Tonight on Facebook my buddy Evan posted a status that cut straight to my heart. Not in a mean way, but in that it convicted me. He said: “This is a messed up world we’re living in”. That is the honest and raw truth about the state of this earth if i’ve ever heard it. As soon as I read that I thought: “I know and see everyday how messed up this world is, how badly it needs Jesus, But what am I doing about it?”

Jesus, make me like you.
teach me and show me how to be approachable.
teach me and show me how to respond in love when I am attacked with cutting words.
teach me and show me how to love like you.
help me to see people as you see them.
break me, cleanse me of myself and challenge me in my walk with You
take this hard heart and give me a heart for the lost.
may the cry of Your heart be my heart’s cry.
Father, take me to the foot of the cross, take me into the very place where your Glory dwells.

For the first time yesterday I watched August Rush, I’d heard my friends discuss many a time about how much they enjoyed the film and the great music in it. For I hadn’t the first clue about what I was missing, and being one who takes great pleasure in music this is one of the best among the many movies I have seen. To describe the music and just how amazed I was would be no simple task, so to state it the best that I am capable: the music just made me melt into a puddle of awestruck.

As I was watching the movie, I began to think and wonder about how what I was experiencing could relate to God. As I began to meditate on it, I realized “whoa, this music is amazing and beautiful by every deffinition I can think of, and it can’t even begin to compare to the beauty of God, His creation and all that He encompasses.” All that HE has created most certainly points to Him and brings Him glory, for such is the nature of His creation. Being in nature and experiencing the outdoors entralls me, to just be surrounded by and observing the beauty of God’s creation is most pleasurable. Of the many activities that I delight in, snowboarding is among those I enjoy most. There is nothing that can compare to being on the summit of a mountain and being able to see for 20 miles, where as far as the eye can see, everything is covered in snow, with a clear blue sky, and I can’t help but get caught up in how beautiful and pristeen it is. To think, that views like that, and sunsets that fill the sky with color are the result of what God spoke into motion. Talk about having your mind blown. His creation leaves me speachless, and to even begin to grasp his beauty is incomprehensible. How I relish the moments like these, for if I could only have them more often.

(No that isn’t me in the picture, nor did I take it)

So its 12:40AM on June the 21st, 2008, and after having not worked at all for 3 weeks my job has finally given me some hours…funny thing how God works in situations, more on that later.

Where do I start with this one? Lets see about a month ago, I’m not even sure b/c its not that big a deal, but anyways I drove to work to put my requested schedule in for the next week, its a pretty decent haul, about 18 miles or so one way, which is a big deal when gas is $4 something a gallon and the car I’m driving is rated at 20 mpg highway. I asked for Saturday and Friday night off, which i didn’t think would be a big deal, apparently it is? B/c the next week I didn’t get any hours, I decided I wasn’t going to let that phase me. The next week I did the same thing, driving 36 miles out of my way to request hours at work, again I got none. At this point I was very frustrated, and slightly mad. Me being a naive teenager didn’t have any money saved up, and I had just been in a car accident, so I have a vehicle that needs about $800 worth of work to be legally drivable again.

Me being stupidly prideful, and arrogant to some degree decided that not only was I not going to drive to work and request hours again, but I wasn’t going to call and ask why I wasn’t getting any hours…in my mind “They don’t deserve for me to call and ask why I’m not getting hours, I’m too good for that”. To add to that I started putting in job applications at various other places that were hiring. Not only did I not get hours again, but I didn’t get a single phone call back from any of the places that I applied to work. All through this I’m asking and thinking, “God, what are you trying to teach me through this, why are you having me go through this, where is Your hand in this?”

So another week passes, my anger and frustration grows, and I consider quitting. At the start of the third week of getting hours I start to just not care, and then God starts to work on me, funny how when we take our guard down, and say “There is nothing more I can do, I’m not going to stress over it” that God shows up and starts to work on us. Through spending time in prayer, and just God working on me, my anger and frustration just disappear. I get ok with them not giving me hours, and say “It is what it is, not a whole lot I can do about it”. So I’m ok with them not giving me hours, and I’ve come to realize that I’m not quite as valuable to my employer as I previously thought. God has taken care of my frustration, anger, and arrogance…now for the big one, Pride. So I decide it can’t hurt to call and find out whats up, so I humble myself and make the call. Low and behold, the owner (who I have a good business relationship with) answers the phone, and I tell him whats up and it all gets worked out. Not only that but I applied to this little local coffee shop that I had been eyeing for a week or so, and two days later the guy in charge calls to set-up an interview.

From my point of view God was really doing 2 things through it. He wanted to give me a wake-up call, to say “Hey, Zach One day you are going to have a wife and kids that are going to rely on you to provide for them. You need to revaluate how you handle your money now while you can afford to make mistakes, and don’t have anyone to provide for.” He also wanted to work on the issue of pride, to really humble me, and get me to realize that I need to mot put myself first, and that I’m not quite as important as I might think. He still wants me to give my money freely and as He leads me, to not let it become a vice. He also wants me to save up money for times when I may need it. To store up the grain in the silo for when famine comes per se.

So, it wasn’t so much that my job was the problem, and they weren’t the reason I wasn’t getting any hours. It was that I thought myself way too valuable, and my pride had gotten a few notches too high…so God decided it would be a good time, to humble me and just refine me some more. Interesting how the Bible says that God will resist the proud, and give grace to the humble. When I got all caught up in my pride, things were extremely difficult, and frustrating. Once I humbled myself things seemed to just flow along as smoothly as can be. All the credit goes to God for this.

Just sit and think for a second about what love and sacrifice mean. What is it to truly love someone and to lay down everything that you have for another. Love: unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another…I know that this is probably the most well known Bible verse in the world, but just bear with me for a second, John 3:16 says that “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” God loves the world, us, humanity so much that He would ask his one and only Son to come here and live a perfect life, to be a lamb without blemish, and then be beaten, carry his own cross up a hill, be nailed to it and die, why would He do this you ask? God loves us, its that simple, He cares about our well being, about restoring a relationship with us to the point that He would sacrifice himself for us. Who am I that the God of the universe, the God that spoke everything into existence would send his son, Himself to die for me? That is the kind of love that I seek to have, to unselfishly love others, and to truly care about their well being.

To sacrifice, “an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy” God considers a relationship with us, restoring us, and providing a way for us to be with him of such importance that he would give his life, would edure the cross, and give his only son for us. How worthy is He of our praise. How worthy for us to give 110% in serving him. Our God is truly an Awesome God. He loves me beyond anything I can possibly fathom, and He sacrificed his son for me, if He didn’t do another thing for me from this day on He is still worthy of so much more than I can offer Him.

I want to love selflessly, with the same agape love that He has for me I want to love him back with that same love. I also want to have the same love that He has for the world, to have a heart broken for the same things His heart is broken for. I want to worship Him in every moment without a care for who is around, who can see me, who can hear me. I want to give everything I have for the cause of His Kingdom, the one cause that is worthy. I want to pick up my cross daily and have the faith to know that he will provide and that he will care for me, that he will open doors and make a way. I want to love with the same love He has, and sacrifice my wants and desires for Him.