West, sounds good to me
But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish.
Ah, good old Jonah. I love how Jonah is never running away from some thing, or some place. But he is always seems to be running away from the LORD.
I like to run from the Lord. I don’t think I do it on purpose, or even consciously, but I find my self running from God all the time. This last month or so has once again been one of those times.
Thanks to the help and love of some great friends, I started to dive into my running. I didn’t even know why I was running. I had even less idea how to solve my problem.
And to be honest, I think it was/is the same stuff that was depressing me before. It was just masking itself differently.
So, what is this answer I seek after? I don’t know entirely. If there is one thing I’m convicted of though, it’s this: I need to fight for what I believe is Truth. I haven’t been. It’s scary.
So, please pray for me, that I would have strength, and courage, to always fight for Truth.
Read MoreWhat is the Gospel?
Many of you will read this title and move on to the next thing, but I’m really hoping you didn’t.
As many of you know, I work in ministry, and it’s easy to get caught up that ministry. Today, I pose a question that I hope you can help me out with. It would be great if everyone who reads this would leave a comment answering my question. I don’t care if your a Christian, Buddhist, agnostic, or an atheist; I’d love to hear your insight.
Question: What is the Gospel of Christ Jesus?
Read MoreWe Need to Pray
I am so convicted of this right now. We have forgotten how to pray.
You know how it goes, we open in prayer and we close in prayer, but how often do we spend that time asking God what He wants us to do?
Instead our prayers look something like this: “God we have this thing we are going to do, please bless it.”
God is moving – are we moving with Him? are we even listening?
It’s my prayer that we would become a movement of people that pray like it matters. That everything we do would be saturated in prayer. And that we would ask God where He wants us to go – and then go there.
Read MoreMonday Morning Question – if you had 24 hours to live?
I thought that has been plaguing my mind for the last week is a simple, but convicting question. If I had 24 hours to live, how would I spend it? Would I keep on doing what I’m doing now? Or would I radically change my life style and live my dreams to the fullest?
I know in my heart I want to say the latter, but know in my heart I’m not doing that now. Which begs the question: Why not?
So I pose the first question to you: If you had 24 hours to live, how would you spend it?
Read MoreI’m Back
You might be wondering why I’m starting this post out with a picture of a lion. I’ll tell you why, just not yet. This last month and a half have sucked. I was down and out for the count.
Life was depressing. I felt like I had offered everything I have to offer and was in waiting mode.
At least, that was the lie I was believing. Funny thing is, I didn’t even realize it. A little over a week ago (aka Friday the 18th) two people came to me and asked why I was so sad and depressed. To the first I replied “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” And “Life is great, I’m just tired.” I honestly believed the words coming out of my mouth. It was the second commenter (just discovered that that is not a word) that made me open my eyes to what was going on. It came as a text message on my phone and went something like this: “Something is going on with you. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want, but at least tell me how I can pray for you.”
To the person who sent me that text: I hope you know just how thankful I am for you and that text you sent.
I’m going to call this person Jane. Jane didn’t leave me much room to run away from the issue and revert to my default answer, but for the first time I didn’t want to. Part of it has to do with the great friendship I have with Jane and her words carry a great deal of weight, but I was also sick and tried of just pushing this, well whatever it was, off and ignoring it. I replied with what I believe to be the 2nd longest text message I have ever sent.
Most of my message was pure, unprocessed thought (I am an extrovert after all). Judging by Jane’s response, I don’t think it made much sense. It didn’t really make sense to me. I wish I hadn’t deleted the text yesterday so I could quote parts of it here. I remember talking about three different things: I was taking on a new role in my work, I was believing the lie that I’m not good enough, and something else that I’m completely spacing on. It was getting late so I crawled into bed and called it a night.
Saturday passed, it was ok. Saturday night however I had my first breakthrough. I tried praying. God answered. Who would have thought! Basically I just cried out asking for God to help me through whatever it was in my life that was weighing me down. As I’m crawling into bed, my mind starts racing and this simple but very real thought came into my head. I had nothing to fight for.
I had come to Bemidji with two passions, and over the course of the school year, I saw them come to pass. I just kind of stopped there though. I fought with everything I had to see those passions come to be, but when I ran out of things to fight for, I just slumped over to the corner to stop fighting. Before this night, I had even made the comment in my head after studying the Armor of God found in Ephesians 6. ”What’s the point in wearing our armor if there is no fight to use it in?” I asked. Lol, what should have been an obvious red flag got completely ignored. It’s really hard to be a fighter if you don’t have anything to fight for.
So Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday all came and went. They were all meh days, although Friday was pretty cool as I celebrated my birthday (yes 2 months late) with two very good friends of mine. Saturday sucked as I feel into sin and just didn’t do anything productive. I crawled into bed, sobbing.
This is where I have to get a bit non-descriptive in what I’m talking about. I’d love to tell you all, but I want to respect and honor all involved in this.
So, I figured I’d try that whole praying thing again. ”God, I need your help.” As I’m sitting there, I figured I really wasn’t getting anywhere, much less falling asleep. Might as well call one of my best friends from back home. Except no answer. Well, back to crying. Let’s try the calling thing again. Still no answer. I gave up and tried to fall asleep. Out a desperation, I texted my friend from back home wondering what they were up to tonight. ”Getting ready to call you” said the reply text! God was about to answer my prayer.
There has been this small issue in my life that I have been more or less ignoring. When looking at it, it really wasn’t a big deal, and definitely not something worth fretting about. I did ask a couple people around me, but they all gave me the same response. It turns out that this issue was a very big deal in my life and affecting every aspect of it. I couldn’t afford to ignore it anymore.
As I was talking to my friend from back home, I was given a very different answer. If I were to condense what they told me in one sentence it would be this: Adam, don’t conform to what the world says but just be Adam.
They also made a comment about how I was being treated like a animal locked up in a cage. I wasn’t designed to be locked up in a cage. I was made to be wild (hence the lion image).
So, back to this issue in my life that I’m being vague about. Well, the world tells me that I should do one thing. Everybody around me was telling to do the same thing. To do that, however, was in complete contradiction to who I am. I could not do that one thing without sacrificing who God created me to be.
I made a commitment last night to be me, no matter the costs. That commitment may lead me to making a very foolish move, but I would rather make a foolish move than be somebody I’m not.
That was last night. Today has been the greatest day I had since January. Praise God.
Read MoreMy favorite Christmas present
For those of you who don’t know there are 5 love languages out there. I first remember taking the “test” or whatever you want to call it back in my early years of college. My top to love languages: Physical Touch and Quality Time. I fully agree with the results and might even add in Words of affirmation. However, Acts of Service and Receive gifts are almost meaningless to me. Don’t take that the wrong way, they just aren’t my love languages.
So, as you might guess, I don’t exactly enjoy getting Christmas gifts. I mean they are cool and what not, but in the end it’s just more stuff that I don’t really need. In the past, I have walked into Christmas with a very bad attitude regarding gifts. Something changed this year. It was a comment my mom made randomly after us kids telling her that she spends way to much time and money buy presents. She replied along the lines of “yeah, I know but I enjoy it so much.” As she said it, I just happend to glance up and see the smile on her face. It was just radiant with love.
I was shocked. Here I was so self-centered, paying attention to myself and how I receive love. But after seeing my mom that way, I couldn’t help but watch both my parents in wonder as the family continued opening gifts throughout the season. Even my dad in all his comments about spending too much money on presents had this joy on his face as we opened gifts.
All of a sudden, it became joyful to open the gifts my parents had got for me. It was their way of loving me and even though it doesn’t always line up with the way I want to be loved, it was by far the greatest present this Christmas. To know that my parents love me more than I will ever know.
So this post goes out to them. Mom and Dad, I love you!
Read MoreAn adventure like no other
Photo by reinholt
I want to start this post out with a statement: The past 6 months of my life have been the most challenging, frustrating, and ugly months of my life. They have also been the most exhilarating, adventurous, life-giving, and joyful months of my life.
I’ve moved to a new town far from home, disagreed with many people (and stepped on many of their toes), found a church home, made new friends, and seen God do far greater things then I could possibly immagine.
Looking back in your life, what has God done for you? What have been the low points, and what have been the high points? Respond in the comments below.
Read MoreAbout Me
Hello world! My name is Adam Lepp and have I got a story to tell you. It starts off pretty average, has some major roller coaster moments in the middle, and has the besting ending ever. It's still being written, so join me as I continue to tell the story of love.