I wonder what God's birthday party is like

I have been struggling with liking some people in my life lately. I don't get mad at them necessarily, just my patience flies out the door like a speeding bullet when I am around them. We all have people like that in our life where for some reason we can't find it in ourselves to give them love. We do our best to avoid them, we do our best to try to tell them the way they should be every chance we get, and we try our best to let them know we want nothing to do with them without actually saying anything.
Sad Isn't it? I read a great chapter by my favorite writer that explained why we should not use love like we use money. We often "invest" in a friendship when it has the same things to offer us back. Whether it's trust, loyalty, honesty, whatever. But how often do we love without expecting the same things back? How often do we love without treating it like a bank account? I have been dwelling this a ton. The writer had a lot of great things to say in this specific chapter about love. He told that when we want people to change, that they must like us if they are going to listen to us. IF THEY DON'T LIKE YOU, THEY WILL NOT LISTEN TO YOU. He then went on to talk about the fact that if we love on those we cannot stand, a benefit is that we will grow to find the good things about them. And who knows, maybe even actually start to like them. Another fruit is that if they like you, they will probably listen to you, and over time, they might change(not that that is the main goal).
This got me thinking about love on a constant basis. I often only "invest" love when it has something to offer me back. I can't imagine how much this must bother God when his children can't love eachother the way that he intended
I had a meeting today with a great worship leader that I am mentoring. We started talking about worship and how songs need to be changed from "I" to "WE". "I" love you Lord, to "WE" love you Lord. All throughout scripture it is told that we are to love one another and to worship together as one body.
Think about this for a second. God is a father, and we are his children. I like to think of worshipping God as children celebrating their dad's birthday. Everyday is a celebration for Jesus. Lets say there is a father named Dave with 3 kids. For some reason his kids just cannot love eachother. They all live in the same place, they have the same father and they all love him dearly, but they can't get along. His birthday is today, and because his kids cannot get along, they all celebrate his birthday apart from eachother at different times. His oldest son takes him to breakfast for his birthday, and Dave is thrilled to spend time with him, but he sure does wish his other kids could be there, and it breaks his heart. His middle son takes him to lunch, and he also loves spending time with him, but he wishes the others were there, and it breaks his heart. His youngest son takes him to dinner, and again, Dave is thrilled to spend time with his Kid, but he wants his others to be there, and IT BREAKS HIS HEART that his kids love him SEPERATELY and not together. Oh the joy it would bring to have them all in the same room, cutting cake, pouring cider, celebrating his birthday together.
Is this not what we do to Christ each day of our lives? Sure all of his Christian sons and daughters love him deeply, but are we celebrating Him and what he has done in our lives together? Or are we forcing Him to "celebrate his birthday" individually with each one of us. Oh the joy it would bring to Jesus for us and the people we dont like or get along with to break bread together, to pour wine together, and celebrate the Lord TOGETHER.

death to life

I felt God on my heart yesterday and today that he wanted to show me something. I woke up this morning and asked God to reveal Himself to me. I was on my way to coffee with a few friends and I felt God tell me that "This is the place I will speak" a coffee shop? thats cool I guess God. So my friends and I sat down after a 40 year old woman hit on me for about 5 minutes. I was flattered and freaked out all at the same time.
We talked about normal things for quite some time. Our significant others, finances, what our plans are for the evening. My friend who I will call Debra was with us there. She is an awesome girl, a few years back I probably asked her to marry me about 4 times. She never gave in to my confessions. She's that girl everyone kind of wants to marry. Loves Jesus, beautiful girl, great career ahead of her, and constantly after God's heart. She is huge on justice. Whether it's for the poor, womens rights or just plain old respect. I remember this one time I threw my friend Laura's lolly pop into a forest at Disney land because I hated the way she was eating it. Debra was so mad at me. I felt as if I punched a baby directly in the face. All in all she is a great girl who you would pin as a girl that has it all together.
I was expecting regular conversation for the rest of the breakfast. Then out of nowhere Debra opens up and says did you guys know I used to be suicidal? I finished putting cream cheese on my bagel awkwardly and murmered under my breath, "Um, No?" She said, "Ya. A few years back I hated myself. I didn't want to die. But it was wierd, I kinda felt like it was the only option and it was all I thought about for a good 6 months. I wondered what it would be like if I wasn't here. It was weird, I didn't want to do it really, and it scared me to think about if I had a bad day if I would actually go through with it."
I put Debra on a pedistal. I thought she was perfect. No problems at all. Just a beautiful Christian girl. The Lord opened my eyes today just to remind me that we are all so broken. And through her brokenness she was able to lead others out of suicide by bringing their souls from death to the love of Christ; life.
We all have friends who we think have it all together. And if Debra hadn't opened up to her friends they would have never known. They would have never seen beyond her smile. Would she have gone through with it if she never opened up about it? I don't know. But what I do know is that I don't want to assume my friends are fine.
What friends do you have that carry a smile with a weight behind their skin? Are they truly ok? How will we know if we dont ask?
Don't assume, ASK, and see what God will do.

Fear

I have learned many things throughout being sick for 2 1/2 months. I spent a lot of time being scared. A lot of worthless worrying went on in my life. Too much time thinking about my well being when the Lord was in the process of healing me. I know I wasted time, I know I wasted mental capacity, and I know I was lacking trust.
Francis Chan said something that changed my perspective a great deal. FEAR IS LACK OF TRUST IN GOD AND TELLING HIM HIS PLAN ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH. I spent a lot of time dwelling on this.
I remember being so weak at one point that I couldn't walk more than 100 feet without feeling out of breath and the need to throw up. So for the next month and a half, I spent my time worrying about what would happen if I tried to walk again. Would I fall? Would I go back to the hospital? It scared me so much that I didn't walk for a good long time. One day I woke up to catch a flight to Minnesota. We were running late so I started jogging. Only to look back an hour later and think to my self "Was I just jogging"? I was honestly thinking how long before that I could have been jogging as well if I was not so scared.
I have a friend who is truly terrified of demons. She heard a story about her friend that had a demon following her, even to her front doorstep. This scared my friend so much that she had to call me before she would take the walk from her car to her doorstep. She was crippled by her fear, too scared to walk out in faith. Too scared to take a chance and trust the Lord.
One day she couldn't help but feel like a child for her fear. So one night after we were hanging out with a group of friends, I was expecting her to call me and tell me that she was walking to her door. But, instead I got a call that said "I made it to my door!" She took a moment to pray, to gain some confidence, to truly trust God and she walked to her door. She later told me she doesn't know why she was so afraid before and that she should have trusted a long time ago. We all need the option to not trust God. If we don't have that option, we also take away the option to choose faith, which allows us to conquer our fear.
How much time do we waste in fear? How much time do we spend being afraid of something like this earth that the Lord has already conquered?
Through this process the Lord has taught me that fear is a beautiful thing to experience. It caused me to grow. It showed me that fear should not be taken away because we would not gain from that, but fear is to be conquered with faith.

I sang "The stand" while sitting down. Ironic

This past sunday I played at a church that I love visiting. The reason that I love it is because it is so different than the church that I attend. A change of atmosphere is always refreshing. This church has one mic, and one plug for an acoustic. It also has a very small congregation which is a lot more personal than I am used to.

During the pre-service meeting I was told to have the congregation sit after the second song. I have no idea why, but that's the way they like their service to run, to stand for 2 songs then sit for 2 songs. Anyways, something funny happened that sparked my mind while I was leading worship. It was the first service and there were literally 6 people in the congregation. I was excited because I love small groups. It's more challenging to me. I played the first 2 songs and it was time for me to tell them to sit. I told them they can sit if they want during these next few songs because I didn't feel like worship commanding that day. So most of them ended up sitting down. Right when the last person sat, I started the first verse of the next song which sang, "We stand and lift up our hands". I had just told these people to sit and then we are all singing these words. It made me immediately feel like a huge liar, because we were singing one thing and doing another. we weren't standing, we were sitting. We weren't raising our hands, they were folded in our laps. Not that you can't worship while doing these things, it just served as a great example of what we do as Christians.

How often do we do this in our lives? There are so many songs that we sing and praise to God but we don't live it out as followers of Jesus Christ. I remember the first time I raised my hands in church. I was singing "The stand" where the lyrics say, "I'll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned" and I looked at my self sitting down with my hands folded, and realized it was a great reflection of the way I lived my life, I sang the words, but I didn't live them.

Are you the same?

www.JeremiahMullinsmusic.com

God is faithful

To be quite honest. These past two months have not been fun. I got the news that my kidneys were not doing well and that they were failing to the point of going down to 35% function. I can't explain the pain I was in each night, keeping me awake to the point of exhaustion. My blood pressure was in the sky and my anxiety was making a home. Doctors appointments were making me lose hope. Probably because my specialist had the most terrifying accent you have ever heard.

I spent most of my time not believing any of this. I didn't understand why any of this was happening. I work at a church, I have a christian girlfriend, I helped the woman at wal-mart carry her wheelchair. I spent a lot of time mad at God about this.

But it was in this moment where I cried out the most, begging God, Laying in bed, in terrible pain. I threw up my arms and just yelled at God in prayer to help me. Looking at the roof I noticed light shining through my sliding glass door hitting my blinds to create perfect shadows. I looked where the light was shining and it was on my door. The light hitting my blinds cast a light on my door in the shape of a perfect cross. I hate gooey stories, because I don't believe them. But I couldnt avoid this one. I knew God was in that room with me.

I imagined the story of Jesus on the ocean with his men. I was the Guy on the ship yelling at Jesus to wake his crazy self up and do something about my storm in my life. The Lord gave me that cross that night. It was no one elses but mine, atleast it felt like that, and calmed my ocean. I felt His presence, I knew he was guiding me to know that He was in control, and my worrying is only doubt in His great plan.

A few weeks later on a Friday's doctor appointment, I got some news. The doctor looked at my labs and said I was completely fine. My pain was nearly all gone, and it didn't make sense, but it made perfect sense at the same time. I walked outside that office and got and my knees and thanked My God. I told everyone, family friends, everyone.

Sometimes the Lord will take your plane down from 30,000 ft. and scrape the belly of the plane just to get your attention. He will tell you don't worry, and that he will bring you back up, but that He needs to spend some time with you while He has your undivided attention.

I've learned so many things while I was down. And I will never forget these principles as I go back up. It's funny to worry. We reach for pieces of grass as we fall off of a cliff thinking it will save us. I just needed to put my trust in God. And even in my times of great doubt, was when he was still faithful and healed me. And because of that, I am a new man today.