Pride and Provision, Ice Cream and Dublin Dr. Pepper

***************Warning: This is long, hackneyed, and it doesn't really even have a point until the end...AND the whole thing is pretty narcissistic, so few people will really care to read this, but it's what's going on in my life...And it has NOT been proofread. I say all that to say that I'm tired and I don't care if my grammar is terrible tonight.******

For those of you unaware, the last 3 months have been a series of whirlwinds blasting all around me. School let out, then I went into a period where I essentially worked every day in a crazy busy restaurant from December 16 through just a couple of days before New Years. I never really got a break. Even Christmas was terrible because I worked a ton over the holiday. But you can read previous posts for that one. After OneThing, God put me through a period where he told me "Shut up and get in My presence." What could I say but sure? He wanted to kill my pride. It's still lurking around in there, and at times it rears its ugly head. But I can now see it because I have looked it in the eye, and we aren't playing nice with each other anymore.
March came around and all I can call it is the month of frustration. I've never had to sweat so much about paying bills. Sweat mostly because of the job situation you can read about in previous posts as well. I ended up taking the job with the marketing consulting firm, and, surprise, I've spent the last week cold call, business to business selling.
I never expected to be doing this. It's hard, but I for whatever reason feel like this is what God is calling me to do. So often lately I have seen the slogan from The Rebelution in my head: "Do Hard Things." I don't know why God is calling me to do this. It's a surprise to everyone around me. I'm not a salesman. I don't like to push or pressure people. Which means I just have to work harder. I do enjoy getting in and talking with people. I had some great conversations today. Especially in that moment when I couldn't do it anymore....
This afternoon I was done. I couldn't take it. I wasn't getting anywhere. Like I said, there are aspects to my job I like: I like to talk to people, I like the opportunity to just enjoy this beautiful Spring Father has blessed us with. I, believe it or not, love the feeling of getting to put on a suit everyday and feel professional. But at one point this afternoon, I was done. I decided this wasn't what God wanted for me. Obviously I had misheard. I know where I want to be. The aspects I love about the job are(Somewhat) the aspects that are of the job I desire in youth ministry. But God hasn't released me to do that yet. At about 3 or 3:30 this afternoon I was driving around Downtown Grapevine depressed and frustrated. I couldn't do it anymore. And God said "Excel in this." That's all He said, but I heard him clearly. I said "God, if you do want me to do this, I'm going to need your provision. I'm getting nowhere." I wish I could say He answered my prayer with a series of amazing sales, but God works in mysterious ways. However in the last hour of working I did manage to set up myself for some pretty decent business that should pan into good money next week.
But God wasn't done talking. Tonight I got to go hang with the Remnant at Jason's Deli. Prior to that I had been at Wal-Mart and they had cans of Dublin Dr. Pepper. If you don't know, DDP is a weakness of mine. I LOVE that stuff. But it was twice as expensive as the regular Dr. Pepper. I really wanted some. I've also been craving Ice Cream lately. Especially this afternoon when I was frustrated and tired. I wanted Ice Cream. I almost got some at Wal-mart, but I decided not to. So anyway. I got to Jason's deli, and spent some good quality time with dear people. They all left because they'd spent the day together, leaving me to enjoy my delicious half sandwich I didn't get to finish while I was chatting with everyone. When I got my drink, they had Dublin Dr Pepper. I didn't think much of it. But after I finished my sandwich, I was walking out with an ice cream cone. I love those sugar cake cones they have there. I took my first lick of my ice cream and God spoke in my ear "See, I will provide for you the tiniest of things. You desired Ice Cream and Dublin Dr. Pepper. I provided them. I know what you need, so how much more faithful do you think I will be in those things?"

I couldn't help but smile as I walked out of Jason's Deli tonight.

Yay for crazy timing....

I've been job searching for a while now. Well, sort of. I kind of knew my path. My eventual goal is youth ministry, but I figured there would end up being some teaching along the way. My general plan was to sub for the rest of the school year(got employed, just no jobs), then, if I didn't find anything else, wait tables for the summer and get a teaching job in GCISD or another local district until God opens a youth ministry spot for me. Well the subbing thing hasn't been working out. Even with going "unavailable" for a couple of days last week due to the death of my uncle, I have only been called once. While I could have decided to just start seeking sub jobs in other districts, I thought "Hmm, maybe God just wants me to seek other avenues of employment. With all the twists and turns my life has taken, His having another job in a field I never considered would totally not surprise me.
In response to the thoughts of potential other careers, I jumped on the first two ideas that came to me: Monster.com and Craig's List. I spent about a week emailing out resumes and emailing a bunch of different companies in search of something. About a week later I had an interview with an insurance company. They actually seemed to like me, but I never heard back from them. Not two hours after I got home from that interview I got called by a marketing consulting firm and we set up an interview for Today(Monday).
If there is something I know, it is how to talk an sell myself to people. I can get people to buy into who I am because I am totally open and honest. I walked into the interview and the interviewing manager(Henceforth the im) asked me what my long term goals were. I told him I wanted to get into youth ministry and we then got into a conversation about churches, ministry and his experience doing church plants. He's also related to Billy Graham.
Long story short(to late, I know) is that the interview went flawlessly. I was really amazing. Later I'm sitting at home killing time waiting for them to call when I get an IM(Instant Message...lol) from a friend who teaches in the High school less than five minutes from where this company is. She tells me that the school has a fresh open English Teacher position open. All I could think is AUGH! Then the story gets funny. The im promised me he would call me between 4 and 5. I think "Hmm, well I'll just wait until 5, then if he doesn't call I'll assume he doesn't want to hire me and I'll fill out the app for the school."I finish the app about 6:15, and about 6:20 the phone rings and the im is calling me letting me know that he doesn't even want to do a second interview. He was so confident in our one talk that he is ready to offer me a job and get me in for training Thursday morning.

So now I sit here looking at God going Whatdya want me to do???? lol.

Ridiculous....

For the last several years my car has been a perpetual target for vandalism. Eggs, paintballs, veggies, keys, spitballs, or even stuff just getting ripped off of it.

Today I reached a new low.

My car was bacon cheeseburgered. What does it mean to be bacon cheeseburgered? It means someone threw a bacon cheeseburger at my car.

I think the humor on this one outweighs the annoyance I should be feeling. =P

well

I was going to update but I got distracted...by a girl...I know you're all shocked because that doesn't ever happen to me...oh well...First time for everything I guess... :p

Why? That's why.

Tonight was just awesome. It was a well needed reminder of the real reason I do what I do. I've been kind of toying with going and hanging out at Senior High for a while now, and from the urging of some friends and the prompting of God, I decided to go. The main reason I really wanted to go is I have some friends there at senior high, I thought it would be nice to go catch up with some of the kids who have moved on from Junior High, and because it really gave me an excuse to go to a live worship set. Little did I know God had more than just that in store for me....
Before I go on, Ben and Jeff, thank you for being so gracious and accepting of me being there tonight.
Anyway, I was doing my thing, just going around and catching up with or talking to people, when, after service, AJ tells me that one of our students who I haven't seen in years is there tonight. I got all excited because God had already spoken to me earlier in the day about this kid. I immediately ran off to go hunt him down. I quickly was almost literally drawn right to him. I walked up and he basically said "wow" and motions me off to the side saying, "Come here, lets talk."
I won't go into the details of kid, no scratch that, young man's life, but since leaving us last he got himself into what I would call serious doodoo. God totally impacted his life and he came to me tonight with a totally open, honest, and teachable heart. He knows he's walking a hard path, but the determination to be a man of God burns in his tear filled eyes.

I was reminded tonight that I might not always see the results immediately, but the seeds being planted are more effective than I'll ever know.

Good job man of God. Blessings be upon you and I can't wait to journey with you.

A quick life update

Short bit of life

I'm trying to write more lately, but a lot of those little quips are making it into handwritten journals. I'm still trying to spend as little time as possible at my computer. I have been doing a weekly(ish) blog on the site for my Jr High leadership small group. That's pretty cool. We're talking about servanthood for the month of February. Anyone have any good books on that?

Speaking of books, I have been compiling a list of books I want to read......I'm not exaggerating when I tell you my list has hit almost 100 books...

along with other research I want to do I've got a long way to go...

I know, I'm excited too!

Today....

An event today has captured my attention and got me back on a thought that I've had for years and I've never vocalized. Ghandi had an interesting thing to say about the church. I believe the exact quote was "I like your Christ but I don't like your Christians." Brennan Manning(if you don't know who I' talking about, he's a theologian. Go out and find a copy of the Ragamuffin Gospel right now.) made a huge impact on my life when I heard what he had to say. Manning says "The greatest single cause of atheism today is Christians who walk out the door and confess Him with their lips and deny him with their lifestyles. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
I take things like Ghandi and Manning's statements looking at my life and the world around me. The old WWJD slogan comes into my mind. The bracelets have become so uncool and cliche, and people actually chuckle when you say it. But isn't that phrase the very essence of why Jesus came? Not only did He come to be sacrifice for our sins, but he came to be an example for us.
"So Chris, what's your point?"
Several years ago I noticed how so many of my Christian friends were either 1. as easily affected by mentalities in the world as the rest of the world. Or 2. were uber judgemental toward certain people in the media. More often than not these judgements were not mutually exclusive.
"Huh?"
Well lets take for example Brittney Spears. I remember when she was the darling princess of the media. People loved her. She was respected. "All the men wanted her and all the women wanted to be her." Then slowly but surely the world started to turn on. Now I see this dynamic: the world pities her and Christians are ready to stone her. Another example? Eminem. Christians went almost militant against the dude. They get mad that the world pushes Brokeback Mountain on them, but they judge the world on how one of their darling girls is a whore because she got a breast enlargement surgery.
Speaking of Brokeback Mountain, I was thinking about this last week, but this whole mindset has come back because star Heath Ledger died this morning. I hear a couple different opinions coming out. One is sadness because such a handsome man died. Another is how people don't respect him anymore for his role in Brokeback Mountain. You know what I haven't heard? I haven't heard one Christian do as Jesus did. "Jesus wept."
"Chris, why should I weep over this?"
I've read over the reports of ledger's death. I know about his life. I enjoyed him in a couple of roles he's been in. But all evidence points to Ledger being in Hell. That my friends is a tragedy. Ledger appears to have died from od in one of the Olsen twin's condos. How sad is that? Very. He was a lead and one an award for a role that pushed forward the homosexual agenda. But did anyone ever tell him about Jesus?
Believe it or not, the rapper got it right. He didn't get there first, but KJ-52 did two wonderful tunes that really hit the core of my issue here. He wrote 2 tunes addressed to Eminem just hoping someone might someday slip them to the rap idol. KJ points out what an influence eminem is. He acknowledges the people who judge saying "so many people all they do is hate on you instead of dropping to their knees and praying for you..." We can complain and hate on our celebrities all we want. We can even ignore them, but we have to understand they are influences in our world for the good or the negative. My Junior Highers are so quick to scream "eww" at the name of Brittney Spears, and they wouldn't think to pray for them.

Take a moment and pray for a celebrity or a politician. In doing that, the life you speak over them could change the world.

New Digs

I've just started blogging here. The old stuff I have been saying for years is here.

I will be updating this site a bit more than the others. If you are so inclined, you can find me on Facebook and myspace. I tend to blog on those sites as well, but they are just copies of what is to be found here.

More to come.