I Am Thankful For...

During this holiday season most people are seeing family, eating way too much food, and catching up some sleep. I doubt that many people will even read this due to the busyness of the season, but I thought I would reflect on ten things that I have been thankful for in 2014. Obviously, this is the most cliche thing to do, but cliche is sometimes good for the heart.

10. Legacy Conference

Ali and I attended a conference in late July that focused on Christians living and ministering to diverse people groups in diverse neighborhoods. I was mostly encouraged to see God’s people come together and worship Him.

9. Free Prayer

My friend, Scott, and I have been walking around the neighborhood on Friday afternoons and praying with our neighbors. Asking to pray for people reveals what they value and what God wants to speak into. There have been many amazing stories of God working in the hearts of others, but God has been working on my heart just as much as anyone else.

8. Saturday Morning Prayer

A group of people gather each morning to pray for the needs of the people present, their spheres of influence, Karis Church, churches in Columbia, and the city of Columbia. Ali and I have been meeting on Saturday morning and God has been revealing our need to depend on His strength in all areas of our lives.

7. Douglass Park

The Douglass Park neighborhood has been a warm and welcoming place for my wife and I. I have met so many people that it would take months to write down the names and stories we have heard. Not only have we gotten to know the history of the neighborhood itself, but we have gotten to know the people of the neighborhood as well - which we value very highly. Such a grace from God to know and love so many people.

6. Douglass Park Missional Community

Going along with the last one, I am very thankful for the community of people that have committed to be on mission in the Douglass Park neighborhood. We call ourselves Douglass Park Missional Community (#DPMC), but we believe that God has called us together to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ as a community of believers who love each other and go out on mission in all areas of our lives.

5. New Friendships

This year God has led so many men and women into my life. He has called people like… Scott, Angela, Vincent, Jessica, Chris, Triston, Christina, John, Angie, Ron, Mark, Mike, Brian, and Nate. This is not an exhaustive list, but it gives a picture of all the people God has placed in my life. Thank you to each of you for being great friends this year!

4. Internship

The Karis Church internship has been very challenging this year, but I have grown to see a clearer picture of the gospel. Growing in this has not always come in some miraculously beautiful way - most of it was difficult and challenging. I am thankful that they have not given up on me and that they are being to faithful to discipling me.

3. IMSD

The Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity is the grant program that I work at in the Office of Undergraduate Research at the University of Missouri. My boss, Brian, has been amazingly gracious and encouraging during my first couple of months. I have made genuine friends there and I am thankful that God has blessed me with a job that is flexible and expects a lot out of me.

2. My Wife

Ali is my best friend, my wife, and my sister in Christ. She is making me a better man of God, and she pushes me to seek after Jesus more and more each day of my life. God has been good to me by giving me a woman of God who is also pursuing a deeper relationship with our Lord and Savior. I am going to grow in my thankfulness for her over the course of our marriage, which I am looking forward to each and every day.

1. God

God has given me the best thing in the entire universe: Himself. I have been made alive in Jesus Christ due to His works, not mine. Over the course of my walk as a Christian I have found that I am much more sinful than I originally thought, but He is much more loving, gracious, and forgiving than I could ever imagine. I am thankful for the life that He has given me, but I am most thankful for Him.

God is good and gracious.

Jacob Luis Gonzales

Walk With Me - Thursday April 17, 2014

Make Good Shoes

A Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting crosses on shoes, but by making good shoes. God cares for good craftsmanship. (M. Luther)

While you are at work, make sure that you are working hard to do your job to the best of your ability. Be creative, be focused, and be in love with what God has done for you to be free to express His grace is in your workplace.

God is good and gracious.

Jacob Luis Gonzales

Busyness Won't Save Me

photo courtesy of David De Lossy

The last couple of days have been... slow.

After receiving an ice storm this past weekend and receiving over a foot of snow in the past 36 hours I have realized something about myself:

I struggle with rest.

I woke up on each of the past four days with this anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I think it all comes from the idea of not being in a rhythm. When I slow down and sit to ponder what happened in my day I am overcome with this restlessness that is unexplainable. I have tried to explain it a couple of times to people, but deep down I have an issue with stopping after I get home.

Ali helped me realize this a while back, so now I intentionally don’t answer emails or notifications that pop up on my phone until the following day because I know that I just desperately want to keep busy. I have tried to make a small step to resting. But, when the phone buzzes or rings I immediately wonder what am I needed for. I immediately rush with curiosity what I could do to keep busy and productive.

This feeling is not just for work. This feeling is the feeling I have a lot of the time in my walk of faith in Christ. I don’t know about a lot of people, but I usually have the thought that I should be doing more. I should sharing the gospel more, I should be building up the community of saints more often, I should read the Bible more, I should pray more, etc. While all that might be slightly true I find myself feeling restless and anxious to get out and do more.

Wanting to do those things is actually good, but we begin to overcome our minds with worry and/or anxiety then it reveals something about us that needs to be addressed. In some manner, this points to something that we believe in our relationship with God.

Aarik Danielson, pastor at Karis Church, said:

"A lot of us have busy hearts. Hearts that pump out as much anxiety and worry as they do bloog. They're always churning inside about what people think or how we performed today or how we can move on to something better. We sit around with this anxious feeling, like we're supposed to be doing... something. Something else. But what?"

I hope that this is helpful and gives you an honest picture in my struggles at this present time.

I have just begun to dig into why I struggle with rest, but here are some of my early findings.

I Am Needy

To be honest, I struggle with the truth that I am a needy person. We are all needy people, but we usually like to think of the people that suck the energy out of you as the needy people. We all like to think of the ones who text us too much, call us too much, or email us too much as the truly needy and clingy people.

I am a needy person. I don’t always want to see how broken I truly am. I don’t always want to see much I have fallen short of God’s demands. I want to be seen as mature. I don’t always want to see how much I have chosen to rebel against God’s law. I normally want to be seen as a young man growing in holiness. I don’t always want to be seen as weak. I normally want to be seen as strong.

The truth is that I am more broken than I will ever see. I have and will sin against the God of the universe in more ways than I want to believe. In the light of acknowledging these things I am a needy sinner in need of God’s eternal and brilliant grace. The only way that God can forgive me is that He gives me grace. This leads me to my next point…

My Busyness Will Not Save Me

When I grew up I believed that if you did good things that means that you are a good person and that earns your way to heaven. I thought that heaven is the reward for those who tried to do some good things in life and didn’t hurt that many people. Those things more line up with Buddhism and the idea of Karma then with Christianity. Why do I say that? Because the Bible says that.

All over the place I read that there is nothing that I can do that warrants eternal life, but instead the Bible is very clear that I actually wanted to rebel against God. I openly and emphatically chose rebellion over loving obedience to His law. If my works give me anything, they give me what I deserve: hell.

Now, I know that talking about hell is usually seen as fire and brimstone, but hell is not a theory. Hell is not something that God created only for the super-villains. Hell is not only a place for the worst of the worst. The saddest and more humbling part of all of this is that without God’s help I would actually choose to rebel against Him in every way so that I end up in hell.

My work will not save me. So, what will?

The grace of God. 

Stop. Follow me closely.

Jesus’ works include a sinless life. Our works include a sinful life. Jesus’ works include perfect submission to God the Father. Our works include rebellion against God the Father. Jesus’ works include a complete trust in God the Father. Our works include doubting God the Father. Jesus’ works include willingly dying for sinners. Our works include rejecting Jesus’ life and death on the cross as unimportant and irrelevant. Jesus’ works include raising from the grave and ascending into heaven. Our works include calling Jesus’ power impossible and ridiculous. 

So, how does God offer us reconciliation? He offers us all of Jesus’ righteousness by having faith that Jesus is God. God will give us Jesus’ righteousness if we have faith that Jesus died died for us while we openly rejected Him.

If we have faith in what Jesus did we will be given a new nature that won’t desire to rebel against God anymore. We are to repent of our sin against Him and begin following Jesus for the rest of our lives.

I have faith in Jesus’ works, not my own works. So, whenever I struggle with rest I am struggling with God’s works being enough to save me. 

That’s a tough pill to swallow, but its important to know so that my faith and trust in God’s works might increase and I might rest more confidently in God’s finished work on the cross.

If we trust in Jesus and repent of trying to save ourselves, He is faithful to forgive us.

I am an needy sinner in need of God’s grace in every moment of my life, and I pray that you see that you are in need of God’s grace for salvation. Place any work that attempts to save you before God and place your faith in what Jesus did for you.

God is good and gracious.

Jacob Luis Gonzales

My Workstation

Here are a couple photos of where I work. I currently am working part-time at the Brain Imaging Center while I am interning at Karis Church part-time. This job has been fantastic! Each coworker has been kind, curteous, and encouraging since I started in May.

Love this job and I thank God for His faithfulness in providing me an amazing place to come to work.

God is good and gracious.

Jacob Luis Gonzales

Rain, Tears, and Prayer

This morning was a particularly interesting morning. There were rain, tears, and prayers for the future.

This morning started off with this picture above. It was pouring here in Columbia. When I say "pouring," I mean it was coming down so hard that it was hard to see a lot of things in the distance.

Something you may not know about me: I love rain.

Rain reminds me of a lot of good moments in my life, but mostly I love rain because it reminds me of God's grace and His faithfulness. It reminds me of God's promise that He made to Noah after the flood.

Ali and I taught this past Sunday about God's covenant that He made with Noah that He would never flood the Earth again (Genesis 8-9). Rain reminds me of how God's faithfulness has been active and present in my life. Rain reminds me of how God has been loved and saved me from a life without Him and His saving grace.

This morning also brought forth a video about a church that is going to be planted (started) in the city of Chicago. I watched this video about a group from Texas about the influence of Chicago and how they are hoping to plant a church in Chicago by 2014. I honestly had to hold back tears while I was sitting at my desk.

Ali and I have thought quite a bit about what God is calling our family to do after the internship, but if you are curious about what we are seeking to plant a church - specifically and possibly in Chicago - watch this video. It explains the importance of Chicago and it beautifully explains the need for Jesus to be known, loved, and praised in the innercity.

Check out the video here: http://reachchicago2014.com/

Pray for Ali and I as we pray about where our family will go after the internship. Pray that we seek wise counsel within Karis Church to help guide and lead us towards where God would have our family. God is good and He will do great things in the coming months and years. Your prayers are needed and appreciated.

God is good and gracious.

Jacob Luis Gonzales