Day 18 - Enjoy the Silence

James 1:2-8, 12 ---

^2-4Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

^5-8If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believing, without a second thought. People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves. Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.

¹²Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life

Hey Guys!

Well, let's enjoy the silence again. We are half way through these days, let's enjoy them. Take a minute to think about how you respond to disappointment. How do you deal with times? Times when you think - "My life stinks, I am going back to bed!" Before we get too into this journal down some tough issues, tough questions, or tough relationships that make you feel as though you'd be better off if you'd stayed in bed.

Now, read the passage a couple of times. Take special note of the things that pop out at you. There are certain words in those verses like, consider, know, ask, and blessed, which mark a path that can lead us through tough times. The first step, "Consider it pure joy, or a sheer gift." Then with the light of what we've seen, we gain the confidence to walk with a steadier step by the light of what we know. This gives us the confidence to ask for direction in those places where the trial is hard to read - or where it' easy to read but hard to walk. Finally, we come to a clearing, the place where, at least for a few steps, the journey starts to make sense. ("Blessed in the man who perseveres under trial").

Read those verses one more time. This time think about the journey and path of your own life, include not only uphill but also downhill, good times and bad times, times of clearing and times of confusion. As you read the words, pause to listen and reflect on your walk with God. Jot down your thoughts as you listen and pray.

-Colton

AHH

Hey Folks,

Well I apologize,

I was just laying in bed, and something was not sitting right with me, then I realized I forgot to blog! I have two exams tomorrow that I have been studying for, finished two shows this weekend, and handed in two final projects, one yesterday, one today. I am a little over worked.

Needless to say, there is no silence today. I miss it. To be really honest, over the past week or two there hasn't been a whole lot of silence for myself, I would right down everything that I thought and read on the blog, but for some reason it hasn't been hitting home. A couple of nights ago I was reading past blogs and I was kind of... overjoyed... with the amount of fire that was sparking through my words. I miss that.

So, tonight, tonight I am praying for a rekindling. For all of us who feel tired and worn out to call upon our faithful Dad to hold us up in the air and to wash over us. Let's actually take the time to get close to Him. I bet He gets tired of trying to get our attention when we refuse to give it to him.

God,

I love you, a lot, and I don't know if I have told you that, genuinely, recently. I miss you, I can see how it is so obvious that I am worth nothing without you. I hate who I become, and all I see is hatred around me. Even now I have to remind myself to be patient, help me Dad. I am wiped out. I pray that when I go back upstairs I will read your word and you will really say something that I need to hear through those words. I pray for everyone who reads this blog. God, look them straight in the eyes with love. Powerful love that knocks out anything else. Honestly, right now I feel so worthless God, and I know that I'm not, I know you forgive me, and make me new everyday, I just want to do better. I want to... I don't know, get rid of this deep burden that's clinging onto my back, this thing that just keeps telling me I'm rotten. I love you God, really do, and I wish I showed it better. Help ME make the right decisions. Give me the chance.

I'm ready. Oh, and God, I would really like to do good on those exams God, please help me out.

I pray that everyone I talk to, or encounter will be blessed, will feel your love surrounding them. Make them feel comfortable and wanted. I don't know how you do it, but just do it. Haha

Well guys, I think I am ready for bed... Reading, then studying, and then bed. You know what, sometimes we think God is far away from us... The reality of that is, we screw up, not God. We are the people who wander away. In a way, I like that, because it means we are also the people who come running back once we realize where we're at.

Running back.

-Colton

Day 17 - Enjoy the Silence

1 Samuel 7:5-13 ----

⁵ Next Samuel said, "Get everybody together at Mizpah and I'll pray for you."

⁶ So everyone assembled at Mizpah. They drew water from the wells and poured it out before God in a ritual of cleansing. They fasted all day and prayed, "We have sinned against God."

So Samuel prepared the Israelites for holy war there at Mizpah.

The Place Where God Helped Us

⁷ When the Philistines heard that Israel was meeting at Mizpah, the Philistine leaders went on the offensive. Israel got the report and became frightened—Philistines on the move again!

⁸ They pleaded with Samuel, "Pray with all your might! And don't let up! Pray to God, our God, that he'll save us from the boot of the Philistines."

⁹ Samuel took a young lamb not yet weaned and offered it whole as a Whole-Burnt-Offering to God. He prayed fervently to God, interceding for Israel. And God answered.

^10-12 While Samuel was offering the sacrifice, the Philistines came within range to fight Israel. Just then God thundered, a huge thunderclap exploding among the Philistines. They panicked—mass confusion!—and ran helter-skelter from Israel. Israel poured out of Mizpah and gave chase, killing Philistines right and left, to a point just beyond Beth Car. Samuel took a single rock and set it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He named it "Ebenezer" (Rock of Help), saying, "This marks the place where God helped us."

^13-14 The Philistines learned their lesson and stayed home—no more border crossings. God was hard on the Philistines all through Samuel's lifetime. All the cities from Ekron to Gath that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored. Israel also freed the surrounding countryside from Philistine control. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.

HEY HEY HEY!

So, this is a long passage, but check this out, a lot of times in the Old Testament, people would build stone monuments to represent when they heard from God. It helped them remember God's faithfulness. Most of the times these stones were given names, in this story it is Ebenezer, which means stone of help.

Think of the moments God has done a major work in your life. How do these experiences serve as monuments to remind you of God's ongoing work in your life?

Think about one moment in particular. Where did it occur? A camp? A worship service? Did it happen at a really good place in your life? Or doing a really hard time? Ponder that for a while.

As you look back to your "Ebenezer" moment, consider what you learned about God in that place. How did God help you, or touch you? If there were a plaque on the monument, what would it say?

Okay, reflect on all of this, take that moment and set it up before God as a stone that marks His presence in your life saying, "Thus far has the Lord helped me."

-Colton

Day 16 - Enjoy the Silence

Philippians 3:7-14 ----

⁷But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

¹²Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Hi y'all.

Okay, this might be a tough question, but take the time to think about it, what have you lost for the sake of knowing Christ? A group of friends? A relationship? Family harmony? Habits, ways of spending free time, or patterns of behaviour that didn't really mesh with your passion to grow in Christ?

So, check this out, sometimes Christians try to make the life of faith more appealing by glossing over the losses and considering only the gains. To be honest, the Christian life is both. Granted, the gains outweigh the losses big time, but both are real, and we're likely to feel them both vividly.

Paul, the guy who wrote this passage, is very honest about the whole thing. He used the words, loss, lost, rubbish, etc.... Okay, close your eyes for a few minutes and consider the word loss. "Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ" How does that loss feel to you? What does it mean for you in terms of your relationship with Jesus? JOURNAL!

If Paul were sitting with you right now He would want you to know that this passage isn't all about Loss; it's totally about gain. "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things, I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him."

Meditate on that phrase. What does it mean for you to personally gain Christ? What have you gained through knowing Christ and being found in him? Try to move beyond Sunday School language here. Be specific. How has gaining Christ impacted your relationships, your perspective in life, your hopes, your fears, or your desires?

Think through that, and while you do think of this phrase, "found in Him." That's a pretty powerful image. Where do you find yourself with Him right now? At His feet, at His side, in His arms, in His lap? Take a few minutes to linger there. Journal what you're feeling.

Breathing

-Colton.

Character.

You know what?

We are skipping an enjoying the silence blog today. I promise we will continue tomorrow.

Want to know something? I have had a HORRIBLE week! Hahaha, straight up... bad!

My mom sent me this message today. I think you'll enjoy and get something from it, I know I did!

"Character comes out from a life that is hurried, stressed, overwhelmed, and yet where promises are made and deadlines are met. It is a computation of who we are in those stressed moments. Character is not just something we put into our lives, but it is what comes out of our lives in those hurried times. It is beyond a system of values or virtue we learn from our parents, or even at church.
Character is who you are to God Himself and those around you. It is the real you!
The church and parents must teach it, but they cannot insure its function. That is the responsibility of our choice, a determination we make ourselves, a stand in stress that we continue to uphold."

When we are finding ourselves in rough days, like mine were this past week, we are stripped away from any pride or anything that is adding to the mask we put in front of ourselves, our characters are put to the test. We are too burnt out to hide anything, our true selves are exposed. So what is God telling you, or showing you? Who is the real you? What are you being shown by God?

"Character is not looking at our situation; rather, it is looking to God"

-Colton

Day 15 - Enjoy the Silence

Jeremiah 31:31-34 ---

³¹ "The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.

³² It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them, "
declares the LORD.

³³ "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.

³⁴ No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."

Hey guys and gals.

Read the passage twice and consider that bolded phrase. The God who knows ALL, decides to forget some stuff, it is the opposite from what most of us are used to. We have to intend to remember something or we'll forget it, God has to intend to forget something, or He'll remember it. Haha, that's great! It's the great news out of that scripture, God promises to remember our sins no more. Take a few minutes to actually process that.

What are some of the things in your life that you hope God might forget? Choices you've made? Places you've stepped backward, when you feel God called you to step forward? Words you've spoken that you can't take back? Shameful memories of failure, weakness, or unfaithfulness? Think about it. Look at them, name them, write them down on a piece of scrap paper. Don't rush this, whether the sins are small or large, whether they involve other people or just you... whether it happened this morning, or years ago, write it down.

When we write down our sins it's like we open the floodgates of God's forgiveness. The awesome news that is in Jeremiah 31 is that God chose to forget and forgive our sin. I love it, because He knows, because He rules, because He judges, because He loves, because He is, and... because He forgets! Imagine that.

Tear up the piece of paper with you sins written on it. With those shreds of paper in your hand, spend some time in silence with God, enjoy it. Pray, talk it out. :)

-Colton

Day 14 - Enjoy the Silence

Luke 13:11-13 ---

¹¹ a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.¹²When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." ¹³Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Hi-yah People! So, picture this, what if you were the woman at the well, crippled for 18 years? Imagine for the past 18 years of your life, you couldn't move. For some of us, that is our entire life to date, plus some. Your whole life is effected by this. Your experience of a sunset doesn't involved vivid colours, but it's all shadows and darkness. Your conversations aren't filled with smiles and eye contact but with the sight of familiar feet, and the sound of a voice. What would it be like to spend all day everyday on the ground -- never looking up?

Journal how your life would be different if you spent the next 24 hours crippled. Think about the sights you wouldn't see. Smiles, sunset, a computer screen. Relationships you couldn't enjoy and activities you couldn't handle.

If you were unable to straighten up at all, how would your life be "crippled"? Close your eyes and imagine that, then journal.

Now... imagine what it would be like to encounter Jesus. You can't look at His face but you can see His sandals. However, after all the years of not being able to look up, your sense of touch is heightened. You feel on your head the wide strong hand of a carpenter. Likewise, your hearing is becoming stronger, you are alerted by the sound of a gentle voice, "You are set free."

Stunning! From stooped over to standing up. From pleading for Mercy, to praising for Grace.

Read this passage a few times, journal, then ask yourself how this Woman's story reflects your own.

-Colton