The Thoughts of Ryan-C

So a few weeks back, we (a group of us at my church) started discussing how all of the seemingly insignificant events in our lives have really changed who we are and how we got to where we are. If we view God as sovereign over all things, then this really creates great implications in our lives. The small events aren’t really small and everything has significance if God is in control. His orchestrating hand is constantly involved in our lives. No matter how much control we think we have, God ultimately always has it all. He has brought us to where we are by his sovereign grace and pleasure. 

This conversation caused me to think about my past and how I got to where I am. I didn’t really focus on my childhood, but mostly on the last 5 years and the drastic changes and events that have happened. None of them were by chance and none of them were insignificant. So I decided to map out what the last 5 years of my life and how I got to where I am. I put together this little “popplet” to give a visual demonstration of all the key events that happened and how I got to where I am. I went from one school to another, one city to a different state and back, one university to another, met my wife, learned about God and whole lot of other things. Check out this diagram to see just how crazy the past few years have been and how God has been orchestrating it all.

I encourage you to look back on the seemingly random events in your life and how God used them to bring you to the place you are at today. 

If you have any questions about this diagram, my life or anything, feel free to ask on here or shoot me a message on twitter.

::UPDATE::

SO THE WEBSITE I DID MY DIAGRAM ON HAD ITS SERVERS EXPLODE…. THANKS. IT DOESN’T EXIST ANYMORE.

Tonight Lo and I hopped in the proverbial time machine in order to plan out our future. Back in 2006 Mark Driscoll spoke at the Advance Conference on this topic and created a worksheet to go along with his message. Essentially it is a means for couples to sit down, talk about their future, where they would like to be in 3-5 years and then reverse engineer how they are going to get there. Being that Lo and I are newly married and have a lot on our horizon this was a healthy exercise for us to do together. It forces you to talk about money, health, jobs, etc… which is something that I often find myself neglecting in one way or another. I either say “oh it will all work out” or something to that degree, while Lo on the other hand is more concrete and forces me to actually work things out… which is much needed. 

If you want a good means to map out your life, this is a great tool.

Check out the PDF worksheet HERE.

*just so we are on the same page, I stole this idea from Piper*

We all have belief systems. Some are complex, some are simple. Wether you know what your’s is or not, you have one and it guides your everyday decisions and life.

This is what guides the “therefores” of life.

I love my wife, therefore I do my best to treat her as Christ loves the church.

I know I’m depraved, therefore I need a saviour. 

I have desires to learn, therefore I read.

The question we need to ask ourselves is “what shapes my belief system?”

As we look to the scriptures for answers we can very easily use the example of Paul. Throughout his writings he uses the word therefore over 60 times (ESV; not giving him authorship of Hebrews). In the book of Romans he gives us 10+ chapters of theology and then a handful of chapters full of therefores.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” -Romans 12:1

The entire 11 chapters leading up to this were full of rich theology and a biblical worldview that calls us to recognize our sinfulness and need for a saviour. And because we have a saviour we should live out of a therefore. 

You are a sinner, you have rejected God, God sent His son, He died for you and because of you… therefore you should be a living sacrifice. Therefore you should love your neighbor. Therefore you should spread the Gospel. Therefore you should be in community with others. Etc…

Every time we do something, we need to think of the therefore we based our action on and see if it lines up with out beliefs. I often find myself realizing that the two don’t always line up and that my beliefs aren’t always driving my actions. 

What therefores are you striving to live out of? What do you need to change?

Books to help with your therefores….

Surprised by Grace by Tullian Tchividjian

The Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney 

When you hear the word “God,” what do you think of?

An old man?

A King?

Jesus?

A spirit being?

A warrior?

A father?

A cosmic sky fairy?

A creator?

Lately I’ve been thinking that far too often, our views of God are far too narrow or even non-existant. We thank Him for the gifts in life and damn Him for the trials. We thank him when we win Grammys and forget about him when we lose. More often than not, we only recognize Him when we accomplish something or need His help.

What would our lives look like if we had a big (maybe even massive) view of God? How would we view our blessings and our curses? Would we thank Him in both? Would we even be thankful for both? How would we view sin if our views of God were vastly expanded?

These are questions that we should be taking seriously. And if you are a skeptic that finds these thoughts to be silly, I’d like to challenge you to think about the possibility of God and what implications come along with the idea of a massively huge God.

Over the foreseeable future, this will be a topic I will heavily be exploring and writing about: having a BIG view of God. I’ll be writing about what a big view of God looks like, what it implies, give examples of people who had massive views of God, and practical ways to expand your view of God. This should be a challenging, yet exciting topic to explore and I believe it will big growth in the lives of those who join me on this journey.

For now, think about your view of who God is and post your thoughts… If you don’t know where to start, read Psalm 9.