My loyal reader(s) should already be familiar with the saying “do as I say, not as I do,” which is the hypocrite’s creed. Unfortunately, it’s slowly evolving into the Christian’s creed. Brennan Manning, a Christian author and speaker, famously put it this way:
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
We see this happening everywhere. For example, on Facebook, people will write glowing things about Jesus in the “Basic Info” portion of their profiles, but will openly disregard his teachings via their pictures, status updates, and messages on other people’s Walls.
I won’t argue with people for wanting to set their religious views to say “I Love Jesus,” and it’s not my place to condemn everyone who updates their status to boast of having sex after homecoming or prom. But if you have both on your Facebook profile, this post is for you. Pick one or the other—either the religious views or the hints about your current lifestyle—but if you wanna send a message to the world that you are undisciplined and immoral, don’t do it on God’s rep.
If you know that I “got ya” in this post, I have an ultimatum for you. You can change the religious views portion of your profile to “atheism.” Bring down that belief system, not the one that is supposed to be an example to the world (as stated in Matthew 5:16). Or, even better, you can change your life.
If you take option 1, you can continue to live in disgrace as you take advantage of His grace, and I won’t be the one to stop you. But if you take option 2, please know that God will help you every step of the way and that I, too, support you 100%.
One of the biggest problems I see in Christians right now is the inability to walk by faith. Normally, when I see this kind of problem, I try to offer solutions. However, faith isn’t something that can be taught... the only way to learn it is to experience it. But what I can offer to you is an explanation of what it really means to walk by faith. This is a true story I heard from my dad:
When my family lived in Tulsa, we went to church with a man whom we shall call Jimmithy and his wife whom we shall call B’tilda. (Yes, they’re back!) Jimmithy had recently lost his job and couldn’t afford to stay in the house he had been living in. His wife’s parents were on an extended vacation and weren’t using their home, so they opened it up to Jimmithy and his family. But Jimmithy and B’tilda knew that if they didn’t force themselves to move out by a certain date, they would never move out. So they prayed and felt like God was telling them to move out by November twelvtieth (or something). So on November twelvtieth (or something), they invited a bunch of people from the church to come help them load their stuff in a U-Haul truck.
Part of walking by faith is simply a matter of total obedience. Jimmithy and B’tilda had no idea where they would be staying on the night of November twelvtieth (or something), but they did their part by moving out of B’tilda’s parents’ house when they did. And the story doesn’t end there.
Everybody who helped load U-Haul trucks naturally assumed that Jimmithy and B’tilda knew exactly where they were hauling their stuff... until someone decided to ask Jimmithy where they were going. Someone else, who was only in town by fluke, overheard the conversation and heard about Jimmithy not knowing where his family would live while they looked for houses. He told Jimmithy about a house he owned and had been trying to sell for months, and offered free rent until Jimmithy could find a permanent solution.
If Jimmithy hadn’t obeyed God on that one day, he would have never gotten the offer for the temporary house. This is how God works. But, like I said, you can’t truly understand faith until you’ve experienced it first-person. So I want you to be looking for opportunities to act on faith... try it for yourself and see what you think. Join the millions of other satisfied customers today? This is a difficult post to end...
Here I am, making my glorious return to the blogosphere. After being away from it for the last month, I bet you can imagine how inspired I had to be to come back. The inspiration for this post came from a bumper sticker I saw at work recently, which said “Spiritual people inspire me. Religious people frighten me!” True to its purpose, this sticker made me start thinking about the differences between being spiritual and just being religious. Here are a few of the key differences I found:
RELIGIOUS PEOPLE...
SPIRITUAL PEOPLE...
...quote the Bible
...apply the Bible
...talk about God’s love
...demonstrate God’s love
...see Sunday morning as a chance to worship
...see their life as a chance to worship
...give money to God
...give time to God
...believe that their Christian lives can be “good enough”
...constantly look for ways to grow closer to God
Which one are you? Being religious is not enough. God created us to be spiritual. It’s our job. If you follow the job description on the left, you have the wrong idea about Christianity.
For my 15th birthday, my best friend and co-author of this blog, Justin, gave me a shirt that said “I live in my own little world... but it’s okay, they know me here.” I consider this to be one of the best gifts I ever got. As we start shopping for Christmas presents, I want to explain how to give a great gift.
1. Don’t give cash Everyone loves getting cash for Christmas, but that doesn’t make it a great gift. The shirt that Justin gave me probably cost around $10. If he had given me a $10 bill for my birthday, I probably would have put it in my ever-empty lunch account, effectively making my birthday present be M&M’s, a Twix bar, a Gatorade, and a pizza. This is what happens with cash... it gets spent. Granted, in larger amounts, cash has a different effect. For example, I used a lot of money from graduation to buy a nice case for my laptop (though I deposited the rest in a savings account). But I’m aware that the bulk of my audience won’t be able to spend more than $50 on anyone, making cash a no-no.
2. Give something that your friend wouldn’t think of It’s always nice to give someone what they asked for... but since when do people know what they want? The only time I remember staying content for a long time with a gift I specifically asked for was in 2005 when I got my iPod nano. If Justin had asked me what I wanted for my 15th birthday, I would not have asked for a shirt that would forever alter my personality. I’m not saying that Justin knew that the shirt would propel me into becoming a more outgoing person. But the gift still worked perfectly.
3. Give something that feels natural for you to give For my birthday a few years ago, my grandpa gave me a tool kit. I appreciated the tool kit and I still use it frequently. But what if I had gotten it from Justin, and Grandpa had given me a funny t-shirt? Would I be any less grateful for either one? No. But fixin’ stuff is already something I associate with Grandpa, and I already associate Justin with laughter. Even if Justin had given me a tool kit, it would hardly ever remind me of him when I used it. And a shirt would hardly remind me of what a wonderful grandpa I have. So, in a sense, it’s good to be somewhat selfish when you go Christmas shopping... if you know what I mean.
Naturally, the best gift anyone can get is Jesus, and I don’t intend to take away from that fact by writing about how to give material goods. This post is strictly written from a relationship perspective. With that much being said, though, I hope that everyone can now give a gift that says “I love you” rather than simply “I thought of you.”
I recently wrote about my discontentment with Preston Ridge Baptist Church. But today, at a church that I was visiting, I saw a video that caused me to question my motivation for “hopping churches.”
I know that I’m needed at Preston Ridge. For the last three weeks, though, I’ve been visiting different churches. I was right to say in my last post that I was surrounded by poor influences while at Preston Ridge... but maybe God’s intention is for me to influence them. And even though it’s true that I won’t be as spiritually engaged there as I am at Liberty Church in Tulsa, I still have opportunities to grow outside of Sunday morning church. These are the realizations I make when I choose a church based on where God needs me, not what I think I need.
Jesus never promised that the Christian life wouldn’t be stressful. There’s a really good reason for that. Right now, I’m in the middle of a very stressful church transition that only God could have started.
I’ve been attending the same church for the last seven years. I still stay loosely connected to Liberty Church, though, the church I attended when I lived in Tulsa. Back in May, I was invited to Liberty for their graduation service. Their youth minister, despite having never met me, presented me with the book How to Stay Christian in College and wrote some encouraging words in the front page. Last month, I decided to actually read the book. The most important lesson I took from it was not about sex, politics, or apologetics, but rather about me. Now that I have a type of independence I’ve never had before, I can’t rely on Mom and Dad’s relationship with God anymore. I need to pursue my own. For Preston Ridge Baptist Church, that realization was the beginning of the end.
I started paying closer attention to the sermons on Sunday mornings. For the first time, I really tried to get something out of what I was hearing. I would go home thinking “that was interesting.” Then, a couple of weeks ago, I visited Liberty Church again to see my cousin’s baptism. I listened to the message there... and I was blown away! The sermon was thought-provoking and spiritually engaging! Nothing against Preston Ridge, but I just didn’t see that happening there.
The following weekend, I went on a middle school retreat as a small group leader at Preston Ridge. Because the Internet is the wrong place to say anything specific to tear down other members, I will just say that I “somehow” discovered that my church peers were not very good spiritual influences on me.
You’d think it would make sense to just abandon Preston Ridge and start looking around. But if it were that simple, this post wouldn’t be about stress.
As a small group leader, I learned how much influence I have on the kids (in a youth group that is desperate for positive influence). One of the kids in my group was notorious with Sunday School teachers for being disruptive, but by the end of the weekend, I was getting deep spiritual thoughts out of him. Knowing that I am so good with the kids, it would be a sin for me to just get up and leave at a time when I’m needed more than ever.
With most of the stories I’ve posted, this is where you could expect to find the happy ending. But this story does not yet have a “happy” or an ending. I still have so many questions. Do I search for a new church family but continue to volunteer my time in the old youth group? Is there another church that needs me more? Is God really calling me to leave Preston Ridge at all? I feel like my stress is overpowering me, which is especially difficult because it all seems to be coming from God. Like I said, Jesus never said that our walk with Him wouldn’t involve stress.
June 6: Sometimes, less than my best is enough Right before my graduation ceremony, my German teacher from the last three years pulled me aside and asked me to be a German tutor this coming school year. Even though I didn’t give my best work in that class, she said that I performed brilliantly in the area of sight reading and comprehension, which is what German 1 students need the most help with. Even though I was not on top of all my homework, I still did well enough to impress my teacher. And she asked me personally to be a tutor for her students! Sweet dog, you know I’ll be taking that offer. I get to practice teaching!
June 7: Sometimes, my best is less than enough My girl buddy broke up with me. I felt somewhat insulted. I did everything the best way I knew how, and, despite my lack of prior experience, I have come to discover that overall, I was a pretty good boyfriend. Although she was right to say that my lack of experience was detrimental, I still never felt like she valued me on the level that I valued her. It wasn’t fair that she broke up with the only one who tried to make the relationship work. But if life was meant to be fair, we’d all burn in hell. In cases like this — when you invest your best and get little return — the best thing you can do is try to improve on what your best is. In this case, I can use the lessons I learned about what kind of girl I’m looking for. And, just as a side note to the girl(s) who read this blog, take a lesson: unless your boyfriend blows up your car on a Friday night, don’t break up with him on a Saturday morning.
June 16: I’m not the same man I was a year ago On June 16th, I was at Camp WOW, the youth camp my church has gone to during the last three summers. I had a lot of stories I wanted to blog about, but I don’t have time to type all of them out, so I picked out my favorite one: me against the trapeze. At the camp, there is a 30-foot pole known as the power pole. After putting on a harness, one climbs to the top of the pole and stands at the very top, which is comparable in size to a bagel. Upon standing on top, the climber is to turn around and jump toward a trapeze that is suspended in the air about 5 feet away. On the 15th, I climbed but fell off before I reached the top. But I tried it again, waiting in line for 90 minutes under the unshielded sun with an already painful sunburn. And this time, I made it to the top and I caught the trapeze. I used to be a quitter. My dad once told me that he constantly noticed me trying something that didn’t work the first time, then giving up. Phone calls, scholarship applications, job applications... you name it, I’ve given up on it after failing once. But that’s not me anymore.
I have posted time and again about problems I have in life, and they don’t go away. Today, when I was sitting in my room, I was thinking about some problems I’ve been having recently with one of my friends in particular. When I was thinking about my problems with her, I made a connection to the stupid whack-a-mole games at Gatti Town and Six Flags.
When the game first starts, you can whack each mole that comes up, and you can beat them all down easily. As the game goes along, they start coming up faster and in greater numbers. Eventually, no matter how skilled you are, it becomes impossible to hit each and every one. My problems are the same way. At first, there were only a few of them, and they were easy to manage. Now they come more frequently and they’re harder to manage. And this game of whack-a-mole is slowly becoming impossible for me to win.
Then it dawned on me. Maybe what I need is a bigger mallet... like God, for example.
In my aptly-named post “Super Bowl Post,” I let my loyal reader(s) know that praying for patience doesn’t result in just becoming patient, but rather tests of patience. I would soon find out just how right I was.
I prayed for patience after I made that post, and just 9 days later, my uncle was found dead in his home in Alabama. That same day, the worship director from my church in Tulsa died on the operating table. And later in the week, I had relationship issues and a near miss on the road that could have turned into a fatal wreck. But in the end, it all worked out. The lessons I learned from that week have started paying off.
Prior to the worst week of my life, I thought I was ready to have a girlfriend at any time, and I got a bit hasty. But in retrospect, it’s a good thing my first attempt failed... because it opened up the door for my current girl buddy. She’s already the best thing about my senior year (if not the only good thing about it). None of the other girls I had my eye on in the past would have improved me the way Kristi has... in just three weeks of dating for that matter! For example, I wrote a nice note to my English teacher last week when a student was giving her a hard time. But I wouldn’t have even thought about it if I hadn’t gotten a note from my girl buddy. It was a great example to follow, and because of her, I made someone else’s day.
To sum it all up, I learned how to be patient and why it’s important. The “how” is simple: just pray. You’ll likely lose something you hold dear to your heart, but God probably won’t tell you that He doesn’t want patience from you. The “why” is a pretty simple concept, though it can be a tough pill to swallow. God has a plan for every single one of us, and we don’t know what it is until it’s over. Sometimes, when things don’t go the way we planned, we need to just trust that it’s God’s way of making room for something even better.
In Minnesota last night, a bridge on I-35 collapsed over the Mississippi River. Nobody could avoid the fall... whoever was on the bridge at the time was lucky to see anything ever again. Something similar happened in eastern Oklahoma about 5 years ago over Memorial Day weekend.
On a VeggieTales episode called “The Toy that Saved Christmas,” a toy and some cute little penguins were able to save Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber, Junior Asparagus, and Wallie P. Nezzer from falling off the broken bridge to Pugslyville. Makes some people wish that penguins were native to downtown Minneapolis or rural Oklahoma, you know?
Everyone who grew up in a Baptist church has heard the bridge illustration before, so I won’t even dive into making Jesus look like a short little penguin or a Buzzsaw Louie. But the bridge and penguins and shop-tool-armed toys are useless to someone who doesn’t know Jesus... at least in this illustration. It’s our duty to share Jesus with people who haven’t met him yet, and Ezekiel 3 says that we will be held accountable for the opportunities we pass up to do so.
Final exams are just around the corner. In just a couple of weeks, I’ll be a senior, and my colleague Justin will be a graduate. A spoil that juniors and seniors (and not FISH) get to enjoy is exemptions... which, in Spanish, is called “no tu takea el examo finalo iffen tu hava grados buenos.” Yeah, man. Would you believe that I’m exempt from the Spanish exam? That’s because I take German, not Spanish.
That has only one thing to do with anything in this post. And that’s my rundown sense of humor. It’s what I’m presenting in the “talent” show tomorrow night, which will be the first Wednesday night for Matt as our new youth minister. Hmm... what a great way for me to make a first impression. Share my lacking comedy style with 50 other kids. But I guess if I can share it with the world on the Internet, sharing it with 50 teenagers who already know me should be a breeze.
This goes back to my post called Representing. You never get a second chance at a first impression. Unless it’s with a really old person. But in most cases, we need to be aware of who we’re making first impressions on. Any time you’re around new people, you’re making first impressions. In short, make them count.
I am a pretty normal American... at least in the sense that I usually mute the TV during commercials. However, every so often, there is a commercial that I absolutely have to hear. One of these elite few that have risen to the top is this BP ad with the dancing babies. It’s just so random! And random impresses me.
This happens in the social world as well. We shun almost everyone around us... but the few people who have the same ethnic, religious, social, or even financial backgrounds as we do get a lot more attention. It’s perfectly okay to not be best friends with every Jimmithy on the block. We both understand that.
But what I see too much of in school is a social heirarchy. Of course, there’s the “de facto segregation” that we learned about in US History, meaning that segregation will always exist on some level. And it’s fine to make friends only with people that have common values. What isn’t okay is when Jimmithy doesn’t deserve help picking up the books he dropped because he’s poor and smells funny.
I don’t know anyone named Jimmithy. But we all know someone who we’ve treated like a Jimmithy. Try to make a conscious habit of taking time to be a B’tilda to all the Jimmithies you notice during the course of the day. B’tilda is a nice person. B’tilda bought her mom twelvety flowers for Easter Claus. In short, B’tilda is who you want to be. Say hey, and make the day a little better... baby.
I could go on forever about things I hate about e-mails. (Guess what, CalTech! I’m still not interested in you! So stop e-mailing me!) I despise college mail, as I informed the general public in the post Nobody Cares. I fervidly loathe chainletters that tell you that you have to forward this to 37 girls before midnight and make a wish about your favorite college mascot. I detest those annoying messages with more than one “Fwd:” or “Re:” in the subject. I also happen to hate forwarded e-mails where you have to open fortyleven attached e-mails. And I passionately spit upon forwarded e-mails where the whole thing is in a PowerPoint or something that loads in the time it takes to take a nap*.
But one forwarded e-mail with an ungodly large-sized PowerPoint show caught my attention. The PowerPoint said this:
One Sunday morning during a service, a 2,000 member congregation was surprised to see two men enter, both covered from head to toe in black and carrying submachine guns. One of the men proclaimed, “Anyone willing to take a bullet for Christ, remain where you are.” Immediately, the choir fled, the deacons fled, and most of the congregation fled. Out of the 2,000 there only remained 20. The man who had spoken took off his hood. He then looked at the preacher and said, “Okay, Pastor, I got rid of all the hypocrites... now you may begin your service. Have a nice day!” Then the two men walked out.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about this, but I have to add on or else I look like a blogger who doesn’t have any material. And I’m already a comedian with no material.
It’s easy to wear a shirt that supports my favorite Christian radio station. But how many of us, when our faith is truly tested, will actually step up to the plate and do what we know is right? Would you run with the deacons and the congregation, or would you keep your seat?
Virginia Tech University was represented in the worst way today. An outstanding college gained global attention when a student slayed many of his fellow Hokies as well as himself. It’s not Virginia Tech’s fault that this happened, but they will naturally receive all the negative attention for it.
Every second of every day is spent representing someone. At a football game, we represent the Dallas Cowboys. Or Frisco High School. Or Oklahoma State. At the grocery store, we represent Mom and Dad. Some places we go, we represent our city, state, or even country. And as long as we live, we represent God and Jesus. I honestly believe that if we were more conscious of our decisions all the time, Christians would have a much better image among non-believers. But some people will only see one version of Jesus, and that version will be a complete shame to Christians. Don’t let yourself be the bad version someone sees. Strive to be the best “Jesus” you can be. The first people that invited Billy Graham to church could easily have been a “bad Jesus” for him. They weren’t. Look at the results.
Wherever you go, be the best person you can be so that you can represent well.
March 15th was my 17th birthday. It was also the day my driver’s license expired. For my birthday, my aunt and uncle gave me an OSU shirt and a matching hat. The state of Texas gave me a ridiculous wait in line at the DMV only to be rejected because I don’t have $24 and verification of enrollment with me. Mom and Dad gave me a trip to Family Christian Stores to pick out some CDs I want. The state of Texas gave me a week of riding the bus to school.
Some gifts are better than others. Given the choice between a Falling Up CD and a week of sharing my ride to school with a bunch of midget freshmen, the hard part of the choice would be choosing between Dawn Escapes or Crashings. But what about anything of this world versus eternal life? Eternal life is the butt-kickin-est gift a person could ever receive. And you don’t have to make a special trip to Best Buy and Family Christian Stores to get it... or to give it, for that matter.
There are plenty of people out there who would love nothing more than to laugh at you for being a Christian. This group of people is at the Number 3 slot on the list of people who need prayer*. Take a hint and pray for them veraciously. Not everyone will soften up to you, but at least you can get them ready for someone else. And, in many scenarios, God will open the door for you to evangelize that person.
He might even help you figure where I came up with the title for this post.
It sucks being smart. No college in the country seems to fathom the fact that I have my heart set on only one college: Oklahoma State. Yet, because of my “outstanding academic achievement,”* I’ve gotten solicited college mail from almost every state. Has anyone heard of Simon’s Rock College of Bard? Sorry, guys, there’s no point in spending actual money to go somewhere in Massachusetts. Friggin’ liberal state. They probably have abortion free with Big Macs or AOL membership.
As Christians, we can’t just assume that we always have an audience that wants to hear us talk about Jesus. It’s like getting married. You don’t go to a part of town where lots of singles live and just start asking people to marry you. That’s almost as bad as the idea of The Bachelor. You have to find a person and get to know them. Then, when you feel like they’re ready, you talk about Christ. Otherwise, they’ll just treat it like an information overload and stop paying attention. Just like how I always toss the information-packed letters I receive from CalTech*.
Talk about God. But don’t cut to the chase unless you know for a fact that it is necessary. But don’t take forever, either. Timing is everything and more. And if you don’t know when the timing is right, pray. And don’t just pray about timing. Pray about what words to use. And if you don’t get exactly what you’re looking for, at least you’ve planted a seed.
While in the process of adding all my old posts (10/05-6/06) to this blog, I realized that I’m not as screwed up as I sometimes feel like I am. It makes me very happy that I have this blog to look back and reflect on.
Not only do I see that I’m better than I thought, I also see that, in some ways, I’m worse. Back in June, I felt compelled to read my Bible every day. Although I still read it frequently, I’m reminded that I’ve let the fire from Camp WOW wear away.
I also see how much I’ve matured. Obviously, since it’s been 17 months since I started this blog, you would expect me to grow up a little bit. But most people don’t get a chance to look back on their own lives and see progress. And it is for that reason that I encourage everyone to start journaling or blogging. What nobody realizes is that we don’t always have to go to others for help in life. We can usually learn from how we corrected our own past mistakes. We truly are our own best teachers in life.
I hate sitting down with nothing to do. I hate it to the point that, after I arrive in class, I always set my stuff down and just roam the halls until right before the bell rings. Today I did this right before German class. When I got back to the classroom, I found one of my classmates flipping through my Bible. One of the story titles that caught his attention was “The Rape of Tamar” (in 2 Samuel 13). His eyes got all big and wide as he attempted to comprehend the fact that the Bible actually contains stories of rape.
That’s when I realized that I wasn’t dealing with a church-goer. I could have easily figured it out, but now I see that he really needs a Christian influence and a good church. The good thing is that he isn’t too far gone... if you know what I mean. This just spells out O-P-P-O-R-T-U-N-I-T-Y.
In church, we’ve been taking what we’re calling the “4x4 Challenge...” where we identify four people that don’t go to church and invite them to our church. The challenge was intended for the adults, but I seriously doubt God will have any objection to high schoolers bringing friends. Heh. “Hey, God, can I bring some people to you?” “Noooo... you brought me some last week.” Yeah, that would happen.
I know that the 4x4 Challenge is a Preston Ridge Baptist Church thing, but it is obviously okay for all people and all churches. So right here I will officially challenge every single one of my readers to bring at least one person to a church within the next month. Ready, set, go!
Um, right after you get off this website, you can go...
Or, on, like, Sunday... whichever works, just do it.
This morning, I was tired. In fact, I was very tired. I looked at the clock and found comfort in the fact that it was 5:50, a full 55 minutes before I like to be up. Well, you know how it goes. 10 minutes go by. Naw, the bed is too nice and warm. Another 20 go by. You know, I have no obligation to get up yet. Lather, rinse, repeat until it’s 6:45. I’m sitting in bed listening to the radio station that my clock faithfully wakes me up to every morning, and I just don’t wanna get up. So I sit for a few more minutes. It’s 7:00 under God*. My dad sticks his shiny head through my door and tells me to get up.
Well, I’ll spoil the ending and just tell you now that I eventually got up at 7:20, leaving myself about 20 minutes to shower, dress, eat, and gather everything and go. I’ll say it plainly: I did not plan for the future very well.
Now I know you can relate to this if you’re over the age of about 10. Honestly, we all have our days where we just don’t wanna get up yet. During those 90 minutes or so that I couldn’t decide whether or not to get up, my mindset was one that I can stay in bed for one more minute and it won’t hurt anything. I was focused on “right now the bed is warm and comfortable” rather than “if I don’t get up I might make my brothers late for school.” Very short-term.
Lying in bed at 7 AM is not the only real-world instance of being focused on short-term. I, along with many friends of mine, are frequently under the mindset that God answers prayer immediately. It took me several months of prayer to discover that I don’t need a girlfriend. It took three years of prayer to find a remote answer as to why I live in Texas and not in Oklahoma. And if that isn’t enough, I heard a testimony from a world-famous violin player who prayed for a Bible... for 25 years. Look, if God can wait a quarter of a century to give someone His very own Word, He doesn’t have any obligation to answer every other prayer right away.
So don’t worry too much about the here and now, because it may turn out that what we want isn’t what God wants for us. It’s still okay to ask, but don’t be impatient. Impatience causes depression. Trust me.
There are some things that will never go away. That is why we have to be careful about what we say and do, especially when it may affect others around us... Whether we are joking or not we have to watch what we say. We have been talking about this in LifeGroups for several weeks. In case you didn’t know LifeGroups is a program that the youth group of Preston Ridge Baptist Church is holding for youth on Wednesday nights.
When I was in middle school I was having a hard time with keeping my grades up, but no matter how low they got my parents still encouraged me, but what if they hadn’t, what if they had not encouraged me, and said “You’re right Justin, you can’t do it?” I would have been torn to shreds. But they didn’t, they kept encouraging me even though I probably didn’t believe them at the time, and they even paid for me to go to Sylvan, and with their encouragement and Sylvan’s encouragement and willingness to show me that I could do whatever I wanted to do, I finally realized that I could. I was on the line and one push towards discouragement would have lost the battle and I would never have known what I could do. I only tell you this to encourage you to watch what you say and do. One joke, and even one word can make someone feel like they’re worth nothing.
If one person tells you, that you are smart, and one person tells you that you aren’t, who are you going to believe? We are usually more quick to believe the bad things that we are told. We need to hear at least 5 positive things to counter only 1 negative. As a youth group, we are learning to be the ones to build each other up. Even if we take back something we say, or remove a post, it is hard to forget what was said when it was negative. Relationships get hurt and it takes a lot of positive reinforcement to overcome the negative.
As Christians we want to be especially careful about how we act and relate toward the people around us. We need to build each other up in a way that is pleasing to Christ and in a way that sets a good example to those around us.
These LifeGroup lessons have been teaching us how sarcasm and negative comments can hurt friendships, especially when it goes so far that it becomes “normal” and “comfortable.” I think that while hearing the lesson, some of us didn’t realize how much it applied to us and how much we were like the example of what not to do and how not to treat each other. Let’s all work on encouraging those around us and setting the tone for our youth group to be one that is building everyone up instead of tearing them down. We get enough negative from the world around us. Let’s not do it to ourselves.
I’m decking out in Oklahoma State clothing for Sports Night at my church. We’re doing a thing called Madhouse, which is a 4-week thing with a whole bunch of activities and a different theme each week... and this week is Sports Week, where we wear our favorite team clothing. And guess who my favorite team is!! OSU!! Luckily, I am not short at all on OSU clothes... come to think of it, I don’t think I ever have been. And that makes me wonder about my priorities in life... which do I care more about, OSU or God? I’m not some kind of professional statistical informational dude or whatever, but I can safely say that if I devoted nearly as much of my life to Jesus as I did to OSU, I’d have more Scripture memorized than most top preachers. Shoot, I have statistics about former OSU players that most people don’t have any interest in whatsoever. For example, did you know that in 2002, Josh Fields threw for over 3,000 yards? Did you know that in 2003, Rashaun Woods set an all-time NCAA® record by receiving 7 touchdown passes against SMU? Or that Tatum Bell was the fifth OSU player to lead the nation in Heisman® voting at one point in a season? I bet not. I wish I could remember my Bible as well as I remember former Cowboys that threw it away after graduation! Let me tell you, I would be the ultimate Christian teenager!
I hope you’re not concluding that I think OSU is evil, because they most certainly are not. What I’m saying is that, as people, we need to stop “trying to find time for God” and instead make everything else work around God. That’s this post in a nutshell.
It was the best of teams, it was the worst of teams. It was the 2-time Texas League Champions, it was the Colorado League’s 3-time last place team. It was my hometown Frisco Roughriders, it was my birthtown Tulsa Drillers. And they play each other tomorrow... or should I say later today?
For the record, just because I alluded to Dickens does NOT mean I enjoy his literature.
Back to the future-- I mean the original topic, which kinda takes place in the future-- who do I root for? I mean, I could keep my loyalty to the Drillers, who have been my favorite team since golly-knows-when, or I could go with the crowd and be a Riders guy. I mean, it’s the Minor League... who’s gonna drive 200+ miles to see the stinkin’ Drillers play on the road? Would I be the only Tulsa fan there?
But then again, is it really so bad to be rejected? Yeah, all my friends would call me crazy, but is that such a break from the ordinary? Not really. My uncle gave me some wise advice...
“Root for both and really confuse the people around you. Have fun.”
Didn’t the Bible say something about serving two masters?
I just want to know why the Frisco Roughriders felt that their bathrooms were so worthy of being on their website.
After all that rambling, we finally get to my point. People obsess over many different things; in the case of the Roughriders, it’s hiring an interior decorator for the Ladies’ room. But for people like me, it’s TV, PlayStation2, the Internet (surprise, surprise), and CORNBREAD. (You’ll have to ask someone from Troop 216 about that last one...) Rewind and pause at TV. I have a friend that knew how to not let TV corrupt his life. My best friend, Justin, does not watch television. I think that’s a rather good idea; I might try and wean off of the idiot box myself. I still gotta watch the news so I can keep up my political blog, and maybe Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy now and then. And whatever OSU game is on; that’s important. I want to see a comment about what other people are doing to get rid of non-Christian obsessions. And then I can talk about it in my small group on Sunday night. Leave a comment, ready, set, go!
Great day in sports today. Just as I predicted in the last post, I went to church. I somehow ended up with the job of unofficial door greeter. We came back home and started watching the stuff for the Indy 500. Some of my other cousins are here to eat lunch and watch the race with us. Tonight, my belovéd Dallas Mavericks face the Phoenix Suns that I despise so much for stealing Steve Nash. The series is tied at 1-1. I didn’t always care about basketball; in fact, I never really followed the Mavs until earlier in the season. And yet, my “Mavs Fever” has rubbed off on my parents. My dad, who would never have given a care before, was searching for a station where we could listen to Game 2 on the way here. My mom asked me who won Game 7 when the Mavs were playing the Spurs. They even joined me in watching the Round 1 series between the Suns and Lakers, and groaned whenever the Lakers lost and cheered with me when they won. I guess I have quite an influence on my parents.
I just find it odd that it’s so easy to join people in some silly sports obsession that comes once a year for each sport, and yet nobody joins each other in Bible study groups outside of church. I tried to form one once last year, but it never caught on. My church up here in Tulsa makes a big point out of outreach. I think that everyone should do something of that nature.
Leave a comment on this post; I want to hear how/if other people agree with this. And, for those that do, we could maybe start an online study group?
Something to think on; and now, I must join my family in watching their race.
Where have I been? I’m sure that my faithful visitors (both of you) have been wondering what happened to me.
Very interesting story.
I admit, it’s my own fault nothing has been posted here since January. Since that time, several things of note have happened.
03.08: My grandma dies after her cancer tumor grows so large that it both applies pressure to her heart and makes motion in her right arm all but impossible 03.15: I turn 16 and get a new videogame that kinda takes over my life
04.07: My best friend (Justin) turns 17; I thorw a surprise party for him and take him to see The Benchwarmers*.
04.10-04.21: My dad stays at work late almost every night in preparation of releasing the next version of his company’s program “TurboTax.”
The main focus of this post is the event from March 8th.
My grandma is no longer around, but that’s okay with me. Everything is better for her now. No pain, no confusion, no sorrow... it certainly makes my life easier knowing that she is alright now.
I got a new Bible a few days ago... it’s pretty sweet.
In my quest to read Genesis thru Revelations, I am currently in Exodus. The significance in that is that I started on Monday (the day I got it). I challenge everyone to try and keep up with me, but beware: I’m not going easy on anyone.
There’s more to life than girls. Look back on your past week and that becomes perfectly clear. You often never realize what you’re really doing until you see what the effect is.
Let’s look back on my week, for example. In fact, there are actually some good examples from last night, when I went to a lock-in with Boy Scout troop 216. When I went rock climbing, I felt like I was just going through the motions and whatnot. But after doing some ballaying, I saw that lots of younger Webelos were watching me and following my examples. Several 5th graders that otherwise wouldn’t have understood the concepts of it figured it out by watching me. As “whatever” as that sounds, it helped them get their merit badges for climbing. One more merit badge was added to their Boy Scout “transcript,” which is one less they have to take to reach Eagle rank. Of course they owe it to more than just me, though.
Bees go out doing their own little thing, too... cross-pollinating flowers. They don’t necessarily realize that they are helping with nature, but they are. But, when you look at the big picture, aren’t we all?
So take a few moments to look at the roses you cross-pollinated unknowingly. I know, that ending sounds nothing like me, but I saw a post on my uncle’s blog and had to put it here.
I’m antimaterialistic. For those of you who don’t know how to pronounce that (*cough* Nathan *cough*), it is “an-tie-muh-teer-ee-uh-LIST-ic.”
Okay, as you see, I have made antimaterialistic into a word that anyone can understand. That’s what we need to do with the Bible. Don’t try to walk up to someone that doesn’t know a bit of Bible and tell them that they are sinners. Tell them they have done bad things. But don’t stop there. Tell them that doing bad things is human nature, and that it is forgivable no matter what it is. Like that commercial... except that instead of “you can find it on eBay,” now it’s “God can forgive it.” See where I’m going? (If not, it isn’t your fault... it’s too late at night for me to be online and still get my thoughts out normally.)
Today, my mom was listening to Mark Levin, an infuential republican talk show host. Why do we need to listen to him, anyway? I mean, our family is already full of ’publicans. It’s not like we need to listen to him so we don’t fall into the evil hands of the liberals. No, we listen to him so we have more ammo against those liberal whackos. (No offense, all you lefties out there.)
This corresponds to why we read the Bible. It’s so that don’t we fall into the hands of Satan (or John Kerry). We will have more meat against that stupid devil (I mean Satan this time) if we read the Bible.
Like I have room to talk. I think the last time the Bible came off my shelf (not for church) was when I tried to read the whole thing through in 5th grade. I still have the bookmark right where I left off 5 years ago... Genesis 6. Hrmph. I’ma try to get caught up next year. Join me... I will post the reading calendar online in whatever format (probably HTML).
Just a few of the things that have found their way into my conversations with friends recently. How many times did I mention God in the last 24 hours? About as many times as I said “Boomer Sooner:” zero. (I decided it wasn’t fair to include stuff from church last night, or it would have been, like, three.) How many times have I had opportunity to talk to people I know that need Jesus? About as many times as I’ve promoted Oklahoma State: anywhere from ten to twenty.
Yikes! I’ve actually let Oklahoma State, the worst team in the Big 12 this year, come superior to God! I’ll be. Have you ever looked at an issue of Sports Illustrated and noticed the “Go Figure” section? Don’t be surprised to see that same thing show up here, only with the number of times I mentioned girls, football, and other things compared to God’s name. Hide the children; this statistic might get ugly.
I encourage everyone else to join me in counting the number of times we talk about something stupid when we have an opportunity to talk about God. This could prove to be interesting. Make comments whenever you have a chance; I would love to see how everyone else is doing.
While I’m here, I would like to say happy birthday to my little brother, Curt. Today is his 12th birthday.
Today, I spent most of the day at Six Flags in Arlington. Otherwise, I would have posted earlier and I wouldn’t have had to miss OU getting blown out 45-12. But, I can’t say I didn’t have fun. As my brother, Curtis, and I were standing in line for the Shock Wave, he pointed out to me that the supports for the track were able to wobble back and forth. Upon hearing this, a woman standing behind us made a strange noise, turned around, and walked away. The hundreds of excited faces on the people getting off just wasn’t enough to convince her that the ride was safe. That roller coaster has been up since before my parents had even met... you’d think that if it was going to collapse, it would have by now. The people who built it knew that this swaying would happen and they made sure it was safe.
Similarly, God knows exactly what He’s doing. Even when we think that God’s ideas seem whack, He is the one who laid out the plans. We need to accept that He knows what He’s doing and hop on and enjoy the ride. A band called ‘38th Parallel’ put it perfectly in their song entitled Horizon:
“Though the road is hard and it seems to me there is no way around this, From all You’ve done for me I know You’ll never break Your promise.”
Anyway, so whether you’re running around a huge city wall 7 times or just riding an awesome roller coaster at Six Flags Over Texas, just have a little faith!
You may recall my last post dealt with wearing a t-shirt for Jesus. Last night, though, it was “Backwards Night” at church, so I went above and beyond in my dress. Actually, it was my mom’s dress. That’s right, I wore my mother’s Sunday dress to the youth group last night. It’s pink with flowers, which I’ve been speaking out against since who-knows-when. But, even though I got a “Will Rock For Jesus” CD, a Barlow Girl DVD, and four free games of bowling at Strikz out of it, I’m not about to wear that to school for any reason in the world. You see, at church, people were expecting something wild for “Backwards Night.” You could almost say that at church it was cool. But at school?
Is this starting to remind you of anything?
Like, for example... God* not being cool in school?
I saw a skit at the “Saw You At the Pole” rally at the mall, and I think it will illustrate this idea perfectly. In the skit, a guy playing as Jesus goes to school with a guy who just got saved. He wants to meet all his friends, but is turned down and told to stay in a room the whole time. Even though the main idea of the skit was that we should be able to introduce Jesus to our friends without shame, it is also a good way of showing that we often times act like He just isn’t ‘cool enough.’ But really... how do you get any cooler than Jesus? You know what’s sad? There are actually people who’ll try to answer that. But, God still wants us to reach out to them, and that’s our job.
@ 
Frisco Roughriders (7-11)
©2005-2009 Ryan T. Wilson and Justin Venezio
I’m decking out in Oklahoma State clothing for Sports Night at my church. We’re doing a thing called Madhouse, which is a 4-week thing with a whole bunch of activities and a different theme each week... and this week is Sports Week, where we wear our favorite team clothing. And guess who my favorite team is!! OSU!! Luckily, I am not short at all on OSU clothes... come to think of it, I don’t think I ever have been. And that makes me wonder about my priorities in life... which do I care more about, OSU or God? I’m not some kind of professional statistical informational dude or whatever, but I can safely say that if I devoted nearly as much of my life to Jesus as I did to OSU, I’d have more Scripture memorized than most top preachers. Shoot, I have statistics about former OSU players that most people don’t have any interest in whatsoever. For example, did you know that in 2002, Josh Fields threw for over 3,000 yards? Did you know that in 2003, Rashaun Woods set an all-time NCAA® record by receiving 7 touchdown passes against SMU? Or that Tatum Bell was the fifth OSU player to lead the nation in Heisman® voting at one point in a season? I bet not. I wish I could remember my Bible as well as I remember former Cowboys that threw it away after graduation! Let me tell you, I would be the ultimate Christian teenager!
