It's A Puzzling life!

     I think that our life is a puzzling one. Not because it puzzles me, but because it IS a puzzle. A very long puzzle. Let me see if I can help you understand what I mean. First off, we'll take a look at how this puzzle works, and then take a look at the pieces.

     God knows what your life is going to contain, but you don't. Instead, when you are born, you find the left side of your puzzle. As your life goes on, the puzzle starts to get filled in, like a slide show of pictures from your life. The piece that comes next is always one that God chooses. Of course, as we get older God moves from placing the pieces, to letting us place the pieces. As humans we want to control our life. So it's then that we need to start asking God where the piece goes.

     Anyway, on to the pieces. Each puzzle piece is part of your life. It could be a job, a car, a friend, etc. Sometimes the piece has one thing on it, and sometimes it only has part of it. As God guides us forward we start to see what's coming next by looking at what piece we just put in.

     Other times, God has us start building a puzzle withing a puzzle. If you enjoy puzzles, you'll know what I'm talking about. As your building any larger puzzle, it makes it easier to build smaller portions of the puzzle outside of the frame. Maybe it's a house or a group of flowers, but whatever it is, you put together 5 or 6 pieces and get a bigger piece. It's then much easier to see where it fits, because you have to fit all of them in the same space.

     In my case, I've been building two of those sorts of puzzles within puzzles. One, would be my ministry with children. I've been building that one since my brother was born. I've always been teaching or hanging out with those younger than me. Then I started working with CEF, and now I'm at CMI. So little bits of the puzzle have already gone in. But some pieces have also been put aside into a small puzzle.

     The second one, is a small puzzle of Karis. I haven't been building this puzzle as long as the first one, and at first I didn't know that it was Karis. It just took some more pieces to see that it was her. I don't know where she fits just quite yet, but I can see some similarities between the pieces I'm putting together, and the pieces that make up the smaller one of Karis. So I think it should fit in somewhere up here soon. And I think I know how...

     I'm sure if you've been reading my blog for awhile you'll know what I'm talking about. But if you haven't read my previous posts...well, now you have some incentive to go and read them. I'll give you a hint: there was talk of a "strangely colored portal" with a "ribbon touting box" waiting behind it. If you think about it, I'm sure it's fairly obvious :P

Puzzling, isn't it?
- Jason

It Comes In Pieces...

     As I left my home on Wednesday morning at close to 2 am, I only started to realize just what I was going to be doing for the next 12 weeks. I felt as if everything was going according to God's plan, but at the same time, it felt like I was on my back. I wasn't there because I wanted to be, but because Satan had tripped me. And it took me a few days to realize that.

     Here's the background story to get you up to speed. 7 weeks ago, I talked to Karis about my feelings for her. She told me that she shared my feelings, and we started to talk more often. Almost 3 weeks ago, we talked to her parents about starting a more serious relationship, and they approved. Last weekend I got spend most of Saturday with Karis up in Oregon City. So...you can probably guess the huge amount of emotions I'm feeling. These emotions are all good and in good time, but Satan had a plan to try and trip me up because of them. He thought that He could keep me down by making me afraid of leaving Karis back in Oregon.

     You see, Wednesday morning, I left for Warrenton, Missouri to take part in the Fall term of Children's Ministries Institute (CMI). So the stress of preparing for 12 weeks in another state, and the emotions I feel for Karis all added up to a big target on my chest. Satan wanted to take advantage of this overload of emotions, both good and bad, and make me trip. And he succeeded in doing so. What he failed to realize is that God would make me stronger because of it.

     I'll admit, after arriving here Wednesday afternoon, and after eating dinner with the rest of the CMI students and staff, I went up to my dorm and started to cry. It felt like everything God had pointed me towards was now out of my future, never to return. I was on my back. I couldn't see what God was really doing. But the wonderful thing about being on your back is...you are looking straight up in to the eyes of Jesus.

     After a few minutes of crying, I looked over and saw a book, one I hadn't finished before I left, sitting on my desk. I'm glad I brought it. It was through this book that God showed me what He was doing. The last line in the last chapter spoke on where people can find true happiness in life. When we focus on spending time with God, doing what He shows us to do, and becoming who He wants us to become, we will experience the natural by-product of our efforts: joy.

     I finished reading the chapter, and took a walk around the CMI campus. I started praying, and all of a sudden what I read clicked. As if God had reached down His hand and puled me back up onto my feet so that I could see the path in front of me. God wanted me here at CMI. He wanted me to take this time away from Karis. Why? So that in the end, He would have all of the glory.

     You see, if I take the next 12 weeks and use them to deepen my relationship with God and learn more about what it is He wants me doing (ministering to children), then that makes me more like His Son. But not because I did the work, but because God worked in me: He gets the glory, not me. The same goes for my relationship with Karis. Usually being separated causes relationships to fade. But I have no doubt that Karis and I will only grow closer because of this separation. It can't be because of what I'm doing, because I'm not in Oregon! So it must be because of God, which means that He gets the glory.

     All of this is part of my life...and it comes in pieces. My life is a giant jigsaw puzzle that God is building. So naturally, it comes in pieces. We take the pieces, and start to build our own puzzle of life. Most of the time, we see God handing us the next piece, and showing us where to put it. But I think that sometimes, we get so blinded by how good the puzzle looks so far, that God has to let us fall on our backs. It's only then that we realize He's holding the next puzzle piece right above our heads. The next puzzle piece I have is part of CMI, which will be made up of quite a few puzzle pieces. And it's going to take the next 12 weeks to put them in their rightful places. Please pray for me during these weeks!

May God guide you as you build your own life puzzle!

- Jason

The Curtain Rises on Act II...

     I spoke in my last post about how God provides and guides in our lives. At the time I wrote that, exactly 25 days ago, I was very unsure as to where God was leading me with what He was providing. I knew that if I sought Him truthfully, the path I needed to walk would reveal itself to me as I needed to know. Looking back on what has happened, I see that I was approaching what is best described as the end of Act I. And what follows for awhile here (Italicized to denote it from non-analogy text), will be with that analogy in mind:

     The curtain fell leaving the protagonist (that's me) at a cliffhanger, as all the best acts do, and I desperately wanted to start the next next act and see what was going to happen to me. You see, in this play, none of the actors are given a script. They must follow the cues from the Director (God) for the play to go smoothly. As I waited for the stage to be set for the next act, I consulted the Director about what was up next. He went through some of the signals He was going to use soon, and I realized that I had seen similar signals before. He had been preparing me for what He was going to do. But I wasn't prepared for what was about to come...

     The stage was set, so I took my spot on stage and waited for the curtain to rise. The lights went down, I took a deep breath and watched as the curtain rose. The stage was dark save for where I stood. A light came on to my left. I looked over and what I saw took my breath away. There stood a young woman I had met at CYIA. A very beautiful young woman. One named Karis Monroe.

     This year at CYIA, I had the wonderful privilege of getting to know Karis better. She is such an amazing young woman, and I felt like there was a spark between the two of us. However, I had little doubt that she would turn a guy like me down (not sure why...). I felt that God wanted me to talk to her about a relationship though, so despite my doubt, I did. And to my surprise...she felt the same way. We felt that talking to her parents would be the next step towards a relationship, so we planned a weekend where we could do that. I took the 4 hour drive up to her house, and spent the better part of Saturday, and most of Sunday, with Karis and her family. Late Sunday afternoon we finally got around to talking about the relationship with her parents. After asking some very good questions, Karis' parents told us that they were happy to consent to a courtship between Karis and I. And so...as of the 31st of July, Karis and I are officially courting each other.

     I can't begin to describe how amazingly blessed I feel right now, but I think you can tell by the look on my face. Pretty much everything I've been experiencing over the last year has prepared me for this, and that just makes me that much more convinced that God truly wanted (and wants) this to happen. We are both very serious about seeing what God wants us to do in this part of our lives, and I'm sure that's part of the reason this is turning out so well and happening so quickly.

     On top of that, I'm now 99% funded for my trip to CMI!! I'll be leaving at 6am Wednesday, August 17th for Warrenton, Missouri. I'll be over there for 12 weeks learning about how to better minister to children. I'm really excited to see what God does through my training. I'm sure I will enjoy myself while I'm there. The only part I won't enjoy is not being able to see Karis for 12 weeks...but I know she'll still be here for me when I get back :)

     So both of these changes, my courtship with Karis and my training at CMI, are part of Act II in my life. God has me headed in a different direction now, and if the rest of the act is as amazing as what I've experienced so far, I can't wait to see what's up ahead.