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Don't get mad that things aren't happening; be the change. 

Growing up in the church, knowing that God “existed” was not a shocking thought to me. I had questioned it, a time or two, but had seen his work to be too evident in my life to count it all up to chance. My life, and the steps I‘ve taken to get to this point, have been the work of God. It wasn’t up until my first term at New Hope that I truly had an “existential crisis” though, with what I had built my entire life and world around. From a very young age I had an inherent knowledge that there must be something bigger at work here, and that that work was God. I spent my younger years, with my family, actively involved in church and planting churches, and outreaches, and all the ways we could reach out to our community. After high school, community college and university it was when I finally reached bible college that the question hit me: Do I really believe all of this? Surrounded by people who constantly disagreed and debated and seemingly never left their small college community save for the grocery store where they snubbed their noses at the unconventional community in which we are apart of, not just live in, I was mad. I was mad that God would “choose” these people to show the world his love, because I knew his love existed, but I was also mad that in all the love I knew existed that my community was chock full of underage youth who were lost and confused and identifying themselves by their skills and hair color and gender and age instead of their character, mad that on every corner stood someone without food and without a home. How could the God I loved so much, leave these people. If I, a humble human, could love them so much, then how much greater could Gods love for them be? There had to be something there. I was missing it. But what was I missing?? I’d spent my whole life studying Gods word and devoting my time and energy and efforts to be a moral and God fearing person. But I have come to the conclusion that it is so much simpler than we make it out to be. Yes, the nitty gritty details matter, they really do, because when someone wants to know why their son passed away, despite their prayers, we must have a confident and compassionate response for them, but what it all comes down to is that great love, that deep down, I knew all along existed. God is faithful. And he is big. Bigger than any question I could throw his way. You don’t think God exists? You want to know why people are without homes? Go ahead, ask him. But expect to be called to submit and take part in the answer: love. Expect to be called to participate in God’s great love! I am here to love, because I am loved. And that is my testimony of my faith in my great creator.