Insights into a soul

So, i just felt like sharing this today.

I sit at church and i produce the service, it is still kind of funny to me because i have been doing the “floor director” position for about six weeks now and people are still like, “we don’t really know what Taurin does” interesting, BUT that is not that i wanted to write about, this is something near and dear to my heart and has been more and more every day and every weekend, every time i sit in a service i cant help but to think about all of the people out there. I wonder, how much hurt is out there, how many people are just dying to be hugged to hear “i love you”. Its amazing the hurt that pours in and out of these doors weekly, and i am at just one campus of the 3. I am amazed that i am in such a place to be able to share what God has done in my life with others who need to hear it.

I was talking to jessica the other day and i just broke down and cried (i will be man enough to admit that i cry on occasion, but it is manly crying… whatever that may be) I have not been happy for a while now, my friends and family could all see it but i could never place it. I am not ministering in the capacity that i was made to. Sure, God has gifted me in the world of video and graphics, but i am still not fulfilling my calling. I was wired to minister TO people, to council people and to speak into their lives. well, i have not been doing that. Sure i make videos, do graphics and people like them, sure i may make a video that speaks into someone’s life. But, i was the happiest when i was socializing with people at cityplace and when i was speaking into people’s lives. This is the point in my life at which jessica met me, She fell in love with me because of who i was. Not too long ago she told me that i was not the man she fell in love with, that i was different that i had changed, and that she knew that the man she married was still there. Well, for the past 6 months or so i have been wrestling with this, nights where i could not fall asleep because i was rolling around trying to figure out how to pay the bills and why i wasn’t happy. Sure i have added stress from my job, but that is something we all have. I mean there are circumstances at work that are kind of ridiculous but oh well that is not for this post. But, something was bothering me, something was unsettled. i finally drew this conclusion. a while ago, i was pulled from city place and went to working just during the week. The weekend socialization was gone. Then the people in my life slowly dissipated. So, i lost that social part, now that was mainly my fault, life happens, i got too wrapped up in work and in my relationship that i let a lot of friendships slip away. I want to bring those back and i want to make more of an effort to be a better friend to people. I mean, there is no reason i should be sad. I have a beautiful wife that makes me smile every single day that i wake up, who wants to fall asleep me to every single night, who would sacrifice anything to make my day better. I have a wonderful daughter who daily is getting closer and closer to me, she runs to me calling me dad, cuddles up next to me on the couch while we watch movies, and runs to give me a hug every night before bed. Sure, i may not be able to pay my bills all the time, sure life may stink a little on the financial end, but the fire is soon to be over, i can sense it in the air, i feel a change coming, and every single day, my wife takes my hand and tells me that “It will be alright, we will make it, things will get better. ” She is my source of strength, well Jesus IS my source of strength, but she is something that God has put in my life to help me push through and keep climbing through what feels like a landslide.

so, all in all, i am pushing through things. I have finally figured out how to fix things in my life and it includes helping people, it goes back to what Andrew Oates taught me years ago when i was an intern in high-school. I need to be a flowing source of water, a Stagnant pool is not something that brings life, it is not something that you want to drink from. I need to constantly pour into myself and have people pouring into me so that I can be a fresh well of water. We need to be people who are constantly jumping into God’s word and reading books and listening to sermons so that we can pour back into people and encourage them and help share the love and hope that is found only in Jesus.  These are my thoughts on church, kind of a personal rant about my life, but it is showing you where i was and how i got to where i am. I want to thank you all for your prayers and friendships, especially my wife for standing by me through all this, i know she is with me through the good and the bad, she is with me until the end. i could not have asked for anyone better to get through life. 

Thank you and i love you all.

-Taurin

You know I feel that a lot of us complain about our churches, that the pastor doesn’t speak to us, and I don’t mean that he doesn’t say hello, but that his sermons don’t have anything that speaks into our lives. Even those of us seasoned Christians do this. We even do it with the bible. We say, it doesn’t speak to me anymore. Maybe this is because we don’t let it. We shut out hearts out and we chose not to listen to the messages. I feel that the Bible becomes stale to us because we don’t listen anymore, we don’t open ourselves up to what God has to say and what He wants to say to us. We sit here and whine and complain “God isn’t working in my life, he doesn’t hear me anymore, what do I do? Please help me Lord.” We don’t hear the answer that God has for us is because we aren’t listening. Now, he doesn’t always speak to us directly, it isn’t always clear, BUT that is why we need to listen and learn how to hear Him. He may speak to us through His word, through other people, through experiences in our lives. We just need to be open and willing to listen, since I have gotten married, I have learned that God speaks through my wife more and more. She supports me in all the decisions I make and she is always there to provide her opinion and wisdom, even when I don’t want to hear it. I have learned what it means more and more to be a Man of God, I am learning what it means to be the head of the house hold. This is something that I have heard about for years and I am now LEARNING what it means to be these things.

My challenge to you, be someone who listens, Be still and know that He is God, He is in charge. If we are just willing to listen to him, whether it be through people, experiences, or even as simple as His word. Listen. 

So, I was on my home the other day and I have found a  new way to make sure that I get my daily devotional time in, I put sermons on my iPod or on a CD and with the wonderful technology of MP3s I can now have hours worth of sermons in my car at any given time, but that is not what I am talking about today.

I was listening to a sermon by Erwin McManus (whom you will find that I listen to a lot) titled “Joy 365”. This is a phenomenal sermon that spoke to me right where I am at in life. It made me realize a few things.  The main premise of the sermon was that what bring us joy? Is it new cars, houses or the things we don’t think about? The joy of the Lord is my strength, this is the main point. McManus talks about how he went through rough times where he had no money, no place to really live and he and his wife slept on the floor, but he still had joy because the things in life that mattered were the things closest to him, in this case his wife. I had to step back and ask myself, what brings me joy? At this current juncture in life, I am not financially sound and things are not going well for us. Sure I have a good job and so does Jessica, but as a result of certain circumstances in life we are now facing some bad financial situations, I honestly have felt like a failure as a husband and father. Its hard not being able to say, “hey lets go out to dinner tonight, as a family” this is a luxury we can not afford right now, and it hurts me. But I had to ask myself, what is really bringing me joy? What am I putting my hope in? where am I finding my strength? My joy wasn’t being found in my relationship with God and with my relationship with Jessica and my daughter Dani. For a period of time, I became a somewhat bitter person. Things got hard and I retreated into my shell to avoid “hurting others” in return, I did just what I was trying to avoid. I hurt the ones I loved. Well, I came to the sound realization that I needed to refocus my life and that I needed to rework my relationship with God and that I needed to get back on track with that whole thing, cuz lets face it, it is really something that is very important. It is what has gotten me through the roughest times in my life. I had to stand back and realize that I have some amazing things to be thankful for. 

My joy doesn’t come from things that I don’t have, I mean no matter how much money I have no matter how big my house is, no matter what luxuries I have, I will not be happy if that is what I am focusing on to “be happy”. I am realizing that I am going through a trial of sorts. Life is not easy there have been nights that I lay in bed and rack my brain trying to figure out things. How will I pay the bills, how will I afford groceries, the usual things. But Jessica reminded me that things are well, not as bad as they seem, at night, I still have a comfortable bed to come home to and I still have a beautiful wife and wonderful daughter. These are the things that God has blessed me with. I have been weak, I have worried a lot, but it was because the joy of the Lord was not my strength, I feel that a little but, day by day that is returning to me, the joy and the passion, and the fire in my soul that I once had. Let me tell you, If anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ comes to you and tells you that things will be great once you accept him, they are lying to you. It DOES NOT get easier if you are a follower of Christ, the problems will still happen. But the thing that happens is that things do become easier to deal with, if we follow Jesus and we put our hope and trust in him, if we find out joy in him, we find our strength there and our joy there, it’s a strength and joy that are not worldly so it wont fail us in those hard times.

Life will not be easy all the time, life will get hard, we will face trials, I feel like I am bring tested at this current time. But I am beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Jessica is that thing that keeps whispering in my ear, “there is hope, this trial is only temporary, life will get better.” And you know what, I will, Last night at service, Heath evans spoke and sean Alexander showed up too, which was pretty cool, this will be in another devition/journal, but Evans said something amazing, that Tom Brady, not a Christian, has cars, women, money a huge house, MVP and 3 super bowl rings. In his 60minutes interview he said, “if this is all this world has to offer me, then I don’t want it” I mean, the guy who most people would say, has everything, and he says something like this. This gives me hope, this tells me that Jesus, might be the right way after all. So my challenge is to give Jesus a try, give him a chance to be your strength, your joy, your hope. It WONT be easy, but it will be easier to handle.