I wrote this while I was at Lake Barkley in late December but I also think it applies to today.

How Beautiful is your creation, O Lord.
The lake shines, the trees sway in the wind,
It is a simple subtle beauty.

It takes times like these to truly be
Reminded of how intricately made nature is.
How leaves change colors in the fall,
How evergreens cling to their color
Through the harshest winter cold.

In this light winter breeze, amongst
The cries of geese and ravens I hear you.
I sense your presence on this lake shore,
I see your beauty and magnificence
reflect off the water.

O God of Creation, I am but a speck
In the vastness of creation,
Yet you love me more than the crying birds,
Or the trees on the Lakeshore.
God help me realize this daily,
On days when I do not have a Lakeshore
To show of your beauty,
Lord, let me see your beauty in everyday life.

Worship in the Wonder of God...

Why do Christians always seek to understand everything about God? Its like asking an ant to understand why we do the things that we do. Why do we not just bask in the wonder of what God is? I don't think that this is an easy question to answer.

To be honest I think it has to do with how we are wired. Humanity, Americans in particular, are so obsessed with knowing everything there is to know about a situation. We go to school to learn everything about a particular profession that we can so we can be ready for that profession. We aren't happy with just knowing as much as we need to know. Rather we feel that we need to go above and beyond to fully understand everything. I am guilty of this too.

We do this with our relationships with God as well. We question God to let us in on His plan at all times rather than just going with the flow of God. We feel like God has to explain Himself in great detail that way we won't feel left out. I am this way too. However I do not think this is how our relationship with God should be.

I love the way that Job answers God after God grills him with questions of His own.

"Job answered,
I'm speechless, in awe-- words fail me.
I should have never opened my mouth!
I've talked too much, way too much.
I'm ready to shut up and listen."
(Job 40:3-5, The Message)

Notice how Job responds to God. He shuts up and listens to God. How many times do we actually sit back and just enjoy God as He is, rather than what we want Him to be. Do we ever just sit back and enjoy the wonder of God. Rather than try to understand Him totally we should really just worship the fact that we don't understand everything about him and never will.

We will never ever understand everything about God. Now I am not saying that we should not try to understand Him at all. That's not the case. If we don't understand the nature of God, then we will never understand what we are to do as followers of Christ. David writes in the eighth psalm, "What is man that You take thought of him, / and the son of man that You care for him? (Psalm 8:4). God loves us enough that He wants to let us in on His plan. But not all at once.

So really it comes down to faith. Do we have faith enough just to go with God and not wonder where we are going. Or will we always ask questions and object when things aren't going our way. Donald Miller says in his book Blue Like Jazz that "too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent on allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder . . . I don't think there is any better worship than wonder."

Sometimes we just need to be reminded how expansive God is, how unfathomable He is. But this wonder of God is truly worship of Him as well. So rather than question God, or make our religion in to a set of rules and regulations, let us just bask in the nature and awesomeness of God, not wanting more than just Him.

Bring me a love that is my complete...

This is going to be different than many of my posts. Don't read too much into it. This is something that I prayed on Sunday.


Oh God, why do I put all my cards on the table in terms of relationships.
Why can't I just go with the flow. Either 100% or nothing is usually how it goes with me.
God send me someone that can be my complete. I want someone to by my match, the ying to my yang, the peanut butter to my jelly, and whatever other cliche that I can think of at the moment.

"An excellent wife, who can find?
For her worth is far above jewels."

God I want a woman like this. But I can't find her on my own. I have been relying on my own gut for too long and it has gotten me nowhere. But I know that you can find her. So I put my trust in you. Show her to me when you are ready, not when I am ready.

Reason for working at Little Caesars over break...

I am going to preface this with a brief statement. I am going to tell you what happened to me the other day at work, but it has some cursing in it, and I didn't want to censor anything that way you can see what kind of atmosphere I work with.


So I work with a guy name Mike. He is not the brightest guy in the world, nor is he the nicest, nor is he the most polished. If anything he is representative of the hick kind of people that live in Berea and surrounding counties. He is crude, rude, and vulgar. I say this because it sets up the conversation that I had with him on Tuesday. But before I get to that I need to go over me a little. I worked at Little Caesars back in high school and Mike was one of my coworkers then too. I treated him like crap. No excuses needed.

Back to the matter at hand, my conversation with Mike.

"Hey Matt, I got a quick question? How come you not an asshole like you were?

A simple question right?

My answer sparked a conversation that I couldn't have imagined taking place when I asked to come back to work over Thanksgiving break. I told him that it was because of Jesus. He looked at me really weird and said, "You're shittin' me right?" No, Mike, I am not. Because of this we had a thirty minute conversation about Jesus while we doing sheetouts.

This was the first time that I had really openly had a conversation about God with someone that knew me from my past. It went really well and I didn't get words confused with anything I was trying to say. This was truly a God thing. Not anything that I did.

Oh the things that you don't think will happen but do under the authority of God.

I don't know what to do anymore...

So this is a new thing for me, and I am sorry if it depresses you but I am not used to this kind of feeling.

If you don't know about a month or so ago a man named John Fisher came and talked to the College Class at Living Hope about a mission opportunity in Fargo. At the time I was totally pumped and I felt that this is what I should do with my summer.

That is not the case anymore...

I can honestly say that I am not going to do the mission work in Fargo this summer. In fact I am not even going to apply. This might come as a surprise to many of my friends as I was completely gung-ho about going to Fargo.

This came as a surprise to me as well. But as the application deadline approached I just started to feel like this wasn't what I should be doing. But the thing is...I don't know if this feeling is a God thing or not. This really upsets me. I thought that my desire for Fargo was a God thing, but looking back at it now, I am not so sure...

So here is my dilemma, I do not what I am supposed to do for the summer. Fargo is not an option anymore...

Anyone have any thoughts?