I did one of the best things I have ever done this past weekend.

Often we recognize the value of a moment after it has already passed us.
For me, this experience was different.
I felt the importance and weight that it would speak to my soul as I walked through it.

I hung out around a campfire with a bunch of friends and we shared conversations of pure encouragement to each other. We complimented each other on what we were doing right and spurred each other on to continue to pursue a life of pure obedience and adventure. I've written often about my longings for moments like these. It is cool to write about one that actually happened.

Often times people you know well don't know how well you know them.
They don't know what you notice.
The greatest encouragement can come out of just telling people what you notice them doing well.

My dad gave me an heirloom gift for Christmas.
It's one of the most unique and awesome gifts that I've ever gotten.
Yes, it's an axe.

It makes me think, what am I passing on?

"We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once."
-Calvin Coolidge

So often the "everything" list becomes so long that it eventually falls into a pile of nothing.
I am a person that is prone to wander.
I know now why that is.
It's because my mind tells me I cannot do one thing unless I do everything.
Here's the thing...without doing something you never do anything, much less everything, and all the things end up sitting in a pile of nothing.
So we need anointing...anointing with the belief that we can start by just doing something.

And the starting always happens now.

So I was reading a magazine and found one thing I want to do this year:

"Turn a trip into a quest.
You don’t have to plan an exotic or expensive getaway to generate good stories in your life. You can easily turn a few day trips into a full-fledged quest—to find the best chimichanga in the tri-state area, to visit your great-great grandfather’s grave, to see both the Creation Museum and the Smithsonian’s Human Evolution Exhibit, to hike to each of your state’s top-ten waterfalls, to take the highway instead of the interstate, to visit every drive-in theater within a 200 mile radius, to get a picture in front of the church where your parents got married. Trips are about getting from Point A to Point B. Quests are about doing it in style."

Ichthus.

What was once a symbol marking the graves of saints is still a stamp of death.
Those who died for their faith were buried in hidden graves in catacombs.

Today, our graves are not so hidden.
We display our tombs for all to see.

You could say they are just a heap of metal, but it's so much more than that, isn't it?
It is a symbol of our status, success, and self-worth.

We mark our expensive cars with the same "fish" that was once reserved for graves.
Are these markings not still placed on the graves we create for ourselves with our consumerism?

Now, in America you need transportation.
You need clothes.
I'm not trying to be naive or judgmental.

I'm just trying to ask myself where my amazement lies.
Is it in momentary distraction aided by tangibles or in things actually worth basking in?
It just might be that the best way to fix this problem is to refocus our amazement.

We are all dying.
It's just is what we are dying for worth it?

Take a listen.
Follow that listen by action.
I have much to learn about being a "doer and not a hearer only that deceives himself."

Check out this link.
It's rare, but sometimes you get to look what the Bible calls "the gospel" right in the face.
Do I carry this same good news this obviously?

Maybe this Christmas we could join together in the revolt of true Christianity.
Maybe we could revolt against our selfishness by not consuming but giving.
Maybe this season of advent could be a conspiracy...a joining together to oppose a power.
Maybe our churches and our souls have forgotten that Christianity is not a religion made by man contained by man's own power.
Maybe we could acknowledge that it is a revolution of doing literal things.
Maybe if I took my money and you took yours and decided to pour, not our funds alone, but our love into these people things would change.

Actually, that is not a maybe.
It would change things.

Maybe you'll join in?



My typical excuse: I don't know how to help and where to donate. And even then, how do I know that my money will get to the people in need?
My response this time: The link is right there. I have to do something. They have proven they are legit by their transparency and stories. Do I really have so small a faith that I can't even trust God to use my money in the best way he sees fit after I have obeyed and given it?