This newfound hope and joy did not make my life easier, nor did it give me all the answers to life. Through the process of sanctification the Lord began to allow circumstances in my life to test, mold, and cultivate affection for him that is unapologetic. The first of these circumstances occurred my sophomore year in high school, less then six months after I believed the Gospel. My best friend was in a motorcycle accident and was paralyzed from the chest down. The Lord forced me to ask questions about his goodness and humanities suffering. Most of all, he began a journey that would teach me how to be faithful in scripture and trust the plans that he has for all of his children. The second of these circumstances occurred the summer of 2006. It was Father’s day and the whole family would barbeque in celebration of the holiday. However, when I got home I saw a note on the fridge from my father that read “Can’t do it anymore.” He was gone. I was devastated. I loved my father, and although he never fully supported my newfound love in Christ, he still supported me in every way. His departure started a long process of a messy divorce between my parents.

During this divorce the Lord continued to cultivate a passion in me, and in 2007 I felt it was time to begin putting that passion into action. I quit all athletic activities, and a friend and I began a community youth service titled “Live It Out.” This service would provide a place for the youth in our community to worship and learn about Jesus. I served as main speaker for Live It Out for a year.

I felt a call to ministry so I decided to attend the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and get my Bachelors degree in Christian Studies. I spent my first three semesters at UMHB heavily involved in campus ministries such as Welcome Week, Missions Emphasis Week, Freshman ministries, and other Baptist Student Ministry organizations. By my fourth semester I felt as if the Lord was calling me to a position to where I would have more interaction with the lost. It is easy to get comfortable on a Christian campus and go weeks and even months without sharing Christ with the lost. I heard of a job opening as a Youth Pastor in a local church, First Baptist Church of Holland, and within three weeks I was giving my testimony in front of the church in view of a call to serve. At the age of twenty I was appointed to lead 40-50 youth in their walk with Christ. This would start a journey that would be full of joy and sorrows as I worked around thirty hours a week and went to school full-time. I have come to love my church and the students the Lord has placed in my ministry. I have been at the church for over two and a half years and the Lord has taught me much about the difficulties and joys of ministry.

My most trying moment would come in the fall of 2009. The morning of October 9 I received news that my dad had committed suicide. As you can imagine, this was difficult for me. Although we had been close throughout childhood and high school, the divorce had complicated our relationship. I took his suicide pretty hard, and the Lord used this time to allow the scriptures of his love and grace to illuminate in my heart. The most difficult thing to do during this time was to lead my students while I was trying to deal with my father’s suicide. The church was told that my father had passed away, but only the pastor and a few others knew that it was suicide. One night I finally came out and told my students the truth of what happened. I wasn’t sure how they would respond, but the response I got was one full of love and encouragement. Instead of God using me to teach and encourage my students, he used my students to teach and encourage me.

The Lord has brought me through a lot, and in the midst of the chaos I have seen nothing but his goodness and grace. One thing I will always be certain of, is that no matter what, Jesus is better than all else.

A person of zeal? A person of compassion? A person with little world attachment? How about a crazy person? Maybe a person with a purpose outside of themselves?

We all have our definitions, our own opinions for the taglines we include in our own description of the title, “missionary”.

My definition always changes, I am not sure why, maybe because we have made the term so broad in this day an age. Today, my definition would be “David Brainerd”.

Who or what is David Brainerd you may ask? He’s a man who had a story to tell. Brainerd was alive during the time of the Great Awakening, you know, the time of Jonathan Edwards (1700s). Edwards described this time, as a “surprising work of God”. People were experiencing the grace of Jesus and being changed by it. Jonathan Edwards church grew from 400 to 1200 in a month, and God was moving across America in an amazing way. The peak of this movement was when George Whitfield came to town, and he had a message of relationship. That you can have an individual encounter with Jesus. That had never been preached before, and it was noted by Benjerman Franklin that when Whitefield came to town, people showed up from all over. At the time, Boston had a population of 5000, but when Whitefield came to Boston, 10,000 showed up. This was the time of David Brainerd

Brainerd was a student at Yale University during this revival, but his time as a student was cut short. He was expelled for making this comment towards a professor, “(certain professor) has no more grace than a chair” and that he wondered why the Rector ‘did not drop down dead’ for fining students perceived as over-zealous.

Soon after he was diagnosed with Tuberculous, a disease that would take his life seven years later.

Brainerd, with little time to live, and a lot more free time after being expelled went on a journey to share Jesus with the Native Americans of North America. It is amazing as you read through the book published by Jonathan Edwards, “The Life and Diary of David Brainerd”. It is not a book of rainbow and ponies, but a book of struggles, struggles with depression, anxiety, and striving to stir affection for God’s mission.

The book is Brainerd’s journal and one of my favorite journal entries is when Brainerd says, “I was filled with sorrow and confusion in the morning, and could enjoy no sweet sense of the divine things, nor get any relief in prayer. Oh, the honesty! Sad? Yes. But it’s real. It was said that the following 100 years after Brainerd’s death that every missionary carried two books with him: The Bible and the Diary of David Brainerd. It is a story of struggle and success. Success spurned by an affection for Jesus that is undeniable, an affection that comes from looking at our lives, filled with hurt and depression, and looking at it through the lens of scripture.

If you haven’t read this book, you are missing out, it is a picture of the struggles that a missionary goes through.

“Ministry is an overflow of the heart”

The other part to this story is my new fiancee left for Guatemala yesterday. Which makes this season a little weird for me. I’m engaged, but I will not see my fiancee for months, and very rarely get to talk to her. I’m hoping, as Paul mentions in Corinthians, that this season will provide an undistracted devotion to the Lord as I prepare for marriage.

Pray for me as I begin this journey

Yes, here’s why:

As I began to read about the early church leaders I began to see that they look a lot like us. They were ordinary people just like us, but God used them to literally change history. The church today has been shaped by these theological thinkers, and it has influenced the way we think today. We tend to think of them as these theological giants, but when you begin to see them simple as a mere human being that God displayed his power through, then you will begin to see the true glory of our God.

We started with Augustine last week, Martin Luther this week, and finishing with Jonathan Edwards next week. So I just wanted to take a second and share with you a few quotes from Augustine that I shared with the student’s last week.

1. Augustine’s biggest struggle was with lust, and if you have read “Confessions” then you know that his struggles between his desire for sex and this new idea of finding satisfaction came to a head in what we know now as, “the Garden Episode”. By God’s revelation in Romans 13:13. Augustine found a new hope in Christ, and was forever changed by the grace of God. This is what Augustine said as he looked back at the moment:

““How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys that I had once feared to lose, you drove them from me, you who are the true sovereign joy. You drove them form and you took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, o lord my god, my light, my wealth and my salvation”.

So powerful and so full of truth. “Fruitless joys”. “You who are sweeter than all pleasure”. Augustine saw the Christian life as a radical change of affections for a holy and merciful God. He is our pleasure and our satisfaction, he sustains, and he fulfills us.

2. A question I get from student’s all the time is, “Colton, how do I know if I’m a Christian?”

Augustine said it this way, “the whole of a Christian life is a holy longing”.

We began to talk about how sometimes we may not feel like we love God, and feel like he doesn’t love us. it’s hard we are full of sin, and the presence of that sin distances us from God. However, as Augustine said, it’s about a longing, a pursuing of holiness. Sometimes we may not “feel” his presence, but if we want that, if we seek that, then that’s a good sign your His child. I love that picture of desire and pursuit to just want to be in his presence.

3. It is difficult to just love God sometimes with all of our heart, soul, and mind. It’s even more difficult to love “that” person that you just don’t click with. So how do we do it?

Augustine said, “Lord command me and then give me what you command”

So essentially, God you command me to love, so through your holy spirit (he pointed to Romans 5:5) give me that love. You command me to be joyful then give me that joy. We talked about the reason we don’t feel like we love God or rather we don’t feel like we our loved, is because we are simply, not looking in the right place. Love, joy, peace, all of these are fruits of the spirit, and that is the only place where we will find them. I can’t grow an apple off of my arm, I have to go to an apple tree or to the store. If we want love, joy, peace, than the only place we go to get those things is the Lord.

Hope your as encouraged by Augustine as myself, and the students of FBC Holland have been. Maybe next week I’ll share what Martin Luther has taught us.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
(Isaiah 53:5-6 ESV)

Wrath is what we deserve, but grace is what he gave. If that doesn’t result in a response of worship and gratitude I don’t know what does. Today my joy comes from a just and loving God.

Recently I spent two days in Dallas at a conference called Refuge, at first I was skeptical about going for a couple reasons:

1. This semester has been crazy busy, between working, school, and Easter Pageant it seems that I have no free time.  The past few days have been spent trying to catch up on everything that I left behind when I left for Dalllas.

2. Being in a room full of 500+ youth minister just did not sound like a grand ol’ time for me.  Most of them wear jorts and either have a Mohawk or mullet for a hairdo, oh, or they are bald. Needless to say I wouldn’t fit in.

However, I sucked it up, and for the first time in a long I think I can honestly say that  I feel the Lord presence in my life.  For me, usually when I think of communion with God, I think love through pain.  By that I mean, this short time period that I have claimed myself “Christian”, God has taught me his love through events.  Rather it’s been tumor, accidents, divorce or death, I have seen his love through pain.  Don’t get me wrong I am thankful for those times in my life when he has stripped away all that I have so that I can solely see Him.

For the first time in a long time the gospel is real to me.  David Platt gave the most simple but complicated message I have ever heard.  For the first time in a long time, I felt dirty and holy at the same time.  As I thought about the gravity of who I am at the core (sinful) and the sanctification that came through Christ death, the gospel, all of a sudden, was very real to me. 

He just listed four points that he used to sum up the Gospel:

1. We have an imcomprehensible great God

2.We are a sinfully depraved people

3.We have a scandously merciful God

4. We have an urgent mission

For the sake of not writing a ridiculously long post I won’t go into description on all the points, but here is a quote that Platt ended with. 

“God does not need us; He lets us into His mission because he loves us”

Captured Geographically

Before I explain let me say this: I love my job, I LOVE my students, they have been a source of joy for me in the last couple years.  However, sometimes I just want to GO. To be somewhere where nobody knows who I am, nobody knows my past, and nobody knows my mistakes.  They just see me.  That’s it.  However, I’m here where the Lord has called me to be, and I have peace with that, I really do.  I have friends who love me in the midst of my mistakes and I’m thankful for them.

Capture By A Vision

Feeding off this idea of going, I have this vision of what is possible.  The places I could end up, the things I could see, and the people I could meet.  This vision is intoxicating, and I catch myself thinking about it ALL the time.  There is some freedom in being twenty-one years old and knowing you have your whole life in front of you.  I read about what the Lord is doing around the world and I cant help but think about joining in that work.  Cant help but have this vision of what is to come, but also understanding that the joy can give me joy here doing what i’m doing for the rest of my life, because he is that good.

Captured By Mistakes

It’s no secret that I have made mistakes, that I don’t always think things through, and that I follow my heart way more than I should.  It gets me in trouble sometimes, and I have hurt some people that I care deeply about.  It is sad.  Sad that I’m afraid to walk into a room where someone might be, just because I don’t want to face them.  Fear is a powerful thing.  It brings the coward out in me.  I’ve worked hard to establish good relationships and to build a life giving community around me, but the Lord is the foundation.  He proves that over and over again by showing me the gravity of my mistakes.

Captured By Grace

This one does not need much explanation.  The only guarantee in my life is that I know that HIS grace is better.  His blood has covered my mistakes, I am His, and only his.  He is better.  He is better. He is better.

On another note, things have been kind of difficult lately:

Two weeks ago my Grandmother had a stroke and she fell into a coma; last Wednesday she passed away and the funeral was on Saturday.  It has been a difficult year for me and my family, my Dad past away last October and that was difficult for all of us.  Needless to say things have been especially difficult for my mom.  I loved my Grandmother, she had Alzheimer’s   diesease when I was growing up so someone always had to babysit her.  That was me at least two or three times a week.  She did provide me with numerous entertaining moments.  I will share one with you, when I was thirteen years old she was driving me somewhere and out of no where in the middle of street she just stopped the car.  I have to admit I was a little thrown off by this, as any normal person would, so I asked “Grandma what are you doing?”  To which she replied, “i’m waiting for the Giraffe to cross the street” That was the first of many comical, but sad entertaining moments.

Things at work have been difficult, with everything happening with the family, taking Summer school and working another part-time job, I have fallen really behind.  I have gotten in trouble a couple times already because of logistical things that I did not do correctly.  I started the Summer motivated and excited, now i’m in this place where I am, well…the opposite.  Almost in a melancholy sort of way, not quite that extreme but that’s the best way to describe it.  I’m praying that the Lord breaks that in me soon, I’m ready for something new, something challenging, but at the same time I know the Lord is doing great things right now.  I looove my students, they have become my family, and I cannot stop praying for them throughout the day.

In conclusion, I’m trying to remember what it was like when I first experienced the grace of Jesus, and pleading the Lord to bring that joy back.  In the mean time I will keep serving, praying, and reading.  Doing my best to glorify him with expectation that the joy is coming.

Yes, you read that correctly, texting.

Why?

I started thinking about my Summer and the things I want my Summer to be about, and so far this Summer those are things that I am CONSTANTLY doing.  Always thinking things like, “I wonder what so and so is doing”, “I should tweet about this”, and “I wonder if this person is going to text me”.  None of those things are necessrily bad, but there are other ways I could spend some time.  So that’s what i’m going to do.  My goal is to make my Summer about praying for my friends serving this Summer, hanging out with and loving on students and friends, and preparing for Easter Pageant.  Focusing on the things the Lord has entrusted me with.  Yes, I may not be going Africa or Asia, but the Lord has called me to serve here.  That is sometimes hard to grasp, that the Lord has called me to spend my Summer here in Central Texas, but I’m taking that first step to fully serving Him, and letting Him be my joy.  So, I ask for your prayers and encouragement as I begin this Journey.

I will be updating you on how this changes my daily activities and hoping it’s an encouragement to you as much as I know it will be for me.

So to my Facespacers, mybookers, twits, and texters: Goodbye…..

My favorite show of ALL time comes to an end:

A show that I use to DVR every morning at 7 AM so that when I got home from school at 5 I would watch.  Yes, everyday throughout all four years of high school I watched an episode of 24.

This is a goodbye to some of the characters who have made my life:

David Palmer-  “Mr. Are you in good in hands?” Well, You are the greatest president to ever serve this country, your assassination in season 5 may have been the saddest moment in my TV memory…may you rest in peace

Tony Almeida- “The One Who Resurrected” Tony, we all thought you were dead, I mean we all saw you die, but then..you..came..back…to…life. Even when you came back though we did not know what to feel about you. You were good then bad then good then bad again, and then you disappeared.

Nina Myers- “The One We Will ALWAYS Hate” I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.  You were the classic TV bad girl, you had our trust and then you willingly spit it in our face.  May you never rest in peace

Kym Bauer- “My Dream” I want to date you…Wait..I want to marry you!

Jack Bauer- “Daddy” I constantly dream that you are my father, protecting my every step…Jack, may you look over me and protect me day after day…

24: Your prime time days are over, but your legend last forever…

With love,

Colton