I'm in the in-between turn around betwixt '!Audacious' [sic] and WEC, two of those happy clappy Christian summer things I do. Basically, Audacious was phenomenal, and this post is an overview of what madness and antics I've been up to for the last four days, tied in nicely with some lovely things I learnt.
Perhaps the most stupid thing I did was to deliberately lose a competition in order to cram a free haircut into my hectic schedule, only to realise my own foolishness when the Audacious preshow over ran with me still left on a stage in front of over a thousand people, with a professional hairdresser trying her best to finish one side of my head with severely inadequate clippers while a presenter attacked the other side of my scalp with craft scissors. The resulting style was much better than you might think, but not the extent that I won't be shaving it all off at the next available opportunity.
Audacious is fun, but the best part is undoubtedly what you come home with. I learnt some great little things, like that I need to change my attitude towards people God has appointed as leaders and understand that they exist solely to serve the people they are leading. I've also realised that whilst I have the kind of character that makes me fine with dancing in front of complete strangers and having my head shaved on stage, I'm not actually bold. I'm naturally an extrovert 'popular sanguine', as it were, but that doesn't make me bold. Boldness isn't about being comfortable with doing things, it's about doing things even though you're uncomfortable with them. Hopefully that means that if things were ever uncomfortable before, they'll get even less comfortable now that I've been inspired to ditch any shame I might previously have had about the liberating madness that is Christ overcoming death and all that.
I don't mean to wear you down with all this personal revelation stuff, but for me a massive highlight of Audacious was hearing about people who'd sacrificed they're lives to Christ and realising just how nang the gospel is. I'm aware that saying the word nang is uncool and perhaps a little annoying, as is droning on about God, but it's hard not to come home a little inspired when you've heard gang members talking about how they're praying for wisdom and protection so that their family won't be attacked when they break the news to their gang that they're ditching their no-hope, dead end lifestyle for the tangible and freeing hope that they've found in Christ.
It was my birthday yesterday. I had a lovely time and got some wonderful things (mostly instruction from God and a free haircut). A lot of people wished me happy returns on my wall, with varying degrees of sincerity / relevance and I liked the ones that I liked because I see that as a pretty good way to use the like function. After I'd skimmed through all my birthday messages I scrolled the big 'main wall' thing to see what was going down and saw a photograph of a jet gravestone made of polished marble. It was that of my cousin, Dawn-Joy, who died aged 22 four years ago today, the day after my birthday. I remember something a pastor called Rich Wilkerson Jr. (a man who looks like Leonardo DiCaprio and can't stop making jokes about having sex with his wife) was talking about what we're willing to sacrifice for Christ, and how when we die nothing on earth matters in the slightest. All of a sudden I find myself hit by the previously almost unnoticed juxtaposition of the anniversaries of my birth and my cousin's tragic death and I'm not so much disheartened as I am inspired by the life my cousin led, and the uplifting verse on her grave that reads 'for me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.'
When I read that and remember the life of Dawn-Joy Lovell, I want nothing more than to cast aside every inhibition I have, stop investing worry and doubt into this life, which will be gone in the blink of an eye, and live as a man who recognises the goodness of God above the inferiority of everything this world has to offer. My cousin lived like someone who was entirely ready to die, and in the suddenness and tragedy of her death I've seen that everything we build up on earth is destined to be destroyed or fall into the hands of some other bozo, and thus the only investment you can make in life of any realness is to exchange all the temporary crap for an everlasting relationship with the God who made you, and the more you commit to it, the better everything is.
Sorry if you didn't like the post being pretty much entirely on revelations from God, but that's all that's really happened for the last four days. Peace out, haters.
Perhaps the most stupid thing I did was to deliberately lose a competition in order to cram a free haircut into my hectic schedule, only to realise my own foolishness when the Audacious preshow over ran with me still left on a stage in front of over a thousand people, with a professional hairdresser trying her best to finish one side of my head with severely inadequate clippers while a presenter attacked the other side of my scalp with craft scissors. The resulting style was much better than you might think, but not the extent that I won't be shaving it all off at the next available opportunity.
Audacious is fun, but the best part is undoubtedly what you come home with. I learnt some great little things, like that I need to change my attitude towards people God has appointed as leaders and understand that they exist solely to serve the people they are leading. I've also realised that whilst I have the kind of character that makes me fine with dancing in front of complete strangers and having my head shaved on stage, I'm not actually bold. I'm naturally an extrovert 'popular sanguine', as it were, but that doesn't make me bold. Boldness isn't about being comfortable with doing things, it's about doing things even though you're uncomfortable with them. Hopefully that means that if things were ever uncomfortable before, they'll get even less comfortable now that I've been inspired to ditch any shame I might previously have had about the liberating madness that is Christ overcoming death and all that.
I don't mean to wear you down with all this personal revelation stuff, but for me a massive highlight of Audacious was hearing about people who'd sacrificed they're lives to Christ and realising just how nang the gospel is. I'm aware that saying the word nang is uncool and perhaps a little annoying, as is droning on about God, but it's hard not to come home a little inspired when you've heard gang members talking about how they're praying for wisdom and protection so that their family won't be attacked when they break the news to their gang that they're ditching their no-hope, dead end lifestyle for the tangible and freeing hope that they've found in Christ.
It was my birthday yesterday. I had a lovely time and got some wonderful things (mostly instruction from God and a free haircut). A lot of people wished me happy returns on my wall, with varying degrees of sincerity / relevance and I liked the ones that I liked because I see that as a pretty good way to use the like function. After I'd skimmed through all my birthday messages I scrolled the big 'main wall' thing to see what was going down and saw a photograph of a jet gravestone made of polished marble. It was that of my cousin, Dawn-Joy, who died aged 22 four years ago today, the day after my birthday. I remember something a pastor called Rich Wilkerson Jr. (a man who looks like Leonardo DiCaprio and can't stop making jokes about having sex with his wife) was talking about what we're willing to sacrifice for Christ, and how when we die nothing on earth matters in the slightest. All of a sudden I find myself hit by the previously almost unnoticed juxtaposition of the anniversaries of my birth and my cousin's tragic death and I'm not so much disheartened as I am inspired by the life my cousin led, and the uplifting verse on her grave that reads 'for me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.'
When I read that and remember the life of Dawn-Joy Lovell, I want nothing more than to cast aside every inhibition I have, stop investing worry and doubt into this life, which will be gone in the blink of an eye, and live as a man who recognises the goodness of God above the inferiority of everything this world has to offer. My cousin lived like someone who was entirely ready to die, and in the suddenness and tragedy of her death I've seen that everything we build up on earth is destined to be destroyed or fall into the hands of some other bozo, and thus the only investment you can make in life of any realness is to exchange all the temporary crap for an everlasting relationship with the God who made you, and the more you commit to it, the better everything is.
Sorry if you didn't like the post being pretty much entirely on revelations from God, but that's all that's really happened for the last four days. Peace out, haters.
