People

Just a quick post for now as I need to hit the hay pretty soon.

My birthday on Thursday was flippin' awesome. Hope to have more about that in the next day or two...

It is absolutely unreal to be well into the double digits of the countdown to my wedding. Today it's been two months since I dropped to my knee and gave my girl a ring and could officially call myself her fiance. In another three months, we'll already be married. Wow...

I praise God for the life He has given me. It's often a struggle, often painful, but it's just so...abundant, I guess, is a good word. Most often I see how abundant it is in the people God has put in my life. I have my darling fiancee, my immediate family, her immediate family, church family, homeschoolers...it's just so cool.

God is starting to pound into my head that people are what matter most on this earth. The people I love dearly, the people I walk past at school, the people I see in church when I'm leading worship. Every one of them is made in the image of God, every one has a story, every one has a purpose. Jesus died to save every one of them. He knows the plans He has for them, plans to prosper them and not to harm them, plans to give them a future and a hope.

People like James T. from church and Bob my former Theater prof and Austin from Riverwalk and Gary who lives across the street and Ryan my cousin and Andria my supervisor at work. They all matter so much to the heart of God. And my life has made an impact on each of theirs, in radically different ways, in ways that I'll never comprehend. And I've impacted thousands of others.

And I continue to have influence, I continue to make a difference, for better or for worse, in the lives of so many people around me -- the ones who mean the most to me, and the ones I'll never meet.

But I don't want to focus on that; talk about the pressure that would ensue! My focus should all be on the one who created this universe and this tiny earth and all the eternal souls that dwell therein. And then He came into His creation, coming not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

He's the One pulling the strings; He commands the breadth of my influence. All good comes from Him, and thus it is not merely immoral but useless to point my focus anywhere else. He will change the hearts of people. He emptied Himself for them, suffered the ultimate sacrifice that they might be set free.

May the same mind be in me that was also in Him.