This is a blog I found from my trip to Italy. Its funny because it dawned on me that the same lesson God was teaching me then, He is still teaching me now. How patient is the Lord!
Italiano: Collage di varie foto di Vicenza (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So, I am back in Vicenza and I am enjoying some time away from the crew. It has given me some much needed me time. But at the same time, it has enabled me to think…A LOT! This trip has been an eye opener for me, in soooooooooo many ways. For starters it has shown me how weak I really am. For a while, I was beginning to feel like a strong Christian. I was doing the right things, going to church, not cursing, not thinking perverted thoughts, so forth and so forth. A year of that…it was great! All it took was one trip to Italy for all that to go down the shoot and now I find myself getting drunk, cursing like a sailor, and thinking the most perverse things. I guess you can say I am truly not the christian I should be. I don’t glory in this but if I have learned one thing is this, self pity is stupid. I can waddle in my own mud or I can decide to do something about it. I know I love Dad, He has shown that to me and so ill just have to keep getting up, dusting off and moving on. Life is too short to meddle in self pity. I wont do it! He showed me a while ago that I would fall before I finally learn, so why the drama? I guess I say this because of the fact that I just don’t fully understand anything, anything at all. The biggest struggle has been (of course) my “orientation”. Soooooo many questions. Why if I love someone the way I do, why is that wrong? Is it really wrong? Could the authors of God’s word maybe wrote something and it was translated differently? But in reality all these question stem from the desire to do my will. And I forget that when I accepted Christ as my savior I died to self. Something the world does not understand nor can they. I died to the right to understand anything. I must walk by faith whether I understand it or not. I do struggle, I struggle and hurt like crazy. Sometimes is unbearable! Sometimes I just want to throw in the towel. I ache when I see that I mess up and hurt God’s testimony, for He is doing something in me. But when will it show? I don’t know. But in spite of all of that, I must hold on and do that which I know is right. Some have said I’m too hard on myself. Some have even said I should just have fun and enjoy myself. What they don’t understand is that I am myself. This IS who I am. And that’s the point after all.
In this life we are always going to try to do what we want to do. We will always search for a way other than God’s because in our hearts, if we are honest, we don’t really believe that God loves us and that He truly wants the best for us. If we did believe that, than we would do what God wanted from us without question.
I remember a time when I used to be a personal trainer for the YMCA. There where clients that did not know much of anything when it came to working out. I had to start with the basics with them. Sometimes I would have to do things knowing that they did not comprehend what I did. I remember me saying to them “just trust me” I knew where I was going even if they didn’t. I feel that is what God is telling me now. He knows sooooooooooo much more and see soooooooooo much farther than anything I can conceive. His knowledge is so great that if he were to try to explain things I still would not get it, so I feel as if He says, “just trust me”. Actually I know He says it for in His word it says “lean not on your own understanding” “in all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path”….in other words “trust me”. God’s knowledge is insane, I mean, just look at the human body? there are things in our own bodies…..the thing that we claim that is ours yet we know so little off. (its funny how we can claim something as a possession and yet not know what it is). Do we really believe we actually created this thing? There is one creator and He is the master Architect. Who are we, the design, to say to the designer, “this is how you intended me to be”. The fact that we don’t understand God should not be a
Richard Meier “Atheneum” (Photo credit: Jeff Gerhardt – [Fe][C]ycles)
And so even if I don’t understand I will do what I feel God wants me to do….To keep quiet! Since I have been here, I have had many confrontations of my faith. Normally I would not mind entering into a debate. In spite of my failure, I am not ashamed to claim the name of Christ. However, one thing that I feel Dad is telling me to do is to keep quiet. His knowledge is known, and He is more than able to defend Himself. No one around me is ignorant to His ways. What I must focus on is being a genuine Christian. People are sick of Bible thumping pricks who think they know everything there is to know about God. I fall into that category. So I must do that which is right. Focus on being genuine. Focus on loving people, and then maybe one day I will earn the right to speak to them about a relationship with their creator. But even that cant be the focus, for true love has no other motives other than love itself.
WOW, so many things running through my brain its hard to pen them all down. I hope you guys get something out of this.
Love you all
Juan Castillo Jr.
Tales from a Nut Shell cracked open 