Departure

Hey everyone.

My clock tells me it is 12:21AM ET on Thursday, Aug 19th. That means in roughly 15 hours, I will be leaving for Bowling Green. Going to stay with a great friend in lieu of planning at the BCM. I'm so excited.

So, I feel that I should procrastinate packing by giving kinda an evaluation of what this summer has meant, and what my goals are.

This summer has consisted of helping Live Fish a lot, helping setup, run words, and play guitar in a prehistoric world we like to call Vacation Bible School (well, prehistoric theme) and try not to be eaten by the big blue dinosaur Where As One Were As (don't... ask...), then Australia was spectacular, then Kids Camp, then lots of hanging out, chilling, and talking. I got a brand new car less than a week ago and love my new Kia Forte, and hope it doesn't get scratched and dented in the parking garage. Boo! Then lately been hanging with Pat Ford recording some stuff. And now... I just heard the last sermon I may possibly hear from a man who has meant so much to me these past 4 or 5 years, and I wish I could have grown closer to, Greg Thompson. But maybe I can stop by and see him in Lakewood, WA when he and the family get settled in there. I still have to see the peoples from The Vine Baptist Church in Seattle!!! I think that makes a trip worthwhile.

Okay... now there's one other thing I have done. I read my friend Brent's blog on Honesty, and how we like to think we are living what God wants us to but, are we really? Am I really living out the life God has called for me to do? I'm at WKU and meant to help the BCM, I see that. I'm meant to be at East Somerset Baptist Church as home and Crossland I'm fairly sure in Bowling Green. Okay...

Yet there are so many things in my personal life I struggle with. There are things I should have let go of a long, long time ago. I was reminded of the analogy of my little cousin who has absolute terrible eating habits. And I tell her she won't grow up big and strong like all little girls should, but I got a taste of my own medicine...

I'm not doing what God has called me to do by reading His Word daily, and praying without ceasing, and witnessing to the lost. I have so far to go.

And I most certainly have not surrendered everything to Christ. I feel that He's an all-or-nothing God. If I'm some of the way there... that's not good enough.

Tonight in Clear, the last sermon I'll hear from Brother Greg was on purpose. God has a purpose for our lives. Quoted from Greg, "If a person based who God is on the ministry you do, could they come to the conclusion that you serve an amazing God?" Nope they would say you definitely don't have it figured out, or, you are trying to follow this RELIGION and failing miserably.

If we aren't giving it our all to Jesus, to follow Him as His disciple, and to drop our nets totally and walk away from anything we may possibly want, we aren't following Him and that's just plain and simple. If we were totally surrendered we wouldn't want anything else.

You know what? I sense that drive within me. I love to serve. I love to help people. That's why I help Live Fish so darn much. But, is it about the music, the friendship, or is it about the ministry Live Fish does for God? Is it a ticket out of my house? Or is it something I just want to look at and see what I have done? To say, hey look, I played guitar. Or hey look, I put all of those lights up. It was me.

NO IT WASN'T! I mean sure, my hands did it, but it was all God.

I am living very, very dangerously right now by not having total surrender. I am on staff with an organization that helps people, reaches out and connects them to a church in Bowling Green... and I am opaque, not transparent. I am the salt that has lost it's flavor.

Sure, God still loves me. I know that. I am still His and His alone. But anything that isn't total, radical surrender is simply sitting in a Pew on a Sunday. It doesn't matter how bad we want it to be for God. There will be those who cry Holy Holy, and cast out demons in the name of Christ, but then Christ will say to them, I NEVER KNEW YOU. AWAY FROM ME, EVILDOERS!

That's the harsh reality. And I seriously hope to fix a lot of things, to stop living for myself. I don't desire to go to WKU and leave those I love most here at home, but God has me there, and I must serve in total and radical surrender. I have a worship service to coordinate, and so much banks on this service. I have to be blameless and pure in this. And confident that my God will take care of everything, that we will be the body but God will do the work we cannot. I'm confident about this year, but this is the time to fully surrender.

To drop my nets.

~Kevin~