Why me?

Does it ever hit you? Just how amazing our God is? Does it make you want to cry, cry for joy, cry for wonderment, that our God, one who created Heaven and Earth would come down, die for us, and want a personal relationship with us. That, while thousands around us are dying and going to Hell, He chose us. Why? Why would some of us taste the everlasting life, to see Him reign the earth, to see His glory? Why would a God send people to Hell? Am I to make the judgement between right and wrong, when I am one human being out of billions, in a universe bigger than I can imagine, controlled by a God who spoke this all into existence? Why should I make the call between what is good and what is bad? I have no say in this matter of morality. This is God we’re talking about, he created each of us, individual and he created us to serve him, to love him. And if we don’t? We will live eternity without him. To my mind that seems wrong, that my fellow neighbor will not believe, and so he will go to Hell. While God, having out of his mercy chose me to trust Him, that I might live with him in glory. God, why?! How can this be? Tears come to my eyes as I fathom a God who would pick me. One who would hold me close to him. Comfort me, love me, give me gifts, bless me, while I, a sinner, continue to hurt him every time I disobey him. Why, Lord? Why me? Your love for me is unconditional. I can always come back to you, and you are waiting for me. You know my limits, my failings, and yet you help me all the way. His love is amazing, and his love is for me. I’ll except Him as my God, as my savior who set me free.

English Vintner

Music

What is it about music that makes the problem you’re in smaller. Listening to it soothing comforting music can get you through a tough situation, or can let your emotions go. It’s freeing to listen to it. Is it drawing your emotions? Is that bad? Can I feel a closer connection to Christ when listening to certain types? Yes. Is it more than a feeling? Yes. It makes me draw closer making my relationship stronger in him. I can talk, pray, sing, cry, and He will hear me. There is something mystical about music, it can reach to the heart, the soul, go deep, penetrating.

I can often hear the music and can feel the tension drop, my cares are cast off and I can do it. Modern technology allows me to do frustrating jobs with music at hand, which is wonderful. I can undertake a job I wouldn’t have motivation to do and be able to do it because I can focus on something else, feel the music pulse through my veins, giving me the energy I need.

English Vintner

Camping

Camping is soul food for the introvert like me. Someone who loves being outside and with nature, who adores God’s creation and doesn’t care if he’s not in a tent or the only toilet is an eight minute walk away. The tall dark trees surround you, the ever present flowing of the water, the singing birds, the rays of sunlight piercing through the roof of evergreens. Cooking over a fire with every meal. Your favorite people camping with you, what could be better? 

You spend the day gathering fire wood, cooking the next meal, making up games, running through the woods, swinging on ropes, and jumping into water. The days are spent laughing with friends, talking about everything, just enjoying God’s nature and the people around you. The nights are fun, the temperature drops some, we sing songs of worship to God while playing the guitar and drumming on anything that makes noise. Going to bed under the stars, watching meteors fly by. Getting up with the other morning people, just the three of you, to build up the fire enough to have a cup of joe. Enjoying the early morning, the light growing stronger, the people trickle in. But you were there, you were there when everyone went to bed, and were up before everyone. You were there listening to nature.

Many times I’ve thought about nature. How wild it is, and yet so uniform. So uniformly chaotic some might say. And yet here it is, the wilderness, not made by man, but out of chance, by God. I call it God’s last piece of Eden. No, it’s not the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden wasn’t full of sin, in our world today our whole ecology is based on the Fall. But it’s God’s handy work, and I can often hear him most when I’m alone surrounded by the wild. Sure man can do great things, new inventions, sky scrapers and the like, but in the end what is more amazing, the attempts of man to create things, or God’s nature? I know I would rather see pictures of Nature than anything man has created. Man wants to be in control, we seek to overtake nature in our attempts to recreate it. There is a place for farms and gardens, the natural breeding of plants, but in the end, if I had no wilderness to go go, I’d find my life much more depressing. Camping is soul food, and without it, I’d find coming back to my this busy life much harder. It puts things in perspective I think.

English Vintner

Home

The energy surging through every vein,
The freedom I feel, the smell is the same
To sleep in my bed and rise before dawn,
drinking my coffee to brush off the yawn
Thinking of quotes, I seem to lack,
The one I remember is "Well, I'm back."

English Vintner