Appreciation Day 3

Day 3 of this blog I think it is time to show some love to a girl whose friendship is dear to me here at WKU. So this blog goes out to the only girl I know who gives me a run for my money at being to competitive. Also the girl who at one time had to listen to me boss her around as Outreach Exec when she was in charge or intramurals. And then she had to deal with me as her co-leader for freshman family groups. So I want to show some appreciation to the one girl out of my friends here at college who has had to deal with me probably the most.

So Sara Clifton this goes out to you. I promise that in everything you do if you keep God number 1 you will amount to amazing things. Also know that if you ever become a general manager of a baseball team or hockey team that I will be calling for free tickets and free stuff. Also every team needs a Chaplin which goes right up my ally. But keep your head held high and keep pressing, you have had a great impact on many lives more so than you can probably imagine. Keep it up and remember to keep in touch when we both move away in about a month.

Also the picture below goes out to our days as being in charge or Freshman. 

Appreciation Day 2

Well day 2 of my Appreciation blog goes out to probably one of the most encouraging people I know. Always makes sure to check and see how people are doing and I honestly believe he cares. So this blog goes out to my man Marcus Bagwell. A man who challenges anyone who comes in contact with him to shine Christ in all times. A man who even though he seems to be doing a million things at once always has time to stop and talk to people. A person who honestly makes me want to be a better person and deepen my faith in Christ. It is a blessing to see your heart for ministry and how much you truly do put your best into everything you do. You truly show that everything you do you do as if working for the Lord and that truly is a blessing.

Man I remember the days when you were a freshman and I was helping lead worship and getting to know you from that experience. I am thankful to this day we became friends and you did not kill me from that experience. Because as you know a guy like me can me a sounds guys worst nightmare because apparently I sing loud enough without a mic.  

Love ya my man and I know God is calling you to huge things and I am excited to see where that will lead you. Whether that be here in the states or even farther away I know God will use you to change hearts as He already has. Keep it up man and keep in touch even though I am moving 12 hours away. Love ya

Appreciation

Well I have not written a blog in quite sometime. Not really sure why that is maybe I am trying to make the best of the time I have left and sometimes people get upset by my blog. Now it is not like me to care but I guess I want everyone to be happy until I leave because there is something not exciting about moving 12 hours away when you know someone that I call a friend is mad at me. Maybe it is just God trying to teach me a thing or two about not trying to upset people but those people this blog offends at time look past the point that everything I write is directed at myself and my battles with sin. I try not to write anything that I have not dealt with or are not still dealing with.

Well a long intro to this blog makes you wonder what this will be about doesn’t it? I am thinking about writing over the next month a series of blogs dedicated to certain people in my life that have helped impact me and my time here in Bowling Green as a student at WKU. Maybe it is because it is thanksgiving season or something but I feel this will be a good way to show my appreciation for people since it is normally not my strong point to show appreciation. Also do not feel upset over the next month if your name does not show up. Everyone who reads this means more to me then you could ever understand. I truly love all the encouragement I have got from you all. So please know that I do appreciate you even if your name does not show up.

Well first up on this list of people comes a dear friend who I am surprised we have become such great friends. This is a guy who I know did not like me very much at first but now we have become great friends and I know this guy truly would do anything to help a friend. From our days in D-group together or from our days just sitting and talking or to the more recent days of geocaching and ping pong. This guy has been a true encouragement to me. It is odd to think that for a couple years it looked like he was following my footsteps at the BCM. First taking over Campus Events after me and then taking over Outreach Exec after I did and to think about how this guy has challenged me in ways I could not imagine.

So this blog entry goes out to my boy Adam Drummond. You are a light in the darkness and even if sometimes it gets a little foggy out the light will always shine through. Keep strong my man I know God has amazing things planned for you and you have truly blessed many people. You are truly one person I will miss having around when I move away but I know that we will keep in touch. Keep your head held high and keep pressing!! Love ya man

Odd Dream

This post is about a weird dream I had. Will not be looking deep into scripture or anything like that just want to explain this dream. Now first off this has to deal with a girl and a little bit of my past so get ready for the joy that is ahead of you. Also if you are reading this you must be one of my true followers because I am not posting the link to this on facebook or twitter. So congrats to you for reading about my life.

Well this dream started with me hanging out with some old friends and some people I did not really know. You know reminiscing about the old days and some of the old stupid things we did in high school. For a dream I actually felt really good and was surprisingly one of the better feelings I have had in a long time. Maybe this is because I do not see my old friends very much or something, I do not know. Then while hanging out a girl from my past came in. Now kind of random because I honestly didn’t know the girl in high school and all I remember about her was that I led her on really badly. Yes I am honest about myself.

Well I found myself talking to this girl for a long period of time and found myself thinking I should hang out with her more. Remember this is a dream and when I woke up it was awkward and there are no feelings for the girl in my dreams. And yes technically it is the girl of my dreams because she was in my dream but no attraction to her in real life. Ok back to the dream, I found myself talking and talking to this girl and by the end of the night I got up the courage up to ask her to hang out again.

So when I asked the girl I figured the response would be yes but my past came back to haunt me. She looked at me and pretty much told me that she could not trust a guy who played games with girls and was scared of commitment. I woke up from my dream rather quickly and was very confused. I began to sit there and think deeply about what had just happened in the dream. I guess in some aspects the words she said were true about my past but are they true about my present?

I feel as though I have changed a lot since my high schools days. Now I did do a lot of things wrong and since girls are mostly the ones who read my blog I will not go into to much depth on that. God truly had to bring me out of a bad place when I came to know him and even after a few years of following him. I think my view of this dream is just how easily we can be manipulated by our past. Sometimes they can creep back up on us and we can let them bring us down but honestly it is just our past, it is not our future. I don’t know it was weird and I didn’t explain to well everything with the dream and my thoughts after but oh well. Hope you enjoyed reading a weird post.

Prayer Request

This is a very hard blog for me to write and to be honest the only reason I am is because I have faith in the power of prayer and in you my friends. What I am about to ask is really important to me, so please, I ask humbly for you to help me with one thing. I am not even sure how appropriate it is to use this form of communication to help me, but if you know me it is obvious to you that I am not good at asking for things in person. So this is the easiest way for a person like me, the guy who is very independent and the guy who wants to do everything himself to ask this request.

So finally to the request, I would like to ask you to pray for the salvation of my oldest brother. If you know my testimony than you know that my family did not start going back to church till when I was in middle school. My brother is 5 years older than me and had already graduated high school by the time this had happened. This being true he was never really in church.

I believe strongly in the power of prayer and I believe strongly in the power of God so I ask this one request. Just pray God to soften his heart to those who speak to him about Christ and that God grant the opportunity to share with him. Only God can save and I have faith that he will. This truly has been burdening my heart for some time especially since in 3 months I move to texas.

I believe many of us have similar prayer request, so if you do please post them on the comments below. If I ask you to help me in prayer then I should do the same for you. I believe prayer is powerful, so let us work together. I truly love you all.

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Second Chances.......

This is going to be one of my most passionate blogs in a long time. Not sure why but for some reason tonight I became very passionate about this subject with some friends of mine. It showed me that I needed to write about it and maybe others can hopefully be able to relate and maybe be able to fix the problem. So what is this problem I write about? The problem is about second chances. We would all agree that Christ is the best about giving second and third and fourth chances for people but for some reason we as people do not do the same. We clearly see that the bible in Matthew 18:21-22 says to forgive people 70 times 7, which if you want to do math equals 490 times. But for some reason we cannot even do it once. This is very disheartening to me.

I was sitting with some friends and talking about how I would never truly be taken serious by some people where I am because of bits and pieces of my past. As much as I would try to show that Christ has changed me and that I have come a long way from the arrogant, self centered person I use to be, people would never accept it. This is a HUGE problem and we all deal with this in our lives. God begins to change our hearts and change some of our sinful nature but when he does a wonderful thing in us people do not believe it to be true. This can be because we have wronged them in the past or something and have even asked forgiveness but people are not willing to give second chances. The sad thing is everyone probably feels this in one way or another with people.

So often in life people refuse to take people seriously even if they have changed drastically. They still figure that they will fall and be the same old person that they were before. This is such a bad attitude and wrong biblically. I mean I can understand that if someone murdered a loved one or something like that it would be hard to give them a second chance but I am not talking about that. I am talking about the minor things that to be truthful are meaningless. And to be honest I believe these things hold us back from doing amazing things for God.

I feel like most of us feel this same way about things. We have at one time screwed up badly with some friends or something and because of this we are not able to really even be friends with these people any more. Even if we have apologized it stills feel like it did not work. We feel as though the only way for things to change is to just get away and start over with new people. I have to admit that in the midst of the fear of moving to Texas this is one thing I am excited about. I am glad to be able to start new and not feel like things I screwed up in 3 years ago or more are still hung over my head.

Maybe because I consider myself a pretty forgiving person, maybe because I have always had to be forgiven, this is why this subject has become passionate to me. I am not sure but I can guarantee one thing most of the people feel the same way. So often we have people leave churches or ministries because they have screwed up and people do not offer a second chance. I mean I can understand after a screw up you have to prove your self again but how long does it take for people to truly see the change. I mean look at Peter in the New Testament, he denied Christ 3 times and his friends knew about it but they forgave him and Christ said that the church would be built on him.

I admit that this blog may be very scrambled but I am very passionate about this right now. We need to stop being these people that do not follow what Christ says. We need to own up to our mistakes and first accept the fact that we are not better than others. We are sinful wretched people who are in need of just as many second chances as anyone else. Also we need to remember that the church will not be able to rise if we keep pushing people away even after they seek forgiveness. Christ wants to do a work with this generation and we need to do it together and accept the people that have screwed up, which is of course you and me. There will probably be another blog about this tomorrow so stay tuned.

Much Love,
Brent
1 Corinthians 9:19

Will we rise?

We have all heard the cliché about life being a rollercoaster, it has its ups and its downs and its twists and even loops at times. I have to admit that I was never the biggest fan of this cliché because a lot of times life is not as simple as that illustration. Plus who likes the idea that every time you reach the top you fall down farther than you did before? This thought has me thinking tonight about the people in my life, all of the people that I see and talk to on a regular basis. Then I began to wonder where they currently are mentally and spiritually on this short ride we call life. I would say that everyone can admit that at one time or another they have been struggling or hurting but have tried to act as though nothing is wrong. I am not sure why but I feel like this is happening more than ever right now. Life continues to throw us curve balls and so often we swing and miss horribly when it is thrown and just like most people we lower our head and walk away trying to hide the embarrassment.



More than ever I feel that we have to stop walking away and begin to stand in the midst of struggle and trust God. I am not sure what exactly it is that is going on in your life and will never say I can understand half the things you probably go through but I know someone who can understand. So often when struggles come we like to look at ourselves for answers and begin to think that the only way to get out of something is if I do something. To often we try to turn ourselves into God instead of trusting the one who has called out to us and has offered redemption to us. If there is one thing I can promise it is that things never get easier away from God and some of us have been running from God for so long that we do not even know what it would be like to be comforted by His grace.

Recently my heart has really been seeking revival. Of course starting in my own life and then moving to the community around me. I know God is seeking revival in your heart also and for us to all to begin to rise with one voice speaking out for the name of Christ. No one wants to run this race alone and no one wants to wonder where everyone has gone. Let us as people of God begin to stop being selfish and start becoming selfless. Stop being takers and become givers and to rid ourselves of hate and begin to Love the way that Christ did when he did on a cross. I know at times the pit we find ourselves in is hard to climb out of but maybe it is time to drop everything we hold on to and reach up to the arms of Christ that are reaching to grab us out of the pit.

I will close with 2 verses that I pray you think about. Let us rise together and reach this world, our time is short let us live for the only one who is worth living for. Love you all.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” -Matthew 11:28

“For out of the overflow of your heart the mouth speaks” - Luke 6:45