15The LORD has taken away His judgments against you,
He has cleared away your enemies.
The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst;
You will fear disaster no more.

16In that day it will be said to Jerusalem:
“Do not be afraid, O Zion;
Do not let your hands fall limp.

17“The LORD your God is in your midst,
A victorious warrior.
He will exult over you with joy,
He will be quiet in His love,
He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.


I friggin love these verses. In verse 16 Zephaniah says,"Do not let your hands fall limp." I picture myself defeated, beat up, exhausted, and about to lose all confidence. Then the encouragement of God being in our midst who is always victorious. He then shows how God delights in us and is quiet in His love. I love that as well. I was thinking how I get all those loud thoughts going through my head, the worry, and the frustrations I face that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere. A love that quiets, then the next verse rejoicing with shouts of joy. Shouts of joy because we are His beloved.

King James Only

"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.

We talked a bit on translations of the text today and I thought about this verse. I remember back when I was in Costa Rica and I was in a men's bible study. A discussion arose about which bible translation is the most accurate and some of the men were making fun of people who read the message version or the new living translation...ect. I was recently given a new living translation and I had it with me as this discussion arose. I found myself hiding the bible from the view of the men as the one who was most stark in his stance belittled the "lesser accurate translations" as if the one he chose was the most accurate. This is not the first time I had been in such a discussion. I typically think this view comes from selfish arrogance more than anything. Of course he had the King James version. This is not the first time I have been around someone who is a King James only type of guy. Whether or not this type of guy is right or not, I really don't care. What does bug the hell out of me is how arrogant, obnoxious, and self-righteous these people are. I do think that going back to the original Hebrew and Greek to understand the context is of the utmost importance to gain a complete understanding of what Jesus or the other authors were saying. I don't however think that God is limited to speak to us in whatever translation we choose to read. As a new Christian the first bible I was given was a NLT and God spoke to me many times and many times I received repeated confirmation outside of what I had studied in the Word. Years later I decided to use the NASB and I continue to use it, not because it is a more accurate translation, but because I like it. I don't think God is going to say to me,"Bryan, I will not speak to you if you do not pick up a King James bible." Nor do I think that someone who reads a King James only has more insight into God than someone who reads a "less accurate translation." The verse above is from John. I thought of it today while we were in class in relation to our discussion. Jesus was telling us that He was going to give us His Spirit and that He would lead us into all truth. I cannot find where He said that if you don't have the most accurate translation that He won't lead you into truth. Is God challenged to speak to His beloved or does He disapprove that His beloved choose to read a certain translation? I really doubt it.

One time I was in the midst of a King James only discussion and a friend that is absolutely hilarious said something like this,"I hate it when people claim that King James version is the best or most accurate, plus he was gay." Not sure if 100% accurate, but when you look up was King James gay, it appears so. Just a funny come back to someone who is a King James only type.

Well, I have notice that I have been all over the place these past few months. When I say all over the place I mean that I have been trying to figure things out with limited success. I have all these anxieties, irritations, and at moments I have felt like I wanted to explode. The ways I have tried to figure things out or better yet, pointed the finger at situations as being "the problem," has basically been futile. I have written and said things such as, "Maybe I need to move downtown?" Yeah, that's it! Or, "Maybe I need to stop going to house church and serve a couple times a week?" Nope. House church has been good for me and it just seems like a lot to do with training school and the extra class on Monday nights now added. Whenever I am experiencing emotions such as the ones I mentioned, like most guys do, I try and find the problem and fix it. I then think that I have found the problem, which is never me:), and then come up with a solution. Funny thing is, I never follow through with it, cause I know that it is not going to work. I don't know if that makes any sense. I know myself well enough and I have been through this enough times to know that there is no quick fix to the broken soul. I however want one and like to try and finagle a quicky, as if God would let my logic prevail. Finagle a quicky. LOL I gotta stop.LOL

Sticks and Stones will....

This morning my Dad and I went to talk to my Aunt that is living in a well, shitty situation. That word fits better than any proper word found in the dictionary. We confronted and talked for about 5 hours. Typically this is way too long for a fly by the night intervention, but since it was family I thought it was an exception. She is staying with us tonight to allow her to get a good nights rest and to stay away from the South Side of Chicago.

I was able to see her irrational thought process unravel as our conversation grew longer. This man she was living with has completely manipulated and abused her mentally and physically. She has lost the majority of her self-respect, self-esteem, and self-worth. She still wants to go see him after all the abuse and believes that she loves him. She has her own problems that need to be addressed, but he is a scum bag. I hope God gives her the strength to walk away and get help. We went to great lengths to convince her she is in a bad situation and needs to get help. It is ultimately up to her to make the choice.

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Whoever made that song up was lying.

Pour House

Last night I got to serve with the Pour House. I have gone out to hand things out to the men on the street quite a few times since I have been home, but I have been lacking direction or better yet, I was just wingin it. I like wingin it, but it was cool to see Andrea direct and interact with the people as she talked to them and made notes or maybe it was emails she was writing on her cell phone? I am grateful Larry connected me with her and Chad. I enjoyed talking with Chad and hearing his story. We had a lot to talk about since our stories are relatively similar and we both like working out. Correction, love working out.

A cool thing happened to me the other day before I went into the gym. I was searching through my bag and I noticed a key with a little white tag on it. We were up in Toronto a little over a week ago and Holy Trinity had a service where people could get a key and write something on it. I got one of the last ones and mine had nothing on it. I had forgotten about it and when I pulled it out a few days ago it said,"Homeless men and women in Cananda and US." I had those goose bumps that us Christians like to call,"Holy Spirit bumps." If there is such a thing? How did that writing get on the tag, for real, who did that? If you did it confess! I just took it as a nudge from God and I was encouraged. I needed encouragement as this season of life has been increasingly challenging and frustrating.

I met a young man who was 26 years old last night. He said hello to me and then mumbled some things to me. I leaned in to better hear him and he mumble some more. I said,"Whats up man, my name is Bryan." He didn't reply, he just looked at me. I was like,"that was strange," and turned away. This happened twice and it was a extremely weird interaction. The guy was talking to me perfectly fine then he went into saying completely off the wall things that I won't repeat. I felt strange and I continued to keep my eye on him, mostly because I was half wondering if he was ok and the other thoughts I was having had to do with wondering if I was losing it myself. I thought my ears were popping and that I was having troubles seeing during the interaction I had with him. It was a strange phenomenon. Well, I sat down and talked to him some more. Chad came up and spoke with him as well. As we asked him some questions about his life it came out that he had schizophrenia and did not have his meds. "Ok," I thought to myself, now this makes sense. I am increasingly becoming aware since being in training school how much I judge people on one interaction or just on how I perceive them. It is so imperative to learn someones story first. Not so you can then judge them, but because after you learn someones story you increasingly relate and grow compassion for the person. It is amazing how much we all have in common as well.

I heard God speak to me about my complaining and ungratefulness as well as I sat and talked to him. He is living out on the streets and his parents wont let him back in the house. He asked me where I lived and I told him that I was staying at my folk's place. He asked me how it was going and as I began to say how it sucks at times, that I was speaking to a man that ached inside because his parent's would not let him stay at their place. His response was what I expected,"I would give anything to stay at my parents place." I knew that was coming. I shook my head and agreement and I recognized with utter quickness how I have no reason to complain.

Homework from Patrick in Toronto

I was at the computer earlier and I overheard my mom talking to my dad. My irritation grew to the point of cussing, so I knew it was time to withdrawal from the computer and go to a quiet place. Finding a quiet place is friggin challenging.amen. So I wrote in my journal my current frustrations and questions to why I am feeling the way I am. I did not come up with anything, but it felt good to put my feelings on the pages. I prayed and asked God to encourage me and give me a scripture or a psalm. I thought I heard Him say psalm 67, but as I read it I was sure I put that thought into my head. This is not the first time I have done this. So , I was more lead to go to Isaiah and I stopped on a passage I had in parenthesis in Isaiah 41 and I know for sure God wanted me to read it as our friend Patrick in Toronto told us to. Well, I started to plug my name in where Israel and Jacob is and I started weeping. This is what God truly thinks of us. I often think the worst of myself and that God is mad at me or what satan tells me about myself, but this shook my world tonight. Try it...
Isaiah 41
8 “But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
you descendants of Abraham my friend,
9 I took you from the ends of the earth,
from its farthest corners I called you.
I said, ‘You are my servant’;
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
10 So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

11 “All who rage against you
will surely be ashamed and disgraced;
those who oppose you
will be as nothing and perish.
12 Though you search for your enemies,
you will not find them.
Those who wage war against you
will be as nothing at all.
13 For I am the LORD your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you.
14 Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob,
little Israel, do not fear,
for I myself will help you,” declares the LORD,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
15 “See, I will make you into a threshing sledge,
new and sharp, with many teeth.
You will thresh the mountains and crush them,
and reduce the hills to chaff.
16 You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up,
and a gale will blow them away.
But you will rejoice in the LORD
and glory in the Holy One of Israel.

F Bomb/Welcome

I heard a man named James say fuck in church this past Sunday. He went on a rant after an announcement was made about having a dessert party for Christmas. He was drunk and wanted to let everyone know that they should pitch in to help out. He got up out of his seat and slammed some coin on the table and told everyone to "jam up," which meant to pitch in because they deserve it for what they do at Sanctuary. James was the same guy who the night before almost got into a fight during their arts show. During the art show it was awesome to see how it was handled. Greg helped separate the men and ended up talking to and praying with James. As the fight began it 4 girls made their escape as if they were about to avoid certain death. Everyone else remained calm and the show went on. It was nice to hear the F-Bomb and to see a fight almost break out. Wow, now this is church. It is what most of us want to say at times and also what some of us would like to do with one another. James just did what most of us want to do and he wasn't excommunicated for it.

I shook Greg Paul's hand and he told me,"Nice to meet you, welcome." Welcome is a word that when someone says it, they mean it. Sometimes people say,"Nice to meet you, or pleasure," and they just say it because that is what you say, but when the word welcome is said too......I heard these same words last time I was in Toronto from men on the street and I know it is genuine. All you have to do is go to church on Sunday night and there is a feeling of welcome when you walk in. There are people from all walks of life and ethnicity. Welcome allows you to let your guard down and be yourself. I think it is what we are going to hear Jesus say to us when we meet Him. Welcome.