Don't Make a Stnank!

When I was a kid I loved to write (go figure).

When I was a kid, I was horrible at spelling (again, go figure).

I hated the thought of other people seeing when I made a stnank. It terrified me.

Whenever I spelled something wrong, I'd black it out.

Seriously. I would black it out.

I'd rub my pencil over the misspelled word as many times as I could. As hard as I could. Over and over again, until all you could see was a ugly, nasty black spot on the page.

When I got into elementary school, my teachers told me that it would be fine just to draw a line through the misspelled word and write the correct word next to it. But I didn't want to cross it out. I wanted to black it out!

The other day in Philosophy class (because I go to school now), I was taking notes. I'm the only person on the planet that will ever read these notes, and I noticed I still black out my mistakes stnanks! I don't even want to see my stnanks!

I started thinking about how spelling words wrong isn't the only stnank I like to black out. I try to black out all my stnanks. All my sin. But I can't. I just end up with ugly, nasty black spots all over.

And I'm not the only one who tries to hide my stnanks sin. Read Genesis 3 to learn about Adam and Eve's stnank, and how they tried to black it out.

The Enemy

Welp, I'm in Omaha. Well, actually I'm in Council Bluffs, but I'd much rather say I'm in Omaha. Not much difference.

I should be getting a job and apartment pretty soon, just waiting for a few details to fall into place. Until then, my girlfriend's father, Dr. Warner, has opened up his home to me.

Christine is living in the dorms at Creighton, so I am staying in her old room.

p>It's great. I have plenty of space for all of my things. I get to see Christine every day. I have a quiet place to do homework. Yeah, I'm a student now, and I have to do homework.

Everything is going really well. There's only one problem.

p>Lucky. Or as I like to call him, The Enemy.

Oh sure, he looks cute now. Just imagine what it's like being allergic to this devil! He always follows me around and says "Pet me!" Not that he talks. I'm not that crazy. Yet.

So I have a confession to make. As much as I act like I hate cats, it's really hard for me to resist any animal that starts rubbing against my leg and purring.

So, once in a while, even though I know it's not good for me, I pet The Enemy. And instantly go into a sneezing fit.

Ok, so now go read Genesis 3 and see how many parallels you can find between my week and Adam and Eve.

Matthew Lesko

Got some advice from Matthew Lesko yesterday. (How could I make this stuff up?)

For those who don't know, Lesko is the guy on those infomercials who wears the colorful suits with the question marks and yells about the government giving away free money.

You know who I'm talking about.

Anyway, yesterday as I was surfing around, I came across a web page that had a video of Lesko and a chat box. Turns out, he was in the middle of a 72 hour live help-a-thon. I'm not even kidding.

So he was on hour 37 or so, and had only taken a brief nap since he began so, as you can imagine, he was kind of dragging. Not at all his usual "THEGOVERNMENTWILLGIVEYOUFREEMONEY" self.

There's nobody else watching this, so I figure I might as well start chatting. It was really obvious he was pretty tired.

So I tell him about my situation; that I'm going back to college in a new city, and ask if he has any advice. I was gearing up for him to rattle of some grants that I need to apply for or something of that nature, but instead, he gets real serious.

"Follow your heart. If you know something is the right decesion, don't let anybody talk you out of it. Also, it's more important to be good at recovering from failure than to be good at suceeding."

This shocked the heck out of me. This crazy guy from the TV infomercials is actually being a real human, giving me real human advice.

We talked for another ten minutes or so about life and success and everything in between. He really stressed that something are really worth more than money. It was really cool. For those of you keeping score, Lesko is joining the ranks of several other pseudo-celebrities that have given me life advice including Corey Taylor from Slipknot, and that one guy from Office Space who turned out to be a real jerk.

There are two reasons I am posting this.

1. It was good advice and I'd like to pass it along.
2. I think it's cool when ever anybody (especially *cough* older folks) try new ways to connect to people (especially young people)

So, much to my surprise, Lesko is actually a really cool, down to earth type of guy who has a passion for people, but I still think he's a little nuts for doing the whole 72 hour thing. At least he finally got some sleep.

Hanging by a Moment

I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you
-Lifehouse (Hanging by a Moment)

What an amazing ride the past year has been.

Spending the past year with junior and senior high youth at Zion has been an absolutely amazing experience. God has stretched me in many ways (as evidenced by my blog posts over the past year), and it has been really sweet to see God working in the lives of other people.

We've had some great times together, gone on some great trips, had some great Barbecue (and some kick butt iced tea), laughed a lot (at Gatoada the Taco, Dr. Tran, and ChadTalk, just to name a few), witnessed some sweet martial arts demonstrations, talked about Aliens a lot, wrestled, walked many laps around the Mall of America, had some great discussions about Jesus, dug into the Bible, got to know each other.

There's no easy way to say this, but after one of the best years of my life, I really feel like it's time for me to go back to school. I've been doing a lot of reflecting and planning for the future, and just about everything I'd like to do for a living requires a college degree.

So next week I will begin classes at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs. I will be living in Omaha so that, when I transfer to University of Nebraska at Omaha, I'll be able to get cheap in state tuition. I'm going to be studying computer science and web design.
As an added (completely coincidental) benefit, I'll also be much closer to my amazing girlfriend.

Of course, this news is bitter sweet. Living in Omaha makes it very difficult to continue working at Zion in Des Moines. So, as you can imagine, I will not be able to continue working at Zion this fall.

As I rock with the youth band tomorrow, it will be my last official Sunday on staff at Zion.

I'm really excited to see what God has in store for me, but to be quite honest, I'm a little nervous.
I take that back.
I'm terrified.

Although I'm signed up for all my classes (which start a week from Monday), I do not yet have a place to live or a place to work.

I've been making way too many trips back and forth between Omaha and Des Moines as of late. You know, there's absolutly nothing to look at between here and there.
(Sidenote: anybody remember that time when we were driving back from the Omaha Zoo and hit that huge bird?)
I plan to get the details squared away this week.

I'm putting 100% of my trust in God.I know that this is what He is calling me to do, and I know that He will provide.

Please keep me in your prayers.

What is Christianity?

What is Christianity?

It seems that four different people might have four different answers.

So I'm curious to know what you think. Leave me a comment and let me know.