Manhood

     A man of God, powerful in Spirit and follower of God's will, spoke to me and many other graduated students this past week. He gave us much advice about different situations in life, how certain things work, and taught us about the process of lasting through the Mosaic Period in our lives. He also taught the men what it means to be a man and how you can know if you are a man. He gave us his opinion, and this was it:

"You become a spiritual man when another person's spiritual life is dependent on you."

     What does that mean to us? How do you know if someone's spiritual life is dependent on me? As he said this, I didn't really know what to think, those two question came up in my head and I didn't know whether or not I was able to be classified as a spiritual man. Until this morning.

     My younger brother walked into my room. I knew he had just been reading his bible for an hour or so now, so I figured he was taking a break. Instead he proceeded to ask me a question about a section of Genesis he was reading. He sat down next to me on my bed and wanted to know what I knew about his question. He seemed my opinion and the little knowledge that I had. 

     As I finished explaining to him, I knew that it was at that moment that I knew what it meant to have someone's spiritual life be dependent on not only me, but on my own spiritual life.

Night Escapes

     I was just in Prescott for some youth camps for the past 3 weeks. As the days went on I met great people and built some awesome friendships. One friendship in particular has left such an impact on me, and I'm going to ramble about it. Enjoy.

     I won't say his name, for privacy sake, but he had the greatest personality. We first met by sitting at a table together at random, and had some small talk about the way some kids danced. We then parted ways, expecting to see each other later in the day, which we did. That night we got to talk a lot about who we were and where we came from. He was from Colorado and was intending on going to Phoenix for schooling at GCU. We didn't talk much more after that night, but the next morning we got to talk some more.

     We continued to always talk and get to know each other on a daily basis. At meals, in between free time, after work was over, before work even started. Whenever we had the chance we united and bonded over anything and everything. From music to bands to schools to books to beliefs, we went on and on about it all. One night, though, we shared a conversation that changed my life.

     It was 10 o'clock pm and curfew was in an hour and a half for him, so we decided to take a night hike up a path into the mountains of Prescott. We reached this spot where there was a rock formation. The rocks served as perfect seats, so we climbed up them and sat down, overlooking the entire town of Prescott. The night sky was beautiful and the stars were shining their brightest. We just sat there then, talking about our futures and our pasts, thinking about what's ahead.

     I then dared to ask him a question that I had not yet asked and was very curious to know, "What do you want to do with your life? What's your plan?" His answer shook me, and made me realize how daring we all need to be. It made me realize how passionate we should be about what we want to do with our lives. It was an answer that you would hear a fifth grader say, but the look in his eyes and tone of voice he had revealed that he was dead serious and had his heart set on this mission. His answer was...

"Dom, I want to change the world."