A Crimson Stain

Help.

My friend is in a dark place right now and i wanna help. We all have our issues and personal distractions that take us away from the Lord, well my friends issue is self-injury (cutting). One of her friends was texting her and telling her to throw her "tools" in the trash or something, and she responded "NO!" and then we tried calling her, but she turned her phone off.

Some one please tell how to minister to her cuz I haven't dealt with this issue before.
-DJ

Retreat Continued!

I'm posting a little bit more about what I got out of the Sky Ranch retreat I was at a few weekends ago. The theme here: God is SO HUGELY present in nature it's unfathomable, and we miss out on it more often than we know! This sort of lines up with something I discussed in the last post: taking things, blessings, for granted. To start, check out the lyrics of Phil Wickham's "Beautiful"

I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say
You're beautiful

I see Your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It's all proclaiming who you are
You're beautiful

While I was at Sky, it rained nearly the entire weekend. Now, at first thought, that sounds like a major bummer. Well guys, it was more of a blessing to me. I can't even really put into words how the Lord worked in my life simply through RAIN (this sounds super crazy, i know), but He DID. it's almost as if i could feel the rain washing away my failures and faults, just leaving me and God and time to share between us. it was AWESOME. one night i even took a walk, alone with God, in the rain. i was soaked and it was dark outside. i walked in pure joy that night, and i talked to the Lord about what i needed to give up to him and confess to him and trust him with. i told him my doubts, uncertainties, and failures. i literally walked and talked with God, in the pouring rain, drenched all the way down to my socks. it was such a blessing that i never even knew existed until i left the crowd of people who were warm inside, and went to the cold, windy rain. sound insane? for sure. but whatever happened strolling in the downpour that night, my heart was renewed, changed, set ON FIRE. i will never forget it. in that moment i felt as close to God as i ever have. that story didn't really do the night justice, so i'm challenging you to find God in nature on your own and meditate on it. let it marinate within you. one of my favorite ways to experience God (other than the rain) is the sky. find something personal this week. something that you can worship God in the presence of his creation. i dare you!

-Alexa

Keep this going!

Hey Quest,

I don't know why but I always like to randomly look at the older posts on here from this summer and even from the summer before that. I just looked at the January posts from 2010 and the last post was on January 27th (today!). Let's keep this blog going! I hope that it keeps going all the way up to this coming summer. I look forward to checking the blog all the time and every post encourages me so much, so please don't stop!

So to anyone reading this, keep posting! And if you're reading this and you haven't posted anything yet, post away!

I hope everything's going well for you guys :)
-Haley

"...whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God." 1 Corinthians 10:31

What He Saved Us From

Hey guys!
This is a kinda random post, but this has been on my mind a lot lately.
How many times do you think, "Man, I wish I'd never been in this situation, or met this person" or something. I do that a lot. Why did I have to have a pop quiz? Why did I have to have the meanest teacher?

But I was thinking, what if I didn't? I would never know that God saved me from that. Can you imagine what our lives would be like if God didn't save us from some of those people or instances? Our lives would be absolutely horrible, but God probably saves us about 1,000 times a day.

So, guys, thank God for all those things he saved you from that you don't know about. I hope this all made sense, it's kinda confusing. Basically, the Lord is good! :)

Hope you're all having a great second semester!
God bless!

More from the retreat

Hey guys I'm back, just wanted to share a little bit more from the retreat i went to at Sky a couple weekends ago. I'll sum up what I'm gonna talk about with this quote I made up during a moment of being thrilled with the Lord and his power.

"I've discovered that I love and even at times desire the feeling of brokenness. It reminds me of who God is, everything I'm not, yet all I hope to be."

Have any of you felt that way? Have you ever wanted to be broken for the sake of Christ? Ever considered it a blessing to suffer, to share in the sufferings of Christ? it's an odd feeling. but great at the same time. At the retreat (and a long while before that) my heart was, and is, broken. Broken for people who don't know Christ, who don't love Christ, or who just don't want a part of him. several times during worship we sang a song called "Beautiful Jesus" by Kristian Stanfill. Y'all heard it? well, i never had until the retreat. anyway, when they sang that song, we sang the chorus over and over and over again:

Beautiful Jesus,

Beautiful Savior,

nothing is greater,

Brilliant Creator,

Friend of mine.

Perfect in power,

matchless in glory,

nothing is greater,

Brilliant creator,

Friend of mine.

I just kept thinking in my head about people who don't have what I have, but they CAN! my heart broke more and more with each word i sang. it brought me to tears and in fact, before the song was over, i was weeping out of a broken heart and hurting soul...for others. now, i am a sinful human just like everyone else, so that love and brokenness was not of me, it was of the LORD. he allowed me to experience it to move me to action for his glory, even though a lot of times i take it for myself.

on a related note, think about how much we take for granted EVERY DAY. i bet every one of us could make a list of the things we don't think to be thankful for and it would be as long as, well, i don't know something long! sorry guys my analogies are lacking, i'm dead tired here...anyways, things like waking up every morning. God is perfectly capable of bringing you home whenever and however he wants to! we don't think about that all the time! every morning you wake up is another chance to serve him, serve others, love him, and love others. it's something i know i take for granted, but i'm working on it.

So, for my challenge to y'all (i feel like i always challenge you with something, so i'm gonna keep it up), every day you wake up, make GOD the very first thing you think of. Wake up and think or even say, "God, THANK YOU for waking me up this morning, for giving me another day to live here. I'm making this day about you and your glory. Help me do that today." Focus on him. just try it. make him the joy you have in waking up early, just because you know the fact that HE woke you up for a PURPOSE. so live like you know it!

-Alexa

Between A and B

Hey guys, I just wanted to give yall some encouragement. I've been kind of distressed lately because a lot of my friends already have their heads in college (we're juniors!). They set their sights soley on their grades and become obsessed with doing whatever it takes to get into the right school. Although acceptance to a good school is very important and rewarding we need to stop living from point A to point B. By that i mean that its important to live in the moment, we are here, in high school so we might as well make the best of it. God has given us simple joys and it is important that we learn to appreciate them. Take a break from studying, go hang out with your friends on the weekends, play sports while you still can. If you live your life putting everything you have into what comes next, you will never be satisfied. What kind of life would it be if we were putting everything we had into the next best thing while we put friendships, family or even our relationship with Christ on the back-burner? Our perspective: Once i get to college i can relax, and that leads to- once im in grad school i can relax, once i have the perfect career i can relax, once i get that promotion i can relax, as soon as i get that raise i can relax... In a competitive world its easy to get caught up in that but its important to realize that life happens between point A and point B. I know that a lot of yall are caught up in all this college stuff (myself included) and you are already mentally checked out of high school but i challenge you to question yourself and figure out what you are really living for. By no means am i saying that we should slack off and disregard our grades but instead i hope that we can take some time to truly be at peace with our current situation.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

Side note- Take some time to be quiet in front of The Lord, get down on your knees and listen. We often try so hard to fill our prayers with words but God knows our heart and there is nothing we could say that he doesnt already know. Be still and listen.

Help? :)

Hey Quest! I need your help!

My class and I are going on a retreat in February and I'm giving a witness talk about freedom, what it means to be set free in Chirst, and how that is different from the world's view of freedom. The theme of the retreat is "set free." If anyone has any Bible verses or stories or anything at all about freedom that I could use for my witness talk that would be great! Comment on this post and let me know!

Thank you!

P.S. Pleaseeeeee keep this blog going! The last post from last year's Quest group was right around this time...don't stop posting, keep it going! :)

-Haley

the most important book out there

Hey guys! it's been a little bit since i last posted...life is craaaazy! anyways, i've got a quick story and challenge for you guys. i think y'all will like it.

so last weekend my church went to a retreat at sky ranch. it was sweet! one of the messages the speaker challenged us with was about reading the Bible. this one probably hit me the hardest. he asked us, "How many of you have read the Bible?" people began to raise their hands. he continued, "I mean, the whole Bible.."

13 people out of 180 had read the entire Bible--every word. i haven't. he shared with us that as Christians, we have a HUGE credibility problem. how can we claim to believe the Bible if we don't even know entirely what it says? if we haven't even given our best attempt to read it all? so, i challenge you all, every one of you, to read the whole Bible. i am. and even if you've read most of it, start over and read the whole thing. if you have read the entire thing, AWESOME. do it again. you can never read too much of the Bible.

hopefully i can keep posting little things i learned and encountered from the sky ranch retreat last weekend. keep me accountable, PLEASE! text me, comment on here, facebook me, whatever. i'm working on priorities so i need y'all's help with this! love you guys so much

-Alexa :]

Off the top of my Head

hey everbody.

So last night was my school's talent show, and if you guys saw my last post "Help me find our reason to live instead," i asked for verses that said Christ is our reason for living because He died on the cross. I want to share with you guys my speech before we started our performance.

"'Hebrews 12:2-3: Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Pioneer and Perfector of faith, for the joy set before Him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary or lose heart.'"

"This verse is one that brings me joy, but the part that gets to me is the first part, 'Fixing our eyes on Jesus.' There's so much distraction in our world today that we don't remember Jesus nearing at all. So, at this time, PUT ASIDE EVERYTHING. put aside your cellphones, your side conversations, all your stressors. EVERYTHING in your life that is bringing you pain, put it aside for three minutes, and lets remember what our reason to live is."

I didn't rehearse that speech at all. The words literally came to me as I was up on the stage. I felt so good after we performed and so at peace with God.

As soon as you are done reading this last sentence, write down everything in your life that is hurting you on a piece of paper, and throw it in the trash. Give it to God.

I love His deliverance!

Hey Quest! I just wanted to give y'all an update on the Bible Study my friends and I started at my school. It's going sooo well! About 10 or 15 people come to each meeting, and we have really good discussions! And we're still going through James. So if anyone's looking for a prayer request, pray for the people in our Bible study! That their faith may be strengthened and they may serve as Christ's light in our school, in their families, and in our community. Thank you!

And Erin thank you for coming to the meeting! I hope you can come to the next one! I just love that we go to the same school! :)

I hope everything's going well for you guys! Keep this blog going!
-Haley

For Erin!

Erin, we will have a Bible Connections club meeting this Friday! I just sent out the email. If you didn't get it, the meeting will be in SU1 during club time. You can bring your own Bible if you want to, but Ms. Killian will have some in her room. Let me know if you didn't get the email. Hope you can come! :)

-Haley

Something to live by :)

1 Corinthians 16:14

"Your EVERY act should be done with LOVE."

Keep that in mind this week and always. Love never fails (1 Cor 13:8).

-Haley

Help me find our reason to live instead

Hey people, it's 11:30 at night and i thought to myself...... "'hey the Questblog." (i know that was random)

anyway, i had band practice today, and it turns out that we're changing songs for the talent show and i need to find new verses to give the song kind of an intro.

So do u guys know any verses that tell how christ is our reason for living because He died for us.

-DJ

Not-Sure-How-To-Title-This

Hey guys!

This is a little random, but how do you guys memorize verses? I can usually remember what it says, and often the book, but I have a lot of trouble remembering the chapter and verse, so I can't go back to it if I need to. I've tried doing the first-letter-on-my-arm thing, but I'm still having this problem.

Thanks!

Trust and Heaven

Hey guys! Just thought I'd share some things God has been showing me lately.

I don't know why, but recently I've been really trusting God with everything. I'm not going through anything really difficult or anything, so it's not really leaning, as much as not worrying about things I can't control. It's seriously such a great feeling to know that God has you in his hands, and if you can't control it, he will.

Also, I've been really excited to go to heaven, which sounds kinda weird, but it's really not. I'm not gonna go kill myself or anything, because I know God will take me to heaven when he wants to, but I've just been thinking about it a lot. Nothing on Earth can compare to heaven, and I'm just looking forward to it so much!

I think that's pretty much it. The Lord has blessed me so much the past couple weeks with just a feeling of happiness when I think about him, and I really wanted to share it with you.

Keep posting! You guys rock!

happy new year or at least happy two weeks into the new year. better late than never. i just want to share what is going on in my life in hopes that you will be encouraged, challenged, and that you would pray for me.

well for beginners, i start off my last semester with two new roomates. both are godly women who love the lord and want to glorify him in all they say and do. their personalities are completely different yet they mesh well. quite funny actually. and then you throw me in the midst of that and you get a reality tv show. and i bet it would be awesome! ;)

second. there is a part of me that dreads this softball season with every fiber of my being and i think its because im just burnt out. i think 21 years of one sport is enough time to become weary of it. but instead of seeing this as an incredible ministry opportunity, i see it as a dreadful thing im obligated to do. it is incredible selfish of me and thats not ok.

numero three. im in a season life where i must decide what to do about my future. do i go to grad school for sports management or do i go to seminary? it may not sound like that hard of a decision but i often feel like i must make a decision that will affect my whole life...and im only 21! i know that the lord has placed before me different opportunities to glorify him and i pray that i choose something that will stretch my faith and that will glorify him, but at the same time i have these sweet moments where i freak out...quite funny.

so i close with this. i need prayer. i need you to have my back because we are a bevolution. we are a family. brothers and sisters in christ. i need you to pray that the lord takes my perspective of softball and turns it upside down. not so that i will enjoy it more but that through my enjoyment, he may be glorified.

i need prayer for discernment for my future. pray that i will choose something out of my comfort zone so i have no choice but to rely on him and that doing so, he will provide ample opportunities to glorify his name.

any ideas?

hey quest!

you may remember alexa's post a while ago about her idea to stay up all night and pray. well i thought that was a really good idea so i told my youth pastor about it and said i thought it would be a cool thing for our youth group to do together. Anyway, we're going to do it with our church and a few other churches in febuary, and i have the task of making like an hour by hour schedule of what we're going to pray for, and when we're going to have worship and stuff like that. we also have 4 rooms to use so things can be going on in the other rooms too.

anyway, if anyone has any suggestions i would greatly appreciate them! and thanks alexa for this idea in the first place!

-Hannah

it's all about progress.

I just found this awesome song called "Change in the Making" by Addison Road. Listen to it if you get a chance! I think sometimes when people want to be a better person, they expect to get better immediately. This song is really cool because it talks about how it's all about progress, and change won't happen right away. It takes time. This is something that has really played out in my life recently. I'm constantly asking God to make me more patient and loving...and I kind of got mad at God when I didn't become patient and loving right away. But it takes time. Every day things get better, and eventually we'll become the person we want to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2drg8FtBg

"This is redemption story, with every step that I'm taking. Everyday You're chipping away what I don't need. This is me under construction. This is my pride being broken. Everyday I'm closer to who I'm meant to be. I'm a change in the making."

-Haley

Please read, Haley!

Hi Haley!
It's club meeting time, and I can't remember if the Bible study is on A or B week! I know it's probably to late now if it's B, but please let me know! Thanks!
-Erin

LIVE IT.

Alexa's post below inspired me to be honest with you guys too. So to be honest, I'm really disappointed in myself right now because I'm having such a hard time actually living out my faith. If we believe in God and all He did for us, that's awesome. But if we don't actually LIVE out our faith, then what is the point of believing in what we believe in? This is reminding me of what DJ said back at the Quest reunion..."God can't be just a part of your life; He has to BE your life." Sure, God is a part of all our lives. We all go to church, youth groups, Bible studies, etc. But are we actually LIVING it out? Are we actually turning Biblical truth into ACTION? It almost seems as if the things we learn at these places are a waste if we don't actually live them out, if we don't actually try to live with loving, generous, selfless hearts that want to glorify God.

Romans 3:10-11
"As it is written: There is no one just, not one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God." As humans, we are so sinful in nature. And it's our natural inclination just to learn about the Gospel but not actually live out the Gospel. It's natural for us to "seek God" while we are at Sky Ranch or church or whatever, but we completely forget about seeking Him when we are out in the real world.

James 1:22-25
"Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror. He seems himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like. But the one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessed in what he does."

Titus 1:16
"They claim to know God, but by their DEEDS, they DENY Him. They are vile and disobedient and unqualified for ANY good deed."

I posted about this a long time ago, but once I saw a book called "The Christian Atheist." Under the title, it said, "Believing in God, but living as if He doesn't exist." Think about that...

Love you!
Haley