Shhh. Do you hear that? That, my friend, is the sound of nothing...and I like it. These last few months have been a blur. Country hopping will do that to you, I suppose. I feel like I'm so different than I used to be. Even in the last six months Jesus has changed me...like not just changed as in I lift my hands during worship, I don't say crap anymore (I still do), or reading my Bible more, you see all that is physical stuff. I'm talking about genuine, deep heart and personality change. Jesus started breaking me about six or seven months ago, and this summer was like pouring gas on the fire. Northern Ireland always screws me up in the best way possible. Going to the Czech Republic and living with Petra really messed with me too. Maybe that what He wants though. Maybe He doesn't want to leave us alone. Maybe he wants to mess with our minds, circumstances, friends, hearts, and habits.
I am perfecting the art of aloneness. I have felt uncommonly lonely since I have been back in the States. Living with Paul and Val, Josh M., Petra, Lauren, and Addison this summer taught me so much. Coming home to my parents (who are fantastic and so amazing by the way) has been a culture shock in and of itself. Going from a myriad of teens and roommates, to two is peculiar. There is a huge difference between loneliness and aloneness, I am learnin. Loneliness is a lack of people, aloneness is cloaking yourself in silence and presence of God. I am doing a study and the pastor said, "Lonely people have a unique way of encountering God in a way that only the lonely can." Maybe God wants me to be alone right now. Maybe all my friends are scattered for a reason. Serenity in Boston, David in Dallas, Petra in the Czech Republic, Lauren in Washington, the Bowmans and all of Saintfield in N. Ireland, Niki in Denver, Ryan and Matt in Fort Collins... Maybe just as a husband and wife move away from their family and only have each other, God wants to run away with me; beckoning me to delve into His character.
Reading the Old Testament weirds me out. It makes me feel like I don't even know this God I so deeply adore. It's like living with someone your entire life and then they do something that makes you go, "Have you always been like this?" Like brushing their teeth weird or eating Oreos funny or something. I don't know if that makes sense... anyways, I have had a recent fascination with this OT God. I need to understand Him better.
I feel like He has opened my eyes to some crazy stuff though. Which has been epic to say the least. People are going to get saved....I feel it. People I work with are thinking and asking me questions like never before. Tears have been shed, hearts are broken, and lives are a mess...its perfect. Paul Bowman always tells me that stuff grows best when there is crap around it. Like corn/people. For the first time in a long time...nope, for the first time ever, I am begging God for people's souls at my work. I am such a Bible and text person that sometimes when the Holy Spirit is thick in the kitchen of my work it gives me goose bumps (or life bumps as Steph likes to call them!) and is creepy, yet so awesome. I wonder what will happen next in His story.
I am so thankful for the people who are around me here and spiritually deep. My amazing family, Steph, Taylor, Esther...several others (Phil Wickham and Brandon Heath have been my buddies as of late haha). I love my family back in N. Ireland that is still supporting me and loving on me, and Petra and Josh M. have been amazing.
So where ever you are right now do me a favor? Turn off your music or whatever and listen....do you hear that? Sit in the aloneness. Sit in the being and stop doing.
Hosea 2:14, 16 "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. "And it shall be, in that day,” Says the LORD, “ That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ And no longer call Me ‘My Master.'"
