— Oswald Chambers
Be yourself… whatever that means
God has been teaching me so much lately.
No… seriously….. SO MUCH.
But I find that most of has to do with teaching me about the person that He has made/ is making me to be. These aren’t the basic things that everybody knows, but the things I have come to discover myself.
Before I knew these things (about 20 minutes ago) I had spent a lot of time trying to force myself into the mold of what I thought that I should be or what I thought that people my age should be doing, but it has never, ever fit.
I think that is because I am not you.
It seems simple… but I’m not you or anyone else. I am me.
You aren’t me and we aren’t each other.
We are different, but made in God’s image, and I think I am realizing that the diversity of people is yet another testament to how vast and glorious the God we serve is.
So what does God look like in me…… I am still finding out
I love being in nature, I love playing music, and I love going to the movies alone. I wrote my first song about Lord of the Rings, and I am learning that the secret to life is to be still and let Him fight (lyrics to the last song I wrote). I hate ketchup so I dip my fries in barbecue sauce. I am more afraid of mushrooms than I am of spiders. I am good at video games. I like to smell good. I eat breakfast alone every morning and sometimes pretend Jesus is sitting across from me so we can talk. The ocean reminds me of the God I serve, and the stars remind me of the endless ways that He and I love each other. I like to talk about God, love, and life. I love the beach. I love to laugh about the simple things and the complex things. My heart has broken for strangers and hardened towards friends but I am learning to forgive, only because HE is teaching me what forgiveness really looks like………………………… and I like food.
I want to hike more. I want to listen to more records. I want to fall more and more in love with God each day. I want to talk to strangers, hug the homeless, and drink more tea. I want to meet Phil Collins. I want to know God’s plans for me, but while I don’t know them I will trust that He is good. I want to see Manchester Orchestra in concert. I want to read the Bible front to back, not out of guilt but because I am that hungry for God’s word. I want my PHD in music, but I also want to serve the church. I want to travel the world and love the people in it. I want to watch every episode of The Simpsons……………. and more than anything else in this entire world I want to be with God someday.
This is what I know so far.
I am sure that God is going to teach me more, as well as change and refine what is already here, but I am so excited.
I am even more excited to see who God has created the rest of us to be……. individually and corporately.
2 Cor 12:12-14
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Join me?
“God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”
Romans 5:20-21
Good God. Good Stuff. Good God stuff.
Believer. Sorry about the video length :D
Homecoming
So this week I am in Arizona, and for the most part my time here is all about rest before I finish out my last semester of my first year of college. But this year has taught me the importance of reflection so I am going to reflect on my own version of March Madness.
1) The importance of quality time: Call me an idealist, but I feel that if people took more time to talk to each other a lot of misunderstandings would be cleared up. This last Saturday I spent an amazing day in Long Beach with an acquaintance that I did not know a ton about until we sat down and had lunch together. It was such a blessing to hear about her life story and how it turned her into the believer and poet that I saw in front of me that day.
Had I never taken a chance on hanging out in LB, had I just decided to sit in Fullerton and watch TV, I would not have grown a profound respect for her. It was worth it to just trust that deep in the heart of everyone is something worth digging for.
2) Confidence: I won’t write a ton on this. But God has given us each something unique and special. We should appreciate it, love it, and use it.
3) This weird chain of events that we call life: Reflecting back on the show that I played at last Saturday. SPIIT!! I think it is crazy how far things have come for me musically in the past couple of months. It seems like random events (conversations in the student center, performing at a friends benefit) have brought me to more opportunities for me to play the music that God has given me with other people. One person’s initial faith in me has allowed me to showcase my talents, and in turn has brought others to have faith in me. This brings me to my fourth and final point…..
4) The importance of thanks: Showing people appreciation is an underrated practice that I want to start bringing back. Taking the time to say thank you, and to tell people what a blessing they are is huge. I know it always makes me feel nice when people say thank you to me, or they tell me they appreciate me. No job on Earth should go thankless. I believe that with all my heart.
So from here on out I plan to talk to people, love people, sing to people, praise God, have faith in God and the people he puts in my life, and give thanks like it is going out of style.
Join me?
Oak.
Tonight I experienced God in a way that I haven’t necessarily experienced Him before. I am so glad I got to see a real and living God that speaks and moves and breathes in ways that we can’t even fathom.
During my small group tonight I wrote words/ a song that I just want to share.
There’s a seed planted in this soft soil/ here on the ground of my heart/ struggling to break through though the rainy season is past it’s start./ The shell of this seed is hardened/ by things I won’t let go of/ but i feel hope pushing through towards the sun that shines like God’s love.
grow/ grow/ grow seed grow/ you have more power than you know/ one day you’ll be a mighty oak but for now just let go and begin to grow/ press through until your leaves show.
I can feel hope poking through now/ the feeble and leafy stem/ it’s a beginning of a new phase/ and it’s a phase that may not end/ cuz as it grows and grows and strengthen/ becoming the oak it is meant to be/ people will stare in wonder of this ever growing tree.
grow/ grow/ grow seed grow/ you have more power than you know/ one day you’ll be a mighty oak but for now just let go and begin to grow/ press through until your leaves show.
Bridge: Grow just let it grow/ hope just let it hope/ know little seedling know that you have power far beyond your own/ thrive little seedling thrive/ there is a reason you’re alive/ You’ve got branches and shade inside/ ready to be fed by the light/ so grow grow grow
This tree won’t always stand/ because the seasons are at hand/ winter comes to every land to make things white and new again/ and you may be cut down/ your leaves may wither and brown/ but remember the greens of spring can also be found if you push through little seed and burst forth from the ground.
I have music for it playing in my head as we speak, and hopefully it will be done tomorrow. But I must rest after I type this thought.
We can’t be afraid to grow, and I don’t want to fear growth any longer. There is a warm loving sun waiting to shed light on us to feed us. Water that is living and real to quench our thirst. There are seasons to test us and try us. They make sure we stand firm, rooted in the soil of our hearts (where God resides). But beyond all that we have the prospect of growing into something so beautiful and so shocking, so incredible that people will see it and say, “Only God could have created something so amazing.”
Join me?
Grow with me?
These dry bones cry out…
This past month has been really crazy, chaotic, and beautiful. I have gotten a lot done but it has been difficult and I have had a lot of late night freak outs in my best friends’ room.
I think that it was a blessing to have a month like this because I am realizing that I have been putting off what is important and holding on to trifle things that don’t matter. But with a new day comes a new grace, and a new month brings me 31 of them, so the word of March is “simplify”.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen I am going to simplify. that doesn’t mean I am going to fall off of the face of the planet and not do anything. But I am going to stop saying yes to all that comes in my path and start using discernment to know what I am capable of doing well.
It also means I will be writing more, listening more, loving more, but most importantly I will be meditating on God’s word more. These next thirty-one days will be devoted to going deeper and acknowledging some skeletons in my closet that God has been wanting to clean out for awhile.
I don’t know how this is all going to pan out, but I know I need to make it happen.
Oh and also, for those of your who care about my music at all, on March 26th I will be part of an Urban Theatre Movement Production called Spit!! (2). I will get you guys more information on it as it comes.
So this month it is time to return to those days of yore when I did what I was capable of, and searched for God in all of it.
Join me?
Friday Night Monkey Business
Tonight/ last night I performed 3 of my songs at the Monkey Business Cafe here in Fullerton. Basically, Hosanna Wong (one of my favorite Asians), threw a benefit for foster kids called Beyond The Boots. It was a whole lot of poets and myself. I was super intimidated and I just hope that my music did the night justice. :)
It was a decent sized room filled with people I knew relatively well, and a lot of people I didn’t know at all. But it was still really good, and God revealed to me a lot of things that I didn’t necessarily accept.
1) God has blessed me with talent..
2)I love making music about God and life and love.
3) I think God wants me to start sharing that talent more often.
I have been really wary about sharing my songs with too many people, whether it be from fear of rejection or whatever. But I have things to say, more importantly God has given me words to sing and speak.
The scary thing about all this is that I don’t know how exactly how to go about it.
I will probably start posting a lot more about what I am doing and songs I am writing currently and sharing my thoughts and my heart for music and God with more people.
Anyways, tonight/last night was amazing, and I loved being able to share songs with new people in a different setting. Hopefully as I study music here at Hope, pray about how I handle my music, and work on sharing it with people i will remember why I sing and why I write. But I also want to grow in my confidence and performance.
Thanks to those who came out, although you probably came because of Hosanna’s amazing event. It was nice meeting you all, my beautiful new friends. :)
Take my life, let it be.
I think maybe sometimes we assume that giving our lives completely over to God works quicker than a ShamWow cloth, but I am starting to think that there is more than that.
I think in our worship (our everyday lives), we have to give a little more of ourselves to Jesus with each second. It is a continual process that is sometimes difficult, and quite a daunting task.
But when you think about it, burnt offerings weren’t consumed by the fire all at once. It took time for the offering to get swallowed up by the flames and become ash. I think we should think of our offering of our lives in the same way, but that raises up 3 things.
1) If God wants to, He will raise up an inferno to take out the whole offering at once. Sometimes you will burn harder and faster for God and you should revel in those moments. And there are other people who just get swallowed up by these flames of sacrifice and become completely surrendered to God and don’t look back.
2) Everyday is a sacrifice on our part and being burned up ain’t easy.
I think that when we enter each day with a worshipful attitude we don’t go to bed the same as when we woke up, because God has consumed a part of our old selves and created something pleasing to God.
3) Be excited about the fact that you are on fire at all. The fire starts the moment that we realize we are created to live for more than just ourselves. But the sacrifice is a process, a process that we have to trust and wrestle with every single day of our lives.
This is just a thought I had during my quiet time. I am struggling with life in general at the moment and it hit me that I need to continue my sacrifice even in the hard times.
I want to wake up each morning and create a fragrant offering to God, and I want Him to change me more and more every second.
Join me?
