It makes no difference to me because I'm broke and I don't need anything.  The things I need money can't buy.  I would enjoy a VW Bus and a Siberian Husky though...  I'm not sure who would read this but it's kinda fun to just get it out.  Life is to busy for art.  Our world and friends inspire us and make life worth while yet that takes away the time to create.  Where do you draw the line??  I love music, photography, surfing, skating, and a healthy body, but each takes time and focus to master.  Not to mention the mind...  To master any one of these takes complete devotion of time, mind, spirit, and energy, but who has all that time, let alone to master them all.  I do a little here and a little there but I never seem to amaze myself.  I leave that up to the rest I guess.  There is that desire and passion deep down to leave everything behind, for the sake of mastering an art.  To leave behind everyone, everything, no phones, no internet, just get lost and find where I am in an album, or photos, or exploring the oceans and roads surfing and skating respectively.  I cannot spell and I'm not about to start trying, I guess this thing has spell check, I will not use that...

I prepared this for Captivate the other night...

God is trust

 The biggest re occurring theme that I have been learning about for the past 6 months or so has been trusting God.  Having the opportunity to go to Europe for 4 months was the first step in trusting God.  I knew that it was going to cost a lot of money, money that I didn’t have.  On top of getting the 15,000 dollars to go there was about 2 months of time with nothing scheduled in Europe.  I didn’t know if I’d be sleeping on streets, playing on street corners with my guitar case open hoping for money, or sleeping in dirty hostels.  I had no idea what was gonna happen.  Everyday in life we face questions and things that worry us and stress us out.  We always have situations where we are tight on money, things break, we get in car accidents, get sick, lose friends or family members, our futures don’t seem clear, we have so many job options or we just can’t seem to find a job.  The girl we like doesn’t like us, our parents never seem to give us a break, nothing’s going right, nothing adds up, we hear about nasty rumors about us, it seems like the world is just ganging up against us and we feel like we are going to suffocate and die.  Coming home from 4 months on tour in Europe and feeling and seeing God move in so many ways I now feel so much pressure to figure out what’s next.  What am I doing with my life.  Do I sign this record deal, do I pursue this opportunity, do I pursue this one, do I do both bands and the ministry here.  I feel just overwhelmed.  It was getting to the point where I got caught up making small decisions because I can’t make the big ones.  I have actually aggravated my friends as well as myself recently because I can’t seem to make up my mind, do I go here, do I go there, do I hang out with this group or this group, should I surf should I skate should I drink coke or water…  it’s crazy!

 In the bible there are many people that were in crappy situations and could feel the weight of the world and pressure of the question “what is next?” 

 Noah

 Lets look at Noah.  You all know about Noah and his ark.  God came to Noah and told him to build this huge boat that was gonna hold 2 of every animal as well as his family because the world was gonna flood.  At the time, Noah hearing the world was gonna flood and that he was supposed to build an ark was the stupidest thing ever.  Could you imagine what everyone was thinking?  Even Noah had to think “man this is crazy, what the heck am I doing building an ark.”   I’m sure Noah had lots of other things going on in his life and the last thing he wanted to do was drop everything and build a massive boat.  He didn’t have cranes, trucks, power tools…Not only did it seem like a crazy idea, but imagine how big that thing was?  Building an ark that big would be so hard! That recent movie Evan Almighty really helps to put some things into perspective if you have seen it.  It's huge.

 The key to this story is that Noah trusted God, and just like the movie, when everyone was against Evan thinking he was insane, the flood did come.  Noah was one of many people in the Bible that had extraordinary situations but they trusted God!  Read up about Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Job, and David.  All the great names of the Bible were great because they trusted God.

 As Christians we are called to trust in God.  It says it all over our money!  We have a reminder every single day yet we always forget. 

We all worry so much!  The bible says…

 Matthew 6:25-27

 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

 Matthew 6:33-34

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

A little over a year ago a friend of mine randomly came up to me and said; “I have a scripture for you” and I was kind of like “um ok…” and she read that passage about the birds.  It really hit me because sometimes I worry a lot!  I come from a family of worriers, my mom worries about every little thing and sometimes it rubs off on me.  I constantly remind myself “no worries” “I don’t even care.”  I rep the “I don’t even care” A lot and just to clear that up it doesn’t mean I don’t care about everything, it more so applies to the things that we shouldn’t worry about.  Things that are out of our control.  The little trivial things we have in our lives and even some of the big things.  Money, cars, relationships, food, clothing, hitting all the red lights.  We have to realize that God is in control.  He is our rescue and our trust.

The key to trusting God is having faith.  Faith is our weapon, it is our key.  Faith is what makes us who we are.

Romans 1:16

The righteous will live by faith.

Well what is faith?

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews chapter 11 is dedicated to summarizing a number of people that were credited with having great faith and what they did; Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab.

Thomas, one of the disciples, was being a pain in the butt after Jesus died, was raised, and began appearing to people.  People were telling Thomas that Jesus lives and that they have seen him and Thomas just says “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my and into his side, I will not believe it.”  Jesus told him

John 20:29

Because you have seen me, you have believed; Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

So faith is believing in the unseen and being certain about it.  God doesn’t always show up in person, he has and does communicate to people in many different ways, visions, dreams, trances, audible voices, through our hearts, our thoughts, our relationships.  God is a very relational God!

I believe God gives us relationships in this life so that we can experience different aspects of who he is.  Lets compare God to some familiar relationships we have in this life.

God as a friend. 

When Jesus was on earth he spent quality time with people and his disciples.  He was always hanging out, eating, talking, fishing, and just being real with everyone.  He would also spend time with the people that no one else would spend time with.  Thieves, tax collectors, the sick, and people in prison.  He also got a lot of crap for it from the Pharisees and high priests.  

We can experience who God is everyday through our friendships.  Whenever our hearts are aligned with God’s and we are not being selfish and unloving we make ourselves available for God to move through us. 

Whether it’s an encouraging smile, a compliment, a long talk, listening to someone, treating someone to lunch, helping a friend in need.  These are all ways that we experience God as a friend in our lives through obedience. 

God wants to be our friend; he wants us to confide in him, to trust in him.

God as a father

We don’t always have perfect fathers, there are no perfect fathers, some of us don’t have relationships with our fathers, but God is our father.  Whenever we experience the love of a father on earth or a father figure we can experience God as a father.  The way that a father is there to protect, to guide, to encourage, to provide.  God is all of those things, he is the perfect father.  Jesus was always referring to God as his father and the father.  Jesus knew that and had a relationship with God in that way.  That is what God wants to be, our father, he wants to provide for us, take care of us, and love us as a father loves his children.  We have to trust God.

I look forward to having children because I will be able to experience God as a father on a totally different level.  I can only imagine having children, these little guys that resemble and look like me that I made.

Little guys that I can love, provide for, protect, teach, and cherish.  God loves us that way!  He wants to be there for us.  We have to trust God.

The key to all of our relationships on earth is Trust.  You have to be trustworthy to have a solid relationship.  It is the same with God.  We have to trust him; he will take care of us.  God doesn’t force us to trust him, he wants to lead us by the hand, we can turn and run away but that is only going to hurt us and we will find ourselves in broken places and situations.  God is willing and able to lead us, we need to trust Him.

To get back to where I started, I was talking about going to Europe, trusting God with money, trusting God with filling in the empty 2 months, trusting that He would provide food and places to sleep for us.  Well guess what, God took care of it all!  He brought in all the money; he filled in all the gaps and sent us to places and countries we never dreamed of going to, let alone on this first trip!  We always had food; we always had places to sleep.  We trusted that God would provide and he did.

Now I still face questions regarding what is next, where will my life go, what will happen with my bands, record deals, shows, relationships… but you know what, I have trusted God in the past and learned to just let go and trust him now.  God will provide, he will take care of us.  One of my favorite bible passages is

Proverbs 16:9

In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

God has given us dreams, he has given us passions, those things are there for a reason because they are part of God’s plan.  He wants to use those things in our lives.  We have to set our hearts on him and dig deep down to see how we can use the gifts and passions God has given us for his glory.

Playing music professionally has been my dream ever since I was 12 years old.  At the time even up to being 19 I didn’t know it was a dream from God, all I knew is that I was 100% determined to reach my dreams and that nothing could get in my way.  From the beginning it was a selfish ambition to pursue that dream.  Once I started following Christ in the midst of my lowest point in college when I was 19 I realized that those dreams were to be used for God’s glory through a Christian band.  I now know my purpose is to reach people through music and God has been allowing me to do that by blessing my music since my heart is in the right place now the music is for his glory.  God is determining our steps.  I encourage all of you today, to let go of the worries, let go of the stress, let go of the pain, and trust God.  Follow the ideas and dreams that God has given you, they are there for a reason.  Trusting God means putting everything on the line.

maybe I'll figure it out, maybe not...