writing's sake

I decided to just start writing for writing's sake.

I made this decision less than forty five seconds ago and so far it isn't turning out half bad.

I do have dreams to write books in my lifetime and to consistently write poetry and worship songs, so this seems like as good a time as ever.

So here we are. You and I. We are in this moment. Well, actually we are in two moments; I am in my moment (writing to you) and you are in yours (reading what I wrote).

Actually now that I think of it, it's kind of and awkward/ awesome train of thought to consider tenses.

You know tenses.

Like past, present, and future.

You see I am writing to you right now. Present tense.

You will be reading this. That is the future. I'm predicting it now. In fact, I could have predicted that

Hours ago. Which would be past tense.

Past tense will be (future) what your using (present) when you have been considering (a mix of past and present) what you just read (past).

That sentence says it all.

Now that I have successfully wasted two and a half minutes of your life, I leave you with this:

Thank you friend for reading my active practice. It's people like you that keep people like me encouraged enough to spend time trying to get better at communication.

You done did good.

Kendall

Humbry

Humbry is a lifestyle. Humbry is a mindset.

Humbry is rewarding. Humbry is God's heart.


God desires us to live this way: Humble and Hungry.

My earnest heart filled prayer is that I will always be a student of God's heart. I desire his heart, I search it out, and I take a posture to learn from anyone and anything.

That's just it. Posture.

There is a posture (a constant mindset) that keeps us rapidly approaching God's destiny for us.

The destiny that he has predetermined for us will only happen through our choice to take hold of it.

Our choice is to walk the straight and narrow... or to not.

I want the straight and narrow. I want the glorious life that he predetermined for me if I so choose it.

So I will live Humbry.

Humble: I am always a student; I have never arrived.

I never want to be the expert on God. Rather, I just want to be and I'll let God be the expert.

Hungry: I always want more; I will never be satisfied completely with what I already have because I know He desires to give me more. Seek and I shall find. Ask and I shall receive. Knock and the door will be opened.

Seek. Hunger. Thirst. Drink. Eat. Find.

Repeat.

This is the Humbry lifestyle. I will live it at nineteen and at ninety nine.

Humbry.

Strong and Courageous

This cup caught my attention two days ago.

I was in LAX airport (Los Angeles, CA) and had just finished the cup. I was headed home from one of the most influential weeks I have ever had. Mexico City changed my life.

As you, my friends, hears the stories of God's movement on my trip, I hope that it inspires courage in you. It would be very easy to be dissatisfied with your own daily life when you hear the miraculous stories, but that is not God's heart.

He is a God of process. He doesn't value what you do or what you have done; rather he values you for who you are. Who Christ says you are.

I have no lack of miracle testimonies and stories of salvations from the past week. Ask me about it and "be strong and courageous" mighty warrior.

Love you guys,

Kendall

Loving Head to Foot

We love. The question for the Jesus following Christian is not on our mandate, it’s the delivery. Today we hear more and more about new and creative ways to show Christ’s love to the people and communities around us. That is just the focus that is coming to action in our city. Creative love.

Erase the Dark was a community-wide gathering earlier this month, drawing in an array of people. The churched and the unchurched, the artists and the connoisseurs, the young and old, many different groups all with one goal in mind: to show a practical love to those around us. Cypress Elementary school was the target of this specific love driven fundraiser. An effort was put forth to find a way to bless this school in the midst of California budget cuts. The teachers may not be the ones doing most of the receiving but they can’t help but smile as the students that they pour their lives into are getting presents.

A need was identified, and a means was found. The kid’s needed simple things: backpacks, shoes, pencils and paper. Most of them have not been used to these being in constant supply. Last year Erase the Dark (a community art festival and auction) raised enough money to buy every single student at cypress a brand new backpack. The backpacks were filled with school supplies and taken to the kids in the classroom personally. The smiles were wide spread, and the kid’s laughed and played with their new gear.

This year the bar had been set and the intention going into the art festival was to buy every kid a new pair of shoes, and the school supplies will be delivered individually to teachers for them to do as they see fit. As the event approached (a Friday night of music, art, and h’or dourves) sponsors throughout the businesses of Redding decided to pitch in. The funds they donated completely covered the cost of putting on the event so that every penny of the 7,000 dollars raised on Friday, March 6th was able to be poured into the School. Over 250 brand new pairs of shoes are to arrive soon and taken to the kids, and some extras will find their way into the classrooms as well.

The event was simple: artists donated paintings and photography, artists played original live music, artists put together fancy finger food, and artists created short films. Many churches were represented in the purchasing and donating of the art, and the pieces were sold in a “silent auction” style as they were put up for display.

The partnering of this Annual event and Cypress Elementary is just one of the ways that we are seeing the kingdom of God transform the “four walls” of the church into “four directions” of love.

This is about the people of God showing a separated world His nature. Love.

We love.

Kendall

The Abundance

Here's a few questions of the rhetoric kind:

Do you ever have a day that is without explanation just good?

Do you ever have a feeling of such peace, simplicity, and clarity, and you have no idea why today is different?

My circumstances are not exceedingly different, or somehow greater than other days, yet tonight is filled with a fresh breath. There is clarity in my house.

"It's [not] tired in here." (Inside joke...)

I just watched a movie with a friend.

Then when he left:
I cleaned every room of the house that I use, then I put in a new load of laundry, then I hung shirts, then I folded socks, then I read an old journal, and a couple old letters, organized my desks (yes I have two), loaded some software on my computer, took out trash, organized a chess set, packed up a closet...

I did all that very slowly. I just hung out with God.

I don't really have a sufficient description of how I feel right now but...

I'm convinced that nights like tonight are the life that Jesus came to offer us... the abundant life.

Life to the fullest.

My life tonight is very simple.

Yet,

It's life to the fullest.

Goodnight.

Simply Beautiful.

Life is so incredible. It can be so simple too.

I need to praise God right now for my life. It's welling up inside me, I can't contain the praises of his nature and character.

I want to pray like David. 85% Praise 12% request 4% lament.

Okay, well I could do without the lamenting part. (and if youre a perceptive person, that adds up to 101%...)

I have too many blessings to count and I have an infinite capability to bring glory to the King of Kings.

You are awesome Papa. Your mercy is my strength. You're grace is my power. You are intimacy.

Draw closer to me Friend. Come and visit. Come with your abounding presence.

I love You,

Kendalldean

Shabbat.

Shabbat is the Hebrew word for sabbath (The "H" letter just likes to bounce around and suddenly you're speaking ancient Hebrew...).

My Sabbath is always Tuesday.

But there is a tension.

Sabbath comes from an old testament law that the Jewish people observed (They got it from God's "seventh day" and it was created for rest). Every seventh day, the Jewish people had over a hundred individual laws that they could not break just for this day alone.

It would almost have taken more effort to keep the Sabbath in all it's fullness than to live a day of work. The rest that it was designed for was manipulated into a religious mindset.

But there is a tension.

We are no longer under the law, but the Law was the heart of God before our redemption was made complete.

My heart is to take a Holy day, a day set apart from the rest, intended for rest... A day that is dedicated to God.

That day is today. Tuesday for me.

In an effort to find the divine tension between living a Holy day of rest, and yet not to make it a religious practice, I have boiled myself down a short definition (yet it is subject to change):

On Tuesday, Kendall doesn't do anything that he must do, and everything he does is done out of choosing God first.

That is a shabbat to me. Today I rest. Today I set apart. Today I praise the King of Glory. Today I do only what is optional. Today I do nothing that I have to do.

Shabbat.