If one day I am able to look back on all my experiences and all my life, I don't think I would be able to honestly say that things went the way I wanted them to. Im not saying that this is a bad thing though. In fact I am hoping that when I look back on my life I will see that things went better (in the long run) then I could have ever planned for myself. After all, its not my life, Im just using it.

The reason I bring this up? No more summer cross country road trip. I was initially disappointed by this. I was really hoping there would be an opportunity for new expreiences and a chance to see some old friends and make some new friends. Life was going to be different and it was going to be good. And it turns out that life is different, and it is good.

The freedom and unexpectedness I was looking forward to in that trip is still happening. Just not the way I expected. Now I am the director of Young Adult Ministry, my business nearly got sued and lost a lot of money, but now we are doing better than could have been expected.
I have become busy in ways I didn't expect to be busy, and in many ways can't help but wonder if this might not be a better option to my summer trip. I am hoping that I will still get the chance to make my trip. Its just that the circumstances will be different.

For now I will just see where God is taking me. Either way, I know it is going to be good. Maybe difficult, maybe not even fun, but good. So stick around. Soon I will give more insight into the way things have been changing, until of course Life Changes Again...

-Art

Soon I will be treking across the country and back again with my good friend and roomate, Mike, and possibly my brother, Joel. It will just be us and our required supplys in a car for three months or as long as the money holds out. I have dreamed of doing this for years and years, and now it is going to finally happen. I am captivated by the freedom in the idea. It feels so romantic to me to just go without any idea of what the next day, much less the next five min, will bring. I know we never really know, but we always have an idea based on routine. This trip however will have no routine to it, or a very minimal one. Adventure will be at every turn and on ever golden horizon.

There are still several months left before we can take off on this trip, we probably won't leave till late May and we still have logistics planning to do. It feels like it will never come time to leave but at the same time I know it will come upon us so fast that we won't be fully prepared for it. I love it.

The other day I was thinking about what this all will mean in some great depth and I scared myself. I WON'T KNOW WHAT TOMORROW HOLDS! I know, as I said before, that we never know for sure, but to realize that I will be leaving all I know and find comfort in kinda freaked me out. It is exciting and invigorating think I will have no control but for the present. It is also a very sobering and scary thing. I want to go deperately, and I am afraid to leave because of what it might mean.

When I came to that conclusion I realized something else. My journey with God is the same way. I know that God has enormous things planned for me. Things I cannot even fathom. Life changing moments. Joy and pain. Laughter and Tears. I desire to experience all this soo very much. I want to go on this God adventure so desperately and yet find myself afraid to leave.

For months I would lay in bed and ask God why I haven't experienced the closeness with God I have been yearning for. I wanted to know what was missing. I didn't understand why. I know I had felt that closeness in the past, but only ever for fleeting moments. Now I know that all that time God was calling me to leave on a spiritual trek with Him and I heard the call but wasn't leaving because I was afraid. I am still afraid, and I still haven't left. I don't know how to leave or how to abandon my fear.

See, though there are similarities in the two trips, there are also some important differences. I have spent so much time in this physical plain that I understand how to move and act in it. I have learned enough to know how to manipulate my physical surrounding to actually do something. I can actually overcome my fear by simply putting one foot in front of the other. I am not as familiar with the spiritual world to simply let go. Why am I not as familiar...? Its probably due to a lack of faith I suppose. No matter how much will you have, if you don't have the muscle to move on the physical plain then you can't move. Faith is the muscle of the spiritual world and I haven't exercised it enough.

God told us he would never give us more than we can bear when testing our faith. I believe that is true, but far to often I have not even tried to flex my faith against the tests before me. I have just let things consume me. Just like building muscle is work, so is building faith and I just haven't been doing it.

I may never be able to bench press a mountain physically, but with time I will be able to move one with faith.

-Art

I am always seeking out those combinations of words that stir the heart deep inside and evoke and feeling that spreads out to every limb. I seek them out in my writing of lyrics and poetry and prose; and I seek them out for my everyday language.

It is in my design; I often stumble over my words when speaking from a very emotional level because I want to do more than just express what I am feeling. I want people to actually feel it. I try desperately to find the string of words that will, by some affect of magic, transform their understanding to full experience. It's not easy to do.

For the increasing need for instant information communication, we have abandoned the art of speech. The great orators of our time are all nearly several generations old. We have forgone thoughtful and eloquent tongues for the atrocious abbreviations of the instant messaging world. Perhaps we have been sitting in the dull roars of our modern world for so long that we have forgotten the beauty of the spoken and sung words we were all gifted with. The backdrop sound has become so loud that shouting is the only way we can be heard and it has become nothing more than a whisper. I want to escape all this. I want to hear a whisper ring in my ears like a shout. I want to hear a shout that is so loud it makes the earth tremble. I want my ears to be filled every day with the beautiful sounds of silence so that the voice, when heard, conveys more emotion and beauty and life than I could ever contain pouring into me.

I will continue to seek out those words that radiate warmth from the center of ones soul out to the fingertips and emanate from the skin something like light. If all I ever find are words that evoke only a tenth of the power of the words God uttered when he spoke all creation into existence, they will still be greater and more beautiful than any words I have ever known before.

-Art

For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks...

Listen good for my heart is gushing forth with emotion and I can no longer contain what spills from my lips. I am so desprately torn apart in a furry of emotion. I feel as if I am loosing a friend, I am losing a friend.

When Christ spoke those words he was speaking of evil, but I believe they ring true in all occasions. My heart is bursting with tears and fear. I am crying deep in my soul for a friend/ a brother, who has walked away from his Father and Creator. He is full of anger and I sense even some hate in his voice and actions. I am scared to lose him, I am scared to see him struggling like this, and I am even more scared to become him. I take that last phrase back, I don't believe I could ever lose my faith in God, I have come to depend on him so much. What I am truely scared of is the fact that it is even possible to lose such faith.

I love God so much, he has blessed me so greatly, I am growing daily in my faith and learning more and more about the one who loves me. I don't understand how someones faith could be so shaken to turn away from such a loving and caring God. Only through a great deception can I imagine this to be possible. I think I have just become aware that Satan does exist.

I always knew Satan existed, but I think I treated his existence like one treats a figure in a history book. Real, but not someone I would ever have to cross or meet. I was so wrong. This here is a real enemy, really here, really standing over my shoulder, really a threat... There is a saying that suggest the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. There is alot of truth to that, but there is a second trick equally as good, that is convincing those that believe he exists that he is not a threat. I fell prey to this for too long.

My friend and brother knew God and still heard the lies and walked away from God. The only way to protect yourself is to do more than know God, but know him fully, follow him closely, love him dearly and seek his protection. Christ is the only one that can save us and it is only in his strenght that we can do anything. If you thought a title was enough to protect you I want you to know that a title does you little good against one so clever as Satan, intimacy is your protection. Intimacy with the Father.

Dear God hear me cry in my soul for my brother
know the love I have for him and bring him home
seek him with all you are and awaken his heart again
Protect him, protect me, and protect those that seek to know you
Amen

-Art

Who would have ever thought that I could be dealt such a blow that would leave me disoriented for days. One moment is all it took to let those words drop.

A friend of mine told me that he is walking away from his faith, from God. I don't understand that. But somehow I am affected by it. I never expected anyone to say that to me, and I never expected I would be hurt by such things.

If I am hurting like this I can't imagine how God must feel. The tears of the father must be like death.

Im sorry if I ever caused you pain.

-Art

I will cry for you
cause I don't understand
how you could just walk away like that

I will cry for you
like I cried for no one else
you put your faith on the shelf

I will cry for you
do you know how much I care
but it won't stop there

I will cry for you
until you walk back through the door
and then I will cry some more

-Art

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt

I think I have read this quote before. Lets rephrase that, I KNOW I have read this quote before. And I have always found it to be a very encouraging piece of wisdom. It is absolutely incredible.

Presently I am seeking to follow some of my own dreams, and I am hoping to strive valiantly and spend myself for some worthy cause. However there has always been a certain amount of hesitation, it is the error and shortcomings and failings that scare me just enough to keep my feet from running when I hit the ground. Well, I don't want to hesitate anymore. I will be afraid, and I will love it. I want to feel my heart pounding in uncertainty, to feel my blood run hot with large doses of adrenaline. I want to know great enthusiasms, and great devotion.

I have often talked about traveling around this country and visting new places and revisiting old places and reminding myself of just how big God is and just where I fit in everything. I wanted initially to do this with my best friend from high school, and we talked about it often. He is married now, I don't think it is on his radar anymore. But I am not done with the dream yet. So I will go with my bandmate, roomate, and friend. I final independant adventure before a lifetime relationship adventure with many adventures along the way.

I have always wanted to do this, just like I have always wanted to start a band and run my own business. I have done two of those things, I just have this one left. Don't worry, I have plenty more dreams to chase after this, but I think the timing is right for this one. I have always wanted to do it, that should be enough reason.

Im sure there will be more of this to come. Keep checking and I'll keep posting.

-Art