One of the questions that were asked is, "Are you fishing for men?" I really started thinking about his and it made me turn back to Matthew 4:19 which says "And he said to them, 'follow me, & I will make you fishers of men'." I live on a lake full of fish! Growing up me and my brother would always want to go fishing!! So we would dig for an hour to get as many worms as we could, then go to our backyard and start fishing! He was totally a pro! He caught all of the fish and I would only catch them with his help. I on the other hand, pretty much wanted to do anything but sit there and wait patiently for a fish to bite. I obviously made an awful fisherman! In this verse in Matthew, Jesus says to his four disciples, "Follow me." When you begin to think of discipleship, Jesus is the perfect example of the first step of finding someone. Jesus knew he wanted a small group of twelve men. He, even within the twelve, had an inner core group of three men. Jesus went to these men and just said "Follow me," and in verse 20 it goes on to tell us that, "At once they left their nets and followed him." "At once," "immediately", "vaminos," these men responded right then and right there. There was something so magnetic about this Jesus that these men dropped everything and followed him immediately. I wonder if we are like that in our schools. People see something so different. Younger Christians are encouraged by us and non-Christians may persecute us or ponder us. Can you imagine Jesus approaching you and saying these same words? I pray that I would react just as the four newest disciples by following at once. After deciding to follow Jesus, I wonder if I should look at Christ's example and find someone to say to, "Follow me as I follow Christ." Although I might not be a great fisherman of fish, I pray I am a constant fisherman of people to pour my life into as Jesus did when He walked this earth.
So basically I want to constantly be pouring love and life into others and create relationships with everyone I know! I want to be heart broken for my friends and for people who aren't my friends! I want to get out into the world and be a friend to the friendless!! I love the song "My own little world" by Matthew West!! Its for sure one of my favorites!! It is so easy for, like I explained in my very first blog, us to have "tunnel-me-vision". Its like we don't pay attention to the rest of the world!! One verse that always sticks out to me is, "I throw a twenty in the plate, but I never give till it hurts, and I turn off the news when I don't like what I see. Yeah its easy to do when its population me." Umm hi mister west, where you writing to me when you wrote this song?? haha! To be completely honest I never watch the news because it scares me!! And after I have a babysitting job or something like that where I make some money, I'll put five dollars in the offering plate at church, but I NEVER give till it hurts!! at the Tenth Avenue North concert, Matt talked about how so often we are like, "yeah I can't help this dude because taxes on my $600,000 house are pretty tight. or I have two new cars I have to pay insurance for" and stuff like that! We have become so selfish!! I want to totally become selfless!! As much as I feel incapable to help someone who is in a low part of their life, I'm going to do it anyways! Because no matter how inadequate I am, God can totally work through me!! I think that is so cool! I'm so tired of the world referring to Christians as hypocrites and I'm so tired of it being true! In order to stop myself from being a hypocrite, some days I may have to get my hands dirty. I may risk my reputation or maybe cause people to question my choice of friends. It's time for Christians to STOP walking past others who are suffering on the side of the road. I refuse to let fear stop me! If I were one of the people walking past the Levite traveler, I want to be the good Samaritan!! I want to visit people lying in the ditch that the traveler was in! I want to view the world in a totally different way!! More than anything I want to abandon my comfort boundaries and love others not for what they do but because the almighty GOD loves them!!
When was the last time I was heart broken for other people? Daily my heart goes out to people who are struggling and I love reaching out to them! I've been in really tough places in my life, and to see other people hurt makes me hurt. Constantly my heart hurts for others that I can see are hurting! For me, what stood out of the sermon we heard, was when he was saying "where are the tears?" To cry in front of other people is extremely tough for me. To be honest, when I am going through struggles no one really knows. I keep everything bottled up because I don't want people to feel sorry for me or to feel like they have to be nice to me or love me because I'm going through a rough time. The last time I openly cried with people was the choir trip in Dallas last year. The people in my room I was really close friends with and it was totally cool what God did! The night started off with us just being crazy and having a silly fashion show in the room! (plus a little bit of a dance party) :) but then it turned into a five hour Bible study!! from 12 am to 5 am we just talked about things on our heart. Hearing what the other girls had to say and finally admitting all my struggles going on in my life just made me cry uncontrollably. It was totally a good cry though! A cry I needed! For probably 30 minutes all we did was pray over each other and it was soo awesome!! It created this awesome bond between all of us and it was so great to experience that. We also took about thirty minutes and wrote letters to each other telling the other person everything we adore about them and just encouraging each other! One of the girls, Leigh Lloveras, was my very best friend in 8th grade and one of my best friends in 9th grade. She no longer goes to Houston Christian, but she was on the choir trip with us. We were talking together and she told me one of the things that made her cry was seeing me cry. She talked about how I've watched her cry and fall to pieces so many times and I've just been there for her and comforted her. She said she'd never thought about it but for two years of knowing me and being my best friend she had never seen me cry, and seeing me cry made her fall apart. I remember after telling the girls everything that was going wrong in my life they were all so shocked, as would be probably the whole grade would have been if they knew. I really am just genuinely a happy person and whenever pain comes into my life I try to ignore it as much as I can, and then certain days when I get home it all falls apart. I'm also really emotionally strong so thats also why I dont cry. In school I'm constantly smiling and saying hello to everyone in the hallways because thats what I love to do! So whenever I am having a bad day I just try to cover it up so that noone feels inclined to ask me about whats is wrong or anything. I know it is soo silly! Anywayss, Im getting so off topic! but my main point is that all six of us crying together and praying over each other made us so much more close! I think the speaker made some really awesome points and I think it for sure can be a good thing to just cry with people! The stories he told where awesome! I really enjoyed hearing this sermon and it totally opened my eyes to new things!! :)
"Father break my heart for what breaks yours. Give me open hands and open doors. Put your light in my eyes and let me see, that my own little world is not about me."
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