Wow. As interesting as it is to try to formulate a comprehensive idea on how being back home in Chicago is compared to being in Northern Ireland within 24 hrs of being home is, I am going to try.
I have traded in the seaside, rolling hills and mountains in my daily view for the concrete suburban skyline. I have traded living in a Manor house on a nature reserve for a basement room, or sharing a bed on the floor with my brother. I have traded 6 days a week of working with youth or playing soccer with Northern Irish for figuring out when and where to meet up with friends and catch up and do life together. I have traded in skyping video chats at 1am with my girlfriend to texts, phone calls, and soon 10 amazing days together.
But none of that really is reality. Nothing of this transition for 5 weeks that will again be done in the reverse, defines me. For me so often I have base truths of who I am and how those impact me lead to a definition of home and purpose in my present situation.
I am Bryan Miller. Bryan is defined by a life lived outloud and purposed for connections, conversations, and challenges. Bryan is loved by the Creator GOD who loves and gives me mercy. Bryan has gifts given that want to be utilized. So Bryan being me, is at home when able to be used for God's glory in my present situation.
That is my thought at the moment. While the exterior and external place has changed, my longing stays the same. I want to hold fast to my base. To the Truth that God loves me, and that he calls me to be bold in that knowledge and make connections, build discussion in conversation and challenge people as well as myself.
I have been humbled by messages from both sides of the Atlantic in the last week as people are excited for me and are looking forward to my return either to Chicago or County Down. God is good and I know that I am who I am because of Him. His grace and gifting allows me to make the relationships I have.
I cannot wait to see what God has in store for this break, the stories I get to relate and the ability to learn more from this step of the journey God has for me. I get to speak and stand for Truth no matter where I am. I can ask tough questions or give answers when asked no matter where I am. I will look for ways to serve and ways to help others, from a friendly smile, opening of a door, or hours of help in any way.
I know that my path is in HIS mighty and loving hands. I cannot wait to share life with you and those around me. He is Good, His love Endures forever. I am humbled by my opportunities and look forward with anticipation to the chapters that are still to be written.
Thanks for being a part of some of the steps I've taken!
Bryan
"For God so loved the WORLD that he gave his one and only Son to save us while we were yet still sinners."
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Life is going well!
Hey all, if you dont feel like reading my in-depth thoughts and musings of my brain and heart here is a more light hearted update!
I am doing well, battled through some sinus infection type stuff in the past month but am enjoying the autumn and into winter months here in Northern Ireland. God has brought teachings, growing relationships, discussions and readings to me that has grown and got me thinking and ready for each next step!
Whether that is a conversation with a searching teenager, an apathetic hurting 14 yr old, an angry and confused lad, a goofy carefree teammate, or a challenge to be better and more responsible by my fellow workers I can meet them and learn from them.
God is good and has given me a lot to look at and think on, and people to enjoy the ride with. I love discussions, and that is what I wanted to bring in my experience here. I want to talk, learn think and discuss all facets of life, being as real as possible and as open as I can be in my thoughts to people so that I am clear and transparent.
I am excited in the now 4!!! months that I have had to learn names, stories, and personalities that I get to call friends here. I know that the next step to come will be another great opportunity to grow, learn and challenge myself with. I want to help ppl challenge their views. To grow, to grow up, to grow in wisdom, to grow in the LORD. If i can help enact that all glory to God. I just want to be a vessel used for purposes beyond myself.
I have loved learning more about Christ, how the world thinks and how I should think and challenge the world with the Love and Truth of Christ the Creator Crucified. It is humbling and just the thoughts and growth I have prayed for. Now to graft into life continuing in the states during this break and plans for the future as well!
Drop me a line!! Let me discuss with you! What is new in your life? What is challenging you?
God Bless. Merry Christmas time!! Remember that the Creator became Immanuel, God with us, in this time, and changed human history forever!
Bryan, Bmilla, Bmill, Millsy, Miller, Mill, B, Bruce, Bry, Mighty Mouse, and hopefully also a growing servant of our Lord Jesus Christ.
:):):)
I am doing well, battled through some sinus infection type stuff in the past month but am enjoying the autumn and into winter months here in Northern Ireland. God has brought teachings, growing relationships, discussions and readings to me that has grown and got me thinking and ready for each next step!
Whether that is a conversation with a searching teenager, an apathetic hurting 14 yr old, an angry and confused lad, a goofy carefree teammate, or a challenge to be better and more responsible by my fellow workers I can meet them and learn from them.
God is good and has given me a lot to look at and think on, and people to enjoy the ride with. I love discussions, and that is what I wanted to bring in my experience here. I want to talk, learn think and discuss all facets of life, being as real as possible and as open as I can be in my thoughts to people so that I am clear and transparent.
I am excited in the now 4!!! months that I have had to learn names, stories, and personalities that I get to call friends here. I know that the next step to come will be another great opportunity to grow, learn and challenge myself with. I want to help ppl challenge their views. To grow, to grow up, to grow in wisdom, to grow in the LORD. If i can help enact that all glory to God. I just want to be a vessel used for purposes beyond myself.
I have loved learning more about Christ, how the world thinks and how I should think and challenge the world with the Love and Truth of Christ the Creator Crucified. It is humbling and just the thoughts and growth I have prayed for. Now to graft into life continuing in the states during this break and plans for the future as well!
Drop me a line!! Let me discuss with you! What is new in your life? What is challenging you?
God Bless. Merry Christmas time!! Remember that the Creator became Immanuel, God with us, in this time, and changed human history forever!
Bryan, Bmilla, Bmill, Millsy, Miller, Mill, B, Bruce, Bry, Mighty Mouse, and hopefully also a growing servant of our Lord Jesus Christ.
:):):)
Lenses
I am pretty blind. Many people have not seen me without my contacts in, but I wear them and need them. It is how I am able to see, what allows me to drive legally and be involved with the world around me. Sight is active and for me to be active I have to have lenses that correct and shape the world around me so I can see it.
There is another word that is a lens that I am encountering more and more. This lens has a synonym, Worldview. A worldview is defined as: the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing natural philosophy; fundamental existential and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it.
The framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it. An all encompassing philosophy that manifests itself in action and interaction with the world around you. A lens that you see things as and then helps shape how you act and what you think about.
I see today and people with worldviews and lenses that are supposedly carefree and freedom giving. But digging into these thoughts and extrapolating the lenses to their base premise or furthest extent lends to an interesting path. What worldviews do you see around you? In the youth you see or have?
I see so little Hope, and so much self. Freedom comes from thinking free of "old" stuff or "religion" or a BCE (cause Before Christ is too much) thought process. You must not have this thought, but be free..... to have OUR thought.
Come join our worldview, you did not even know that you were us but you KNOW that your not them. So come, speak up, look at us as free and thinkers and judge everything by your circumstances. Or I just see apathy and anger, it should not be this way, and if you say it is God's world and life is this way, forget that. Reason and human thought, science are the grounds for everything. But we have been taught and told this and that is all I know. Even so much as I do not care about your thoughts as long as it is not "religious." Life is relative, nothing is concrete, except what you can see, feel and quantitate.
The problem comes in with a need for a cornerstone, a basis to lean on. Circumstances change, everyday something new happens. You cannot control what will happen to you in the next instance, it is beyond you because it is affected by others. If my circumstance is ok and yours is ok, you do what you do and I'll do mine how does that work? What happens when conflict happens in worldviews and circumstances, who is right and where do you turn but self? And isn't there more than just seeing and quantitative aspects of life. Feelings go deeper than brain chemicals to me... and affects of life around me go beyond physical. And arguments can be counter productive but at some point someone is wrong correct? There is so much more... I need a cornerstone and want to have clear vision on things.
Absolutes are missing in this world. Are there absolutes? I think there has to be at the base level. Circumstances can throw a wrench in how you think about absolutes and what that means to hold to a Truth, but where is hope anchored to if all is relative and bound to change and struggle.
I am learning and seeing worldviews around me, ones similar to my own, some that are close in some areas and different in others, some that are diametrically opposed to mine, and some so apathetic to mine or others they fall in their own category. But I do want mine to be challenged, to think, to learn to grow into a mature worldview and perspective. Spouting my ideas in all reality mean nothing because it is just as valid as yours at the maximum if it is only my personal values morals and ethics. But if i am challenged in mine as well as grafting in something that is beyond me, that claims Truth, then either that will have authority and bearing on my thoughts or it is wrong and i will be on the wrong path. Things are clearer, in a crazy way.
For me I lean, trust, and experience the Hope that is grounded in the Truth of the BIBLE. It claims to be the Living Word of God. If it is and i trust it then I feel I will be shaped by it and my worldview has an anchor to grow from. If it is not true, then I will find that out at somepoint, but I choose to hold fast to it and experience all that it has to offer and teach, as well as experience.
I dont want to be that horse. Now that it is Christmas time you see the horse taxi and sleighs. There are always beautiful creatures doing a great and fun purpose. But they are necessarily blindered. They have blinders and are led in the path from behind. Their lenses are blurry. I want to be challenged, grown, and firm in my training, thought and belief in Christ, his Word and Truth that I am more like a police horse. A trained and regimented but ultimately freer entity that will react and follow well when necessary. I would have clear lenses, sight and readiness, a freedom to continue and move.
So often we do not challenge and look to think on and grow in our lives and thought processes. We must! Looking, discussing, learning, listening and challenging is how you grow and take hold of Truth. Sometimes digging will lead us to see the cornerstone to which we hold, I pray that when it is found it is something you want to follow, because you have been following it for a long time then.
How will you challenge yourself to challenge think and see how your thoughts, values and morality plays out? Does it match up to what you want it to? What you think it does? What Christ says to value? What will lead you to freedom and life?
Get that contact solution out and unblurr your lenses. If you dont then you may get so used to having blurry sight that you forget that sight can be anything different.
There is another word that is a lens that I am encountering more and more. This lens has a synonym, Worldview. A worldview is defined as: the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing natural philosophy; fundamental existential and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it.
The framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it. An all encompassing philosophy that manifests itself in action and interaction with the world around you. A lens that you see things as and then helps shape how you act and what you think about.
I see today and people with worldviews and lenses that are supposedly carefree and freedom giving. But digging into these thoughts and extrapolating the lenses to their base premise or furthest extent lends to an interesting path. What worldviews do you see around you? In the youth you see or have?
I see so little Hope, and so much self. Freedom comes from thinking free of "old" stuff or "religion" or a BCE (cause Before Christ is too much) thought process. You must not have this thought, but be free..... to have OUR thought.
Come join our worldview, you did not even know that you were us but you KNOW that your not them. So come, speak up, look at us as free and thinkers and judge everything by your circumstances. Or I just see apathy and anger, it should not be this way, and if you say it is God's world and life is this way, forget that. Reason and human thought, science are the grounds for everything. But we have been taught and told this and that is all I know. Even so much as I do not care about your thoughts as long as it is not "religious." Life is relative, nothing is concrete, except what you can see, feel and quantitate.
The problem comes in with a need for a cornerstone, a basis to lean on. Circumstances change, everyday something new happens. You cannot control what will happen to you in the next instance, it is beyond you because it is affected by others. If my circumstance is ok and yours is ok, you do what you do and I'll do mine how does that work? What happens when conflict happens in worldviews and circumstances, who is right and where do you turn but self? And isn't there more than just seeing and quantitative aspects of life. Feelings go deeper than brain chemicals to me... and affects of life around me go beyond physical. And arguments can be counter productive but at some point someone is wrong correct? There is so much more... I need a cornerstone and want to have clear vision on things.
Absolutes are missing in this world. Are there absolutes? I think there has to be at the base level. Circumstances can throw a wrench in how you think about absolutes and what that means to hold to a Truth, but where is hope anchored to if all is relative and bound to change and struggle.
I am learning and seeing worldviews around me, ones similar to my own, some that are close in some areas and different in others, some that are diametrically opposed to mine, and some so apathetic to mine or others they fall in their own category. But I do want mine to be challenged, to think, to learn to grow into a mature worldview and perspective. Spouting my ideas in all reality mean nothing because it is just as valid as yours at the maximum if it is only my personal values morals and ethics. But if i am challenged in mine as well as grafting in something that is beyond me, that claims Truth, then either that will have authority and bearing on my thoughts or it is wrong and i will be on the wrong path. Things are clearer, in a crazy way.
For me I lean, trust, and experience the Hope that is grounded in the Truth of the BIBLE. It claims to be the Living Word of God. If it is and i trust it then I feel I will be shaped by it and my worldview has an anchor to grow from. If it is not true, then I will find that out at somepoint, but I choose to hold fast to it and experience all that it has to offer and teach, as well as experience.
I dont want to be that horse. Now that it is Christmas time you see the horse taxi and sleighs. There are always beautiful creatures doing a great and fun purpose. But they are necessarily blindered. They have blinders and are led in the path from behind. Their lenses are blurry. I want to be challenged, grown, and firm in my training, thought and belief in Christ, his Word and Truth that I am more like a police horse. A trained and regimented but ultimately freer entity that will react and follow well when necessary. I would have clear lenses, sight and readiness, a freedom to continue and move.
So often we do not challenge and look to think on and grow in our lives and thought processes. We must! Looking, discussing, learning, listening and challenging is how you grow and take hold of Truth. Sometimes digging will lead us to see the cornerstone to which we hold, I pray that when it is found it is something you want to follow, because you have been following it for a long time then.
How will you challenge yourself to challenge think and see how your thoughts, values and morality plays out? Does it match up to what you want it to? What you think it does? What Christ says to value? What will lead you to freedom and life?
Get that contact solution out and unblurr your lenses. If you dont then you may get so used to having blurry sight that you forget that sight can be anything different.
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