New verse

Remember how I said was being bombarded with that verse about trusting in God and leaning not on your own understanding? I got a new one to meld with that. John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." The strange thing is... this verse has just been completely pounded at me. Like I've seen over 30 references to this verse in the past week. And many times when I see it, within a few minutes, I'll see my first verse too. I've been busy with stuff... and I just now realized how much this verse has been thrown at me, so I haven't had much time to ponder about this at all... but I'm excited to see what God shows me through it!

Read Please

I'm tired of spending hours struggling through reading the Bible, trying to focus. To help me focus, I downloaded readplease. It's a text to speech program. I go to BibleGateway.com and copy the chapters I need to read and paste them in this free program. Man, did it help me focus. And it was entertaining when it read words wrong (like pronouncing "wind" with a short i instead of a long i, and pronouncing Ananias wrong... very funny). It took some time to read through what was needed, but I actually could focus in and hear what I was reading, so it's kinda like reading it twice. I got exposed to the reading through 2 senses instead of one. Quite helpful, indeed!

(and for those of you that know, I tried the big fat cyst, and the piss piss piss... and it was funnier than ever!)

What did you learn today?

Q:What did Jesus teach the two disciples that were on the road to Emmaus?

A: ...to dance!

Just finished up taking a test for New Testament Survey. That was a question on the test. I didn't know the correct answer, so I just gave that one. I'm sure he'll give me credit for it. Maybe... I hope.

I didn't really study for this test, and I could definitely tell. It wasn't a hard test, but because I didn't study, it just took more effort to recall the information. You know what I'm sayin?

btw... i'm pretty sure that Jesus was as ripped as this guy, and I'm pretty sure he was an pro break dancer

Odd day

I wasn't in a bad mood or anything like that today... but the whole day I just kept burnin on people. Not just joking around either. Like stuff that people do that bothers me. Just about everybody I saw today, I started thinking about what they do that bothers me. I don't know what was up with my brain, but I just couldn't stop thinking about everybody's actions that annoy me.

Maybe I've just gotten to the point where I'm so tired of people's inexcusable behavior that I can't help but vocalize it. There's one guy here, I want so badly to scream at him these verses from Matthew 7... "Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye."

The bad part is that I'm sure I've got a log in my own eye.

It just made for a long day having my mind set on thinking all these angry thoughts.

Stuck in my truck...

Today I definitely had one of those moments where it's like "God, what was Your purpose in that?" And then you spend a rediculous amount of time thinking about it, and you come up with a plethora of possible answers.

Here's the story: I went down by Hollister River here, and I got stuck trying to turn around. That hill of an ice road and my truck do not mix. It wasn't even a big hill! It was like a little baby hill... but nonetheless, it was solid ice and my truck just could not make it... even after 20 minutes of trying to chip the ice away, i ripped one of my bags of sand open and tried to use that, I had some wood in my toolbox that failed to do anything, and I used some leaves on the side of the road, and finally my floormats (don't even waste your time trying to use floormats if you get stuck. I've got too many experiences trying to use them and they just make it worse!).
So I finally give up and put everything back in my truck and figure I'll just walk back to camp (cuz my freakin phone is turned off!). I start walking back, but after I got about 10 steps away from my truck, I just had the biggest urge to give it one more try. I got in, started it up and took off! I actually moved! ...about 4 feet and then got stuck again. So I'm freakin out like yellin at God. I'm like "Come on, God. I know you just moved my truck that 4 feet, PLEEEEEEEEAAAAAAASSSSSSSEEEEE get me outta here the rest of the way!" Well.. no luck. So I start to walk back.
The walk would have been like an hour. I knew there were a few houses about a block away from where I was stuck so I figured I'd go ask them. Thankfully, the first house I tried a guy had a 4x4 and towed me out.

The whole time this thing is going on, I am thinking and quesitoning "God, what is the point of this?" And trust me, I came up with plenty of ideas. At no point did I get frustrated or mad or in a bad mood. Not even the ride back... but once I got back to camp I just got in a bad mood. I'm really letting this get to me and I don't know why. Maybe it's cuz I don't know the purpose. Was there even a purpose, or did i just get stuck cuz I inattentively drove down an icy road?

Who knows... and the more I type about it the more frustrated I get! I must stop!

Pray the prayer

"Perhaps you prayed a prayer a long time ago inviting Jesus to come into your heart... somewhere along the way... we pray the prayer a second or third time for fear that the first one didn't take."
-Andy Stanley in "It Comes from Within"

Has anybody besides me done this?

This is like the 2nd or 3rd book that I'm reading by Andy Stanley. I swear this guy like writes like specifically to me.

Getting in touch

Recently I've made contact with some old friends who I haven't talked to in many moons. Including my first best friend from elementary school. Finally Facebook has proven itself to be useful for something. It's just been really cool being able to reconnect with those old friends. It's just plain exciting. It's hard thinking of names of friends who I haven't talked to in years. Especially ones from MN. It's fun tho and it makes me in a good mood when they add me as a friend!

Listen up

The other day I was talking to one of my classmates, and he said he was thinking about why he's here. I was like... well that's easy... I know why I'm here. I'm here to build my relationship with Christ. So I look back on how much I've grown since coming here in September. I'm nowhere near where I wanted to be.

How did I go for half a year and not grow at all? How am I in a place where God works in incredible ways and changes peoples hearts... yet I am not changing? I came here with a purpose... and did everything but that one thing!

I really don't wanna let that happen this semester. I'm going to spend time hearing and listening to God. I'm going to plan time to spend with Him. This semester I'm going to grow.

BT Retreat

This weekend the high school YG from my church back home came up here. It was definitely nice seeing them, especially my brothers and mr. brian childers. I got to hang out with them (not as much as i wanted to) and just goof off and stuff. I only had to work 4 hours this weekend, so that left me open to hang with them. Except they didn't come get me ever! I kept waiting up in my room for them to come get when they got here and they just decided not to get me. Bums. Anywho, I was sad when they left. It was a nice reunion, but it was too short, and I miss them already.

NBI Retreat 09!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH man! I just got back from a retreat for NBI students. I am sore and tired beyond belief! We left Tuesday night at 10pm (I know... who leaves that late at night?), we returned here this afternoon about 3.

Inbetween there we shared stories, relaxed in front of the warmest fire place on earth, played games (like farkle and football and othello and speed), did some devotionals, worshipped God, had some solo time with God, and just goofed around. Great first day.

Then we headed to Camp Daniel. That's a camp about an hour away from here specifically designed for disabled people. There in the process of actually building the camp, so we helped deconstruct certain buildings and construct other ones! Man was it a ton of work, but we really gave them the help they needed.

It was a nice retreat of just hanging out, relaxing, and then some serious service and hard work. Good break from school. Ready to get back into the flow tho...

My blog header

So you might have seen that I've recently changed the name and description of my blog. It was titled "Brain Leech" and the description was something like "here's where you get to feed off my understandings of life..." Today I realized I gotta change it.

Today in class we were talking about this idea called "Spiritual Arrogance." My response was... there's no such thing. But talking through the subject, and addressing some serious issues, spiritual arrogance seems like a common thing. I could be real general about this, and be like "most people do this and that," but the truth is that I suffer from spiritual arrogance.

Spiritual arrogance: I think I've got it. I know the right answers, and my way is good. I give good advice, and my words are worth "feeding off" of.

My blog's not about that. I can't let it be that. I can't let myself think that, or make it like that. God's got the right answers. The Bible is where you'll find the right answers. That's where you find the good advice and words worth feeding off of. My blog is simply what's going on at the moment. What's God teaching me, how I am doing... it's like an in-depth status update!

...and that's that.