Someone once told me that God has a purpose in what He does even if we have a hard time understanding what that purpose is. Boy that can be true but also pretty comforting. Jesus has a plan for us all mapped out and know what’s best for us. It’s like having a curfew or having to go to bed early because you have school in the morning. I always thought that I didn’t need that extra hour or two of sleep, but my parents knew best and were always trying to look out for. Jesus is doing the same thing, something might not be going how you planned but that’s just because He has a better plan for you and it might take awhile fur us to realize that. “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Eccl 3:11) God’s time is the only time that we should worry about because He has a season for everything.

“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.”

Eccl. 3:1-8

As Jason was wrapping up the gospel message, the 40+ alter crew started to spread out around the amphitheater. When he gave the invitation for people to come forward to accept Christ, only 4 people got up. At first I was really discouraged by this but then God reminded me of Luke 15:10 He just gave me a friendly reminder that even if one person gave their life to Christ tonight, maybe that’s what the sole purpose of this event. But again He wasn’t finished doing His incredible work, as the alter call went on more and more people started to get up to talk to the alter crew. My heart started racing when I saw this, this was flippin’ awsome. “Loves like a Hurricane, I am a tree” Think about that for a sec. What are the chances that a puny tree is going to be able to get in the way of a powerful hurricane. This is excatly what was happening tonight. We all were little sapplings as the Holy Spirit came down and uprooted all of us.

Being apart of the alter crew, I knew that I had the possibility of leading some to Christ. I’m not going to lie this shook me up pretty good. I had never down anything like that before and I had no clue what I was going to say if someone asked me to lead them to Christ. Scenarios flashed through my head of someone coming up to me and me not having anything to say to them and the person just leaving frustrated. If anyone saw me in front you probably could see that my legs were about to buckle, cause of how hard I was shaking. As the altercall went on I thought that I was in the clear and wasn’t going to have to face my fears, but as usual God had a different plan. At that moment one of my friends walked up to me with her little sister. My feelings as she came up are summed up by this song;

The song opens up with these lines;

I see the city lights all around me
Everyone’s obscure
Ten million people each with their problems
Why should anyone care

Yet at the end it talks about how Jesus traded his life for us, even though we are just one in a million faces. As the two girls got to me I felt the Holy Spirit consume and as in the great words of Frank the Tank: “What happened? I blacked out”. I had nothing to worry about when praying with someone to accept Christ because it sure as heck wasn’t going to be my doing that they have eternal life, but it was going to be all the Holy Spirit using me as a vessel. After praying with her I felt so overwhelmed because it didn’t matter to me if she was the only person to give her life to Christ, because that was enough for me.

God is moving throughout the campus of Clemson and has so much in store for us over the next few years. This was only the start of a plan that is being unravelled piece by piece. All we are called to do is be obedient to God’s word and follow His plan, he’ll work out the rest. I pray that each one of us stays on fire over this summer and come back ready to rock Clemson even more.

In His loving name
Kit (note this one is done before 3am Cha-Ching)

What if 100 people give there lives to Christ?

What if Why Jesus? overflows and there is a campus wide revival, where people are absolutley fired up about Christ?

What if this becomes a regular thing where people are constantly coming to the Kingdom of God?

What if this revival spread back to each of our homes over the summer and U.S.A once again became a true Christian Nation?

How about if only one person’s life is forever changed? Personally anyone of those scenarios would blow my mind. In Luke 15:10 it says; “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” That verse didn’t really sink fully until church tonight when someone in the row behind me stood up and accepted Christ. I was utterly overwelmed hearing them say the sinner’s prayer, and thought to myself that Why Jesus? might be so that one person can come to know Jesus and if that is the case we all should be rejoicing. But who are we to even attempt to put limitations on what God is about to do on this campus. For those of you who are planning on attending this Wednesday, please bring your classmates and your friends. I pray everyday that this campus be overwhelmed with the presence of God. We need everyone’s prayer more than anything right now and have faith cause God will do IMMEASURABLY more then any of us can fathom.

Your Presence is all I am longing for

Kit (post at 3:42 a.m.)

For those of you who are wearing one of these shirts should know that there is a great responsiblity to having one on. The other day at the baseball game (in which we beat Carolina) I was sitting with my friend Matt who is a die hard Clemson fan and both of us strongly dislike the Gamecocks. There were a few unfortunate Carolina fans sitting behind us that kept making heckling comments about Clemson. Now being who we are, we both wanted to turn around and give them a taste of their own medicine. We really couldn’t say anything because of our shirts, how would it look if two college students started to chew out opposing fans and freak out when the umpire made a horrible call? People look at our shirts and wonder why should I come to an event in which people who support it are jerks, how important can Jesus be then? So everytime a situation would arise when one of us wanted to say something, the other person would calmly say “shirt” and that was our cue to rep Jesus well.

Another scenario with the shirts is the constant questioning of what they mean. For those of you who don’t know the event is all about answering questions about who Jesus was, why is he such an important name, is he relevant in today’s society, and is he for me? A local band called The Dirt and The Flood will be performing along with a guest speak, who will be giving their testimony, and final Jason Ellis will be speaking the message. I have had at least 15 random people come up to me and ask about the event, some of them were students, others were parents, and even a few workers at Schilletter, I didn’t know any of them. I’ve gotten the opprotunity to tell one of my classes about the event as well.

The reason there are so many things that go along with wearing one of these shirts is all in the name on the front; Jesus. If we went around wearing shirts that said The Body, which is the name of the group putting the event on, there is no way that we would have this many people wondering what the heck is going on. Perry Noble spoke at FCA tonight and during his closing prayer he told the auditorium to go and speak to any of the people with “purple” shirts and ask them Why Jesus? to see why christ should live in there life. This caught me offguard because at first I thought that he thought that we were part of FCA, but then I realized that it didn’t matter who we were associated with. Hopefully every person that owns one of these shirts has a person relationship with Jesus Christ and would be willing to answer the Why Jesus? and feel comfortable with leading someone to chirst. “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matthew 28:18-19) This is God’s will for us to go out and preach the gospel to everyone, no matter what the case is. Even though the event will answer a bunch of questions about Jesus, why not take the time and tell someone your personal testimony next time they ask about the shirt. Tell them how Jesus has impacted your life and even if you don’t lead them to Chirst, know that you have just planted a seed that might take time to grow. Just remember when you are wearing a Why Jesus? shirt, people are watching you and are increasingly curious about what is going down 4.22.09. Be like Chirst and share your story, because the name of Jesus is one of the most powerful names in our history.

I love yall and I still need to attempt to finish one of these posts before 2a.m.

After a couple weeks of praying I still was nowhere near finding a place to live. Later that night I was talking to one of my friends about walking in God’s will and just going where He leads us. This made me think about what I was doing with housing. I kinda used that verse to say that God was just going to place me in an appartment without me doing anything. Boy was I wrong!!! To have faith means that you need to take risks, take chances. If you walk in the Lord’s steps He will guide you where you need to go. He will either close doors that you are headed towards or open ones. I wasn’t trying to advance my situation with housing and thats why I wasn’t getting anywhere. So from that night on I started pursuing other housing options knowing that if I was going the wrong way that I would know it wasn’t the right way to go.

So now I was praying for God to give me an appartment and I was searching for one too, He was surely going to grant my wish now. Again wrong!! Thats when I stumbled upon John 15:7 which again made me re-think the whole faith issue. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t believing my own pray, I didn’t truely think that God would grant my wish. That night when I prayed I truely believed that God could easily find me housing if that’s where I needed to be. It was the first time that I thought that my prayer would be answered. The next day at Zaxby’s I asked someone if they knew of anyone who needed a roommate for next year. He told me that Mike Hawkins was looking for one and was living at the ridge. I immdiatley thanked God for answering my prayer. Mike is my small group leader and a good friend, he also signed the lease for the appartment a month before I even approached him. God knew all along where I was going to live next year but wasn’t going to reveal it to me until I showed a little faith in Him.

Faith is so important when we have a relationship with our Lord, “without faith it is impossible to please God”. Faith always involves two steps; The first requires action from you and the second requires you to take a chance and truely believe that it will happen. When you walk in God’s faith and follow his will, there is nothing that you can’t accomplish (with His assistance) My nightly prayer is that His will be done in my life and that I will know if I am following the right path to achieve His will, this can range from purusing a girl to what major I should be in to how to create a lasting friendship with a kid from YoungLife. What I’m trying to say is that God will always steer you in the right direction if you have faith, but He will never show how to get to your goal all at once. In Psalm 119:105 it says that the word is a LAMP not a spotlight. Each step will be revealed but there is no need to worry about your final destination until that is the last step.

Ask and you WILL recieve, seek and you WILL find, knock and the door WILL open. Follow his will and you can’t go wrong, cause remember your wish is His command.
God Bless

(eventually I will write a post before 2:45 a.m.)

So I know yall have heard this song before and a lot of you really like it, I mean it is currently #6 on iTunes. This song really didn’t bug me that much when I first heard it but everytime it plays I’m torn. The other day I was in someone’s room and we found a journal of their roommates, it was a list of memories that all involved alcohol or sex or both. I just sat there wondering who would want to look at this after college and remember the horrible things that they had done. Let me make this straight, this post is not about smashing people who go out to party it’s just my concerns with how our younger generation now is percieving college (like my sister). Tonight at FCA Jon Ludovina came to speak about alcohol and were alcohol stands in the Bible.

I’m just a lowely freshmen who really isn’t sure about what my future has in store for me, but I am positive that I’m not at Clemson to act like that (maybe at USC but not Clemson haha) “Time isn’t wasted when you’re getting wasted” Are you kidding me? How is your time not wasted while you are getting swashted? Do I really want to go through college not remembering my weekends and trying to figure out what STD I got last night from that girl that I will never see again? Heck no!!! I might not know what I want to do for the rest of my life but I do know that. In Matthew 28:18-19 it says “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” I’d say that this is a better way to spend my time then out partying.

I mentioned early about the view of college through the eyes of our younger siblings. Coming into college I knew about the rumors about the party scene and how it would be possible to go out a get plastered everynight, but I only realized that around Sophmore year of high school. Now kids listen to the radio and here Asher Roth’s new hit and think wow so thats what college is all about, getting drinking, getting girls naked, and then doing the whole thing again. I am extremely protective over my sister, as most of you know, but I can’t be at home right now and make sure that she doesn’t listen to this song. I can only hope that she isn’t listening to the radio when it comes on. Now this is not to say that my sister is going to want to party because of this, but I don’t want her to get that impression of college at all.

So seriously think about why you are here at college and how we are showing people what college really is.

Love yall (and it’s freakin 4:25 a.m. this time, but we will thank Michael for the wanderings tonight)

Kit

This is exactly what we want to do. We want to come together as a body of believers and share the gospel of Jesus. We want to unite the efforts of FCA, Campus Crusade, RUF, Navigators, and every other campus ministry, and shake off these labels, as well as any pre-conceived notions that comes along with being associated with one of these ministries, and come together as Jesus followers to reach the lost for His name.

So what was once perceived as a crazy idea, has now taken shape into an event on the brink of execution. In order to accept any sort of funding, we had to create a student organization. With the help of many friends from student government, we were able to create a student group known as The Body. So for almost two months now, The Body has grown from 3 people talking about the potential for an event to about 20 people meeting every week to take the necessary actions for this event to take place.

Here are the details we have for the event so far. This event is known as “Why Jesus?”. It will take place on April 22, 2009. Doors will open at 7 pm and the event will start at 8 pm. The local band, The Dirt and the Flood will be performing music during the event. Jason Ellis will be sharing the gospel message that night entitled “Why Jesus?”. He will be speaking on whom Jesus is, what makes him different, what we are all searching for, and why Jesus can satisfy that searching.

Those are the definites that we know. We will have an influential speaker open up before the gospel message for just about 10-15 minutes. We will have him share his testimony and why he chose Jesus. Right now, we have been in contact with, and have the full support of, which is stated in a letter hand signed by him, Head Football Coach of the Clemson Tigers Dabo Swinney. Coach Swinney has told us He will speak as long as he does not have a conflict on the date of April 22. As of right now, he does not.

Right now, this event is ready to take off, but we are waiting on funding. This event will cost around $22,000 to put on. Next Monday we will go before student senate and requests $19,000 from them (the cost to rent Littlejohn). Additional costs include marketing costs for t-shirts and the website. We have sent out support letters to various churches and ministries, but have not heard back yet. This is not as crazy as it sounds. The money in the Student Services account is enough to fully fund this event, however we do not know how much we will receive. They may give us $0, $10,000, or all $19,000. So we are still in the need for financial support.

This is where YOU come in. We need all the support we can get. We probably have over 100 people that know, and are pumped about this event. These people range from regular students to faculty members, to student athletes, to coaches, to student senators, and many others. We can use any support we can get. Maybe this event has captured your heart and you want to physically help. Maybe you can financially help, or know someone who can. However, one thing you can definitely do is keep this in your prayers.

This is a God sized event. We can’t do this on our own. We have been in constant prayer, and fully believe this is God’s will. We are just still waiting patiently, and praying faithfully for that funding to come from somewhere.

So please let me know if you can help in any way. Comment, Email, Call, Facebook, or contact me anyway you can to let me know if you can, and in what way you can help. We can, and want get you plugged into this movement of God. Also, I would love to answer any questions you might have about this. Just let me know!

Most importantly, please be in prayer about this whole event, especially on Monday when we request money from Senate at 7 pm.

Move as the Lord leads you. Seek HIS WILL, HIS TIMING, AND HIS DIRECTION. This event is all about sharing Jesus with others, and is such a great opportunity to do just that. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7)

In His Holy Name,

Kit

Your presence is all I am longing for, here in the secret place
Your nearness is all I am waiting for, here in the quiet place
Here in the secret place

My soul waits for You alone
Like the watchmen wait for dawn
Here I’ve finally found a place
Where we’ll meet, Lord, face to face

This set me in my mind set for my walk, I knew that this was going to be all about worship God and longing for his presence. Check this I was able to walk along the beach and just be in awe with the wonder of our Lord’s creations; the stars, the ocean, the sand, and the stillness of it all. I highly recomend taking a walk one peaceful night near some body of water and just worship without any cares. It was the highlight of one the best Spring Breaks I’ve had. I just wandered singing to God and I didn’t care if anyone heard me.

Then God did what he normally does and changed things up on me. This next song started to play and made me think:

Word of God Speak… I find myself at a lost for words and the funny thing is it’s ok… Is that how we are when we are talking to God? Do we take the time to just be in silence and actually hear the word of God? I know thats not always the case for me. For anyone who knows me know that I enjoy talking and am pretty outgoing, so sometimes when it comes to prayer and trying to hear the Holy Spirit speak to me I tend to just do most of the talking. Its like when I try to get to know someone I usually like to have a lot of conversations where I can get to know the person better. Occassionally I’ll find myself talking too much and not actually finding anything out anything new about the person I truely want to know better. If I was the one who did all the talking and never just stopped to listen in silence how are we going to grow the relationship. This is the same with growing in Christ and hearing from him.

I’ll leave you with one more song that came up on my placelist:

In the secret,
In the quiet place
In the stillness you are there
In the secret in the quite hour I wait, only for you
Cause I want to know you more

Next time you pray look who’s talking. Are you like that baby who does all of this talking throughout the movie, but nobody listens to or will you sit in silence and just long for His presence?

So anyway on my way out I walked along the hot, dry sand away from the tide because the water and air was freezing so I was doing everything to stay warm. As I was walking I took a good look at some sand that was inside of a clam shell that I picked up. It consisted of bits of rocks, smaller shell, and a lot of other random stuff. This made me think of how much we are like sand. Each one of us is made up of many differents parts; different personalities, past experiences, and everything else.

With that being said sand is found predominately in two places; the beach and desert. Everytime I have been to the Beach I always have a great time and no one is ever in a bad mood. Just on this walk I had a long conversation with a retired man and he told me his life story (by the way he had a golden retriever that was 7 months old) Any way everyone is chipper and there is just a lot of life on the beach ranging from the scurrying crabs to the tiny sand pipers that littering the shore line.

Now for the desert, the sand is incredible here but so is the heat. When was the last time that your family took a vacation to a desert or when have you ever in your life wandered around a desert for pleasure? The desert is seen as a lifeless, barren land, not many animals live there and the ones that do are very tough and live off of the bare minimun.

So what’s the main difference between these two geographical areas? It’s Jesus… wait I meant to say water, well no I mean both Jesus and water. Water is the main necessity to sustain life on this planet and that is the same with Christ. If we consider us as sand then the beach would be someone living with Christ in there life whereas the desert would not be. Having Christ in your life gives you eternal life and will be enough to sustain your every need.

Now to the return trip of my walk I chose to walk through the tide and numb my feet off. While I was walking I notice my foot prints going in the opposite direction. Usually I wouldn’t be able to pick out my foot prints on a beach but no one goes to the beach in March and if they do they all wear shoes unlike my barefootedness. Anywho after staring at the perfect shape of my massive big toe (Mikki) I was curious enough to look behind me and see what trail I was leaving in the tide. Well to no suprise there was no marks because the tide wiped away my traces. This is just like Jesus. Being a new creation in him, he will wipe away any past sins or experiences that have been burdenning you. Through him we are able to start fresh and become a new person. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17)

So at the end of this I started to walk back to the condo but before I came in, I sat at the end of some wooden contraption that over looked the ocean and remembered one last relation between Jesus and water, and that was how vast the both are. If you have ever stared out at the ocean you know what I’m talking about. This is same with the love of Jesus Christ, his love is so hiuge and it is unfathomable to try to comprehend the extent of it, just like the ocean.

After all of that I finally made it back to the condo. So for all of you who know how much I like to sketch off on walks, now you that my walks are usually because I ponder over something and if I do wander off next time just ask me to share what was going through my head and you will get another story like this one. Focus is usually on something God is telling me but the content is always different.

In His Name,

Yall have a great nights sleep since it is 4:47 am right now and I’m off to bed.