You Are Not Alone

I recently heard a song on the radio that made me think. I love songs that make me think. This particular song was called “No Man Is an Island” by Tenth Avenue North. If you haven’t heard it, you really need to look it up. The core message of the song is that we’re created for community, to do life together. When talking about the song, band member Mike Donehey said, “You’re made like God. That’s why you feel lonely. You’re made for others.”

Wow. What a powerful statement. The idea that God created each of us with a deep desire connect with others—to know and be known by fellow humans—astounds me. In a world that bombards us with the idea that we must be totally independent of one another, God calls us to interdependence. It’s not just something He wants for us. He’s encoded it in our DNA.

The yearning for community is something we inherited from God. I believe it’s one of the many things God was referring to when He said, “Let us make man in Our image” (Genesis 1:26). We serve one God who exists in three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three persons coexist in harmonious community with one another. They form the perfect balance of interdependence. This model of community is the one that we should seek to emulate as we interact with each other and be drawn into as we interact with God.

So there’s nothing wrong with the desire for community. In fact, it’s a desire that God placed in all of us, and we actually got it from Him. Many people feel like they’re weak or codependent when they feel lonely and crave true human interaction, but that’s the wrong way of looking at it. Everyone feels that way sometimes because we all fail at one point or another to fulfill the need that God has placed in us to connect with other people. And that loneliness is just God’s way of reminding us, “Hey, you were made to be in community with other people, remember?”

But it’s not enough to just have superficial interactions with others. Although casual conversations or even just a smile from the stranger on the street can be nice sometimes, we all want more than that. We all want to know and be deeply known by other people. We want to share our deepest feelings, our greatest experiences, and our darkest moments with others. There’s something in us that just isn’t satisfied until we have that. That’s normal. That’s OK. In fact, it’s good. Because we all need that. It’s just the way we are.

Communities come in many shapes and sizes, and there’s no one-size-fits-all way to form and maintain one. But whether it be a group of friends from school, a small group from church, or some close family members, we all need the support and fulfillment that we can only get from connecting with others in a deep, meaningful way. We all yearn for community.

So if you’re feeling lonely, I want you to know that it’s OK. In fact, it’s probably good. It means that you recognize your need for community. Maybe you’re like me and have a tendency to keep to yourself most of the time, and you just need that little tug on your heart from God to remind you that you were made for more than that. Please know that you are not alone. God made you for community, and there are other people out there just like you looking for someone to connect with. All you have to do is reach out and find them.

Thank you guys for reading. I hope this blog post has meant something to you. I know it’s something that’s been on my heart. I am so thankful for the awesome people that God has placed in my life to support and encourage me, especially for my church mentors and friends that I get to see and work with day in and day out. On that note, I’d like to give a shoutout to my friend from church Amy Ward, who asked me to include her in my blog post this week for some reason. Check out her shop Amy’s Attic on Facebook and tell her hello for me! Thanks again for reading, friends, and I’ll see you on Saturday for Stuff Devon Likes: Transformers Edition.

Suits

Hello and welcome to this week’s Stuff Devon Likes, my weekly post where I talk about something that I think is cool and want to share with you guys. This week, we’ll be talking about Suits, a TV show on USA that I’m really into right now.

A lot of people are intrigued by the law. There are countless TV shows and movies that center around lawyers and the cases they take on. There’s something about seeing justice served (or not) that draws our attention. But Suits is no ordinary lawyer show.

Suits centers on Mike Ross, a young man with a brilliant mind. He is very interested in law. In fact, he’s studied hard for the LSAT. He can get a nearly perfect score on it. The problem? Instead of going to college and taking the LSAT for himself, Mike takes the test for other people in exchange for money. But despite the fact that he’s never been to law school or even college, he has a passion for the law.

Enter Harvey Specter, a big-time lawyer who never loses and bores easily. After a chance encounter, Harvey and Mike decide to team up and take on the bad guys together. It seems like the ideal situation. Harvey gets a bright new associate and Mike gets his dream job. Unfortunately, trying to practice law while covering up the fact that you’ve never been to law school proves difficult, and thus the drama unfolds.

Suits has a great cast of characters other than Mike and Harvey. There’s Donna, Harvey’s assistant who knows everything; Jessica, the managing partner at Harvey’s firm; Rachel, the paralegal who catches Mike’s eye; Louis, Harvey’s rival within the firm; Trevor, Mike’s drug-dealing best friend; and more. Each character has some really cool moments, but I would have to say my favorite character is Louis Litt. If it’s any indication of how hilarious he is, his catchline is, “You just got Litt up!”

I enjoy Suits not only because the premise is really interesting, but because the characters are people you really come to care about. They’re very full and dynamic characters, and I’ve grown attached to them. The emotional connection the viewer has with the characters on Suits makes it a very compelling show that will keep you coming back for more.

Another cool thing about Suits is the story arcs. You’ll think an issue is resolved, but then it will come back a few weeks later and be worse than before. Several stories play out over multiple episodes, heightening the tension and making the resolution really satisfying. The fact that they can make you wait but still keep you interested is very impressive.

Suits just started up its fourth season on USA, and it’s still going strong. Check it out and let me know what you think of it! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you guys next week.

Knowing God

I’m sure most of you have heard the proverbial story of the blind men who were led up to an elephant and asked to tell what it was. One of them touched the elephant’s tail and concluded that he was feeling a rope. The second, who was touching the elephant’s ear, said, “No, it’s a fan!” A third blind man was touching the elephant’s tusk and said, “You’re both wrong. It’s a spear!” Finally, a fourth man touched the elephant’s trunk and exclaimed, “It’s a snake!”

It’s an amusing story that we’ve all heard before, but no matter how many times we hear it, we still struggle to truly take its message to heart. In the story, the blind men represent us, and the elephant represents God. We all grasp to understand God, and we all get a glimpse of who He is, but if we’re not careful, we can fall into the trap of assuming that the glimpse of God that we are capable of seeing is all there is to Him, and that everyone else should see Him the exact same way. And like the blind men, we end up shouting foolish things at each other instead of trying to understand the greater truth in front of us.

I’ve recently been reading the book of Job, and it reminded me of the reality of this problem. In the story, Job, a godly man, loses all of his earthly possessions, most of his family, and his own health in a very short period of time. While he is mourning, his friends come to comfort him, but instead they engage in grand theological debates about why Job is suffering even though he claims to have done no wrong. Job and his three friends argue until finally they run out of things to say. And then, Elihu, the youngest of the group, breaks the silence that he’s been exercising throughout the entire ordeal and calls all of them out.

Now I like Elihu. He’s the only of of Job’s friends that I approve of. When he steps forward to speak, he doesn’t try to convince Job that he has done something wrong to deserve his punishment like Job’s other friends did. He simply tells Job and his friends that their arguments are meaningless because they’re all based on inadequate understandings of God. You see, Job and his friends had fallen into the trap of thinking they completely understood God. They each had their own definitions of who God is and how He should work, and they refused to allow room for anything else. But Elihu pointed out the arrogance of these arguments.

“Stop and consider the wondrous works of God. Do you know how God lays His command upon them and causes the lightning of His cloud to shine? Do you know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge, you whose garments are hot when the earth is still because of the south wind? Can you, like Him, spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror? Teach us what we shall say to Him; we cannot draw up our case because of darkness.” —Job 37:14–19

Elihu points out that there is always more to God than we can understand. Whatever we know about God, there is more to Him than that. Always. Even if we spend our entire lives trying to learn everything about Him, He is infinitely more complex and amazing than we could possibly imagine. How awesome a God is that?

So what do we do then? Do we give up on understanding God? Do we resort, as some people have, to defining God only by what He is not (such as, “God is not evil”)? No! We are each created with a deep yearning to know God and to be known by Him, and we can’t let the fact that God is not completely knowable stop us from seeking to learn as much about Him as we can. It’s in our DNA. He wants us to desire to know Him more. And so like the blind men in the story should have done, we collaborate with each other as we explore who God is to the best of our abilities.

And God has given us plenty of ways to know Him. On the most basic level, He makes Himself known through the awe and wonder of the universe. We can find Him in nature, in the stars, in a simple sunset. He also makes Himself known in us. He created each of us with a piece of Himself built in, and so we can seek to know Him better by trying to find Him reflected in those around us. He has revealed Himself through His living word, the Bible. We can study the scriptures and continually find out new things about Him there. He reveals Himself through the Holy Spirit, that still, small voice inside every Christian that guides us, reprimands us when we need it, and ultimately shows us more about who God is. And finally, He has revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. We can read about Him, talk to Him, and have a relationship with Him in which we know Him and are known by Him. What could be more fulfilling than that?

As we seek to learn more about God, we should always be careful not to fall into trap of thinking we understand exactly who God is, that we have the definition of God and everyone else is wrong. I think Brant Hansen (my all-time favorite Air1 radio host) put it best when he said, “If you think you completely understand God, then the God you worship doesn’t exist.” The God we serve is infinitely vast, infinitely complex, and infinitely wonderful. We should celebrate that as we seek to know Him more and ultimately become more like Him.

22

Hello, friends! If you were expecting this blog post to be an in-depth review and analysis of the popular Taylor Swift song, I’m sorry to disappoint. Although I do enjoy that song, the reason this week’s Stuff Devon Likes article is called 22 is that it’s doubling as a life update. Today is my 22nd birthday!

That’s right. I can officially say that I’m “feeling 22” and not be lying. Although I’m not doing anything particularly spectacular today, and I don’t feel any different than I did yesterday, I still thought today would be a good opportunity to reflect. And so I’ve decided to write this week’s Stuff Devon Likes post about birthdays. If you’d like to hear my thoughts on the subject, read on.

I’ve never completely understood the big deal about birthdays. I mean, it’s nice to have all these people texting me, writing on my Facebook wall, and sending me cards wishing me a happy birthday, but I don’t totally get it. It doesn’t particularly feel different from any other day. It’s not like I’m completely different today than I was yesterday, when I was a mere 21 years of age. But for some reason, it’s a big deal that today is my birthday.

What is a birthday, anyway? Is it just a celebration of the anniversary of one’s birth? We all know how much people love anniversaries. We even celebrate the anniversaries of horrible atrocities. And I’ve got an app on my phone called Timehop that tells me exactly what I was doing and sharing a year ago today, making everyday the anniversary of something. But I think a birthday is somehow more than that. Sure the date coincides with the date of your birth, but it can’t just be about the anniversary.

Maybe it’s a celebration that you’re getting older. We do have milestone birthdays, after all. When you turn five, you know you’re going to start school soon. Sixteen-year-olds get to drive. When you turn 18, you’re an adult and assumably almost done with high school. Twenty-two is the age that a lot of people are when they finish college nowadays. So maybe, at least up to a certain point, birthdays are used to celebrate the fact that you’re getting older and moving up to a new place in society. But our society also puts a huge emphasis on youth, and a lot of people start to dread birthdays as they get older because it’s a reminder of their aging, so I don’t think that’s completely it, either.

I think ultimately, birthdays are just special days where you take a little extra time to acknowledge people and let them know you’re glad they’re in your life. It’s not that you couldn’t do that on any other day. But birthdays offer a special reminder once a year to connect with someone and say, “Hey, I’m glad you’re here, and I hope you’re doing well.” To me, that’s what makes birthdays so special. It’s a nice reminder of all the people that care about you and are invested in your life. That’s why I love my birthday, and that’s why I love telling people happy birthday on their special days. To remind them that they’re important to me, even if it’s just by saying a few simple words.

So thank you to everyone who has wished me a happy birthday today. You’ve all made it very special. Twenty-one was a great year, but I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me at 22. I know it’s going to be a great one, and I’m excited to share it with each of you. Have a great day, and I’ll see you guys on Tuesday!

June 2014

Well, another month has come and gone. That just blows my mind. I can’t believe June is already over! Between church camp, the mission trip, and working at the church, it’s all gone by so fast! But here we are on July 1, so it’s time for another life update blog post. Here’s what I’ve been up to in June.

For me, June was a month of traveling. I was gone three weeks this month, literally starting on June 1. That was the first day of teen camp at Camp Beaverfork. I stayed with the Cavanaugh teens and the praise band from Maple. We had a good time. I ran computer for the worship services and classes, so I managed to avoid spending too much time in the sun. But it was fun to hang out with the guys and to worship God with a good group of teens, even if the numbers were a little low because a lot of schools were still in session.

Teen camp ended on Thursday afternoon, so while I was in the area, I went to Cabot to visit with my friend Ross. We went to lunch and then saw The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (my third time to see it, still so good). It was nice to catch up with him for a bit. Then I went home, worked Friday, and relaxed Saturday. But on Sunday, it was time to hit the road again.

I wasn’t able to go to junior high week of camp because that was the week my church went on our mission trip to Hillsdale College in Moore, OK. We painted the dorms, replaced the furniture in their lobby, and even renovated the outside of one of the buildings. It was a lot of hard work, but it was rewarding, and everyone loved being able to spend time with our friends from the Alabama children’s home who came to work with us. After we finished working, we got to spend a day in Oklahoma City taking the kids back-to-school shopping. I was privileged to get to go shopping with my friend Seth, and we found him some awesome new clothes. It was a really fun trip.

When we got home from the mission trip on Friday, I was exhausted. I did my best to recuperate during my day and a half at home. On Sunday morning, I led children’s services at Ozark Free Will Baptist Church, and then I had Father’s Day lunch with my family. After that, it was time for my last road trip of the month.

I headed back to Camp Beaverfork for two back-to-back sessions of kids camp. During the first session, I stayed with the Cavanaugh group, and the second session, I counseled a couple of boys from Ozark who didn’t have an adult with them. I had fun hanging out with the kids and running computer and sound during services and classes. Who doesn’t love a little bit of children’s worship from time to time? But by the time Saturday rolled around, I was ready to come home.

So now my life is temporarily back to normal, if you can call it that. I’m back at home and working at the church every day. There’s some really exciting stuff going on at Cavanaugh Church right now, and I’m putting my all into it, so I guess you could say I’m the good kind of tired. But I’m loving every second of it, and I’m trying to learn and do as much as I can during my limited time here.

I’m starting to realize just how close my big move to Waco is. I’m applying for jobs in the area, and I looked at my calendar recently and accidentally discovered the first big church event that I’m going to have to miss because I’ll be away. It was a sad moment, but it’s also very exciting. I can’t wait to study God’s word and His work full-time, and I know He’s leading me to Waco for a purpose.

My running is going really well. I’ve been doing it for six weeks now, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I’m feeling good, eating better, and just really satisfied with the way things are going. The next step is to start meditating, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while but never got around to. I started it yesterday, so I’ll let you know in my July update how it goes.

To those of you who actually read down this far, thank you for keeping up with my life! I’ve got a lot going on, and I love sharing it with each of you. I’d love to hear what you’re up to, so contact me, and we’ll talk. Have a great July, friends, and I’ll see you later!