Be On Guard

“Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And do everything with love.” 1 Corinthians 16:13-14.

A couple weeks ago I was at a prayer night with some of my good friends and the essence of these verses came to my head while we were praying for me. I didn’t know the reference at the time but just the idea of standing firm was repeating in my head. Now yesterday at Church I was reading along with my pastor as he was preaching on the end of 1 Corinthians. I was slightly uninterested in the fact that Paul himself was writing the last couple verses and not letting a scribe write for him, so my eyes wandered the page. It was a really cool realization for me since I had prayed that verse over myself with these guys, weeks before I knew that it was an actual verse.

The part that was resonating in my head a couple weeks ago was stand firm in the faith. Just to hold to what you believe. Recently I’ve been somewhat purposefully questioning what I believe more so in regards to church services and what that should entail but also in regards to my personal journey through life. I haven’t really come up with any conclusions yet but I really feel that God is going to take the Church somewhere that it’s never been and all the churches that follow his lead will be blessed. Not that the churches that don’t follow will be cursed, but something is going to happen and the Church needs to follow, whether it’s similar to tradition, or it’s completely different.

But more so in the past few days I’ve been thinking about the, “be on guard” part. There are so many different ways that the enemy can steer you into dead ends and off roads and where you aren’t supposed to be. Now I’m still trying to figure out where I should be. However, that really isn’t my concern, I’ll end up where God wants me to be whether I tried to get there or not. The worst is when Satan throws thoughts in your head, but when there are also pure thoughts. Which is which? I find it so hard to distinguish between pure desires and corrupt desires. Maybe sometimes I think that the corrupt desire is actually a pure desire until I’m neck deep in a situation and realize, “hey, you aren’t God.” Then on the contrary, I don’t follow pure desires sometimes because I think it will be to hard to do, or it’s easier to follow the corrupt ones. As I’m writing this I feel like Paul a little bit in Romans 7-8. He’s writing about how his sin causes him to do wrong things that he does not want to do because he wants to do the right thing. But him talking about this isn’t to complain, so don’t get that idea. The answer to his questions is Christ Jesus. Then Chapter 8 starts with “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” He isn’t complaining about his desire to do good things but his nature is to do bad things. He’s simply acknowledging this and letting the church know that it’s human to fail and fail a lot.

This is not an actual experience just a thought/story.

What does a touch mean in today’s culture? What does a simple graze of the fingers when exchanging a bag or an ipod, or a high five that lingers way longer than it should, or a one of those really long friendly hugs imply. The mind will take these completely harmless things and turn them into a multitude of questions that can drive someone crazy. Now, say this “touchy feely” attitude from a girl towards a guy continues throughout a few weeks. What’s the impression that the guy is getting? As a guy I’m getting, hey this girl likes me. Ok so now I think this girl likes me. Ok that’s cool; let’s see where it goes. I ask her out/tell her about how I’m feeling. Sweet things are good; we start to hang out more and more. Here’s where things unwind in my mind. When things are completely fine, everything’s great, she runs. Why, where are you going, why are you running, nothing bad is happening, it’s actually good for both of us and you know it. So why run. What are you running to? Oh right, nothing, because you are running from something. If you don’t have anything to run to, why are you running from something good? I could understand if things weren’t going well or there are things that we are struggling through or we don’t live near each other. You’re running from me to nothing, I didn’t do anything, but you are running. You can’t run forever. Maybe you’ll eventually start running to something but right now, you have no relational goals. Maybe in the future you’ll come back, I’ll let you go, but maybe you’ll come back. But Maybe I won’t be here when you do.

Shout outs to Anonymous

The following is a description of some important people in my life, without mentioning their real names (I used fake ones)

(in no particular order)
Hannah - you are a great female friend of mine. Even in the short ish amount of time that I’ve really known you, we’ve developed a strong bond that I hope continues to grow stronger. At first it took multiple hours of shopping and eating dinner and driving for me to even attempt to open up but since then I’ve been so encouraged by your strength given all circumstances involved in your life. And despite your troubles, you still find time to hold your friends up when they are struggling. You are truly an inspiration.

Annie – you are also a great female friend. I’ve known you longer than Hannah, but still, it hasn’t been all that long of a time, especially looking at the times we’ve actually been in the same neighborhood. In the past couple of months, our friendship has been renewed immensely and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Sometimes you care and focus too much on other people and school and work that you forget to give yourself time to relax. You are realizing this though, so it’s time to work on that!

Michael – I’ve known you all my life and we’ve been around each other for most of that time. The past few years we’ve been going our separate ways but that’s growing up I guess. Over those past few years you’ve matured a lot. I kind of don’t want you to have matured sooo much because that means less stupid fun, but it does mean more meaningful conversation and experiences, which I guess are more important. We won’t ever completely lose our idiocy, so that’s good. I am looking forward to a summer full of you.

Gary – Well, similarly to Michael, the past few years we have experienced less and less of each other. Again, thus is life. You are or maybe you were once my biggest competition in anything. Sports, music, school. You won most battles, but I relished in your defeats. I am always encouraged by your intellectual point of view and you bring me to see things from angles that I hadn’t before seen. I shall see you soon my brother, you ridiculously good looking Man.

Kelly – We’ve definitely had our ups and downs. But through it all we are still somehow friends. You’ve been there for me when I desperately needed it, and vice versa. You are a gorgeous young woman after God’s heart and you care for everyone way too much more that you care about yourself. However, you want to be successful, and to this point, I think you’ve done that. You’ve struggled through school and jobs and you are still going strong, even if you don’t feel like you are. For everything about yourself that you think is bad, there are two great qualities.

Chris – You and I basically run together, and not physically either. I’ve known you for the shortest amount of time on this list but since then it’s just been good time after great time after fantastic time. I really love playing music with you whenever. It’s just a freeing feeling because for the most part when we play it’s not about structure or routine but it’s about just having fun and really enjoying what we are doing.

Johnny – We should hang out more than we do but that’s coming hopefully. I love the randomness that ensues after we decide to chill or hangout or whatever. We’ve had some great talks while my car died and hopefully many more to come, sans the car dying part.

Jack – Dude, I miss you and late nights just because that’s what is supposed to happen. I am always encouraged by your heart for God, it’s so strong and really amazes me, but it also challenges me because awesome things are happening in your life so therefore I want great things to happen to me which in turn causes me to strive toward God more.