i will rest in YOU.....

"Lord, i'm in the dark,

seems to me the light is dead

when i come calling. No one there.

The sky is falling.

Lord i need to know! My mind

is playing games again. You're

right where you have always been.

TAKE ME BACK TO YOU!

The place that i once knew as a

little child. Constantly the eyes of

God watched over me.

LORD I WANT TO BE..

In the place that i once knew as a little

child, fall into the bed of faith prepared

for me.....

Tell me i'm a fool. Tell me that you

love me for the fool i am. And comfort me, like

only You can. Tell me there's a place,

where i can feel your breath like sweet

caresses on my face again...."

What a thing to sing praises to! How often do we forget about Christ's love in the sense of something like this. How he doesn't simply make us feel good, but in His sovereignty and His worthiness we find rest and He appears as an actual father to us!

Lyrics to "I Will Rest in You" by Jaci Velasquez"

Check out the video :)

oh buggah......

So i am terribly sorry if you are disappointed in me after reading the following. I find myself in dire need to smear all that is on my heart on this canvas of a blog.

If i have the ultimate master of the universe driving my ship, why do i find it so hard to simply row with the other shipmates even while the driver hands me more than i need to do it? On top of that, the driver insists that i stop trying to help him control the boat. I still want to. I feel obligated. So i slump to the back of the boat and try to decipher the directions to steadying a ship so massive as this one. Only, i already know it all. So i sit there confused....very confused. Is there something i've been doing wrong all this time? Why do i have this passion to take hold myself? Why do i not pay attention to the directions that i already know?????

Now, if you are anywhere close to having the amount of confusion and odd mental pictures flying around in your head as i do now, perhaps i can explain it in rhetoric or something of the same nature.

How hard is it to give up YOU? To anything. Perhaps you find it easy to give up yourself to your spouse or someone very dear to you. In this case i mean giving up YOU to God? I just recently was reminded of many truths of christianity. Truths that are more than often hidden underneath the veil of perhaps sunday school or your standard church sermon. How many years of preaching have lacked not only gumption for the truth in the church, but the audacity to sing it to the heavens and to one another?! The truth of christianity is that it is NOT about us! The basis of my relationship with God has been ME wrapping HIS commandments around MYSELF. If you didn't notice, the ratio of myself to God in that sentence was 2:1. My heart should be hardwired to want to praise God even if while i'm doing it, i'm being thrown into hell.

I tell you today that i am not at that point. It's terrifying. It's satan. And it's sinful. That's me. Is there hope? Yes, there is. Am i capable? Yes, i am.

There you have it. I tell you, reader of this blog, that i am working on this. Hopefully in time it will be at His pace and not mine.

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

life on the head of a pin.....

Life recently, for me, has consisted of many things making it seem as a piece of dental floss easily cut in half by the dullest of blades. Friends are moving away. Relationships are ending. Old times are being packed up. And a new chapter of life is about to begin. In all of this i find it hard to find one thing to really focus on as far as what God is doing in my life. I mean obviously He's doing the whole "comfort me in the mist of trouble" thing. But somehow i feel like I'm so focused on the metaphysical proof of His pursuing me. Maybe he waiting in His armchair flipping through the book of life. Maybe He's watching me pace the floor as i try to count the number of ceiling tiles. He's waiting for me to sit next to Him and ask Him what the book He's holding is about.

I've found, mostly this summer, how much of an adventurous person i've come to be. Indeed i still want to do God's work in being a servant of Him and His people. But i also want to see this world that He has placed me on. I want to interact with it's people and discover it's places. Unfortunately for me, discovering this meant discovering that some parts of my life i was no longer in love with. I'm very sorry if this is scatter-brained. I've been the type of person who is a dreamer. Who sits back and dreams off of what other's have experienced. I loved to watch as people went out into the world and wrote books on their discoveries and on the universe as a whole. I was content with this. But now i find myself more and more pursuing the experience part of that. I keep awaiting someone who knows me so much and knows my strengths and weaknesses is going to shove me into the airport terminal whether or not my nerves like it! Whooda thought that person might be God?! I know, right? IDIOT! But this is where the story gets a little different.

After realizing all of this, the thought of maybe i'm focusing so much on the "world" started to occur. After all, God did say that we could never love Him and the world together. That part i'm still trying to work on. But then i came across a quote by MAX LUCADO.

"We, like Paul, are aware of two things: We are great sinners and we need a great savior. We, like Peter, are aware of two facts: We are going down and God is standing up. So we...leave behind the Titanic of self-righteousness and stand on the solid path of God's grace. And, surprisingly, we are able to walk water. Death is disarmed. Failures are forgivable. Life has real purpose. and God is not only within sight. He is within reach."

Pretty legit, huh?! Through all the mental battles here comes the peace. My salvation and the promised safekeeping of my soul is not so much teetering on the head of a pin. The part of my life that matters: Not the girlfriend, not the travel, not the school, it's all placed in the margin. It all comes back to Jesus. So He is mighty. Dillon, stop worrying. I'll put my faith in Him and make sure i don't stray too far. Sure i'll fall on my face five million times. But with the help of a few disciples, intimate time with Him, and some perseverance, the path will always seem worthwhile.

two hands...

So a very good friend of mine just recently published a post about the jars of clay song titled "two hands". He talked about how we so often shove God in the corner why we continue life doing our own thing, building up our own selfish agenda.

The song includes a verse saying "lifted high, lifted high". I decipher that as an objective for christians to not only use both hands for the same cause, but that cause must be to LIFT HIM UP! I think it not so ironic that we have two hands along with two choices (God and Satan). I think what's depicted through this song is the human nature to hang on to sin and the world with one hand while trying to hang onto God's hand with the other. That's only giving half of yourself to the Lord!

Here are some examples of the song's lyrics:

I’ve been living out of sanity
I’ve been splitting hairs and blurring lines
I am a house that is divided
In my heart and in my mind

I use one hand to pull closer
The other to push you away.

So the "person" is SPLITTING hairs. He's cutting his soul in half trying to worship God and the world. He's blurring lines. Not only strangers but he himself can't even tell what he's living for. He's a house divided. In his heart he is dwelling in both the houses of God and Satan where his mind is cut in two.

Case and Point: We, yes WE in case i forgot to include my sinful self in this, are unable to live and proclaim God's glory to the fullest unless we use the whole self that God created. He didn't create us so that we could erase and rewrite the schematics to our lives to our satisfaction. So let's get rid of the sinful dichotomy we've created for ourselves and embrace the ultimate creator whose works never fall short.

For my friends blog: http://throughthecrashingwaves.blogspot.com

what's LOVE got to do with it?

Love is one of those things that have, in my life especially, comes with many tricks up it's sleeve. So many times i find myself questioning what exactly my love is based on. Is it based on a series of fundamental ideas created by the public eye? Is it based on one's need for companionship? Is it based on peer pressure? Is it based on physical attraction and/or esteem? And finally, is it based on some sort of divine targeting factor that pinpoints that one person that is "meant" for you?

As sad as it is for me, i have a hard time determining which of these is more prevalent in my life each day. Indeed it is scary at times, being unsure of such a thing. It's something that i've accepted about myself. We are to always have "agape" love for one another (love between God and man and christian love for the brethren). That, i know, is true in my life for most people. I won't try to take up that saintly pose by saying i posses it for everyone in my life. Wow i am really schizophrenic! Anyways, i'm trying to imply that i often ponder motivation for my love and whether or not it matches up with God's idea of love. We go through life looking for that ever-so-true love that every Jane Austen novel tends to point to. Not to offend Miss Austen, for Pride and Prejudice is on of my absolute favorite books! That's right fellahs! Bring on the stabs haha. But once we find that true love, can we hang onto it once the twitterpated effect starts to diminish because now the relationship is ours? What if we aren't looking for actual love but for the game in which the experience of love is the prize?

Point and Case: Love is fragile. So don't toy with your own or with anyone else's!

"Rich and Robbed"

" I don't want to be rich and robbed.

I just want you, well, i want to WANT You.

And i don't want to be content and lost.

I just want you, well, i want to WANT You.

And i don't want to be famous and forgotten.

I just want you, well, i want to WANT You. "

STORY OF MY LIFE!!!!

This always strikes me as being one of the truest songs out there when referring to my soul. So often i ask God, what the heck is going on?... How come sometimes i'm so eager for more of You and sometimes i want the world. This song is a nice little wake up call because it shows the world not only as "pleasing" but also deceiving. Extreme wealth often robs us of our connection to Christ. Being content often makes up too comfortable to fall on God. Fame may bring you abundant fans, but that's also creating more people to forget your name.

One thought that seems to continue reviving itself in my mind throughout the week is "Why do i praise the world so often when i know that everytime i sit down to read His Word i'm always totally at peace and my life doesn't seem like a finite track. So one prayer that i continue to pray throughout my life is that God may help me discern what is best and WANT more of Him.

Everyone should check this awesome band out! The picture above is me with them at camp.

http://www.branchmusic.org/

DRAW SWORDS! :P

Haha. So last week during vacation bible school one of the classes that i helped in was Bible Study with mrs. beverly. First off allow me to add that she is one of the sweetest old ladies i've met and she knows so much about the Lord and the history of the bible. Hence her class. Anyways, she especially liked to give the second graders "bible drills" where she made them hold their bibles at their sides at attention. She then commanded "DRAW SWORDS!" the kids were to then hold there bibles in front of them and, after hearing the bible verse indicated, were to look it up as fast as they could once mrs. beverly yelled CHARGE!

A friend of mine, Landon, and i loved to joke around about this because, i mean seriously? DRAW SWORDS?! what the heck. it aint that serious, lady! But this weekend especially i realized how easy it is to put my bible aside and not at least flip through it's pages to help myself memorize some verses or something. I remembered the song by Casting Crowns titled "What if His People Prayed?" in that song it asks the question: What if the armies of the Lord picked up and dusted off their swords and not let Satan have one more?

That struck me as pretty darn important. Shows how much i take christian radio seriously. 

But i really think we all need reminding every one in a while that filling our head with knowledge of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and the commandments which we are to abide by is the essence and maybe even the foundation of Christianity. It's not something that we as christians can decide isn't needed at this time or isn't relevant in tomorrow's schedule. If we call ourselves the army of the Lord, why are our swords sitting there rusting when our city is on the brink of civil war?!