Spiritual decay and renewal: The past six months.

So this is the first blog I have posted in a long, long time. A lot has changed in my life since the last one, I have moved out of the apartment and into a three bedroom house with a couple of roomies. I am also working 96 miles from where I live which is a bit of a drive each day but it is work. But what I wanted to talk about is where my spiritual walk has been over the past six months, or really where it has not been.

I have really experienced a disconnect in my walk with God. Some financial struggles that I have been experiencing impacted me in a big way in my actions. Instead of turning to God for strength to conquer my struggles I became depressed and started drinking to much which in turn led to other sin issues as well which drove a big wedge inbetween me and God. This self inflicted wedge effected me mentally and physically in my frame of mind and my actions. For the first time in my life I had no desire at all to go to church or even think about God. Even during struggles I have had in the past I still maintained a desire to go to church and discuss God with others. But not this time, my spiritual life was in serious decay.

It reached a point where I could no longer take this wedge I have put between me and God, I miss the intimacy with Him, I miss the relationship I have with Him. Over the past several weeks my desire for Him has been stirred, the fire and passion I once felt has been stoked again. While I have a long ways to go in removing this wedge, I know what I have to do and I will do it. My spiritual renewal has started.

My relationship with God is very real, and the depression and emptiness I feel without Him is incredibly frustrating. For all of you that read this, please keep me in your prayers that the spiritual renewal that has started in my life will continue and thrive. I want the intimate relationship God offers us, I cant continue this life without it. Without Him, this life just doesn't have meaning to me and it doesn't make sense. We were made to worship God, it is what makes us truly, and lastingly happy. He is the only thing in our life that will not let us down, even if we are not willing to accept that fact, it is true. I want to encourage all of you that feel broken, disheartened, overwhelmed or that are struggling to find what the purpose of this life is to turn to Jesus. Only He will never let you down, only when you experience the intimate relationship He offers us will this life ever truly make sense.

Tim Shrout

A Long Time Coming

So I haven't done one of these for awhile, a long while!  Tonight I am just giving an update, I last left you guys saying I was going to be in a Jits tourney.  I came in second place in my division so it went pretty well, though I had an injury to my neck that lasted quite awhile after that which is fully healed now.  I am training a lot recently, also attending carpenter school right now which is incredibly boring.  I was able to take a trip home recently and loved it, loved seeing my family again.  I am going to try and start blogging again regularly and tomorrow morning I am putting up a new blog on 1st Corinthians 15 which I have been looking forward to blogging about for awhile.  Talk to you guys then!

Tim

The Fig Tree, Do You Have Fruit In Your Life?

Tonight I wanted to share something that really impacted and challenged me recently, it is in Mark 11:13-14

Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.  He said to it, "may no one ever eat fruit from you again!"  And His disciples were listening.

At first glance this might seem strange, okay so Jesus curses a fig tree because He was hungry and it didn't have fruit on it?  This is actually a figurative thing that He is saying, from a distance the fig tree looked good, so He got closer to it to partake of its fruit and realized there was none.  This is actually a parallel to us as Christians.  A lot of us can put on the Christian facade and look good, like we are living a Godly life from a distance.  So then someone gets to know us and realizes there is no fruit in our life.  Nothing to really show we have been affected by our relationship with God.  This is quite deadly for us, other christians and non believers.  For us because if we are truly christians, yet not showing any fruits of our faith then we cannot grow in our relationship with God and cannot affect anyones life in a positive way.  It is deadly to other christians in such as they see us and our good looking christian life from afar then often they will look to us to help disciple them, to keep them accountable and help them grow in their walk.  Then when in truth we have no fruit in our life and no growth, we will not be able to help them.  We can only help them walk down the fruitless path we are on, creating a whole generation of christians that just fit in with the rest of the world, failing to make an impact or a difference.  It hurts non christians as they see us claiming to be christians then see the way we live our lives.  They will think, these people are no different then us, who are they to claim that their way is right?  We poison their minds against christians and God, and fail to reach anyone for Christ, doing our part to send them on their path towards eternal separation with God.  Thus it is better to not claim to be a christian if we are not showing the fruit of our faith in our lives.  Jesus curses the fruitless tree so that it will never again bear fruit, that is how much God cannot stand a fruitless relationship because of the damage is causes and the hypocrisy of it.  

This greatly impacted me making me examine my life to see if I am showing the fruits of my relationship with God.  This is something we all should do, we must examine ourselves, be on constant guard.  If we are not showing the fruits of our faith, then there is a serious issue that must be addressed.  For our sakes, for the sake of other christians and for the sake of non believers everywhere, we must be growing in our walk, we must have fruit in our lives!  Lets not be like that fig tree!

First BJJ Tourney

So this coming sunday I have my first BJJ tourney.  It is called Choke Fest 2 and it is a California based tourney leading up to the west coast BJJ championship in March that I will also be in.  I am really stoked about it, I will be in the 170-185 weight class and cannot wait to see what its like and get my feet wet in the tourney world!

Tim

The Crayon Party

So we had an interesting party this past saturday night.  It was raining and one of the roomies decided to go back to our childhoods for some reason, so we had about 13 odd people over and aquired coloring books and rented a couple of old disney movies.  We now finally have art, a bunch of crayon whinney the pooh pictures all over the apartment.  Then we watched the disney movies, interesting random things to do on a rainy winter night.  Just thought I would share!  

Tim

The Foot

So yesterday at work I spent a lot of time sitting down on my knees trying to uncover some hardware from behind the concrete walls we pored.  I don't know exactly what happened, though I believe it is a pinched nerve,  but my left foot only moves one way right now.  It cannot rotate as it should and only moves to the right.  It is really annoying as its causing me to fall quite a bit and is forcing me to stop training at the gym while it heals.  It seems like I always have these stupid freak things happen to me!  I am hoping it is healthy enough for me to go back to the gym tomorrow.  To walk right now I have to lift my left leg high in the air so that the foot does not drag on the ground and I don't trip over it.  It looks and feels very foolish!  Anyways, thought I would share!

Tim

Atheist Holiday

So I have been absent from this blog for a little bit, my nights have been taken up with training at Undisputed thus making it difficult to write quite as often.  Today I wanted to share a little forward I got that I found quite amusing.  But first things first, if ya'all could keep my Dad(Mike Shrout) in your prayers as he is on a missions trip in India.  Okay, now since it won't let me copy/past onto the startup post, I am going to post a comment on this blog containing the forward, interesting legal situation in Florida:

The Christian Athlete, Dedication And Discipline

So yesterday I was reading in 1 Corinthians and wanted to share what I read.  Paul  uses metaphors that, as an athlete I really appreciate.  First I will share the passages and then do my best to break it down for ya'all:

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?  Run in such a way that you may win.  Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things.  They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.  Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

The life we lead is a race, and a very difficult one.  While we strive to please God and grow in our relationship and joy with Him, we are assaulted from all directions with things that will slow us down in the race, that will put a wedge in our relationship with Him and our ability to witness to others.  This is why we have to discipline ourselves.  For example, it is so easy to skip reading the word of God for one day.  If we let ourselves not do it one day, it becomes easier to not spend time in His word the next.  It becomes easier and easier each time we do it.  If we are not disciplined in the arena of sexual sin, and slip up once, it becomes easier to do it the next time and easier and easier each time we do it.  You get the picture, without discipline our walk with Jesus can and will fall into shambles.  It might not seem like missing one thing will make much of a difference but it really will.  It is like an athlete, say a fighter who uses some excuse of something he has going or would like to do that night to miss one of his training sessions.  Well the next time something comes up it becomes easier to use it as another excuse and another until he finds himself training only occasionally.  If a fighter does this, not only will he not get better but his skills will start to erode and he will not be able to fight on a high level.  Our walk is just like this, though God will forgive us when we slip up as Jesus death on the cross payed for that, each time we slip up it will make it easier to slip up again in the future.  This erodes our relationship with God and in turn hurts our ability to witness to a lost world.  Paul tells us we must discipline ourselves just like a high level athlete.  Not just for our sakes but for the sake of the lost around us.  Our one true and lasting joy comes from God, the worlds salvation comes from God, and He uses us to reach a lost and dying world.  If we do not discipline ourselves in our spiritual walk, then we will not be able to reach the lost world, we will become just like it.  We need to all strive to become great spiritual athletes, practicing discipline in all areas of our spiritual life so that we might grow in our knowledge, understand and joy of God and so that He might use us to reach a lost and dying world to save them from hell and help them experience the joy we have in Him.  Paul was a smart dude!

Tim

GYM TIME!

So it has finally happened.  After wanting to for so long I have finally joined an MMA gym here in San Diego.  Hopefully all of the training I have done with Nate gives me a good base.  It is called Undisputed (  www.sdundisputed.com  ) I joined their pro fight team so along with getting the best training they have to offer and several one on one sessions per month, I will be training with their other active fighters and they will also help me start getting fights.  I am really excited about this and cannot wait to start punishing my body!

Tim

Sunday Night Fight

So I finally went to my first MMA fight sunday, WEC: Pulver vrs Faber 2.  It was amazing, the whole card was great and I loved watching the california kid(Faber) tap out Pulver in the first round, I felt bad for Jens though as I like him as a person and a fighter and he was really heartbroken about the loss.  Overall though I loved the show and cannot wait to go see another one!

Death By Love

So today it really struck me hard what Jesus did for us on the cross so I wanted to share my thoughts.  So we have the God of the world, the Alpha and the Omega, the One who created the universe, created us.  We the people He created turned on Him, we sin against Him everyday.  We sin against the other people He created whom He loves dearly.  But despite all this, He came to the earth, He gave up His glory and came in the form of a lowly human.  He lived the sinless life that none of us could.  But that was not enough to save us, we have sinned against a holy God, time and time again, only a perfect sacrifice could save us from death.  So Jesus went to the cross for us, first he was put on false trial, mocked and beaten beyond recognition.  Now the cross is was a place of great shame, saved for only the worst kind of criminal.  It was the most agonizing, painful death anyone could possibly die.  After the beatings Jesus had, he was nailed to the cross with giant spikes driven through nerve centers in his wrists and through both feet.  He had a crown of giant thorns plunged into his head and was raised into the air to die a slow, agonizing painful death by suffocation.  While on the cross Jesus says some of the most amazing things, first about those who are killing him he proclaims "forgive them Father for they know not what they do".  To say that about those putting you to death in the most cruel, painful way imagined is just amazing.  Then what happens next is called by Jonathan Edwards the dark exchange.  Jesus took on all of our sins, in that moment he became a murderer, rapist, child abuser, drunk, homosexual, liar, gossip, pervert and every other sin imaginable, he became those things on the cross, taking the punishment and curse for our sin, experiencing a degree of separation from God the father and the Holy Spirit that caused Jesus to cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  Jesus went from being our glorious God to every type of sinner and evil person in an instant, for our sakes, despite the fact that we killed Him and continue to sin against Him to this day.  Then in one of the most amazing moments of scripture and in the history of the world, Jesus cries out, "It is finished!"  He announces that the dark exchange is complete, He has taken the sin of the world on His shoulders so that we might be forgiven and live together with God.  After that moment, after He finished the task He set out to finish, He gives His soul back up to God, announcing "To your hands I commend my spirit".  And with those words, He died.  The most incredible individual died the most painful death, taking on our sin to save us.  I don't understand why I am worth saving, why any of us are worth saving, but Jesus gave his life for us and because of that I will serve Him everyday, trying to further His kingdom.  I think we all need to reflect often on just what it was He went through on the cross to save us.  His actions should give us a greater desire to love and obey Him.  I know it gives me that desire!  I love you Lord, with all my heart!

Tim 

Finally! Time For My Fight!

Eh, so maybe the title is a LITTLE misleading.  This coming sunday I am going to my first MMA show ever, and I am really stoked.  It is the first big name company to come to SD in well, forever!  It is a WEC event and the fight I am really stoked for is Uriah Faber vrs Jens Pulver.  This is their second match with Faber winning the first in an exciting five round fight.  I have a coworker, his friend and a couple of friends going with me, its gonna be a good time!  Also starting this saturday me and a group of people are starting up rolling(BJJ) at a friends house which I am also stoked for, and hopefully next week finally starting up training at undisputed.  I am really, really looking forward to getting back to training as I really haven't been able to train at all since I moved to SD.  I am hoping that I will be able to train five-six times a week.  Now some bad news, I was making quite a bit more in my job then I was supposed too and just found out my salary is going back to where it was supposed to be.  So now I am going to have to be much more careful with my budget as I am trying to save money an pay my bills at the same time.  So if you could all pray for me that I would make wise decisions and be able to save and pay bills at the same time I would appreciate it!  Love ya'all!

Tim

He Is In Control Of This Whole Crazy Mess, What Do We Have To Worry About?

So I was reading Psalms 46 the other night and it was very, very encouraging for me so I wanted to share it with ya'all.  It is talking about how God is in control of everything.  This world is a crazy mess, its full of death, darkness, sin, grief, despair, lonelyness and many other problems.  But through it all we know God is in control.  This gives me an incredible peace and serenity in the midst of all my personal issues.  I know that no matter what God has a plan in my life and puts nothing in front of me that I cannot handle.  He helps me through it and uses my problems to make me stronger, to make me a better person and if I depend on Him, to draw me closer to Him.  He uses everything for good.  This comforts me so much, knowing that no matter how hard they try to be, satan and his minions are not in control.  The evil people of this world can plan their plans and scheme their schemes, but if its not in Gods plan, they cannot accomplish anything.  So with God being in control what do we have to worry about?  Bring on troubles!  Bring on Trials!  Bring on tribulation!  Because I can do anything through Christ, I can stand fast in the face of the storm and weather everything life has to throw at me because God is by my side.  I just wanted to share this with you guys and I hope that it gives you the same peace it gives me!

Tim

ELE: Everybody Love Everybody, The Football Story

Well here we go, another edition of the blog of Mr. Tim Shrout.  So for tonights episode, I was reading in 1 Corinthians and came across a section where Paul was talking about christians not suing other christians.  Well seeing as I have never had any issues suing another brother, or anyone for that matter, I will not be talking about suing eachother, rather something I read in this section really hit me on another level.  So first I will post the verse, then I will tell you what I took from it.

1 Corinthians 6:7-8

Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you that you have lawsuits with one another.  Why not rather be wronged?  Why not rather be defrauded?  On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud.  You do this even to your brethren.

So when I read this it hit me how often, as brothers and sisters in Christ that we argue and fight.  Aquiring a strong dislike for eachother.  Sometimes  it stems from church verses church, other times its much more personal.  So to illustrate this point, I am going to tell a story from I believe three years ago.  My church in nor cal, Grace Bible Fellowship got challenged to a game of tackle football against another church, Neighborhood church, a lot of you already are thinking, oh this can't end well!  Well let me tell you, it didn't.  At first we thought it would all be fun and games, then we found out the members from the other church were making bets as to whom they would hurt first!  So this ticked us off, we started talking crap and things did not get better.  Come game time there had already developed an anomosity between the two sides.  Our first drive down the field we scored a touchdown and on the touchdown one of their players was hurt trying to tackle our guy.  So we loved this and started playing a very physical game.  There were plenty of late hits by both sides and several near fights during this game(we won by the way, I had to throw that in).  After the game ended the bad blood was even worse then when it had started.  They challenged us to a second game after, we stupidly decided to accept and started talking more trash.  There was a fight during the second game, and one of their players ended up having their ankle broken during the course of this game(we won this one as well by the way, just had to throw that in as well).  Well the bad blood was extremley high now as might be imagined.  It continued well after the games were done, gossip about people from the other church was being thrown about on both sides.  For years, litterally years, we could not stand eachother and even to this day there is a lot of uncomfortableness whenever we are in the precense of eachother.  We have all grown up quite a bit since then, and while no more angry dwells between the players from these churches, the relationships still have not healed.  I tell you this story because we were all incredibly stupid.  Instead of doing what Paul says, we really hurt a relationship between these two churches.  Instead of fighting with eachother, we should have been united in a common mission to bring Christ to the community.  But from that point on, among those who played in the game it was a case of church against church.  There was no fellowship and no love between us.  That is about as pathetic as it can possibly get for two churches(this was just between the young people who played in the games, not the older, wiser members of the churches).  People looking in from the outside could not see Christs love between us and thus would see nothing different between us and anyone else in the world.  It killed our ability to witness to those who saw this as a result and cut off what could have been a great relationship in Christ with the guys from this church.  This happened  because, instead of being willing to be wronged by our fellow brothers we felt the need to get even(or in our case get ahead).  Why do we Christians need to fight with eachother?  Why can't we demonstrate Gods love when we are wronged?  It damages relationships, hurts our ability to minister to those who see the fudes and offends God.  It is not what He hand in mind for us.  So I want to encourage all of us, myself especially to be willing to be wronged by a brother and not get angry, not react out of anything other then love in these situations.  The world is watching us, God is watching us.  So we should have a strong desire, no matter what the circumstances, to forgive eachother, and not harbor ill will for any wrongs done to us.  If something as stupid as a football game can cause such issues between brothers and sisters in Christ, how much more can other things harm our relationships.  Problems will arise, we will be wronged by our brothers and sisters.  So instead of reacting and trying to get even or get ahead.  Lets show Gods love, even in the hardest of circumstances!

Tim

Stop it! Your Just Being a Hypocrite!

So all to often it seems as Christians we love to create this nice little bubble for ourselves.  We love to reject the people of this world and their immorality because its messy and forces us to look at our own problems.  We don't like that, we like to live in a protected bubble, we have the church and thats good enough for us.  So we choose to overlook the issues people in the church have, we choose to overlook our own issues because we are Christians, the people in the church are Christians and those are the only people we feel comfortable with.  We are hypocrites, we reject the world and those in it because of their problems, yet we overlook our own problems and the immorality of those in the church.  Paul addresses this in 1 Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 5:9-13  

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with the idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.  But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-not even to eat with such a one.  For what have I to do with judging outsiders?  Do you not judge those who are within the church?  But those who are outside, God judges.  Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

The church in Corinth was getting rid of everyone outside of the church, choosing not to associate with them because they were sinners.  But they chose to ignore the problems of their fellow Christian brothers.  We do this so often, we overlook our friends issues because they are Christians, and we judge the world because of the things they do.  How dare we!  What job is it of ours to judge those who are not saved?  Thats what God does, our job is to be with them and around them, witnessing to them, trying to reach them.  Yet we reject them and ignore our own idolatry.  If someone is in the church that is living a life of idolatry, its our job to call them out,  lovingly trying to bring them back to Christ.  Instead of judging those outside the church, we need to be judging those inside, looking at ourself first and formost.  What area of our life are we not giving to God?  What are we putting above Him?  Relationships?  Drinking?  Sex life?  It is time to confront our issues, taking care of them, bringing ourselves back to God, walking with Him and trying to bring others to Christ.  So lets stop being hypocrites, lets stop judging the world and ignoring ourselves.  That will only push others away from God.  Time to change guys, its a new year, a great time to make changes, starting with ourselves!

Tim

The blog is back after the Christmas/New Years hiatus!

So I took a long break during the past couple of weeks from blogging as I was spending all my extra time driving back and fourth from SD to Oakley it seems.  The holidays have been great, it was awesome seeing all my family and friends again and I can't wait to see them again, though it will probably be several months.  I hope everyone had a great Christmas as well!  Well on that note, I am going to say Hi and soon(tonight) another real blog will take place!  Oh, and one more thing, I wanna send a shout out to my man Ben Stanley for graduating the SD police academy, awesome dude!  I now room with a cop!  Heck yes, no more pesky neighbors!

Tim