What I mean is, in relation to the Father, I’m trying to seek him, to know him and to be in community with him, and see my sin in comparison to his holiness. I rely on the Spirit to grow me in holiness and to sanctify me. How I neglect Christ is that I don’t think and rely on his sacrifice like I should. I tend to view myself in light of how I am performing, forgetting that my performance has been switched with Christ’s, and I inherit his work and he has taken mine.

So in light of this I need to continually preach the gospel to myself daily, not focusing on my performance, but on Christ’s.

Being back in Columbia has been good for me. Having no place to live until September and being broke until I got my first paycheck has, surprisingly, been great for me. Having people house me while I’m waiting to live with Gary has been a huge blessing to me, and as much as I am thankful to the people who have offered and have done it (or are doing it; thanks Crawfords), I’m starting to see it as God taking care of me. Even on a much smaller level, when money was at its tightest for me, having people offer to pick up the tab for a dinner or a lunch was huge.

So I’m thankful for my friends, but much more than that I’m thankful for the Jesus working in them and through them, using them to help me see God’s attitude and graciousness towards me. I hope that He continues to work in my heart and mind allowing me to see every blessing as coming from him, and to see everything as a blessing in the big picture.

If you just look around the world around you it is evident that people have innate desire within themselves for community. There are major cities that have multimillions of people living together hoping for people to accept them for who they are.

Even from the onset of civilization God knew it was not good for man to be alone, so he created another human for community to be realized. But sin has locked the door on our hearts to real authentic community, we hide who we really are and portray an image of who we think people want us to be, so that we can be accepted.

Knowing Christ changes all of this. We accept the fact that we have faults, but put no weight in them at all because Christ has victory. We are free. We can be who we are, we can be real with other people who will love us as we are, and push us to become the people that God desires us to be.

it will no longer update.

go here, where i will keep blogging at.

Here it is.

PS. You’ve already read it.

            I need your help.

            I’ve reflected on college and wishing that I could do it all over again with a major that I enjoy, leading to a career I’d enjoy. I’m debating not letting that chance get away. I’ve done the course math and I could take four classes this summer, six in the fall, six in the spring, and then five the following fall and graduate with another major (on top of my English one) in December of 2009.

            I’m really debating it. I’m going to be praying about it. I would love for you to be praying about it as well. Also leave your opinions. Is about $20,000 of debt and an extra year of school worth it? Let me know. Comment.

            One of the lesser pleasures of life is this: coming to the end of something and realizing that you messed up, that you messed around. It happens to me too much, and I need to learn from regret.

            If I were able to do college all over again I would do so with out a thought, and I would do so entirely differently. I would not major in English. I would major in something in the Journalism school, or perhaps Art Studio. I wish that I would have enjoyed my classes and enjoyed learning.

            I think that one of the reasons I haven’t enjoyed school is because I’ve made it about a degree. I took classes because I was supposed to take them and not because I wanted to learn the knowledge and principles they offered. I regret this. I am going to leave college barely smarter (if at all) than when I got here, all because I didn’t make college about learning.

            Apart from that I’ve done college very selfishly. My parents made sacrifices to try to insure that I did not graduate college in debt, but I fear that may not be the case. I have taken a generous gift in an entirely ungrateful way, and I owe them an apology. They’ve paid for food, rent, three summer school classes (to keep my scholarships) and leftover tuition.

            The problem is that I viewed all of this as something that was owed to me. My parents had to pay for tuition, car insurance, food, rent, books, etc. because they were my parents. They didn’t have to. They did because they wanted to help me. Instead of appreciating their generosity I have undermined it, goofing off and not doing the work I should have been. So when it comes down to it I let them down. I didn’t respect the gifts that they were giving me, and now I’ll probably be losing them.

            In all this I think that it will be good for me in the long run. I will try to appreciate things that are given to me. I won’t view things as owed to me. If I can get a loan I will take school more seriously (if only I had done this earlier). A semester off working would hopefully teach me to have a work ethic and me to be fiscally responsible. Working at school/jobs/etc should be a joy because God has blessed me with opportunity, something that not a lot of people get.

            For taking everything lightly I apologize, to my parents, and to God, who has blessed me with everything (including my parents) and me not taking it like I should have. I’m sorry.

I want this camera really badly. I want it for my birthday, graduation and Christmas all combined. Do things work like this?