Follow The Red Letters

This is a super-old blog I wrote about two years ago, and a friend had recently created an open forum question regarding this very topic, so I decided I’d repost it for a more current link, or something. I have not changed it at all since the original writing, so it may not be as accurate of my current understanding, but it’ll give you a pretty good idea of where I’m coming from.

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goldenheartsshineforever:

Bigfoot

Lock Nes Monster

True love

A) I think you’re a great dude, but you spelled Loch Ness wrong. I forgive you.

B) True love is found in Christ alone, not in anything we may find on this earth.

C) I believe the Loch Ness Monster is real to the point where my senior paper in high school was about it.

D) The End.

Random thought: I seem to prefer lyrics and poems and pretty much any form of writing that goes straight to the point. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like embellished writing, especially in lyrics and poetry, but what I mean is, I like things short and simple rather than over-complex and continuous.

Case in point: Thrill Seeker by August Burns Red is a good album, but I can’t really get too into it, because the lyrics are all over the place (to me). He continually repeats certain sections of lines which throws me off. The only song I really REALLY dig is The Seventh Trumpet, because it’s short lyrically, powerful, and simple.

That’s all. Well, except my URL changed, but you already knew that, seeing as you’ve been reading this. SUCKER!

<3,

~@

So, today I kind of got a wake up call. It was rather weird, as I’ve been picking up my lackadaisicalness (read: folly) for the past several weeks, but it really was driven home today. I haven’t written in about two months - that is to say, I haven’t written anything of consequence. I also have not been toying with photoshop, one of my other past time hobbies from last year. Both are very fitting for where I intend on going to serve Christ through ministry (somewhere in the music industry).

Normally I would just pass this lack of creative flow on the so-called “writer’s block” which seems to affect more than just writing, but creativity in general. I might also blame it on my obsessive overplaying of Modern Warfare 2, but I was even writing when I played WoW, so that doesn’t really compute to me either.

I just feel…lost. My sense of guidance, assurance of where to go, what to do, and how to be living my life has all but vanished. I daresay it feels sort of like God has removed His hand from me, and I’m feeling very, very alone. It’s indeed worrisome, as I struggle with loneliness almost constantly as it is. I dream way too much of finding a girlfriend who would eventually become my wife, despite the fact that I know marriage does not complete a person, but can bring one into better understanding of love, and consequently, God. That’s what I want from it primarily. That, and a companion I can trudge through life with.

But I could just babble on and on about that. This isn’t even really based on my feelings regarding the relationship status I am in. For a while, I have been in conflict with myself and God, trying to figure out where I should be serving, and what I should do with my life.

About a year ago, I had the idea of trying to discover God’s plan for me, His purpose for my life. And I think I’ve found it (namely, making music for Him in what I hope to be the metal scene). Problem is, nothing is happening that would encourage that belief, aside from my vocals getting better. I’ve tried to put a band together to get started, since I understand it can take years for a band to be known and have any pull on the hearts of our fans enough to influence them with Truth. Nobody has stepped up for the band yet. Nobody.

I have these two guys who I hang with a lot, two high school guys. They have been the only dudes remotely interested in the band idea, but we suck. Neither of them really practice their instruments, and none of us are really even close to writing our own music (I might be closer than I think, but I can’t say for sure). So as far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a band. And it’s hard, because I’ve had struggles in the past with discerning God’s voice from others’. I used to believe that God told me that an engaged woman whom I adored dearly (and still do, just with a different attitude/mindset) would marry me instead of her fiancé of the time (now her husband).

After a blow like that, you might understand how I can get a little confused about what is God and what isn’t. The surefire test that I was told is to check what I hear and feel with scripture, and if it does not conflict, and it proclaims Christ, it’s most likely God. Thing is, that whole fling with the engaged woman felt that way. I checked it against scripture, and found nothing explicitly wrong (I had some reservations, as she was engaged, but nowhere does it say that engaged = married). So now I’m faced here with the same problem as before. Maybe it’s just a faith issue; maybe God is giving me a time of rest. I’m not sure, but it really gets me down sometimes.

And then, my current ministry opportunities are starting to conflict. For almost six years, I have been involved with Young Life (high school ministry aimed at making relationships). Our head leader of a decade recently left our leadership team, and since he’s left, the entire ministry (to me) has fallen apart. The leaders are terrible at communicating with one another, our kids are disinterested in the activities we plan, and our go-out-and-love-them-ness is all but gone. To make matters more interesting, I have joined the worship team for a new college “non-service” at my friends’ church as a singer. It’s still in its baby stages, but once we get going full-blast, I fear it will become a full-time ministry that will tap into my YL time. This, of course, may not be an issue, as it appears that our YL leadership team of five are all becoming very disheartened, and have begun making plans to disembark on our own paths once more (not away from God, but onto different ministries).

This may or may not be a God-given desire. I feel that perhaps it’s time to move on from YL, at least for a time, which will invariably destroy our ministry at that school until someone else starts it up again. That hurts me the most, to speculate that these unreached kids at this high school won’t even have the chance from YL to know Christ. I know there are tons of ways God shows Himself to people, and that YL isn’t the only way or anything, but it still hurts.

So basically here I am, having to decide which ministry to dive in to, to decide if what I thought was God really was God speaking about my calling, and dreading my own judgments about the fact; I feel lonely, a little afraid, lazy and complacent because I’m not doing anything major right now, and a slew of other emotions and levels of confusion that I can’t even really put it all into words.

I don’t know. I still love God, and I will trust and follow Him to the best of my ability, even if that means sitting here and waiting, practicing my vocals, doing the best I can to serve where my heart feels I should, preparing myself for a potential future spouse, should I be blessed enough to find one.

I’m not ready to grow up…