Making decisions

Lately, I have been real indecisive on where I want to go or want I want to do.  Sometimes it's really hard to pinpoint.  It's a mind boggling thing to figuire out sometimes when you think you should do this and nothing is working on in that area and then you think you are a better fit for something else.  Early in my college career in wanted to do TV broadcasting but I felt I got too stressed about it the last couple semesters before I was about to graduate college.  So, I applied for a radio internship with ESPN last spring that I didn't get.  I also have applied for many radio jobs since I have started looking for jobs in the fall.  Two of the jobs I interviewed for I didn't get and the other one I didn't hear back from yet.  Other times I think I could be a good fit for a career with Young Life since it was a passion of mine when I did Young Life in college.  I think by next fall I will just make decision and stick with it.  If God wants me to be somewhere else, then he'll lead be back to where he wants me to go.  I just need to remind myself to be desperately dependent on him for everything and keep presenting and abiding in Him.  I need to remind myself of the great truths from last summer that God showed me and helped me realize along the way.  He is in control and he is trustworthy.

Trusting in God part II- where God wills me

Here are some other thoughts I have had lately on trusting God in certain times of life.  I feel like to have an abiding relationship with Jesus with have to trust him with minute by minute day by day things.  Trusting will not happen overnight, it is one day at a time.  Some days when I think I have been trusting God with everything I realize looking back there are some things are hard to trust him with sometimes.  I trust him with my future but I worry a lot about which path is the right one to take or if I made the right decision on something in hindsight.
 Is this where you are leading Jesus? Or do you want me to move here? Should I choose this career path in ministry or should I go into the radio/TV career field? Should I take a chance with this girl and see where it will take us in the long run? Should I not pursue or take a chance on this girl right now? Should I interview at this place or take this job? Should I pursue a career in sports whether it's on the radio or TV area?
These are all questions I have asked myself since I have graduated the university of Texas Christian or TCU to alums out there.  This is a  matter of having to trust God with all future is complicated because of all the choices we have to make in our society today.  We are bogged down with all of these decisions to make one after the other and bombarded with all these things we have to get done.  There is just so much that is thrown at us in our society today that we have to sift through and decide if that's what we want to do.  I sometimes try to pinpoint his will or where he wants me to go in life.  I just need to say to him, I trust you with my questions of the future and make a decision of the future.
 I'm reading the book Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung and it pinpointed exactly what I have been doing a lot.  In some way, I tend to have a sort of indecision of where to go in the future sometimes.  I just need to remind myself that he is trustworthy with everything in life because of past experiences seeing his faith. I just need to focus on my growth in him and his conforming me to his image as seen in Romans 8:28-29.

Trusting

I have learned through this past year that I have to trust God with everything I have in my life.  I feel like it's so easy to trust him with our life and for some people it could be really hard to trust God with their life.
  In college, I think I knew about the process of trusting God but I don't know if I intentionally surrendered everything to Him.  I just feel like I was just so busy throughout the day with either Young Life or school that I didn't really think about how to give this or that situation to Him.
Through D-focus last summer and trying to find a job this past year, I've seen how easy or hard it is to trust God with everything in life.  Most days for me it has been easy because I try to look back on how God has been faithful in the past.  There are also other days when it is hard to trust God with the future because I doubt whether I should be pursuing this career in my life or should I pursue that career field.  Do I have more passion for that certain area or that certain area in my life? Does God want me to have a future in this or not?
 In the book of Jeremiah, the people went through an exile period of time that Jeremiah prophesied because of their sin and the fact that they turned their backs on God.  God had compassion on the people when he told the people that he would restore them to Isarel and Judah where they were before after this period of exile.  This is where the famous verse that we talk about Jeremiah 29:11 comes from.  I feel like God's using this trial like time in my life to help me grow in faith and trust in him.  He wants me to realize his bigger plan shown in Jeremiah 29:11.
 Also, Jeremiah trusted God through the when he was receiving the prophesy from God about the people of Israel and Judah's downfall into being exiled.  The leaders of those towns wouldn't believe Jeremiah and the people would persecute him for saying those things about what would happen to him.  I feel like God has shown me evidence of his past faithfulness by certain situations.  The most recent one would be God leading me to D-focus when I had no clue what I was doing last summer.
 Three people from Young Life in Fort Worth lead me to this awesome Dicipleship Program called D-focus.  Emily Sells, Katy Park, and Jace Thompson.  Katy Park was on Young Life staff for a while at TCU and one of my best friends since I got there.  She was also on my Young Life team.  Jace Thompson was also on Young Life staff in Fort Worth.  I have gone on many retreats and work weeks with him.  I wish I got to know Emily Sells more while as an undergraduate at TCU but the one thing I did know is that she has a great heart for Christ and for others.
  God lead me to an awesome small group at D-focus while I grew in Christ that summer.  That small group included: Ray Pettigrew, Dan Anderson, Carlyle Aguren, Keegan Evans, Marty Martens, me, and Jeremy Savage.  Tuesday nights will never be the same anymore! My last memory of faithfulness of God that God has shown me is from High school. While I was a senior leader in Young Life,  I prayed for a while for a friend who I had known for a while that didn't know Jesus to come to Young Life club.   He came to Young Life club one time my last semester in High School and that time.  I am still working to lead him to Jesus.
 I have seen that trusting in God like the Christian life takes one step at a time.  Examples in Scripture indicates we should walk not run.  I just need to trust in God's timing for what he wants me to do, where he wants me to go, and how he wants to use you.  Thank you to those that read this blog!

Rambling rant

Lately, I've been real frustrated about life and the job situation.  Just when I think something will work out it doesn't.  I need to remind myself daily of what God taught me this summer that God is in control of my life and I can trust him with everything.  He is in control of our life.  He is trustworthy.  He has no needs therefore he is sovereign in our lives and loves abundantly.  I need to make abiding in Jesus a lifestyle.  Most of the times it is for me other times it's not in my life.  A couple days this week I didn't feel like I was abiding like I should be.  There's so many distractions in our world now.  I need to be thinking about Jesus constantly not facebook, sports, American Idol, and other worldly distractions.  I feel like I have to apologize to God for not thinking about him constantly because he is too big and too great not not be thought of constantly.  He loves us way too much for us to get lost in our own little world which is what I do sometimes.  I get frustrated with life sometimes when it doesn't work out the way I hoped it would.  Someone told me the other night I was being hard on myself.  I need to remind myself that truths that God taught me this summer that he is in control of my life.  I have to desperately depend on him for everything in my life.  He uses things in our lives to conform us to his image.  We can trust him with anything because of our past experiences he has shown us.  He has helped me trust him this far with the job/life situation.  I can't give up because he hasn't given up on me yet and never will in my life.

Safe in his arms- God's compassion for us

This blog post was inspired by a Phil Wickham song called Safe.  The premise behind it is that we as Christians will be safe in his arms.  One of the verses is one of the promises he made to be with you always.  That verse has  stuck with me in the past week going through a hard time in my life.  He will be with me through whatever I'm going through.  He will never leave me or forsake me despite my failings or frustration.  I have been reading Jeremiah in the Bible for the past month or so.  It has been real good.  The past couple chapters I have been have been the best for me and have shown why God is who he is.  He has compassion on the people despite their sin and apostasy.  The people of Judah and Isarel rejected God and his commands.  The worshiped foreign idols instead of the one true God in heaven and earth.  They burned incense to worship.  They disobeyed all God has commanded them to do.  God was sad because of their sin and rebellion but he had a bigger plan.  God tells Israel they will be rebuilt in verse four of Chapter 31 of Jeremiah.  God tells the people in chapter 29 verse 10 he will send them into captivity in Babylon for 70 years and after that restore them back after that time.  Jeremiah verse 11 said, "For I know that plans I have for you,"declares the Lord,"plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and future."   God promised the people he will be with them always and he has compassion on them despite their sins against him.  In Chapter 32, verses 30 and 31 God expresses his frustration with the people and how they turned their back on him all these years.  He says in verses 39-41 of how he will restore the people.  "I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and good of their own children after them. 40 I will make a everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from them.  41 I will rejoice in doing  them good and assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul." He also reminds the people and Jeremiah he will restore the people after their 70 year exile. This long quotation from the one true God in heaven and earth shows me that he is faithful despite what we have done or are going through in our life at the time.  He is in control of what we are going through.  He knows what we are doing, when we will do it, before we do it, and even knows what we are thinking every minute of the day.

Funny Story Friday

So, the funniest story ever happened to me in September.  I was going to visit Andrew Boone and some other friends from Friendswood that weekend in Austin, Texas.  My weekend went real well I got to hang out with Micheal Boone and Ryan Bresler on Friday night at their house.  Fast foward to Saturday night I got to hang out with my best friend Andrew Boone for the rest of the night and Sunday.  On Sunday, afternoon after church we played ultimate frisbee.  I was real good though I almost passed out because I didn't drink anything in the morning.  So, my best friend and I Andrew Boone went to his girlfriend's pool at her apartment.  As I jumped into the pool, I forgot that I put my phone in my pocket before I dropped in.  It was so funny after it occurred after the fact.  So, that's the story of how I put my phone in my pocket before I jumped in the pool and in turn messed it up for life.  Though I was able to get all my contacts out of my phone.  I got a new Droid facinate and I've had it since then.  Now, that's the story of how I dropped my phone in messed it up in someone's pool.  It was so crazy funny!

desiring Christ daily and hoping for heaven

Today I will be blogging about desiring Christ daily through trials and suffering.  I also will discuss hoping for our future home in heaven or eternity with our Savior King Jesus.  When we face trials or suffering in our life God weans us through this time and reminds us that he is the only thing in this life that matters.  He reminds us that everything we do must be found in him and him alone.  We must desire him in all that we do.  He wants us to die to our self and give up control of everything to him.  In James 1:12 he says that if we persevere through times of trial then we will receive the crown of glory in heaven.  Romans 8:18 says that "I consider our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."  Our bodies will be made new when we go to  eternity meet our Savior Jesus Christ.  That is the hope we strive for when we go through these trials of life.  This is discussed in the last chapter of the book "How can a good God let bad things happen?"  God has to be that treasure that we seek every minute of the hour of the day in our lives.  The treasure from the parable of the field or sower that we do everything we can to find it.  He is the only thing or person in our life that can help us make it through whatever we are going through in our life.  He is in control.  He loves us abundantly and pursues us every day.  He desires to be with us.  He is the treasure of heaven we seek, when all else fails in life because if we seek him the treasure of heaven then we will be with him forever in his amazing treasure that he will bless all those that believe in him with eternity in Jesus Christ.  It is this hope of heaven and of desiring Christ through the trials of my life that I need to have.  It is this mindset I need to bring to whatever situation in my life because this earthly won't or doesn't compare to the crown we will receive in heaven.  We will be able to see our creator face-to-face and walk by sight not faith which in my opinion will be wierd.  Anyways, this book has really hold onto Jesus during this time in my life and cling to him in all that I do.