Things I learned at Home Group

I've decided to add a feature to my blog. I go to my home group almost every Monday and we talk about Jesus...well, we're supposed to, at least. Needless to say, regardless of how off topic we might get, I always come away with something. So I've decided to take the time to share weekly what I learn. However, I won't be going tonight, so I'll just share a couple of lessons from the past.

-Men in their twenties can be entertained, literally, for hours by what happens to small, solid objects when they're thrown into a fan while it's moving at full speed.

-It turns out that Deborah's Song from Judges 5 is supposed to be sung to the tune of Lord I Lift Your Name On High.

Give it a shot. It really kicks in around verse 24:

1 On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang this song:

2 "When the princes in Israel take the lead,
when the people willingly offer themselves—
praise the LORD!

3 "Hear this, you kings! Listen, you rulers!
I will sing to the LORD, I will sing;
I will make music to the LORD, the God of Israel.

4 "O LORD, when you went out from Seir,
when you marched from the land of Edom,
the earth shook, the heavens poured,
the clouds poured down water.

5 The mountains quaked before the LORD, the One of Sinai,
before the LORD, the God of Israel.

6 "In the days of Shamgar son of Anath,
in the days of Jael, the roads were abandoned;
travelers took to winding paths.

7 Village life in Israel ceased,
ceased until I, Deborah, arose,
arose a mother in Israel.

8 When they chose new gods,
war came to the city gates,
and not a shield or spear was seen
among forty thousand in Israel.

9 My heart is with Israel's princes,
with the willing volunteers among the people.
Praise the LORD!

10 "You who ride on white donkeys,
sitting on your saddle blankets,
and you who walk along the road,
consider 11 the voice of the singers at the watering places.
They recite the righteous acts of the LORD,
the righteous acts of his warriors in Israel.
"Then the people of the LORD
went down to the city gates.

12 'Wake up, wake up, Deborah!
Wake up, wake up, break out in song!
Arise, O Barak!
Take captive your captives, O son of Abinoam.'

13 "Then the men who were left
came down to the nobles;
the people of the LORD
came to me with the mighty.

14 Some came from Ephraim, whose roots were in Amalek;
Benjamin was with the people who followed you.
From Makir captains came down,
from Zebulun those who bear a commander's staff.

15 The princes of Issachar were with Deborah;
yes, Issachar was with Barak,
rushing after him into the valley.
In the districts of Reuben
there was much searching of heart.

16 Why did you stay among the campfires
to hear the whistling for the flocks?
In the districts of Reuben
there was much searching of heart.

17 Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan.
And Dan, why did he linger by the ships?
Asher remained on the coast
and stayed in his coves.

18 The people of Zebulun risked their very lives;
so did Naphtali on the heights of the field.

19 "Kings came, they fought;
the kings of Canaan fought
at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo,
but they carried off no silver, no plunder.

20 From the heavens the stars fought,
from their courses they fought against Sisera.

21 The river Kishon swept them away,
the age-old river, the river Kishon.
March on, my soul; be strong!

22 Then thundered the horses' hoofs—
galloping, galloping go his mighty steeds.

23 'Curse Meroz,' said the angel of the LORD.
'Curse its people bitterly,
because they did not come to help the LORD,
to help the LORD against the mighty.'

24 "Most blessed of women be Jael,
the wife of Heber the Kenite,
most blessed of tent-dwelling women.

25 He asked for water, and she gave him milk;
in a bowl fit for nobles she brought him curdled milk.

26 Her hand reached for the tent peg,
her right hand for the workman's hammer.
She struck Sisera, she crushed his head,
she shattered and pierced his temple.

27 At her feet he sank,
he fell; there he lay.
At her feet he sank, he fell;
where he sank, there he fell-dead.

28 "Through the window peered Sisera's mother;
behind the lattice she cried out,
'Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed?'

29 The wisest of her ladies answer her;
indeed, she keeps saying to herself,

30 'Are they not finding and dividing the spoils:
a girl or two for each man,
colorful garments as plunder for Sisera,
colorful garments embroidered,
highly embroidered garments for my neck—
all this as plunder?'

31 "So may all your enemies perish, O LORD!
But may they who love you be like the sun
when it rises in its strength."
Then the land had peace forty years.

Movin' stagnantly on up!

I'm sitting down at work right now. I'm not working too hard obviously, so I'm using this time to write a little since I haven't got the chance to in a while. If you're reading this, then you're a pretty dedicated reader. I imagine that you've been checking my blog every day for the past month with high hopes of new content and then going away crying every time. And for that, mom, I'm sorry.

I start a new job on Monday, so that's pretty exciting. I'll also be making enough money to get my own place soon and feel like a real boy. So it's good times all around lately.

While I'm in this transition stage of my life, I figure I should impart some sage wisdom that I've gained in my few months working at a part time job.

Gentle reader who might still be in college, let me give you a little warning that no one thought to give me while I was still in school. When you graduate, almost everyone you meet will judge you by how much money you make.

I can't even count the number of times that people have talked to me at the coffee shop then asked if I was in school and then always gave me that, "aww, you poor thing" look whenever I told them I just graduated. They saw me as a failure at life just because I hadn't found a decent job six months after graduation. Me? I don't care what they think. Or, at least I don't want to care, but it's hard not to at least pay attention to them. It's something that I wish I could have prepared myself for.

I'm not defined by how much money I make or how highly respected my job is. I might not have made much money at the coffee shop, but I had a great time working there and I'm going to miss getting to see all of the people I met there all of the time.

Monetary value doesn't decided your worth as a person, so please remember that. I'm only 22 (nearly 23) years old. I have tons of time to move up in the world. I don't have to be that guy that lands the 6 figure job right out the door. I wouldn't know what to do with that much money anyway. It'd be nice if I were able to make that much money some day, but if I don't, it doesn't make me less of a person.

My main point is, if you're stressing out because you're about to graduate and have no idea what you're going to do with your life. Chill out! God's purpose for your life might not have anything to do with your actual job. That being said, whatever you do, be it tech support, coffee shop, clerk or manager, do it well and always pursue excellence.

The Talking Heads

Last weekend I was downtown and there were a bunch of sandwich board sign wearing people claiming to be Christians. They were wearing signs that said things along the lines of "Turn or Burn," and "The wages of homosexuality is death and AIDS," which not only bothered me because it singled out one sin specifically as worse than others but also because it was grammatically incorrect.

I passed by them before going down to the park and they were just standing around looking all judgmentalish but when I came back by it looked like a riot was about to break out. On one side were all of the "christians," and on the other side were the people that they were pissing off. It was just a huge yellfest. Nothing was getting accomplished because no one was willing to give way enough to hear anybody out. The cops ended up breaking the whole thing up. So these people went home feeling like they'd done a good job of representing Jesus because they were "persecuted" in His name.

The thing that gets me about people like this is that there is no way to talk to them. Their goal is simply to yell their position with absolutely no chance of listening to someone else's. I find that I have to stop myself from being like this often. I don't want to be a guy who has an opinion and my goal is to share that opinion with others, not caring about their reaction or what they could add to or take away from it. I don't want to just be a walking mouth. I want to be the type of guy that isn't afraid to voice his opinion but not be so cocky that I think that I can't learn anything from what others has to say.

Steven Furtick said in a blog post last week, "You're a big boy. You can eat the fish and leave the bones." You don't have to agree with everything that someone says for a conversation to be profitable. Not every conversation has to be an argument where your goal is to convince the other person to have the exact same opinion as yours.

I want to be a guy who isn't afraid to hear what others have to say and to understand the stance that others have, especially non-christians. Because, why on earth should they listen to what I have to say if they know that I could care less why they believe what they believe?

It's my Lord in a box!

My small group has been reading through Matthew this summer and we got to chapter 23 this week. Chapter 23 is the chapter where Jesus is really laying into the religious leaders for not living up to their calling. They're all very surface level and religious. Sometimes I forget about context when I read the Bible. It's easy to read a chapter like this and imagine Jesus sitting with his apostles telling them these things about the religious leaders, but the religious people were right there in the crowd that Jesus was talking to. He wasn't afraid of a little confrontation. But apparently the religious leaders were, since they killed Jesus because He challenged them to live up to what God called them to be.

But that's not the point of this post. In verse 5 it says, "They made their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long." After I read that I went into uber study mode to find out what phylacteries are. Essentially, the Pharisees took Exodus 13:9 literally and decided to make leather boxes containing scripture and wear them around their foreheads or arms. They wore these things at prayer times originally as a reminder of what God had done for them, but it eventually became social statements about how "holy" they were. They were pretty much the WWJD bracelets of their day. They started out for honest enough purposes but eventually they became a social statement.

The verse in Exodus could easily be interpreted that God wants us to have His Word in all of our thoughts and actions, but I think I know why they were more willing to have elaborate head decorations. It's easy to put a box on your head or to wear a bracelet or t-shirt telling people about Jesus. In the same way, it's easy to go downtown and to wear a sandwich board sign and yell at people that they're going to hell. What's challenging is having a real change in your heart. It's hard to reach out to people that you're uncomfortable around and have an actual relationship with them to show them Christ's love. I know that deep down, if there were just a t-shirt I could wear to fulfill the Great Commission, I'd jump at that. I'd rather take the easy way out, but thankfully, I have the Holy Spirit to convict me and to challenge me to not just put on my Christian clothes and live like Hell.

God has been impressing upon me lately the difference that He can make through the life of one person. This is why I feel that this is so important, because if God can do so much with one person, He can do even more through multiple people. The church is growing so much recently, and it's progressing with a minority of people who claim to know Christ. There are so few people who are taking ownership of their faith, and regardless of this, God is doing great things. If people would just take off their Christian t-shirts and start to have a Christ-like heart, the church could be doing exactly what God has called for it to do.

Sacrifice

A few weeks ago I did a post called, Apathy. I talked about how lately I feel numb to all of the amazing things God is doing around me and in my own life. While I'm still dealing with this, I think that I've started to understand why. I've heard about the sacrifice that Christ made me all of my life and have depended on it for my salvation for nearly 10 years now, but I don't think that I've truly begun to understand what Christ really did.

I've always heard that Christ paid my debt for me, but I don't really have a grasp on the size of that debt. If someone is house sitting for you and when you get back they tell you, "A bill came in the mail and I covered it for you," then you will be thankful that they did that. But your thankfulness will be different depending on what bill was covered. If they paid your cable bill for $60 then you'll say thanks and be happy that they did that, but, in reality, you could have afforded it, and even if you couldn't, you really don't need cable anyway. However, if that same person paid your mortgage bill that you weren't sure you'd be able to make and keeps you from losing your house and not having a place for your children to sleep safely, you'd probably fall on your face in front of the person in humility and thankfulness.

Christ made a very real sacrifice that there's no way that I could have paid and it was 100% necessary. It wasn't a convenient debt for Him to pay but He paid it anyway. I pray that Christ will make the size and necessity of the debt He paid real to me. I don't think that I comprehend what He's done yet, but I think I might be on the verge of getting a glimpse into it.

It would be funnier if it weren't so sad...

I feel like churches just don't get it sometimes. I had to share a few of these signs that I found. I hope you enjoy them just as much as I did and that you cry about them a little less than I did.










I got these at http://crummychurchsigns.blogspot.com. Be sure to check it out.

The inner workings of a burrito...

Recently some very important information has fallen into my services and I wish to share it with those who choose to read and take advantage of it. Apparently there are incorrect ways to eat a burrito which could lead to disaster regarding one's masculinity. So, in order to save my readership from a world of grief, I feel it is my obligation to enlighten.

First of all, regardless of it's size, the burrito is to be held with both hands at all times.

Secondly, one is never to bite from the top down. The correct biting prioties are as follows:
-Right corner.
-Left corner.
-Center.
-Repeat.

And finally, it is common knowledge that sour cream is an important ingredient in a burrito. There is nothing wrong with this sour cream and it can, in fact, prove quite delicious. However, It is of the utmost importance that when (not if) said sour cream emmerges from the top of one's burrito to simply continue to eat in ignorace of it, never bringing it to light in the conversation one is having over the aforementioned burrito.

I hope that my past folly will in some way impact others in a way that could save from quite a bit of misunderstanding.

The Future

I have a lot of stuff going through my head lately. I feel like I'm coming out of this pit I've been in recently. Not a whole lot has changed in most of the areas of my life, but I just feel better about the issues I've been worried about.

I'm still living a home, and I have no full time job but I'm feeling more at peace with those things. I have a prospect for an apartment and by the time it's available I'll hopefully be more financially secure and better able to afford my own place. And, yeah, I'm not exactly at the world's most challenging job right now, but I have no doubt that it's just temporary and God has a reason for me to be there. I don't have any regrets about leaving my old job. That's not where God wanted me, so I'm comfortable saying that leaving was a good move, spiritually speaking (though the money was nice). I agree with my pastor's view on careers. I want my job to be my passion, not just my paycheck.

I have some good stuff coming up. There's a career fair next week at Clemson and I'm going to meet with one of my old professors who wants to help me figure out a path for my life before I go to that. So, all in all, there's some exciting stuff coming up.

Though the light hasn't turned green yet, I feel like God is giving me a small peak at what the road ahead is going to look like. So I'm pretty excited. And I'd much rather be excited than worried.

Oak

Right now I'm starting to read through Isaiah, which is a pretty stinking long book of the Bible. One part of chapter 1 stood out to me the other day.

Verse 29 says "You will be ashamed because of the sacred oaks in which you have delighted." You see oak trees were considered to be sacred to this society and because of that, they were sort of a hiding place for sin. Things like pagan sacrifices and sexual sins were performed in gardens under oak trees because their "sacredness" made the acts okay.

One thing I have to make myself do when I'm reading the Old Testament is to not look at the Israelites while shaking my head, thinking about how dumb they were to keep screwing up. Because, when I really look at how they acted, I see a lot of myself.

Too often in my life I find myself hiding under my own oak tree of God's forgivness and grace, where I feel that it's okay for me to sin. My prayer is to view sin in the same way that Christ does. Not continue to do the things that I do and think that its okay because I'm forgiven. My goal is to hate sin instead of finding ways that I can get away with it.

Apathy

Today's been an amazing day. Problem is, I think I've forgotten how to enjoy good days. I feel like I'm a little numb to the amazing things going on around me.

For instance, nearly 300 people gave their life to Christ this weekend at my church. I was amazingly happy about it all, but it felt more like, "Well good for them" than the type of amazed joy I should have had.

I wish I knew how to soften my heart to the amazing stuff in my life. I want to be more excited about life and never be used to the awesome stuff that's happening.

I need peeps, yo!

I'm pretty sure that my number one fear is to be that guy in his 30's living with his parents. There are probably worse things in the world, such as being the guy in his 30's living with his parents after losing his arms and legs. Actually, that's probably above living with them healthily. There's something that seems almost irredeamable about about living at home for too long.

At this point I'm only 22 and fresh out of college, so living at home isn't that big of a deal, but I fear succumbing to the comfort of having no rent or mortgage and staying there longer than I need to. I have two main thoughts in my head regarding why I need to move out as soon as possible.

-I get along with my parents better when I'm not living with them. I love my parents, but, for some reason, I get annoyed at every little thing they do while I'm with them. I think that the pattern has always been that I get closer to my parents throughout the school year, and then get more distant during the summer.

-I need to have people my own age in my life. I've spent the past two and a half months surrounded by either my parents or people old enough to be my parents. I need to have some regular access to my peers to get along better. The problem here comes from the fact that everyone that I could live with is currently in school, therefore they have no need for a roommate seeing as how they already have one.

So, for the sake of my sanity, if you need a roommate, let me know!

Freaks me out!

Every other miniature horse I've ever seen looks disproportionate. It has a big head and a small body. But this sucker looks like it used to be a real horse, then it got shrunk. I have to look at this thing every time I look out the window.

I suck!

So I haven't actually written anything in nearly two months and I'm sure my readership (Theresa, Ali and Mom) feels betrayed. The whole reason that I started a blog in the first place was to keep myself from getting lazy about writing. I'm no longer required to read or write anything so I wanted to set myself up to continue reading and writing and to prevent myself from getting bad (or worse) at either of them. I've been okay with the reading, but, as you can tell, the writing isn't working out quite as well for me. So my declaration now is that I'm going to try to blog three times a week from now on.

So I apologize for my lack of commitment. That will change from now on. Maybe with this kind of commitment I'll get my readership up to four by the end of the year!

Do it yourself...

So I've been away for around a month. A lot of cool stuff has been happening. I got a great job, so I've been doing training for that for a couple of weeks and I was away for a week working at a youth camp for my church. And this was a busy first week on the job. So that's why I've been gone for so long.

But here's what on my mind. I've noticed lately just how much talk envelopes this world. Everyone seems to have an opinion on everything and everyone thinks they know a better way to do something. I count myself among these people because I'm guilty of it too. But I'm getting kind of sick of hearing people, especially myself, talk about how to make the world a better place, so I'm just going to stop.

If I know that something's wrong and only say that it's wrong, then I'm more than a little pathetic if I don't at least try to do something about it. Instead of complaining I'm going to try to make a difference in the things I have opinions about. I might not change the world, but I might be able to make a small difference. Alright, I'm going to shut up now.

Ezra

We were talking about Ezra in home group the other night, so I decided to read it and I actually shot through it in a couple of days. It's a pretty cool history book. But I got convicted a little bit when I read chapter 9, though.

In this chapter, the Israelites have been given a second chance. Because of their sins, they were exiled from Jerusalem and their temple was destroyed, but through God working on the hearts of the kings who were over the Israelites during their exile (showing that leaders don't have to be Christians for God to use them) they are allowed to go rebuild their temple and return to their land.

But, regardless of the blessings God gives to the undeserving Israelites, they begin to intermarry with the surrounding countries which God forbid them from doing. Chapter 9 revolves around how heartbreaking this was to Ezra and it got me to thinking about how I often do the same thing.

I am so undeserving of God's grace in my life, yet He blesses me anyway with more things than I could imagine even though I have sin in my life. And regardless of this, rather than humble myself to my creator, I start to get the feeling that God is just ignoring my sin and I can do whatever I want and I'll get blessed anyway.

So I'm pulling away from Ezra with this in mind. God blesses me out of His grace and forgiveness, and the least that I can do is to try to live in a way that reflects His grace. I need to be more observant to the things God has blessed me with and live my life with an attitude of humility and thankfulness and not come away with pride. The Israelites' sin ended in having to divorce the people they had married, and in the same way, I need to divorce the sin in my own life.

A few random thoughts...

• I have the best parents in the world, by far! They're letting me freeload for the next year while I search for a job and try to get myself established.
• My girlfriend is awesome! We've been together for over a year now and I'm happier today than I've ever been. I didn't get to see her today and it made me sad, but we get to have lunch tomorrow, so it'll be great. :)
• I can't wait until the Gauntlet. I'm excited (and scared) about getting to spend the whole week with my kids. I'll be really sad if I find out work won't let me go.
• I'm pretty nervous about getting the job I've interviewed for, so any prayers you could send my way would be greatly appreciated.
  
• I'm having trouble getting myself back into the habit of reading, but every time I actually sit down and do it, I love it.
• On a similar note, even Donald Miller's lesser stuff is better than most writers best material.
• I would probably have an easier time reading if this game weren't so addictive.
• I'm excited at the chance I have to watch the season finales of The Office, Scrubs, and Heroes on my new HDTV!

My church is awesome!

For the longest time I wanted a job at my church. It was only recently that I realized that there's really no need for that and it's not what God wants for my life at this point. But I never really took the time to think about why I wanted to work there until I read this. For so long I had gone to a church that I got absolutely nothing out of that, and when I found a church that actually fed me spiritually, I felt like the only possible option for my life was to work there.

In the week since I've been home I've had to hear about all of the crap going on at my old church and about all of the drama going on there. It's sad. There's so much that they could be doing for God, but they're too busy arguing with themselves and fighting for power. I always kind of laugh at the idea of fighting for power in a dying church. What do you get when you're the king of that mountain? Full rights to decide the color of the bathrooms?

The state of that place makes me sad, but at the same time, it also encourages me about my own church. We are doing everything that we can to spread the Gospel of Jesus. We are aggressive in our faith, and not spiritual pansies who are, at best, passive aggressive. More importantly, we have one focus: Making the name of Jesus famous. So, when I felt a ministerial call on my life, I didn't see how there were any other options for me than to go to work at my church. Since then God has shown me what my purpose is (to a small degree). I'll try to talk more about that later.

For now, continue to pray for me while I'm pursuing a career.

Jonesing for a journal...

I was in Barnes and Noble tonight and I saw the set up of Mole Skin journals and my first thought was how much I want one. But then I realized that even if I did have one, I have nothing to really put in it. So more than a Mole Skin, I want to be important and interesting enough to need a Mole Skin.

I got a Phenomenal!!!

Let me say that today has been an amazing day! The past couple of days have kind of sucked. But church got me completely fired up. It was "punch your mama" good! Anyone who wasn't fired up after Perry got done talking about the future of NewSpring and then tons of people coming to Christ needs to get their pulse checked. If you've never been to NewSpring before, there's no reason you shouldn't start next Sunday. I believe that it is the best church in the world.

I got to spend some time with the most beautiful girl in the world today, as well. I completely love my girlfriend and tonight I was reminded of how much I love her. It's great getting to work with her at Ignite. She's finally found her niche in there I think, and it's been spectacular seeing her start to shine.

And to top my day off, I won a Phenomenal award for "Phenomenal Small Group Event Planning and Execution." Movie night with my kids on Friday turned into a "why do I even bother" night, so this really did help me to feel better about all of that. Also, Ali won a Phenomenal too! So it was cool getting one with her. It was a precious moment.

This is the beginning of a week of rest and fun for me, so I should get to post more this week, which excites me. The week after that, however, I begin my job search! Say a prayer that I find a job that God can use me at. I'm pretty certain that He doesn't want me to work at a church at this point in my life, so it's my job to figure out where He wants my ministry to be.

I don't need one

For some reason, I really want a Playstation 3. I have a Wii without many games, and could easily spend the money I'd waste on a PS3 on some good games, but I still want one regardless of the fact that I don't have an HD TV to play it on, making it pretty pointless to have one in the first place. But I know that I don't want to spend half as much on an X-Box 360.

When asked today why I wanted a PS3 instead of a 360, the best answer I could come up with was this: I am an Apple freak! And the 360 is made by Microsoft. Now, Apple doesn't have a video game console, but I feel that if I bought a 360, I would offend the nonexistent Apple video game system if I bought one.

I couldn't not share this:

I think there should be a committee with the power to take away churches' sign privileges.

It's the end of the world as we know it!

Can I just say that Christians tick me off? I was flipping channels instead of rewriting my southern lit paper just now and there's another show about the end-times on the history channel. It's full of people who have diagrams showing the tribulation step by step. And it's always these "left behind" followers who seem to worship the coming back of Jesus more than they do Jesus Himself. That just bothers me a lot.

How cocky do you have to be? The Bible clearly states that not even Jesus knows when He's coming back, only the Father does. So if you think that by studying the scriptures, especially Revelations, you're going to be able to come up with an answer that not even Jesus has, you're a pretty heretical person.

I just hate it when people make Revelations a book about destruction and death. Sure that stuff's in there, but first and foremost, this book is a letter to seven churches (I know, seven...spooky). Revelations was written during a time of great persecution for the church. It was also written by a man who had undergone great persecution. They tried to boil John alive, and when that didn't work, they just stranded him on an island. If you read Revelation with this in mind, it becomes a book of hope. When Jesus says, "I'm coming soon," it isn't the warning of a violent ruler telling us to straighten up. It's the comforting of a loving Savior, telling His suffering followers to hang on, because He's on His way to rescue us.

And finally, to those who really want to know when Jesus is coming back, I have a verse that tells exactly that:

"And that Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations (all peoples) will hear it; and then the end will come."
Matthew 24:14

So there you have it. Jesus isn't coming back until every people group in the world has heard about Him. So if you want Jesus to come back, instead of arguing with other Christians about things that don't matter, tell people who don't know Jesus about Him and change lives.

It's almost over...

Right now I'm sitting in my second to last class ever! It's kind of exciting, but at the same time I realize how pointless some of the classes that I've taken are. I mean, I'm able to write this as opposed to listening to the professor, yet I have full confidence that I'll make an A in this class. But that's college. There are some things that you do that change the way that you see your world and give you insight into what you want to do with the rest of your life, and there are other things, such as a Chaucer class, that show you how pointless some of the things you learn are.

I'm just thankful that I've had an awesome computer with a good enough battery to get me through this class all semester by playing on the internet. Now off I go to my last class as a college student.

sniff sniff...

God's Peace

What I'm realizing more and more is that God is awesome. He is showing me how much I need him and through all of that, I'm wanting more and more to get closer to Him. The peace that He gives is absolutely amazing. I have no idea where I'm going to find a job in the coming months, but I'm not worried about it. He's going to take care of me and that gives me so much peace.

I've given up watching the news. I don't even like watching the Daily Show anymore when it has politicians on. There's so much crap going on in the world, and I can't stand the fact that I know the answer to peace but don't know how to get the message out. Or, more accurately, I know how to get the message out, I just don't do it. World peace isn't going to come through me telling President Bush that he needs to daily surrender his position to Christ. It isn't even converting Kim Jong-il to Christianity. The world will change when I start telling the people I have access to about Christ and how much He loves them.

I'm sick of living in a world where a politician will come along and tell the world that he or she should be president because they can save the world. They're essentially painting themselves to be false christs that will save the world through their actions and that will never happen. Hope isn't found in politics, it's found in Christ. I just need to grow a pair and start telling everyone I meet about Him.

Here we go...

So I've decided that I wanted to be like all the other cool kids and tell everyone what I think, so I'm starting a blog. I figure that this'll be an interesting time in my life to write about, since I have no clue where I'm going or what I'm doing. I'm about to graduate, which leaves me with mixed feelings or fear, excitement, etc. Pretty much what anyone else feels at this point in their lives.

This is my obligatory first blog that most likely no one will read, but I'll write it anyway. But to the one person who actually catches this and gets addicted to me (and who couldn't?) welcome. I'll try to keep it interesting.