Holler!! Over the past week God has hit me with something serious. If you know me for more than 5 seconds you know that if I care about something I have a serious passion for it and if I do not care for something I have absolutely no passion for it. There seems to be a small margin of space dedicated for "middle ground." My obvious passions are God, my true O.G. wife, football and every bite of food I eat :) One of my passions is to succeed in God. I am constantly conscious of my decisions down to the minor details. This creates in me a catch 22 ( a good and a bad side) The good.... I am on my game baby! The bad.... constantly evaluating myself. Some would say I exude confidence.... lol.... but that does not alleviate me from wondering "am I really doing all I can? Did I miss an opportunity? Am I in His will for my life?" Basically these questions raise stress in my life.
Stress is intriguing to me because it seems to be a term for our time. My personal opinion.... it is a new form of attack people neglect by blaming circumstance. NO WHERE in the Bible does it say to live with stress. Sure, things happen that cause stress, but we should not let them linger creating a constant state of anxiety and tension. Identifying stress as something I do not want in my life I have really focused on "casting all my cares upon the Lord." Not to live like a hippie, but live with no worries about a circumstance is in God's hands anyway.
If I truly believe God has a future for me, then my destiny is not justified by what I can accomplish, but justified by how I building my faith (Galations 3: 2-5 and 18-19) Stress is the unbelief God will not come through in the clutch. We go to church, pray, say we believe but still struggle with stress. The answer is to pray, read and fast. Ask the Holy Spirit to break you of your stress and build your faith.
By the way, depression goes hand in hand with stress so get free from that too!
What? Did you expect another cute little youth pastor? Sor, I am the real deal....lol

What up teen.life gangsters?
Life is good, services have been banging and in all honesty God is great (not just being cliche). Wes and I started getting up early to go work out.... well I started getting up early and Wes shows up late. I am talking about 5:30am early! It is tough getting out of bed but man I feel so much better through the day. The wife and I started eating better, focusing more on whole food and leaner protein. This was from a prompt last Sunday by Brock Meadows, thanks Brock if you are reading. Which got me thinking.... (oh no, right) he made the comment about our appetite and metabolism are setup for us to be constant grazers, like a cow :) When we eat big meals our metabolism shuts down to store all the excess carbs, sugars and fat. When we eat smaller portions through the day our metabolism revs up. Here is the spiritual side... too many people think Sunday and Wednesday services are enough. Hardly, we need to eat constantly. Jesus referred to himself as the bread of life and in that comparison we need to digest Jesus daily. We can do this by a few major "food" groups; prayer, reading and fasting. Without ALL 3 you are a weak malnutrioned Christian. (true hurts)The oxymoron is a reference between food and now I mention fasting! Know that fasting is not just a food thing but a discipline thing. God might ask you to go without music, movies or your cell for a while... which is harder than food for some. The purpose is to spend that time with Him. One time the disciples came to Jesus and could not figure out why they could not heal a particular man. Jesus answered them by saying "such power only comes by prayer and fasting."
Peace up... M-town down