Red Bull Spirituality

I am a sucker for great marketing, more-so than I probably should be. I sometimes buy clothes, food, drinks, etc. because of what they say about me or at least what marketers tell me it should say about me (I can't help it, I'm a sales guy and I love being sold to). One of my favorite brands is Red-Bull (sorry Blackburn) and over the break I got bored and emailed their marketing team to tell them what a great job they do at building a lifestyle brand.

Emilie at Red Bull emailed me back and asked if they could send me a Red Bull fan package for being so loyal to them. I said of course and a few days later a box arrived on my doorstep with 3 cans of my favorite beverage and a Red Bull Media House Blu Ray DVD called "Where the Trail Ends." (Check out the trailer: Where the Trail Ends<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZUsc1ewgUQ>)

The movie is about a handful of extreme mountain bikers who climb or chopper to the top of desert mountains and ride them down, similar to the way a snowboarder carves his way down a mountain. These guys are nuts! At times, it looks like they're going 60+ miles per hour, and they do backflips and super mans on terrain that I wouldn't even want to hike on. The most intimidating part of their ride has to be at the very beginning when these guys push off the top of the mountain. They start from the very peak, barely wide enough to fit their bike, take a deep breath and then let 'er rip.

In a lot of ways, that is where we find ourselves the Sunday before school starts. There are feelings of excitement and anxiety as we prepare to make our way down the mountain. Once these extreme mountain bikers push off the top, there is no stopping until they hit the bottom, and I know that is the way that the semester often feels. Before long, tests will begin coming down the pipeline, SING practice will eat into our free time, friendships will fade and others will take on new life, some of us will be looking for jobs while others will be making important choices about what degrees to pursue. For some, this might be the make or break semester academically or emotionally and as we being to process whatever is next, it can become overwhelming.

I am going to borrow Paul's words from Philippians as our challenge for this semester, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13)

I don't know what last semester was like for you. For some, it is one you will never forget and you would do it over in a heartbeat, for others, it is a relief to have it behind you. Regardless, 2012 is old news and 2013 is a new day. I know that it might sound too good to be true, and you might think that the whole "new day" spiel is BS, but Jesus' love allows us to start fresh every day. So as we fight the holiday hangover and pack our bags for tomorrow, let us not forget our struggles of yesterday and the way we have grown through our trials, but more importantly, may we remember to live for Christ and rise above it.

Seek First and Don't Worry About the Rest

Have you ever had one of those days where you just can't get any traction with your to-do list; where every time your phone vibrates with a new email or text, your list of things not getting done just gets longer and longer; then you think about your bank account and say a four letter word and begin thinking to spring break and how you don't have any plans nailed down; deep down you are scared that you are going to waste that precious week and there are only so many opportunities for freedom like this left? Of course you have. They happen and they are happening.

My scatter-brained-state peaked as I was on eighth street, headed for my weekly fraternity meeting. I knew I wouldn't be able to focus on anything if I went to meeting, so I hopped on I-35 and called my sister to see how life was treating her. After a 20 minute heart to heart, the dust in my mind began to settle and my heart rate slowed to a normal level where I was able to process life a little more clearly.

What I realized after talking to my sister is that nothing in life is certain and the joy that I find in my relationship with friends, the fun that I have with my girlfriend, the comfort that I find in being with my family and the satisfaction that I find in a job well done is totally robbed when I put my value and worth in people and accomplishments, not in the unconditional love of Christ. As I have been in the word daily for the past 2 months, I have realized that nothing in life is certain except for the truth that God has given us in his Word and the cross where Christ proclaimed his love for us. Friends let us down from time to time, relationships with significant others aren't always peachy, family members are sometimes in far away places and there is always someone else working to outshine our accomplishments. What lasts is our identity in Christ.

In John, 1:12-13, we are told "Yet to all who receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave them the right to become children of God-children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God."

Not only does God call us his very own children, but then, in Romans, Paul asks, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?...For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither present nor the future nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

That, my friends, is the Good News. The key to finding joy in your relationships and satisfaction in your work is first and foremost knowing that you are God's and that his love is a permanent fixture-it doesn't change like everything else in this world. The second key to claiming joy is taking the wisdom found in Matthew and realizing that "who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?"

I leave you with this, seek first His kingdom and everything you need will be given to you. Everything.

For Such a Time as This

With the start of the new year I have made a few resolutions (I hate that word, because you already assume I won't keep them), two of which tie together: Resolution 1: Read through the entire Bible in 2012, using the M'Cheyne Reading Plan and Resolution 2: Blog once a month. Hopefully my life experiences will be informed by the scripture that I am filling my heart with on a daily basis, but I cannot promise that a few jokes of the sarcastic variety and TFM nature won't slip in there from time to time.

With that said, I have been in the word for almost the entire month of January and honestly, not much has clicked with me thus far. Part of my problem is that some of the scripture I am almost too familiar with, to the point where I almost blow it off and fail to stop and really try to soak it in, and the other half of scripture I have been reading in the Old Testament is often times bogged down by ancient civilizations I don't understand and the lineages of king's who don't seem relevant. Nonetheless, over the past few days I have been in the book of Esther and her story has captivated and challenged me.

Esther's story begins when King Ahasuerus, the ruler of Persia becomes drunk at a massive banquet and calls his wife and Queen in to show her off. The Queen does not want to be made a spectacle in front of the King's drunk buddies and refuses to go. Just like that, the Queen is "disposed of." This leaves King Ahasuerus Queen-less. After a lengthy nation wide beauty contest, (think if the President needed a first lady, and held the Ms. America pageant to find his Laura Bush) he finds Esther, a beautiful Jew. After Esther has been established as the queen, the King's Prime Minister, Haman, makes a decree that all Jews will be exterminated. Esther's cousin, Mordecai (who was the one who made Haman irate because he refused to bow down to him) seeks out Esther and convinces her that she needs to talk to the king to save the Jews.

The problem is that Esther can't just drop in on the king while he is in his royal court. If she shows up unannounced, the king could have her killed. Esther knows what must be done, so she enter's the kings court and fortunately for Esther, he extends his royal scepter as a symbol of immunity to Esther. In fact, he is thrilled that she "dropped by the office." Esther arranges a banquet for the King and Haman. At the banquet, the king says to Esther:

“What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be done,” Esther’s reply was brilliant: “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me as my petition, and my people as my request; for we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed and to be annihilated. Now if we had only been sold as slaves, men and women, I would have remained silent, for the trouble would not be commensurate with the annoyance to the king.” The king was shocked. “Who is he, and where is he, who would presume to do thus?” And Esther put the finger on Haman, much to his horror (Esth. 7:1-6).

Needless to say, Haman is then hung from the very gallows that he built to kill Mordecai and the Jews were saved.

My favorite part of this scripture is when Mordecai comes to Esther when he finds out about Hamon's decree and says to her, "...you have been put in your royal position for such a time as this."

It took courage for Esther to step up and to do what she needed to, but she had faith in the Lord and trusted that she really was put in that position for a purpose.

I don't know what the new year has in store for you, what troubles it might bring or happiness it might usher in, but I do know, that "for such a time as this," God has placed people, situations, blessings and sorrows in our lives with purpose. I always get hung up when I say that God has a plan, because the whole free will deal still confuses me, but I do know that God has made us each uniquely and there are people around us that need us to be who God has knit us together to be. As you go forward this semester, looking for internships and jobs, building new friendships, working through classes and interacting with random individuals, as you go about your day, ask yourself, "for such a time as this," what is God calling me to do? Once you feel that tug on your heart/conscience, act on it. Just like God was faithful to see Esther into the king's court, he will do the same for you.

It's Independence Day

On this fourth of July we celebrate the independence of our nation. We celebrate the fight it took to give the first people to call themselves Americans a fresh start in a land where opportunity is everywhere. We celebrate all the good things in life with friends and family and we pause to say thank you to those who have protected our way of life and put their lives on the line and made the ultimate sacrifice for us. On this Independence Day I want to celebrate all of those things, but I also want to take a moment and praise God for the freedom he gave us on the cross.

My time in the Word and prayer life have been pretty erratic over the past semester and I honestly forgot how much I needed it and how much prayer and scripture nourish my soul, so to get back on track, I committed to simply read scripture and prayer journal every night for 21 days. (I'm told that it takes 21 days to form a habit. I made it 20 days on my challenge before missing one...typical right..) Over the past three weeks I have been in conversation with God pretty consistently and I was blown away by what an incredible listener God is and how I often bring a much harder line of judgement on myself than God does. I was working through a few things and talking to different people about their perspectives on the issue I was working through and I didn't like any of their answers. Every night I would journal about my struggles and dialogue with God. I never received a gift wrapped answer. but what I did receive is peace.

I write this message on Independence Day, because God is the ultimate liberator and the ultimate giver of grace and forgiver. For "just at the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly die. But get this! God showed his love for us like this-when were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8.

Do you get it? There wasn't anything we did to earn this, God knew exactly what he was doing when he climbed up on that cross and he hung there not a super hero with his cape fluttering in the wind, but as our best friend laying down his life for us, jumping in front of the bullet that we couldn't stop. Just as we are the recipients of the blessings of our forefathers and their hard work and sacrifice to build this land of opportunity for us, we are also the heirs of Christ and though we did nothing to deserve his grace, he gives independence from sin and addiction to all who come to him. Happy Independence Day ya'll.

Letting Go of Guilt and the Empty Tomb

I'll be honest, I think that the most consistent period in my personal spiritual development might have been in eighth grade. I had a reading plan and worked through the entire Bible in a year. Sometimes I feel guilty because I would rather read a John Grisham book before I go to bed at night than the Bible. Finding consistent spiritual community in college has been a challenge. The potential for incredible community and accountability is all around me. I go to a Baptist university and am an active member in a fraternity filled with some of the wisest and spiritual guys I have ever met. Only recently have I started meeting with a group of guys to help hold me accountable and encourage me in my walk, but even there I sometimes give a half-hearted effort to our conversations, but as the wind blew across my face at the sunrise service this morning, I actually caught a breath of fresh air and began to understand why Easter is a big deal.

If there was a popularity contest between Easter and Christmas, hands down, Christmas would win. Christmas is easier; we have so many festivities and distractions going on, we don't have to confront our own sin and brokenness. Something clicked with me this morning:. the empty tomb means everything and all of my meager efforts at spiritual righteousness aren't the point, because on my own I will never be good enough. I could never earn enough "Bible points" or mentor enough people or go to church enough to earn my keep. Jesus got that.

Jesus was fully human and fully God which means that while he was on earth he felt the pain that we feel and knows what it means to hurt. When he climbed onto the cross on Good Friday he wasn't wearing a cape because he wasn't a super hero. Jesus didn't engage in an epic Satan vs. Jesus HBO special smack down to defeat sin on our behalf, he died on our behalf as a sacrificial lamb because he understood that he could do for us what we could not do for ourselves. On Friday there was mourning and Jesus' disciples and followers thought that everything was over and then...the tomb was empty!

Easter means that there is no way that I deserve to be in a relationship with God and take part in the abundant life that he promises. I could never be good enough, even if I memorized the entire Bible it wouldn't be enough. Easter means that God looks past all of my sins and shortcomings and loves me just as I am, not because of what I have done but because of the empty tomb and what Jesus did. Give all your guilt to God, quit feeling like you're not good enough, none of us are, but on this day Jesus was good enough and he conquered death on our behalf. Embrace grace, embrace Easter.

Stories that the couch can't tell

I'm about to take a plunge, a leap of faith; Over the next eight months, with a team of six guys, I am going to raise 100,000 dollars, build a house and put on a concert like Baylor University has never seen. Am I scared? a little bit; could I fail? yes; will it be a great story regardless? hell yes! Will I have any time to be bored? nope. I'm talking about the 45 year old Kappa Omega Tau tradition of hosting Christmas on Fifth, a campus wide concert event and Christmas celebration.

Today, I met with the head of the Waco area Habitat for Humanity along with Cramer and John, two of the Christmas tree chairs, to discuss what a partnership for this event might look like. I have spent the past week calling band after band, everyone from Pat Green to Josh Abbott to Randy Rogers gathering pricing info, but today, as I sat across from the Waco Habitat for Humanity president, it all became real. I'm about to start writing a story that I have an obligation to finish because if I don't, people will be let down, a Waco family will stay without a home and I will be known as the guy who lead the charge for Christmas on Fifth and failed. Sounds like a pretty good story right? Of course it does, the hard part is, now I have to write it.

It's no secret that Christianity is in decline in America. It's not too hard to figure out why. As Christians we need to tell better stories with our lives. Smiling and being friendly only gets us so far. God created us to play a role in the domain that he has placed us in. He needs each one of us to step up and be who were created to be, to run after him and to tell a good story with our lives.

What makes a good story? Think about all of the movies you love, what do they have in common? Characters you like and a cause worth fighting for. Take "The Hangover" for example, even as crude as this movie is, we all love it because Alan is hilarious and Stew is likable and we all genuinely want this group of friends to find Doug. All good stories involve a character or characters who want something who go through conflict to get what they want.

What kind of story are you living? Is it one worth reading or are you in the same boat as so many of us are where you go to extensive lengths to stay comfortable? Comfortable is boring. As humans, we always seek the way of least resistance, but sometimes as Christians we are called to take the narrow road and I can guarantee you that this road is filled with resistance. Have you ever read a story about someone who sat on the couch all day and watched TV? No, of course you haven't, there's no story there.

This is not a guilt trip trap where you are supposed to feel like you should move to Africa or go live in a box (unless that is really where God is taking you). All I'm saying is that in Matthew 10:39 Jesus says, "Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it." Losing your life for Jesus' sake involves risk. Right before this verse, Jesus talks about how hard it is going to be to forsake everything and follow him. He goes so far as to say that he has not come to bring peace, but a sword. This is not to say that Jesus is not peaceful, but that he did not come to hold our hands and walk us through the daisies of self-help sermons. Jesus is calling us to live better stories and live up to what we have already attained in him. Our faith demands it. What better way to spread the Gospel than to live engaging lives the exude the joy that God has given us? What are you waiting on? Get writing!

For Such A Time As This

It came as an email early on Tuesday morning. What a way to deliver the news. All I could do was lean back in my computer chair and rub my eyes. Wes’s dad had just passed away. I didn’t know what to do. My heart was shatter for the family who lost their son just a few years before. The pain they were dealing with was something that I couldn’t wrap my mind around. The funeral was set for Friday and after talking it over with my mom, I decided that I needed to be there. I lead an accountability group for Wes and his friends in high school and wanted to be able to support them through this tough time.

The funeral brought back hard memories of when another one of the students in Wes’s grade committed suicide; those were dark days, but I did my best to stand by them as they grieved. Death is hard. The service was beautiful. One of my favorite pastor’s talked about Wes’s dad and did a great job of helping those in attendance to remember the incredible man that he was. When the audience dismissed and everyone lined up to console the family, I looked around and began seeing all of the guys that I once met with on a weekly basis. I made the rounds and hugged each one tightly, making small talk about where they were going to school next year. There is never anything great to say at a funeral. The real answers to the standard small talk questions of how are you doing and what have you been up just don’t seem to have very pretty answers.

Driving back to Baylor that afternoon I thought about what a unique opportunity the Lord had given me. Throughout high school I had scattered the seed and been active in the lives of the guys who were at the funeral. Most of the time I spent with them I felt terribly insufficient. The Sunday afternoons when we got together often seemed like a waste of time, because I was only a few years older than them and the things I had to say did not stimulate the most captivating small group discussions.

Ephesians 3: 20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to the power of his will to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations for ever and ever! Amen”

In the midst of my feelings of insufficiency and during the small group times that I felt like a failure, God was positioning me to respond to the email I received on Tuesday. He set my relationships up for his glory and he was doing more than I could ask for or imagine.

Don’t give up on the friendships with people who don’t know the Lord. Keep loving your enemies. Don’t get tired of doing what is good. We’re not seeing the whole picture and it will not be revealed to us until we are in heaven. Find peace knowing that we are only seeing a sliver of the picture and God is a much better painted than you or I.

Appreciating Who People Are Becoming

One of the hardest things about coming home for the holidays is that each time I exit the tollway at Lovers Lane and pull onto Purdue, I have grown and experienced things that have shaped my outlook and one way or another, I am not the same person and my friends, they're not the same either. Am I usually drastically different, no, but I've lived stories that my friends in college station and Norman haven't. My community is shaping me and my interactions with my friends and community at Baylor are something that no one can understand except those who are in the middle of it with me. It has taken me heading back to Dallas a couple of times over the past three semesters to begin to learn to appreciate my friends for who they are becoming. This means that I have to change my expectations and learn to listen to their stories and realize that the way that we view things might not be the exact same. My experience in my fraternity at Baylor, KOT, is going to be totally different than my friend Will's experience with Sig Ep in Norman and the things that I love about Baylor probably don't translate directly into Will's experiences at OU.

It is a hard lesson to wrap your head around because growing up with my best friends from HP we all did the same things with each other. All of our stories were woven together and we saw life the same way because for the most part our experiences were paralleled with one another. Learning to appreciate people for who they are becoming is key to maintaining friendships that you have had for years even after spending large spans of time apart.

I have been unbelievably blessed to walk shoulder to shoulder with men of great faith throughout high school and college and this is so important because our common bond is not something that is fleeting. Our stories don't have to sound the same because I know that at the heart of our friendships is Christ and the common love for Christ among a group of friends gives friendship more depth than any common hobbies or stories ever could. I am able to pick back up with the guys I did life with in high school so well because I know that at the end of the day we are brothers in Christ and our love for Him is what we built our friendship on.

I'm not encouraging you to watch your friends make destructive decisions and not get involved in their lives, but what I am encouraging you to do is to realize that no one is perfect and just because your friendship with someone doesn't feel exactly the same as it always has doesn't mean it can't still be something great. If we stop expecting people to complete us and make us totally satisfied and approach each day with more grace than criticism I think that we would be shocked at how much richer all of our relationships would be. For the group of friends you are doing with right now, on the daily, be intentional about building then up as brothers and sisters in Christ so that one day if you aren't roommates and the days of fraternity life seem like a lifetime ago, you will have a bond that is eternal because Jesus is forever.

A Birthday Worth Partying For

I don't know what kind of semester you are coming off of, but if it was anything like mine, there was probably highs and lows and everything in between and over the Christmas break I'm pretty positive that when asked how college is going you will smile and say "great, I really love 'insert your university here'...." Personally, my favorite response is: "college is great, it's the school part that I'm having a hard time with." Guaranteed to get the typical I-used-to-party-dad to say "God, I remember the days" followed by a hearty laugh. For the past two years Christmas break has been a really interesting time for me because I go from being insanely busy to school zone slow and the hardest part is that when I start slowing down I begin to digest what I have been learning and that is often scary. One of the most daunting realizations that I have come to is that time isn't slowing down and I'm growing up.
Pretty obvious observation I know, but I'm in the time of my life that you hear people tell stories about from the time you are a little kid, that your middle school and high school counselors have tried to prepare you for for years and the era when decisions matter. It gets overwhelming sometimes and while people think back on their college years and remember the really good times, they seldom tell you about the really hard growth periods. The tough thing about growth is that it's not painless.

With christmas tomorrow, I've been reflecting on what the birth of Jesus means and trying to not be so numb to everything as I approach my twentieth Christmas. As I was looking through scripture it hit me though. In Matthew 1:23 it says "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel." Immanuel means "God with us." Do you get what that means? It means that God sent his son into the world as a way of proclaiming as loudly as possible that when the test results get back and they are positive for cancer, God is with us. When you aren't sure if you and your girlfriend are going to make it, God is with us. At your frat party, God is with us. When you come home and things don't feel exactly like they used to, God is with us. When you're studying in the corner of the library, God is with us. When you're procrastinating and sitting around hanging out with your roommates, God is with us. In the midst of trying to figure out what your purpose is and how you are going to charge into the future, God is with us.

Tonight when you hear the Christmas story, try not to tune it out or brush past it because you have heard it so many times, look at it from the fresh perspective of hearing about how God didn't give up on us, how in the midst of all of our shortcomings, he is riding shotgun with us through all of life's ups and downs and that Jesus was born to die a death on a cross that would give everyone the freedom to come into an abundant relationship with the creator of the universe. Merry Christmas.

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.

Oh SH....the couch is about to fall out the back

School is back in full swing but I am not. Can anyone out there relate to me? I think that every semester I say "heck yeah," this is my time to do school right, to go to bed on time and to be super intentional with the group of guys the Lord has placed me in. I go out and buy a planner and make lists of people who I want to dig in with. In my head/on paper my plans and tactics are flawless, but then something called life happens. My roommates are up late hanging out and I can't help but do the same, I see an opportunity to take on a job and I do it, people around me need help and so I drop my own agenda and help them and in the process of all these great interruptions, my grand plans are diminished.

This summer when I went on my epic craigslist adventure to pick up the vending machine and the massive sectional couch we almost had a catastrophe. We made it to the hottest, most miserable place on earth, college station and loaded up what I call the pink monster: a 5 piece sectional couch complete with a folding bed, recliner and one dysfunctional recliner that will end up never getting repaired (maybe after float season). After manhandling the couch onto the trailer, we headed to Houston to pick up the whale of a vending machine. Along the way, Kip, Will and I were talking, laughing about the adventure when out of the corner of my eye I saw the pink monster begin moving. Straddling my vision between the road ahead of me and the crisis behind me, I observed the wind pick up one of the sections of the couch flip up and begin waltzing toward the end of the trailer. I had a sudden flash of the calamity behind me which was potentially about to ensue; an oversized, bulky couch section punching through the radiator of the sedan behind me or even worse, the windshield destroying the drivers. None of this was happening at breakneck speed, but it was definitely something that needed to be dealt with. I made the call to pull over and rearrange and re-strap everything on the trailer. From there, it was smooth sailing.

Right now, in slow motion, the pieces of my life are shifting around and some of the sections even want to flip off my trailer. For the most part I have kept driving, keeping an eye on the status of everything, but pretty soon, if I don't pull over, I'm going to pay for it. Does this mean that I have the wrong pieces loaded? No, it just means that I have loaded my pieces incorrectly. (I realize that this analogy only really makes sense to me and the handful of people who have loaded a trailer down with ratchet straps.) The idea is not necessarily that I am involved in the wrong things, it's just that I am missing the essential element for balance in my life, my own personal time with the Lord. My faith is what holds my life together and as I get busier and busier, the ratchet straps that hold my life together begin to loosen.

For me, I know that this is happening, because my life is full of great things and great people, I am not facing any major crisis right now and I have every reason to be totally satisfied with life, but I'm not. I accomplish a lot every day, but it is not enough. I need to get away and spend time with Jesus on a daily basis. That is the only way that the air will taste sweet again and the only way that I will be able to love those around me the way that Jesus has called me to, Live the dream, life is too short not to.

Just a little off

Do you ever have those days where you just feel a little off, where the day just doesn't go quite the way you wanted it to or maybe it was one of those "blah" days where nothing really good or bad happened? Today was one of those days for me, I had a packed weekend and then woke up on the Monday of a three day weekend, two hours before heading into work and then from there my day was just kind of got sucked up. (the hours from 9 to 2AM seem to get away from me every night) I don't know why "blah" days bring up an array of odd feelings or what even sparks them, but they definitely exist and they are definitely normal. I think that that part of the problem with these nonchalant days is that we find our value in what tasks we complete or how full or fun our day was. It is normal to have these feelings and I think that they are a result of overworking.

I used to drive a four cylinder hunting jeep and it was great for dirt roads and it could not be beat crawling around rocks, but when I hopped on the highway and needed to pass someone or gun it to get onto the freeway it topped out at about 60 and that little engine would scream for fresh air until I downshifted and reached a comfortable cruising speed. Blah days are the downshift period. We spend so much of our lives speeding to get where we need to go that when we finally downshift and our speed begins to level out, we feel uncomfortable because our pistons aren't pumping quite so hectically.

I don't know where you are, if you're at a place where you look at the road ahead and say wow, I'm about to dive into chaos or maybe you're at a place where all of the sudden you have a significant amount of time on your hands, maybe you just got out of a relationship with a long time girlfriend and now you feel weird because all of the time and energy that was directed there has no where to go. Maybe you just graduated and being in the real world all of your best friends are not around and your bed time has been bumped back from 2AM to 10PM. I don't know, but whatever it is, God cares about you and wants you to live fully and desperately wants you to know that you aren't in this thing alone. Life is beautiful and it is meant to be lived, so wherever you are, be grateful and through the good and bad, praise God, because he has always loved you and always will. Live the dream. My roommates just told me to stop blogging and start living, so I guess I need to get to it...

Say No So You Can Say Yes

Today is only my 12th day of life at the Estate and in this short amount of time an enormous amount of life has taken place. I recently started working at an outdoor gear store, bought a deep freezer and gun safe with my roommates, built 2 lofted beds, fraternity activities and intramurals have kicked into high gear, I have been connecting with friends who I didn't see all summer and somewhere in the midst of all of this flurry of activity I have an academic record to build. I was pondering the freedom that comes with age the other day and I think that it can be compared to a tightly tied shoe. As I have grown up from grade school through high school and now into college the laces on my shoes have become looser and looser, offering more and more freedom, but with freedom comes new adjustments. I am almost to the point in my life where I have the choice of whether I want to keep the shoes on or slip them off all together and see what walking barefoot feels like. It is a scary place to be in. Credit card bills are real, relationships are real, school matters more than it has in the past and I am seeing the weight that my actions today are going to have on tomorrow. I spent an hour on the phone with the cable company today trying to figure out why our bill was so high and once I figure that out I have to bring it to the attention of my roommates and reach an agreement about how to get paid back for various start up fees. I tell you this because it is easy to lose sight of things and forget whom our foundation is found in.

Our foundation is not in how well we please others, because there is not enough of you or me to go around to meet everyone else's needs and wants. I am learning to say no for the first time in my life. It's tough, because I really enjoy being needed, but I have had to come to terms with the reality that there is only so much time in the day and that when I never say no I cannot really say yes. "Simply let your yes be yes and your no, no; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." Matthew 5:37. Seems harsh doesn't it, saying that if we flake out and don't really mean yes when commit to something it is from the evil one. Why would Jesus put that in such harsh terms? Because when we over-commit we are limiting our God given potential to do the things that God has called us to. Saying no is definitely an act of faith. It puts us in a vulnerable place because people might not like us if we decline an offer they give us.

Matthew 7:24-27
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

When we over commit we are making the choice to build our house on the sand and that is what it feels like doesn't it. The
exterior structure of our life is all together, but with the wrong wind or even the wrong footing inside the house, everything could come crashing down. To build our house on the rock, we must constantly be in prayer, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." (Phil 4:6) Honestly, I have never really been good at constantly being in prayer, but when I think about it, I spend a lot of time managing my lists inside my head and those concerns could be much better managed by giving them to God. My challenge for myself and for anyone who finds life even just slightly overwhelming is to say yes and really mean it and to find the freedom of a house on solid rock.

Learning to Relax

I would never admit it, but I think that I enjoy being stressed. This realization came to me over the past week that I spent with my family relaxing in Florida. My summer has been packed between working at Pine Cove and then going almost straight into a pretty rigorous summer school schedule. Add building an epic lofted bed and furnishing a house and pretty quickly you can imagine how precious my free time has been this summer. I was wound so tight and my mind kept running back to Waco to make lists of things that I need to do and money that I needed to collect from my roommates that I had trouble fully enjoying and appreciating the beauty of my first day on the beach. After my mom saw me struggling to just sit on the beach she even said, "You really have trouble just doing nothing and relaxing don't you?"

Before I could relax under my umbrella and fully enjoy the cool ocean breeze I had to make an "on the go playlist" on my iPod that had an excess of 100 songs in the cue, way more than I could ever listen to in one sitting. I tell you that to give you a look into how check list driven I am, even on the beach. Our society values efficiency and productivity. Check lists are great and they keep my life organized, but there comes a point where productivity can become an idol. I often put my worth in how much I can accomplish or what I can scratch through on my to-do list. As Christians we are called to commit our work to the Lord, but we are not told to be workaholics. I guess that this is really an identity issue. Jesus loves us just as we are, not as we should be and he loves us no matter how much we accomplish. I think that if we are going to bring up committing our work to the Lord it is just as important to bring up one of the ten commandments, "honor the Sabbath day, keep it Holy."

How many of us actually do that? When was the last time you turned off your computer, put away the tools, forgot about the checklists for a day and simply enjoyed the moment you were in? It's scary and it is a huge act of faith. It says, "I trust that God is faithful and by taking this day and doing things that feed my soul, God is going to be active and in my lack of activity, He will provide." So maybe the reason that I have trouble relaxing is because I do not have much practice. Taking a Sabbath requires an act of faith and it is one that I need to adopt. Chick Fil A is the only national food chain that honors the Sabbath and although it seems that I am always craving one of their sandwiches on Sunday I respect their decision. Their profits are right on par with all of its competitors and because they are closed for one day a week, their employees stay fresher and their equipment lasts longer because they hit the off switch once a week. I think that to break my addiction to productivity I need to do the same and simply hit the off switch once a week and trust that God is going to provide.

Home

Home is a relative term. Obviously there is a house in Dallas where my family lives and a room where I laid my head for the first eighteen years of my life, but is home more than a house? I think so. After being in college for a year, Waco is beginning to feel more comfortable than Dallas and I am beginning to sleep better on my twin bed that my feet hang off of, lofted 5 feet in the air than my full size bed on Purdue. Do I feel more comfortable in Waco because I traded beautifully landscaped lawns on Beverly for front yards where I can park my truck or because in Waco I can't see a movie past 10 or because in Dallas there is not a vending machine in my living room? No. I am more at peace in Waco because there is a community of people here who love me and claim me as their own. Before I go on any farther, let me give a disclaimer, I have an unbelievable family and friends that will last a lifetime in Dallas, but the community that I have in Waco are the people who on a day to day basis are helping me grow into the Robert I am becoming. Those in my past have shaped me into who I am today. One of the big components of any community is shared experiences or surroundings. There are parts of the fabric of the school and student life here that cannot be explained, but are simply understood by those who live in this town like the taste of George's half price chicken friend steak or the stereotypes that surround the fraternities and sororities (I really just love wearing boots...KOT stereotype) or the simple appreciation for a slower pace of life in a city that pales in comparison to Dallas or Austin.

If home is a community of people who know and love you, can you have more than one home? I think so. When I worked at Pine Cove this summer, the staff and friends that I made knew me in one capacity, the guys I live with know me on a day to day basis and see college Robert; back home I have a different set of memories and expectations those around me have come to know. I don't think that this is a bad thing, but it can become confusing when you bounce from community to community and places that were always so familiar become less familiar. Some day I will graduate and Baylor will begin to feel less like home than it does right now, I will move somewhere and I will form another community who will continue to shape and mold me.

Through all the major scenery/life changes I have been experiencing over the past year the verse that I have clung to is Philippians 3:20 "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." Our citizenship is in heaven, we can live in numerous places on this earth, but ultimately our identity and value is found in heaven with Christ, so if you are going to school for the first time this year and you feel uncomfortable, your citizenship is in heaven. If you just started a new job in a city that is unfamiliar, your citizenship is in heaven. If you are still living in the same house with your parents that you have always lived in, your citizenship is in heaven. With that in mind, begin this new school year with an open heart and mind to those around you and take everything in stride knowing that this place, wherever you are, is not it.

Buy The Field (or dove lease...)

Being a city boy my whole life I have always loved playing cowboy on the weekend. It's hard to top my favorite pair of Wranglers wrapped around my Justins which are more comfortable than slippers after seeing thousands of miles of pavement and country roads. With my Costas around my neck, suspended by my Kappa Croakies and a Columbia PFG, maybe a vest depending on the time of year I am at home. (I realize that I just name dropped 3 staples of Texas fratting....that was intentional. I also realize that this is how I dress year around now...it's conducive to the life style perpetuated by Greek institutions minus those on the West Coast.) Going to school in Waco, I am surrounded by less of a cement jungle than I was a little over a year ago when I spent all my time in the concrete Congo of Dallas. I can be in the country in under 10 minutes and there is nothing more beautiful than watching the sun set over a field of sunflowers or gazing at the dove flying in for one last drink from the watering hole.

My affection for the country began when we purchased some land at Possum Kingdom Lake (2 hours west of Dallas). I really became hooked when my dad took me dove hunting for the first time in fifth grade. The anticipation of the hunt and the waking up early, beating the sunrise in order to be poised and ready in the field is one of the things that gets my blood going. Off and on throughout middle and high school my dad and I would go hunting on the weekends, but it was always a commitment because we had to drive at least 2 hours for decent properties to hunt on. WIth dove season right around the corner I knew that I wanted to try to put together a group of guys to go in on a lease, but finding a place was going to be the toughest part.

After scouring craigslist for weeks (I'm an avid craigslist addict if you haven't noticed. Where else on the web can you find vending machines, power tools and even potential true lovers...that's probably taking it a little too far..) I found Ted. Ted is a retired law enforcement officer who fits every Jeff Foxworthy stereotype of a redneck. Ted has what could be the jackpot in hunting land. I arranged a time to come look at the property and a buddy of mine, Taylor Criswell and I headed north to West. (confusing, I know). Ted was as friendly as could be and was fired up that a bunch of young guys wanted to come hunt on his land. He is as far from anal as can be. His only request was that we don't kill anyone. The lease is 22.8 miles from my doorstep. I could feel it, finally, I was a little closer to being a country boy. As Taylor and I drove off we were giddy with excitement about the opportunities that this new found treasure will offer us. There is a good chance in September that I could be hunting every morning before class and camping out there on the weekends. This is the dream.

To find this place it took diligence and vision. There are a lot of guys who are way more legit hunters than I am, but I took the time to craigslist until the right place came along and when I had the target locked in my sights, I knew that I had no choice but to pull the trigger. Jesus understood what it is like to find something that you have long sought after. In Matthew 13:44 he says "The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." Obviously Jesus isn't talking about a great dove lease here, but he is talking about the kingdom of heaven and the way we should claim His kingdom.

For years I had dreamed about being able to hunt before class and having a place to hang out beyond the city limits; Finally, I found a way to do it. Honestly, I would have paid double what we are being charged for the lease, because the memories we will make out there are going to be priceless. The kingdom of heaven is like that. Being a part of what Jesus is doing is worth everything: putting aside your pride, materialistic goods, relationships, prejudices and your reputation. The treasure in the field is not something you could take to the bank, it abundant life and that is something that will take you into eternity. I was so pumped driving off after giving Ted my deposit for my field, the joy that I had was uncontainable. I probably called 10 people to tell them about what I had found. That is what the kingdom of heaven is like. The Kingdom of Heaven is Christ's church and body of believers on this earth. It's a place where brokenness can be dealt with and healing is a commonality. It is a place where a bunch of not good enoughs become whole. It is life transforming and it is a movement that started with an empty tomb.

On September 1st I will be scanning the morning sky for dove, shotgun in hand and then I'm going to head to class and then back out to the field. I can't wait, but what excites me even more than that is the field with the treasure that I found in Jesus and the eternal fulfillment that comes in building his kingdom in the way that I love God and love others. Get the lease, BUY THE FIELD.

Directionally Challenged

You would think that after spending five plus years in Boy Scouts my sense of direction would have been honed to the point that just by instinct I would be able to tell which direction is north. Unfortunately, this is not the case. By the grace of God I was born in the era of GPS and I am able to overcome my DCD (directionally challenged disorder) by relying on my trusty Garmin. (for those of you who know me closely, you know that I am a sucker for name brand items and that is why I mention that my GPS is a Garmin...I guess it's because name brands are fratty...) Ninety five percent of the time I can navigate to just about anywhere as long as I am linked to one of the 24 orbiting satellites that can steer me turn by turn to the place I need to go. It's that five percent of the time that really kills me...

This past weekend I spend some time down in San Antonio hanging out with some good friends, enjoying the hill country air and the excellent Mexican cuisine that San Antonio offers. As much as I love the open road and the beautiful scenery that this part of Texas offers, I saw a little too much of it yesterday. A good buddy of mine, Austin Roberson and I were heading out to my grandpa's lease about 20 miles outside San Antonio and after we had been on the road for about forty minutes something just didn't feel right. We started seeing signs for Laredo and none of the land marks looked familiar, so we pulled over to the side of the road and looked at the map that my grandpa had supplied us with. Sure enough, we missed the Del Rio exit. We had gone 40 miles in the wrong direction, but after studying the map a little closer I plugged in an intersection near the lease into my GPS and we finally started heading in the right direction.

The funny thing about that experience is that all along I had all of the tools that I needed to find my way. I had a map and I had a GPS, but I thought that I could find the place on my own and it cost me. How many times do I do that in my everyday life? I think that I can do it on my own and end up in a place I never thought I would be. Ultimately, the only way that Austin and I found our way to the lease was by taking a second and figuring out where we were and where we needed to be. There is an acronym that I learned in a wilderness survival class a long time ago that sums up the best way to get "un-lost": STOP. Stop, think, observe, plan. No one sets out on a road trip with the intent of finding themselves hopelessly lost, but it happens. We miss exits, become distracted or misread our maps. Finding the way back to the right road can sometimes be difficult, but ultimately that is the only way we get where we need to go.

The same is true in our spiritual lives as well. When we start doing things that go against who we were created to be and they don't feel quite right, STOP. Pause and think about what lead up to the moment when you started feeling a little off. So often our actions lead to something much deeper and many times "this is really about that." In doing this you will probably feel the depth of your fall and that is ok, we have to collect all of the garbage before we can take it to the curb. Observe your surrounding and analyze what you have been filling your head with (what movies you have been watching, who you have been hanging with, where you have been spending your time) and what you have been giving your heart to. Finally, plan, call a friend and let them know what is going on, enlist a group of guys to support you in your quest to be who God created you to be and ultimately, know that although you may be lost right now and you might not be satisfied with you are becoming, Christ has already found you. He found you when he climbed up on the cross and he can handle all of our brokenness and junk. Jesus loves you just as you are, not as you should be. Be found.

Buy a Vending Machine

In the movie "Big" Tom Hanks plays a young adolescent who makes a wish to become a grown up and all of the sudden, boom, he is an adult. I saw this movie when I was seven or eight and I don't remember many of the details but I do remember that in the apartment that Tom Hanks lived in he had a vending machine. He would throw a baseball at the Pepsi machine and out would drop a ice cold coke. For the past 12 years I have dreamed about having a vending machine of my own and two days ago that dream became a reality.

I just moved into a new house in Waco. I'm taking a few summer classes, building an ark (not really, just an epic lofted bed) and having a blast. There are only 3 guys in the house this summer and on Friday my roommate Kip and I started dreaming about what our vacant main room could be. We decided that the top two priorities were going to be seating and....a vending machine. We hopped on craigslist Friday evening and started emailing people about different sectional couches and vending machines. By Saturday morning we had a 5 piece (1 fold out bed, 2 lazy boys, a corner piece and one other piece) sectional locked in for 300 bones down in college station (whoop..i guess?!) and we had yet to hear back from any of the vending machine sellers. I left to go into work and not too long after arriving at Viteks (my newly acquired employer-it's home of the gut pak and many other BBQ creations) Kip sent me a text filled with exclamation points announcing that he had located a vending machine for 150 bucks in Katy, TX, just down the road from college station. I clocked out, raced home, and quickly called my buddy Trip Hillman to see if I could borrow his trailer. I received the green light and Kip, Will Glasscock and I loaded up in my truck, college station bound.

The sectional was a breeze loading onto the trailer and 2 stops to re-adjust the ratchet straps later we were on our way to Katy. As we rolled into town it started pouring and we were "tarpless" with 5 pieces of a what was soon to become a very soggy couch following us. (I think that the rain ended up cleaning the couch more than anything...we bought it on craigslist, what did you expect?) My GPS took us right up to the door of the veterinary clinic where we were met Freddy to claim our prize.

Our enthusiasm began to fade when we realized that the vending machine weighed 800 pounds. Yes 800 pounds, as in the same weight as an Orca Whale, but ninety minutes later we had the beast shimmied out the door of the clinic and onto our trailer. Unfortunately the most difficult task still awaited us 166 miles away. After backing the trailer within inches of the Estate (my waco house) it took us 3 hours just to get this huge piece of machinery standing upright, but after some innovation, combing my knowledge of tow straps and a combination of simple machines, thank you seventh grade physics, the pepsi machine stood upright. We tried to get it through the door but at 3 AM we were drained and had to wait until the next day where the Delta Tau Deltas bailed us out and with 5 guys and an appliance dolly, the Eagle landed in the corner of our man pad.

I tell this story because it is ridiculous and buying a vending machine is something you can only do in college. When else in life will I buy a sectional couch and vending machine in the same weekend for 450 dollars? Life presents us with opportunities all the time and sometimes they seem crazy, but those are often the best ones to take. "...make the most of every moment and every encounter. When you speak the word, speak it gracefully (as if seasoned with salt), so that you will know how to respond rightly to everyone." (Col. 4:3).

Summer is winding down and you have probably met some new people over the past few months and in the months to come with a new semester ahead there will definitely be new people and new opportunities to take. Make the most of every moment. Invest deeply in your roommates, friends, family, fraternity brothers, teammates and co-workers and don't be afraid to ask tough questions. Be courageous and step out in faith when there are moments that are seemingly insignificant and talk about things that are significant beyond the everyday BS where most of stay 90 percent of the time. Seasoned with salt...we are the salt of the earth. Salt preserves or cares for and enriches, so do the same in your community wherever you are, making the most of every opportunity and if you are ever in Waco, bring your quarters. There is a vending machine in my living room.

P.S.
If you are one of my roommates, this was supposed to be a surprise, but since you made it all the way through the blogg, good for you. We own a vending machine.

Encouragement from Eminem and Freedom in Confession

I have been back from camp for a full 7 days now and I have been shocked by how easy it has been to slip back into my same sin struggles. I mentioned this in an early post, but as the week progressed I realized that I couldn't deal with my problems alone. One of the biggest areas that this comes into play for me is with lust. If you didn't grow up in the laptop generation or if you are a chick you probably can't relate to my struggle, but if you are in the same boat as I am then you know how unbelievably easy it is to wander while online. I'm checking my email, on facebook or youtubing and all of the sudden my wicked heart kicks into gear and I find myself somewhere online where the kingdom of God is not near, a place where I really don't want to be, but for some reason I consistently go back to. With this sin struggle I so often play the, "this is the last time" game, I throw down the "it won't be like this tomorrow" card and quite frankly on my own strength it is never the last time and it always happens tomorrow.

I went camping this past weekend and on the way out to the Ranch I just didn't feel like myself. The baggage of my sin was weighing me down and keeping from fully enjoying the moment so I leveled with one of my good friends, Robert Boone and just told him what was up. Together we worked through my struggle with maintaining my integrity while online. As I formed the words in my head to start that conversation my heart raced and even though we are really good friends and go way back it was still scary and humbling, but after we worked through things the anxious feelings were replaced by peace that can only be found in confessing your struggles. James 5:16 says "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."

God is a God of restoration and wants to restore us to our full potential, but he cannot do his work in us if we keep our struggles bottled up inside. Find someone and confess your struggles to them no matter how dark or how scared you are. Ultimately our identity is in what God says we are worth and he says we are worth dying for. That's why he sent his son to this earth to hang on the cross for us. Maybe you are in the same boat as me and you need accountability and encouragement to maintain your integrity while you are online, maybe you error toward eating less than you should and when you compare yourself to others you want to stop eating, maybe you are in a relationship that is abusive or you have this unbearable guilt because you gave your purity away or maybe you feel like life has lost its purpose. Whatever it is God can handle it and he understands. Find someone to share your sin with. If not its going to be like that screeching sound coming from your engine. You try to drown it out with your stereo, but deep down you know something is wrong. Whatever it is, pull over, open up the hood and find someone to confess your struggle with. We are all broken people and need the love, support and accountability of others. As brothers and sisters in Christ we are called to bear one another's burdens and to take a stand, so in the words of Eminem

"I'm not afraid to take a stand
Everybody come take my hand
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just let you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road"

"And I just can't keep living this way
So starting today, I'm breaking out of this cage
I'm standing up, Imma face my demons
I'm manning up, Imma hold my ground
I've had enough, now I'm so fed up
Time to put my life back together right now"

If you've never listened to secular music those lyrics are from Eminem. He's not a worship leader, but he speaks prophetically when he challenged us to walk the road together and to take stand, so break out of your cage, tear down the walls. Confess and find freedom.