Beauty of God's Creation

I am a naturally grumpy person. I will probably be the angry old man that yells at kids, but I'll have fun. One day I was doing some work on my computer  and I was kind of grumpy because who wants to write a paper at 2 in the morning? Well it started raining as well, so I figured I might as well go to bed. I was thinking about how I don't like rain because its cold, wet, and generally uncomfortable.

Then I thought about how cool rain actually is. Seriously, think about it. Rain comes from so high up in the sky and comes down on us, it is a beautiful thing! Just precipitation in general is amazing, the fact that it works the way it does. If we could witness rain from beginning to end somehow I'm sure we would all be awed. I couldn't help but thank God for putting so much beauty in this world.

There is so much that we see every day that we pass by and don't even bother giving a second glance because it is so normal to us. God created such a beautiful world for us to enjoy. I'm not talking about only nature, God's creation includes humans! God is an amazing artist, that has created a world that even He said was good. Creation is cool!

When I laid down that night beside my wife, I wasn't grumpy anymore. I was content and happy thinking about how amazing God is and how His creation was absolutely amazing. Look at the stuff around you, I mean come on, things come out of the ground that we can eat! Take a close look at what is around you, be observant, and rejoice that we serve a wonderful God.

The Gas Chamber Incident. (Boot Camp Story.)

For those of you that don't know I am in the Navy. And in celebration of Veterans day I figured that it would be appropriate to share a Boot Camp story. Enjoy.

So there I was, in line with every other miserable recruit waiting to receive our gas masks when one of my RDC's came up to me and pulled me to the side. (Side note, I was sick. Because it was Boot Camp.) Which is never a good thing.

RDC: Listen up douche-knuckles. I miss being able to make you do eight-counts for hours on end. So when you take your gas mask off take a really deep breath and cough all your nasty up. You tracking?

Me: Aye Petty Officer.

I get back in line and receive my gas mask, then we form up in the gas chamber. I'm in the third squad so I get to watch the two squads in front of me get screwed up. Finally my squad is up. I look at the window where the RDC's are watching. The one that pulled me to the side looks at me, nods, and gives me the thumbs up. Which creeps the the heck out.

Like I said before, I was sick. Like an idiot I believed the RDC because they had seen this before so they should know what they're doing. Right?...

Well the Petty Officer in charge of the gas chamber yells "Masks up, cups up!" (We had to hold our hands under our mouth in case we started to throw up.)

Everyone had to state their Rank, Name, and division. I took my mask off, took an unnaturally deep breath and started with my rank. I got to "S".

Immediately I started choking on what I was supposed to be breathing. My nose was running to the point that there was snot hanging down to my balls, I couldn't breathe. Of course my eyes were swelling shut, I chanced a glance at the window and saw the last thing that I would see for fifteen or twenty minutes.

The RDC that told me to take a deep breath was barely able to stand he was laughing so hard. The guy was actually crying and point at me. Oh bootcamp.. The most fun thing I never want to do again.

Intentionality

This isn't my picture but it goes along perfectly with what I want to talk about today.

When is the last time that you had an actual conversation with someone about your faith? About their faith? Have you intentionally looked for opportunities to help someone evaluate their relationship with Christ?

The evangelism class that I'm in has done a special thing that I consider something that everyone in the Church needs to start doing. We take three people in our lives that we know don't know Christ and be intentional with them. Remember what being intentional is, being intentional is PURPOSEFULLY doing something for a specific reason. In this case the purpose is bringing those specific three people that you chose to be intentional with to Christ.

Have conversations with them, look for opportunities to talk about your faith. There are three rules that must be followed for this to work.

    1. Pray and look for opportunities to have an intentional conversation about your faith or their faith.

Opportunities are always there, you simply have to be looking for them.

    2. When God gives you an opportunity, DO NOT WASTE IT!

Be courageous! You have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, you are powerful because God is powerful. Rejection doesn't matter because you are serving God!

    3. Don't be weird...

People that aren't Christians don't understand what it is like to be a Christian. Explaining how the Holy Spirit works in us is the same as explaining color to a blind person. But those three people without doubt know what love is and know how to reason. Use the tools that God has given us.

Go and be intentional, that is the only way that people will come to Christ. Jesus and the apostles didn't spread the Gospel by waiting for people to come to them. Why would you?