Christmas Eve Post

As I sat in church this Christmas Eve I couldn’t but help think how the time has flown. It seemed like just yesterday I was five years younger and three inches shorter sitting in the same pew, yet here I am now. A lot has happened in the past few days, but if there is one thing I’ve learned in the best six years of my life (my life as a Christian) it is that God is in control. This is the God that sent His son to our earth. The God of all peoples, whether you are a carpenter, astrologers, or poor shepherds, God is here for all of us. I might not know where I am headed but I do know that God is leading me every step of the way and I thank Him for that. I’ve lost a lot, but I’ve never lost faith or hope in God, in both of those I find my strength to get through the trials of life. As I reflect this Christmas I realize that while times may be tough, I’ve never had it so good and that is because it is times like these that I find strength in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now all the sentiments aside I have some food and cookies to munch on, so I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and safe travels.

Forgiven

You know those moments when God speaks to your heart loud and clear? Well I just had one of those. I went with my dad to his weekly Bible study that works with kids in prison. These kids have done some serious stuff, but a few of them show up for our weekly worship. I’ve been feeling pretty down lately (if you couldn’t tell by my earlier posts) so I didn’t really want to go tonight, but I went anyways. Boy am I glad I did. We watched The Nativity Story (great movie if you’ve never seen it) and something really struck me. One scene that really jumped out to me was when the shepherd reached out to touch Jesus, but pulled his hand back because he felt he was unworthy. Mary held Jesus out and said that He came for everyone, and then the shepherd reached his hand back towards Jesus while holding back tears. I didn’t show it but I was nearly in tears as well at that point. For the past six months I’ve been blaming myself for something I never did, for something out of my control. Through that I forgot what God’s grace felt like, I forgot that I was forgiven. I can imagine the devil in hell scheming “If sin won’t get Tay Tay let’s crush him emotionally!” You know what, I gave in to that tactic. I shot myself in the foot by telling myself that I am not worthy of God’s love. Yet I forget that this message of love oozes out of every page of the Bible. I forgot that the Bible is literally God’s love letter to man. I forgot that even if I were the last person on earth Jesus still would have died on the cross. It’s not about what I did or did not do, all that really matters is that no matter what we are forgiven by God. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” I’m forgiven no matter what, the life I live is one of freedom not slavery to guilt. I thank God for His abounding love and grace that He showed me patience and brought me to the detention center tonight, for I found Jesus.

Update

I added a new feature to the blog. Instead of just one page, there are now two (I may add more as I see fit). For those who don't know the story of how my blog came to be simply click the "story" page on the right.

Change

I wrote a post a while back, it must have been in July or August, about my summer reading book Tattoos on the Heart. I wrote about change, and how it all starts with you deciding enough is enough. Well I guess God wasn’t satisfied with me simply writing about it, so He let me learn the lesson myself. I’ve been in a bad way for the past couple months. I suffered a bad a year ago (look at my posts in August 2010) and blamed myself for it. Don’t ask me why, but I felt responsible. The thing is, when I look at my posts I see them brimming with hope, although I suffered I still had hope and trust founded in God. It was only in the past six months that I started to blame myself for what happened. The devil will use anything he can against us, but is favorite tool is ourselves. I was working against myself here, and I ended up allowing myself to take a time out while life began to pass me by. But change starts within us, it doesn’t begin outside and work its magic. Instead we have to initiate it. Now this can be hard, but God is there and He is willing to give us the strength. I was never at fault for what happened, but for some reason I allowed myself to be. Now if I want my life to improve, and move on then I need to initiate it because nothing is going to change if I don’t put the work in. If there’s one regret I have its allowing the devil to fool me into believing something that isn’t worth the time of day, but the good news is that I have plenty of my life to live from here on in freedom founded in my savior Jesus Christ.

This Christmas

Well it’s almost Christmas and I have yet to write a Christmas post. Instead of the whole flowery post about joy and peace, I’m going to write about something very personal (in an impersonal way). Lately a lot of very bad things have been happening to me, I won’t say what, but I will say that they have caused me to lose sight of the goodness in my life and the grace of God. I’ve lost a lot of faith over the past couple years and I’ve let the devil get the best of me. I can imagine him with his demons saying, “Well if we can’t cause Tay Tay to sin his way out of God’s grace maybe we can rock his world a bit and cause him to lose faith.” Sadly it seems he has won in part; I’ve lost faith in God and in myself. When Jesus was born things were pretty hectic. His mother was accused of adultery, his father nearly left him before his birth, and King Herod wanted him killed. All of that was thrust upon a helpless baby (albeit he was God, but still God’s power was confined in the abilities of a baby), the future of our world hanging on a few decisions. But he made it out ok, better than ok as that baby grew up to be a man who died to save us from our sins. Life can be a lot like that first Christmas: hectic, dark, or terrifying. Yet we can’t let that run our life, we can’t let the devil win. This Christmas remember this: while your life may be incredibly difficult, God can do miracles through the bleakest situations and turn things around. The way things were going it didn’t look good for God’s master plan to save the human race, but by His grace things turned around and evil was defeated.

Did He Just Say That?

I was engaged in a discussion about religion with some friends a few days ago and an interesting (and somewhat paradoxical statement) was made. One of my friends claims to be very religious (which I don’t doubt, he lives out his faith well) but at the same time said you can’t trust the Bible, only what the Catholic Church teaches. This came about because I said a teaching of the Catholic Church was not found in the Bible, and he said you can’t always trust what the Bible says as truth. I can rehash my statement about the validity of the Bible, but I already posted on that. I stand by my opinion; we have to assume that the Bible is fully valid as it is God’s word. You can call me a “Bible thumper” or “fundamentalist” or even crazy (I deny the first one though, I don’t think someone who is crazy can have a Holy Cross education). Instead I’ll pose a question: where did the teachings of the church come from? Well I assume that they are founded in the Bible. So you might as well say I love Italian food, but I hate pasta, pizza, chicken, fish, and so on. It’s a backwards statement to make. This is the problem with our modern world today, many hide behind scientific understanding as a reason to disprove the Bible. Yet my friends also acknowledge the divinity of Jesus. Now, my question is this, how can God be able to produce one miracle in the New Testament, yet be handcuffed throughout the Old Testament. Isn’t that what faith is about, believing in the seemingly impossible? How can I be expected to worship a God that can’t do anything? If God is as all-powerful as my friends claim, shouldn’t He be able to produce miracles at ease? That said I firmly stand by my belief that the Bible is supreme, it writes of an all-powerful God and backs it up with evidence of His ability. You can’t claim to believe in the miraculous if you deny the existence of miracles. Is this post harsh?

Never Give Up

Well finals are finally over (pun not intended, if that counts as a pun), and now I find myself with plenty of time to write. While I am tempted to take every day of the next five weeks off, I think it best to expend some of my already depleted mental energy into blogging. This post is not applicable anymore (as I no longer face great adversity) but any time you need a word of encouragement it is good. The single verse that got me through the past two weeks (heck even the past four months) is 2 Corinthians 4: 8-9, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” Here Paul is talking about how although his life seemingly falls apart, with God he can still stand strong. The past four months have been grueling at times; the past two weeks have been downright exhausting. There have been moments when I just want to give up and go to bed, hoping all the while that I would wake up in the safety of my own home. But life doesn’t work that way, we don’t get timeouts or breaks, instead we just have to keep on going. And that sounds really harsh doesn’t it? Here’s the thing though, we are not alone in our struggles. God is there with us every step of the way feeding us His strength and love so that we may keep going. Sure life can seem impossible; there can be mountains that we just cannot climb. But God is never failing and will always be there to pick us up when we desperately need it. Next time you find yourself ready to give up remember this: you always have that strength to take the next step forward and God is always going to be there to give it to you.