Keepin it real

Haha, I just googled that title and added that image. Lately I've been thinking a lot about how important honesty is. If you've ever heard of the book "blue like jazz" one of the things people most appreciate about it is how honest he is. I heard that donald miller gets comments all the time that they love his honesty and he's like "Why is that such a rare thing in the christian world". Don't you just love it when somebody is totally honest? I watched the movie phone booth once, I would never recommend it but it is one of my favourite movies ever. Just because there is this one scene where the main character breaks down and is totally beautifully honest with everyone no matter what the cost.

Randy, I love your blog and how honest you are. I really like Jeremy Sawatzky's blog almost entirely because he is just real and honest. Most of my life I have been a people-pleaser, some people call it friendly but I am constantly finding myself changing the way that I say things so that people don't get offended. I am always watching people's facial expressions as I talk to see if they are bored annoyed or confused. Sometimes when I stop wearing glasses and I feel like I can't hear anything. But a few weeks ago we had a missions conference at FIRE and it was so exciting because they were just ridiculously real with us. They shared their dissapointments and their joys and it shook me to the core how passionate they were for God and how God was using them. These are people that graduated from the same school that I'm going to now.

One time I went to the Moose Jaw mineral spa with my small group in high school when Chris Senger was the leader. We were in the pool part and we went outside and when a couple girls saw me they started giggling. I was kind of silly back then and I thought they liked me or something. hahaha but anyways maybe 10-15 minutes later Chris says to me "David, you have a giant booger hanging off your nose". I looked, and to my horror he was right. Haha and ever since then I subconsciously brush my nose a few times a day in the fear that it will happen again. But I loved so much the fact that he would say that.

Last year me and my friends Jearim and Curtis from Millar came into Regina one weekend to do some witnessing. We ended up going to the scarth street mall and had a good time, I went out of my comfort zone a lot but it was good. Anyways, after the weekend we were driving back to Millar. Curtis had been a missionary in the Czech republic for a year and so we were talking for a while about being a missionary and the conversation shifted to money and how some missionaries are really greedy and don't really do much. Anyways, I felt like it was a kind of edifying and good conversation. We didn't want to be like that when we became missionaries someday. But Jearim was sitting in the back with his head down totally quiet. When after about 15-20 minutes he says "So what? So what are you going to do about it? I've sat here listening to you guys for twenty minutes talking about missionaries being selfish, what are you going to do about it now?" It just blew me away when he said that. I had been fairly good and generous with money but definitely most of my money just went to my own selfish desires. It was a sobering wake up call and since then I've done a lot better. When christians aren't afraid to be honest and penetrating and say what needs to be said, true community will develop and accountablility.




And why do we lie to God?

Think about it, I know I've done it so often. Why do we say "Lord I surrender all to you" and then within a few minutes we say something we regret or are selfish. Why do we say all these prayers that we don't really mean just because we think they sound good. Why aren't we just honest with God? I know how much I love honesty in my friends, how much more does God want us to be real with him? David cried out to God "How long O lord will you forget me?" think about that. Moses flat out told God that he disagreed with his plan to destroy the Israelites and make his children the promise. And God changed his mind!! The bible is so full of examples of people being real with God and him using them in dramatic earth-changing ways.

Think about our worship, how much of it is just a verse or two from the bible made to sound nice? How much of it is fluff that we don't really mean? Do we really come back to the heart of worship every time we sing that song? What is the heart of worship? When will we begin to honestly bring our heart to God, and say Take me as I am? I don't even know the answer to all of these questions. I for one love the worship music today, but I actually find myself get closer to God through christian rap sometimes. Not the flaky pop stuff, but those who came out of the gangster or drug lifestyle and are radically saved by God.