Da Holy Ghost

Oh the tragedy of a life of mediocrity

such a tragedy is a life of continual forgetfulness of our blessings

our potential

our source of strength

our everpresent
unconditional saviour

The very reason for titling this blog "Absconding Mediocrity" is something I have failed to live up to in the past couple of weeks.

Main Entry: ab·scond
Pronunciation: ab-'skänd, &b-
Function: intransitive verb
: to depart secretly : withdraw and hide oneself; specifically : to evade the legal process of a court by hiding within or secretly leaving its jurisdiction

God is real. God has called everyone. God has NOT called us to be mediocre!

The entire semester at Spring Arbor this past fall has been pretty horrible emotionally, with stress, with motivation to do anything, with motivation to be a follower of God...The funny thing is, as I've discussed before, he always brings me back. Whether it's with little things, or miraculous things, He manages to captivate me once more and bring me back to a place of change where I can grow and move on with my faith.
Also, this entire semester, I have learned in a class offered called COR300 (spiritual formation) to look at my life a little better and realized the busyness and distraction that consumes my life. All that I have learned flows towards the same ocean--> (stop settling for this unfulfilling life that I know that I'm living and move on to find MORE, whether in doing that you practice some solitude, some silence, some life-changing...)

I have failed...and now I hope to start over. I will proclaim how God has blessed me, I will spend some quality time with him, and then from there we will figure out how and where to go from there...

I have been wrestling with the idea of whether or not I should post this on the internet or not because of the sheer fact that it frightens me and I don't understand it. However, its' blessing overweighs my fear by SO MUCH! and I fear that I'm too much of a pansy to share it with those who are interested in my life and that love me. So here goes.... :)



There is more to Christianity than what I have learned in the past. Much more. I'm not saying that by meaning "we need to follow Jesus better and then our faith with be much MORE"...I'm saying that by meaning that there is SIGNIFICANTLY and almost (or maybe) UNLIMITEDLY more to this walk with a being who has created us.
I once heard a pastor say "the New Testament didn't just STOP. We aren't in the Old Testament II or anything. The power of God is still alive and working everywhere and why do we ignore it?"
A couple of wonderful people that I know who are going to be missionaries soon said this to me in pondering actually going to their country of missionwork, "Seth, I felt like how in the world can I go into another foreign country and do the works of Jesus without power? I knew then that there had to be something that we were missing and [that's a reason why] we sought it.
One night at a certain church in Michigan, the pastor was talking about something that I had previously understood to be incredibly weird, and probably not real. The power of the Holy Spirit and the reality of a larger portion of the Holy Spirit being poured out. I kid you not, to this point I thought this stuff was the wackiest, most fraudulent part of some Christian denominations...Nevertheless, this pastor seemed to be speaking directly to me. Before he had even finished his talking, I was already running up to the front of the church. And I was shaking. No joke. Involuntarily shaking. My legs, my chest, my arms and my shoulders...they were shaking uncontrollably about every 5 seconds. I knew this: IF there is actually a power that God can fill us with, something that is actually real, something that will act as a running stream within me to fuel my desires for intimacy with my creator and my drive to obey Him. THEN I WANT THAT! If God has more for us, then how could I not want that? I felt like my faith was bland. Dying.
This man prayed for me, and if you are still with me, reading this, he just prayed for a new life to begin. He prayed for the Holy Spirit to fill me and baptize me like never before and for my will to just die with this new beginning (death to my desires). I could not feel my face anymore. My entire upper extremity (yeah, I know, I said upper extremity. Live with it, I'm a fitness and physical therapy guy!) was numb and all at once I kind of just felt like I could finally let go and give in to something new.

To be simple now, the Power of God umm...well, took me over and pushed me to the groung. I was lying there. On my back. and physically feeling that a pair of hands were holding my head. I even reached up with my own two hands to touch the hands that were holding me but there were none. If you want to know more please ask me :) I'll leave you with this: I now feel excited to pray, to sit in silence, to live out aspects of my faith that I haven't before. One specific thing that has changed is the fact that the last couple of times that I have worshipped and prayed, I have barely been able to contain myself! So excited!

If you're still with me up to this point, thanks for being genuinely interested :) I can only say that this is completely real and that if you know me I hope you would trust what I'm saying to be true and genuine.

I love you all (well...at least most of you i think;) ) and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

i hear there is snow in Ohio? AMAZING!

-sfk