Walking by faith...

I realize now, reading back on the last post, that I had said quite specifically that I planned on continuing to update the blog... funny how life throws you curves sometimes :)

These past months since I've gotten back have been crazy, a roller-coaster ride of epic proportions... who would've thought that I'd be a youth pastor at 20, and licensed for ministry at 21? In this whirlwind I've grown a lot, although I've found that I'm struggling to find myself and who I am, how do I fit here in Phoenix?

I've thought a lot about this especially in the past few days and weeks as I'm preparing a sermon for the 26th... I'm not the same person who came back from Europe on a spiritual high, and definitely not the same person who left the states on May 10th. But it's not that I've lost that spiritual high, rather, I think it set me up for all these experiences I've had, and the many yet to come.

How?

The sermon I've been preparing is on Matthew 2:13-23, talking about Joseph and Mary's flight to Egypt, entitled "We walk by FAITH" The thing that has always amazed me about the Christmas story is the faithfulness of Joseph, even when all logic is against him, I mean, how did Mary really get pregnant? Why should I leave everything I know and go off to a foreign land with my young bride and newborn son? But he trusts, Joseph has an amazing faith that he holds on to, the Angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and says get up and go, and he goes.

What I'm getting to is that the road we travel on is never guaranteed, I've hit many bumps since my pilgrimage out west, it hasn't been perfect and I've fallen many times... sometimes it has gotten so bad that I even look back and wonder if it was the right decision. But every time I doubt, even for a second, I look around me and realize how amazing this really is... how everything has just fallen into place, and all of the people that believe in me and support me, regardless of how many times I stumble.

Best of all, I have been blessed in that over the past year and a half or so, as I've struggled with this call to ministry and what it means, I've experienced many "Angels." For me they didn't come in a dream as they did for Joseph, rather it's been in personal experiences, interactions with others both at Hesston College with my peers and professors and in my short ministry with the Jr. High at Hesston Mennonite. There were also many different experiences in my travels abroad, which you can probably read about in the earlier posts of this blog... but the one that has always stuck out the most is my experience in Saverne at the end of my journey.

I have been walking by faith for months now, and it seems that every time I feel like I've got it figured out and am ready to take over, I fall again, and again... It's made me wonder if we're ever fully equipped to not walk by faith, and as I type this out, reading it makes it sound all the more ridiculous; I mean really, who am I to stop trusting in the Lord and take the reigns myself?

Who am I?

Broken? Yes. Fallen? Yes. But walking by faith isn't about looking at our shortcomings and realizing that we just aren't good enough, it's about recognizing how good God is, how blessed we are by those around us, and realizing that life is so much better when we embrace this and TRUST.

So, Who am I?

A child of God. A servant of the Kingdom. And one who has been blessed by many.