And you know what?

Naked is a good thing.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were “both naked, and they felt no shame.”
There were no walls built up.
There was nothing hidden.
They were truly united.

We can’t be united with each other or united with Christ until we’re willing to take down our walls.
Until we’re willing to get naked.

What walls do you have up right now that need to come down?
What’s keeping you from being completely naked?

d

Proverbs 4:23 is most likely a verse that we’ve all heard a time or two.

Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life.

It’s a simple verse.

Easy to remember.

Difficult to apply.

Because most of the time, we don’t even know we’ve left our heart unguarded.

Our pride and arrogance gets the better of us and we think, “I’ve got this under control.”

Then we slip up.

We get drunk. We slander our friend. We look at porn. We judge and look down on the people around us. We have an affair.

We do any number of sins that show, obviously, that we left our heart unguarded.

I really like the way Casting Crowns said it in their song Slow Fade, “People never crumble in a day.” It’s a slow process that leads to us failing in ways like this.

In Genesis 4, God says to Cain, “…if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you…”

Sin waits for us.

Satan is patient, he puts little things in our path to begin the process of opening ourselves up to fail in these ways.

Guard your heart. Always.

Ask God where you are leaving yourself unguarded. Then deal with those reasons.

Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life.

d

d

Poem by Beth Moore.

I heard this today and felt that I needed to share it.

d

As the worship leader for the young people of our church, I get to plan out what music we do every week for the 20-30 minutes of worship time we do before the message for the week. I get to talk about God stuff and talk about our insufficiency and his grace that overcomes that. Sometimes though, I get in a rut of trying to do it all myself. I get in the mindset of, “How can God be a part what we’re doing Sunday night?”. The frame of mind I want to be in is to ask, “How can we be a part of what He is doing?”.

When I ask the first question, I rely on my own strength/creativity/wisdom/whatever, the point it that I rely on myself. When I ask the second question, it forces me to do two things. First, it forces me to slow down and take a deep breath. Second, to answer the question, the only one I can ask is God, because only He knows what is going to happen and how best to work with it. From talking with God and getting a sense of what He wants us to know and how to respond to that, it gives me a much better direction to go with in planning than if I try to come up with everything on my own.

I might be the only one who does this, but I don’t think I am. So let’s make a deal: instead of trying to get God to be a part of our services, let’s try to be a part of God’s service. After all, it’s His Church to begin with.

d

This last year has been bodacious as far as the band I’ve been able to lead at our junior and senior high youth groups. I’ve been blessed with a team with amazing musical talent and a heart for what we get to do every week. The only problem with this is that two of them are seniors and are leaving in a couple months to go to college out of state. Now, we’re in the position of building and raising up the next students to plug into the band and be a part of it for the next year.

How do you do that?

I’m not 100% sure. I don’t think there’s a twelve-step program for doing that. But I think it all begins with being intentional about it and not waiting around hoping someone will come along and be a clone of who is in the place now. It’s about taking those who are next under your wing and teach them, show them, push them, to listen to them, and adjust to them.

We’ve started the process of raising up the next musicians for our youth band. We’ll probably make mistakes. Okay, we’ll definitely makes some mistakes. I know I’ve already made some. But, this is a process and a cause that we need to invest in.

What things have you done or have people done with you to help raise up the next generation?

d

Sometimes, we need to take an extra minute to fully think out what we’re going to say and how we’re going to say it.

Otherwise people get the wrong idea.

d

Other times it’s like a slap across the face saying “Wake up.”

That second one was me the other day.

Pride is a sly thing. It flatters. It makes you feel good about yourself. It tells you how awesome you are.

You want to believe it.

You don’t want to want to believe it, but you do anyway.

You start thinking, “Wow, I’m irreplaceable//Without me, none of this would be here//I keep this thing running smooth.”

Then comes a point where God steps in and says…

“I don’t need you.”

…

…

And all those thoughts, and the pedestal you’ve built for yourself comes crashing down.

What do you say then? “No, God, you’re wrong, You do need me.”?

Of course not.

He’s God. We’re not. The end.

And because He’s God and we’re not, we’re able to come back and say, “I’m sorry”.

And he says, “You’re forgiven”.

God doesn’t need you.

God doesn’t need me.

But for some reason, He wants us to draw near to and be with Him.

He wants to love on us.

And show us how to be who he has made us to be.

Pride can’t be anywhere in sight if we’re going to be who God made us to be.

Because God doesn’t need us. He wants us.

I needed to be reminded of that.
d

A couple days ago, my blogging and real-life friend, Mindy, gave me an award on her blog for being one of her favorite blogs. In her review and reasons for giving me an award, she said that I do “all the brave stuff” like be on stage in front of people singing, playing guitar, and praying and then ended it by saying someone should give me a record deal (any takers?).

Thinking about this, I realized that I wouldn’t be who I am or doing what I’m doing if it weren’t for the amazing people that are consistently surrounding me, encouraging me, and challenging; you know who you are. I heard a quote one time that said, “Show me your friends and I’ll show you who you are”, and I think that’s true to an extent; we are greatly influenced and affected by those we allow to get close to us. All this to say thank you to my friends and those of you who are closest to me.

Without you, I wouldn’t be who I am
d

There’s such a startling contrast between the closeness of the haves and the have-nots. It’s hard to put it into words, but it’s something that deeply saddens the heart to know, and see first hand, how some people on this planet are forced to live. Seeing this has made me question and take a look at the imbalance in our own culture, and how that affects the imbalance of the entire planet.

I know that the same contrast exists in our own consumer driven culture where you’re judged on what you have, but I think it’s a lot harder to see because it’s what we’ve always known to be there; and from what we can tell, this is how it is. The beggar in the market is no different than the single parent struggling to keep their home. I heard a quote that says, “People aren’t so different, cultures are different, but people at their core are pretty much the same…” We have the same imbalance that is present here, and in the rest of the world. People are literally burdened by their wealth while 30,000 will die today because they don’t have the money to eat.

This world is crying out for a Savior. It’s crying out for something, someone, to save and restore balance to this place we call home to the way it was meant to be. Where will this start? Where will it begin? I have no idea.

But I want to be a part of how God restores the world.

Dustin