For the last few days I have been sick. In fact, today is probably the first day that I have actually felt well enough to get up and do anything, well most anything except cutting the grass. I don’t like doing that even when I am not sick, so I was not going to cut the grass, which needed to be cut, badly.

My father just had eye surgery, so he was unable to do it because he is not allowed to lift heavy things or yank on the lawn mower cord to get it started, which can be a beast. All of this—the tall thick grass and the rusted frail lawn mower—was left to my mom to do. She rose to the task and cut the grass this morning, and did a wonderful job by the way.

Because of the long grass and the way our lawn mower works, we had massive amounts of grass on the side walk and driveway. It sat there for most of the day. I wasn’t going to go out there and clean it up—the wind would get it.

A little over an hour ago though my father arrived home and asked me to sweep up the grass—a simple request. However, I—in my mind—was not reacting the best way. I started thinking of all the other stuff I had done during the day and how I needed to rest and be in from the heat. In the wrong attitude though I got up and went outside with the broom. After starting to sweep in anger, the thought crossed my mind, “what if Christ asked you to sweep this?, how would you have reacted to him?, would there be a spot unswept?” Immediately my thoughts turned to remorse that I had gotten angry at this “inconvenience.”

I started to sweep as if I was doing it for Christ, and then the pride swept in to my mind. “My Father had asked me to do this cause he didn’t want to do it, and it must have been an after thought because he pulled the car into the drive way over the ground I need to sweep.” As I was grumbling over the task giving to me and prided myself that I was so humble, I looked down at my feet and noticed they were dirty. “When you work as unto Christ, your feet will still need to be washed by Him.” In clearer words, “Although your working for the king, you must humble yourself to be served by Him.”

In the next few moments, I can’t express the thoughts and feelings that I had, but it was such a work of the Holy Spirit because I finally understood what it meant to worship the Lord God though doing everything as unto the Lord in humility. I didn’t find it a bother to be out in the heat sweeping grass in the outdoors, where it is supposed to be.

I don’t say all of this to get a pat on the back. However, I do say all this to ask this, “how can Christ transform your life more to His image in the everyday?” This is just one small part of my day and could have proven to be just another brick added to my load of bitterness and anger, but Christ broke through and transformed my thoughts and attitude.

In the end, I was thanking my dad for letting me serve, by sweeping the driveway.  

This week I am currently leading worship at Lake Swan Camp. I have been coming here for years, so long in fact that I have seen kids who were campers become helpers. In the years that I have come, the chapel time has always seemed to revolve around the worship time, at least in my mind it has, and it was always a dream of mine to lead worship for youth one day at camp. Well, about a month ago I was asked to lead worship for Preteen camp. 

I knew that I would not be able to lead in worship without some supernatural help since I am not usually in front of a microphone, leading. In fact, I believe this is only my 6 or 7th time leading worship in the past few years, where other guys who I know studying worship at TCF (Trinity College of Florida) have led worship at least 5 and 6 times as much as I have. I know it is not about a score card of experience that God looks at when He uses men, but still I feel I have much in the theoretical and little in the practical application.

God, however, has miraculously come through every time! I was not allowed to have any one else outside of camp come on as part of the band, but there were people who were willing to help. These people though, lost their voice and didn’t feel prepared, but God provide other willing people to sing and play. After practicing on Tuesday, I felt a sore throat coming on, which was prayed for and went away. Even areas of pride, which I have always struggled with, which might easily arise have been squelched by the spirit as the reminder is constantly coming that everything (eating, sleeping, scrubbing dishes, singing songs, praying with kids) is all for God’s glory and not mine.

In all of these awesome answers to prayer, and testimonies of God’s glory, I feel weaker than ever. I don’t think that I have ever felt this tired, and I don’t mean just sleepy, but mentally tired. Several times the enemy has tried to trip me up in my thoughts and even cast doubt. A few time the thoughts started to stick around longer than a second, and they were dealt with in prayer, but it caused me ponder for a few moments: Is this the purpose for a 1 Peter 1:13-16 mindset?

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 

Cause after I realized that my thoughts were not Holy, but rather a reflection of my former passions, I felt compelled to confess my thoughts to the Lord. For a few moments I felt the weight of the command in that previous verse. When you are living by the spirit, even thinking about what the flesh once did makes you mourn. In that time, my mind flashed to another Bible passage where Aaron’s sons messed around with crazy fire in the temple and God didn’t like that, so they were killed. It reminded me that we must be Holy and bring a Holy sacrifice to the Lord in whatever we do since we ourselves are living sacrifices to God. 

Honestly, i don’t want to come off as preachy, i just want to help others have a understanding of worship that glorifies God and to be Holy as my Father in heaven is Holy, Holy, Holy!

I have never been an avid writer. In fact, I have dreaded writing almost as much as going to the dentist or having to cut the grass on a hot Florida day, but some how I have always managed through it.

You might ask, “why start up a blog if you hate writing?”

A while back I started thinking, which is probably more of my forte than writing, and I recognized that many early church fathers wrote down thousands of documents about their faith and what God was revealing to them through His word, the Holy Bible, and the world. When I thought of how much our culture and Christian tradition would be different if, say Augustine of Hippo hadn’t written down “City of God” or his work “on the Trinity.” We would not have a lesser faith, hope or salvation, but possibly just a foggier view of some doctrines. 

Many of the debates in the early centuries of the church were minimal in our perspective now because someone took the time to write down the truth on these things so that we would not continually struggle with what is orthodox, the essentials of Christianity, and what is speculative or heretical. Through all of this thinking it struck me that even though I will not write as much as Augustine, maybe, just maybe these studies in worship that I write about will help someone know the Lord Jesus Christ in a deeper, closer way.

The entire design of this tumblr page has a purpose. I didn’t just put a sweet picture on the header, with a random Christian symbol in the background, and a picture of me in a v-neck all for the sake of being a hip Christian fundamentalist/evangelical. I started out this way, but realized that if I couldn’t be flippant with what I wrote. I shouldn’t be flippant with the lay out either. 

The picture of the dandelion back dropped by a church represents that just as the smallest flower does not go unnoticed from the grand landscape of a church yard so also my single life, which is fading like a dandelion, is part of the wonderful Body of Christ that is so much bigger than myself. The crazy P with an x placed over it is called a Labarum or also known as the Chi(x) Rho(p), which are the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ. It symbolizes that as it is always through the blog, so Christ is always going to be the focus of my writing. The name of the blog seems rather odd since the word anthology usually refers to multiple authors; however, it can also refer to the writings of a single writer, and most of the writing will be mine, but if I find an article that is pertinent to a topic I just might repost it on here. The v-neck I am wearing in my picture symbolizes, well nothing. I just like them and wanted some picture that wasn’t too serious. I know that this all seems like a stretch, but I want it to be clear that there will be very little if nothing put on here without a purpose.

Before I sign off for this first blog, I have to shout out to a couple of people that actually inspired me to finally get my writing up. One of the biggest influences is my wonderful girl friend, Alexandra Downing, who is an English major that loves writing. She has encouraged me so much to write down my ideas in the past, and even now as she studies at Oxford for the summer. The guys who really lighted the fire under me to start soon, even though they might not have realized it, are my fellow Trinity Students: Frank Gil, Jeff Simpson, and John Hicks. 

Until I write next, 

Joshua