Colby J. Davis

In spite of my horrible inability to maintain this blog, I intend to make some major formatting and layout changes fairly soon. Please excuse any awkward malfunctions and such. Also, excuse any ugliness that may ensue. Word. (Press.)

Colby

“Good God, if your song leaves our lips, if your work leaves our hands, then we will be wanderers and vagabonds.   They will stare and say how empty we are, how the freedom we had turned us up as dead men.  Let us be cold, make us weak.   Let us, because we all have ears.  Let us, because we all have eyes.   Good God, how they knew that this would happen; they knew, they knew that this would!  We’re so run down.   Good God, can you still get us home?  How can we still get home?   I’m not dreaming; we’re forgetting our forgiveness.”

That was the lyrics to “Too Bright to See, Too Loud to Hear” by Underoath.  If we lose track of who God is and what He has done, then we’re lost.  Simple as that.  We need God to break us down to the point where we need him, because we all know what He did for us.  Somehow, the world expected us, as Christians, to fail; they were banking on it.  But we’re so worn out, so what do they expect?  Can God still take us back?  Have we really, really forgotten what Christ did for us?  We… forgot.

I feel like I’ve prayed this prayer too many times.  The “my God, where have I been?” prayer (Underoath, “Desperate Times, Desperate Measures”).  I just… take this all for granted.  God gave me a gift, Jesus Christ, and I’ve just kind of blown it off.  Then something happens that gets me thinking, and I get to such a low that suddenly I’m screaming those words.  And it’s then that I realize it: I’m forgetting my forgiveness.  So I repent, truly repent, and God forgives.  He always does.  So if I’m truly repenting, then why do things seem to go back downhill?  Why is there still a cycle?  Am I that self-centered?  I’m just so worn out… so tired.  The world, it’s messing with me.  It wears on my mind, my heart.  So what do I do now?

God, fix me.  I don’t understand why I allowed myself to get here, but I hate it.  God, I need your help, because there’s no way I can do this myself.  It’s impossible.  It seems like every time things start to go well, I begin to rely on my own strength.  What strength?  I’m weak.  I can’t do anything on my own.  Who was I kidding?  Forgive me for being selfish.  Forgive me for focusing on Colby Davis.  Without you, I’m nothing, but “I can do all things through [you], who strengthens me,” (Philippians 4:13, ESV).  I want to start over.  I know you’ve forgiven me for my mistakes, but help me to see that, day in and day out.  Help me to forget me and seek you instead.  You told me you know what you intend to do with my life and that I’m a part of your plan (Jeremiah 29:11).  So screw my plans.  There doesn’t even seem to be much hope in them.  But in you, I can find hope and peace.  In you, I can be free.  Free of worry and pain and anger and depression and fear and anxiety and all the other crap I deal with.  I know that for a fact, so help me to remember it.  There’s a few billion people in this world who have no true hope, and I have a chance to give them that hope.  Give me the courage to take that chance!  ”Consume me from the inside out,” (Hillsong United, “From the Inside Out”).  In Christ’s name, amen.

Wow.  Basically, if you’re even still reading, that wasn’t planned.  I was more content with sulking.  But I couldn’t sit there and write about how I was “forgetting my forgiveness” without remembering it again.  Christ died for me, because of something I did, and I can’t simply ignore that.  That would be foolish.  So what about you?  Yeah, you’ve probably done some serious stuff.  Maybe stuff that you feel you can’t be forgiven for.  Maybe you’re the one asking, “how can [I] still get home?”  Or maybe you think you’re doing great.  You aren’t very messed up at all.  You can rely on yourself.  Well, you just saw me experience both.  It comes down to this: I’m messed up because I’m a human being.  Regardless of whether I’m a goody-two shoes or a serial killer, God sees me in the same way as both Billy Graham and Adolph Hitler: a sinner.  You’re in the same boat.  But God sent His son, Jesus Christ, to die for you and pay that death penalty so that you, (insert name), could go to heaven and spend an eternity there.  No matter how good you’ve been, you still deserve an eternity in hell (a very real place); yet no matter how bad you’ve been, you can still reserve your spot in heaven (also a very real place).  If you haven’t done this yet, I encourage you, no, I urge you, to do so.  Believe what Christ did for you, and let it change your life for the better.  If you have questions, PLEASE contact me at colbyd3@gmail.com or visit this website: http://www.eeinternational.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=31469.  I guarantee you will start to see some amazing things happen.

For those of you who already truly believe that Jesus Christ is your one and only Savior, that’s awesome!  Now what are you doing about it?  Maybe you’re in seminary, or on the mission field, or leading a Bible study, or witnessing to friends, and that’s all great!  Or maybe you don’t really feel like a Christian at all.  Maybe you feel fake.  Well, you aren’t alone.  Recent polls suggest that only 8-10% of Christians actually share their faith on a regular basis.  That means that between 90-92% of true believers do not. More times than not, I have been in that second group.  I’ve hit my dry spells, but God always takes me back and can do the same for you.  Regardless of which category you fall into, this is a perfect reminder of what Christ did for us.  And yeah, the first time I saw it a couple years ago, I cried too.

This took place back in September, and they have finally allowed it on YouTube. I have no clue what made them change their minds, but check it out:

Some videos from one of the best shows I have ever seen.  At the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh, NC, on November 22, 2009.

Today, I drove past a funeral home.  There was a funeral in progress.  I got chills, because I came to the realization that there was a really good chance that the person who had died was currently experiencing their first taste of hell.  Not necessarily, but it was definitely a possibility.  An estimated 581 deaths took place in the world in the last five minutes, based on the World Clock http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf.  According to the Joshua Project, 41%, or 238, of these people had never even heard the Gospel before, let alone believed it.  Of these 238 people, 22 of them died totally unexpectedly, going about their daily lives.  Five minutes.  Real people.  Think about it next time you are presented with an opportunity to witness to someone.  I will.

Tonight has been an intense night. I had two very deep conversations online with good friends who will remain nameless. The first was just the two of us dumping on each other, discussing the most confusing aspects of life. But then I started to think. After a few minutes, I composed this Facebook status:

“There is so much pain in this world. I know the answer to this paradox, and I know how cliché it sounds, but I sometimes I just don’t understand why bad things happen to good people. Sure, sin caused it, but… it just doesn’t make any sense.”

As I posted this, one of my conversations on AIM drifted into this subject. I had a LOT on my mind. In short, I sent this person my status, and then this (which I have here paraphrased and punctuated):

“I mean, I have friends who have been raped, friends whose closest family died, friends who were abused, friends whose parents just don’t give a crap about them, friends who are orphaned, friends who truly believe that they are completely worthless, and, worst of all, I have friends who are going to hell, and I feel like I’ve done nothing to stop it. Good people. This world is so messed up. Why? I just can’t grasp that: Why? I feel so helpless. I’m going to a Southern Baptist seminary college. If anything, I expected to be able to make more sense of that, and now it just makes less sense. I mean, in no way am I questioning my faith, but why does does any single person in this world have to go through the crap they go through? Meanwhile, I have the only source of hope for any of them, and I’m sitting here in a comfortable recliner on my rear end not doing anything about it. What’s wrong with this picture?”

This was their response: “Colbs, in the end, most of the time, we do end up helpless. We can try and try and try, but if someone doesn’t want to listen, they’re not going to listen. But the fact that we tried means something, and, somewhere down the road, they’ll remember what you said, and it’ll make sense to them. Maybe what they’re going through is God’s way of trying to open their eyes and helping them to realize He’s all they need. Some people just take longer than others, but we hope that someday they get it.”

So what did I gather from this? What can you gather from this? All the pain in this world is due to sin, and there’s no question in my mind that this is our own fault. However, Christ died for us, taking all the pain and sin in our lives. We just need to ask for forgiveness. When we do this, we can have hope in God’s plan and, most importantly, an eternity with Him. Jeremiah 29:11, my favorite verse, states, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” God allows everything that goes on in this world to happen for a reason. However, although we, as Christians, know this hope, there are many more who do not. In this words of Leeland’s song “Tears of the Saints”: “This is an emergency.” So what are we doing about it? Why are we comfortable? Because this, my brothers and sisters, is an emergency:

This really spoke to me a second ago. Yeah, that’s really KJ-52, but that’s not the point. Just listen up.

Well, I guess it’s technically early morning. So basically, I think God showed up in the most unexpected way humanly possible. I can’t explain how quite yet, but I’ve been thinking hard on this and I’m pretty sure that God’s rekindled something in my life. I just hope it doesn’t die out. Pray for me please.

“My God, where have I been? Where have I been?” -Underoath

So since it’s easier, a majority of my posts will probably be videos now. This one was actually recorded two weeks ago so I have more to say, but here you go.

Well now.  It is extraordinarily late, so I will be cutting this rather short.  Hopefully this will stop becoming so sporadic.  Honestly, I’m not even sure if anyone will be reading this, but I have no idea.  Anyway, my circumstances have adjusted slightly since I last posted.  The summer is over, and I have not been working with Mission Raleigh for about four weeks.  Instead, I am attending college in Wake Forest (just outside of Raleigh) at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, to study to become a youth pastor.  Before I go into more details on that topic, I will recap the summer in a sea of emotions (or whatever you want to call it).

The summer of 2009 was arguably the best summer I have ever had.  This was not due to my new found independence or the thrills of a new location.  It was beyond a shadow of a doubt due to the fact that God repeatedly showed up this summer.  All credit goes to Him, without Whom this would have been completely impossible, not to mention a waste of time.  I witnessed love in a way I never expected or imagined.  Having been to Mission Raleigh the past five years for week-long trips, I can honestly say that I did not expect it too be much different; I merely expected it to be longer.  I was impossibly wrong.  I built relationships with kids that I will never forget as long as I live.  For example:

On my last day I went to Raleigh North in the afternoon, as I always had.  A girl of about nine or ten, whom everyone knew as “Mama,” was there as always.  Throughout the summer, she had developed a nickname for me: “Cloby” (pronounced “Clobby”).  I am still struggling to remember how that came about, but nevertheless it stuck and became my new name among the kids.  On that last day, as the kids finished their crafts, she approached me with her’s.  It was a paper plate on a stick with pipe cleaners that resembled the face of a cat.  I told her that I liked the theme of red, white, and blue, and then proceeded to ask her what she named it.  Without hesitation, she told me that she had named it Cloby.  She then handed it to me and told me that she wanted me to keep it.  It is currently sitting in my dorm room upstairs.  It was everything I could do to keep from becoming emotional.  It was such a simple, seemingly minuscule gesture, yet it meant the world to me because I knew that I had made a difference in her life.

Throughout the summer, it was such incidents that reminded me of the importance of what I was doing.  I was eternally impacting a bunch of kids who, for the most part, weren’t used to being shown any love, let alone the love of Christ.  Looking back on this summer, there are plenty of things I could have done.  I chose to invest a small percentage of my life into the souls of others, simply because Christ commissioned us to do so.  By no means do I consider myself a saint, because I’m not even close.  I fail by human nature, but God still used me, Colby Davis, to impact the lives of others.  He didn’t need me at all; someone else would have been just as sufficient (or perhaps even more so).  Yet He chose me to do His Good Work.  That’s the only rationale I can give you as to why I did it.

To be honest, I think I learned even more from the kids than they learned from me.  I learned that the materials of this world are simply that: materials.  These kids were content with what they had, which was much less than me.  They sought after love and affection, while we seek after money and power.  It was very eye-opening, to say the least.

I departed on the first Friday of August with my own team from Maine.  The drive was lengthy, yet extraordinarily fun.  By Tuesday, I was on my way back to North Carolina in yet another vehicle.  Unfortunately, my car had broken down the previous day, so instead of following my parents down I rode in the Pathfinder with them.  The NSO Weekend was rather busy, and I found little time to be bored.  However, I quickly made new friends and grew to adore this school.  My classes have been very intriguing as well, as I am learning how to connect every aspect of any subject to the Bible.  We have already had some incredible times together and have begun to form a what might resemble a rather dysfunctional family.  Throughout the year, this blog will hopefully be posted with thoughts, stories, quotes, events (such as the recent Nerf Raids), and the like.  Feel free to keep watching for more updates and such, and also look me up on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.  At this moment, I am nodding  and must now retire to bed.  God bless you all!  I love you and am keeping you in my prayers.  Please do likewise as I am trying figure out how to pay through college and keep up in my studies.  Thank you very much!

In Christ,

Colby

On a side-note, I will apologize in advance for any spelling or grammatical errors, as I am very tired.  Peace!