God is our Refuge...

(Disclaimer: With The Refuge being next week, something was sparked in my head. While The Refuge is worship based, this post is not about worship.)

I just finished reading Wild At Heart by John Eldredge, and while the book is not perfect and I do not agree with some of his arguments, one thing that he brought up really stuck with me. In the book Eldredge spends a lot of time discussing what he calls the battle for the Man's heart. I don't think that this battle is exclusive to the Male. Rather I think that it is something that all of us have to realize and deal with on a daily basis.

I used to hear preachers say that we are in a spiritual war. That we are beset on all sides by those who want to invade our lives and breakdown every stronghold we have ever built. They always used brilliant imagery, I guess this was to make it seem more real to those of us listening. To be honest I always thought it was over the top, and I always stopped listening when my pastor, Kevin, would start talking about spiritual warfare.

However I do believe that I have had a lightbulb moment. I guess I just came to realize that all this spiritual warfare stuff is actually true...

"Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." (1 Peter 5: 8).

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy," (John 10:10a).

The Bible doesn't shy away from the subject, why do we as Christians shy away from this and say that we don't fear the enemy, or act like we got it all together. I am as guilty as anyone, I have never truly respected the devil. Yes I said respect. I think that as Christians we need to respect the devil to truly understand what he is capable of. He can bring out our worse at the absolute worse time, and most of the time we don't know that he doing it. To quote Verbal Kent from The Usual Suspects, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

If the devil can make us not respect him than he has already won.

Bleak picture isn't it? I did not choose to write on this because I want to frighten Christians into watching for the devil at all times, but rather to show that in this war we have someone better on our side.

I am pretty sure we have said the God is our refuge at some point. We probably have sung the old hymn that says "What a mighty is our God." Do we truly believe this? In other words, are we hiding in God's stronghold or are we trying to build our own hoping that they will be good enough.

"He is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be shaken. On God my salvation and my glory rest; the rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us." (Psalm 62: 6-8).

What is the Psalmist saying? God is our refuge, our stronghold in Him is unshakable. Do we truly want to put our complete trust in God, as our General. I think we should. If you have ever read Revelation then you know how it ends. And speaking for myself, it feels good to be on the winning side. But how to we keep the devil from completely ruining us.

I think that this is very simple...sort of. I believe the closer we draw to God the more he helps us in our struggle against the Prince of our world. However the closer we draw towards God, the more the devil attacks us. I guess this is a literal catch-22 right, but its the best I got. I would much rather be singled out by the devil because I was a force to be reckoned with rather than just kind of giving up and letting him win. Remember God has given us a full body suit of armor to battle with...don't believe me go read Ephesians 6:10-17.

I just write this to encourage you, not to discourage. But I will leave you with one last verse.

"and do not give the devil an opportunity to work." (Ephesians 4:27, ISV).

Good Luck and God Bless you in your future battles.

I have been fearfully and wonderfully made...

I have been reflecting on the words to one David Crowder Band song recently. The chorus goes like this.

"You make everything glorious. And I am yours, so what does that make me."

I have heard that song what seems like a million times but the words never really sunk in. If everything God has made is glorious, than wouldn't that make me glorious as well. I guess that I have never realized that I was a glorious creation. What makes this worse is that I look around at others and it seems like they don't seem to see that either. Have we lost out on what God really thinks of us?

The bible mentions many times over that we are special to God in some way.

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God has prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."
Ephesians 2:10

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children"
Ephesians 5:1

"See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us,
that we would be called children of God; and such we are.
1 John 3:1

"For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother's womb.
I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."
Psalm 139:13-14a

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord.
'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you a hope and a future.' "
Jeremiah 29:11

How is it that we treat ourselves like we are less than what God looks at us as.

I am reading a book right now called The 4:8 Principle by Tommy Newberry. It is about reforming your thinking around the teachings of Philippians 4:8. One thing he mentions in his book is that our negative thoughts come from our own self-image. We think negative thoughts because we don't place enough value on ourselves. We don't realize that we truly are Children of God. What would happen to our self-image if we truly started to believe that we are beautiful children of God the Father? Newberry continues to say that we don't realize that we are special.

"There has never been and never will be anyone just like you, and God has not made anyone else in the world out of better clay than he used to make you. Your life here on earth is your special, unrepeatable opportunity to fulfill God's vision for your life and to magnify the joy he has placed within you." (Tommy Newberry, The 4:8 Principal, pg 42).

You are special, I am special, and we are are beautiful children of God who were fearfully and wonderfully made.

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?