Hypocrite?

My wife and I were talking with our friend Christa on Sunday about her recent stage show. Christa is an actor/director/thespian. Basically, she IS theatre. This last weekend she finished a community theatre production which we saw Friday night.

In talking with her about her experience, she shared how encouraged she was by getting to live and share her faith with her cast mates. She wasn't pushy or bible-thumping. She was free to just be herself, not hold back on things she'd say around her church friends (like 'Praise God' when something good happened), and didn't do things she wasn't comfortable with. As such, she says she had at least one open conversation about her faith with every member of the cast.

Was she taking notes and crossing their names of a list? No, absolutely not. But her heart is such that she genuinely doesn't want the people she meets to go to Hell and thus, they must hear about Christ. It wasn't a numbers game, it was relationships. There was no awkwardness and everyone we met at the show had great things to say about her.

So what was her secret? Why can she just be who she is and share Christ with people and I can't? I think it's because if you know Christa, you know this is honestly who she is. She truly lives her life for Christ, submitting to Him and the design that He has for a single young woman. I know she's not perfect and fails, but on the whole I believe there is just one Christa.

Therein lies the answer? Why can't I just be who I am and share Christ? Because there's two of me. There's Everyday-Jason and Christian-Jason. EJ is my normal self, CJ is there in EJ's head most time. EJ lets CJ talk about searching for God's will or God's plan, but doesn't really follow Him in daily life. CJ comes out at church, Bible study, and occasionally at work, or with family. But those times are awkward because people see the difference between EJ and CJ. CJ comes out and people say 'Who's this?' I look like a hypocrite because I'm two different people.

So until I can be CJ all the time I'll not just be able to live my life and share Christ naturally. This isn't an issue of being sinful and needing to cling to Christ's righteousness. This is about having my live be honestly led by Christ in every circumstance, everyday. It's about submission and surrender of my daily life to the point that as I live, I live for Christ and those who's lives I encounter, meet Christ by default. It's about dying to self.

You come to faith in Christ, then slowly die to yourself. As John the Baptist said "He must become greater and I must become less."(John 3:30) We must continue to let Christ change our lives until our former self is all but gone. I have a long way to go.

Proverbs 30:8b-9

8b give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

Bob Burney, Columbus radio talk show host, likes to say that the Devil lives in the extremes. Pick any subject and go to one extreme or the other and you're likely to be outside the will of God. Try it and see. Think of one that doesn't fit, write a comment below.

The above scriptute fits this though. 'Neither poverty nor riches'. This is a nice, balanced approach to our finances. Christ even repeats this in The LORD's Prayer. 'Gives us this day our daily bread'. Pray that the LORD should provide and that we seek only His provision. We should all seek dependence on Him and contentment with what He gives. I fail at this.

It's Not About Jason

Mark Ryan used to say that to me every time we talked. "It's not about Jason, it's about God." "I know." I'd reply. Obviously I didn't cause he kept saying it. Well he's been gone (moved, not GONE) for over a year now and I still need to hear it.

Read thought this blog and you'll see it's all about me. Now that should seem somewhat reasonable as it is my online journal, however go a bit deeper. Listen to my posts. I've been worried about me. What's MY future? What's MY path, MY career, MY journey going to be like. What's God doing with ME? I'm sure it's natural given our fallen condition, but isn't it sad. I'm so self-centered, so ego-centric, that it's hard to see anything beyond my own life. We're all this way, to some extent. However, we'll all called to more as well.

In my ministry, now and future, my concern should not be about ordination or education, a pastorate or church possition, but about who God has for me to reach out to. My question shouldn't be, "What's God want for me?" but "What's God want for you?" I should be asking God what His plans are for those around me.

Please LORD, let this Word come alive for me. Write it on my heart and change me.

Buds on the Tree

How do you know that winter is over? Buds on the tree. That's how I always know it's spring, anyway. You see those little buds on there and you get the feeling that the warm temperatures are here to stay. Winter is over.

That's how my spiritual life is going right now. It's weird how things work spiritually. God's design for things really works! Imagine that. Since I've left Staples, that act of obedience and submission has reawakened my soul. I'm thinking of God more, praying more, interested in discussion and reading more. My mind is turned towards God again. It's nothing huge, but it's little buds. I think my spiritual winter is over.

Praise God for being so faithful!

Jesus and The Sinners Prayer

First, read this. Go ahead. I'll wait.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=41362

I think the main point is this paragraph.

I suggest that we tend to confuse the beginning of the faith journey with its entirety. Yes, believe in Jesus—that's the first step. Yes, invite Jesus into your heart as your personal Savior. Then, empowered by God's grace, embark on the journey of discipleship, in which you seek to love God with every fiber of your being, to love your neighbor as yourself, to live out God's moral will, and to follow Jesus where he leads you, whatever the cost.

How many of us share the easy-believism of the sinner's prayer and not the weight and seriousness associated with living a life devoted to Him?

The Big 3-0

So today I turn 30. That's not so bad. I'm not upset about getting older, as I've always thought of myself as relating better with older people anyway. So in my mind, this is pretty natural. I also don't mind the occasional gray hairs. I could go white tomorrow and not really care. Although I will admit that my hair thinning bothers me. Much to my wife's delight.

However, it is natural to do assessments at any particular milestone. So I've been an 'adult' for 12 years now. On the whole, I would have to say that I am somewhat disappointed. I have a good life, great and loving wife, and good job. However it seems that these last 12 years have lacked direction and focus. I still don't have a degree, don't seem very marketable, not very impressive. Much the same as I've always been, I'm likable but not living up to my potential.

It's normally at these times of reflection that a person makes a resolution to do something. Lose weight, go back to school, etc. However, I've just come off a push like that and it was the wrong direction to go. So I guess I'm a little gun shy right now.

What direction should I go in? What should I do with my life? Those are questions an 18yo asks so it feels like I've wasted 12 years of my life.

LORD, speak to me. Give me direction and a path.

Wake me up, before you go-go

So it seems I have sleep apnea. If you're not familiar with that, it's when you stop breathing overnight and keep waking up. You never really get good sleep, especially REM sleep which we all need. So even though I was unconscious for 6-8 hours, I wasn't really sleeping much.

All this came out after I started Staples. I'd work 8 hours at UHC, then my 4 at Staples., add about 2 hours for drive time and I was out of house for 15 hours a day. After a couple days of that and my fatigue was unbelievable. All I wanted to do was get to sleep. Desperate is the word I'd use. I'd fall asleep at my desk, or nod off driving. There would be mornings when I'd wake up and be too tired to drive in and need to call off. I figure I've taken off over 40 hours in PTO from my day job that way.

The last straw, or what really got me thinking it was more than just being overworked, was this past New Years Eve. We were staying over at a friend's house and fell asleep in an armchair sometime after midnight. Well she happens to be a sleep tech who deals with sleep apnea everyday. So I'm snoring in her living room and she's diagnosing me to my wife. That got me asking questions and reading. A week later I'm talking to my doctor, did a few overnight tests and got a diagnosis. During my test I would stop breathing for a minute at a time and my blood oxygen level dropped to 59%.

So now I've had my CPAP machine for about a week. This is a mask I wear which keeps air flowing through my airway to keep it open so I can breathe. Mine's not as bad as some others I saw. Mine just goes under my nose. I do sleep better with it, although I won't get full results for about a week. But I'm not desperate for sleep anymore and not mean at night so that's a good thing.