So many Blessings.

Getting a late start- and it's been awhile since I've been on here.
It seems that I move in and out of these spurts of writing- I love writing but even with being out of school right now I find it difficult to find time for writing. Tina and I have been so busy withe pregnancy, with looking for a house, with the youth group and with a dozen other things. We're definitely busy, but it's a good busy. Expecting a baby? Check! Starting a Youth Group? Check! Busy? Check!

It's been great and yet it's been tough to some degree... it's such a blessing to live at my parents house while looking for our own home but having to have all of our "stuff" in a dozen different places- and trying to fit "our house" in my childhood room... well that's where things become difficult. Case in point- I have a library of books and they are spread through out the whole house which makes it A. difficult to find what I'm looking for and B. difficult to find a place that is quiet, and good for prayer/study. Thank God, Pastor Dave has heard my "cry" over this and was willing to give me a key to the church so that I could seek out a place of silence and solitude and yet even then I haven't taken advantage of this because of numerous reasons (the distance, being busy at home/work, etc) It's still good to know that I have this option, and I was all set to head over there today to study, write, etc... but with Tina being sick and with Life of Freedom tonight well I guess I'm staying put.

My mind has been swirling with thoughts, idea's, feelings and emotions.

My heart has been so caught up in the love of God and in seeking out His face. It's a feeling of desperation, I just want to take in the inheritance, I want to live the full life that He promises me/us.

This pregnancy constantly reminds me of His presence. What a blessing, what an awesome blessing is this baby. This whole experience has been without words- knowing that God is providing for us, that He is the creator and the sustainer of all life and all things. How Awesome.

I would write more... but my mind is a blur and I need to step outside and just take sometime for prayer and praise.

Go in Peace.
Lance

From the outlines of Failure to Faith.

If you could live for forever.
If you were to die tomorrow.

What would change? How would you do life differently? How would you spend your time, would there be a difference?

Between the infinite and the finite.

If we could eventually get our Faith right, if we could finally uncover the greatest depths of Christianity and in doing so find the Christ that God intended for us to imitate and celebrate with our own lives. If we could finally die to ourselves- if we did these things then all we would need in explaining our Faith would be His name. All we would need is to say the name of "Jesus"

If and But's, Maybe's and Question marks.

I have been all over the place as of late. Life has been up and down and my growth, my own personal growth if described would one day be electric and shining and the next be somber and cluttered with thorns and needles. As Tina and I turn into this chapter of our life, I realize that in just trying to "do" life, life can become exhausting. I realize that in attempting to "live" life that life can be unpredictable. My writing has collided with this realization, I have a million and one things that I would love to be doing right now and I can't get past writing words on this pathetic platform.

Sometimes I wonder just how much I'm in the way of my own success.
Sometimes I wonder if its even possible for me to be in the way of what God has for me.

In wondering this I quickly realize that I'm either too thick headed or entirely human or just too naive for thinking that I have any say on what God wants. Probably a bit of both.

If and But's, Maybe's and Question marks, Sometimes and probably.

In all the uncertainties, we find His promise. That even in the darkest hours of my life, and the most corrupted portions of my soul and the most depraved area's of my Faith walk- it's in His promise that I find myself clinging to with utter desperation. For if I fall out of Faith, what does it matter if it was always His Faith in me to begin with?

Christ's Faith sustains me. Christ's Faith is what keeps me from the grave. Christ's Faith is what overcame death, disease and sin. Christ's Faith is what will bring this baby from the womb and into our arms this December.

I have spent many years going 80% into things, getting fired up and working towards what I believe to be the goal at hand. I have spent 100% of my life doing this and now as I turn the corner of 26 years of age, I find myself aggressively pursuing what I believe God wants me to pursue, what he wants Tina and I to pursue. At times I may seem aggressive, overly passionate, at the other end of the spectrum desperate, frustrated and overwhelmed. I may feel at times where I should be the most alive, I may just feel dead. When I should be dead, I may then just be alive.

My goal is to not push anyone away- I'm just so passionate for this life that I know God wants us to be living. I'm ready to go, I'm caught up in so much extra baggage, today is just an example to this baggage I speak of. I come from a background of management, leadership runs through the veins of my family and in my present business I have found great difficulty with pushing forward. At times its simply the complete lack of understanding, or even the desire to understand. I look at the business model of companies that have great success and while doing so they have employee's who dearly love where they work... this is where I find the most trouble in my life as of late.

I have been toggling the struggles of putting to rest the disaster of last summer, balancing the joy and the wonder of this summer and attempting to put together the pieces of my potential career. I work hard, real hard at times. Between driving top of my class grades, managing the full time stress and rigors of a job that rarely gives you the appreciation or any breaks and trying to exist with my own personal life...

I guess it would just be nice for once for someone to go "How are you? " And for them to truly mean it.

Most people will ask and they really have no idea what there getting themselves into.

My day is built around asking others how they are doing and giving the robotic response back. "Just fine" "Okay" "Great"

"Great" while inside I'm breaking down
"Okay" while I struggle with making sense of things
"Just fine" while I lay there with my chest open and heart beating

I'm really just tired of the "stuff," stuff being the agenda, and the fakeness, I want real life- not a million and one caps to wear and a billion and one face masks to put on. It's tough to keep putting on the brakes, when you realize that a particular system of thought is in position and that system of thought is so integrated in our world that not a single person is alive or awake to notice it. We move through life suggesting that it's just "this way" and we use expressions like "it's just the way it is" "life is tough" "it's always been this way" and we speak this while parading around, beating our chests about a man who died in order to change all of that for not just you, but for me and everyone else.

Have we woke up yet since Genesis?

Genesis 2:21- So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

It doesn't say that Adam ever awoke- could it be that we're still asleep? Sometimes we surely act like it.

Revelation 16:15
15"Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed."

and for those still snoozing.
1 Thessalonians 5:10

He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.

Am I insane for wanting more? Am I completely, totally messed up because I believe that it means something when God sends his only son to die for the world and we continue to lick the crud off the world's boots? It's like the Denis Leary commercial where he tells us our brains our going to mush because of TV and we keep on watching. Most of us our living a life that is going to crap and we just keep pushing towards it. For those that walk in Faith for fire insurance, have your fire insurance all you want...

Because what if...

What if the one that you seek for insurance is the one that is setting the fires? Are you just settling in for a comfy, cozy ride into heaven? Is it about playing golf on waves of clouds and gritting your teeth as you "just make due" with this life? If this is your Faith, then you can have it. I want no part in it. I'll take the Jesus that stands for revolution, that stands for power, for life overcoming death, for the restoration of all things. I'll submit myself to the Jesus that heals, lifts up and defeats fear. I'll stand for the Jesus that stomped out of the grave, and I'll go to my knee's in reverence for the Jesus that took all my sins and carried them into eternity so that I could be part of his elaborate Kingdom and be free.

If and But's, Maybe's and Question marks, Sometimes and Probably, Dying and Living.