Loving God

April 27th, 2010 by Dan Nichols

In his book Crazy Love, Pastor Francis Chan claims, “When we love God because we feel we should love Him, instead of genuinely loving out of our true selves, we have forgotten who God really is.” He goes on to say, “In our world, where hundreds of things distract us from God, we have to intentionally and consistently remind ourselves of Him.” 

I find myself falling short of this charge from Pastor Chan – over and over again. Loving God is not something we chase after only out of obligation. We love God because He first loved us – yes, but that is not the only reason we love God. We should love God with mind, soul, body, spirit, heart, will, emotion, intellect… you name it. All of it – dedicated to loving God. Completely.

 

Esteeming Others

April 20th, 2010 by Catie Prinzing

I have done some crazy things with my friends here.  Food runs after curfew are a blast and so is man-sized Jenga in the wrestling loft. There’s so much for me to tell about my experience. Mine. But I forget that not everyone just wants to hear about me.

Recently, we’ve had a couple of chapels that have pointedly exposed my fallacy. We have what’s called Praise Chapel where  students are encouraged to share what the Lord has been doing in their lives. And Student Leadership Chapel this morning was similar and equally encouraging. People stood up an talked about sharing their faith with strangers and proof of God’s providence in ways that got me excited! I fail to realize that God loves them and takes care of them just like He does for me.

I have been working on looking for God’s hand in my life, and I have definitely been able to see Him move in huge ways lately. But when I can sit in chapel and hear how He can do the same in others’ lives as well, I’m blown away.

So, it’s not just about my situation anymore. How has God been at work in you?

 

God, Cars, and Thankfulness

April 1st, 2010 by Dan Nichols

Proof for the law of entropy can be found in many places, but our cars rise to the top of the list in many ways. My sister and I share our parents’ Toyota Corolla. It’s more like a go-cart than an actual vehicle, but the gas mileage is phenomenal. Though, as most used cars operate, our little Corolla has its fair share of trouble.

At the beginning of this semester, we lost the hub-cap of our right rear wheel – no clue where we lost it. A few weeks later, this terrible squealing noise erupted from a loose fan belt or something. (I’m not sure what the “something” is yet – still working on that). These are all normal occurrences, and every car owner either has or will eventually deal with these types of scenarios.

I spent the first 5 semesters of college without a car. It wasn’t difficult because I held almost all my jobs on campus. Once my parents let me borrow their car, the newness and thrill of actually having a vehicle was tremendous! But eventually, the thrill faded into routine. I’m so used to having a car now; it’s hard to think about life without one again.

God gives us blessing after blessing day-in and day-out. We tend to think of life in terms of routines and normalcy, and this leads to lifestyles full of ingratitude. I know I tend to live this way most of the time. Instead I need to be thankful for having a car, a cell-phone, a job…all these things are from God.

Remember to be thankful today – even if your car is falling apart!

 

The Options Are Written

March 18th, 2010 by Dan Nichols

Yet another guest blog from Karissa Craft. Hope you’re enjoying her new style and thought process. The variety is a welcome change of pace!

The options are written, but the choices remain!

We tend to view our lives as a blank page in a book to write whatever we feel like. The options of our lives have been written out, we have yet to seek God in all of them. We have the tendency to go through our days as if God is just in the background.  I know that’s how most of my days are. I believe our generation has an extreme problem with this as we tend to go about our days doing whatever we feel like doing without consulting God. Our days should be spent seeking God’s page for the day.

So how do we take the time we need to seek God during our busy lives? Simply put we need to pencil in the time. We need to remove an event from our schedules. Whether it’s an hour of sleep in the morning, time during a meal, or an hour later at night, we need to seek the page written for that day.

Take time to seek the pages and create the cover for God’s glory.

The pages are there, but the cover is blank. 

- Karissa Craft