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Eat. Sleep. Worship.

We’re heading home from the Desperation conference now. I’d say we’re sixty or so miles from the Colorado border with New Mexico (we’re going home the southern route). I don’t know what to say about the Desperation conference, so I’m just going to post a little of what happened, and maybe in a few days or weeks I can post everything else.

I’m going to start out with what the local Colorado Springs Gazette had to say about the 2,500 young people from outside of city (and about 1,000 from within the city). There it was on the front page of the metro section, an article about 3,300 young people packed in a single auditorium to worship the awesome Lord Jesus! It was all about Desperation. People from over thirty states came for one reason: a passion for Christ. Reading about it was okay: being a part of it was AWESOME.

Thursday started the conference off. John Bervere was the first speaker at the conference. The bottom line of what he said was this – we’ve got to stop being luke-warm Christians. The hardest people to reach are the people in the church – those that have heard about Jesus, been in church their entire life, yet they’re luke-warm. Jesus said in Revelations that he will vomit these people out of His mouth. This is one of the things that I have a deep passion for, it makes me mad, sad, and sometimes a little discouraged at the lies the enemy has said to this generation and the churches around today. As John Bervere said – we go to church here in America and pray a formula sinners prayer, there is nothing ever said about laying down your life, dying to yourself (Romans 12:1). Jesus never enticed people to bring them into the church. Jesus said he would rather us be hot or cold – not lukewarm. I had heard it preached many, upon many of times, but it was relayed in such a clear way Thursday night. Jesus said he’d rather us be on fire, loving Him with ALL of our hearts or be cold, cold people know they’re sinners. These people are in bars, they make girls, drugs, and anything BUT God their idol – their God. Those in the church believe that just because they prayed a prayer they’re going to heaven, and it’s killing so many people. Luke-warmness is one of the largest killers in America.

The second day was awesome. I met some friends, who turned out to be some very awesome people. That helped both Friday and Saturday go by better (especially during the hours we didn’t have anything to do), hopefully we’ll all stay in touch via Internet. I wish I could stay at the conference for a few more months, but then we’d not really be going out doing what Christ commanded us to do. The war is raging, the youth are the church of today – and we’ve got to lay our lives down for Christ – serving people, sharing our faith with people, and just showing people the love of Christ by the way we live our lives.

I got this awesome shirt that I just have to share, because it’s easily going to be my new favorite! It says: Eat. Sleep. Worship. That’s all it says, there is nothing more on it – just a black shirt. The way we live our lives should be worship to God, and this is the way I want to live my life until I die. Eat, sleep, and Worship!

There was so much covered in those three days. About 300 gave their lives to becoming a missionary, theses are committed young people, and that’s an incredible numbers. I want to reach many people to Christ through the way I live, work, and carry myself. God had so much in store for me, I know. I’ve been just trying to seek his will lately. I really want to move back out to Colorado Springs one day, but right now I’m just going to wait and see if that’s where God has called me. I’ve been considering an internship as well, but I don’t even know if that’s what I’m supposed to do. I believe I’ll start college and go for that for this school year, and then if I feel God has called me to something else, I’ll go. I want to go to ORU after I get my major in computer science. However, I’m not sure if that’s what I’m supposed to do either. It’s just a lot that I’ve got to think about.

I wrote a little of this entry in Colorado, then I figured I would get my laptop back out and edit the entry a little before I submitted it, so now I’m in Alabama, and we’re probably two hours or so from home. I’m ready to get home; I’m tired and ready to go to bed. I have to get up in the morning and go back to work.

Back home now, it’s humid. I already miss my old home again. 🙁

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Made It!

I’ll try to post things pretty often, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to … more to come … later.

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Traveling

Note: this was written on the way to the hotel, this was posted in the hotel.

Here I am, in Kentucky, its 9:15PM, and we still have over 1,000 miles to go until we get to our wonderful destination, Colorado Springs, CO. I figured I’d take the time to write about my day thus far before we stop at our hotel in Paducah, KY, about 50 minutes or so away.

Today was like any other day at work – I answered the phone a little bit and unlocked peoples accounts via Active Directory, not that hard though. I profiled probably around 10 to 15 computers, maybe. It wasn’t that bad of a work day. I got out at 2:00 so we could go ahead and leave and beat the Birmingham rush hour traffic, which we did. We passed through right at 5:00 or so, so mission accomplished. I’m hoping the hotel we stop at has free internet, but we’ll just have to wait and see I guess. There really isn’t much to do in the van. My little brothers been fighting and arguing a lot about anything. He’s saying he’s cold (hmm, my laptops 93 degrees at the moment, it’s not that cold), and then he says pretty much anything else, but it’s going good. The ice chest is under a ton of stuff, so I had to dig to get to my Dew. I’ve listened to somewhere around 4% of my music collection thus far (shuffled, 125 songs out of 3158 total). If I listen to my iPod the entire day tomorrow, I might get to 600, but I doubt it.

I’m kind of ready to see Colorado Springs again, wait, I AM ready! I’m ready to go down the familiar streets again that I’ve not went down in years … I still don’t know many of the streets in Tallassee and Montgomery and I live and work there, I know Colorado Springs more though because I did live there 7 years. Enough of all the boring stuff …

What I’m ready for more than anything though is what God’s going to do. I’m ready to worship God with everything I have, I do it alone a lot of times, but there are times when corporate worship is so much better. Personal worship is good for cleaning your heart out and all, but corporate worship honors God in a whole different way, it’s so very awesome.

I have another 30 minutes or so left until Paducah. I get to drive tomorrow through Kansas and, hopefully, Colorado tomorrow. Kansas is one of the worst states to drive through. It’s almost straight the entire way, very boring. I’ll get to drive through the “Colorful Colorado” sign though, which I can’t wait to see!

Church starts tomorrow at 6, I believe, registration is 4-6, but I believe me and Jenna just have to go in and get our journal things, and we’re good to go (because we have our tickets and all).

Anyway, I’m going to go!

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Tired, Very Tired

Today was one of the busiest days at work. I was on my feet the majority of the day, and I’m tired now. I got home and packed up a few of my things and all. I went out a bought a power inverter for the 23 hour trip up to Colorado Springs tomorrow, and so I should be good to go with that and my laptop and iPod will have juice the entire time up there (yay).

I plan on keeping nightly updates, but I really can’t say a definate “I will” or “I won’t”. I’m not sure if our friends have cable internet (and I probably won’t do updates on a dial up connection, especially not at night). It should be a very faith filled week(end). If I don’t post nighly updates here I’ll try to keep a little journal or log on my laptop until I get back and do a huge 10 page essay on the events that occured that day.

I’m about to head for bed!

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How Much

I went to bed last night at around 2:00AM, so when I got up this morning I was very tired. I probably took a nap today at around 3:00 or so, and got up at around 5:40 or so. Now I’m not incredibly tired, but I probably should get in the bed now either way, but that’s beyond the point.

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.

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Three Days

Three days have went by since I last posted a journal entry. Three days until we’re leaving for Colorado. I have to keep myself in the know about that.

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 …

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The Schedule

Just one week and I should be in Colorado — or at least close to it. We got our schedules today in the mail for the confrence, we’ll be at church the entire day Friday and I believe Saturday. We get our first speaking by John Bevere, so that should be an awesome way to start the 3 day event off. I’m both excited and nervous at the same time (because I really don’t know anyone there), but hopefully it’ll all go great.

Today at work we watched three movies: Final Destination 1 and 2 (half of 2), and Walking Tall. I’m going to talk about them, of course, but first some information on what I did today. We profiled computers, lots of them. We’ve still got hundreds more to do, but we got a good bit of them down today, which is good. We also listened to a little music while we did some of the laptops — I mainly played some of the new TFK CD and a little Disciple.

Now comes the movies. Which should I do first? The bad or the good? I’ll do the good first. Walking Tall was one of the best movies I’ve saw while working there. It has both a positive message, and keep you interested. The guy comes back to his small city to find that there’s a casino, porn shop, and drug trafficing in his city. Needless to say, he’s mad. And he does something about it and cleans up the city. Good movie, and well worth the watch.

Now the bad. While bad, though, it has some points that need addressing that are good questions the movie posed. Final Destination was both a horror movie and a movie targeted towards those people that love death. Personally the movie shouldn’t have been rated R. It should have been rated NC-17. It’s really that bad. I watched both movies and the second movie does have nudity (topless female flashing people in their cars). If that were not enough the movie is littered with death. Everyone but two die in the first movie (and those characters you later find out die in the second movie). Death is a part of life, yes. This type of death isn’t. If you don’t die the first time, you’ll die a very gruesome death. The catch is that there are people who can “see signs” about other people that will die (I see this could be a correlation to demonic activity, and I sure do not doubt it). I don’t remember anyone in the movie that had a quick and “painless” death (unless you think painless is a bus running head on to people and blood spatter all over the place — which was the only one that wasn’t exactly shown on screen — one of the only ones that wasn’t, I may not have been looking at the screen though).

They make some points thought that basically you can “cheat death”. There is a time for everything, and it just happens to be that death is a part of life (thank goodness 99% of the world won’t die the bloody painful deaths portrayed in the film). Death was introduced by sin, and goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. Death will always be a part of life. However, what the enemy wants us to believe is that death is death. There is nothing after death. Hell is such a real place, and movies like this come directly from it’s pits. God is the creator of life, not death. There were many demonic elements about the movie that can very well be placed in the movie. What the viewer doesn’t know though is that those elements can be wrapped around them and can literaly push the Holy Spirit out of their lives (obviously it would probably take more than one viewing). The big problem with Christians today is that many of us do “whatever feels good”. We don’t discern what’s right and what’s wrong. Movies like this is literally inviting the devil in. That’s just it: plain and simple.

I want to point out one spot on the second movie, at the very beginning. One of the guys cars explodes, however, he doesn’t die on impact — you see him burning alive and screaming for help. While that’s scary to see in the first place, it filled my heart with hurt (maybe that’s not the word, greif, maybe) when I thought about people that have died that way (most notibly Christians who died at the stake). They gave their life that way just so people could know the greatest gift of life — knowing Jesus.

While I don’t really know if all horror movies are “evil”, I can say that God is not the author of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. Horror movies are meant to plant fear and evil into the hearts of God’s people. That’s the plain and simple truth, and it’s sad that some go in … never to return. Never to return. People can go to church, people can claim to know God, people can claim everything we want to, but if they do not know God they’re still going to Hell. That’s just it: plain and simple. The Word says that people will say they’ve prophesied in God’s name amoung other things, and that God will tell them to depart from Him because they do not know Him. Christ asks so little from us, and yet we give him even smaller than the little. If we would just give him one tenth of what he asks … one tenth.

One last thing before I head off. I was listening to the radio today and it got me to thinking about something that was said. If you had just one wish (or three, in my case hehe), what would it be? I kept listening and he asked if it would be money, etc. Then I got to thinking. Truely, I don’t believe I would ask for money. I believe what I would ask for is to a.) know God so much more than I’ve ever known anyone else in my life combined, b.) an few friends here on earth (best friends), and c.) either wisdom or God’s presents. That’s truely what I want. Money and material things make me less and less satisified daily. Every day I feel like I get so much further from things that I used to enjoy doing (like staying on the computer).