two years ago i wrote a blog about the number four. its really good. i might import it from my myspace. this is one like that. its about the number 61. (oh, and i started writing this on the 17th, but its close to midnight and i probably won't finish in time.) i chose 61 because of a few reasons. one, its the number of days in any two consecutive months (unless those months are july and august, or january and february, or february and march)and its the number of days til my birthday.


61 months ago i was a counselor at junior high camp. i prayed with a kid who had just accepted christ. his face, his smile, is the most joy filled face i have ever seen.
61 weeks ago i was working kitchen at camp, and i heard God talk to me above the dish washer.
61 days ago i was driving home from a long day of climbing after work at camp.
61 hours ago i was eating dinner with my family on a friday.
61 minutes ago i was on facebook.
61 seconds ago i was in the bathroom. 61 seconds from now i'll be in the next paragraph.

See? i told you i would be.
61 minutes from now, i'll be deciding if this blog is anywhere near worthy to be online.
61 hours from now, i'll asleep. i willhave gotten back from youth group, where we are playing the same two songs that we sang last time we played. take it all(by hillsong), and everything(by lifehouse) just two weeks later. see, our youthgroup doesn't know how to worship God during music. see, they haven't had a steady band in 61 months. so most of them weren't in youth group yet. actually, none of them were in youth group yet. half of them don't come on sundays, and the other half all are very helpful with our childrens ministry. that means they don't sing anything on wednesdays, and they hardly sing anything on sundays. the only exposure these kids have to music that glorifies God is once a summer at camp. so we are trying to introduce them to it.

61 days from now, i'll be 21. twenty one. that means i can drink. in a sense its a bigger birthday than 20. you can't really do anything cool at 20 that you couldn't at 19, except ride in a car with someone who got their liscence int eh past 6 months, which isn't that cool. and since i'll be at simpson, i won't drink for another two months afer that. two months. 61 days.

61 weeks from now i'll be 22, and in my senior year of college. well, its supposed to be my senior year. we'll see if i keep on track like that. i kinda doubt it. but i'll be a senior. when my mom was that age, she was married. weird.

61 years from now i'll be 81 years old. i probably won't rock climb anymore. i hope i'll at least still be able to play guitar. i'll be married. i'll have kids. my kids will have kids. my kids's kids, might be getting married, and having kids.
thats right. 61 years from now, i could be a great grandpa. WHAT! yeah,. thats crazy. seriously, take a second and think about that. 60 years from now, when you are old and grey, (or bald...) what will your grand kids look like? they will be as old as i am now. or older. 60 years from now, if you are still alive, you could be holding your great grandkids. or, you could have them sitting on your lap. or they will be to old to sit on your lap. if every generation in my family has kids at 25, when i'm 81, my grand kids will be 6. and i''l be 81, so my lap might be too fragile for them! crazy. this blog was supposed to be artsy with the numeric symmetry, not scary and putting life in perspective.

61 decades from now, no one will know my name. i will be the old name in the family bible that no one knows about. i will just be another name. and next to my name it will say "1988-" and after that will be another number. thats it. all this has happened, and will happen, and then i'm Gone. but then I'm in heaven.

and i won't be a counselor at a camp, and i won't be hearing God over the noise of a dishwasher. cause he will be right next to me. i will just look at his face and talk to him. i won't be eating, but i'll be with my family. i won't have to lead worship at youth group, cause jesus will be right there. and i won't be deciding anything about blogs, and i won't be talking about my age, or watching where the wild things are. and i won't be holding my great grand kids on my ever-so-fragile lap, and i won't be in the bathroom. i'll be kneeling at jesus' feet.
and i'll be smiling.

hold me jesus

rich mullins wrote a song called hold me jesus.
watch the youtube video, then i'll finish talking.



anyways, yeah. for some reason when i hear this song it reminds me of how big God is. the sad part about this song is that rich mullins died about ten years ago. i had no idea who he was then, except as the guy who wrote "Awesome God" side note: he also wrote the song creed. for those of you who know garrett viggers, check out his website (garrettviggers.com) and watch a video of third day recording creed with brandon heath and garrett on the dulcimer

okay. anyways, the bridge of this song is the best part.

Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight You for something
I don't really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I've beat my head against so many walls
Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees

that part made me begin to tear up. considering the fact that i am really thirsty, i probably would have cried just now listening to it. this blog is not eloquently worded, it is not my best writing, and definitely not my most humorous, but this song speaks so much to me, i had to write it.

update ramble.

once again, i am writing a blog that i hope turns into something worthwhile. today i led worship at church again. josh was speaking, and i hadn't led in a while, so he told me i was singing. i spent about ten minutes last wednesday picking the set, so i felt like i might not be able to get into the songs. i usually take forever to choose music that speaks what my heart is try to tell me, and fits with the message so it takes like three hours. since this time was short i feared i would not feel into the songs by Sunday. that was far from true. today i loved the songs i had chosen. every song we played moved me. when i play i love to watch others worship God. today i feel like i only opened my eyes one time per song, and i didn't look up when i did. as each song was coming close to its end, i thought about the feel the song had left me with. certain songs have certain feelings attatched, but thats not what i mean. there is a different part of my heart that is puled by each part of a song. truly amazing songs pull my whole heart, or pull one peice so hard it moves me. every song starts pulling on one part of my heart, adn moves what part it pulls through the song. and so when each song came to an end, i thought about what it was pulling, and what songs would fit next that would transition from that feeling well.

then i would open my eyes the one time. well, actually, i think they were open, but they were not looking at people, or at the walls, or my guitar, or anything. i was staring at Go. the only time i focused my eyes was when i looked at the set list to see what was next, and if it fit. each song pulled my heart in the perfect way. i was singing and unable to stop smiling. today God filled me with is Joy again, and i love it.

after a good set like today, where i am worshiping God, once the songs are over, the final dismissal-prayer has been said, and everyone is heading out to the fellowship hall to eat cookies and drink coffee (an every sunday tradition at our church) and i begin to put my guitars away, i begin to wonder something. its that nagging doubt that creeps into my mind. i wonder if i sounded good. like at all. was i in the right key? did i sing way too loud or too soft? did i miss any notes? now, if i completely messed up, i still worshiped God, so the service was great for me, and in a sense none of that matters. but i want to bring my best before God, so it does matter.

on the days where i question if i sounded even remotely good, God always surprises me. today a woman from our church, named patty, walked up and told me this "hi, i'm patty, and i want to say i love listening to you sing. i don't think i hear you sing very often, but it sounds Good. I love the whole band here. you guys worship God. i can hear in your voices and instruments that your hearts are in the right place, and you are worshiping God." that is the best compliment i have gotten. i think ever. last time she complemented me, she said my mandolin playing was better than my guitar playing. i have played guitar for 8 years now, and at that point i had played mandolin for about 5 hours. and so when i saw her walking up, i thought of that last one. a part of me braced for a complisult (you know, the compliments that kinda hurt)and then she said that. God is awesome.

and that phrase is still in my mind. "i can hear in your voices and instruments that your hearts are in the right place..."

um, overshare? a light into my commitment issues

i have commitment issues. but not the normal kind for a guy my age. when i like a girl, i commit to liking her. and it usually takes liking another girl to make me stop liking the first girl. and yes, this has come back to bite me in the but recently. theres a girl, who may be reading this, and she knows who she is, who i liked. i told her i liked her way before i should have, and then we flirted for awhile. then she told me we needed to be just friends and i agreed, and three months later i still really liked her. then i fell for a girl i met somewhere else, and battled over which of the two of them i liked more. for like two weeks, then i realized that maybe, just maybe, i needed to get over the first one, and not like the second either.

basically i think i like people too much. so when i like a girl, or even pretend to start to like a girl, i jump in. and it usually works out that i am an idiot, and sometimes it messes things up. in fact, to the aforementioned girl who knows who she is, i want to apologize for jumping the gun, cause it made things awkward between us. i hope we can still become better friends.

really this blog doesn't need to be posted, but it will be anyways. cause thats just what i do.

i guess i can make it seem better if i do this:
pray for me. that i find the line between over commitment and under commitment.

fiddler on the roof

i just watched the fiddler on the roof with my family.
i love that movie. now, to start, the chracters are mostly jewish, so i do have some disagreements with them theologically, like i believe jesus Is the messiah, and they talk about still waiting for him. the weird thing is that i LOVED the theological ideas behind alot of things.
first off, the dialouge. when the jews are being kicked out of their town because they are jewish, one of them (the name escapes me right now, but he was the son inlaw, and the tailor) turns to the rabbi and says "rabbi, we have waited here so long for the messiah, wouldn't now be a good time for him to come back?" the rabbi repsons " we'll wait somewhere else." i love the line. it reminds me that no matter where we are Christ is there.
when the main character ( whose name i cannot spell, so won't even try) is deciding if he should abandon his daughter for marrying a gentile, or abandon his faith, he says "if i bend it (his core beleifs) i will break" granted i do not think we still need to disown people for interreligious marriages because christ told us to love, but the statement that he would break if his faith were forgotten is such an amazing statement.

the best part of the movie to me, that trumps all other parts, is how he prays. at one point he glimpses up at God with a look of confusion. it is as he is about to tell his wife that he is letting their daughter marry the tailor instead of the rich butcher. he looks at God with a face that just says" can i get a little help?" the way the character interacts with God inspires me. don't get me wrong, God is almighty and he deserves to be revered, but also he loves us. he wants us to feel comfortable in his arms. when i was a little kid and my dad held me i could turn and look at him in a face that said i loved him. i didn't need to say it, and i definitely didn't need to say " dear father. you are my father, and i love you. you and my mother made me, and you have raised me. thank you" i just had to look. he knew. i think we should be that way with God sometimes too. i want to be that way with God alot more than i am. to be so close with God that talking to him is almost casual.
also, he goes between talking to God and talking to himself in an instant. when his daughters ask him for his permission to marry, they suddenly are far off in the back ground to show that the talking he is doing is between him adn God, and not actually out loud. but half of the time he is saying things that sound like they should be between him and God, but the other half of the time he is saying things taht sound like simple reasoning. when he says "on the other hand..." the twenty time she says it, its just his mind measuring the pro's and cons. i think prayer and thought are linked. i want praying to be as casual as thinking. i want thought to be involved in prayer. i'm tired of people not thinking while they pray, and not praying while they think.

if you don't know what i mean watch the movie fiddler on the roof and pay attention to how he prays. it might change your life. like seriously, it might.

the godliest man i have ever known

Charles Albert Peterson, the Godliest man i know, died this morning at 6:00. he was 93 years old. to describe to you how Godly he was would take me until i was 93 myself, so i will give you the highlights. he was an army veteran, spent most of his life as a ranch hand, never married, but had more friends that he valued more deeply than i could ever dream to have. his list of emergency contacts, which he kept in his wallet listed things like which hospital he liked, his doctor, PG&E, and a few other things, but the first number on it was my dad, who was his pastor for 15 years. my father has been taking extra time lately to visit Charles, since we knew he was dying ( he has had throat cancer for a year now.) he graduated high school when he was 16.he was an expert gardener and was gardening my church's 4 acre lot when we moved to California and kept it up for the first few years.

he told my Dad that no one would be allowed to stand up and talk about his life at his funeral. he wrote that the pastor giving a summary of his life would "suffice." he wanted the pastor to preach. he wanted his life to bring others to Christ, and he wanted his death to do the same.

my dad talked to his care giver and learned some amazing things. first of all, he died today as his care giver was getting ready for the day. Elliot, the care giver stopped in at 5:30 to check on him. Elliot took went away, and came back and Charles had passed. he held on until Elliot had checked.

the biggest thing to me is that Elliot had heard him talking one morning in his room. he had heard Charles saying something along the lines of "Why am i still here? why can't i come home now?" Elliot talked about how Charles was really ready to pass. Charles was not afraid at all of death. he wanted to be with his maker.

that's how i want to be when i get close to my death. i have had conversations with God before, and once or twice it has been out loud, but i always kept quiet enough that no one would hear it. i want to be so close to God that i talk in a full conversation-volume voice to him. i want to be like that so much that I'm crying just thinking about it. about his Heart for God.

in the past few months Charles has not been able to eat. he has barely been able to sip water. he was down to a few sips per day because his throat cancer was so bad. Charles was not afraid at all of death. he wanted to be with his maker. to be face to face with God.
now he is.

piggy plague

yep, i said it. or at least reffered to it. swine flu. there, now i said it. i know i'm at the tail end of a sickness of some sort, and i think its the dreaded H1N1! which is funny, cause i'm really not THAT sick. well, the fever, the full body aches and the headaches were pretty bad on Wednesday afternoon, and also pretty bad on Thursday morning. but not as bad as other flu's i have had. best thing? i didn't let it distract me from worshiping God these past two weeks ( oh, i was on the band at camp leading around 230 people each week in worshiping God.)in fact, it was the first time i got sick and found a deeper meaning. yep, I'm weird like that now.

everytime i woke up feeling horrible, head throbbing, dehydrated from the massive ammounts of sweat (which every morning i thought was evidence that the fever had broken. nope.) eyes throbbing form my head being on fire, and my throat so SORE from the snot dripping down it while i slept that i was carrying around little honey packets when i sang, it made me think of something it made me remember that i live in a broken world.

thats right, my piggy plague reminded me of the fall of man, which in turn reminded me of sin, which lead to God's saving Grace. so i woke up every morning thinking about how sick i was and thanking God for loving me so much. weird. but really cool.

and then i realized something. i know when i'm as sick as i was/stil am i need alot of rest.but at the same time when i was sickest i wanted to do the most. i wanted to impact the world for God as much as i humanly could. and then some more. i really wanted to force jesus down everyones throats in the best way i could:love them. and at camp there are a few ways i could love them. see, i'm an employee and to me helping people on challenge courses really is a form of ministry. and i'm also on the band, so playing guitar is a form of misitry as well. i aslo have the ability to relate to people and make friends, and i see that as a way to build up my fellow beleivers, and thus its a form of ministry too. so i had three huge "take all day" tasks and had to do them all at once. add into thtat the fact that i was sick so only haad about 40% of my normal energy to spend, and yes, i wiped myself out.

all in all God used me though. there will probably be another blog or two about it soon, but now i need to get some rest.

with love,
Andrew