aarontmedeiros.wordpress.com

I know I know, with all these followers how could I ever do this?... I'm sorry for the inconvenience but I have moved this blog to wordpress and slightly shifted it's focus. I hope you all read this and follow me via email or membership over there. It's way more user friendly and offers a lot more customization. again it's at www.aarontmedeiros.wordpress.com GET THERE!

A care in the world

I’m not concerned with what could have been

I care about what will be

I’m not concerned with what I’ve done

I care about what I’m doing

I’m not concerned with who you think I am

I care about who I am

I’m not concerned with people

I care about people

I’m not concerned with our nations future

I care about the kingdom of God

I’m not concerned about falling in love

I care about loving the fallen.

24 Days Later

24 Days till departure. In truth, that marks the date of the departure that encouraged starting this blog in the first place. June 1st is the day I leave for a 7 week vagabonding adventure to South Africa. I've not been much for countdowns as I feel it spoils the excitement of the grand departure, but today I could not resist.
This day represents a spit in the face of common social belief. June 1 represents a new level of audacious decision making that my life has never known. This wonderful day represents so much more than a "trip". It is a change in who I am. It reminds me that despite familial discouragement, despite financial limitations, and despite no experience in independent travel (or any travel for that length of time), that in 25 days (one day of travel) I will be standing on the African continent with no forced agenda or objective. That, my friends, makes me smile.

What Do You Want From Me?

Time and time again I hear people reminding me that God has a plan for my life. It's true He has a plan for everyone. I think the problem for me sometimes is realizing the potential for that plan. At some point, many Christians will find themselves unworthy of God's love, and rightfully so.

I am to the point where I realize God has a great plan for my life. I have come to the acceptance of the fact that His plans for me are beyond my understanding right now. I'm OK with that. What I struggle to remember is the full extent of what God is capable of doing with me. Sometimes I think it's a nice reminder to consider what God HAS done when considering what he CAN do.

Moses wrote the Torah, lead the Israelites out of captivity to a mighty Egyptian empire and into the promised land, spoke audibly to God and saw Him face to face. This man was once a murderer and a coward.

David wrote much of the Psalms and was King of Israel. He killed a lion and bear with his bare hands. He brought down a giant with a sling and stone and saved his people. God called him a man after his own heart. This man once sent someone to his death so that he could have sex with his widowed wife

Paul wrote to and nurtured the early church after Christ's death, keeping the faith strong and insuring the spread of the gospel. Despite imprisonment and torture he carried on Christ's command with zeal. This man once called it his job to arrest or murder all followers of Christ.

Sometimes I think we can be hard on ourselves based on what we have done. But based on what I've read in scripture I think God's far less concerned with what we've done and extremely concerned with what we're going to do. To the adulterous woman in John, who by LAW deserved to die, Jesus simply said, "Go and sin no more". I truly believe God wants us to cast our discomforting pasts to Him and begin working with Him in writing a suitable future. I wonder how our expectations for ourselves would grow if we stopped dwelling on our failures and started focusing on what God's willing to do in spite of them.

Old Testament Moment!

Yesterday I was earnestly praying for some help to become more disciplined in my reading of the word and truly become a student of the scripture. I wanted to find the word of God woven into my heart. Not for the sake of recital but so that I find Him immediately when facing struggles and questions. I want to be grounded in his living word and live in faith that He has already answered my every question. Needless to say, I had developed some horrible bible reading habits.

This morning, at the disturbing hour of 6am (I'm a single 21 year old dude who works at 9, that is EARLY to me!) I heard two loud claps. I jumped up wide eyed and then went into stealth mode, creeping peering around each corner till I was sure no one was breaking into the house. After realizing I was going insane I laid back down to sleep. One more loud clap rang out which sounded like it was coming from RIGHT under my bed. Feeling childish and foolish, I was tempted to get a flash light and get to the bottom of it. I laid there for a moment, now wide awake, and began to let my mind wander.

It's amazing the lengths God will go to get our attention. The fact that I had prayed the VERY NIGHT BEFORE for energy in the morning to read his word had not even crossed my mind. I had prayed wholeheartedly for more time in the morning to read his word... LAST NIGHT! Here I was, nearing 6:30 now, finally putting the pieces together. I grabbed the day by the balls and tore into the Word.

Hey, I'm not by any means assuming that an angel of the Lord was physically clapping it's hands to awake me. I'm not elaborating on the fact that what I read happened to be exactly what I needed for this day. I'm just saying that if you give God the go, if you really give Him the reigns, He WILL do something with you. It's usually going to be uncomfortable and it's always going to be for your benefit. If you have some area in your life that you think needs some help, rest assured, He knows about it. More times than not, He's just waiting for the invite. And do not think for a minute that He's removed from His old school, shocking ways of getting your attention.

Maunday Thursday

We're getting down to it now. Inching ever closer to an Easter celebration and in doing so, we arrive at some of the darkest times of Jesus' life. We look back like this, we take communion, we do so many things to remember and reflect on the past. It is my desire that these reflections prove to be so much more than just petty memento. It was today that Jesus washed the disciples' feet. To this point in my life, I have yet to wrap my head around that act. As if God humbling himself as a human and coming to serve us wasn't great enough, He, less than one day from the time he would die, knelt down and washed his followers' feet.
Someone mentioned a rather quotable question the other day at a bible study and I think it really puts us in the right frame of mind throughout this time. The question goes, "Is the life you're living worth the death Christ died?" Ouch right? The guy who asked it then followed with a disclaimer that we shouldn't feel guilty but we should strive to pour out all that we are into a life worthy of Christ's death. Rest assured, worth and value are in the eye of the beholder. Thank God! Our pathetic offering of a tattered life is all we can give and it is all God wants! He knows how broken we are but, maybe, even more importantly he knows what we were made to be. He knows our full potential.
I look at the disciples during this horribly tasking time in Christ's life. Put yourself in Christ's shoes for a moment (I know, scary right) and imagine how frustrated and disappointed you'd be with your disciples. Peter still doesn't get it... Judas flat out sells you out to be killed for a little silver. After ALL you invested in them... Later on at what might have been your hardest time to date, they're sleeping? Are you kidding me? Ok ok take yourself out of it before you issue a Christ-like backhanding. You kind of get an idea of what kind of love we're dealing with here...
He didn't issue the well deserved beat down. He issued an unprecedented death in the most humiliating, miserable fashion in an epic beat down on death to save us for eternity.
If all He asks in return is that we devote our lives, the ones we've all but ruined, to Him, I think that's something we CAN do.

Sigh No More album by Mumford and Sons

Sigh No More album by Mumford and Sons

As if playing the EP to death wasn't enough, I cannot bring myself to pull this album out of my CD player. Melodies are like cocaine and after few listens I began to realize the gravity of what he's singing about. A deeply spiritual album lyrically with powerful music to support the expression. Nothing sissy about this guy's sensitivity. A line from the title track "Sigh No More": "Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,

It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be"