Spiritual Disciplines?: Discipline?

I realized something today about spiritual disciplines.

Before I get there let me start by saying, I suck at spiritual disciplines. I'm not very disciplined in general. Yet, especially, spiritually.

I suck at reading Scripture on a regular basis. I've only ever done a true fast once. I'm alright with prayer, but more as I go along with my day, not in a set aside time.

Here's what I realized today. I grew up hearing that I'm not supposed to be ritualistic in my faith. I learned that it's all about the relationship and if it's "something I have to do" it's wrong. I understand that desiring to do something and having to do something are two different things. However, disciplines are ritualistic by nature. So, if I'm supposed to not be ritualistic in my faith how am I supposed to engage in the disciplines? And if I'm not engaged in spiritual disciplines, then how am I to truly grow in my faith? I'm not saying that one doesn't grow spiritually if they are not practicing spiritual disciplines. I  have seen growth in my life without being well-disciplined. Yet, I know that they can intertwine one with the transforming power of the Holy Spirit quite well.

Obviously, by becoming Anglican, I am not against religious ritual. It has been truly invigorating to engage Christ liturgically. I'm just confused by the staunch difference between my upbringing (not necessarily my parents, school, or church, specifically) and the reality of growth in my Christian life. That's all I've got. Just thoughts flowing in my head. Maybe now that I've realized it's okay to view disciplines as ritual, I'll be better at them. Lord, let it be so.

fast...: Did it ever end?

Last summer I wrote a post about a secular music fast. Most of my friends new about my fast from secular music. To the point that some haven't noticed that I have been "off" the fast for quite some time. At some point during the fall, I felt that I could listen to secular music again. However, I haven't listened to much secular music since my fast was over. I got to a point where I didn't think I would be so soon: listening to mostly only Christian music. There are moments where I want to listen to my playlists from before last summer. Or country music. Or just random good stuff. Yet, mostly I only listen to Christian music. To the point that my friends don't even realize that my fast from last summer is over. I was supposed to write a few blogposts about songs that have impacted me. I only wrote one, but I started others. I never finished those. Thus, the point of this post is to preface the resurrection of those posts.

Happy Holidays

Holiday seasons are some of the most interesting times of the year. From a Christian perspective, they should be the time of the year that we are most closely drawn to Christ. Yet, do they not always end up being just the opposite? When with our families, stress and tempers flare up and foul attitudes follow shortly after. Personally, it is also a time where my personal devotion time--which is already pretty faulty throughout the year--becomes almost non-existent. Different family obligations or busy schedules get even more in the way of my personal interactions with my Savior. This results in me being even more frustrated in family interactions because my spirit is in a sub-par place. Yet, the Holy Days of Christmas and Easter, where I have spent my time of Advent and Lent trying to draw closer and find more meaning in the seasons. Yet, the season ends up ruined due to the complicated relationships that we were born into. The holidays should be joyous and happy and draw us closer to our Father, yet once we get with our fathers and mothers and siblings and such it makes it much more difficult to center our time on the One who we celebrate during the holidays. Backwards, isn't it? I guess such is human life.

Father, help me to keep you at the center and focus on You during this holiday season. Let the next nine days of Christmas be spent celebrating your first coming as I await in this second Advent your second coming for Your people. Holy Spirit, bring the peace and aid that I need to do so.

Written on Tuesday, 27 December 2011 on the plane on the way back to Chicago.

Perfect Babies.

Ever since a conversation with a friend and mentor trying to deepen my understanding and my own personal theology of the child, I have noticed that most people do not realize babies are a part of humanity. What I mean by that is where I got my title for this post. People see babies and think "Oh, they're so perfect." This is even ingrained into our minds through television. Two of my shows that I try to keep up with from this week referenced babies as perfect. Yes, babies are wonderful and I would love to have one, but that doesn't change the fact that they are a part of a fallen, human race. They are not perfect. The second that they hit walking or speaking times, we see their ability to do what they want to do--to be selfish. (Written two months ago and drafted for some reason).

And now, I've had the opportunity to hang out with my new nephew (born two weeks-ish after the above paragraph). However, my thoughts were not that he is perfect. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE him to death. And I think the world of him. Yet, I know he has been born into this fallen world and my prayer over my nephew was that he be protected from the things of this world. I know that he will have his own issues some day, but I prayed that God would help him through those problems. I prayed that he would be always know the love, grace, and peace of the Godhead. I prayed that he would never know a day without Christ that he would always want to serve and follow the Lord. It bothers me that people, even Christians, think children are perfect. Yet, they are still a wonderful gift from God.

funny little thing: Service Trips

So, I was reading a friend's blog and he was discussing his first missions trip (which was overseas) had greatly impacted his life. It made me remember that every time I have gone on a service trip someone makes that statement that the trip will change your life.

I have been on 4 overseas trips and a couple of domestic trips. However, only one of those trips (a domestic one) would I have stated changed my life after returning. Yet, looking back over the past 7 years that I have done trips, I can remember each trip. And each one did impact my life in some way. The trips might not have greatly changed plans in my life (or might not have done so immediately). Yet, each one has had their moments in time to influence my life.

Summer 2004: El Salvador.
I did not think the trip changed my life. I left El Salvador confused out of my mind about a possible calling to go to Chile someday, possibly full-time. I realized that there was a lot more to my life that needed to be figured out. The confusion continues about Chile. However, I hold on to a burden that I know God once gave me.

Summer 2005: El Salvador.
I had forgotten about Chile to some extent. However, I know that I ended up standing in the same spot as the previous year and felt a serious pulling towards Chile again. To me this was a confirmation about going there someday. However, something that I find extremely interesting is something
written in my journal. I wrote that I was looking forward to "Children's Ministry and pastorship." Ok, I mean, I know I had always thought about Children's Ministry as a volunteer or "side job" kind of thing. Yet, when you throw the word pastorship in, it really makes things more full-time and permanent. I didn't realize until FIVE years later that I was considering full-time ministry at this point in my life. Because to me it wasn't until my sophomore year of college that I started thinking about full-time Children's Ministry. After this trip is when I started collecting flags from other countries, which I started with Chile (for some reason I didn't get El Salvador until much later).

Spring 2008: Macedonia
This trip I presumed that I would be leading the trip the following year (which I did). However, this is the trip that truly introduced me to Europe's Children (formerly known as Save Europe's Children). I still have it in the back of my head that I will work with them someday. This trip was one that stretched me and helped me to grow a TON. I have been attempting to not be a picky eater since this trip. And it helped birth a passion for the children of Europe that still grows in my heart today.

Summer 2008: Pittsburgh
I went with a team of 4th and 5th graders. I was an intern and one of the adult staff of the trip. This showed me the ministry capabilities of children. It was an honor and pleasure working with these kids who had a passion to serve. Now, in Grad School I find that it is so important that people of all ages are ministering together and with each other. Reinforces what I saw on this trip.

Spring 2009: Romania
I led this trip. And I sometimes state that it was my least favorite service trip so far. However, I definitely grew and was prepared for future events through this experience. It was a tough, but good trip. We felt like tourists just as much as we did ministers. However, God still used these experiences to shape me and my view of service trips.

Spring 2011: Chicago
Life changed. I was a co-leader for this trip. As a grad student leading a team of undergrads was a truly amazing experience and God worked in my life a lot on this trip. It is the only trip that I left knowing that God changed my life. And God is still using events, people, and conversations from this trip in my life. There is a blog in my blog purgatory that I need to write about this trip so I won't write much here. Yet, this trip was phenomenal and I will write about it soon, even though it was months ago. I know I need to.


So, I can look back (and recognize even better than I did here) and see that each trip I have been on has changed my life. Maybe I didn't feel a huge shift in my spirit. Maybe I didn't see a huge change in my life right away. However, each trip has shaped some aspect my life to create exactly who I am right now. So, next time I question something influencing my life, I must remember the words of my best friend Steph: Everything will change your life.

fast...: What Do I Know of Holy?

So, I'm sitting on my bed reading Mockingjay (the third book from the Hunger Games trilogy, check them out!). "What Do I Know of Holy?" plays this song has been one of my favorites, but something hit me today while it played.

It was one line (but, I'm going to quote two) that caught my attention and took my thoughts to the greatness of God.

"What do I know of You/Who spoke me into motion?"

Think about that for a moment. Ponder it. Really think.

God speaking things into motion, we think of the creation story. We think of God speaking and creating through the Word. (This is about to get me onto another tangent... oops!) "Let there be light!" And there was light, and so forth. Until God created man. Combining the creation accounts from Genesis 1 and 2, we know that God breathed life into the dust that became Adam. Yet, God spoke first that He would create man in His image.

How often do we stop here thinking that God quit speaking human life into motion? That it is all now up to man and woman to have sex in order to have children. That the creation of human life is a completely biological, human occurrence. I know we know the verse from Psalm 139 that says God formed me in my mother's womb. Yet, really, we still think that it just happens because of the sex.

No child is an accident, because the Creator of the universe is still creating human life. He is the one who speaks our essence into being. I still think of Him just as a Creator at the beginning of time. Yet, he creates new life everyday. My little nephew growing in my sister's uterus, though not planned by her, was a new life that God created within her. All the babies being born right now. All those who are pregnant right now. God created new life, He spoke them into motion.

This hit me hard enough to pull away from my book. Isn't God unfathomable at times? And honestly, this doesn't even touch my normal thoughts on this song.

More posts of songs that hit me to come.

Spiritual Discipline?: Fasting

Obviously, I don't presume many people to read my blog. However, I still like to write in it every now and then. I have a couple different posts floating in my head. One or two have been started and stalled for some poor reason.

However, onto the topic at hand.

I took a summer intensive course where I went to class for a week. Over the course of 6 weeks (a week prior to the class, the week of class, and a month following the class), I wrote papers on, studied, and learned about Discipleship. It was a phenomenal course and I really took a lot with me.

The course covered spiritual disciplines, which leads me to this blogpost. I am currently in the middle of a "fast." I never really thought I was practicing a spiritual discipline with this current fast, but at some point I realized that I am. So, I am not currently listening to secular music (well, when I have control of the music). This is an extremely difficult task for me. I didn't completely renounce Christian music when I started listening to other kinds. Yet, more recently I just realized how rough my spirit must be with all the music I am pouring into it. I still really enjoy Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, and the lot of them all on the pop radio stations. However, I felt like it was time to pour something more positive and encouraging (ok, KLOVE joke!, but kind of serious in that creepy kind of way) into my spirit.

I have found that there is Christian music out there that I enjoy. And I have found that I really do sense a difference in my spirit. I never set a time limit or "boundary" for my fast so it is an indefinite one, which I know will end at some point. Yet, for now I know this is what I need to be doing. Even when I'm really screwing up with focusing on Christ and the last thing I want to listen to is "Jesus music," I tell myself that I have to. It may not be what I want to listen to, but it helps anyway, especially with some of the songs I've been listening to. This leads me to the reason I started posting at all.

I am sitting here reading in bed and listening to my "Jesus music." I tell you what, every now and then I just get so wrapped up in a song that I can't focus on my reading. It happened yesterday, too. And a week and a half ago, it happened while driving in my car. I almost started crying when I finally fully heard a song instead of just promos on the radio for it. These things may just be a line or may be the whole song.

Sometimes, my spirit just gets overwhelmed and I can't help but start to pray, which is weird 'cause this isn't something I have done in a while. Yet, I like it because I see growth and a love for my Savior in a way that I have either never seen or haven't seen in a long time.

This excites me and kind of scares me, but it's a good thing!
So, look for my posts (yes, I'm going to write the first one now) about these songs that keep doing something in my mind or heart.