the Christ in Christmas

Merry Christmas!

That God would send His Son for me?! 

I hate to have to quote Nicki Minaj on such a Jesus-y topic but it's got to be said; 

"No I'm not lucky, I'm blessed. YES."

I have been given life because God loves me so so much, to send down something so close to Him, someONE so precious to His heart. 

Purely because HE LOVES.

Have a safe, beautiful and blessed Christmas xx

you.

Be content with being who God wants you to be. You make a terrible someone else anyway.

Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.

Be yourself; everybody else is taken anyway.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Always be a first rate version of yourself than a second rate version of someone else.

Be yourself - not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.

Make the most of yourself....for that is all there is of you.

well, 2012, it's been a fun ride so far.

i have never been so joyful, stressed, challenged, empowered, inspired, at peace and confused in all my life.
if you were a person, 2012, i'd like to throw a couple punches at you and kick you in the gut. but i'd also like to throw you a party, to thank you a thousand times over and hug you till your insides can no longer function.

looking back, the little things that occurred have all added up to the grand picture God has of my life. i'm ashamed to say that i didn't expect anything special from this year. 

but you outdid yourself 2012. you really did.

i'm so happy that on the countless times i felt ready and desperate to give up and give in, you made me hang tight. 

you are freakin good, God. it's been an adventure i'll never forget.

dancing.

And I’ll dance with You till my knees go weak

And I’ll sing till I can’t sing anymore

And I’ll lift my hands till they fall asleep

Just to show You, Lord, You’re the One I adore

slow down.

slow down.

time is precious and so is this life.

it's not a race, but a finish line has merely been put in place so we may have a final goal to attain. 

we've got a while to get there. forever to be exact.

this is going to sound 100%, extremely, stupidly contradictory. but i think it's important we live life as if we are on the run. what i mean is not that we've done bad things and are escaping punishment or boundaries. rather then, we are living in freedom - seeking adventure and fun, surrounded by great people and meeting new ones, never passing up an opportunity, taking risks and putting your faith in a Bigger Person. 

it's not necessarily about the destination. but it's always about the ride to get there.

it's a marathon. this ain't no sprint.

take time to get the most of it, as if you were covering the ground you could if you were running like a psycho.

look up and look around.

you never know what you'll miss if your head is hung low and your eyes set on your feet.

nine.

I can't believe that it's already September, and we're halfway through it. 

Nine months in, 3 more to go.

I've never hit so many twists and turns, challenges and successes than i have in the past 8 or 9 months - life's been moving full steam ahead and waiting around for no one to catch up. that's why i hate the feeling of letting time slip away, trickling through my fingertips when i should really have a tight grasp on it.

i'm going to be part of another three point five months of life change.

another 11 weeks.

another 107 days.

another 2568 hours.

2568. 2567. 2566. 2564. 2563. 2562. 22561. 2560. 2559...

1890... 1521... 1274...

965. 964. 963

3. 2. 1.

zero.

every hour, every minute, every second counts.

towards today and towards tomorrow. towards me and towards another.

it's simple: time keeps ticking and people need an answer.

no more 'nothing'. 

start 'something'.

short.

i literally haven't had my hair this short since i was a 10 year old child. 'tis strange but delightfully freeing.

question is, should i leave it this length

brave up and go shorter 

or let it grow till it hits the floor again?

hair is so strange.

but too fun to live without.

one day i'll wear a skin-coloured swimming cap and scare the heck outta my parents.

i'm fizzin' for the day

sneak peek.

I'm preaching at Elevate tomorrow night. It's going to be great. 

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Sneak Peek on what I'm talking about:

I'm really really really excited.

So excited that I haven't slash can't entirely finish off the message...

Is that a bad thing or a good thing?

but it's pretty much writing itself, Himself. that's the best bit.

it's just all about Him. and it's gonna own some kid's butt tomorrow night.

#hutt4life

small.

1 Timothy 4:12 

//

Let no one despise or think less of you because of your youth, but be an example [pattern] for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.

we. you. me.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama


it starts with me; catapults with you; and becomes indestructible with us.

this it: the change we want to see take place so badly, the need that is so embedded in our hearts. 
it takes a small, perhaps pipedream thought, a bit of faith and a first step.


“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” – Harriet Tubman

A child is not a vase to be filled but a fire to be lit.
- Rabelais

 Better a little fire that warms than a big one that burns. 

- John Ray

From little spark may burst a mighty flame.
- Dante Alighieri

seeds.

"Love is the seed of all hope. It is the enticement to trust, to risk, to try, to go on." - Gloria Gaither

*phew*

i've got to admit. 

i'm quite in love with uni life. 

and i'm pretty stoked to be scraping through the work and making my deadlines. just.

and now i'm sitting here, just plain stoked that i made all three of my hand-ins 

(that were oh so conveniently placed within 24 hours of another)

and it's Easter this weekend and i get a beautiful 2 weeks to recover. 

praise the sweet sweet Lord.

He does love us. 

Sometimes we just need to 

put everything else aside 

and bask in His glory, 

stare in adoration at His majesty.

haha how funny is it that when i start writing a blog, Jesus somehow makes a way into it.

He just must want some credit and mention.

heaven.

spirit break out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OAIHOFAVDo

i cannot wait for the day - whether i get to be part of it in my time here on earth or i watch it take place from above - when the world erupts in praise with the name of Jesus on their lips, the Holy Spirit alive and breathing in their hearts and a mighty roar arises; unified and absolute faith will break out across the universe.

i am really pumped about heaven. it'll just be everything you want it to be. just a gazillion times better. but there's no reason why God would want to withhold all of Heaven's goodness from His people. to have a teeny tiny outpour of the beauty of Heaven daily is what i think God desires us to desire.

that makes me happy. 

Jesus, my family, friends, church, people i don't even know, whittaker's peanut flippin butter chocolate. they're all a tiny piece of Heaven. God wants us to want in on what is in the secret, the deep and hidden. i'll gladly take on that mission.

lol.

hilaaaaaarious how in my last post, i wrote about neverland. 

there may or may not be a theme running through my life...

neverland.

"So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land."

perhaps Peter Pan had a good thing going on, he knew that there was no need to truly 'grow up' and start behaving like an adult. we all just get so caught up in being the best, doing the best and getting the best. 

                                        ******************************************

but what if that's not what we're here for?

maybe we're here to break the rules, get a little rebellious, think outside the norm, tear down stereotypes and generalisations, dream big and hope for the best. maybe it's about finding yourself by letting go. or about doing things wholeheartedly - not half in - ALL in. forgetting what people may think of you, your parents, your family and friends and complete strangers, and just being a dork.

                                        ******************************************

to escape to a land where you never have to grow up and worry, that's the kind of state i want to be living in constantly. let loose, dream always, trust God and the people He's put around you, throw logic out the window and keep your eyes fixed on the goal - not thinking about strategies and plans and mapping out HOW you need to get there. just following closely to the One who made you a NEW CHILD.

* consecrate *

con·se·crate

 [kon-si-kreyt] verb, -crat·ed, -crat·ing, adjective

1.

to make or declare sacred; set apart or dedicate to the service of a deity

2.

to make (something) an object of honor or veneration;hallow




from the Latin consecrāre,  from com-  (intensive) + sacrāre [to devote, from sacer;  sacred]

adventuring.

i'm actually so super pumped about going to uni this year. it's going to be great!
i can't wait to meet a whole bunch of cool and strange people, bring them to church and get 'em SAVED. can't wait to learn, geeky as it sounds, i wanna know heaps more about everything. i'm mega excited about just being in a whole new place; on a whole new adventure; in a whole new world. it's gonna be scary, fun, exciting, nerve-wrecking, challenging, stupid, foreign but legit. 

#morethantribalwars.

greatest week of my life with my most favourite people. 

i legit wish it were two weeks long. 

it's funny how you go into big event things like camps and conferences expecting 

t   h   i   s      m   u   c   h. 

but God turns up and totally outdoes your expectations and it's actually like 

t   h   i   s     B     I     G.

taking out the tribal wars title didn't hurt either. it's all red.