What A Ride!

If you've found your way here, CONGRATULATIONS! I can't even find my own blog most of the time (especially since it didn't exist until moments ago).

The purpose of this blog is to share inspirational ideas and stories from my life of devotion to Christ. I'm starting this during a summer of transition here at Walla Walla Unviersity. Transitioning from a Student Life position, to the Campus Chaplain.

I am excited, I am humbled, and I'm a little freaked out to take on this new charge. But I've learned that being "freaked out" is actually just where God wants me to be. Why? So that I may learn to rely on Him and not on myself (check out 2 Corinthians 1: 8-11). Too many times in my life I have taken the road more traveled because I knew I could navigate it. I knew I had just enough skill and ability to stay on the path. But now I'm in uncharted territory, not sure what it is God wants me to do in this new position and I'm learning to rely more on Him.

What I've taken away from this journey so far, in my summer of great anticipation, is summed up well in a quote from one of the early leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist faith, Ellen White: "Success is not dependent upon talent or learning, but on your connection with the Living God." Our job is to spend time with God. That is our ministry. From that everything else flows (John 7:38).

So as I look to this new year, new position, and new blog my other inspirational quote comes from one of my spiritual heroes, the late Mike Yaconelli, who writes in his book, Dangerous Wonder: Saying yes to Jesus is the thrill filled, bone rattling ride of a lifetime where every moment matters and all you can do is hang on for dear life. Mike hoped that at the end of his life he would have just enough breath left in his lungs to be able to say, "What a Ride, What a Ride!"

That is my prayer as well, as well as my prayer for each of you reading this blog. That you'll have the courage to say yes to Jesus enough times in your life that you won't regret a second of it. And at the end of your life, you'll have just enough breath left in your lungs to be able to say, "WHAT A RIDE!"

God bless you and keep you this week...