Of Relationships with God...

This is for those of you who long for a closer relationship with God, but never seem to grow any closer.

It's a choice. This took me forever to figure out. For the past year and a half I've been trying to grow closer to God, but never seemed to go anywhere. Then I realized during a youth group service that I choosen to hold back. I was scared of what God might ask me to do. I kept telling God I wasn't ready, and he respected my choice.

That night at youth group I decided I would jump in head first. Don't get me wrong though, I was still scared of what God might do, but I realized the benefits/experience far out weighed anything that could be thrown at me. Plus we're supposed to fear God.

As this summer has progressed I have seen myself grow like never before in my relationship with him, and my relationships with other people. I can't believe I just said that though because he just had me cut off two of my friendships for the time being. It's not always easy, as I 've learned in the last few days, infact I've had some my most difficult times during this experience, but along with that I feel God walking right alongside me.

Anyways, I encourage you if you are willing to simply ask God to bring you to the next level in your relationship with him. If you are willing he will bring you to a place you have never been, and it WILL blow your mind away.

As I lay in my room...

Today I found myself more or less in a depressed mood. God had asked me to do something really tough last night, and I have been thinking about it for the last 18 hours. But as I was fasting and listening to worship music in my room today I came across a picture frame my mom had given me for my birthday. It holds a story that I found when I was very young, and has always meant a great deal to me when I'm going through tough times.
Here is the story in it's entirety. I hope it blesses someone as it has blessed me.

Footprints

One night a man had a dream about walking along the beach with the Lord.
The sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene,
he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand:
his and the Lord's.
After the last scene flashed before him,
he looked at the footprints,
noticing that at the most difficult times in his life there was only one set of footprints.
"Lord, you said you'd walk with me all the way if I followed you.
But during the most troublesome times in my life,
there is only one set of footprints.
Why did you leave me when I needed you most?"
The Lord replied,
"I love you and would never leave you.
In your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints,
that was when I carried you."
-Author Unknown

Dear reader... (Just thought I'd clarify/edit my previous post for you)

"Kle", as I was reading your comment I must say I did agree with some of what you said. Other parts I just didn't clarify enough, but some I completely disagree with. Anyways, here's your very own post. This is tailor made just for you, and I'm glad I have a responsive reader.

You mentioned that you can't watch pornograpy at 17. This is true, but when I was refering to the magic number '17' it was for my example of rated 'R' movies. Not to mention those who look at porn generally don't follow necessarily legal sites when looking at it, and it's easy to find whether you're 18 or younger.

*Tangent*

As for being 18 to view porn. Porn wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue if it wasn't advertised to those younger than the legal age. You can't tell me it's not. Every day I have to flick to another site because of the ads on the side of the page that have a lady with next to nothing on. It says stuff like "Women who want to get naughty... tonight.", and such. It may be argued that this isn't porn, but it leads to porn. I mean it only takes a quick image search on google with a couple choice words, and Bingo! The jackpot! Other sites will ask you if you're 18, and ask you for your date of birth to check. It doesn't take much intelligence to set your birthdate back a couple of years, and you're in.

*End of Tangent*

I'll agree with your statement that watching a rated R movie pales in the comparison of such things as drinking, smoking, and other such things. Problem is this is a blog, not a book. I'll get to those when I feel inspired to write about them.

~Maybe watching the Matrix once won't do anything to you, but the problem is the effect is cumulative. It's like a slow poison: the more you add (of bad movies and such) the faster the ailment progresses. Also you say that people don't decide to kill people over the media they consume. Look at the kids from Columbine high school. What did they listen to? Marilyn Manson. It was their fault for choosing that media. (and by the way, as I was doing a google search to figure out how to spell 'Marilyn Manson' I got some pretty explicit results)

~Violence is a bad example of what media does to people though. It's easier to watch violent movies and walk away unscathed. But here's one to chew on. What of all the teenage girls who get into eating disorders. You can't tell me they thought of the idea all on their own. They see it all around them, in magazines, advertisements, on television, and other prevalent media forms. You can't tell me that the media doesn't effect these girls. As I've been writing this rebutal I was talking to my friend who previously suffered from an eating disorder, and during recovery had to isolate herself from all of the media that said,"She wasn't perfect enough."

~As for attacking the rating system, I'll agree that I started the article intending to do that, but by the end I simply mentioned that the ratings are there for a reason. They tell us that there is bad content in the movies we watch. From the PG movies to the NC-17 movies, it lists all the reasons why we shouldn't watch it.

~To end on an up note I completely agree that our culture has made us numb to such things in our media. The anchor man will say,"A teen died in a drive by shooting", and we'll flip the channel. It's nothing new, now maybe if he'd been hacked to pieces with a chainsaw we might keep watching, but otherwise we flip to another channel.

~I propose that we try to change our culture if our culture is the issue then. We should start to raise our kids in a more innocent culture. Maybe if enough people listen, maybe, just maybe, we may yet again watch the news and cry for the little boy who just lost his mother and father in a car crash.

Thoughts on "Adult Content"...

After yesterday's post I began to think about media, and just random stuff about it.

Then today I was reading the new issue of Breakaway (Christian magazine for teen guys). I got to the last section where readers write in and ask about media and different artists. One of the readers had asked about Jessy McCartney's new CD. The editor was mentioning that Jessy's lyrics had turned in more of a sexual direction on this latest CD. It said in the article that McCartney thought his previous albums were when he was going through musical puberty, and that now he was 'grown up' in his music style.

This got me to thinking,"What do media ratings mean?!" Everyone knows that an 'R' rated movie means 'Restricted', and you must be 17 or have a guardian at least 21 years old to see it. My thought was "Why is '17' the magical number?" The media assumes that at that age (and older) we have the disernment and maturity to choose our movies wisely, and also to be able to handle what they call 'Adult Content'.

Here's a thought for you though,"Look around at all of the men who struggle with an addiction to pornography. These men obviously can't handle the so called 'Adult Content'."

Bottom line: There is no such special age where you can suddenly watch bad media and be able to leave the theatre unaffected. There are a few people who can handle such media, or have been so involved with it that it doesn't even cross their minds when it crosses the screen. These people are few and far between though.

I know this is hard to swallow, but if a movie is rated for nudity, language, violence, disturbing images, or rated for anything it will affect how you live and think once you leave. It's best to avoid media that tells you that there's a problem in it. Try to go find a different movie. Preferably something G, PG, or possibly PG-13 depending on if it has a healthy story line.

I'm back!!!... and Satan is already pulling out some of his best tricks...

Well first off before I get to deep into this post, Camp was amazing! So many things happened, and I learned so much. I'll have many posts for you guys to go through as I go through my sermon notes.

But before I get to camp I'm going to start with what's on my mind right now.

On the bus ride home from camp a bunch of us decided to go watch "Dark Knight". I started to get a small God poke in my side, but then I didn't really pay attention since I saw the movie earlier on opening night. God had other plans though. At the dinner table my mom pretty much said flat out that maybe I shouldn't go because of what God has been doing in my life.

So then I struggled for a while over it, but I remembered that I was going to try to give up violence, and such media that may contain it for the summer. And to help it along a little more God reminded me that I'm trying to get my friend to get rid of his bad music (pretty much his whole library). I finally decided not to go.

Then I logged on to the internet to catch up on what's been happening, and to put up a blog post for you guys on camp.

Of course though the first thing I had to do was check facebook. Low and behold I had a new bumper sticker! I figured it would be clean because of the friend it came from. I clicked the 'view sticker' button, and there was a picture of the Joker saying "I just want me phone call".

Talk about overwhelming temptation! But no! Satan couldn't even leave it to that! Just below the sticker are all of the most popular recent stickers. The first one caught my eye immediately. It depicted a pencil standing upright with the words "Want to see a magic trick?" by it. This is the all time best quote from Dark Knight! To be perfectly honest I'm surprised that I'm writing this post instead of calling up my friends and asking when the movie is.

It appears that once again God has something greater planned for my life though!

Life Snippet for today:
All temptation is virtually the same in how it comes, and how to deal with it. First you must try to avoid places or thoughts that might lead you to be tempted (not even sinning). If you're being tempted, Run, simply run, if you even give it a thought chances are you won't make it through.

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." -1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV

I have struggled with this passage for a long time. I've thought on many occasions that it was unbearable temptation. Then God showed me something. He may only allow the Devil to tempt to a point, but we help it along more than we think. When we fail the problem is we usually want to fail, and once you want to fail it becomes unbearable.

Sorry to my readers...

I'm sorry for those faithful readers I have, do to my lack of posting for the last few days, but I felt 'nothing' was better than a crude post.

And I'm further sorry, but I'll be gone through Friday (to afore mentioned camp). Hopefully I'll have many amazing things for you guys to read about when I get back from camp! I'm still trusting that God has something amazing planned for my friend and I. There's no way that God wasn't involved in getting me to camp!

God Bless you guys!

...

Well I suppose I can give you guys one last thing to toss and turn about while I'm at camp.

Here's an interesting thought: If you're a little slower than someone else (at thinking, no offense intended, just keep reading), does time go by faster for you? Or if you generally think faster than another person, does time go slower for you?

So, in reality the person who thinks slower may just see the world spinning faster.

That'll take you guys a while to bend your mind around. Have fun! ;-)

Relax,... stop thinking for a moment, still stop, not quite there yet, you're getting there.

This is just a random thought on life.

Although it may be summer, we sometimes need to just sit back and breath and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. Instead of rushing around 24/7. Just take a break for a day or two.

As Americans we have forgotten this principle. We are so focused on money, or what to spend it on that we forget the little joys in life.

Sometimes we look at our children, and think why do they enjoy painting that picture that really isn't all that amazing, or why do they like to roll down a grass hill? I think a better question to ask is, "Why aren't we rolling down the hill with them?"

Maybe we need to. You say it's silly, but your kid enjoyed it. Why can't we? Honestly, WHY CAN'T WE? We're so worried about how other people see us. You just need to let go. Go do something silly. Humble yourself a little, and get used to it. Why should we care what other people think about us? They can mock us all they want, but in the end they'll be bitter that we came out with a smile knowing that we enjoyed rolling down that hill.

After all it's the silly moments that you remember not the plain organized ones.

Of God and his wonders...

Luke 6:38, " 'Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.' " -NIV

Some time last week I was contemplating this verse, and just in aww of what it says God will do. I don't quite remember how I got to it, or if I even read it. I was just whining a bit to God about not wanting to give up my share of money to him because I had so little (2 spendable dollars), but I thought about this verse and ended up giving it to God.

*Mini Sermon*

I am not trying to give you one of those "Give what you have, and God will give you what you want... a Ferrari FXX." I don't believe, scratch that, I KNOW this isn't what God meant in this verse.

It's a little like this, Jesus said if you have faith you can move mountains. People think "I have faith for a new sports car", but you don't really. As you draw closer to God you gain faith, and also you start to want what he wants. Thus as you are given the faith to ask for larger things you are continuously asking for things that God wants for you as well instead of personal desires. Any Questions?

*End of Mini Sermon*

So, yes this last weekend I was thinking to myself how God would provide (Didn't really know what he'd provide for though). I really thought he'd do something because of that verse he'd given me when I gave him my money.

Saturday passed to Sunday, and nothing happened. Then It came to Sunday, and I ended up going to the Mall to help fundraise. We got rejected. Then my mother asked me if I wanted to go to my Grandma's or not. It took me awhile cause I thought something interesting might happen at church, but I decided to go to Grandma's.

Time passed there as it usually does. My cousin and I were blowing things up with Black Cats, and sawing golf balls apart to see what's inside them (My Cousin lives next door to my Grandma). Supper time came so I meandered back inside, and sat down to hot dogs and such. Some random table conversation was going on.

I never figured out who brought up the next conversation topic, but some how we started talking about camp, and I said I was a little sad I couldn't go. My mom started explaining my sibling's and my connection with the camp. Then my Grandma offered to pay for it! I kind of fought her for awhile because, well she's family (not to mention the late fee). But I felt the God poke again. He was reminding me of the Luke 6:38. I figured God had something planned for me at camp. So I gave in, and next thing I know I had a check that covered all of the camp fees!!!

So I was slightly in a state of shock when I got home. I started thinking "I don't have the paper work, and camp is next week!", this bugged me for a couple hours, but then I got another God poke. He was bugging me to check my garbage in my room.

I knew there had to be a reason I hadn't cleaned my room! Anyways, there it was in the trash bin.

Ha! you thought that was the end of the story! It would be except for one minor detail that most people would glance over. There were TWO permission slips in the garbage. Next thing I know I got my friend to see if he could go. I thought this whole thing was designed by God, and my friend is probably supposed to have a God experience at camp too! I handed him the paperwork today, and about an hour and a half ago confirmed that he could go as well.

That's my amazing story for now! It's not finished though. My friend and I still have to have an amazing experience of some sort at camp next week. I'll post it when I get back.

Until then God bless you!

Of Cell Phones, Computer Screens, and Speakers...

Every day people all around the world feel a tingling sensation in their pockets, and get that wonderful euphoric sense that can only come from one thing... A text message.

These days Cell phones have all kinds of settings for alerting someone that a message or call is coming in. There's the standard ring, downloadable ringtones, vibrate, flashing colors, and other random various things. There is always one alert type that they fail to mention in the manuals though.

When they developed the phones they didn't properly shield the different interference that comes out of them. Ever notice that if you're listening to music on your stereo and your phone gets a message that you hear a strange electronic noise out of your system? Thus we have a new alert type! Or maybe it's just my crappy phone, but it's something that's definitely worthy of note.

This also works if you have a CRT monitor on your computer. You'll see the screen shimmer a bit when you're about to get a text.

This is my random thought for today! Thanks for reading!

Of Sugar, and those substances that fake sweetness...

When you open a can of something you generally are wanting the sugar and Caffeine rush that comes along with it. But for all the people in the world who decided that sugar is unhealthy they've invented synthetic sugar, and they label these drinks 'diet'.

You may open up the can take a sip, and think to yourself, 'Well it does taste sweet I suppose', but truly is it really sweet? I think it's a mind game. Don't believe me do you?

You want tangible evidence? I'll tell you how to get some.

Go find yourself some sugary goodness from your cupboard (when I say 'sugary goodness' I don't mean that box of Splenda you're hiding behind the cereal boxes. I mean real sugar, if you're desperate enough brown sugar is the source).

Sit back, enjoy your sugary goodness, now open a can of anything diet (I choose Diet Coke), and take a nice long swig.

Please drop a comment if you taste anything more than fizzy flavored water!

Our God is Amazing! (Lesson in practice of Attitude)

You know how you have that funny feeling before something bad happens? Kind of like a sixth sense? This is an account of one of the first times I've actually listened to it (and I shall say that this feeling came from God). Anyways....

I was biking down a rediculously steep hill, and enjoying every second of it. I was being somewhat stupid when I started. I was going no-handed, and trying to button my back pocket (holds my Ipod). Then I got a little poke in my mind showing me that I should probably bike safely, or at least on this hill.

Sure enough I got to a really rough part of the road. My bike was starting to vibrate as I went along (If you've never felt this, it means you're going way too fast). So I held on to my handle bars tighter, and slowly started to level out at the bottom of the hill. I was thankful to make it through.

Right as I started heading up the next hill I started to hit the peddles as hard as I could to keep my moment.

BAM! my chain jumped just as my foot was coming down! instead of hitting the resistance from my chain my foot kept traveling down, and hit the pavement! At this speed I was going this completely through me out of control. As cliche as this may sound I went into slow mo, and some how kept my balance on my bike by letting my feet touch the pavement one at a time (A little hard to picture I know).

Then I realized how much I appreciated that little poke in my mind! If I hadn't been holding on to my handle bars I would have probably went into the street... did I mention there was a car coming on the street as well ;-)

Thank you for listening to Real life Stories by yours truly!

Lesson for today: LISTEN to the little voice in your head! It's smarter than you :-)

Oh! and the reason why this post has to do with attitude is because I skinned two toes pretty badly, but "It could have been worse". That's the attitude part.

Just a quick random mind teaser for all of my fans.

Question: If you cut a whole straight through the earth (assuming that the lava doesn't ooze into it), and you dropped a ball in what would happen?

Would it shoot out the other side?

Would it keep moving until it slowly comes to rest at the center. While floating? or would it choose a side?

It's about Attitude...

I know you've probably heard this a million times, but life is what you make it. This applies to everyone whether you're christian or not.

For example (also thanks to friend): If you're not cool in school you can think about it two ways. 1. I wish I was popular... :-(

or...

2. Grow up! It's what you make it! You shouldn't feel bad about your 'uncoolness'. Why should you?

Of Pets, Preps, and the relationship between them...

I'm accrediting a good friend for bringing me on this tangent.

We were talking about how your pet can be your best friend in the whole world... That is until the food in your hand is gone.

I thought to myself isn't this just like high school drama? You see all of these fakey friend groups that split as soon as there is a hint of a problem. Everyone just looks out for number one. But what if we started looking out for other people? What if we helped those in need?

Pretty scary thought isn't it? ;-)

Who knows. Maybe it will come full circle back to you, and you will be the one who's getting that wonderful back scratch.

To Dedicate this blog

I dedicate this blog, and the spiffy ideas I get to God (I'm Christian).

I hope you all enjoy this blog! I'll do my best to check it as often as possible.

OH! Please post any random questions you have about anything(really). I always enjoy a little research and sharing of knowledge.

A little something for you to chew on...

Question: what if when you're dreaming you are truly awake, and when you're awake you're truly dreaming ;-)

That'll keep you going until I can think of another one.