a year in review and confessions, pt 1

the room spins, and the grinds of a blender and a female vocalist to a slow tempo-ed song make the background. School is over, it is my internship now. And waking up at 8 is a challenge. I have gotten in this not so comfortable groove of going to sleep at 1 or 2. and i played worship last night for a while and I am starting to see that I have fallen this past year.

These past two school semesters, I am not sure I was even thinking about quiet times. I'm not sure I realized I was missing them. After the first semester, I realized I had forgotten what humility meant. Acquire the Fire was...okay. Chicago during Spring Break was pretty amazing, and I haven't forgotten what happened, but I forget that I am supposed to keep it happening. I missed a lock-in for Chicago, and I hear that the lock-in was just mediocre as well. There was a weekend where there was just this enormous propensity towards worship, so I pretty much worshipped the whole weekend and God was there.

We watched a movie called the Revival Hymn on a Sunday morning and I thought that might be the time I would never turn back. It seemed so obvious - God wants us, for us to be with Him. Who am I to stand in the way of this Creator and lover who would give everything away for someone like me who might not appreciate. God usually seems like a Lamb to me, but that day, He was a Lion who ferociously wanted His children to come back to Him.

And there was another Sunday when Daniel was back and Mike talked about making sure we didn't get caught up in the repetition of a system and things of that sort that we think we have to do when we really don't. And that wasa day we played worship all the way until lunch and skipped Sunday school, and i was crying a lot and Daniel kept on telling me to let God love me, and I think I finally let Him for a change. I realized, God wanted me to come to Him just as I was. I didn't have to be anybody else. I didn't have to be good enough and I didn't have to be ashamed of who I was - a murderer, a liar, a luster, all of these things. And so that was a great day.

And I spoke in chapel one time and led a couple of DFC's that got me excited. We did 30 Hour Famine and one of the girls threw up, so we gave her a banana, and Robert Aery had some fellowship/teaching meetings that he called the "Crossing" and those were pretty amazing, and Stephen Pittman started playing worship in the chapel and even in front of the whole school on the last chapel of the year.

And i went running. And maybe you had to be there to understand, but when I ran a personal record at SPC in cross country and came back for Friday Night at Billy's and could hardly move my legs, I had run for God's glory and He was lifted high. And in track, much the same case. I ran for God. And being a runner is somehow some integral part of my identity, though it isn't my prime identity. But it is, for some reason, how I find and enjoy God.

And yet now I remember, I didn't run my best race. I fell asleep, I stopped running so hard. "Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength...They will run and not be weary." and at times, I was no longer running. I may have even been going in the other direction. I underestimate grace sometimes - that's what this is all about. To run and not be weary is grace. And yet, I run like I must preserve myself, like I am clinging on to things holding me back, like I am not running as fast as I should. And all God wants from us is to run. To run like crazy.

And I forget. I stopped having quiet times. I fell completely away from the idea of spending time with God. And without that learning, your faith can't go anywhere. And I compromised. My eyes were watching other things than God. I wanted to see grades and girls and running and friends lifted high in my life, not God. And I wanted to justify myself. But now I'm coming back. Now I'm running as fast as I can and when it gets hard, I better keep that mentality, even if I'm going at a snail's pace. It's not about the pace, it's not where you are now. It's what you're gonna do. Because everything I've done is behind me, all of my successes and failures. The race isn't finished, there is more to do. And at the end, I could care less about my time. I want to know if I ran my heart out.

I want to leave no mistake. God is my God. I'm not trying to follow anything else. Sign me up for this. God deserves all of me. Nothing left back. There are bigger things going on than me and you. Sacrifice needs to be made, we need to wake up.