Waking, Outside, Naked [Where to talk to God]

I believe some pretty extraordinary things. 

The first, I believe that you, I and every thing in existence was intentionally created and designed by an intelligent being. Crazy...

The second, I believe that being loves his creation (me and you) and earnestly desires to be in relationship with us... Even crazier, I know...

Daily, feebly, but intentionally I take the offer that stands before me, the offer to commune with the designer of my existence. For my entire life I have done this, sometimes more, sometimes less, but always moving ever so slightly into a deeper connection with God.

Should you want to know your creator, I have listed the three best places I have found to meet, talk, converse, understand, hear, yell, scream, praise, love, admire, feel, and know Him. The places I can feel his presence most, and the places I have found the most freedom to humbly express my honest, raw, feelings to the one who knows me best.

1. Waking 

My eyes open, revealing a gentle light falling across my celling. My mind slowly follows, and now I am awake... So I talk to God. I talk to God now, before I enter the day, before I am faced with the stress, and onslaught of 1,000 worries that come with this thing called life. 

I find when I lift up my worries, fears, requests, and thanks, to God, before the harsh, and unrelenting influences of life reach me, I am better equipped to handle the twists and turns that await me. I am able to make a connection to my creator giving me perspective on the life I am called to live this day.

1. Outside

I look, as far as my eyes can see nothing, nothing but the raw handiwork of God. Nothing man made, or man intended, or man thought. Only the thoughts, intentions and creation of God to surround me. It is here I can breathe deeply, and begin to sever the man-made from the God-made allowing me to directly connect with God as I am in direct connection with his creation. Being here inspires awe, stillness, and intimacy, as if I am in an artists gallery with only the artist and his work. It is here, that in addition to being known, I can know better my creator and allow my soul to draw closer to His.

1. Naked

Having been diagnosed with severe OCD at a young age, I quickly learned the shower is my safe place, my refuge, my sanctuary, a place where continuos cleansing water falls on me taking the “dirtiness” I feel down the drain never to haunt me again. So naturally I found that is was also a perfect place to talk to God. But not for the obvious reason, I found I loved to talk to God there, beneath the rushing water not because I was clean, but instead because I was vulnerable... Interestingly enough, to become clean, either physically, or spiritually, we must allow ourselves to become vulnerable in some way or anther. So the very physical act of becoming naked and cleansing my self, suddenly put my heart in a position to talk to God in a vulnerable, open and raw way. Away from any walls (physical or spiritual) I so often put up. Being naked and open in front of God allowed me to connect more deeply to his heart.

Selling God

Have you ever felt the deep longing to fill the void of something you can't quite explain? Have you ever felt a pain so deep, that would have done anything to take it away? Have you ever looked in the mirror and were scared of what you saw and wondered how you or anyone could ever truly love you if they truly knew who you were? 

If not, congratulations, awesome, now is your cue to move on to the next post...

But if in some way these questions articulate a place you have been before; that means you are not alone. But more importantly In fact, it most likely means you are human. 

But here's another question, have you ever been promised that to live a happy, fulfilling, comfortable life all you have to do is believe in God? And the is the answer to all your confusion, pain and discomfort is accepting him? Then upon following the numbered instructions of "accepting God" (like a business deal) the confusion, pain, and discomfort persisted? Me too...

So what now?

Like the adage goes "There's a God shaped hold in all our hearts" and the things we have done to fill that hole, has left a wasteland of broken people... So what do we do? We keep on looking. And some of us actually find God- but so often even when we do, we find that all along we were really more interested with trying to fill the "God shaped hole" with stuff we want, that wasn't all that "God-ish". We find all of the sudden that this God that fits in our hearts, actually doesn't especially care that we get what we want, but rather cares that we get Him; what we need.

We like God and all, but we maybe thought that when He said he would "fill the void in our heart" it would be with funner stuff, that would make life easy... This is the point, where many of us look straight into the face of our creator and say "Thanks, but no thanks." and go on living our life as if He wasn't the answer, and all of these things we would rather have will do the trick.

It's a scary feeling coming to the realization that nothing in this world will give us what we thought we wanted... Not even God. 

We like the idea of God but have found God isn't all that marketable and doesn't come with the "swag" we thought he would... SO, we (I) begin to sell God... Sell to ourselves and others. We sell God, like the rest of the world sells drugs, sex, money. Promising (convincing) ourselves and others, that God will make us "all better", take away all our pain, and make us happy...

But those who have followed Jesus can tell you, this is simply not true. Though its a PR nightmare, the answer to your problems (Jesus/God) is not going, to make you happy, take away all the "hard" stuff, or give you everything you think you want... Instead He is going to give you Himself. 

While this is a hard pill to swallow for some, the reality we come to when we let go of our expectations- is that when we enter in a relationship with our very creator, we actually get more than all of our "wants" could ever begin to conjure up.

We begin to realize that...

When we wanted to have our pain taken away... God gives us the strength to walk through it.

When we wanted a whole new story... God give us the chance to redeem the one we're in.

When we wanted to have our scares disappear... God gives us the chance to turn them into something beautiful.

Jesus, didn't come and live a comfortable life, pain, discomfort, and worry free, he lived a life of hurt, and pain, struggle and ultimately sacrifice. Jesus didn't model for us an easy life, but a beautiful one.

Beautiful is always harder, but always better.

Jesus, does not simply numb, or take our pain away, like that of any drug can promise... But instead Jesus walks with us through our pain and turns it into something beautiful. He takes broken, hurt, discombobulated us and turns us into something beautiful.

-Nathan

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photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dianaeftaiha/5261952297/">Diana Eftaiha</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>

Quote #2...

Quote #2

Do we believe there is a design? If not, we are left to our fumbling human guesses at putting the pieces of an obviously broken world together.

Created You Were

Remember today that you were designed- Intentionally and beautifully.

You were not carelessly just thrown here, you are not the result of a random molecular happening, or a thoughtless mass of cells.

Instead realize this

You were made, designed and created with passion and love, you were given a purpose and will, your life has meaning, and you have the ability to live fully the story you were MADE to tell.

Let this effect you today, let this inspire you to know your creator more and find the purpose encoded on your heart.

YOU

photo taken by my extremely talented roommate Ben Moen

Remember this today.

You are not an accident, you are not some random collection of cells wandering life aimlessly. NO, you are "fearfully and wonderfully made" designed by the master artist with purpose and intent. You are LOVED SO much, that no matter what your past holds or your present feels like or your future threatens you are NEVER to late to find redemption and live a beautiful story that was made JUST for you. Know that today, TODAY you have a creator (think on that for a second, you were CREATED) that has given his life just so you could have a personal connection -a RELATIONSHIP- with the one who powerfully holds the galaxies, masterfully engineered the atom, beautifully spins (at a perfect balance) all of nature and with passion and love created..... You.

Who we were Vs. Who we could become

"As humans we have such a hard time moving forward, simply because all we can see is where we have been. But when we take hold of our Creators hand, suddenly we are being lead into the person our Creator knew we could be all along. Our designer has the amazing ability to see our past knowing who we were, but also see our amazing future and who we could become. Take ahold of the Creators hand today, so that you can one day sooner be on your way to becoming the beautiful creation you were designed to be."