priceless.

the price you have to pay to get a clean, healthy, tender and pure heart is HIGH!

let's be honest, it isn't easy to not listen to your latest critic or be angry at the newest villain. but i think in order to keep a clean heart i have to make conscious choices to fix my eyes on Christ, tune my ears to His heartbeat and share the dreams, hurts and fears of my soul.

how priceless it is though to stand in the middle of an incredible journey where i am beginning to feel on the winning side of such a heart. a few days ago a tear filled my eye and i couldn't cry because i was shocked and so happy that something had finally touched a place i had made so guarded.

i am seeking to walk into every situation, wow i typed that and almost deleted it, and be willing to be hurt as opposed to going in guarded or gun in hand. there are still a few scabs on my heart but i haven't stopped the process. in fact, thursday i am going to begin some invasive surgery on healing wounds and cleaning out the poison of bitterness.

a clean heart before God and a tender heart towards people is priceless... and i am glad i am okay paying the price!

it can't all be bad.

my mother has me working on a project for her which involves me going through old home videos and dubbing them to DVD. thus, from that project these thoughts for sparked.

i remember growing up in quite possibly the most constricting conservative environments, both home and community (town of less that 5,000).

i was about six years old when somehow i got a hold of a M.C. Hammer cassette tape entitled "can't touch this". i would wait til my father, a minister in an ultra conservative southern church, was out of the house and i would play that tape over and over. i had no more memorized every word to that song than i began wanting my grandmother to sew me these odd shaped pants. ha ha you guessed it the famous M.C. Hammer pants. of, course i couldn't tell where i got the idea for these pants because that music was... bad, secular.

i was SIX! it wasn't that i wanted to be bad or that i was rebellious. although, some would contend that rebellion is born in the heart of a child, i know it was something much different.

even through the last few years of my adult life i have wanted to slip away and hear this band or that artist. once again, not to deceive or rebel.

but why?

i think the innocence of a child is deep in us all found great enjoyment or comfort in songs and other art. long before spiritual tour guides could come along and instruct us of all the BAD in the world, i think we saw more GOOD...

maybe it is like a child with a little cassette tape, that i am now beginning a greater re-discovery of things, possibly more significant now, that can't all be bad.

i am not saying that we should not have morals, ethics, or standards at all! i am simply saying at some point if we aren't careful we allow others to paint over the masterpiece of our creator and causing us to call "BAD" to those things which are "GOOD".

just a 23 year old... not a declaration for a movement, just part of the journey in my own heart.

confession.

i know that for some "feeling" God or the need to "feel" God is usually interpreted as immaturity in our Christian walk. for me i think i realized why it matters to me sometimes that i feel God.

it isn't that i question God or if He is real. i think it is...

i want to "feel" God not because i don't know if He is there, i just need to know that He knows i am here...

ever feel like you did a side step or missed God? it is for me in those moments where i am screaming out, "God i know you had a perfect place but i messed it up, again, and i should probably be way over there but i chose to go here and now i need to know you know i am here and i goofed because i want to end up where you want me."

you're probably way past that stage but for me i think it is that i am understanding a little better why i look to "feel" God in those stages of regret.

Bishop Jakes says, "regret is bring the power of your past into your present." that's a very scary thing and it can weigh us down. it is in those moments we look for the strength of God to carry not just our regrets but carry us through.

moments like these, i want to feel, hear, taste, or even smell God... not to know He is there, but to simply remember that He knows that i am here.

3am thoughts.

ok i am still at the beginning of this journey called life because i'm 23 and still learning alot. something hit me though about 3 AM this morning.

alright, this is still processing in my head so i hope it doesn't look like a "where's waldo" gag where we never find waldo, ha.

we face many "similar" situations in life.

when i take time to reflect on a situation in the past before dealing with it again in my future it directly affects my feelings and emotions and sometimes my decisions about where i am headed.

the plus i see is when i walk through a situation positively.

the negative, obviously, is when the result of the past situation is negative.

ok here's what hit me! if i can choose to rule out the "feeling" about a past circumstance that was negative and apply words and actions learned from it then, in essence the bad can be my good.

(basic math is a negative minus a negative produces a positive)

so, if i choose to subtract my negative emotion from a negative situation... the lesson learned can be productive (positive) in my life.

we constantly ask God to turn that which was meant for bad for our good. could it be that He has enabled us, also, to take some janky situations we've faced and allow them to propel us toward greatness?

like i said, i am still starting the journey and maybe you knew this simplistice thought forever ago. still though, what in your future do you face that your "feelings" are negative based on your past? not in all situations but maybe in this one your about to face, can you reflect on the past and that to prepare a victory for your future? i know for me, just to feel a fighting chance can often change my (-) feeling to a (+) feeling.

so there it is. my "where's waldo" at 3am thoughts.

life.

so many things in scripture point to God's giving of life to us. from Genesis where He first breathed life, to the New Testament where Christ is the bread of life. it's amazing to me that after pondering so many things in scripture i have missed one thing that is spurring me on lately... He gives life!

in searching for direction in life or simply surviving it, i am reminded that He gives me life in the midst of everything. He can breathe into dry dead bones because after all He is life. He gives that which He was from the very beginning... alive. from before we were ever an after thought He was life and He chose to give it to us as a gift.

funny that life can be such a precious gift that we forget to appreciate.

insecure.

the church has went through some major hits in the past few years. moral failures to finanacial misconduct we have watched some very talented and annointed men and women of God face some extreme battles.

i think we, the church, have done a great job at loving people and not parading these people as examples. we have corrected the moral issues and brought great accountability in the financial arena as well.

but what if someone would have shot up a warning flair or had brought our attention to it earlier? how many younger men and women could have diverted from those issues?

with that said, there is a problem plaguing the church world that is crippling young people from their ultimate calling and creating a glass ceiling for mature believers as well.

INSECURITY.

it is one of the nastiest diseases for a leader or follower to have. in my own life i saw this issue kill friendships and isolate me from mentors that loved me. my journey of healing was a broken and tough road to climb.

i learned the sad part is that insecurity does not shield one from arrogance and pride. see i can sit across the table and look at one man and think, "I am so much better than he is" and at the other, "Why is he so much better, I can't do (a) or (b) as good as he can."

insecurity and pride are sometimes married to each other. for me i had to kill pride and realize it wasn't about me in order to become whole and secure in who God created me to be.

masking insecurity does not heal it... it doesn't even really hide it.

we have to see the new revolution as us becoming whole over pointing out another flaw in the church. our insecurities in ourselves have made us cynical and critical of Christ's body. we need to celebrate God's grace and his process for each of us.

we can easily point out so many issues in "the church" because the truth is... IT'S IN US TOO! ever heard leaders constantly pointing out the same things in people? isn't easy to diagnose a sickness you have carried for a long time? we have to do some self diagnosis and allow the Great Physician to heal our incomplete heart.

i have to constantly remind myself of a quote by Jeanne Mayo, "God isn't out to hurt your pride... He's out to KILL it." insecurity will show up so many different ways and it's easy to become a chameleon and change how your insecurity comes out.

my prayer is the same as the issues i wrote about in the beginning and the men and women those issues affected. because ultimately that is all insecurity is... an issue. Jesus healed a woman in the Bible who had an "issue" of blood. He said her faith made her whole. God is faithful to make His people whole.

I believe God's desire is for each and every one of us to be made whole through Him. i want to keep pushing others to the front, promoting others' dreams, and praying the God will make us all whole through His grace...

Check the Tablet.

I love cool quotes, abstract thinking, and some controversial beliefs but...

I have realized lately that all of those quotes and beliefs tend to sit differently based on the heart it comes from.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible talks about God writing on the tablet of the heart. The past few days the thought most pounding my mind has been...

"The profoundest of words written on a dirty tablet are hard to read."

So it is the same with my heart...

"The most sincere beliefs spewing from a janky heart can sound corse and rebellious."

I will keep the tablet clean so that the author may finish His story.