on saturday i take off for another overseas adventure. 10:15 i leave yqr for calgary, then frankfurt and on to krakow, poland. from krakow we bus to presov, slovakia, to join sarisanka presov for a week of hockey training on and off the ice, chatting, coffees, walking down century old streets, reliving memories from the past and, most importantly, talking about jesus and sharing the gospel.

why is it that doing just that in my regular life seems more difficult? i get into the swing of things with life and my perspective narrows. i see my life, my school, my work, my this, my that, my... ewww. that's a whole lot of ME. lately, as i've been living in tight, real, honest community, i've been thinking about jesus a lot more. or thinking about the fact that i want to be thinking about jesus a lot more. because living in community reminds me that i'm not living for self. rather, that i don't want to be living for self. when i don't hear the gospel, spend time reading and praying, confess sin to my sisters and live life honestly before others, it becomes about me. but i wanna fight that! fight it with love for jesus. it's not about taking my eyes from one thing and keeping them off it; it's about eyes off of self and on to jesus.

is that hard for you? if you said it's not, you're lying. of course it's hard. and how do we do it? the ingredients are so simple... but once you add the flesh in there, everything becomes complicated. but not too complicated for jesus when we stick to repenting, returning and letting him restore us to relationship with him and with community. i feel like i'm a repenting machine. when will this end, lord?? but it won't. that's the hard part. it just won't. and it's not about the eradication of sin. it's about gutting out life here on earth with the time we've been given. and gutting it out with jesus. because this isn't all we're living for. there's so much more.

i want to broaden my perspective every day. i want to return to jesus and let his love, his purpose, his prerogative drive my life.

so it's easier, in some ways, to go overseas and mission it out before man. it's all you have to think about during those times. it's a blessing to go, a privilege to be called in that way. but why can't we see our daily lives as the same kind of privilege with the same kind of purpose? we can... we need only be reminded!

STOP. REFOCUS.

J...E...S...U...S...