A New Life in the Monastery.

WOW.

What a crazy two months. Seriously. I love traveling, but what i love more is my friends. Who would have thought i would find such a loving bunch of kids in peoria/pekin ILL so randomly? God maybe? Most likely.

Honestly i am very blessed to be able to call them friends. They really helped me out alot.

I am also very blessed to have the friends and family i have here at home. Its weird moving into a place i which you already spend the majority of your time, but now have responsibility with. Its rather hard breaking out of my old habits of just hanging out.

Its been even weirder for me lately because i'm entering a new stage of life as i know it. Not just living in anew place but as a different person....sorta. As many people know i've been the weird punk kid for 5 years or so now. I've been as extreme as to wear animal skins to sunday worship. Now i have changed my love for all that stuff, i still love punk and crust. Its just that i'm in an environment that i need to conform to. I want to respect the people around me so that means i have to shower and wear decent clothes.

And THAT. Is weird to me.

Its just weird transitioning form something that has changed my life so much.


My voice is making its way back. Slowly.

I will be playing music/singing 4 hours a day 6 days a week. Thats so much...

I have been very apathetic with God lately. Of which i am convicted greatly. My eyes are dry and prayers are cold. I will return to the Lord and repent, it is for love He set me free. It is for love of other things i run from Him. Put it to death.

I love making music.


Lastly, i am commited to a year of service full time here at LHOP(if not more). That means it is rather hard for me to work, so if God puts on your heart to support more financially please listen! haha....Seriously, your prayers are more important, but money is nice.



Thank you,


Until he returns,
JOshua,

Its the end of school as i know it...

So, as of 11:00 o'clock may 1st i will be done with my time at Thomas Nelson Community College. It was difficult at times, but yet rewarding experience. I believe i got straight A's this semester, which is acutely contrasted to my last semester in the fall. Also as a seemingly going away gift the state of VA awarded my 972 dollars in which i was not expecting.

Very exciting. No coincidence that sunday i was convicted of my failure in tithing and made a larger than 10% tithe that last night i found the check that came through the mail. A further testament to the provision of the Father.

I have been slacking in prayer room time. I need to get back in there.


May 24th i am leaving for my summer travels. Hopefully i will get to see all two or three of you that read this blog. I'm very excited since this is my last wild ride of sorts. It is probable that this will be the last time i get to experience this type of adventure. Certainly there are other adventures i look forward to exploring such as Marriage, children, ministry etc... Speaking of which... Ladies, I'm available. Just so you know.


I have to go pick up TIm from school.

Until he returns,

Prayer room thoughts

As i sit here in the prayer room i am caught day dreaming and thinking. Not an uncommon thing for me, but i have become encouraged by numerous reports from the Kingdom front. Its exciting to see the growth of the Kingdom.

I want to encourage those around the world and in the USA to pray for the unity of the Church. As i am beginning to believe we are in an important time of the earth, i believe it is essential that we pray and work for the unity of all christians. I would love for all Christians to be of one mind, but i am HAPPY to say that this task is in the hands of God.

I want to see the Church work together for the pushing forward of the Kingdom, to bring the lost home and give other the most important gift there is to give. The gift of Salvation.

Let us leave our past addictions and struggles to give all to Jesus. Let us fill our lamps so that we may light the way for others.

I think today i am going to pray for the academic hand in the body to become ever wiser in the truth of God. So that we are ourselves convinced of the truth.

When its January its May...

How true that it is. While the fall semester seems to drag on forever the spring seems to fly by.

I'm actually sad to be finishing some of the classes i'm in. They are fun this year, as compared to last semester. Fall was the worst fall of my life i think, panic attacks, failed classes, debt....I'm glad its over.

As of a few days ago i will be going full time at LHOP in oct. I'm really stoked on this. I've already hit my prayerlessness, so it's battle to get myself in the prayer room. Mostly because i have to play, and i'm not a very good singer, and i often struggle with that. So it becomes difficult for me to find the confidence to lead my sets. Not to mention i don't have my own acoustic to practice and play on. I'm trying to save up for one, but i had to pay 400 in taxes and that left me with little cashola. God will take care of it i'm sure.

So i'm leaving for two months in may, i'm REALLY excited. I can't wait to get out on the road and rails. If i make it across it will be the second time i have cross the states coast to coast. Always an adventure, hopefully this time i won't come back in debt. I can't wait to visit friends i haven't seen in awhile. It seems i always fall in love on these trips, to a girl that i can't have. You know how much that sucks? I'm hoping someday the girl i fall in love with will just come back with me. Yeah.... Unlikely.

God is so deep. There so much of him i'm ignorant of... oh hold on damnit by blink is on...


Ok back. So the historical Jesus is coming alive to me. Like Seriously, Jesus walked the earth, and so did Peter and Paul. I've always known that, but it never really sunk in until now.

So i'm gonna go jam for the lamb. Repent and Praise Jesus Internet world.

The end of a terrible semester.

So here we are. At the dead end of the semester. Two more days of pure torture. I made a huge mistake taking the classes i did. My grades will suffer, but i'm beyond the point of caring. I'd rather just get into next semester with a clean slate and actually enjoy classes.

As i'm writing this a pile of work is not getting done. I should get it done. I will i think, but i feel the need to express ma' self.

A goof friend of mine today was asking what i was doing after this part of my school was done. I didn't know what to tell him, not because i don't know, but because i was afraid he wouldn't understand. So i kind of embellished my story. Said nothing untrue, but just didn't mention the idea of getting a bus and taking my punk band around the country being the prophetic voice of the Coming Kingdom in the punk scene. It doesn't sound like the most honorable plan to many, even more when i tell them i'm taking a year off.

I feel like i'm being looked down upon and frowned upon because i haven't completed my schooling and i'm off doing things that look meaningless. Surely i enjoy those things, but very much understand the need for a purpose and work. I want more than anything to do something that means something. thats why i have a hard time at school. To me it seems point (though it's probably not), but in the end i feel like i could be doing soooo many other things that have eternal value. Unlike learning about art history and the square root of a negative one.


I live to be a witness to the Reality and urgency of the Christ Jesus. The God who is and is to come. The mighty and true, the compassionate and loving saviour. The God of the universe. And the God that i fail day in and day out. The God who talk about but come out short in my actions, the God who i am not worthy of being loved by, not worthy of the gifts i'm given, not worthy of praising. Its quite daunting a thing to be in relationship with this God. Though, i have found it more rewarding than anything to be known, it is still a struggle. My flesh wants anything not to do with this God, but my heart, soul and mind know that i love Him.

I don't not believe it a describable to communicate the worth of Yahweh. It is beyond me at the very least. Sheer and pure holiness doesn't translate well from the mouth of the chief of sinners.


I need God to disipline me daily, for i am slow to learn and quick to deny.

Restart.

As I have returned from my adventures and have since nearly completed another semester of school since i have last posted here i feel its time to start.

I need to be able to speak and express the many things that are inside my heart, for the sake of my own sanity. So if for no one else this blog is for me. I know there are many blogs on the interweb and why you would choose to read this one is beyond me. But don't expect anything more than a rambling one way discussion about my life and the things that I encounter in it.

SO. Post uno.

It seems i was deceived...Well, misguided and ignorant more likely. Who in there right mind ever called art easy? I was a fool who thought this would be his easiest semester. Hell no. I couldn't thing of a more difficult combination of classes than the ones i have now. I feel terrible because the one class i enjoy and that i'm good at i hardly get the chance to really enjoy.

I think also this semester is scarring. This is why; I work my butt off to keep up with my classes this year. Harder than i ever have before. And, to this point, it hasn't paid off. So i feel like i no longer trust the hard work, and effort i have to put out for certain classes. As if i don't believe that i do any better with hours and hours of stressful studying than when i BS my way through the semester. Well, i can tell you i have the wrong attitude. I know i do, but it doesn't change the fact that i still hate it.

I need to work hard. I need to persist through trials. I need to struggle.
Mostly i need to push beyond fear. Fear of failing, fear of work, fear of who i need to be.

I always thought i wasn't afraid of failure, and perhaps i am less so than others. I am beginning to think otherwise. I understand my inability and weakness, and i'm afraid of it and the consequences of it.

"Lord, I need the whip and the rod." I'm not sure i can learn without the forcing of discipline upon me. I just need to suck up al that it means.

Even so there are moments of hope. I just want to serve God. I want to know that what i'm doing is for a purpose and that what i'm doing brings him joy. I see life has nothing for me to gain, and further more i want to know that reality to its fullest. To live is truly Christ and what is death but the gain of a greater living? I seek the urgency and the zeal i believe is required in this day and age.

Christ is coming, and we can argue about when. The simple fact still remains, we have a purpose and a calling. We must answer with the zeal and passion that far exceed any other passion we may have. Our evil passions easily outweigh our holy ones, therefore we must realize the seriousness of the place we find ourselves in.

This all works together in my life bound by the fact that God wants more from me and i need to be willing to give it.

BRB

Under the knife.
Prayer for me.

Done with school for 8 months after this semester.

Thats right. Three months or so traveling. Then its off to IHOP for an internship. There i will pray my heart out every night.

I'm really looking forward to no school. I've got to start saving up money for everything.

One of my goals at IHOP will be to ask God to give me a place to serve. I know i'm going into ministry, but where and how is still a mystery. And who knows...maybe i'll reform IHOP while i'm at it...haha.

Anyway, i'm sick. Cold i think. And now i'm hungry. I think i keep swallowing toilet paper through my nose...grb.


God is doing some real work in me right now. It's like he's showing me exactly how He works. Defining Himself to me. Hopeffuly i ca start actually applying this stuff soon.

I heard March For Life went well this year. That make me joyful.

Bikes, Bibles, and Bottles is on its way.

blah

Sorry, I know all of you who love my blog have been quite disappointed as of late, but i promise when i find enough time to blog i will.

Cheers,

I'm sick of school...

and it hasn't even started yet.

I really want to just skip it... I want to just go and do something that will mean something in the end. Sure, i can do ministry now, but i hate having to tote this bag around with me the whole time.

My friends Adam and Mary Dawn got married last night. I'm so happy for them, they are close friends and i've known Mary Dawn since freshman year of high school. So its kinda weird her beating me to marriage. Now, Adam took his sweet time getting there, but i'm stoked for them both. So, congrats to the Carriers!

I really need money. Insurance, school, guitar stuff, bike trip. Needs to be paid for....

Speaking of bike trips. I need to get on it more about planning mine. Me and Tim need to get back on the proverbial and not sure metaphorical wheel of training...


And it seems at this point our trip will lead us through the town of a very-close friend. Well, at one time close friend... Its quite the fiasco of events and feelings. Me and my friend haven't been close for the last two months for many reasons on many different levels... And at first i thought i wouldn't miss my friend as much as i think i do now... I don't like what happened between us. I freaked out, and raised hell, and my friend broke down or so it seems. And now we are here...And i wish we weren't.

So many things changed in my friend...Well maybe not changed, I don't believe character to change, but shift. I don't think character changes, but is always there. I think that your character can be bad and your behavior still be good. It has to be i think to lead to better character. So perhaps my friend just had a shift in behavior and my friends character is still weak at this point. I don't want to be a name caller or make my friend sound like an asshole. But i am in the same boat with weak character. But as you build character these shifts don't happen as often.

I have been able to, in the past, continue some form of stable friendship even with character shifts like this, but not with the same kind of person. So i don't know.

This isn't the first time this has happened like this... Since it really isn't the first time something similar to this has happened. But, it has given me perspective about how i handle my friends when something like this happens... I notice the consistent pattern; 1. Disagree 2. Argue/plead 3. commit to some form of righteous silence. and finally wonder if i really handled the problem well...

I often wonder if i am treating the situation with enough gentleness and grace. Well...I know i haven't. I have tried to repent for the obvious times, but what about my methodology? I have began to wonder if my response lines up with what Jesus would do...except I don't recall Jesus having the same dynamic in a relationship as this instance. I'm going to begin to ask God if i should do something different.

It is very tough. Watching someone you have been so close to throw a fist of disregard into the face of God. Not only has the door been open but my friend is walking through it. I worry. Alot. Its a mix of a sort of postmortem regret and the sense of being on train that has no brakes and being tied to the front end of the locomotive. But those feeling must be met with prayer, with God, with my willingness to abandon control. My friend and I may never reconnect, but that is far from the aim anymore. Those who understand the seriousness of the situation i think would agree that there are far more important things at the forefront of the subject's battlefront than satisfying my desires.

I believe i was kept out the informational loop between friends when it comes to me and my friend's nearing-regress relationship. Which has caused me different kinds of griefs. Its one thing to not be able to control a situation, but when you don't know the whole or even majority of the information related to the person its a different beast. Its like when we hit algebra in school. We all thought we had it figured out when we had a decent grasp on pluses and minuses that when we were introduced to unknown factors and what ever the heck that animal stick figure was we wet our pants at our lack of knowledge when we believed that we knew the subject of math so very well.

That sort of reaches the level of what i feel towards this.

So what am i to do? I'm not sure. I don't want to claim to know everything about my friend's issues, though i have the evidence in my head to understand at least a few of them, that i end up spreading rumors...I won't be that foolish again...

I think it really does come down to my desire to see my friend far more alive in Christ than i see my friend being now. It out cries my desire for relationship and my desire to be "justified" or what ever lamenting bitterness that broken relationships generate.

"I just want you to come home honey. Maybe not mine, but at least His. Our houses are still built on sand no matter what we want to say and the waves are getting higher... "

Home, Sweet Home...

Well, i'm back from Kansas City. Ihop was wonderful. I'm still praying about going, and interning.


There have been things that have lingered with me through and after the conference...

.The Holy Spirit in His infiinte wisedom didn't choose to touch me with power like i had hoped... But He told me something, something very important.

"I will sustain you" And "I love you, Joshua".

Those two things among a few other words did i come away with really struck me.

I keep looking for these deep experiences to maintain my fatih in God, but God isn't doing that, even though he has before. He wants me to be faithful and waiting for Him. Not demanding, and not living for the next spiritual rush. My faith and true faith i think goes so far beyond rushing experiences and feelings. I must choose to follow Christ everyday, and if He decides to give me those Holy Spirit moments I accept them and rejoice the same. It was really wearing me down that God wasn't giving me anything for the first couple days, but then i had to dial down and reexamine my motives. My job is to give God glory and love Him with all my heart. He, in His love, will do what is needed. My trust has to come without God giving me every little desire right away.


I have always understood God's love to be static and a bit boring. Always, thinking God loved me sort of like a grandfather loves His grandchilren. But a new idea has seemed to arise... That God loves me like one loves his wife. That i am caught up in a romance with God. That God is truely in love with what His Father created. I still do not understand all that is to be known about this but i am dedicated to knowing it fully.

I beginning to desire prayer. To be in a constant state of prayer, to intercede of behalf of my family, friends, community, and world. Even though God chooses what to do with everything i offer Him, He still wants me to give it to Him as an offering.


I just want to be with my Father, my Lover and Creator. And to know each of those parts of God to the fullest.


That might take awhile....

When it comes to girls...

...listening to God can become be so hard...

I don't ever think i can trust my perception of what God wants when i have crush on a girl or i'm trying to figure out what to do with a relationship.

I get quite afraid of God's anwser when i ask about that stuff, because i just don't want Him to say no...ha! I'm becoming impatient about finding a help/worshipmate and i'm only 18! I guess that is where i need to learn to wait on God.

So dealing with this has gotten me thinking about marriage and the union of a man and a woman. I'm not talking sexual, or civil unions but spiritual. Though spiritual union bleeds into both i think that one of the most wonderful things about marriage is worshiping God together. I can't wait to worship God alongside my wife. efrgdkfmngkirsg! It just gets me stoked.

Its something about having your relationship so centered around Jesus that makes me excited.

I find myself becoming more attrachted to a woman's relationship with God and character than her looks. Now, looks are great sure, but i guess i just can't connect with a girl unless she is connected with Christ. I'm not looking for perfection, but for intention. I want a girl that DESIRES to be close to God.

The Passion, His Passion, My passion and Our Passion

I read something interesting on my dad's blog(splashingthoughts.blogspot.com) that i thought was interesting.

Passion is love beyond circumstance and change, more over Passion exists even in times where there are negativities pitted against it.

It dawn on me that is what "The Passion" means. Or, at least in some respect it does.

Christ, being human had His struggles with baring the cross. I think He may have even doubts that God was still with Him ("Why have you forsaken me?"). Now i won't claim that one to be true, i have not explored it enough. But i do think its obvious that Jesus found Himself running into walls along His way to the cross.

But, He was passionate about His father's will. His commitment was beyond mere enjoyment or entertainment. We all know what that looks like right? Its the friend that plays with the Jesus thing for awhile and then abandons Him when it gets tough, or Jesus doesn't do what that person wishes He would do. They would have said before that they loved Jesus, but now they may even hate Him.

That situation alludes to another problem in our culture; has to how we view the true meaning of love, but not now.

I would say that the friend was probably honestly connected with God, that he or she did taste God, but under-estimated the cost and the investment of really LOVING and being PASSIONATE about Jesus. I have many friend such as this, and my hurt burns for them to become passionate about Christ. And I think they still will. I do not think God gives up on us, that he will chase us until we say yes.

Real love and passion goes beyond hardships, even to the point of rejoicing in them. I have learned a hard lesson in rejoicing in hardships, but what i have come to understand how the apostles could rejoice while in jail or while being stoned. Because they were passionate about following Jesus. Thats how in love they were with Him, and thats how in love i want to be.

But it starts with a choice often, a choice to seek hard and farther than before. It is comes when you choose to follow even in tough times. Then God will lead you out of the dryland and into a valley rich with love. There on the other side you find yourself becoming more and more passionate.

So let us be passionate about the One who is passionate about us!

Who Do You Choose?

In the not so eternal period of time to choose who you follow.

You have two options. There are not any more.

You can have the world and all it has to offer; immediate pleasure, happiness, sex, indulgence, absurdity, despair, lust, disease, instablity, darkness, and the ever inescapable feeling that everything you are doing is killing you and those you love and has no purpose.

Or

You can Follow Christ. And enter a world of many of the same pains, but with the immeasurable love that conquers and drives out all fear and despair, and the intimate rapture of love with the God that created you.

Everything in this world is fleeting, certain destruction awaits prefer the world and what it has to offer i hope you can find peace in that, because I have not been able to, nor do i think many have.

Take My World Apart

I am the only one to blame for this
Somehow it all adds up the same
Soaring on the wings of selfish pride
I flew too high and like Icarus I collide
With a world I try so hard to leave behind
To rid myself of all but love,
To give and die

To turn away and not become
Another nail to pierce the skin of one who loves
More deeply than the oceans,
More abundant than the tear
Of a world embracing every heartache

Can I be the one to sacrifice
Or grip the spear and watch the blood and water flow

To love you - take my world apart
To need you - I am on my knees
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - broken on my knees

All said and done I stand alone
Amongst remains of a life I should not own
It takes all I am to believe
In the mercy that covers me

Did you really have to die for me?
All I am for all you are
Because what I need and what I believe are worlds apart

And I pray,
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - I am on my knees
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - broken on my knees

I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
And wipe away the crimson stains
And dull the nails that still remains
More and more I need you now,
I owe you more each passing hour
The battle between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago
So steal my heart and take the pain
And wash the feet and cleanse my pride
Take the selfish, take the weak,
And all the things I cannot hide
Take the beauty, take my tears
The sin and soaked heart and make it yours
Take my world all apart
Take it now, take it now
And serve the ones that I despise
Speak the words I can't deny
Watch the world I used to love
Fall to dust and thrown away
I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
So wipe away the crimson stains
And dull the nails that still remain
So steal my heart and take the pain
Take the selfish, take the weak
And all the things I cannot hide
Take the beauty, take my tears
Take my world apart, take my world apart
I pray, I pray, I pray
Take my world apart