...there is no wasted time...

Looking back on the last year or so of my life is pretty intense. I've done some things that I definitely never thought I would do. But when I look at where I am right now...I don't think I would be sitting here at my computer right now writing this if I didn't go through what I did. Ya what I went through definitely wasn't the hardest thing in the world and people have gone through life dealing with incredibly harder things...but that was enough for me. Feeling that there was absolutely nothing inside me that was making me happy, nothing inside that felt anything like "John Lamos" was definitely the worst feeling I have ever had in my heart.

Then there was that moment...and I doubt I will ever forget it...where that realization came that I needed to make a choice. Either this was going to keep going into something that would change my life into something I never wanted to be...or I needed to come back. Come back to a place that I haven't been for years. And when I came back to that place...I guess the only way to completely describe it is to say my heart was full. And since that day God hasn't stopped showing me something incredible. There is a life that I was not living. There was a life that I am now discovering. And this discovery has not been easy.

Since September a journey has started that has been full of high points...full of excitement, full of intensity. I have never for a second stopped learning...about myself, about other people. Even though this learning has been the most exciting and fulfilling thing I have ever done...God still lets us go through very hard times. Through discovery and through learning...there can be a lot of pain. But when you truly think about learning and discover...there has to be pain. How else can you learn or discover?

My Dad reminded me of something tonight that I know for myself is so easy to forget. GOD DOES NOT WASTE TIME...there are no moments of wasted time. There has never been a single second where God has stopped showing me something...even during the times where I feel like I'm stuck or feeling like I am not going anywhere.

Discovery is all about becoming who you are and becoming who God has always dreamed for you...even if you feel like your heart is braking to the point of never coming back together. Always remember that God is not in the business of wasting time. Every moment, no matter how dull, how low, how high...there is something so important to learn and realize. May we always remember this...

...you just know...

It's crazy when you actually get to the point in your life when the decisions you make and the roads you decide to go down actually start making a difference. It's not about what do I want to do when I grow up, it turns into what am I going to do in the next 3 months to decide exactly where I'm going. That realization gets pretty scary. All these emotions start building up deep inside your heart and day after day you're trying to figure out what all these emotions mean and what direction they are taking you....and then all of a sudden something happens and you just can't ignore the feeling that takes over your heart...

This past Sunday morning I was leading the worship at Kings Valley Wesleyan Church...nothing different or anything extra special was supposed to happen. Normal service and normal worship. Lately I have been feeling that any idea I would come up with for going away to some crazy awesome school or ministry training program just wasn't right. A huge part of me wanted to go, but I don't even know if I can explain it, but it just didn't feel right. Something kept bringing my heart back....and I still even right now can't completely tell what that is...but that Sunday morning something hit me so hard when I was leading the worship. I am not done here...I am not done fulfilling what God has been doing in my heart and in this place. I can't even fully explain it, but after that morning, there is no way I could leave. God is doing something beyond anything anyone could fully understand. And I feel that on Sunday morning...I got a very very small piece of that. And my heart was filled...my heart could never leave. I want to be a part of this...I want to see what God is going to do...and that filled my heart.

I still don't know exactly what's going to happen...and maybe I'll never know until the exact moment it happens...but there is something I know for sure. My heart isn't done here. There is something I am falling in love with in this place...and maybe that's the point. Maybe explaining it just ruins the incredible feeling in your heart. YOU JUST KNOW. I can't see it...there are so many things I still have questions about...but I don't need to see it right now because I know it's going to be ok. I know that whatever is planned for my life...I am going to be exactly where I'm supposed to be. And I want to obey that feeling in my heart. I don't want to run away from it. YOU JUST KNOW. And when you just know....you need to follow that no matter who is telling you not to or if someone is saying to experience more...when you know where God puts your heart...well YOU JUST KNOW...

...dying to self...

First off...just going to say that in this post, I will actually proof read it before I post it haha...probably an important thing to remember for the future...

This is a response to the sermon Jim Agrell gave Sunday morning at Kings Valley Wesleyan Church about how Easter isn't about living...it's about dying...dying to self, so that there is a place for God to come in and create something beautiful.

To me, Jim got it. As humans, we dream, we create, we plan, and we discover. We do these things because we were crafted after the ultimate dreamer, creator, planner, and discoverer. We all spend SO MUCH of our lives creating scenes and scenarios where our lives are something maybe that they aren't or something that they are SUPPOSED to be. We take what we believe is the right thing or we believe is what we were meant to do and we try to make that happen no matter what. But there is a higher calling to all of these things that I believe, at least for myself, is missed and forgotten at times. And this concept, to myself, is the key to understanding our dreams, creations, plans, and discoveries. And this concept is dying to self.

When we choose to die to self, we are choosing our God to take over absolutely everything that we have once thought to be the perfect thing to happen in our lives, and we give that away. Not in a "giving up" spirit or "that will never happen" spirit, but in a spirit where we TRUELY believe, hope, and pray that everything we have in our hearts and minds are part of a plan bigger than ourselves.

God has such a huge plan for every single one of our lives. To me, "huge" isn't even the right word to use here. The ultimate dreamer and creator has taken the time to make a path for our lives. Think about that for a second. The God that created everything we see, feel, touch, experience, has made a plan for every single one of our lives. When I think of that, I get so excited for what's to come in my future. I have zero idea of what everything is going to be, but even though it's definitely not easy, I trust that what God has for me, is so much more than what I could ever dream for myself.

Die to self...truely...and see what happens.

...hope...

There's a point in your life when holding on to a hope that you have created for yourself, or held onto with a strength that was never meant to hold a hope...and at that point when there seems to a crater in your path...there is One that is asking so much for you to just take a breath...and let His strength take over...

Ya it seems extremely easy to say and honestly it seems way like hoping in something unseen or, in our minds, impossible...but the sense of freedom that consumes your heart and your mind at that moment of total surrender cannot be described by words in my opinion. At that point of totally openness of the heart and vulnerability of the heart is where the God who has already conquered this can totally rap a hand around you and say "It's going to be ok, I love you". Of course I can't say exactly what He'll say, but I think the point is pretty obvious. Words like this, to us, from a Creator that gives us a heart to love, a hand to hold, and a rock solid hope to hold onto, can take the weakest, destroyed, beaten down, and twisted heart and make something beyond beautiful, beyond what our word "happy" means....I think the better word is COMPLETE....

Our God has such an incredible plan for our future and our purpose...greater than anything we can even hope to dream for...and that is something that we can hold on to.

...obsessed...

I thought being in love would make me someone else, something MORE than what I was...XP3

I remember when I was 12 years old...very memorable day in my young life...sitting right in front of the canteen at Caton's Island. My parents sat me down and I will always remember this talk for the rest of my life...they told me that I was now allowed to go out and in their words "spend time" with a girl as more than just friends...

In my family the time spent with someone you were interested in dating or had a crush on was a pretty big deal, and my parents felt that it was something that came with age and maturity. Dating and "hanging out" with a girl for me was something that I didn't just do whenever or with whoever I wanted. That stage of my life came when I was 12 years old...and we all know how important and deep a dating relationship can be at 12 years old...but in any case, it was the beginning of a new world for me...a world of dates, holding hands and of course the opportunity for a first kiss...very epic moments in a young man's life...

For myself, relationships became a very important aspect to my life. The want for a girlfriend and that sense of identity became center in my life...and for the next 4 to 5 years I spent my time focused on finding that person to fill that spot...and that want eventually turned into a very intense obsession that I know some people experience. Friendships were lost and ruined a lot of times in that because when all I wanted was that deeper relationship when really that wasn't God's plan at that moment in my life.

This obsession ended up taking over my life so much that I started into relationships that I definitely shouldn't have been involved in...and that eventually led to an obsession to those girls that I was in relationships with...and that got dangerous.

There's a spot in our hearts that needs to be filled...we have all felt it in our lives at some point or maybe it still isn't filled. It's the idea of someone loving us and us having that person to pour our love into. And that spot leads to us looking for a certain someone to fill that...and ya it sounds cute and corny but sometimes it turns into a very dangerous game of filling that spot at all costs...and that's where we start destroying a plan that has already been planned for our lives but a God that cares so much about filling the lonely parts of our heart.

Obsession with the idea that there is one single person out there in this world that will rescue us from eternal loneliness and save us from everything heart breaking in this world is a dangerous hope to hold onto. The idea that there is a single person that will makes us happy with nothing else will is a hope that will always fall short of fulfilling that purpose. I know for myself I had to come to a place where there was a complete and amazing happiness in the idea that if I was never to be with someone again for the rest of my life, but I have a relationship with a God that honestly takes that loneliness away...I felt that I finally fit the word HAPPY. This was definitely a sense of happiness that I had never felt before...and in that feeling and in that security...I feel like I am now in a place that for someone to be in my life that I am falling completely in love with doesn't fulfill an empty place, but this person adds and creates a new kind of happiness that adds what my identity in the love of God...

A love like this has never felt more perfect or more real than it does now...Being in love with someone after already being in love with the ultimate lover is what real love is to me...Everything I felt before which I thought was love, was only an imitation of the love that I now feel for first the love for God...but also for the girl that I am falling in love with every day...

There is a search for love of a person that can be an empty search in the dark...but when the love that really counts and the love that will last for a life time, from a God who is desperately in love with you, then nothing can feel more real and more incredible...

...do not find yourself lost in an obsession with a search for the wrong love...cause the real love is already there waiting for you...and you will not discover the love God has for you until you first discover and accept His love...that is the REAL love...

...friends become a part of us...

Just the talk I gave last night to the middle school youth at KV Wesleyan youth group...

We all have our best friends, people we spend MOST of our time with…even more than our families sometimes…and we’ve also got just the people we see every day that we may call our friends but we may not talk to them every day…

BUT no matter how much time we spend with a friend…FRIENDS ARE MORE THAN JUST A PART OF OUR PAST, THEY BECOME A PART OF US…

There is something about being close to someone that, without being careful, we can start acting exactly like them…most of the time without us even realizing it…

I loved having friends…having people like me was a big deal…I didn’t have many close friends growing up but I had a lot of people that I knew and would probably call a friend…I would also do ANYTHING to be friends with someone…not desperately…but I just really wanted to be friends with everyone…and especially in middle school and through to high school…that’s when friendships started to demand more of who I was….or better…who I was going to choose to be…

Grade 11 made the football team…people started to pay more attention to me…girls started paying attention to me (most importantly)…BUT the thing was these friends were not the kind of people that I normally would hang out with…they partied, treated girls like crap, they weren’t the best influences for me to be around…BUT because I am JOHN LAMOS and couldn’t do anything wrong I thought I was ok and I could just drive them to the parties and pretty much stay as close to the line as I could without crossing it…

That didn’t last too long…started partying and drinking and trying to get as many girls to like me at the same time…and TOTALLY 100% losing track of what was really important in my life…GOD AND WHO I WAS IN HIM…

From that point on for the next 4 years…it went on and kept getting worse and led to a life that I definitely did not want to be living…

FRIENDS ARE MORE THAN JUST A PART OF OUR PAST, THEY BECOME A PART OF US…

BUT…how hard is it to find friends that believe and act the same way you want to? How hard is it to find friends that are trying to lead a life that is pleasing GOD and living a life you are trying to live? And you definitely can’t live you life without having friends…THE DESIRE FOR FRIENDS IS SO GREAT THAT WE SIMPLY ALLOW OURSELVES TO DRIFT INTO FRIENDSHIPS WITHOUT REALLY THINKING ABOUT…

We starting getting close to people are start hanging with the wrong people because the desire to be friends with them is greater than doing the right thing or keeping your distance…spiritually…

SO HOW DO WE CHOOSE THE RIGHT FRIENDS AND HAVE FUFILLING AND HEALTHY INFLUENCES IN OUR LIVES…WITHOUT BEING LONELY AND NOT HAVING ANY FRIENDS

Remember King David…well he had a son named Solomon and he was a very very wise man…people would come from all over the place to ask him questions and to get his advice about everything…and his wisdom was a gift from GOD…He asked GOD for this wisdom…

David was a man after GOD’S own heart…David had incredible faith in the LORD…but this faith did not stay with Solomon as it did with his father…

1 Kings 11:4-6

Solomon started to fall away from GOD in a way that he probably never wanted to happen…He was the song of the Kind David…a man that had a heart that was madly in love with GOD…and I’m sure Solomon wanted to have this same faith and favor with GOD…But he fell away…

And how did he fall away?...he started to follow the gods that his wives followed…but even before that…he marries women that totally had no faith in the same and right GOD that Solomon had faith in…it was the influence of his wives that totally shook and killed the faith that Solomon had in a GOD who was desperately in love with him and had incredible plans for Solomon’s life…

Solomon got sucked in to the life of the people around him and it led him to a place that he never wanted to be…He was the man that shouldn’t have fallen for this…GOD gave this guy incredible wisdom…He should have known better…But it doesn’t matter who we are…

FRIENDS BECOME A PART OF US….

Proverbs 13:20

Proverbs 22:24-25

The mistake that Solomon made that that he didn’t think about where his influences were coming from…He didn’t think first before he entered this relationships and friendships…He went in blindly…Becoming close to someone shouldn’t be a small decision to us…we need to think about who we are spending most of our time with and who we are giving our time to…we need to think about who has the influence over our lives…

Solomon failed in this and it eventually led to him falling away from GOD…the same GOD that gave him his gifts and loved and believed in him…

Building and investing time in friendships really comes down to one thing: BEING SMART WHO ARE CLOSEST TO YOU…thinking about who is influencing you and who you are spending your time with…and possibly who you are becoming because of the person you are hanging out with…

GOD does want you to be lonely…He created us to have friendships and He created us to long for that human friendships…he did not create us to feel lonely or unwanted by people…But that does not mean we need to have busy 100% of the times…because when we start worrying about that and trying to consume our time with everything and everyone we can think of…that’s when we start losing our focus and stop thinking about the people we are spending time with and calling our friends…

Think of your closest friends right now…How does your day usually go…what do you guys do and what kind of stuff are you getting into…just think quietly about it for a second…this is going to sound cheesy and super corny…but it’s the right question to ask yourself…ARE THOSE FRIENDS CHANGING WHO I AM…if they are helping you in your relationship in GOD and you guys are growing together that’s awesome and I’m praying that’s happening with all of you…BUT what if that’s not happening…What if you’re thinking about your friends right now and what is coming to your mind is exactly opposite of something good…What if what comes into your head is completely not what you ever thought you would be or what you would be doing with yourself? IS THAT A GOOD THING?

Its all about the influence we have in our lives…Im not saying because someone is doing something wrong DO NOT BE THERE FRIEND…because maybe you are the only way they get to see JESUS…but be careful not to let that influence you…That’s where we need to think and we need GOD’S help figuring out who is influencing us and who isn’t….

SHOW ME YOUR FRIENDS AND I’LL SHOW YOU YOUR FUTURE