i did it!

i really did it! Joey, another preacher that I know, said that we could go at 11:30 on Tuesday, as soon as I got out of class. It took me an hour to actually getting the courage to do it, and once I did, oh man was it a rush! The second that I made the decision in my heart to FINALLY do this, my feet just started moving on their own, carrying me to the center of the Plaza, and my mouth just opened up, and out came the Gospel! Oh Lord, you always catch us when we trust you on this clif. Romans 10, a song we sang in church, was in my head all that day, so naturally I started preaching on Romans 10 (see previous post) and how this is how it is, dabbling a bit into moral relativisim. What an excitement it was, what a joy to know that God is being glorified on this campus! It's so incredibly hard for me to begin to express what it was like, and how this has thrusted me into a deeper state of intimacy and grace with the Father, what an honor! The preaching only lasted for about 5 min, but it felt like 20 seconds. Tom Short is comming next week, oh yes, I'm excited.

ready...fire...aim!!!

"The fear of man is a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe" -Proverbs 29:25

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord." -1 Cor. 15:58

Here we go, tomorrow I begin preaching in Turlington. I would think that I would be freaking out, but suprisingly docile.

"How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?" -Romans 10:14

This has to be done, the Lord has to be glorified, or else this life is a waste of oxygen and space. If we don't lose our lives at the foot of the cross, how are we supposed to find them in the first place. Lord, if one gram of me sprouts pride, stick the thorn in my side, deflate that balloon.

"But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it." -Deut. 30:14

inner spaces.

the word is near

it is in your mouth
it is in your heart

the word is near

God, bring it near, regardless of my youthful ignorance and foolish ways. Tame this serpent in my mind, twisting and writhing from you. The word became flesh, You are in my mouth, You are in my heart, You dwell within me (John 14:17). Tame me. Break me. Waste me of this fear of the children of man, whom you've risen from the dirt. For I'm nothing but the waste of my best deeds, what does man give to you? Who may counsel the Lord in His infinite wisdom? Leave us with nothing but the yearning of our priceless need of You.

who is this King of Glory?

and how can we explain it? how can I, a man that can barely put together words anyways, explain it to someone else. seems that what's so hard here is the fact that i can't figure out exactly what is the necessity for salvation. as the walk deepens and the trust grows, more beauty and grace is unveiled, more than I could have ever expected, more than I can really put into words. and yet, we brake down this gorgeous relationship which is dynamic, intriguing and constantly beckoning for more attention, into a formula, a diagram, a method. oh Lord, give me the words, the unction, to bring others into salvation.

you are my joy.
you are my joy.
you are my joy.

lucky!

Oh, Lord, how my heart burns for Iceland.

icelandproject.blogspot.com

There is a poster in my house of Djandi Falls (think Narnia), in eastern Iceland, and over the past two days, I can't take my eyes off of it. The Clifton's and their ministry there is being placed at an incredibly deep level in my chest, the Lord is moving. On Iceland. On Gainesville. On His church. On me. Father, don't let this cease, don't let this relent or wane. Your Creation is screaming in desperation for you, they just don't know your name, despite pop-culture Jesus, whom I loathe so much. Turn mountains into molehills, prepare a way for Your Church, viva la revolution!

Yet, am I willing to give this up too?

no.

this can't be fake.

this can't be fabricated.

this can't be what i don't want it to be.

God, don't let it go any farther if it's wasting time.

oh, Shachah, don't leave me now.

this can't be a song and dance.

this has to be more.

this has to go deeper.

But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit

and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who

worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

feel it rise

i see a generation rising up
no longer accepting lies
running to the battlefield
and losing their lives

i see a generation rising up
no longer accepting lies
as a band of worshipers run to the battlefield
they're finding their lives
i hear a voice

What would I do for a larger vocabulary, to express what this song moves in me. Not the song, but my spirit in me connecting with the will of God. I see this, in my heart and my conscience, in my church. It's almost prophetic. What mode will the Spirit rip through this campus with? Waiting in expectation! I can see this going down like Braveheart, an epic battle with no comparison.

rant.

Thank the Lord for $1.50 movie theatres, because if I had paid any more for my ticket to see The Breakup I would have flipped. If you know me, you know that I think with my heart, that things hit deeper with me than the 'average' person, whatever that means. The entire time we were sitting in this flick, all I could think about is how I want to be the farthest thing away from the character that Vince Vaughn plays. Hollywood has contorted and twisted the image of men and women that sometimes it's hard to see the clear line. Women are made into this adulterous, self-absorbed hootch, while men are degraded into a pile of beer cans, naked women parading around them, with no regard to integrity or honor. Honestly, this bothers me so much. I think it bothers me right now not because that image is being cast upon us men and women of God, but that the world has fallen to such a pit of superficiality that it can't see past the skin. This world continues to see what is in it for itself, what it can get for it's own selfish gain. For some reason, this has moved my heart. Call it compassion, call it pity, call it whatever you may; my heart is crying for something more. Something more than this world can offer. Yes, I have Jesus Christ, and I'm not saying that He's not sufficent, because He surely is! What bothers me is that I feel that, at times, this superficial filth is rubbed off on us. Yes, we are in this world and not of it, and praise the Lord the day that we don't have to be surrounded in this trash, but us a Christians need to be above these things, we need not to be swayed and influenced by our circumstances.

This is how God operates. God is holy, which in turn makes him outside of the influence of anyting in all Creation. The downward spiral that our culture is in doesn't bring Him down, nor make Him less omnipotent. But for some reason now, my heart has never wanted to be more like God than now. I'm so tired and sick of seeing my brothers and sisters be influenced by what is around us. God told us to be holy because He himself was first holy. Our conversations, our choices in entertainment, even our music, is shaded with the trash of this world, some areas more than others.

Something that the Lord has really taught me this summer is the importance of what a man or woman of God talks about. Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. How true this is! Listen to a Christian for half an hour in a group setting, and you will start to see what is on their heart. Granted, this quantity of time won't give away all of what is in there, but I'm certain that some key elements of their character will come out. What are they talking about? Food? Music? Sports? Temporal things that really just don't matter? Or are we talking about how God is shaping us into His bride? Are we talking about how we are faithfully carrying out His command to this lost, and obviously, seriously bleeding society? Our culture has suffered a massive blow to the head, bleeding from the inside out, and we don't do anything about it. We think that by our lifestyles we evangelize. No, I'm sorry, it's by the constant dedication to evangelism that shapes our lifestyle. That is the true definition of lifestyle evangelism. How are people going to know of our risen Savior if we don't tell them? How are they going to know of the consequence of sin in their lives and the needed repentance if we don't tell them. How is anyone going to be with us when He comes through the clouds unless we tell them? Unless we stop talking about sports teams that we devote more time to than our time in the Word, stop talking about food that we do or do not like for whatever pointless reason. Granted there is a time and a place for these things, but when the majority of comments made by a person fall under this temporal category, what does that say about the condition of our hearts? We sing songs about how our hearts are totally God's, but do we REALLY mean it? Do we really believe that God is INSIDE of us? Do we really believe that we have a mission here, and that people are hurting and dying in their sin?

I guess what this all boils down to is that my heart is hurting for our Body. That we belive that these things matter, when in reality, they don't. They don't change the course of events of our lives, they don't change eternal destinations, they don't change our character to be more godlike. It's my prayer that God would bring men and women to GCL that have a heart to reach this place, to reach the University of Florida with their whole heart. Titus 2 says that "they profess to know Him, but by their deeds they deny Him." I'm not saying that our brothers and sisters are denying God or Christ, but that our deeds dictate what is really in us, what really makes us tick. That probably isn't the best verse to use, but it's the first one that came to mind. I'm tired of people being afraid or unwilling to put both of their feet in this water of the river of Christ. If you find yourself in this category, I'm praying for you, that God would bring you to a place of complete trust in Him, and that He would completely wrap around your mind, your heart, your words. God WILL build His church, do you want to be a part of it? Come, now is the time...

what lies beneath

We had big plans today for FSUbmerge to go to the springs with the new people we are meeting. I was pretty excited. On the way out I got a call from my dad. "Dave, hope this doesn't ruin your day today, but your cousin Densie drowned yesterday. They found her on the bottom of the lake." Yeah, not a good start to the day today. I only met Denise once when she came down to stay with us for a few days in the Keys. She's my dad's cousin really, married with three kids (17, 13 & 11). This is really tragic, and I might have to leave Tally for a few days, but somehow the Lord will be glorified in this. It's not too rough for me, I didn't know her (how pathetic is that? that my flesh doesn't even want to mourn) but I know it will be very hard for the rest of my family. Please pray for us, that someone will speak the healing words of Jesus Christ. If I go, I definately want to talk with some of my family about Christ, they need to hear this, especially after something like this. Thanks for reading.

30 days to go...

My internship is up in thirty days. It's been an interesting experience, but for some reason it feels like it's just getting started. I feel stronger, wiser, more rational, more faithful, but something feels off. I am really looking forward to going home to Ft. Lauderdale on August 5th for three reasons, one I get to see my family, especially my brother; two is that Richard, my brother and I get to go to a Mae show that is right down the street from my house; and third I get time to sit at the beach and process all of what the Lord has taught me this summer. There is a lot in my head, and I just simply don't have the time to process it all. I am really looking forward to getting home, this is going to be amazing! I had to skip II Kings in order to get almost up to date with my Bible reading, I'll tackle it when I get home, or on the ride home with Pooter (Richard)! Good news though! The one guy that I lead to Christ, Jadarya, he wants to get together this Friday for lunch, so we finally get some discipleship in here for the last few weeks! I'm just praying that he can make a connection with these guys, the Firebrand people, because that's what really matters.

Vaka is on right now, Untitled #1 from ( ), I love this song so much. Just like music always does, it places images, memories, future or past, in my head, in my heart. I think the Lord has really made me differently when it comes to this. I'm sure other people, like Cassie, have this same thing, but music just does it for us. I rememember events so much better with a soundtrack that I make posted to it. This whole album reminds me of the last two years in high school, in the Keys house. I miss that house so much! All the memories of staying up all night before leaving for camp, jumping on the Weiland's trampoline until 2 am with Monte, Waffle House (Awful House?), all the good memories with my friends that are too sweet to let out of my heart. I vividly remember looking out into the southern skys, a moonless night with an undulating blanket of stars to keep me occupied. Thinking of those nights, walking down Atlantic Ave., praying, thinking, praying some more. Watching the Molasses Reef bouy's marker light ebb and flow in the black night warmth. Thinking of how the Lord will use my life, how it will all pan out, thinking of all of my friends, and the mindless times we spent together. Thinking of Monte, how much he poured into my life, how much he helped me understand my faith, understand what I was doing with my life, understand who I was. Thinking of how I've never really cared as much for a friend as I did for Monte, how tightly the Lord knit our hearts together...those memories I will not forget. I refuse to.

So here I am, about to start my second half of college, with a whole new book to write in, a whole new slew of memories, of friends to meet, of days to spend with the Lord. I personally can't wait, and I think that's one of the biggest lessons I've learend out of this whole internship. That friends are invaluable, that we can't live without them, and the memories they leave are some of the sweetest, textured times of my life.

sustainment

I've been back here in Tallahassee for a few days now, got back on Thursday from the Pastor's Conference in Tan-Tar-A, Missouri. Wow, it was incredible!!! Not nearly as amazing as Faithwalkers, but it surely is up there on my list!!! For Sam, Alex and I, it was a litte hard to get a lot out of it because we are not pastors, yet at least, so the topics didn't relate to us AS much, but I know there is a lot that we can apply to our own lives as well as the homegroups that we will be/are leading in Gainesville. Herschel Martindale closed up the conference for us on Wednesday night as he taught through Titus 3.

He presented a point, a key fundamental belief that most Christians miss, I think I may have missed it for a while. It's changed my way of thinking a lot, I've rethought my capabilites, my desires, a lot of stuff. He presented John 14:16-18; "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."

He, the Holy Spirit, will abide with you, me, us, AND He will be IN us!!!!!! All of us!!!! God is inside me, He's inside you, everyone that accepts Christ as their salvation. How amazing is this? If God's very presence is inside of me, what can I not do? Can I fail? No. Can I quit? Not me. Can I burn out? Yes, if I forget this incredibly important piece of Truth. Can I really do all that Christ wants me to do, even though I don't know exactly what that is yet? Of course! These thoughts of God residing in me has changed the way I've thought about how to overcome sin and temptations, because we are the Temple!

This church plant is hard, it's a little unclear right now of what we are doing, but I will continue to do it. Sam & I are running this joint right now, with Pastor Matt in the hospital and Pastor Ryan up in North Carolina at a conference. It's a little overwhelming, but just enough that I can handle it. They weren't kidding when they said that this was Leadership Training. I love it though, having a lot of fun and getting to meet some cool cats up here. Miss Gainesville a ton though, I can not wait to get back and do the Lord's work with my brothers and sisters up there. He has really knit our hearts together, and it's such a blessing that you can only understand through experience because words can't do it justice. I'm off to the grocery store, so peace out. Chew on that verse though, ok?

over the river and through the woods...

6-25-06 @ 7:47

     Here we are on our way to Tan-Tar-A for the Pastor’s And Leader’s Conference, and I’m dang excited! Frank Liu is driving, and I’m laughing at how ironic it is that 4 pastors are trying to beat the insurance system on how to legally drive this rental van. Anyways, I’m really not sure what to expect because Faithwalkers set the bar pretty dang high for me, and Alan Moore said that this was like Faithwalkers on steroids!!! This is going to be intense. I remember how long the drive was for us coming from Gainesville, so this shouldn’t be as bad as we are 2 hours ahead. This amount of time in the car should give me ample time to catch up on my Old Testament readings in my Bible-In-A-Year plan, I’m dang excited! Being around all of these all-stars for 20 hours is going to be amazing, and I’m praying that the Lord would knit our hearts together hardcore like whoa. So maybe I’ll update later on in this drive, maybe not till I get there.

I saw this on macuser.com and I really enjoyed it. Seems to apply to almost every college student I know! Maybe not the Scientologist part...

New York magazine, as part of their Urban Etiquette Handbook, has a section on “The Four Levels of iPod Interaction : Whom you do and don’t have to unplug for” :

LEVEL ONE
Continue at full blast. Consider increasing the vigor of your head-nodding and/or humming.
• Guys passing out bargain-electronics-store flyers.
• Idealistic-looking whippersnappers holding clipboards.
• Scientologists.

LEVEL ONE AND A HALF
Subtly turn down volume.
• People in the elevator you don’t know.
• Someone attractive who sits down next to you on the train while you are listening to the Goo Goo Dolls.

LEVEL TWO
Make a big show of pressing PAUSE.
• Anyone who approaches you while you’re working out.
• Non-panhandlers on the subway (may be helpfully pointing out that your bag is open, may be distracting you in a Gangs of New York–style pickpocket ruse).
• Co-workers you hate.
• Friends.
• Your parents, if you’re a teenager.

LEVEL THREE
Remove headphones, toss them jauntily over shoulder.
• People in the elevator you know.
• Anyone taking your money or instructions about how to prepare your food.
• Co-workers you don’t hate.
• Your parents, if you’re an adult.
• Police officers.

LEVEL FOUR
Completely remove and enclose in nearest pocket/bag/ purse.
• Co-workers who could have you fired in less than an hour.
• Anyone who’s crying.
• Police officers standing next to someone who’s pointing at you and saying, “That’s him!”

rednecks and registration

Honoring Him with my finances has been incredible. Yesterday was a weird weird day. I sold my car, which was awesome cause I got to pay off two of my credit cards and tithe some of it. But the buyers were nuts. First off, from the first time this guy calls me to get info about the car, he's short with me, rude, and just doesn't know how to do business. He suprised me by actually showing up earlier than he said he would, AND he had the cash with him. So these two redneck guys my age check out the car, and the one guy that wants to buy it says he wants to go for a test drive, which is all good. We get in the car, I'm in the backseat, and let's just say that my dead great-grandmother can drive stick shift better than this kid.

He puts the engine up to 3,500 rpm's, THEN lets out the clutch as we are trying to back out of the parking lot. Needless to say, I was scared/thinking "what if I go Home early today?". This kid starts driving around the FSU stadium like he was Dale Junior or something, it was nuts. He can't shift, he can't drive straight, all him and his friend talks about is how it's got good low end pickup and junk, things that immature hot-headed teenage boys talk about. So we take it back to the house after the thought of going Home early runs through my head about three or four more times. He signs the paper work, hands over the cash, I sign over the title, it's a done deal. He drives off, I thank the Lord for providing a buyer so quickly, I'm at peace. Alex and I get in the car to go up the street to the Wachovia to deposit the money and my paycheck, when I get a phonecall from this joker. He said the car died at the gas station. "Oh, crap, what did you do know?" runs through my head. After we make the deposit, we head up to the gas station where they are, and after I get in the car, the car starts up fine. I don't want to even know what they've done to that car. As we are about to pull back out into the street to go home, they run up to Alex's Jeep and ask for a flipping refund!!!!!! I told him, "Bud, as it states on the Bill of Sale, the car is as is where is with no warranty implied or stated. The car is fully in your hands now, I'm out of the picture." And we drove off. I can't believe this guy!!! The audacity he has!!! We go home, all is well.

About 19:30 at night, he calls me again!!! He starts yelling at me, calling me an effin liar!!! I was getting aggrivated to say the least. He says that he took it to a mechanic and they took off the alternator and it was fried. Great Dale Jr. what did you do know in the last two hours you've owned my car? I told this guy that he forewent his chance to take it to an auto mechanic before he bought it, which he never did, and he got all pissed off at me and hung up!!! I can't believe this guy. So it's a done deal, I've got the money, he's got my car, and two of my credit cards are paid off. The audacity of some people will always baffle me till Kingdom come!!!

should...

I should be in bed, but I decided to update this thang. I've never felt like my life has been in more order than it is now! It's such an incredible feeling. This summer we've been going through the Crown Financial Study and it's made me realize how much He is in control of those areas of our lives, and how I need to honor Him more with that. So today I downloaded Mvelopes, a program from Crown that helps you organize your finances even more based on your debit and credit card transactions, its so amazing! I'm getting my mom on it, and probably my brother too, if that kid ever gets a job. Having a plan of getting out of debt is incredible!!! The end is in sight! Especially because within the first day of having my car up for sale on Autotrader, I've had 3 calls and 2 offers, in which the bid is $100 over my asking price! He is so faithful!!! I dunno, life is great, I love Him, and I can't wait to get out of debt! Goodnight!

love & release

A few days ago I got an e-mail from my big sister (spiritual) that she was stopping by here in Tally to visit Lauren, Sam & I before she left next week for the Middle East. She is going for two years, preaching the imperishing Word of God to the Muslims there in her region, and we won't see her until she returns (or I come up with $1500 for the plan ticket, kinda unlikely). We had an amazing time, catching up, sharing each others minds, sipping coffee and tea at All Saints Cafe, and buying Flair pens for journaling to Jesus. It was a 21 hour visit (stupid sleep wasting that time) and almost the entire time I was at a loss for words. What this woman has taught me, how she encourages me, challenges the home group, and goes after Jesus in the Middle East with complete reckless abandon, I have never seen or known anything like it before. A few months ago, she left to go to orientation for her trip, where she was gathered with "some of the most hardcore people after Jesus ever" (that was more of a paraphrase...whoops!), so we got to talk about those people too, and how they affected her life. She left at 1:15 p.m. (How do I describe these emotions? Please forgive me for stumbling through this) She left the parking lot, she left America, she left my heart so it seems. I've never really hurt like this before, I've never cried over someone leaving like this before, I've never had someone that has spoken so much Truth into my life before, and I/we won't get to see her for two years. What can happen in two years? To any of us?!? Only the Lord knows. She is in the middle (Middle?) of His will, which is good and safe, more than I could know. As the car pulled out of the parking lot, I was thankful that I was wearing sunglasses, cause man here came the tears. I went around the corner where Lauren couldn't see me, and just wept to God, thanking Him for everything that He has done in her life, in my brothers and sisters lifes through her, in homegroup through her, everything. I will never know anyone like her. But she is safe, in the palm of His hand, and I know He has it all under control, so what is to worry? Probably my selfishness that I won't be able to see her again for a long long time. Unlike last night, I know I will rest tonight knowing that she is running as hard and fast as she can after Him, in a way I haven't known before which completely inspires me and challenges me to look bigger, look broader, set the bar higher, and challenge people to get mixed up for Jesus, to not waste this life on our 401(k)'s and retirement plans. In the words of Peter Marvin, a good friend of mine up here, "Working for someone else's glory has got to be the greatest job on the face of the Earth."

At Faithwalkers, Doug Patterson quoted Jim Elliot: "Christ needs some young fellows to sell out to Him, and recklessly toss their lives into His work. It seems to me like you ought to be one of them." Yes, we ought to be one of them. She decided to be a part of that, I have too, will you?

V

"Why won't you die?"

"Because behind this mask is more than flesh.
More than bone.
There's an idea.
And idea's are bulletproof."

I can't shake this, this HAS to be my life. Church planting HAS to be my life, my life has to be a part of this revolution. A counter-culture Christian revolution to counter the culture and bring glory to His name. Idea's are bulletproof. Jesus, make me bulletproof.

little more than useless?

I was thinking, as I walked to the bathroom here at work, that I'm not very useful to the Kingdom. I feel like I'm not winning people to Christ, I'm not effectively leading my lifegroup guys, I'm not doing this right. This is what it feels like, not saying that's the truth. Raising support for this internship is hard, real hard, and I'm not that happy anymore cause life is hard, and I'm partially basing my happiness on my circumstances. JB and I were talking about how during growth, life isn't all that fun. But once you get through it, you go through the fire that God put you through, it gets a lot better. I can't wait for support raising to be over, I just want to spend time with my guys.

I'm not going to make this long and verbose, but I really enjoy who I've become. Not on my own will, mind you, but on God's. It's His progessive answer to my prayer for the past 4 years of my life. Life is gorgeous, and I can't wait to get married, I really can, but I can't wrap my brain around the concept of 'David's wife'. Please check out Explosions In The Sky!'s website, they have a new e.p. out and the free song is incredible. Once again, Explosions making my life more and more beautiful without ever saying a word. Funny how God does the same thing. Man...'david's wife'...I don't get it, but one day i'll be able to die to myself. For her. For my kids. For my church. How exciting! Go and get that mp3!

Agh! I look at people, and I'm so quick to judge, so quick to get on my soapbox, in my heart, and think that I've got it all together and others around me are falling to pieces because they aren't doing things the way that I think they should be done.
I'm rediculous.
I'm human.
I'm me.
And this is where I stand in front of my Lord, with my selfish and judgemental heart in my hands, begging to be reconditioned, like a new baseball glove that you but oil on and stick in the oven to overcome the stubborness and stiffness. Why can't I just look at life and say "hey, it is beautiful, even with this sin"? I don't know why. I want to know why I can't. My eye is so quick to see the sin in others, where is the log that is in my eye? It's got to be in here somewhere, maybe I'll find it in the morning. Maybe I won't be able to see when I wake up until I take it out. Come over, stay longer, I'm tired of this.

sorry!

Haven't updated this in a while, the Holy Spirit hasn't really convicted me to do so! Haha...oh man. This semester has been crazy awesome, a little bit of pain, but the Lord's power is made perfect in weakness! Support raising takes up a lot of my time, but I love it so much! The Lord is doing great things through this church and this movement, and people need to hear about it! I could raise support for the rest of my life!!! Now I really don't see anything holding me back from being on staff for the rest of my life. The only hard part about support raising is having to ask donors for names of others that woudl be interested and talking to them. I did my first one of those calls just now, but it flowed great! If there is 1 degree of separation, you always have something to talk about, the middle person!!! Overall, this has been an incredible experience, especially when we get to talk to the other interns via e-mail and encourage them. One girl I met, Sarah Campbell, rocked my face off, still does, and we keep encouraging each other, she has such a heart of a warrior! These interns across the country are incredible, I love them so much and I've known them for such a short period of time. Back to making calls!

I think it's pretty dang cool how God answers prayers. I've been seeking His face for a while on this topic, and I realized that he has been answering it without me even knowing it! He's just so dang cool. Also the other day, I was walking back from class, and this joy just flooded my mind! All I could think of is how freakin blessed we are knowing Him and the Truth!!!

This came as a result of listening to the Turlington preachers yesterday, in which God totally changed my heart towards them! You may know the guys I'm talking about, they hold the gigantic signs that condemn people to Hell. I used to judge them, rebuke them in my head and heart, sometimes verbally, I was embarassed that I was associated by faith with them. But I listened to them yesterday, really listened to them, and God worked on my heart! I saw that they weren't arrogant or full of hate and condemnation, but that they loved people, and they were preaching the Gospel!

If we preach a Jesus that is all love, the feminate Jesus that I hate, people don't take it seriously and I think it belittles the power that we hope in. You need to preach love, as well as God's justness, which is an extension of His love that people can't grasp. I don't care if people got pissed off, mostly because they didn't give these two men any of their time. They passed a judgement in their heads that these two were arrogant pricks up on their Christian soapboxes, when in reality these are broken men with broken lives, living a life made holy through the power of Jesus Christ! Jeremiah, the bigger guy, pulled out a pack of Marlboro's, sat on the ground and starting talking about how his divorce was his worst mistake ever. You could see he was still hurting inside, Lord knows how many years ago it was. These guys rock, and the next time you walk past them in Turlington, don't just judge them as some fundamentalist freaks, but give them 10 min of your time. They're fufiling Matthew 28, just in a way that may rub you the wrong way. It's better than doing a Bible study at a bar, that's for sure.

stupid me!

What an amazing spring break this has been! The Lord has definitely blessed the time spent back home in they Keys, and then my dad and I had several awesome conversations about God, deviance of Biblical manhood & womanhood in America, dating methodology, and his desire to get back into church! The Lord is moving on his heart, he's finally starting to answer our prayers! Today's sermon at Calvary Sawgrass was about simplicity, more specifically the simplicity of our relationship with Christ. So, as the common trend with me, I kicked the tires, lit the fires and headed down to Introspectionville.

God showed me that I try to be way too intellectual with Him. Peter is one of my best friends, Peter is also one of the smartest people I know, and we have intellectual conversations about God and junk all of the time, and maybe now it’s starting to rub off into my relationship with Him. I am David Lindeman, a man who loves Christ with his whole heart, and wants to serve Him. I’m not necessarily the smartest person ever or the sharpest tool in the shed, but since my friendship with Peter has deepened, I've somehow picked up this desire to be on par with him in his intellectualness, which isn't what God is asking of me.

I don’t know a lot of verses, I don’t know Hebrew and Greek (despite the desire to change that), I'm not some revolutionary theologian, I'm me, and simply put, that's simply how it needs to be. God has really showed me that I am JUST like my father, in so many ways it literally freaks me out. I see it in my mannerisms, in my speech, in my haircut, but there is a huge flipside to it, our relationships with God, and that's enough to separate us as wide as the Red Sea.

So as I figure myself out more and more each day, in a phase of introversion for God knows how long, He, in His incredible patience, shows me that I am me, made exactly the way that He planned, and I really should have no desire to change that. If I wanted to, I can see that somehow conveying "Hey God, you don't know best, cause B is what I really need to be, and A just isn't cutting it anymore for me." I used to have that attitude, maybe it's still there, but it's incredibly important for us to solidify our identity on our own in Christ, or we become this chameleon that people can’t trust.

the socks are off!

     Crazy Ft. Lauderdale, I’ll never understand you. Beautiful women, good sushi, ungodly huge mansions, and a lot of gay guys, especially at Boarder’s. I’m not homophobic by any means, I just gets to me when they look at you, well, me. You do your thing, just don’t involve me in it. I’m not condoning it by any means, it’s defiantly wrong and un-Biblical, but there are things in life that people just won’t budge on, and we have to accept that. God Himself is king, He’s going to take care of it all with one word: smite. That can be a scary word, just really glad that I’m on His side of the fence. This week has been absolutely incredible, I really don’t know where to begin! Ever since Kevin & I left the youth group two years ago, I was worried that it was all going to fall apart cause we were the upper classmen, the role models, the kids needed us right? Right? No, not really. It was just a prideful thought of mine that I was really that important to what was going on there. They are doing fine, just a few bumps in the road like everyone else, as I sit back in humility. God is freaking awesome, He began a mighty work in me there at that church in the Keys, and I’m incredibly thankful for that because now I have such a strong base to fall back on hopefully for support with full time ministry after graduation. Pastor Charles and I talked a lot about the pro’s and con’s of seminary when I was down there at their house, and it’s defiantly growing stronger on my heart. I really don’t know what’s going to happen in the next two years, but for me to be all that I want to be for Him, seminary is a wise step in that direction. Yeah, it’s not Biblical per se, it’s just a spring board for academia, something that doesn’t always rock my world.
     The past few days with my dad have been absolutely incredible, I can see the Lord working on his heart more and more. We’ve had quite a few conversations that have been very open about spirituality, dating, church, all that junk, and it seems like he wants to get back into church, hopefully for the last time! God has done mightier things, this isn’t a mountain for Him. Plus what I’ve got is probably smaller than a mustard seed anyways. He dances all around, without ever making a sound.

God or us?

Should we Christians be living out our lives like the shephard in the parable of 99 sheep? Should we give up and walk away from all that we have to reach out to that one that's lost? There comes a point when love and wisdom say their goodbye's, and to leave everything to pick that 1 back up wouldn't be the wisest thing to do, but Jesus did it, so why shouldn't we? Thank you Mrs. Brishke.

I sat by the ocean today, on my bench at the homeowners park.
sat.
breathed.
gazed.
breathed again.
pondered.
puzzled.
breathed.
prayed.
cried.
And I cried again. I just broke down in tears thanking God for what He has done with me, how He used this church, First Baptist Key Largo, to get me off on the right foot. I can't stop thanking Him. Right now I'm talking to Katie Regelmann about how growing up involves letting go of some friendships. I'm trying to find the balance of how many to let go of? There are a few that I don't ever want to give up: Monte, Janet, the Regelmann girls (especially after today's talk with Jenna), and Tessie. Something tells me not to give up, something tells me this isn't over yet. As soon as classes are over with, I'm coming back down again. I'd be a fool to go another 2 years, I love these people too much to let that happen again.

reignited.

You can't leave the ones you love fade out of your life. If you do, you are a fool. I've been a fool for the past two years. I'm done with being a fool. So here I am, Sufjan Stevens in my ears, convictions in my heart. I pray that I can stick to them, cause if I don't, what does that make me? I love you Monte Zerbe, I can't say it enough, I could never say it enough.

3-11-06 @ 12:13 AM @ The Rosenbalms house

Today I drove down to my hometown of the keys today. This was the first time in 2 years. As I drove south on US1, looking out past the green and brown colors of the mangroves, tears fell from my eyes as I thought of how this was the place that the Lord started to do His work in me. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for what He has done for me so far. As I kept driving a bit farther, I saw smoke ahead, not really thinking anything of it. As I get closer, I see a car that has spun off of the road into the mangroves and was completely engulfed in roaring flames. Pulled over to make sure everyone was out of the car and everything was ok, it was a relief that no one was hurt. When I finally got into Key Largo, a weird flood of emotions came over me, which I am still trying to dig through. Part nostalgia, part loneliness, part joy, all of these thoughts and memories of the 4 years I spent here rushed through my conscience. Home is so relaxing, and I never thought I would have missed this place as much as I do. Went straight to the Rosenbalms, chatted for a while, then off to PJ’s to see him and Kevin, up to Kevin’s to see his parents, back to PJ’s to catch up with his mom, then back do the Rosenbalms to have dinner, then down to the Drebenstedts to see Sarah, who is growing up so much! I wish I had words for what I am feeling, but God knows exactly what I mean so it’s ok. Life flashes before your eyes, and I plopped on Mrs. Brishke’s couch like the 2 years was a vapor. Some of it feels like a vapor, other a stone, not moving. I need to get to bed. Maybe I can figure this out for later.

countdown

This weekend is so bittersweet. I'm going home for the first time in 2 years to the Keys this weekend, and I can't wait to see everyone. I'm going to be staying at my pastors house, we have a lot of catching up to do. It's going to be incredible, but tomorrow is the last time I will see Amber for a long long time. She's going, fufiling my life verse, Isaiah 6, and I'm so proud of her. We can relate on such an amazing level, I love it, I love her, and I'm going to miss her. We all are. There are a few of us that are scrounging to spend the last few minuets she has here with her, so I've got 10:30-11:30 tomorrow. I still haven't even packed yet for home! Plus Matt Gordon wants to get together tomorrow and pray before I head home. Dang, it's busy, but all for the glory of God right? I can't wait for this summer, I can't wait to hang out with everyone (you if your going!!), and I can't wait to see how the Lord is going to use us to do His work. I can't wait to see the harvest that is waiting for us, I can't wait to see how the Lord is going to grow me personally to the man and leader that He want's me to be, as well as everyone else. I'm on the same page with Brandon Shore when I say that one of the most exciting things about college is watching people grow up and grow out of their old shells. The Lord is incredible, even though He isn't safe or easy, He sure is good, very very good. I will follow Him till the ends of the earth, even if it's not Iceland. I'll write more on that later, but it's an hour past my bedtime! Peace out yo.

wtf mates?

Im still trying to figure this out!

Now I want to go to Japan!

brain blood mesh filter?

OK, just had this thought, which is an important one for me. I'm at work, and I'm listening to my favorite Charlie Hall song, "Your Glory Endures Forever". It's really hard for me to describe this block that I have, this wall that is in my heart. I have yet to sucessfully describe it to someone, no matter how hard I try. There is something in my heart, or maybe my spirit, that is stopping from experiencing the full joy of Christ. No, I don't mean my sin/being here on Earth and not in Heaven, but there is something that is stopping me from living my life out Psalm 111 style. I try to praise God will all that I have, and I feel that I fall short or that something (Satan?) is stopping me. If you know me, you know that whether or not the iPod is on, I always have a song in my head...it's just the way God made me. Lately, that song has been Desperation Band's "Amazed", and I keep singing the chorus over and over again in my heart and head all day long. This is what I just realized: That when I sing that song from my heart, with no song or worship leader in front of me, that is when I feel like I am fufilling Psalm 111:1. So it seems to me that "Your Glory Endures Forever" is dampened from the time it leaves the speaker cones on the headphones to when it goes through my ears and into my head, like somehow Satan is stopping it from meaning more to me than it possibly can.

Satan knows what is going to happen, he knows that he is going to lose and there is no gain for him in all that he does. So I wonder if he knows God's plans for our lives and he is trying to stop those. If he knows that I want to be a pastor of a church, it makes sense that he would try to slow me down, drag his heels into my life plans. This feeling of the wall (i call it 'The Vague') isn't anything new, it's been here for almost 1 year. I first got it when I was driving in Ft. Lauderdale the week before Summer A started, and I freaked (froked?) out. But the Lord, in His amazing patience, has helped me deal with that feeling, as it ebbs and flows in my life. It swells up when I'm about to start support raising for the day, but if I get busy and don't slow down to think about it, I can overcome it.

So this is all starting to make sense, that Satan could be putting this damper on my heart, which affects all areas of my life: my time with God, my leadership in the church, my relationships with my family and friends, with my finances, with the desire to work out, everything. But I can work through it now, the Lord has definately helepd me be strong enough to survive with this on my back. I'm flying with an elephant on my back, but somehow now it feels as light as a feather. Must be the weather, in December, like a genner. Is genner a real word? It does for the sake of rhyming. 2...4...6...8...12...no BAKERS DOZEN!!!!!!!!!!

no!!!!!

Ah, crap. Cartel is coming to Jax tonight, and I know a lot of the guys want to go see them, I'm dying to see them. But I know that I need to get a lot of letters done tonight. CRAP! Oh well...it's all for the best. I also don't get to go on our Spring Break trip. I'm going to go home and get a lot of support raising done so I can get ahead a bit, I need to utilize all the time I have to get with people and get letters out. I'm finally going to be able to get down to Key Largo for the first time in almost 2 years! I want to jump off of the Ch. 2 bridge so bad!!! Hopefully the Lord will really honor this time down there and make it incredibly fruitful!!! It'll be good to see my parents as well. I really wanted to go up to Wilmington and meet some peeps up there, arg!!! But this is necessary for me to do what I need to do this summer, so I guess it's ok. I'm just frustrated that I can't go on the trip that I got to plan, and was so excited about going up there to serve. Man, it'd be nice to see Cartel & Copeland tonight...

milano

I really have nothing to write in here. It's funny how right people can be, sometimes they know it, other times they don't. Peter, Mark, Alan, a lot of guys in my life don't really realize it. I really have nothing to write in this dead air space.

yikes

This is rough. Support raising is coming along, but Satan is hard, HARD, on my face...He's putting a lot of lies in my head, and I have to fight them off. All day I've been attacked, I just want to get to bed. Got a few more letters out, still chugging away. I can't go on our missions trip now, Matt Gordon thinks it would be wiser for Sam and I to stay and go home over the week. I need to get home anyways, and I want to spend 2 days fasting and camping...getting my head on straight and my heart rejuvinated. The outdoors is the shadow of the Lord's wing for me, it's where I get my strength, it's where I find out who I am. Disconnecting yourself from society every once in a while is incredible, absolutley incredible. Screw the cellphone, iPod, debit card, just you, a journal, Bible, and the greatest friend ever. I need spring break to get here fast.

t minus 10 minuets

OK, real fast. Homegroup wen't really well, got a lot of encouragement on the ride home from Wendi, she rocks. Lifegroup is awesome, we never do the same thing twice anymore...poker one week, blowing up a giant plastic tent the next week, this week swinging on swings at the park, next week? God knows. Suppport raising is starting, have my first gift coming in tomorrow, I'm excited! Can't wait to chill on my Sabbath, I really really need it. Jaime and I are going to do some Photoshop work together on Saturday, so maybe I can finish up some other pieces I was starting on. Spring Break plans are falling more into place, Berk is amazing to work with, I'm excited to see how God is going to use us in that week. I'm off to bed, dead tired. Read Psalm 111 by the way, randomly opened it tonight...good stuff for my basis of promises and principles. I might memorize that chapter...good stufff!!!!!!!!!!!

MTD. Done.

OK, so it's over. It was an intense weekend, probably one of the most intense conferences I've ever been to. We learned so much and the Lord has already stretched us a lot, and I know that He's no where near done growing us. I have to raise about $775 a week to meet my goal, but we'll see who the Lord provides to give. One key point they stressed was that God has already predetermined who is going to support us and be on our team, all our job is is to go out there and tell people our exciting story of what God is doing at UF and FSU, and see if they are one of the one's that God has picked. I think I'm going to go home this weekend, meet some more people at my mom's church in Ft. Lauderdale, and hopefully soon make it down to the Keys to reignite some of those old relationships. I'm excited, I really am, but at the same time I'm pretty scared. When I sit down and think about it though, that's a completley illegitimate feeling to feel, because my fear is irrational. I have no basis to be afraid, because God is going to provide, and if He chooses for me not to do this internship, I'm still going to Tally to work with this church plant.

The whole time I was thinking full-time ministry in the back of my head. I know I would love to do it, and that's what i'll do this summer, but for now I need to put a lot (7 hours a week) of work into finding out who God has picked. Paul Standinger, the head of the trainging, said that we need a base of principles and promises for the times when it gets dark, so Sam and I are trying to remember some awesome verses. We ( the MTD crew) set up a listserv for the 15 of us, and we are going to be constantly encouraging each other and praying for eachother as we go into this fire together. There is going to be a massive amount of character development, so I'm interested to see what God is going to do through Sam and I.

This is going to be intense. I'm not ready, I never will be, but I don't think I need to be ready for God to work in me. I wasn't ready for all of this, but here I am...and all I can do now is walk. If I don't, I'm not a man nor one obeying his Father.

my head hurts. a lot.

First of, I'm going to miss this crew. We are already pretty tight, all working towards a common goal, and there is definately a lot of comorodarie here. Pardon the spelling errors, i'm dead freaking tired. We are all going to be on a listserv so that we can e-mail eachother our stories and encouraging verses. The crew from Michigan is so dang cool, I've bonded with a few of their guys. Today we went over what we are exactly going to say when we sit down for the "presentation speech" with people, which should only happen about 20 times. Once I get a few down in real life, I'll be ok. Paul Standinger and a few other people will be doing exit interviews tomorrow before we leave to make sure that we are ready. I need to get a few things down, like my decription of GCM and whatnot. I hate speaking so fast, I'm makes me stumble over my words. I need to force myself to slow down.

Overall it's been an incredible conference. It's more than drinking out of a firehose, it's like opening your mouth under Niagra Falls. There is so much expected of you in such a short amount of time it's crazy. Satan has/is/will try to lie to me, telling me I'm not supposed to be here, but I know the Truth, I know that He never lets the righteous go without provision. The Lord already answered a prayer today that I haven't even prayed about! I needed to get a shift at work picked up every once in a while, and this guy from work randomly called me wanting to pick up my overnight shifts. That was so dang awesome!!

With a combination of being extremely tired, a little homesick, and missing my friends, I got discouraged tonight. I was sitting down with Derek, practicing my talk, and he said that I didn't sound very excited about what I was talking about. I'm so freaking tired, I think that's why. But I took it to heart, and even now I'm a little discouraged. I've got some Crowder on, trying to get my head on straight. Sam and I are going to do one more runthrough before we get to bed here in a mineute. I've got a lot of work to do this semester, no time for messing around. This is going to be a semester of true character development, and we'll see what the Lord brings out when you squeeze the orange. I'm excited about edifying and being edified by my brothers and sisters here as we go through this semester. Some have to raise $15,000, others like me have to do a normal $8,500, and some are doing about $6,000. It all depends on the length and location of your program. I've got to get to bed now, no running for me tomorrow, just Jesus. Yeah, goodnight, and thank you for reading this.

Wow!

Man, day one of MTD is over. Sam is in bed, so I can't type long. We're getting up at 6 tomorrow, I'm running then praying, can't wait!!! I got hit by Satan once or twice today in the conference, little lies about what do I really want to do with my life. I could feel this desire for joy to swell up inside of me, but something/someone is blocking that. I need to find the weakness. I'm really glad that Paul Standinger keeps talking about Satan's tactics while we are support raising. Sam and I prayed about that tonight, an awesome prayer time, that we would all be resistant to those attacks. If you're reading this, please pray for us! We've got a daunting task before us, but I know God will provide. All throughout the psalms, David always talks about how he has never seen a righteous man go without God's provision. Likewise, Paul S was saying how we need to have a basis of promises and principles for the rainy days, when it's not looking good. No one ever promised us that we would be interns, it's still up to the Lord. But he knows our desires, so either they change or God grants us this. I can't imagine anything better, but if He takes it away, then obviously there is something better out there.

Listening to Crowder's "God of Wrath" right now before bed, what an incredible song for this stage of my life. "My life for you, my love for you, all I am for you." This is all I want to do with my life, full time ministry, all the freakin time, support raising is just another awesome opprotunity to include others in what God is doing across the world. After today, that's such a beautiful picture!!!! Some would say it's a necessary evil, which is a point of view I may take for a bit in the dark of it all, but I need that basis of principles and promises. I need to get to bed now, I'll update this more later when I have more time, maybe before the first sessoin. We are going all day tomorrow, please pray for us! What an incredible day.

Jim Crowe!

I was talking to my hopefully future roomates Peter and Brian, and I was enjoying my tuna pita with munster cheese in Turlington and also had a bananna. Basically we wondered if you throw a bananna at a black man, would it be a hate crime? It was a light hearted conversation. I got up to walk towards a trash can, in which there was a black guy sitting on a wall near it, it just looked like a hate crime was about to go down!!! Good stuff. Damien Rice's "O" has been on repeat on the iPizod lately, I can't get enough of it. Some of it is just really relates, plus the music is eerily gorgeous, haunting almost. As always, music is my life, well, not an idol. Back to Photoshop!

social peacock?

Sitting here in class, Interpersonal Communications, so I decided to blog. This class is ok, I've had better. A lot better. We had to write one of our journals for class on our most intimate relationship, so naturally I wrote on Jesus! I loved it, it came out pretty good. I'll let you read it, just cause I love yall:

When I think of the most important relationship that I have, immediately I think of my relationship with Jesus Christ. I’ve personally known him since I was a kid back in 1998, where my introduced me to him. Most people have heard of him, you know, Son of God, His only begotten Son, the perfect man. I formed this relationship almost out of necessity, because if I never started hanging out with him, my entire life (and much more) would have been affected. Part of it was necessity, another motive was just responding to what he had to offer me. He freely offers eternal life to anyone who asks, so I took it, and now I’m spending more time with him than I ever thought I would when we started this relationship.
It’s taken a few different forms over the past few years, especially in high school, but the fundamentals of the friendship have remained the same. Back in high school, girls and popularity seemed to take place of my time with Jesus, and consequently I put it on the back burner. I never completely walked away from all of it, but I definitely wasn’t treating our relationship as if it held any substance with me. It stayed this way till about my senior year, when I started to get a more realistic perspective of things that really mattered in this life. Now, 2 years into college, he has meant more to me than ever before, and I can’t see my life even continuing another day without him. I know he will never ever leave me regardless of what I do or say, but my life wouldn’t be as nearly as interesting, exciting, meaningful, and full of life as it is now. Even though I still don’t realize how much I really owe him because of what he did for me on the cross, I realize a piece of it, and that causes me to freely give up my time, motives, desires, and life without hesitation. There is tension there in the relationship sometimes, but not all of the time. If there is, it’s usually because I’m stubborn and shortsighted, or my will and desires aren’t what’s best for me. Usually it’s resolved by just spending time with him out in nature or reading his journal, The Bible. Self-discipline is pretty important, but not completely necessary to the continuation of the relationship. I need to set aside time, a good hour per day, and just chill with him. If I don’t, then I start to freak out and get worried about things that I really shouldn’t be.
I have never ever been more satisfied in my entire life than now, as I live the life that the Lord is laying out for me. When I realize that my ways are pretty pathetic compared to his infinite wisdom, and I submit to that, a collision occurs and true beauty appears.



I wrote it in like 20 min, just flowed very nicely. It's pretty dang foggy today, I like it, except my lenses get little raindrops all over them. So much for a quiet time outside today. I'm going to reinstall XP at the CSC later on, this computer gets so slow, it's just time to get it done. Still waiting on the MacBook Pro, well, waiting for the funds to come in. I'm going to do the Radiant Research study on hooida, so 1 weekend I get $600, it's not bad!!!! I'll put that towards it or the Casio digital camera. I'm trying not to be a consumer Christian, just a wise investor. I'll pay a bit more now for something that will last me a lot longer than a dell or something. I need to pay attention here in class....so peace out.

Rock it! Pop it!

I snagged this off of Alan's best friend's (Greg in LA)Xanga blog. I really liked it, it's from Relevant Magazine.


The best resolution I've read so far:

-Live my own life. For every child Angelina Jolie adopts, I'll donate a hundred dollars to the Red Cross. For every celebrity marriage that I read is dissolved or annulled, I'll take my wife out to dinner. For every peek I take at People or Us Weekly, I’ll reread Ecclesiastes.

Part of your world

I snagged this off of Alan's best friend's (Greg in LA)Xanga blog. I really liked it, it's from Relevant Magazine.


The best resolution I've read so far:

-Live my own life. For every child Angelina Jolie adopts, I'll donate a hundred dollars to the Red Cross. For every celebrity marriage that I read is dissolved or annulled, I'll take my wife out to dinner. For every peek I take at People or Us Weekly, I’ll reread Ecclesiastes.

Different names...

I'm at the CSC with some of my girls...HG girls that is. This is Amber's computer, and I've got this mint chocolate in my mouth, tastes pretty weird. Two thoughts passed through my head on my way over here from work. 1) There is sadness in leaves and 2) All the wrong people tell me things. The leaves thing is from a song by Sleeping At Last, he blatantly says that previous statement. I was looking at some stock photos online while I was messing around on Photoshop, and there was a picture of a lady danging around in leaves with a massive smile on her face. She was all bundled up as if it was one of those dry cold days with no clouds or cares in the sky. For me, it was melancholoy(?, but more happy than sad, not a perfect 50/50 balance. Nothing huge on this thought, just a thought. The other one hit me just a few minutes ago. People, the wrong people, maybe not the wrong people but the people I don't want to hear it from, tell me things. I dunno, just in a middle ground, and it's ok, but my life consists of a lot more than this. I love Jesus, yeah, and I don't want my stubborness to swell over that area, cause it can sometimes, where it seems to minimalize Christ because I can't see past that subborness. Off to an extended quiet time, work was canceled last night so I got some sleep. I have absolutely no sleep schedule, i love it.

bad rap?

Am I too intense? Am I too in your face for some people? I just got off the phone with my ex, we talked for 2 hours about stuff, God and the like, and she said that this new me is a little different, what was the word she used? I can't remember. It was a really really good conversation though. We'll see where God takes it. As for me, He's leading me to sleep...waking up in 5 hours to run with Peter before church!! God is freakin awesome...I don't think I'm going to compromise my in-you-face-ness for anything...maybe God will change my heart. Maybe He won't.

gone! all gone!

My hair! It's gone! It's gone short! OH MY GOSH!!!!! It feels so weird, when I shake my head I might get whiplash now!!!! Oh man, I'm so excited! Cori Matthews flipped out! She was yelling!!!! It was so funny. Ok, im off to class...now that no one recognizes me!

payroll

At work, listening to Takk... at the back station, reading some Exodus online, and thinking. I'm way behind with the OT stuff, so I'm on ch. 14, on of my favorite chapters of the Torrah, only because of one verse. 14:14. Check it out, how can we be afraid of anything if we hide this verse in our hearts? Seriously? I love this verse so much. We got paid today as well...and my boss got on me about picking up the checks from the upstairs office, didn't know I wasn't supposed to do that. Oh well, no big deal. Back to Jonsi and Moses.

whole wheat pizza!!

It's not that much healthier for you than regular bleached wheat pizza. But it is better than Five Star!!!! It's good, but it's still pizza. I'm on Jackie's 12" PowerBook, it feels so smooth, so sexy! I love this thing. Can't wait for the MacBook Pro! Anyways, we're sitting on her futon, listening to Cary Brothers, eating whole wheat pizza, and watching this cool sunset over the apartment complex while her dog Monte is running everywhere trying to eat my iPod headphones. Lady bugs are everywhere! They are all dead on her window sill, it's kind of pretty. This song of his, "Honestly" is awesome...works well with the mood of this afternoon. I love the tones. For me, a song could be about doing your laundry and meeting a hooker, but as long as it's beautiful, I'm ok with that! I wonder if that's what Sigur Ros is really singing about on ( ). Icelandic hookers! I've got to go baby sit the Villoria Doll's with Giorey and someone else, I can't wait for these kids!!!!!! Oh man, I love em!!! Good thing that pizza filled me up or else these kids woulda been in trouble!!!! I love You, Jesus....

urban crop circle project

urban crop circle project

I thought that this was a good one...#3 on the OnePoint Office Dare list was pretty good...

would you kill one child to save 100?

It twas an interesting discussion today in bio lab. We got onto the topic of stem cell research, one that I'm not informed enough about, but I do know my stance. A girl was stating that they found that the blood from the umbilical cord may be used as stem cells, but she wasn't 100% sure on that. Our teacher looked up some stuff and sent us an e-mail after class, pointing us to this link: http://www.isscr.org/science/faq.htm I forwarded that e-mail to the homegroup, hopefully people will take it seriously and get informed. Sometimes I feel like my homegroup can be a bunch of complacent Christians, not all of them, but there are a few I feel like just don't care about social issues, in which we need to. I'm starting to see policy and politics a lot more like Jessica Moore, "I can't see how a Christian could be a Republican." Abortion is the same thing to God, He isn't partial and thus porn, cusing, drunkedness, murder and speeding are all the same thing to Him. Why would abortion justify going completley Republican? I dunno.

My grandmother has Parkinsons. She's got it real bad. Worse than you think. As soon as a new experimental drug comes out, she's on it like white on rice. And nothing is working, because now her body has built up such an immunity to the chemicals that they have to be in incredibly high doeses that are causing hallucinations. Not just a marage kind of thing, but people. She's had a few latley: 1) That there are two little black boys running around their tiny apparment all day long and they she gets upset with my grandpa because she thinks he's not doing anything about it. 2) That there was a party that Jack (my grandpa) threw in the appartment, we're talking about 25-30 people all in formal attire, and she was super embarassed because she was caught wearing her night gowns, so she broke down in tears again. How do you hallucinate 30 people in your 700 sq. ft. appartment? and 3) that Jack was having an affair with a 15 year old girl in the appartment. This is crazy, she is crazy.

She's lost it, her mind is almost completely gone, but her body is doing fine. This disease is no where killing her, she's fine physically, but you look at her and you would think that she has gone completely psychotic. This is the line where I draw closer to pro-euthanasia. And stem cell research. I almost don't want to go home to FTL so I don't have to deal with all of this, it's too painful to watch, but I know I need to, I know she needs to see her first grandchild for support. One of the last times I saw her, I could barely say " I love you and I'm praying for you" without choking on my tears. I can't handle this kind of stuff, not with the people I love, not without Christ.

So what do we do, us Christians? Do we let people suffer like this, tormented by something that's not of their own device, or do we do something about it? Honestly, what would Jesus do? I wish I knew. But I know what I would do. My grandmother never did anything do deserve this, and I'm not going to let her sit here and erode away while we sit here and debate on whether or not this is moral. What the crap is moral anyways now? Homosexual marriages are moral somehow. Whatever America. Abortion is always going to happen, same with homosexuality, same with any other sin. It's never going to go away in this life, so let's make the best of it. Our religious right isn't going to change anything, sorry, it's just not going to erradicate all of this filth that is in every pore of our country. God Himself is king, so what's to fear?

Stitches always breaking.

Shredder's dead.

Damn it. He couldn't take it. He's gone. Nick's gone. Why did this have to happen like this? Intentional OD? Do people not understand the depth and consequences of the harsh words they speak? I don't know if it's ever been a more restless evil than now...poision is all he got in high school, even I was guilty at it at times. But there were those few, that just toyed him along, and I could see his hands grasping for someone to love him. I went to his parties, he bought us beer, he always wanted to go diving with us or do some kind of project together in class, but no one really wanted to associate with Shredder unless he could provide them with some kind of laugh at his expense. I hate the Keys. I never want to go back. The people there are evil, self-centered egocentric people that only care about their piece of property, whether or not to widen The Stretch to increase the economy, or how someone is violating their association's homeowners codes. I hate that place, it's full of evil. All except my church, and I'm sure some other churches as well, but looking back at high school, how everyone was so mean to him or gave him this false sense of association with the 'cool kids'. The human being can, at times, be a disgusting disgusting creature. How does this happen to such a sweet kid. I don't know where he is now. I could have helped change that.

Majesty!

I've been singing 'Majesty' by Charlie Hall all day in my head, I love that song so much, gets to me where it counts. It's cool, I realized how God uses sin to His advantage (once again, nothing groudbreaking), but thinking of Saul of Tarsus and how he was the Jew of all Jews, even there when they killed Steven, and look at all what God did through him! And also looking at real life examples, where one of my pastors had premarital sex A LOT with his girlfriend before he became a Christian. Yeah, they got married and have kids, and now he's a pastor, but it just blows me away by how God chooses to use for His glory in mighty mighty ways. He totally rocks, through every single circumstance, you will ALWAYS find Him there, just look hard enough.

wow

How did I think so short-sightedly? Honestly, I feel like a damn, ignorant fool. In this seeming act of evangelism/holiness I get shot down. Actually I feel like shit. I don't want to be this ignorant Bible-thumping, Jesus-proclaiming fanatic that doesn't care about peoples emotions. WTF was I thinking? AHH!!!! I need to study for these next two tests.

_______

People are ungrateful. Old news. My leg won't stop shaking, it's habitual. I know I need to stop, but I can't. I can't clear it out. It's going to be a busy 3 hours coming up...finish tonights teaching, valentines stuff for the girls, and studying for 2 tests tomorrow. Stupid school....

Did you order...?

I think it's fear, that's what the root of all of this is. Whatever. I've been addicted to Charlie Hall as of late. Rusty had the Passion CD from last years conference, and I put it on the iPod and 'Majesty' and "Marvelous Light' have been echoing in my head all day!!! It's so freeing, so releasing to know that we serve a might God!!!!! I love Him so much, and I never want to leave His courts. Tom is outside preaching right now, and the same calloused, hardened hearts are there from last time, making the same argument over and over again. They are our Pharisees, they blashpeme the name of the Holy Spirit, an unforgivable sin, and turn their hearts agains all that is true, just and beautiful. I almost hate them. But I know it's not them, it's their stubborness, their innate retartedness to turn from God, we've all got it. Seeing people like them make me love my Savior more and more. Maybe that's selfish, ok. But I konw that my God is alive, living, and loves me, and I will spend eternity with Him in constant communion. Once again, Isaiah 6 is the story of my life. Always and forever.

CRAP!

Dang it, late for work again!!!! I went to bed about midnight, with my alarm set for 5:30, you know, do that whole Christian thing Jesus-style. I don't really remember falling asleep, i just remember waking up to the sound of the bus driving by, and the first words coming out of my mouth "CRAAAPP!!!!". It was 7:10am, I had to be at work negative 10 minuets ago. When you're >10 min. late to work, thats a major violation, 3 majors and they review you. So, yeah, that was my third. CRAAAAP!!!! Oh well. I got ready extrememly fast...extremely, and I was just asking God to teach me what I'm supposed to learn out of this situation. For a while I was thinking He doesn't want me to have this job, but I need this job to be a church-planter. Well, that's a very narrowminded statement to make. He can provide in other ways, but this was the first and best opprotunity at the time. Plus I didn't feel convicted about not doing it, and was at peace about the idea.

There was frost on the ground this morning! It was so cool! The AC units downstairs had frost all over them as well. I was pretty dang exicted.

So I'm not really sure why God made me late (did He at all? I dunno...) or why He let me be late. I'm a good employee, my boss said so, it's just that I'm so dang busy ALL the time. I worked from 12:30 - 9:30 AM monday morning (YEAH FOR OVERNIGHTS!) then slept for about an hour that afternoon, had a horrible day, then went to bed way too late then woke up way too early, my body didn't like that. People say that I'm going to kill myself, but I HAVE to work these hours, I need to get stuff paid for, especially if I want to be a church planter.

I'm really frustrated that I have little time to spend with my lost buddies. I've met some really cool guys at the rock gym and I've got no extra time to spend with them except the time I set aside for working out. And if I don't work out, my head is going to pop. I ran about a mile yesterday at the gym, incline, and it felt great! Clears out my head a lot, I love it. I just really wish I had more time to go the rock gym and hang out there more. Sarah Luk gives me a bunch of crap about never going, ugh!!!! The Kyles, Eric, and all the other regulars that are always there are some of the coolest people ever. Alan can testify to that. I can't wait for this summer, I'm going to try to spend a lot of my time at the rock gym there so I can do this all over again, meet people and influence them for Christ.

I guess at times I feel like I'm not effective at this whole Great Comission thing. In a sense, the GC doesn't really involve homegroups and raising up leaders, but it does in another sense. I want to win 1 person to Christ this year, that's a thing between God and I. I know it can/will happen, but it's so hard when I don't have any time to plant seeds. My overnight coworker, Michael, is pretty cool, and we talked about Budhism for most of the shfit, cause he's taking a class on it. It was great just to talk about religions, which he's pretty interested in. So hopefully in a few weeks or so, we can segway our conversation into the Gospel. He said he's read a few of the Gospels, but nothing else. We'll see where God leads it. And I need to find my balance of ministry and evangelism. I barely have time to see Tom Short today! I could cry right now.

All these Broken Bottles.

I lost my Bible! It's somewhere in my house, I just have to look for it. Ugh!!! 1 more hour, then off to chem homework and Bible Doctrine. I love our Tuesday meetings, I'm always learning so much! It's hard to have time to read the chapters, but it's worth it. Just told Matt Gordon that I can't do the Romans study this semester, which I was REALLY looking forward to. There just aren't enough hours in the day. I need to get on a regular schedule with my QT's, but it's soo hard with my schedule. If you saw it, you might puke. Just don't do it on your keyboard, it's harder to clean than your pants or carpet. But it's ok. That's a massive thing I've been learning, being ok with the fact that if I don't do a quiet time, it's not the end of the world. Amber blatantly pointed it out yesterday when we were talking. It's my justification. Somehow I've, and I know I'm not the only one, turned my quiet times into a form of justification for my relationship with God. I'm free, Jesus paid for it all, so why do I treat my time with God as a have to? And why do I feel condemned if I don't get it done? Easy. Satan want's us to believe that, he wants us to think that we are less of a Christian if we don't read our Bibles. I had half a mind to not even pick up my Bible for the next few days until I could treat that time as something special, as a have-to. But that probably wouldn't be the smartest move. So I go back to the whole circumspect thing. If I get into that situation, where I didn't read or journal, I need to look around at my life, asking myself in a very Alan Moore-esque tone of voice, "OK, does my world come crashing down because I haven't opened up The Good Book? Does my leadership fail if I missed one? No, that's a dumb (thanks Stacy) way to think. Does God still love me? Of course. He loved me before I loved Him, so why wouldn't He love me now?"

Cheap wine and sleeping pills.

That's what I hate about the Pentecostals/First Assembly thang. I HATE it. You honestly think that if you aren't actively seeking out God when He returns or we die, that your going south for eternity? Hell no! (no pun intended!) I hate that...and a lot of my friends that are Christians in FYCS are First Assembly people. They are amazing people, I just hate how they think that God turns His back on them if things aren't hunky dory. That's effn Mormonism!!!!!!!!!!! I walked to work today and I passed the LDS building by Norman. I look at it and see how there's absolutley no life in it at all. Even Carelton has more life in it, and it's not even a 'church' but its more of a church than any building I've ever been to (take that Joel Osteen).

Lexy was talking to me one day about eccumenicalism, ranting and raving about it. And he got me worked up to. How can we justify building these massive Six Flags Over Jesus buildings, all in the name of God, when we have bigger problems. People will find churches. There's never a lack of churches. Ugh, I'm not going to go into this, my fingers hurt from typing this. Just love Jesus, OK? It's damn easy. In the words of my mold-shattering roommate, "We've got grace, we can do whatever the fuck we want." Oh, I love him...and so does Jesus. Go in peace my brothers....

wrong

It's not the images or stills, physical or contrived in my brain. No, it's the words, the actions, the possibilites that meet me there, where I almost don't expect it, knowing all along thats exactly what I need. I look for things in the wrong places, with God, my life, or people that I'm around. It's not about the way things seem or appear at our place in time. I wish we could all circumspect our environment. I'm going off of no sleep here, so not sure if this makes sense. God is big, He's damn big, and knowing that I'm at His mercy is incredibly humbling. I don't want to put my hope in things that could fail, especially my own plans, but part of me compells me to do so, I think it's a basic human instinct. I really wish I had more words to describe my world, my thoughts, my dreams, but I can't and I'm ok with that because God is beyond the sphere of words and mixed emotions. All I want to do is His will, even if I don't know what that really is. My head hurts, it's been a long day...effen long.

i swear i just got new glasses

Life is cool cause of changing perceptions. Peter and I sat in my car after lunch today, talking, almost yelling. It was good though, because a lot of things that I was expecting out of God were off, but Peter helped shed some light on my problem. We always say "walk by faith and not by sight" and stuff like that, which I always knew before. But it's different for me now, especially in the "worship" setting, where now my motives and intentions are a bit more towards were I think God wants them to be. I'm an emotional person, God made me that way, and I'm not going to waste my time and energy into changing that. Being passionate about life isn't a bad thing, and I was passionate about hearing from God in the "worship" times on Sunday morning. I can hear Cori Matthews voice in the back of my head from my freshman year, telling us that worship isn't about our wants, desires, or hurts, but thanking God for who He is, and for what He has, is, and will do. This isn't a groundbreaking concept, or radically new, just refreshing. It's good to feel my chest, take a deep breath, and realize that I am still deficient by design and there is nothing that I could (nor want to) do to change that. I guess I base a lot of things on emotions in my life, decision making and the like, and this can lead me astray or somehow on a path that isn't the best for me.

So I love Peter, he's a great friend, and I look forward to us pouring into eachother over the next few years. We'll see where God takes it.

...

It's been a few days, feels weird. But I don't want to get addicted to updating this thing. Jaime and I are smoking buddies now, and we've got a homegroup smoke out tomorrow! J/k, but really...we do. Haha...It's just hookah...dont worry! I've had that Imogen Heap song stuck in my head, 'Hide and Seek', I get the most random things in my head. I'm excited about teachign the GLCU 101 class with Matt Gordon today! It's gonna be a lot of fun. I've been thinking about other options for post-graduation, and honeslty all I want to do is full time ministry. That's it. Book closed. Makes sense though...for He's not a God of confusion. Peace out!

latency of love?

I'm at work, thinking overthinking, and I realized a lot of people are rude. A lot of people aren't Christians, I know, but a lot of Christians are rude also. People come up to me, asking for help, and usually they don't say thankyou. That in and of itself doesn't bother me, I'm used to it dealing with the rich people back at the Marriott, but the fact that they are depending on me to get their work done, which they fail to realize, and completely ignore that fact. I'm tired so this may not make sense. If I didn't help them , they would be screwed out of a grade or two, but I do, I kinda have to. I love them, even if I don't know their name, but I want to help them out, I honestly enjoy what I do here, no matter how simple my job really is.

I think about this with non-believers. They are at the mercy (we all are) of the Creator of the Universe, whom could whip the breath out of our lungs so fast you couldn't measure it, and they don't even realize it. I'm so thankful that I honor that gift. We (Mark, Oleah, Galen and I) just did our chapter in Bible Doctrine about the Incommunicable characteristics of God, wow. My head literally hurts from thinking about how God is wholly everywhere at once, not bound by space, time or matter for He is a immaterial spirit, and how God created time when Creation came about, and everything that goes with that. It's so much to take in. And to sit there and ignore the fact that there is a God out there is one of the most foolish things man can do. I'm not saying all ignore that feeling, but some do, others just don't know the other 1/2 of the story, i.e. Jesus' saving grace.

So this all comes down to our realization that we are deficent by design and we need to recognize that great irking, nagging feeling in our lives, for its not in vain. How does this all relate to people being rude to me at work? I forgot. But you can see how cold and dark people are when the lack of their Savior is taking an effect on their heart, face, and attitude. I wish more people knew about Christ, then they would start smiling more. This whole place is so damn depressing. Our resuce is coming.

can you feel the Illinoise?

This has nothing to do with Illinois, Ron Zook, John Gacy, or choirs, I just think Sufjan Stevens is incredible. I've been listening to it a lot lately, and I'm finding new things, new subtle sounds that are very appealing to me. I'm stuck at work again, gotta love these opening shifts! I was thinking/praying on the walk over here this morning in the dark, and I realized something. For a while now, ever since i got Crowder's new album, I've been praying that He would be my joy. Such a profound, yet simple statement, and it's such a deep desire of my heart. I used to say, a few months ago, that God doesn't give me a lot of joy, but I serve Him anyways. But now it's a little bit different, now He is my joy, but it's not this church camp Jesus high feeling.
When I was praying this morning, once again, that He would be my joy, I realized that He never wasn't my joy. I'm not all giggly inside, singing happy-Jesus you rock-songs in my head as if i've got a live feed from AirOne, but I've got this hope. And this hope gives me joy, but a joy that I haven't really known before. Las night we were all at the FLUHouse and Matt asked me if everything was ok, just checking in on me, and I simply told him "I'm not going to fall apart anytime soon." I guess that could sound cynical, but it wasn't, with the right tone of voice of couse. And it's true, I'm not. Yeah, things aren't the best, I don't feel like I'm completely under God's unfailing grace all the time cause Satan feeds me lies and sometimes they get past my defenses, and my expectations for life are usually let down, but it doesn't matter. All of this really doesn't matter. I've got Jesus in my heart (how Sunday School-esque is that?), and that nullifys practically everything else.
I was over at my friend Pam's appartment last night, asking her some questions about games to play with kids (you know those YoungLife kids...they can work it.) and Katie Wilkinson told us that she went to a press conference today about the semi truck that hit the van and school bus, causing the van to go up in flames instantly, killing everyone inside. Yeah, that in and of itself sucks a lot, but once you know who was in the van, it gets even worse. A 15 year old was driving his 6 brothers and sisters. All gone. One family lost 7 kids in a matter of minuets. That was probably the worst thing that I've heard since 9/11. There have probably been worse accidents, but 1) It was so close to home, Lake Butler and 2) It was so personal. In Intro to FYCS last semster, they put such an emphasis on the family being a solitary unit for support, supplies, and strength (alliteration aside, I think i'll take my chances), and how if you don't have that, it causes a torrent of problems. And here is this family, with 7 kids ( I think some were adopted, none the less, a kid is a kid) all dead because one guy failed to see that the light was red. So I wonder, what is running through the parents minds? What kind of hope do they have now? I'm not sure where they stand with Jesus, but that one standpoint now changes everything. Now I look at myself and wonder what would happen if I was in that situation. I honestly don't know. With such horrific images, thoughts and emotions running through my veins, I really don't know what I would do in that situation. Could I honestly say that I love the driver of that semitruck? I really don't know. But I do know that all of this would make the Destination all the sweeter. And when we get there...all that Illinoise wouldn't be there. No more Sufjan Stevens, no more David Crowder, no more NPR, no more KEXP or Christopher O'Riley. But once again, the Destination nullifies all of this, for all I want to sing is Isaiah 6, over and over and over and over and over and over again. And there will be nore more crying, no more pain or ugliness, no more semi trucks running red lights or planes hitting skyscrapers, and no more fear.
So this family, that lost everything, maybe has no hope now, maybe (hopefully) they have all the hope in the world via Christ. And I'm thankful, for all that I have, and if the Lord takes it all away, Job style, then I pray that my hope would remain the same and that my faith wouldn't fail me. That hope, of something better, gives us joy, and gives us strenght to get through. And all of this comes down to me not caring what my circumstances are, because they really don't matter, much like my opinions. I put my hand on my chest. Yes. I am still alive. And that gives me hope.

simplicity

I've been listening to A Collision here at work for a bit now, and i'm finding this theme, wait. This is from Crowder's site on the song "Rescue Is Coming":


and while we yet were sinners, christ died for us. he did not leave us alone. he stepped into our condition to bring us back to god. to bring us back to what was intended. the divine, bearing all depravity. the most horrific of collisions. the most tragic and beautiful. the breaking is glorious and loud. we have won. it might not feel like it. you might not can see it just yet. but the reality of our situation is that rescue is present. every second of life is spent in the very presence of god. there is not a second of human history that he has not been present. majesty is here. and it is coming. finally. just be quiet. and wait.


I remember reading somewhere, maybe it was my Bible, about the definition of 'salvation'. It's such a simple, yet gorgeous, concept. The author was talking about how that term, salvation, was used in the depths of battle, when all hope seemed to be lost and death seemed certain. You are moments from going six feet under, and here it comes. All you have to do is wait for it, but here it comes, the second wave of your troops to come in and kick the you know what out of your enemy, to turn the tables of odds and run for victory. I remember one time my brother and I were swimming in my grandpa's pool, and he swam off the deep end, and he wasn't the best swimmer. He started to drown, and I had to go out there and save him. I wasn't the best swimmer either, but if I didn't do something, that situation could have turned ugly. And there I was, in a sense, my brothers salvation. And there Christ is, our salvation. The hand we reach for when the waters drown out the light, the second wave of soldiers. And all we have to do is wait. A few days ago before class started, my friend Corey asked me why I looked upset, and I told her that I was having a crappy day cause my timeline wasn't the same as God's and I was impatient. Because I didn't grasp a four letter word, I had a piss poor day. And I see it now, God's amazing provision, in his amazing timing, and by us utilizing His amazing gift of prayer to align our will to His perfect one, they are all here, never leaving us even when we think it has. So I sit, and carve that word on my heart, wait. Just be quiet and wait. Our rescue is coming.

call me Joseph...

I had this weird dream last night. I was at Faithwalkers, but it didn't feel like this past years, it was in the coming years, but I didn't feel any older. We were all in one of the seminars, it was a smaller one, but there was about 25-40 people there. I was standing in the back of the room, listening to the main speaker, maybe Bill Young? I can't remember, and this guy that was sitting in a chair to the left of me asked me to sit down, so I sat on the ground right there. Then the speaker introduced me, because I was supposed to be the one giving the seminar. I don't remember what I was supposed to be talking about, but I remember that the main Scripture I was using was out of I Timothy, maybe chapter 5? I don't remember. And I remember, I was so cool and calm, I was walking around the front of the room talking, which in real life I hated to do, I always stood right behind the podium in speech class. But I was comfortable, comfortable enough to not even use the mic. I don't remember how long I was talking for, but then I woke up, and I looked at the clock and it said 0230 hours. And I saw my mom called, she left a message about Family & Friends weekend in a week. It felt so weird. I'm writing this mainly so that I can remember it, I'm pretty sure I know what it means, and I hope it comes true. I'm gonna go back through I Tim and see if I can figure out what I was trying to teach on in my dream. It felt so real it was eerie. OK, off to church gone wild.

Come and Listen...

Listening to David Crowder's song right now, and something went through my head. All we have to base what we believe on is a book and a life transformed by what we can't see or measure. There is so much beauty in that, I fail to realize it so much. I remember one time JB and I were sharing with this agnostic kid in the Reitz, and on the walk back we were talking about how its such a simple decision, yet it is the biggest moment of your entire life. Thank God for the Holy Spirit! So I find it incredible that the greatest thing that has ever happend to us, the one thing that radically changes how we speak, act and feel, is all from something we can't even see. Some may say that's religion being the opiate of society, but our Lord wants hearts that are faithful, full of faith, not full of proof that was given to them so that they can be persuaded. You can't measure love or affection, nor happiness, depression, laughter, or crying, but they are there, and we can see the effects. You can't see God, but you can see his fingerprint in our lives as we do our part to fufill His will. Matthew 28 in my veins. In our veins. And some will never know what we know, and it breaks my heart. I'm off to bed, preluded by a bit more deep thinking in deep sheets.

OSX...you amaze me

I was browsing around, and I stumbled on a link on a random blog that had this link. http://osx.portraitofakite.com/
I've been looking for this forever...I am so dang excited! Now I can bear it a little longer till I get the 13" MacBook Pro.
This man thinks like I do...I guess he just has the ends to make is ideas real. Poor college kids... but these are good reasons.

can I CIRCA survive? (get it?)

I'm here at the CIRCA lab at work, I really like this job! I get to help people, which rocks, and I get to waste time on the web. Classes honestly should be pretty easy this semester, and I'm liking Bio Lab already. 1) I know we are going to get in some good discussions in there about evolution and stuff and 2) JB Bopp is in there as well. So I'm excited about that, and that means that I will have more time to support raise and spend time with my guys, younger and older. I'm a little intimidated about support raising, but I'm ok for now, but I think once we get to Orlando to the conference, I'm honestly not sure what to expect. I know He will provide.
Lately I've been making trips out to Paines Prarie at midnight or 1am. It's eerie how honest I can be with God out there. I'm no sure what it is, but I definately connect out there, under the blanket of stars. Last night was quite interesting, I actually felt like I was having a verbal conversation with God, and it was incredibly peaceful at times, others were a little emotional. I told God last night, if I could have 20 min. with Him, oh man. I'm not exactly sure what I would I would ask, I honestly don't even know if I would even want to ask anything at all. I'd be pretty content with just sitting there, in His glory, but that's what Heaven is for. And I'm realizing that I really don't know what I want. I think I do at times, but I really don't, because I'm so dang complex (...thanks, Adam). I'm trusting that God's got it all figured out, how cliche does that sound? Christianese sucks. He knows the depths of my heart, He flippin created me!!!
My roommate John's girlfriend has been coming in from Tallahassee a lot lately, and we got into a good discussion about religion. She is hardcore Jewish, reformed of course, but hardcore nontheless. Makes sense right? Anyways, we were just talking about respect for other religions and how she listens to Relient K and junk. I ended up challenging her to read The Gospel of John, she said she would. Hopefully John will be a good witness to her, I hope. Off to go walk around the lab, I might update again later today.

number one with a bullet...and i'm pulling it.

Well, this is the first one. Can you believe it? THE FIRST ONE! Not of all eternity, but I'm using this blog to evolve some thoughts I have. It's not thoughts like, "I wonder what's REALLY in a hot dog?" or "Why does my roomates room smell so weird?", but deeper stuff, stuff that actually matters. Maybe this will be my springboard into a book. Yeah right.

I don't want to mislead you with the title. My roomate showed me a book called "Adventures In Missing The Point". It was really really good from what I could tell. 1 chapter can speak volumes! It was Christian commentary on how, through our Walk, we think we have it all figured out, but in reality, we've totally missed the point. I'll explain more, but this is my blog to think out my mistakes and how I miss the point, just like a lot of other people. We'll see where God takes it. I'll write later.