I want You alone.

The more that I head through life the more questions that face me, the more I am unsure about life… Maybe that is the way it is meant to be, wither I like it or not. It seems that when I try and figure something out… the more questions arise. The more I try to find true, the more I am answered with gray. The world of black and white seems to be left behind with my childhood, as long as my God is not left behind as well.

So what do I do now God? I will not falter in my search for you and your true, bless me as I try to honor you in my walk on this narrow path of righteousness to the narrow gate of your perfect love and salvation. Forgive me for the times that I step off your path and try to blaze my own, let me not walk that road alone regardless. Walk besides me as I try to find your, illuminate my path with your light. Do not let me try and light my way with any other light that gives false hope and assurance, but help me keep my mind on you always.

In my search never let me believe anything but your truth and who you are. I do not want a god that I can lead around, I want to be lead by you God. Bless me in that search.

Standing on the edge of a Knife. . . Will this be the right cut?

I stand on the edge of a knife, moving in any fashion will cut me in more ways then I think I am willing to deal with right now. So I stand here… on a fence longing to move, but unwilling to move in fear that I choose the wrong turn and leave a piece of me behind as I do. Fearing that I would be painfully cut deeper then I could ever know or understand…. On the one side is my family’s ideas and thoughts on who God is and what that means, on yet another is friends and their thoughts on who God is, and then yet another is my schooling and all the new thoughts of who God is. . . There is the God of personal relationships, this Father who love and cares for his children, holding them in his arms, the one that people can spend time with, love on…. There is the God of systematic theology, which is defined by creeds and theology, where men sit in conferences and debate who God is. There is the God of social justice, the one who cares for the poor, the one who feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, heals the sick, and comforts the people, this incarnate Jesus.

There are all these visions of who God is… is he one? Is he all of them? Who is he? Where do I stand in all of this, should I stand with any of this? Is God one of these, is God any of these? Why does one camp say mocking comments about another, why does one look down on another? Is that real or is that my perspective?

God, I do not doubt for a second that you are out there; above me, beside me, within me and around me, but I don’t know you. Why? You are the one person that I long to know and grow deeper with, but there is this block between me and you… this wall that I do not understand how to tear down or get around. I want to know who you are God! I want to know what it means to be your son, what it means to have a personal relationship with you, what it means to be a Christian. . .

What does it mean to be a Christian? The word is defined as a follower of Christ, but what does it mean to follow Christ? Does it mean walking as he walked? Does it mean knowing the right things to do, and staying away from sin? Does it mean spending hours in prayer? Does it mean reading the Bible start to finish and then starting again? What do you want from me God?

There is one camp that says that rules kill us! The law is the way that sin takes us down… for the pure of heart all things are pure, but now that I know the rules, does that mean when I break them I am sinning where before I was not because I was purely ignorant? This camp says that when we follow the rules we are like the pharissees and we are not really getting into the truth of the word of God…. So they have this free living thing… where they ignore the rule and follow the spirit of the law and not the letter….There are the other camps, the one that says that we need to know the word and then put that word into action or non-action. There are rules and we need to follow them or we are sinning. . . There are the other people who would say things are morally wrong though they have not been defined in the Bible, like smoking, like sex is icky and what not… are they right?

How do we judge and understand what is for us!? What is the foundation? I mean I want to say the Bible, but there is a million different interpretations of the Bible and what passages are saying… Is this cultural, is this relevant, this means that or that means this…. What am I suppose to do!? I read the Bible and think that I know what it is saying to me… I talk with someone and they say, “well actually, if you look at the cultural context of the passage….”

AHhhhhhhhhh!!! God in Heaven, the writer of the Book of Life, the Book of Freedom, the Book of your own Son in the Flesh! HELP!! Please help me…. I am lost and know not what I should do or what I should think…. Where do I stand, where do I walk…. I am on the edge of this knife and am afraid for my spirit…. Is this cut going to be the cut I need to remove the lizard on my shoulder or will this be the one that cuts my life in two…to my ruin?

Life, my biggest fear.

There is little to nothing in this life that scares me, that instills
fear in my heart. I faced cancer and came out the other side with only
a strong discomfort thinking about bone marrows and spinal taps. I
faced death and was carefree. You see, death gives me no fear, "oh
death where is your sting, where is your victory," for I know that my
savior has conquered the grave for me. But what scares me, what
instills fear inside of me? Life!

Life is the thing that scares me the most, I am so afraid of the
unknown path that sits a head of me. It is new and unknown, open,
fresh, unexplored. Normally adventure is what thrills me and drives me
to do things, but my life now hangs in the balance, not that I could
lose it, but rather that I have to become something. I have to do
something with my life or u will be a "failure." if I do not become
something, I will have in some way failed my parents?

Everyone asks me what I am doing. "what do you have planned" "what do
you want to do?" I always tell them I am praying about it, which I do,
but I would rather tell them the truth!!! I am going out of my mind
trying to figure out what I am going to do with "my life." I have no
plans, no prospects, no dreams, no plans, no ideas. I am at the
crossroads of my life, but there is no signs to give me ideas on what
I can do. There is nothing but a field of unknown opportunities and
paths unknown. But I have no idea of what I am suppose to do with that?!

Some tell me that I am suppose to come here and do this, but that
chocks me. It leaves me dry. What future does that give me? How do I
pay the bills that way?! Cause they are not my bills, they are my
dad's bills and problem if I can't take care of them, but he can't
handle my problems!!!

I don't know what I want to do. Yet I am drowning in advice from
family and friends. I am drowning in their questions. I get so tired
saying the same thing over and over to everyone! Which basically is "I
have no idea what I am going to do with my life!!" but why do I want
to tell the whole my problems?

I am not asking for answers or for you to illuminate my path so I can
give the world my next ten years with day to day plans, for I know you
will reveal what I need at the time that I need to know it. What I am
askin though, is for your peace so that I can rest in your arms calmly
and carelessly trusting in my Father. I know that knowing my path is
not always the best for me, cause I trust you and seek you more when I
am looking to you for guidance. But please Father give me the peace to
calm my soul from the fear that is slowly killing me! I need your
peace! That is all I ask of you, for I know that beyond that, you got
it all ready. Let me sleep in your peace tonight.

Though I walk through the shadow of my life, I will not fear for my
Good Shepherd is with me.

My Giant Math Problem. . .

God you are trying to speak to me, please don't stop or let me forget. Do not close my ears to your words, but open them and help your servant along. God I get done with my meeting with Juan to read in "Searching for God knows What":

"I have this suspicion, however, that if we are going to get to know God, it is going to be a little more like getting to know a person than practicing voodoo. And I suppose that means we are going to have to get over this dear of intimacy, or whatever you want to call it, in order to have an ancient sort of faith, the same faith showed by all the dead apostles"

How else could it be that I would pick up that book, to read that after what Juan and I have been talking about?! Explain it away you could, but she said that my excuses are exactly that and nothing more than excuses!
Then again as I lay in bed, and I can't sleep, I hear Juan's voice screaming in my head, "Jerome, Shut up and do it!" So I got up and opened my Bible to the place marked by my tourniquet (I wonder if there is symbolism there?)and start to read and as I read I come to the end of the chapter, which reads;

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)

What are you trying to say... Correct me if I am wrong but I think that you are trying to say get off your lazy A$$ and run!!! Am I right? Why does it seem so much clearer now? The story of the man pushing the rock comes back to my mind! Why am I questioning when you have asked me to just keep pushing the Rock!? God why am I being so stupid? This all seems so simple now! Your not asking me to figure it all out like a giant math problem, but all you want is just to be my friend and we grow to love and understand each other in time... Patience... Trust.... Compromise, but me to you and not the other way around...

God you are too good for me! Blessed be the Name of my LORD, My God, My Savior, My GRACIOUS FATHER!

Last flower on the hill...

Long have I wanted to be able to write poetry that would move the soul and provoke the thoughts of the reader, but sadly the words that I put together lack the vivid picture wants to create. So I am left with writing childish words on a paper that is ready to fall apart because of all the time that I have erased what I wrote because like myself, I hate it. I try to change it and still nothing happens. My whole life has been me trying to get better at things and though I try, it seems that I am way to good at messing up the things that I want most. The rarest of flower sat in front of me and I watched it, love it, cared for it, adored it, and longed to hold it. Years past and I tired to hold it to my chest to show it the love that I had, the only way that i knew how to give it. I crushed the flower, it now lays broken on this mountain side and I am left with only a memory. I have searched the mountain looking for an equal to this, that I love so much, knowing that the roots would never let me have it. So I continued my search and never found an equal, the beauty so rare that I am left wanting. Though many flowers filled this mountain, none had the color, the shape, the softness, the drawing that this one flower did. So now after I have destroyed that which I have longed for so long, I am left with nothing. Trying to find one with the depth of soul that this one had, for no other touched my heart like this one has and my greatest fear is that none would ever be able to again.

Good-bye

Through my life I have not understood many things, for how can I? The world is so vast, the world is so complex, and I am just a single grain of sand as it spins through space? The thing that I understand prob the least, is relationships... For every time that I think that i have just a finger on understanding it, another turn comes and I slip from that and drop back to, what seems like, where I began.

I picked you a flower and with a smile gave it

Who Deserves More Cheer?

I may not know who you are personally, but I question you with this. . . Where is your heart when you worship God? Lately I have been asking God about worship, who is right in worship? Is it Pentecostal rolling round on the floor screaming, is it the conservative Baptist who stands and sings hymns with organs, or maybe the contemporary worship team who has 15 people on the stage playing a different instrument with the decibel level at the peak of safe levels? Who is right? I mean how can so many different styles worship the same God? Can they? Maybe! I am not going to give you any answers, but rather pose questions to you and pray that they make you think bout your approach to worship in the coming times you “draw” near to God. But then again the people that I am hoping to tell this to, they probably won’t ever listen or even hear what I am saying.

There is many people out there, myself included for a long time and maybe even now, that would look down on the Pentecostal worship style as chaotic and weird. Yet as my experience goes on and I dig deeper into the Bible I wonder about it more. What marks the worship of God? Is there one style? Is there too far? Can anything be worship to God? The first thing that comes to mind is that worship is a lifestyle and not something we do only in singing to God. The second is that there is wrong ways of worship, idolatry. But there are no idols in our culture today, right? I thought about it as I was in the coffee shop, where a twins game was on and people were verbally cheering for the twins, or other times when the Viks have been on and people scream wildly when there is a touchdown or a good play. Even better example is a home football game when Crown College Storm scores a touchdown, and you can not talk to the person sitting next to you because of the decibel lever of everyone screaming, jumping up and down, and the while claps of their hands in excitement for their team. But then, these same people that I just saw make a fool of themselves in front of a TV, which doesn’t allow the team to hear their cheers, and in the stands of a football field, stand in the bleachers of chapel and quietly sing. . . The only thing that I can hear is the worship band playing. . . No screams of joy, no exhortations of praise to God, and no wild clapping of hands! What happened? Where did the people in the stands go, where did the people in the coffee shop go? Are they not here… No they are, but they are not singing or they are sitting, where is the passion that I saw when they were watching a game? Should not the God who made the whole world and who came to earth to save my soul be much more worth of our cheers and praise!? To be honest, I think that we are all Pentecostal, but some of us are just not willing to be Pentecostal for God! We are not willing to look like a fool for God, but rather will other places?

Let’s make it clear that I am not against anyone sitting in contemplation of the wonder of God, the screaming praises of his great works, or the wild dancing that David did before the LORD. There is nothing wrong with any of that, but what I am trying to say here in short is that, Pentecostal is not the only form of worship to God and nor is the Conservative Baptist. The real thing that I want you to question is this, why will we cheer before a TV or on a football field, but refuse to in the pews of Church or the bleachers of our chapel?

**Now do not get me wrong and pick and choose things from message that you want to argue about, so listen to what I am trying to say here. You have to understand that I am not singling our one group of people, but rather a hypothetical group. **