Unveiling

I have spent the last few days wrestling with my view of God's goodness in my life. My thoughts on this matter are far from complete but I have seen these shimmering glimpses of His grace and love. I need to preface my thoughts with where I am at in this season of my life. Since August, I have been working at a group home for at risk teenagers. I don't really want to get into all the logistic and comings and goings of the program but more that everyday I have the opportunity, although sometimes I choose to view it as a burden, to meet young men and women where they are at in the midst of their life struggles.

I think frustrations and disappointment are an everyday battle when working with this demographic, but if I were to believe that these were the only characteristics of this job I would be only believing a lie. I tend to view a lot of the broken areas in life as problems to be fixed. I lean towards this easily, I am an engineer. For six and a half years I was sitting in class rooms and laboratories thinking of ways to solve problems. Its hard to have that mindset and work with people. I, personally, look at most of the attitudes, language, structure and etc. around my place of work and see flawed and broken practices and people. I have to step back and realize that I can't solve or fix everything even if I wanted to. This frustrates me so much sometimes.

Now, back to God's goodness in my life (this may take a while to materialize I am still processing as I type). I recently have had a few conversations with some of the teens that I work with. They are usually along the lines of why don't you do anything when we do this. The doing part almost always pertains to an activity which is expected for them to complete. I find myself building up with an overwhelming view of ungratefulness on apart of their immaturity. I know that my primary, even if it is an undertone, duty is to serve. Even if my heart is not in the right place at any given time throughout the day the subject matter that is being held highest is the care of these teens.

With that being said, I find myself doing the same if not worse to God. I could go on and on about how he serves me in every aspect of my life. As it says in Psalm 23, "The LORD is my Shepard, I shall not be in want." I shall not be in want. This has baffled me. I have a friend who has constantly reminded me of the intelligence of sheep. They are stupid. A Shepard is constantly tending to and guiding these crazy guys. To say that I will never be in want is a crazy statement to grasp.

Along with that, the other night I was hit with a truth that was so profound for me that I was constantly fighting with myself over how hard it is to clearly see(I only say this because I usually blur this myself) all what Christ has done in my life. I found myself in a situation where I placed face to face with what grace is. There was something that needed to be done and I was content at letting a teen reap the consequences for what he had sowed. But sitting there, God spoke to me and pointed out that his love overcomes all of that. Christ came to serve the broken and undeserving. I didn't deserve anything and yet he died for me? How am I supposed to understand that? And its free? This is grace. Pure and simple. As I stood there completing this simple and small task my insides were rocked. My flesh was fighting so hard that I was mad and at the same time at peace. I was torn by my view of justice and grace. I was shown or at least given a glimpse of God's grace and love.

I just thought that I needed to get out some of these thoughts.

I have started to write and deleted this post about four times.

Now I am just going to leave it alone and ask for prayers. I started this new job back in August at a group home for troubled teenagers. It is pretty amazing and God is at work here every day. In my heart and in the lives of the teenagers here. I would ask for wisdom and patience as a interact with them. That is all I have to say.

A Very Long Morning

So I have been sitting here at work since nine. I am waiting for a client to get here and get some things ready for testing. It is pretty boring and at the same time I am getting over the flu or a cold.

Graduate school is much different than what I thought it was going to be. I am only in one class this semester and to tell you the truth it is kind of a joke. I am also in three hours of thesis which is basically just to nail down an project for me to research on.

I feel, relative to my previous interactions in life, that am getting old. I no longer live in the residence halls and spend my time hanging out with young freshman and sophomores. I live in an apartment with two other guys aroung my age. One a fifth year senior and the other a small business owner.

Living in my apratment has been a huge change from the previous five years of my life. Now, the people I live with are the people I see everyday. I can't walk out of my room and run into some resident's room and chill out for an hour anymore. Plus, I have a job and I pay rent now, whereas before room and board were provided as an RA.

I have found that close proximity with others for an extended period of time is definitely going to bring out the worst of us all. One of my roomates and I seem to fight all the time over seemingly stupid things. Another is extremely quiet and closed, mainly I think that stress is a hardcore attribute of his attitude.

I wish that my life was like it were back when I was a freshman in college. Where I went to class and hung out with my friends. I did more effective soul searching and growing then than I do now. Why is that? Why when I get older do I not look into myself and question my heart? Hopefully I will one day break this habit.

Well my friends I bid you good morning.

Some sort of a starting point

So I guess I am ready to write what is on my heart once again. To form some sort of a tangible representation of the events within my heart. I have spent most of my year in seclusion with little interactions with my close friends. I have come to a point that this is a season where my whole world is being flipped upside down. I have changed. I am become a person that I, in all honesty, don't like.

I have been confused as to why it seems that the whole world has sped up and I, relatively, am at a standstill. I have been at Kansas State University going on five years now and I will be graduating in May and attending Graduate School here in August. All my friends are in relationships with each other and some are married and some have left academia altogether.

I want to be joyous again. I want to experience God in a way that I never have. This is one of the many seasons of hell in my life that I will have and I don't know where to start or how to just let God start. Maybe he has already started. I have no clue.

I want to know, no believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is pursuing me and reaching out his hand and offering strength. Because I have read but I really don't know if I still believe that all the time.

As last entry screams, I feel alone. Now, don't get all worried I am not going to do anything crazy but I truly feel alone right now. I have no desire to purse/finish my education and I have this huge burden of debt looming over me. This is on of the aspects of my life that I really am baffled about. I have no clue how that is going to be handled so I am running away from it so I don't have too. Hence graduate school. I kinda like this engineering stuff so it was the only thing I could do.

The funny thing about engineering is that I really don't think that I am good at it. I think that I am intelligent enough to understand the concepts and do the coursework but at the end of the day I really don't think that I am good at it. I really think that I am good at relating to people. But really don't think that I can do that all to well anymore either. In a lot of the areas in my life I have become cynical and say things that make me shudder. Its almost like I am afraid of me because I hurt those I love with words. James said it all too well.

I guess there is always a starting point

Alone

Have you ever felt alone? Have you ever looked around and and felt that no one really wants you around anymore? Where have all my close friends gone? The ones that walk beside me and process life with me. I know I am not alone but I know I am. I really just miss the times when my friends and I would sit down and talk about our hearts and focus on what God is really doing in our lives. These first two months of school have pretty much sucked for me on a personal level and with my spiritual walk towards the Lord. I don't really know what has been happening. I haven't seen a drive out of my close friends to pursue the Lord and reach out to others. ALSO, I have seen this with my heart too. I have been trying to survive but at the same time been slowly been wasting away. I have no vision just self inflicted wounds which push me further away from where I am supposed to end up. I want Paul's words to be known in my life, "Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!"~Romans 7:24-25

I don't know what else to say.

Random

It has been awhile. I thought that I would give a quick little blurb of stuff. I have, like many times before, come to realize how hard walking with the Lord is. I have spent a lot of this semester running from God. I have seen how much my everyday life falls short of what he has called me to be. I read through Deuteronomy this summer and some of Numbers only to find out that I was reading about myself. This sounds like I am down but I am not. I am just explaining my brokenness. My need for Jesus.

I was singing this song this summer "Everybody wants to go to Heaven". It goes like this, "everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die." This is me a lot of the time. I want so much of what God wants to offer and I never want to give him my bad. I don't want to die, give him my sin. I want to keep it. But you know what, I really don't want it. I have seen how much my sin really is death. Sin is nothing but death, because God is life and sin is against him so it is death.

I have had a hard time getting to know my residents or even seek them out. Its been pretty rough. I have walked down my hallways to get to know them and find myself having to write them up for alcohol violations and look like a bad guy. I hate it.

I feel alone up here on forth floor. I have an amazing staff partner who is an amazing Christian but I still really don't have anyone who lives with me to process things with. In the past it was Zac and then Elizabeth and Jason but now I really kind of just run all around trying to talk to everyone. It kind of sucks because I am in my last year here and I see where I am starting to pull away but I really have no clue where that away is.

I have had a ridiculous amount of encouragement this semester from Liam, Craig, Billie and Hickman but it always seems that right after they build me up Satan comes right in and jacks me in the healing wound. That pretty much blows.

I title of my High School Senior Portfolio was "Dealing with Life While Traveling at MACH I" and thats what it feels like right now.

I am out

Vision For Kanas State University

I have been given a vision and I need this space to write it all out and to think through it. I have been really thinking about my last year at Kansas State. I, as most of you know, am going to be an RA in Marlatt hall and this is the most exciting parts of school that I possibly think of. I am going to be the first person that about 90 guys see as they walk into a new season of their life. I have never really thought about how huge this is. I am going to be in a position to share the love of Christ from the moment the step in the door of Marlatt Hall. I wrote an entry awhile back about being a missionary everyday and I really want to do do that. I also have been given this desire to really step up this year and lead. I have been praying that the Lord would do some amazing things on my campus and He has told me that I am going to have to do a lot and empower people. I have sent out messages to others in Campus Crusade at my school and just today I sent out an email to my RA partners who are all studs for Christ and really told them that God is going to do some amazing things on campus this year.
I have been given a desire which has turned to my vision from the Lord. I want my whole floor this year to come to know the Lord. I am tired of believing in little things. I know that my God is huge and he does huge things so this is huge. I pray that the residences halls on my campus will be changed forever. That the residents coming this fall would become missional, Christ-centered laborers and start the process of being sent to other halls with the soul-purpose of seeing others coming to know the Lord and raising them up to do the same thing. I want to be DNA starter. I want to inject in every group, every club, every hall, every off campus house, every Greek house, every sport team, every department, and every person at Kansas State University. I pray that the people at Kansas State University would be broke down and realize there need for the Love of our savior.
Just as I wrote some of you a letter to join me this summer in praying for Juneau and the ministry here. I pray that you would pray for this as well. Join me with this mission of reaching Kansas State University. I know that I can't do any of it at all. It is only the Lord in me who does everything.
I love you all!