Everything: It's All You Need

So a couple of my students told me about this video a few weeks ago. I knew I had to check it out because I knew the song they were talking about and I had to see how it was used in a skit at a church. I watched it and sat in aww of what a fantastic portrayal it was of the temptations we all face as we walk the journey of life and how God is always present but it is our choices that push him away. Before I go deeper in this let me show you the lyrics to the song. This is Everything by Lifehouse:

Find me here and speak to me

I want to feel you, I need to hear you

You are the light that's leading me

To the place where I find peace again

You are the strength that keeps me walking

You are the hope that keeps me trusting

You are the light to my soul

You are my purpose you're everything

And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you

Would you tell me how could it be any better than this

You calm the storms and you give me rest

You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall

You steal my heart when you take my breath away

Would you take me in take me deeper now

And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you

Would you tell me how could it be any better than this

Cause you're all I want, You're all I need

You're everything, everything

And it repeats from there. The song is fantastic and pretty much says it all, How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you. If you are standing with God and have allowed him into your heart then I don't think it is possible to not be moved by Him. Being with God is the greatest thing because being with God is being completely loved and whole. Allowing Jesus into your life and standing with Him is all we need, he is everything. God created everything and poured his heart into all creation. I can only imagine that is why there is such an abundance of beauty in this world.

The thing I love about this video (besides the fact that it is just all around moving) is if you watch the Jesus character closely he never stops fighting and trying to get back into the girls life. How perfect and true! It doesn't matter what we do in our life, God is still fighting and trying to get back in our lives no matter what. That is unconditional love! Grace! God never....NEVER leaves us, it is our choices that push Him away and make us lose sight of His presence, but as soon as we decide to choose Him, He helps us push everything else away.

Each day we live presents a new adventure, and multiple adventures. And each day we choose which adventures to participate in. We can choose the adventures that will lead us to money, sex, violence, etc. Or we can choose the adventure of discipleship. These are the extreme adventures, sure, but it is our choice which direction we will head and I have to think that being a disciple of Christ, a follower of someone who will love me no matter what and who will choose me even if I don't choose Him, is an adventure of a life time and can only lead to greater things. And I have seen what it looks like when you wake up in the morning and choose Christ. I have witnessed it with my youth group kids on mission trips. The transformation is unbelievable, indescribable.  And to see it in teenagers makes it that much more powerful! I'm not saying that every morning I'm strong enough to wake up and choose the right adventures, but I do know what it feels like to do so. 

So as I go to sleep tonight my prayer will be that when I wake the adventure I will choose will be to follow Christ and that you and all those around you will choose the same. And for those that don't, that they might see you in your adventure and decide to run back to God and let Him fight away the things in their lives that distract them from Jesus. It's the adventure I choose!

Tomorrow's Adventure Might Not Come

So last week in bible study we were discussing the urgency of Paul in his letter to the Romans, chapter 13 verses 8-14 to be exact. He is speaking of the greatest commandment of Love and how "now is the moment" to begin to live by this commandment. Paul is saying that there is no better time then now to start loving your neighbors and your enemies and basically makes reference to the fact that we have no idea when the end is to come so we should act each day as though it will be the last and tomorrow we will be in front of the pearly white gates for our judgment. We got into a great discussion about the coming return of Jesus and how that plays a role in our every day lives. Most of us, not surprisingly, said that we didn't think about it that much and got caught up in our day to day lives. This isn't a surprise as I think most of us fall into this slump of wake up, go to school/work, come home, doing homework, eat, go to sleep, repeat. Not to mention our day to day lives are filled with over 24 hours worth of activities, thoughts, and problems. Where is the time to think about the return of Jesus! 

Being a disciple of Christ takes practice and a lot of work, but like anything else overtime it becomes easier (at least that is what I am told!) and you become more Christ like in your daily actions, incorporating Him into your "wake up, go to school/work, come home, do homework, eat, go to sleep". Even if that remains your routine, with practice He becomes a part of all those activities, effecting your decisions while at work or school, how you interact with friends, how your work gets done, and how meaningful it is to have food on your table every night. Once we can accomplish this, then there really is no reason to worry whether tomorrow is it or not because our butts are covered.

Heres the catch, this isn't in the slightest bit easy. This involves turning your life over to Christ and letting Him into every nook and cranny of your life. It's something I have yet to be able to do and honestly I have a hard time imagining it, but I can only believe that it would be an awesome thing and I will continue to pray to be able to do this at some point in my life. But getting back to our discussion in bible study, we talked about how we would do things differently today if we knew tomorrow there was no new adventure. We all agreed that it would be much easier to give ourselves completely over to Christ if we knew He was coming tomorrow. We would forgive all those who wronged us, show unconditional love to as many people as we could, hold nothing back and live the lives we all know deep down we are supposed to be living. We would have nothing to lose, we would just have to hope and pray that everything we did in that one day would be enough to over shadow the past years of our lives of not living up to Christ's standards. 

The reality is, no matter what we do on the last day, it doesn't make up for the rest of our lives and through the grace of God our sins are forgiven. In this scenario where we know the end is near there is no risk in our actions, we know what is to come and what we have to do. But the reality is we don't know when the end is so there are risks. That is what faith is, you are risking your life for something that you believe in. So what if we lived each day as though it was our last; if we pretended that we knew Jesus was coming tomorrow. From what my bible study group discussed, we would all be much more Christ like. It's a risk, but in the end what do we lose, if we are wrong and its not the end then we have only become better human beings, and if we are right (which one day we will be right) then we will have that many less things to discuss at the pearly white gates. So I propose this adventure to you, the adventure of every new day waking up and realizing that this day might be it so the new adventure you are about to begin better be the best one of your life. Now if we can start scripting ourselves with this thought process then things will begin to get really exciting! Talk about an adventure!

Whats it all about

Well I thought I would start off by explaining a little bit about what you can read about here on this blog. Today's New Adventure is a title or name that I came up with when I was a freshmen in college. At the time I created it for a production company I was hoping to start which never really worked out, but since I came up with it I have continued to use it for many things as my stamp for any of my work. It fits so well with life and they way Jesus wants us to live our lives. Now I will be honest, this was not my thought process when I first came up with it but revisiting the name made me realize how effective it could be. You see every day is created for a reason and by our create, God. He has a greater plan for us and each day is provide for us to take one new step closer to this greater plan. So each and every day we wake up, we have no idea what is going to happen to us or how we are going to be feeling twelve hours later, what we will have gone through. God is walking with us every step of the way but only he really knows what adventures lie before us. So how bout that! Every day is something new created for this greater plan that we are walking towards but have very little idea of what each step is going to affect. I'm picturing the opening scene to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy sees the gold midalion in front of him but he has to step carfully because with each step is something unexpected. The intensity and excitment of that scene is awesome! Thats what "Today's New Adventure" is all about. We don't know what that next step is going to bring us and that means one heck of an adventure! Not to mention if you are following in the steps of Jesus, the adventure is even greater because the faith and hope that you follow creates an energy that will bring new life to each step you take. Now we are really talking about "Today's New Adventure"!

So whats this all about? Well its about our daily adventures. Our walk with Jesus and the newness of each day he brings to us. The excitment and adventure that comes with being a disciple of Christ. So please continue to check back, post comments, and get involved in the conversation because the adventure is always better when your involved! So when you wake up each morning, get excited! It's a new day, made just for you and you have no idea what is instore for you as the minutes go by. It's an adventure, and the best one of your life!