When crappy things happen all you can do is look to the good things. All too often we allow good things to loose their brilliance and be taken for granted. Consequently they have a way of regaining their illumination after less desirable events occur.

Tonight I received an answer that I wasn’t expecting to hear. At first I was disappointed… A little heart broken even. I didn’t understand the way some things were handled but ultimately I trust that God has the situation in his hands. I have to trust that things are going to work out. Ultimately we have to trust God everyday. Any day something could change our lives in a huge way and the only stable thing we have to hold on to is Christ.

 
However I am aware of some good things in my life;

Conversations with amazing friends over the Hub’s finest brews.

A beautiful, caring, and loving fiancé.

And above all a God that is good.   

Many times in life we imagine that we are supposed to take a certain path, especially when it feels right. Many more times God’s plan supersedes our plan. We are to remain faithful even when we feel we have everything planned and figured. Tonight a friend (who a lot can be learned from) reminded me that being in a place where you have no idea what God has for you is a good place to be. Another friend reminded me that sometimes God wants us to sit and be still. Indeed I needed to be reminded of this lesson.  

This is the place where you are moved.

This is the place where you change

…This is where He speaks

This is the place God can compose your life and let it speak...

May He let it speak...

Grace = Discipleship

But Jesus is not interested in the young man’s problems; he is interested in the young man himself. He refuses to take those difficulties as seriously as the young man himself. There is one thing only Jesus takes seriously, and that is, that it is high time the young man began to hear the commandment and obey it. Where moral difficulties are taken so seriously, where they torment and enslave men, because they do not leave him open to the freeing activity of obedience, it is there that his total godlessness is revealed. All his difficulties are shown to be ungodly, frivolous and the proof of sheer disobedience. The one thing that matters is practical obedience. That will solve his difficulties and make him (and all of us) free to become the child of God. Such is God’s diagnosis of man’s moral difficulties. – The Cost of Discipleship

Jesus wants us and us alone. He wants to rectify the situation; he wants to wreck our world. Jesus wants to pick us up by our feet and shake all of our insecurities from the deep crevices of our pockets. Then after we are insecurity-free he wants us to enter into obedience and discipleship. Which if you’ve experienced grace Bonhoeffer would say the two go hand in hand (see the first few chapters). I think it is so true what Bonhoeffer writes next about moral difficulties being taken so seriously, even so much they “torment and enslave men”. If we were to shed all our insecurities and throw our burdens to the way side and enter into a practice of obedience our “problems” would then be solved and we would truly be free. We would then be free from the world’s grip of false security and know that the only truth, the only freedom, and the only security is found solely in Christ.

So often we are told that we will find our value in the latest car or technological advance from Apple, or from a value meal or a new outfit. Striving for these monetary goals will only put us in debt that will eventually shallow us whole. When will we quit seeking satisfaction through means which have no end and start to develop a lasting, effective, life changing pursuit for Christ and his will? When will we become obedient to the call to discipleship? When will we commune with our heavenly father? Then and only then can we be completely free and fully satisfied.

          …it’s not about getting

                             …it never has been …it never will be

                                                      …it’s about giving

                              …it always has been

                        Remember Christ’s sacrifice?

                                                …Mirror the details of his life… be a pawn