Past is pain

I am treading lightly around this but it is something that i battle with every day of my life. Some days i battle hard and fail, i fall to the ground in rage some nights i fall a sleep hugging a soft toy, my pillow stained from my tears. There are moments in time i stop and beg for an explanation for why i ended up where i am. Other days just a fleeting thought enters my mind and is dismissed just as quickly. If I'm truly honest with myself in recent times i have lost the struggle with this more often then won against it. More often do i cry over it then not, i cry until my head hurts. I feel so isolated with it, my girlfriend sits beside me in the car and never even notices. Its probably better that way as the issue, that in recent times that has reduced me to a blubbering mess, is my failed marriage. At just twenty five years old I have seen the happiest day of my life when i married the woman i loved more then anything in the world closely followed just a few short years latter by the worst day of my life when it all fell apart. Old wounds don't seem to heal as well as i had hoped. Feelings of failure, shame in my betrayal and just simply desiring what we once had all come into my head and render me useless at whatever i was doing at the time. I miss my wife.
Are these feelings a directed attack at me. it seems to step up a notch when i get involved in groups and organisations like my church and make poverty history. or am i just facing the hard facts of life, like so many before me. Time will tell. all i can do for now is pray that the wounds heal quicker then they currently are.

11 Days and little bit of fear.

In 11 days I embark on the make poverty History campaign. I am struggling to keep up with all of that. I put it on the back burner whilst i focused on Church Camp and returned home to an in box full of emails to sift through, I missed a five hour training day on the trip and feel a little bit outside of everyone else as the group consists of mostly academics and I'm far from it. The big push at this stage for the road trip is to create awareness and many people have written to MP's and media and what not. My spelling and grammar would scare off any potential MP so I painted the wall (after checking the spelling) and encouraged those in the Car Club to sign an online petition. I took the approach that I may not be a academic and write long convincing letters but I can at least use what gifts I do have and the contacts I have to help. Fingers crossed it does make a difference. The thing that worries me now is i will be on an eight day road trip where by true self will become known. Am I truly who they wanted on this? they know I'm a mechanic right? Why do I always question myself? I know i will look back and realise they knew who I was and wanted me on the trip because of that. Regardless its all a little bit frightening, the point i guess i need to focus on here is that its not about me its about those with far less then me. So I will go and try and be confident in myself and make a difference.

Today was a new day

For the first time in my life i have fallen to my knees to beg to my God. I was never critical of anyone who prayed like that but i never felt comfortable about praying that way. I spent the past weekend at a Church camp which had all of our young adults group there. Up to twenty young people who have come to the Cube for some time now. A massive scandal ripped through the group this past week in a similar manner to what we see on our soapies these days. People upset, uncomfortable with other members of the cube and a whole heap of conflict. We went to camp ready for peoples lives to be changed, what we got were days of hard hard emotional work trying to help some of these people with their issues. Saturday night i had lost almost all hope of seeing any positive change in anyone's life over the weekend. I went to bed with the words of encouragement from Greg (a fellow Cube leader) "tomorrow is another day" was all he said to me.
It had been such a massive exercise to Get a friend of mine to camp. She was having troubles with her relationship ship with her boyfriend. she was planning on coming to camp, then not, then she was coming and so on. Looking back its so obvious that other forces had no intention of letting her get to camp. She had expressed some interest in Christianity and wanted to learn more, finally getting her to camp convinced me massive things would happen in her life at camp, it just had to be. But by Saturday night we only had a few hours remaining and i was loosing hope.

"Tomorrow is another day" well it had better be because the past one ended in pure shit. no other word described it.
Sunday was a new day. As if someone just clicked their fingers the next morning all of the problems of the day before were so distant. A serious and lengthy heart to heart with my friend led me to believe that if she has not already made a commitment to Jesus she is unbelievably close and told me she wishes to be baptised. It was a new day as she was the second Cube member to tell me that in one day. Camp did change lives but it happened in Gods time not in mine.

About to Rock this World

In just a few short hours i will jam more crap then humanly possible into the back of a Holden Astra (which is actually a European lemon known as an Opel) and head south for several hours untill we reach Shoalhaven. Were heading to Church camp more commonly known as Weekend away rather then camp. In years past this has become a retreat for people rather then days of theology and to its credit it has changed people lives in the past. This year I head down with the Cube leaders ramped up for some awesome stuff. hours of work has gone into the Cube group and getting them exited about the weekend away as well. I honestly believe that we will see some truly awesome things happen at camp but only time will tell.

What to do.

The past week I see too many needs in the world, so many things I have committed to and so few people who seem to want to do anything about all the needs in the world. I have had so many things land in my lap this week, some required me to just sit and listen and others required me to pull every ounce of my limited leadership experience out of the bucket.

The Cube as I have discussed before is something I am passionately working on in my church. I seem to have taken a large chunk of its admin on board which is awesome as most of it comes naturally to me from my experience in club days. I have received praise in recent weeks for doing things that I don’t find hard and do without a second thought. The big drive I now have with the Cube aside from the goals the leaders set down as a team at the start is to get some serious numbers of young people involved in it. So far so good, only one week since I invited some of the people I knew from the club and so far six new faces at Cube events.

The other bring drive with The Cube is bringing people to faith which is a delicate subject which the Cube has very important polices on doing this to ensure people are not preached to and Bible bashed so to speak. One such person I have slowly guided that way and answered the hard questions for is so close to making the commitment and joining the kingdom. But we live in an evil world and at this stage it may not amount to anything. When dealing with young adults all through history, sex is always a massive issue and once again a relationship that is immoral and the consequences that go with that may see this person drift or be pulled far far away. Once again I am reminded that God is Sovereign and it is all part of the bigger plan.

One Cube member came to me for advice on a similar issue related to sex. It required me to dig deep, to be a leader and to give this guy advice that he will remember for the rest of his life. How do you do such a thing? Lots of prayer before hand and faith in an awesome God. For the first time as a Cube leader I have had to pull out the artillery, rebuke behaviour and set a challenge for someone I love. It’s exhausting but had to be done. Now that its past Im glad I was able to do it.

These events have smashed my thinking against the wall. My mother refers to it as ducks in a row. I plan in advance and aim for things which Is not always a bad thing. But if I’m honest with myself I plan to bring person A to faith followed by person B then C etc. Paul's story and life is proof enough to me that there is no way this approach will work so time to adjust. I will happily work in the chaos and still make a difference and trust that God has it in control.

Saturday I ventured off the north shore and headed to Five Dock for the first of three training days for the Make Poverty History road trip. I had no idea what I was in for. There were hundreds of people, mostly girls, in a room for an awesome cause. I learnt heaps that day and became very passionate about the cause. I was somewhat disheartened that night when I saw at least twice as many people that night in the pub. Most of which did not care for any other then themselves. What a selfish world we live in and I live in a community of self cantered people. If everyone cared as much as these Make Poverty History team what an awesome place the world would be. But because they don’t what a miserable materialistic world we live in.

Sophies Tree

It seems to be a common theme with my peer group that in order to believe and follow something you require some hardcore physical evidence of it. I guess that's hardly surprising given this day and age where one can gain an abundance of information on any of the worlds lies by simply sitting at a computer. We live in a time where foxtell plays documentaries on groups that claim to be able to prove that Scientology is fact,that all faiths led to the same god and we even see every day on face book people making life decisions based on zodiac signs. Is it any wonder that when presented with the One true God people are hesitant. How many times in the past have they burnt themselves reaching out to something that does not exist, they are reluctant to reach out again.
So the truth is placed before them and the awesome thing about God is HE IS REAL and interacts with you. Vain attempts to contact any other gods or faith in other areas that are designed to fill the spiritual thirst we all have are answered with silence and this makes people hesitant to try again and explore the one true God.
But my God is awesome and wants to have a relationship with my loved ones and time but time again my hesitant friends are too scared to take the step. Why combat that? just leave it to God to deal with their doubts. Twice this year i have told people to ask God to show them he is real and twice now God has shaken their world. Soph asked for God to show her and he did. Lying out the back in long grass and looking into the sky at dusk the huge gum trees in the back yard spread its branches in such a way that she saw a huge wooden cross formed by two perfectly straight branches from separate trees, with the red sky behind it.(The photo above is of the actual tree and you cant see one let alone two perfectly straight branches). She knew what it was and that it was meant for her. Others may have just seen two crossing branches (i did) but i know first hand when God speaks to you you don't second guess it. Now you asked God for proof and he answered, he spoke to you and you know its real. What are you going to do about it?

A Grey World

I guess the last post needs a little extra explanation. My big drive with what I do and how I witness to the world is by being a person that is “well grounded”. That is to say I feel that the best approach to change someone’s life is to be a real person to them, be on the same page of them and avoid the attitude that because I am a Christian I no longer want to associate with you. This does mean that I live by a basic guide line that the world is not black and white. There are something’s in this world that most Christians would say are wrong that I will agree are wrong yet have no issues with getting involved in if it means I can get down with these people and relate to them on a personal level. It’s a very thin line to walk and I’m ok with it. I am not going to attempt to justify it because at the end of the day its between me and God and if you want to judge then judge away but whilst my methods are allowing people to explore and love Christ then I will make no changes.
As my birthday celebration was winding down at least five different people engaged in a drunken conversation with me and a few guys from the Cube on topics about God and such, including another loved one of mine praying for confirmation from God and receiving it. (I will share this with you in the next few days). So at the end of the day Christian folk can shoot their fiery darts at me all day long cause I don’t care I am here to make a difference and I am making a difference.