Blogging: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Today I had a pastor point out to me the dangers of blogging, especially when there is little to no context given behind certain posts. He brought to my attention a couple of posts I had written several months back and revealed to me a little bit about the attitude it seems I was portraying, or maybe the underlying messages I was giving off hidden beneath my words. I am fortunate this pastor wants to talk about it in a couple of weeks when I get back from California.

To be honest before I even speak with this pastor, I went back and read two of the posts he referenced to me and I have to say, they were pretty bad. I allowed some things that were happening in my life, along with some discontentment to mold my thinking and corrupt my heart towards God’s most precious creation, people. I also allowed those things to produce a critical attitude of views and practices within the church just because I choose to do differently. I am always promoting the church working together and being ONE, putting aside petty differences to see the lost brought to Christ, and while I was shouting from the roof tops that the church should be acting in this manner, I was being hypocritcal. I personally find this humbling, but in a sad way humerous, since my pastor just asked me to preach on October 19th with a theme of loving the hypocrite. I guess I should be asking how people are able to love me, it may just make the perfect message. On top of the areas where I personally strayed, there were some things that had no context or understanding for the reader and so it was easily misunderstood by the reader. Blogs can be very good and healthy, but when things like this happen, it makes them bad and really ugly in many ways.

To those who have read my blog, if you read this post, I apologize if I wrote some things that were misunderstood, but also some things that were completely wrong from my end. I desire to live a transparent life and in doing so, your going to catch me mess up and sin, but I am thankful for people such as this pastor who will step into my life and point me in a healthier and more productive direction for my life. My desire is to shine Jesus to the world, and if there is anything in my life that dulls that light, I want to get rid of it. I deleted the posts that were brought up to save any additional issues in the future after I am able to grow from this experience. I am very aware of one thing; I am 27 years old and though I would like to think I have some things figured out, I know that I am far from it! I am thankful for men, such as this pastor, who do not mind getting their hands dirty and helping a yound man such as I, because God knows I need it.

So today, I am thankful for grace, people who know how to love a hypocrite, and people who want to see me become all that God wants me to be. Its good to have people in my life who are living Christianity out. I look forward to growing from here in the next several weeks.

Humbly,

Nick

Join the Conversation: Have you ever said or did anything where you looked back months later and regreted or changed and thought “How Stupid of Me?”

A Love Letter From God

My friend Hank Murphy sang this song at our CSRA See You At the Pole Event last night.

I like what he told the students…”Just listen to this love letter from God to You…”

I love this song, its called “How He Loves Us.” – I found this video on You Tube with it being performed.
(In my opinion Hank and his band did a better job…just my opinion 🙂 )

Here are some of the words that are my favorite parts of the song:

“He is jealous for me
Love’s like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.”

“So we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If grace is an ocean we’re all sinking
So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss
and my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way”

That he loves us,”

So sit back and listen to this love letter from God to you…

Join the Conversation: What is God’s Love Letter Telling You?

Vetted

You probably only hear the word, vetted, every 4 years. Wikipedia’s definition is this: Broadly, vetting is a process of examination and evaluation. Specifically, vetting often refers to performing a background check on someone before offering them employment. In addition, in intelligence gathering, assets are vetted to determine their usefulness.

On Saturday, as soon as Barak Obama chose his running mate, Joe Biden for the coming election, the pundits immediately started sharing their opinion’s about his choice. Some were praising the choice, while others started questioning whether or not Barak properly vetted Joe Bidden. Why all of the questions? Well, Joe Bidden has a history of saying things that are not so popular or proper. He made what could be considered as racist remarks about Obama, saying he was the first ‘clean’ ‘articulate’ African American in contention for the democratic parties nomination, he said that ‘you have to have a little Indian accent to go into a Seven-Eleven convenient store…I’m not kidding,’ as well, he point blankly said that his now running mate was lacking the experience needed to be President and that the office of President was not the place for ‘on the job training.’ Biden later blasted Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience and comments he made concerning Pakistan and Iran. The fear for democrats who support the election of Barak Obama is that something will come out about Biden or that he will say something that could potentially ruin Barak’s chances of being elected.

What if, John Edwards was the chosen running mate for Barak Obama, and Obama chose to select Edwards as his running mate 1 month ago? The experts this weekend were saying that some candidates are not vetted as much as others because they have already been vetted as Presidential candidates, therefore they feel that Biden may have had less vetting than someone who did not run for President this year, but what if the same process had been taken with Edwards? The recent news about Edwards’ affair would have sunk Obama’s ship, as would any issues with Biden if they were to come about.

As I was running the other night, I could not help but to think, have I been vetted? Have I vetted myself? Is there anything in my life that if it were discovered would potentially embarrass my God, my family, my church, or my employer? You are probably familiar with the situation with Michael Guglielmucci, who was made famous quickly with his song Healer and the story that went a long with it. However as Michael quickly stepped into the spotlight he started getting vetted, and it was found that Michael had something in his life that did not match up with the character of the Lord he sang about. Brad had a great post HERE concerning the story, and this post is not to cast criticism on Michael because we all have sin in our lives and we have all failed, though our failures at times fall on different levels. This post is to point out that when we don’t vet ourselves and allow Christ to vet us by examining our inner most secret areas, someone will, and in the end Christ will take a hit, our families will take a hit, our churches will take a hit, our friends will take a hit, Christianity will take a hit, and we will lose all credibility and trust we have ever gained.

Join the Conversation: Have you vetted yourself lately? Most importantly, have you allowed Christ to vet you lately?

Perseverance, Character, and Hope

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” Romans 5:1-5 (NIV)

I was reading in Romans 5 this morning, and this portion of Chapter 3 stood out to me…”we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” – Over the last three to four years it seems that I have faced more individual sufferings, trials, and tests than I ever have in my life. The question that popped into my head as I read this was, “Have those issues I have dealt with produced perserverance, character, and hope?” – “Four years and now on the other side of some of these things, have I increased in these areas?”

In my eyes I may say no! Because I live with my imperfections everyday, but my hope is that in the eyes of Christ I have and in the eyes of others, they will see that the Lord has grown me, stretched me, and matured me in perserverance, character, and hope!

Join the Conversation: Are you seeing perserverance, character, and hope being formed in your life? Care to share how God is doing that?