31 Bits about Me

This past week I turned 31 and it was probably the best birthday I've had in a decade or so.  I think the thing I loved most about it was that my friends and community knew me well enough to know things that I loved.  There is nothing greater in life than being known.  I was showered with so much love and gifts and words and I felt like the Lord just kept saying this is just a small fraction or shadow of how much He delights in me and loves me.  He is the Ultimate gift giver and He is soo good.

All that to say, 31 had an amazing start and thought it would be fun to list 31 fun facts that define ME.  Cause one of the best things I think about getting older is that I know my Creator so much better and the specific ways he has made me.

Cheers!

#1- After 31 years, I finally drink my coffee black.

#2- It is very rare for me to sneeze and it not to become a conversation starter.

#3- Salvation stories always make me cry.

#4- I am a naturally shy person.

#5- I love people but would prefer a heart to heart over small talk any day. 

#6- My greatest fears in life are insignificance and failure.

#7- I want to own a small house in the city one day. I love all things urban.

#8- My favorite beverage in the summer is a ice-chest-kind-of-cold coke.

#9- My favorite kind of meal is family style and I love a table full of people and food.

#10-  Praying that God will exponentially increase my spiritual children in my thirties. 

#11- Summer is my favorite season.

#12- Not sure if I will ever get a family of my own but I am more hopeful this year than ever. 

#13- I love puns and alliterations.

#14-  I really love to read even though my extrovertedness never allows myself to do it.

#15- I hate speaking publicly in front of people & until recently refused to do it.

#16- I love to host people in my home.

#17- I am fairly straightforward which is my greatest strength and weakness.

#18- Words of Affirmation and Quality Time are my top two love languages.

#19- I love to hear people's stories.  Especially when it involves redemption.

#20- Dark and handsome men have always been my type & always make my head turn.

#21- I am way more rational and logical than emotional.

#22- The beach is my sanctuary and my jam.

#23- Go Spurs Go! Spurs will always be my homeboys.

#24- I'd much rather spend the day with a baby or teenager than a elementary aged kid.

#25- Foreign countries and foreigners make my heart come alive.

#26- I was called into ministry as a high school kid & love that God lets me fulfill that calling daily. 

#27- I long to see the supernatural in my life in greater ways than ever before in my 30's.

#28- My Kingdom dream is to see an unreached people group come to know Christ.

#29- If I could have any talent in the world I would want to flow. Total rapper at heart.

#30- I love skylines and the open night sky equally.

#31- I will never be a morning person even though I really like the mornings.

Jesus Our Only Hope

When I was in graduate school, I took one of the most depressing classes in the history of higher education.  It was taught by a UN employee who specifically dealt with crisis management and peace treaties.  It was a landscape of how countries all fit together like a chess board and how each move that each nation-state makes directly effects all the surrounding nation-states.  There are so many unforeseen unintended consequences of things that were meant for good. We talked about world hunger, boy soldiers, civil war, genocide, the HIV epidemic and other super depressing topics that all ended with the basic conclusion the world is f'd up and there is no solution.   Non-profits, the government, the law, the media, and good people have been wildly unsuccessful in finding a solution to the world deepest problems.  The world seems hopeless.  But then I hear this truth whispered to me... "I am the hope this world needs"...

In the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot about slavery in my generation.  That there are 27 million people sold as a commodity for someone else’s gain.  That the women that are purchased undergo a brutality of torture, gang rape, and abuse that typically ends in their brokenness, loss of identity, and death. The brutality and reality of this injustice literally leaves you undone.  Again, the solution to trafficking seems pretty daunting and hopeless.  But again, so clearly, I hear those words again so gently whispered... the Church is the vehicle for the hope I have for them... I am their hope...

As a pastor, you get invited into the messiness of other people’s lives.  You see the effects of basic every day sin like anger, hate, selfishness, divorce, unforgiveness, pride, and sexual sin. You deal with the residue of sin and broken identities and people in need of hope or a way out.  Or sometimes you make hospital visits for people with cancer, unforeseen sickness, or chronic illness and you can’t help again but wonder how the world has come to this place of sadness.  Again, the truth of Revelation 21 came to me, I am making all things new, put your hope in ME... point people to me because I am their only hope. 

The more I travel, the more I learn, the more people I meet, the more I’m convinced that Jesus really is the only Hope for this world. Whether the need for hope is on a worldwide scale, on behalf of someone you love, or you are the one in desperate need, the solution is always the same: Jesus.  Jesus is the only hope for the world, for communities, for me.   He is the one that saves.  He restores.  He redeems.  He heals.  He makes peace. He transforms culture.  He restores our true identity.  He is HOPE.

And then I keep thinking about the Church.  And the individuals like myself who have this Hope that make up the church.  And how it’s our responsibility but more specifically our joy to share the Hope of Jesus to the world.  And I will just speak for myself, I am too silent.  Too reserved.  Too scared.  I don’t share the Kingdom enough.  I don’t share the solution to the absolve of evil, darkness, and despair as often as I should. The Church has a unique position to actually see transformation that the secular world can never achieve.  Because Jesus has called his people to be the plan for salvation for all peoples to come to know him.  It's the church's privilege to be the one's to lead people to the Kingdom.

Just earlier this week, I was reading this passage in Hebrews and I was so blessed by the how trustworthy and true his promises are.  He gifts us his hope and he wants it be the anchor of our souls so much that he gave us his word and the promise of His covenant so that we could be confident of hope. 

Hebrews 6:16-20,

16 Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. 17 God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. 18 So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. 19 This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. 20 Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.

For those reading this, I don’t know what your greatest need is.  What area in your life you need hope.  But I can tell you that Jesus is your only hope.  No person, drug, event, money, or status will provide any clarity for the dark or challenging situation you find yourself in, but Jesus is what you need.  He is true and trustworthy.  He will give you Himself and provide a way out for you.  And if there isn’t immediate relief to your need, His presence and truth in His promises will help you persevere through the storm.

Jesus is the solution.  He always has been.  And there is such sweet sweet joy for those that find Him. And there a privileged passed down for those that have this HOPE to be relentless is our declaration of who He is... hope for the world.