Meet your Maker

So I saw the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, which is great by the way; I highly reccomend it. Towards the end our three young adventurers come face to face with Aslan, who finally reveals himself after many trials. There they stand, facing their maker, and even though two of them have met Him before, they are no less in awe of Him, as should we all be, but the thing that stuck out to me the most was their reactions to Him.

Edmund, King of Narnia, bows in reverance and respect to his King, the King of us all.

Lucy, overtaken with delight at the sight of Him, forgets herself entirely and runs to Him, burying herself in his mane in a beautiful embrace.

Euastace, who has never before seen or even believed in Aslan, stands a little off to the side, not sure what to do, but with clear admiration and awe in his eyes.

My question is a simple one, but sometimes the simple questions are the hardest to answer.

What would you do if you stood in the presence of God? Actually, allow me to rephrase:

What will you do when you stand in the presence of God?
Will you kneel in reverence to your king?
will you be overtaken with love and run to Him with tears of joy in your eyes?
Do you have the confidence to do either?

I will go first. I find it hard to imagine to be honest, to be so filled with awe before His majesty I wonder if I might just stand there trembling like a leaf in the wind and be at a total loss for words or even coherent thought, but if I somehow, by the grace of God found the confidence to act in any way in His presence, I believe I would kneel as Edmund did. I would submit to my Lord and King, my Maker, who has all authority in heaven and on Earth.

Let's wake up to a reality most of us ignore for whatever reasons on a daily basis.

We are in the presence of God even now.

He is in all things, all around us, all the time. If we have accepted His offering of the Spirit and His Son, then He even dwells within us. His love is endless, His passion relentless, He will pursue us as long as it takes.

May you come to know Him, and fall in love with Him. May you pursue your eternal lover with the same passion that He has shown for us.

Please leave your answers to my question in the comments, or feel free to comment or message me here

My thoughts on Christmas

This year during christmas I was yet again surrounded by the annual rush to get presents for everyone, the holiday signs, shows, and songs about what Christmas is really about (none of them had the right answer save for a few on the christian stations and even those were a little suspect) and of course the fiercely cheerful attitudes of consumers and customers, as if they're attitude was that of, be hapy and friendly no matter how badly you want to scream and kick because you weren't first in line.

It was a very productive two weeks indeed, and I had a great time with my family this weekend, despite all of that. But I had some thoughts about all that, some spurred on even by my own church, White Water Christian. They did a splendid service with all the children telling the story of when Jesus was born, in between some classic old songs accompanied by my girlfriend's beautiful voice and my own hopefully equally beautiful piano. It was followed up then by our Pastor reiterating what Christmas is all about.

So here's my problem. We know what christmas is about. We've had every church tell us the same thing year after year, every year our whole lives. What are we doing about it? I think it's great and necessary to lay the foundation of Christ coming to earth as a man, and what that means for us, but I feel it misses the point to only do that. Christ's coming to earth was a joyful and tremendous occasion, but it was also a no holds barred, extreme move made by a lover, desperate to regain the heart of His bride.

We were caught in the middle of an all out war between God and Satan, each fighting to win the heart of God's bride, the church, a passion play on which both sides are desperately trying to woo us and win us over. Satan, insane with jealousy over God's creations and His love with them because he is incapable of love, tries to lure us and seduce us, but in the end his love is a lie, a trick, and he would ravage us and leave us to die. But God offers us true devotion and affection, a love the enemy could not possibly understand let alone give. Somehow, we had gone astray, the enemy's power of seduction are astounding and his traps had lured us slowly but surely away from our Maker, and God could no longer sit by and watch his bride be lured to her death, so He stepped in. In a colossal, powerful moment, He threw himself behind enemy lines, into our world, and gave his life to this beast that had taken us away from Him to free us. But little did that beast know how powerful sacrifice is, and how much meaning there is in blood. Life-giving blood of Immanuel, God in the flesh. He poured himself out for us, and only for us, and in doing so he won us over, he pulled us out of the grip of evil.

Christmas is about more than a little baby who was born in an obscure place, in a quiet little town. Christmas was the beginning of the end, the final decisive blow to the heart of evil, forever changing our lives. Christmas was an act of war, a spy behind enemy lines at just the right place, and just the rigt time. Christmas was our passionate, desperate lover, Christ, throwing himself to the wolves so we could go free.

Why?

Because that's what love does.

You're the One (Stay by Me)

My latest song, literally just wrote and recorded it this morning
I think it's a keeper

End of the Journey

Here's my first entry to the music part of this blog! I fudged a little on some words and I had kind of a cold sooo I'm not too happy with my voice but I figured I'd make good on my promise anyhow. So enjoy! and leave feedback!
-Brian

Music!!

soooo if I can ever get around to finding my microphone and making some almost decent recordings......I'm gonna make this a music blog!!!....if I can figure out the technical stuff that is....might even need help with that if anyone reads this and knows stuff....but...yeah, there you have it, I'll probably still write things on here too if I ever come up with something again, but primarily I think this is going to be my new way of getting my music heard so I can get feedback on it and improve it, sooo enjoy : )

Christians in disguise

So..the past few days have been quite an ordeal in the Andrews family. Friday evening around 5ish while sitting to coffee with my wonderful girlfriend, who is also the closest and dearest friend and companion I have, got a phone call from my mom, who told me my Uncle Gary had just passed away. The weekend kinda blurred into the beginning of this week, from driving with my cousins to the funeral, and from the funeral to driving with my parents back home. Something of that funeral, which was more than sufficient to do Uncle Gary justice and reflect on his goodness, really stuck with me though. (Thank you Tim) The Pastor called my Uncle a "servant of Christ, disguised as a Donut Man". This is a perfect description of Gary and perhaps one of the most profound things I've ever heard.

I wonder, if someone watched me do my job, would they see a servant of Christ who happens to push carts? If you met someone while you were at work, doing the tedious daily things you do to try and earn whatever living you can, would their interaction with you show someone who's just making a living, or would it leave the impression of something much, much more. I always want more from life than what I have. I don't know if this a character defect in me, or if it's a defect or just a characteristic of the whole human race. I want to do more, be more, see more, dive deeper into relationships with people, dive deeper into my relationship with God. I am never ever satisfied to stand still and be static in the things I say and do, or the people I interact with. I want to be alive.

This is going in a slightly different direction than I thought it would, but I think that's alright. I'm saying what's on my mind. I want people to look at me and see someone who is alive, who is bursting with the kind of vitality and unbridled joy that only Christ can give. I want people to think of me as a "servant of Chist disguised as a cart pusher". That's what I do for now, to earn my rent money and food money and every penny I have at the moment, but I would want this no matter what I did. What do you do? What's your job, what do you do to make a living? Are you really living, or are you just making money?

May the goodness of Jesus be clear to you always, and may you be known as a servant of Christ in disguise.

Two Hands Jars of Clay

I love this song almost as much as I love the message it has, makes me think about what I'm doing for the people who are outside my little world of experience and if I could be doing more..hopefully it stirs the same thoughts in you, and maybe it will stir some action out of us too

Arms that Hold

Here's a song I'm working on, not done yet but I thought I would share what I have so far

Here I am before your throne, broken on my knees
Struggling to see through the dark
I'm waiting here I'm calling out to the God of my second chances
Lift me up and reconcile my heart

Set my heart on fire let my life proclaim that you alone are King
Lift my spirit higher let those around me see that I have been set free

And yours is the voice that speaks through all creation, you're the maker and the author of all time
And yours are the arms that hold the world together, they're the arms that are holding me tonight

In All Things

So, life has been amazing to me so far. I have a decent paying job, that kinda sucks sometimes but hey it pays the bills and that's what matters. I have an amazing girlfriend who's enormous and beautiful heart is totally sold out to God. I have awesome friends I can rely on and who know they can rely on me. Life is great, so this got me thinking, how often do we get into the flow of things going really well for us and forget who made things the way they are? Got me thinking that sometimes maybe it can be even harder to remember God when everything is good, than when everything is bad. It's easy to remember God when things are going downhill in a hurry, easy to say where are you? why did you let this happen? why aren't you helping? Why do we so easily call out to our Maker when our chips are down but never remember to thank Him when we have everything we need? I know I'm guilty of this, are you? I guess this is a challenge of sorts, a challenge to my fellow followers of Christ to remember to be thankful and humbly follow God ANYWHERE He leads us, and not just praise Him when things are good, but when they're bad too, and not just ask for His help when our lives are down, but to ask Him to show us opportunities to share our own goodness with others who aren't feeling so blessed. May you come to see that the God of strength is everywhere, and may you come to praise Him and live in worship, in all things.