Prayer

Prayer is such a powerful idea. It seems to us that us praying on behalf of someone else won't really do anything. Part of this stems from the fact that many prayers aren't answered the way we want them to be. So we think that God doesn't care about our prayers. But this is not true at all. The Bible tells us the exact opposite. It starts in Genesis 25. "Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant."  God answered Isaac's prayer. "O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, 'I will build a house for you.' So your servant has found courage to offer you this prayer." Again, God answers Samuel's prayer. David talks about it in Psalm 4:1. "Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer." 

And the best example of prayer in the Bible is the Lord's Prayer. "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

 "This, then, is how you should pray: " 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 
 your kingdom come, 
your will be done 
 on earth as it is in heaven. 
 Give us today our daily bread. 
 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one ' For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

This comes from Matthew 6. This is how we are supposed to pray. It shouldn't be to glorify us. It should be for the glory of God. We don't have to pray the best prayer. We just have to bring ourselves before Him, and humble ourselves so that we can truly listen to Him. It doesn't matter what you say as long as you say what is in your heart. That is what God wants to hear. He wants us to bring us to Him and ask Him to help because we can't do it on our own. 

So don't be afraid to bring your problems to Him. He is the one who can deal with them. He is the only one who can. We can make a difference with our prayers. God does listen to them, and although it might not be the answer we want to hear, it will be in accordance with His will and that is the only will that matters. 

What is a productive day? Is it when we get a lot accomplished, like schoolwork or at our job? Is it when we feel good about ourselves? Is there such a thing as a productive day? 

Well, I don't have a correct answer to these questions. And, to tell you the truth, I don't know if I ever will. But I do know one thing, no matter how productive I am or how unproductive I am, I always know that my God loves me. No matter what I do, God will always love me. He doesn't love me because He needs me. He doesn't love me because I'm perfect. He doesn't love me because I can give something to Him that He doesn't have. None of these are even close to being right. He loves me because He can. I don't know why, and I never will. I don't deserve His love, but He just keeps on giving it! It's amazing to know that. And it's amazing to think about that when we are having a day that feels unproductive or one that is the pits. Everyone has these. But if you can trust that God loves you, what else do you need? 

We don't need anything but the love of God, and it's unfailing! 

Productivity is good. But it's nothing compared to God's love! In fact, nothing even comes close to comparing. It's just awesome to think about. 

I am reminded of 1 Corinthians 13: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails...and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

God's love never fails! It is perfect! Think about that the next time you're having trouble, and remember that nothing is too difficult for Him to handle. There are no stupid questions in His book. He answers everything, and He loves you like nothing else could!

An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes. For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin. The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful; he has ceased to be wise and to do good. Even on his bed he plots evil; he commits himself to a sinful course and does not reject what is wrong. Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O Lord, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart. May the foot of the proud not come against me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away. See how the evildoers lie fallen-thrown down, not able to rise. 

This is psalm 36. The last half where David starts talking about the Lord's love is awesome! It's amazing to think about it because it is unfailing! No matter what we do, He will NEVER cease to love us! Think about that, and then ask yourself how you are loving others. Are you loving them the same way God loves us, because that is what He calls us to do. He calls us to love unconditionally! 

Home

Well I arrived back at school yesterday to find a house full of people running every which way trying desperately to organize their belongings in their new rooms. In other words, I arrived back at home. If I went back to a year ago and tried to imagine somewhere else being home besides Centennial, CO I wouldn't have been able to. But now that I am here I consider Fairway home. It got me thinking about what home really is. Is it the place you sleep or the place you spend most of your time; the feeling you get when your around people you love? Well after living at Fairway for a semester and then going back to where I grew up I have realized that home really isn't about where you are. I could be almost anywhere and I could consider it home. Home isn't a place; it's a state of being. 

What I mean by that is that no matter where I go, I always have a soft place to rest my head. Even if I am in the middle of chaos, I always have somewhere I can go if things go south. This is because I have Jesus Christ in my heart. He is the one who inspires me. He is the one who lets me rest when I'm weary. No matter how hard of a time I am having, He will always be there with open arms just waiting for me to let go so that He can catch me. I think that is what defines a home. We can have all the money in the world, have fun all the time, have all the friends in the world, but without the love of God what is it worth? 

Being in college, I have two places that I define as home: my parents' house back in Colorado and Fairway Cooperative here at Purdue. These are home to me because I can see the love of Jesus Christ at work. I can see Him using my friends and family in extraordinary ways, and it's a great atmosphere. I love my friends here and I love my friends back in Colorado. But they don't compare to the friend I have in Jesus!

So next time you are thinking about where you rest your head and whether you should move or switch colleges or whatever is turning your world around, think about this: It doesn't matter where you are; it doesn't matter what you're doing; the only thing that matters is whether you can see God through it all and whether you can see Him nodding his head in approval. You will be happy if you have the love of Jesus in your heart!

Hope you all have a great semester of school!

New Year

So it is officially 2010! That sounds so crazy. It's been a decade since the millennium! This year has been full of ups and downs. There have been some great moments: going to college, playing varsity baseball, pledgeship, going to K-CO, going to Europe, etc... and there have been some not so great times: deaths at Arapahoe, bad economy, time struggles, and some others. But as I look at this past year, it is so evident that God has been behind everything. He has blessed us and helped us through these challenging times. I know that I would be nowhere without Him. He gives me the strength to persevere and the ability to love and live. 

With this in mind, I will strive to live another year of service. I will fail every day with that, but I know that God sent His son Jesus Christ to die for us and that means that even though I do fail, He forgives me. He has taken all our sins on himself. So I will persevere and try to serve Him to the best of my ability. This next year there will be many changes in my life. I will continue to live at Fairway, but I will be an active this semester. This means that I can have time to build relationships with the other young men in the house. I will be taking more classes related to civil engineering, so that will be fun. After this semester, I will work at Camp Kivu for six weeks being a counselor. This will be hard, but it will be fun and I know God has called me to be a counselor for those young men. Then new pledges will be arriving next year. This will be a great experience as well.

These are the basics of what I think will happen. But I don't really know for sure what will happen because God could do many things with me. I don't know exactly what will happen, but I know that God has me in His loving hands and that He cares and loves me. He will guide my steps and He will lead me where I need to go. So as I go into this year, I want to share a few prayer requests for me if you would. I know that this past semester I didn't do a very good job with time management, and this semester I really need to work on that. So this is one thing that I need prayer for. The second thing is getting involved at either my church or another group like young life. I don't know exactly what God wants me to do there, but I think He wants me to get involved in the community other than Fairway. I also need prayer as I develop relationships with the other guys at Fairway and around at other houses. 

These are a few of my goals and things that I need prayer for. Feel free to share yours and i will be praying for you with those. 

Happy New Year! May you be blessed and may the Lord lead you in all you do.