I’m not really sure.  We’re easy to judge the “big” sins and easy to excuse the “little” sins.  You know what I mean, another Christian friend says, “it’s not really a lie, it’s just ‘extending’ the truth a little”.  Or “it’s like driving on the highway — everyone speeds, so it’s perfectly fine if you lie — everyone lies”.  Wherever did holiness and truth go?  However, we’re quick to judge those of the world (those not a part of our church, or the church as a whole).  We even judge people before we know if they’re guilty.  Every day on the news, someone is being accused of something — and we go right ahead and judge them, saying they should be locked away for life.

As for me, if I am doing anything that is sinful, I want someone to tell me and push me to remove it from my life.  Paul went as far as to say they should be removed from the church if they continue to live in sin so that they may return to the truth (read 1st Corinthians 5 for one of the times this is mentioned).  I’m not saying we should throw out everyone in our churches for sin — because we all sin — but we should be striving to remove it from our lives.  In 1st Corinthians 5:11, Paul says that we should not “associate with people who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin”.  He even made it clear that he did not mean those who were not claiming to be a Christian, but those who were claiming to be.

But this brings up the other point, why are we so hard on the non-believers?  We have to love them and show them the love of Christ, so that they will see who Christ is, through us.  We can’t remain in sin and try to lead others to Christ (then you’ll have a liberal-Christianity that does not follow the Bible, which is another topic in itself).  We have to show them love.  We have to show them what we believe what we believe, and why.

Now am I saying we have to do works to be a Christian?  No.  Actually, none of this is a work.  Christ said to the rich young ruler that he had to sell all of his earthly possessions to receive eternal life — that’s a “work”, but why did he say it?  He said that because Christ wanted to man to change his heart, to love Christ.  A mind change can’t get you to heaven, it’s a heart change.  It’s like a marriage, when you get married you aren’t going to have a few people on the side still.  The spouse should now have your heart.  In the same way, when we accept Christ, we have to change our hearts.  When you give Christ your heart, it will motivate you to want to remove those sins in your life.  There’s a quote in the book I read a few months ago, “When Heaven Weeps” (Ted Dekker) that says, “If you say you love Christ, but are not driven to throw away everything for that pearl of great price, you deceive yourself. This is what Christ said.”

Anyway, I’ve just had that on my mind for a while.

That brings me to my next point — the easiest deceived are also the ones who are the most bitter about something.  Like a lamb lead to the slaughter, they’re drinking in the deception.  They’ve drank in the “you can’t offend anyone” juice, and now swear by it.  If it only hurt themselves, it may not be so scary (only sad).  However, it doesn’t just effect one person, it’ll effect a nation.  Several months ago I wrote about how political correctness will destroy a nation — a people.  It, in the end, leads to utter ignorance.

I’ve tried to analyze what, exactly, would happen if the Democrats would win this years election, and it’s not just “ho-hum”, business as usual, it’s down right terrifying.  What I’m worried about is that a bunch of ignorant people (those who aren’t into current events) vote.  I don’t honestly believe many people who stay up to date with current events could ever vote for a Democrat.

Next thing on my mind is the ignorance surrounding minimum wage.  The worst thing that could happen to our economy right now would be raising it.  It’d cripple our economy.  We currently have a good dollar value.  If the minimum wage were raised just a little, it’d take our dollar and make it down right worthless.  People don’t get this.  I don’t believe I fully understood this until I took economics last year.  The fact that the Democrats are using this issue shouldn’t be a surprise, as many young people (who would like to work at a higher wage) will be drawn to those who will give them a few more bucks.  Cheap votes, is their thinking.  All the while, they don’t realize it’ll make product prices shoot through the roof overnight, and we’d have a suffering economy for quite some time.  It’s horrible when you have a party that’d rather get votes, than protect the needs of its country.

To those who try to make the war their case for voting Democrat, wars were never won in a day.  If it hadn’t been for a massive loss of life, we (the Allies) would never have succeeded in defeating the Axis during World War II.  They’re ugly affairs, but sometimes, they must be fought.

There’s more to just who you vote for than war and how much you get paid.  There’s more people that have been murdered in America than this current war overseas.  Much more.  This murder is legal though.  It’s purely legal.  The Democrats won’t support their voices.  Never have Democrats, never will Democrats.  These people never have a chance to vote.  They never have a chance to speak their voice.  Anyone that tries to justify “abortion” as a “right” is as guilty of murder as those who are committing the act.  I’m still at a lose for why anyone in their right mind would support murdering of the innocent.  If there’s a single reason to vote Republican, this is it.  We’re giving those without a voice, a voice.  However loud it may be.  We cannot give up on them. They’re helpless without our help.

Finally, I leave you with another cause never to support these people: they try (and succeed many times) to control and manipulate the media.  If all that doesn’t scare you, I’m not quite sure what will.

The girl that rear-ended me didn’t have insurance.  I’m not sure where it goes from here, but I’m guessing the state will do something.  We have to fill out some paper for the state.  It says they’ll verify we both had insurance.  I’ve got to get an estimate soon, so I’ll probably try to get that done Tuesday since I don’t have school.  I’m not really worried about it, I know it’ll all work itself out.

I went to the 9:55pm showing of World Trade Center last night with Jennifer.  How can you really put into words movies like this?  The movie was good.  There were many moments that were really sad.  I think people need to see this because many people seem to be quickly forgetting what happened on that day … and that it can happen again.  If we don’t learn from History, we’re going to repeat it.  It rarely ever fails.  It merely repeats itself, and with gradually more devastating loss of life.  One of my favorite parts was when Dave Karnes, a former-Marine, went to his church and told his pastor he believed he was given a gift to help with the efforts, after which he went to help at ground-zero.  If it weren’t for his efforts, there probably would be a few less people alive today.  It was an awesome story, and one we should always remember — for fear of forgetting.

Someone hit my car yesterday.  I’ll have to take it to a body show.  It was at the dangerous intersection of Taylor Road and the I-85-west off ramp.  We were both okay.  I just want to get my car fixed.  I don’t like having anything wrong with it.

Prayer in the Darkness is tomorrow night at 10.  I hope people come.  Something I’ve had to learn is that there may not be a lot of people, but never to be discouraged.  It’s easy to get discouraged, though.

This past week has been busy with the release of a new version of E-Blah.  It’s been a little bit of a pain this time, as there were several problems at the start.  I’ve fixed just about all of them right away, though.  I just didn’t have enough people to beta test before release.

I’ve really been enjoying my Urge music subscription.  I’ve found so many new CD’s and artists that I would have otherwise never listened to.  Ten dollars a month may seem like a lot, but when compared with buying several CD’s every month that costs the same amount, it’s well worth it.  Currently I’ve been enjoying Jessie Daniels, Decypher Down, and Fireflight, among others.  One of my favorite songs right now has to be ”You Decide” by Fireflight.  The music video made me fall in love with it all over again.

Someone told me not so long ago that one of the reasons why it’s good to get out of Tallassee sometimes, is to see joy.  I guess I wasn’t so sure what was meant by that … until this week.  Maybe I wasn’t paying attention.  Maybe I was overlooking it.  I’m not really sure, but I’m beginning to see that what this person said was true.  Maybe everyone’s just hopeless (or feels that way, I should say).  I went to several places in Tallassee this week and the people were just so down.  I went to Wal-Mart today, for instances, and the lady checking me out literally looked like a zombie.  I’m not sure what needs to be prayed for first — things broken (such as drugs and religion) or fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, etc).

Something I have been learning recently is attitude and how I look at things.  When I first walked into English class (late, I might add) and realized it was British Literature, I could have turned off and just said I’m going to hate this, or I could go in with the mind set that it’s going to be interesting.  So far it has been interesting.  It’s attitude though.  I wonder if I just have a bad attitude about a lot of things, so that’s something I’m going to try to work on getting out of. I don’t want to make pre-judgements about anything — people, things, places, ideas, etc.

My car is getting a new clutch.  There’s always hope.  I’m hoping that replacing the clutch is going to fix everything.  Right now, the people on the car forum I’m on are saying it may be a bit more of a problem than it was.  Bit more of a problem meaning more time and money.  There’s always hope, so that’s all I’m doing.  This is why I like computer.  Only a few mechanical parts.  Cheap replacement for those parts too.

Not sure how to type the other thing on my mind now, plus I need to get to bed.  Coffee just don’t wake me up.  My sinuses are all screwed up now.  I never remember having such problems with my sinuses in Colorado (because it’s dry?) … but some people did (bloody noses, and such).  It’s life I guess.

Oh, on Monday I found someone (a customer at work) to fill out an evaluation form on me.  Those things help in re-employment next year.  I’d enjoy coming back out next year.

School starts back Monday.  Excited and nervous.  And middle-sided.

iTunes did something really bad … they added the History Channel to their TV Shows.  I guess I may purchase my first show on there sometime.  Two dollars isn’t too bad, I don’t guess.  Plus, I like ‘em!

Finally, “reverse” — the entry title — is for that thing I’m not sure how to type.

Edit: Okay, so I just bought one of the shows from iTunes and the History Channel.  It’s The Revolution series that’s been on.  I’ve not been able to watch it because it comes on a 9pm on Sundays — the time I get to bed.

I’ve got a few more minutes left on the last message in the “Living In Graceland” series from theMill.  In the last one Aaron Stern talks about helping the needy.  I want to help them.  I would really love to focus on my age group (which is fast approaching: “used to be my age group”).

There was an entry I added, ironically, a year ago tomorrow.  I wasn’t even aware that it was the “anniversary” of the post, but either way — I was going to talk about.  In brief, the post is about who I’m looking for in a future wife.  Recently, I’ve just about grown to the point where I’m not sure it can be met — and others around me have told me the same.  So I’m keeping the list until September 15th, 2006 — unless something changes.  That’s a full month.  If nothing has changed from now and then, I’m changing it.  Some of the things that I feel are essential for me to connect to whomever I date (and hope-to marry), are the things I’ll probably reform or remove.

Of the items on my list that’ll be changed is music.  Why did I add music in the first place?  It all comes down to this: garbage in, garbage out.  I want a pure relationship.  I can’t relate to music that has ungodly content.  I mean, the music doesn’t have to have plain out “wrong” lyrics.  Even if they’re about just relationships, I don’t relate to most.  Does that mean I specify all secular music as “wrong”?  Of course not, I like a few (key word: few) secular groups.  They’re not on my media library, though.  I don’t listen to them in the car.  I just don’t have enough time to listen to Christian music and secular to see what I like and don’t like and worry about the lyrics.  This is just one of the few things I’ll change.

A few days ago I felt like just striking out most of the entry, but have decided just in the past hour or so to wait.  If I get rid of some of the constraints, I may find someone whom I like.  I suppose I could talk about it all day, but right now it’s not going to change anything.

All I’m going to do now is pray and hope for the best.  I’ve prayed that if I’m living in legalism, or my list is legalistic, that it’ll be revealed to me.  I want to be real with people, but I also have deep convictions.  I try to be as real with people as I can.

I’m enjoying work this year.  The air conditioner doesn’t work in our office, but that’s life.  Last year I complained of it being too cold.  So I shouldn’t complain, I guess.

I’m ready for school to start … I think.  Next week is going to be different.  I’ll probably go eat lunch at least one day out of the year.  Maybe I can see some people in class and sit with them at lunch.  Meeting people is horrible though.  Especially if you don’t have anything in common …

New things, they come in time …

For some reason I couldn’t fall asleep last night until around 11 or 12.  I’ve been getting into a good sleep routine, but last night screwed it up I fear.  Maybe it didn’t — I hope, anyway.

Saturday night at 10pm is prayer night at the church. About 5 people signed up, but I’m thinking more will show (I was lame and only put five slots for some reason — I modified the later versions to include 12).  The focus is supposed to be on Isaiah 43:1-44:5 and Isaiah 62.  I’m not sure if that was made clear though, so maybe this will just be a prayer time.  Either way, it’ll be good.  Officially it doesn’t have an end time; unofficially it ends at 12. I’m ready for it!  I’m hoping that I’m NOT tired that night.

Today I had to do a little public speaking. Wasn’t much to it, really (I like public speaking, only when I write what I’m speaking about).  It was a good experience in a way though as I got to help people from literally around the world (this was International Officers).  It was a little different, but a good different.

A week or two ago I was pumping gas and an older guy came on the opposite side and started to talk about gas prices and such.  I went along at the beginning (agreeing gas prices were too high).  Until he started blaming Bush and congress about gas prices and the like.  He told me I should “watch the news” and such.  I told him I did.  Other than that, I just smiled.  One of the things I’ve learned (and still am learning) is that debating draws dividers — nothing more, nothing less.  Unless the other side gets a revelation of the truth (or vice-versa), there’s nothing much good that is going to happen — both sides will remain true to their case no matter what.  The more defensive you are, the more bitter the debate ends.  The doesn’t mean all debates are bad, but many are.  I’ve thought about something I could have said to the guy, but I’ve came to the conclusion that I’m better off how I handled it — with my mouth shut.

An interesting statistic that I heard a few weeks ago that while the divorce rate in America is, sadly, at around 50%.  That’s not that interesting though.  The interesting statistic is that of the couples who pray and read the Bible together less than 2% of them end up in divorce.  Two percent when the rest of America is 50%?  Quite a large difference.

I listened to John Bevere the other night (he spoke at New Life Church again) and it was something I probably needed to listen to.  To sum it up — if God calls you to do something and you decide not to do it He’ll move right on to someone else.  I’ve heard many stories (a LOT of stories) about pastors who where the second and third pick (meaning God had told a few other people to start churches and they didn’t — hence he had to find someone who would).  I can’t speak about it even close to as well as John Bevere put it, so it’s better to just listen to it yourself.

I got a new iPod.  It’s one of those cool video ones.  My case still hasn’t came yet though, so I’ve not really used it much because I don’t want to get it scratched (if possible).

I found some quotes for the prayer night on Sunday. Some of them are so awesome they need to be repeated, so here they are …

“People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the LORD.” — Proverbs 19:3 NLT

“When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy.” — Corrie Ten Boom

“It is as true today as it was in Bible times that the man who hates his sins too much will get into trouble with those who do not hate sin enough.” — A.W. Tozer

“Pray, and let God worry.” — Martin Luther

“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” — Abraham Lincoln

This one wasn’t one I found (and isn’t for prayer night), but needs repeating as well:

“And why ask for wisdom if you ignore the Holy Spirit?” — Why by KJ-52

So with those quotes I end it.

Quick edit: I just switched from my closet server to the E-Blah servers (for speed and reliability reasons). Let me know if you see a noticable speed increase. Also, if there’s any issues with links let me know.  I transfered it over in about a total of 15 to 20 minutes so there could be some issues (although I doubt it).

It was a summer day, probably in June, when I got mad at my mom (I think I backtalked her, actually). My granny was in Colorado visiting at the time, and while I was in trouble, and I’m not entirely sure what happened next … I do remember what happened that night. My mom, my dad, and my granny were all hovered around me on my parents bed praying for me. After they were done she told me to say I love Jesus (or something to the effect). I wouldn’t do it (I’m not sure if it was pride, or what … it’s still hard for me to say it though). She told me I should tell someone by the end of the night (I’m not even sure what all was said, though). I wasn’t too happy with my parents, but my granny was there and when she was off to bed, I remember catching her and saying those three words. My life was changed forever. It wasn’t a prayer, it wasn’t a feeling, it was simply an “I love Jesus”. I’m not even sure how everything else fell into place, but over the course of that summer I changed. It definatly wasn’t overnight, but I changed. I remember going to an overnight lockin that November (I’m not sure, but I think it was over my birthday), and that was the time I really experienced God for the first time. I’d gone to church all my life. I knew the stories, I knew parts of the Bible, but I didn’t know God.

It’s years later, and I still don’t know God like I want to, but I know that there is power in his name because he changed me. Sure, I’ve messed up. I said those three words and meant them with all of my heart. It wasn’t easy, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. But the change was everylasting. Will saying those three words save you in and of itself? Of course not. But that night I believed in my heart and I confessed who Jesus was. Have I been perfect since then? Of course not, but I know one who is perfect and he will live forever and ever.

The first part of this (and the title) was written the day of my English final, and for some reason I decided to go into what I went into.

So what have I been up to? Well hmm, where should I start. I met a girl, Lynette, and we went to see Chronicles of Narnia (the best movie of 2005, no matter what those nasty critics say) last night. I had a good time. Of course we went and ate, and we went to Starbucks afterwards. She’s an awesome Christian. She goes to my sisters boyfriend, Mitchell’s, church.

Right now, I’m just … I don’t know, I think I should get going.

Yesterday I went up to schedule for classes (I decided to come home, then go back up to Montgomery — wasted gas, but not as much time). I thought it was going to be good, but it turned out not. Tallassee High School sent AUM my transcript durring March, that was good then, but they should have been told (by AUM?) to send it again after I graduated. My account was locked and so I can’t register for classes until I fix it. I tried logging in tonight from here at home and it doesn’t let me (I think I tried too many bad PIN numbers and it blocked me). Now I have to call them to unlock that. It’s unfortunate, but I’ll recover I suppose.

I rented The Pacifire last night. It was a pretty good movie. They really aren’t making many really funny movies anymore … and sexual jokes aren’t funny. They’re lame and make the movie bad. On that note, I watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith for the second time. It was a good movie the first time, it was okay the second time. The only problem I have with the movie is the sexual content. Why put that? It doesn’t help the movie sell anything. If I want a movie about sex I’d rent a porno. Lame. Also, the “Christian” family they portrayed was uncalled for as well. I guess I maybe shouldn’t be so mad about that though, because hey … that’s how so many “Christian” families act anyway (the “party” and they made the guy seem dumb, like he wasn’t very educated). Stereotypes tick me off though. Without those two elements the movie would get an excellent rating. It has a good message though: stay married — even through thick and thin.

Today I was on the interstate and some older people were in a truck (with a state government tag) and they’d get in front of me and go really slow, then I’d pass them, and they’d do it again. It happend for probably 10 minutes. It made me laugh, so it’s nothing I’m complaining about … I thought it was funny how they were getting enjoyment out of it (I guess?). I wasn’t mad or anything, but to show them I understood … right before I got off on my exit I speed well ahead of them. So that’s like my random personal story of the month or something.

I bought my LCD monitor. It’s a Samsung. It’s a 19 inch 8ms. It should be here Friday. I’m ready to move on up. I wonder how much diffrent it’ll be compared to my 17 inch.

E-Blah is getting a new hard drive on the server, or might, due to a “failing” hard disk. So it’ll go down for a while tonight. Had to back everything up. It came to about 143MB’s for my little area of the internet over there. FPServer (where my blog is located) still has a good hard drive and is backed up to it’s spare hard drive every night so that nothing can happen to the blog or site.

Well, internet just died. It’s back up now. It’s time for me to hit the hay though.

Our pastor and his wife came over tonight for dinner.

I have ideas about all sort of things, and I’m loaded with my thoughts right now. I may just be totally random. ChristianRock.net is doing a promotion (the first one since I’ve listened). They’re giving away an iPod Nano and some CD’s and stuff. Interesting …

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now and later in my life. It’s like everything is so quite, like I’m walking through life without direction sometimes. I mean, I have direction, but it’s not a roadmap. It’s like a foggy road that you can only see the next little streach of road. Maybe I know what I’m supposed to do. I have this little test thing I took a while ago (like 4 years ago now) that says what I appeared to be gifted in and such … and it says this: “Your primary motivational gift is: TEACHING; Your secondary motivational gifts are: PERCEPTION and ADMINISTRATION”. Teaching and Administration is pretty straight forward. Perception, though, says that “… have a strong inner prompting and ability to perceive what is right vs. wrong …” and “… are willing to terminate existing relationships to remain loyal to truth”. This also has a thing that says areas I may be good at in the church; the top four being, “Administrative Board Chairman” (70%), Leadership Roles (68%), Intercessor (68%), and Teen Group Director (64%). The “secular” roles are: electrical work (87%), computer programmer (84%), Philosopher (80%), and “Quality Control/Inspector” (75%). There are several more pages in the report. What’s scary is this thing seems to know me like a book.

This “report”, of course, isn’t meant to be “you must do this” or anything and isn’t supposed to be “hard” evidence. The report is, however, very accurate. The top two secular roles that were listed were just what I like to do. The church one, though, I haven’t studied much. I actually didn’t know what was on it. Mrs. Jennifer, the pastors wife, said something about getting me to talk (hehe) and then said I might be a preacher (or something like that), just joking of course. I simply said that I’m not denying it. For the past few months (and years?) I’ve been wanting to go into youth ministry (#4). While not a “preacher” per-se, I do want to help youth. I do think I’ll probably end up teaching from time to time (if not full), though. I’ll have to trust God a ton there … I mean, I don’t even talk now. I’ve complained for so long about looking 14, but I’ve also thought … when I’m 30, I’ll look 17 or so. So hey, it’ll be all good. But I’ve also been thinking over the past month or two … maybe there’s another reason. My previous youth pastor didn’t look his age. Hmm …

I’m stumbling over words, and probably none of that makes sense. It makes sense to me before I write it, but it’s coming out all wrong. So I’m changing thought.

I finished reading 1st Kings today. Yet another very, very interesting book. I learned a lot from just sitting down and spending the time to read several chapters at a time. Tons of good stuff in those books. Very interesting too.

So, it’s 1 AM. I think I’m heading off to bed.

I’m out.

Church was good, Mrs. Jennifer spoke on feelings vs. truth. I got a good bit out of it … but haven’t really took the time to really focus on it like I should. On Thursday Pastor Chris came over and we discussed the church website for the most part, and then I converted all the messages from church to MP3 form and published them on MinistryTalk.com’s Church Broadcast. I’ve been really working on completing the entire MTalk.com Church Broadcast pages. I believe I’m satisfied with the general look of the site now. Next thing to do is get more churches involved, but that just takes time.

Tonight I’m going to eat with my granny. My aunt is down from Huntsville this weekend for the first time in several months. I may go to a movie up in Auburn tonight, although I’m not really sure right now. The only thing in the theater right now seems to be crap. I’ve not paid any money to the MPAA in months now (that’s definatly not a bad thing).

Anywho … I’m bored and know of nothing more to write about right now. Sometime between now and last post I turned 19 …

Before, or maybe right after the dance team started I found myself thinking back over how when I was in highschool. I’ve been really thinking today about how I’ve judged people. It’s not just one person, it’s everybody. I just have judged them. All I can do is ask for forgiveness. It’s stemed, I’d say, from the whole “I hate this city” concept … but that doesn’t justify my judgement. There’s a sign on a church that says something to the extent of “Rationalising one sin makes two sins”. It’s a deep though, and I’ve been thinking about it. When you try to make one sin “okay” because you rationalised it only makes another sin.

Yesterday my aunt was over and told me that a little computer (internet) place was looking for someone who knew stuff about computers. I’ll probably go up there and see if they’re interested. I’ll see I guess ….

I so much want to be further from myself. However, it seems like sometimes the further I am from myself, the further I am from people. That can be good sometimes. Not all the time though. Something I need to work on is being more optimistic. I’m pessemistic so many times on so many things. I didn’t used to be that way though. I really don’t know why I am now.

Moving on to another topic … Age of Empires III. I downloaded the demo today, and what can I say? It’s the best game I’ve played in quite a while … quite a while. It’s going to be $50 when it comes out though, so that might just deter me from buying it right away. However, the demo made it look extremely well made.

There’s nothing much more to say for the night …

Work has been all right. I didn’t mind it, it’s just diffrent. School, on the other hand, has been pretty decent. I’ve made my first two grades thus far … they are essays. I got A’s on both of them, so I’m happy.

It’s 10:52 PM right now … last night I was up until 1:00AM or so. It’s been a long time since I actually wrote in here, I suppose I should write something, but right now I’m not really having much come to mind. I’m going to try to get in the bed by 11PM, but know that won’t happen. I just remembered … I have to finish revising my essay.

I listened to a teaching from New Life Church tonight, and a question was asked to this effect: do you want to get rid of all sin in your life, even if it means getting rid of everything you currently enjoy (even stepping outside of your comfort zone)? That can be a difficult question for some people, even myself. Do I have a “pet” sin in my life that I keep to myself and maybe don’t even realize it’s there? If I do, will I be willing to clean it out right away, or will I hold on to it because it’s something I consider “natural”. I know in the past I’ve found things I’ve held on to, and didn’t want to get rid of. Some of these took more than a few minutes to get rid of. I’ll explain one now.

I like music, I really enjoy it. It costs money though. I used to download it all the time (illegaly), but I’ve since been convicted of it — probably about 4 or 5 years ago, actually. I remember seeing it as being very wrong, but I used reasons to justify it (don’t we all use excuses to justify sin). I had tons and tons of music. I would spend hours and hours just downloading anything I could find. When I got rid of it, it wasn’t the easiest thing I’d ever done, but I felt better about it. I got rid of everything I had (except the CD’s I had bought and ripped for my own personal use). I’ve probably not used any P2P file sharing application in about a year now, although it has appeared on my network and I promptly removed it and blocked it. Recently I’ve been convicted of copying other materials, and I’ve had to get rid of them. It’s not the easiest thing, but it’s the legal thing. I now pay for everything I get. If I don’t have the money — I don’t get it. I’m not going to do the “I’ll buy it when I have the money”, we all know that we’ll never actually buy the CD, we’re just using it as an excuse. I, normally, use iTunes to buy my music, although I’ve also used Wal-Mart downloads and ChristianDiscs.com, which are two fine places. There are tons of artists websites that have free music downloads. I have a little over 3,000 tunes — all legal.

I use that to show a sin I was holding onto and didn’t want to let go of. There are other things I’ve had to let go of, and not all of the time is it easy to let go of. Getting back to the question: I want to get rid of anything, no matter what the cost to me. Some things might not can be brought up (or can be seen) unless I get into deep prayer and fasting, but that’s little when it comes to knowing Christ. Christ wants us to not have any hint of impurity in our lives, it can get between us and God. I want to see this generation on their faces before God crying and screaming out to God. God is our only hope.

Moving right along. I’ve not been doing much for the past few days. Today I didn’t do too much. I had to get out of the house for a few minutes, so I went to McDonalds and got me something to eat, then swung over to DQ and got me a Moolatté. It was kind of weird though when I went to DQ though. That’s another story though.

I went and bought two new CD’s by Plumb (Best of Plumb and Beautiful Lumps of Coal). They are both pretty good CD’s. I’ve always liked Plumb, she’s one of the best Christian rockers, in my opinion.

Last night we went to Ashland, Alabama last night (and got home at around 1:30 this morning) for a purity thing. It was pretty good. I stayed with the “adult” group, and I think it was good. I observed a lot (umm, I don’t really know a time I haven’t observed), and learned a little. Ether way some of the stuff that was said is, indeed, very sad. The parents had some really good points though, and I enjoyed listening to them talk about everything.

Actually, last night the speaker at the end (where teenagers and adults were joined together) asked if someone felt like they were the only ones serving God, and wanted to find a friend that has a passion for God like they did, and that was exactly what I’ve been wanting for the past 3 years. It seems, sometimes, that there isn’t anyone around here that really loves Christ, and follows him. While that’s probably obvious in most other parts of our country, it’s just killing me. I still believe though, I still believe I’ll get a friend that Christ has sent my way …

There was a comment about my previous post on who I’m looking for in a wife. Basically what was said was that it’s impossible to find a girl, yet alone a wife like that. I’m not going to satisfy for anything less than what I have listed there. I have a few other things I also add to that list, but they are personal and between me and God only. Really, I’m glad it seems impossible. I don’t want another relationship with just some girl that’ll only let me down. I asked God, and I know he’ll give me the impossible (and so much better than what I ever dreamed of). I don’t care about what her past is. Christ is awesome, and I know that one day I’ll be married, Lord willing, to the love of my life that Christ, not me, has put there. God has someone for me, and so does the enemy: I don’t want anything of what the enemy has for me in a girl anymore.

I was thinking, I haven’t went hiking in years. I miss going up in the mountains of Colorado and hiking, fishing, and camping out in the mountains. I used to love that as a kid. I’ve probably not been since I was 13 or less. I grew more of the indoor type in middle school, I guess, and haven’t been an outdoors type of person for a while. I wish I could go hiking though one of these days, I miss that.

There’s a song called Real on one of these Plumb CD’s. Just thinking of the title, I want to be remembered as someone who was real. I’ve always been up front and straight with people — no matter if they don’t like it (sometimes that could be bad, but normally that’s the best thing).

I am hungry for something that will make me real
Can you see me and
Do you love me cause
I am desperately searching for something real

I think that’s what everyone is really longing for, just to be real. So many people are trying to do things to fit in with others, they’re replacing real with what the world titles “real”. Is it really real though? I have no problem with being real, I love being real. I don’t see how people can do things just to “fit in”, it would require too much work on my part than what it’s really worth.

I just realized that I have one more month until school starts, it’s getting to be less than a month now. It seems like I’ve been out of school for a long time already, and it seems so weird that I won’t be going back to high school anymore. Just very diffrent. I’ll be going Monday thru Thursday, which should be pretty good. I’m hoping I can keep my current intern job while school is in session and just go to work on Fridays (and possibly after school, since I’ll get out at 12:15). I’ve got to go up to the school on Thursday, August 18th, and see about all my classes and all that jazz. I hope I can learn a little that day, but again, I’ll just have to wait and see.

I thought I’d point out that I’ve added my contact (instant messenger) information to the side of my blog under the Author area. That’s just a few updates on my blog area, I guess. Also anyone can register and post comments. On another note, if you register and do not get an e-mail with your password, e-mail me or IM me, and I’ll get your account all setup. With that, I’m closing this post …

Life is but an instance, but yet it can seem so long sometimes. We’re not promised today, nor are we tomorrow. Tomorrow may never come. In as quick an instance as we come from our mothers womb is as quickly as life can be taken away. It’s so sad when I meet people who aren’t really worried about life. Life cound end today — where would we be? Sometimes we “sugar-coat” the place of suffering by saying it’s “the bad place”. There are many bad places here, and compared to hell it’s nothing like the areas we encounter here. I want so desprately to see the people of America turn their hearts towards God. I see so, oh so, many people who go to church that live just like everyone else. So many people claim Christianity (almost 80% do, to be exact), but yet so many act so worldly. I’m not judging them, but aren’t we caled to live to an higher standard? Justifying things we know are wrong just because they “feel” fun … is that really right living? It breaks my heart to see people stray away from the arms of a God who loves them beyond compare.

Investigate my life,
and make me clean

Awesome lyrics by Delirious.

So where do we go from here? After we fall in love with someone, don’t we pursue them? Why don’t we pursue Christ like that? I definatly don’t pursue God like I want, should, or need to. I say I’m bored all the time, yet I never seem to be able to just find that time for Christ. It’s something I need to work on.

Moving right along …

I’ll be going to Colorado Springs, CO at the end of the month. I’ll be leaving on July 27th and I’ll get back on August 2nd. We’re leaving to go to Desperation ’05, it should be awesome. It’s at my old church, New Life, and will last 2 full days, 3 nights. I hope to really just fall in deeper love with Christ while I’m there. The entire time I’m there, I should be at the church, pretty much, so that’ll be just as awesome.

Tomorrow is another work week. I believe I’ll be going into the ghosting area next week, but I’m really not sure where I’ll be at. So far I liked what I did last week the best, I had something to do and all. Last Friday I got my first paycheck I’ve ever got in my life. So that’ll be the start of my college fund, I guess, lol.

I went to bed at 3:00 last night, for some reason. It’s the latest I’ve stayed up … since I don’t know when. I’ve been getting a MySpace account up. I’ve had the account for a while, just never done anything with it (I really hate MySpace, lol). So anyone who wants to can go check it out.

It’s that time again … the time of the entry where … I leave.

Today was a new day (it was?), with new things (eh?), but … fine I stop with the same stuff I say every day.

At work I had to help profile computers. Profiling them is putting them on the domain (chaning the computer name, for instance), and then setting up the users with e-mail (finding their account basically) and getting their calendar in Outlook all setup. It’s easy, takes about 10 to 15 minutes per computer. It may take 30 minutes when you’re into a good part of the movie. Yes, we were watching movies. We watched Scary Movie 3, Wrong Turn, and Bruce Almighty. Were they good? They were decent. Wrong Turn was probably the best, but I hated how much blood and gore was in it. We started watching Any Given Sunday, but after a while I asked the other intern, Cody, what the story really was and he didn’t know … and so I was like, “yeah, every other word is a cuss word”. So we changed to Bruce Almighty. Stupid movie, I’d say. It gave me something to do though.

After I got home I bummed it out. I saw Emma got on and left me a few IM’s at like 12:00 PM today. Too bad I was at work. I looked at hundreds of profiles on MySpace and found … maybe 3 that were interesting to actually read. I think I only found one that didn’t say “Christian – other”, but the bad part about it is … they didn’t act like it in stuff they were saying. *shrug* That’s just how it is I guess. There were a few that I was like woah … awesome people here. I added myself as a friend to a lot of those Christian groups space. Oh, know the sad thing about the “Christian – other” thing is … most probably go to “Protestant” churches.

Anywho, it’s time for me to hit the hay. More profiling ahead for tomorrow.

It’s the end of a long (long?) Tuesday, 5th of July, 2005. It’s that time of day again, that time when I get on the laptop and write a long, never ending, journal (blog?) entry. Today is no diffrent. It’s time to Rise Up. I’m ready to get out of the regular mundane thinking, and get on to something that’s worth living. It’ll be gone soon. Soon.

Work. Work was diffrent today. I helped distribute (well, sort of) laptops to the incoming students at the AFB, and then I went and rolled up CAT-5 cable into something we can just get out and stick in the new students laptop bags. I get to use a laptop in the room I’m in, so that’s good as I’ll be able to move it around and all, and might can get some privacy from time to time … if I so want it.

I wonder how Emma’s doing. Everytime she gets online I’m not here. I hope I can talk to her soon though.

Character. Character can speak a million words, but might not ever have a word spoken. Character is who you are. Not who you’ve been, who you want to be, or who you hope to be. Character is who you are, now. Know what’s awesome about character? People can say some of the meanest lies about you, but the people who know you will know they’re no more than that: lies. Character tells who you are. People with character doesn’t change day to day; character is firm. It doesn’t sway between opinions, it stands firm.

That’s all I’ve got to say today.

An interesting convo I overheard today. Someone was talking about someone else saying they weren’t a Christian because of something they did, and then this other person was “reassuring them” that they were “indeed” a Christian or whatnot. Now, I know I shouldn’t … but I just had to analise this. Before this person ended their conversation it was ended in “I know I’m a Christian … but … blah blah blah”. That got me to thinking … if you “know” you’re a Christian, then why add more after? It’s kinda like, “I know this because …” like “let’s reassure MYSELF that I am one”. That lead to further thinking … maybe people that say that aren’t Christians. Do I know who this was talking? No. Have I even met the person? Nope. So I can’t judge, nor am I, but I was just wondering why are they arguing and reassuring each other they’re good if they already KNOW they’re Christians?

Next comes a conversation with a “Christian” buisness owner who does “devotion” time before work each day. However, after this “devotion time” comes curse words left and right. Alright, I understand if they fly out sometimes (actually I don’t, because I can control my tounge, so I believe they should be able to as well) … but is this setting ANY sort of GOOD example for Christians? Heck no. It makes us as a whole look bad, and literally drives people away from wanting any part of it. It’s like “wow, I thought this person was diffrent …”. Now sure, this person could be a Christian … but wouldn’t it be pretty bad if they get to heaven and hear the words “I don’t know you” and the person jumps back with “but I spoke in your name”? It’ll be pretty bad for a lot of people … and these people will have the worst knowing they thought they knew Christ, but fell short. Just something to think on. You might not think cursing is wrong, but others see it as “filth” (as someone from work said) … and YOU’RE suppose to be an example for them. Getting by just because your so simpleminded and can’t change just a LITTLE for God is pretty shotty after Christ gave his life for you. Again, something to think on.

Now ….. time to get to other tasks on my agenda!