Ephesians 4:2

"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."

How hard is this to follow? As of late, I see how much I fail at this, and probably will continue to fail. It sucks, but I am really feeling like I just am made to be alone, but loving people who make it extremely hard for me to love. As opposed to people who completely love me, and myself accepting their love. 

Its a weird situation, and one that doesn't totally make sense. I still can't figure out my feelings completely, but I sometimes feel like it is not fair for me to accept someone's love, without being able to fully love them back, 100% in the same way. Especially if I still struggle showing my love for Jesus, Himself. Jesus was single until His death, which allowed for Him to focus on His Father, and to focus on showing His love, patience, humbleness to all of those around Him. Sometimes, I feel that if we are to follow in His path, we should do the same, or maybe at least myself I know that the Bible also says to create a family and bear children, but that just doesn't seem like what is really in store for me, or what I would accept. So which is my path? How do I choose? 

Bah. I need food. 

Psalm 105:1

"Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name: make known among the nations what he has done."

"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone."

- Colossians 4:2-6

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I should definitely be more active in showing my love for God, and making sure that it shows in everything that I do. Wait, that was worded incorrectly. I should be more active in showing my love for God, and should allow Him to show himself through me much more. 

I really love being out here on the road with my friends, and its a great opportunity for me to meet all kinds of new people all over the country, and even spend a lot of quality time with my own good friends, and the rest of those who are on this tour with us. At the same time, I feel like I am taking advantage of this opportunity and not realizing that God put this in my hands, and that I should be doing more with it. 

Its also hard for me to figure out what it is I should be doing in my situation. Its hard to just bust into a conversation about the Lord with people, at least for me. I don't want to come off too strong or overbearing towards someone who is not a Christian and make them uncomfortable about meeting Jesus. At the same time, maybe that's what needs to be done. And then again, it wasn't constant in my face pushing that led me to Jesus. It was Jesus himself, who used friends around me to gently push me in His direction. 

I know there are not really any list of deeds that I need to do to have my eternal life with Jesus, and that doesn't mean that I can go off and do whatever. I have already been saved, and if I really have accepted Jesus into my heart, I should make Him first so much more than anything else I am doing. But how extreme does that mean I should go? Is there a limit that we should put on ourselves for such things? If we really did love God and are spreading His word like we are technically supposed to be doing, does that mean we become a fanatic and mention Jesus in every sentence?! I feel like I am over analyzing my purpose in doing evangelical work, or maybe not thinking about it enough. I have to just pray to God that He will use me to bring others to Him, and use me as a source to show himself to the world. 

Its tough to just allow that to be, and to not feel like, I have to do this, or I have to do that. Ugh. On this tour so far, which is just over a week in, I have spoken to one person about their faith, my friend Janet. And we didn't really get into anything super intense, but we both are Christians. I would love to talk to her more about it. I think the Envy guys are not of any denomination, and don't consider themselves religious, so I would love to hear what they have to say about things, but fear that I wouldn't have my own story together to show my reason for devotion to Jesus. And then, the people in my own band, I know that I should be talking to them more about things, too. But man, we are usually so busy, or tired, or just want to relax, that it doesn't seem like it will happen. 

But I will try harder, and I will work harder to get to know those around me, and not just let this wonderful opportunity pass me by. 

I pray that Jesus will give me the wisdom and words that I need when the time comes. And I am so thankful for everything that He has put into my life. 

Mars Hill New Sermon Series

So, I call Mars Hill Church in Ballard my home. I'm not an official member, because I am lazy and have no excuse. But, I do attend quite a bit, and listen to their sermons mostly. It is probably the only church I have ever been to that I really listen and understand what is going on. I love how Pastor Mark Driscoll is able to convey the Bible back to us, and not watering any of it down, and I really feel like his own understanding and interpretation is right on.

Well, the last couple of months, people have been able to email questions, any question about the Bible, the Church, etc, to Mars Hill. They were rounded up and put to vote [by visitors to Mars Hill's website] to pick the top 9 questions that Mark should speak sermons on. Last night was the first, and the topic was: Birth Control. It was intense and amazing. I really hope that they podcast the service I went to, which was 2 hours long, and had even been shortened a bit, because most of the people at my late service were single, college-type people, so Mark didn't go into as much detail on certain points. It should be up on the podcast mid-week, and I strongly suggest that you subscribe and/or download all the sermons that are coming up.

Another new thing that they did at our service, was allowed us, while Mark was speaking, to text a number from our cell phones with any question that we might have about what he's speaking on. At the end of the sermon, the questions were shown on a screen, and Mark, with no direct preparation, answered as many as he could. The first, 'Did you see the Seahawks game?' Hahaha. The rest were good questions, and he answered them well. But what an idea! Anonymously be able to directly as Mark something!

If you want to see what else he will be preaching on, check out this page:

http://askanything.marshillchurch.org/

All of the questions are listed, as well as the number of votes each question received. I'm really excited to hear the next ones, and am sad that I will be gone on tour for the next month, so I won't be able to attend the sermons. But I will be downloading!