One glimpse at the image on the box is not enough insight to arrange thousands of pieces to form a larger picture. Generally we stare at the after shot and work diligently piece by piece to assemble it. I personally like to begin my puzzle by laying down the framework first... adding parameters to my construction project. Then I work inward... pausing when it is more convenient to isolate a particular area or feature of the bigger picture. Sometimes, things clearly, and quickly come together .... everything falls into its place. Other times, it seems like nothing fits together. You find your self trying to shove a piece into place to force it to fit.. some pieces seem to be missing... and some seem as if they have no place at all.. sometimes the hundreds of pieces on the table look absolutely nothing like the box... and we find ourselves wondering if we've found the wrong box. Sometimes we finish... and sometimes we give up and tear everything apart - only to entertain the possibility of starting over again on another day.

Oh, the challenge of a puzzle. The problem is that I've seen the image on the box or at least enough of it to have a good idea of what is being constructed... but I'm looking at the pieces thinking that there is absolutely no way that this is coming together.

It is like traveling from point A to point B. You know where point A is because you are standing on it... .you've seen point B in pictures and on a map.... yet you have no concept of what the road in between looks like. How does one get from A to B when there is no visible path connecting them? Pave a way... and get lost in the process? Fight reaction... or completely go in another direction until one finds a path or a particularly useful map? Flight response.

As of now, my desire is flight. I want the exit door, not because I want to get away from what will inevitably come into the picture, but because I cannot see the path ahead and want to find a better way to get to point B then bushwhacking or treading water.... I want to transfer... to quit.. to be anywhere but here... I'm okay with the destination, but I want a new path .. a new process.

I either need to pursue a way here or completely purge my directions and start from a new angle.. and I want to take the path that I was designed to travel along...

Oh the puzzle...


"I hate feeling like this.
I'm so tired of trying to fight this.
I'm asleep and all I dream of
is waking to You"
- Skillet.

There is a unique movement within our generation, a movement to get back to the ancient. a movement towards the upper room, a movement of radical obedience, a movement of constant prayer... a movement of the next wave of Jesus Freaks.

I was first introduced to this movement a little over a year ago when I heard about a crazy 24 hr pray house started by a campus ministry in the Midwest. My initial thought was: "Man, these people are insane!" I listened to their testimonies, heard how God was moving... and knew that they had found something special in the place of prayer.

A year later, I find myself longing for one of those crazy rooms in our city, on our campus. I'm not alone. God has been stirring many of our hearts to increase in prayer... we've had prayer meetings, 24 hr prayer on Thurs, went to prayer conferences... committed to a sacred charge of a lifestyle of prayer... we have been praying to see prayer increase in our hearts and within the Church. Charles Spurgeon once said that "Prayer itself is an art which only the Holy Spirit can teach us. Pray for prayer. Pray until you can really pray" Oh, how we have been and will continue to be praying for prayer...

The prayer movement is growing around the world. College campuses are creating prayer rooms, churches are planting prayer furnaces, cities are hosting prayer meetings... a global movement to return to the place of prayer is well underway and increasing everyday. Across continents and denominations, the Church is returning to the upper room...

For the last several months, I have been contemplating a poem that has emerged out of the prayer movement called The Vision. Every time I read it, my eyes well up with tears... because- to quote a Jonah 33 song- "I want a faith like that". I want to be apart of that generation, of that army, of that movement... sign me up. Here I am, and I am grabbing hold of the vision.

The vision is for this generation to cry out to God 24/7/365.. every moment of everyday... to serve in the temple day and night like Anna the Prophetess, to be the voice in the wilderness like John the Baptist, to wait on the Lord and respond with radical obedience like Peter and the early church... the vision is Jesus, the vision is His Church, the vision is allowing the Spirit of God to work on us and in us and through us in this generation.... This is the vision and I'm claiming it.. because I want to be one of those people, 100% bonafide Jesus freak..


"The Vision:
by Pete Grieg

So this guy comes up to me and says, “What’s the vision? What’s the big idea?”
I open up my mouth and the words come out like this…

The vision?
The vision is Jesus:
obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is of an army of young people.
You see bones?
I see an army.

And they are free from materialism—
They laugh at nine-to-five little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the West was won.

They are mobile like the wind.
They belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting, dirty and dying.

What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimal integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, from every conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps—their Satan games.

This is an army that would lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day, its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great “well done” of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.

They don’t need fame from names.
Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”
And this is the sound of the underground, the whisper of history in the making, foundations shaking, revolutionaries dreaming once again.
Mystery is scheming in whispers, conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground.

And the army is disciple(in)ed—
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners.
Martyrs.
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulfuric tears and great barrow loads of laughter!

Waiting.
Watching.
24-7-365.

Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules,
Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide,
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
Laughing at labels,
Fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late-night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive on the inside.
On the outside?
They hardly care!
They wear clothes like costumes: to communicate and celebrate, but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their lives, swap seats with the man on death row, guilty as hell: a throne of an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as though it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses Jesus.
He breathes out.
They breathe in.
Their subconscious sings.
They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.

Their words make demons scream in shopping malls.
Don’t you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdoes!
Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes!
They walk tall and trees applaud.
Skyscrapers bow.
Mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.

Their prayers summon the Hound of Heaven and evoke the dream of Eden.

And, this vision will be.
It will come to pass.
It will come easily.
It will come soon.

How do I know?
Because, this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the spirit, the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is His today.
My distant hope is His 3-D.
And, my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking, great “AMEN!” from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself.

And He is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed."


The Vision

Some encouragement for all those with a heart for prayer on college campuses:
Picture This- Campus America


Any thoughts?

I like to think that I am an enigma. I am puzzle. I spent every moment of everyday trying to figure myself out, trying to solve this mystery of who I really am. The truth is that I spend more time trying to make myself an enigma than I do trying to uncover my life. Being enigmatic is easy. It implies that there is a searching process. It keeps me preoccupied with seeking, and distracts me from finding. The truth is that I'm not very enigmatic, I'm kinda simple. I love God. I want to follow Him.

At least it seems simple enough, yet I keep making it more complicated than it needs to be. I keep trying to shape myself rather than allowing Him to be the author of my life. I surrender, I give up.

"All I want is You to have Your way
You are the Potter and I am the clay
All I need is You to have Your way
You are Creator and I'm what You've made
Finally I Surrender
You are God I am man"

My life is slowly falling apart.... and i'm clinging to the pieces instead of clinging to You.

"I have read about the days of old
About the men who followed You
And how they saw the supernatural
And became the chosen few

So I come before You now
Tearing off my earthly crowns
For this one thing I have found

I want a faith like that
To see the dead rise or to see You pass by, oh, I
I want a faith like that
Whatever the cost, I'll suffer the loss, oh, I
I want a faith like that

I'm not looking for a miracle
Signs and wonders or things thereof

I caught a glimpse of what You want for me
And what I have is not enough

I read the story one more time
Of those who gave to You their lives
With no fear or compromise

I want a faith that can move any mountain
And send them to the seas
I want a faith that can break every stronghold
That keeps You, that keeps from me

And I want a faith like that
To see the dead rise or to see You pass by, oh, I

I want a faith like that
A faith like that"

Warning in advance, this blog entry will be a bit sporadic and its content will not do the subject manner justice.

As the semester ended, I knew that this break would once again change my life. I had no doubt that there was a possibility that I would encounter God at World Missions Summit and the Luke 18 Conference.. and that it would somehow change my life. I had expectations, but as always God is bigger and better than I could ever imagine.

World Missions Summit solidified the idea that I will probably be entering occupational ministry. I committed to serving as a missionary for at least a year.... probably as a CMA with a Chi Alpha or Students for Christ. While the response to that particular alter call wasn't surprising, the other things that learned at WMS were. I felt my heart being tugged by the thoughts of consecration- of setting my life apart for God and God alone. I felt convicted by the fact that I say that I am willing to die for Christ without being willing to live for Him. I delighted in the fact that AU Chi Alpha had a bonding moment of prayer. I realized that I am way more comfortable in a charismatic seeting than I would like to admit. I actually kinda love it. I find great joy in the jumping, hand raising, spirit praying, weeping, falling on the ground, speaking prophecy, healing the sick.... oh shall I go on? I mean I still think that some of the theology is a little messed up, but everything I love about the charismatic Church is biblical. I desire and I long for more of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit...

Coming to the Luke 18 conferece, my world has been completely destroyed. Completely destroyed. I kinda realized that I don't know Jesus, I'm not in agreement with Jesus, I don't understand the fact that Jesus is coming back, I haven't giving my life to Jesus in its entirity... this weekend has totally crushed me. I think that I truly realized what the sacraments of communion meant for the first time in my life. I committed to living for God by following a Sacred Charge of prayer, fasting, and a holy lifestyle... I have been drawn into the prayer furnance and my heart is on fire for God.

While I'm not explaining everything here, I have been totally wrecked this week. My life, my amibitions, my hopes, my dream, my faith have been demolished. This life- His life- will never be the same. It can't be.

"All-consuming fire You're our heart's desire
Living flame of love come baptize us

Let us fall more in love with You

Let us know how high how deep how wide is
Love Love Love"

*exhale* I'm not an emotional person, but as I am writing this... tears are slowly falling from my eyes. They are neither tears of joy nor sorrow... just tears. I'm not even sure why they have been provoked, but there are tears.

I think its a side effect of the pressure. The energy it takes to live in two worlds, with two identities. It takes its toll. Have you ever felt like two different people? Oh, I do. All the time.

It's rather surreal.

As I sit here having just left AU, talking with someone I lived with this summer, working on HOBY stuff, anxiously considering going home in a few days, and eagerly anticipating getting back to DC... I feel like I'm living in way too many worlds.

I'm ready for the worlds to collide... for the crash, the explosion, the aftermath of destruction... I'm ready to be whole again. I'm not sure how I am going to fuse my worlds, but I know that I need to in order to move forward. I need to step out of my boxes and say take all of it ... or leave it.

I am what I am... who I am... and that identity, well, it lies in Christ and Christ alone. I need to make that clear... crystal clear. I also need to remember that part of following Christ is being who He created me to be. I have been reserved at AU- that is not me. I've needed to learn discipline, and I'm learning it by holding back... but being silent and relatively inactive isn't necessarily the way to go about living my life either. I need to merge the enthusiastic driven high school persona that got me to college with the people person that I've become in college. I need to stop reminiscing on how I've had my moments as both a good leader and a good Christian and collide the two worlds to be a good Christian leader. I need to embrace my calling. I need to be one of those people, one of my people, one of His people... I need to be me. 100% holistically me and I'm not sure that I even know what that looks like. Thankfully, He knit me together in my mother's womb and knows me better than myself.. So this break, I initiate collusion, knowing that He has it under control...

Or at least I hope to catalyze the fusion- by God's grace- and finally bring my worlds together a bit. Assuming I don't chicken out. I'm at least three days from being home and I already feel like puking... like running.. like crawling into the fetal position....


None of that matters though... because my God is soo much bigger than my fear and my drama, and me.... I need to find myself in Him and in Him alone.

"In the secret, in the quiet place
In the stillness You are there.
In the secret, in the quiet hour I wait,
Only for You,'cause I want to know You more;

I want to know You,
I want to hear Your voice
I want to know You more.
I want to touch You,
I want to see Your face
I want to know You more.

I am reaching for the highest goal,
then I might receive the prize.
Pressing onward, pushing every hindrance aside,
Out of my way, 'cause I want to know you more"