April 1, 2006

Knowing that this is a weird way to do this, and how busy I have been over this month, I decided to do a month recap, and what has been happening, and how God has been working around me and in me.

Most anyone that knows me has heard almost nothing from me over the last month and a half but about Invisible Children, and how important the upcoming events were.

The first event to think about was a showing at Jammin Java, to prepare everyone for the night commute that would be coming up at the end of the month. This meant getting alot of things in order for something I wasn't sure would work, as far as drawing people in.

I got together and designed a flyer, posted them (with alot of help from friends), and set up the actual showing on the day of (again, with alot of help from friends). We then just had to wait and see how much people actually cared. 105 people later, and almost pushing Jammin Java to the maximum capacity, we had a movie showing, and it changed lives, as was visually apparent.

Next was a showing at the USC campus of the movie, which I felt for sure would draw in more people than the showing at Jammin Java. We ended up with around twenty people showing up by the USC showing, and a senior talking about the movie afterwards with a basic tone in his speech being that of a defeatist, telling us that no matter what, it was basically impossible to stop a war like that.

Then finally, after everything else, came the Global Night Commute. It was a sight to behold. Looking during and afterwards, I feel that it was just one of those things that God undeniably anointed and blessed. There ended up being 465 people signing in for the Columbia area Night Commute, and over 58 thousand overall in the world, mostly the US.

To see that so many people cared though, was a life changing event.

In my life, I have not always had the most faith in man. I tend to be cynical when it comes to how much credit I give people as a whole. Maybe it was how I saw things growing up, or maybe it was just something else, but even now, as I write this, I find myself still somewhat jaded on how I view this world full of people.

That being said, April 29th went a long ways towards changing that viewpoint. Seeing so many people care for people that most of them had never actually met meant worlds to me, and showed me first hand what a massive display of love in the Godly sense looks like. People willing to sleep in the cold (and it WAS cold) on stone steps for a cause that many people could have just as easily overlooked changed my thoughts on things more than most anything else in my life ever has. And on top of all of that, I think we started quite a change on the 29th, all over the world.

In all of the Invisible Children experiences, I found myself growing very close to CIU, and spending more time actually on the campus. I was making friends through this, and spending alot of time with them, even when not discussing IC. This month also marked when I officially became a student of this school, that i will be attending in the fall.

April found me coming to know CIU as something of a second home at times, and somewhere that I will be more than happy to call home in August.

Ironically enough, in the midst of doing the work that I feel strongly is God's work, I found the work starting to overtake my relationship with Him. I felt the fire starting to dwindle a bit within me, and the urge to be lethargic in the spirit starting to take over.

There is no doubt in my head that God still has a plan for my life, and that I need to get on track with it, or stay on track, whatever the case may be, but over April, the urge to be the lazy christian was a strong force in me, one that needed to be fought off.

Temptation played a big part of April, actually, in many forms. For the first time in a long time, that I can remember anyway, the devil was trying very hard to find ways to tempt me into ignoring God and what He wants for me. This came in many forms, in working long hours, the temptation of the opposite sex, and even in a slightly humorous sounding turn, sleeping too much on the weekend.

The thing that troubled me the most over April however, was how discouraged I found myself. I found myself wondering many times what God's plan for me actually was, and if I might just be convincing myself that it was something that I wanted to hear, and maybe not what God wanted for me. The same was applicable for other areas of life involving the spirit as well.

With the end of school and stress, April turned out to be a rough month, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, but just as things seem to be at their darkest, God always (ALWAYS)....and also ALWAYS shines a light onto life and shows you something you didn't notice, or shows you a new way to look at things that you didn't see before, but that's all part of May...