If This World Makes You Crazy And You've Taken All You Can Bear, You Call Me Up Cause You Know I'll Be There

Coming into college my faith life was strong, heck it was more than strong it was relentless. My faith was every part of me, it defined how I viewed everything in my life from friends to career choices and everything in-between. Don't get me wrong this hasn't and will not change, but my understanding of it has change significantly. I believed that since I has grown so much in my faith in high school, college faith would be a cake walk. At first it was, I looked for places on campus to talk about my faith or even place to just interact with people who held similar beliefs. That worked perfectly I not only kept a strong faith, but it grew, it grew so much that I even decided to go through the RCIA process (but that's a whole other sack of potatoes). I got used to this, my faith life had peaked in my mind, I was on top of the proverbial mountain of faith and I thought that would never go away. But alas, I got too comfortable and I let it slowly slip from me...and as it slowly fell between my fingers I began to secretly freak out. What could I do? Where did I go wrong? How do I fix this? Well the answers were not easy to come by, and soon I found my self losing the motivation to even go to anything religiously affiliated. All the stress surrounding my faith life was enough to make me want to just run away, it was enough to make me want to drop everything and take my life in another direction.

To drop everything and take my life in another direction.

That sounded familiar, the apostles. Jesus called them and they dropped everything and followed him as fishers of men. They went out and spoke with others helping to mold and craft the word of the Lord. As these thoughts flooded my mind, I remembered my faith, I remembered what it meant to be a man of God and I knew how to climb the mountain again.

God can not be fully comprehended by man, it is simply beyond our brains biological capabilities. Yet, that is exactly why we have faith; trust in something that can never be 100% certain. If you find this hard to grasp then imagine this: there are creatures under the sea with the capability to see several more colors than the human eye. This means that they can see entirely new colors, not just deeper shades but new colors entirely. Can you imagine a new color? Not really, but you know what it would be like...In the same way you may not be able to imagine God entirely, but I assure you we have been given enough to understand what He is like and that He truly does love us. Moreover, this obscured understanding of God requires us to constantly explore and deepen our faith. This is where I fell short, I believed I reached my peak and as a result the next steps I took only took me back down the mountain.

For us to be strong in our faith then we must go out and actually be fishers of men, we must go out into the world and share our faith with each other because together we will come to greater and more complete understandings. Our faith is infinite, we must always continue to explore it within ourselves and through each other; otherwise our love for God will fall through the cracks.

God is like a best friend on the other side of the world, even if you don't talk to Him for days, months, or years, the next time you call them it'll seem like no time has passed. So do yourself and God a favor, and keep the connection strong...God knows you better than anyone else so it is worth keeping in touch.

I Will Do Things I Never Thought I Would Do But Always Kinda Wanted To

I will.

-Those are some powerful words--in fact anything of that nature that expresses certainty is powerful and not to mention frightening. One of the hardest things to do now days is to be sure, our vocabulary is riddled with words and phrases like "I don't know" or "I guess" and "maybe". These words are just reflections of our fear of letting lose and growing, its a physical manifestation of our battle with the unknown. Nothing is more intimidating than the unknown, but you know...thats a funny thought. In the past when we were young, in another life, the unknown was what we dreamed of. We ran around with capes on our necks and explored the depths of our neighbors back yards and that was pure bliss. When it came to dinner time a plate of pasta was less than exciting but intergalactic macaroni--now that was a dish!! Anything new or unheard of was exciting and riveting and yet sadly that slipped world away between our fingers. Why? Well it's simple, we made a life for ourselves. The world called on us to be more mature and so we found a group of friends, we got a job, and we went to school and that was that. I am telling you that all this is simply not enough, do not settle for ordinary when frankly you are extraordinary--ordinary should be the new outstanding.

Devote yourself to more. I am in no way saying abandon what you have, no in fact do the opposite hold onto it forever and cherish it because that is your blessing. But don't let this be the end keep pushing because our lives have no script, nowhere is it written the path we must take so forge on! You may have made it, you may be on the way to the exact life you want but I am telling you to go above and beyond. You only get one life so why not do all you can with it? But that's not the first time you have heard that...everyone says "chase your dreams" "never give up" etc. I'm here to take it to the next step.

Dream those dreams you have never dreamt before, explore the ideas you are afraid to explore, challenge the thoughts you thought you might never challenge. Speaking from experience, quit dodging bullets and put your cape back on; cause if you're a superhero those bullets will just bounce off. Finish the war underneath your skin. Give yourself the will to tackle the unknown the challenging and the frightening. After all every part of you is there, every dream you dream is there, in your skin and on your cape you just need to recognize it--you just need to say you will.