To Borrow a Few Words From "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta"...

Earlier this week I mentioned how I have just felt off lately in terms of my spiritual life, but today things began to click again. Today I felt God answering my prayers. He has been helping me to look beyond the temporary things that I put so much of my stock in and to start seeing all of the great things going on in my life beyond the classroom. My experience has been that I get most down when I have "peep hole vision." I realize that the word "peep" is often associated with lewd shows performed on Bourbon street, but that is not where I am going with this...What I'm trying to say is that when I view the world out of a peep hole I miss 95 percent of what is going on. The 5 percent that I do see is usually extremely temporary circumstances that I make a way bigger deal than I really need to. The 95 percent that I don't see are the people around me and the opportunities that I have to love them in a way that might help them pull their heads out of "peep vision" as well and the chance to point them to the cross.

Following Jesus is backwards, because it is not a checklist, there is no formula and it is totally reversed from anything you have ever heard. By putting all of your energy towards being the hands and feet of Jesus and meeting the needs of others, there is lasting satisfaction that cannot be found within yourself. Frat gear goes out of style (well not really, chino polo shorts and button downs are long lasting, just not eternal), Wranglers rip, houses burn down, GPAs become trivial things of the past, big titles don't go in the coffin with you and even supermodels become old, wrinkly ladies, but Living for the Lord lasts. (pretty sure I jacked that phrase from the song "Damn it feels good to be a gangsta" made popular by the movie "Office Space"...Verse 2 "But this gangtsa here is a smart one Started living for the lord and I last.") Point being that the only things that we can take into eternity with us are the things we do out of our love for Jesus.

We're gonna make it

It has been a solid 2 months since I have hopped on the blog and for that I apologize. Over the past 60 days I built a judge's award winning float and danced in Pigskin with my fraternity, started dating an amazing girl (thought that would never happen) and have held my job at the backpacking, camping, kayaking store here in Waco. In the midst of all of this, God has been there, but to be honest with you, I have struggled to see him. Maybe it is because I have been too busy checking all of the items off of the post it note lists that I habitually make and arrange strategically around my desk. This year has been tough. I started off the year, biting off more than I could chew and have been paying for it lately, trying madly to catch up with school. One of the biggest lessons I have been learning is to say no so that I can really say yes. I blogged about that earlier this year, but it is a lesson that I have had to re-learn at different seasons and it is always a painful one to be reminded of. When I am spread thin I have trouble making everything work together and the quality of my work often suffers. Why do I over commit? To shoot you straight, it is because I am a people pleaser and I want to serve and help out as much as I can, but taking on too much has it taken its toll. It's hard to saddle up and ride when the ground you are riding on seems to be shifting and sliding unpredictably.

Lately, my biggest battle has been finding my worth in the Lord and not in my accomplishments or lack of accomplishments in school. I can't seem to find traction in my classes and every time I get back my work and it is not where I want it to be I question whether I am cut out for the academic rigors in college. From there I play the "find the most unintelligent person I know who graduated from college and compare myself to them game." Ultimately that never helps. I don't know what it is going to take for the cross to be enough, for me to understand in the depths of my heart the magnitude that Jesus loves me. I think that the place I am in right now is one that will continually come back at every life stage. I'm going to have a full time job in the future and there, my challenge will be finding my worth in my salary, work projects or title, then I will have kids and the temptation will be to find my worth in how they turn out. With this mentality I am going to miss the abundant life that Jesus promises those who love him. I am trying to wrap my head around how much Jesus truly loves me. It is in this life long journey to understand how great our Saviors' love is for us that our identity in Christ becomes more clear. It is in this understanding that we begin to understand how incomprehensible Jesus' love is for us.

I don't know what your struggle is right now. Maybe you're like me and you question whether you are going to make it in school or maybe you just started a new job and it is not everything you dreamed it would be. You could be battling addiction and keep failing, or maybe you just feel down. Jesus cares about you and wants to listen to what is on your mind. My experience with prayer has been that when I am in prayer about my troubles, the Lord doesn't usually make them disappear, but he helps me to tune into what he is doing in the big picture and gives me an attitude that allows me to see the eternal in the midst of the temporal. Life is tough, we're all trying to make it. Take a minute and care about those around you, just smile at them, it could make all the difference.