A (very) Brief Study on Mother Teresa Part 2/2

“The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.”

This may be my favorite part of the quote. What more difficult challenge could Mother Teresa have given to us? Human nature and society does not live by this rule. We often want the things we do today to make a difference in the world tomorrow. We want to be recognized, praised, and thanked for the good things that we do. But what does the Bible say about this idea?

Matthew 6:1-5 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
 
That is a pretty difficult verse to live by. Something inside of us tells us that we deserve the attention from other people when we do something good. There is another way to take this quote. Perhaps you have done something good for someone, or have tried to help someone today, but what happens when there is little chance that our help and good does little for that person in the future? It might even seem that our efforts did nothing. The person has taken our help and thrown it away, not caring that we just took the time to think of them first. Or, perhaps they did not listen to our good, kind, helpful words of wisdom. We are called to do good, and to keep trying anyway. Even when nothing we seem to do makes a difference, our hearts are what matters. If we are trying to the best of our ability to do good in the eyes of the Lord, for the Lord's people, and to the Lord's people, then too will we be blameless before Him.
 
For a good biblical reflection on this part I would recommend the book of Jeremiah. Doing a quick search I couldn't find specific verses to back up the idea. However, I do know the idea behind the entire book. Countless times Jeremiah tried to help the people of Judah. He was following God's plan and was trying his hardest to help the people. In the end, despite his best efforts the people of Judah could not be saved. God was tired of tolerating their insolence, Jeremiah was their last chance. Jeremiah was never appreciated for his Good that he tried to do. He was hated an ran out of town. People instantly forgot his message of hope, and nothing he did seemed to matter.

“Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.”
 
Oh how true this can be. How often is our best just not good enough. People will want and expect more. Give a person an inch and they will take a yard is a common mentality, but what happens when there is only an inch to give? We are sometimes blames and called selfish. This is unfair even though we gave our best. The only time we should ever be able to regret is when we know we didn't give our best when we could have. An athlete is often asked if they did their best. Most of the time we would like to believe that they do, and many times their best was not as good as someone elses. Does this mean that we should stop trying to give our best because we are going to disappoint anyway? Not according to Mother Teresa.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.”

 
“For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
 
I could not think of a better way for her to end her quote. When it is all said and done nothing matters between us and the world. Everything we say, everything we think, and everything we do is to God, for God, and about God. He is the overall judge. He is the one that we are affecting overall. Nothing and no one matters outside of the Lord. In the beginning God made us, in the end He will decide whether we deserve to be kept, or if we deserve to be separated from the creator forever. We can serve only one master, God, or mankind. I pray that the choice is obvious.

Colossians 3:23 “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.”

Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

In the end it seems that Mother Teresa is trying to describe a model for living. She is likely hinting at a way that we can live like Christ. Everyone knows who Mother Teresa is, and most everyone knows her for her kindness and goodness to the world and mankind. There are some people who question Mother Teresa's dedication to Jesus Christ. It seems that some would even claim that she was very wrapped up in Catholicism and claimed she was an idolater. Such statements are touch to swallow, and I leave them in God's hands to be the judge or her soul, for it is far beyond me to say who is and who is not saved. Still many others would claim that there is not way she is not in heaven, but, these people are also often ones that believe that a 'good person' gets to heaven and that works are important. I think I found after brief study that Catholicism has a heavy belief that both works and faith get you to heaven. I personally believe that faith alone even without works will allow you to heaven, but this is not the life we are called to, and God may not be pleased. (See blog on being Luke Warm) However, there is not way that Mother Teresa was completely crazy, as I managed to find a Bible verse that very closely resembles her quotation.

Luke 6:37-38 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

So I end with this. Examine how you are living. Which master are you serving? And how will you serve the Master? It may be by faith that we are saved, but do not forget, a majority of the Bible is about how we are to live based on faith. How we live our lives now is not to be taken lightly.

Your friend, brother, and companion in Christ,
-Zach Haas

A (very) Brief Study on Mother Teresa Part 1/2

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

— Mother Teresa

I recently re-found this quote by dear Mother Teresa on a good friend facebook. It was actually not all that long ago that I saw this quote somewhere else. The first time I thought it was good, this time, I thought it would make for a very good study/discussion. Think, this quote could easily be something that Jesus himself would say if he were to describe Christianity. If you were to live like this everyday at all times, you would live a perfect life. Granted, it is likely not possible to live this lifestyle everyday and at all times. We live in a fallen broken world, and we are likewise fallen broken people. Nevertheless, I believe this quote describes exactly what we as Christians are called to be. The quote is rather long, so let's break it down a little bit and see what happens.

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.”

Oh how simple this one is to succumb to. If we all stop and think I am sure we can think of something that we do that is unreasonable. Many times it may be something that we do when we are stressed, or depressed or hurt. Unfortunately, it seems that many times these unreasonable and selfish acts actually hurt other people. Even worse, sometimes we are so blind to out unreasonable selfishness that we intentionally hurt people – thereby doing something even more unreasonable and selfish. I believe a selfish attitude is something that we run the risk of having, and thus, learning to forgive people that act this way is something we should all learn to do.

Matthew 18: 21-22 “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?' 22 Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.'”

“If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.”

This may very well be one of the most painful things to endure emotionally as humans. Imagine, you are just trying to be a good person and do the right thing. You are honestly trying to help someone who is struggling, or just be their friend, when someone claims you are doing it to get into a better position somehow. I know this has happened to me and it hurts. This seems to happen a lot when trying to do things for someone of the opposite gender. Think about it. One of your guy friends is seen taking a girl out to coffee or hanging out with her because she needs a friend and someone to talk to. Then, someone accuses the guy of trying to hit on the girl or worse, another guy makes a despicable comment like “Dude, you trying to get into her pants, huh?” This phrase itself has caused me to almost punch people in the face. How hurtful, how sick, how absolutely vile.

Job was accused by Satan himself for worshiping God because he lived a life of prosperity. The rest of the story shows that Job was always an upright, God fearing man.

Job 1:8-10 “Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” 9 “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. 10 “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.”

“If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.”

It is sad that an honest person may become the victim of evil. It is hard to be honest when we know that people are going to take advantage of us. An example might be when we seek forgiveness for an accident we made and the victim overcharges replacements or sues us rather than forgiving us. We were honest and told them we had caused a problem, and they in turn rip us off. The cheater is being unbiblical and hurtful.

I couldn't biblically describe honesty better than this site without much effort: http://www.christinyou.net/pages/honesty.html

“If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.”

Ah, jealousy, now there is a big topic that is being thrown into a small section of a blog. I have a tough time with this one because if a person is genuinely happy and not gloating or rubbing their happiness in, I find it hard to not be happy with them. If someone is boastful of their happiness, I am angry at them, not jealous. I personally try to spread my happiness to other people. What is the sense in being happy alone? I suppose in attempts to spread happiness we may accidentally cause people to be jealous, or to be envious, but that is, as the quote implies, their problem. Don't worry, be happy.

Matthew 25:21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’”

In an effort to make shorter blogs, I am going to stop the analysis of the quote now. I will finish it in the next post. Instead, I would like to focus a few more words on jealousy. The Bible speaks clearly on the topic numerous places throughout. The verse I am going to use now is :

Galatians 5:26 “Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

I think this verse best captures what I am trying to say. It also relates to the idea of your happiness causing jealousy. You can take happiness and joy and use it in the wrong way – provoking one another. Jealousy also leads to pride. People have committed probably every single sin imaginable with jealousy in their heart. Murder, adultery, theft, lying, and gossip to name a few. Being the root of many sins, it's no surprise the Bible talks about it so much. As a matter of fact, God Himself is a jealous God, and demands that we have no other gods or idols. This is why it is important that we are always humble in our happiness and joy. To do otherwise may cause our fellow Christians to stumble in many unforeseen ways.

Consider how Mother Teresa's quote applies to your life. And check back soon for part 2.

Your friend, brother, and companion in Christ,
-Zach Haas

New idea that will make for at least something for a weekly post

Hey guys! So as some of you know, I have been chosen to work with my local youth group on Wednesday nights.  I will be leading the devotionals for the summer at the very least.  Well, I decided that it would be a cool idea to post a synopsis for them so that they could look back at it later in the week and be able to reflect on the devotional.  I then thought, hey, why not also post the synopsis to my blog?  So here you go.  My first attempt at a devo synopsis.


Hello HLWC Teens,

I had this idea that it might be neat and useful if I posted some of the things that we talked about or discuss on Wednesday nights.  One of the things in particular that I would like to start posting is the Bible verses discussed during the devotional.  The thing is, we often hear and understand the verses, but quickly forget them.  Posting them here will give you a place to look back on and remember what was discussed in case you missed something or wanted to remember something.

We started off by reading four verses, two from the old testament, and two from the new.

Verse 1 : Leviticus 20:13
"If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

Verse 2 : 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
"Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

Verse 3 : Ecclesiastes 3 1-8
"A Time for Everything
1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace."

Verse 4 : Romans 12:15
 "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn."

At this point I introduced to you Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas.  Their website is : http://www.godhatesfags.com/index.html .

I can't remember where I found the videos, but here are links to ones that are exactly the same:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0meqcKTAcMU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVAb9LYT0hg&feature=related

Afterwards we read three more verses.

Verse 5 : Joel 2:13
"Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity."

Verse 6 : James 4:12
"There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?"

Verse 7 : 1 John 4:1
On Denying the Incarnation
1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

We then had some brief discussion and reflection on the church.

My overall conclusion for Westboro is that their main argument is that they should only love those who are part of the kingdom.  But shouldn't we be trying to bring people into the kingdom?  If we are supposed to be like Jesus by showing the love of Christ, then how can we save anyone by preaching hate?

Leave your thoughts and discussions or questions below if you wish.

PS. I hope to do this most weeks for the devotional section, seems like a cool/neat idea to me.

God bless, and have a good week.

Behind Every Man is a Woman

DISCLAIMER: I am not saying or supporting the idea that everything is a woman's fault, responsibility and problem. Nor am I saying that women are bad or any such matter. The topic just happens to focus on girls and their power.

This blog is actually based of a devotional that I gave to my youth group a couple of weeks ago. It was my second attempt at giving a devotional and it went well enough had some discussion questions that I and the other leaders tried to answer. I wanted to make this blog before the devo, as it would have allowed me to put more study and focus into the idea before presenting it. That obviously didn't happen as I am writing this as an after thought.

I started thinking about this topic a couple of months ago. We all know the old adage “Behind every great man there is a great woman.” This phrase is thought to have been coined during the feminist movement during the 1960s and 70s where similar slogans such as “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” also started. This of course is a very literal interpretation of the quote. I have slightly changed the original quote and came up with a new one. “Every great man can fall to the power of women.” My first thoughts on the topic immediately went to three famous great men: Samson, Samuel, and David.

1 Kings 11 tells the story of Solomon's fall. Earlier on God had told the people to refrain from marrying women from foreign nations. He knew that they worships false gods and idols and He wanted to protect His people from such evils. The Bible tells us that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines that led him astray. This passage also repeats that God had told the people not to intermarry women from certain tribes “because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods” (verse 2). So what? Some guy fails because he has a bunch of wives, whats the big deal? Well, Solomon wasn't just some guy. First of all, he was the son of the great King David, a man who God said was after His own heart. David had served the Lord faithfully and diligently . . . though not perfectly as I shall mention later. Secondly, Solomon was given the chance to ask God for anything he wanted. His choice, was wisdom. Solomon was the wisest person who had ever lived. If the wisest person to ever live was influenced and lost his way to women, how much more so can the every day guy of the 21^st century? Knowing God and the Bible more than any other person does not make you invisible.

The story of Samson's fall can be found in Judges 16. Samson was given physical strength from God. The only catch was that Samson could not cut his hair. (Sound a little like the modern day Rapunzel story eh?) If his hair was cut, he would lose his strength and be like a normal man. After a while of ruling the people and killing hundreds of evil Philistines, Samson meets a girl by the name of Delilah. It should be noted now that Samson is quite possibly one of the least wise people of all time. He quickly fell in love with Delilah, but she was evil and bribed by the Philistines. She told Samson that if he loved her then he would tell her the secret to his strength . . . because apparently there had to be a secret to his strength? Ever wonder where authors and producers get all their ideas – the Bible. Anyway, Samson lied to her three times telling her different ways to remove his strength. Each time Delilah tried it and found out it didn't work. Samson, being the idiot that he was, knowing that she had already tried his other three lies, eventually tells her the truth on the fourth round. She again tests his word and this time Samson loses his strength. He thought that he was in love and gave her everything, including his sacred gift from God. Great physical strength was taken by a seductive woman.

I already mentioned that God considered David as a man after His own heart. In 2 Samuel 11 we can find David's downfall. Prior to this David had become the second Kind to God's people. He slew a giant named Goliath, and married a princess. He was famous and successful. Unlike the other two stories, it can be argued that David's downfall was all his fault and the woman was more innocent. David had actually been setting himself up to fail. His men were out fighting while he stayed back. I found out that David had actually done a number of things prior to his fall that he should not have done. Anyway, the Bible does not provide with a lot of details of how it happened, but David saw Bathsheba bathing from his roof. He asked about her and discovered she was married to a man in David's army – Uriah. This did not stop him and David summoned her, slept with her, and got her pregnant. Some Bible scholars say that Bathsheba did not have a choice in the matter. David was king, and what a king wanted a king got. Could Bathsheba have done something different? Perhaps. Was it her fault this all happened? Perhaps not. Regardless, it was a woman that took a mighty God loving king and made him an adulterer and a murder (he later killed Uriah to hid his sin). Even the most God loving man fell to the beauty of a woman. How can a normal man be expected to act any differently?

Matthew 5:27-28 essentially tells us that looking is lust. This is where the devotional got a little shaky. Teenage girls have a hard time understanding why guys act the way they do. Men are very visually stimulated. It's why the porn industry is so big. I wrote a satirical paper about how women often dress too immodestly even if they are being unintentional. It is hard to explain to a teenage girl that the way she dresses is not helping her Christian brothers. Try getting around the idea that bikinis are probably never a good idea and strapless or low cut dresses and shirts perhaps equally as much. I have heard people say to guys use your imagination in an innocent way. However, it is my belief that probably all guys have an incredible and evil imagination.

The purpose behind all this is to try and let girls know that they have power. Power that they can easily abuse. Obviously, encouraging females to abuse their power over a man is not the purpose of this topic. Instead, it is to make girls wary of what they might be doing to their Christian brothers. It was also difficult to explain that yes, men do need to step up and be men and control themselves. Men should not be looking in the wrong places or setting themselves up to fail. But I just mentioned three gifted extra special men selected by God who all fell to a woman and/or her influence. Is it fair to women who are trying to innocently dress in something they find comfortable or something they think they look good in? No. But a fair is simply a place where pigs go to get ribbons. Being unfair does not change the reality of the situation. Women need to be conscious of what they can do to men, no matter how smart, strong, attractive, or “perfect” a man (or boy) is.

My challenge this time is simple. Are you living in a way that is uplifting and encouraging to your peers and brothers and sisters in Christ? Though it is less common, the opposite is possible and a man could be the one influencing a girl.

Your friend, brother, and companion in Christ,
-Zach Haas

Christians get bogged down, tired, and unmotivated

Well, it is not hard to see that it has been quite a while since the last time that I wrote a post. There are a number of reasons for this. Partially I have been “busy”, or rather, spending my time doing things that take lots of time without realizing it. (A nice way to say I have been playing a lot of video games and have not been utilizing time in a more beneficial manner) Partially I have not known what to write about. And finally, I have just found a complete lack of motivation and will to do … well … anything. It is for this very reason that I write this post; I should have written it weeks ago in all reality.

I would be lying if I said I wrote this post in an appropriate time fashion, but the truth is, I started it a number of weeks ago and have been working on it ever since. Waiting (procrastinating) on this post has actually led to a number of things. First of all, I have oddly discovered that I am not the only one feeling this way. I can think of two others off the top of my head that have been feeling, down, or demotivated, or just plain complacent about life and God. This is interesting because some of the people feeling like this (myself included) were feeling nearly the opposite last summer. God was working in our lives and we could see it an feel it. So what happened in the course of three seasons that could cause such a change in attitude? What kinds of things would cause an attitude like this in the first place? I am not sure I can even guess at the answer, but in the following paragraphs I shall pose some speculation.

Before I start on what I think may be the problem in some of this area, I would like to mention a verse that I found while procrastinating this post, as well as a verse that I knew about that may also be related.

Revelation 3:15-16 “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

I believe this is how God views us complacent Christians. We claim to have found the greatest joy given to mankind through Christ Jesus, yet we do nothing about it. Day after day we complain, we pity ourselves, we live a get up – do work – eat – sleep – repeat lifestyle. It quickly becomes easy to lose the flame of salvation, the vigor of forgiveness, and the passion of Jesus. This is a very serious problem, especially if you take the passage literally. God says that he would rather us be one or the other. Wait a second . . . better to be cold? God would rather us be not Christians at all than unmotivated, dead ones? Yikes! If you stop and think about it for a moment it makes sense.

When I was in high school I was on the cross country running team. I was very good at it and I didn't even have to try. The thing with cross country was that only the top 5 finishers mattered. Therefore, you could have as many people on the team as you wanted to without consequence. It didn't matter if you had the 10 worst runners at the meet, as long as you also had a solid top 5. We would accept anyone no matter how good they were. Many times we would have people that really didn't care about the sport, they just wanted to be on a team. God's team does not work like this at all. Instead God only wants the people that are good. He wants his team to look as good as it can be. Many times the kids that didn't care on my cross country team were jokers that made the rest of us look bad. This is exactly what lukewarm Christians are like. They make real impassioned Christians look bad or get a bad name.

Anyway, the second verse I want to share is Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” This means anything. Homework, shopping, working, cleaning, cooking, playing, swimming, laughing, crying, are all parts of “whatever you do.” How is it that we are supposed to be doing everything for God no matter what that we still find time to be unmotivated and tired?

An age old cliché states “practice makes perfect.” How many of us live our daily lives without practice? This kids seem to have it down http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfScu505a2o. Unlike cross country, I have to “practice God.” This is because there is a source working tirelessly against us and God. Everyday we forget to practice God's law we feed the demons in the world around us. You have heard that the Angels rejoice when a new believer accepts Christ, well I think the demons rejoice when we live a normal day. The more we forget the more we stop caring. We may never lose our salvation, we may never stop going to church, but at the same time we will never again light on fire and be useful to God. We become lukewarm water, useless for everything save a few science experiments. In this case, Satan is the evil scientist.

I think that the opposite can also be a cause for becoming unmotivated. Some people spend all their time filling themselves up. It sounds a little weird to think that you can grow fat on God. It is not that we should spend less time with God; it is that we should spend more time doing God's will. Sometimes we think we have a better idea of what God wants us to do that what He actually wants us to do. For example, we have all heard someone say “That's it, I am staying in my room forever, all I am going to do is read the Bible and pray.” This is not only foolish, it is selfish and a sin. “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15). I once read a story of a man, possibly a monk, possibly a saint, I cannot remember and I tried looking it up without success. The man decided that he was going to dedicate his life to God. So he lived on a mountain all alone, he had people bring him food. He did nothing but pray and meditate on scripture. At some point he realized what he was doing was wrong and began to serve the Lord appropriately. I think that there comes a point when we have the best intentions by filling ourselves up. We consume, consume, consume, God in every way. We go to camps, meetings, groups, events, and whatever else we can find, but we forget that once we are full we are full. All those things are good and should be done, however, eventually we need to serve. We need to go out and do Christ's Great Commission. A common trait associated with fat people is laziness. When we are fat on God we become selfish, always trying to find out how we can get more God. Ironically, our desire to consume more God can actually prevent us from getting there. We need to share what God is doing for us. (I realize some of those things I mentioned provide for sharing God's work, and that is good, but I don't think people always have it work like that.) It is good to fellowship and be surrounded by Christians, but only for a time. If we stay in the safe area too long never risking ourselves for God we become stagnant – lukewarm.

Believe it or not there is another opposite side. I don't really know how that is possible, but work with me. Some people are servants, slaves even, to God. This is GREAT! The world needs more people like you. These people are known as people pleasers, I am one as well I think, though not as much as some. Christians like this become empty and tired. They have the right heart for sure, and most the time the right attitude, they love serving and they love putting themselves out. The problem is, they often forget about themselves. This can eventually lead to a crash, and then being tired. It can also lead to being bogged down and too busy. We often forget ourselves when trying to serve others and God. This even happens to God's shepherds, Pastors. It is for this reason that pastors are given sabbaticals in order to rest and fill themselves back up. We are only human, and while God can give miracles that can allow us to go days without sleep, food, and water constantly serving, we need to remember these are miracles. Sometimes we need to stop, maybe not even for a whole day and just takes some time to be with God. It is kind of like a marriage (hey look, we are the Bride of Christ?). A married couple often gets so tied up with life and work and responsibilities they start to grow absent in their marriage. This is why it is often recommended that you never stop going on dates with your spouse. Time alone to stop and focus on one another and renew your good ol' puppy love days. We need to never stop dating God either. While he never leaves us, it is sometimes good to just stop and spend a time with Him where we are quiet, listening and feeding ourselves.

So I now look at myself. What is my problem? I think perhaps a little bit of everything, however, the practicing daily one is regrettably my biggest issue. Last summer I was writing a blog entry every day for a while. I can remember that being one of my biggest times of growth with God. It's because I would take time to reflect on Him and just let my thoughts come out. Interestingly enough, some of my favorite times this summer have been serving at my church. I have been blessed with the opportunity to work with my old youth group in what seems like any capacity I want. The biggest part of course leading the devotionals. It seems that I am having a lot of support from both my church family and the teens. I cannot afford to be an unmotivated Christian with such an opportunity at stake. This valley that I am in is seemingly a hard one to shake. I need to get back into practice, I need to feed myself, and I need to serve and follow God's plan.

I recently got some praise for my blogging, and that is a really cool thing to receive. Nothing is more filling than hearing someone say they have gotten something, or learned something from my mostly self reflections and thoughts. I am writing to myself (and God I suppose) just as much if not more than I am to other people. One of the things someone commented on in particular was the fact that I have ended a number of blog posts with a challenge. I started it thinking no one is going to really pay a whole lot of attention to it but I was pleasantly surprised. So here is one for this one. How are you feeling right now? Are you feeling bogged down, tired, or unmotivated with either life or God? Try to find the source and fix it. If you cannot pray about it, or talk to someone, and definitely stay practicing. Perhaps you are not feeling down and instead are feeling more on fire, then what is it that is making you feel that way? Are you doing things right? How can you keep the fire burning?

Your friend, brother, and companion in Christ,

-Zach Haas

PS: Here's to hoping for some more frequent updates . . . its good practice.