An Unlikely Candidate

Yesterday, I started to write down my life's story. I started to do this because I wanted to tell people about how the odds were stacked against me from my birth to be another faceless, nameless statistic of numerous things. I started to recap how difficult my life has been thus far. I started this because I was kind of feeling a bit hopeless to get out of my circumstances. I was feeling pretty sad about losing some important people in my life. I was especially feeling the hole of not even having the person I needed the most to help shape who I am, and how I should be: a father.
As I was writing I started to realize some things: God is great. I am a miracle. He is my Father. Suffering makes you stronger.
I was two paragraphs in when I finally started to realize these things, and so I stopped. I decided to not write anymore about my circumstances because there was nothing I could do to change what I was born into, and what I have been through.
 I remembered the following passage:

"Remember dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world's eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And He chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important." -- 1 Corinthians 1:26-28

By the world's standards, I am not considered much. But God chose me. He loves me. He thinks I am significant enough to die for. He does indeed have a task for me to do, and has given me the personality, gifts, and talents to accomplish that task. I have a piece of the wall to build (Nehemiah reference). And so do you. God chose you, he loves you, he called you into this glorious Kingdom. You are significant. You are secure in Him because nothing can touch you spiritually speaking. Heart and flesh may fail, but nothing will ever separate you or me from Christ's love. We may have weaknesses, but His grace is sufficient. We may have hardships, but we have His peace through it all. We may waver and stumble, but Jesus is still there.
His promise to us is that He will never leave us or forsake us. His promise is that He will give us everything we need for living a godly life to escape the world's corruption caused by human desires (2 Peter 1:3-4). He has promised us that someday we will enter into eternal rest from our trials and hardships here on earth. But until then we surely need to persevere and fix our eyes on Him. Jesus is the champion and perfector of our faith. Let us hold tightly to Him through everything and anything that we may encounter. Let us have an unshakable faith, confident hope of the future, and an unconditional love for one another.

Depth

Last night, I revisited my old youth group. I have such a great love for the people and teens that are a part of that youth group. Such a great love. But I am starting to get off topic before I even start! So last night, my old youth pastor, Blaine, near the end of his message, referred to a quote by Richard Foster: "The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."
This really, really resonated with me last night, and has stuck with me throughout most of the day today. So much so, that I had to look up the quote, read a lengthy, amazing article, and then write about it. It all got me to thinking about what it means to be a person of depth. Is it just someone who is wise? Someone who reflects on everything that they do, say, or think? Someone who is able to hold a conversation about more than the weather, and other topics of small-talk? Someone who is well-versed in politics? Someone who is philosophical? These are all well and good, but I don't really think that is quite what being a deep person means.
I know so many people who strive to be deep. People who struggle to break free of the stereotypes they have been given. Stereotypes of being poor, stupid, uneducated, shallow, arrogant, entitled, selfish, uncaring, party animals, and much more. Yet, when compared to their accusers, sometimes, they had a better understanding of what life was really about. They had a depth about them. When I think about depth, I think of someone who is incredibly grounded. Someone who has great insight into the things of life. Usually, they are wise due to things they have witnessed, or experienced firsthand. These people had a depth that was not really their own, I would dare say. It was a depth that went down into the deepest parts of their soul. It was a rootedness.
Depth like this comes from someone who is so deeply rooted in Christ Jesus. To me, that is a depth, the only depth, that matters. Knowing the depths of Christ's love for us, and being totally rooted in Him. Unshakable. Unwavering. This is the depth I want to have. I want to draw from a spring source so deep that this world cannot even measure.

Get Real

"I can never escape Your Spirit! I can never get away from Your presence! If I go up to heaven, You are there; if I go down to the grave you are there. If I ride on the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there Your hand will guide me, and Your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night-- but even in darkness I cannot hide from You. To You the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you."
Psalm 139:7-12

Today this verse came to my mind (thank You, Holy Spirit).
I have always known I was adaptable to most situations, but the way I do this gives "flexible" a whole new meaning. I have this longing to find out what a person wants or expects in another person, and then mold myself to TRY to be that person. I do this out of a need to be safe and protect who I really am. I do this to escape what I view as certain rejection if a person knew who I truly was: the things I love, hate, stand for, believe to my core, will fight for, and won't fight for. The things I deem as funny, enjoyable, delightful, or stupid. I feel like if they knew who I truly was, they would be disappointed in what they knew or saw. 
I don't know when I started this, but it has become more of a problem as who I really am keeps surfacing, demanding attention. It is hard to repress yourself. You become oppressed by others expectations of who they think you should be, and who you have pretended to be for however long. It becomes difficult to sort out what part to keep in check with which person; it is stressful, and a constant source of anxiety. Second-guessing reigns supreme in my life! There are really only a small, small handful of people who I am really myself around. I mean small. Truly, in the last couple of weeks, I have wondered if that is only my mom and my pastor. They know me so well, and see through BS so well that I have no option but to be completely myself with them. But even then... 
You know, when you try to be the person you think others expect you to be, you lose touch with who you really are. You become this person who knows a little about everything, but not much about some things. You become a person who is never really fully engaged in a relationship. You become a person who is blown and tossed about by every wind of new teaching. You become unstable in everything you do. You become this person who is always in their head trying to sort out what is acceptable to display and what is not. Because you are so WORRIED about what people are going to think if you let a part of you slip out, and be made known. You are WORRIED about being EXPOSED. In my mind, being exposed to people means being hurt and rejected because often times, that is exactly what has happened. I fear that I am a slave to this method of adapting to the possible expectations of others, and I have lost touch with who I really am. Who I was meant to be.
In a sense, I am hiding. 
Oh humanity. 
We have been trying to hide since the Fall in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve tried to hide from God after they had sinned. They became exposed to knowing evil. They had been exposed to sin, and felt ashamed of being so exposed physically because of the shameful things that had now entered into their minds about being physically exposed. They lost their innocence, their goodness, their right standing with God and with each other. 
This has been the curse of humanity since that point: we have lost our right standing with God and with each other. We try to hide things from God and from each other. We put on a facade of being alright. We pretend to bless, and then curse. We pretend to love, when we hate. We pretend to be something we are not for approval. It might work for a while, but at what cost? We never become the people God created us to be.
So how does this relate to the above verse? God knows us. Did you get that? GOD KNOWS US, and we don't have to hide from Him. We don't have to pretend to be something we are not for His approval. He already knows us because He made us. We don't have to hide from Him. In fact, we CAN'T hide from Him. Everything is exposed before His eyes (Heb 4:13). We can be so real with God. He is SO real with us and to us. The Psalm 139 verse backs this up. We can try (and we do) to escape from God. We try to hide in our highest moments. We can try to hide in our lowest moments. We can try to escape. But even in our darkest moments, we can't hide from God because to Him "the night shines as bright as day." Darkness and light are the same to Him.
He won't reject us. He won't leave us. He won't forsake us. 

This is two-part really: through Jesus' life, death, and resurrection we also have the ability to be real with each other. To be people who are trustworthy and safe. To be people who love without limits because we radiate Christ. To be people who heal, instead of break. To be people who speak truth, instead of lies. To be people who do things out of genuine concern, rather than selfish motivation and ambitions. People who encourage, rather than discourage. People who build up, instead of tear down. To be people who affirm instead of deny. People who do not try to push their own agenda of who a person should be, and instead let them be who Christ created them to be. Essentially, we need to be Jesus to other people.

This is a lesson for myself than anything. If I happen to help someone today, then praise God. But I was brought to a stark realization of my adaptability act here recently. I started to do my repression thing, and became extremely resentful because I felt so restricted. I felt like I was hiding myself, and started to forget myself. I started to wander away from God, and back into the world. Things I once never dreamed of doing, I entertained the thought of doing. I came to a realization that apart from God, I really do not have any lasting interests. Most of the things I do or know have to do with God, and the person He has made me to be. So here I am, back to a realization of how much I need God, people that I trust and can open up to, and to be a person that is trustworthy and can be opened up to.