food for fish

I’m always afraid others will think I have a “holier than thou” attitude, so just as a warning, I certainly do not want to project that, but I feel this is important to share.

Seattle with a decent job, a great car, loving people, and an amazing girlfriend, all in “perfect” working order. I had no real motivation to leave any of these things behind, so why did I leave? I left because I knew I needed to get some place for me to depend on God, for me to go some place where I could experience something completely different and new, where I would have to reach for answers, and extend my ability to serve others. In my heart I knew I couldn’t achieve any of these things in the “milk and honey” atmosphere I had in Seattle. Thankfully with God’s amazing provision, and the incredible support of my loved ones back home, I set off on this adventure I am now apart of.

I may have “given it all up” in a purely material sense, but I still had (and still have) some things to “give up”. My personal problems were not left in Seattle, as much as I had hoped they were they actually got worse here. I had one week where I was falling left and right, I just couldn’t keep my mind pure, and my humane nature just gave in. I kept focusing on the problem, the sin itself, rather than the solution which was simply say “God I can’t do it, take it, let me focus on serving you”… that was it, I learned to give up my problem to God.

I know I have much more of this “giving up” to do, but this is what “dying to yourself” is all about. We must die, we must get on our knees, to live again, and to stand again. I am so serious about this, do not let this be some stupid Christian cliché, it is something you must practice to experience God’s amazing grace and mercy, otherwise if you don’t give yourself up, there is nothing God can do, we have free will. God made us this way, so we could genuinely love him, or genuinely just ignore him, it’s our choice. He knows every one of our steps, which means he knows the outcome of every choice we could ever make, but he doesn’t know which choices we will take, that’s for us to make. Make the choice, die for him, he died for us.