|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Today is the day where I start to have to begin to move. In otherwords,
I'm procrastinating from packing at the current time. Our current
apartment over on grand avenue seems like an endless pit of mess and
trash and empty root beer bottles.
I'm moving to a new place called Old Oake. These apartments are
freaking sweet. There will be a ton of space and there will only be
three of us living there instead of the usual four. That's kinda the
sad part, my good friend Brian Asbill will no longer be with us here at
the OlyTech.
Brian was here in town yesterday and stayed the night with me. We did
the usual, sat around and drank root beer while I watched him own at
halo on live. Really its all a waste of time, but it's still good fun.
I think that Brian is really at a point where he is taking leadership
in his faith. He was confronted by a lot of authority keeping him down,
and even claiming that he wasn't even a christian at all. He handled it
all extremely well, and I believe that he grew a ton from it. He has
been given the opportunity to go to a new school and play division 1
baseball. There he will be the leader of the FCA chapter for his
school. While it sucks that he can't come back and live with us, he's
got a great opportunity to share what God has done with his teammates,
coaches, and other athletes at his school.
It'll be cool to see what happens.
| | |
| The second one tonight. Yay. I have a lot on my mind and this one is
completely different than the last one. I promise I won't even mention
the cubs in this one. oh shoot. i just did. Anyway, I couldn't sleep 20
minutes ago and decided to watch Larry King. On the program were four
pastors of mega churches; one being Max Lucado and the other three I
can't remember. One spoke about how the church is supposed to
infiltrate the seven layers of society (whatever that means) instead of
what has become of religion in it's own ring. He gave the example of
how should be called to share the gospel whatever their current state
of live is. In other words, people called to the ministry don't
necessarilly all have to go to seminary and become a preacher of some
sort. This I agree with.
What got me is how he referenced that the church as a whole should
become what a part of our whole society, politics and all. One thing
that I greatly struggle with is the influence that the church has
within American politics. There are a thousand reasons why I struggle
with this and probably too many to ever write on this dumb online
journal. I think that the main reason though is that it gives non
believers a false pretense of what the goal of the church is, or better
yet should be.
Just this summer I saw amazing things that God did. Really, it was
like, "Wow God, I can't believe that you are blessing me enough to see
these things happening". It's simple: I saw lives change on account of
the realization of the the Love of God. The amazing thing is that I saw
it on a relational basis...people loving people for who they are and
showing them Christ's love.
There was one super cool kid I met at camp this summer and his name is
Ryan. He is one of those awesome kids who loves to rock out to hard
music and gets pumped about going to Ozfest. He has a passion for
music, and all he wants to do is learn to play in a band without the
normal superficial reasons. I got to speak to him for a while one day,
and he shared with me that he was one of five people in the world to
have had to sort of menegitis that he did. His right eye was dead, and
he told me of all the painful procedures that he went through on his
eye just so that he could survive that terrible disease. As he was
talking to me, I just noticed that he had a smile on his face and that
he was full of joy. We went on talking about music and he told me that
what the guys and I in the band were doing was really cool. He then
went on to explain to me that he had never really thought of himself as
a christian before the week. That tuesday night he did something
remarkable. This is what he told me: "During the service after the
speaker spoke I asked God to speak to me, and right then I could feel
him inside of me".
Then he went on to say on of the most profound things I think I have
ever heard: "It was wierd, I've never asked anyone I don't believe in
to speak to me before".
Ryan was at our camp because he has friends that cared about him. They
begged him to go and he was like...eh, alright I guess I'll go. His
relationships with his friends changed him forever.
This is what I guess irks me. The church is most powerful on the level
of relationships. The gospel would impact society so much more if
believers would share the Love of God to those just around them. Small
impacts as we live everyday will effect the world for God's kingdom.
Politics are important, but the Christian perspective "of how things
should be" won't change lives for him. It's how we handle loving God
and then our neighbor.
I'm done babbling.
| | |
| It's 3:09 in the morning right now. Rediculous. There is too much on
the agenda tonight and this just may have to be broken up into a few
sections over a period of time. Lots on the mind tonight. Are you ready
for this crazy stream of consciousness?
Well, I'm going to lay out the facts to you right now. My favorite
baseball team in the world, who I love and adore, the Chicago Cubs will
not be in this years playoffs. They are 54-54 right now and there are
54 games remaining this season. The teams ahead of them are either
wayyyyy far ahead or just playing unbelievably hot right now. I'm
giving up on them because the state of my day completely depends on
whether they win or lose. I figure that if I give up hope, I can be
happy throughout a day no matter what. My only hope in this moment is
that they prove me wrong. Believe me, if they somehow squeak into the
playoffs I just may do a happy jig. It would be amazing. I'm just being
completely practical.
That's all I got to say about that.
I still love the Cubs.
| | |
| Man It's been a while. Probably too much has happened in my life to put
it all in one entry so I'll put down my thoughts over the course of the
next few week reflecting on my summer. Man was it intense.
I'll just give you an update on my current state right now. I'm sick.
that's all there is to it. I just and under the weather. I'm guessing
it is a culmination of being endlessly tired this summer and it
all winding down.
I've developed a problem this summer. I found the joy of reading and
studying. It is so much more rewarding to read than to watch television
all day like I have generally done in the past.
This summer has also offered me great times of spiritual growth. I
can't believe how God works in ways that so hard to see when they are
done. God has done things that I've expected, and he's done things that
I didn't really want to happen.
All I know is that He is a God that is good.
| | |
| Let me premise this entry with one statement: old people love me.
This past week I had the opportunity to travel to Washington D.C. with about 120 senior citizens. These people all have some afilliation with my school, Olivet Nazarene University. Yeap, good 'ol ONU.
We took off really early Monday morning in three coach buses and let me tell you that I was beat. I was in Peoria for most of the weekend before and I got back to Bourbannais late in the afternoon. Then, I had to move all of my crap into my new apartment. I finished moving at 2 in the morning, packed, and decided I should get at least 3 hours of sleep. I had to be ready to pack up the busses at 5:30 and needless to say I blasted through my alarm. I was awakened by my cell phone buzzing near the TV at 5:45 with Molly Taylor telling me I sucked at life because I slept in a little. OK...so that's not completely true but she did let me know I was late.
Although it started the trip on a bad note, overall it was awesome. I met so many cool elderly people that just we a ton of fun to hang out with. They liked me because I'm an easy target, and most of the time I'd just go along with it when they made fun of me. I also wasn't afraid to use the bus PA excessively. They loved how I wasn't afraid to just bust out the old hymns. Again, needless to say I had them amped.
We got to see some cool things too. We were around when that idiot flew into the restricted airspace with his cessna 172. What a idiot. Who does that? We hit most of the cool things in DC, but the most interesting was definately the Holocaust Museum. It was outta control and so very somber.
So after getting very little sleep, moving more luggage than I knew what to do with, and packing breakfast bags late at night for early in the morning, it was a pretty remarkable trip.
I'm glad I went. | | |
|
