He is no fool!

These last few weeks have been total chaos with VBS, Camp and people visiting. Its been almost a week since we got back from camp. For those of you that know me at all, know I love camp. I spent 3 summers basically at camp. Gosh I miss that. But what an opportunity to see camp in such a different light. To be there as a leader to students I had already been working with. It was a blast. My prayer for the group from the beginning was for all 19 of us to go home changed, leaders included. It did my heart well to see all of our students stand and commit to something. Some committed to living one life. This was a huge theme of the camp to be the same person regardless of where we are. To bring the same person at church at school at work and at play. As for me I fell more in love with my God and Savior. By far the coolest experience was taking the time to pray for each individual student. The Holy Spirit used us leaders in powerful ways that night. It was a private moment for each student to be prayed over by each leader. Prayer is powerful. I know in my life it has been so meaningful to me to have people pray out loud for me. With that I want to challenge you with this. If you say to someone I will be praying for you. Why not take the time to do it right then and there? You may be surprised to see how much God uses you.

This last weekend I had my mom and my best friend in town. Wow what a blessing. These two people are two of my favorite people. I love them both to death. My mom and I went to a silver mine in Idaho that was pretty cool. My best friend and I mostly just chilled. But that was refreshing and needed and great. It was hard to see them go. Reminded me a lot of what I have given up in coming here. But I will count all things as loss in order to gain Christ.

There is always themes in my life of what God is teaching me and this has been the theme of late. I hear it in Sunday school. I hear it in sermons. I heard it at camp. We live in a broken world and a broken society. They tell us to be our own man. To do what makes us happy. Yet at the end of their life their fortune and fame amounts for nothing. What good is it to gain the whole world and lose our soul? If we pour all we have into selfish vain things. At the end of it all it will count for nothing. But if we invest in what's eternal then at the end of it all it will be worth something. This has been the lesson for me lately I am having to learn all over again what it means to give it up in order to better serve. I have given up friends, family, and Farrar in order to come here. I am leaning on Him and He will be my comfort. But God has called me here and I am blessed with a great church family and a great group of students. I realize I needed to be taken out I cared more about spending time with friends then I did about truly investing my time. And that is the lesson in full circle. "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose".

I hope your are learning from my rants. Take the time to evaluate what you need to give up to follow Christ. What is weighing you down? For me it was the need to please people and be around people. My life was the people around me, Christ was in many ways not at the center. For you it could be work, television, boys, girls, cars, facebook, ect. I am not trying to say these are bad but they are when they get in the way with your relationship with Jesus. So again I ask what do you need to give up?

For those of you that may read this and have yet to know Jesus, to begin to understand that he loves you and desires to have a relationship with you. I would love to talk to you. I will not pressure you or "shove the bible down your throat". But instead I would love to show why this is so important in my life and what he has done for me. I would love to show you how to live a life with significance and meaning. Because the God who created everything we see around us wants you. I would love to start the discussion.

Love,
Dan