reasons to blog, digging for truth.

I think that this Jesus god-man thing is real. That is what this is all about. I grew up going to a church because that is what my family did; sometimes I thought that all the old people there had been tricked for their whole lives into believing in this ridiculous idea of God. I was pretty hurting as a kid, no more than most people hurt as they move through middle school and high school, I just didn't have very good defense mechanisms to the hurt. I didn't really know that the hurt that I was experiencing, the loneliness, the desire for more and feeling of failure, was a hurt because things had always been that way. I was a scout and liked doing things outside, someone from my church asked me if I wanted to join this youth group thing that started with a week of camping in the woods. I was down with the woods, and said I would do it. Pretty soon I didn't want to go, I am not sure how it happened, but when the week of camping started I was unwillingly there. I felt good about it at first because I knew the camping territory and was granted immunity on the not being allowed to have knives rule. A lot happened that week, what really blew me away was that I was included by most people; even the pretty girls were nice to me. I was pretty cool, I think that I wore a visor upside down at that point in life; I also had this technical fanny pack - backpack thing, the pinnacle of cool. Regardless I was welcomed into this group of about 30 kids, a few of which were really locked on to this God thing, their lives seemed different, and I wanted what they had. Then on Friday night something happened that was not like any part of life that I had experienced. We had church like stuff each day, we sang some songs and someone would read from the bible and tell us a little about it. We were singing one time, I was in the back of the room, and I was filled with this feeling. It creeps me out when people say that they were filled by the Holy Spirit, I am not sure exactly what happened but I felt like I was filled up with something and I this idea came into my head, not words but an idea. I was studying bio at the time and the word niche came to mind. There was a place for me. Words don't do this experience justice; I knew that God had a place for me, something for me to do in the world. I was made for a reason, learning that is the sum of what happened inside me that night. Later that night I prayed for the first time for real, It was something like, 'God I think your real I want to know you, I want to have what those other kids who know you have, I want to fill the niche that you have for me.' Back to regular life after this week camping. I felt left out and this God think made me feel like I was in. I was lonely and this God thing gave me friends, I was a looser and this God thing made me cool, at least cool in the Jesus group. It served my purposes and so I was in. Faith came easy because it didn't require much, there were many people around me who thought that this thing was real and so I didn't question it much. So now I am 21, from the time that I was 15 until now I have grown significantly. I have learned more about this Jesus god-man thing and have made significant changes to my life. As faith required me to change things, I began to question whether it was all real or not. If this story if fake, then there is no use in walking this walk. I was aware that my faith came easy as a child and wanted to harden it, to strengthen it, to dig for what truth I could find, if the story is not real, then I want out, there is no use wasting this life for something that is fake. That is what this is about. I think that God is real and that really changes shit. If Jesus died and was resurrected, and God is working to share this story with the word so we may be redeemed and live in relationship with God, then that is where I want to invest my life, nothing else comes close to counting. There is nothing as thrilling as getting to co-labor with God.Sometimes when people ask me about this God thing I go on the attack telling them about God. If I have done this to you I am sorry, I have often fell into arguing my point instead of sharing honestly. I totally have doubts, and struggle with the idea that this story is real. The bible says seek and ye shall find (Matt 7:7) {I used the old word for fun, the bible also says ‘the one who seeks finds’ in a more modern translation}. I want to dig deep, seeking, I want to do this in blogging form so my friends, people at umass and other places, can see how I think and so that we can all dig deeper together. This is about seeking, if you have questions, please email me or facebook me and I will dig into them with you.