Hello all of you who still actually check this blog. It has been quite a while since I have posted on this thing. I'm actually going to create a separate blog for the time I am in Australia. I will try to keep it update better than this one. Probably a couple posts a month about what has been happening in my life, stories about what God is doing and my life in Australia. I am also going to send an email newsletter out and I would even be willing to send a hard copy newsletter to anyone who would like one.

I will be creating the blog in then next week or so, stay tuned to the first post from that one.

Much love,

Jason

I have alot to cover so I'm making a list.


1. For the past i don't know week or so i've been having alot of dreams. 1. I don't dream. 2. when I do I usually remember people or places I've seen. 3. lately I've been having dreams about someone I honestly don't care to dream about.

I'm not angry about it or anything like that its just strange. The heart has mended rather well, I can honestly reflect and say I learned something about myself. However, every once in a while, well hello, how are you and how the heck did you get in here? It is just strange because.....well....why now? I feel like my mind is messing with me.

2. I have for a very long time felt like I stand in the shadow of most of my friends. I'm a person of moderate intelligence, I'm on occasion funny, I'm in my personal opinion not too bad looking, I'm generally nice and when I take down my guards i'm actually sensitive and compassionate. Lately, I've felt for the most part pretty insignificant. I feel like most of the cool/interesting/good things I do go completely unnoticed and even that as a person I am easily forgettable. I have to fight for people's attention. I hate being loud! I realize that I have a loud voice but,honestly I'm loud because apparently at some point growing up I realized being loud got someone's attention. I mean it is nice when people pay attention to you, most normal people like it. I guess I'm just frustrated because the people I wish paid me a little attention for the most part aren't. I don't know how to feel about all this really. I just want to be noticed, for me, for my value and contributions , for my thoughts and ideas and for the soft heart that I actually have. I've vented now I'm done.


3. I was asked to lead a small group (I guess I was noticed a little, believe me I'm thankful) I'm not sure what book I would like to do. I'm kinda of tossing up between Wild at Heart, Velvet Elvis which I would have to read by thursday, or a couple of other books. I wanted to do Captivating and Wild at Heart in a joint Guy/Girl group, I figured I would be interesting, but I just don't know!

4. Helped edit a video that is going to shown at ALIVE next sunday. Heath and I worked hard on it for three days and I am proud of it.


It's 3:00 and I'm exhausted and I need to get some sleep. I'll leave you with this. Sleepwalking by Blindside

Sleep this time tonight
Sleepwalk in the light
Sleep this time tonight (one day we'll)
Sleepwalk out of sight

One day this world will see me at the horizon
One day from a distant light
And just before I stand to face my love
I'll turn around
And with a smile I'll say my goodbyes
Just one last goodbye
Goodbye...

I've had a strange feeling since graduation. This sense of completion, the sense that something is now officially over. I went to see a movie this evening and I used my college ID to get a student discount, might as well us it why I still can right? I've been reading Through Painted Deserts for the last week or so. I have enjoyed it and will probably go through one of his other books again before January comes to an end. This last month or so has been an interesting and thought provoking time for me.

Right before school let out several people including myself decided to catch this amazing meteor shower. I beat everyone out to the intramural field and walked around in the dark alone. Only a few days before graduation, I wandered around and stared at the sky. I felt completely alone and stood in awe as it seemed like I was being sucked into the vastness of the universe and all of God's splendor. I realize that moments like those are when I find myself truly at peace and in communion with God. When I am enjoying his splendor. I couldn't help but feeling infinitely small compared to the rest of his creation, a mere speck of sand on the beach of the universe. It was a humbling moment that was quickly washed away by sound of friends coming out to see God's grand firework display.

This past week being home and missing friends I decided to call up people I hadn't talked to in a while. I finally got in touch with my friend Jennifer, who over the last two years have had sporadic contact with. We used to be close, she was one, if not my only female confidant for a couple years. She went through a wild phase for a while which I caught the beginning of and am glad to know came to an end several months ago.

It was great catching up with her. We met last week, she met a few of my SWU friends that I was also hanging out with. We went to eat and had a great time. Over the last week we've spent a good deal of time together. She is going through a rough time with her ex-boyfriend and I am just bored. We were going to see Deja Vu but decided to rent a few movies instead. The Last Kiss was terrible and we never watched the Descent. I refused to watch it and she accused me of being a pansy. I took her Blue Like Jazz which she is currently reading and loving.

We celebrated New Year's Eve in my car driving across Greensboro in pursuit of a copy of The Shining. I told her we needed to watch it because it was one of the best horror movies of all time and because I needed to redeem myself from pansy status. I rented it, but half way through the copy was scratched and we went out trying to find one to buy. Two Walmarts, a Super Target, most of Greensboro and two mid-high way U turns later we still had no copy of The Shining, she was pouting about it (In a funny way), her ex was being a jerk texting and calling every 10 minutes and we missed the blasted ball dropping. To say the very least it was alot of fun.

We got the chance to talk about alot of different things on our expedition. We talked about love, God, prayer, life, change, and we concluded the evening with cookies and shooting each other with my air soft pistol. Its kinda strange how you being to realize how much you really missed someone after you hang out with them for the first time in a while. She has changed a great deal since last we really hung out. She's way more mature than she ever used to be, she's grounded and she's serious about her relationship with God. It was strange for me the first night because I was expecting one person, but gradually noticed someone completely different. All that to say this; as I spent time with my friend Jennifer my eyes began to open I could see that God was at work and doing amazing transformational things in her life and that He really will bust out in a person who has a willing heart. We may seem like a speck of dust, but God is focused and tuned into to each and everyone of us. To know where she was and what she's gone through and to have gotten to know her now has been amazing. Kinda like watching the Caterpillar change into the Butterfly.

This is what makes life interesting to me. This is what makes life worth living. This is what proves to me that God is real. To know that God made the stars and he made us and that to him we are far more important. To know that the Holy Spirit is moving, even if I don't see it all the time, to see the end result of his presense. To see people that I care about become all that God has designed them to be.

This whole encounter proved to me that God really is in control and really is doing things, I may not always see them, but He is indeed there.

hmm....two posts in one day....something is going on.

Well here it is...

Got an email from Stan in Australia, He instructed me to get in contact with Global Partners to work out my visa stuff and to find out what I need to do. He also gave me a list of things he would like me to help with if I come. So ...yeah....If God provides the funds, and the doors continue to open like they are....I'm going to Australia.

It is kinda sad...I'm graduating and I'm moving on with life. I don't really want to...I like confortable things....I don't like change too much. But this is what must and is going to happen.

I'm a little frustrated about myself personally. I realize I'm a really hard person to get to know. I sat down the other night and was having a conversation and the person who I've spoken to maybe once or twice said to me.

"You know, I knew guys like you in high school, crazy and wild....and always cool. But you're different, your crazy but you're intelligent, you have opinions and deep interests and care about things. I would have never imagined you this way, you are one of the most interesting people I've ever met at SWU."

I took it as a compliment...but it stung too. I'm probably one of the dorkiest people on earth but I don't want to come across that way. And I certainly don't want to come across as sensitive, even though thats probably one of my better qualities. And I don't want to come across as intelligent because....honestly....being intelligent ...ticks people off sometimes....nobody likes a smarty pants. So, I have within me a wierd duality at work. I want so desperately to combine the two and not have to play one and hide the other, it just gets frustrating. I hate people not getting me...I'm like a freaking iceberg....and I hate the fact that 90% of who I am is never seen. So this what I need God to help me change.....because this is something that needs to be changed.



I don't know why all this stuff is happening now....probably because I'm entering a wierd place and feelings and emotions are coming to the surface. I'm excited about graduation and I'm excited about life and where God is taking me.



So this song is amazingly beautiful and I guess sums up alot of feelings for me.....Kite by U2

I missed church this morning....but I have done some thinking. I was talking to my friend Andy last night and I realized I placed a stumbling block in front of him. I at times do not feel a terrible conviction about recreational cursing. Among friends who curse or in humourous situations, or privately I sometimes curse. I have felt convicted about it from time to time. I realize it does not advance the kingdom any and probably causes people to look at me twice sometimes. So why do I do it? Well, It probably happened that another Christian that I looked up to started to curse and it was funny so I thought it was funny and so I did it too.

We have more influence than we really think sometimes. So I was thinking about all of this and I've found a few scriptures that speak to this issue.

Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42 and Luke 17:2. I'm going to quote the Luke passage.

Jesus said to his disciples:

"Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves.....

In 1st Corinthians 8, Paul writes:

So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

But not everyone knows this. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.

WHOA...Paul dropped the hammer in that passage.

Okay, to the point. We have enough trouble trying to live out a life pleasing to God without other Christian's doing things that confuse ones who aren't too sure about things or people like me that have a great deal of respect for people and when I see someone I respect do something, may be influenced by that. I don't think we are all weak, but I fully believe in peer influence and the influence of character on other people. If you saw someone you cared about and respected do something, that was not necessarily bad, but was in that gray question area, would you not feel more open to doing it? I think we are influenced by people more than we like to think or admit.

My conclusion is that if something causes another brother or sister to fall or stumble then you better knock it off. I don't care if its drinking, smoking, cussing, gossip, the list could go on and on but the point is the same.....if you choose to do something and through your choice cause someone to stumble or even waver in their convictions about something you have sinned by placing a stumbling block in their life.

There are some things I cannot knowingly do now because they can cause someone else to stumble and if I did do them then I would be willing sinning against God.

I'm honestly just tired of cheap grace and hollow holiness.

Am I wrong? I think I've formed an valid arguement here, If I need to elaborate I will.....but If you disagree with me lets discuss it.

Is it getting better?
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now?
You got someone to blame
You say
One love
One life
When it's one need
In the night
One love
We get to share it
Leaves you baby if you
Don't care for it

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without
Well it's

Too late
Tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We're one, but we're not the same
We get to
carry each other
hurry each other
One

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much?
More than a lot.
You gave me nothing,
Now it's all I got
We're one
But we're not the same
Well we
Hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you've got is hurt

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other

One...
One...

--U2 --One

What a beautiful song....

So here I am....in the twilight of my college career. Who knew that four and a half years ago I'd actually be this close to being finished. It is a strange feeling to know that I've accomplished something. I think back on all the people i've known, all the friends I have, all the crazy things I've done and I can't help but smile. It's been fun, I've had my rough moments, my sad moments, my moments where I throw stuff in frustration....but here I am....almost done.

I have one assignment to finish by wednesday and I'm done. Its great. I have things lined up to do after school. For the first time in my life I feel like I have some of my act together. I'm waiting on an email from Stan, I sent him another one on Saturday about stuff so we'll see what he says.

Random thought: Rob Bell and his Nooma dvds are amazing....if anyone wants to throw a graduation gift my way....there are 14 of them....mucho gracias.

So yeah....this is an end of something....doesn't feel that different from anything else.

Man I wanted to write other stuff...but I'm too much of a pansy to say whats really on my mind....GRRR..I'm going to bed....if I bite my tongue any harder I might bite it off.