Going to tell it on the mountain

Well, I'm off to Colorado for 2 weeks. I know that I need time away from all the stress, from life taking it's tole on my mind and my body. I know, also, that the enemy would love to take this time to dishearten me and make me all the worse, but I trust my father with that and with what will happen this trip. For those of you who are reading this, I just ask that you would pray over this time away, that I would find God up there on the mountains and that he would swallow me up in his arms. Also if you would pray that I would get lost, yes lost. I have found that God likes to operate off the beaten path and away from the chaos, so I need to loose myself.
There is so much that I have planned on this trip to do, so many things that I would like to finish and others that I would like to begin, yet sometimes I feel like I am creating more pressure on myself to replace the pressure that I am leaving behind. I don't know, I think that I will just get there and see how it goes; I don't want to box myself in and not let God work in me. I see it as leaving pages in my journal for God to write on, words that I would not say or words that could not come from me. It's time for me to get to bed now, so once again, I ask you to pray on my behalf; pray the words that could not come from me. I thank God for these brothers and sisters that he has given to walk with me on this road; God bless you all.
Christopher Coan

Why Me?

Why me? Why did you choose me God? Why did you pull me out and call me to something greater?

These are all questions that have raced through my mind recently, questions that have really made me dig deep and find answers. I was getting no where. I have found that it is very hard to understand God in our own time and on our own sets of rules and boundaries. It is like searching for stars in the full light of day; It is impossible to accomplish. But in this search, God has showed me so many things about who I am and what I am and about, most importantly, love, what it means and what it is. Yet there were still so many unanswered questions and gaps left in my understanding that I could not tell you why I am the way I am.

We went to see Avatar today. Unbelievable. Yes, this has a point, one that totally woke me up and changed my life. I didn't really know what to expect from this movie thanks to the mysterious nature of the previews that were shown months prior. I sat and watched the movie, expecting to see some totally heart racing action and some romance or whatever, but what I found in this movie was so much more than that. There is one scene, when Jake just gets lost in the jungle and the nocturnal hunters of the night begin to close in one him. Just at the moment when all hope seems lost for any survival, Neytiri, a native Na'vi comes to his rescue. She tells Jake to leave and to return back to his home, yet he follows her deeper into the jungle.
"Why did you save me?" Jake asks her.
After a pause, she says, "Because you have a strong heart."
Right there in the movie theater I start crying, because I knew that it was not merely Neytiri talking to Jake, it was God talking to me. 'I have saved you because you have a strong heart' I heard over and over and over in my head. He pulled me out of the old world, out of the darkness to bring me into a new world, a place where it will be dangerous and where I will be hated, but I have a strong heart, and he has rescued me from this world. And this is only the beginning.

Alone in the Woods

There is a brief time between when you accept Christ into your life and when you truly trust God with your heart. It is a scary time, a time where you feel like a child lost at night in the woods. You jump at the sound of wolves closing in around you, as they try to scare you back home. You hear that everything will be alright, yet the noises grow louder and louder, until it becomes a defining howl that sets your spine shivering. Everything in you wants to run back to the safety in the world, but it is the emptiness, that feeling of a hole within you that drives you onward. At a time where most flee, you press on to the point of no return. Just at the moment where all the light is gone and all hope has failed of ever being saved, you feel the warmth of a hand in yours that touches every fiber of your being. Although you are still in the dark of night, and the sounds and screams around you grow louder still, you as the child of your heavenly father squeeze all the more and dream of the daylight just beyond the other side of these woods.