Venting and Cliche's

Cliche' - anything that has become trite or commonplace through overuse.
Trite - lacking in freshness or effectiveness because of constant use or excessive repetition; hackneyed; stale: 


Common cliche's 
-Beggars can't be choosers
-Bigger they are, the harder they fall
-The early bird catches the worm
-Sread like wildfire
-Better late than never


Just because something is a cliche' doesn't mean that it is no longer true or relevant. 


For some reason, when we hear something or see something over and over again it loses its effectiveness in our brains and we check out. It loses it's value to us. 


Think of the first time you saw the ocean. Or the first time you saw real mountains. The first time you heard a song you really like. The first few months of a dating relationship. Your very first cell phone. 


After a while we get used to these things and they're not as incredible as they were at first. They become normal. They've lost some of their value; their effectiveness. 


The problem is that this is not only the case in these instances but also in our relationship with God. 


For a lot of us, God is now a cliche'. Or maybe not God Himself but church, or worship, or praying, or having quiet time. 


Especially for those of us who grew up in church, we've heard all the sermons, seen all the illustrations, heard all the analogies, read all the famous Bible stories, used all the Bible sayings. And to us they've become "commonplace through overuse."


We've been to so many church services and read our Bible so many times that it's began to "lack in freshness of effectiveness" It's become stale. 


Phrases like, 
"God is in control"
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"
"Jesus loves you"
We say them all the time but do we really believe it? Do we really live like it's true to us?


When things become familiar to us, we get comfortable and we start to go through the motions and coast. 


One area that I see this a lot that I am so passionate about is worship. A lot of our worship songs have become cliche's. Think about the song Amazing Grace. Everyone and their dog knows this song. You could probably sing it in hundreds of different languages in hundreds of different countries and they would be able to sing along with you. We've heard it over and over. Some of us are probably not the most excited when we hear it on a Sunday morning. 
"Ah, this song again?" 
You know you've had those thoughts don't act holy. 


But think about the words in that song. 


Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now I'm found
Was blind but now I see


That is incredible! 
Think about those words for a second without humming the tune in your head. Forget it's a song for a second and think about what those words mean. 


There are so many worship songs that have incredibly powerful lyrics but after we've heard them so many times we don't think about the words anymore. 


How great is our God
How great is our God
Sing with me, how great is our God


Amazing love how can it be
That you my King would die for me?


I'm so guilty of this. I will get tired of a song and every time I hear it I cringe. "Please not this song again." I forget about what the words are saying. I forget why we're singing it. 


I think that's why God put things in His Word like, 

Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. ... Sing a new song of praise to him; play skillfully on the harp, and sing with joy- Psalm 33:3

Praise the LORD! Sing to the LORD a new song - Psalm 149:1

Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands, and all who live in them.- Isaiah 42:10

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. -Psalm 40:3 I think God knew we would have this problem. That we would get bored with songs and need something new.

That's why I love when bands come up with new versions of old songs. Because the words are still amazing. But it lost its effectiveness because we got so used to it. So you change it up and bring it back. 

That's why I love different translations of the Bible. When you've heard the same verse a bajillion times and it's just words, check it out in the Message version or in the New Living Translation or even in the New King James version. Hearing it a different way makes the same verse new. 

We have got to find ways to keep ourselves from looking at God and the things of God as cliché's. 

I never want to feel or think in the back of my mind that my relationship with God is "lacking in freshness or effectiveness, because of constant use and repetition and become stale and commonplace"

Really think about it...

The God that created the universe loves you. You. The person who stands there joking around with your friends during worship and paying no attention to what's going on. You. The person who stares at the worship team with a blank stare and your hands in your pockets. You. The person who smoked pot before coming to church. You. The person who slept with your boyfriend/girlfriend last night. 

Me. The person who got frustrated about what songs we were singing for worship because I was tired of them. Me. The person who had the thought of getting up to read my Bible this morning but decided to sleep in instead. Me. The person who says that I will do anything and go anywhere for God but doesn't tell the lady at the check out in WalMart about Him because I'm too busy. Me. The person who yells at the person who cuts me off going 60mph on i40. 

He. Loves. Us. Anyway. 

And what do we do when we come into His presence for worship? We stand there and check out because we heard this song last week. 

We will go to concerts and go nuts when the band starts playing but stand there with a blank stare at the worship team. 


It's not just about how good or bad the band is. If the band was terrible it doesn't mean that we don't need to enter into worship. If they're not playing your favorite song it doesn't mean that we don't need to enter into worship. If our favorite worship leader isn't playing this week doesn't mean that we don't need to enter into worship. 


I've been on missions where the church is a room with a dirt floor and the only instrument is a guitar with 4 strings and the worship leader is singing the song in 3 different keys and none of them match what he's playing on the guitar. 


I've been to a conference at a ginormous church with thousands and thousands of people where the band was incredible and the lights were awesome and the chairs were so comfortable and everything looked good and sounded good. 


We should worship just as hard at the church with the 4 string guitar as we do at the conference!

God is the same in both places! 

We should respond to Him with the same amount of reverence and excitement in both places!  


What if we approached worship in a church service as if we were actually going to encounter God instead of as the background music for you to walk into church late to?

What if when we sang songs in church, the words were our prayers and thanksgiving to God because that's how much we need and love Him? 

What if we didn't just go to church to go to church but we went expecting God to do something? What if we went to church because we just love to be in His presence? Because we can't get enough of Him.




I realize this post is kind of all over the place. Just needed to get this out before I exploded. Feel free to leave any thoughts you may have.

Where do I begin??

I feel like I have so many passions and desires inside of me that I have no idea how I'll ever be able to do them all in a lifetime. 

             Here's a few....

I want to explore, see the world, take photos of it and bring them back to show people at home and tell them the stories. 

I want to lead people on mission trips so that they can have a total perspective change on life and God can rock their world. 

I want to make coffee for people that is better than they can make for themselves and make them happy.

I want to disciple people and watch them go out and disciple 

I want to know God so intimately that it causes me to see people the way He sees them and love people the way He loves them, and because of it people will want to know Him more intimately too. 

I want to play music that draws people closer to the heart of God and creates an atmosphere for them to experience Him. 

I want to ride elephants 

I want to start a school where young people can be discipled, learn discipline, leadership, worship, and then go out and change the world. 

I want to live in another country and own a motorcycle as my form of transportation 

I want to become so familiar with the Bible that I actuality live out, believe, and can speak from experience to people about its truth and power. 

I want to write things down so that maybe, just maybe, someone won't have to make all the same mistakes I made and can instead learn from them and do better. 

Now where to begin....

The Greatness of Our God

I feel like God has been showing me so much the past couple of months that my mind could explode.

First of all, I discovered that one of the main reasons I have a bad day or just plain am in a really bad mood is when I am in the flesh; when my focus is all on me.

As soon as I get the focus off of myself it's like a whole new world!

A couple of months ago a good friend of mine asked me to be her intercessor this year.

At this point in time I was experiencing a very dry season with God and couldn't figure out why I wasn't passionate about reading the Bible or spending time with God. (something I usually desire everyday) So I started to pray for her everyday. That was the beginning of my revelation.

I'm not the best at praying for people. I've always wished I could be one of those great prayer warriors that can pray for hours and hours and it's their prayers that kept someone alive or something like that. But I've never been able to do it consistently. I will get bored 5 min into prayer or run out of things to say or fall asleep. But I was determined to keep my promise to pray for her every day.

I knew it was going to take trying something I hadn't done before if it was really going to happen.

So I started reading scripture out loud over her, changing the tense or a few words here and there to make it apply to her. And I would just go through a book of the Bible picking out verses and praying them (out loud) over her.

As I prayed scripture over her every morning, I began to get more and more passionate about spending time with God. I started to be in a much better mood most days. And I started to become more and more passionate about intercession and learning all I can about what exactly it means.

So I started reading a book called Intercessory Prayer and it has been rocking my world.

I really wish I could explain the change that has taken place in me and in my relationship with God. He feels more real to me now than He ever has before. And the funny thing is, I have hardly prayed for myself at all in the last 2 months. The more I pray for other people, the closer I feel to God. It doesn't make any sense to my brain at all but it's true.

My God time used to be all about me reading the Bible for me and praying for me and what I can get from God and what God can reveal to me.

And theres nothing wrong with having times of that. I think that there are definitely seasons where we need a touch from God and we have to cry out to Him for ourselves before we can fight for anyone else.

But for me, it was time to go deeper, and having God time every morning for myself wasn't cutting it.

I think that if we will just get the focus off of ourselves and fight for the people around us, God will take care of us.

This is the first of many revelations I will try to share...

Hi My Name Is ZuZu And...I'm Addicted to Music and Caffeine

Why are all addictions so expensive?!

Yes, I admit it, I'm addicted to music and caffeine...

I'm currently getting a hold of my mountain dew addiction. It's been 4 days since my last sip of sweet nectar from heaven...

Coffee has been limited.

Music....oh music...

Some girls go crazy about shoes

Some go crazy about purses or other accessories

For me it's music.

I have to have music.

And it's not enough for me to just listen to it online.

I need to own it and have it on my computer for use any time and place on any device.

The problem:

This costs money. And as my parents have always tried to tell me, money doesn't grow on trees.

In conclusion, I need to either marry a very rich man or have a very rich relative die and leave me a hefty inheritance.

The future can be scary or exciting...Or BOTH!

It's been almost a year since I wrote on here last...

So much has happened in one year.

I've been thinking about the future a lot. Which makes sense seeing as this chapter of my life is quickly coming to an end.

I've been thinking about where I could end up, what I could be doing, who I could be meeting. Some days I get excited thinking about it. Some days I'm so scared I could pee my pants.

I know God is going to do something big. But I also know that it won't be anything like what I think it will look like. He's already started opening doors I never thought or dreamed of going through.

It's humbling. Knowing that I can think of about 30 people off the top of my head that are more qualified and deserve more to do what I want to do and might get to do.

But the funny thing is that God likes to choose the least likely person to do something huge. That's what scares me. Because I know that I'm not qualified at all and it would have to be God.

It's just crazy enough to be His plan...

Someone once said, "the path to your greatest potential is often straight through your greatest fear."

God's ways are not our ways...

It's humbling...

Change happens

There is no growth without change; there is no change without fear or loss; and there is no loss without pain. Every change involves a loss of some kind: You must let go of old ways in order to experience the new. We fear these losses, even if our old ways were self-defeating, because, like a worn out pair of shoes, they were at least comfortable and familiar.

Adam Roth posted this as his status on facebook a while back and I saved it and just found it again tonight.

I am so not good at change.

But this makes sense to me why I don't like it. It's why growing up and going into new seasons of life is so hard for me. I'm not a fan of loss or pain or new things.

I will wear a pair of shoes until they disintegrate into nothing because they are comfortable and familiar and easier than finding a new pair and having to get used to them and make them work with my outfits.

I kind of feel like it's time to throw away all the old shoes and get new ones. Not just settling for the old shoes or even being barefoot because it's easier.

Can I just tell you about my crazy day?

So my day started at about 5:15 AM when I quickly got dressed, brushed my teeth and de-iced my car to be at the gym for a spin class. [6:00AM]

That lasted 1 hour. [7:00 AM]

Then biked 3 more hours after that. [10:00AM]

Then had to do 15s, which if you have never heard of them consider yourself lucky. I can honestly say I think I would rather jump out of a second story building than do them. (you feel about the same after both)

Then there were push ups and core.

Then the pool opened and it was time to swim. [11:00AM]

Done swimming and ready to shower up and get ready for the day. [12:00PM]

Took my time getting ready (I could barely move and didn't really have anywhere to be)

Left the gym for a little pick me up at Starbucks [1:15PM]

Had my first coffee in 22 days (it was the most amazing thing i've put in my mouth in a long time)

Called my mother cuz I missed her and wanted advice on whether to go to Wendy's or Sonic for lunch. (I call her for all major life decisions like that)

The decision was Sonic. Got food. It was amazing. [1:45PM]

Then I proceeded to run errands driving all over town that included: bike shopping, shirt shopping, leggings shopping, picking up my mountain bike from my ex homesponsor's house, and then looking for a place to do homework.

[5:15PM]

The Brewery is closed...

There is nowhere else to go so I decided to go home.

Get to the church and see people still in Little Life from closing up Little Life Academy. I get them to let me in. [5:30PM]

They all leave and I'm sitting in Kid Life all alone in the dark. [5:40PM]

Mrs Duvall pulls up by the Kid Life door and is slightly frightened (as anyone would be) when she opens the door and sees a person sitting on the floor in the darkness of an empty church.

I explain what I'm doing there in the shortest way possible and we small talk it up for a couple min and then I remember that there is a couch in the Kid Life room. Score!

I lay down with my Mac plugged in, background music playing, about to take a nap and in walks a person saying that they are about to have a meeting in this room....[6:05PM]

Covering my complete and utter distraught-ness I pack up my stuff and look for another room that is unlocked with a couch. [6:10PM]

To my delight the doors to the rest of the church have been unlocked and the living room is empty!

And here I am, on the couch in the living room. It's so comfortable and my legs have now lost all feeling. I might not be able to get up, not gonna lie.

Well that was my day. If you actually read all of that I feel sorry for you that you just wasted the last 5 min of your life and question whether or not you have one. (You should probably get out more)

Sorry if my sarcasm has offended you in any way. It's a day that requires sarcasm to keep the sanity. My day is not even over yet. On to Little Rock in an hour or so! More adventures to come I'm sure.

Peace. Thanks for listening.