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Dedication Through Tough Times
On Friday, my little brother got a knee surgery. This is a hard thing to overcome in both dealing with the pain and dealing with recovery. He will have to be in crutches for 6 weeks which is another obstacle he will have to overcome. His life will be hard for the next few weeks and I feel for him. He is getting his meniscus repaired, which will allow him better range of motion to his damaged knee. He will have to be dedicated to a full recovery so he can come back for the baseball season.
This whole knee surgery sounds pretty awful right? Well imagine having to go through this operation 3 times!!!! I know I would not be able to handle this! When unfortunate events happen to us, the question usually comes up “why did this happen to me?” We have to trust that God is at work in every aspect of our lives. In my brother’s case, he is trying to get into the military academy. This is extremely hard to accomplish and if he does so, it will be something worth trying for. To get into the military academy, one must be dedicated and willing to do hard in both the classroom and in life in general. With God having Jake go through his 3 knee surgerys, he is teaching Jake to preserver and to be dedicated.
God uses everything for good! Through tough times he can bring us closer to him or teach us things that will prepare us for later in life. Look how God is using 3 knee surgerys to teach Jake dedication to prepare him in his attempt to get into the military academy.
Romans 8:37-39
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord Through Christ we are more than conquerors. Nothing can separate us from his love.”
If God called us to be more than conquers, then we have to expect to have obstacles. The good news is that God uses these obstacles that we overcome with Him to better ourselves and our faith.
#ballinforChrist
Immersing Yourself
Through my travels as an 18 year old,I have learned a lot but yet, I still have a lot to learn. There is one thing I have picked up on life and it is the importance of surrounding yourself with positive and God loving people. Doing so keeps your heart and mind toward God at all times. In a secular world, it may be tough to do so but this makes it even more important. For me, I know how easy it is to slip up; and I want nothing more than to grow in my faith with Jesus Christ. As my youth pastor Bubba Smith says, “We need to cross the line and not look back in our journey towards seeking Jesus Christ.” I find this so inspirational and one way to help you cross the line and not look back is to set up reminders everywhere you look. I try to follow people who are on fire for God on twitter so I can see what they do to seek God. I also follow many organizations that tweet bible verses. This keeps me always thinking about God’s word. Also, every sunday I exchange bible verses with my great friend and baseball coach, Joe Baisle. Today he sent me Deuteronomy 10:12, “12 And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,” This goes right along with what I am writing this blog about. This verse says to serve, love, and obey Him. A great way of doing this is to immerse every aspect of your life with God’s word. If you do this I can guarantee you will see him working in your life in more ways you could ever think of! I am continually amazed by how God works in my life!
#ballinforChrist
College Recruiting Rollercoaster
Some of you may know and some of you may not but I recently committed to The Ohio State University on a baseball scholarship. Looking at the end result of this process may look like it was all glamor and smiles. But actually, things were bleak at times and I sometimes even started to doubt who I was as a person and especially as a baseball player. Looking back on the whole process knowing what the end outcome would be, I realized how foolish I was. I started to doubt God and the role he played in the whole process.
Now let me go back to a time where dreams were set high and I thought I could conquer the baseball world. I was just entering my junior year and I was asked to come on a visit to Stetson University in Orlando, Florida. I went down and when I did they offered me a scholarship pretty close to a full ride. I was ecstatic and immediately gave glory to God (which is easy to do when things are go well). Just when I thought things couldn’t get better, Virginia Tech started to show some major interest and even came to see two of my high school games; one of the coaches being the head coach. I went and took a visit there and fell in love! I would walk around campus saying things like “when I come here” and “after I go here” instead of praying about my decision and thinking about where God wants me to go. But why should I care about things like that? Things were going great! I was doing this all by myself… This is when things took a turn for the worse. VT called and said they were no longer going to recruit me and that they were going to move on. I can not explain how hurt I was. All I thought I was going to have was being flushed away like the goldfish you really loved. And once again, like I do so many times, when things got bad I turned to God. I prayed telling him that I was turning the whole process over to God and putting it in his hands. My dad said it best when he told me that I could not trust God with some things and not with others.
It wasn’t a week later and I started to get phone calls from Arizona State. For those of you who do not follow college baseball, ASU is a top 5 program year in and year out. I had conversations with the coach quite often and my dad even spoke to the athletic director on numerous occasions. Instead of doing the same thing I had done with VT and tried a prayerless and not trusting approach to my decision, I remembered that I was going to trust God with the whole process. To make a long story short, the same thing happened with ASU that had happened with VT. They said they wanted to see me again and were unable to because I was in the State Tournament with my Legion team. Who knows; if I chose to attend the tournament in Indiana where ASU was going to see me again, maybe I would have gotten am offer to the school. But after prayer, I chose to stay with my team in the tournament, ultimately losing any chance to have ASU see me again and offer a scholarship.
After ASU backed out, it would have been easy to have the same emotions I had with the VT situation. But instead, I had turned it over to God knowing he had a plan for me like he promises in Jeremiah 29:11 (11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future). And to top it off, Stetson had pulled their scholarship in the same week so now I had nothing. I needed to trust God more than ever. I knew he had a plan and I was anxious to watch it play out.
With summer baseball coming to an end I was looking forward to the exposure I would get with the Allegheny Pirates. After the first weekend both Georgetown and Temple university showed strong interest. I visited both schools and got scholarships but I did not feel comfortable making my decision quite yet. I wanted to see what the rest of the fall season had to offer. So going into the last weekend not really sold on either Georgetown or Temple, we made the trip out to Ohio State for our last tournament. I had no idea what God had planned for me in the next week.
I thought I played real well at OSU and apparently they thought so also. I received a phone call from the head coach, Coach Beals, early that next week and went on a visit that Wednesday. I loved it there and they offered me a scholarship that week and I made my commitment soon after that. I could not have been any happier!
It was amazing how throughout the whole process I had no idea where I was going to end up. If I learned anything, it was that I need to trust God in everything I ever have to face. God knew where I was going to end up going to school before I even went to kindergarten! I was taught that turning everything over to God makes the stress of situations go away because of my rooted faith in God! I have to thank him for teaching me this lesson in high school so I will be ready for any challenge I will have in my life.
Tebow Time
I recently just read an article on my man Tim Tebow. This article goes into the happenings before the game in which he lead his team to yet another come form behind victory. His 4th quarter antics are surreal but many still question how long these will last. I firmly believe that as long as he is seeking God (Matthew 6:33) he will do great things. Tebow can conquer any adversity he faces because he has curried favor with God. Now getting back to the article, Tebow’s coach found it necessary for him to give the pregame speech. Tebow went and did so and inspired his team. They rallied around him to achieve a common goal. Just imagine the impact we can have on each other’s lives of we were to do what Tebow said in his speech. As iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another.
On the night before he delivered the Denver Broncos to their fourth straight win, Tim Tebow was asked by coach John Fox to address his teammates.
According to the Denver Post, Tebow turned to the Bible, quoting Proverbs 27:17: “Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
Tebow’s motivational message worked. The Broncos put together their third fourth-quarter comeback since Tebow took over for starter Kyle Orton, rallying past rival San Diego for a 16-13 overtime win.
“He said iron sharpens iron and men sharpen other men. And I think that’s totally true,” rookie linebacker Von Miller told The Post. “He gave us a great speech. We came out (for the game) fired up. And that was a wrap.”
Tebow, when told of his teammates’ reaction to Saturday’s speech, was touched.
“It was a huge honor,” Tebow told The Post of being given the chance to speak. “I just tried to share from the heart.”
For the first time all season, Tebow completed at least half of his passes Sunday, going 9 for 18 for 188 yards and had strikes of 39 yards to Eric Decker and 23 to Dante Rosario on the game-tying drive late in the fourth quarter.
“I’ve never seen a human who can will himself to win like that,” Miller told The Post.
The Broncos (6-5) are 5-1 under Tebow and have forced their way into the race for a playoff spot. They face the Vikings in Minnesota on Sunday.
Information from The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7296591/john-fox-asked-tim-tebow-talk-denver-broncos-saturday
9/11 “All God, All the Time”
Hey bloggers! It has been awhile since I have last posted but a good friend of mine, DJ Damazo, has asked me to forward his take on 9/11 to as many people as possible. I am going to be honest and say it has changed me! Take a look below and check it out. It will be worth your time!
As I was coming home from church today, I could not stop thinking about my Pastor Larry Bettencourt’s message about hope and the tragic events of 9/11. These thoughts made me realize many things and I feel that God has called me to write them down and share them with whoever may read this. We all know what happened ten years ago. We all know where we were. We all know how we felt. Many people wanted to put a blame on someone or something so they blamed these events on God. “Why would God do this?” or “How could God do this to innocent people?” Two of the verses that Pastor Larry shared today were Jeremiah 29:11 which says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” and also John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” These verses really hit home and show that if you trust in the Lord, He will get you through anything because He knows what he has in store for you.
While many people put blame on God, many also turned to God in this time of dismay. On September 12, 2001, many people went to church to pray about what happened and the majority were people that did not attend church on a regular basis. Also, church attendances for not only the following Sunday but for the following month had sky rocketed. After this month, however, church attendance went back to the normal numbers. It is great that people turned to God during these times of need but to develop a real relationship with God you must turn to Him or have Him with you no matter what. It is easy to turn to God when you have a problem. The difficult thing is to maintain that relationship with God. Not to belittle or disrespect the people that died on September 11 but if you think about it, every day is like the horrible day of 9/11, just on a lesser scale. Obviously there are not always acts of terrorism but there are still thousands of people dying from crazy people, drug usage, and many other horrible things that happen every single day. In the sinful world that we live in today, God must be the center of everything in life because only He can provide comfort, answers, and love through the good times and through the bad times.
After writing this, I guess the purpose was intended to the people that do not take their faith as serious as they may want or should and want to take it to the next step. Are you someone that only turns to God in times of trouble or need? I’m not going to lie, I was once was that guy. I always loved God and believed in him 100 percent but it was not until I started taking my faith more seriously that i realized how great our God is and the power He has in our every day life. I realize that you have to glorify Him in everything that you do and trust Him with all of your heart, no matter what. Sometimes it takes a tragic event like 9/11 to make you realize that you need have God in your every day life. Do not be a person that only turns to God in times of need. Be a person that honors God in everything that you do. I can tell you that ever since I took this next step in my faith, I could not be happier in life. Sure, there have been many hard times throughout but I know and trust that God has a plan for me and loves me and will help me through any of these troubles. I don’t know how many people will read this or if anyone will even read this but if you do I challenge you to take the next step in your faith and realize the power of the almighty God and how much He loves you. If that’s the only thing that you take out of this then I will be a happy boy. Do not give up hope in God because he certainly will not give up in you.
If you have any questions or need help on staying on fire for Christ email DJ or Pastor Larry:
djdamazo@geneva.edu
larryb@mychampionlife.com
Dexter! aka Greatest Show Ever
I woke up this morning super excited because my dad brought home season 3 of Dexter for me and Jake to watch. We love this show! The basic synopsis of it (without spoiling it) is a the main character, Dexter, witnessed his mother being murdered at the age of 3. This made him obsessed with blood and turned him into a serial killer…. but he only kills people who got away with murder, so its ok right? Ill leave that for you to decide but the reason I lov the show is because of its many many many twists and turns.
Twists and turns can often be entertaining to watch but when you have to live these “entertaining” occurances, things aren’t as fun. When your life takes a turn for the worst, one thing that stays constant and in control is God. So next time your watching Dexter, or your life has a twist, keep Jesus in control and dont try to live through it by yourself. #winning
