Surrender

    I have found that sometimes God speaks truth to you in subtle, gentle ways. Other times he kind of bludgeons you over the head with it. The latter has been happening recently. I got home from 3 weeks of travel, and sort of began thinking about all that had happened: Christmas with my family, visiting friends in Colorado; and something began stirring in my head. God was trying to tell me something. I realized that I got EVERYTHING I wanted for Christmas. That has never happened, nor do I think it should. But I got all the presents I wanted, I got to see all the people I wanted to, and at the end I was left asking why? Slowly but surely the answer came saying, "Matt I have given you EVERY earthly possession you could possibly desire. I have surrounded you with people who love and care about you. I want you to focus on ME. You don't need to give any attention to that other stuff. I am right in front of you. And there isn't any excuse you can claim. You cannot claim school overbearing you, you cannot claim exhaustion or busyness or work. It's time you got back to ME." That was enough for me to stop and acknowledge God as being in control, but it did not stop there. Only a couple of days later the sermon at my church was based on 1 John 3:1 "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" God didn't give us the bare minimum amount of love that we would need, he lavished us with love.

    In the sermon the parable about the prodigal son was also used as an example. This is one of my most fond parables, one I am very familiar with, and yet I had never thought about the story this way: in the story there are two examples of lavish, extravagant living. One is earthly lavishness, and one is Godly lavishness. The younger son receives his inheritance from the father and spares no expense as he squanders that wealth. He is only concerned with the things the world has to offer him. (This is where I start to squirm in my chair.) But he turns back and heads for home, hoping for the minimum amount of forgiveness, of grace. But when he returns his father is waiting for him. Upon his return lavishes him with a robe, the family ring, sandals, and a feast. The father greatly exceeds what the son was expecting. This is God waving his hands in front of my face and saying "Hey! Hello in there! All that crap will get you nowhere, and fast. I'm trying to lavish you with my love, if you will only let me!" I give up, I surrender. I want the love I've been cheating myself of. I want you, Lord.

Vacation? No, this is an adventure. Part 1: Seattle

I love Christmas and I'll tell you why. Though it may be hard for me to remove the selfish, gimme-gimme part of Christmas from this explanation, I'll do my best. I love Christmas because it is about sacrifice. My family is dispersed across the country, and has even been spread across the world in years past. But there is an understanding that we will do whatever it takes to make it home for each other. I remember my sister coming home from France and having her bag taken by mistake by an Italian man who didn't speak any English. Or in the same year when my dad and other sister had to drive from Seattle to Colorado Springs fighting blizzard conditions the whole way. It is about sacrifice. My dad pulled me aside when everyone was home this past Christmas and said "as far as I am concerned this is Christmas, having everyone home." I think he hit that one right on the head.

It was both incredible to see Seattle under a foot of snow, and terrible when you realize that a large city full of people who don't know how to drive in snow still need to do their Christmas shopping. I was so glad to have two 4-wheel drive vehicles at my disposal. I learned that in my parents new neighborhood maybe a quarter of the residents had 4-wheel drive cars and maybe a tenth had snow shovels. I was glad to do it, but I have never shoveled or dug out cars more than over the 11 day span of being home. What really made things tricky was that our street was in a private neighborhood (don't ask me what that means) on top of a huge hill. The hill was probably 200 feet long and super steep. Anyone without 4-wheel drive was doomed going up or coming down the hill. As a result, most of the neighbors were snowed in. One night I went out and shoveled almost half of the hill, though I didn't feel obliged to do it as much as a spirit of wanting to give my time and energy. Thankfully some neighbors saw that and finished shoveling the next day.

I also love MSU's travel board. I used it my freshman year, and for some reason forgot about it after that. It is such a useful tool. For Thanksgiving I brought 2 guys out to Seattle and between splitting gas and declining gas prices it cost me 10 bucks round trip. 10 dollars! For Christmas break I took Kristy (another complete stranger) after she called me about 4 weeks in advance. I picked her up from the dorms, as it is not unusual for freshman to be without cars. So we start driving. For most of the ride she was texting a girl who lived next door to her. Apparently this other girl was not too thrilled about Kristy traveling with a stranger. Anyway we get to talking and Kristy asks me what I do besides school. That is a fairly simple question for me to answer since I pretty much only do Young Life when I'm not studying. She hadn't heard of Young Life but quickly equated it to Campus Crusade for Christ, and she began spouting off names of people I might know through Cru. Wouldn't you know that she was living across from a good friend of mine, and next to a girl I met through Cru. It turned out that it was one of these girls was the one texting Kristy the whole time. She was very relieved to hear that I wasn't a stranger after all. I hope those girls keep hard after Kristy. She is cool and easygoing; she just needs a little direction. Don't we all.

There is nothing like driving by yourself. After a while you do go a little batty, but it really is a unique outlet. You can sing at the top of your lungs, be messy with snacks, and you never have to worry about compromising in what you are listening to. But as much as I like driving alone, driving with someone is sooo much better. I found out that I am a much safer drive when there is someone else on board. Not that I am a reckless driver, but when the roads were bad on my trip, I was perfectly content to go slow and not push my luck. Maybe I should have company with me more often with I drive in the winter. I've also decided that girls are much more fun to drive with long distances. There is never much of an awkward silence, and even though you may not really be a part of the conversation, you always feel involved. The two guys who rode with me over Thanksgiving said a total of 10 words combined during the trip. It isn't their fault necessarily, it just would have been nice to have had some conversation. I digress, it was wonderful to spend a week and a half at home, but at the end I was ready to hit the road for Colorado. More to follow on that trip.