All Good things Must Come To An....

Well, I would say end, but that would go against everything I believe in. Usually, I get depressed and think about the long drive back from the beach. (Which is where we are now) But today, I'm looking at things differently. I have a lot of stuff to do back home, and while I don't necessarily look forward to doing a bunch of tasks all the time, this is going to be good stuff. The Journey is in a season of big-time change right now. Our church body, our locations, our attendees' location (with us moving back into Lebanon, many people are going to change locations of which service they attend too) and even our leadership. This past week, Shawn, one of my best friends and the campus pastor of Providence, decided he didn't need to be a cop any more. God wanted him to be a full-time pastor. So... like any of us would do, he quit his job and totally went into full-time ministry blindly! Awesome, huh? I mean.... that's what I did. No biggie right? LOL. You gotta be kidding me! Of course it's biggie. I mean, yes, I did do that too, but my situation was a little bit different from Shawn's. I won't go into all of the details, but suffice it to say, he and Miranda are taking a big leap of faith. I'm very proud of them for hearing God's call in their lives and answering. I'd love to tell you all that I came running the first time I heard God call me into ministry, but I'd be a big fat LIAR!!!! I acted like I didn't hear it for almost 5 years. But eventually, I came around to seeing things His way! 

- Just a side note here: that is always gonna happen, just to let you know. No matter who you are, where you're at, or what you do, God will get to you and make you see things His way, by one of three ways: 1, through His word... the Bible, the Gospel. Hopefully, you'll hear the truth and allow Him to convict you through the Holy Spirit and become His follower. 2, Through relationship. This is also not bad. Kind of confusing some times, but still very fun and interesting. What happens is, someone you know allows God to affect their life and then they start changing. You don't know what's going on... and it usually freaks you out to the point that you have all these questions (starting with... why can't I be happy like that?) And then it happens. Through the work being done in someone else's life, you see what having a relationship with God means and it intrigues you! Then you start going to church, and bible study (which leads to even more questions.... we'll talk about that later, but still all good stuff!) and then it happens. You have an encounter with God, where you hear His voice and He tells you to come to Him. And you will..... or you won't. Sometimes we choose not to. But be careful! Do that enough times and He'll stop asking you to come. Then you're in big trouble! (we'll get into that later, too!)  Finally number 3. This one isn't fun, usually. It hurts a lot, and usually comes when your life is completely wrecked and you have nowhere to go. This one is called circumstance. Sometimes God will allow you to experience life in its absolute worst form, in order to make you see that there has always been a better way, but you just kept ignoring it. This one is one that I wish on no one. Unfortunately, it's usually the one that's most effective, and the most widely experienced. (we'll talk more about that later)

---I feel like that has become my new saying..... "We'll talk more about that later". Dude, if we actually did talk about everything that I say we'll talk about later, we'd be here for days on end! So.... we'll talk about all of that stuff later too!

So, here's my question. Why do we continuously turn away from God. We acknowledge that He's there, that He created us, that He's obviously smarter and more powerful than we are (I mean... c'mon! He created the universe!) But we won't trust Him that the life He wants us to live, is the best one we could ever experience. Why do we do that?

It would be like a heart surgeon telling you, "you are going to die unless you let me put this brand new heart, never before used, and uniquely created for your body, into your heart cavity." And then you saying, "well.... I know this one is broken and it causes me a lot of problems, and no matter how hard I try I can't control what it does, but I really like this one. I think I'll pass. I'm gonna keep this one."

Are we really that stupid and selfish? The answer, unfortunately.... is yes.

Love you all

Robbie.