the night

so this is gonna be pretty brief, but it ties in with my bethel blog. I spent some time with my dad and we went to dinner and talked about life and it was cool. He started out telling me about stuff in his life and I got to see the root of the money fears and now after talking stuff over with mitch I am less affraid, still freaked but now I have some hope with the situation. I got to express all of my fears and junk with my dad and he said that he would support me with the path that I choose and told me that he was proud of me and my desire for god in me. it was an overall good experience and I am happy that I had the night with my pops. It has really opened up our relationship from my side at least.

helpfulness makes the world go 'round.

so I know i'm breaking my rules and i am using a computer outside the library, but I just felt the need to write I guess. Yesterday I had an applicably cool experience, so I was riding on a bus and I was reading soul cravings and as I'm reading an elderly gentleman is getting on the bus and by the time I looked up he was on the last stair but I could see that he was physically weak and was struggling to get on the bus. any of us that have ridden a bus, whether city or school bus, know that it is a pretty simple task, and if you feel tired they even put in railings to lean on to assist you up the three stairs that are there. So as I'm sitting there rolling through town the last words that I read continued to echo through my head, "when we stop caring about the lives and conditions of those around us, we lose a part of ourselves", so I began praying "God help me to se people, to see opportunities to care, love and to take action." then I looked around and I saw this man sitting there and he began to talk to the bus driver, me being the wonderful listener I am couldn't stop myself, and this guy began to share the story of his last six months, starting with an "ice accident" where he was walking and slipped and landed on his back and had to be hospitalized for a few weeks, he continued and starts to talk about how he has actually just got out of the hospital for the second time but this time it was because when he went in to get his flu shot they took a blood sample and found out that his hemoglobin, red blood cell count, was half of what it was supposed to be and how he got rushed to the hospital and how the Dr.'s were saying that he was lucky he even got to the clinic to get the shot in the first place. Then I know shocking as it may be I said to myself" wow Jared, maybe you could help this guy, maybe God is opening a door for you now." so I continued to sit and listen as he was talking and as I did so I watched my stop through the window as it rolled on by, luckily, a few blocks down he pulled the cord signaling his stop and so I got up and I said, "can I help you with anything?" and he said, " no I'll be ok", and so I tried again by not asking to help him but asking him if I could carry his bag for him as if it were my dream come true to carry his grocery bag, and he took another glanse at me and said yeah I would like that. So I grabbed his bag for him and marched off the bus and when I got off he said I could just set it down and I said no that's alright, and he well then if you want you could carry it across the street for me to my next stop, so I did and as I stood there beside him I could see in his eyes how happy he was that someone would help. For the first time I looked at him and in his eyes I didn't see his pain, or his struggles, but a glimpse of hope. It took me five minutes to take his bag and walk across the street with him, but to him it meant the world. When we got the bench where his next stop was he smiled at me and gave me a pat on the shoulder and he thanked me, and then again he thanked me, and one more time he thought that he should thank me so sure enough he did. As I looked at him one last time this man looked new, when I first saw him he looked as if he had the weight of the world slowly crushing him but now he shined it was as if in the time between the bus and the bench he didn't feel like he had to carry all that weight alone, as if someone else was there to stand beside him to support him. It was a really cool experience for me to take a little extra time and to be rewarded so fully from it. It was cool. So I guess this falls as a challenge, but I believe that if we identify ourselves as christians it is important for us to search for those opportunities and when we find them to love the people we see. Maybe your really in a hurry but I urge you to change your pace to match the pace of the kingdom.

well later

Rest

So I'm super excited to see what God has for me over this next month through the idea of rest. For anyone who doesn't know right now at 14sixd we are going through a series called rest, but the rest series isn't just a series of messages but also a series of challenges to encourage us to stop and flip our life from busy busy busy to rest. I have expectations as to what God has to show me through this season of my life and flat out I'm stoked! I can't wait to see what God has for me, and I can't wait to hear God speaking to me. One thing that I have been praying a lot for is a truly intimate relationship between me and God. more specifically I want to cry, so often we see tears involved in true repentance and I haven't found myself with God crying in a long time, but I'm hoping that as I draw near to him he will break me. and so lately as I have been praying these lyrics keep coming up:

Yeah, I feel You fallin'Like the rain against my skin

And I hear You calling

Your voice like thunder in my head

But now I am stallin'

Cuz I'm afraid to let you in

Yeah, come break me down with Your mercy

Come break me down again

I'm Yours tonight

I'm Yours, You can break me down

Break through these walls I hide behind

I'm Yours tonight

Come and break me down

Won't You break me

But yeah I'm not using any electronics for the next month excluding my library time and tonight I have to go online to get my tax information. but other than that I am going to be doing a lot of reading, and I just finished HP7 so now I am really going to be diving into scripture and I am going to start soul cravings again, and hopefully I will be a better guitar player by the end of the month because I hope to be spending a lot of time in worship. But I guess in general I am excited to see what God has to do in me over this season of rest.

So, peace out.