How I Met Your Mother

    No matter what day of the week it is, what time of the day it is or who is talking to me, three things will always be true. I love Jesus, bacon, and How I Met Your Mother. Despite its propensity for crude humor, its highly sexualized episode topics, or general ridiculousness I believe that it is one of, if not the most practical television shows on air.

    For those of you who might not know anything about the show, the premise is that the main character Ted Mosby has sat his kids down and is telling them the story, in excruciatingly minute detail, how he met their mother. He talks many times about how close himself and his future wife come to meeting before they actually do meet and how if they had met prior to when they did that they would not have been married because neither one of them had gone through certain things in life that mentally and emotionally had gotten them ready to meet and fall in love when they did. 

     Our life is a lot like that. While we may not sit down one day and tell our kids every story pertaining to how we became mentally and emotionally ready to fall in love with our spouse when we did, we will at some point look back at our life and see all of the mountains and valleys we had gone through along the way and see that there are some valleys that if we had not gone though we would not have been ready for other mountains. Some quirks about our personality might not make any sense right now but we will reach spot in a certain job, or a specific city, or with that special some one where everything just clicks and you are able to use hindsight to see 20/20 into why you are that way, why you have that insecurity, why you had to deal with that valley or that sin. As Christians trusting in God gives us incredible boldness and joy to know that the deficiencies that we have, the sins we struggle day in and day out with, the emotional heart ache we go through, or even the monotonous daily tasks we slog through will all be used to purify our character into that of Christs (though we also know we wont reach perfection till Heaven), but more importantly they will be used to bring glory to God and to highlight the beautiful love displayed by Christ on the cross. 

   So this year trust God. You will go through rough patches, you will struggle with sin, and you will deal with insecurities. We’re human and that is a given. During those struggles though that is the time to look back through the valley you are in and see all of the life and that God has raised up around you. That is the time to reflect on His faithfulness, not just to you but since the dawn of time. And while you reflect on His faithfulness allow that time of reflection, of prayer, of worship to inform your trust as you seek to trust Him daily walking forward.

MICHAEL GUNGOR On The Problem With The Christian Music Industry

MICHAEL GUNGOR On The Problem With The Christian Music Industry.

Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging

 Ok, so I don’t really know where to start because while this post is intended to be about relationships and marriage it doesn’t start there. It starts with who Jesus is and how he relentlessly pursues me, and pursues you, despite our attempts to hide and our pleading that He leave us to our sin.

Over the past month I probably went through some of the roughest waters I had ever traversed as a believer. I strayed, very far, from God and despite me telling myself I want to find Him, I knew inside that I didn’t. I fell, hard, into the trap that a lot of college students fall into: I didn’t want to be so different from everyone else. I just wanted to fit in. Whether that meant lewd joking, poor language. disrespectful actions, or roaming eyes. I was determined to fit in with the people at my school. I probably would have too if it was not for the persistent love and prodding from my Heavenly Father.

Through some random YouTube videos he began to quickly bring me back to Him and show me that not only was I not ready for a relationship but that I deserve Hell for blatantly and obnoxiously sinning against Him and spitting in His face. The videos were on a YouTube channel named Blimey Cow and were written by the channel’s creator Jordan Taylor. I’ll post links to the videos down below but the videos dealt with relationship questions like “when should I get into a relationship” or “7 tips for a successful relationship.” 

It got me thinking of how poor of a job I do at the things they suggested and here I am trying to fit in and find someone to date but yet I don’t even know how to be a good friend to the people I go to school with because my relationship with my Father was in major neglect mode. On the side of my YouTube, while was watching one of these videos, was a suggestion to watch the video for “All Glory Be to Christ” by King’s Kaleidoscope from Mars Hill church. So I decided to watch this video, the link is posted below as well, and it really brought me back to what the whole goal of every relationship, every friendship, every marriage is. And that is to simply to bring glory to Jesus. To paint a picture to the world through our love, our kindness, our ability to not judge, or our ability to sympathize, and to stand up for those that cant stand up,who our Heavenly Father and how glorious He is. 

I think, much more in Christian circles then in mainstream culture, these is still a tendency to put a large emphasis on finding that certain someone who will complete our life and we will live happily ever after as the perfect couple. But our thinking about marraige is completely misplaced, and it shows. Marriage is not about finding someone to complete yourself or to fulfill a vision you have about what your life will look like. Marriage is about making a choice that you and your bestfriend can live together and love each as Christ loves His church and too model that for people. It’s not an attempt at perfection or mere mockery of the cross but of two humans saying “We aren’t perfect, we don’t pretend to be. But we are going to love each other, through the power of the Holy Spirit, as best as we can and show people what a God-centered love looks like” 

So when you’re looking for a potential spouse here are some tips: 

1. Be old enough. if you are no where close to actually marrying some one then don’t think about dating her. This isn’t practice. If anything you’ll get really good at ending relationships. Realistically you should be in college first.

2. Know yourself. Another reason why I suggest waiting is that you wont have that great of an understanding of who you are and what God’s intimate desires are for your life until you have lived life a little. Gone through some trials, faced changes, faced peer pressure and temptations and had to make real choices.

3. Know God. While no one will ever have a degree in God you need have a solid faith life first otherwise your relationship WILL get in the way and you will have to choose between one or the other. Study the Bible, pray, volunteer in a local church. Become, or be on your way, to real Biblical man, or woman, -hood before dating someone.

4. Look for someone on the frontlines. Don’t flirt to convert. Serve God and love people and you will find someone serving God in the same way you are where you think “Hey this person is really cool. There is potential here.” The other alternative is finding just any random Christian and trying to fuse the individual passions, goals, and desires God has given each of you for His Kingdom into one. In otherwords two non-battle tested believers running to the front lines to test out a new relationship.

5. Don’t focus on looking for the one. Focus on becoming a good friend and serving God and the rest will come.

 

this video has really been weighing on my heart today that as Christians we aren’t called to small, quiet, sheltered lives but scream and proclaim who Jesus is and what Jesus has done to everyone