Cause Life's Too Short

Over this past week I have come to realize that life is too short, God it too good, and I do not have enough energy to live my life caring about what what people think of me. My very very good friend Jonathan Stemberger and I spent the week backpacking around Ormond Beach and Holly Hill, visiting friends, reaching out to people, and getting extremely strong shoulder muscles. As you all know it rained this week in a way that it has not rained since Noah and The Flood. Yes, Jonathan and I were walking in that. It was a cold, rainy, windy week of walking, but I would not trade the time we had for anything. Jonathan and I started our "Grand Adventure" on Monday morning when we walked to our good friend's the Baloa's house. That first day was probably the hardest for us, because we were pretty unprepared for what the weather was throwing at us. We got a lot of our stuff wet, even though I had a poncho and Jonathan had a couple garbage bags covering his stuff. We were completely soaked head to toe by the end of the day and when we arrived at the Baloas and we both got hot showers and got into dry clothes both Jonathan and I agreed that showers had never felt so good. The second day we had gotten just a little bit wiser and so when we walked to the Dunlop's house (which was only about 1/2 mile)we had all of our gear completely covered and protected. Since it was so close to the Baloa's house we dropped off our bags and just headed out to do some evangelizing. Our main thing with evangelizing was getting people to talk to us by using a survey on the "Impact of Religious Expression In A Free Society". I am writing a Sociology paper so my mom thought it would be a good idea to survey people on what they believe as a lead in to sharing the gospel. So the first thing we did on the second day was go to Office Depot to get our survey laminated, which paid off in a HUGE way because on the first day three of our copies had already been claimed by the rain. So after that we headed to the Ormond Library to survey people. We used the library as our central spot through the whole trip because it was really close to the middle of everywhere we were going. Talking to people at the library was a very fun experience for me, but it was very enlightening and eye-opening as well. As the title of this post reads: Life it too short. At the start of the surveying process I was very hesitant about talking to people, because of what they would think of me, I mean god forbid they think I am some kind of weird Christian guy right?!?!?!? It was totally absurd to be worried about something like that, but I was and thankfully God changed my heart by showing me that life is too short and he has done too much for me to be worried about what other people think of me. After I got over being a total idiot the talking to people and reaching out to people became so much easier, Jonathan and I even prayed for two complete strangers who were having some relationship issues, and it was just because Jonathan said "Hey, I think God wants us to pray for them" and he was right. It was totally amazing how God worked on my heart through this past week. The rest of the week we spent one night with the Smiths, the Urquharts, the Moores, and finally Jesse and Tiffany Jarvis. All of our host families were so gracious and welcoming. Every family we stayed with opened up their houses to us and made us feel like we were completely at home. Thank you all so much! I don't know how many of you will read this, but I just wanted to make mention of it anyway. God also used this week to really build Jonathan and my friendship. While we were walking in the cold, wet, windy weather we had a lot of time to talk and really just get to know each other better (maybe even a little more than we wanted to) lol. Seriously though, whether it was just walking along in the pouring rain singing songs and talking about how God is working in our lives or walking over the Grenada bridge screaming "GOD IS BIG! HE'S REALLY REALLY BIG!" at the top of our lungs God used this trip to make Joanthan and my relationship even stronger than when we had started. In closing I would just like to encourage any of you who read this unusually long post. Don't be afraid to talk to people and don't be ashamed of God. If you are trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior then you are carrying the news that the ENTIRE WORLD wants to hear! "JESUS LOVES THEM!" Even if they don't want to admit it, they do and that is another thing this trip has taught me; there are SO many people out there that are searching, looking, yearning, and dying to hear that they are loved and that they can have peace. So many people out there do not know the peace that you you know if you are trusting in Jesus as your savior. And let me tell you, just from what I saw in ONE WEEK of talking to people, it is a very uncertain and hopeless life if you are not trusting in Jesus. So please "Live the Commission", I am not saying go hiking all over your hometown talking to people, but wherever you go if you feel like there is ANY WAY you can reach out to some one DO IT! Ok, thank you for reading.