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i am so confused, i don't know what to think.

Who Knows what to think any more

Its amazing how fast life can change on you. one moment your flying along in areas and moving slow in others, and then they flip flop. an area you thought needed alot more time moved light years in days and an area you thought was flying along hit a major speed bump. life does that to me often these days, yet in the midst of that little bubble called my life, people are hurting, friends are hurting. its amazing what becomes important when you hear about a friend possibly dying. everything important speeds up and what is of little importance slows down. i dont know what to think about much anymore because it seems alot of things got shifted in my life in the last 48 hours. the next 48 should be interesting. "Jesus, here i am your favorite one, what are you thinking, what are you feeling, i have to know? for i am after your heart, i am after you."

A History in God

I want my roots to run deep in the knowledge of God. i no longer want to casually know God; i want to have sustained intimacy that has developed over years. roots are something that take time to grow and even more time to sustain. i need my identity and my God to be one in the same. i must have a history that is rooted in seeking after His face. Let the cry of my heart be the cry of my mouth. Let the lover of my soul be the lover who i spend my time with. a history that runs deep in time spent. i have no idea what this will look like, but i am willing to find out. i am willing to live dangerously for God. i am willing to dive into the pleasures of knowing him. "you wont relent until you have it all, my heart is yours."

New Album

I purchased the new Sigur Ros album Tuesday. it is actually a double cd called "Heim" and "Hvarf". it has a collection of live songs and previously unreleased songs. It is the best cd I have heard since the last Sigur Ros album, Takk. i think that may be saying something about the current state of music today; in case you didn’t get the hint, I think current music sucks! So, go do your yourself a fricken service and pick up the new Sigur Ros cd, it is will be well worth your time and monetary investment.

screaming out of my mind

What the heck am I even doing? why is this so freakin ridiculous and messed up! im really pissed that i have to now waste more of my precious thoughts on this. yet, I haven’t stopped thinking about it. that’s the real issue. i haven’t dealt with it in my heart. i haven’t dealt with it and let my emotions go. i need to deal with it. i need to get past it. it is just a lot easier to run and avoid. o wicked heart of mine, you would rather burry the problem then allow yourself to be healed. don’t feel bad though, i understand, allowing healing is to be vulnerable and that is scary. when one is vulnerable, you open yourself for even more hurt. yet, if you don’t make yourself vulnerable, you will never allow someone close. i haven’t allowed myself to be vulnerable since ry, and that hurt bad. that’s why you don’t want to do it again heart. its time though, its time to be vulnerable again. its time to hurt again. its time to allow God to really heal me so i can partake in real community.

A wonderful release

I have been painting lately and it is a great way to get my frustrations out and my feelings. the best thing is that i have been really enjoying my work as well, which is unusual. i usually hate everything i do. Art is the souls cries out in the open.

Untitled

O Draw me Lord, O draw me Lord. and i will run, after you.

Truth

The greatest thing about the truth is that you can throw away everything that isnt truth.

Mind Games

My mind plays games on me, rather i allow it to play games on me. i gain these expectations, rather these desires and when the picture isnt painted the way i think it should be, i torment myself as to why it didnt come out the way i envisioned it to come out. i dont know what to think, i dont even care to think. i dont have the emotional capacity for these ridiculous mind games.

heart cries

God will answer the heart that cries.

complacency

i am very complacent.
that thought came to me last night.
i know its true because i fear really living for God
i fear laying it all on the line.
i fear having the gnawing of hunger prevalant.
its easier to do just a little more than the next person
yet, how long will that last?

what to do

what to do about my heart?
i dont know
what to do about my life?
i dont know
what to do about Asbury?
i dont know
what to do about Chicago?
i dont know
what to do about the USA?
i dont know
what to do about the world?
i dont know
what to do about my life?
i dont know
what to do about God?
i dont know

The Vision

So this guy comes up to me and says, “What’s the vision? What’s the big idea?”
I open up my mouth and the words come out like this…

The vision?
The vision is Jesus:
obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is of an army of young people.
You see bones?
I see an army.

And they are free from materialism—
They laugh at nine-to-five little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the West was won.

They are mobile like the wind.
They belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting, dirty and dying.

What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimal integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, from every conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps—their Satan games.
This is an army that would lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day, its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great “well done” of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.

They don’t need fame from names.
Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”
And this is the sound of the underground, the whisper of history in the making, foundations shaking, revolutionaries dreaming once again.
Mystery is scheming in whispers, conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground.

And the army is disciple(in)ed—
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners.
Martyrs.
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulfuric tears and great barrow loads of laughter!

Waiting.
Watching.
24-7-365.

Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules,
Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide,
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
Laughing at labels,
Fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late-night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive on the inside.
On the outside?
They hardly care!
They wear clothes like costumes: to communicate and celebrate, but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their lives, swap seats with the man on death row, guilty as hell: a throne of an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as though it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses Jesus.
He breathes out.
They breathe in.
Their subconscious sings.
They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.

Their words make demons scream in shopping malls.
Don’t you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdoes!
Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes!
They walk tall and trees applaud.
Skyscrapers bow.
Mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.

Their prayers summon the Hound of Heaven and evoke the dream of Eden.

And, this vision will be.
It will come to pass.
It will come easily.
It will come soon.

How do I know?
Because, this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the spirit, the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is His today.
My distant hope is His 3-D.
And, my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking, great “AMEN!” from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself.

And He is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner. 
Guaranteed.

overflowing

I was thinking about God earlier today and I had this overwhelming thought that I am lacking passion for God in my life. I thought of someone who is passionate about something and I thought about when I am passionate about something. It is like a bubbling spring that comes out whether you want it to or not. I want God to be like that in my life. I want the goodness of God to be the overflow of my heart. I do not want to be like everyone else, I want to be ablaze for God. I want Him to consume every moment of my life. I don’t want to be a half-hearted Christian. I want to be ablaze! "If you seek me with all your heart, then you will find me."
With a heavy heart,
Joshua

Forgotten Memories

Sometimes i forget that people really are hurting. sometimes i forget that they really are hurting even in the context of ministry or preparation for ministry. Sometimes they are forgotten memories. I want to remember, i want to feel.
joshua

A City of our God

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
Psalm 46:4
I have recently been impressed upon by the Lord to look into my life introspectively. Those who have ever had introspective moments understand that this can be an unsettling time in ones life. Jesus said in Mark 11:17 that "My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves."
i looked at that verse and realized a profound spiritual truth in my life, that i am the that house of prayer. i am to be the dwelling place of the most high. Brennen Manning said that the hour we spend before the Lord is not prayer, it is preperation for the other 23 hours we do spend in prayer. my life is to be constant upward flow, living forever before the throne of grace in unbridled passion and dialogue. Isaiah says that we are watchemen on the wall before the Lord day and night. the other thing that struck me about Christ's words was that i am to be a house of prayer for all nations. jesus has called us to live that lifestyle of prayer before the nations of the world. i am called to live the presence of God in the vein of unnceasing prayer to the world around me. Jesus called us to live before the nations; the social ramifications of that is living before the socially outcast. when Jesus said that to the people of Isreal, the phrase the nations meant something terrible. why would God have us to live before the "unclean"? the same is today. how many times do i walk past someone who needs the flow of God that i am carrying?
so all that leads me to the introspection, if i am to be the very tabernacle of God, the very vessel for His presence, how dirty am i? are there spiritual idols in my temple, things that i have set up that do not resemble the living God? i began to see that my tabernacle was not where it would have to be to be a pure filter for this presence that i am carrying. i needed to do the very thing that i am, pray. i needed to ask God to cleanse my streams and make me glad. i need to trade the pride of my life, the self-centerdness of my life to become the praying/activist that God has called all of Christendom to be. a weeping warrior, a tender fighter, a praying man who fights for justice for the oppressed both spiritually and physically. it is hard thing to clean the stream of ones life that has become muddied by the dung of religion and the world. Prayer, mission and justice.
joshua
"the world as we know it isnt worth living, but the call is worth dying for"

searching

i am despretely in need of God to move

ONETHING 2007

the increase of decrease

"John answered, A man can receive nothing except as it has been granted to him from heaven.
You yourselves are my witnesses that I stated, I am not the Christ , but I have been sent before Him
He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the groomsman who stands by and listens to him rejoices greatly and heartily on account of the bridegroom's voice. This then is my pleasure and joy, and it is now complete.
He must increase, but I must decrease.

the plight of the weak

the plight of the weak is something that all go through. it is when you sell who you are to get something you want. it is as old as time. when cain sold his birthright for soup, to the puranical pictures of the man walking in the woods with the devil bardering for his soul, the great miller play of accusation, betrayal and death, to the modern day man who would sell his very soul for a taste of the unknown. why is that? why will man sell his very identity to have what he should not want? i am that man. i know what i need, yet i sell my soul for that which i do not have. i, like goodman brown, cry "With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!"

The last day of the first of my life

the tears were steaming down my eyes as i drove down 45 for what seemed like the last time of the the first 23 years of my life. i thought about all the people i knew and the places i loved and i thought about why i was leaving it all. why was i leaving the people i love and the places i love for the uncertaintity of new. then i heard the the familiar voice of my Lord and he told me that i am man, He is God, He is sovereign. the tears con tinued to roll down my cheeks as i looked up to the heavens and gave a bewildered look to God still unsure that he knew what he was doing. yet, my heart still had the strength to look up to God and say that i am man, he is god, You are sovereign

leaving

i am leaving for asbury tommorow morning. it is still very bitter sweet. i will miss my family and friends terribly, but i know the Lord is with me. i love you all
joshua

Leaving

Im leaving for wilmore in less than three weeks. i am excited yet scared. it is bittersweet, yes bittersweet.
joshua

my thoughts

i hope to use this as a way to stay in contact with my family and friends.
joshua