A Sweeping Movement...

"What we (Showbread) wanted to want was to tell the world about Jesus: The miraculous story of a peasant, Jewish Rabbi in the ancient near-east that went around preaching that the Kingdom of God was near! The story of God himself stepping down into the world, in human flesh, and conquering death by dying himself and then being resurrected from the dead. And that somehow, in light of this beautiful, mesmerizing and mysterious story folks like you and me can be made right with God and enter into his presence now and forever.

That’s what we wanted to be our focus anyway. For the most part, we’ve given it our best. Sometimes more than others and heck, often we’ve outright failed. But after nine years of spending more months each year in a van than at home, you start to think. We can’t help but see, time and time again in our travels, a world in desperate need of God’s redemptive power. We see a people oppressed by selfishness, greed, listlessness, anxiety, depression, despair… We see a church co-opted by the American dream and a generation taught to settle for the feeble, plastic freedom offered by legislation rather than the outright soul-liberating freedom of the living God. We’ve concluded, time and time again, that the world does indeed need Jesus and that Jesus is indeed at work in the world. And slowly, as those nine-years unraveled, Jesus taught his followers in Showbread—with infinite patience—what it means to make the Gospel the sole focus of a touring rock band.

To me, that’s what Arrows Are Deadly was all about. A second wind. A breath of fresh air. The voice of God himself invigorating his kids, telling them “This is only the beginning, there is more work to be done!”

I saw a middle-aged woman weep in front of a crowd of tattooed young people because God had healed her long pain-ridden feet. I saw a young man baffled by the fact that even though he did not believe God could or would heal his neck of chronic pain, God did it anyway. A young woman in Florida bawled in front of us as she confessed that it was on that night she first believed that God truly loved her. A group of perfect strangers in New York huddled around one another, joining hands and crying out to God on behalf of a wayward family member none of us knew.

Almost a decade of traversing the countryside playing rock concerts and telling people about Jesus, but on this tour something unique was happening. We looked forward to our performances, we looked forward to fellowship and fun with our friends in the other bands, but we had an insatiable craving to see God move AFTER each show in the minutes and hours when we gathered in small circles to pray for one another. The focus, even after nine years, continues to be refined.

Every day I read theologians and scholars pour over the Bible in an endless effort to unravel it’s endless layers. On paper, theology is captivating, it stirs the heart and mind and seizes the imagination. In person, theology is devastating, it shocks a man to his very core to see with his own eyes and feel in his very bones the truth that prayer changes reality and that Jesus, God of the universe, is moving in the world today.

The current of this movement is one I simply must be swept away in."

- Josh Dies of Showbread / Taken from Arrows Are Deadly (A Review)

 

--DyingAnOriginal

When I Consider The Heavens

Something that I've been thinking about recently has been the stars.  This past summer, I spent many nights sleeping out under the stars with campers, and even on the weekends I would lay out there for hours with friends just hanging out and looking up at them.  I love the stars.  There have been few times that I've been in more awe of God than when I am looking at the stars.  Especially if you're in an open field with hardly any trees or light pollution around you and basically all you can see is the stars.  It makes me feel small.  Insignificant.  Yet at the same time loved.  The God who created the heavens and the billions upon billions of stars knows MY name and knows exactly what I'M going through.  Complete and utter awe.
If you look back at the Old Testament, especially Psalms you see David praising God a lot.  One example, and what I just read this morning as I've been going through the Psalms chapter by chapter is Psalm 8.  David opens up by saying, "O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!  You have set your glory in the heavens."  By the way, tidbit:  When the word "lord" is in all caps in the Bible, it literally means, "Jehovah", or "Yahweh".  So what David, the king of all Israel is saying here is, "O Yahweh, my God, our king, how majestic..."  He later repeats himself in v.9 by saying that exact same verse.  But in v.3-4 is where I am focusing.  "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is making that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?"  David is in complete awe and wonder of God by looking at the stars and seeing His handiwork.  He feels small and insignificant.  Yes, this is David we're talking about here.  David, the king of all Israel.  David, the guy who killed Goliath.  David, the guy he led armies into battle.  David, is a huge, huge figure in the Old Testament.  And great and mighty David is seeing the stars and the heavens and saying, "Wow, God, I'm humbled.  You're so awesome and you're so powerful, yet you choose to pay attention to me."
The reason that this sticks out to me so much is two words:  Light pollution.  Tonight if you were to go out and look at the stars you would see only a fraction of what David and the rest of the Old Testament figures saw.  In those times, they didn't have street lights, they didn't have porch lights or house lights or headlights or flashlights, no, it was complete and utter darkness.  The only light was possibly a campfire or the light of the moon and the stars.  So when you take that and relate it to nowadays, there is so much pollution in our world that they didn't have and they saw God so much easier than we do.  They saw STARS, we see stars.  I wish that I could go back to those days and climb to the top of a mountain on the clearest night and just look at the stars with no pollution whatsoever.  No wonder they were in awe of God. 
But how often do we have pollution in our own lives that take away from the beauty of Him?  We have these things in our lives, this temptation or distractions that try to drown out his voice much like light drowns out our visions of the stars.  I heard it said once that to get an hour of complete silence captured on video, one must take about 2,000 hours worth of footage.  I know in my personal life that is so true.  Just today as I sat down to read my Bible my phone started buzzing from a text, then my mom wanted to talk to me then my mind started wandering...
Point is, we have so many distractions and so many things that Satan uses to pry us away from Christ and drown out his still, small voice.  Just like light pollution makes it harder to see the stars, so these distractions and temptations make it harder to hear God's voice.  So I ask you, and I challenge you (and myself) what is it in your life that's clouding your vision of Christ?  What are the distractions that make it hard to hear His voice?  And how can you rid yourself of those distractions so that you can hear Him and spend time with Him?

--DyingAnOriginal

I Am The Hope, You Are The Hopeless

First off, I want to apologize.  At the beginning of this summer I had this great vision to blog each weekend about my week and some of the ways that I saw God move in the campers and in the staff and some of the awesome stories, but as it turns out, and as you can see...yeah, that didn't happen.  So my deepest regrets.  I do wish that I had had more time during the weekends to connect with each and every single one of you through my blogs and let you know how my summer was going, but alas, weekends are just about as busy as the weekdays are.  You wanna know about camp?  Talk to me.  End of story.


Moving on.

Today, I wasn't feeling very well.  I was feeling pretty achey, and I felt a fever coming on.  Not good.  After I ran my errands this morning, I took a little break after lunch and just sat and read all afternoon.  I had actually just finished up a conversation with one of my friends about wanting to read more, and so seeing the opportunity, I took it.  At first, I started out reading my summer reading assignment for college ("Freedom Writer's Diary") and after an hour or so of that, I switched over to a book that I've been going through again called, "Relationships", by Dr. Les and Leslie Parrott.  Such a good book about Godly, wholesome relationships.  If you're looking to pick one up, let it be that book.  I had been reading for about 2 and a half hours by now and my eyes were feeling pretty tired, but I still wanted to read the Bible and spend time with God.  So instead of reading the Bible, I whipped out my iPhone and quickly downloaded the latest podcast from Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley (Francis Chan's church, for those of you who know) and decided to listen to The Word instead of read it.  Not quite the same thing, but pretty close.

Today, Josh Walker was talking about Deuteronomy and the last things that Moses said to Israel before departing from them.  As he began retelling the story of Moses, much like a narrative, I began to think back over the stories that I had heard about Israel from going to a Christian elementary school.  The one that stuck out in my mind--and the speaker brought it to mind as well--was when the twelve men were sent out initially to scout out the Promised Land and they came back with huge, huge clusters of grapes (Nmb. 13:23; 26-31) as evidence that the land was what God had promised them.  God had promised them a land "flowing with milk and honey".  You would've thought that seeing the huge bounty of grapes brought back from Caanan would've sparked hope and excitement.  After finally reaching the Promised Land after such a long time of traveling you would've thought that the people would've completely ignored the grapes and just went barging in ahead, right?  I mean, let's translate this to a modern-day story.  I remember days of high school gym class when we had to run a mile.  Now personally, I hate running and I couldn't wait until that mile was over.  Nearing the end my spit and phlegm would be collecting in my throat and my mouth would be hanging wide open, panting and drawing in the air to replenish my burning lungs.  The best part was, though, after running I would always make a beeline for the water fountain, yearning to ease my cracked throat and dry mouth.  Coming back to the Israelites, you would've thought that after wandering around they would be so ready to settle down no matter where it was.  Much like I made a beeline to the fountain, they would be ready to make camp and start living, right?

Wrong.
Even after seeing that huge cluster of grapes and the bounty that the men of Israel came back with, they still didn't see the blessing of God hit them right in the face.  They had no hope.  They had no faith in Him.  Where was there trust?  Numbers goes on to say, "The men who had gone up with him said, 'We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are.'  And they spread among the Israelites a ad report about the land where they had explored." 
As I sat there thinking of these things, my mind wandered to an ever-familiar passage from John 15:5, "I am the vine, you are the branches."  How does this relate to the story of the Israelites?
What do grapes grow on?
Vines, excatly.
The Israelites saw fear and opposition where God wanted them to see hope.  In John, Christ beautifully paints a picture of Himself as the vine and us, his Church, the body of Christ, as the branches.  The Israelites could've looked at that vine and see God's hand at work.  They could've seen the blessings that God was going to pour out on them and the plans he had for them.  Instead, they chose to see the bad.  They saw the giants and the opposition.  They saw things that would stand in their way and got afraid.  They forgot Who they had behind them and the Strength they had within them.
He was the vine of grapes that day to the Israelites beckoning them forward to take the Promised Land as He was giving it to them, yet they were too blind to see Him.
He is our hope.  He is our salvation.  He is our strength.  Yet so often, the circumstances around us, the temptations that try to bring us down, the whispered attacks and lies of the devil himself try to drown out that hope.  They try to grab our attention and take it off of Christ and to instead focus our attention on ourselves and our own weakness.  But that's the thing, when we're focusing on ourselves and the things happening around us we lose the strength we have in Christ.  As imperfect, sinful humans we are weak.  It's when we keep our eyes solely fixated on Him that we have strength to conquer the day's challenges and to rise above our environment, to resist temptation and put it to death once and for all.
So I write this as a challenge, but also encouragement.  The next time a giant comes into your view or something rises up that wants to steal your attention away from Christ, remember the Israelites.  When they lost focus on God, instead of receiving the promises and His blessings, they were sent back out to wander in the desert for 40 years.
Keep your focus on Him, because only then will you have the strength to rise above. 


--DyingAnOriginal