Cogitating on Life

Becoming a Man of Integrity: Loving God More Than Anything or Anyone Else

2009-02-03T23:14:00.004-05:00

Personal Lesson #2 from the movie Fireproof

Well, I promised a continuation of this series, so here goes. I apologize in advance if I'm too open or too honest in this post, I really don't know how to write unless I write what's in my heart. I won't be graphic about anything, just honest. Some of you may learn things about me that you didn't know before...other's already know a lot about the things I struggle with. Regardless, I hope you will choose to look beyond the things I struggle with and continue to see the person who continues to want to be your friend but who must first be the kind of man God is calling him to be regardless of the consequences. With that said, let me share with you the second lesson I learned from watching the movie Fireproof.

One of the things the movie deals with is the issue of addiction to pornography. It's done in a very tasteful and non-graphic way, but also a very powerful way at the same time. This is a topic that Christians all too often try to pretend doesn't exist; or at least that it is never a struggle for a Christian...or at least, not someone in their church, etc. It's one of those things that's difficult to talk about or deal with so we simply ignore it and hope that it will go away. The problem with that is, we have created a church environment where people who do struggle with these kinds of issues simply can't get any help because they assume since no one talks about it no one struggles with it except them and therefore it's something that no help is available for. Honestly, I don't know what the answer is for dealing with this more effectively in the church...but I do know what happens when you feel like the church can't help you.

The devil probably has no greater weapon with which to fight people than discouragement, and there's nothing that makes a person feel more discouraged than to believe that they are the only person around struggling with a particular issue and that the church either can't help them or isn't interested in helping them. One of the reasons I choose several years ago to start speaking out publicly about some of my own struggles is because I finally realized that I wasn't the only person out there who struggled and that other people need just what I needed when I thought I was struggling alone: someone to tell them they aren't alone. It's amazing what just that can do for a person. When discouragement is added to a feeling of isolation and aloneness, it's easy to give up and just let despair overwhelm you. I figured if my being open and talking about struggles in my life that I'd just as soon most people never knew about would help someone else find a way to conquer their own struggles and find victory, then it would be worth any personal shame or pain I had to endure in the process. I've second-guessed that decision a million times, just as I'll second-guess this post a million times as soon as I've posted it. Right or wrong, I only share these struggles with the hope that someone else out there facing similar battles in their own life will feel a little less alone and will realize if there's hope for me then there is hope for them also. If it weren't for that single goal, I'd be just as happy to never openly talk about my struggles again.

Anyone who knew me as a child or through my teen years, or even into my twenties, knows that I was painfully shy; often to the point where it was difficult for me to function in any kind of a normal way around people. If you talked to the people I graduated High School with, they could all tell you that I rarely said anything except in response to a question or comment by someone else directed to me. I just never initiated much of anything in the way of conversation or interaction with anyone. The reason was, I felt so insignificant and worthless that I just assumed no one wanted to hear from me and that most people would be relieved if I would just disappear. I spent a good deal of my childhood and youth wishing I could do just that: disappear. I felt like if ever there was a person born who didn't deserve to be on the planet or who God couldn't possibly love, it had to be me. I could always find a way for God to love everyone else, but I never could find a way that God could possibly love me. There are many factors that played into it, but the bottom line is, the devil told me a lie about myself and I choose to believe that lie. So I was, quite honestly, in my late twenties before I ever started to truly realize that God might really love me after all.

Oh, I heard all my life that God loved me and I even tried to believe it; but I never really did. It's not that I didn't want to be a Christian or even try to be a Christian many times; I just couldn't quite get beyond feeling like God didn't love me. More often than not, I believed that God, in fact, hated me and that so much of the struggle in my life that I couldn't seem to find a reason for must be God's punishment directed at me because He did hate me so much. Now, I realize that this is going to sound over the top to many of you...particularly those who know I was raised in church and in a good Christian home...but in a very real sense, perception is reality for a person, and my perception for a good part of my life was that God hated me and that was that.

You see, along with hearing that God loved everyone, I also "heard" that God hated people who were "gay." You will notice I put the word heard in quotes; that is because I don't know that I ever really heard someone say those words verbally, I just grew up believing that is how everyone felt and that it was true. The problem was, no matter how hard I tried to deny it or get away from it, I kept struggling with same-sex attractions. It wasn't something I consciously cultivated or wanted in my life, it was just there. I couldn't remember a time it wasn't there and I assumed there would never be a time it went away. And with that struggle, I assumed God hated me and had abandoned me. Another thing I "heard" whether it was said or not, was that being "gay" meant that you had so displeased God that He had given up on you and there was no hope for you. After awhile, I did the only thing that seemed reasonable to me at the time: I hated God back. From my perspective, I didn't choose to have these feelings and yet I had them and if that meant God hated me, why would I not hate Him in return? What kind of God would give me feelings like this and then hate me for it without my having ever chosen to feel this way? I now know that God didn't hate me at all...that it was just the devil telling me all these things; the devil who brought all these false ideas into my head causing me to think I was "gay" and that I was therefore hopeless and hated by God, etc. But it took me many years to reach that understanding about God and, in the meantime, I developed many wrong ideas about God and the church and many bad habits and actions and attitudes that I'm still struggling to overcome in many ways.

I guess that's why the song I mentioned in my last post meant so much to me. I often feel frustrated with the slowness of the recovery process and begin to feel anxious and upset that things aren't turning out the way I had hoped. Sometimes it seems that all I do is wait and wait and wait some more and see so little in the way of results. But I know that the answer isn't found in giving up. If I have to wait the rest of my life here on earth and never see any big changes in how I feel or where the circumstances of my life find me, then I will learn to wait...and I will learn to worship and serve and praise God while I wait; whether I feel like it or not!

Sorry for such a long bit of background, but I feel like it's important to who I am and the goals I'm trying to set for my future. Forgive me if any of it was unnecessary or laborious.

Needless to say, all of those wrong beliefs I had for so many years led me to incorporate a lot of other wrong things into my life. I do not make excuses for any of these things because I am well aware that I actively chose to do many things that caused all of my struggles to be much worse and, therefore, much more difficult to break free from than they should have been. It is these things that I must defeat in my life in order to become a man of integrity and, with God's help, I mean to destroy every one of them no matter how long it takes or how drastic the measure God's asks me to take in order to accomplish their defeat.

In Fireproof there is a scene where Caleb is struggling with whether to give in once again to his pornography addiction and he asks a question something along the lines of "why does this all have to be so hard?" Then, in a somewhat humorous scene, we find Caleb busting his computer and monitor to bits with a baseball bat. What that said to me was, you need to take whatever action, no matter how drastic it may seem to yourself or to others, in order to cut out of your life any and everything that could cause you to fall back into sin. This doesn't usually mean you have to destroy your computer, etc...but if it does mean that and God does ask that of me, I want to make sure I'm willing to do whatever it takes. Even though it seems like I couldn't live without a computer at this point in my life, I'm guessing I probably could if I absolutely had to.

What it does mean for me at this point is making sure I have strong accountability in any and all areas of weakness. That I don't try to pretend I'm strong enough to make it on my own all the time and that I do whatever I have to do to ensure my spiritual success. It means I currently use a program called Covenant Eyes on my computer and that I have three accountability partners (with plans to add one or two more at least) who can view all of my online activity at any time they choose. It also means that I'm in the process of evaluating everything I read, listen to or watch...and I'm asking God to show me what needs to change. At this point, I don't even know what all God may ask of me in these areas and, frankly, it scares me somewhat because I wonder how drastic God may ask me to be in certain areas of my life. But I've decided that I have to do whatever God asks. Maybe it will seem drastic to me in some cases now, but I have a feeling it won't seem that drastic at all when I make it to eternity and look back and see things from a different point of view.

In Fireproof, after Caleb destroys his computer, there is a scene in which you see a vase full of roses sitting on the table where the computer used to sit and a note to his wife that reads: "I love you more." For me, that is the point of those long, rambling post. Maybe it doesn't even make much sense...I don't know. I do know that however feeble, it has been my attempt to leave a note for God that says "I love you more." I want to say here and now that I will be a man of integrity in every aspect of my life...whatever it takes. And I will love God more than anything or anyone else, no matter what. My thanks to all of you out there who pray for me. I ask only that you will continue to pray and never let me forget my note to God.

Next in this series: Being a Man of Godly Influence

Until next time...

-Steven

Serving While Waiting

2009-01-31T22:14:00.007-05:00

Personal Lesson #1 from the movie Fireproof

As my facebook friends know, I watched the movie Fireproof last night and loved it. I have to confess, though I figured I would like it in general, I wasn't sure it would have much application to my life personally since it has been advertised so heavily as a "marriage" movie and I'm not, nor have I ever been, married. As it turns out, it's so much more than that. I think just about anyone could watch this movie and find personal application regardless of whether you're married or single, have a "perfect" marriage or feel stuck in a marriage you wish you could get out of. I can't think of enough good things to say about this movie. It has the potential to be life-changing on so many levels and I came away from watching it with a strong desire to make changes in my own life. Since I can't possibly cover everything that's been running through my mind since seeing the movie in a single post, I'm planning to do a series of posts about the personal lessons I learned from the movie and how I'm going to take those lesson and actively allow them to change my life in the areas where it needs to change.

Faith = Serving While Waiting
The first lesson for me involves a new understanding of what faith really is. Faith is one of those terms that seem to have endless definitions but until you find one that is personal and makes sense to you it is likely that you will find faith to be a concept more than a reality in your life. For too long I've allowed faith to be a concept but struggled to appropriate it for myself in a way that makes my life different. Mid-way through the movie there is a series of scenes set to a song by John Waller called While I'm Waiting. For me, that was one of the most powerful points in the movie. For the first time in a long time I realized that one of the reasons my Christian journey can be described as mediocre at best is because I've never really lived a life of such total surrender and obedience to God that I choose to serve Him and do the right thing no matter what. It's time for that to change.

"While I’m waiting I will serve You
While I’m waiting I will worship
While I’m waiting I will not faint
I’ll be running the race
Even while I wait"
(from the song While I'm Waiting by John Waller; you can watch a music video of the song here: While I'm Waiting)

To one degree or another, I've nearly always wanted to live right and be the kind of person I thought God wanted me to be, but I seem to have made a life for myself that is better characterized by doubt and hesitation than it is by faith and unfailing obedience. Instead of serving while I'm waiting, I've all too often been waiting to serve. It's not that I've meant necessarily to be unfaithful or less than committed in my relationship with God, but I've allowed way too many things to come between myself and God and hinder me from walking in complete faith and surrender to God in every area of my life.

You see, there are things about my life that I don't particularly like. Struggles I've been given that I never chose for myself and wished a million times over I never had. I can't count the number of times I've found myself wondering "Why couldn't my life just have been normal? Why couldn't I be more like other guys I know? Why did God allow ME to struggle with THIS?!?" Sometimes I feel like I'd give just about anything if I could have just had a "normal" life. Why am I 36 and single when almost everyone I know has been married for years by the time they reach my age? Why am I still struggling to begin to figure out how to live life with God as He intended for me too when so many others seem to have figured this out years ago? Why couldn't I have just had "normal" struggles, grown up to be a normal guy who got married, had kids, found a place to serve in my local church and learned twenty years ago to live a life surrendered to God without any hesitation in my walk?

As one might imagine, there's a lot wrapped up into why none of those things happened, but the hesitation in my step and failure to trust God unconditionally can only be chalked up to my own unbelief. Somewhere along the line I bought into the line that it would be easier to surrender "tomorrow;" to trust God next week, next year, after I graduated from High School, College...as an adult... At every stage I found there was always another barrier to keep me from total surrender and complete faith. Oh, there were times when I thought I had gotten to that place; times when I did the best I knew how to serve God and walk in faith, but I always allowed the doubts to crowd out my faith eventually until I found myself once again taking more steps backward than forward.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe faith is the absence of doubt. What I do believe is that faith is choosing to serve God and be obedient in spite of the doubt! That's where I've failed more often than I've succeeded. For too long I've tried to wrap my lack of obedience in all sorts of attractive (to me) wrapping and tied it all up with a pretty bow, believing that all my excuses and all my "putting off till tomorrow instead of getting serious about it today" attitudes were just fine...it didn't matter that much because, after all, I meant well and isn't that all that matters to God? Now I'm beginning to realize that I am where I am in life not because of the struggles I've had in life or because God has expected too much of me or been unfair to me by not allowing me to be "normal" in all the ways I long to be normal but because I simply haven't been willing to serve while I wait.

I figured, after all I've been through in the struggles I've faced God owes me something. So when that relationship with someone I wanted to turn out a certain way ends up not developing at all or develops in a way that's totally different than what I imaged or wanted it to be, I've been quick to blame God instead of surrendering to Him. I come up with all these grand ideas about my life and how things would be so much better "if only." The problem is, those "if onlys" rarely happen the way I would like them to. I find myself trying to cut deals with God: "Surely You can see that choice B is better than choice C, right God?" All the while He is patiently waiting for me to finally realize that He has a plan "A" that is so much better than any of the choices I've created for myself. It's time for me to give up all the plans I have and start letting God work out His plan in my life; whether I understand that plan or not.

Waiting is painful. We live in an age where everything is moving fast and nearly anything we can want or imagine is available to us almost instantly and when it's not we think something is seriously wrong. So when God fails to jump into my life, look at the map I've drawn up for Him about how my life should work from now on and instantly make everything right in my life I find myself wondering if He cares at all. For too long I've been living a life monopolized by my expectations of God instead of asking what His expectations are of me. It's time for that to change.

Do I expect that tomorrow I'll find my struggle with doubt to just evaporate because I watched a good movie and heard a good song that spoke to my heart? No. Most likely things will be tougher than ever because the devil will read this blog too and he'll make sure that the road ahead isn't easy. But it's time for me to believe that God reads my heart and that He has a better way for me, whether I see it or not. It's time for me to serve while I wait. And if I wait and wait and wait and nothing seems to change, just keep serving and worshiping; choosing to be obedient whether I feel like it or not. To all who read this, I ask for your prayers that this will be the start of a new life of faith for me and not just a blog post I write and then forget a soon as I wake up tomorrow.

Next in this series of posts: Becoming a Man of Integrity: Loving God More Than Anything or Anyone Else

Until next time...

-Steven

New Website Coming Soon!

2009-01-29T23:40:00.002-05:00

I have decided to move all my blogging, etc, to my own website in the near future: http://www.stevenmatlock.com/ You won't find anything exciting there yet..but hopefully it won't take me too long to get it up and running. I'll let everyone know when the site goes live. :-)

Look Who's Blogging Again!

2009-01-11T22:42:00.003-05:00

Well, perhaps it’s time for me to write a new blog. May 8th seems like a long time ago; a lot has happened since then. Too much, in fact, for me to blog about in one sitting. But I’ll start with a brief update and the promise to at least try to blog a little more consistently in the future. Please note that the key word in the preceding sentence is “try.” :-) I have tried to rearrange my schedule going forward so that hopefully I’ll have at least a little time to pursue things other than work and school. Things really started to catch up with me by the end of last semester and I felt like I was barely hanging on and hoping it would all be over soon. I suppose life is like that for all of us at times, but I have waited this long to finish my degree so what’s another semester or two. Which leads me to a quick update of my progress in that regard.

I have now completed a total of 100 hours of the 120 I need to complete my undergraduate degree. However, since I need a number of specific courses in order to complete all the degree requirements, I’m guessing I’m going to need more like 130 hours or so. Either way, 100 hours behind me seems like a significant milestone and I’m happy that I’ve made it this far.

I also have my first official certification with the American Association of Christian Counselors. I’ve successfully completed the requirements for certification in their Caring for People God’s Way program. Eventually I would like to complete the certification programs for counseling teens and children as well.

Also since I last posted a blog, I started a new job. After 13 months of unemployment, I finally found work as a book designer for Author Solutions in Bloomington. So, if I had to come up with an excuse for why I haven’t blogged for so long it’s because things have changed so much since I started the new job, I just haven’t had the time. Well, I haven’t taken the time anyway. :-)

Last semester was the first time I have ever tried to work full time and go to school full time simultaneously. I’m guessing that had a lot to do with why I felt so stressed by the end of the term. Perhaps I’m lazy, but I decided that I’d really rather take it a little slower and hopefully be able to enjoy the process a bit more. I could probably keep up the stressful pace long enough to complete my degree, but the minute I stopped enjoying the classes and just started hoping they would end I decided that wasn’t the kind of outcome I was aiming for. So, instead of 12 hours this semester, I’m only taking 9 and I’ve staggered the classes so that I only have about a seven week period where I’ll be taking more than one class at the same time. I’m hoping this pace will be relaxed enough to not only allow me to enjoy my classes more, but also allow me to focus on some other projects I’d like to work on this year (more on some of those later).

So, with that brief update, it can no longer be said that I haven’t blogged for 8 months and 3 days. The count begins again! :-)

PS – For all my friends who used to be listed here in my list of blogs, etc, I apologize that the list isn’t up currently. When I changed the look of my blog I ended up overwriting the code that would have been those lists. Anyway, I will try to get them all added back soon.

In Christ Alone

2008-05-08T10:08:00.002-04:00

The following is one of my favorite songs. I particularly like the version Steve Green has on his album, Always - Songs of Worship. The video at the end of this post isn't Steve Green's verison...unfortunately, I haven't been able to find his version for posting...but it's still beautifully done, with scenes from the movie Passion of the Christ.

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My comforter, my all in all
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
'Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the pow'r of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
'Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand

Written by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty
© 2001 Thankyou Music

Update

2008-05-07T23:37:00.002-04:00

I know it has been forever since I posted anything. Hopefully I'll have a new post up before long. This is the last week of classes for me until Fall, so I should have a little more breathing room after this week. I've had a lot on my mind recently that I want to write about; just haven't had the time to actually sit down and write it.

As for school, I have already finished up all the assignments for my philosophy class. I have about 40 pages of reading left to do for psychology and an exam to take by the end of this week. Then I can take a break from school for a few weeks! Not sure what my final grade will be in philosophy...it's pretty borderline between an A and a B so I'll just have to wait for the final grades to post. The psychology grade is a little more straightforward, so as long as I get at least a 44 on the final exam I will have an A in that class. I hope I can get a 44! :-) I admit that I will be a little disappointed if I don't get an A in philosophy also because that will ruin my 4.0...but I suppose it's inevitable that it will be ruined at some point along the way anyway. Maybe it would be better to have it happen now and then I can relax a little in the future and not be so anxious about final grades. :-) Whatever happens, I do look forward to some time off this summer.

I'm still not sure what is going to happen with my financial aid for the next school year. I'm hoping everything will work out so that I can go back full-time in the fall. But if I have to pay most of the tuition out of pocket, there's no way I can afford full-time. For those of you who don't already know, I've been out of work for almost a year now. When I lost my job I decided to withdraw the money I had in my retirement account so that I could pay off most of my debt and buy a used car so that I wouldn't have a car payment anymore. That money did help me pay off my debt, but it also is what is potentially going to hurt my financial aid for next year. Since it looks like I made over $50,000 last year, they are expecting me to be able to pay most of the tuition on my own. The problem is, I used that money to pay off debts, buy a car, and to live on for the past year...there's nothing left of it to pay school tuition.

Well, that's a brief update on things. Whatever happens, God is definetly helping me and teaching me to trust Him more and more with all the things I can't control. It seems crazy that I would ever have been hesitant to trust Him in the past, but sadly I have been. Why is it that we keep trying to control everything ourselves when we know from past experience that it never works? Somehow I keep thinking that if I just try a little harder, next time I'll be able to work things out on my own. I've asked God to forgive me for doing that and am daily asking Him to help me understand that I MUST surrender all these things to Him. I may be black and blue by the time I finally get that concept beat into my thick head, but whatever it takes to finally rely on God and God alone will be worth it. Interestingly enough, I'm finding that once I shut up and get out of the way, God doesn't come at me with a club...just a gentle reminder that He loves me and has a plan for my life if I'll surrrender and allow Him to work it out the way it's meant to be. Thank God for grace!

Dying to Live

2008-03-22T21:27:00.001-04:00

The following is something I wrote for Easter a couple of years ago. I decided to post it again here for those who might not have read it before.

One of my favorite quotes about the cross comes from A.W. Tozer. He wrote:

The spiritual giants of old would not take their religion the easy way nor offer unto God that which cost them nothing. They sought not comfort but holiness, and the pages of history are still wet with their blood and their tears.

Though the cross of Christ has been beautified by the poet and the artist, the avid seeker after God is likely to find it the same savage implement of destruction it was in the days of old. The way of the cross is still the pain-wracked path to spiritual power and fruitfulness.

So do not seek to hide from it. Do not accept an easy way. Do not allow yourself to be patted to sleep in a comfortable church, void of power and barren of fruit. Do not paint the cross nor deck it with flowers. Take it for what it is, as it is, and you will find it the rugged way to death and life. Let it slay you utterly. Seek God. Seek to be holy and fear none of those things which you will suffer.

Certainly we wish to celebrate the empty tomb on this Resurrection Sunday, but I wonder if perhaps the greatest folly of modern-day Christianity is that, too often, we look to the empty tomb without first pausing to contemplate the rugged ugliness of the cross. It seems there is a lot of belief in a cheap grace these days. It’s true that grace is free to all who seek it, but it cost our Savior more than our finite minds could even begin to comprehend.

The danger of looking to grace without understanding what it cost is that we too easily take it for granted. The beauty of grace is that it is free, but the power of grace rests upon the fact that its cost can not be measured by any human calculation. However, to fail to reflect on what it cost our Savior, is to fail to understand the nature of our fallen condition and utter sinfulness prior to grace being poured into our lives. When we fail to understand the nature of our prior condition or truly understand that our only hope lies in a grace that we can never earn, we risk living a shallow Christian life at best. We will never know the full importance of forsaking sin until we first understand the pain our sin brings to heart of God.

We must not fail to wholly embrace our personal cross and allow it to slay us completely. We must allow it to drive out anything and everything that would keep us from being entirely surrendered to God and to His leadership in our lives. The cross we must endure will be harsh and ugly and painful; dying is never easy or enjoyable, but if we embrace the cross and remain there until we have fully died, we will finally live. The cross does not last forever. The dawn of resurrection will come to all who choose to embrace it.

Those who have already allowed the cross to slay them can rejoice on this Resurrection Sunday in a way that others can only envision from a distance. Those who have not yet fully embraced the cross need not despair, for you may choose to embrace it even now and let death on the cross lead you to a glorious resurrection of new life; a life entirely surrendered to God. Jesus paid the price and grace is free, but each of us must personally choose to die to sin so that we may live forever with Him. If you do not know Him as your personal Savior, what better day than this to get acquainted with Him? Christ the Lord is risen! And because He lives, we may live also.

School News

2008-03-18T10:28:00.003-04:00

I have officially decided to change my major. When I started taking classes through Liberty University's distance learning program last year, I enrolled as a psychology major. As I began taking various courses, I've found that I enjoyed the theology and philosophy classes as much as, if not more than, the psychology classes. I began contemplating various scenarios in which I might pursue both my interest in counseling and my new-found love of theology and philosophy. I was looking into the possibility of a double major, etc. Liberty solved the problem for me by adding a brand new degree program: Bachelor of Science in Religion - Biblical Counseling Specialization.

OK...so they didn't add the program just for me... In fact, I had no idea they were going to add it until I just happened to stumble across it on their website one day. But I'm pretty excited about it. I'm still not sure what direction I want to head in ultimately (grad school), but my interests are in counseling and teaching. I had thought originally that I would probably go for a MA in Marriage & Family Therapy and focus primarily on counseling. However, with my new-found love of theology I must confess that Liberty's Master of Divinity in Theology & Apologetics is looking pretty good to me at the moment.

Either way, I don't plan to give up my interest in counseling. I've already got a pretty solid background in psychology and I'm also currently working through a program with AACC called, Caring for People God's Way (it's designed to help lay-people in the church become equipped to help counsel others). I think most teachers are placed in the unique position of also serving as counselor for their students in many instances, so I plan to include counseling as a continued part of my studies regardless of which direction I decide to take when it comes time for grad school.

On a less positive note, there is some chance that I may have a more difficult time getting financial aid for the 2008-09 school year than I have in the past. It's a long story. In a nutshell, when I lost my job last May I withdrew the money I had in my retirement fund to pay off the majority of my debts, buy a used car so I would no longer have a monthly car payment to worry about, and to have money to survive on until I find another job. Finding another job has taken a lot longer than I anticipated! But the point is, since I used the majority of my money to pay off debts, I no longer have that money on hand. The problem arises from the fact that when I file my tax return for 2007 it's going to look like I made a huge amount of money last year! Besides throwing me into a higher tax bracket and making me have to pay huge amounts to the government in taxes, it could end up hurting my financial aid application by making it appear that I should have plenty of money to pay for classes myself when in fact I don't.

I'm hoping that it won't end up hurting me as much as I fear it will. Either way, I would ask you all to join me in praying that God's will be done and that I will have the grace to accept whatever happens with the knowledge that God isn't surprised by it even if it's a big disappointment to me. Maybe I'm weird, but I'm really excited about my studies and if I don't get the financial aid I need for next school year it will be all I can do probably to take any classes at all. I definitely wouldn't be able to afford to take a full class load. I'm still hoping things will work out so that I can, but I'm also trying to prepare myself for the possibility that it might not happen.

At the same time, I do want to find and follow God's leading. If He knows that I need to slow down on the school work for a time so that I can focus on something else He wants me to focus on then I want to be open to that and accept it without complaining. From my viewpoint, finishing my undergrad degree as quickly as possible so I can move on to grad school seems like the best thing, but God knows better than I what I need. So, help me pray that I will know and gladly follow God's leadership no matter what happens.

Hungering for God

2008-03-12T18:32:00.001-04:00

Over the past couple of months I seem to have entered a sort of spiritual crisis time in my life. Where once before, going to church and going through the motions of being a Christian seemed “good enough” to me, it no longer seems any good at all. Oh, I suppose it’s better to go through the motions and thereby maintain some proximity to Christianity than to abandon it altogether and not even try, but just going through the motions seems so shallow to me now. Several things have contributed to my growing sense of urgency to really know God rather than simply know about God and go through the motions of serving Him.

First of all, my age is a contributing factor. No, I don’t really think of 35 as being necessarily old, but when I look back on my life and realize that I’ve always had the opportunity to really know and serve God but have failed to take advantage of those opportunities, it seems like a lot of wasted years. If I can manage to really know and serve God from this point forward, in another 35 years I’ll be seventy and it is somewhat discouraging to me to think that by the time I reach 70 I will only have really served God with half of my life. At the same time, I know that God’s Word promises that He can and will restore the years “the locust have eaten” so I’m working on my faith to believe that He can take the next 35 years of my life and make them double what they would have been without Him as director.

Another contributing factor has been thoughts of death. Not my own pending death really, just death in general and knowing that the only thing that really matters once a person dies is how they lived while they had the chance. On the negative side, the deaths of actors Heath Ledger and Brad Renfro got me to thinking about how pointless fame and fortune really are. Here are two young men who had everything by this worlds standard, but who ended up dying much too young and I have to wonder if they ever really knew happiness at all? I know God is a merciful God and it’s my hope that both of these young men made peace with God in the final moments of their lives, but every indication seems to be that they were still searching for a happiness they never found.

On a more positive note, I recently read a book about another young man who obviously found that true happiness comes from surrendering all to God and living life for Him. Sadly, this young man also died much too young, but what he accomplished in his short fifteen years far exceeds what most accomplish in a lifetime. His name is B.J. Higgins and I highly recommend you read his story in the book, I Would Die for You. Reading this book has really had a huge impact on my desire to seek after God and to know Him in a way I never have before. The thing is, I don’t think BJ’s experience should be the exception. I think all of us have the opportunity to allow God complete control of our lives and it’s sad that so few seemingly ever make that kind of surrender. For all too long, my “surrender” has only gone so far and no further and I’m finding out that such a limited surrender is really no surrender at all. As long as I’m holding anything back, God cannot work in my life as He wants to.

So, I find myself in the midst of a transition period in my spiritual life. I wish I could say that huge changes have taken place and I’m making great strides forward. The best I can say right now is that I’ve begun to recognize a lack in my life and I’m trying to learn to seek after God, and only God, to fill that void. There are still many things that clamor for my attention and try to convince me to settle for something less than complete surrender to the will of God, but I’m actively trying to combat those “voices” through prayer and seeking God. I wish I could say my greatest hunger was for God. The best I can say right now is, I want that to become my greatest hunger and I’m asking God to make it so.

I will never do the things that BJ did during his life, but I do believe I can one day have the same kind of testimony if I will make the decision to surrender totally to God as BJ did. The biggest mistake we can make when reading about someone like BJ is to think that we can never be as good a Christian ourselves. When we do that, we end up thinking “what a nice story” and then just walk away from it and return to our lives, somewhat inspired but not changed. God didn’t show special favoritism to BJ; BJ simply discovered that any one of us can become God’s “favorite” if we simply give up our own “rights” and surrender completely to Him. The hard part is getting over ourselves; God is eager to fill us with Himself if we will simply step aside and let Him. My prayer is that God will help me to daily step aside and let Him. Not so I can find some kind of fame or fortune or blessing, but so that I can find Him and thereby become complete.