williamjonathan

today started like so many others days. I woke up rolled out of my bed, I took a shower then head out to the office (aka. local coffee shop). Today is our staff meeting, which is something a little bit normal. I guess because we have a little bit of a different meeting then most. Now that I am thinking about it, we are just a little different all together. Which brings me to my point.

Life… For some it is like ice cream, some cookies, so tofu, yet for a lot of us I feel as thought we life like jello, just follow me for a second. Look at how you live your life (at this point there should be those little bubbles coming from you head). How many time do we conform to the ideals of others? How many time do we strive to meet expectations that no one has established? Try to “fit-in”?

When we do this we do a few things… One we in some ways turn into a monotonous blob of jello by embracing others and their ideals, not ours. While we are striving to find our identity in others, we are losing the ourselves.

Now don’t take this the wrong way. I am not say that you should streak naked proving you individualism. I am just say that you need to embrace who you are, and who God made you to be.

I pray that we all embrace who God has made us to be and is calling us to become. This will help us avoid becoming some thing we are not….

Love.

Last night I got a phone call from my mom. She was calling me to inform me that my uncle that has been waiting for a liver transplant was headed to the hospital to receive one. I was full of joy, as my mother continued to tell the story I was over taken back… The liver was given specifically to my uncle. It was a gift. A lady from my aunt and uncles church that had been praying for him that God would heal him or provide away, ended up giving him the liver. Apparently a few days before her son was in some type of accident and was unable to make it through. So she called them and let them know that she wanted him to take the liver.

My mind for a moment was full of emotion. How great is this love, how compassionate, how selfless. I started to cry as I thought about this mother that had just lost her son. From this moment of death life was given, in a single act of selflessness.

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Love.

I am pretty much a happy person, but over the last little bit. I have been happy for many reasons and many of them have nothing to do with me. Over the past two weeks I have been happy because of the things that are happing in the lives of those who are around me. I have been able to observe things taking place  bring joy to those who I care about.

One of my roommates just got a new car, one is getting lasic eye surgery, two of my friends are getting iphones, one is getting a tattoo, and to top it off amazing things are happing for Center City. Things have shifted off of what is taking place in my life, and is being placed on to the lives of those I care for the most. Don’t get me wrong, I like good things to happen in my life, but that is not where I draw my joy from. I can honestly say that I am happy, and truly happy for those that are around me, rather than myself.

If its ok I want to pray this over you.                                                                                                                                                                                                Open our hearts to draw joy from those around us who are experiencing your blessings in there lives. Let us see you and your grace in their eyes. Let us celebrate with them in their happiness, giving you the glory for it all.

Love.

Its funny to me how so often we feel the need to “chase life”, see others live saying, “I wish we could be them”. When in reality no matter what we think there is someone that is saying the same thing about us, they are wishing that they could have the life that we have.

I think that part of being able to be happy in life is embracing that life that we have. I am not only talking about life as a whole(which we need to do), but in the small things, embracing the moments that are hard, the moments where we wish things were different, the moments we are broken in tears, the moments that we are full of joy, even the moments that we slip and fall on the ice.

These are the times that we will determine our reality. This is easily done in moments of joy or happiness, when we are skipping in meadows of lilies with rainbow filled skies. But we still determine it in the time where the meadow has turned into a dessert with vulture filled skies.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that when you have a horrible day that you should fake it, because that is not real life. Plus your not fooling any one, you are just making yourself look like a fool. But what I am talking about is having a sense of what your life is and moving in it.  We have to sake this false reality that life is always going to go the way we want it to. I am not claiming to have all the answers, but if there is one thing that I have learned in my 23 years it is that. I am not always going to have things go my way.

Over the past year I have made so many mistakes, so many wrong choices, so many right turns, so many dreams have come true, and so many realities have been shoved in my face. In all of these I have had to live, to walk, to continue. I could have lived in my mistakes, and wallowed in the moments fear, letting that determine how I lived my life. But that is not the case, I was not made for that, I am made for much more, and so are you.

Life and Reality is what it is. Yes there will be things that are out of your control. Yes “bad” things will happen to “good” people, and “good” things will happen to “bad” people… live with it.

I am coming to place… where I am standing looking around to every side and come what may, nothing will take my joy, my peace, and my dreams.

Because while I determine my reality and  joy, it is based not in myself but in Jesus Christ and what He did for me.

Proverbs 30:11  Romans 5:8 Nehemiah 8:10 Galatians 2:20