Passion 2011: Jesus

I went to Passion 2011. Jesus. He. Blew. My. Mind.

Today was my first day back to normal life. And my mind is still blown. I know that everyone probably has a slight skepticism about all my talk about Passion, that I'm just on a high from a conference or that I'm being showy. But I swear to you that for the first time in my life I get it. I get that the only thing that matters in life in Jesus and carrying His name. Nothing else matters. Like...nothing. And I get that it's not about me searching for Joy and then finding it in Jesus Christ. It's definitely unspeakable joy, but that's not what it's about. It's about Jesus. It's about God and how freakin amazing He is. Period.

I feel overwhelmed. Like I have all these thoughts, ideas, feelings, that my mind is still spinning. There are so many things I have on a to do list in my head right now about what I need to do, make, start, say, people I need to talk to, friends I need to share Christ with, etc. I don't even know where to begin. I've been at a loss recently about my "famous" (haha) video blogs. I started them when I was going to be doing the Disney College Program in order to chronicle my experiences. But now that it has ended I didn't know what to blog about anymore. Before the theme was Disney. I think now the blog should just be about Jesus. Period. I'm not exactly sure what that will look like but the wheels in my head are spinning. I enjoy making the blogs, though they are usually ridiculous, but I wonder what amount of good I could do if they were all about praising God. Maybe just about things I discover in my walk with God that I feel I need to share with the world (or at least the handful of people who may happen to find them on youtube).

I have all these ideas and I have a tendency to get over-excited when I get hair-brained schemes like this one and all the others that have come to me in the past few days, but God brought something to my mind the other night. I wrote this in my journal, "Don't give me an idea that becomes so "good" that it dethrones you" In other words I don't want my foundation/motivation to just be a great idea to occupy my time, I want the foundation to be Jesus and have all my ideas spring from that FOR HIM. I don't want to lose sight of the point and forget to renew my mind so that I can keep my heart, mind, and soul in the right place because I could definitely see that happening. So please pray for me in that. If I don't make a conscious effort to keep my mind in the right place then my heart will be turned and my actions will not be God centered. I've got to keep my thoughts under control and replace my natural thoughts that take me down harmful paths with Holy thoughts that come from God's word. And I can't just stop there. I have to keep the air ways of communication open between me and God. This has always been something I struggle with. Forgetting to pray. So pray that I will be able to "pray without ceasing".

I am just blown away knowing (and being the only one who really truly knows) how incredibly low I was going into Passion and just for the longest time and in contrast now knowing the incredible way I've been feeling ever since January 1, 2011, 1-1-11 really was the "night of new beginnings" I keep seeing God do amazing things in me and around me and I know it could not be on my own strength, it is so totally Jesus inside of me transforming my heart. It's just like, The. Best. Feeling. Ever. Ahh I could keep talking but I think you get the point. If you get a chance check out a song called "Beautiful Things" by a band called Gungor. It's stuck in my head. It says, "you make beautiful things out of the dirt." What a beautiful thought. And it's true. I feel like that one thought inspires like about a million ideas for art projects and collages...so expect a new video blog and a new collage on the way soon. :)

Jesus. Because nothing else matters.