So recently I've been thinking about the greatness of God and how His ways are higher than our ways. No one created God, He has always been. He didn't have a beginning and he certainly won't have an end. He is infinite and we are finite. We have a beginning and an end. So see there? We are already starting off in a way of thinking. We can only think with our finite minds.
Now as a Christian, I can tell you that there are things in the Bible that are just hard to fathom. Does that mean they didn't happen that way? No. Just because we can't fully wrap our minds around something doesn't mean it didn't happen. (Double Negative for the win!)
Many would argue that the Bible is imperfect. They would say that it was written by many men and they question if those men didn't put in there own agendas into the Bible.
Now let me stop right here. I will agree that man is by nature, sinful. Humans screw things up, it's just what we do. But to say that God would just allow these people to put their own agendas into the bible would be belittling God.
God could crush existence its-self by blinking! Don't you think that he would be able to dictate what would and would not go into the Bible.
Another may argue, "Well Adam what about all the books that are not in our Bible. What about those?"
And to this I say, I have a hard enough time reading the bible I got, with the 66 books in it. Do you really think I want to add more books to that!? I mean I haven't even read all of those 66 books.
I really believe the bible that Christians use is enough. I know it's enough for me.
It's good to think, but sometimes we think to much. God gave us the Bible to help us out in life. To give us a clue! and I am very thankful for that.
Now I know there are other Bibles out there that have other books in them. and thats fine. But I don't think I will be reading them anytime soon. I have a hard enough time reading the Bible as it is.
Heres a thought, instead of arguing about the Bible and worrying about what happened to the other books, why don't you just pick your Bible up and read it and let the God of all the universe speak to you. Have faith like a child! Trust in the Lord! He is bigger than anything you could ever face in your lifetime, God is way smarter than you are, He is way more powerful, and He is in control you are not!
Why not just have a little trust?
I challenge you today to just take your concerns about the Bible, your argument that it's not perfect and your worrying about all the different books that are not part of your Bible but are parts of other Bibles, why don't you take that and place it at the feet of your Savior who is on the cross, and just simply gaze up at Jesus.
Life is full of unanswered questions, and heres a secret, you don't have to know all the answers.
Kinda freeing huh?
As long as you live, life is going to be filled with more and more unanswered questions and thats ok!
Place those questions in the hands of God, and simply gaze at Him and see his amazing power.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Looking at the past
I catch myself reminiscing all the time. Thinking back to the summers I spent as a staffer at a children's camp. I think about the way I was, and how the friendships I made those summers seem to help define me. I seriously don't think I would be the man I am today if I hadn't worked all those summers at camp.
God showed me a lot of things in those summers. I learned a lot about leadership and a lot about children. I feel thats were my calling of being a children's minister started.
When I worked my first Summer at camp in 2007 I had no intention of becoming a children's minister, to be honest, I didn't even know children's ministry existed.
But as I started the next summer in 2008 I began to think more seriously about children's ministry, the question in my mind "Could I really be a children's minister?"
Did I have it in me? Was God leading me in that direction.
By my 3rd summer working at camp, I was ready to move on, I still enjoyed working at camp and getting to minister to so many kids. But I just felt my time at camp had come to a close.
In 2010 I didn't return to camp, instead I was an intern at a church working under the children's ministry. It started out well enough but, soon became a huge thorn in my side.
I was constantly belittled by my boss, told that I had the raw talent but that it needed to be more defined.
He constantly would say "I'm just waiting for you to take ownership of something"
Those times working at that church were really hard, on top of my boss belittling me, I was beginning to die spiritually. In the years that I worked there I maybe only attended a service at the church 6 times. I worked at that church for 3 years.
When I approached my boss about it, he advice was to listen to podcasts or just find another church to go to that wasn't having church at the same time we were.
Terrible advice!
Before I left the church I was really at a cross roads. I did not want to work at this church anymore. Spiritual things didn't interest me anymore. I went to service in the children's area at the church just for a pay check and not for the joy of ministering to children.
I had reached an end with children's ministry. I was done.
I began to put my application in at different places, I started with churches and then I put my application in at Lowes, Target and pretty much any where else I could think of. I just wanted out.
So in the middle of all of this my boss leaves on a mission trip for a week and leaves me in charge. And I gotta say I really enjoyed it. I got to do children's ministry the way I wanted to do it. Thats only confirmed that, thats what I wanted to do with my life. While he was gone on his mission trip, a church contacted me saying they were interested in me being their children's minister. So I went for an interview, after a few more meetings and going to the church and getting voted on, I was their children's minister.
I gotta admit after all this, I still felt like I couldn't do the job. Could God really use me? I was burnt out spiritually, my well had run dry, I was thirsty.
I remember when I went to the church in view of a call, and I had my beautiful wife by my side during the worship service and I remember how good it felt to just be ministered to. To just sign a praise song to God with other people, to actually sit and hear someone preach a sermon.
I still get to sign a praise song to God with other people and hear someone preach a sermon each and every week.
We have an early service and a later service, and we have kids church in the later service. I am blessed to be able to be a children's minister and also that I get to go to service. I actually get to go to sunday school. Wow! What a blessing.
So why did I type out all of this? Whats the point, Adam?
The point is, you never know where life is going to take you. You may be in the middle of a real crappy situation, you may hate your job and you feel like you can't work another day there. Or you may feel like you have reached the end with a relationship and you are scared whats gonna happen.
Can I tell you that life is full of those moments? Life is full of questions, and to be honest some questions will never be answered, so we just have to accept that and move on with our lives.
I use to tell myself "Adam this is just a transitional time in your life, once you get past this life will be better and you will finally have arrived!"
What a stupid thing to think! I have since learned that your whole life is a transitional time, you will always be inbetween something in life. You are constantly between one chapter and the next.
What matters is, what are you doing with your time now? Are you truly enjoying the days in which you are giving, or are you looking forward.
There is a saying that say "The grass is always greener on the other side"
You know why that is? Its because you are not taking care of your own grass, you are always looking over the fence at someone elses green grass.
We need to take care of our own lives, enjoy the time we are given. Stop worrying about the future and just enjoy life right now, stop looking over the fence at someone elses grass, look at your own grass and enjoy it.
Ya feel me? Smell what I'm steppin in?
Let tomorrow worry about its self, today you have enough to worry about.
Enjoy the days you are given.
Keep God #1
And all else will fall into place.
-The Adam Rainwater
God showed me a lot of things in those summers. I learned a lot about leadership and a lot about children. I feel thats were my calling of being a children's minister started.
When I worked my first Summer at camp in 2007 I had no intention of becoming a children's minister, to be honest, I didn't even know children's ministry existed.
But as I started the next summer in 2008 I began to think more seriously about children's ministry, the question in my mind "Could I really be a children's minister?"
Did I have it in me? Was God leading me in that direction.
By my 3rd summer working at camp, I was ready to move on, I still enjoyed working at camp and getting to minister to so many kids. But I just felt my time at camp had come to a close.
In 2010 I didn't return to camp, instead I was an intern at a church working under the children's ministry. It started out well enough but, soon became a huge thorn in my side.
I was constantly belittled by my boss, told that I had the raw talent but that it needed to be more defined.
He constantly would say "I'm just waiting for you to take ownership of something"
Those times working at that church were really hard, on top of my boss belittling me, I was beginning to die spiritually. In the years that I worked there I maybe only attended a service at the church 6 times. I worked at that church for 3 years.
When I approached my boss about it, he advice was to listen to podcasts or just find another church to go to that wasn't having church at the same time we were.
Terrible advice!
Before I left the church I was really at a cross roads. I did not want to work at this church anymore. Spiritual things didn't interest me anymore. I went to service in the children's area at the church just for a pay check and not for the joy of ministering to children.
I had reached an end with children's ministry. I was done.
I began to put my application in at different places, I started with churches and then I put my application in at Lowes, Target and pretty much any where else I could think of. I just wanted out.
So in the middle of all of this my boss leaves on a mission trip for a week and leaves me in charge. And I gotta say I really enjoyed it. I got to do children's ministry the way I wanted to do it. Thats only confirmed that, thats what I wanted to do with my life. While he was gone on his mission trip, a church contacted me saying they were interested in me being their children's minister. So I went for an interview, after a few more meetings and going to the church and getting voted on, I was their children's minister.
I gotta admit after all this, I still felt like I couldn't do the job. Could God really use me? I was burnt out spiritually, my well had run dry, I was thirsty.
I remember when I went to the church in view of a call, and I had my beautiful wife by my side during the worship service and I remember how good it felt to just be ministered to. To just sign a praise song to God with other people, to actually sit and hear someone preach a sermon.
I still get to sign a praise song to God with other people and hear someone preach a sermon each and every week.
We have an early service and a later service, and we have kids church in the later service. I am blessed to be able to be a children's minister and also that I get to go to service. I actually get to go to sunday school. Wow! What a blessing.
So why did I type out all of this? Whats the point, Adam?
The point is, you never know where life is going to take you. You may be in the middle of a real crappy situation, you may hate your job and you feel like you can't work another day there. Or you may feel like you have reached the end with a relationship and you are scared whats gonna happen.
Can I tell you that life is full of those moments? Life is full of questions, and to be honest some questions will never be answered, so we just have to accept that and move on with our lives.
I use to tell myself "Adam this is just a transitional time in your life, once you get past this life will be better and you will finally have arrived!"
What a stupid thing to think! I have since learned that your whole life is a transitional time, you will always be inbetween something in life. You are constantly between one chapter and the next.
What matters is, what are you doing with your time now? Are you truly enjoying the days in which you are giving, or are you looking forward.
There is a saying that say "The grass is always greener on the other side"
You know why that is? Its because you are not taking care of your own grass, you are always looking over the fence at someone elses green grass.
We need to take care of our own lives, enjoy the time we are given. Stop worrying about the future and just enjoy life right now, stop looking over the fence at someone elses grass, look at your own grass and enjoy it.
Ya feel me? Smell what I'm steppin in?
Let tomorrow worry about its self, today you have enough to worry about.
Enjoy the days you are given.
Keep God #1
And all else will fall into place.
-The Adam Rainwater
Monday, June 11, 2012
Marriage
As long as I live, I don't think I will ever understand women.
Also I don't think I will ever understand myself. I say dumb stuff a lot, I mean a lot!
It feels like when I open my mouth it is constantly filled with a size 13 converse shoe.
I think in life and most importantly in marriage you need to learn how to just shut up sometimes.
I think that could be the best advice I could give.
Just shut up sometimes.
When you think you have something to add just stop, think about it and then just shut up.
Be careful.
The end
Also I don't think I will ever understand myself. I say dumb stuff a lot, I mean a lot!
It feels like when I open my mouth it is constantly filled with a size 13 converse shoe.
I think in life and most importantly in marriage you need to learn how to just shut up sometimes.
I think that could be the best advice I could give.
Just shut up sometimes.
When you think you have something to add just stop, think about it and then just shut up.
Be careful.
The end
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Do you have Valor?
When I read the word Valor I think of Cuba gooding jr in deep sea diving gear. But this word came up today while I was reading my devotional. It was in 2 Peter 1:2-11. In this passage of scripture it telling us to put on these things and it makes a long list of things, and I'm not gonna lie, many times I just read this passage and quickly skip over it like yeah yeah yeah I'll do all of that! yeah right! but today I took some time and looked up a few of the words and well......lets just get into it!
The first thing it suggested that we have is faith. now some might say faith is a weakness, your just believing in things you can't see. Yes believing in the God we can't see is a part of faith but it is not the whole picture. Faith is having confidence and trust in God. Confidence that what God said he would do, he will do it! I am happy to say that I have that confidence.
Next it spoke of virtue. Which is moral excellence, uprightness and valor (Boldness or determination in faceing great danger.) Do you have virtue? or are you like me, you have some virtue but you need to work on it. I know I need to work on my moral excellence. I feel I am upright, but there are some things that I feel aren't as bad as others and therefore my uprightness isn't as upright, ya feel me?
Next it when on to speak of knowledge. which are truth, principles and facts. As a christian we have a set moral compass, and how we find out what is in that compass is to read the bible. God has clearly put together a great list of do's and don'ts. But the bible is so much more than just do's and don't think of it as a list of having a great life vs. having a bad life filled with pain, lonelyness and seperation from the father! HEY! I'm just sayin!
Next is Steadfastness, which means you are fixed in direction. As christian our attention should be focused on heaven. that is our direction, let us fix our eyes on it and acheieve it. I heard a music minister say once, "If you are thinking about the things of this world to much, then you are not thinking about heaven enough." Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.
Next on this list was godliness. which is having great reverence for God, also going from the carnal to the spirtual. godliness is one of those really hard ones to master. After all we all live in a flesh suit and lets face it the flesh is stubborn and when it doesn't get it's way it throws a fit like a 5 year old in walmart, ya dig? Paul talked about beating his body and making it his slave. That is exactly what we all need to be doing today. Take your body and make it submissive to your spirit. Easier said that done right? but that doesn't mean we can just dismiss it and move on about our day. Let us beat out body and make it our slave.
Next is brotherly affection. Which is devotion, also in the definition it talked about the act of influencing, and at first I gotta admitt I was like, "WHAT!?" but then I began to think about it and it makes sense. When you have affection for your brother or sister or fellow human being wearing a flesh suit, you influence them to be affectionate to someone else! it challenges them to spread the love And last but certainly not least was love. Now love is a profound tender passionate affection for another person.
My prayer is that love would motovate everything I do. That when I hold the door open at the store for a bearded man, that my motovation would be love. Christians should be the face of love to the world, but they aren't.
Are you being the face of love? are you showing God's love to the world around you.
What are you doing today to show someone love.
I challenge you to show someone love today and not exspect a thing in return.
Just love and leave it at that.
I am curious, how are you loving on others today?
-The Adam
The first thing it suggested that we have is faith. now some might say faith is a weakness, your just believing in things you can't see. Yes believing in the God we can't see is a part of faith but it is not the whole picture. Faith is having confidence and trust in God. Confidence that what God said he would do, he will do it! I am happy to say that I have that confidence.
Next it spoke of virtue. Which is moral excellence, uprightness and valor (Boldness or determination in faceing great danger.) Do you have virtue? or are you like me, you have some virtue but you need to work on it. I know I need to work on my moral excellence. I feel I am upright, but there are some things that I feel aren't as bad as others and therefore my uprightness isn't as upright, ya feel me?
Next it when on to speak of knowledge. which are truth, principles and facts. As a christian we have a set moral compass, and how we find out what is in that compass is to read the bible. God has clearly put together a great list of do's and don'ts. But the bible is so much more than just do's and don't think of it as a list of having a great life vs. having a bad life filled with pain, lonelyness and seperation from the father! HEY! I'm just sayin!
Next is Steadfastness, which means you are fixed in direction. As christian our attention should be focused on heaven. that is our direction, let us fix our eyes on it and acheieve it. I heard a music minister say once, "If you are thinking about the things of this world to much, then you are not thinking about heaven enough." Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.
Next on this list was godliness. which is having great reverence for God, also going from the carnal to the spirtual. godliness is one of those really hard ones to master. After all we all live in a flesh suit and lets face it the flesh is stubborn and when it doesn't get it's way it throws a fit like a 5 year old in walmart, ya dig? Paul talked about beating his body and making it his slave. That is exactly what we all need to be doing today. Take your body and make it submissive to your spirit. Easier said that done right? but that doesn't mean we can just dismiss it and move on about our day. Let us beat out body and make it our slave.
Next is brotherly affection. Which is devotion, also in the definition it talked about the act of influencing, and at first I gotta admitt I was like, "WHAT!?" but then I began to think about it and it makes sense. When you have affection for your brother or sister or fellow human being wearing a flesh suit, you influence them to be affectionate to someone else! it challenges them to spread the love And last but certainly not least was love. Now love is a profound tender passionate affection for another person.
My prayer is that love would motovate everything I do. That when I hold the door open at the store for a bearded man, that my motovation would be love. Christians should be the face of love to the world, but they aren't.
Are you being the face of love? are you showing God's love to the world around you.
What are you doing today to show someone love.
I challenge you to show someone love today and not exspect a thing in return.
Just love and leave it at that.
I am curious, how are you loving on others today?
-The Adam
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
What I am thankful for.
Today in my YouVersion devotional (I'm so hip with the lingo!) It was talking about being thankful and it went on to say that being thankful is the password into Gods presence. My devo also suggested that I make a list of things that I am thankful for. I will attempt to do that here today. LETS GO!
(By the way these are not in order of importance, I'm just typing them as they pop into my brain!
I am thankful for...
-Salvation
-My wife Madeline
-My dog Dobby
-A bed to sleep in
-Water
-Food
-A vehicle to drive
-Oxygen
-Shoes
-Clothing
-Love
-Working at a church
-Friends
-Dr. Pepper
-Pepsi
-Mt. Dew
-Family
-Facebook so I can keep in touch with old friends
-A couch to sit on
-iPad
-An acoustic guitar to play
-An electric guitar to play
-A djembe to play
-Candy
-Toys
-Netflix
-A bible to read
-A free country to read my bible in
-Music
-The sun
-Warm weather
-Air conditioner
-Having warm water to shower in
-Toothbrush and toothpaste
-Cheez-its
I could go on forever! but I think I will stop here. As you see there are many things that you can be thankful for, even those things you take for granted.
-The Adam
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Music
Music. More specifically making music. It's been on my mind a lot here latley. I love everything about music, weather its just one acoustic guitar and a vocalist or a full band. I like it all really. But man do I love a guitar. I have both an electric guitar (Fender Telecaster) and an acoustic (Taylor 214ce) and I enjoy playing them both. I was at a funeral here recently and I noticed something, there was a lot of music played at this funeral. Then I got to thinking, I have been to several funerals and the number one thing there was music. Why? Music has this way of comforting us, I really can't explain it. It just envokes us and draws us in and puts our mind at ease. Music is very personal. Music really captures emotions and personality and all things humane. It's beautiful. I wish I got to play music more. I'm trying to make more time for it. Between having a full time job and a wife that I want to love on. It's hard to find some time to devote to music. I know I'll find my balance and I'll get music back in my life on a more consistant bases.
Just a small foot note to keep in mind about my blogs. I missspell things all the time. And I'm okay with that, and you should br too lol
-The Adam
Madeline and I's first date.
Ever wake up on the middle of the might and can't seem to get back to sleep? That happened to me last night. My mind took full advantage of being awake, I was thinking about all kinds of things! One of the things thst came to mind was my first date with my wife, Madeline. I remember how nervous I was driving to her house and how the G.p.s. totally got me lost. But mostly I thought about how awesome our first date was. Heres what happened:
I picked Madeline up from her house, then we proceeded to go to burger king to feast. After we had eaten we went to a park. Madeline had no idea what was in store for her. For I had some hidden treasures in my trunk. We got to the park and walked over to a picnic table to just sit down and talk, which we did. I remember us looking through each others cell phones and taking pictures of each other. Then just as things were starting to get boring, I told her it was time for her first surprise. So we went to my trunk and I got out some sidewalk chalk! We drew on the concrete, Madeline drew me and I think I drew a dinosaur riding a skateboard. After we drew with chalk it was time for surprise number 2 (number 2 hehe) we walked back to my trunk and i pulled out some bubbles! We had a lot of fun playing with bubbles! Madeline just liked blowing bubbles in my face! But I didnt care, we were having fun. So about this time it was starting to get dark, which was perfect for surprise number 3. So it was back to the car to get it out of the trunk, I opened my trunk and pulled out.......Glow Bracelets! As I was opening the glow bracelet packages, Madeline said something that I will never forget, she said: "How did you know these were all of my favorite things?"
To which I replied "I didn't, I just got things I liked and hoped you would like them too."
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