Pushing on

New Years is on the way, the day when we make resolutions that doesn't even last, for me I dont make resolutions I just take the things that i'm passionate about and I push harder to make the dream come true.

I will start with a story that happened long before I was born and one that we all need to learn from. It tells of a man named Abraham Lincoln who whilst running for president and even as president saw something he hated and develeped a passion to abolish that thing which so happened to be slavery. The confederate states disliked this as it was upsetting their comfort zone and tried to fight for slavery to remain but Lincoln who must have been thinking "this is not good enough" managed after trails and hardships to get rid of slavery forever. He may have paid the price for it by being assasinated but he achieved something that many people today fail at.

This is where I go into where we fail at today, bad news happens amongst our passions and we look at these and think "oh well" or "Its a pity". I hate these words, they mean the very thing called "Settling for what society tells us" and we instead need to settle for nothing less. Where theres injustice then fight the system much like the closure of the UC Berkeley Gymnastics Program where someone has stepped up and refused the administrations request to pull the program completely and instead put up a fight to keep the program running and even went where administration should have gone by requesting funding to which I ask you guys to pray the the full funds will be met.

It takes having this attitude to be a history maker and to impact the world as we know it. If someone thinks its worthless pursuing a certain dream then make the pursuit even greater but also be prepared to put up a fight as along the way people will drag you down. Be extraordinary and live out your dream no matter what comes your way and don't give up.

The Encounter with Jesus - A Christmas Message

I guess without knowing it I have been going through another series called "A Christmas Message". Who would have though thought that a 16 year old would give birth to a baby boy who would save us all and yet was a virgin. None can fathom this mystery but it happened and who that baby boy turned out to become was one who encountered people of all backgrounds as he ministered to the people.

1. The Shepherds and the wise men - yes he was only a little baby then but that moment changed the hearts of those men as we know it
2.The scholars as a little boy - he did nothing except just sit in the temple to hear them teach
3. Ordinary people - This is the woman at the well, zacchius the tax collector, the 12 disciples. He had light encounters as well as heavy encounters with them but none of them were as harsh as the encounter group as I'm about to mention now!
4. The Pharisees - Shame we pick on them but you cant deny that they were the vilest of them all, said one thing and did another and yet criticised those who did wrong (yet they themselves had done those same things - Hypocrisy).
5. Us

I'm going to touch on point 5, the other day I kind of had one of those intense encounters with God after a split second return of a past issue in my life, and that evening as I sat down, I poured it all out to God and instead of an encounter of condemnation it was an encounter of what I can honestly say was fatherly love like never before. In that moment I was being real with God more then ever. I guess to just be real with ourselves and having a life thats an open book must be the greatest gift to Jesus but it must not just be kept a christmas thing but an everyday thing.

An Insight into the Jesus we never Knew - A Christmas message

Isa 9:6  For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Isa 9:7  Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.


2 blogs in the same day, how interesting. We are smack bang in the middle of Christmas period and we are now being bombarded with images of Santa and dreary christmas music as we do our christmas shopping in our local malls (seems they always seem to find people who love Boney M to manage the malls). We are also bombarded with a sole focus on the baby Jesus but while this last bit is valid we tend to box Jesus this time of year as just a little baby (yes we all know about the miraculous virgin birth that can not be explained or understood).

Here's the facts: We were all just little babies at one stage in our lives, yet we grew up and developed talents, passions and interests of our own that God has blessed us with and with regards to Jesus it was no different, he spent some time as a little boy listening to what religious scholars had to say and then went on to do carpentry. Later he went on to really begin the work God set out for him and in this he confronts Evil, History, society, and  religion. He later after upsetting the pharisees so much suffered a crucifixion so intense but yet defeated evil as we know it by rising 3 days later and paid the price of our sins at the same time. Jesus is not just some smiley gentle person, he was ferocious and for eg. showed this by calling the pharisees "You Brood of vipers" and yet made amazing statements like the following:

Joh 14:6  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

What we see is a clear picture that Jesus is indeed God, yet people failed to see it and some still do fail to see it and they tend to be the ones bombarding us this time of year with images of Santa Clause, Boney M, Rudolph the reindeer and putting us to debt by persuading us that our family member needs that expensive gadget that they wont use in a years time. How about a challenge to claim christmas back to what it was and to use it as a celebration of the birth of a saviour, one who confronted every aspect of life and died for our sins.

To Be Active in today

To touch on what Bradley Jones says I'm going to include what I think it means to be active I'm going to begin with a saying "Gymnastics: Its not just a sport, its a lifestyle". Why do I say this. Its because as a gymnast we kind of sign the rest of our lives bound to a gymnastics club with training set up just about every day and anyone else involved in this sport will agree that its completely worth it because we dont just do it for the sake of it, we do because it brings about this need to be competitive in something we love. I have said countless of times Gymnastics means the world to me and it has for a very long time, so long in fact that it has meant so much longer to me then getting on a skateboard and yet it took me a while to be affiliated within a club and to see more of the story here is a link to a previous blog detailing how long there has been this passion. http://grahamboyd.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-life-as-gymnast-written-sep-21-2010.html

Now I may be living a healthy lifestyle what with being a gymnast and all (I have to watch what I do as my choices could affect my performance) but I'm going to shift gears into a concept of living a healthy lifestyle that does get overlooked and anyone living in Johannesburg will kind of agree. Christmas is around the corner (and I will touch on the true meaning of christmas as well as insight into who Jesus really was closer to Christmas day) and we are bombarded with images of pumping iron at the local gym or cutting down on certain foods which may kind of be valid but in Johannesburg things are kind of intense and in fact stressful most of the times so I reckon an overlooked way to spend a healthy lifestyle is pretty much just getting away out of the hustle and bustle of the city and just taking a simple vacation to a beachside community or listening to the sounds of birds and animals in the game reserve. Christmas time for anyone from the city is a chance to just get away from all the stresses of life and just allow themselves to just be content with no hassles or worries.

How Far I've come

I may have had struggles in my life but I look back and my whole life has changed over the years, as I young kid if you ever thought that I would be this passionate gymnast (I was never exposed to the concept of gymnastics until I was 16 although I do kind of remember channel hopping and I clearly remember seeing Kerri Strugg do that monumental vault routine in Atlanta 1996 that earned her gold and whilst injured too), or become a youth leader for a strong church and mentoring countless numbers of kids. If you told me all this back then I would have said that you would be crazy but God is full of surprises and incredibly so as I wouldn't trade my time with the youth ministry on friday nights let alone the times I spend at gymnastics practice for the world. I have dealt with kids suffering from the most intense issues touching on the most intense horrific stuff and I have seen them rise to become men of God in the most incredible way. I have  learnt how to face issues like suicide and homosexuality from youth kids past but yet I still feel that need to continue to reach out to the kids that come along but Friday nights isn't only my mission field, its the skatepark ministry that I'm involved in, it's the gymnastics club where I just love to train week in and week out as I just be myself around my awesome teammates. I have joined a group called Gymnasts for Christ http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=231487334271
This group is dedicated to christian gymnasts like myself whose aim is to make the most of the time at practice being ourselves and showing the love of Christ at the same time and just giving God the glory for blessing us with the ability to do such an awesome sport. This is who I am: A dedicated Church youth leader, A passionate dedicated gymnast and above all a child of God giving him all thanks for the things he has blessed me with.