We are still in Beta.

I was talking with a friend last night about standards, and expectations and I was surprised with what was coming out of my mouth and what I was saying. I realized that there is a lot to be said about standards vs. expectations, so I’m gonna have a nice little (that will probably end up big) blog post about them.

Standards- A Standard is something that is a realistic all encompassing thing/view. It’s not necessarily what you do, or what someone else does but more about all of what you say, do and are. It’s also how you do and say things, not just what you do or say and are. It’s a lot like a value.
Expectations- Expectations are something that come with standards. When you have a standard you show it by what you expect and do. Your expectations come with standards not the other way around.

An example

My standard might be that my future/current girlfriend/spouse pursues a relationship with God.

(this could easily be reworded to say “I value a girl who has pursues a relationship with God”)

The expectations could (key word COULD not would or are) be

• She prays on a reguar basis
• She reads her Bible regularly
• She goes to church
• She asks herself “What Would Jesus Do?” in situations

See, the standard is kind of like a value, its the big picture, the expectations come from trying to follow that standard. Another big thing that helps with this is to think about the fact that expectations can chance. Expectations might change with your life but standards do not.

For example

You might have the same standard as mentioned above but the expectations might change because of how your life is at the time.

For example your expectation that you go to church might change because you have to work on Sunday mornings. Now it would be hard to expect someone to go to a Sunday morning service when they work during that time and so it’s not an option. So the expectation might change to something like “She is an active member of a small group in order to be learn about God.”

See that’s the other thing. The expectations have to go with standards. You can back up your expectations with your standard. Though you might not go to church you might go to a small group and you can say “I go to this small group because I want to be fed and learn about God even though I’m not going to church. I’m pursuing my relationship with Christ.”

If you have expectations but no standards it can be problematic. Then your expectations become the only goal and you don’t know why you have them as goals and expectations. This can cause you or a relationship to be unhealthy. Say your job changes so you have to work Sunday mornings and your expectation was that you go to church. If you only have that expectation but no standard you might get mad at yourself for not being able to go and mad at your work for not allowing you to, but you don’t try and solve it or even work through it and figure out why you had this expectation. You view it like this “I’m not going to church, I’m not meeting my expectation. I’m mad at myself. I’m mad at my work because they are making me skip church. What can I do about it? Nothing, I can’t go to church on Sunday…. to bad”

This is why you have to have standards and with that set expectations that change to fit your standards and your life.

P.S. High standards are good (if they are realistic). High expectations are not (though this might be argued, especially if you’re open to change)
P.S.S. Whatever happened to “What Would Jesus Do?”? Was it to cliche? It is something important that I never hear or see around anymore, which is kind of sad. Hmmm… Just a thought!

Living in the word.

It’s an expression heard a lot when you love Jesus, but what does it mean? I know a lot of people would think being “in the word” means to read the Bible….. but doesn’t it mean more than that? What is the point of reading your Bible if you don’t live it?

I think this is a common problem in some churches. Well actually I think it works both ways. I think we have both the extreme of people litereally “living in the word”, meaning all they ever do is read their Bible, spout of verses like most people spout of cuss words, and relaying Biblical information in a very condeming manner. Of course, this is really annoying and not what most people like. This is someone who lives in their Bible and nothing outside of it. They don’t know how to apply what they learn.

Then we have the opposite side. These are the people who are “living in the word”. They read a little of the Bible, then “live it” for months or years at a time with only dips into the Bible. In other words all they do is act, but they don’t even know why they are acting. These are the sort of people who do good deeds, sing on the worship band, help out with the kids care, and do all the other Biblical things they are supposed to. Sadly they rarely, if ever, open a Bible and actually delve into a conversation with God.

So what we need is the happy medium. The most effective person would be one who reads the Bible, actively discusses it, chews on it, talks to God about it, and acts on it, with other people.

The key in all of this is relationship. Reading the Bible is pointless without having it be a time of relationship with God. Likewise acting out the good deeds is pointless unless we are having an active relationship with the people around us. Meaning we aren’t just doing it for ourselves, or because it’s what we are supposed to do, but because it shows love, God’s love to those around us.

“Above ALL, love each other DEEPLY, because love Covers Over a MULTITUDE of sins.”

1 Peter 4:8
P.S. I’m in a posting mood I guess. 2 posts in one night, YEAH!

>I know this is long but I think it’s good.<

Ok so this might not make perfect sense, but I understand what I’m saying so just try to follow along and let me ramble. It is my Blog after all. Haha.

So I was sitting in church 2 weeks ago and something the pastor said made me think of this. I don’t remember what he said but I wrote down the idea it gave me because I liked the idea.

Lots of people blame God for either making something happen, or letting it happen. Now right off the bat this is wrong. See God doesn’t make bad things happen. He let’s them, but it’s for your own good. This is where most of us view it wrong, including me a lot of the time. See God will let bad things happen, because he is a warrior at heart. Let’s delve into this subject. (I said delve. Wow.)

As I talked about in the last post God is our deliverer. He wants to rescue us. Now tell me how can he rescue us if we never see the bad things affect us? Can he rescue us then? Yes and No, I think. See he could rescue us before something happens, but we wouldn’t see the rescue. I’m sure he does this but we don’t see it. Now if he lets the bad thing happen and then pulls us out, therefore delivering us, we can see him at work.

An example. So go back a few centurys, and say there is a knight, a princess and a dragon. (This is how all good stories go) So view exhibit A.

A. A Princess is on a nice long ride on her horse through the forest. Little does she know she is heading towards the dragons cave. Lets call him Nogard. So Nogard is in his cave when he hears the princess approaching on her horse. Unbeknownst to both the princess and the dragon a knight (who has a fancy for the princess) is following her. He happens to see Nogard but the princess does not. So using his quick decision making skills he rides ahead kills Nogard, thus saving the princess, rides back towards the princess, sets up a detour and leaves. The princess (not the brightest of the bunch) does not realize any of this and a short while later arrives home never suspecting anything.

Exhibit B. The Princess is on yet another nice long horse ride through the forest. Little does she know she is heading towards another dragons cave. Lets call this one Snog. So Snog hears the princess approaching on her horse and plans to scare her. The princess (being small minded) still does not know about her pursuer, the knight. So the knight follows the princess until the dragon attacks. He has seen Snog the dragon from quite a distance back. He sits back, knowing Snog is not one to eat princess’s often, but it could happen. So after watching Snog blow flames, beat his chest and do other dragon like things, and after watching the princess cower in fear, cry, scream, wince, and do other scared princess like things he rides into action. He makes a great show of beating back the “foul beast” and finally killing it. He then runs to the princess sweeps her off of her feet and asks if she is alright. Upon hearing that she is fine except for some wet cheeks he sets her on his horse, hops on behind her and they ride home.

Now my question is, which story did you like better? A or B, and no saying I’m bad at writing is not an answer. Sorry, but ignore that for a second. Personally I think B is a lot more entertaining.

This is what I picture God doing for us. A or B. Him being the knight that we don’t know of is rescuing us half of the time. The other half he makes a great show of rescuing us and sweeps us off of our feet. Yes in between there is a great deal of us complaining and whining “God why did you let this happen? How could you?!? Where are you?” etc. etc. But as I just showed, how can God really show us himself if he doesn’t let it happen? And God most definitely did not MAKE this happen. He allowed it so that it could be used for his greater good, but he did not make it happen.

I know this is long but a few more things. Yes at times the situation might seem worse. Nogard, or Snog might actually be a human eating dragon, we might sustain a few scrapes, a broken bone, or in actually causes hurt feelings, a lost friend, a divorce etc. No I’m not saying this is good. I’m not saying God wants you to get hurt, but I am saying he wants to rescue you. No matter what your situation is he wants to rescue you, or at least help you. There might be some instances where Snog, or Nogard are not flesh eating and you can be a Tom-Boy Princess. You can pull a sword from your horse and join the knight in scaring that dragon out of its whits.

So the conclusion. God wants to rescue you. God doesn’t make bad things happen. God wants to help you get through these bad situations. That is what I am saying. Just remember God is always there helping you, whether you see him or not.

Do you have a vision? A vision is power, a purpose, a goal. At Church we were talking about why people go to church. I realized that one reason why people don’t go to church is because it lacks a vision, or it has the wrong version. As Pete Greig says “The vision is JESUS–obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.” Now if a church doesn’t have a vision that is Jesus, or centered around Jesus, they have nothing. They will go nowhere and influence no one. What about you? Do you have a vision? I have a vision, the vision to influence as many people as I can for Christ. To live like Jesus would. I have dreams about things. An open church were art is loved and accepted and done by all members. I would love to start a church specifically more centered around dance. Rather than having pews, there would be an open dance floor and it would be surrounded by couches. Then on days we weren’t using the church we would let other bands come in and rock! It would be perfect. That is just part of my dream. I have others. Currently my main vision is as simple as “Live for Jesus, uncaring about what others think” Or something to that extent. I just need to work on that vision and keep it in my focus. Get a vision, focus on it, live for it.

Wow, see. It’s so true that Christians feel this amazing feeling, but not always. It makes you kind of wonder, why can’t I always feel like this? Though if we always felt like that would we have faith? Or as strong of faith?

Hebrews 11:1

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

I think it is truly an amazing feeling though. I got to feel it more today. Let’s tell the story. So my youth group did a Free Car Wash today and we had a boom box with batteries. So after a while probably 2:30-3hours into it I put my Sunsets and Sushi CD into it and played track 2 (O Praise Him (All This For A King) (Oceanic Mix)) Which has a sweet beat! Then I went down to where the cars were and where the others were holding signs and just started dancing. Some of it was breakdancing, some was crazy dancing, jumping, leaping, skipping, and lots of laughing. Now at one point Bailey asked me “aren’t you embarassed” and I said “not at all” and I wasn’t. It was great. I felt the joy and love of praising God through dancing and singing. Plus we were doing a Car Wash for him. So that’s my story. I rather liked it (the dancing not the story). See the funny thing about it was also the fact that I am not very good at making up dances on the spot, I’m more of a you tell me what to do and I’ll do it. So my dancing was nothing spectacular, it was mainly just me throwing my body around with all my might. But it was great, and now my toes and feet hurt cause I was barefoot, oh and I wasn’t wearing a shirt, but I loved it……. it reminds me of a verse that I used in the last post.

2 Samual 6:14

“David wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might.”

Amazing. I love God. I love hope, I love mercy, joy, faith, dancing, laughter, sun, stars, the moon, rain, waterfalls, undignifiedness (is that a word) and anything else to do with God, beauty and uncaringness. It might not have been beautiful to watch me, but I think God saw it as his son dancing to him uncaring and thought it was the most beatiful thing ever. Uncaring joy.

So I need to go to sleep but I just can’t. This post is parts of what are running through my head right now and what I’ve been just talking about with friends and God. So most of these thoughts came about after listening to Leah talk to me about IYC and then seeing Kelsey’s post about it. It fired me up for God just seeing them stoked for him.

Man this is AMAZING!
I mean
thats only 2 people I’ve talked to from IYC
and man its crazy!
They are stoked!
I seriously think that God is moving
like ive never seen this

I mean I don’t know but just since January I’ve seen tons happen.
Part of it is just that i have been growing more
and praying for all my friends specifically
and its like
just watching them
slowly grow and connect
and piece these things together

youth group has been growing
and everything

Well yah know before January
I knew who was a Christian kinda…
and my friends knew
but now its like
we can really stand up for each other
and such
It’s fellowship

thats why this Bible Study is a GREAT idea

I’M STOCKED!
even though i didnt go to IYC

thats why im so excited
because
it makes me all happy
everytime i get down
like
“Man God I’ve been praying every day
and I’m not seeing anything”
and “I don’t know God
I’ve prayed every single other day for each person by name
today i dont think i really need to”
I want to just do a “God work in all my friends lives” and leave it at that
but I don’t
and then POW God’s all “no somethings happening”
haha
and seeing others on fire just makes it all the cooler

and I know im not alone

I mean for me
I try really really hard
Every day is a struggle and it just sometimes seems worthless
like before when I got up during a movie and left because it was inappropriate
someone told me they noticed
that helped
I thought no one noticed
that was hard
but I did it
and i dont think it really does that much
but it does

I mean if one person tells me they’ve noticed I’m sure others did
and then when another tells me, I know they do.

and just when people see me do something like get up during a movie and say “hey I wish I could do that”
it helps me to do it more
and that keeps me holding strong in my faith
and be a stronger leader

and then a friend talking to me today
and reconfirming
just saying “I know your a strong Christian”
it boosts it

I mean I need it
as much as I know I’m supposed to just care what God thinks…. I know I care what others think. I mean you know why people who are popular, or funny like to be the center of attention and be told they are cool or funny? Well it’s because they care what you think and it’s hard without it.

cause sometimes it feels like no one notices my stands for faith
I think they just see me
as this guy who trows parties and stuff and that im just normal
which I am, but I’m not.

Sometimes I feel like crying cause it’s so hard
other times I feel like crying its sooo cool!

and then God’s got his Krebs Cycle Booster (or something)
as Winkley calls them
where God will boost your walk
with a great conference or talk or just his nature and beauty
it could be anything
suddenly your on fire again

and then
myself just being the overanalyzing freak I am
I always think I can do better
which i can
I mean look at Jesus
HE WAS Insane!
in a good way
he stood up no matter what!
and I’ve know at times I dont
like right now, I’m going what are people gonna think when they read this?
Should I really click that button that says publish?

but the thing is I notice that sin
and its cause I’m stickin up for God more
its like Kelsey said, in response to my last post
the more light im filled with the more darkenss I see

man….
and you know what
its not easy to Read the bible every day, and my devotion and pray and read other Christian books
but it really is good
and once i start
I love it
but it will never get easy
it will always be hard
because the world is currently controlled by Satan
and he will do everything he can to stop me from practicing my faith

So in my faith
to show my strength in Christ
say in games like truth or dare or compromising situations
I will play or stay until I judge that its bad, then I’ll say hey no thats not right, we shouldnt be doing that and if we keep doing it I’m gonna leave.
and then follow through
if they still do that stuff
I’ll leave
if they say ok whatever we will stop
then its fine
and then thats when I need others to fight
like you and other Christians

When I see others on a spiritual high (as Kaitlynn says), it encourages me to stop disobeying

Its hard for me to stay strong
when I hardly see anyone else

I mean I have to have role models to

and friends who stand strong
and let me tell you
I dont see many doing it
I mean I dont do it half the time
so for me to excpect others to
is hypocritical

but the more you try
the better you will get
the more you fall
the easier it is to get up the next time
the more you struggle the stonger you get
like building up an immunity to poison

James 4:6-8

“But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

So yeah. The comment about the bible study, that was because I am planning on starting a bible study. I don’t think I have ever said this but I seriously think God is calling me to do it. I see all my friends at youth groups and I want to get to know them, and talk with them about God but youth group doesn’t meet your needs on a deep spirtiaul level always, and we all are commited to our churches. So a bible study will be great. I can be fed. I can converse with friends about God so we can grow stronger together. I don’t know where God wants me to take this yet, but I know I will soon. Even if it’s just every once in a while friends getting together to just talk about God, with no agenda, it will be great. Though I am hoping for more structure. It will take prayer. So pray for it. I hope to see you grow in Christ. Stay strong.

Acts 2:42
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

Phillipians 3:10
“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,”

So recently I have been listening to a lot of praise music, and just wanted to say I love it. It is so uplifting and cool. I like David Crowder Band, Jeremy Camp, My Church’s band, Revolve, Aaron Shust and others. Music does such amazing things to you and I don’t know how people can listen to people sing about Sex, Drugs, Violence and other things like that. Why would you want to? Compared to this which is just so great. It feels like walking into a clean room compared to walking into a dirty one. Ok that wasn’t a very good example but oh well. You get it. I love Praise Music and I love my Creator. I love that I was created in his image not just some worthless being that appeared out of nowhere. Praise God!

So we went to Lincoln School on Sunday night. We played sardines and just hung out. It was really fun, and the most amazing thing happened. At one point after playing a round of sardines we were swinging and I decided to just leave and go sit in the field and watch the stars. I started timing to see how long it would be for my friends to follow and then just watched the stars…..oh and started praying. In under 30 seconds I saw a shooting star. Now you might think I’m crazy, but I think that it wasn’t just a coincidence. Then again do you think anything is really a coincidence? Like the earth. Our world? Our universe?

An Oxford physicist Roger Penrose once was talking about a parameter of our universe called the “original phase-space volume” just this one parameter he said would require fine-tuning to an accuracy of one part in 10 billion times itself one hundred and twenty three times. Penrose said later that it would be impossible to write down that number in full. Because it would have more zeroes than the number of elementary particles in the whole universe. Now that’s just ONE parameter, and there are more. So can you really say that it’s just a coincidence that the universe came together? In the book I’m currently reading puts it like this.

Let’s say we were to go to another planet, say Mars and find a enclosed biosphere. Now this biosphere has multiple dials, buttons and switches. So you find this and all the dials are set randomly, but to contain life the have to be set just right, every single one of them. Let’s say that you leave without touching them and a year later you come back, but this time you look at the dials and you see they have all been changed. Not just changed but changed so that every single one of them is at just the right setting. What would you think? Would you think that they had just coincidently been set to that, or would you think that an Alien life form had come and set it. Or something/someone had set it. Coincidence? I think not. Now apply this to the real universe with way more settings, dials, parameters, etc. Can you say it’s a coincidence, that it just sprung up out of no-where? Evolution? The big bang? I doubt it. In fact I know it’s not true.

There is in Intelligent Designer and his name is Jesus Christ. He died for everyones sins, and then his disciples died for this belief. They believed him and most of them died for it. Would you die for something you didn’t believe? They did and they believed the Bible including Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth” Coincidence? I think not.

Do you Pray. Really PRAY. Not just hypocritically or out of habit but talk to God, really talk to him, like you would talk to a friend. It works. I have recently been reading this book about prayer at churchs for 24-7. They started with just once church and praying for 1 month straigh consistently. Basically they just had people sign up for 1 hour slots. After the first few days the results were so amazing all the slots started filling up. After the first month they basically had huge results. They ended up getting hundreds more churchs doing it. Then they ended up setting it up for a whole year. They now have a website and tons of churchs are praying, really praying right now and throught the years. It’s all across the world, it’s amazing. Check out the website http://www.24-7prayer.com/ and pray. Prayer is power. I could tell you stories but it would be better if you just looked for yourself. It’s everywhere. Praying works. Really walking with God, talking and listening is he most powerful thing you can imagine. More powerful that you can imagine. Prayer is Power.

So I was just using Writely.com (Which is a great site) Anyway, it’s still in beta. (actually a lot of things are in Beta, especially when it comes to Google owned products. Some things aren’t in beta but they still need revisions. Some say beta and don’t need revisions.) Back to the point. So I was thinking you know what, I’m still in Beta. I mean, God’s still working on me (and just like Google which never gets out of Beta) and I will always be in Beta. God will always be working on me and you whether you like it or not.