Let it Out

Sometimes I think that guys are afraid to talk about emotion. Well usually I’m one of them, I don’t like to talk about feelings, it’s like pulling teeth with me. This blog has been one of the releases to me for a long time. Some people have gotten what I am really saying in my posts, and some don’t, but whatever. Sure, I say I feel this or I feel that a good chunk of the time, mostly its because I don’t know how else to put something. It’s not necessarily how I am feeling, and sometimes I don’t really want people knowing. Why? Trust, I don’t give out real trust to people very often. If you knew why you would understand, but that still doesn’t make it right. It’s something I have been working on for about a year, being able to trust people easier. One of the ways I work on that is understanding that hurt is a part of life. One of the reasons trust is a big deal for me, is because of betrayal and the hurt that follows. Pain will always be around in this world, we can’t let it run our lives. We need to let go and grow from it. Easier said then done I know. With God it can be done. It can’t be bottled up though and there is the issue.
Have you ever put too much soap into a washing machine? A little bit of soap is fine and is good, but putting in too much is not. When I started doing my own laundry I fell into this trap once. It was horrible, a huge mess. Later on I found out that it could have been worse. Did you know you could actually break a washer that way? Think about this strong washer, you put too much of something in it and let it run, only to get a mess. Now think about people who bottle in their feelings and emotions. Too much of it in and let it fester, it really does not matter how strong the person is you're going to get a mess. The pain and hurt always overflows and comes out. For a long time I thought of my emotions as something not to be trusted. They had gotten me into trouble more than once. So I kept them to myself. I let them get to be too much and some of my friends a few years ago noticed this. Slowly I started to see the error of my thinking. I thought emotion was bad and feared it as a threat to my strength, even though that fear was the real threat. I thought that reason and logic were the only good things from God left. Yet God is the one who gave us emotion in the first place, that line of thinking made no sense. It was then and now that I have had my eyes open to my folly. We aren’t supposed to live on just emotion, we aren’t supposed to live on just logic. We are to live in balance with our emotions and reason, both are from God. It is when we become extremists that we are in the wrong and cause ourselves more struggle then needed.
It is when we let our fear of our emotions or our logic dictate our actions that we are in deep trouble. We cannot let fear dictate our lives. Too many times we are so afraid of getting hurt that we hide our feeling and don’t take risk. Life is built on taking some risk with the acknowledgement that God is guiding your path. What may seem like risk to us is just part of the plan to God. So what is the point in fearing tomorrow, or fearing emotion? If we balance our emotion and reason with the very Word of God then we will see. We will see that nowhere in scripture does it say emotion is evil or something to be hid away. We will see in the Word that God right now has put people in your life to help you in your struggle. Bring it out, search the Word, talk about it, give it to God, get help from people and be there for people. But don’t ever let your emotions or reason go against the Word of God, and don’t ever bottle them up thinking they will go away. Sometimes our emotions get to be too much, it hurts, we go to pastors to counselors for help, and that is ok. Just don’t ever go it alone, don’t ever hide it, for hiding it will only makes it worse.
I have been called strong by some before, I did wonder if it was true or not. It was recently that I begun questioning that aspect. I write now with a new thinking of what strength is. True strength is given by God and God alone, we build it up through His Word, and one of the ways it manifests itself is through balancing our mind and emotions using Scripture as guidance. Not fearing what might come tomorrow, for tomorrow will come but relying on God to help us get along day by day. Looking back on the times of struggle in our lives, seeing how God has brought us through those times, with hope and confidence that He will always be there for us good or bad.
Signed
The Unsilent Pastor’s Kid

P.S. If you want more there are a couple books that I have been reading that have really Biblically based and really helped me a lot. If you want them send me a message and I will get them to you. I recommend reading both of them.

Polishing God’s Monuments: Jim Andrews- Book written on suffering, and where God is when we are hurting. Great book to read for anybody, very inspirational.

Faith and Feelings: Brian Borgman- Just got finished reading this one and changed some of my opinions on emotions. I highly recommend this book if you are questioning what place emotions have in a Believer’s life.

A Cry for Conviction

I’m not going to lie, these last few weeks have been hard. I don’t really know why it has been this way at this point in time. It is like this whether I like it or not though. All I can really do is roll with the punches. It always seems that when I have a question that gets answered ten more come up out of nowhere. The more questions that I have the more I instinctively try to retreat to my insecurity, my false reality of some sense of control. Every bit of the insecure side of me wants control, but it cannot be. It never can be this way. Because the reality is there is no control. This is the greatest thing that could ever happen to us, to be so out of power in life. To realize that someone else is in the drivers seat and we are merely passengers. It is at this point that we can escape insecurity, when we let go. Let go of fear.
Throughout these last couple weeks I have realized something, not only about myself but everything in general. I could go on and on about myself, but self-centeredness will only feed my ego. If I could choose a beginning point to these realizations it would be at a point in time where I viewed a certain video. This video is called Revival Hymn (it is on my wall, or just watch it on YouTube, highly recommend watching all of it, it will open your eyes). This video brought forth something I found very troubling. The majority of the church as we know it is falling to ruins. There is a lack of a great many things. I believe the church has been poisoned by people who claim to be part of us, they are really wolves in sheep’s clothing. People who play church, people who go to church looking to have their weekly dose of positive spirituality. People who reduce our faith to nothing more than a good emotional experience. What’s worse is that there are leaders out there supporting this view of “church.” I have seen pastors who are afraid of people being offended by the Gospel, the very gospel that saved them. Pastors who are changing the very basics of our faith just so they can be liked by the people that hate us. Where are the pastors who preached the full Gospel with courage? Where are the leaders who had some conviction in their voice? Where are the people who were more concerned with offending God then offending people? These leaders are becoming more few in number by the day. I long for the day when we stand unafraid as one, with one conviction. The truth that we are all sinners, we are all part of this evil humanity, and that Christ is the only one who can save us. I long for the day where our faith is seen as more then just affirming a few intellectual statements. I long for the day when the leaders of conviction become great in number once again, so that people will be changed and not just comfortable.
If you feel the same, what are you going to do about it? Are you really going to sit back and let truth be spat upon in favor of complacency? Are you going to let people turn your church into a place where the Bible takes a back seat to over-sensitivity? Listen, the Gospel will be offensive to some people, the question is are you courageous enough to speak out anyway?
As for me I will speak and look to the sky for my Vindicator asking Him, “How long O Lord will You let this continue? How long until You cleanse Your pulpit of the filth of cowardice? How much longer will You allow people to make light of Your holiness and justice?”

A Bunch of Broken Toys

“He is the one who looks at me, and sees what I was meant to be-more than just a beautiful mess”- someone amazing, you know who you are ;)
It’s been a while I’ll admit. The thing is I have been writing, just not for anyone’s eyes to see, only my own, sorry. Sometimes I need to write on my own, just to gain some kind of grasp on all of the thoughts that go through my head. Sometimes I need to look and see that there is something to hoping. Hoping that I am becoming more then I was before. More than a broken human, more than a busted dream, more than anything that can be grasped by human minds. Yet God’s mind is greater then ours. He didn’t grasp it but planned it. It is a comfort thinking that God looks down upon me and intends something great. That I am not just some speck of dust, but that there is a purpose, a dream that can be attained. We go through life with so many dreams that fall apart and break into a mess. So many plans that get thrown to the wind in an instant. Yet there is still hope, hope in an Almighty God that has planned from the beginning something great for me, for all of us. If we would just throw down our pride and trust Him. Take His hand and follow. He would lead us into a path of true fulfillment. That we might become something more, something better, something that we were supposed to be from the beginning. I can’t help but feel like a broken toy at some points. That I have fallen off the shelf and am crying out for someone to fix me. The great thing about it is the Toymaker hears my cries and says I will not just fix you, I will polish you up and make you look better then new. How much longer until we can be what we are supposed to? How much longer will it take You to fix me? How much longer until I get to see the Face of my Creator? Until then I wait and undergo repair, becoming more then just a broken mess.

Staring in Awe at the Hand of God

Sunday is a strange yet almost always good day for me, in many ways. On one hand it’s strange because I always learn something new on Sunday. Not to say that I don’t learn on other days, but something inspiring always comes to mind on Sunday. It is what I choose to do with that knowledge, that is the real question. This last Sunday was no different. I was listening to my grandfather’s sermon at church this last Sunday. He is one of two (the other being my father) that I have yet to hear a sermon from where I did not pick up something new. Even from scriptures I had read many times before.
We were talking about the last chapter in Acts. He made a point about how God does not waste and always gives us what we need. To illustrate this he said that God never wastes, for instance the story of the feeding of the five thousand. There were 12 baskets left. Now for the years and years of going over this same story my mind turned. What could I have possibly missed? He then said this, how many disciples were there? It hit me like a rock, twelve disciples, twelve baskets of fish, one monument to God’s provision.
Is there ever a time in your life where you wonder where is God? What is He doing? Or is He really providing, is this what His will is? This point brings up many thoughts to my head. My great grandfather passed away about a month ago. It was depressing for me since he was truly a great example of a Christ follower and truly a great man. The Monday following this event I received a stunning phone call from my father. He said to me something that I will never forget; your grandfather left you an inheritance that no one knew about. Now I knew that for the last couple years I had been trying to come up with ways that I could save for my tuition for my seminary education after college. I wondered if this was really what God wanted for me. I wondered if my college education was really wasted. Was my training for nothing? Was I really called to ministry? I figured out my tuition for four years of seminary would be about $21,000. I found out later how much I had been left, 20 grand. God provides for those who do His will. Just like with the twelve apostles, God provided for me and wasted nothing. God can use every single person, its only a matter of will you accept His provision?
Signed,
The Unsilent Pastor's Kid

Banishing the Villain, Becoming a Hero (part 3): Surrender to be Free

Do you ever find it twisted that we live in a country that is supposedly built on freedom? Walk down the street, look around you, are we really free? Politically maybe but it seems more often than not we are trapped with four walls encasing us, closing in, walls that we ourselves made. No I am not speaking of physical walls, but emotional or even spiritual. We all have imperfections that make us want to wear an unseen mask. Something we put on to hide our brokenness, a persona. Only to find ourselves trapped in something unreal and deceptive. We are the victims of our own devices. True freedom deep down, is not reality for most of us. For deep down we all face our own selves, the picture is not a pretty one. We are like shattered glass trying to pull ourselves back together only to realize we can’t move. We need help; we need to rely on someone else. To gain freedom and wholeness we must, in a sense, surrender. To whom? To God. For who better to pick up the pieces then Someone who does truly know you and still wants you. All your faults and failings do not change His desire for you. His desire is to see you free, free from the prison and chains. True freedom is reliance on a God who will only do what is right, true, and best. Think, if God truly did not love us, why would He waste His time sending His Son down to earth to give us a chance. God does not want to see you imprisoned emotionally, mentally, spiritually. Doubt me, condemn me, do whatever but you can’t deny my witness. I have seen lives changed, I have had the same change personally. I can’t deny what I know as truth no matter how much this culture or the cowards in it want to suppress Christ. Just so you know, when people finally have true freedom, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. You can tell us were fools, ridicule us, even physically persecute us. It won’t ever do you any good, we only grow stronger. Why? We have freedom, we don’t have to hide, at least the ones of us who are true believers. I leave it to you, God’s will has a place, a great place made especially for you. You personally. Take the plunge or reject it do what you think you want. You make your own bed, or your own mirror that is. A mirror of completeness and freedom, or one that just lies on the floor broken and deserted.

Last part coming soon…

PS- I find it interesting that people who don’t believe in God want to blame Him for everything that goes wrong in the world (disasters, hunger, etc.). Make up your mind either He exists and you hate Him, or He doesn’t which in that case grow up and do something.
Another thing, for those who ask the question why would a loving God send people to Hell? I pose a question, how can a just God let people into heaven? Think about that one.

Banishing the Villain, Becoming the Hero (part 2): A Hard Look in the Mirror

Find a mirror, take a good look. Look past the beauty that God has put into your outward appearances. Those looks, while they are very good, do not make you who you are. Look deep, right down into the depths of your being, your mind, your very soul. In Scripture it says we are corrupted beings, that we were once good but now are full of evil. So let me ask you, do you like what you see? Do you feel it deep inside you, the corruption, the dilution, the disease that is always fatal? It changes you, enslaves you, and breaks you. Sin is villainy. You are a villain through every action that flies in the face of all that is good, of all that is Godly. I know this might be offensive to some, but some things are a lot more important then worrying about who is offended. Don’t try to ask me, who are you to make such assumptions or accusations. I know Who is backing me, I have seen Him, and I have been right where each and everyone is either standing or stood. I know the pain, the anger, the hatred. I also know the truth, the entire human race is doomed to die, and that truth is an unfortunate inevitability that we all must face. It has been caused by the fact that deep down all of you and I know, we are all villains. We are all attracted to rebellion and evil. I also know the truth that there is hope, as bleak as it seems the light is always stronger. We might be doomed in this world, but it does not have to end that way. There is a hope, a chance to break out of our chains, a light that can overcome the villain persona that we all have. A chance for Someone to mold us into a hero. The question is do you really want to be free?

Stay tuned…

Preston Newby: Personified Heroism

The last two weeks have been probably some of the hardest two weeks I have ever been through. I have had a moment of clarity though and thought this is probably a good time to clear up and speak. One of my mentors, teacher, youth pastor, and good friend was killed helping someone in a tragic accident (http://www.lakeoswegoreview.com/news/story.php?story_id=122169250967465300). Preston lived his life for Christ and died a hero that was molded by the One he lived for. I mourn greatly for many reasons, for a family that lost someone they loved, for his friends that lost someone who was closer than a brother, for his church who lost a great leader and example. Do not weep for Preston, I can not even fathom the joy he is experiencing right now with Jesus. Weep for those that have lost, for those that knew him and those who never got the chance. For those that knew him, as hard as this is and will be, we have to move forward and Preston will never be forgotten. His legacy will be honored through the steps we now take, Preston lived for Jesus and looked to Him and His Word for direction let us all do the same. One of our leaders is in heaven now, we look to the leaders who worked with him to give us direction. I am confident in their leadership and know that God is with them as He was with Preston. The spirit of what Preston's life was about, the very Spirit of God that he followed will never leave us. We can make it, I don't know how, but I know we can. Its what Preston would have wanted, its what Christ our Savior wants from us. For those of you who tragically never met Preston, I cannot begin to tell you what an example he was. Christ was first in his life, that always showed up in his actions, his joy, in his life. He loved his family more then anything, it made him so happy to spend time with them. He cared for his friends, he was always real with us, and could always bring a smile to our faces. There are so many things I could tell you, all good, nothing bad. I found no fault in him, even though I think Preston would disagree and point to Christ as the only true example, as it should be. But let us all at least remember forever, God created a man that left a legacy to show the way to Christ. God gave us all someone to look up to. God truly molded through his grace and mercy, a hero. Preston, I miss you my friend, my brother in Christ. I'll see you on the other side, someday.