppenheimer Park, which is very challenging for me because I’ve lived in the city and cottage country and I much prefer the countryside. I want to live there, I like it , it’s beautiful, I don’t want to sacrifice that…

Is this yet another test of dropping all I have to follow Christ? Oh man

…So I’m left to ask, do I have to live in the places that I want to change? Or can I just commute from my home of comfort to the places that I want to meet the needs of? Are we called to give our all or nothing and live with those we want to help?
I’m reminded of a friend who decided with his new bride that they wanted to work with inner city teens and adults, but they felt they couldn’t separate their job from their social life. The two needed to be one. So they moved right into the heart of where they wanted to work, living on a rundown street with gangs, drugs and prostitutes. If they wanted to serve God by reaching out to these people, they wanted to immerse their whole lives into it.

I’ve got many passions. I have a heart for the homeless, I have a heart for leadership, and my heart breaks for many people. I am passionate about music, I love being creative, and I love to write my thoughts. God has given me many passions, but am I to chase after all of them? Must I make them all my focus? Is that even possible? Perhaps there is a median between what I’ve been blessed with and what passions I focus on. Maybe I can have a real heart for poverty, but decide that I’m not cut out for being involved with it full-time. Just because I may choose to focus on a different passion, doesn’t mean I have to dismiss my heart’s desire to care about those living in poverty, does it? I can’t do everything, but I can still care about everything, can’t I?

Must I sacrifice what’s comfortable to me? Must I sacrifice a safe home for my wife and children? Must I sacrifice what I’ve always known? Or can I compromise between the passions…and blessings…that God has given me.

I’ve talked and thought plenty about how we should be spending our money, especially as the church. What are they pouring all their money into? But as I expressed to a friend in the local Starbucks drinking our four dollar drinks, it often seems so simple to blame the church and point fingers at them, but as legitimate and necessary as that may be at times, we need to look at ourselves just as much.

I feel such conviction because I see this in my life so much farther that just super sizing my fries or my constant desire for new music. For the last three years I’ve been asking for financial support from the same people as I have been doing work at camp, but what is this money for? Why do I need it? Do I need it? As I look ahead at this upcoming summer, I am considering not working at camp simply because I won’t make enough money there. Enough money for what though? What is enough?

It’s for school, right? It’s about time I continue on in my education, move on, look toward my future career. But as soon as I enter that cycle, everything will revolve around my finances. Work to make money, pay for school with that money, use that schooling to get work.
This is my conviction. How many thousands of dollars will I be pouring into my education in order to assure a successful life? When that money could be used to save lives. Is education necessary in order to love? As I read in Irresistible Revolution, I learned that living can be simple. Not lazy, but a life can be of community, sharing, providing for each other, and living on very little cash; a life that is still fulfilling and glorifying.

We talk about taking what we’ve learned this year back home with us –but how will that effect the thousands of dollars spent or gone into debt just to assure a healthy prosperous lifestyle? I guess I question whether education is better acquired sitting in a classroom as it is through experiential learning. How am I to live?

I was sitting in my hotel room in beautiful Victoria, BC, in the middle of our journey that’s cost over $10,000. As we contemplated what to do with our day, where to go, what to buy, I turned on the oh-so-convenient television to be faced with something much too familiar as an image we rarely think anything of flashed across the screen. It was the image of a young mother with her near-naked baby crying in her arms and her little boy standing beside her gripping a few fingers on her frail hand as they stand in their community – a garbage dump in Nicaragua –asking themselves what they would eat for the next meal, and where they would sleep for the night.

How disgusting did I feel? I was sitting in what would be a five-star hotel to them, beside friends in clean clothes watching sport highlights on their wireless laptop. All the while we were debating whether we should buy the touristy five dollar candy apples first, or travel through the thrift store to see if we could find any nice cheap clothing to add to our already stuffed bags. We definitely didn’t need any more clothes and we would essentially be robbing those who can really only afford the thrift store clothes. We would be stealing from the people we are all called to love and give the shirt off our back to... or is that only on Sunday that we are suppose to do that?

I don’t know where I’m suppose to draw the line, or where God has drawn the line for me. When does it become wrong to buy that nice expensive top for your mother on her birthday? Or spend more money on that pair of shoes because you’re told they’ll last longer than the five pairs you have back home? Or buy that new jacket because it will match your new pants better than your one-month old, now out of style jacket? Surely God doesn’t frown upon everything we buy to please ourselves or to put a smile on someone else’s face, but I’m sure He’s shaken His head quite a few times at all the stupid, worthless things we find such value and pleasure in but never actually need, especially while there are children dying on the street corners.

So what am I to do? Leave this program? Well I don’t think that is really going to solve anything. For me, right now, I don’t need to buy anything in order to really experience this adventure. Almost everything has been paid for so I shouldn’t need to pull out my wallet unless I have found a meaningful and reasonably priced souvenir.
We do a lot of sitting and eating. And when we sit for such long periods of time we get bored, so what better thing is there to do than eat? It becomes an activity, something to pass the time, and it’s neither healthy nor a wise use of money. For this reason, I will only eat the provided meals, drink lots of water, eat more on special occasions, and when I’m bored...I’ll actually do something! And something physically active if possible.

But as Ephesians 4:28 says, don’t just stop stealing but “begin using your hands for honest work, and then give generously to others in need.” To just stop stealing from the people we are called to love is okay, but doesn’t do much good unless I begin to replace it with something that benefits them; something that counteracts my selfish desires. And this is where I leave you. What value do you place in monetary things? Do you feel you have to buy something whenever you go to the mall? Do you turn your head at the price of something that you just really like, even if you have 3 perfectly good ones already at home? Do you super size when you should probably just get the salad?

If you trust that your money belongs to God, will you listen to or ignore that little voice in your head telling you that He doesn’t think you need to spend your money on certain things. You have a choice to make every day, the choice is yours; candy apples or thrift store clothing... or there’s always a door number three to look behind.

The following has been inspired by the readings of Shane Claiborne.

Lately I’ve been challenged to take a look at my faith and how it compares with the faith of those who we read about in the bible. We read about people willing to kill their children when God tells them to, people who jump into raging fires and don’t burn, we read how Jesus raised people from the dead, heal their illnesses, and feed 5000 people with just a few fish and pieces of bread. We are told that we can have a faith that moves mountains, yet we read of these biblical miracles and convince ourselves that God just doesn’t work that way anymore, not in today’s society. But I ask why not? Why do I try to limit God’s awesome power? How do I obtain a faith that believes God can work miracles, that He can bring an end to certain injustices and issues? Why do we say, “Well I can’t do anything to change the stats on world hunger or poverty.” We may do our small part in donating food to food banks and feel good about it, but even then we know it won’t change the world and we convince ourselves that God can’t use us to influence change in this world. Why don’t we dream big and allow God to do miracles through us? I want to be a radical. I want to do something huge for God. I want to allow God to use me however he wants and accomplish world changing things through me. I want God to give me passion toward something that takes it to the cover of the Rolling Stones Magazine.
…but will people in desolate places in Africa ever read that magazine? Will everyone in the world ever be able to hear of my ministry? All of a sudden, it seems like a bit too big of a goal. Mother Theresa said, “We are called not to be successful but to be faithful,” and she also use to say, “We can do no great things, just small things with great love. It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it.” So am I to narrow down my focused audience? Should I just pinpoint one group that I’m really passionate about? Can I ever start big and look at the world, or can I only begin in a small town working in my community and over time develop my ministry even bigger if I can, but if I can’t, do I remain content with the work God is doing in me? But that’s just one community, maybe 100 people I would be effecting with God’s love… 100 of how many billion people in this world? All of a sudden it doesn’t seem that big of a deal. I believe God can use our dreams to work miracles, to influence change in not just one part of our world but throughout the whole world. I don’t know where to start, I don’t even know where my passions lie, but I have the faith that God can and will use me and my desire to do something huge for His honour and glory.
–Lord, make me a radical, place in me goals and ambitions and help me dare to dream big. I want to tell your story Lord, and I pray that You use me to do this as best I can-

CONTINUED… 09/10/07
So, how do I combine my desire to impact the world with Mother Theresa’s claims, and my conviction that I can really only truly love those I’m passionate about when directly in contact with them (if I do something BIG where it seems the higher up on the social ladder, the less direct interaction I get).
That also leads me to thinking, maybe this BIG thing will be a community thing, and as it works for me, it can be passed on to other communities to evolve into a huge movement. Or maybe God will lead me into this BIG thing –but more as a leader and I will oversee everything, training others to go out into their communities –giving them the same drive and passion that God instilled in me. I don’t know? And on top of this, I like living in the countryside/small town. More than that though, I may have these vague dreams or ideas, but what is my passion? What do I want to do? I know whatever I decide, God will be with me and guide me –but I’m lost. So, what should I be thinking for next year? This is my third year out. I wish I could be further along in my career direction –but I’ve got nothing. For sure God is guiding me, but it’s such a long, slow process that sometimes I wish was going much quicker. Am I to be a musician? A store owner/manager (I always liked the idea of a bowling alley) A founder of a non-profit organization? I think I can narrow it down at least to being that of a radical. Daring to be different, unique, not fitting into a box. To not just work for someone else, but to begin something new.

CONTINUED… 16/10/07
In continuation, I read something that I think I really needed to hear.
See, I want to do something huge, I feel God’s placing that on my heart –that He can use me for something big for this world. But despite my desire for this, perhaps I shouldn’t be looking at that big picture, looking at the final project. Not to doubt it’s possible, or give God the short end of the stick, but rather to start normal and believe that God can build it into something bigger as He so desires. The story I read is found on page 120 in Shane Claiborne’s ‘Irresistible Revolution.’ The story is about children dancing in a park and how they thought maybe other kids would see and join in, maybe business men would join in, maybe the whole city would eventually join the dance, maybe the whole world. ‘Maybe…regardless, they decided to dance anyway and enjoy it.’
I want to influence the world for God, but I’ll let Him lead me into that as He so desires. For now, I should just focus on my now, allow Him to show me my starting point and together we can work from there.

“Now that you’re familiar with the city, it’s your turn to impact Vancouver, however you want to.” These are the words that unleashed the freedom for me to do something big. And we did just that. After praying about it, I suggested to my group of four to post signs down the busiest street in Vancouver called Robson St. and distribute packaged mints to everyone on the dirty streets of Hastings. The mints contained a note which read the same as some of the signs: “God loves Hastings. God loves Robson. Will You?” Our message was clear. These streets, although so close to each other, represented the two very contrasted lifestyles of wealth and poverty. Through our actions, we not only wanted to impact people on this one day, but we wanted to cause them to think and take actions into their own hands continuing on even after we would leave. We were doing to begin a movement that we felt God was leading us toward, despite the risks and against the odds.

We began walking down Robson street posting these signs [a second sign read “It’s Your Turn To Act”], but we soon learned that the street posts designed for advertisements were to be cleaned off on this exact day. So we made a decision. The only way this will work is if we only post on the polls that are not intended for posters. In other words, we were to do something illegal. After prayer for protection and reassurance, we continued on. Quickly and efficiently we posted our 8½ x 11 posters.

Understand that prior to our actions we had recognized police cars constantly driving around almost every corner. But after we prayed about it, not one police car drove past us the entire hour and a half, except when we were just standing at the lights waiting to cross. We felt God’s protection. Our first reaction to the posters was from a man living on the streets who wasn’t too happy. He yelled and cursed at us for posting illegal graffiti in the city and told us to stop. We began second guessing ourselves but soon realized that He was the voice of Satan not happy with what we were doing. Not soon after we recognized those words were not from God, we felt His approval from the next comment we heard. It was made by a construction worker walking by, mumbling the words on the sign to himself. He responded hopefully with, ‘really? I didn’t know that.’ Thank You God for honouring our dedication of following Your voice.

It was such a blessing to have people actually look at the signs as we posted them, as well as after we had posted them. You could tell that they were reading them and our prayer was that they were causing the people to think. As we passed one poll, not an hour after we had posted the signs, someone had written ‘God is Dead’ on one of the signs. Not the best thing to read, but evidence that this person read it, thought about it, and even cared enough to respond. This and other situations told us we were successful. We were making people think, and our prayer now is that they might hear God’s voice and act on those thoughts.

This was the first glimpse for me in being a radical. Someone willing to push the boundaries, pass the limits, determined to make my voice heard on behalf of God as a call for people to follow this movement. The movement of love. Like you, I have read many stories of radical revolutionaries and their attempts to go beyond the norm for a cause they are passionate about. These stories excite me, encourage me, and challenge me to get out of the pew and do something. I was able to execute my first attempt this day, and it felt great. I felt right in my element, using gifts, talents, and passions that God has blessed me with to show His love to His people. There may be better, legal approaches for next time, but this is where God led us this time. Two-hundred posters challenging the rich and poor to love one another, posted on literally every single lamppost down the busiest ten-block street in the city that has been voted as Best Place in the World to Visit and that has the poorest postal code in all of Canada. This is where God called us this day to be radicals. May He call me to more challenging and risky places preparing me to break the sound barrier with the radical message of Christ’s love.

Recently we discussed the ways in which our world has changed; from when religion was so incorporated into everything to now removing Christianity from education, the workplace and just about everywhere. This led to discussions related to Ecclesiastes and it’s contrast to today’s living where so many are asking, ‘what’s the point? what are we living for? Why should I believe? Give me proof.’

After travelling through the Old Testament, we hear some pretty cool stories about guys like Moses, David, Sarah and so many more. But by Lamentations we read how everyone became depressed and were living in Exile. While so many were in jail or living as slaves, people began talking about these great radicals named David or Moses and these stories were brought to new life, it ignited a new flame inside them. It helped bring restoration to their souls and gave them a reason worth living for.
And in a sense, we are back in the Babylonian Exile now, living in a mixed up world where we are asking ‘what’s the point?’ We’re losing hope. And this leads us as a Christian community to ask ourselves how we can sing and tell our stories in a new way as we embrace this changing world. Do we dare to tell the exciting stories that gave us life, that gave us meaning? Will we live to be radicals?
I love the parallels between this and my learning last week regarding the different ministry organizations that we learned about. I discovered that people were having such a big influence on those in need –but they weren’t following the normal career moulds. They taught me that I can use my creativity to be unique in my career choice. To colour outside the lines, to step outside the box, beyond the borders and see what lies in the mysteries of the unknown.

I loved the story that Tony Campolo shares about a birthday surprise he organizes for a woman he’d never even met. He said, ‘I belong to the kind of church that throws birthday parties for hookers in a diner in the middle of the night.’
I think as the church, we need to strive to be different; to be radical, and to share our stories in new innovative ways to a lost world.

In today’s society, swearing is associated with rebellion, a bad-boy style; they contain a negative connotation. If you consider times when your faith is brought into the spotlight, a common first question is “have you ever sworn?” or “do you ever swear?” This is our proof that, to today’s culture swearing is considered a sin, and a part of the human language that should not be included in the Christian dialect.
For this reason, I choose to use my words carefully and not swear. Not necessarily because I think these words are sinful or wrong, rather because of the example they set to others. Non-Christians view swearing as a big sin, and if I’m heard swearing, their first thoughts are ‘hypocrite.’ I don’t want to bring this image to God’s name and how I represent Him. I choose not to swear because it allows room for conversation. These days, it is often very difficult for non-Christians to see Christ in people because Christians don’t think of their representation and the bad rep they might be giving to God. People will notice when you don’t swear, and whether you realize it or not, if they know you are a Christian, they will look constantly to find fault in you and I believe that they discover our faults the most through the words we choose to express ourselves.
Including using God’s name in vain, other swear words are just not a part of my vocabulary because I know I am representing so much more than just myself. I represent Christ through my actions and my words. I want others to see Christ in me –raw and real- without any hypocritical hindrance.

Hi everyone.

I have now headed out into my Outtatown Program. If you don't know what I'm talking about, scroll down to get an idea of what I'm up to this year. Keep checking out this site every once and a while as I hope to update you with some insight from my experiences as I journey along. In addition to my blog here, feel free to head over to our official Outtatown Site 2 Blog(http://www.outtatownsitetwo.blogspot.com). this iwill always be updated with photo's and overviews of key parts of our trip to keep you up to date.
You can also view my personal pictures on Facebook and you can check out this site to see who all my new friends are: http://outtatown.com/students/07site2/
Thanks for your interest!

Well everyone, I have headed out into my Outtatown Program. if you don't know what I'm talking about, scroll down to get an idea of what I'm up to this year. Keep checking out this site periodically as I hope to update you with some insight from my experiences as I journey along. We will also have a Site Blog, where you can check out some articles from myself and others in my Site Group as we travel throughout the entire year -and we'll post tons of pictures too -but you'll have to wait a bit longer for that! Until then, add me on Facebook to see some pictures so far, and check out this site to see who all my new friends are!

http://outtatown.com/students/07site2/

A week ago, I joined in a Medieval Feast where we ate chicken legs, corn on the cob and potatoes with our hands. It was a huge success, but as I helped clean up after the meal and friend approached me as I held the garbage can in place and said, ‘I can’t take it.’ I didn’t know what He was talking about and before I could ask, as another person dumped a platter piled high with whole potatoes into the garbage can, he repeated himself, ‘I can’t take it. Look at all this good food we have to throw out while there are so many people who could really use it. Because of my character and how I generally react to people who try to make me think, I tried to disregard what He said and pass it off as a conversation I didn’t want to get in to at the time. But as I continued on throughout the rest of the evening, I meditated on his comment.

It’s nothing new to us. Not many people are naive enough to believe that everyone in the world is as good off as us in North America. We’ve all heard the stats; we know that 80% of the world consumes 20% of the world’s resources and vice versa. We know that there are people in the world that live on less than a day. We recognize that it isn’t right and things need to change. We’ve heard speeches and have maybe even given our own messages about the poverty and injustice in our world and try to convince people to change the way they live, but I am finding it hard to believe or comprehend that we can make a difference, that we can change all of this.

Yes, we can help those we pass by on the streets. We could welcome people into our homes, we can open up a drop-in shelter, we could get laws passed to crack down much harder on human trafficking and the porn industry, we could boycott making purchases from businesses that take part in slave labor and sweat shops, we could only buy fair trade products. All these things are positive things we could do I guess, and as big a supporter of beginning a revolution as I am, I can’t help but ask ‘what can this one man do?’ It’s one thing to believe in something, it’s another thing altogether to make that belief into a tangible action that really causes change. Will we ever be able to make those stats from 20/80 to 50/50? Will we ever be able to alter the human mind and convince them that human trafficking and the porn industry is nothing that unifies our world and brings praise to God’s name? Will we ever be able to put a stop to slave labor and sweat shops? Just because you may only buy fair trade coffee, doesn’t mean that . Sure your self esteem may be heightened because you feel you’ve added another notch to your belt, but will your personal decision cause any difference? We can acknowledge that we are wasting hundreds of potatoes because nobody likes eating plain potatoes with their hands –but at the end of the day, what is your opinion really doing the cause change? Tomorrow we will still throw out our leftovers and uneaten food simply because we couldn’t eat it all, and as much as you wish you didn’t take that much food in the first place, and as much as you know there are plenty of people elsewhere in the world who could use all that food –what can you possibly do about it? So, you keep eating and keep throwing food out, and just try to put your beliefs at the back of your mind. But you can’t help how you feel, you know it’s wrong, you know you want to do something about it. But what? Are you going to move to some desolate place in Africa and live on very little so you are no different? Are you going to build a food shelter in a small village in Africa? Are you going to go on the street corners and love the prostitutes that stand there? And even when you do these things, although you will definitely make a difference in those people’s lives –will you change the stats? Will you begin a revolution that brings awareness and attention to the other people that wish they could do something but are too afraid to do anything?

I don’t know how to make it happen. I don’t know if it can be accomplished. I don’t know if we can be content with causing change in our little community and loving on certain people and feeling like we’re doing our part. I don’t know if we are cutting ourselves short when we could really be doing so much more. I don’t know what the answers are. But I ask myself, can I chase dreams big enough to change the world? Take what I believe to new limits, take it beyond being able to pat myself on the back, take it further than influencing one persons life, and cause change that will turn heads and hearts.

Whether you’ve been that guy or girl before or not, you are probably familiar with the ‘flip and point for wisdom’ Christian. You know what I’m talking about. When you’re faced with a particular dilemma, simply close your eyes, shoot up a quick prayer for God’s guidance as you allow the thin pages to flip past your thumb, then stop flipping the pages once you are convinced you have passed Leviticus, and firmly stamp your index finger down on the page, and dramatically open one eye slowly while squinting the other as if to pinch a grape between your eyelids. Some believe this works; others think it to be a load of croc.
My personal experience tells me it rarely works, and you only leave doubting the strength of your prayer signal and maybe God didn’t hear you ask Him for guidance.

Are you familiar with the infamous C.S. Lewis novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? It follows the lives of a couple siblings who play a game of hide and seek, and accidentally find themselves in this magical world known as Narnia. Why can’t everyone go to this awesome place though you ask? Well, the trick is –you can’t be looking for it. This is why when the youngest sister tries to show her brother the secret passageway to Narnia through the wardrobe, she is unsuccessful because she knew it was there. She knew it had worked before, therefore she was expecting the wonderful world of Narnia to greet her, but to her dismay she was only welcomed by the other side of the old wooden wardrobe leaving her confused and frustrated.

I bought a book earlier this year because the back intrigued me. Earlier I had recognized that something in my life needed a real makeover and so I searched for a book to help me out. I was so determined to fix this problem in my life that when I found this book and read what others had said about it, I knew this was the answer. Through the rave reviews, I was convinced that I would find exactly what I was looking for in this book. So I began to read. But chapter after chapter, I was losing hope in ever finding the answer. I only wanted to hear the authors opinion on my specific problem –meanwhile he was talking about some other really great things. I shut out all these others things because I wasn’t interested in them –I was looking for only one thing, I wanted to find the answer from God that I was looking for, but was only greeted with disappointment and I never found what I was looking for. I was told that this book had exactly what I wanted to hear, but I ended up just walked into the back of an old wooden wardrobe that served me nothing but discontent.

And I can’t help but wonder if this is how it always is? Are we always searching for God to reveal himself when we want to see Him? Do we try to search for the remedy, but in actual fact try to create one ourselves? Have you ever been told to take a chunk of time completely alone and in complete silence and see what God has to say to you? Instantly, we go into a search mode as we sit in silence and try to look for God… what does He want to tell me right now? What am I dealing with that He can miraculously talk to me about as I sit here in silence. Have you been told to read a certain piece of scripture because it is bound to effect you? All of a sudden, you are looking for something in influence you more than anything else…looking for some sort of revelation, something that will speak directly into your heart at this exact moment as you are dealing with this specific situation.Are we too busy trying to listen to what we want to hear, that we don’t hear what God wants to tell us? We think we’re listening to God’s voice, but maybe are we speaking for Him? Are we putting words in His mouth? Are we forcing Him to speak to us about one thing, when He has completely different plans for what He wants to tell us?

Do we say we are waiting around to hear that still small voice… when we are really just flipping through the pages and pointing at something we hope will break the sound barrier.

In his famous book The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis says, “Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God…For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God?”

As I look onward to my coming year of adventure, travel, and learning there are the obvious eager excitements and stirring emotions, but there so much more than that. I am learning more and more about this program and I understand that as much as the teaching is faith based and focused on our personal walks with God –it is not just for Christians. The students will range from all walks of faith and as much as this excites me it also intimidates me.

As you may or may not know from my past blog Why Do I Believe? I am not the best with confrontations regarding my faith. When posed with questions, not even very difficult questions about why I believe what I believe, I caved with nothing to back up what I believe. No real reasons for why I believe what I believe.

This was one of my main reasons for wanting to dive into this school program; so that I could better root my self and develop tangible answers to the questions I would face –which I am still hoping to obtain from this coming year. But knowing that I will be living with people from all walks of life who will challenge my beliefs, I’m nervous. I’m already intimidated by them and the anticipated debates I may encounter. I understand that I will be living with some incredible people and will definitely learn from them –how can you not learn from such different people when stuck with them for such a long period of time in such close proximity. For this reason I am excited to embark in this quest.

I often get caught up in what the Bible tells, and when people ask me questions I need to have biblical references to back myself up –which I do believe is important. But I am reminded by Thomas’s thoughts, that it’s more than just being able to battle scripture with people. What good is studying the scripture if you can’t back it up with your lifestyle. And this is where I want to place my focus for the next month leading up to this new adventure.

I know I may not know everything about my faith, I am still learning and plan to learn much more through this next year. I know challenges will be thrown in my face and I may fall flat on my face with nothing to stand firm on, but I know I will learn from that.But rather than dwelling –and anticipating- on that so-called failure, I want to focus on my lifestyle. How am I living right now. Do I represent a life that is glorifying to God? Do I live a life that brings honor and praise to His name? Am I approachable, trustworthy, kind, loving, selfless, an encourager, a listener? And if not, what needs to change? How can I better develop these characteristics so that when people see me, they see something different. They see that there’s something greater than anything that is dwelling inside of me. They will recognize that and discussion may erupt from this desire to imitate the life of Christ. So, this is my challenge for myself for the following month, and I pass on the same challenge to you. How are you living your life, and is it a life that demonstrates a desire to grow closer with God, a desire to live a life that imitates the life lived by Jesus Christ.

“He who follows me, will not walk in darkness” –John 8:12

As I sit here in my room all alone listening to a playlist on my iPod titled Chill and drink from my 591 mL bottle of carbonated beverage, I am reflecting on numerous conversations that I have had lately where someone, or I, have talked about God. We say things like ‘I don’t know what God is telling me right now’ or ‘I really am trying to figure out what God wants to teach me through this’ or ‘I feel like God is getting back at me for that thing I did.’ We do it all the time don’t we? If not telling people about our journey, we may be searching for God’s influence in others; ‘what do you feel God is teaching you these days?’ or ‘how do you feel God is helping you with this?’ We talk about God as if He were a person we talked to in the past, someone that we chatted with 10 minutes ago, but now I’m here talking with you about what He was teaching me. Let me try and explain…

These conversations that we have with others often take place in a room, maybe outside, but for sake of argument let’s say you’re in a room. Four walls, a floor, but imagine the roof isn’t there… instead the roof is open with four flaps… like a box. Yes a box. Think of yourself in this giant box. But to God, this box is small, it fits in His hands. God is standing there, holding the box in His hands looking down and listening to your conversation. Eve’s dropping on every word you say about Him. You can’t see Him, but you are in plain view of Him, 24/7. See, it’s kind of like were talking behind God’s back. We have conversations with Him, hear what He tries to teach us, but then we go ahead and tell others about what He just taught us –whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. We talk about God as if He wasn’t there.

But He is there.

He is here.

He is with you as you read this.

He is with me as I write to you.

I am writing about Him and what I feel He is teaching me, as if this is my down-time from God. This is my time to take a step back and reflect on what He’s teaching me. My time to dissect the things I’m learning and put them down on paper for you to read, only for me to go back to Him when I’m done typing and say thank you for helping me kind my thoughts down on paper.

But there is no down-time from God.

He never takes a break.

I feel like we begin conversations about God and what He’s teaching us, as if this is our time away from God. “I really don’t understand why God is causing all this pain in my life… What have I done to deserve this… What do you think He is trying to teach me through this?” Then when our conversations are over, and we’re not busy doing other things we call back to God and say, alright let’s talk again, I think I may have figured out what you’re trying to teach me… tell me if I’m right. But is this the way it really is? Can we ever escape God? Can we ever take time away from Him, and talk about Him to others as if He isn’t… right… there… beside us?
Psalms 139 tells us otherwise. We can never get away from God. He is all around us, He never sleeps, or turns His back as we talk to our friends about Him. He’s always there.

…which leads me to take things one step farther.

… that He will always be listening. And this may influence our prayers. Sometime we refer to it as our prayer life, as if some lifestyle outside of our regular schedule. But our prayers are to be very much apart of our daily lives. We cannot escape God, so why not talk to Him whenever we want to, whenever we can. Treat those conversations as you would a friend who were physically right beside you. Why do we so often feel we have to wait till the 10 minutes before we rest our head on our pillow to talk with God –like we must wait for everything else in our day to be over and off our mind before we can talk with God. As if we need a clean head before talking to God, get everything else out of the way, because there are too may distractions throughout our day that there’s no way we can pray without cease. But we can.

We can pray without ceasing. We can talk to God all through the day. It doesn’t need to be directed as a letter, dear God. By all means, He loves it when we talk about Him. He loves knowing that we have conversations about His love, His teaching, and His challenges. In fact, if you don’t talk about God with the people around you and what He’s teaching you, you need to start. It’s healthy, you will grow from it. Don’t think that He doesn’t smile from ear to ear when He listens to our conversations, He listens to everything we have to say so don’t limit yourself to just talking with your friends about God… talk to Him,
He is right there.

He
is
right
here

In the book of Hebrews, chapter 11 describes what faith looks like. It provides examples from the bible of people who had such strong faith even when those around them would turn from God’s promises if put in the same situation as to assure their own safety, freedom, or their own life. We can find endless examples of this kind of faith; through Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah.

“All of these faithful ones died without receiving what God had promised them, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed the promises of God,” says verse 13. This reminds me that, everyone has the opportunity to influence someone else so vastly that their impact could very well change that person’s life completely. And, like these biblical characters, we may never even know or see the effects of our actions.

Now, there are two sides to this influence and I have touched upon them in the past. Obviously our words and our actions toward others can be so hurtful and condescending that they can lead someone into such deep emotions that they are scarred for the remainder of their life through such things like anorexia, depression, cutting, addictions, or even suicide.

But today, I want to look at the positive influence we can have on people. And this has been triggered by some of the guest groups I worked with during the Spring here at camp.

We have some pretty close interactions with the students while they are here; playing games, doing activities, eating together. We spend lots of time together. And it’s really pretty amazing because, on day one we know no one. These kids are all new to us, and we have the choice to either just be their leaders, go through the motions and dream about our evening time off, or we can choose to get to know the kids, treat them as our friends, and really make our time with them less like a job and more as a friendship. And it’s such a blessing to see the results of those efforts.

As one group was getting ready to leave, a young eighth grader by the name of Shaina, who had been in my small group for the past four days, approached me and asked, “Ben, when will I ever see you again?” As I told her that she just needed to come back in the summer and she could see me, she replied, “But you will be at the boys camp. I won’t see you even if I come to camp. I won’t see any of you ever again. Honestly, you guys are just so great, and so nice and so funny, you made me feel so important –like, I’m going to start to cry right now because I’ll probably never see you ever again in my whole life.”

A few groups before this, I was walking with a grade seven student. This group had already been at camp for a couple days, and this student had not been in my small group, but I did help instruct his group for one activity. As we were walking and talking, I said his name. As many students are quick to ask, ‘how do you know my name?’ this student posed a different comment. “That’s really impressive that you remember my name. I mean, I’ not even in my group yet you still have made the effort to get to know me well enough that you see me and can call me by name. I’ve been to some other camps and the staff there are just there to work and never get to know us. But you guys… you guys are different. You care about us, and that’s so cool.”

One of the last groups that we had this spring was just great. We had a lot of fun with them, and made some good friendships with them. Like a couple of the other groups, this group had a few students that even decided to add a couple of us as their friends to their Facebook page the day they got home. But this group in particular did something that really caught me off guard. As we were saying goodbye to them, they all piled onto their coach bus to begin their long drive back home. But before the doors closed, a large group of them filed back off the bus, camera’s in hand and wanted to take our picture. So, as their group leaders, we huddled in close with some of the students as well, and we smiled for the cameras. Even some of the teachers and parents were taking our pictures.

When I think of cameras, I think of capturing a moment. I think a photograph is a memory that can never be forgotten. And this is exactly what these kids were trying to obtain. We only had four days to get to know these kids, and in the end we became such role models and friends to these kids, that they wanted to get our pictures. They didn’t want to forget us. They associated their great camp retreat with the staff that worked directly with them. Staff that cared about them, and wanted to build friendships with them. Staff that, as one teacher put it, “are clearly not here for the money. You care about our kids, and we can totally see that that is because of your faith. Thank you so much, we will never forget you, and please send up a prayer every once and a while for us.” This coming from a teacher with a minimal faith background.
As Christians, we may not have lead all of our guest group students to a saving relationship with Christ, but we were able to demonstrate God’s love to them in the best of our abilities, and they saw that, and they will remember that. When they pull out those dusty photo’s years down the road, they will be able to point us out and say, ‘that guy was great. He really made that retreat amazing for me.’ And who knows what sort of influence I’ve really had on some of those kids. There could be something I said or did, that had impacted them so much that it was just a stepping stone unto the path toward an eternal life with God, I have no idea. But as Hebrews tells us, when we step out in faith, God too will step out. And we may never truly see the results of our impact, we may never experience the promises that God offers us, but we can strive to lead the type of lives that God can use to further His kingdom.

A man entered the office doors here at camp a few weeks ago. Telling his name, he asked the lady at the desk if she could possibly provide him with a particular man’s phone number or home address. He could only remember this man’s camp name because he had been this man’s cabin counselor over 30 years ago. He wanted to get in touch with him and personally let him know that those 30 years ago his counselor helped lead him to a relationship with Christ and now he was a pastor and he wanted to thank his counselor for all he had done for him.

As we step out in faith, we may never know what the type of impact we can have on the ones around us.

When you think of camp and its location and what it does to a person, do you, like many others, view it as this huge Christian bubble? A place where everything is safe, surrounded by God’s presence and creation? A place where you can be rejuvenated and learn things that you may be blind to in your everyday life outside of camp?
It’s interesting, where does this perspective come from?

Over the last month, I have received numerous messages from readers of my blog who tell me they miss my writing, they’ve missed what I’ve had to say, they’ve missed learning what’s going on through my mind. On one hand it encourages me, letting me hear that people actually read these blogs of mine. But on the other hand, these comments have led me to take a step back and re-evaluate my life right now.

The first question I asked myself is where did my motivation come from when I wrote my blogs before? What inspired my writing? The experiences I lived out, the conversations I had or listened to, and the thoughts or epiphanies I had gave me my material. Everything that was going on in my life, I put down on paper.

This led me to ask myself why I haven’t written anything in the last month. Is it because I’ve been too busy with work? No, if anything I work less now and have fewer distractions than I had before when I wrote more. You see, my blogs have been from things I’ve felt God teaching me, so if I have nothing to write anymore, does this mean God is teaching me anything? Or perhaps am I less responsive to the things God is trying to teach me? As I sit here and look back on the past month, I don’t believe I can really tell you much of anything that I really feel God has taught me. Nothing stands out, not even small insignificant things. How can this be?

Isn’t it interesting that I feel I’ve learned the least from God in a place where our relationships with God are to be at the foreground? Isn’t it interesting that the place where I should be learning the most from or about God, is actually where my faith seems to be the most stagnant and neutral?

Perhaps my conversations with co-workers need to be more in depth, perhaps I need to read more interesting books that will inspire me, perhaps there are deeper issues that I can look at beyond the familiar bible study topics we cover each week as a group. Maybe I need a life-altering situation to fall right in front of me, so I can learn some deeper message from it. I don’t know. But maybe, in telling you all of this I have written a sufficient enough blog to
get
you
Thinking.
Reflecting.
Regretting.
Relating.

Where do feel you learn the most. And don’t say school. I don’t mean academic education. I mean real life learning. Experiential learning. Spiritual learning. As you sit there reading, can you take a look at your past month and tell me the things you’ve been learning? The things you feel God is trying to open your eyes to. And how responsive have you been to those little tugs on your heartstrings? If you’re sitting there right now, and feel your life is stagnant, boring, uninteresting, ask yourself why? And what needs to change? Are you too comfortable? God doesn’t like us to be comfortable. It limits Him to what He can do in our lives, what He can teach us. How still are your waters? Will you let Him toss a few stones in so He can watch them ripple? Watch the water change, take form, move, flow, being real and allowing the calm waters come back to life.

We always must make decisions. And recently, I have made a very big one for myself.

Following a two-year absence from school, I have decided to take the next step in getting back into school by joining a program through the Canadian Mennonite University called Outtatown. After months of consideration, I feel this is the where I need to go next year. Come September, I will be going to Winnipeg, Manitoba to embark on this incredible adventure with fellow students ranging from 18 to 22. The program has about 100 students, divided up into 3 site groups of approximately 30 students. For the first semester we will be travelling to some of the largest cities across Canada. Spending 4 days to 2 weeks at each location, we could be in classrooms listening to guest speakers, or in a houseboat on a desolate lake, or doing a bible study on the Rocky Mountains. One day we may be standing in line at a soup kitchen getting to know the some of the homeless, and the next we could be learning from Canada’s aboriginal people about the struggles they have faced over the many years. Through all the teaching that the program has to offer, they take advantage of the locations and make it an incredibly fun experience!
After returning home for a month during the Christmas holiday, I will be heading back to Manitoba to begin setting out for the second semester. Like I said, the program is divided into 3 site groups, and for the second semester the three groups split off; two will travel to Guatemala, and one will travel to South Africa. I have been accepted for the South Africa site group, which was my choice. I will be living in South Africa for 3-4 months traveling every two weeks from town to town. From participating in building projects, to working in orphanages, to praying over those dying of Aids in the local hospice, I hope to gain a clearer understanding about service, love, and poverty. Amidst this, we will have teaching from South Afrikaners learning about their struggles with poverty, conflict and apartheid. We will also take advantage of the beautiful location and spend time doing hikes, sleeping in caves, going paragliding, bungee jumping, and swimming with sharks among many other things. Where this may lead me to next, I don’t know yet, but I can’t tell you just how excited I am to embark on this possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I hope that you can share in my excitement as I prepare for this journey.

At the beginning of May, I came back here to Camp Mini-Yo-We. Along with almost 20 other students, we have worked hard on preparing the camp property for the summer. From building projects, to raking and mowing lawns, to training as guest group team leaders, we’ve been having a blast getting to know one another. We’ve had many laughs, cries, conversations and arguments. All in all, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we are having a great time! Just the other night, when we had no guest groups in, we made a campfire at the Junior Camp site, and had a nice worship time for over an hour. Although our team is quite diverse in our attitudes, personalities, and personal time agenda’s, we do get along well and are gaining greater appreciations for things in life that we may have taken advantage of before.

In just a few weeks, following my 20th birthday on June 15th, the camp will fill up with all our summer staff for Staff Week and Skills Week. After these two incredibly fun two weeks, our summer camp will officially take off. I am the Ministry Director again for Boys Camp this summer, which is a position that directly oversees the bible studies and worship. I have been doing my planning and preparation over the last few months for this, but there is still much work to be done. Time is cutting close now, but as much stress as there is linked to this deadline, I can’t help but just be excited for the summer and having our camp be trampled on by the hundreds of campers that will be coming every week.

Again, I will do my best to update you and share my thoughts and struggles with you when I can, but until then you can put your mind at ease in knowing that I am still fully alive, living in God’s creation, and enjoying every minute of it.

As some of you may know, I will be heading off to camp May 2nd until the end of the summer. For the next two months I will be working on Spring Crew at Camp Mini-Yo-We, this is a program where 20 college age students get together to prepare the camp property for the summer as well as host the Spring guest groups. Then for the summer I will be taking on the position of Boys Camp Ministry Director for my second year.

I’m pretty excited for both of these experiences, but along with them comes great responsibility, dedication and lack of internet time. I am telling you all of this to let you know that the blog posts of Ben Pavey will be scarce from here on in. I will be busy, and although I will have plenty to say, I won’t be able to post as much as I’d like to.

So, here’s to you, the reader. Through the think and the thin you’ve been reading my blogs. Whether you read just one and closed the window, read a couple here and there, or have followed along extensively for the past few months, I hope you have learned something. Maybe you’ve just had a glimpse into my world, maybe I’ve helped you to look deeper inside your life practices, and perhaps my words have effected you to the point of realization that you need to change a few things in your own life.

Whatever it may be that you’ve taken from my blogs, I want to thank you. Thanks for visiting, thanks for reading, and thank you for being anonymous friends that have let me share my thoughts and struggles with you.

Have you ever been really excited about something?

Has there ever been something that you recently witnessed that you found just incredible?
Have you ever known one of those little-known-facts that you figure no one else will know, and you just can’t wait to share this acquired knowledge with someone?

Assuming we can all fall under one of these categories, if not make a similar scenario of our own, we all have this deep desire and urge to share information with family, friends, and even perfect strangers! We find things interesting and we contain this natural human yearning and willingness to tell others what we know.

Our motives to share this knowledge may vary from: wanting someone to share the same emotions as us, or perhaps to impress others with stories of things we’ve seen or heard, or quite simply we want to use our knowledge to put others in their place and let know we’re better than them.

Let’s begin with the possible first and second motivations. In the situation where you want to share your joys with others or impress them with your stories, how do they typically respond?

If you’re lucky… they will respond just the way you’d like them to. They’ll be excited for or with you, they’ll smile, laugh, give you a hug, or they might even repeat your story or facts immediately following because they feel it needs to be recognized by many more people.

In the case of you wanting to impress your listeners, they will hopefully drop their jaw in amazement, or give you this higher level of respect on the cool guy bar. They recognize your experiences and know you better for the things you’ve done, seen or heard.

But how about all the times they don’t react the way you’d like them to? You show them something of value to you; you share a personal story that effected your whole life; you tell them about something incredible that you saw, heard happened to someone, or a cool fact that you think is so completely out of this world, or maybe it is something as simple as telling them that you’ve drank over 100 coffees during this season of Roll Up The Rim and have won nothing while a co-worker of yours has already won 5 free coffees. And their response is this,

“That’s not a big deal, I haven’t won anything either and I’ve probably had even more than that.”

It’s simply unresponsive and leaves you either in an argument or you just wishing you had never opened your big stupid mouth in the first place.

Why do they respond this way? As a victim of this type of reaction, I feel that one of the only reasons… beyond that they didn’t intend for it to come across the way you took it… is the third motivation that I mentioned just a minute ago. They are in essence responding to you in this way to simply put you in your place and let you know that you’re no better than them. In fact, through their response, they just might be telling you that they are actually better than you because they either already knew what you just told them, they know something that trumps your cool story or fact, or they will pretend that what you said wasn’t important at all, when in actual fact, they are just stubborn because they wish they knew it before you and they don’t want to give you any credit for what you just shared with them.

If you are a victim of this response, I’m sorry, because I know how painful this can be. It’s crushing when you tell somebody something that you are so excited about, and it’s just tossed in the trash like last weeks paper. It really can cause you to think twice about sharing your excitements with this person again because it’s easy to anticipate what their response will be like.

Like I said, we all have things we want to say, but it’s difficult when others aren’t willing to listen and share in our joy, but would rather correct us and put us in our place telling us that ‘we’re no better than them.’ I know these are often the feelings of our predators because… although I feel I am a big victim, I too inflict just as much pain upon my friends.

As I identify all the times that I have been hurt in this way, I recognize that I am in fact no different than them. I am as big a jerk as the next guy. But through this learning and new understanding, I am trying to teach myself to be mindful, respectful and be excited when others are excited. When someone tells me something that I don’t believe or I know to be untrue, I want to think about my response before I go correcting them and belittling them. I want to try to remember to ask myself ‘why?’ Why do I want to correct them? Is it their sake or mine? And in what tone will I correct them in? How will what I say really effect them? These are the questions we all need to be asking ourselves because as Mother Theresa best said, “The greatest suffering is to feel alone, unwanted and unloved.”

As we take a deeper look at things, we will quickly find that this life lesson is represented best through Jesus while living here on Earth. From blind Bartimaeus [Mark 10] to mourning over the death of Lazzarus [John 11], Jesus listened whole heartedly to what people had to say to Him and felt the emotions they felt, and like the woman who grabbed at His cloak [Luke 8], even among the most hectic times, Jesus stopped what He was doing and was considerate. Loving and caring, without dismissing what any one had to say, in doing so telling them that what they have to say is a big deal.

In elementary school, my best friend had a birthday party. Pretty common. Just your standard kids birthday party. Nothing extravagant, in fact I think there were only three of us that went. First you’ve got to understand my level of success with my childhood friendships, and you can obtain a clearer understanding of this in an earlier blog titled ‘Dirt.’ Basically, I was always struggling to fit in and would do anything for the acceptance of those around me.

One of the best illustrations of this devotion took place at this birthday party. At one point we all received Push Pops. If you’re not familiar with the classic candy of the day, it was a small hard plastic tube slightly larger than your index finger. Inside this tube was a large flavored candy stick. You simply remove the cap, insert your index finger into the base of this tube and lightly press upward, revealing the magnificent mysterious candy that had once lay hidden inside its tomb. Needless to say, this candy was quite the delectable delight.

My two friends, being the mischievous young boys that they were, wanted to see how far I would go to impress them. Not that I was being picked on, but I was certainly an easy target for them. So we took a stroll outside with our Push Pops and stood on a big mound of dirt. My friend’s house was still partly under construction so there was plenty of freshly dropped dirt all over the place, among many scrap pieces of wood, tool belts, and the anticipated dropped nail every step taken. As we stood there talking, I wanted to be accepted by them so much. My intent was to do whatever it took to gain this acceptance. I would do anything for them. All they needed to do was tell me to jam my Push Pop into the recently dumped dirt pile and digest the candy mixture, and before they could finish explaining the task, I was already stirring my Push Pop around in circles to get the most dirt-coating possible.

As I raised the Push Pop toward my mouth, I looked at each of them as if it were all in slow motion. Huge grins stretching across their faces, looking toward one another to make sure the other one wasn’t missing any of this. As they turned their faces back toward me, their laughter ignited and was my green light to stick the dirt-coated candy into my mouth. Let me tell you, it was not pretty. This thing was disgusting. Everything about it tasted horrible. The once Strawberry-flavored candy that was so beautiful in every aspect had been turned into something so dissatisfying that I could hardly contain myself. But I did it. As I looked at them enjoying every minute of it, I couldn’t believe they were just watching me do this for them. Of all the things I had ever done for my friends because they told me to do it, this one neared the top of the charts as being the worse. But I didn’t back down, I wouldn’t stop just because I didn’t like it. I held it in, and took it like a man because it’s what they wanted. I was doing this for them, in the end getting nothing out of it but an intimate encounter with the toilet bowl in the middle of the night, coughing up all that I stomached through for their satisfaction.


In the first book of bible, we are told that the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7). In the bible, the word for ‘breath’ is the same word as the word for ‘spirit,’ and some pronounce God’s name as ‘Yahweh’ although the ancient rabbis believe that the name of God is so mysterious, sacred and holy that there is not even a word to name Him with. In fact, they believe that the letters of Yahweh, YHVH, function as vowels in the Hebrew language. They believe they were kind of breathing sounds and that ultimately the name is simply unpronounceable because the letters together are essentially the sound of breathing: Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh.(Rob Bell, 2006).
Is the name of God the sound of breathing? If so, then could it be that God has breathed some divine spirit into each of us when we are born. Every breathe we take is more than just the second nature of breathing, there is something that resides in us that cannot be taken away. There is this divine breath that is in every single human being. Ephesians 4:6 tells us that there is ‘One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.’
If there is something of God living inside each and every one of us, whether you are a Christian or not, is it safe to say that in someway, Christ resides within each of us?

What did Christ do by dying on the cross? He took our sins… he took the sins of the world on His shoulders so that we wouldn’t have to. Before Jesus came around, whenever people sinned against God, they had to make a sacrifice, as a way of repentance, seeking forgiveness. But then Jesus landed on the earth, and saw the sins we were committing, and knowing what the consequence for sin is [death], He followed His Father’s plan to pay the ultimate price and die on the cross. He knew what He needed to do, He knew what we were doing and what we would do, but looked past all our stupidity and selfish desires and said ‘You know what? I’m going to pay the penalty for your decisions and there is nothing that will stand in the way of that love for You.’

If we take this knowledge then, considering that Christ dwells within each of us beginning with a divine breathe being breathed into each and every one of us by Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh, and that Christ knows of the choices we will make and made the decision to take the consequential death onto Himself. Could we then, picture in our minds that as we sin, when we make the decision to sin, He is right there with us, in us, a part of us. And He isn’t going to stop us, He won’t stop us, He gives us this choice and all He says is, ‘no matter how sick or disgusting this thing is that you are doing to yourself, I am going to hold my tongue and take the pain for you. You are essentially making me do this same sin that you are doing right now therefore I am in fact facing the horrible results of what you are you doing to yourself… what you’re doing to me.

When we sin, are we really telling Christ to take that Push Pop, swirl it into the dirt and eat it? And does He do it? He knows He’d just be doing this disgusting act for our sake, for our amusement, but He’ll do it because He loves us so much that He’ll do anything for us… and this what we choose to do with His love? In the end, we get some real kicks out of the sin we put ourselves through, what we put Him through, and we walk away scotch free. Meanwhile, He’s hurling himself over the toilet seat the rest of the night, dealing with the aftermath of our decisions.

To the friends who decided I should eat that dirt-coated Push Pop… I forgive you.

A poster on my wall reads:

--Ross Powers. A true champion in every sense, Ross has won more halfpipe titles than any other rider in history and is the defending gold medalist from the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. In the 04/05 season Ross won the Mount Bachelor US Grand Prix and walked away with the overall Grand Prix title. Over the years Ross has shown an uncanny ability to rise to the occasion in clutch situations. With tricks such as frontside and cob 1080’s and an entire summer to train, Ross is poised to make another run for the Gold as he goes for his third Olympic appearance. Both on snow and in the laboratory he continues to fine-tune his pro model, constantly tweaking it to match his ever-evolving style.—

You know when a celebrity gets on stage after an anxiety-driven pause when the person presenting the award waited a minute before reading their name under the 'best actor' category? Mind you, they themselves weren’t too anxious. They knew they had this award in the bag; it was all the millions of skeptical viewers who were unsure of what the results would be. But this particular celebrity had already received 3 'best actor' awards, 2 'best supporting actor' awards, and had even received a few 'best director' awards! This guy’s got it. And now he's got another one to add to his collection. Is this guy successful or what? Well, is he?

Mike 'Pinball' Clemons spoke at a conference a couple months back. His message was a striking one; one in which you would've expected to hear from someone on the other end of his celebrity-status spectrum... someone like me.

Clemons began his talk by highlighting all of his accomplishments.
I was the highest achiever that...
I could outrun most players who...
I was the most valuable player in...
He continued on for a couple minutes boasting to the audience of all he had done and was capable of doing; really building himself up.
Clemons followed this with a brief open mic session and walked around to audience members in the first few rows of seats asking them what they thought of him and what these great accomplishments that he had mentioned just seconds before meant to them.
I believe their response was just what he was looking for.
Umm, more than what I could do…
Ah, Not the best, but not the worse…
Well, pretty good I guess.

“Pretty good?! Did you not hear me tell you all the things I have done? And the list doesn’t end there my friend.
But you know what? You’re right. It means very little. What is the big deal? In the end, what does it really matter? What it means is that for twelve years I held a piece of leather and became really good at running away from really big guys that wanted to slam me into the ground… Big Deal!”

Who is this man? Who is Mike Clemons… really? When he puts all of his worldly accomplishments aside, he answers with, ‘I am the lucky husband of a fine wife named Diane and the father of two wonderful daughters.’

As you think back on the things you have done in your lifetime… whether that be just a few twenty years, or if you’ve been around the block quite a few times… what have you accomplished? What are you proud of? What do you want to be remembered for? What do you want to remember most about your life? Is it that award or trophy? Is it that sweet frontside and cob 1080 that you’ve mastered? Is it your athletic career? Is it your sick ride equipped with the best sound system in the neighborhood? Is it your home theatre system, iMac, and 80Gb iPod? Is it your conquering of the most challenging X-Box game? Is it all the vacation trips you’ve been on? Is it the wild parties every weekend? Is it in all your skills and talents? Is it in how you use those skills and talents to help others or serve a certain someOne? Is it your family? Is it your friends that stick by you through the thick and the thin? Is it your small group? Is it your church community? Is it your job? Is it the conversations you have with strangers? Is it being a listening ear to those who need someone to talk to? Is it feeding the hungry? Is it clothing the naked? Is it giving shelter to those without a home? Is it giving money to those with little to spend?

Because in the end. When it’s all said and done. When we die and our life here on earth is finished, what can you take with you? As much music as you store on your 80Gb iPod to capture every single song and every favourite band of yours, you can’t clutch it in your hand on your deathbed in hopes that it will go with you. No. The things that this world has to offer us holds no value for us when we’re dead. When we take our last breath, all of that is forgotten, left behind. It served no purpose but simply providing momentary fun. Our possessions here on earth last only a short time compared to eternity.

So is there anything you can possess that will carry on after death? Is there something we can find here that, when we die, will continue to have an effect on us? Is there something worth obtaining because it is eternal… everlasting… for all eternity? Many of you may know of this thing. Many of you may be wondering this exact question. There’s got to be something more to this life than being born, gaining all this stuff and then dying alone without any of it. And I challenge you to seek it out. Talk with people. Find out what it is, because it is out there. You know, the interesting thing is… the bigger our stuff is, the higher the price tag. Have you ever realized this? You want something to store all your music… but a 4Gb is around your price range… if you want something that will last longer and do more for you, you’ve got to dig a bit deeper in your wallet. It will cost you more.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I believe that there is something that will carry on through into eternity. Although, it’s an odd thing… because it will cost you more than any price you find on an iPod… this thing will cost you your life. Your entire life will be changed when you accept this gift. Yes, it’s a gift. That’s the odd part… this thing is free. It’s a free gift that absolutely anybody can accept.
So it’s free, but it’s going to
cost
you
your
life.

So, take what I’ve said here and allow it to challenge you and influence your life to the extreme. Think about it, dissect it, question it, figure it out, and apply it.

.What holds value in your life.

I’ve reached an odd crossroads right now. On one hand, I think I’m an arrogant hypocritical person with the coldest heart one could ever possess. On the other hand, I think I can be a thoughtful, caring warm-hearted individual. Where do I find myself amidst all of this?

I miss having a girlfriend, that best friend you value and can always obtain support and care from. Some might think that a guy who misses having a girlfriend after dating one for almost two years would really be missing some sort of physical intimacy. This isn’t the case at all. I’m sure I could admit in saying that I would love to have a person to have physical interaction with, but what’s more than that to me, is my desire to make a young lady happy. I miss having someone that I can do spontaneous things for just to show how much I care about her. Yes, that’s just it. I always loved doing creative things, or spending quality time doing activities or just sitting and spending time with a female. I don’t need the physical intimacy for me to be happy, all I want is to be able to make her happy, and that in and of itself would make my day the best ever. I understand that you can do this for anyone and everyone; that you don’t need a dating relationship to surprise someone with something to express your appreciation for them. But, even still, I do wish I had… not necessarily a girlfriend… but just someone to do things with and for, and care about and be cared by. I miss having a best female friend.

This sounds good right? I’m a good guy for desiring nothing but to make a young lady happy. But why was it so easy for me to go cold turkey when we broke up? Why was I hurt for only a week, and then was fine to continue on with my life after that? Why, when I moved out of my home for the past two years, leaving my family behind, did it not sadden me as much as it should have? Why do I not miss my high school friends? Why do I not cry much? Why do I not break into tears when I hear of friends my age who have died recently? Why, when people tell me how much they will miss me, or have missed me, I don’t really have much of a response for them.
I don’t know the answers.

I value my friends and the people in my life. But do I value them enough to cry with them when they are hurting? Do I value them enough to call them on the phone when I haven’t spoken with them in a long time and truthfully care about how they are doing? Do I value them enough to embrace them with arms of care, compassion and heartache before I leave for a very long time knowing that I won’t see them for months on end?

I don’t think so, and I don’t know why. I feel like such a rude, ignorant, bad-word person. I feel like I’m so cold-hearted, and self-centered, and probably come across as someone who doesn’t care much about anyone but himself. And that kills me that you may be reading this and think to yourself ‘I thought I knew this guy, I was wrong.’ Inside I would love to be so compassionate that I would earnestly miss people when I leave or when they leave. I want to care about everyone, outside of my own agenda, but I don’t know why I can’t seem to find it in myself to be more warm-hearted toward those closest in my life. And especially when I have endless accounts of things I did for my old girlfriend to go out of my way and try and make her feel like she was the only thing that ever mattered to me. How do I jump from having such strong desires to still have a person like that in my life, to being able to tell you right now, if they were to ever leave my life, my heart would mend quickly?

I hate myself for knowing that when I say goodbye to everyone here and head back home, they will miss me very much, but I will just see them as a memory; the next chapter of my life coming to an end. I’d like to think that it has something to do with my childhood and there is a series of events from my past that I have removed completely from my memory, which has created me into the person that I am today. I’ll let you know if I ever flashback into the thoughts of a failing past and discover where all of this once began.

This past Friday night, I sat in on a speaker at the Valley View Alliance Church in Newmarket. His name was Rick Osborne. He had been in jail for about 25 years and was one of Canada’s most wanted men in Canada when he was 21 years old. He was heavily involved with drugs and gangs, and his testimony was incredible. Having been shot 4 times, one of those in the head with only his bike helmet protecting him, and one near the mid-south of his body, to overdosing on some of the worse drugs, to finding comfort lying next to prostitutes, to escaping prison and spending years in ‘the shoe,’ his story breaks down all misled stories of the convict-lifestyle portrayed in some television shows. His message was one of a quick and slippery slope into the places no one desires to go. It was an eye-opening lesson about a strong Christian teenager who got caught up doing drugs only once before he ran from home and never returned. I haven’t found a website of his yet, but if you come across it check out his story in more detail.

Following this event, I saw the film ‘Reign Over Me.’ A film starring Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle, a pair of reuniting college roommates learning from each other and helping to support and lead the other from the lifestyle they are currently living into a life worth living for. It was a good movie I thought, slow at times, and it felt like it dragged on quite a bit, but a film with a phenomenal soundtrack is bound to have a strong impact. With Sandler taking a serious role once again, and having the movie based on the reoccurring aftermath of 9-11, I would give it 3.5-4 stars out of 5.

The next day, I attended the Evolving Church Conference at The Meeting House in Oakville. It was a day of speakers focusing their messages on restoring social justice in our world, a message that I fully agree with. Understanding that the level of poverty is overlooked by too many people these days, and that there is so much more we can do to simply: love. I believe this, and know of the things that are going on in our world regarding it, but I couldn’t say I really enjoyed the conference itself. Everyone that I attended it with enjoyed it, but I had a very difficult time following along with the speakers. Jim Wallis, Ron Sider and Shane Claiborne were the main speakers, and their messages were sincere and thought-provoking, but social justice is just something I can’t really wrap my head around enough to dialogue with others about. Overall, it was a good worthwhile event but didn’t benefit and effect me as much as it may have for others.

This brings us to Sunday, when Josh and I continued our journey traveling to different churches each week. If you recall in my earlier blog ‘Sunrise to Sunset’ I made reference to a church that I drive past every day on my way to work. I also have wanted to attend a Catholic Church service but have been nervous not knowing what to expect. We decided to go to this church, and wouldn’t you know it, it turned out to be a Catholic Church, but what’s more than that, it was a Ukrainian Catholic Church. Let me just say, it was quite the experience. The interior of the building was beautiful and reflected such stunning stain glass windows and painted biblical murals. There was singing throughout almost the entire service, only the priests 10-minute sermon was spoken. I didn’t sing along because I had no idea where they were reading the words from, and because I’m pretty sure the majority of it was sung in Ukrainian. It was great to just sit back, enjoy, and take in this way that this Catholic Church functioned. And those are my weekend’s stories.

I’m leaving my work in just a few days. Next Friday in fact is my last day before I say my goodbye’s and leave my Brick crew in Whitby. It’s sad, they’re great people, they really are. They all make working there so much more enjoyable and although we share some differences, I couldn’t have asked for any better people.

From the sounds of it though, they could say the same about me. There is one woman who, when I first began working there, told me to go back to school as soon as I can. Now this same woman is giving me hugs and begging everyday for me not to leave. There are people offering to take me out for a goodbye and good luck drink before I leave. It seems as though these friends of mine are earnestly disappointed that I am parting ways with them all. They don’t want me to leave; I have had some sort of influence on them. Perhaps it’s my cheerful smile, or my constant singing to the radio as I walk down the isles, or maybe it’s my sweet dance moves that I pull off whenever I enter the offices. I really don’t know what it is, but there is something for each of them that cause them to feel sadness at the thought of me leaving.

Now, don’t take this as some sort of pig-headed, egotistic message because I am honestly telling you that I don’t know why they will miss me. I don’t know how I could’ve had much of an effect on them. Don’t take this as a sympathy-seeking call out either, I don’t hate who I am and wonder how anyone could ever love me. But the question that arose after receiving the previous comments from my fellow co-workers is merely this:

If I Knew Me, Would I Want to be Friends With Me

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Do you understand the question? If you were someone else with a different name and appearance, and you met who you are right now and had a five-minute conversation with yourself, could you see that being someone you would want to spend more time with? It’s not meant to be a conceded question, and I think by answering this question for yourself you will be one step closer to finding out what you may need to change about yourself in order to hold on to the people you care most about. Furthermore, in no way am I suggesting that you should change who you are as to keep your social status quo or to fit who your friends think you should be or expect you to act.

Simply put, are there things about you that would tick you off? Are there things that would drive you up the wall? It’s kind of funny to think of, because at first thought you’d think ‘well, obviously I don’t have my own pet peeves.’ Maybe not, but consider another’s point of view, what would their pet peeves of you be? Would it be your rebellious attitude, your stale jokes, your insults, your ‘eating with your mouth open’ habits, your clothing choices, your punctuality or lack thereof? How you deal with stress, with conflict, with joyous occasions. Maybe the first step in learning how to be more appealing and hold on to those you care most about, is putting your selfish desire and stubborn way of life to rest, and become willing to adjust and remain open to the suggestions that those around you may have to offer.

Perhaps for you however, the question is not about conformity, rather individuality and being the person you are for as long as you can be. Why should you change just to make others happy? If they don’t like you for who you are, screw them. You can find better friends that won’t judge you and force you to become someone you’re not. You are your own man or woman, and that’s that. Maybe they aren’t really the type of people you want to invest your time and energy into anyway, so whether they care about you or like certain things about you or not, doesn’t concern you in the least.

In the end,
No one really likes to be someone that nobody else likes,
And at the same time no one likes to be someone that they themselves don’t even like.

So how will you decide? What will determine what changes who you are? You are not the same you were when you were nine. People always change, it’s what has influenced those changes that matters and will you continue to let those things change you. Can there be a balance between being who you are to feel good about yourself and make others feel good about you too. And if so, where do you mark this balance. Who do you want to be?

I read an article a few days ago in Relevant Magazine that sparked something inside of me to ask myself if those around me can tell I am a Christian. I guess there are three ways for people to know of ones faith; by verbally expressing what one believes, by the things one doesn’t do, and by the things one does do. I think it would be most fulfilling for a Christian to hear that they are most recognized by the things they do do (yeah, I said do-do). But what are these things that a Christian does that causes someone around them to notice something different about them, something spiritual, something that leads to God.
This guided me into thinking, if when I die I head up to heaven only to see my good friends in hell, I would hate to know that I didn’t do more for them. It’s a nerve-racking experience for someone to share what they believe with non-Christians because of the mind-boggling questions that might arise, or the rejection that could come with the conversations. I’ve never really had to think about this because most of my close friends up until this year have been Christians. But while working this past year in a place surrounded by people who don’t believe the same as me, I have been provided with many opportunities and conversations with these people… my friends. I’ve developed good friendships with them. And I don’t want the above scenario to happen with them. I don’t want to look from heaven and see them in hell and wonder if I could’ve said something more to them.
So I had this conversation with one of them. I explained how I was leaving soon, and as a Christian I know I am called to share my faith so that others may have the opportunity to know God, and that it would kill me to leave this workplace and know that I never got to fully explain my faith to them. I was then confronted with that very question, ‘well, why do you believe what you believe then?’
This led into a lengthy conversation. It wasn’t an argument or debate, it was a discussion. But to tell you the truth, I was finding it hard to not answer with a Sunday school answer. I wanted to have a better answer then just ‘I was raised this way’ or ‘look around you, look at all of this creation, how could I not believe there is something more out there.’ I didn’t want to give these answers. First, because I wanted to have personal reasons that I really felt. Second, as I thought these answers in my head, I listened to myself speak and thought… ‘what kind of answers are those?’ Do I really look outside at creation and believe that there is a God? Why? Why do I really believe what I believe? Because there’s got to be some bigger reason for life? Because it’s an easy way to get to heaven? Why? Do I seek for closure in my faith when nothing makes sense and everything is confusing? When I pray, is there really a God that hears me or am I talking into the air? Is it all a big hoax? Is there physical proof that everything in the bible is real? Was the bible written by a bunch of guys with theories like Dan Brown and The Davinci Code? Do my answers even make sense to me?

Why do you believe what you believe? And don’t just give yourself the Sunday school answers. Really think about it. If you are a Christian or not, what reason for life is there for you? What do you think will happen after death?

I don’t doubt God. But my thoughts are really getting tossed around right now. I really want to try and figure out why I believe what I believe. As my answer to this question a few months ago to someone who isn’t a Christian I told him, ‘There is just something inside of me that believes, and unexplainable desire to know God. The God of the universe, the God of this world, the God who created me, the same God who loves me unconditionally.’ But is this just a pretty way to describe it because that’s what I’ve been taught? Or do I seriously believe that. If I think about other religions and the gods that other people pray to and live their lives for, most of them seem really phony and ridiculous to me. The thought of trusting some spiritual lady from the water to watch over your prayers and keep you from any danger as long as you don’t eat any red meat. Or believing that you’ve been saved from some other god by being struck by lightening and now you have premonitions that you believe are provided from this higher god of the clouds. This stuff seems so bizarre to me… but I seem to believe in a God who claims to have made the first man with some dust and then used his rib to somehow create the first woman, and Satan came in the form of a snake and made this woman eat an apple and that was the first sin. I believe that a man came to the Earth and brought people back from the dead, healed the blind, and died on the cross, somehow giving me the opportunity to go to heaven instead of the inevitable hell. Why is this not just as crazy to believe? And why do I believe it?

I’ve mentioned in the past on my blog that I’ve had plenty of opportunities to talk to my co-workers about God and what I believe. I hadn’t been shaken by them, or so I thought, even though they had more than enough reasons against the possibility of God than I did for it. I would just leave those conversations knowing that I needed to search for better answers for my faith so that I would have knowledge to support what I was sharing with these people I care about, even though I believed God would speak through me to them whether I really knew everything or not.

Over the last while I’ve been swamped with work, and not having much personal time. I haven’t been reading as much as I use to, and I wasn’t praying as much because everything else was taking up my time. I got a book to write my prayers down so that I stayed accountable and would know that I was praying, but it seems routine right now. I’ve had so much work going on, but I’ve seemed to be doing it fine on my own, looking back realizing that I haven’t really looked to God for strength and guidance. I don’t think I’ve been very dedicated to God or reliant on Him as much as He would like me to be.

I haven’t cried in a long time. I was talking to someone last night about this… I really do hold those extreme emotions inside… yes I see crying as an extreme… I just bottle stuff inside I guess, and so I don’t really cry. I know I shared a close moment with my immediate family this past summer… but before that, I really couldn’t tell you when the last time was that I cried. Am I hard-shelled? Am I stubborn? Am I cold-hearted? A lot of people would probably say no, but I sure feel that way right now. I’ll share what I want to with people for attention or sympathy… sometimes for honest support… but overall I regret to say that I do just bottle things inside.

I don’t know what will become of all of this. I am hoping that I will have some sort of transformation that will involve a non-Christian who I’ve been talking with about God, it will reaffirm my faith, and I will cry a lot. It’d be a picture perfect blog and I am eagerly awaiting that day. But I also know that the bible offers the advice that as a Christian, I am not expected to have everything together, and that I shouldn’t have masks to cover who I really am or how I really feel. When something isn’t right, I need to share that. When I feel weak, there will be people to hold me up… When I need to speak, there will be someone to listen. Even if it is just through reading my blog you are doing wonders by letting me just express my thoughts and allow me to figure things out a little bit better.

I’m still happy, I can still dance, and I can still make people laugh. I am not depressed; shaking in the corner of a damp dark room, believing there is nothing worth living for. I am just searching for real answers that I can develop for myself as to why I believe what I believe.

Well, let me tell you… I am a big music guy, but Switchfoot is not one band that really tickles my fancy. However, because they are a favourite of Josh’s we took a visit to the local Ticketmaster and grabbed our tickets for a Switchfoot show on February 28th at The Kool Haus in Toronto.

Josh picked me up from a 9 hour day at work in the good ol’ smart car and we hit the road for the 7 o’clock show. We made it there about 20 minutes early, so we caught ourselves in line right near the front with a few friends that had already been waiting there for a couple hours. After what seemed like hours waiting, 7 finally rolled around and we were welcomed into the club. All my friends were patted down and ushered through the doors, but when I arrived to meet my first intimate moment, I was patted down, right to left, top to bottom, and I was told to reveal my new camera to him. After one quick glance, I was informed that my camera was too professional! I made the claim that it was digital, not SLR, and even tagged a line a friend of mine used in a similar situation by claiming that I needed it for a school project. No dice. He told me I could either leave it at their drop off booth or take it back to my car. So I quickly called out to Josh, got the keys and had to trek back to the car in my tight single t-shirt and jeans. As you can probably assume, I ended up having to go back to the end of the line and spent at least 10 minutes freezing in the cold, just to get patted down a second time and finally enter through the club doors.

I met up with all my friends inside. They were located at the front right side of the swarming mob of people crowding around the stage. I squeezed my way through and found a nice spot to stay. That ‘nice spot’ lasted about 10 seconds. Soon enough, more people added to the mob and we were all being pushed closer and closer to the front of the stage. The concert began at 8, and honestly I have never been so squished by other humans in my life! For the next 4 hours, I was surrounded by sweaty, bad-breath, screaming friends and complete strangers. As I stood there for a minute, I could feel my feet were almost off the group because the bodies around me were holding me up, that’s how tight we all were. At one point, there was a girl on my left trying to squeeze past me causing me to push against the girl on my right, who in turn pushed back. They were suddenly having some sort of unofficial sandwich game with me in the middle. Calling out ‘ladies, ladies’ I was looked at by a friend who turned around to see what the commotion was all about and claimed, ‘Ben man, are you being sandwiches between two beautiful girls?’ And their response of course was, ‘you know He’s loving it.’ Now let me be frank, as a male equipped with hormones, there was something about this situation that I must say I enjoyed, but let me tell you I did have my future wife on my mind and doing so tried to stay as clear minded as possible (Scroll down to read my blog titled ‘My Wife’ to get an idea of what I’m talking about here). There were a few other instances where I felt the obligation to protect certain girls at the show from being crushed by somewhat blanketing my body close to theirs. Mind you, there were a few young guys who needed the same protection at times. I can honestly say though, I have never been so intimate with any woman or man as much as I was at this concert… but it seems as though that is all part of the experience… um…right?

Half way through the show Jon Foreman, the lead singer of Switchfoot, decided to take a detour out onto the dividing rail between the audience and the bouncers. As he stood on this rail being held up by the bouncers, countless fans were stretching out their hands, screaming, grabbing at him. Let me tell you though, this all took place on the left side of the stage, far away from me. As a spectator, I saw this and was disgusted. I couldn’t believe these people were idolizing Foreman this much, there were going crazy over him and desiring to touch his human flesh. After a minute, the moment passed and Foreman returned to the stage to finish the song with his band. A few songs later, he decided to venture out on to the rail again, this time on the right side… yes, right where we were standing. So here came the infamous leg of Jon Foreman, and the people around me crowded the arms to get a touch here and grab there. This was ridiculous. As he continued singing, his hands were even in reaching distance, so the fans around me were going crazy having to touch the bare skin on the back of his hand. How could these people be worship Foreman as a person so far that they felt the urge to reach out and simply touch? As disgusted as I was, there was in fact something within me that was overcome with the same urge and before I even knew what was happening, my hand was stretched out in front of me, I needed to have some Jon Foreman. And what do you know; he reaches out and holds my hand. If that isn’t intimate, I don’t know what is. As he braced his palm on mine as I held him up for almost 10 seconds, he also waved the microphone in front of a buddy and me as we sang along with this idol. Before I could even take in what was happening, I passed off his hand to someone else to experience this amazing feeling. I don’t know what it is about concerts. Like I said, I'm not even a big fan of Switchfoot, but there's just something about having a celebrity reach out to you when you’re caught in the moment, and there's nothing you can do but give in to them.

Before we knew it, the show was over and we were back in the car driving home. We were sweaty, our adrenaline was rushing, and we had stories to tell. All in all it was a great night; an evening full of intimacies that I could never have imagined I was going to experience.

I regret to be posting this blog so late from my last one, as I have been very busy and will continue to be. For those of you who are the praying type, now would be a great time to start taking down some notes, as I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers over the next little while. For those of you who blaze past any sort of religion, fell free to just keep reading and think of me.

I’ve been really swamped with many projects, and whether I’m taking on too much or not, I don’t know, but I’m committed and in some sick-sense I enjoy the responsibility. And if I wasn’t doing as much as I am now, I’m sure there would be plenty of people telling me to do more with my time… so essentially, I’m just saving them and myself from the lectures.

1. I am working hard to prepare a service for the youth group I help out with. I only have a few more weeks with them, and would like to share something deep on my heart with them before I leave, and that is the influence of music and media. The dark sides of media are something I hate seeing teens falling into, and this is my first real time to just share from my heart, how I feel about the music we spend our time listening to. I’m working hard to co-ordinate everything for this to lead a presentation that will shake them and make them re-evaluate their influences.

2. As you know I work at camp, and we are putting together a worship service called ‘Refresh’ in Hamilton at The Freeway (www.frwy.ca). I’m semi-organizing this event, as well as heading up the worship band. This is something really exciting to do, and I’m happy to be a part of the team for this event of community, worship, and prayer. The night is designed for staff and friends to be reminded of camp, and to get that fire started inside of them for another great summer.

3. Countless campers and staff at camp (www.miniyowe.com) have requested for our worship band to make a studio recorded album. We’ve shrugged off the idea as being wishful thinking in the past, but I am putting plans together to make this a reality. It seems simple; record music, burn it to a bunch of CD’s, and make money. But this has been such a long learning curve for me to try to understand all the different variables to consider for this project. From copyright laws, to band member schedules, to CD design art… this is a big project. We’re hoping and praying that all works out for this summer, but I am not making any promises at this point. But this will be a big step and incredible experience for our team to undergo, and the results will hopefully be quite pleasing to many.

4. I am finishing my work at The Brick in a few weeks, and am planning to take April off for personal time. Josh and I are still looking into a few organizations that we may be able to hook up with for some mission work down South, but those plans are not looking too promising. Two alternatives are just taking a train somewhere and relaxing; a great way to top off our year living together, or perhaps some sort of vacation with my family. I don’t want to work for April, so I am hoping we can manage to make something work to give me a reason not to. We’d really like to pull together some sort of end-of-the-year event for Josh and I though.

5. If all goes well, I will be heading to Camp Mini-Yo-We for Spring Crew in May and June; this is a time where 20 students work to prepare the camp for the summer and host guest groups. Then I will be working at camp for the whole summer as the Ministry Director of Boys Camp for the second year. This is my next big project… preparing all that I need to in order to fulfill this position. I haven’t really begun looking at this yet, but need to soon. There will be lots of preparation for the summer if I want to pull off a great experience for the campers with the worship music and bible studies. Please pray that I can get on top of this and that ideas will really begin to flow as to how I can properly present each day’s message so that the campers will get the most out of them.

6. On top of Ministry Director for the summer, I have also been offered the position of having a large involvement with the ministry of PRiME, the teen’s camp at the end of the summer. This too will be a big task to take on, and as much as I would love to be involved with it, I am struggling to see how great of a job I can do with everything else I have on my plate. So, sorry Amanda, I’m still working on this decision.

7. And lastly, next fall. I have sent out an application form to Capernwray Bible College (www.capernwray.ca) in British Columbia and am anticipating the response. In addition to this, I have the opportunity to join a program called Outtatown (www.outtatown.com) which is based in Winnipeg through the Canadian Mennonite University. I would spend the first semester traveling Canada with 30 others, from standing in line with the homeless at soup kitchens to having a bible study on the Rocky Mountains. We then continue into the second semester serving in either South Africa or Guatemala. This would be such an amazing experience, so my application will be sent out shortly to them. This of course is a big decision for me as well, one that I pray for a strong leading from God with.

So there you have it. Wipe your wondering tears from your eyes, put the 9-1-1 phone call down, and tear down the Missing Person signs from the lamp-posts on the street corners, because I’m alright. I'm here, and I'm safe… just busy. I will continue to post my blogs, perhaps not as regularly as I was, but keep checking back, because amongst all that’s going on with me right now, I have plenty of things running through my mind which I am always more than happy to share with you. Thanks for reading, and I’ll write again to you soon.

I’m not going to give you a history lesson on my childhood; that would be much more than what I want to write. But I do want to recap a highlighted pain and life-altering passion that I have encountered over the months while living away from home.

After graduating high school I headed to camp for some time in the summer. Nearing the end of the summer I was expecting to just work for the year because I hadn’t come across a school that interested me. As August approached, I made the quick decision to commit to one full year, working as a year-round instructor at camp. It was a choice I needed to make within days, and before we knew it I was back home packing my belongings to move in to my new home at camp. This was a sudden change for my parents. They were expecting me to stick around home for at least one more year, and before they even had time to take it all in, I was waving goodbye to them as they drove away, leaving their youngest to live alone. Now, if you know anything at all about the geography of where I live, you’ll know that my house is only about half an hour from the camp, not a big deal, but being my first big venture from home I was happy to be living on my own. There was plenty of excitement and things to do to keep me occupied, that I wasn’t even calling them once a week to catch up. Over the year I visited home maybe seven times including Christmas. I didn’t really notice much because I had already been away at camp for the summer before then, so it wasn’t as big of a deal to me. But imagine my parent’s position. I was the son who claimed he would never move out, and would live with his parents forever. They weren’t expecting this at all.

Before I knew it, the following summer was nearing its end and I was not planning to pursue school for a second year. I really had no idea what I wanted to do. I figured I would just work again for the year, but I wanted to live somewhere else. In no offense to my parents or the home they had for me, but I wanted to explore and challenge myself with new elements. I ended up deciding to move to Newcastle with a friend and his family whom I had never met. Now think of my parents, who still hadn’t fully coped with me being thirty minutes away for the first year, and now I was asking them to drive me and my belongings to what I call the city, only to be living now three hours away. If they thought I didn’t want to see them much while living at camp, how could they expect I would ever want to see them from the city? Through all the comments they left with me about how I would be missed, I never truly understood what they must have really been feeling.

…Until I thought about it for myself.
I was the funny guy in the family. I was the one who was almost always smiling. I could make them laugh; I brought excitement to the dinner table. And that was the first image in my mind. I was picturing my parents sitting at the dinner table without my sister or me there with them, and that image broke my heart. I may be exaggerating the situation, but I can only imagine them sitting like robots, eating their food in silence with no expression in their faces. No more joy, laughter, fun, love. Robots to ask how each others day was at the dim light of the candle in the center of the table, while the dog lay stiff on the floor at my fathers feet. This image just kills me.
The next picture in my mind was all the times my parents offered advice. I thought they were trying to make my life hell, binding me by chains of rules and guidelines. The words they chose to use with me, their attitudes, and their approaches were what I expected all parents to be like. But as I moved in with this new family, my eyes opened up to a new perspective of who my parents were. In no attack or comparison to the family I am presently living with, but I quickly learned that my parents were genuine, special, and meant the world to me because I meant the world to them… and that is why they treated me the way they did. I was learning that it was all in love that they put these rules up, spoke to me, joked with me, and raised me the way they did. They loved me so much, and I never understood the depth of that love until I was away from them completely. I believe that is how discovering Christ’s love for us is like. We may never truly understand it until we are put in a place where He seems to be nonexistent, and suddenly our perspective on how blessed we are to know God is altered. The phrase ‘you don’t realize what you have, until it’s gone’ began to have a whole new meaning for me. And this killed me too.
I have such a gut-wrenching pain inside of my heart at the thought of all the missed experiences, conversations, and friendships. What’s more than that, I feel I have left them down so much. I feel like I have hurt them so deep in not having the desire I should’ve had to be friends with them when I was younger. I wish I could’ve been a more obedient, loving son… as loving as his incredible parents were. I wish I could go back in time and say yes every time my dad asked me if I wanted to go under the car to fix something or build or fix a household item instead of telling him I was too busy and just watch TV. I wish I could go back and value the conversations around the dinner table the way I value them now. I wish I could go back and do everything I could to make them happy. I wish I could understand and trust them with all the rules they set before me, knowing that they were for my own good and because they loved me. I feel I’ve missed out on so much, I feel I’ve screwed up big time, and I wish I could just go back and live with them again… because now, who knows if I will ever be back home living with them, to learn from them.

I wrote in a letter to my dad, ‘I feel that I've missed out on so much, but at the same time I realize that I haven't missed out on anything because it's right here, it's inside of me, you've made it a part of me.’ And it’s so very true. I have the memories inside of me to remember, I can reflect on everything that they’ve done for me, and know that it was all in love. And the big thing is… they aren’t gone! I was realizing all these things and treating them as if my parents were gone, that I could no longer make contact with them. But that isn’t it at all. They are very much alive and a bigger part of my life than ever before. I can accept that my time living with them could’ve been much better had I understood what I know now, but I can move on, react to that and love them in return.

I now call home at least once every week. I have such a higher respect for my parents, and a stronger desire and eagerness to get to know them better. I wish I could change back time… and love them in return as a child as much as I do now, but instead I will look on to the future and how I cherish them that much more now.

I pray that you will find a safe haven in my words here, and that you too may take a few moments to reflect on your family. On the struggles, pains, and pleasures that you have endured and may you be able to understand an irreplaceable and unconditional love from your parents. It takes time to grow and learn and appreciate the people God has blessed us with.

With the last image of a beautiful tree blanketed with an array of vibrant and magnificent colors of red, orange and yellow leaves, standing tall on a mountain top, which first began as a tiny little seed planted by the sower, I tell you this:

A father can root himself so deep within His son, that it may not be truly appreciated until much growth has taken place.

I have had a few conversations initiated by other people over the past couple days around the topic of anger. I have felt pretty stuck, because I fear speaking my mind with them, so I just listen and take in their opinions and dialogue with them in my mind, in my thoughts.

You see, these people I have spoken with all seem to avoid getting really angry with other people, which is a good thing I think, but instead they wish bad things upon these other people.
One phrased it like this, “What they said to me hurt, and I think they said it simply because they didn’t understand, they didn’t know how their words were effecting me and others because they had never been in my situation. But you know what? As soon as they turned around, I hoped that their day would come, when they would be hurt just as much as they hurt me. And I really hope that I will be there to see it, not to be sick and twisted, but just so I can see the pain they’re in and say ‘You had it coming, now you know how you made me and so many others feel.’ I look forward to that day when they get a taste of their own medicine.”
Another expressed their feelings about someone who had wronged them in some way, by claiming that they hate them, want nothing to do with them, and if they could they would teach them a lesson they would never forget.
This is so sad. And so difficult to respond to. We find it so hard to love people, but it seems to be so easy to find even the smallest things to hate about a person. How do I teach you about the love that I have with God, and how I believe we need to pass off this same love to anyone and everyone no matter what they’ve done to us.

There are some people who have really done me wrong in one way or another, and I’m sure you all have at least one person just like this. They’ve done what seems to be the worst they could ever possibly do, and they couldn’t care less how it affected you. As far as you are concerned, they have done the unforgivable to you. We all have, or have had these people, and will continue to have these ‘enemies’ for the rest of our lives. But I believe God loves them. I believe that no matter what they do or say, nothing is going to separate God’s deep unconditional love from them. The bible teaches us this. And I also believe that we are called to express this same love for everyone. We have done just as bad things to God, and no matter what we do, He will still always love us, so why can’t we swallow our pride or pain and do the least we can do, and love those who have done us wrong. We don’t have to agree with the decisions they made, they may have hurt us and it feels like we’ll never be the same, but I promise you, if you can love them, something will lift from your shoulders, you will feel lighter, you feel a little bit closer to being at peace. And this is God’s desire. He knows you hurt, He knows the pain you feel, He knows what people have done to you, and He doesn’t expect you to become best friends with everyone, I don’t think He expects you to forgive and forget… if you can, then kudos to you… but I think if we can at least just forgive them and love them, then you’re that much closer to mending the wound completely. Please forgive those who you are angry with, and try your best to love them. It will be hard and may take a while but please do your best to put whatever they have done to you in the past, love them, and move on. It comes back around to our representation of Christ. And as followers seeking to follow as best as we can in footsteps of God, we need to think of the way we treat those around us, especially those who have hurt us, or just get on our nerves.

There is someone in my life right now who I use to not be able to care any less about. This person ticked me off every time they spoke. I was excited when they weren’t around, and disappointed when I heard they were back. I would roll my eyes, talk behind their back, and never take what they said seriously. I would brush them off, discard their comments and not give a passing moment to being kind to them. But then I came to realize that by my responding to this person in this way, I wasn’t solving the problem, if anything I was making it worse. By hating them, I wasn’t giving them the opportunity to improve, apologize, or even have a desire to change. I know every situation is different, all pains are different, but I knew that I needed to love this person. As much as I didn’t want to, as much as I didn’t think they deserved it whatsoever, as much as I didn’t believe it would change anything, I knew that God wasn’t too proud of me for hating this person, and to be honest I wasn’t too proud of myself for it either. I wanted to get along with this person, I wasn’t wanting to become best friends, I just wanted to be able to tolerate them and love them. I would then know I was at least doing my part and giving my best effort to change the way I was toward them and forgiving them for the way they treated and still were treating me. I’m not going to say that the story ends with us holding hands skipping through the meadows… in fact, I am very relieved that this is not how my story ends. Instead, this person still isn’t the nicest around me, but I talk to them with a smile, sincere care, without attitude or holding grudges and it has helped considerably. And knowing that I have acted in obedience to God, when our conversations finish and I walk away, I speak out loud to God asking him to continue to ‘please help me love this person.’ And I know that He is.

It was not what you would expect it to be… and I’m dreading to write this as to what kind of example I am setting for those younger and how those older than me will give me plenty of lectures regarding my stupid decisions, but I want to share it anyway because it was great.

So you need to picture all of this in your mind, because I’m going to try and paint it exactly how it happened. I was driving in to work and Josh was in the passenger seat. We were just driving down the middle lane, not in the smart car but in his families other bigger vehicle, minding our own business. All of a sudden a police car passes us in the left hand lane. He’s wasn’t going too fast but obviously fast enough to pass us, and he didn’t have his lights on. So I thought, well I think I’m just going to follow behind him a bit. We’ve all wondered it, ‘if we follow a cop who isn’t in pursuit, at the fast speed that he is going at, we can’t get in trouble can we? Why I felt like testing this theory, I don’t know, but I decided to go for it. So I hit my left blinker and turned in to the far left hand lane. I kept a good two car distance between us as we continued to just mosey along our drive listening to our music. The cop eventually began to drive considerably slower, so I just slowed down not thinking too much of it, and remained on his tail. Josh and I were talking, not watching the road much, and the next thing I knew, the cop car had sped up and was way ahead of me! Well, this was just no good. So I put my foot to floor to try and catch up to him. I pretty sure he was testing me, somehow he knew my plans. As you can assume, by the time I caught up with him, we were definitely going well over the speed limit. We were both racing the left side of the highway as the other cars passed by in blurs of colors and all I could think was how crazy and stupid this was, but something inside of me made me continue.

So, I’m in pursuit of this cop, trying my best to stay on his tail, I don’t know why I was so confident that he didn’t know I was right behind him, because all of a sudden he pulled over in to the middle lane, squeezing between two cars. Now what! Where do I go? Do I follow him in to the middle lane clearly stating that I was in fact following him, or do I avoid the obvious and try to discreetly drive right past him? It was quite the predicament, one in which I had to decide within seconds. So I went with driving right past him, trying to slow down as much as possible. As we whipped by the cop with my foot on the brake, Josh was wide eyed and jaw dropped, not believing I just purposely sped past a cop. No harm was done, the cop remained in the middle lane and I kept going… for about two-seconds. All of sudden he pulls in to the left lane again directly behind me! Now I’m really getting nervous, my palms are sweating like crazy and I’m yelling at Josh. Josh turned around and after seeing the cop on our tail just burst out laughing, he couldn’t believe it. I knew I had crossed the line and had to evade this pursuit, so I kept driving until there was an open spot between two other vehicles for me to pull back into the middle lane to allow the cop to drive right past me and on to his next victim. Well, he seemed to have other plans. I managed to pull over in to the center lane, but as I was slowing down he crept up beside me in the left lane, but instead of continuing past, he decided to coast right there, directly beside me. Oh man, it was so hard not to smile. I kept my cool though. I just kept my eyes on the road and pretended as if I had no idea he was there. But the cop definitely knew that I knew he was there… how? Well I’m pretty sure that Josh laughing hysterically, swinging his whole body back and forth, wiping the tears from his eyes, and continuously telling me that the police officer was staring directly at me was a dead giveaway. But I wasn’t going to make eye contact with him. My heart was beating like crazy, what a rush! The adrenaline was is a constant flow. I was invincible, I was the law out there, I was the man… I was stupid… it was a very bad decision. As much fun as it was, it was not wise, I know that. And I think this is what the cop was trying to tell me. But it was still a good time. So the cop coasting beside me, trying to stare me down for at least 30 seconds, then he finally gave up and sped up and left my sight, allowing me to catch my breathe, calm down, and safely arrive at my work to tell the story to all my co-workers. I wish you all a very happy and safe day!

In his book Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller tells the story of a friend of his that put tithing into a whole new perspective for me. I’m not going to share all the details of the story but here’s the general picture.

Donald was with his friend and they were talking about needing money for a motorcycle. Donald saw this huge jar of cash on his buddies table and suggested they use that money, but his friend told him they couldn’t.
“Why?”
“Isn’t mine, Miller.” His buddy looked at him and claimed that the money wasn’t his, it was God’s.
“Don, let me tell you. You should be tithing. That is not your money. That is God’s money. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Stealing from God and all.”
Another friend of his shared, “When we do what God wants us to do, we are blessed, we are spiritually healthy. God wants us to give a portion of our money to His work on earth. By setting aside money from every check, you are trusting God to provide. He wants you to get over that fear -that fear of trusting Him. It is a scary place, but that is where you have to go as a follower of Christ.”

I’ve never really tithed before. If I have some cash in my wallet, and if it’s convenient for me, I’ll toss some dollars in to the offering plate. Other than that, there was no regular tithing by me. Whether it was because I didn’t have a job till I was out of high school, or because I wanted the money all to myself, I don’t know. But I do have a job now, I am making lots of money, so I need to think about this stuff.

Often, I’ve just struggled with the idea of tithing because I hardly ever carry cash in my wallet, and I know that what I do have, is not a sufficient percentage of what I make, so I don’t bother at all. I could write down a percentage from each paycheck somewhere, but where will that piece of paper end up in the next couple days, I won’t remember. But I liked Donald’s friend’s idea. He would take this money and put it in a jar. Each time he got a paycheck, he would add more money to the jar until he made it to church… then he would take the jar there and give it to the church. I know I can do something similar.

So, I’ve bought a journal type book… its contents will vary, but I will have one section devoted to tithing. When I get a paycheck, I will write down the set percentage I feel I should be giving at this point in my life. If I get a few more paychecks, those numbers will add up. When I finally make it to the bank I will take out the total amount out and give it to a church. Until that money is taken to a church, the numbers will remain written in my book. When it’s been given to the church, I’ll scribble out the numbers and smile.

This is my way of keeping on top of my tithing. I’ve decided it for myself, which I believe is important. God doesn’t want the money if our hearts aren’t in it, just doing it because we feel we’re supposed to. He wants us to want to give Him the money, He wants us to understand why we do the things we do for Him, in God’s name, and for the right reasons.

My mornings can be pretty rushed. Waking up with ten minutes to spare before I jump into the passenger seat of a smart car… yes, a smart car. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I eat my half spread toasted plain bagel with regular cream cheese as I drift in and out of reality asking myself why I didn’t stay in bed and sleep the day away. Amidst the confusion of two wild untrained dogs, a couple day care children, and a race against the clock, the morning always seems to take its first step on the wrong foot.

But once that bagel is eaten and the morning talk with the driver is complete, I sit in silence and it is beautiful. The silence? Some times. But more than that, the sun. We drive with our backs to the sunrise but God has blessed me with the perfect seat to watch the sun crest the horizon behind me. How does it work? The rear view mirror. The driver can’t see it, but from the angle I sit at every morning, I see it perfectly through the mirror. Hope rises, and suddenly my day gets back on the right foot. It's actually pretty strange how perfect this beautiful scene centers itself perfectly in the mirror, right from the angle I sit at... it's so great. What’s more than that, there is a gorgeous church sitting above the highway, and at the right moment, the ever-glowing sunrise pierces its beauty upon a cross standing tall on the roof of this church. You couldn’t ask for anything better. As busy as my day is in the morning, God has given me the opportunity everyday to take a step back and just reflect on His beauty.

And at the end of the day, it gets even better. I work in a warehouse, and so we are constantly raising the dock door to give product to its new rightful owner. Before my shift ends around 5, I often need to lift that dock door one more time. As I start to lift the door, the sun begins to creep in under the door. I lift the door fully and there it is.
The sunset.
You can’t even imagine the beauty of that sky. Beginning with a magnificent yellow stretching from left to right, through orange, red, dark purple, and finally into a rich blue, there is only one more thing that tops the picture; a single star directly in the centre of the sky. It must be a planet, because this thing is huge, and so bright. With no other stars around it, it is definitely the cherry on top.
And what makes it so impressive is that this beautiful horizon is outlined by the city’s skyline. A fast-paced highway on the left, and a plaza of 8 large restaurants and a 24-theatre cinema on the right. And you know what? I love it. I love this picture. Amidst all of what this world has to offer; Amidst all of the confusion, pain, suffering, wasted money, pollution, crime, war, hate, death… we can’t get away from the beauty of God. You can look at all the great thing of this world for as long as you want, but all it takes is just a single look up to the sky to remember that there has got to be something so much better than what the world has to offer us. Tomorrow, take a break from the busy life you have between 5 and 6, swing open the blinds and look outside a window or put a sweater on and step outside your front door and take a moment to look up to the sky and watch the sun set and know that there has got to be something so much bigger than anything you could ever imagine. Allow time to stop, and smile in the silence, it’s just you and God.

There was this one point during my relationship with my first girlfriend where we discussed marriage. Were we the right one’s for each other, were we meant to be together forever, what was God’s plan for us in the future. Obviously we didn’t know the answers to these questions, but once you begin asking yourself these questions, you begin to question whether your actions should change if this person is not your future spouse.
We were very careful in treating each other with great respect, honoring the other person’s emotions and body. As a boyfriend, I wanted to constantly honor her with everything I said and did, as well as honor my wife. Let me explain.

Sex was designed by God to be something between a husband and wife. This is an extreme of affection, although the world may be telling us otherwise, but the idea remains the same with any aspect of a dating relationship. The things you do with your boyfriend or girlfriend will have an effect on your relationship with your future spouse. I want to save sex as something intimate between my wife and me, no one else. And I don’t want to push the limits with someone who may not be my wife. The more you share of yourself with someone, the more they will be taking away with them if you were ever to separate. Do you know what I’m saying? I know you’ve heard this sort of thing before.

I want to honor my wife with everything I do… right now. It’s a hard thing to do, because I may not know who she is, but I have to believe that she is out there somewhere and I will someday have to hold account for the things I am doing right now. An author of a book I read collected his thoughts and wrote the hard memories of when he sat his fiancé down on the porch of her house and cried all his sins and painful decisions that he made before meeting her. All the times he cheated on her with girls from his college, all the decision he made when living in what he thought as freedom… without a care in the world… without anyone to be affected by his choices.

He didn’t know her at the time when he was sleeping around, but he was suppose to save those things for his wife, and he gave them away to other girls… hurting these other young women, and in the long run, hurting his future wife.

What a gut-wrenching position that would be. To sit down with your future spouse and tell them all your dirty secrets, all the things you are ashamed of, all the sins you have placed against them. You are suddenly putting yourself in such a vulnerable situation where the outcome may result in becoming single again. But this is what you must do. Once you are married, there is no hiding who you are. You’re stuck with this person, which is suppose to be a good thing, but not when you are holding your past and even present struggles from them. You’re going to have to be 100% real with them if you want your marriage to run relatively smoothly.

Obviously, this is all speculation… I am no closer to marriage than you are… but these are values set forth by God. And I want to do my best to honor them, and in doing so honor my wife as best as I can, right now.

And it’s tough. I screw up so much; I’m the first to say that I’m the worst. And it just kills me to think about the day when I’ll have to sit my wife down and tell her all the things I’ve done without considering how it would affect her. All the times I’ve turned my back on the deep endless love I should have for her for something temporary. I want to love my wife whole-heartedly right now… but it’s so tough. But I’m trying. When I encounter struggles and sins, the best I can do is just think, well you’re going to have to hold account for this with your wife someday… are you prepared to hurt her like this. And these are decisions that we all must make.

I do believe that we will have to hold account for our decisions with a much greater person than our spouses; when we meet our maker in Heaven, and that should be enough reason to turn our backs on temptations, but at times it’s not enough for me, because God is not a tangible person I can see, I can’t see the effect of my decisions through Him. I suppose my wife and any girlfriends are like ‘God in the flesh.’ They provide me with a physical person that I care about and that I can see the effect of my decisions through. I can think of them as a person whose relationship will be damaged by the decisions I make. Am I making sense? I know that hurting God should be enough reason to turn from temptation, and perhaps that is something I need to work on… or maybe he provides us with physical, tangible people that matter to us as a representation of how our decisions may hurt our ever-loving God.

To my wife, I forgive you for any decisions you’ve made in the past, are making right now, or will make in the future. There is nothing you can do to make me love you any less. And I’m so sorry for every thing I’ve done and will do that has and will hurt you, please forgive me. I don’t know where you are right now, what struggles you are going through but know that I wish I could wrap you in my arms so tightly and tell you how much I love you. But for now, know that God is doing just that.

To my wife, wherever you are, I love you.

I don’t like, that I like it, so I like to try not to like it, too often. That’s how I would explain how I feel about American Idol.

It’s funny, yes. They have talented singers, yes. But why do we laugh so much at it? Why do we call in family members or friends to rush into the room to look at the current person attempting to sing? Why can we not contain our kicks and giggles when Simon casts sarcastic belittling remarks in the direction of a young adult trying their hardest to gain some recognition to what they believe to be a great voice? Is it safe to assume that we have all laughed one of the people on this show, whether they are for real or are purposely doing their best to resemble Napoleon Dynamite or his one-screw-too-loose sidekick Pedro?

If you agree with an older blog of mine, which I don’t expect everyone to, regarding Our Representation of God, and do your best not to mock, talk behind someone’s back, or belittle someone else to make yourself seem more superior, intelligent, or talented; then why do we find ourselves so quick to burst into laughter at a ‘loser’ on the television. They brought it upon themselves when they signed up for the show. They’re definitely faking it, they aren’t really that ridiculous. Just listen to his voice when he talks, you can’t help but laugh. Did you hear Simon’s smart remark to that, he’s so quick. Have you said these things in defence when watching? Is that what you’re saying in your head right now? What example are we setting for those around us? We are meant to live a life striving to resemble Christ, but how do we expect to even come close to accomplishing this by laughing hysterically at someone else’s expense? One contestant begins speaking but is wearing tight clothes and has a high-pitched lisp, suddenly someone yells out, ‘This guy is so gay, you have to come watch this, he’s hilarious!’ Are you kidding me? Another contestant walks in, states that he was recommended to come on the show by some friends who saw some potential in him, but he doesn’t sing too well and Simon calls out, ‘That was the worst performance I’ve ever seen. That didn’t even sound human, you should have never come here. This was such a waste of time.’ And we laugh. What the heck? Is this what we’ve become? Is this entertainment? Are we supporting this? This guys dreams of accomplishing anything musical has been crushed by one man, while supported by millions of viewers. Next time you turn on your television for American Idol, think about what you’re watching. Watch it if you feel fine watching it, but please, be mindful of how you react and respond to some of the contestants. I am equally as guilty, I still laugh at times too, but try not to belittle them any much more then they’ve already been, or at least choose your words wisely when verbalizing your opinions and constructively criticize them. And encourage and support those you see potential in, as well as those who don’t seem to have a chance at any kind of singing career. Think about it.

I use to watch a lot of television. I must admit, my sister and I would always argue over who got to hold the remote, what shows we would watch, what shows to skip to during the commercials of three other shows we were already in to. Between comedies, cartoons, and soaps. My favourites during elementary school were Family Matters, Home Improvement and Student Bodies; she loved those talk shows like Rosie O’Donnell, and also loved the evil Passions soap. As we grew up however, our interests shifted and we would watch the later shows of celebrity shows like ET, sitcoms like Friends, and reality shows like the oh so popular Survivor.

About two years ago, I really began to pass off watching television. I was too focused on my homework and student council work that I didn’t have time for meaningless shows, although I wish I could just sit and indulge in the all that entertainment. I spent my last year without almost any television because all I had was a TV with a built-in VCR and Playstation that could play DVD’s. So this became my entertainment. Work would be over and I would go home and watch movies. I spent a lot of money on previously viewed Blockbuster films. I bought around 40-50 movies in one year! But I’m getting a bit off topic here.

What I want to tell you, is that all I really watch on television now is Prison Break. The family that I’m living with likes NCIS and The Unit. So I’ve begun to watch these shows off and on as well, but that’s about it. I can’t stand reality shows like Survivor, those Celebrity Dancing shows, Deal or No Deal… hmm… to be honest, I was about to write a big list of similar shows, but I really have no idea what other big money-spending shows are out there now.

First of all, I find them all pretty cheesy. But second, I look at the elaborate set of Deal or No Deal. I look at ol’ Howie Mandel and all his gorgeous female helpers and the cash that they probably rake in each episode. I look at all the money that is represented by all those silver brief cases. And in turn, all the money that is forked out to contestants every night that the show is aired. Think about all that cash. And where is it going? Who is it going to? Are we not helping to pay them by watching the show? For that hour, they are told how many viewers they had, and that determines how much money is printed on the TV stars pay checks.

Am I naïve or too cliché to raise your attention to all the people that don’t have anything close to that much money. People over-seas, people without homes, people in your own community, in your neighbourhood? I know we hear this all the time, ‘how can you spend your money on that while there are children dying in Africa?’ And it is just as applicable in this circumstance. To answer the question of who the cash is going out to each night on the game shows; to someone who probably doesn’t really need it. Did they pull the contestants off the streets, from a destroyed home in New Orleans, from a house fire that took all their possessions including their dear family members? Probably not. I don’t want to generalize, but I can only assume that if you can get on a show like Deal or No Deal, you’re probably already doing fairly well financially. I am still guilty though. I switch on the tube and watch some shows that may not be as bad as some like Amazing Race, Miami Ink, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition or like I said, Prison Break. But still, a lot of unnecessary money has been invested into these shows, and we just make entertainment out of it. But I’m doing my best to limit myself to what I support on the television. Think about the shows you watch… are they worthwhile? Do they challenge you with how you live your life? Do you gain anything positive from them? Are you supporting a show you probably shouldn’t? And don't just try to cover it up to impress me, be honest with yourself, seriously ask yourself these questions when you're deciding what to watch on the television. Are you really just wasting hours each evening? The O.C.? 24? Prison Break? Laguna Beach? MTV? Simpson’s? Deal or No Deal? American Idol? Think about what you are filling your mind with, and what you are supporting.

I hate getting zits. Some people have really bad acne and I feel bad for them, because that is one of the only physical things I am really self conscious about. I don’t get many, and I don’t have these ‘atomic burst on the mirror type’ zits. I get them, and they are usually pretty small, but they can get red if I irritate them too much. They are embarrassing and I try as hard as I can to cover them up with a hand on my face, with hair, or whatever else I can find. I hope you realize this is a big step for me. To come out and share something this personal with you. For everyone to read on the big world wide web. It may not seem like a big deal to you though… what, a couple zits is a big deal to this guy. He’s got it made compared to me. Well yeah, you know what! It is a big deal to me. Zits are a crack in this little clay pot that God put together. It is a blemish in my life. It is a scar, it is something I’m not proud of, something that I don’t like about myself. And definitely there are greater things in my life that are cause much greater cracks. What do you hate about yourself? What makes your friends not be able to stand you at times?

Your hair. Your big nose. Your ears. Your big glasses. Your eyes. Your tiny chin. Your facial hair. Your lack of facial hair. Your baby face[guilty]. Your chest. Your abs. Your butt. Your muscle. Your skin on bones figure. Your wide hips. Your thick ankles. Your big feet. Your deep voice. Your high pitch voice. Your bad breathe. Your instant sweat stains. Your body odour. Your stutter. Your lisp. Your quick to judge attitude. Your anger. Your shyness. Your bitterness. Your lack of confidence. Your independence. Your dependence. Your crude humour. Your fowl mouth. Your inconsiderate comments. Your hollow encouragements filled with sarcasm. Your talking behind others backs. Your constant arguments with parents or siblings. Your pushing the boundaries with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Your cheating on them with someone else. Your homosexual thoughts. Your depression. Your suicidal thoughts. Your anorexia. Your cutting. Your porn addiction. Your drug use. Your drinks that go a bit too far.

Are you getting the picture?
With His hands, God made all of us as clay pots. As we go through our life, we get scratched, we get marked up, we get cracks, we may even fall off the counter a few times and it feels like we’ve shattered into a million pieces. Whether it be physical characteristics, attitude and temperamental things, or things we’ve done or felt. These are all cracks in us.

I’m reminded of a story I heard about a little boy who was in a church service and after he approached his mother because of something the pastor said. First he clarified that God created the whole world, that He is bigger than anything and everything, that He was so huge that he could in fact hold the world in His hands. His mother confirmed that what he was saying was truth. He then posed his second question about God being able to fit inside each and every one of us, that He lives in us when we accept Him into our heart. His mother confirmed this point as well with her curious son. He then made the bold statement, ‘Well if God is that huge, and is inside of us, shouldn’t people be able to see Him through us?’

Isn’t that the truth? Take the analogy of a clay pot, if we stick it in darkness, much like the world that we live in, nothing changes, everything is just as dark. We blend in with the darkness, with our scars and cracks, no one sees anything different in us. But when even the smallest tea light is lit inside that clay pot, it will shine. But through what? That little light will shine through our cracks, it will be seen through our sorrows, our blemishes, our heartaches, our sins. God wants to shine through these cracks. These cracks can be used for good. Why do we see tough situations and problems in our lives as such a horrible thing. Something to be forgotten in the past, something to hide in the closet. It’s when we are real with people, pull off the layers, be vulnerable with one another, and allow them to see us for what we really are, that they see Christ in us. They can see that they are not alone with what they are dealing with, they see you, they see you have cracks too, and they can see the life of Christ living inside of you.
And in a room of darkness, it’s hard to difficult to overlook such a bright light, even if it is being seen through cracks in a dirty old clay pot.

I mentioned in my last blog that I have faced many new experiences and challenges throughout the last few months. One of which, I brought upon myself. I attended a Baptist church my entire life. For 18 years I walked through the doors of Faith Baptist Church in Huntsville and it was a great place to be; a good church family and great friendships and memories were had there. Mind you, this was the only church I ever went to for a service, for youth, for anything.

So when it came to finding a new church to go to while living here in Newcastle, it would make sense to just attend Josh’s family’s church. It was a Pentecostal church, and although I have nothing against Pentecostal’s, I didn’t want to make that church my new home. In fact, I didn’t want to make any church my new home.

Everyone seems to have opinions about different denominations, church buildings, and their people. They’re too traditional. They’re all too old. They’re all too young. They only sing hymns. Their worship has too many electric guitars. They are trying too many new ideas. They don’t reach the youth with programs. They have nothing for seniors. Their pastor/reverend/priest is boring. He spits when he speaks. All he talks about is wealth. All he talks about is classic bible characters. He doesn’t speak on anything that relates to me. Their pastor/reverend/priest is a woman. They baptize only adults. They baptize only babies. They drink wine for communion. They all drink from the same cup. They eat crackers instead of bread. They wear robes. They wear casual clothes. Their’s has a choir. Their’s has a gym. Their’s has stain glass windows. They speak in tongues. They raise their hands. They just stand there. They cry out in the service. There’s no one there I know. They have homeless people who attend. They are all rich. They have a balcony. They are all rude. They are too cheery. They don’t care at all. They don’t tithe. They have pews.

You see, we hear these things all the time. I’ve heard them all my life about different churches, and had no choice but to just take peoples word for it because I had never experienced these places. For this reason, when I moved here, I wanted to challenge myself. Every week I would attend a different church. Not so that I could be the one to pass judgement and try to alter other peoples views of churches, but rather so that I could create opinions and views of my own and be open minded. I don’t want to just pass off so many denominations just because of what others have said about them, I want to experience them for myself. And I’m not saying that I go to one church and then generalize everything they do as to categorize all of that denomination together. Every church functions differently, and I want to witness and experience these different ways. So far I’ve gone to an Anglican, Pentecostal, Christian Reform, Free Methodist, Presbyterian, United and many other churches.

It’s been really interesting to visit them all. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t make any of them a new church home for myself, but just experiencing all these different ways churches function have opened up my eyes and have taught me a lot. I am in no way trying to show off what I’m doing, but I do want you to think about your views on other denominations. How did you come up with these views? Were they passed down to you, are they reliable or biased? Have you ever thought about other denominations, or have you just stayed where you are comfortable in your church? Do you even have opinions about other denominations? If not, why not look into some others, do some research and find out what differentiates those denominations from yours. Or do something similar to what I’m doing and just explore. Just go for a drive Sunday morning and when you see a steeple, head in that direction and go to that church. You might be very surprised.

This is a time of new experiences and challenges for me.

For those of you who don't know, I moved from my home for the past 18 years in beautiful Muskoka, to live in what I consider the city, in the small town of Newcastle, Ontario.

I spent my first year out of high school living at working at camp as a full time year-round instructor hosting guest groups. I did Spring Crew in May and June, and then was there for all last summer also. By the end of the summer however, I still hadn’t decided what I should do in the fall. My options were limited as I could either commit to a second year working at camp, or I could work elsewhere from home. Through many conversations, I ended up talking with a guy, Josh Linkletter, who was in the same position as I was in not knowing what to do for the following year. In what began as a simple joke, became our plan for September. He invited me to live with him and his family here in Newcastle. I thought about it, talked about it with family and friends, and prayed about, and it seemed like it could be a pretty fun and new experience for me. It would be a big change in pace and environment for me, but I was ready for it.

I moved in on the 9th of September to be with my new family for the next few months. Josh, his younger brother and sister, his parents, two foster girls, and one out-of-control golden retriever. This would be a challenge. Little sheltered Ben Pavey from the boonies living with his parents and sister, was stepping it up. Josh and I quickly got to work trying to find a job so we could begin making our big cash. Well, we thought the best way to wait for this great job would be to suffer through some factory work. Bad idea. This place was a mistake. We worked on windshields for vehicles, 8am-4pm with one half hour lunch. It was torture! But they loved me; they saw some great potential in me because I was learning so fast, so they decided to begin training me on everything so that I could be on staff for a long time as one of these hoppers that relieved others for breaks. Word quickly travelled however that I wasn’t planning on being there for much longer so they sat me down in an office and tried to convince me to stay and even offered me some a financial incentive. I turned it down, said there was nothing they could do to make me want to stay there, and that I was essentially just taking advantage of them till I found something better. That, along with calling in the next day and lying to them saying we had no ride cost us our job. We received a call the next day telling us that they no longer required our help. What a glorious day! What a joyous time to celebrate! Things were good again. We weren’t making money… we got fired after only working one week… but it sure felt nice.

Luckily for me though, I had an interview lined up at The Brick in Whitby and I scored a full-time position as a merchandiser just a couple days later. A few days after that, Josh got a job at Good Life Fitness and after much training he is now a personal trainer there.

We all have journeys. We all have stories. What is yours right now? What’s been going on in your life lately that can make a story? Just tell it how it is, it doesn’t have to be inspirational, it doesn’t have to have a captivating underlying message.

To conclude, I’ll tell you one last short story from within the first few months I was living here. Josh and I were leaving a friends place and as I was getting in to the passenger side of the smart car… yes, a smart car… Josh was asked to pull the vehicle up for people to take a closer look. The thing was however, that he failed to wait for me to get completely into the car; I had one foot safely in the car but still had the other outside on the ground. Now with a regular size vehicle, you often have plenty of time to react to such a situation by jumping in to the car before it’s too late. Unfortunately, being a smart car, the back tire is directly behind the door. And without another second I tried pulling my leg in to the car, but it was too late. The car jetted forward sucking my right foot under the car. Perhaps not as heavy a car as most, but the way it yanked my foot under on its side, caused it to twist my knee in the wrong direction and I was whipped to the ground before I knew it. I rested there for a moment wondering if my ankle was broken. All I could think was, Is it broken? I’ve never broken anything before… this is kind of cool… And it doesn’t even hurt that much… Hmm, I would’ve thought breaking a bone would hurt a bit more… Well, it turned out I didn’t break anything, however it had lasting effect on me and my future career with NBA basketball. Either way, I wasn’t angry with Josh, he apologized, and we kept going, although my knee hasn’t completely healed yet. I couldn’t believe my friend just ran me over… but like I said, it makes for a good story, and adds a little bit more to my journey.

Some of you might remember my old quicksilver hat. Mesh backing, grass front and beak. I loved that hat, and it fit just perfectly. Well, over time the grass began to tear and fall apart, and eventually my hat had no more grass, and it looked ridiculous. But I still wore it because it was all that I had. During the summer, I spent many of my days off trying to find a replacement, but had no luck. I almost gave up hope after looking on all sorts of websites because I just couldn’t find one that I liked. In my hat searching travels, I discovered how many hats now are made all hippity-hop-like. They have this trucker style crown that goes up way too high, and the beaks are huge and flat, and you’re suppose to wear them all crooked to the side without bending the beak to your desires arch, because then you’re really cool. Well, you know what? I don’t want one of those hats. And it didn't seem like I was ever going to be the proud owner of another hat because a Ben Pavey hat was way too hard to find, for all I knew, they were extinct. It was a bittersweet ending.
Until last night.

My parents returned from a well-deserved vacation to Florida and cruise to the Bahama’s. Well, I had the privilege of seeing them as they returned to Toronto last night and they came bearing gifts and to my dismay, one of these gifts was a new hat. I was nervous even pulling it out of the bag because I anticipated this to be another lost cause hat. I pulled it out, and sure enough it didn’t look that bad… In fact, this hat appeared to have some great potential. I stood up, held this new accessory in my hands, and tightly closed my eyes. I sure hope this fits and I like it. I really don’t want to be disappointed with a gift from my parents. I want to like it.. please, please, please. I stared down at the floor as I placed the hat on my head, a nice fit… now the determining moment… Sweaty palms, a panic-stricken face, biting my bottom lip so hard I could’ve sworn it burst with blood. Like a slow-motion film, as the handsome main character leans in for the first kiss under the dimly lit porch light with the girl of his dreams, I slowly raised my head to peer into my reflection in the mirror…

Thank you mom and dad. you did good. you did real good.

This one is not of my own.
I want to share with you the story of a man named Jamie Tworkowski. This is taken from his website regarding his movement title, To Write Love On Her Arms. TWLOHA's mission is to communicate hope and love to broken people. They also aim to invite and inspire lives of compassion. They believe that "rescue is possible", that we can be rescued and we are called to live as rescuers. In the same way, they believe that all people are loved and called to love others. This [long] excerpt is taken from http://www.twloha.com/ on ‘the story’ page. Definitely check out the site after reading this, and grab yourself a T-shirt to support their cause.

TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS: THE STORY
Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night.

She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her. She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.

Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.

On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.

She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me.It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.

As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.

I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.

www.twloha.com

A couple of months ago I parked outside a bank waiting to pick someone up there. While I was waiting in this nice heated vehicle in the presence of friends with the music going, I took a quick glance outside the car door window. And right there, in what seemed to be a parallel universe divided from me by a piece of glass, stood a man with his hands cupped out in front of him. I only had to think for a second before I opened my door, and took a minute from my oh-so-busy schedule of sitting and waiting in a car to stand with this man. His name was Eric and he was asking for some change to grab a coffee. I asked him how long he was intending to stay there on the sidewalk for, because I had to take these people back home. He said he could wait, so I asked what kind of coffee he liked, which I fail to remember now, and I promised him that I would be back in about 20 minutes with his coffee and a dutchie doughnut. I later returned to meet with him on the street bench. We had a good long conversation about who knows what. He really didn’t make much sense at all to me, he did do most of the talking, but I didn’t mind. I just sat and listened and watched as he drank his coffee with one hand, smoked a cigarette with the other and grabbed a bite of his doughnut between each.

Today, leaving the comfort of a warm church, I hurried outside into an early snowy afternoon to return to my car, hoping to soon be back to my heated house of entertainment and friendly faces. I wasn’t in much of a mood to make any stops, but as I drive the main street, I always seem to take a second to look at that same bench where I sat with Eric. Often I don’t see him there, but today there he was. Huddled in a closed ball with hands rubbing vigorously together to keep himself warm, as the cold snow found its place sticking to his old articles of clothing and knitted winter toque. I kept driving, suddenly with thoughts racing through my mind. I know I should stop, but I really don’t feel like it today. But I haven’t seen him for a while. I’ll stop next time I see him. But look at how cold he must be. It wouldn’t take much to buy him another coffee. But no, I don’t remember what kind he likes, I don’t want to just get him a doughnut, how will that warm him up. Right as I decided to keep driving and forget about Eric, I tried to distract myself from the dilemma by singing along with the music I had playing in the car. The convicting words seemed to be jumping right from the speakers as if God were saying, ‘Ben, you know you don’t have anywhere to be. There’s no harm in picking up something for Eric. He could use the warmth and company. You know this Ben, be smart.’ The lyrics were from a familiar song by Jars of Clay claimed,

“I’m gonna show you love in every language”

How was I showing Eric love by driving past? How could I sing these words when I just drove by a needing person that I could help? I kept driving, went to the nearest coffee shop, had to take out some money at the ATM, and bought him a hot chocolate and doughnut. I figured the hot chocolate would be the next best thing. Unfortunately, by the time I returned to that bench, Eric was gone. I walked the streets looking for him, then drove around, still not finding him. I became pretty discouraged. Why would God convict me of such a thing, just to leave me wandering around for this guy with a hot chocolate in my hands that was quickly losing its heat? It didn’t make any sense to me. I kept driving a little bit longer, and came across another man. He appeared to be in a similar situation as Eric, and I figured he could probably use a nice hot drink and snack. I quickly parked the car and ran up to him. As I was doing this he was gripping the outside rim of a garbage can and peering into it looking for who knows what. I called out to him and introduced myself. He told me his name was Peter. I replied, ‘Well Peter, I have a nice warm hot chocolate and dutchie doughnut here for you if you want it.’ You should have seen the surprised look on his face. He eagerly accepted the gift and gave me a brief update on how things weren’t going too well at his place with just a few scraps lying around, and how he had gotten into an argument with his landowner earlier. I suggested that we could take a seat on the bench beside us, ironically being the same one I sat on with Eric. He declined the invitation, said his thank you’s and goodbye’s, and he was off.

I just want to make you think. How often do you sit in the warmth of your own comfort while others are right outside your window seeking help, food, clothing, someone to talk with. I can’t say how crazy it was to have Eric talk to me that day almost without a breath for half an hour. I wonder how many people he talks to in a day, how much interaction does he get beside people giving him the cold shoulder as they pass him by? Often, people love to just have someone to talk to, someone to listen to them. I’m definitely not trying to say that I have it all together, there are still people I drive past or try to pretend I don’t notice because I'm just not in the mood to talk with strangers, even though it could mean the world to them. I still surround myself with materialistic valuables; I still work a job to make money so that I can move up. I still think it’s a great deal when a sandwich meal costs under $10 when there are so many people who don’t even live off that in one day. I’m no different than you. We always have to push ourselves to go beyond the human nature of allowing your heart to testify to its true love which is darkness as Donald Miller explains in Blue Like Jazz.

Maybe in my journey to finding Eric, God was trying to teach me something. Often, when we get on these highs of helping others, we look for what we want to find. We want to help people and show the love that God calls us to show, but stay within our comfort levels. Go to where we are familiar; push the envelope a little bit, but not too far. Perhaps, when we open our eyes to everything, without focusing on what we want exactly, God will show us so much more. When we pin-point what we feel God is calling us to, we are limiting Him to what He can do through us. We can’t fit God into a little box, He is everywhere, and everyone needs to see Him. I was looking for Eric specifically, but when I couldn’t find Him, I decided to see the streets as they really were. I saw so many other people who needed help, Eric wasn’t the only one. Your friends at school are not the only ones. Your parents are not the only ones. There are always more people to show love to. Peter taught me this. He is just another one of the many who could use a nice hot chocolate and dutchie every once and a while, and a friendly conversation to remind him that there are people who care.

This one is long, I won’t lie. And it will hopefully make you think. It might make you happy, if so post a comment and let me know. It might make you angry, and if that’s the case I’ll remember to steer clear of you. No, feel free to post your thoughts on anything I write. Here we go.

It all began after a youth retreat that I was a leader at. What began you ask? My defined perspective on prayer.
You have to know, I’ve gone to a Baptist church my whole life, and now I’m involved with a Pentecostal church. Now before any judgemental ideas are cast let me just say that hasn’t been too tough to get used to, it’s a great church, with great people and youth. They speak in tongues, yes, and that’s a big things that they are recognized for and usually judged for. And that’s the first point, why do we judge their speaking in tongues? It may be foreign to some; others may think it’s a powerful expression of God working in His children; while others think it’s all a bunch of hooey that doesn’t make sense and just flat-out gets them angry. It was suggested to me that people speaking in tongues might need a translator, otherwise it isn’t real. But I don’t really believe a translator is necessary. Is there really much need for one? Speaking in tongues seems to be a personal way to express one’s self and speak with God. There is no need for me or anyone else to understand what they are saying. In the beginning, whenever I heard people speaking in tongues, I often asked myself ‘I wonder if they’re for real.. or if they are just playing a part because they feel they have to in order to fit in. Do they think that must not be getting anything out of the message unless they raise their hands, or cry, or speak in tongues. Are they really saying intentional words, or just yelling gibberish?’ These were my pre-conceived thoughts, probably much like many of yours. But what it came down to was that I knew fully and completely that it was none of my business. It’s between them and God. They know if they are just playing a part and yelling gibberish, or if they are really speaking to God in their own language. I don’t need to know, it’s so easy to judge.

It’s a beautiful thing to witness; seeing people crying out to God, laying their burdens out in front of them yelling ‘I’m a sinner, I know I don’t have it all together, but I know you still love me no matter what and I want to continue to try and live for you as best as I can.’ But if it’s all for show, if it’s not real at all, can it really influence you. No one should feel they have to act a certain way toward God just in order to meet someone’s expectations, they should just be real however that might look for them at that point.

Personally, I’m not really one to express myself in situations like most Pentecostals. Maybe that reflects a cold-heart, or that I’m trying to keep my cool, I don’t know. Either way, I know it doesn’t mean I don’t get anything from the messages or that God isn’t speaking to me, because I definitely do, I just deal with it in a different way.

This leads me to the idea of prayer. As a youth leader, I was expected to go around and pray with the students who were lying face down, or crying with hands raised high, or speaking in tongues. I felt pressured and out of place. Why should I conform to a certain way to speak with God if that’s not how I connect with Him. I didn’t want to walk around, put my hands on the students and pray out loud… to me, this would just be playing a role I was expected to play, I wouldn’t have been real. Personally, having people walk up and place a hand on my shoulders and pray out loud has no effect on me, I feel no different. Others may appreciate it, and I respect that… people are just different from one another.

The same thing falls into place when praying out loud in a group. I don’t like doing it, not out of nervousness, but purpose. It must be a very specific situation in order for it to be alright for me. It’s the concept of trying to impress others with your words, it feels too much like a show rather than being real and it is a distraction from where your own focus should be… on God and speaking with Him. I know you know what I’m talking about when people speak out loud while you are praying with yes God's and mmhmm's, and if you don’t get any of these ‘gold star stickers’ but the person beside you does, then he's done a better job of praying than you. I just don’t feel like I’m real with prayers, and I find it difficult to know how genuine many prayers can be when people pray in groups.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I disagree with praying in groups because I know that the bible encourages it, but it’s the idea of speaking aloud. This is why, in a group, I prefer suggesting to pray for the person on your left in silence. Then it’s just you and God but with the support of those around you. And that’s powerful as well.

Some may feel that praying out loud is an audible way for someone to know you're praying for them, showing that you actually understood and listened to what they told you, and I suppose that can mean a lot too. But I don’t see why it can’t mean just as much to just 'know' that someone is praying for you. They can rest their hands on you and say 'can I pray for you' and then sit silently with you, can’t they?
A suggestion to avoid putting on a show for the person you are praying for, would be to avoid offering advise to them through your prayer. Like, ‘God, I pray for Bill and that you will help him with ­­­­______ and that he will take time to ­­­______, and be nice to people, and please remind him of ...blah, blah, blah.' I believe that those things can be expressed aloud to the person in conversation prior to the prayer, and then the prayer itself can be more intimate between just you and God.

One last thing to cover is telling someone that you’ll pray for them, but never follow through. Some may not open up to people because they fear that they don’t sincerely care because they won’t actually pray for them when they say they will, or won’t follow a couple weeks later to make sure they’re doing alright.

But again, I raise the question, who am I to be concerned about whether they are praying for me all the time, if at all. Is it selfish of me to have this wishful thinking? Can I not be appreciative enough that they listened to me in the first place and let me share with them? And if they pray for me once, isn’t that great! Shouldn't I feel so blessed just for that? Besides, God is outside of time, so it shouldn’t matter when I’m prayed for. All you really need is just one, don’t you? I’m impartial about praying for the same things over and over though. Because it helps you to stay in touch with god, remembering people to pray for ignites opportunity for you to spend in conversation with God.

It’s all very personal. There’s no one right way. Different strokes for different folks right? It’s important to think about it and decide for yourself about these things we’ve discussed, because if you ignore the issue of how you pray, you could be doing it wrong… for you. Do you feel you are real in your prayer, or are you putting on a show?

I’m going to display a lighter side here, I hope that this one doesn’t contradict too much with the comment Amanda posted on my last blog. So, let’s take a look at those nasty little squares that appear on one’s face… sparkles. How do they get there? I was working my evening shift tonight, and as I took a moment from the busyness of customer pick-ups, I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. And to my dismay, there appeared this sparkle, on my face, directly beneath my right eye. How the heck did that get there!? How did that stupid little shiny object make its way onto my face? How long has that been there? Were the girls talking to me a minute ago, while laughing hysterically inside? How embarrassing.

I know you know the sparkles I’m talking about. It may be a little more understandable if you are a female and wear this make-up full of colours and sparkles everyday… those are intentional, and I get that these things can spread throughout the day. But unless you’re a guy getting more in touch with your feminine side on your own time and forget to clean up completely, I don’t know how else they get there. And what are they exactly? And how is it that they show up at some of the most inopportune moments? And how come they are so difficult to remove? How do they stick so well, causing you to have to rub your cheek for minutes, only for you to discover an hour later that it was never completely removed and is now located on your chin?

Sparkles… just another one of life’s great mysteries.

We’re in to the new year of 2007, but this one is about Christmas two weeks ago. For the first time in a long time, my family of four spent this Christmas in the company of my grandparents. My dad thought it would be a good idea to have them join us, and it was. It was great to spend that time with them. When Christmas morning came, this is how our typical routine went:
-My sister and I wake each other up and sit in front of the fireplace to open stockings.
-Once those festivities conclude, we indulge in a delicious breakfast that was prepared the night before.
-We eat, take things slow and enjoy the company of our family.
-We move ourselves back to the living room, take our seats, and read the Christmas story.
-Finally, one of us (usually my sister) shuffles out one gift to each person, once we all have one, we have at it and shred the paper to pieces. Express surprise and gratitude, and then pass out another gift to each person, continuing until all the gifts are safely moved from under the tree into the appropriate person’s possession.
…Familiar to some, foreign to others. Either way, that’s how we do things.
My grandparents however, who are use to having stockings for each other and usually one gift each because ‘it’s all we really need’ claims my Granny. Needless to say, the amount of gifts they received was almost too much for them to handle. They couldn’t believe everyone was getting as many gifts as they did; them especially. Overall, the weekend was great. As we drove back to the city to take my grandparents back, they continued to show their appreciation for the hospitality and gifts. We arrived back at their place in the evening. The lights out, the heat off, just the way they had left it. Until into the shadows my granny squinted to clear her vision as she detected something that wasn’t there before. A large red bow stretched across the front of a brand new television sitting in the place of where there old-school tube sat. She gasped and hollered to her husband ‘George! We have a new TV! We have a new TV!’ it must have been repeated 8 times. She just couldn’t believe it. We all joined the two of them in their family room, as they tried to figure out how this foreign object made its way into their house. To let you in the loop, my dad and uncle had been planning it for a while and got it installed while they were at our place for the Christmas weekend.

What’s the point, besides telling you a detailed story of my Christmas? Well, you really had to see them. You have to try and imagine their reaction. Two 80+ grandparents who are use to watching only the news, golf, and children’s shows on their 3-channel TV that had lines scrolling up the static-filled screen. They just dealt with it; they had no reason to spend money on a new TV and definitely no desire to purchase cable. To walk in to their home and be greeted by a gift such as this left them speechless. And to tell you the truth, this TV is not a 60” top of the line Sony. It was a flat screen, clear enough to watch their shows, and just big enough so that they could see the image easily. My grandparents were overwhelmed with this gift. They were so thankful, grateful, appreciative, and any other word that means the same thing. I admired the way they just couldn’t contain their... well... appreciation, for lack of another word. I don’t think I could ever be that happy with a gift. I think I take so much for granted, and fail to recognize the beauty of everything and everyone’s importance in my life. How do we develop the same mindset as my grandparents right now? How do we get passed everything available to us right outside our front door and see what is true, real, and right here. What do you appreciate? Who are you thankful everyday for? Where do your priorities lie? What blessings in your life leave you overwhelmed?

Earlier I shared about the impact we are having on the ones around us, if any at all. Today, we're going to look at our representation. Our representation as students, brothers, sisters, parents, teachers, employees, co-workers, and most importantly as ambassador's of Christ.
I'm going to take a look at our tongue and how we use it. How it can be used to set a good example and how it can be used to tear down someone who seems they've already lost it all. Everything we say has a result. You cannot speak without your words having an influence on those who hear.

If you have an opinion about someone and you share that biased view with someone else, your opinion will affect their view on that person. But it depends on how you say it. If you speak about a person in harsh, brutal words to someone else, how are they not expected to take on a bit of the anger you feel upon themselves? All of a sudden your opinionated view of a person has been passed on to someone else who is just trusting your word. Even still, why do they need to hear it, what is your purpose for talking about this person behind their back? Should there ever be a good reason for that?
Maybe you need to just get it off your chest, but maybe consider telling someone who doesn't know this person directly so that they can offer non-biased advice and won't be directly affected by the information you tell them. Either way, the words that you use to describe this person that you're angry at are a representation of Christ. If they know you are a Christian, what kind of example are you setting? Something to think about.

Why do we feel like we have to yell at people or get angry? Can we not control ourselves enough that we have to lash out and flip at someone? If someone does something or says something to you, or you simply don’t get along well with them, is there no better way to deal with it than by taking it all out on them, making fun of them, putting them in their place, complain about them to others. The next time you get ticked off, first ask yourself if they really intended on ticking you off. The thing that is bothering you might be second nature to them and they have no idea that they are frustrating or angering you. Even if they purposely do things to set you off though, is flipping out at them the right way to deal with your anger. Is telling them that they’re stupid, to shut up, or doing equal or greater damage to them as they did to you representing Christ. As cliché as it may be, how about that over-played wristband asking ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ There’s got to be a better way to handle tough situations and controlling your temper.

How about referring to something or someone as 'Gay' 'Retarded' or other words used to degrade them. What about claiming hatred toward someone or something. All of these things affect the people around you. It's so important to think about what you're saying before you say it because you never know how it will influence those who hear you.
If you and I are studying for an exam and it is 2am in the morning and it seems like we're only half way through our notes, let’s say you get angry and yell 'this is so retarded; I just want to get to bed.' Your choice of words may have no effect on you but what about me. Maybe there's something you don't know about me, maybe I haven’t told you about something. Hypothetically speaking, I had a brother who was clinically mentally challenged. He spent his first two years of his life in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes and needles that were keeping him alive. I would come home from school and wait countless nights for my mom to come home at 10pm because she was trying to work enough hours at the local burger joint trying to get enough money to pay for my brothers health care as well as put food on the table because my father ran out on us after a year of not being able to face the challenges that came along with my brother. I spent my weekends working like crazy to help my mom out, and the only thing that kept us going was the thought that we might be able to someday have a full conversation with my brother who still couldn't even spell his own name at age 15. And finally three years ago, the doctors found an incurable problem in the right side of his brain and my brother passed away.
...no one can predict the type of impact their words might have on a person.

Hypothetically speaking again, I have been involved with the Big Brothers community and this older guy has taken me under his wing to play basketball with and just hang out and talk. We're really getting along well and I feel I could tell him almost anything. I look up to him, admire him, and our friendship means a lot because I feel he would never forget about me or hurt me in any way. There was something on my mind that I really needed to talk about, and I knew I could share it with him so I went early one day before our afternoon of basketball and stood with him waiting as he was in the middle of a story that he was telling his buddies. He was talking about this guy he saw in the grocery store who walked a bit different, wore tight clothing and had a voice that was a bit distracting... in his words "this dude was so gay, what a fag." Wait, wait, hold on. Did I hear him right? All of a sudden, the thing I wanted to talk the most about is now the last thing I could ever discuss with him. I was dealing with homosexual thoughts myself but how could I ever talk to him about this now. I respected this guy, I trusted him, but I now know I could never trust him with everything. He'll think I’m a huge queer and talk about me behind my back like he was talking about this other guy he saw. He'll never want to help me out, he won't listen, he’ll just laugh and then back up and away from me as if I had some deadly, contagious disease. I thought I knew this guy, but I was wrong. I’ll never be able to share anything with him now.

Whether we like it or not, whether we mean to or not... our words can either build a man up or tear him apart. We represent something greater than a student, employee or family member. We represent God in everything we say. Do the people around you see you as a gossiper, someone who flips out on the smallest of things, a person who swears his mouth off, a person who insults when thinking it's just a joke? Or do they see you as a listener, someone who cares, someone who is honest, trustworthy and watches their tongue. Who are you? How do you represent God?

I have spent many conversations hearing about how my co-workers hate their job.
They get up at the crack of dawn, work sales on commission for 12 hours straight, and head home maybe to spend an hour in front of the TV and relax, and then head to bed, only to wake up the next morning to the same thing all over again.

This has led me to thinking of what kind of impact we have. How do you want to be living your life? If one of these sales people were to pass away tomorrow and had the chance to look back on their life... their last few years... their last couple months... their last day... how would they answer to the question of what type of impact they were having. Did they serve a purpose, or were they just running in neutral?
Would they look back on their last day and say that they were just going through the motions, trying to make those payments, hating their job, co-workers, boss, family situations. Would they have an answer as to what type of impact they were having?
How would you answer that? As you have gone through your day today, what have you done? Anything worth while? Fill your mind with knowledge that you'll never use, argue with family, tell someone you loved them, tell someone you hated them, cared about the things your professor was trying to teach you, walk past a weeping woman, be a kind ear to listen, smile and say hello to passers-by? Everything we do has an impact, what kind of impact have you had today?
I then put myself in a sales person's situation. If I worked a 12 hour day with angry customers who want their product right away even though it's been back-ordered for another three months. How would I answer the question of what kind of impact I was having? I'm not suggesting that the impact we should be having is to convert everyone we meet to Christianity. But is that such a bad goal to reach toward? Maybe having an impact, what gives you meaning to your day, is to be a nice, caring person who does smile and try to be the most polite person you can be.
I'm not talking about the fake smile you pull to make people feel warm inside, when really all you're thinking about is how that other guy cut you off on the road five minutes ago. I'm not talking about the personality you portray to someone to make yourself look good to them, but as soon as they're gone you talk about them to others as if they were the dog's breakfast, again to make yourself look good. Are these the things that give you a meaning to your day?

This will lead into Part Two which will be posted in a couple days, but I just want to make you think. Are you running in neutral and going through the motions, or do you make conscious efforts toward impacting the world around you. If so, what kind of impact are you having, because we all know there are two sides of this coin. Are you impacting your school, friendships, family, and work with your best attempted portrayal of Christ. Or are you setting a bad rep for how God calls His followers to be loving individuals to anyone and everyone... Come back for the continuation on this, 'Your Representation.'

This one is about a conversation. I was talking with a co-worker the other day and the topic of me being a Christian came up. He shook his head and asked ‘man Ben. When are you going to open up your eyes? How can you box yourself into something like that?’

The dialogue was a good distraction from having to do any work for about fifteen minutes as we stood there talking while the other guys did all the work. It was really interesting, and surprisingly draining on my part. I won’t go into too much detail, but he did raise many good points. Remarkably I had some answers for him, and oddly enough for questions that I had never really thought about. Questions that I had never even asked myself. Questions that I bypassed because there’s something inside of me that simply says ‘I just believe it.’

There are many wonders and mysteries of God and faith and the bible and everything that I haven’t the faintest clue about, but I’m reassured that that is alright. I don’t have to have all the answers. Inside, I simply believe in God, and even though there are things that don’t make sense to me, it doesn’t alter the way I feel. And this was my answer for many of his questions, a simple ‘I don’t know, there’s just something inside of me that causes me to have faith and believe it to be true.' He stated he finds it easier to believe that we evolved from tiny particles than to believe God created Adam and then Eve from his rib. He believes in the possibility of God, heaven and hell, but he also believes in the possibility of reincarnation. He asked how I can believe in something I can’t see. I told him to look around and up into the sunset and asked him how he can believe that wind exists if you cannot see it. He gave the right answer, that he can see the effects of the wind but cannot see the wind itself. It made him think. He asked how I would feel if I found out when I die that God doesn’t exist, wont I feel like I missed out on a lot of things. I asked him how he would feel if He stood face to face with God when he died and God asked him why he didn’t believe in Him. If you believe your two options are choosing to believe in God, or believe in Reincarnation then here is my theory:

-If you believe in God, die and find out that it’s all a hoax and you just get reincarnated, then go ahead and do everything you didn’t before, because who really cares now.
-If you believe in reincarnation however, you die and it turns out to be the hoax, there’s no turning back.

One of his final questions was if God really loves him and made him in His image, then if he dies and stands face to face with God, as a person who didn’t believe in God his whole life, then God should welcome him in to heaven no matter what… if He really loves him. ‘Why would God want to punish something that he created and loves’ he asked, ‘What if He doesn’t show himself to me, I never hear about Him, a missed opportunity and I never get the chance to accept Him, do I become a write-off in God’s eyes when I’m standing there in front of Him?’

‘I’m telling you right now man. This is your opportunity,’ I answered.

I've been following around some interesting organizations lately. I heard a statistic the other week referring to the many organizations that are being created and sending group members on mini mission trip-type expeditions to particular places in Canada that need help the most. Not to my surprise, the top two locations where teams are being sent are Vancouver, BC and Hamilton, ON.
I simply want to make you aware of a couple organizations that are on the rise that are doing some great work all over.

The first is MissionYear. It is designed for young adults, age 17-29, to go live and work for a year in a poor, urban American neighbourhood, partnering with a local church, volunteering at a social service agency, and spending time with neighbours. They spend an entire year eating, sleeping, and working with the same 6+ team members. You can check out this commitment to drop everything and serve with whole-hearted love at www.missionyear.org.

The second is Starving Jesus. This is a movement headed up by two founders of XXXChurch.com [an anti-porn website designed to help people with their addiction to pornography] urging Christians to get up out of the church pew and do something. It began as a book, which turned into a 40-day tour of fasting and travelling to a different city each day, which has been recorded and is expected to become a documentary in the Spring of 2007. Learn about the movement that will challenge to stand up and walk the walk at www.starvingjesus.com and www.xxxchurch.com.

The third is NieuCommunities. This organization is for people who are ready to go beyond where they’ve been and change the trajectory of their lives. They set out communities, similar to the above MissionYear, every year to pursue God relentlessly, to allow their faith and character to be transformed in the crucible of community, and to submerge into the cultures around them and make a difference in people’s lives. They also offer 1-2 week mission trips which they prefer to call 'Road Trips,' and here's why:
~On a missions trip you go to help people. On a road trip you come to be with people.
~On a missions trip you go to speak. On a road trip you come to listen.
~On a missions trip you go to see the world. On a road trip you come to better understand the world.
~On a missions trip you go to accomplish something. On a road trip you come to be transformed.
Learn more about NieuCommunities on www.nieucommunities.org.

And the last organization to inform you about is Invisible Children. This was headed up by three young guys who knew nothing but felt a calling to learn about the children in Uganda. These invisible children travel in the night, hide in the shadows and risk their lives each and every day just to survive. These guys have some amazing things to share with you. A documentary DVD, bracelets made by children in Uganda, and a movement that will rock you. Learn about their incredible stories at www.invisiblechildren.com.

And that's it for now, I hope you can take some time out of your busy schedule of surfing, msn chatting, illegal music downloading, and facebook viewing to check out and support these fantastic organizations.

Your first question; What is this blog all about?

You know those times when you're all alone and thoughts go through your mind, and you only wish you had someone to talk to about them. Or perhaps you think you're quite the poet and wish you could carry around a voice recorder to catch yourself in your best moments when you think out loud about what's really going through your mind. Well this is the next best thing... for me.
I'll express, confess, make some sense, make hardly any sense, leave you thinking, leave you breathless, leave you asking 'why did I waste my time,' or asking 'why have i not heard of this lonely little man before.' We're lacing up our sneakers and going for a jog, just to see where we might end up.

All in all, this is to put words to the complex musings being tossed from side to side in this head of a God-fearing man. Take care and enjoy.