michigan in t-minus two hours

leaving for michigan in about two hours, the youth group mission trip. we'll be there for just under two weeks, and these trips have always been something special because there's a lot of God in them. it's the combination of God and being away from home and out of your comfort zone and kind of only having your agenda be "find God" for two weeks that makes the whole thing different from any other two week period in the year.

and that's kind of honestly what i'm counting on. i need my heart to be opened up again, because it seems that i've been so calloused lately. i mean, i don't really talk to God anymore, or maybe i do it out of compulsion, or some unpure intention, but... i'm not really alive in Him. and though i know i'm not alone in the youth group with this sentiment, i also know that it's not citywide or nationwide because i ran into some seriously on-fire people yesterday night who were heavy in the spirit - in which case, the God they know is so much more than the God i am looking at. additionally, it is not hard for me to believe about this God or hard to believe in my need for Him as a Savior, but is somehow so much more difficult to let myself go or believe that i'm still okay in His eyes, and that He would in fact die for me.

anyways, i still have been blessed and His work is still going on around me, but it seems that my spirit really has been sleeping for these past couple weeks, with the exclusion of Africa. so i am hoping, so intensely, that this trip is the one to change things. and it's a first for a lot of people. it's my first time to be a small group leader, and we're leading 8 Bible studies as well as getting to step up as leaders to whom others actually look up to. so i need to be writing a Bible study right now on Jehosaphat and how he won this nearly impossible battle simply by worshipping God. the other leaders are Ruth, Billy, and Lydia, and Cynthia, Jeff, and Bonnie are in my small group

it's the first mission trip for Sherri, Vincent, Bonnie, Jerry...and they need this. Sherri and Jerry are hungry and looking forward to this heavily (i think), and i don't really doubt that they will take huge steps towards God, and i am hoping so much similarly for the same with Richard and Jojo. and for Vincent and Bonnie...i don't know. i have my doubts. but i used to believe... no matter who the person was. if we got them on a mission trip, they wouldn't be able to help but change. but i fear that when they are uncomfortable, they freak out and just talk a lot out of compulsion...so i really want them not to freak out and not to get in the way of everybody else. i hope that's not prideful.

anyways, i mean, i know it'll be a good time. but i need for things to change on this trip. i need to have a moment when i'm actually talking to God and i know that this is what i'm supposed to be doing and i know that God will stand for me against absolutely any opposition i face and that i don't have to worry about it. and i need to know that i'm going to be willing to do absolutely anything in my strength to keep on track with God, knowing full well that this isn't enough and that grace is the only thing sustaining me. and i need to know it's all about mercy and i'm an idiot whenever i choose pride over grace, and that this isn't about me. i need to learn all of these things, and then i need to come home and make it happen. my life needs to be changed and stay changed.

what would God think if He read this? [because He probably has seen it...] would He smile or would He shake His head and think, "he just doesn't get it," or would He be mad? would He regret making me a leader in the youth group as He did Saul or would He hesitate to give me work knowing that my faith is deterred? is He waiting for me to get serious so He can make something happen in just the same way i have criticized vincent and bonnie? or is His silence because i'm somehow in the right and He is teaching me something? or have i fallen completely out of it in self deception and i have made myself my own god, simply continuing to tell myself that i have stayed true to God's commandments?

and it occurs that a relationship is all i need. morals are one thing, but faith is another, and it's not a blind faith. maybe it's a blind faith now, because i have such an abundance of unanswered questions, but the real Christian faith isn't blind at all because you have the Holy Spirit in you and you know what's going on because God is still going on.

anyways, when we come back...i hope you won't recognize us. i hope i don't recognize us. i hope we'll be so foreign to everything that we won't know what to do, so we'll just have to keep going with God, though we won't become prideful idiots completely disconnected from reality.

mike used to always say that if God met you in a place, something would have to give, and it wouldn't be God. well...i hope that that's what's going to go down. i'll be back in two weeks, again writing things down in my journal to post upon return. and i'll go running...by the beach. early morning, should be breathtaking. i hope...