Finding TRUE and EVERLASTING joy

Before last school year, I was living a life that I thought was normal, happy and above average. I had cool friends, most people that I met liked me, I had things that made me joyful and I felt like I was a nice person overall. What wasn’t to like? Some things weren’t perfect, but I thought that was normal and that I had to deal with my problems on my own.

I had attended the Rock (a campus ministry at Mizzou) a couple times in my first two years on campus, but I never dedicated myself to a canvas group (small group that hangs out all the time but only officially meets once a week) or attended the service on a regular basis.

After two years, I figured I needed something to change. There was something more than just sitting around, enjoying sports, hanging out with friends and being lazy. At the beginning of my junior year, I had a passion set on my heart to be more connected to the Rock, so I dove in, not fully knowing what to expect.

What I was exposed to changed the plan of my life forever. I saw people my age actually perusing a PERSONAL relationship with God. What the crap? I had never seen so many people united for one common goal: to know the creator of the universe as well as they possibly could.

I was hooked. I attended the annual fall retreat and got super involved in the Mark Twain Canvas Group (represent!). I kept falling more and more in love with the people in the group and more importantly, with God. I had always had the knowledge that God loved me, but I never really experienced it fully or personally.

This newfound passion for my faith helped me decide to attend LT this summer. If you’ve been following my life at all, you know what LT is all about, but I’ll explain it again anyways.

It’s basically a summer camp where we have to work 40 hour a week jobs, get in a canvas group-like group with people from other schools (Texas A&M, UNT, Kent State, Bowling Green, Ohio St., Harding (!), etc.), grow in our faith and get more comfortable with sharing it.

Talk about one of the better decisions of my life. LT is held in Estes Park, Colorado, which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I’ve been able to hike so many mountains (35 miles so far!) while experiencing great summer weather for the first time ever.

Don’t let this beautiful weather and awesome attitude about the summer I am having make it seem like my life is now really easy and simple. That is so far from the truth. My life is just like anyone else’s: one with pain, sadness, loneliness, etc.

There is a running joke that LT also stands for “Lots of Trials. I have found this out to be true this summer, but I now know that through the trials, I have God’s joy, love and mercy to fall back on. What a great gift that anyone can receive with no strings attached!

I was motivated to blog this afternoon by all the love I have continually received from God’s people here in Colorado. I’ve never been involved a group that cares so much about each other or about their relationship with God. It is truly a beautiful thing that makes me smile whenever I think about it or experience it.

I may have seemed like a good Christian boy my first two years of college, following the rules and doing all the right things, but I never experienced God’s love and joy until this year. I want everyone to feel that joy now! I can’t wait to get back to school in the fall and help everyone I encounter experience God’s love.

I’ve got more topics to blog about, so hopefully I can get to those soon. Love you guys!

Gift of Life/Learning to Trust God

I've wanted to write this blog for a while, but life has been getting in the way in the past couple of weeks, so I’ve had to move the blog to the backburner. Now that I’ve pushed through the unstoppable rush of tests, research papers, online Spanish and work, I’ve got time to breathe for a week or so. PTL!

A major thing that has been on my mind the last couple of weeks has been the gift of life. I’m not just talking about the blessing of living in a country like the United States that has many freedoms (which is awesome and something we take for granted far too much), but mainly the idea that we even have a chance to have life on this earth.

This has been on my mind because it seems like over the past couple of months, a lot of friends and acquaintances from my high school years in Texas have been losing family members, friends, etc. It hasn’t just been losing grandparents to old age or things like that, but instead people from my age group or people that are my parents’ age.

For example, a couple of my high school classmates were killed in a car accident a couple of weeks ago, our high school’s long-time basketball coach died from cancer, etc.

Death hasn’t ever really been a huge part of my life, so this has been a bit of a shock for me, thinking of my own morality.

These events have made me think about how much we should appreciate life on this Earth while we still have it. We must treat life as our most sacred gift, because it simply is. You hear people say this all the time, but how many of us actually live that way? How many times do we get caught up in the trials of life and find ourselves with no joy or passion to do anything?

The fact that God even gave us life is one of the most amazing things to just think about. He didn’t need to make us to make himself happy, but he wanted to spread his immense love, so he created us! Awesome.

We constantly see people stumble through their days, complaining about the little problems in life, while not taking the effort to enjoy life itself. I’ve done it, you’ve done it, we’ve all done it.

One thing we can do to make sure that we can stay happy is by remembering that our whole life is all in his hands and he knows what he’s doing. If we can always trust that God knows what he is doing, we can stop wasting time worrying on if life will work out the way we planned it.

This brings up another topic that calls back to the Idols series we had at the Rock last month. If success is one of your idols, you will always chase after it but will never be satisfied, no matter how much success you achieve. If you put all your eggs in God’s basket, he’ll take care of you and direct you in the way you are supposed to go. Once again, much easier said than done.

This situation made me think of a song that really had a good impact on me once I got to college.

Ruin my life the plans I have made
Ruin desires for my own selfish gain
Destroy the idols that have taken Your place
'Till its You alone I live for,
You alone I live for.

-Ruin Me (Jeff Johnson)

We have to be willing to get rid of what we think is best for us and listen to what God thinks is best. It’s tough to actually admit that we don’t know what the heck we are doing, but the sooner we do that, the sooner we can trust God and find joy in him.

I wanted to talk about this because of my personal experience I've been having in the past couple of months.

In my first blog post I mentioned how I was really focused on trying to get a journalism internship this summer so I could feel better about my post-graduation job outlook. I thought that if I got a good sports writing internship, I could network and almost be assured a pretty good job coming out of college, which would allow me to do what I am passionate about, give me a comfortable life and probably good enough money. I guess God had other ideas.

Late last semester, God turned my attention to the LT program that our church is having in Colorado this summer (check the picture at the top). I don’t know how I got interested, but I guess I just was desperate for some solid plans this summer and God provided it. As I thought about my decision, I could hear God telling me that Colorado was the place I should go and that getting an internship probably wasn’t as important as I thought it was. I'm fairly solid in my belief that this is where I'm supposed to be.

This experience has taught me a good lesson: always trust God. You may think you know how your life is going to play out and what the best scenario would be for you, but God probably knows a little bit better than you.

He’s got it all under control.