My Story

So most of you know me but i don't think you really know me. My mind isn't like most people's. I try to think not just outside the box but around it, through it, inside and out. I've made some stupid decisions and mistakes in my life. It started when i was young. My brother was always good at sports and the stuff that people notice you for. I mean he wasn't good he was great. He won many awards and people knew it. I was just the one that kind of played but wasn't so good. For this reason i let the devil convince me that my dad didn't like me as much as my brother. i was completely jealous. I kind of forgot about how good my life was on the outside. And that could have made me good on the inside but i didn't let it. By the age of 11 i was already teaching classes at church with kids my age. By eighth grade i had taken over the 1st through 6th grade class from one of the greatest people in my life. But I'm not saying this to put myself on a pedestal. I'm saying this to show you the devil can really overcome you with lies when you're trying to do right. Anyways, i let the jealousy get to my head and it caused me to fight with my dad ALL the time i mean fight. He wouldn't really fight back because he obviously loved me. One day he got so fed up with being pushed around and hit and spit on that he had to have me taken off. I got arrested and i was bitter. The devil used this to amplify the lies instead of me taking it as a learning experience. I ended up playing with smoking and drinking and it just never did the trick. I realized that even if i was trying to keep my eyes focused on God i had to have my heart focused there too. Without your heart focused on God there is no way to get out of sin. I went to forward and pastor Jentezen said you don't have to taste the woods to know they are bitter. I don't know why i dipped my feet in when all i had to do was look and see what God was doing with my life. Sin is like a spider web, the harder you try to fight yourself out of it, the more you seem to get tangled. So to get out of sin give everything to God and and set your head and HEART on Him and he can bring you out of the woods. So i've decided to do this. Give everything to God.

WOW.

so yet again, the Forward conference was amazing. I went in and i was scared that i would be like oh yeah i know this is awesome and kind of be comfortable all the way through. But i kept hearing people say, you'll get out what you put in. so i got to the point where i started putting everything i had into it so i could get everything i could out of it. If you haven't had a chance to go to forward next year is the time. Jentezen Franklin talked about staying out of the woods. Out of sin. He said you don't have to taste it to know its not good to go there. So i started realizing that people sin but you don't have to on a regular basis. Reggie Dabbs talked about getting back up if you fall. Christine Caine said to be ready for the baton of faith to be passed on to our generation and if you drop it don't be afraid to pick it up and finish the race. Judah Smith talked about don't let the now or the past effect your future and just because God doesn't come through on his promises in your life that doesn't mean he won't in the next generation. So strive to do your best. Lastly, Carl Lentz said that you can't poison your life with being comfortable. We have to stay uncomfortable in order to get the job God has called us to do, done. And never think its over. Its never ever over.

Lets Do Work

so for every new beginning, it took work to get there. and its going to take work to keep it where it is and to move forward in it. The main things to keep a new beginning in Christ going and moving forward are Worship, Bible Reading, and Praying. We could do one or two of these but I think they coincide together. Without one of these your world could fall apart at the seams. I work to try to do these three everyday. Worship, to me, is probably the easiest one. I can play a little bass so i usually hook up and sing out to God. but for most of you it could be as easy as having some worship songs on your Ipod and listening away. But, remember worship doesn't only include music. It is a complete lifestyle. You must worship God in your actions, in all that you do. Worship Him when you're great, worship Him when your good, worship Him when you're not so good. Add in a little mixture of bible reading and you're on your way to a good walk with God. One good way is to get a nice reading pattern and stick to it. if you can read 15 minutes a day you can have the bible done in a year. Don't just read though, soak it in deep. Get a nice note pad and jot down keynotes from the passage you read. Those are God Almighty's words and i believe nothing else can speak to you like they can. Last, don't forget to pray. A good time is when you wake up, or when you go to bed. Oh, and before meals of course. BUT, doesn't the bible tell us to pray without ceasing? Why yes, yes it does. so not only are those good times but so is all the other time you have. I believe if you can do one you can put all three together and have an amazing walk with God. Ready for a challenge?? Well, try doing each of these at least 15 minutes a day everyday for 21 days. if you do that it will become a habit! Please feel free to comment and let me know ideas you have for getting these three vitals done everyday!

Sometimes a New Beginning Can Spout From Your Past

Ironic that on a blog titled "A New Beginning" i would talk about my past. Or your past. This past Sunday my pastor said something that really stuck with me. He said sometimes we need to go back and find that time in our lives where everything was just going right, figure out what we were doing right, and do it again. I know that point in my life and I want to do things like I was doing then. I hope all of you who have graced me enough to read my blog can find that spot in your life. I'm excited to see what God can do if we all were to do that at the same time. That time in my life was actually a little less than a year ago. It was right after the Forward youth conference and a lot of guys in our youth decided to create a worship team. We were all closer than brothers and we were all doing what needed to be done for God. We all were accountable to one another and really loved each other. My life and i believe everyone else's in that group was just amazing. Forward really helped us all out to get to that point, and God helped us out most of all. I'm super excited because we're going back to Forward in two days and taking 3 or 4 times as many people as we did last year. last year we filled 11 seats in cars this time we're taking two suburbans and a car and one other person is driving from Birmingham and to my belief all those cars are full. I'm so excited and jubilant to see what God is going to do. Lets all find the spot in our past where our lives were great and we were living it all out for God and lets revert back to it.

Reason Behind "A New Beginning"

i have just now renamed this blog to a new beginning. i got the idea from my yearbook from my last year of high school. we just moved into a brand new school following 3 years of grueling heat, painstaking cold, and annoying pesky rain making us all wet. I realized through all this that most things that are great came from something good being torn apart. God takes the old us, maybe even what we think is just awesome and breaks us down to create something totally amazing in His and our eyes. We had a nice school, nice football stadium, nice everything. A tornado hit and the nice little everything was torn apart. we even endured 3 years of tribulation just to find ourselves in probably one of the top 3 most amazingly built schools in Alabama. The same goes with our lives. We have a nice life. Nice friends. A nice church. We're doing just, well... good. Then God comes in and stirs us up a bit and maybe takes away the nice life the nice friends. We can be stripped away from everything and forced to go through tribulation. but as long as our eye stays on the real prize, God builds us up even more amazing and awesome. So next time you go through hard times, remember God's wanting your trust and when you give it to Him you'll end up better than before!