Always say Never

Hello.

Kinda nervous right now. I'm about to try my hand at blogging.

Who knows what's going to happen? Oh well, I guess we won't find out until I try.

I would give an introduction of myself and everything, but I don't want this blog to be about me really. While it will include things and events that happen in my life, my life is not really my own. I belong to someone bigger than myself, and I want my experiences and actions to reflect that. I want to be everything I'm called to be, but in order to do that, I can't let myself get in the way. SO I'm going to do my best not to, but I am human.

College. That's where I am now. That's what I am now, and I love it. I go to a very small college in a very small town called Greenville College in (you guessed it) Greenville County, Illinois. This place reminds me so much of home, mainly because of the smallness of it. The community is great, the staff is WONDERFUL, and the presence of Jesus Christ is right in your face. Just the way it should be.

Recently, I've heard a lot of sermons and pastors talking about high points and low points in our lives (usually referred to as "mountains and valleys") and how we can overcome those times. Friends, family, prayer, reading the bible, yadda yadda yadda. These things are common in every one of the sermons I've heard. (and when I say yadda yadda, I'm not trying to lessen the importance of these things. I just feel as though sometimes, people who are going through rough times want to hear something new, because they feel like that's all they have ever heard)

Yesterday though, my roommate Bennett Wilson (add him on facebook. Cool guy.) and I went to his church in Indiana to play at what they call "Ignite" (this is a monthly worship service they do to kind of...relight the fire within. Pretty cool.) and his dad spoke on this very subject.

It was probably the best sermon on this subject I've ever heard.

(Sorry Perry, you did well. But Bret has got you beat I think. Hahahahaha, as if Mr. Noble is going to read this! Hahaha..haha...ugh)

He mentioned that without valleys, there would be no mountains. Without hard times, there would be no good times, simply because we would have nothing to compare it to. He used a shepherd and sheep analogy. During the summer, he said, as all the snow melts off of the mountain, the shepherd takes his sheep up to the top, where the grass will be long and lush for the summer. The journey to the top is very, very hard, but the shepherd KNOWS this path like the back of his hand. He has done this a million times, and he would never take his sheep somewhere that he didn't know. He would never put his sheep through something that he wasn't sure he could handle. The shepherd knows every nook and cranny of the path to the top, and is with his sheep the entire way. Perry Noble says it very well when he says (here you go! I AM quoting you!) "That friday when everything seemed lost, when it seemed like God wasn't in control and Satan had won was when God was MOST in control, and three days later, on that sunday, His glory was revealed in the most radical of ways! He conquered death on that day!"

So what we can get out of this is God is NEVER going to get you into something that He doesn't know whether or not you can handle it. God is faithful, and will NEVER leave you. God will NEVER forsake you, and if you're going through something and you feel like there is no way God is in the situation, think again. Gods glory is reveled most through our rough times.

I think I'm done blogging for now. I want to leave you with some Crowder lyrics (I will probably do this often.) This is from a song called "Shadows" on his new c.d. "Church Music" Go out and buy it. Support the incredible things these guys do.

Life is full of light and shadow
O the joy and O the sorrow
O the sorrow

And yet will He bring
Dark to light
And yet will He bring
Day from night

When shadows fall on us
We will not fear
We will remember

When darkness falls on us
We will not fear
We will remember

When all seems lost
When we're thrown and we're tossed
We remember the cost
We rest in the
Shadow of the cross

NEVER fear. Friday may be here, but Sunday's coming.