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| Wow. How much I’ve wanted to write a note to everybody for a while now, but I just couldn’t find the words to say…I’m not sure I even have them now!
In a nutshell:
The God I serve is Astounding. Magnificent.
And it’s incredible…I could think of another thousand really big vocabulary words to use and make me look cool for using them…but the fact of the matter is…they just wouldn’t rank.
They wouldn’t add up, or even begin to describe.
Man creates his words to interpret the world around him…to somehow grasp a circumstance or situation he has experienced, and either finds a word already invented, or else he invents his own. Then he finds all of his friends, and uses said words to help his friends understand all he has seen and heard. And even though the words can’t possibly replace being there and seeing and hearing all the things the person has experienced:
Somehow, maybe our silly human words can leave a residue on the soul of another that makes that person want to experience the same things.
A yearning, if you will.
Such experiences can be true of experiencing the God I serve.
So I’m going to try it. I’m not very good at language and big words and the like, so I’m going to make up a new word. I’m about to start typing…and really, I’m not sure what I’m about ready to type.
Ummmmmmmmm………
My God is……
Supergloriamaginificanocagulousicano.
Wow. I even added a little Spanish flavor to the end of that. That’s for you, Fernie!! (My Mexican roommate)
Ok, it’s true. I just hashed a bunch of weird words together into something really goofy.
Making me a big dork☺
Thank you and have a nice day.
Yeah, and you only hoped I was done writing this note!! It’s time for a sort of life update, and since this is my first note since I wrote about a possible pastoral calling on my life, and I’m raring to type, it’s true.
Have any of you ever walked through a desert? Experienced how remote and lonely it feels way out there? Just you, a bunch of sand, a whole lotta sun, and, maybe a camel or something.
In life, traditionally we apply the analogy of a desert to a tough time or struggle of some sorts. We’ve all been there, less our humanity be in question.
I think I just walked out of one.
It began last August. When I set foot on DBU soil for my first semester here. When one follows God when he says, “hey, leave everything you know and go over here”, one would naturally associate the other end of that path with rainbows and skipping through dandelions and some sort of singing of songs. (Essentially, lots of good things happening)
Transition from all the amazing things going on at Oklahoma State turned out to be so much harder than I ever would have imagined. One thing after another just didn’t go my way....
And it let to doubt. Confusion. Mistrust in the God that had brought me thus far. Leading me to just want to run away and cling so tightly to other, lesser things…things I was never meant to…just to continue to feel alive in some way.
And just to compound all of this, it was in this time I realized that God may have just laid it on my heart to be some sort of pastor.
This turned my running away from it all into a sprint.
Or, if I had a pony, a gallop. ☺
No pony. Crap. Sad day.
I saw this pastoral calling….then I looked back at myself. Looked up again, then back to me. Huge calling, little Joeross. Great Supreme Will of the Almighty God….little Joeross. And I didn’t think it quite possible that I fit in too well.
Doubt stacked onto doubt onto doubt.
I even got to the point where I had firmly convinced myself that I was nothing. That I had absolutely nothing I could offer such an amazing God.
It was at that point of utter ruin that God decided to remind me how silly I was being. Actually, I knew it all along. But I seemed content believe these lies. Somehow, I gained a strange sense of false comfort lying on my knees in prayer telling God not to bother with me anymore.
It was then that I realized just how much I had been deceived by the powers of a lesser kingdom. How I had come so far with the God I had served…and see so many amazing things in my 22 short years…And it sickened me.
Isn’t it strange…how we can see a million reasons to trust God…and make up maybe 2 reasons not to. And yet….we chase after those two reasons like they were the million.
How odd we are, we humans.
In that moment, I realized a paradox….why would God bring me thus far, lead me to ministerial things, speak to me tenderly of pastoral things, and drag me to foreign country (Texas) if He had absolutely nothing in store? Matthew 7 speaks to me and kind of slapped me in the face a little bit. In verse 7, Jesus mentions how even the wicked people know to give good things and provide for there children. How much more does a good God have in store for those that seek…
So simple. God is good. Trust him.
It was this simple truth that led us to believe in the first place…and yet…how forgetful we can be. I can be.
It seems things are beginning to change in my heart now...and not going to lie, I'm excited!!!
So I brought you all the way through this crazy long post. I congratulate you. Just as I made it though a crazy semester and a half to learn this again, so did you just read through this post to be reminded of this one thing:
God is good. Trust Him.
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| Oh crap, I have a Xanga.
Whoops.:)
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| Sorry kids. I know it’s been a crazy long while since I updated this thing! But I saw that you can now integrate this thing into Facebook, so naturally I became all giddy with excitement and had to update.
For one to be gone so long, you would expect the next post to be something profound, funny, or a strange Joeross mixture of the two.
I really don’t have either one today. But I think that's ok...!
How can I describe all summer, and the first few days at Dallas Baptist University? I have 3 words.
I am blessed.
It’s been far from perfect here. But to see things sequentially fall into place all around, to slowly gain a little peace about the new circumstances, it’s simply amazing.
I am falling in love with my new university. Something I never thought I would say when this all began. Even though I love my God immensely, I was scared stiff about transferring to a Christian university, since I’ve been in public school all my life. But coming from my background, all of a sudden I have a new respect for things around me, maybe even greater than those that have been at DBU their entire college life. Things that blow my mind, like, praying before a class starts. It seems so simple. And yet, to me, it’s so profound. This idea that our faith can and was meant to bleed over into every aspect of life, even the classroom, is something I never for a second want to take for granted.
I love my classes. I love this campus. I have meet some great people here. I have an incredible close friend that just moved in 30 minutes down the road. I...am....blessed.
I’ve taken a single step. But what’s next? Being a senior transfer student, even one with 2 years left, the real world feels closer now than it ever has. Sometimes it’s kinda scary. Thoughts of the future: Marriage, career, and other things race through my mind more than ever.
It’s as if I’m in the midst of a beautiful portrait being painted. My life is the canvas. I know the Artist, I’ve seen the evidence of his works all around me. I know he is Good, and whatever he chooses to paint will come out simply astounding! The joys, the sorrows, the mountains, the valleys…all somehow come together to become something beautiful. My view of it all is quite limited…and a lot of times I really really want to see more than I do…but I must never stop trusting the Artist’s hand….
And that’s all I got☺
Joeross out.
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| ***edit**** So the song playing?? Right now I'm trying to learn to play it on geetar. And then, because I'm just that crazy excited, I'm gonna attempt to put me on Purevolume. I figure, if my buddies Josh and Nathan can get away with putting their Pancake Song on purevolume, i can at least get away with a cover of a song with beginning guitar skills. So when you hear me, think, hey, it's at least better than that bloody pancake song! Get excited!
So no lie. Life gets kind of tough sometimes. Man, am I ever glad I have one of these:
*push push push push push push push push push*
Nothing's happening. I want a refund, stupid button. :)
I have a feeling that God has decided to teach me responsibility and diligence and all that stuff...all at once. I'm a relationship person...i love and thrive on hanging out and talking with all my wonderful friends.....but sometimes, for the sake of that, i shuck off the Should do's for want to do's! And it's time to change that....especially since my new major will be quite exausting:)
How weird is it to have more commitments during the summer than during the school year??
OH HEY! The Bible Study....next Monday, 8 o clock at the house O Joeross. BE THERE! Yes, Fletch, you can play with my puppy.
*****To help with my diligence, I've initiated a complicated system known only as the 'Do Crap List' If any of you have any other wonderful systems of organization, tell me!!
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| Ok. Below is a personal hero of mine.
His name is David Crowder.
He is in a band cleverly titled the David Crowder Band.
And said band is up for artist of the month on MSN.
He is already winning by a long shot, up against a few hippity hop artists.
But I think you should go vote for them anyway.
So......
CLICK ME!
And that is all.
OH! I'm going to Dallas tomorrow to ENROLL AT DBU!
If you asked me 3 months ago if i would be excited to switch universities and majors (Music Business) and all that jazz, (haha....jazz.....like....music....crap, my jokes are going downhill tonight.....) I would have chuckled.
But now I'm all giddy inside.....yeah, you heard me....:)
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the moutains quake with their surging." (Psalm 46:1-3)
I may be weird, but this truth makes me want to yell and sing and dance.
Anybody want to dance with me?  | | |
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