What Being a College Admissions Counselor Taught Me About Effective Evangelism

I love my job. No, it’s not a job that will ever make me rich, and I highly doubt that it is a job I will do for the rest of my life, but I honestly love it anyway. You see, I am an admissions counselor at Bryan College, a small Christian College just north of Chattanooga, Tennessee. I spend my days recruiting and helping high schoolers walk through the intimidating application process and hopefully convincing them that Bryan College is the place they want to attend for the next four years of their lives.  I love my job because I get to persuade people to attend the school where I spent the four best and most formative years of my life, and hopefully the place where they will have the same experience.

Now I have only been an admissions counselor for about three months, but I didn’t have the job long before I realized that the desire I have to tell others about Bryan College and what an incredible place it was for me and my family (my parents are also BC Grads), is exactly like what our desire to share the gospel should be. The more I meditated on that thought, the more I realized how many lessons I was inadvertently learning about effective evangelism just from being an admissions counselor!

My job is to persuade as many students as I can that Bryan College is the best place for them to spend their undergrad education. Our job as Christians is detailed in the Great Commission, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15, NIV). We are supposed to spread the gospel (literally the good news), to all the world!

Just as in college admissions, some methods of evangelism are more effective than others.  As I have mulled over this parallel for a few months, I have managed to glean a few helpful tips for more effective evangelism that I would like to share with you below.

A Spammy Tale Part 3

There are few things that are certain in this world, but rest assured, the sun will always rise, there will always be death, taxes will always be too high, and criminals will do anything in their power to scam you out of your money.  Usually I'm only thankful that the sun rises, but this morning I found myself quite thankful for criminals trying to scam me out of my money when I received yet another response from our favorite Sgt. Amy Raymond.

A Spammy Tale Parts 1 & 2

We have all received our fair share of spam emails...you know, those emails you rarely read because, like the rest of normal human beings, you don't give a rip what "Russian Girls are interested in you"? Until this summer, I was just like you and never bothered with my spam box, however I recently watched a number of hilarious videos by James Veitch, a British comedian who began responding to some of the more amusing spam emails. (If you haven't seen any of these videos, here is a link to my personal favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N682eopajzA)

Ever since I watched these videos, I have anxiously checked my spam box for an email I could have a little fun responding to. Finally, the long awaited email arrived.  The following interactions happened.

You Are Here

We are all familiar with the big red arrow containing the words “You Are Here” which can be found on maps everywhere.  Whether you are wandering a theme park looking for a particular roller coaster, hiking a trail in search of your car, or simply searching for that “cute little shop” at the mall, there is something comforting about seeing those three words printed across an oversized, upright map.  Everyone from Pocahontas to my directionally challenged mother is able to take one quick glance at the map and see exactly where they are in relation to their surroundings.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have one of those arrows for life?  Whenever you felt lost, you could simply saunter over to the nearest map and see exactly where you are in life and where you need to go to get to your destination. Should I accept that job or not? Should I marry that girl? Should I eat a second piece of pie or not? (Hint: The answer to that last one is always yes.)  Life would be so much simpler with a road map.

Dancing in the Light of the Ghost Lamp

If you ever visit a theatre late at night, you will more than likely see an eerie blue glow shining through the darkness of the stage.  This haunting blue beacon is what we in the theatrical world, call a ghost lamp.

As you can imagine, there are a few different stories explaining the purpose of this light.  The explanations range from the paranormal to the practical.  Some say that the lone light bulb is to light the paths of ghosts as they mill about in the darkness, while the more practical (and true) explanation is that the lamp is to mark the edge of the stage so that someone doesn’t break their foot or neck in the darkness.  (Actors may want you to tell them to “break a leg” before a show, but directors would rather avoid the mess of a lawsuit from someone actually doing so.)

The last ghost lamp of my college career now shines on the stage of Rudd Auditorium.  In just under a week, the Hilltop Players will open Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma, and I will have the privilege of taking the stage three more times as I play the role of Curly. 

It hasn’t quite hit me yet that this is my last time. I’m not sure when it will.  But the truth is that regardless of when the truth sinks in, the orchestra will sound their last note and the red curtain will close one final time. 

The Winter Waltz of God's Word

Down in the land of alligators, mosquitoes, and Chubbies shorts, snow is the one dream that Mickey Mouse cannot make come true.  The number of people older than myself who have never seen snow is actually rather astonishing.  I remember, on one occasion, it sleeting and everyone in the neighborhood was running outside to see semi-frozen water fall from the sky. 

While I have been blessed to see my fair share of snow, unlike my Floridian brethren, it is still somewhat of a novelty to me.  Unlike my former roommate from Iowa who viewed snow rather apathetically, my lack of experience with snow has allowed me to retain an appreciation for its beauty that I might have otherwise lost had I grown up somewhere where snow was commonplace.

It just so happened that I found myself sitting in the snow this afternoon, watching it float down from the sky to kiss the earth.  You see, this afternoon was one of those times where I just needed to get away from school, people, and responsibilities so that I could think and pray.  I bundled up in a hat, gloves, and jacket, and drove myself up to a local bluff where I occasionally go to ponder what’s going on in my life.

Building Back Broken Walls in the New Year

If you are anything like me, the past few days, your social media newsfeeds have been filled with New Year’s Resolutions, sentimental posts about the old year, and excited anticipation for the new year.  With the touchdown of the ball in Times Square, ushered in by champagne, countdowns, and New Years kisses, all of the world’s problems from the previous year are magically erased between 11:59:59 PM and 12:00:00 AM.

As for me, I have remained atypically silent on social media for the past few days while I reflected over the past year.  I wish I could say that my reflection was over all of the incredible moments I had last year, but alas, I cannot boast such fortune.  As I thought back over the previous  365 days, I realized that there was not a single moment I had that was one hundred percent good.  This year, Joy was not allowed to enter the room unchaperoned by Grief.  They walked hand-in-hand, leaving behind them a trail of tainted memories.

A Christmas ___________________________: A Formula for EveryHallmarkChristmas Movie Ever

‘Tis the season of warm sweaters, sledding down snowy slopes, mistletoe, sitting by a warm fire with hot cocoa, Christmas lights, and Saturday night Hallmark Christmas Specials.  That’s right!  The time has come for The Hallmark Channel to spread Christmas cheer and cheesy love stories with their weekend marathons of Christmas movies, both new and old alike.  While some people are really into these two hour doses of cliché cheer, I personally can’t stand them.  Call me a scrooge if you will, but I learned a number of years ago that, if you have seen one of these movies, you have seen them all.  I mean that seriously!  At this point, the only thrill is sipping on eggnog and counting the number of mall Santa’s that appear throughout the course of the movie.  Don’t believe me?  Well, allow me to give you the outline for every Hallmark Christmas movie every filmed.

Before we get into the plot of the movie, we have to establish a title.  Now there is a simple formula you can follow in order to come up with a Hallmark Christmas Movie title.  Are you paying attention?  I don’t want you to miss this because it can get a little complicated.  The formula is as follows:  A/The Christmas ___________________________.   Insert any word you want into that blank and pick the most fitting article to use at the beginning and you have your title.  Boom.  Just as easy as 1,2,3.  I’m serious!  Pick any word to put in that blank and it works.  Miracle, Wish, Shoes, Gift, Letter, Card, Cabin, Cookies, Sleigh, Heart, Headache, etc.  Any one of these options works.

Now that we have our award-winning title, it’s time to introduce our cast of characters.  Let’s address the leads first.

Illuminating Skeletons

I struggle with pornography and masturbation.

There...I got it out there. That was the hard part. “Why on earth are you telling me this?” you may ask.  Well, to be honest, it’s not because I want to, but rather because, as I prayed this morning, I strongly felt the Lord telling me that it was time to be completely candid about my struggle. 

You see, it’s something that I’ve struggled with off and on since around 8^th grade, and I’m sick of it.  It’s not because I haven’t tried to beat it.  Believe me, I have.  I’ve downloaded accountability programs on my computer and on my phone.  I have an accountability partner, etc.  And while those things are great and have really helped, when it comes down to it, despite my guards, sin has always found a way, but today I'm done giving it one.

They say the first step to getting over a problem is to admit that you have it.  I think that the reason for this is because you can no longer hide it by putting up a facade.  John 3:19 says. “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (NIV).  Darkness is the reason most crimes take place at night. If they were committed in broad daylight, there would be no cover, nowhere to hide.  So, I, Caleb Julin, hereby remove the darkness from my life and flood it with the light of God that illuminates all faults.  I am not perfect and certainly don’t have everything together.

The Image of Imagination: Why God Didn't Create Glowing Trees

There are some pretty phenomenal things in this world.  If you’ve ever done any traveling or browsed through National Geographic’s photographs, you don’t need me to tell you.  The Northern Lights, spiders that can use charged particles in the air to fly using nothing more than simple strands of web, underwater canyons so deep that you could stick Mt. Everest in and still have 7,044 feet of water before you reached the bottom, etc.  The list goes on and on!  Our sense of wonder certainly has room to flourish in this universe.  But with all of the extraordinary things in this universe, have you ever found yourself saying, “I wonder why didn’t God make that?”

I found myself asking that same question tonight as I watched a scene from the new Disney movie, Tomorrowland.  In a brief scene, George Clooney and actress Britt Robertson sat together in what appeared to be an orchard of beautiful, glowing trees.  As I stared at this, I was struck with the thought, “With all of the things God created in this world, why didn’t He create trees that could glow in the dark?  That would’ve been so cool!”  Scarce had the thought left my mind when an answer was fired back at me, “Because I gave you that ability.”

My Least Favorite Word

Goodbye.  Since I've been in college it’s become one of my least favorite words.  Goodbye doesn't care if you are ready or not.  It doesn't wait for a convenient time and it doesn't take its sweet time.  Thousands of clichés have been made about it; “be thankful you have someone it is hard to say goodbye to”, “goodbye until we meet again”, “I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello”, etc. etc. etc.  But the most truthful cliché is that, in the moment, “there is no good in goodbye” because goodbye hurts.  And I hate it.  And I’m not ready to say it again on Saturday.

           

As a freshman, I was blessed to be one of the lucky few squirts to make upperclassmen friends.  I’m honestly not quite sure how it happened, but while it was incredibly nice and I wouldn't trade it, it has meant that every year of college, I've lost good friends to graduation.  The nice thing is that it has only been around five friends with each graduation...until this year.  This year I’m losing over half of my friend group, a couple of the best friends I've ever had, and a professor who has been like a second father to me.

The last week has been a combination of mixed emotions as I balanced work with friends, spending quality time with people who will soon be graduating.  Joy took Sorrow’s hand and they have walked together.  Those who are leaving, during this week, I have coveted your time like a thirsty man craves water.

To my friends who are leaving (you know who you are), I thank you for all of the time you have shared with me.  I do not deserve friends as excellent as you.  Proverbs 13:20 says “He who walks with wise men will be wise” (MEV).  I promise you that I have walked with them and it is my hope that they have rubbed off on me, even just a smidgen. 

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, “Two are better than one, because there is a good reward for their labor together.   For if they fall, then one will help up his companion.  But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has no one to help him up” (MEV).  When I have fallen, you have picked me up.  Through late night conversations and fast food runs, hiking and camping trips, hall events, plays, rehearsals, choral concerts, school trips, classes, impromptu adventures and so much more, you have walked with me through the laughter and the tears, the good times and the bad.  From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for that.  Because of you, I am a better person.

But as you all move on to a new chapter of your life, you have my word that you will be in my prayers.  May God bless your endeavors and may you cling to him.  Know that if you ever need a friend, someone to talk to, or have a favor to ask, assuming I don’t have rehearsal (just kidding...but really though...), come hell or high water, I will do everything in my power to be there for you.  So as I say goodbye to you on Saturday for however long, know that I love each and every one of you.  May our paths cross again and until then, as Paul said in Philippians 1:3, “I thank my God every time I remember you” (NIV).

Finding Yourself in a Beautiful Place

Have you ever just found yourself in a beautiful place?  Tonight I drove until the road dead-ended into the Tennessee River.  Tonight, I found myself in a beautiful place. 

If you notice at the top of this blog post I attached a panorama shot taken from where I sat tonight.  To the east of me (on the left side of the photo),  a rainbow sprouted out of a storm cloud, and to the west, the golden sun slowly sank below the horizon.  Relaxing there in the cool evening air, I found myself surrounded by beauty everywhere I looked.

As I sat there taking pictures and soaking in the beauty of the moment, it occurred to me.  Where I sat was very symbolic of my life at this point in time.  Let me explain.  The past year and a half were a very hard time in my life.  The plans I had for my life were overturned and I suddenly found myself very unsure of anything.  What was God’s will for my life?  Why was this happening to me? Why did everything I loved have to go away?  It seemed that all I could see was the rain and the wind.

Broken Instruments in God's Symphony of Symphonies

It is with much anticipation that I began my first spring tour with the Bryan College Chorale and Chamber Singers last Friday.  During Spring Break of 2014, I had spent the entire break, watching and keeping track of the choir’s spring tour via social media, and desperately wishing I could be there with them.  Not only were all of my friends (with a couple exceptions) sitting on that tour bus having fun together without me, but they were having the opportunity to sing God’s praises all over the states they were touring through.  It was on that break that I decided that, whatever it took, I was going to be in Spring Chorale the next time they went on tour.

Now, just a year later, I sit on the tour bus with 39 of my best friends in the world, en route to our next concert.  I’m so thankful to the Lord for allowing me to be here this time, and I’m thankful to the chorale for accepting me as one of their own, almost as if I had always been one of them.  But with all of the fun that I've had so far, I never expected to get the flu on day two of tour.  Nor did I expect that over the course of the next week, so would nearly every other person on the bus. 

They tell me this is a unique tour with the number of complications that we've had so far.  We have yet to have a single concert with every single member of the chorale onstage.  Even many of the people onstage, have had to mouth the words because they either can’t hit the notes, or will break into a coughing fit if they try.  Between the sickness and intense performance schedule (yesterday we had three concerts in a single day), there isn't much of a chance for voices to recover before they are needed again.  In between each song , we all use the audience’s applause to mask our cacophony of coughing and sniffles.

Knights Without Shining Armor: A Letter to Women

Cold, hard stone presses against your face as you desperately try to capture a few moments of rest, but between the randomized pitter-patter of water dripping in the distant darkness of the dungeon, and the occasional clickity-clack of rodent feet scurrying between shadows, sleep proves to be far more tricksy than you anticipated.  Then, out of nowhere, you hear it.  It starts out softly, but as it slowly grows louder, you recognize the distinct sound of horse’s hooves galloping across the cobblestones.  Surely it’s not... you think to yourself.  But maybe, just maybe the time has finally come.  Scrambling to the dungeon window, you search the outskirts of the castle wall for some sign...anything that could tell you that he has arrived.  It is hope that has kept you going; hope for this moment.  A dream of one day seeing that golden armor glint against the sunset as your knight rides in to sweep you off of your feet.  So now, encouraged by the sound of hooves against the pavement, you resume your search...

           

Dear women waiting to meet your future spouses, what if I were to tell you that your knight in shining armor doesn’t exist?  That perfect, or perhaps nearly perfect (if you happen to be among the more reasonable group of women), knight in shining, golden armor will likely never come riding in on that pure, white horse you have always imagined...because he doesn’t exist.  Such things are a thing of legend, a myth, and you will never find him.

         

Remodeling the Seasons of the Heart

If your past self from two years ago looked forward at the person you are today, would your past self be pleased or disappointed?

This is the question I found myself facing yesterday afternoon as I sat in pajama pants on my couch, lit only by the light of my computer screen and what little sunlight managed to make its way through the blanket of clouds outside.  It seemed a fitting question for December 30^th.  Tonight, around the world, people will celebrate the new year and wish farewell to the old one.  Some people wait in fearful anticipation of the coming year, some are more than happy to wish 2014 farewell, and even others still, greet 2015 with excitement.  Personally, I fall into the group that happily wishes 2014 farewell. 

But regardless of which category you fall into, I can pretty much guarantee that we are all very different people from who we were at the beginning of 2014, and even more so from 2013.  This week I took a walk down memory lane and was forced to realize how different of a person I have become from just two years previous...and I was not sure I liked it.  Granted, there are certainly changes that I like, and some battles I have won, but in reality I think the things I would like to see change about myself far outnumber the things I actually like.

So there I sat, crushed to realize that I had become a person I did not actually like.  I don’t know where I’m going in life, and I am not sure I want to have anything to do with my old life.  Searching and praying for answers, the Lord, ever good and faithful, brought me broken and bewildered to the book of Ecclesiastes. 

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 1:1-2, NIV).

Here I was, thinking I had wasted the past two years as I read Solomon’s words.  “This guy gets me!” I thought.  Here is a king who has been blessed with everything a man could want, wisdom, wealth, women, etc. and he is looking back on his life and calls it meaningless!  For the rest of the evening, I sat there on the couch and soaked up all 12 chapters of Ecclesiastes, and although I had read those same words, countless times, I was blessed with a fresh glance at the book.  And there in those pages, I found all the answers to my many questions.

Beauty in Pots Cracked by Pain

Life is beautiful, but it is oh, so heavy.  There is nothing that exists in this world more wonderful that is so incredibly hard to bear.  Every school year I inevitably reach a point where I just feel weary.  Usually, it hits me sometime around February, but this year it hit me within a month of being back on campus.  I feel like the man from those old Geico commercials who pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling and had a millstone fall on his head.  This early on into the school year and I’m already finding myself wishing that Life Alert made a version of their handy buttons for my life.  All I would have to do when the weight of the world brings me to my knees is press a button and moan the classic line, “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

But I don’t write this particular blog post to complain about my lot in life, rather, hopefully, as an encouragement to those who are going through circumstances much harder than my own.  You see, my own exhaustion as well as a TED Talk I watched tonight about light and darkness, started me thinking about how the Lord has used the various trials in my life not to break me down, but rather to build me up.

Now it would be easy for me to say my last sentence if I had not ever experienced any real hardship in my life, but from the age of three, God has brought into my life a number of defining trials.  I most certainly cannot claim that the life I have lived has been an easy one, but I can say with the utmost confidence that it is a good one.  During the various hardships of my life, God has taught me a few things which I would like to share with you in this blog post.

Modesty: What Most Men Won't Tell You

Blog author's note: The following blog post is written in response to the attached article. I recommend reading it to best develop your own opinion, however I have quoted from the article in my post so it is not necessary. 

Now I know I’m gonna be in the minority here by a long shot, but upon reading “Modesty: I Don’t Think it Means What You Think it Means” by Rachel Held Evans, I felt the need to give a male response to the article.  What I’m about to write is something that most men don’t tell women because of one of two reasons; the first reason being that we have bought into the modern concept of modesty ourselves, or the second being that we secretly like immodesty because it looks nice. 

In the attached blog post by Rachel Evans, she says, “...men are responsible for their own thoughts and actions when this happens; they don’t get to blame it on what a woman is wearing.” She then goes on to say, “regardless of whatever synapsis involuntarily fire in a man’s brain when he sees a woman’s body, he alone is responsible for the decision to objectify a woman or treat her with respect. Placing that burden upon women is unnecessary and unfair.”  First off, on the one hand I totally agree with her. When it comes down to it, every man that looks lustfully at a woman has to answer for his own actions.  However, without making a judgment on whether or not immodesty is wrong just yet, I want to point you to 1 Corinthians 8:9-12.   ^“Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.  For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.” Paul is talking here about eating food sacrificed to idols which is not wrong, but should someone who thinks it is wrong see you doing it and eat it anyway, then they have sinned and you caused them to do it.  (Now ladies, please don’t think that I’m comparing you as meat sacrificed to idols because I am most definitely not.)  As Ms. Evans says, if men lust, they are the ones sinning; this verse does not disagree with that.  However, if someone causes somebody else to sin, according to Paul, then “you sin against Christ.”  Granted, some men will lust over a woman who has done nothing to cause him to do such a thing other than the very fact that she exists. In such a case, I would say that only the man is at fault, however in many cases, that is not the case at all.  I will be so daring to say that wearing a bikini is wrong. Yes, it looks good, and no I’m not saying you have to hide your femininity.  What I am saying is that, if for no other reason other than the fact that I KNOW both from experience and others, that dressing such a way causes guys to stumble.  And to cause someone to stumble is, according to Paul, a sin.

Now ladies, I don’t think you realize how much of a struggle sexual sin is for men, but suffice it to say that I do not know a single guy who does not struggle sexually in some way.  For those of us who care about this and try to keep it at bay, it is very hard to have our sisters in Christ dressing immodestly in such a way that it makes it harder on us.  Let me give you an illustration to maybe put it into perspective. The first is imagine that your brother was an alcoholic. You knew that if he had a drink it would make it very hard for him not to stay sober.  The natural thing to do would be not to have alcohol anywhere near him. You would probably not only not let him have a drink, but you yourself would not drink around him.  In the same way, if you know that your male brothers have a tendency to struggle with sexual sin, why would you not help us in fighting that struggle by dressing in such a way that did not tempt us?  Let me use another illustration. Now we have all cut out sweets or gone on a diet at some point in time.  Say that you are.  Now imagine that you are invited to a party.  Now during the course of the night, everyone keeps asking you if you want to have a piece of cake. Now if nobody had asked you, it wouldn't have been too hard to restrain yourself, but with each person that asks, and each time you see someone eating a piece of that cake, the harder it becomes to not eat any cake.  If you do give in, it will be your fault, but your battle was not made easier by those offering you the cake.  In the same way, yes we can guard our eyes, but ladies, the more your batter our defenses with these things, the harder it becomes for us to squelch the temptation!

A Meditation on Light

It has always been a source of amusement to me that insects are so attracted to light. I still laugh at the scene from Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, where we see two flies next to a bug zapper.  As the one fly approaches the light in a trance-like state, the first fly screams, “No Harry, no! Don’t look at the light!” to which fly number two responds in a monotone voice, moments before perishing, “I can’t help it. It’s so beautiful!”

We laugh, but over the years I have noticed that humans, too share this attraction to light. Obviously not unto death in the same way as an insect, but have you ever been riding passenger in a car at night down a mountain road?  Perhaps this is a personal issue, but on the rare occasion that a car passes by going the other direction, I find it very hard to keep my eyes from staring straight into the light.  It ruins my night vision and even hurts a little, but it takes quite a bit of self control to keep from staring straight into the oncoming headlights.  But why is that? Why this attraction to the light?  I believe that man was created with a need for light.  Not only does sunlight provide our bodies with the necessary Vitamin D, but it can also provide us with comfort and peace when used as a night-light for children, etc.

But where does this need come from?  Man was created with a desire to be with God, a desire that was no longer able to be satisfied after the fall.  No longer could man commune with God in the same way.  James 1:17 calls God “the Father of the heavenly lights” (NIV).   In Revelation 21:23, we are told that the city of God “does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.”  So it seems that our desire to be close to light stems from our desire to be close to God.

Now yesterday as I sat on the edge of a cliff staring out at North Chickamauga Pocket Wilderness, I began to think about how much people miss by not looking up.  There is so much beauty contained outside of the usual 45° that we tend to look at.  Because of this, far too many people in my generation have never seen a shooting star, never fully appreciated a sunset, and never watched magnificent thunder clouds roll in over the land.  As I sat there staring out over the river stretching out below me, I contemplated the reason for such a tragedy.  Then it occurred to me that it all had to do with light.

A Meditation on the Forgotten Faith of Sinking Peter and Doubting Thomas

It's amazing how you find new things hidden in scripture every single time you read through the Bible! This time it has been some unexpected lessons from Jesus' disciples; bear with me.

Have faith! When times are difficult Christ is still in control! In the same way that He allowed Peter to walk on the stormy sea, so Christ can lift you up above your troubles if you just have faith in Him! Do not let yourself be like Peter and lose faith; you will only slip into the stormy ocean!

When your trials seem unbearable remember that God has a plan for you in them. Romans 8:28 says “All things work together for the good of those who love God” Blessed are you who have not seen God's plan fulfilled and yet still believe! Do not allow yourself to be a doubting Thomas!

I am not questioning the truth behind the above two statements, however, God has recently shown me that they are only half of the lesson held within the stories.

As fallen humans we love to point out other's mistakes lest we ourselves appear guilty of any wrong. We love to show despair at Peter sinking in the waves while we take secret pleasure that he was fallen just like us.  Thus we subsequently ignore the fact that Peter had the faith to step out onto the water at all!  Sure he sank, but he got out of the boat in the first place! That is more than most of us can even claim, myself included. We cannot have the faith to stay above water if we do not ever have the faith to step out onto it in the first place. In the same way, how can we expect God to use us if we are not willing to risk the stormy waters that He may bring. Modern day Christians love our comfortable lives and don't want to risk rocking the boat with any discomfort. Perhaps the lesson we should focus on from Peter's story is not to have the faith to stand on a stormy sea, although that too is important, but to be willing to allow God to bring stormy seas into our lives in order to teach us to stand strong through them.

We love to call Christians with less faith than ourselves a Doubting Thomas. In the famous story, Thomas didn’t have the faith to believe in the claims that Jesus was risen from the dead unless he could place his fingers in the nail-holes and his hand in the spear wound in Jesus’ side. As we all know, Christ then appeared to him and allowed him to believe through sight, but blesses those who did not see, and yet still believed.

How'd I End Up on This Mountaintop?

So I guess it's about time I jump on the blog-bus! It seems that everyone and their grandmother has a blog now.  Heck, I don't even know if anyone even reads them, but I figured I would give it a shot.  Now I know me, I won't post that often and if I did, it wouldn't be anything that y'all would care about.  However, I also know that on occasion I'll invoke the muses and inspiration will hit.  Rather than post a massive Facebook post as I have in the past, I figure I'll post it here. If you look at this blog, you'll see a couple of posts that you may have already read on Facebook, but I am posting here just to get it started, as well as one new post.  Hopefully someone reads it and maybe even enjoys it.  At the very least, my hope is that it makes you think.