So much has happened since I last wrote. School ended, moved houses and started work all in less than a week. All great changes but as I sit outside on the porch of our new place it is so calm. I get to look out and see the sky with an occasional lightning bolt that dances across the sky. The animals are making sounds, even the birds are singing their song. The wind is blowing just enough to not be to cold or to hot. This night is just peaceful.

With life going as fast as I let it (and I don’t really mind) but I have been thinking about how much I have wanted to just sit in this peacefulness. I guess I have to time everything and I could have done this a lot sooner but tonight just feels good. I was thinking about the story of the wind in the Bible.

There was this guy Elisha who was a prophet, he was one that stood for God no matter what. He was in the middle of trying to stand up for God against the many prophets of Baal and Asherah. As Elisha was continuing to stand he was wanting to hear God’s voice. As he was listening there was a bunch of natural things that happened like fire and hurricanes, but God wasn’t in them. Finally when Elisha heard God, he was in the wind. He wasn’t the loudest voice, he was the smallest.

This has me thinking tonight that sometimes I allow life to get in the way of that small still voice. God is speaking in a whisper so that we have to stop to focus on Him to hear him. We can’t just give it a passing though, we have to be intentional about it. Its really cool when you think that the God who created everything is speaking to us in the smallest voice that is possible. But he isn’t doing it so we miss it, he is doing it so we listen. If someone is getting upset, the easiest way to calm them is in a whisper because they have to calm down to listen. Maybe that is what God is getting at, we have to press though the craziness of life, the stress, the ucky stuff so that we can hear him.

So i guess these are my random thoughts for tonight, and my computer is dying so I think im going to go and just sit and enjoy the peace I have found. I hope you all find that same peace and listen to the whisper….. if we all just listened to that maybe things would be different in our homes, our churches and our nation

KC

So I guess it was a few years ago that the movie “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” came out and brought the books into the public view. At one point in the movie when the characters are talking to the super computer and they ask the computer what the meaning of life is, the answer is 42. I have been thinking on this question for a while now and I can say that the answer is nowhere near 42.

When I begin to think of the reason why we exist, I started to think about who created us. I don’t think that we evolved, but if that was the method God chose then I’m ok with that… but I think the Bible is clear about how we were created. God created us in His image. I don’t think this was his physical image but our spirit is made after him. So that got me to thinking about who God truly is and what he is all about.

So after years of pondering the age old question of our existence, we exist to love. Pretty simple but not hardly. Love is a complicated thing that no one can quite understand until we understand our creator. God is love, he always has been and he always will be.  Our mission above all else is to be like Christ, the living God. At the core, everything else is insignificant other than love.

If we love someone, we will share the Gospel with them. If we love someone, we will help them. If we love someone, we will do anything for them. If we love someone, we are showing them God.

Christ told us that we should have faith, hope, and love, but the greatest is love. Love never fails, it never goes away even after death. It is the reason why we exist.

So life isn’t about us. It is about love. Love requires us to think outside ourselves, to be servants, to look to God to understand what Love is. Most people go though life trying to figure out how to love without looking to the one who created the idea. We should be so in love with God that we want to love others.

While 42 is a good guess, the most logical idea of why we exist is love. Love God, Love others.

Faith will fade when we see the heavenly gates because it is no longer needed, hope will be confirmed and we will not have to wonder about the beauty of the Kingdom when we get there, but one thing that will never end is love…. How are you loving these days? Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is love

Kyle

It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting in my room pacing back and forth because of problems that had come up with my financial aid for school. I had spent most of the week packing and this was added stuff on top of everything else. A day later I got the call that everything had worked out. I was so excited to finally get to go to school. In the last few days before I began the trip up to TFC I spent it hanging out with my family and some good friends. Little did I know that the last 9 months of my life would grow me in some pretty amazing ways and fuel my passion for what God has for me.

I have spent some time in recent days reflecting on everything that has happened over these two semesters. It has been quite an adjustment for a guy that was working for a while. I had to relearn how to do school, adjust in an unfamiliar setting, learn all the new things that go on with college. I had to figure out how to cope with being away from home for an extended period of time. The ride up to college, while it was only about an hour and half seemed like years. I got to go up with my best friend and my brother which was awesome but it was still hard for both of us.

So I launched into the Fall semester, managed to have some interesting experiences with the people around me. I learned quickly that I needed to invest in an umbrella and that balancing time was a forgotten art (one im still working on mind you). I saw a campus that was in need of a spiritual revival, filled with people who needed to be set on fire again. My heart longs for this and as the semester went on I began to find things starting to change. I found some guys that I could chill with and even though we don’t hang as much anymore I value those friendships highly.

I think that fall semester I was searching for who I really am. I had thought I knew but after the past few years of doing life a bit more of my own way than God’s way I needed to search a bit more. One of the most helpful things in starting at TFC was that a few weeks prior I spent a week going though Crazy Love… gosh that is a great book. I started to do that practically and it made some things interesting but I wouldn’t change it at all.

Overall fall semester was good, although at the end of the semester I was quite honestly fed up with stuff on campus. I became discouraged and really wanted nothing more than to get as far away from that place as I could. I started looking at colleges but God spent the winter break reminding me of why I was on the TFC campus. He didn’t just make everything come together for me to up and leave. He had me there for a purpose and I just had to be reminded of that.

So I started off Spring semester with a fresh mind. I made some adjustments, had more learning experiences and figured out more of what I was doing. FLOOD has gone great and taught me how to speak a bit better but moreso opened the door to meeting some new friends who are part of my family (my close friends I consider like my siblings). After the first part of the semester struggling with friends who it felt were abandoning me (not on purpose, its just how things happen), I finally found people who I can trust. These people care about me and I care about them very much. We get a chance to do life togeather and they have encouraged me to be myself. It’s funny how little things that happen can change everything in an instant. If it wasn’t for some seemingly insignificant things that happened I would never have built relationships with these people.

It seems that God has had to let me walk though trials to find myself. He has shown me that everything has a purpose, though it may not be clear at the time, and I can’t abandon it for any reason. God has a purpose for being at TFC. This spring has taught me what truly matters is not my theology, my idea of what God is, if I am better at the bible than someone else. Life is about relationships. It is about growing to fall deeper in love with my creator. Life is about sharing life with others and encouraging them. It’s about helping others, life isn’t about us.

So looking back at where I was this time last year I know that God has changed me. He is still shaping me, he is the reason why I live.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of my life and all of my new and old friends. I love all of you and thank you for being a part of this awesome process. May God bless your life in ways that allow you to grow and bless others.

Kyle