Rules

I recently got a ticket for not wearing my seat belt. It cost me $55 for the ticket at $8 for a cashier's check (because the city doesn't trust personal checks I guess). Obviously I wasn't too happy about that. I almost would have preferred if I got a speeding ticket. Why? Because I think the seat belt law is dumb.

You see, I have no problem following rules that make sense to me. It's when there's rules that I don't understand or I think are dumb that I don't follow. For instance, it makes sense that not speeding is a good rule to follow because you are endangering other people (I don't always follow the rule, but I think it's a rule that should be enforced). It's a good rule not to drink bleach...because it will kill you. It's a good rule to clean your bathroom every week... because it gets frickin nasty if you don't. It's simple. I follow rules that I get.

Maybe not all people agree with my logic about which rules are right, but I think the idea behind it is true for most people: follow rules that make sense.

For years I've wondered why I repeatedly fail at reading my bible and having a real prayer life. I'm beginning to think those are rules that don't make sense to me. After all, my life is pretty easy most of the time. Pretty stressless. Why do I need Jesus when my life is going fine, or when I am completely capable of handling the problems in my life? Why do I need to read the bible or pray? Why do I need Jesus now?

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.

1 Thes. 5:14-22

But his answer was: My Father is still working even now, and so I am working.
John 5:17

who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father
Galatians 1:4

Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Galatians 2:20

What else needs to be said?

I'm in a mcdonalds waiting for my brother to get done with work, so i'm just blabbing.

It's about that time of the year. School will come officially to a close May 14th. It's not going to be an easy ride for these last few weeks. I've got two big papers and a mammoth project to work on. I am really looking forward to school ending. I just don't have the discipline to get my homework done so that I can enjoy school better. Even though I've put these assignments off, I am trying to be disciplined in doing them before the day they're due. But next semester I'm really going to work on it.

I've officially been a leader in the youth group at Faith. The high school group is called "TEAM" and I dont know what it stands for or what it means. The boys are divided up into jr/sr and then sophomores and then freshmen. I started out with the jr/sr. small group, which already had two leaders. The past few weeks I've been with the freshmen small group tho. I'm not sure if I'm going to stay with them (I'd like to). Some of the guys like to do parkour, and thats pretty sweet. I like to parkour with them. Soon I will learn flipping.

This semester I've gone to like 5 different churches. I've visited Redemption Bible Church, Northwestern Family Church, and Faith. I've regularly attended Baptist Tabernacle and Crossway. I really don't like going to a different church every week, so I recently decided I'm going to cut it down to two churches. One for when I'm at school and one for when I'm at home. I don't really know what it is about BT, but I'm just tired of it. So for home I chose Crossway. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do about when I'm at school. It would make sense for me to go to Faith, since I work in the youth group. I went there for their sunday morning service for the first time this past sunday. It reminds me of BT. So I'm kind of repelled from that. Didn't like Northwestern, so I'm leaning towards Redemption. Not really sure if what I'm doing is right. I should probably stay at BT because that's where my family goes. And I should probably go to Faith, because I'm already connected in there. I just want to go to a church that engages me, a church that feels alive and is growing.

I owe 4100 for this semester of school. It was due last wednesday. I dont have money for it. Anybody want to pitch in?

This summer I'm going to be working in the mail room and maintenance at Trinity. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be mail room, and Tuesday/Thursday will be Maintenance. I'm not really sure if that's a good thing or not. I'll have to drive down there and back about every day. But I get about 24 mpg in my truck, so it's not too bad. I was thinkin about takin the train, or even riding my bike.

Oh, what to celebrate?

I wrote this on the ride home from Iowa this past Sunday

What is the purpose of holidays? A holiday is to remember an event, right? To remember and celebrate?

Well, today is Easter. The holiday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There’s nothing better to celebrate, except for maybe the birth of Christ, which is just as important. But today, outside of church this morning, nothing was said about Jesus. At least nothing that I heard. The focus was on the Easter ham. We didn’t even pray before we ate today. We may celebrate on this day… but we certainly didn’t celebrate Easter.

Jesus simply wasn’t part of Easter this year.

Being with family during holiday’s isn’t wrong. Pigging out during holidays isn’t wrong. But when you don’t celebrate with Jesus, it’s meaningless I think.

So what did you celebrate this Easter?

The Prayer I Fear

So I've been thinking about how I live so much like I don't need Christ. So I thought about praying "God, show me that I need Christ." But I didn't pray it. Because I fear what will happen. It just sounds like a dangerous prayer. In my mind, the way God would show me would be to take away things from me, the things I depend on. This brings to mind my truck, my laptop, my job, my family, and a few certain friends (not necessarily in that order). You know, I really don't feel like losing any of those things. So I'm still afraid to pray that prayer. I do really need to be reminded that I need Jesus. I can easily just say that to myself, but to feel like I need Him... it's just not happening. And I'm too afraid to ask.

(This doesn't mean I want you to ask for me, either.)

Practicing God's Presence

Reading through Lousy T-shirt, I came across the chapter entitled "Monk." It's about Antonucci reading books by monks. One in particular stuck out to me, for I had read some of it at NBI: The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.

The main idea of that book is that God is constantly with us, and it was Brother Lawrence's goal to always be aware of God's presence in his life. Strangely enough, lately I have been becoming more aware of God's presence in my life. But it's not enough. I want it more. I find myself getting more and more excited about being in love with God (when in the past, that sounded like such a weird, slightly gross thing). I find myself wanting more and more to read God's word, and other people's words about God. Anything to help me get closer to Him, and anything to help me become more like the man I should be.

It's exciting to me.

The Exciting Life of Me

So I've just been dilly dallying around with RealPlayer. I'm considering switching from Itunes to RealPlayer. Maybe I'm just tired of the scenery with Itunes, but I kinda like RealPlayer. I hate Windows Media Player. I haven't tried anything else. And I'm not in the mood to try anything else, either. I will keep you updated on this important issue. And I will give you a final decision within two months. Let the battle begin.

Bucket List

I saw my bru's post about bucket kicking stuff, and it reminded me of the movie "the bucket list." I was encouraged by this memory to make a bucket list for myself. So here it is... at least the first version of the things I want to do before I kick the bucket.

• Skydive
• Visit New Zealand
• Participate in a demolition derby
• Visit every theme park in the U.S.
• Race in a car
• Mountain bike in a mountain all day
• Go to Egypt and Jerusalem
• Swim in a pool filled with something besides water (like spaghetti or syrup)
  
• Be in a major motion picture
• Go on a cruise
• Go into outer space
• Smash an expensive guitar