Ed.

Today I went on arguably my best run ever. I went through Tyson Park on Knoxville's beautiful greenways. I took the path towards Bearden today, a path I've never done before. As usual I listened to my "Jesus Muzik" playlist... it has all my Christian rap to get me pumped with the Spirit.

As I reached a fork in the paths I took a breather for some reason. Seriously, I usually don't stop when I run. Promise. But today I did. As Lecrae's song "Send Me" (one of my absolute faves) came on, I started thinking. Do I really tell God that I'll go? I was singing the song to my self, kinda praying and telling God YES. I'll go! So here I am telling God that I'll spread the Gospel and this homeless looking man on a bike rides to where I am, stops, and sits down. Umm... God telling me to do something? YES.

Not gonna lie, this old homeless guy looked a little scary. He was smoking something; I'm just going to hope it was a cigarette. I'm also out in the woods where nobody else is around. But God was seriously pushing me to talk to this guy so I did. We talked casually about the weather, what I was studying in school, and what I wanted to do with my life. Suddenly this guy starts telling me about some mean things he said to a friend yesterday. He told me he felt so bad that he called out of work today to find his friend and tell him he was sorry. So I told him I knew how he felt. I've messed up a lot too, but there's always forgiveness from God. I didn't get to share the entire Gospel with Ed... He was more of a talker than a listener. But before I left I asked him if I could pray for him. He was more than happy to have me pray with him. So we held hands, I said a prayer, told him I would be praying for him, and continued on my way. I'll probably never see Ed again but the simple words I said to him clearly meant a lot to him. As I continued running I pressed play on my Ipod and the words came back on:

Send me! I'll go! Let me go! Let me go!


Isaiah 6:8-10

For Future Reference

First of all, I must put a link to our new song on Youtube called "Sunday." Its a remake of Rebecca Black's Friday. Its quite entertaining in my opinion.

Anyways, tonight was TNT at the BCM and I learned a lot today! Right now I'm on a mountain: I'm growing in my faith and things are good. But as Rami (Pastor of Grassy Valley Baptist Church) said, there's going to be a time when I start falling down the mountain. For those times I need to cling to the promise that God will fight for me! If I feel like I'm losing the game, its just because God hasn't been up to bat for me yet. And I understand this analogy because I'm currently on my first intramural softball team right now! And yes, we're undefeated :)

Just like the Israelites fleeing from the Egyptians towards the Red Sea, I have a tendency to start complaining as soon as things go wrong. The Israelites were freaking out when the Egyptians were headed towards them, and probably for a good reason. There was a huge sea between them and safety. They wanted to go back to slavery rather than trust God. But then Moses, undoubtedly inspired by God, said something that has changed my perspective on the hard times. "The Lord will fight for you; you only need to be still" (Exodus 14:14). How great it is to know that we serve an all powerful God! While the faithless Israelites were running around like chickens with their heads cut off I can just imagine God smiling and chuckling because He had it under control the entire time. My favorite part is a little later when God declares that He gained glory through Pharaoh (v. 17). Seriously, it takes somebody super awesome to be glorified through a ruler like Pharaoh. The story of God and the nation of Israel is so beautiful and so much like me. He provides, one thing goes wrong, I start freaking out, God puts me in my place and redeems me through his perfect plan. Repeat.

Forreal. God is good. All the time.