I wish I could do this!

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Seen @ Prolly is not Probably

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock..."

Just got back from one of the most powerful chapel services I have been to at NGU.

I tend to slip into the improper way of giving credit where credit is due regarding worship services and speakers/preachers. Most of the time I will admire how cool the music sounded or how awesome that one guy's solo was on the guitar and how funny the speaker was or what his outfit looked like. Today was different.

I really felt God's presence and his movement in the chapel service. Sure the band was great and they were all talented and really did sound fantastic together, but God made the difference...He made his presence known through that worship time. I love the in-between-the-words parts of songs when the music is driving and you can just pray pray pray and meditate on the Lord and continually thank Him for his grace and mercy to even let us live after the countless terrible sins we have committed. The worship really set the tone for the message that Travis Agnew was about to bring.

Central point was this: Jesus is knocking at the door. Yes, he is knocking at the door of non-Christians...but He knocks at the door of Christians as well. Maybe even more so than non-Christians. We can get so accustomed to going to church and chapel and other religious functions that we develop some sort of a glaze over our spiritual eyes and ears and after a while we realize how far away we have drifted from Jesus. Just open the door and let Him back in, or He will just keep knocking over, and over, and over, and over........

"For all you Christians out there that feel like you are so far away from God and feel disconnected from his presence, I can assure you that He has not moved."

Wishful

This is the bike I want for Christmas and my birthday...a Mercier Kilo TT Pro.






Which color should I go for? Any thoughts?

True Homies

Create your own FACEinHOLE

*WHAM!* I am Hateful

It's been a minute...

This past Sunday evening, a guy that I used to know was tragically shot and killed. Steve Gray was 27 years old with a 3 year old son. Steve worked in housekeeping at North Greenville last year for a little while and I met him through my roommate Theron. I have to admit that I was not so fond of the guy. For some reason he just got on my nerves, and I regret to say that I made fun of him a lot over the past few months. Not to justify my disrespectful and cruel attitude towards Steve, but he was not exactly the smartest guy when it came to the decisions he made. I won't go into detail and talk about all the dumb decisions he made and what not because the Lord knows that I have probably made dumber decisions in my life and He has just blessed me to keep me from getting killed because of my bad choices.

God really slapped me in the face when I heard about Steve's death. I thought back and realized that I had never actually determined whether or not he was a Christian and had accepted Jesus as his savior. On top of that, I made fun of the guy and definitely did not love him as God calls us to love everyone. This is the message I deciphered from God concerning this situation...

God: "What are you doing? How are you using all the knowledge I have given you over the course of your Christian life? To benefit only yourself? How self-centered! Don't ever let your own ambitions and desires blur your long-term vision of the ultimate goals that I have set before you. I don't care if you didn't like Steve, I have commanded you to LOVE your enemies and to PRAY for them that they may receive salvation through Jesus!"

Disrespectful and degrading talk about other people is one of my biggest weaknesses, and I'm so thankful that God has convicted me about this and has shown me how weak and failing I am. As frustrating as it is, I need to get things back into perspective very often and redirect my focus on God instead of myself. I truly hope to continue to allow Him to show me these things and work through me to help me love and pray for someone I may not like.

Quote of the Day Installment #2

This quote goes along with Dave Ramsey's financial principles. Check him out, it's some pretty motivating stuff.

Runs, Strips, and Tornadoes

Yesterday we had a tornado warning on the campus of North Greenville University. I couldn't help but laugh at this occurrence, even though it was a somewhat dangerous situation. First we were told to go into the gym, which is strongly advised against on Weather.com, where they say to avoid large buildings such as gymnasiums. So I just stayed in my dorm room and kept looking out the window to see if I could get a cool picture. Too bad nothing ever came of the dark clouds except for rain. I think it would be incredible to see a tornado just sweep down through the campus, but I wish it could do it without any damage. That would be awesome! I've been watching some tornado videos and getting pumped about going to chase one. Probably won't ever do it though :)



Labor Day is coming up. With Labor Day comes the start of the college football season. This year, Chick-fil-A is sponsoring the College Kickoff Game between Clemson and Alabama in Atlanta on Saturday night at 8 pm EST. After that game, on Monday, every Chick-fil-A across the country will be giving away FREE CHIK-N-STRIPS from 10:30 am to 10:00 pm for anyone wearing any type of football jersey or shirt. Go by your local Chick-fil-A(s), wear your football apparel, and get your free 3-count of strips with some Chick-fil-A sauce!

On another note, I had a great 3-mile run today (on the treadmill) and I think it was the first time I've ran 3 miles before. So yeah, that felt really good and I am hoping to stay diligent about eating healthy as well so I can lose some of my unsightly jiggly places! I'm gonna leave you for now, if there is anyone reading this leave a comment so I know I'm not just writing things to myself! Thanks, have a super evening/day...

I lost it

Went to work out tonight. Yeah, didn't go so fantastic. See, this summer whenever I got a chance to exercise, I mainly focused on doing cardio. Therefore, I lost a LOT of the muscle and muscle stamina that I gained from January to April during the school year. It's pretty depressing, I'm not gonna lie. Theron frickin took me to school...which is good because I need that motivation to do better and get back into shape. Anyway, just wanted to share my plight.

Check out this video:

Quote of the Day

Convictions

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."
-James 4:7,8 (ESV)


Does it get any clearer than this? I think this verse tells us as Christians how to completely separate ourselves from the evils of the vile world we live in. We must not be "double-minded" as the verse says, also known as "lukewarm". God says He will spit us out of His mouth if we are lukewarm. That is one of the worst thoughts any Christian, or human for that matter, could ever think.

Submission is a key component of obedience, which I think is one of the main things that God wants from us every single day. Obedience displays faith in God's will for whatever situation you find yourself in. The devil will never stop trying to catch you in a snare, but James says if you RESIST him then he will FLEE. That doesn't mean just kinda shake him off lightly and try to ignore it. No. That means you utterly rebuke Satan and completely THROW him out of your life, by the name of Jesus Christ. And he will flee.

Drawing near to God is one of the most comforting feelings. "The Bible is keeping you from sin, or sin is keeping you from the Bible." When sin infiltrates your life and you don't repent of it, you are not drawn close to God because of that separation that sin causes. But when you do repent and turn away from that sin, you are drawn near to God, and He in turn draws near to you. Of course, I am saying all these things and I myself constantly struggle with drawing near to God because I continually let sin keep me separated from God. That's a never-stopping work though--something I have to work at every single day.

Cleansing and purification go along with the repentance piece--removing yourself from an evil and sinful habit or lifestyle. Man, I would love to be able to say that I am always submitting myself to God, resisting the devil, drawing near to God, and cleansing and purifying my heart. But the truth is that I am not always doing that, and it's hard for me to do that as much as I should. But I can't do it on my own. I am nothing and completely incapable without the power of God that works through me. That's something else I am continually working on--removing myself and letting God control my every step. My self-awareness is always taking over my Christ-awareness. I need to ask the Lord every day to give me Christ-awareness, so He will steady me until my completeness in Him is absolute.

Gotta Get Money

No, I don't want to be Lil' Wayne or 50 Cent and go around saying "I get money...I run New York...Young Money" in those horribly annoying voices. But I do want to make some money, and I need to make some money as well. I am about to head to work at Chick-fil-A of Pelham Road, back for the first time since April! I am pretty excited to see everyone, it should be a good day.



Staying on Money Road, I really don't want to fork up 5 or 6 hundred dollars to buy all my books for this semester, but it's looking like I will have to buy at least a few of them. I haven't found anyone yet that will lend me one of theirs from previous semesters, so I guess I will look on Half.com or Amazon for some good deals because the Lord knows that NGU Bookstore is ripping people off. Anyway, I'm gonna roll out. Eat mo chicken!

Cool Video!

I wanted to put up a video I made this summer for my internship with Chick-fil-A, Inc. Check it out, let me know what you think!

Senior Year

Typical blog subject, I know. Everyone always talks about how "it's their senior year, only one year left" blah blah blah. But now that I am in that position I totally understand the feeling. I'm not necessarily ready to explode out of NGU because I have loved it here. I think that 6 months from now I will be ready to graduate though.

Classes start tomorrow and my schedule isn't too bad. Cost and Intermediate Accounting are going to be my toughest classes. Then I have Advertising, E-Commerce Marketing, International Marketing, and Professional Development Seminar. Hopefully I can get all A's. That would be fantastic.

I am looking forward to working at Chick-fil-A Pelham Road again and bringing in that steady income even if it's not all that much; every little bit helps. Having a new and reliable car will also make me feel better about making the 20 mile drive back and forth to work.

I do enjoy having a 2000 Nissan Maxima although I have had to pay for repairs already but I am hoping nothing else will go wrong with it in the near future. I am fully trusting the Lord with the car as well as a lot of other things that I need to turn completely over to Him and allow Him to guide me and take care of me.

Well, other than that I don't really have much else to write about now. I think I'm going to hit the sack and get rested for the first day of classes and chapel tomorrow. Stay tuned for next time!

End of my junior year

It's almost the end of my junior year! Time sure has gone by fast, but I have enjoyed every minute of it. We had our last day of classes today, and tomorrow the exams begin. I have two tomorrow at 10 am and 2 pm, then one Saturday at 10 am, and two on Monday at 10 am and 2 pm.

I have been studying practically all day, and it feels so unusual for this semester. I just feel like even though I am taking 20 hours, the classes have not been really that hard or required all that much work. I have found myself with a lot of free time, which I don't always use in the most productive or beneficial way. I don't even know how many classes I have skipped this semester...it has been way too many though...I've been pretty slack. But I am still managing to keep good grades, and will hopefully pull out 5 A's and 1 B for my final grades.

People are always complaining about my school, and I often find myself doing the same thing. It's not that hard to bash on the school too, because there are "so many rules and stuff"...that's the main reason everyone whines and complains about it. I think that overall, North Greenville does a decent job at keeping the rules reasonable and I can understand the ultimate reason(s) they want these rules to stay in place. 1) To keep the school's good reputation that Dr. Epting has diligently built over the last 15 or so years. 2) Doing the best to keep God at the focus of our lives at NGU, and of course this doesn't always happen...but who's perfect? So, with all that said, I still think that the students and some of the faculty and staff are treated like children at NGU, and then they wonder why a lot of people act like kids. If you treat someone like a 10 year old, then odds are they will act like a 10 year old. However, it definitely does not give us the right to act like a 10 year old even if they may treat us like one. God calls us to be mature and respectful as Christians, and I am constantly catching myself in an immature or disrespectful state and am trying to improve in that aspect of my life (though it is a daunting task).

Well I just wanted to say some random stuff. Hopefully it made some sense, or maybe it only makes sense in my head. I hope I am not using faulty logic here...That would be terrible.

I will be thinking about what to write about next...Peace out until then! I will leave you with a video of a great worship song: