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!