calling out on mute...

This item might not make any sense but, it's what I felt I needed to share. This is how I am feeling like inside, it as if everything is turned up loud, but nothing is coming out.

Our Television has been doing the strangest thing these past couple of days, it's almost what I have been feeling like lately. You change the input on what you were watching and the the sound doesn't work, you keep switching the input to try to get it to recognize the audio, you switch the receiver off and on, nothing works...no sound there's a picture but no audio, then you do one of the combinations turn the TV off then receiver, then receiver off and the TV on or cable box off and on then suddenly it starts to work, and you wonder what the heck is broken. Is it the TV, the receiver, or the cable box, and no matter how hard you try to figure out why it happened or how to fix it from happening again, it just happens to start working again.

This is how my spiritual life has been like...sometimes it works and then sometimes it just won't.

No matter how hard you try to figure out why it's broken, it just is. Then suddenly something clicks and the link is working again. Something is broken, and I keep randomly falling there, searching and alone, afraid, that I am missing something, continuing to figure why it's broken and how can I fix myself...but that's the problem...I can't fix it by myself... I need an outside force to come reconnect the link. I am not sure where to go next but it seems like my life goes in two year cycles of change, and I am coming up on that 2 year cycle again with my job here, things are chaotic as usual and I feel the pull of wanting to run and hide to start fresh. I feel myself wanting to retreat again. I can never hide, and there is something I need to learn here but what. Why does it have to be so hard to figure that and so easy to retreat within myself, to be become so distracted with things like computer games, and easy stuff to keep me distracted.

I have start to get back to church but I am still feeling at loss still missing something just out of my grasp and I don't know what the next step is. I feel like a mess inside...with my typical mask out in this world. I believe in Christ and I know he died for my sins, but why do I keep sinning, why am I not growing...why is it so hard to keep in his word to follow him, take up the cross.

I want acceptance so badly...I don't know how to be who I am on inside to outside world. Fear of the unknown, of what if...continues to rule my decisions. I am not supposed to bear a spirit of fear in Christ. I feel lost again, and need to know or at least have a glimmer of something to trust in. My doubt of the future is back again, and feel useless unable to move, but wanting desperately to be more that what I am right now. There is that fear of sacrifice as well...what do I need to give up and the answer is clear...everything...Christ tells us that we need to give it all up to him and that we can trust in God to provide for all of our needs. We have to give him Carte blanche...control of everything in our lives...something our pastor mentioned in this past sermon.

I wonder can I give him that trust to rule everything in my life. Why are we so worried about what we have to give up for him...it is a mere pittance of what we are promised if we trust in God's Grace for us.

I want to live my life to the fullest, and I feel like I am not. I want to be free of this pull of this world.

I need help God...to be able to Trust in you! Are you there God... or is it just my shaken faith that is in it's stage if paranoid conspiracy theory crap that everything we have been taught is just one huge misleading tale to help us live our lives with this hope that there is something more after this short time we have on earth. I need a glimmer of that hope to be shown to me...something to keep me going.

Anyways if you are there GOD...Jesus...I do love you, I thank you for my Wife, my daughter, all the blessings of my family and the health that I do have...I am blessed to have a home, a job, vehicles, food on my plate everyday! I pray that this is not just mere coincidence of life and that we are randomly born to luckily live to 70 and then die off to nothingness. How can people be so sure of you? Have they seen signs, I guess I will always be wondering what's up...but if you are out there...please send me some guidance...I need to know that I am not wasting my time here on earth.

Help me not feel alone, help me find out who I am. I don't who that is but I am this jumble broken mess searching to be whole stuck on the outside(or inside looking out) wondering where to I fit.

If you can hear me Lord I LOVE YOU. If I could only now for sure I would do anything for you.

1 Talent

Where should I start with that title...hmmm.

Matthew 25:14-30 -The third man was not as capable as the other two, but the master gave him one talent with the expectation that he would manage it well. He, too, could have increased his money, but he dug a hole and hid it in the ground.

It's what I think I have done, or am doing, I am hiding my talent in the ground(I have feared living this way my whole life). And I know the key word here is FEAR. I live my life around FEAR, it controls the decisions I make. I have become what I once was lost and alone, confused and full of doubts. I have found myself feeling as if I am back to the starting point again. It's amazing how quickly a man can die spiritually without daily nourishment from the word, and men and women of Christ. I know it but I am lost here God, I don't know what do anymore, I am afraid, and feel like am just spinning in circles. I have become apathetic, and that is the result of the company I am keeping. I am weak and easily swayed by my environment, and I am none to pleased with myself. Where are you God, I know it is I that have hidden myself by the choices I have made. I have let fear rule me yet again, I have let the comfort of my old ways pull my back, to become numb and bitter full of doubt, not that I want to be but
I feel lost, without you without my connection, to the people I love, the people I miss so much, I sometimes feel like I made a big mistake leaving my Church Family in Regina, and I miss them so much. I had a life line there, people that felt like home, that felt like you were near me GOD. I do not want to let that go, and it continues to be there pulling me back as if there is a bungee cord not letting me go. I need to fight fear, and get the courage to join up a group or get help with some spiritual mentoring again. I am losing you Lord, and I want you back, but I am afraid...I want to know you are real... I want to know my faith is worth living for, worth the sacrifices of friends, of family... I need you now, I need your love, your reassurance, your guiding hand, I need a sign of your plan for me. I want get off this neutral highway that I am on, get me off this turn table my head is spinning. Lord be my guide and please give me the courage to make the choices you need me to make. I am sick of putting you on the side bench of my life this past year, please help me know I am seeking something that is real. I will always have that glimmer of hope that this is all real, but there will always be that weight of doubt in my life as well. Please Help me see the light more clearly, and give me a rock that I can lean in. I am seeking a foundation of stone from this sinking quicksand I have been living in. Lost and afraid I am here waiting wanting, needing something real something alive. I am sick of feeling strangled in a numb shell that is keeping me trapped inside.

I LOVE YOU ALWAYS GOD!
Even if I don't always show it in my life!

Struggling

I am struggling however with the drive to move one, to continue on with the fight. I am having a bout of depression, of what's the point... going on and am expressing this openly, because I want to be real here...I do go through these bouts quite a bit, of ups and downs in my faith walk, the next paragraphs are lengthy a bit, you may read what I would like to share or move on, just knowing that I would love your prayers for some guidances, understanding, reassureance, and correction!

I want to be all I can be for the Lord but it seems like, I am having such a hard time giving up the things of this world! All I see in my day to day life are people who don't get it, people that just live like there's no point to all of it but self gratification, self worship if you want to put it that way. I find myself playing too much the cameleon in my day to day activities at work, and in the world with friends. It never fails that where I go the friends I meet, or the people I work directly with are non Christians, that drink, and don't care about anything about religion, and I find myself having to put a mask on, for fear of not fitting in or being too pushy. This is something, I have struggled with all my life, molding my personality into the flow of the crowd, making myself invisible, or a mirror image of my surroundings. I get lost in myself, I am so neutral(I can't find the term here of what I mean but I am exactly like a cameleon, I blend in with the color of the Crowd it so easy it's freaky. I find I can relate to any personality, or group, and just fit in to survive. But that's not living!

If I am in a Christian Group, I am a great Christian, if I am in a drinking group I am a great drinking buddy, if I am in a group that likes racing, hunting or whatever I can adapt and relate. How do I know where I fit, I am everyone, and no one! Who am I but a Child of Christ, but what is my purpose, I want to not just adapt to the world, I want to relate to the world, and show it the truth! I have a feeling that my gifts to adapting to my situation are for this purpose, but at the moment I am desiring a more constant me in all of it. I desire to be a light on a hilll top, not a light in basket, I want to not hide sometimes, and shine at other times, going on and off like a Christmas light, inconsistent, and annoying.

When I look at the cross, and see what Jesus did to make himself the least of the least and to suffer the cruelest death to repay the debt of my sins, I cringe, at how easily this world has blinded itself to this wonderful gift that we have been given! I also am saddened at how easy it is for even myself to turn back to the ways of the world, whether it is having fun with the guys, or at home, playing games on the internet for the greater part of the evening not taking the time to read the bible or spend time with God or at work joining with the co-workers complaining about a boss or a co-worker.

We are so in need of Christ, and we miss him everyday, and I myself am crying out for advice, and counsel. because I know my depression bouts, stem from not being able to be what I am created to be. We as Christian's are truly at battle here, and we are more repressed than we were in after the days of Christ's death. We are repressed by the very freedom we have chartered for ourselves, where free speech, is accepted, unless it is free speech for Christ's Message, it saddens me how any other religion is acceptable these days, and it's the Christian faith that needs to lighten up or be more accepting. We are the most accepting, but people don't like giving things up to deny the old life of sin, self glory, and that is why it is so hard to get through to people.

There is a faith issue going on here, and I too struggle with it...we are tought of Christ's salvation, and we are attacked for it. It feels like our own faith is used against us...we believe and then are attacked to doubt our beliefs because there is no physical proof! We are put at odds against each Christian because we can't all agree on what exactly is the message! Just look at all the translations of God's Holy Scripture, which Translation is acurate...who is most right. It doesn't matter, the only truth is that we are sinners, we can't be free on our own. Christ took on human form on earth, died for our sins, he is our intercessor before God, and we are given a great gift by this death. We are new Creations in Christ! We are free to be re-united with our creator!

Well how do you preach that to the world, without getting scoffed or sounding like a loon on the street corner. How do you live your life for Christ the was you know it's ture without getting judged by your family who is of another Religion or another denomination, that believes God should be worshipped in a specific way! How do yo know your understanding, and faith is the right one. We need to get back to the heart of Woship, the heart of the message, and get it out, but I can't seem to find a way to get there yet! I am praying, and waiting for something, but I am not quite sure yet what that something is! It seems like i am more caught up by keeping up with everything, that I am just plain lost in it all.

The BODY of Christ

I received and interesting e-mail from someone about a site aimed towards fallen Catholics, trying to get more Catholics to return home to the Church, and It got me thinking.

I wanted to reply to him with a long winded e-mail about some caution, and advice. I think there is something greater than just the Catholic Church here. There is a God crisis going on, we especially in North American, are no longer finding the need to put God in our lives, and bit by bit we are pushing family out too! Our Jobs(Money) get first place so that we can buy the things we need(WANT), cars. toys, food, homes...etc. We are constantly trying to fill God's spot in our Lives with worldly things constantly missing it the deeper and deeper we get. I struggle with this myself! We try to find happiness in the things we buy...a New Car, an ATV, That Bigger Home, a new Wii, Or whatever fits your fancy, then there's the TV, the internet... and so on. We get so caught up in the hustle in bustly, we are laying ourselves down to sleep, and almost forget to Put God in our prayers...and briefly mutter off some monotonous same hold bless this person pray for my family same routine, we are taught as Children.

We need to start looking inwards and outwards, we need to get God right and centre in our Lives and then we need to get out of our little bubbles and start seeing where God wants us to be in this World.

As I regress, I see this problem in the BODY Christ in this world, there are so many that are focused on our differences and who did this and did that, that we are inhibiting the work of the BODY of Christ in this World. WE need to start letting the HEAD do the leading quit the turmoild. We are at disease!

Here are is my intended reply: I am cutting my reply to my friend quite shorter but my full thoughts need to posted somewhere!

To Friend:
Yes very good message, but I fear that there is a blindness and too much emphasis on the Catholic Church as being the BODY of Christ.Yes the Catholic Church is a member of the BODY of Christ like all Christians are! We all have our role to play in the BODY of Christ. Without Paul..we would not be able to share the good news of Christ's Salvation. Peter Himself did not want to spread past his Jewish traditions at first. Paul had to discuss this several times with Peter. We must always be wary not to put a blind eye because our traditions. This Goes for Catholics as well as Protestants. We must all learn to work together as one in the Body of Christ, and quit trying to figure out whose right or wrong! In plain truth... if we all believe that Christ came to die for sins, to save us from ourselves, and pay the price we could not pay on our own, something we can never earn...something freely given! Each and everyone of us is a unique child of God, destined as a plan for His Glory!

We just have different roles to play!
1 Corinthians 12(NIV) is a great read in this area. Corinthians and Romans have been very inspiring for me!Here's a tidbit: 12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.



14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

As a Men if God we need to quit looking inward, and start looking outward to keep spreading the Good News like Christ told us! It is until we can learn to work together as one Body of Christ, then only will we see True fruitfulness. We are who we are from Birth called by God. Some may fall some will go and this Page may definitely help some see their true path, and return them to their place! I can only see this site as another topic for conflict with others. I have seen in the past ten years both sides of the fence, and it drives me nuts how we just can't get along. So much turmoil...it's no wonder people fall away whether from Catholic denominations, or protestant! It is not only a Catholic Crisis, it is a God Crisis, we are just getting so caught up in our own needs,desires, and this world is doing nothing to help us see past that, with new cars, toys, computers, Internet, money. It seems like we are pushing God out the more we advance as a civilization.

I pray that one Day we will all be able to function as a whole in Christ's Body!

GOD's WILL

The other Sunday, I listened to a very interesting sermon about GOD's Will, and it got me thinking, where I was heading to listening to GOD's will for me in my life.

I'll start off with the story...

There was this man that was ready and willing to GOD's will, he was sick and tired of doing things for himself, and was ready to do whatever GOD had planned for him. So one morning praying to GOD he said you know what I am done with my old ways, I am here ready to do your will no matter what it is, I am ready for it. So GOD replies back, I can truly see that your ready so here it is... You see that boulder over there. I want you to push against it everyday and don't stop, that's all you need to do. The man thought that this was pretty odd. but he didn't care he was ready to do GOD's will not matter what. So the next morning he got up early and started pushing on that boulder excited to do GOD's will. He kept up at it for months pushing and pushing for GOD. One day Satan comes around and notices this man pushing the boulder and comes up to him asking him why he is doing this. The man replies, I am doing GOD's will, he asked me to push this boulder and so here I am. Well Satan says, well that's great you have been very faithful, but I have one question to ask you, what have you accomplished pushing this boulder? The man looks up at him and replies: What do you mean by that? Oh nothing, I just see that you have been pushing for quite some time and this boulder hasn't moved a bit. What's the point in pushing it all...it's not going anywhere. The man said you have a point, I wonder why he wants me to push this boulder? Satan replies: Look, you don't have to bother with this. You have done your best. You won't succeed at this. Accept that you have failed. It is useless. Then just take it easy and do the least amount of work you can.

So the next day the man gets up a little later than usual thinking, that boulder's not going anywhere. Days go by and soon he stops pushing the boulder all together. He decided to pray. He prayed and prayed and prayed. "God, I have done what You asked me. I have been very faithful. Every day for hours I have been pushing against that rock, but I have not budged it an inch. GOD replied I noticed you haven't been as faithful, and stopped pushing, let me explain a few things to you: I asked you to push against that rock, and you were obedient. I never asked you to move it. I asked you to push against it."Because you have pushed faithfully and diligently against that rock every day, notice how strong your arms have become. Your back is brown and sinewy, your legs are massive; you are in such better shape now than you were. You have learned a lot because you have been faithful and obedient.

Then God said to the man, "You have trusted me. It's my job to move the rock." I just asked you to push it nothing more.

So what am getting at... good question. Well I have been sort of struggling with my Call from GOD lately, wondering what his will is? Thinking I need to be doing more than what am doing already. I ended finding myself doing less than I was before. So here I am back to where I started accepting the WILL of GOD no mater what the task is small or BIG. I will not try to rush him, I will take whatever he gives me and do it with all my heart and soul, I will keep on PUSHing just like he told me to do and let him do the moving.

YOU ARE LOVED!

A simple prayer...

I just received this e-mail today, and I it had me thinking about our perspective on prayer and life in general.

I really do struggle when people pass e-mails around, about do this and do that and please don't break the cycle, and I actually refuse to do so, because it is just the technical version of a chain letter. The what if e-mail. What if I don't send it will I miss out? What if I do will it really happen? I feel that faith is definitely being abused and cheated in these e-mails, and the extra e-mails that it produces is just but another e-mail. But I wonder if there is something to it, especially when prayer is involved.... I proceed by posting the e-mail...

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A small request: All you are asked to do is keep this circulating. Dear God, I pray for the cure for cancer. Amen All you are asked to do is keep this circulating even if it's to one more person. In memory of anyone you know that has been struck down by cancer or is still living with it.

=========

My heart strings are definitely pulled, and who hasn't been touched by someone they know, or by a personal experience. Cancer is definitely a defining Disease, of this era.



A beautiful prayer to ask, and yet I wonder if people are missing it all. Why aren't we praying to have people come to know Jesus more. There is a key prayer at stake here and it is for all men and women to be able to truly come to know Jesus personally, amidst all this suffering and pain, and a big skip for Joy as we enter into a new life eternal in Christ! I was at Church this Sunday and the lesson was key, to this prayer exactly for freedom in from Dis-ease.



I don't know why people suffer, get sick, and die, but I do know Who can get us through all the suffering that can and probably will affect us at some point in our lives. If we trust in Christ and seek to have a personal relationship with Him. That is to truly seek to understand Him, not just know that he existed and died for us, but to truly have Him Live inside of you with a Love so real so freeing that we can manage any storm that the sea of life has to throw at us. Like Peter walking out to meet Jesus in the sea, we must realize how crazy and helpless it is out there, and start to sink for us to truly see how much we really need Christ to keep us afloat!

Lost in transition...

Have you ever felt like you were losing yourself? Well these past few months I have felt exactly like that. I have just recently moved my family closer to our immediate families, and found my self wondering what the heck was I thinking...don't get me wrong I don't regret changing jobs or anything like, that, this move was the best thing for my sanity, but for my spiritually I don't think so. This has a been huge forging part in my life. I have been submerged in a pool of disbelief, and find myself gasping for life. In my new work place there are a few people that are completely disbelievers in Religion and God, and I am not the first person who is going to try and argue a point, but they too know where I stand in my belief system, of salvation, and faith alone in Christ, not religion... so you will see no sides taken here on religion...faith in Christ and his gift of life for us through his Blood is the only truth I cling desperately on too, but I found myself faltering, falling into my questioning of what is truth, what is the reality of life, a made up system of belief to control a savage society known as humans from wiping themselves off the face of this planet. I am even caught up with pondering thoughts of what is there after we die...even if I should know better, that there is Christ and life eternal...can I trust these promises.... a million plus believers can't be wrong or mislead could they be? I can't believe it, but I feel so caught up in this mundane world of emptiness, nothing out of the ordinary or special, and I wonder, how did I get to this place again. I truly believe that by not being in a Church family for this long period of time, has left me vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy and has allowed him to get me actually start listening again(not literally I don't hear voices : ) ) other then my own thoughts. I just wonder how I can get the courage to live my life for Christ completely to be able to trust in Him completely to have a relationship with him, not just the knowledge of him and what he has done for me and all of us.



I want to know him personally each day, and I wonder how to go about doing that to the fullest.



I need to feel connected again, instead of swept away in this current of life. Someone throw me a rope...