green eyes rule the world

the visions of young men

2006-02-10T01:10:00.000-08:00

"your daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams..."

tonight 7 young men were given a vision. this vision is to bring a hope and reconcilitaion to a body of believers in a distant land. This is not a product of our own doing, but of God's sovereign hand guiding the lives of a few young men who have surrendered their lives to Him.
we realize that this project is nothing within our own hands, but we can not even begin to understand how big it is in the hands of our God.

whether or not Christ comes back soon ,He is coming back and we are living in the last days. It is time to start playing like it is the last minute, and to keep playing until the whistle blows and the shadows of this world come to pass.

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" for those who have yet to hear what that name is... let us proclaim it to them. and let the daughters prophesy, let the old men dream dreams, and let us young men live out the visions that He has given us because he has poured out his spirit upon us all.

2006-02-05T00:39:00.000-08:00

RESCUE IS COMING!

A Model

2005-11-20T02:22:00.000-08:00

In science, and in many other avenues of philosophy or learning, in order to understand a concept we construct models. While i was in bed thinking about how i have come to understand God i realized that all theology is merely a model. An attempt to explain something that we can not understand.

Because God made us finite creatures He has chosen to reveal Himself to us in terms that we as humans are able to understand. So we relate God to our earthly fathers and friends.

In the words of Professor Kowalski "I am not sure that i want to follow a God that i can understand"

God exists in dimensions and plains that we as humans are not capable of understanding while here on earth. I believe that once the sun sets on time, and rises on eternity, we will be able to have a better understanding of God. but until then we are constantly constructin models of God as if we are kids building things out of legos.

Our understanding of God is a collaboration of all of our experience with him, what we have been taught by others through their experience with Him, and what we have learned from the instruction book on how to build our God model.

To take this thought a bit deeper, Jesus was and is a model for us to comprehend God better. Before Christ, the Israelites were constantly messing things up because they could not understand God in the covenant that they had had. Christ came to be a model, and show us how to construct ourselves to be like God.

The Holy Spirit is the hand that puts the blocks in place. The One that gives us the next puzzle piece and then tells us where to put it.

Everyone in this world has to decide what way they are going to make their model of God look like.

Some hold it in their hand, and yet say there is no model, and that it is ubsurd for us to think there is something besides ourselves and our reason.
Some distort their puzzle either because they choose to, or thats the only way the have seen it put together, so the picture they get at the end is not even close to what God looks like.

if they are going to have a chance at ever grasping who the true God is then we are going to have to construct accurate models for them to learn off of. But it does niether us or them any good to construct these models if we are not going to show them off.

swept away by a fragrence

2005-10-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

i was walking down the hill the other night after choir, when i caught a wiff of fall. All at once i was flooded with memories of childhood. The pure joy of raking the leaves in the front yard only so we could put them in a pile and then jump in them, or bury my sister in them, and then jump on her. Or stepping out of our house onto the front porch to light the pumpkins that my dad helped us to carve.

Sometimes i catch a scent of something that reminds me of a certain season of my life and i sit back and enjoy the nostalgia of better days, but not always are they pleasant.

Smelling the perfume of an ex-girlfriend can be both wonderful, and devastating. Remembering the intensity of being close to someone, and also the reminder that it had to end and the pain that comes with that.

The smell of spring in March reminds me of the biggest turning point of my life, which was that death of my father. The smell of March 12th always forces me to feel like my life is being forced to change forever. And every year at some point it smells like i will be forced to move beyond where i am like it or not.

Today I was walking outside and i caught a smell of decay. Probably the leaves that have fallen from the tree and are now decomposing on the ground. I was overwhelmed by the smell because it was similar to the death and decay that i smelled on skid row in L.A. Instantly i felt like i needed to be back there showing them Christ, helping them "climb from their grave into the light"

Perhaps we all smell a bit like decaying leaves. We all have fallen from the tree and are decomposing on the ground. (thats another blog proabably)

I can remember the smells of the point in my life where God stepped in, and took a hold of me. That was the smell of grace, when the smell of decay was washed away and i was anointed with the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.

Lord thank you for creating me in a way that even a scent can evoke memories and emotions. Thank you for giving me feelings, and emotions and memories, good and bad. Lord help me to be the scent of life to others everywhere i go, and that you would annoint me and that i would reek of your grace and mercy and light. Amen

ruins turned into a tower

2005-10-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

City of Angels: what an ironic name for a place that is the closest thing i have ever seen to hell. Perhaps it would be better to refer to it as city of fallen angels, cause L.A. is the eppitome of man's fallen nature.

Despite the depravity of that city, I am sitting here back in Kirkland and ever fiber of my body wants to be back in L.A. more than anything. I fell in love with a place that completely breaks my heart. I walked skid row, the projects of East L.A., Santa Monica, I carried an 8 ft cross around the sunset strip. I have never seen a place in so much need of the light of Jesus Christ. The grace and mercy of his love, the hope of knowing there is more than what they have, and far more than what they don't have.

I have never loved and hated a place so much in my life. I saw people smoking crack and shooting up heorin. Prostitutes turning tricks in the porter potty. Children with nothing, but overwhelmed with joy just to have you pick them up, and show them love. Drunk clubbers that were too inibriated to understand that we were there to tell them about God's love. I loved it cause God loves us despite ourselves. I hated it because of the raw human nature that dominates the lives of those who live there.

L.A. forced me to take hold of God's power. At first i kept praying "God please give me the power to do what you want to be done here, and to make your name known to those who have yet to hear it." God said to me "It's yours Andrew. Take it" I did and i walked in it His power, cause i could not have done anything otherwise.

My heart shattered in L.A. and i left a trail of its pieces through out LA. Much of my heart is still there. But in my brokeness God did not just put it back together to the way it was, he put in new pieces, and filled in the cracks with love, and compassion. So now i have a heart that is even bigger and better than before. He picked up the ruins and made a watch tower out of them, and now i see people from a better perspective, one that God has given me. One that hurts for the lost, and the broken. One that has the power and courage to do something about it.

women and the creatures of that sort

2005-10-12T23:13:00.000-07:00

It's a wierd thing to be content with being single. I'm sure i am not called to be celebate for the rest of my life but for this season i am positive of it. However there is always a monkey wrench thrown at me from time to time which really causes me to question whether i want what God wants in my life.

Ultimately i believe that God has given me the wisdom and the choice to operate my life, but i choose to honor him with it and i know he will honor that. I know that i could probably find a woman tomorrow and she would probably bless that as well, but i choose not to because i would miss out on the blessings he has for me in this season which is unlike any other season i will have for the rest of my life.

I just wish it could always be as simple as i just explained it.

Lord, please keep hold of my heart for now. and please help me to keep from holding the hearts of those who are ready to give it out.

Collison

2005-10-06T02:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight i had one of the happiest nights ever. I went and saw my favorite band in concert
The David Crowder Band. By far the best performance that i have ever seen from them. The name of their latest album is A Collison which is referring to the qoute that David ends most of thier concerts with: When our depravity meets His divinity, it is a beautiful collison" Tonight was a beautiful collison. And i was thinking about it and the same can be said about my life.

I am truly a miracle of God's grace. I should not be where i am, and i should not have accomplished so far what i have, and i probably should not have the future in store for me that i do. And it is all because of my God, Jesus Christ.

When He did pick me up out of the mud and the mire it was while David Crowder was leading worship at a youth conference. And that is why tonight was one of my happiest nights ever, because in more ways than one i was brought right back to the moment that Christ took a hold of my life and i was never the same. Tonight i celebrated the first time where my depravity met His divinity and it was a beautiful collison.

Finally a Cure! (to our genetic dispostion to death)

2005-10-05T02:52:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking about how people strongly believe that there will someday be a cure for cancer. Something that sparked my interest about this idea was that people can have so much faith in science while science has yet to actually succeed in curing diseases like aids or cancer. Then i thought when will they find a cure for man's genetic diposition to sin and death? cuase when all of those who commit their lives to science for the cure to what ales them find Christ they will realize the cure is not found in science but in the Son of God, who can give them eternal life, living water, and a life worth living because it is more than just a life of dying.

Romans 3:23 All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 6:23 for the wages of sin are death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our lord.

Lord use me to help others find the cure to death, Lord use me to help others find You.

Shattered Vessel

2005-09-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

Imagine a potter.
Now imagine that one day He sits down at His wheel to create something beautiful. but something odd happens instead.
As He is attempting to make something the way He sees fit. The clay pushes His hands away and tries to make itself.
So He sits back to see if it can manage without Him.
Soon there are bits of clay everywhere. The clay can not provide the water it needs for itself.
it becomes nothing but a dried out mess with no resemblance to what the potter intended it to look like.
and the potter cries because He did not want this for his creation.
the dead clay, realizes that it can not make it on its own.
the dead clay is just a shattered vessel.
the shattered vessel gives up and releases its control to the potter.
and then the potter takes the broken pieces.
and with His own tears, wets the clay until it is malleable again.
Then the potter does what He does best. He creates something new out of something broken.
and the clay becomes so much more than it ever could have been without Him.
instead of an ugly dried up piece of mud.
It is a beautiful jar, worthy of bearing the image of its creator.

the odds against men of faith

2005-09-08T02:34:00.000-07:00

A close friend and I were having a discussion on the topic of where have all the men gone. The conversation started out with a point made about how many incredible women of God there are; but so many men that by definition suck. Our compassion for women having to live with the severe shortage of real men got us onto the topic of why we are living in with a great deficit of quality men.

Here are a few ideas that we came up with
1. Our current culture is unlike any other culture before us. We have had to grow up in a world absent of real men to show us the way. It is no wonder that without a guide to lead us down the path of becoming men, we have gotten lost. An interesting phenomenon amongst African elephants was that for a period in areas where there had been a lot o poaching of bull elephants (for their ivory) the adolescent bull elephants grew out of control as far as how elephants usually commune with one another. The teenage bull elephants were demonstrating their angst on the female elephants who had no bulls to protect them. Now I am not in any way comparing elephants with the complexities of humanity in a Darwinist way, but in the way that when societal structure of elephants dramatically changed within one generation the society crashed to a halt in their absence. So really the question of why? is not nearly as important as How are we going to fix this?

2. The chances of the fathers of my generation coming around and fixing the problem is not likely. They gave up. They Ran away. They have failed and fled; leaving behind them an aftermath of destruction. If they are going to hand us a world that they broke then To Hell With Them! We are not going to need them hanging around us(future generation of men) continuing to hold us down cause they are not capable of bringing us up.

I suppose that part of my frustration is simply the fact that we are fallen men, living in a fallen world. We were created to live in the splendor that God had planned for us, but that splendor would have been nothing with out the choice to sin. However, God has graciously provided opportunity all along to be restored and to live with the strength that he had originally intended.

3. Part of figuring out How to fix the dilemma of the "man down" epidemic is figuring out what is the source for the lack of manhood amongst us. I believe it is that we are walking in our woundedness and not in the strength of God's mighty grace. I see a battlefield of men down, unable to fight because they are dead or too maimed to go on. However, the thing that i see in common with the few "elite" men of God amongst us is that we have received the grace from God to be healed of our wounds and continue in the uphill battle of fixing our father's broken world.
I still have the scars of where the battle got the best of me. I may forever walk with the limp of growing up without a real man to show me the way.

BUT I WILL CONTINUE TO STAND ON THE SOLID GROUND THAT GOD HAS PUT ME ON, AND I WILL CONTINUE TO HOPE AND HAVE FAITH IN THE FACT THAT HE WILL SECURE MY FOOTING IN THE FUTURE. AND I WILL STAND IN THE TRIUMPH OF VICTORY THAT CHRIST SECURED ON CALVARY. KNOWING FULL WELL THAT THE WAR HAS BEEN WON, BUT THERE IS A BATTLE STILL WAGING WITH IN US AND AROUND US. and it is that battle that i am calling upon the men of the future to fight beside me. and to persevere through the struggles and turmoil of this world until the day when the war ends and we can go home to be with our Heavenly Father God.
The only way that we have left to figure out how to be men, is through God, through each other, and through the remnant of real men in this world. Let us be a generation of men that despite great odds, will rise up to be the men that glorifies God in all we do. And the generation of men that make the final stand for Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven.
AMEN

Psalm 40
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the LORD.
4 Blessed is the man
who makes the LORD his trust,
who does not look to the proud,
to those who turn aside to false gods. [a]
5 Many, O LORD my God,
are the wonders you have done.
The things you planned for us
no one can recount to you;
were I to speak and tell of them,
they would be too many to declare.
6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but my ears you have pierced with (righteousness)
burnt offerings and sin offerings
you did not require.
7 Then I said, "Here I am, I have come—
it is written about me in the scroll. [d]
8 I desire to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart."
9 I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly;
I do not seal my lips,
as you know, O LORD.
10 I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;
I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.
I do not conceal your love and your truth
from the great assembly.
11 Do not withhold your mercy from me, O LORD;
may your love and your truth always protect me.
12 For troubles without number surround me;
my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
They are more than the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails within me.
13 Be pleased, O LORD, to save me;
O LORD, come quickly to help me.
14 May all who seek to take my life
be put to shame and confusion;
may all who desire my ruin
be turned back in disgrace.
15 May those who say to me, "Aha! Aha!"
be appalled at their own shame.
16 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation always say,
"The LORD be exalted!"
17 Yet I am poor and needy;
may the Lord think of me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O my God, do not delay.

let's see if i can do it better this time

2005-08-29T01:15:00.000-07:00

Well the night before class starts. i should be in bed, but ever since my first day of school ever i have not been able to sleep the night before the first day of class. So i'll do something semi-constructive and write about my excitement.

I have the highest expectations for this year, I already know it will be great. The guys on my floor are amazing and i would fight anyone who speaks otherwise.

Living and growing causes one to realize mistakes and ways that things could have been done differently in order to produce an outcome that is more desireable than the last time. I know that i have failed in many ways in the last few years, spiritually, with friends, with being a leader, with academia... The thing i love about new years is the new chance that i could do things better than before.

I have huge expectations for this year and not a bit of fear of failure cause i have already failed, but have succeeded in learning to do better each time around.
God is going mess our campus up this year even more than last year. I believe that this campus of dry bones will be given a new flesh, and a new breath, and rise out of the valley to do battle with the very things that caused us to become dry bones in the first place because the power of God is moving in, around, and through them.

1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."
4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' " Ezekiel 37:1-6

caught up, swept away, lost and then found

2005-08-28T01:25:00.000-07:00

tonights summer ministry concert was the culmination of all the work i did this summer and a summary of all the work God did in me this summer. It feels like i was caught up in a whirlwind and while being swept away to new places (physically and spiritually) I was lost and found on my journey. and the place that i ended up is exactly where i started but nowhere near to where i began, yeah that sounds like a contradiction but thats the only way i can describe it.

Things change, people change, I change. Thank You God for that because although most of the time change hurts, I can't stand the pain of being stagnant anymore. I can't stand that fact that i have the tendency to pull away from God's best for me, simply because i don't want to change.

The biggest change in me this summer was that finally i feel empowered and confident in the idea that God does have a plan for me, that His plans are greater than anything i can come up with, and that He will be faithfull to see those plans through to fruition. and most importantly, i am released to be a threat to the enemy, and no longer bound to be threatened by him.

4You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. - 1 John 4:4

Super sweet pics

2005-07-22T12:34:00.000-07:00

These are pics from when we stayed up all night making DVDs for the Idaho SR high camp. We hiked up to the hill overlooking ISU that has these big column things there. So Matt and I took some pics while we were there.

One more thing

2005-07-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

I miss my friends...
and I miss my mom and my sister.
my baby nephew Isaac
and the only girl in the world that has full reign to my heart... Cally
I love and miss you all

something like this

2005-07-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

Sitting here thinking... This is probably the craziest most exciting summer i have ever had in my adult life. Being on the road doing video production has been amazing so far. When we are not at a camp or a church working on videos we are floating down rivers in innertubes, Whitewater rafting in Wyoming, taking a roadtrip to Salt Lake City or eating the best Hot Wings in the World (wingers).
But that is only a small part of what has made this the best summer ever. God is the reason that this is such an awesome summer. Finally i feel like i am ministering to people (even though it is somewhat indirect) I know that God is using me to change lives. Every camp i pour my heart out into what i do, I have found that there is nothing more beautiful than filming people worshipping God, watching people going after God with all their hearts and Capturing the Chase on film, is more beautiful than any sunset, mountain or oceans in this world. I have been blessed with the chance to see what God sees when His people worship him, and i have been able to record it forever.
Every week at every camp i fall in love with the kids that are there. and i actually experienced a bit of heartbreak when everyone left at the last camp. But i would not trade that for anything. I thank God for the opportunity to be where i am and to do what i am doing. It is only because of Him that I am able to do the things i do. And because of Him that i am committed to doing these things for the rest of my life.
During my trip to Salt Lake City Matt and I visited the Morman Temple and the vistors center there, Even though everything was well lit, and appeared to be good, it was the darkest place that i have ever been. My heart broke as I saw all of the morman missionaries (most of them foreign themselves) propagating the lies that they believe to be truth. The deception is so deep and appears so real. There was a center set up to tell the story of Jesus, but their Jesus is not My Jesus, the best example of this was the artwork of Jesus. It was a Jesus that at a glance may resemble the True Son of God, but behind that it was nothing more than a figure, or false idol. My spirit could not relate to their depiction of Jesus. My spirit cringed at the sight of him. The best way to descibe it is that they romanticised something that doesn't need to be romanticised. Their religion has no depth so they have to romanticise it to be appealing to people. The Truth is that Real Gospel itself holds all the power neccesasary to save a person, and there is nothing that man can do to make it any better.
Let me end with something like this...
The world is a dark and horrible place. The hearts of man are nothing but captive to this darkness. The only thing capable of releasing our hearts is the Light of Christ and what he did for us on the Cross. Let us carry the gospel everywhere we go, and let us be a light to the captive hearts of humanity, anywhere and everywhere.

O.I. Till I Die!

2005-06-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

Just finished our first SR High Camp. I have never been to or seen a camp like this. First off most of the 40 (or so) kids that went there were not Christian. basically about 7 of the kids were christian and the others had were not. So the idea of the camp was more about outreach than aggressive evangelism. Most of the camp was just about running the kids ragged before they could create any disciplinary problems, and that worked actually. I didn't see any kids have any problems with adults or other kids.

Here is the cool part. I fell in love with these kids from Orcas Island (the O.I.) They were the most interesting dynamic of kids i have ever seen. They were all just a kick in the pants to hang out with and so fun to get to know. Im not much older than most of them but it was so cool to see them look up to me, and even cooler to be able to reach out to some of them. In so many ways they ministered to me more than i could possibly have ministered to them.

and here is the even cooler part... I got to see some of them make decisions for Christ! about 16 through out the week and 11 in one night. This is so cool because God is the one who reached down into our time and space and offered a relationship to the kids and they accepted. There is nothing more exciting than seeing God move in peoples lives, and to see Him move in the lives of kids that do not have much to hope for and totally change their lives. My prayer is that the kids will continue to seek God now that they have encountered Him and that they will continue to reach out to others that live on their island. That throught them, God will continue to move and that the name of Christ will be exalted on Orcas Island through the lives of these kids.

O.I. Till I die

Me and "my smelly Friend"

2005-06-19T01:52:00.000-07:00

Me and my smelly friend
we are the best of friends
Always there when i need him
we can have hours of conversation without saying a word

Lots of people may not understand how i can be friends with someone so smelly
but for the most part i don't mind the way he smells.
I enjoy it.

When ever i feel bad he is just the thing to cheer me up
When ever i a feel good he is just the thing to make me feel great
Sweet sweet friend of mine, we will be friends for as long as i need him

One day i won't need him anymore
and a bittersweet day that will be
saying goodbye to my smelly friend
only to say hello to the best smelling friend i'll ever know

until then its going to be me... and my smelly friend

A song for my mom

2005-06-15T02:11:00.000-07:00

Mama don’t cry
Mama don’t cry
The rain is gone and the sun is back
The rain is gone and I'll be alright

Mama hold on
Mama hold on
The tears are gone and your smile’s back
He’s got your hand whats holding you back

Cause you've gone this far
and you’re too loved to fail
Gods got you in his hands
And there you can be free

Mama go on
Mama go on