So I wrote a status today on facebook and I liked it as a high impact thought but I wanna expand and blog on it.
YOLO…..You only live once…. aka You Oughtta Look Out (my Lonely Island/ Adam Levine fans will know what I'm talking about)…. the anthem of my generation…. What a great concept right? You only live once, but if you live it right, once is enough!- Mae West.
Oh wait…. ya….we usually use that as the excuse for doing something incredibly dumb like being strung out for days or partying into the wee hours of the morning or hooking up with that cute chick from psych class….
Ya know…. that great copout answer for being irresponsible and refusing to be a powerful person.
Believe it or not I love the idea of YOLO being our generation's anthem! I'm only on this Earth once…. might as well make the best of it! Great concept! Wish everybody thought that way!
Allow me to lay out how I like to YOLO….
Is that a hitchiker standing out there in the rain? Dude I bet he has the best stories and I'm heading that direction anyways! yolo
Off the top of my head I can think of at least five seperate times I've either given rides to travelors or invited homeless people over to spend the night. Of those 5, there's a chance at least 3 will read this blog and have become great friends, and the rest had the greatest stories in the world and walked away blessed, let alone radically impacted by the Love of the Father! Greatest adventures ever:D
Hey guys look at that guy in the wheelchair over there! Jesus said everything I've done and greater works than these you can do in my name…..screw it, yolo!
Guatemala 2009, I was with a group of teenagers/young adults doing street dramas and we met the most wonderful little man in a wheelchair who had one long strait bone for his left leg, cerebral palsey (sp?), was mute, and deaf in his right ear. We got the chance to release healing over him and he grew a knee cap, gained mobility in his right arm, was able to speak, and could hear again and because of this, it opened the door to preach the gospel to the hundred or so people in the park. (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.158664157711.121358.531007711&type=3) Pics for doubters;)
You know what would be a sweet idea bro? Let's do a 48 state/3 country roadtrip just to experience other cultures and see what God's up to outside of Astoria, OR and Redding, CA! yolo
My best friend Dan and I were on the road for close to six months experiencing our own kingdom journeys and in the process we learned so much about ourselves, God, and the nation we live in as well as several others. We got to meet sooooooooo many cool people that have become lasting relationships to this day and were able to learn that our God is so much bigger than anything we could have ever dreamed of or imagined and that He ALWAYS comes through.
There's nothing more attractive than a woman who knows her identity in Christ and walks in that boldness and confidence that she is fearfully and wonderfully made! Let's throw the best girls night ever and raise the standard on all future men in their lives! YOLO
I've spend the last four summers working with an amazing missions group called Never the Same Missions and on every trip, I've made it a point of teaching a culture of honor to the mighty men on my teams and partnered with them in dreaming up the most perfect nights of flowers, music, dancing, and affirmation, so much so that years down the line, I still hear from girls telling me how much what we did changed their whole perspective on themselves and dating in general.
Disclaimer:
This is in no way being said to toot my own horn and show how great I am. Too many christians get stuck in false humility and a fear of appearing prideful so they never talk good about themselves….get over that, God made you great….be great. What this is however, is an invitation into going from mere survival into living an abundant life.
The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, Revelations 19:10. I use these examples because there's just something about testimonies that stirs up the spirit within us and makes us begin to dream big. Our generation is called to greatness…. The spirit inside of us knows this, saved or not, we know this. That's why you see people chasing the american dream or wanting stardom etc, because something in their identity says "you're made for greatness". It's just like how every successful singer is a great worship pastor…. They lead you into encounters….it's just a lot of them don't have a revelation of who they're called to worship and so the encounter they bring you into isn't the Father of Lights.
Yolo generation! You Only Live Once! Imagine what you could do within that lifetime!!! You could change cultures! You could end world hunger! You could save our planet! You could spread revival through a smile! The problem is we think we can't make a difference as just one person and so instead of enjoying the impact we can make on a small scale, we choose to do nothing! They used to ask Mother Teresa "Look at the millions of starving, unloved children in the world, you really think you can make a difference???" and she'd just look at them and boldly state "I'm making all the difference in the world to these children that I'm holding right now!"
You were made to have an encounter, so that you could become an encounter, so that others could have an encounter.
In the old testament, particularly in Judges and Kings you see this pattern of Israel falling into sin and idol worship and then getting oppressed and calling out to God and someone would rise up and bring them into victory and back into relationship with God and then the people would get back into the swing of things until the judge died and then they'd repeat the cycle…. They never trained up the next generation to pickup where they left off. We're just as guilty of this, whether it be lack of motivation, thinking we're insignificant, or just plain out thinking the world's gonna end soon so why bother, we don't train up and equip the next generation to keep going from where we left off… It's so wrong…. Our ceiling should become the next generation's floor….
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Matthew 10:8
Freely you have received, freely give. The disciples were known as the ones who turned the whole world upside down….You've been given so much. Salvation includes so much more than going to heaven and promises for the millenium…. Yolo is this generation's anthem and it's time we get ahold of it but in the way it was initially designed to be.
You only live once….. it's time to go be an encounter….start a movement that wripples into generations to come.
