To the Pure...

To the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure;both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. Titus 1:15-16

Key verse out of my reading this morning and I did not have time to journal, so there you have it. Last night I fell into ritual and once again I find my actions contradicting what I profess to believe!
If we are those that know God then how we live must be directly related and reflective of our knowing. I need to know more for often my actions do not reflect whom I say is my Lord. To be a Christian is to be a small Christ, a representative of heaven, being the hands and feet of Jesus to this world.

If your members are one in the same with Christ then why do we mix Christ's members with that of a prostitutes!

Lord we need to know you more, I ask for your grace and your purity from the blood of your son. Do not look upon my impurity! Cover it with the blood of Jesus. Touch me today, that all I do lines up with you, my Lord, my king, father, savior, lover and friend. I want to represent you well.

Kicking and Screaming!

BEEP BEEP BEEP! SMACK! 6:00am

Ahhhhhhhh! gotta go, gotta go, gotta go go go! My mind screamed out this and that, tasks I need to attend to. Stress began to take over my mind, my heart started screaming in protest, and my body quietly put up its defense by refusing to wake. I am only three minutes into the day! Get dressed... run down the stairs... throw some breakfast together... start the coffee... turn on the Christmas tree lights and the fire... grab bible. journal. pen.... blanket. Ok! I am set, God thank you for a new day. I pray that you would wake up my body and my spirit. Break up the hard parts of my heart and speak! Help me to die to this selfish self and live in you. Let your joy be awakened in my heart and let it be my strength despite my body's aches and my minds weakness.

Romans 8:1-8 Key verses:
v5 For those who live according to the flesh SET THEIR MINDS on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit SET THEIR MINDS on the things of the spirit. v6 To SET THE MIND on the flesh is death, but to SET THE MIND on the spirit is life and PEACE.
This was what God gave me to focus on three days ago. It applies perfectly to right now. I love how he gives us what we need in perfect timing. My heart is stressed and heavy under the weight of practicalities and all of the little loose ends that have seemed to multiply more rapidly than I can tie them up. My heart feels like it is fraying apart and I cannot pinpoint the snag. This verse says that if my MIND IS SET on the things of the spirit then there is life and PEACE. Mind check, Jordan! Focus!

If you are feeling stressed or like you are about to explode from the mounting pressures of the season. STOP. DROP. Be still and know that God is God. Focus on him and SET YOUR MIND on the things of the spirit. I have found the best way to focus is to worship, it puts God back into perspective! He is still in control. Do not worry about anything but in prayer and petition offer up your requests to God.

Stress sucks!

WednesFriday

Monday Tuesday WednesFriday
Sat and Sun I come undone!

A piece of last years poetry, accurately echoes how I am feeling today.
We go on breaks and stay up way to late,
then thrown back into the motions, while my emotions
find new fuel for there longing to be free from this pattern.
Six months two days, I gra du ate.
May 1, the fateful day we sign our lives away.
Or we may continue to flounder in some free flow pattern.
Make some money, hunt for a honey!
O the terrible rhythm and rhyme
how can our lives mine out meaning
in the midst of this menial....

Monday Tuesday wednesfriday
O blast! Here comes Thursday seekin revenge
Don't you hate it? despite best effortz
yesterdayz activitiez remain a distant memoriez crowded out already by the craziness of...
day to day to day to day.
One to two to the three to four
please sir, can I have some more?
More what?
Life! If I might have morsel to keep for the rainy day.

Bailout, word of the year but I get no attention!
Could you spare 2.4 million for a small intervention?
When does the political game reach he practical
beyond just some distant fame or just someone to blame.

I dont want to rant but do you feel you are stuck in some lame video game
jumping through hoops, level to level,
livin in a world of no emotion.
I shot you for bonus points.
Stole your gun and your girl.
just to feel good. It doesn't last
but at least I have some fleeting romance of adventure.

I walk through the hall ways and it seems that we have so wrapped ourselves in this false reality of worth and a warped sense of purpose that we live from bell to bell, check box to check box. The only excitement is when he broke up with her and she hung out with him and so and so said her brothers friends grandmas dog died so I am depressed. Have some sympathy! This is not real life people! I know! I have tasted and seen. this morning before the sun rose I met with love and he spoke worth over me! There is so much more to life then this

Monday Tuesday WednesFriday!
There is a friend that loves beyond what I could describe
A presence of peace beyond understanding
purpose that gives you drive and hunger for life!

his name is love and believe it or not he is not abstract, he is not hard to get a hold of, there are no preconditions, I would love to introduce you...

his name is Jesus.

Seasons Change

A song/poem I wrote as the snow was trying to fall the other day.

Seasons change and my heart follows close behind
excitement builds, for something new
The smell of rain, the crisp cool air of spring
the sun rises,I gaze upon the morning dew, the mornings new.

We grow older, why fight the natural order
trying harder to justify ourselves
Leaving what once was, walking new paths
saying goodbye to where we have been before, We have been here before.
from Em to open to G
Open my eyes so I can see
Open my ears so I can hear you,
Soften my heart so I can can feel you
leading. last line goes high

I'm tired of singing, songs that will never be heard,
Tired of screaming out the deaf and dumb...Dreaming dreams that will never be lived out.

Open their eyes so they can see
Open their ears so they can hear you
Soften their hearts so they can feel you

Seasons change! change the hearts of this nation
stir us up, for something new.
coming into what is real
following your leading, your leading,
my heart is changed

The Glass Ceiling of Relationships

I am in the midst of my B-block class once again and I am really struggling today. Only one and a half more days and then finally Thanksgiving, the long awaited break is here. I have had in many ways a successful week and in many ways the successes have caused fresh challenges. Victory in leadership and mentoring has triggered an excitement in me that sadly distracts me from the more mundane commitments that I maintain during the year. I have not been committed to a team these past three weeks having decided not to compete in the Junior Olympics yet my sister Jessica who is ridiculously talented chose quite wisely to continue. She has practice downtown Monday Wednesday and Friday. This has allowed for an incredible amount of time for coffee poetry and music, the things that I standardly have no time to pursue in the midst of sports. My heart today had conference with my mind and they decided that long term relationships often develop a ceiling of sorts. When I want to pursue something like poetry or music more intensely then those who have known me as primarily a runner for years are thrown for a loop and often do not encourage such things. Not because they disprove necessarily but they do not have that picture of you as a poet... People inherently do no like change so when you come up to those you have known for a long period of time and offer a new concept of you rarely are they as excited. This lack of enthusiasm often hurts or is seen as these persons discouraging your pursuits or not believing in you.
I want to leave....
grow....
change...
and so today I am struggling.
For it has become evident that there is indeed a view and perception of who I am that is not allowed to change as liberally or quickly as I feel the need for growth.

A Poem and the Thought of Song

NEGRO

I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.

I have been a slave:
Ceasar told me to keep his door steps clean.
I brushed the boots of Washington.

I've been a worker:
Under my hand the pyramids arose.
I made mortar for the Woolworth Building.

I've been a singer:
All the way from Africa to Georgia
I carried my sorrow songs.
I made ragtime.

I've been a victim:
The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo.
They lynch me still in Mississippi.

I am a Negro:
Black as the night is black,
Black like the depths of my Africa.

Langston Hughes

This is the Poem that grabbed my heart today. Read it again and think about it! It is history and heart, a flow of words that musically portray an incredible sorrow and a subtle sense of pride. I think it is powerful to see how blacks though rich with a history of abuses have claim to great accomplishments. ie the Pyramids, The Woolworth Building, ragtime, jazz... it goes on and on. They have been the strength that raised equality and conviction inside of there abusers. There sorrow songs have turned to praises and there slavery into a liberty that has worth and life so much deeper than ours. They have fingure prints everywhere! I know that racism and slavery are still a huge problem and factor in society but I love this picture of perseverance. Inside of the great pain and injustice come to the surface some of the most compassionate, immensely strong hearts. Out of the gr owning is birthed the most majestic of choruses.

My thought process is such that I am craming my head with peotry and stories, and the verses of the bible hoping that they will poor out in song. Ps 126:5-6 "Those who sow tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to so, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him." There have been many tears sown this past season in my family. There has been a shaking of everything we have known and I believe that we are going to reap some incredible songs of joy out of it. I was listening to an awesome man of the Lord named Creflo Dollor last night and he said, "if you need a house then get out there and plant house seed. You need a job, plant job seed." We have an inordinate amount of seed found in the bible if we will get into it and get it. Then pray it or plant it! act like you belive it! live it out and then you will reap a harvest. I am praying for a harvest of songs. The bible says through the tears that have been sown that they are coming so I am going to sing!

Once upon a time... A tale of the middle school years

Once upon a time there was a home school kid that loved his teacher. His teacher was his mom, and his mom had the top say in his life. She had raised him to read the word, pray, and worship daily. Respect your elders, clean up after yourself, you know…all of those wonderful things a good mom should teach. There was one mistake though; she loved the way his hair curled when it got long so when she cut his hair she would leave a couple of curls dangling down the back of his neck. Then it came time for our little home schooler to go into a public school because mom was having her fifth child and needed some help teaching them. Now our little lad who loved home schooling did not want to go to public school and hated the way kids judged other kids, he hated the way kids acted in general.
The first day he walked in to class was about two weeks after school had officially started and there was a math quiz. The poor lad looked at it and knew none of the material. Scared and not knowing what else to do, he took the quiz and with trembling hands gave it back to the teacher explaining, “I do not know any of this.” The teacher was a big man with a kind demeanor and he tried to reassure him, “It is ok, I want you to try it so that we can figure out where you are.” The child broke down crying and after a few moments collected himself and asked to go to the bathroom. He did not know where it was so the teacher asked the cool kid in the Vans and skate gear to help him find his way. Cool kid Vans man looked the home schooler over and then gave him this look like, “Are you from mars?”
I was that kid, and I learned vary quickly that even if your mom likes the way your hair curls, rat tails will just never be accepted as stylish. I cut the rat tail off and after a month of coming home everyday and crying, came to a revelation. My parents had made the decision that I was staying and crying was not going to change anything. From then on I took culture shock and turned it around on the culture itself. I began to build relationships with the kids and because it was such a small school I soon knew everyone’s name and had befriended each kid. I caught up in math and actually ended up teaching more math than our teacher. He was a little lost being a science geek that was forced to teach math because we could not afford another teacher. I began to pray and felt like I was supposed to start a bible study. I did and it started out with about 3 kids. Me, the one nerdy girl that had a crush on me, and the really smart girl that had like half the bible memorized but no comprehension of how to apply it. Anyways, we began to study the word during our lunch breaks. Most often it was mainly conversation based off of what we each had been learning in the past weeks. The conversation drew the popular girls in because they loved to talk about anything and everything. We had three of them get saved and they soon drew in the guys. I am telling you, you want more guys in your church, get the cute girls saved!
This growth continued all year and then summer came and most of the kids were like, “What do I do? We can’t stop just because school is.” So I invited them to my home church and we had about twenty of them begin carpooling in on Sundays. They were discipled on a deeper level then I could ever have done in a lunch break and we came back to school my 7th grade year with a solid remnant of disciples. Then it took off, we had about eighty out of the ninety kids in our class coming to Westside church. I was elected as President of the student body and began to lead even more formally with the faculty. It was outstanding, God did great things!
I am now the vice president of the student body in my high school and have helped raise up a bible study here as well. I have been under fire from our schools leadership and learning how to defend and further faith in a highly critical arena. I am believing for amazing breakthrough even still to come in the 3 quarters I have left before I am sent out into the next season. Which I am praying will be with you all at SPU.

Love Actually...

Love, a word that could mean so much in todays culture. What is love, what is lust, how do we distiguish between the two? The world has something it calls love where you can love somebody and then two months later hate them. A love that is more of a commonality where you have permission to touch me and make me feel good and when you need some, come on over. It is a strange fleeting thought. For girls I see it as this attempt to mix farytales with reality. Guys it is more of a buddy thing where you have a girl you get long with, you click with and you sleep with. A lot of times it is a mix between an attempt to be her prince and the fight to suppress a beast of selfish lust that is fed off of a never ending supply of perversion and very often pornography. As best as I can tell they guys role is to try and make the girls farytale come true and the girls role is to feed the beast of his desire. It is more about what I need then really pleasing her but to get what pleases me I entertain her fantasies as a way of payment. Then God says that with out love we can speak in the laguage of angels and be nothing. We can have faith that moves mountains and be nothing. We can sacrifice ours bodies and give away all of our stuff to the poor yet have no lasting effect. We need to have love or we can not do anything that really matters. So I ask again, what is love? How do I get some? Because if we do not find out what it is and how to live it out then our lives will be a wash and our ministries no matter how large, our companies no matter how flourishing, and our relationships no matter how numerous will all amount to nothing.
I am sitting in the cafateria with my special needs friends working with them on math and getting into the word because I did not get enough of it this morning. I asked them what love is...Eric says that love means giving bear hugs. And kisses, and sleeping together, and hanging out together, and solving mysteries together, like in scooby-doo. Anna says it is a really warm feeling that you get. Ollie says you can love chocolate and you can love your parents but when you love your parents it is different. He says you hug and kiss and hang out. Autumin and Misty say it is when you care for someone really really much.
I love these kids so much because they are so not judgemental or cynical. They call stuff like it is. If my hair is a mess they tell me. If they do not like what I am asking them to do, they tell me.
Tina another staff member says that love is caring for someone beyond circomstances or feelings.
There are so manny definitions of Love how are we going to get it right? First Cornithians 13 says that love is patient, and kid. You know the passage. The world knows the passage and thinks it is a great idea but the problem is that ideas have no power until acted upon. Gods definition of Love is selfless, completely focussed on the well being of the others. Jesus said that there is no greater love than when a man lays down his life for a friend. He told us to love like he oved us and gave himself for us. That is radically different from the way we think of love and the way that we live. I know that even with those I love I am not selfless and do not set out to serve them and lay my life down for them daily. Think of how awesome our relationships would be. Here is my thought, lets intentially start loving on our familys as practise for how we are going to love other people. Like practise for an awesome marriage. Lets love on our families! Lets redefine love to the point that even my special needs buddies know that love is a selfless action of laying down your life for another. A choice for compassion beyond what is becnificial selfishly.

Insecurity Hurts

A- block again and a little different story, last night instead of sleeping at 7;30 it was 12 and I woke not at 4:30 but 6;30. I really did not want to come today but I know that once I actually make the choice to stay home as a cop out of class for whatever reason then it will be easier to cop out the next time. It sets a precedence in my thinking and then I would gradually drop back in grades and motivation. I know me and me would get all proud and make excuses for why school is not really a valuable way to spend my time which is totally a lie. Anyways I am at least here, though blogging once again because our class in ridiculously good at manipulating our teacher for more time on assignments and of coarse much needed movie days.
So my heart this morning hurts. It hurts for my friends in relationships that are not righteous. It hurts for my friends who do not know how to trust. It hurts because I have seen my relationships get cut back into a superficial grossness because there is a lack of authenticity. Insecurity hurts! When you are insecure in who you are then you are unable to be the friend that I need and the tool the Lord wants to use. Insecurity causes division because it sets up this competitiveness that causes us to compare ourselves with others. Please stop! God says that you are created in his image! You are set apart for his purposes and you were predestined before you were born for good works. Beautifully and Wonderfully made, knit together in our mothers womb. You are you and no one else can be! Can we stop trying to be other people please. We are depriving the world from the piece of Jesus we are called to be. Do not hang out with those that compare you to others. Do not be around those that do not speak life into you. Do not hang with the "cool" kids if they talk down to others and require you to act or dress or function in a way that is not you. You are a piece to the puzzle and a part of the body of Christ, whether you believe in God or not, he has plans for you. They are good plans, to prosper you and not to harm. Stop being what the world tells you to be, be what you are. Sons an daughters of the king of kings. There is no need to impress or please people, please God he is the one who has worth to give. If you find your worth in what other people think you will never be fulfilled or able to function the way you are called to function. God wants you, your voice, your gifting, your thoughts. The body needs your piece of the puzzle! Come on people, slap me when I try to sing like John Mayer. That is not me. When I try to dress like, Cory Parnell. Although that is kinda my stuff too:) Can we please listen to what God says we are and step out in faith and live like we are what he says. He knows our inmost beings. Can you understand your heart and emotions? He created you and I and knows what we are to be mind, body, and spirit. Praise the Lord. He loves us!

Another A- Block Update

It is Wednesday morning, forensics class on the day after Veterans day and it is a half day here at school. We have been working on a report for the last three days of class and had the laptops available to us so I have had the opportunity to update my blog. I do not really trust the schools database for saving my work so I prefer to work at home.
I woke up this morning half an hour before my alarm at 4:30. I went to sleep at seven thirty the night before so I still had nine hours of sleep in my tank and I decided to get up and at it. I am on a quest to get strong, so I grabbed my ski poles, laced up my running shoes and hit the trail. I am in my off season and in a a new season of training. It is new because for years I have had my complete focus on fitness for running. I have been all about lean muscle and slow twitch endurance. For the most part I have tried to stay away from building bulk muscle. I am 135 pounds of lean mean distance running muscle. The problem is that I have one leg that is lightly shorter than the other which causes muscle imbalance and extreme discomfort in my left leg. After four years of running on average 40 miles a week all year long my body is feeling a little bit beat up. As I have prayed about college and direction for next year I felt like the Lord was telling me not to run XC or Track. I came to my mom with it and asked her to pray. Before I had even finished telling her what I was feeling she confirmed what I had been hearing. So my fitness has a new focus. I do not have to be afraid of building upper body power. So for the past week I have been been working on power and strength training, while keeping my legs fitness alive by incorporating running into the strength focus. I was reading in first Corinthians while Paul talks about running the race to win the prize. He says that all runners who participate in the games go through strict training. They train to win a prize that perishes but we train to win a crown that lasts. I am amazed at how my spiritual fitness parallels my physical. I have been all about endurance in my spiritual life as well, all about lasting and building up faith that lasts through the intense fires of life. I love the intensity and longevity of endurance training. Now God is doing something with the churches of moving them into power! We started a series called Kurious (greek for Lord) the first Wednesday of every month. It is teaching our congregation how to function in the power of the holy spirit. How to listen to the spirit of God, check the word with one of the pastors and then present it to the congregation. It is awesome. We are finally learning to do what the bible says. We have simplified and cut some of our services out of the schedule and focusing in together. I struggled for a while and still do with some of the changes that have occurred at Westside but to see us really hit the mark one Wednesday a month is worth it. The power training in the spirit! Right now I would rather lift weights and gain some mass and power once a week than continue to pound in endurance training that I have reached bit of a wall in. The power I believe will allow me to run with more dynamics and break me out of the rhythm that I have been in. Endurance so manny times can put you to sleep with it's repetitiveness. I believe God is wanting to break the church out of repetitive ritual that has put us to sleep. Lets not neglect our endurance but lets begin to break out of the norm. More love, more power! More of Jesus in our lives!

32 Minutes of Sleep

Movie night! A night full of pillow fights and wrestling matches, grandmas snacks and not much sleep. We had a blast this last Saturday night watching The Pianist, The Last Samurai, and Braveheart, along with the little break to watch like twenty youtube videos. The real story though is Sunday night, our Cross Country banquet. The culmination of the last four years of pain and endurance. The goodbye to the many beautiful people that I have poured into and have poured into me. Now, if you know me well, you know that my heart is easily moved in relationship with people, so last night I was using all of my energy in an attempt not to cry. I think though that my emotions were placed on steroids by the previous nights lack of sleep. I had only slept about a half an hour from 7 to 7:30am and when the sun is up, my body is up.
I came home around 9pm after the banquet and though my body was involuntarily shutting down on me in an attempt to lay me down for the night. My heart and mind were racing. So now I sit here in my A-block forensics class blogging it all down because Stephen has my journal in the back of his car!
It is true, and is becoming real to me, I am near to the finish line of this stage of the life. I wrote on an earlier note about the the short amount of time until I leave Bend and now it is even more real. Does anyone else feel this way? I am grieving for what I am leaving yet my heart flails inside of me, dancing to a new of song of anticipation. College essays are due this friday for early action deadlines and there is an urgency that has been stirred inside of me for my peers. The deadlines of time to be with them are fast approaching, the dead lines to love on them, the deadlines to extend any invitation to new life. These deadlines hold for some life and death. It is a strange new place where my heart has been moved.
I have decided through much struggle that I will not be running cross country or track in college and I am excited about it because I will finally be less spread out, able to be more excellent in study and in relationship with people.
O my heart! Today O Lord I am so tired yet so awake to the fact that there is so much more to life than the routine.
Now I must run to my next class but, Lord let my heart stay awake to what you are leading! From class to class, assignment to assignment, hello to hello, break us from routine! I pray that you would open our eyes to see the significence of every little thing. On to B-block.

Fear, Faith, and the Grapple with Both.

Matt 5:25-32
25 A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.

30 Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”

31 His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”

Ok, a little bit of my testimony from this last year. In summary, this year has been one of extreme presure! My family has been under fire financially, physically, spiritually, and relationally. We have been forced to live in faith because there is no other way to stay alive. I don't know if anyone reading this has been there but, I would highly suggest it if you want to grow really fast. I would warn you though, there are growing pains! I would say to you to you also that even in the midst of fear and pain and heart ache. Even if you are on your knees, beat down by life and cut by those closest to you, crawl, scrape, do whatever needs to be done to get to Jesus. One touch from him changes your life. In the midst of fear that seems to suffocate faith, do not let shame creep in. Though there is fear it does not mean you do not have faith or even that your faith is week. Just as doubt is proof of faith, like a shadow is proof of the sun. Fear and faith can go together. I am not saying it is ok to live in doubt, fear, and the shadows, but I am saying that if they are in your company you are set up for powerful faith! Do whatever you need to do, get to Jesus, he did not give you that spirit of fear. Faith will always win just as Romans 5 says that the testing of your faith produces perserverence, perserverence then character, character then hope and hope does not disappoint. Do not fear the tests, they are proof God is building something!

Sleeping Around With Ideologies

I have found myself frustrated lately. I get frustrated with people who say they want to be fast but will not put in the work to achieve that goal. Frustrated with people who say they want to see the world changed and don't put any time or effort into other people. FRUSTRATED with people who say that they are Christians yet they live to please people and call it being relevant, maintain wrong relationships and call it being non religious, or even worse, Just sit on their blogs and talk about how frustrated they are. I am so easily frustrated by apathy because I can see it my life, easily frustrated by lack of faithfulness because I myself am so unfaithful to things that I say. I must confess that at times I can speak well sadly the majority of the time I cannot get past speaking and into living. All that as an intro to what I have been learning. I don't want to sound preachy but if I do know that I am writing it as much for my heart to hear as for you.
Romans 7 We find Paul talking to people who know the law. He says, "This should be easy for you to understand because you understand the law. If a woman marries a man than she is bound by law to him until his death. If she lives with another man while her husband lives she is considered an adulteress." Now if her husband dies than she is released from the law and may marry another with out the danger of accusation and the consequences of sin. HE goes on to say,"In the same way, you have died to sin so that you could belong to Christ." After reading this I began to get the revelation that I have been an adulterer when it comes to my beliefs. When ever you continue to dabble in sin or play with ideologies contrary to the word of God you are messing around with relationships. Building relationships with the world and earthly ideologies when you have relationship with Jesus who died to restore right relationship with us and God is like attempting to have two girls (or guys). Let me break that last sentence down a little bit. If you continue to sin it is like continuing to see an ex girlfriend or boyfriend after you supposedly broke that relationship off and started a new one. Problem, when you try to be a playa you get yourself into a game that is much more complicated than you could plan for. You have to play the game of secrecy while trying to maintain positive relationship dynamics with those being played. If you can do that then comes the issue of your heart being split. You cannot have a flourishing and completely incredible relationship with someone if you know there is more to the story. If you know that they would not approve of what you do in secret, and if you are stuck juggling with their hearts. So what I am trying to say is,"If we want to have a good relationship with either sin or Jesus, pick one!" If you are friends with Jesus and yet you try to maintain an affair with sin, your sin becomes shame, contaminated by the knowing that what you are doing would break the heart of your other lover. Now if you are a friend of sin but want to have some of Jesus, I would advise against it. If you want to try Jesus you have to give him your whole life or it is not an accurate taste of who he really is. Then once you have tasted him your sin is no longer as tasty, no longer is sleeping around or lusting after women on the internet fun. Hell, cheating is no longer a fun way to get out of doing homeowrk, lying is just not funny anymore, and those little fantasy's of a relationship with so and so just seem childish.
If you want a rocking love life, choose one partner! Both in physical relationships and when grappling with what beliefs you will base you life off of. If you want to go for drugs, sex, and rock n roll, then go for it! Don't compromise or try to incorporate any Jesus, they conflict to much! Know also that when your body is trashed, your finances are in the pits, and your heart is nothing but shrapnel left from the explosion of your last "hot" fling of a boyfriend or girlfriend. Jesus still wants you! You don't even need to shower off the terrible smells or get rid of the residue, just run straight for him. He loves you and died for you even when you and Sin where living together.
Now to those of us who want Jesus lets stop fooling around with sin. Believe it or not Jesus knows your cheating on him no matter how well you think you hide it. Your paster may not know it, your family my not see it, but you know what is going on in your heart and we will not have the relationship with Jesus we want until we break off our relationship with sin completely. He wants all of our hearts, all of our dreams, all of our hopes and desires. In turn he offers Life! Life that has no regrets, fulfilling relationship, and even in the hardest stuff, joy that will be our strength.

I Laughed...

Last night I sat on a love seat in my grandmas house in Eugene, Springfield and laughed with an awesome friend of mine. We laughed at growth and life and friendships and high school relationships. I couldn't sleep because I had just finished my last high school cross country race. I have raced the past four years of my high school career, run thousands of miles, developed hundreds of relationships, cried, laughed, and now it is done. Or at least it is finished for this stage of my life, and all I wanted to do was talk to someone. I couldn't sleep until I had someone to help me sort through my emotions or at least listen to some of the thoughts swirling around in my whirlpool heart. I finished something that I had invested a large portion of my life into, which means saying good bye to a lot of kids that I do not spend time with in any other venue. I told her, I feel strange! In two months I will know what colleges I am accepted to, only 4 months after that I will sign to one of them, 7 months from now I will finish high school track, high school ministry, and indeed high school it self, then in about 9 months I will leave Bend. (All of this pending on Gods leadership of coarse) Bend, the place I have been born, raised, and lived out the entireity of my life thus far. The place where I know every short cut, bike route, and running trail. Have 17 years worth of relationships and networks, my family, our home, our buisness, Westside Church, my best friend. LIFE! The reason I laughed is the thought of leaving in 9 months and then I took it further down the road. In 30 years I will meet an awesome woman of God and get married, 50 years and I will have some kids and have to get a real job and stop touring the world with my band. LIFE IS ENDING IN 7 MONTHS! Or at least life as I know it. I can't believe it. Completely new paradigms of thinking have entered my high school head and are tearing at my heart. What are you going to do Jordan? What happens after the races, the performances, the veggie tales parties! How am I going to live, with who, where? WHY? What out of the time that is rapidly being spent actually has worth? Actually is Life? From these past 17 years in Bend I have learned a few vary solid truths, and off of these I have discovered a few things that really matter and really bring fulfillment.

~First, God is. God can. God cares. (thank you Bo)
Basically God is real and I know it because he has carried my family through massive beatings, my sister through what should have been a devastating car wreck, and me through my many struggles. I have gone through three vary intense cycles of depression, in the past three years, ran away from home, and tried to run away from God. No matter what I did or how low I sank God was there and he loved on me. Which brings me the next point. God can, He is able to change mindsets, heal physical disabilities and trauma, lead us out of destructive and addictive behaviors, forgive our sins, and restore, rebuild and cause us to become men and women that are whole. I have been a witness to his healing power! My Older sister Whitney was blindsided by an excursion cruising at 55 miles an hour on the drivers door of her little Subaru. This inflicted amongst other things a concave skull fracture big enough to stick my fist in. It pierced the dura mater(the sack the protects the brain) and we where told, after she came out of surgery that she is not in the clear, that she most likely would have speach and motor issues, and should be in intensive care for around three weeks. a few hours later, I was talking with her, 18 hours later she was in the process of finding a room on the main floor of the hospital. God can. Then, God cares. This is the fact that God loves us! Me, he loves me! He wants to heal me and see me alive and flourishing. Truth: Life is hard, but God is good AND he loves me! This is the premise to real life. (thank you Lynden Evans.) It is easy to believe in God and his power because there is so much evidence of him through miracles and changed lives but it is not so easy to believe that he cares about us, individually. He wants to have relationship with us, use his power on our behalf, and even have us partner with him in that power. But it is true! Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. That joy was you. Relationship with me. Hence I have deduced that relationship with Jesus and with people is life! Living in his power and love and extending that to everyone around me is the stuff that lasts and fulfills. So I have begun to learn some answers to my questions. It is still so strange for me to think though that I am finishing this stage of my life. Cross country is done! It was a success, I grew in relationship with God and many people! Time to finish the rest.... with Gods love and power constantly at my side. And so begins my walk into my own life. Jesus!

Psyche of Me

4:45 am the alarm rings and I jump out of my bed, somedays i jump because of excitement other days I jump because I have to. The days I have to get up I am getting up to run with my team. This year I am captain and I get to lead my team both with my voice and with my times. I love and hate it, I love and hate running. I love beating the sun up the buttes around Bend, and sitting on swings watching the sun rise. I hate and love the pain of it, I hate and love the pounding. Pounding, it can either be an anoying dripping of water or the powerful beating of drums. Some days, I ask why I run. Other days I cannot understand why anyone would miss out on it. There is something about how raw it is. It is just you. No excuses, no gear except a pair of shoes. It is humbling, yet empowering. People that know running, know themselves. It poses new challenge and new inspiration with every passing season. I believe that the argument to run is greater than that to stay in bed but I know also the pull of laziness. The desire to be comfortable. Too often comfortable trumps comfronting the pain of growth and I stay in bed. Then there is the power of running on a team, when they are there with you they often inspire you to greater determination. With a team you are forced to get out and run for more than the love of crisp morning air, or fitness. It becomes about the other men and women that are out there with you, you hurt together, you fly together, you win and you lose together. You push hard to help them grow and they push back to make you do the same. There is tension between the competition for your place on the team and the friendships that build. That tension is powerful. The love and hate are a potential energy that if used correctly will cause a person to rise way beyond what they had believed was possible. "Love righteousness and hate evil". Do not be afraid of pain, nor timid in the tension. Go after the discomfort, it develops unstopable strength.
I encourage you to run. "Physical training has some value... Spiritual training has value for this life and the next." Train yourself and do not let your flesh stop your spirit from growth.
My friends and I have had arguments for years about whether morning or night is better, every argument confirms inside of me the love I have for the early hours of the day. There is something about the crisp air and the darkness that is broken by the faint light of the sun peircing through with its arms with warm embrace. The smell of coffee brewing, the silence. It is powerful. There is so much potential in each and everyday for great things to happen. Pray. Excorsize. Plan. Be ready to go, ready to be used, ready for the greatness that comes from being used by God. Exersize both your Body and your spirit. God cares about the physical. He created it, he spoke it into being and told us to stuard over it. Teach your body discaplin. "The spirit is willing and the flesh is weak." Become a three stranded cord. (Ecclesiastes 12:7-12) mind, body, and spirit. You will not be easy to break and powerful to use.
I am amazed at how much you can learn about your spirit when you train your body for endurence. The Bible talkes about the tresting of your faith that produces endurance. The principles are applicable in multiple realms. We are beings that have not only a body but a spirit. They are tied to each other and will not separate until we are home. When the enemy wants to take me down he often will first ware on my body and get me busy so that I am tired. Then when I am tired it becomes more of a challenge to train my spirit. When I get sick I find is when I am most vulnerable. Satin is not stupid, he knows he is no match for you when your Dad is involved. When you have great relationship with God and your body lines up with that in health it is easy to stand against the attacks of the enemy. When you get tired he comes after you. He waits for the opportune moment. Luke 4:1-13. Verse 13 ...he left him until an opportune time. Your enemies will come after you in your inopportune times. You can cut down on those by training you body along with your spirit. Just do not let training your body become your idle. Running is a simple way to it. Keep it simple and inline with your spirit. This is some of the psychy of me. Any questions? Comments? I want to know, what is the psychology behind you? Why do you love the things you love. What are your tensions?

best friends and music, maybe, it just might, it could work, but it's not a band, that sounds dumb.

He was born at St Charles medical center in the same room as I was only two weeks before I came into the world, we shared the same due date (which each of us missed by a exactly a week) and both of us where brought home to the same triplex in Bend , OR, 1991. His name is Stephen and me, you know me. We have been best friends now for our entire lives and now we are headed into a senior year together at Mountain View High School. We have not always been together though, he moved to Seatle, then Boise, then back. there might be one more city in there but anyhow, he was not living in Bend until they moved back about four years ago. When they moved back they where drawn by the worship paster position at Westside Church. Westside had been my families home church since I was born but for a four year period my family needed to get away. We were not at Westside when the Smiths came back but soon after I tagged along with Jay and Stephen to a oneighty tuesday night service. It was like, "AHH why did we leave? I love this place!" The presence of God was there and so were a bunch of kids with cool hair and crazy clothes! I came back and have been there since. My family soon followed suit about two months after I started coming. So now Steve and I are in the same place. One problem, it's kinda complicated but basically we realated with each other but never got together. Steve and I tried to get our families together but there was tension and division that crept in and just kept building for the past three years. I still said that he was my best friend and I believe I was still his, but we never talked, never hung, never did anything. It was so awekward. After three years of astrangement finally something broke and it was not a fun break. It broke the hearts of many and still hurts. But with the breaking of our hearts also came the reunion of brothers. The reunion of families. Appologies were given and we have begun growing and rebuiling our relationship. We still rarely see each other and are usually involved in completely different areas but some how are lives mirror each other almost strangely. We bagan writting and performing music a little bit this past year. We have begun to really become best friends again. Today I called him and told him, "I have a car with gas in it, lets go." We went downtown and got coffees, ran into a billion people that we have gotten to know, we went into On Track Ministries to say hi and ended up leading worship. Then we went to my dads shop where there is an upper room with our drum kits and guiters and bass and mics and we sang. We played for about two hours rehearsing the few songs we have writting and hashing out peices of new ones. We got back to my house around 9:30 and ate freshly baked Jessica brownies made some decalf and went out back where we spent the next hour swinging, drinking, and pouring out our hearts to each other. He ended singing, as we finished our last chorus the sprinklers shot on as if to shew us off to bed. He went home after a warm embrace and a long slow good bye. I have my best friend back, and we are writting music and dreaming and loving on God together. Both of us seventeen, both of us with strangly simular desires and struggles. We are going for it this last year in high school. We want to make noise that has some lingering echoes that will change the atmosphere of our school, our town, our generation. I think it's going to work. Be praying, I recorded two songs yesterday and we are entering the sisters folk festival song writting competition. If we get top five we will have a couple cool little gigs out there and some money to begin to invest in our sound. We have not decided for sure but We are thinking about nameing the "band" Eighteen Months. At eighteen months in development a child can solidly stand and begin to run. We are beggining to Run!

Journal, kinda.

I have now been home from steens mountain for 2 and a half days and I am feeling a little caught in routine, so I decided to journal on the blog. I read this morning in Psalms 103 and was having trouble making good contact points with life. I love the psalms for its poetry, its depth of emotion and passion, but this morning I was not seeming to get any revelation. I think it might have to do with some of the wording. You know, it is 6 in the morning I have a bit of a cold and I am trying to dig in to this psalm and it starts busting out words like iniquity, transgressions, redeeming, steadfastness, and on and on. O my soul, Praise the lord! I cant help but wonder what my friends who do not have a relationship with Jesus are thinking when they read this. It probably feels a little like English class reading a mid summer nights dream or Othello. So enough with that rant, there are a few rockin verses in this passage that are awesome. like verse 8-12, "The Lord is gracious and Merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love. HE will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us." So powerful, yet I can read it and fall into the whole feeling of reading a classic work of literature. Some call a classic a work that has stood the test of time. My English teacher defined it as a book everyone holds in high regard and no one reads. How do we break free from this attitude especially when life is going crazy, maybe your sick, or maybe just bored. Well lets not treat our bibles like the mandatory reading that we are getting tested on next Tuesday. I find that I can get a really applicable revelation every time I go to the word with a heart that is hungry to hear and willing to be changed by what it reads. So often I just read the word and its like, "read my bible today! I can check that box off." That's not usually when it comes alive to me. We need to come expecting. It is a book held in high regard for a reason, lets read it with a high level of expectancy.

So I Have This Headband...

I am getting ready to take off on my sixth trip this summer, on the most hard core one thus far, Steens High Altitude Running Camp. We run around with 165 crazies from all over the world in short shorts at ten thousand feet for altitude training. It is a blast! You are required to do a couple of key things, eat a lot, drink a lot, run, and wear hats so that you don't get sunburned. I am not a hat guy, I can wear visors and look like tour guide man but normal ball caps make me look and feel like a either a gangsta or a trucker. I can't pull off either, and even though I can't pull it off I usually start acting the part and talk with a drawl or attempt to rhyme and walk the walk. To make it worse you should see my hair right now! I have a Mr T cut. Shaved tight down the sides and about a two inch wide, half inch long mo hawk, down the center. All I need is some bling bling, black paint, and another hundred pounds of muscle and I could pull it off. Anyways I went to REI to find what I call the turban head band. Only intense rock climbers, hard core distance running hippies or Jordan Daniel Wolfe would ever dare to wear one. It is this stretchy tube you can pull over your head like a dew rag or wear as a scarf or scrunch into a headband. The possibilities are endless with this thing! So now I have grown out a bit of a beard and started sporting my hippie head wear to add to my already ridiculous really really short shorts. It is wonderful! And That is my short story for tonight but there will be so much more to tell after the turban headband is put to the test next week. Please be praying for me as I am off and onceagain away from home, instead of being lonely or selfishly focussed on me and my experience to be focused on loving God and people. I love you my running friends your awesome. See you on the trails.

I am still here!

I know its been forever since I have updated this and I still have no pictures which if your like me is pretty much the reason I like blogs. A story is hardly complete without a picture but I have no camera so I might have incomplete stories for a while. So I have been gone all but four days of this summer so far traveling around this beautiful state of Oregon. I was chosen out my school to go to a political science/law program at U of O for week, the day after school got out. After that I went to camp crestview with the elementary schoolers of twelve different churches and got to lead some worship and be a co cabin leader. Then I can home washed clothes and headed back to Eugene to live with my grandpa and his girlfriend because they were awesome enough to host us for the Olympic trials. It has been crazy busy and crazy blessed. I left bend asking God for a clear word on a relationship I was desiring and he not only gave me the answer for that but also the vision for a new life. Life that's more alive, if that makes any sense. I am a visionary and I get so stoked about casting vision and running after it as fast as I can. There is one issue that has always killed me though, pacing. I usually go out to fast with out a clear directive, and then I see something cool and I add that to my cart and graft it onto my vision. I usually make it to the home stretch and then the piano falls on my back and I in the past have fallen short of the finish line. I get so tired and stressed with being pulled in so many directions that I get to the place were I want to quit everything and run away from practical life. It hurts and after you cop out once it is so easy to say "well I have already failed and have a blemished record. Why not cop out again." But God has given me the grace to grow. The truth is that when we come to the thrown grace and ask the lord for forgiveness we are washed clean, white as snow. My record is perfect because I am wearing Jesus! I can be righteous because he is righteous! Now I have learned that I not only can receive grace but I have begun to live in it, walk in it, talk in it, and give it to others. The word says if we do not forgive then our father in heaven will not be able to forgive us. forgive! give and receive grace. It has to flow through you, with no chance to stagnate in waters undisturbed. God has stirred my heart for this next year. Not for the the next five or for the ministry I will serve in "when I grow up." No, I am excited for today. I do not have a record label to sing with or a Nike contract to run for. I have life and life to the fullest, right here, right now. I noticed Jesus lead not from service to service, or concert to concert. He led by simply living with people. Talking and praying with people, teaching people, playing with peoples kids, walking with people. I dont know about you but I would love to be invited even just for one day to live some life with my leaders. Not per say to be taught by them but how about just watch and learn from how they live. to see what it means to run after God and prepare messages in the midst of real life. There has become such a gap in between practical life and ministry. The tension of finding time to serve at church and be involved at school. What if we just lived practle life out doing what needs to be done but going around and intently searching for places to love on those who are hurting. How about family? leadership starts in the home! If you cannot manage your house how can you manage Gods? Love extravagantly on those who are always around, always telling you what to do, always being annoying, always there! What a brilliant opportunity to live ministry! I dont get to walk around all day hangin with some disciples but my little bro is almost always available, my mom, she could always use a hand or a spontaneous I love you. Lets close the gap between practical life and the church. lets close the gap between vision and dreams and living today with passion. I am so tired of dreaming with passion and then just waiting around aimlessly for something "big." I dont have to live from test to test, event to event, service to service. I get to live today, right now, full of the holy spirit loving on people, and being loved by God! Yes I have dreams and would love to date and all that good stuff, but what about living the dream of acts living. Now! lets not wait to really run after God. Go to him get a clean record and lets run. To end the lyrics so on my heart, "I dare you to move, I dare you to move, I dare you to lift yourself up of the floor." I love you guys.

Distracted!

Hey, I am back and I made it before the end of march! It has been a crazy month, track, math, life skills mentoring, ballroom dance, and the rest of practical life. I have no profound post to give you except to tell you this; Gods grace is more than enough for me! He runs after us relentlessly no matter how many directions I am going. His love breaks through! Are family has been in constant warfare for almost four months and it has not been ware fare like the stuff you can fast and pray a couple days and feel it break. It has been as though line after line of the enemies forces come one right after the other, break though one and with no rest or time to celebrate its time to fight again. The first couple weeks you could feel the atmosphere of our house jacked up on the adrenaline from what seemed the first major attack of this series. Whits accident was an interesting one, it was filled with miracle after miracle, filled with outpouring of support and encouragement, yet at the same time there was confusion with my emotions and lack of sleep, pressure to keep up in school, pressure that I could sense from finance. I was loving it, I got to be with people almost twenty four hours away, I was a connecting point for friends and family, and got a whole lot of attention. There is something about the intensity that I loved, something in the being needed on an escalated level. When you are hit to the point of life and death there is a clarity that comes, the ability to see what really matters is sharpened and you can see the worth of family, friends, and more than anything the grace of the one who never sleeps. So that was a season which faded in a blurr and left my math grade in ruin and that was about it as far as I could tell. What I didn't see is that the effect of that collision my sister was in was only a start block for explosion after explosion in almost every area of our families life. I have 1200 math problems to do and it is easter today, we have some awesome friends over and I am feeling distracted. So there is my post, an excerpt from how I am feeling today. Please be praying over our family and I will update yall hopefully more consistantly then I have.

Pardon Me my Lord?

We have been in the book of judges this month, Steve Stern spoke the opening message and challenged us to go home and read through the book. I did and have all this week, over and over and over again. It's packed with adventure and drama, sin and justice, slavery and freedom, all this heart wrenching stuff. Literally heart wrenching, pulling so hard on my heart strings that songs began to come forth and prayers burst from my mouth. GOD I WANT AVENTURE! LORD WHEN DOES IS START? LIFE? What does it mean to really live, to actually rout the enemy, see lives dramatically touched, and more than just lifes, generations, eternities. When does it start Lord? Katie Scott spoke today bringing the second teaching and continuing to stir me up down in the deepest parts of my being. She said, " The Lord told Deborah to get ten thousand men who had not faught in twenty years, fat and sloppy men of only two out of the twelve tribes to go and fight." (Judges 4) There is this patern; Evil-consequences-crying out-the lord hearing-the lord raises up a judge-peace. The peace would die as soon as the judge died and the people would decide they were comfortable. They would be passive as there enemies would agressively grow and eventually overpower them. As there enemies attacked they would try to stay comfortable and hide away instead of fight. in the midstof the hiding a new generation is being raised up. The new generation not knowing of what God has done, not knowing that there is better, that the promise was not to live in caves and try to servive. The promise was a land flowing with milk and honey, with God being there God and them being his people. A promise that his presence would go with them and distinguish them from all other people on the earth. That promise still stood even while they hid in caves. The word was still alive though they settled for a lame exsistance of planting crops for there enemies to eat and destroy. After the pain got bad enough they would cry out, but it was not the crying that set them free from the oppression of sin. It was a person who lived by the spirit, who cried out with there life, "Lord use me, I am not satisfied!" It was a Judge, the person who would strap a sword to there side and do something.Crying will do nothing for you unless it brings the discomfort that causes you to do something.Our generation does not know God and is doing evil in his sight. The promise of God still stands and is extended to us. I have been crying out to the Lord and been stirred by the holy spirit to step out in the school, to step out in my life. The angel of the Lord is saying to me and to you "Mighty warrior, the lord is with you." We respond like Gideon in Judges 6, "Pardon me my Lord, if you are with us then why is this happening to us? Where are the Wonders of old?"Read that story, I will be back...

Life?

I want to live like John 10:10, Life abundant, limitless, unhindered by sin, without shame, powered by grace, free from the chains of fear, guilt, and shame, I want to live in freedom! And I have just recently recieved a taste of that limitless life our savior died to give us. Now that I have tasted it I want all who breath to have some. It's like a little kid who has just discovered an incredible candy and wants to share it with his friend so that they to could understand how just how wonderful it is and join in the joy. When joy is shared it tastes better, and I have found something that tastes better than hundred grand bars, double tall white peperment mochas, and has a better after effects. Here is my discovery; THE ONE THING THAT MATTERS IS THAT WE KNOW GOD AND ARE KNOWN BY HIM! That we love God and are loved by him! Are awesome worship leader spoke a message on Tuesday to close up the First Things First series and she talked about something that has been so hard for me to grasp but actually clicked this time. Matt 6:33 Seek first the kingdom of heaven and his richeousness and all these things will be added. This is they key! If we really put God first everything else falls into line. Life becomes more than just breathing air. I wish I was actually sitting with you so that you could see my excitement (flailing of arms dramaticly)! God is good and truely nothing compares to his presence!