My View From Down Here

        What is it that you need?
        Where do you want to be?
        Where do you have to go to get there?
        What do you have to go through to get there?


        Since I haven't had much to say these last couple of years, and don't have much to say now, maybe I'll talk about some of the things I've learned that have made me a little better along the way. Not everything that comes from really bad things are bad. Some things are good for you, even if you wish you could discard them into the fire. These are the things you take with you when you leave the land of despair. You will now store these things in your bindle and carry them with you always.

        What is it that you need? I thought I needed those I lost. I thought I needed substances to get past them. I thought I needed to be angry and close people off. I thought I needed to be left alone in the dark to wander. I thought I needed to hide what was happening to me from the people that love me. I thought I needed to search the world for alternative answers because I don't want to accept the truth. What I need...something my soul needs...is peace. That is found in God alone. Ultimately, there have been people in this world that have lost everything and everyone, and they carry on with life. God gives and He takes away. It's time that I accepted that.

        Where do you want to be? I want to be happy and full of life, teeming with a spirit for life so attractive that it makes other people happy. I want to stop painting on this clown mask whenever I am feeling like a dirty napkin in some wretched ditch. I want to stop with the bitterness. I wanna be transparent and have faith that the people I love around me will always pick me up without judgement. And they will, because if there is one gift God has given me, it's that I see things in people that help me to judge who really cares about me and who doesn't.

        Where do you have to go to get there? I have to go through repeated moments of forced humility. I have to allow myself to be embarrassed at the cost of others seeing me as weak. I have to acknowledge the things that are broken in me and always have been. I have to force them to the surface so that I can work on them. Mostly, I have to have the desire to work on them. I also have to find the desire to work on them.

        What do you have to go through to get there? I have to be honest. With myself and with everyone. I have to go through some pretty hard moments of letting go. I have to accept unacceptable things. I have to let the world spin around and focus on what's in front of me instead of what's behind me. I think this one will be the hardest part should I even make it this far. Lastly, I have to find some strength. There was a time I was so competitive and ready for a fight. I was born with two strikes against me and have worn that on my forehead my entire life. I have fought everything that has ever come against me. In 2009 I stopped fighting for much. I think it's time I got my hunger back, but I think I'm gonna need God for that.







Sing.
Migrate.






Thanks for reading...Z

The DNA of Snowflakes

Little crystals reflected the lights from the houses that lined the partially shoveled sidewalk that continued to add to it's girth. The moon is partially hidden behind the clouds, but bright enough to announce it's presence to anyone who asks. A drunk guy staggers and wades through the drifting snow across the street. He speaks to himself with unintelligible words, acknowledging your presence with the turn of his head, but continues in his solitary conversation about a woman and her dog. He misses them both, he says as he looks at me. It is really late, probably 3:30 AM, I can't tell anymore. I had been laying in the snow for so long staring into the night sky that I forgot to remember to check my watch. It wasn't cold outside really. It was just snowing. The snow was a welcomed occurrence to me and was the very attraction that lured me outside in the first place.

Snow is real. You can touch snow. It travels a long way to get to you, all along experiencing a complete transformation from the liquid to this beautiful crystal ornament that lands and rests on my cheek. It is in this moment that the beauty of God touches my face that I remember what life is about. I remember what Christmas is about.

A beautiful God came and fell onto my face in the cold. A completely unique and perfectly shaped crystal landed on my face...on your face, and gave the promise to fix everything. A messenger from the only One who knows our hearts and has the strength to give us something to hope for falls right on my face and melts into my flesh.

I had been in mourning for so long that I forgot what the morning sun looked like. It was dark all around and the moon lit only enough for me to see the pavement below me. Every Christmas I would walk forwards to my place of prayer and anguish, then walk backwards back home. This was grief. This was the mess that is left when death passes through your life. You forget even the most fundamental truths about strength, life, God, and your very own spirit and begin to wander. In grief there is no way to go but all over the place. It lasts however long God allows it to, to help you gain from it. For me, every Christmas was a reminder that I lost something I could never replace and I would never be the same. Then the snowflake; A perfect reminder that I am not alone under that moon. The finger of God touches my face and I remember what I had forgotten. Christmas is about the finger of God touching the world, giving hope to a wandering people.

This Christmas will be sad at times just like the rest of them, but the holiday will be about Jesus, not Will. Whoever you are mourning wants to be let go of. This holiday does not have to be about who isn't here with you now. It should about who is here with you now.







Sing.
Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z

God Still Loves Me

I am tired. It is only 11:45 PM and at this time I am usually calling a friend to come and watch a movie to keep me from feeling lonely. I do not go to bed like the majority of smart people on a Sunday night. I sit up. Doing nothing at all interesting, just thinking, playing a game, reading, whatever. Tonight is different, tonight I feel God. Tonight it isn't about entertainment, which I spend too much time doing in my free time, it is about getting really close to God. Leaving behind the foolishness and selfish greed. It is about looking into His world, and trying to see through His eyes. I have always had a low self opinion. I have never really seen the value in myself, that is why I talk about myself so much. I write a blog under the cloak of expressing myself, but I think in reality, I do it make myself feel better about myself. The truth is, I am not who I say I am, I don't think that anyone is. We have this perception of what we want to be and we roll with it, never questioning whether it is really who we are or what glorifies God. God desires us to be us, even when that means we are ugly inside and out. God loves us regardless of out faults and insecurities and for that, tonight, I thank Him.

A Crowd

I hate Youth Group marketing scams. A ministry uses catch your ear words like "Join us and hundreds more as we" kind of phrases. The kind of phrases that make Youth ministry less about God and more about a giant social event. I know that teens are social beings and that that is an important part of Youth ministry, but it seems that a lot of youth ministries have chosen to take the numbers approach to ministry, the more kids there are, the better the odds of saving some. But to be honest, if you do not have a proper support system set up, which most mega-youth programs do not, than they can be doing more harm than good to these kids. Teens need their friends, but it is important for me to note that they need God more. They need discipleship more. They need to see Christ at work in their leaders personal lives more. Ministry is not about being cool or trendy, ministry is about leading others to Jesus and making real disciples and you simply cannot do that with a big, loud band playing covers, or an energetic, charasmatic teacher giving a motivational speech. It takes more. Those things are fine to have, but what about the support, what about when they graduate out of your program, where do they go? What then do they do with their lack of discipleship and their caffeine sustained faith. We need substance, they need substance, we need to teach them life skills so that they will know how to stand when the wind comes. Numbers simply will not do that, a crowd attracts a crowd and attracts more crowds, but none of those will make a disciple.