I Love Singing Praise and Worship with People I love

Tonight the girls were over at the house and after Chris and I made a fantastic dinner Chris and Jared grabbed their guitars and we decided to sing some worship. We dimmed the lights lit some candles and just started singing. All was right and I think we all needed this time together with Jesus. I missed doing this with close friends, jamming and singing praise to Jesus. Nights like this after I'm comfortable and my voice is wormed up is just give it all to Jesus and love every minute of it. Its a sad thought that I had almost forgot how good it felt to praise Jesus with the ones closest to me. Praising Jesus alone can be deep but the best and deepest Praise and worship times I've had have been with the company of biblical family. Never has there been a time where my joy is greatest than the times like these. Refreshing and truly satisfying

Pray

How often do we pray really? Sense I got back here At Off the Wall for my second semester there has been an enfasis on prayer. In the bible study I lead with the youth we started reading 1st Samuel. Right in the first chapter there is an enfasis on prayer! Hannah has not been able to bear children so she is praying with persistence for many years. Finally she reaches a point where she prays honestly before God. She did not hide her feeling before God, in verse 10 her prayer is introduced with this "In bitterness of her soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord."(NIV) She did not mask her feelings before the Lord. Why do I think we have to? He already knows how I feel so why do I put up some front of calmness when I talk to Him? If your telling someone your struggling and you need help there is normally a sense of urgency in your voice and nothing is held beck because you are asking for help. Now why don't I show this urgency before God? I am no longer going to try and hide my urgency from God, I'm going to pray honestly before Him. Now my discipler has asked me how consistently I pray for the ones around me? Well I cant say I consistently pray because I didn't start intentionally praying for my brothers and my sisters here at Off the Wall until this semester. God showed me how much I have here and I realized I needed to pray for them because I loved them. So soon I pray I can say that I consistently pray for the ones I truly love. I devote more time to prayer now and i should have done that a long time ago.

Difficult Conversation

These things are hard to even think about. Difficult conversation must happen sometimes to help a brother or sister grow. Telling each other what we see and what they need to hear is an important part of community discipleship. If you really care for and love someone you will tell them what they need to hear even if they might not want to hear it. Timing is incredibly important when dealing with difficult conversation. If it is not the right time to go through this issue or they are not ready to work through this problem the conversation will most likely accomplish nothing and will do more damage than good. Timing along with having the right amount of compassion will make all the difference. If you can make clear the seriousness of the issue and show them that your doing this because you care about them acceptance seems to come easier. I have to me willing to make the effort and discuss through the issue show them why its a problem and be willing to help guide them. I have a few difficult conversations in my future but I realize that that not confronting my brothers and sisters is selfish. Not confronting them simply because I don't want to put forth that kind of effort or deal with the possible drama is a selfish and lazy way to live in a biblical community.

LIfe

God has put me into a pretty good spot in life. I cant fully explain how much this community means to me. I truly love my friends here at Off the Wall, along with all the new friends I have made by coming here. I have truly been blessed beyond my understanding. It's still a strange concept for me to grasp that these people that I have only know for a short time care about me. I don't know how to react half the time when they show me that they care and well the only thing I can do is cry. These people have seen me cry here more than probably anybody on this planet. Crying is something that before this community I didn't do except once or twice in the past few years. God has shown me that is okay to show my brokenness before them. I'm safe from criticism and these people realize the seriousness of the matter. Anyone back home in Michigan can give witness that I was a man of stone. Seeing my pain was not something easily seen and if it was visible it wasn't long before I could convince you that I was fine and no one need to worry about me. Here God has taken my stone self and smashed me in the face with his firm hands. My stone is cracked and all my emotions and hardships are bleeding from the cracks. It's very difficult to hide that from people who are willing to invest in me. They notice the little things and ask questions witch is the only real way to get how I'm feeling out to the open. If you look at me and ask me whats going on and I see real intention in your eyes I will tell you. I have never been so vulnerable in my life. These will be life long friends and I would stand fight and give my life for any one of them. These are my Brothers and Sisters and I'm the luckiest man alive to be able to call them that. I thank God often for them and His love has overflown through these people to me. 

                                                                                 Thanks Jesus

So Here it Starts

So those of you who know me know that I already have a blog... well I wanted another one! haha Well you see the other blog is not intended to be a every day thing and well I want to start blogging every day! So now I have two blogs! My other blog on Wordpress.com http://shaunpaulpatrick.wordpress.com/ is going to have a post once a week and that one will be more serious and more thought out while this blog will be more of a what I'm going through or what I'm trying to hear from God today kinda thing. Now I want to intend this to be every day but lets be honest here there are going to be some days where I forget or other circumstances prevent me from posting every day so this is going to be a almost every day kind of thing haha. And I will still post on facebook when i post on wordpress but i will not post this one often this blog is for seeing my every day thoughts and lets be honest here again not all of you really care about my every day thoughts haha so if you dont well dont read it. This one is probably going to be a bit more personal and not always so deep as my other blog. So we will see if I post tonight or start things off tomorrow.