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Monday, September 3, 2012

A Long Time Coming

This is definitely something that has been. (^^^^see title)

For the past year or so, I have been contemplating sharing parts of what God has been teaching me with the outside world via starting a blog. I've been hesitant, though, for a few reasons. First, I don't really read many blogs so I feel a little funny starting one. Second, there are plenty of blogs like this one, including one that my dad, Jim Branch, writes (it's http://jb-bluebookblog.blogspot.com, it's pretty legit). Part of me just felt like I would be writing similar but inferior things, and people could just go somewhere else to learn from smarter people. I know it's silly, but it's how I felt.

Recently, though, I have begun learning about who God made me to be. It is a lie that I have to be someone really important to be used by Him. He loves to speak through the most unlikely people. He loves the poor in spirit. The people he loves to speak to aren't the most important people, but the people who are the most needy. And recently, I think He has brought me to the point where I am just needy. And through that neediness I have gotten to be with God in a lot of special ways... and learn more about what He made me for.

God has called me to be a thinker. I am simply made that way. I may be a little spacey, I may get distracted by something moving erratically while someone is talking to me, and I may look like a total fool sometimes when I am looking for my keys when they were in my hand the whole time... but darn it, I am a thinker. It is because I live in my own mind for a large part of my existence, and that has its advantages and drawbacks. But I think that because I am someone who is constantly pitting ideas against one another in my own mind, a place to share the results of that mental sparring is a great way to contribute to the Body of Christ.

As I began to realize some key things about who I really am this year, I realized that writing is going to be something that I need to get used to if I am going to seriously exercise the full extent of the what He wants to pull out of me for the edification of the Body (and each person reading this, I believe, has a unique set of these things God wants to pull out in the same way). God has piqued my interest in the idea of writing for Him. And who knows what that even looks like. I am still trying to figure out how to unpack the word "writing" as it pertains to what in the world I might write about. But with the idea of "writing" came the idea of making a blog about the things I am learning about and discussing with God... and so here I am, doing something I never thought I would do.



Blogging's the thing I'm talking about by the way...


Recommended expectations

1. So I have a hard time a lot of the time with whether to try saying things in an eloquent way, or whether to just say the stuff I am thinking in the same way I would just talk normally. I will be doing both, maybe even in the same sentence. So you can probably expect some fun changes of writing style at random times in this blog.

2. One of the things I struggle with is inconsistency. I see patterns of it around my life. It is probably a safe bet that inconsistency will eventually find its way to this blog. So don't be surprised if there are like 2 posts in one week, and 0 posts in the next week, and the week after, and then 40 the next week... or something like that. Maybe not 40.

3. For some reason, I always end up trying to make jokes about things that are serious, which I don't really know how that is going to work its way into really serious and spiritual things. So that will be interesting. There will definitely be some awkward swings between serious things and joke things, most of which will be accidental. But not all of them. Definitely some of them will be on purpose.





All this to say, I am excited about offering up my special places of learning. I love the idea of partnering with other believers in learning. I hope that as I write down things I have been thinking through, it will help spark ideas and truths about who each of us were made to be, specifically and generally. I have a passion for the uncovering of the truth. And that comes out in a lot of the things I write. And although writing deep things for everyone to see isn't something I am always very comfortable with, I know that it's worth it, and that this is what God wants me to do. It is always so much easier for me to tell when God wants me to do something when it is something I don't really want to do...

I hope that anyone who decides to read this blog will find it sharpening to their faith. I think even if no one else does, it will be sharpening mine.

Cheers (I went to London this summer and so now I say that),

Tim