I'm not God!
I continue to be blown away by the response from Sunday! It's quite obvious that God spoke to some people despite my jibberish! I was trying to communicate the importance of being passionate in our pursuit of Jesus and that one of the ways I've found helpful is to tell my story. It reminds me of what God has done and is continually doing in my life. I mentioned that our stories aren't something that happened but something that are always happening...continually evolving. And if we are passionately pursuing Jesus, our story is going to be loaded with stuff to talk about.
The problem is that we often times don't tell our stories. We think they are private. We think that others don't want to hear it. We think that we should just forget everything in our past, especially the bad stuff. And when we do this, we do ourselves and those around us a huge injustice.
Stories bring hope. They catalyze passion. To illustrate this, I brought up Donovan Price (who is potentially going to be on our volunteer leadership team) Donovan has an amazing story of being healed from an extreme case of bi-polar that lead him to attempt to kill himself multiple times and subsequently consider killing himself at least 3 times a day, if not more. The drugs just wouldn't balance him out. And then on Dec 13, 2005 someone in his church prayed for him and it was gone! He shared how for the last year it's been one of total self rediscovery. He's never known what it was like to have a clear mind. He's never known what it was like to feel with having a jaded experience. He's never known what it's like to be loved for who he was. And now, it's a whole knew life.
It was by far the best part of the whole morning. Anyways, this week he tells me that one of his friends who came was challenged by it. He hasn't been to church in at least 6 months cause every one he's gone to has given him a bad taste in his mouth. From my understanding, he was raised in an ultra charismatic church and somewhere along the way something went sour. He's generally withdrawn but one night he had some buddies over and Donovan said it was like he just unzipped his heart and let his story come gushing out. He experienced that power of story on Sunday and something inside of him clicked.
To me, that's what it's all about. Obviously I can totally bomb my part of the morning and God can still rock someone's world...and for that I'm thankful. Cause as the days go on, I realize in a more real way that I just really don't have the ability to be God (go figure...you should all be thankful that I'm not God...we'd have some serious issues on our hands!) Some days I sure like to act like I am but after a few quick slaps across the face and I'm reminded that I'm Dan.
The problem is that we often times don't tell our stories. We think they are private. We think that others don't want to hear it. We think that we should just forget everything in our past, especially the bad stuff. And when we do this, we do ourselves and those around us a huge injustice.
Stories bring hope. They catalyze passion. To illustrate this, I brought up Donovan Price (who is potentially going to be on our volunteer leadership team) Donovan has an amazing story of being healed from an extreme case of bi-polar that lead him to attempt to kill himself multiple times and subsequently consider killing himself at least 3 times a day, if not more. The drugs just wouldn't balance him out. And then on Dec 13, 2005 someone in his church prayed for him and it was gone! He shared how for the last year it's been one of total self rediscovery. He's never known what it was like to have a clear mind. He's never known what it was like to feel with having a jaded experience. He's never known what it's like to be loved for who he was. And now, it's a whole knew life.
It was by far the best part of the whole morning. Anyways, this week he tells me that one of his friends who came was challenged by it. He hasn't been to church in at least 6 months cause every one he's gone to has given him a bad taste in his mouth. From my understanding, he was raised in an ultra charismatic church and somewhere along the way something went sour. He's generally withdrawn but one night he had some buddies over and Donovan said it was like he just unzipped his heart and let his story come gushing out. He experienced that power of story on Sunday and something inside of him clicked.
To me, that's what it's all about. Obviously I can totally bomb my part of the morning and God can still rock someone's world...and for that I'm thankful. Cause as the days go on, I realize in a more real way that I just really don't have the ability to be God (go figure...you should all be thankful that I'm not God...we'd have some serious issues on our hands!) Some days I sure like to act like I am but after a few quick slaps across the face and I'm reminded that I'm Dan.
